Liza K.
Yelp
So this review hurts. I'm only going to focus on the Spanish mass. I've been here previously for a family funeral in Spanish and felt it was done right and respectfully. The church itself is a strange sort of beautiful and for that reason alone you should check it out, if you enjoy looking at church architecture and decor.
However, what got me was the fact that the Spanish mass was "off". For instance, the congregants would be saying a typical prayer, the musicians and singers would be three lines ahead, and the priest would be behind. Anytime there was anything meant to be done in unison, everyone was off doing their own thing. At one point the priest stopped trying to recite things with the church body as no one was saying anything in unison.
For me, this was difficult, because it made it difficult to pay attention and once I looked around and saw some people were mumbling along, some people were muttering, I kinda gave up trying to speak in unison with the crowd. Focus in mass is important to me. I know not one church will be perfect and there will always be someone a little bit off, but this was so bad to the point of distracting. I brought some non-native Spanish speakers and English speakers and they had difficulty following along even with the written Spanish text.
I'd want to stress, I don't think those orally reciting were being malicious or intentionally trying to skip ahead or drag behind the priest and other speakers, but no matter, it was a distraction for me. I'm glad I came here for Doors of Mercy and happy to have been here on a happier occasion instead of a funeral. As a sidenoe I have found that the mass at St. Anne's at 7 pm is less distracting and everyone appears to be a bit more coordinated, making it easier to focus and follow along, even if Spanish isn't your first language.
On the plus side, the priest was funny and he had a great message to share, but with my lack of focus 80% of the mass, he didn't get the attention he deserved from me.