Church in Oviedo

My first weekend in Oviedo, I went to church with my hostmom and sister. Mass was at 11:30, which seems really late, compared to at home (10:00) and in Cedar Falls (10:30), but when you consider the fact that they eat lunch so much later here (My family eats at 2:30) it kind of makes sense. They go to Saint Francisco Javier. It was a more modern looking church and it even had a powerpoint presentation to go along with Mass. That was helpful because it made it easier for me to follow along. It seemed kind of like a children’s mass to me, not a normal Mass. My sister went to sit up front with the other kids and several different kids helped with different readings and such.

There were also 2 baptisms that day: Pablo and Claudia. It was interesting to try to compare the differences between the baptisms in Spain and those in the United States. There were some little things that seemed different. Like I don’t think they had all the parents and godparents make the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead and they made a bigger deal about the symbolism of wearing white. Something else different about Mass was there was only one reading before the Gospel.

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This last weekend I went to church with my hostmom and sister again. First we went to the church at the convent. Apparently February 3^rd is the only day the nuns come out for church (or something like that, I’m not sure that I totally understood what my hostmom was saying).

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It was something special anyway, and their Mass started at 11, so we went there first and left after a little bit to get to our Mass on time. Again there was a PowerPoint presentation. Now I just need to learn how to say the Our Father in Spanish. They don’t include that in the presentation; I think they just assume that you know it. :)

This weekend I think it was all the Confirmation students that did all the readings, but still all of the children sat up front. I kind of like that they seem to have guitar music at every Mass and the priest directs questions towards the kids during the homily. Again there was only one reading and the Gospel. I’m pretty sure it was the traditional one from Corinthians ‘Love is patient, love is kind.’ Someone let me know if I understood the Spanish correctly!