John Branch, a sports writer covering the World Cup for the New York Times, has a captivating story about Christian religious observance in Qatar — a Muslim country with a significant minority of migrant Christians.
Branch begins:
DOHA, Qatar — Behind closed doors on Friday, in small rooms usually used for teaching catechism, the children celebrated Christmas.
There was food, drink and songs. Wreaths and stockings decorated the walls. A few adults wore red Santa hats.
Nearby, across the complex of mostly unmarked sand-colored buildings, a Mass was being celebrated in a 2,700-seat sanctuary, its altar backed by painted angels and Jesus on a cross. There would be another mass every hour, 15 of them on Friday, said in 10 different languages: English, Tagalog, Indonesian, Korean, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Konkani, Sinhala, Arabic.
“We do as many masses as possible, to make people feel they belong somewhere,” Rev. Rally Gonzaga said.
The busiest place on Fridays in Doha might not be at any World Cup soccer stadium. It could be this sanctioned island of Christianity — the only one in the country — on the dusty southern edge of Doha.
You can read the rest here.
The Apostles’ Creed contains the line “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting” (italics added). As a young Protestant, I chafed at the idea of the papists getting a special shoutout. However, wiser heads than mine taught me that the “holy catholic Church” is the body of believers the world over, those of many tongues and cultures.
Reading Branch’s article was a reminder of that glorious vastness of the Church. May it strike you the same.