Written by: Daniel Rice, Seminarian
On July 16, I visited the Diocesan Brazilian Community at the Missionhurst CICM Chapel in Arlington. Driving through the narrow streets of a tightly scrunched neighborhood, I popped out into a small oasis of bright green lawns and trees as well as some lovely buildings. On those grounds was the chapel, in which I had the opportunity to attend their monthly Mass, which is in Portuguese.
I arrived early to train two boys to be altar servers. This was the first time I had ever done altar server training, and I hadn’t realized how hard it is to communicate all that a server needs to know (or even most of it) in a short period of time. Nevertheless, they served the Mass with me, and they did quite well for their first time.
While the small amount of Spanish that I have learned helped a little, it was still difficult for me to understand the Portuguese language within the Mass. However, since the Roman Catholic Mass has the same foundation, no matter the language, I was still able to know what was going on at each key juncture of the liturgy.
After Mass, we gathered for refreshments and conversation. While enjoying a few Brazilian baked goods and a Brazilian fruit drink, I met one man who, we discovered, was my dad’s old high school classmate. The Catholic world is a small world, it seems; and yet, it is large, Catholic, universal.
Mary, Mother of the Church, Pray for us.
United Through Diversity: One in Christ 