Czech word of the day: Kostel- Church

This is a very strange post for me to write, because it deals with events that caused a great amount of introspection on my part.

As you may or may not know, for the past few years I have no longer considered myself to be Catholic. I tend to identify myself as a secular humanist or agnostic when asked about my faith. I maintain that I am open to discovering a spirituality that "fits", but have yet to do so. And while I respect religious beliefs and practices, I have a personal distaste for organized religion in general.

So, some people might find it strange that I opted to head to Catholic Mass today.

One of the sights I have wanted to see in Prague is the Infant of Prague statue, which can be found at the Church of Our Lady Victorious in Old Town. While looking up information on it yesterday, I found that there is an English mass at noon every Sunday. I remembered how cool it was to go to Mass in Notre Dame when I was in Paris, so I thought hey, why not.

I went by myself, because almost everyone in the program is Jewish. I dressed kinda nice because I wasn't sure how formal of a parish it was going to be. On the way to the church, I stopped by Charles Bridge to take pictures of the statue of St. John Nepomucene.

I got to the church like an hour and a half early, but it was open, so I decided to go in to see the statue. The church was interesting, because it had very bland walls and architectural elements, but then tons of golden decorations. Baby Jesus was hanging out in a glass box on the side of the church, surrounded by tons of gold cherubs and such. My cynicism broke through at that point, and I caught myself smiling at the absurdity that people regularly come from all over the world to see this 1 foot tall doll made of wax and wood.

I had some time to kill, so I went to a cafe, and returned in time for mass. Imagine how I felt when the first notes of the song "Sing a New Song" began playing on the pipe organ! I was caught off-guard a bit, but it was nice.

The priest was from India, I believe, and had an Indian and Czech accent when he spoke English, so it was a bit hard to understand him at times. That being said, the whole mass was familiar. I got a bit misty-eyed a couple of times, because it was the most home-like setting I've been in since I've gotten here. The homily was very good, and the priest even addressed the main issue I had with the particular gospel. It was hard to tell who were regular parishoners and who were just visiting like me, but even the lectors wore jeans, and the whole service was very casual. Two little girls were in charge of the collection, and the whole thing had a very St. Pat's vibe to it.

So, who would have thought that the place in Prague where I feel most at home would be a church? I'm certainly considering going again sometime.