Week #32 and #33 in Germany

This past Sunday was Easter, so I decided to attend my yearly mass. Of course I try to go to mass more often, but I've only managed to go twice since I've been here in Germany. Unless you count the times I went with the school, which would double my count. 


Back home I feel a bit more guilty for not attending on a regular basis, but here I feel quite out of place when I do attend. My dad used to say that church is for old ladies and children, and Germany, well Europe in general, really illustrates this statement. When I looked around at the congregation, I was the youngest of most the adults by about 40 years, and then there were also some children. 


Easter is always a high traffic time for the church. Every time I attend an Easter mass back home, I have to arrive 15-20 minutes early to ensure I get a place to sit, because it's generally standing room only. Here, however, there was actually a decent amount of empty space. It's something that doesn't really add up for me. Here they have compulsory Religious Education in the schools, but the churches are empty. In the U.S. we can't talk about Religion in most public settings, yet the churches are packed. Maybe we just feel deprived in the U.S., whereas they get their fill here.


Another interesting thing during mass was the fact that the priest spoke English during his Homily. Of course, the majority of the Homily was in German, but in English he said, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Afterward he said the sentence in German, but I still found it fascinating that he spoke English, and what's more, I'm sure most of the people understood without the translation. It's something that I don't think I would witness in the U.S. during a mass. Perhaps a priest in the south would say something in Spanish, but I don't think most people would understand a complete sentence of a foreign language. 


It makes me happy that English is a world language, but I also wish we could be a bit more culturally well-rounded in the U.S. But, I guess it's something that comes with the territory. Here, it's just a few hours from the next country, and so you need a common language. In the U.S., the majority of people don't even have a passport, so why bother learning about a culture you'll never experience?