I went to visit my grandmother last weekend in Emporia, Kansas. I attended mass at Sacred Heart Church in Emporia Saturday evening. I had never been there before. The Church building was beautiful. It was just exactly the kind of architecture and style that you would expect of an old Catholic Church on the Great Plains.

I was particularly pleased that recent renovations made owing to a recent fire had kept the tabernacle front and center and that the apse was dominated by a large crucifix. There were three things about the Mass that left me a little unsettled though. One of them is extremely common, and does not bother me too much anymore. They changed the words of the Agnus Dei; I believe that OCP materials actually instruct music directors and liturgists to do this, so I reserve my disappointment for the powers at OCP, and not pastors and musicians at the parish. The second thing that troubled me I have also seen elsewhere, and it is a more serious matter. The presiding priest wore the stole over the chasuble. This disrupts the symbolism of the chasuble, which is supposed to represent the charity of Christ and cover all things, the stole represents the yoke of Christ, and its placement over the chasuble by this priest may illuminate some of the reasons behind the third liturgical oddity that really bothered me. And this one really bothered me. The priest added the word “unnecessary” before “anxiety” in the doxology after the Our Father. He said “…Delivery us from every evil and protect us from all unnecessary anxiety as we wait in joyful hope…” That just left me ill at ease. I have way too much necessary anxiety that I need to be delivered from.