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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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ST. TIMOTHY'S, MORRO BAY

Mass in an Altered State

On the 15th Sunday in Ordinary time, I attended St. Timothy's parish in Morro Bay. Its squat, modernistic, A-framed architecture seemed to foreshadow its mostly unadorned interior. For me its most impressive feature was the foyer's bright colored stained glass containing religious imagery.

The tolling of the church bell indicated Mass would begin soon, but before the procession, we were treated to an impressive, probably late-19th-century piano solo. Then came the sanctuary party, processing to the song, "Rain Down." The procession had three altar boys, one bearing a crucifix-with-corpus, followed by two lectoresses, a stream of extraordinary ministers in lay clothing (who retreated into the nave after bowing in the sanctuary), and finally a green-clad Father Edward Holterhoff, the parish administrator.

Father Holterhoff began by joking that the day was so beautiful that we should have Mass outside. He kept the joke alive by starting to walk down the center aisle and gesturing for us to follow him, but we called his bluff and wouldn't budge. We then voted on whether or not we should have Mass outside for the parish picnic -- to which the "ayes" carried.

Father prepared us for a litany by saying we should act like a drive-in black Baptist church (I'm not sure if he had a particular one in mind) whose congregation turn on their headlights whenever they say "amen." Then began the litany: "for the kindness of beauty. Amen. For the kindness of love. of thought. of friends." Of "food," "shelter," "rest," "healing," "travel," "St. Timothy's," "volunteers." Holterhoff then invited us to add our own "kindnesses." Omitting the confiteor and the kyrie, we next dove into a joyful "Glory to God," composed by the choir director, who also composed the Mass' English Sanctus. Father then prayed that the "good news might always be present in our hearts" and that God "might deliver us from anything which is negative, so that we are free from all burdens so that we may experience and share joy and love."

Father's sermon focused on the Old Testament reading from the prophet Amos. He delivered his sermon while sitting on the handrail of the first pew, with his feet sometimes casually resting on the pew itself. This must be a common practice for Father Holterhoff, for the first two pews in that section were empty.

According to the Holterhoff, the prophet Amos was a "seasonal agricultural worker." He wasn't part of any professional band of prophets so common back then, but was called directly by God. Father explained that when the prophets of the ancient world would prophesy, they would go into an ecstatic or altered state. Sometimes they did this by hyper-ventilation -- the idea being that the prophet could no longer control what he was doing, thinking, or saying. Father noted American Indians achieved this state through the use of peyote, and observed that Jazz musicians and some cults do the same. Perhaps the future governor of California, Arnold Swartzenegger, did the same, said Holterhoff, as well as our former president. The current president, the priest assured us, just has drinking problems.

Holterhoff went on about how we use drugs nowadays -- caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, aspirin, and valium -- for pleasure. We are a drugged society, but the ancients only used drugs for creative or inspirational purposes. The prophets would get into an altered state so people would know it wasn't their opinion, but it was God speaking through them.

Amos, Holterhoff continued, is a prophet of social justice. He "rants" against the social injustice of his time. He aligned himself with the poor and vulnerable, and for this reason he is opposed to anything cultic or liturgical. For example, people would just go to the temple to make their offering to God, then out in the world they would cheat their neighbor by tipping the scales in transactions. Today's injustices are much more sophisticated than that, Father assured us. The prophet Amos' words are as valid today as they were then -- and that was 2,700 years ago -- Father said with amazement. Amos spoke vehemently against the disparity between the rich and the poor. That was the role of a prophet who symbolizes God taking the side of the voiceless in society.

In our time, said Holterhoff, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. If we asked Amos what he would do in today's situation, Father did not think the prophet would be in favor of tax cuts. Father said that, according to the prophet Amos, one's liturgical life is not so important as one's relationship with God. Some people think that if they do the first Friday devotions that God is going to get them into heaven. That is exactly the kind of cultic practice that Amos spoke against, said Holterhoff.

"You don't trust your relationship with God?" Holterhoff asked. "You have to do these First Fridays to get you into heaven? You trust in statues? It's your relationship with God that really matters, not the things that you do." Holterhoff said Amos delivers hard messages; he is not interested in being nice, unlike his contemporary, Hosea. Father then switched gears and went on to tell the story of Hosea and Gomer, the forgiving Hosea representing God and his unfaithful wife representing Israel. It is the Hosea-point-of-view, said Holterhoff, that is so strong in the Good News message. Jesus Christ follows in the Hosea tradition. We are married to God, and God is married to us, and no matter how unfaithful we are, He will always forgive us.

During the Prayer of the Faithful, the congregation was allowed to add their own intentions. About three times it happened that people competed to speak -- refusing to yield to others. The choir-director then announced that he was inspired to replace the scheduled offertory hymn, "Sing a New Song," with "Hosea," sung by the choir and having an elaborate piano arrangement.

All stood for the Second Eucharistic Prayer. The congregation extended across aisles to hold hands and flew through the stratosphere with a passionate, highly romanticized rendition of the Our Father.

The kiss of peace lasted over a minute. The priest and acolytes disappeared into the congregation to shake hands. We sang an uplifting "Lamb of God," which the pianist closed on a dreary modernistic sounding note.

I couldn't decipher the words Father used for the Ecce Agnus Dei, but they seemed much too short to be the normal prayer. During communion, in what looked like a tribute to the Ghost of Christmas Present, the priest lifted his chasuble revealing a little boy. (I don't know if the priest was playing a joke on the boy, or if the boy just wasn't watching where he was going.) A man with crutches sitting in front was able to receive communion while kneeling.

After communion Father announced that a group called St. Timothy's Care would go house-to-house meeting parishioners and inviting former parishioners to return; he promised there would be no proselytizing. We sang Happy Birthday to one of the parishioners. We then sang Happy Birthday again for everyone having a birthday in July.

The scheduled recessional song, "Holy God," was preempted by the preempted offertory song, "Sing a New Song."

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