La Iglesia en Guatemala by Autumn
The word “Catholic," is a very interesting one. While one may think it’s meaning probably has something to do with religion, the Mass, or the Pope, that’s actually not the case. “Catholic” means “Universal”. But why is this important?
This means that the Catholic Church spans the nations, which can be seen by traveling to any state or country. Because the center of our faith is the Eucharist, the Mass is celebrated globally which unites us with other Catholics. I’ve experienced this first hand as we’ve traveled to other countries and states. While things like the music style or building structure (or lack of a building at all), may vary between churches there is no variance in the main components of the Mass--the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. If you were to attend a daily Mass in the United States, and then in the same day attend Mass in Guatemala you would find that, though they may be read in different languages, the readings from the Bible are the same. That’s true all around the world. The same goes for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
This all brings me to our time here in Guatemala attending daily Mass. It’s really cool that even with our current lack of fluency in Spanish, we can still understand what is going on. It’s also neat to embrace the culture and see how they prefer to do music at Mass. For example, at one of the daily Masses this week there was a man who played guitar and sang the Alleluia to the tune of one of our favorite campfire songs Sing Alleluia. It was in Spanish, of course, but we were still able to sing along.
Moving on from the Mass itself, I want to close out this blogpost with a few words on the church here in Antiqua, La Merced, itself. La Merced was first built in the 1500s, but was leveled by an earthquake and had to be rebuilt in the late 1600s. All that’s to say that this church is old. Very old. To put it into perspective: When I kneel to receive Communion, I’m taken aback, as I realize that I’m kneeling on the same ground that generations upon generations before me have knelt on to receive the Eucharist, for twice as long as the United States has been in existence. For someone who loves History as much as I do, that’s pretty amazing.
