Excerpt
In Heaven Right Now WHAT I FOUND AT MY FIRST MASS
THERE I STOOD, a man incognito, a Protestant minister in plainclothes, slipping
into the back of a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness my first Mass.
Curiosity had driven me there, and I still didn't feel sure that it was healthy
curiosity. Studying the writings of the earliest Christians, I'd found countless
references to "the liturgy," "the Eucharist," "the sacrifice." For those first
Christians, the Bible—the book I loved above all—was incomprehensible apart
from the event that today's Catholics called "the Mass."
I wanted to understand the early Christians; yet I'd had no experience of
liturgy. So I persuaded myself to go and see, as a sort of academic exercise,
but vowing all along that I would neither kneel nor take part in idolatry.
I took my seat in the shadows, in a pew at the very back of that basement
chapel. Before me were a goodly number of worshipers, men and women of all ages.
Their genuflections impressed me, as did their apparent concentration in prayer.
Then a bell rang, and they all stood as the priest emerged from a door beside
the altar.
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