Jesus in the Market

Last Sunday I went to a Catholic church.  In some ways this was refreshing, because the service was in English and I am at least familiar with Catholic theology.

I participated in what prayers I could, clapping when I didn’t know the words and wishing I could learn the dances that were a part of every processional (of which there were three).  I also tried to think about something other than my throbbing knees as we knelt for what seemed like hours at a time.  I tried not to fidget, watching older people and young children handle the kneeling with ease.  After I tried to focus on praying for something other than the kneeling time to be over, we had communion and the recessional. 

The family had warned me that the service would be longer than usual because it was a communion Sunday.  This made sense to me as communion Sundays in America tend to be longer as well.  What I didn’t realize was the recessional at the end of the service would take a good part of the day.  My host family asked if I would join the recessional and, not having any idea what I was getting myself into, I said, of course.

The recessional was a walk around the village, where the priest held the host (the communion wafer) and the congregation followed, singing and clapping.  It was a form of praise and also a form of evangelism.  As we walked along the road and mutatus (15 passenger vans that are the main form of public transportation) honked and passed by dangerously close to the congregants, we would stop every so often, kneel down one the side of the road in the sun and praise Jesus for being in our midst.  The processional followed a dangerously narrow passageway over a bridge while semi-trucks sped by us and ended in the market place.  There in the middle of the market place, the congregation knelt down and prayed to the host, then walked back to the church for the benediction. 

When I asked the priest about that recessional he said, “it is to remind people that Jesus is in our midst and to thank him for being there.”

Kneeling in the middle of the market place while people sold goods and stared all around us was one of the most powerful church exercises I’ve ever been a part of.  What would it look like in America if the churches and faith communities literally brought God out of the church into the market place? 

This is something I’d like to bring back with me to America (perhaps with less kneeling), but to be intentional in bringing God into the ordinary, every day places and not just in the church, to be reminded that God is there even in our grocery shopping, to be reminded that even in the market place God is there, could help us all out a little bit.

Lindsey