Before I start, keep in mind that, as much as the music and the new music director at St. Anne Cathlic Church turns me off, it nevertheless is and was the first Roman Catholic church I attended regularly and therefore serves as the context from which I review the churches in the upcoming weeks …

I attended Holy Cross Church today and don’t see it as a good fit as a place I can worship God on a regular basis. This may sound harsh, but it has as much to do with the architecture and demographics as anything else. Was the Mass well done? Yes. Was the music suitable for the occasion (i.e., tasteful, without being overwhelming and distracting)? Absolutely. The priest’s sermon? Excellent, I thought. But if you don’t mind me saying, given the low ceiling, the rec hall feel to the worship space, and the large elderly population in attendence (in this way the parish website certainly wasn’t kidding!), I couldn’t help but feel I was attending Wednesday night Bingo in some central Florida location. When the priest mentioned during his comments the rash of funerals he had officiated at lately, I looked around me and wasn’t surprised – I’m 52 and felt like I was the youngest one there!

I’ll say this for St. Anne Catholic Church – I appreciate the diversity of the congregation and the large number of young families that worship there. And I love the modern technology they have employed there. I like not having to use a book and see what we are singing projected on the walls in front of us. It’s cool. It’s convenient. It’s hip. And more than anything else, it allows one to simply sing! from one’s heart instead of flipping through a book, looking for the correct page. Once you’ve worshipped without having to use a book it’s hard to go back – if you know what I mean.

I’ll say one thing about Holy Cross Church that I will never forget – by attending a completely different church from St. Anne I came to realize how much I have come to love and appreciate the Roman Catholic form of worship, and I can never see myself ever going back to an Episcopal Church for regular worship ever again. If not in formal standing, I know in my heart that I am a Roman Catholic and proud to be one. Whenever the time and spirit come to make it official, it will just be a formality.