I'm am Catholic. Sometimes, I'm not very good at it, but I like it. Even during Lent, when everyone who asks me what I gave up for Lent gets the witty reply of "Being Catholic."
I am not a huge fan of the church i'm going to. I stay there so I can be with my grandpa and because I like the priest. Even the substitute priest we have now since Fr. Joe went on sabbatical to Africa.
It's really the parishioners that bother me. Perhaps I was spoiled by the closeness of the congregation at the Newman Center, But I feel no sense of community there, at St. Andrew's. I feel like most the people there are going out of a sense of obligation and to come out with a holier-than-thou feeling because they went to church.
They might even go to a store after for groceries and berate the people working at the registers for working on a Sunday. Maybe they don't. I don't know. But it's the feeling I get from the congregation, in general, each week. Especially the other week. At which point of time I wrote a letter which I share with you all now...
On Saturday, February 9th, at the 5 o'clock Mass, a group of men and women stood in front of a congregation and stated why they were ready and excited to become a part of the community at Saint Andrew's.
The welcome they received--a congregation checking their watches, coughing and sighing with pointedly high volume, and people whispering complaints to their neighbors that they, perhaps, thought no one else could hear.
I heard.
I heard quite a number of complaints and negative remarks--the most distressing of which being, "I came here for Mass, not this."
"This" is what the Mass is all about. "This" is Community. We come together, as a community, to receive the Eucharist--from the Greek word eukharistos, meaning thanksgiving. We come together as a community to give thanks for the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and True Presence of Jesus Christ. Perhaps this is why the central part of the Mass is commonly referred to as Holy Communion.
The men and women who stood before filled pews to give testimony deserve so much more respect than they were shown. Perhaps, being Catholic from infancy, some cannot grasp the significance of what these candidates are doing, so I will try to be perfectly clear:
They are REVOLUTIONIZING THEIR LIVES so that they can be fully in communion with their future family in Christ--much like Saul changed his life to follow Jesus as Paul.
Surely this is worth an extra 15 minutes of your time once a year?
I am proud of the Catechumens who stood up in front of us on Saturday, and I am honored to have them join us in our community.
I had an email back saying it was sent to the RCIA director. Which is what I wanted. I wanted them to know that someone was welcoming people into the community for real. I never did hear back after that though.
cross-posted
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Thank goodness my Catholic church is not like that. I don't know if I'd stay Catholic if they were.