Church #2: Our Lady of Fatima, Cumberland

(Fyi: this post is significantly longer than these will normally be, but there's a lot to share about this church.)

Last Friday, my friend Tom and I made my first "official" mass trip of this project, to Our Lady of Fatima in Cumberland. Why Cumberland? Because it was a Friday, and because there's very few churches with evening mass on Friday. The plan was to see the church, go to 6pm mass, go grocery shopping, and be home by 7:30 or so. 

All seemed well. We got to the church with plenty of time until Mass. It was a beautiful day outside, and we went and prayed at a little outdoor shrine area to Our Lady of Fatima on a hill behind the church. There were already a bunch of people around for mass, cleaning and straightening the church – you can clearly see how well taken care of the place is, both inside and outside, which speaks volumes about the devotion of the parishioners.  

Come to find out, the mass was at 7, not 6 – the time had been moved after Easter, and the parish website hadn't been updated. There was a rosary before Mass at 6:30, which meant we had about 45 minutes or so to wait until things started happening. Luckily, Tom didn't seem to mind this change in schedule, though his free evening had just been wiped out. I did evening prayer on a bench outside, as well as morning prayer for the next day, and still had plenty of time to wander around the church.

I'm obsessed with church balconies. I'm not really sure why. I love looking around them, sitting in them, and looking out at the church below. I wish it were socially acceptable to hear every Mass from the balcony. Part of me wants to do it anyway one of these days, just to see if the priest notices or if anyone says anything, but I'm sure I'll never work up the courage. They'll probably assume I'm up to no good. If I'm in a church and I get the chance, I will always go up to the balcony and look around, and hope that I don't get caught.

Anyways, I saw my chance to go up to the balcony and I took it, even though there were people around. Nobody noticed. There was a big stained glass window up there to look at, which would have been my cover story if I'd been caught. I didn't get the chance to thoroughly explore the front and altar areas, because there were already a bunch of people sitting in the pews and I felt self-conscious.

As mentioned above, a running subplot to this blog will be me going and exploring places where I probably shouldn't be. It's probably just a matter of time before someone catches me and thinks I'm trying to steal things (especially because I'm young), and hopefully the Holy Spirit will give me the right words to explain myself. Anyways, I made a thorough survey of the church basement, which features a huge kitchen with an unusually large number of appliances. There was an old man painting or fixing something on the wall in the church, who never turned around or appeared to hear me as I went through. The church hall also featured a well-stocked wet bar (thoroughly locked up, of course), which I've never seen inside a church before, and may never see again. Was that a normal thing in the old days?

6:30 finally came around, and after drawing a number of stares from the old Portugese people, I settled down for the rosary. This is when Tom and I learned that not only had we been way too early for Mass, but that the Rosary and Mass were both in Portugese. I was pretty excited about this, and the rosary did not disappoint. They did way more than a typical rosary: the priest appeared to share reflections between the decades, and there were also songs. I was struck by the fact that Americans are a lot more self-conscious about singing than Europeans, something that I also noticed on a trip to Lourdes in college; Americans only want to sing loudly in church if their voices sound good, but these people clearly don't care, and I find it thoroughly charming. 

My favorite part of the Rosary was that apparently, the Portuguese word for fruit is "fruit." I know this because during every Hail Mary, that word stuck out like a sore thumb through the gibberish of the Portuguese, and it made me smile every time.

Between the Rosary and Mass, Tom left for a minute, and the priest asked the congregation if there was anyone who didn't speak Portuguese, a question clearly directed at me. I didn't say anything, but the man who was altar serving scurried forward and pointed me out. I insisted (keep in mind that I'm standing at least 100 feet from the priest, so I'm basically yelling) that it was OK, and that he didn't need to do anything in English, but he insisted. He said some of the Mass prayers in English, and he did both the Gospel and homily (!) in both languages. Hopefully no one minded that the Mass took longer just because we were there. After the Mass, I went up and thanked the priest for his kindness, and he welcomed me warmly. His name is Fr. Cabral, and he is from Lisbon, Portugal. He seems like an absolutely wonderful priest, and Our Lady of Fatima is lucky to have him.

It was a great evening. Not planned for or expected, but a Mass that I'll certainly remember, and a great way to start this pilgrimage.