Blog Post 1 Monserrat

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The Church in the Mountains




"Overwhelmed" THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

I was very overwhelmed by all the natural beauty of the church. The church that I have gone to for most of my life has had the same people for as long as I can remember, but to see thousands of people coming from all over the world to visit a church in the mountains was incredible. When we hiked to the cross, I was so proud of myself because I didn’t want to hike, but once we stood at the cross on the hill it was all worth it. I realized that you didn’t need to be in a church to feel the presence of God. I found Him in the natural beauty of the land.



"Apologetic" THE RELATIONAL LEVEL

I interacted with various kinds of people when entering the Monserrat. When we were asking for a map of the hiking trails, we were tried talking to the women at the information booth in Spanish, but she responded in English. I thought that it was similar to our culture because we tend to speak to people in their main language especially in customer service when it says to press a certain number for a certain language. The insight guide states that the L’Escolania, which is a boys’ choir, is one of the oldest choirs in Europe and that it is worth visiting. Once we got into the church it was so packed that there was no where to stand without touching someone. I felt like I was saying lo siento every five seconds because I kept running into everyone. I noticed that when I was saying sorry people didn’t really respond with they were sorry when they bumped into me so I think they are used to people bumping into them because they are used to the crowded cities compared to me who is not used to it.



"Coming Together" THE SOCIAL LEVEL

The church we went into was a Catholic Church. The culture smart guide says that the vast majority of Spaniards are Roman Catholic, but Spain has no official religion. I noticed that even though we may not all have been the same religion we were all welcome into the church. This might lead to an issue for people who aren’t catholic and have different religious beliefs because they might offend the people of the catholic faith not knowing that they are. I wasn’t able to tell who practiced different religions and it was nice to come together and worship the same God.

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