Orange County Churches Review & Guide

Holy Family Cathedral

November 28th, 2004

www.hfcathedral.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Liturgical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: Mass- Sun.6:45, 8:00, 9:30, 11:15 am; 12:45 pm (Misa en Español); 5:00 pm & 10:00 am (Mass in sign language: At the Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse Chapel). Sat. 8:15 am & 5:00pm. Weekdays 8:15 am, 12:15 pm.

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 2/5
Site Content: 2/5

Review: I attended a service in May of 2004. The church is located on Glassel street just before you get to the circle in downtown Orange. As you walk up the stairs to the church you see a bronze statue of a women holding some flowers to the left. You walk through large wood double doors and into the sanctuary. Inside, the building has a high vaulted ceiling and several wood pews to sit in.

The service began with several readings from the priest. Most of the readings were prayers or confession to God through Jesus Christ though one of the readings was directed to “mother God.” Sometimes everyone would respond together out loud and other times we would all simply stand up or sit down. There was a time of singing as a group from the hymnals placed in the back of the pews. After the time of singing there was a time of greeting the people seated near us and then the priest made several announcements about things going on during the week. After the announcements the Priest walked behind a large elaborately decorated table and proceeded to perform the transubstantiation ceremony to celebrate the Eucharist.

The people at church were friendly and there seemed to be a lot going on at the church during the week according to the priest’s announcements. I also overheard some people talking during the greeting time who apparently knew each other and were quite involved at the church.

Throughout the service there was a sense of awe, mystery, and significance in the actions we were completing. God is presented and revered as holy other and the partaking of the bread and the wine are considered precious gifts from God that are essential for life.

The service concluded with the priest stretching out his arms toward us and pronouncing a blessing for everyone. As I walked out to the parking lot there were tables set up where some women from the church were selling roses for men to give to their wives or their mothers for mother’s day. Even though my wife is not a mother I thought it would be a great idea to buy a rose for her, so I went ahead and bought one. The lady who sold it to me smiled very big and wished me well as I walked away.

Though the respect and fear of God in Catholic churches is to be commended I cannot recommend this church due to their lack of commitment to God’s Word. The Roman Catholic Church believes it possesses a higher authority than the Bible and therefore believes in unbiblical doctrines such as the meritorious nature of the sacraments, papal infallibility, transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences, the immaculate conception of Mary, veneration of saints, and many other things. The priest’s mediation in the giving of external objects, bread and wine, is the primary purpose of the service rather than expositing of God’s Word so that Christians may come to believe in its truth.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 28th, 2004 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Churches, 2 Star Churches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Holy Family Cathedral

84 Responses to “Holy Family Cathedral”

Leave a Reply