10. Assumption Grotto

Name: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church
Location: Detroit - Gratiot and E. McNichols
Parish Established/Church Built: 1832/1929
Date Visited: 2/21/10









Feeling nostalgic for the pre-Vatican II days when you spent half of mass on the kneelers, women covered their heads, and no less than 12 altar boys and deacons assisted the priest in mass? I have just the church for you - Assumption Grotto.

This was by far the most traditional mass experience I've experienced. Growing up in a church where we only knelt after receiving Eucharist, and we didn't say the creed for a few years, this was a very different experience.

They have a large active congregation, which is surprising and wonderful considering the fact that this church sits in one of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit. The grounds include the church itself, a cemetery, convent, rectory and a grotto. The church is absolutely breathtaking, and to me is what a church should look like. This is one of those "they don't make them like the used to" churches.

This was the first time I realized that the congregation is supposed to kneel or bow in the creed where Jesus is born of a virgin, comes down from heaven and becomes man. I learned the hard way as we were singing the creed in Latin, I was reading along and translating, remembering the ablative and accusative case, when I look around and see everyone else on their knees. I definitely outed myself as an outsider there.

I also experienced the old form of receiving Eucharist, kneeling at the altar, on the tongue, with a deacon holding a metal platter under your chin in case the Host should fall.

After mass was ended, the congregation said the rosary. I was not prepared for this but followed along without a rosary. I counted on my fingers all the Hail Marys - trying to remember how many "rounds" (decades) there were in total, four or five? (answer: five) I remember calling my mom that day and telling her "I've never had my knees hurt from mass before!" and she laughed and told me that was the way it used to be.

It was the first Sunday of Lent, and I only wondered if maybe the mass was more solemn than in Ordinary Time. Only one way to find out, to go back sometime, prepared this time for the rosary!