Firmung in die Kirche (2)

(Light posting until July 12 or so)  Hey, this is like the good old days on AOL Journals - just a few months ago, actually, when we were limited to 2500 characters and I was always posting four- and five-part entries.

Here I am with a PC and a high-speed connection, courtesy of the Citydata firm of Feldkirch, Austria (please don't blame them for the content, though!), so I should be able to finish the last post with minimal trauma.

I wrote this current paragraph twice, and the iMac ate it both times, so I decided it was time to give up.  Anyway, the state of Upper Austria is the only place I've really had the chance to see several different village churches up close in Europe.  But the ones here are pretty elaborate.  Most of them in Austria are Catholic churches, and there is normally one in every village.  And all the ones I've seen are "pre-Vatican II" churches, which means they were built prior to the mid-1960s, which was when the Church began promoting a less elaborate architectural style.

So these churches have lots of pictures and figurines of angels and saints and long-forogtten bishops on the altar.  This Lambrechten church actually has two side-altars, though that's probably not the right name for them.  (Hey, I'm not a cradle Catholic, okay?)  So you can spend some time during the service trying to figure out which saint or church hero it is peaking out from behind this corner or that.

The service, intentionally or not, fitted in with the Sonnenwendfeier theme, because it emphasized fire.  As in the fire of faith, the fire symbolozing the Holy Spirit, and so forth.  I especially enjoy hearing sermons, or homilies as the Catholics call them, in German, because the priest normally articulates the words very clearly.  And also speaks High German, which is nice for me, because in Upper Austria, people speak Middle Bavarian dialect and that can be a challenge to understand.

I always enjoy the practice in speaking when I'm around here, too.  If you don't live in a place where a language that's not your native language is spoken, understanding what people are saying or writing is easier than talking.  For instance, on Friday night at the Sonnenwendfeier, I asked someone if she had "blown up the fire."  That's because the German words "springen" (to jump) and "sprengen" (to blow something up) sound very similar, but they have distinct past tenses.  So I picked one, and there was a 50-50 chance I would have gotten it right.

But at church, no one jumped the fire or blew up the fire or torched Hänsel and Gretel.  They just lit a bunch of candles and talked about fire a lot.  Afterward, we had lunch in a Wirtshaus (local restaurant) and I went back home and had a siesta.  No, I know siesta isn't an Austrian tradition.  But I don't mind importing a Spanish transplant when I'm on vacation.