This morning we went to the shrine of the immaculate conception and attended the 10:30 mass. The mass seemed to be different from other Catholic masses that I have attended. It still followed the strict liturgy and was over in an hour. The building itself is the 2nd largest basilica in the world. It is immaculate and amazingly beautiful. There are not paintings but instead hand-crafted mosaics. It's absolutely beautiful.
There were however some problems that I had with this experience. We walked in during the middle of a mass. It felt weird and wrong to be disrupting the service, even though we really didn't because the place is so huge 90% of the people didn't even know we were there. Then we went downstairs to take pictures and explore the basement of this building. There were prayer chapels lining the sides and names of all the parishes that gave money for this building to be built. the founder of it also had this statue like thing of himself and a chair that was made for when the pope visited was on display. There was a gift shoppe, bookstore, and restaurant too. After that, we went upstairs to the mass and there was an angry portrait of Jesus looking down at me the entire time. It just doesn't remind me of the Jesus that I serve. I have a hard time with the church being a tourist attraction and having a gift shoppe and restaurant. It just seemed very impersonal and could have been more effective to have different churches with ministries around the area. Also, I saw with the Catholics today, I feel like mother Mary could become too much of an icon and worshiped more than Jesus. Yes, she was important, but not to the extent that I believe they put on her (maybe I should look more into that before making that assumption).
After that we went down to Union station and had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. We went to the Holocaust Museum. It was really amazing. It was something that I have wanted to do since 8th grade when we were not allowed to go through it in the 8th grade. It still blows my mind to know that people could do that. The propaganda and brain washing of the kids is shocking. There was a board game for kids that the objective of you being the German with a goal to get all of the Jews out of your town. I cannot fathom within 6 months Hitler had power and brainwashed so many people.
Well, this was just the transitioning day to get used to the town and what not... Tomorrow we will be visiting our first ministry site and starting to do all of our homework... :)
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