Church-hopping young woman checks out Catholic Masses

Amia Ringrose, 20, who was raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist, has been visiting dozens of churches of different denominations and posting about her experiences on her Instagram page “Diaries of a Church Hopper”, which now has 2000 followers.

She looks at the facilities, the environment, singing, sermons, fellowship and community and recommends what kind of person that particular church would be best for.

She has attended at least two Catholic Masses – at the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph, and at St Mark’s in Pakuranga.

“I feel like in the Adventist church, they tend to be a bit anti-Catholic, so it was quite interesting to experience a church that was usually frowned upon in my community,” she said on her Instagram page.

Speaking of her experience at the cathedral last year, Ms Ringrose said visiting a church is no alternative to deeply studying a religion, “but I still think there is value in seeing how others practise their faith in their sacred spaces”.

She appreciated the Cathedral building, the singing and the accessibility of the preaching. She described the liturgy as intense, fascinating and challenging.

At St Mark’s, she said the music at a vigil Mass was “very chipper and upbeat . . . There seemed to be genuine joy and happiness flowing from the tunes.”

The homily message was described as “solid” and the priest delivered it in a very clear, coherent and easy-to-understand way, Ms Ringrose said.

She noted that she could not meet people during the service, and made a bit of a mess of the sign of peace.

But she concluded: “I really enjoy going to Catholic Masses. They are structured, reverent and undeniably focused on the worship of Jesus.”

Ms Ringrose calls herself a Christian in practice but not in belief, and she is looking for answers to questions about God, humanity and the Bible.

The Dean of the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph, Fr Craig Dunford, is not surprised that people are church-hopping as part of their faith journey today.

“People are trying to make sense of life a little bit more in the world we live in and people are curious. So church-hopping or looking at different religions is a normal thing, I think, for people to be doing,” Fr Dunford said.

Asked why someone should check out the Cathedral, Fr Dunford said: “One of the wonderful gifts of the Catholic Church is that we are universal. If you were to go into any Catholic church here in Aotearoa New Zealand, you will see that there are people from many different ethnic backgrounds all coming together to celebrate the sacraments of the Church.”

FULL STORY

Exploring faith by reviewing Churches, fellowship, community (By Ke-xin Le/Radio New Zealand)

A young church reviewer on why you should holy-hop your town (The Spinoff)

Instagram (Diaries of a Church-hopper)