Catholic Community Observation Report

I visited the Saint Williams Catholic Community in Shelbyville, TN, on March 5th at the 9:00 bilingual mass. I chose this experience because I have had several Spanish speaking students' in the Pre-K program that I am currently an assistant teacher for. I wanted to better understand the culture of my students, outside of an environment where I am deemed to be dominant. I also wanted to see how different the Catholic church setting is from what I am use to. I have passed this establishment many times and never really thought anything about it. My small town refers to it as the "Hispanic or Mexican Church." I did not expect to leave with much, I thought this assignment would be like any other class assignment I had taken in the past. …show more content…
Apparently they were praying "Rosary," before the Mass. I am not accustom to doing this so it was very unusual for me. I am use to music being played as people enter the sanctuary while we talk and greet our neighbors. I noticed that as people would walk to the alter or leave they always bowed or nodded their heads toward the alter. There were people in white robes that entered before the Priest. They were called the Altar servers. They carried in a red book and a big gold cross on a pole. The Priest followed behind them clothed in a deep purple robe. The alter servers sat the book up on the alter for all to see. The Mass then began with the Priest leading the church with a response reading about the day being the first Sunday of Lent. I struggled trying to keep up with the translations because the entire Mass was in Spanish, but I managed. After the reading they began singing a some hymns, while the Priest held up the red book. I later found out that the book was not a bible but a book of the Gospels. I was not expecting there to be any music in a Catholic church. The priest began to read again and to each thing he said we replied "Te rogamos,Senor." This means "Please, Lord. After this men came around and took