Salvador da Bahia, Brazil's third largest city, has an energy and unadorned beauty reflecting what was once the magnificent capital of Portugal's New World colony. I am staying in a beautifully restored colonial house surrounded by a "living museum" of 17th and 18th century architecture and gold-laden churches. (Breathtaking but challenging in a country of such extreme poverty!)
The city is also a heady blend of two seemingly disparate cultures - classic Portugese architecture and African drum beats, cobbled streets and lively festivals, Catholic Churches and the Candomble (Afro-Brazilian religion.)
Last Tuesday, I experienced something of this fascinating blend when I attended Igreja NS do Rosario dos Pretos's Mass for St. Anthony....
Yes, there would be all the elements one might expect (candles, incense, processions) but also the exuberant percussive worship songs ( acapella except for drumbeats) accompanied by lithe, ecstatic movements of many worshippers.(I certainly clapped!?!) There were impromptu hugs during the sharing of the Peace (I wonder how that would be received in Dyffryn Clwyd?!) and a vast (40+) procession of people of all ages rhythmically transporting baskets laden with bread rolls of all shape and description prior to the Prayer of Thanksgiving...
Yes, as one might expect, there was the distribution of wafers after the prayer of consecration and Lord's Prayer (intoned with everyone having joined hands with one another - there's an idea!?) but, before worship finished, we were all suitably doused with water by the Priest and strongly encouraged to take a bread roll from the baskets as they were returned to the main entrance...
In a church which African slaves took 100 years to complete I felt that Christ's gift of Himself had been celebrated with much African poise and grace.
I wonder what might be the equivalent of us in Dyffryn Clwyd offering something of our "Cymreictod" (Welshness) to such an act of worship....?
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