ARTICLES

American Gothic

ST. DOMINIC'S 'CONTEMPORARY' MASS

By George Neumayr

St. Dominic's in San Francisco is an incongruous setting for a drums-and-guitar mass. Its marble high altar, flying buttresses, exaggerated vertical lines, and stained glass windows of Christ with his saints produce an otherworldly atmosphere: Gravity is overcome; natural light is transformed.

But the 5:30 p.m. "contemporary" mass on March 1 bore little relation to such sublimity. "Please say hello to someone new," came the mass's first instruction to the congregation, largely a mixture of students and unattached professionals dressed in casual attire (Dockers, a 49ers jacket, Levis jeans, a mechanic's outfit, Dolphin shorts, etc.).

Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, a bearded Dominican in sandals, dispensed with the traditonal penitential rite in favor of a plea to "examine our hearts" for failing to be "open to those around us."

This meditation on "openness" continued in his homily: "How easy in an age of options to refrain from making faith commitments...The spirit of our age tempts us even in these walls. It tempts us when we come and pray and still leave as strangers....I think each of us has known situations when the culture of the individual conquers the community of care...

"For my part, I am haunted by a memory from my days of teaching. How do I love and comfort a young Spaniard who after too many insults confessed in tears his hatred for whites? How do I alone heal the wounds of rejection when an alumni told me, 'Now that I am gay how can I be Catholic?'

"Not walking alone helps," said Fr. Lavagetto. So do "shared stories" and "reaching out." So, "let us challenge ourselves to walk with one another....Let us stand together as a people who know and support one another...You know, there is too much pain in the world for us...not to be the most caring community we can be."

After the homily, Fr. Lavagetto received the gifts with a lay man and altar girl. Eight or more lay eucharistic ministers assisted with the communion rite, distributing communion long after Fr. Lavagetto had returned to his chair.

The mass concluded with applause for some "wonderful person," an announcement about "a wine and cheese social," and a vigorous rendition of "Blessed Be the Lord."

After mass, hundreds of people, it appeared to me, hung about the church and on the altar, chatting and visiting as though at a cocktail party (a snack table was set up in the vestibule).

A guitarist sat on the altar rail, strumming his guitar and laughing with a friend. "We are going to be doing another gig," he noted. Behind him appeared another band member, who high-fived a friend as he bounded down the altar.

Fr. Lavagetto, in an interview with the Faith on March 6, defended the casualness of the mass, saying, "[D]on't confuse an aesthetic with spirituality." "St. Dominic's has a diversity of styles...precisely because it perceives that people have different spiritual needs," he said. "We don't try to close any doors."

Not everyone agrees. A St. Dominic's patron recently called the Faith for help in finding a new parish. "I don't want to receive communion to bongo drums," she explained.

Another San Francisco Catholic echoes this sentiment: "The liturgy doesn't match the grandeur of the church."

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