This might be long and it may be boring, so you might want to just skip it and move to the next post.
Just this past Saturday I had occasion to attend a Catholic mass.
My oldest granddaughter (10 years old) was to receive her first Communion. She has been attending Catholic school for almost 2 years. My son had invited me. Others in my family had insisted that I be there, unless I was in a hospital and near certain death.
I sure wasn’t going to let my little girl down on this very special day, so I was even 30 minutes early. I have been 8 minutes late to almost everything in life, so even this was a shocker for everyone.
Watching her in this ceremony was truly worth it. It was a beautiful moment, and I was forced to see it through tear filled eyes.
We had recieved permission to take photographs, but I finally had to turn that duty over to my Bride, because I just couldn’t focuss through those darn wet eyes.
While it was truly moving to watch the very moment that she received the Body of Christ, it was when she turned toward me with her little hands folded and a very beautiful, peaceful, loving and proud smile. She look into my eyes and I almost lost it. She had been my little girl, but at that exact moment, I think I saw an angel. She looked like an angel. Of course she’s always been an angel in my eyes, but there was something special about her that day.
I felt a strong desire to receive Communion, but I had not been to confession, so I couldn’t.
Okay, here’s a few admissions and observations, maybe even some disappointments.
This was the first time that I have walked into a Roman Catholic church in about 45 years. It was a very good experience and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it for the world, but it came with a very sobering realization that so much has changed and some of it I didn’t like, or maybe I should say understand.
You see, I had attended Catholic school as a child and this just didn’t seem like the same kind of church. Perhaps I would have felt differently had I changed with the church.... I am not sure.
The dress code has changed, it’s much more relaxed, I think that was a good thing.
I didn’t see any nuns and I was told that this church didn’t have any. Even the teachers aren’t nuns.
I was surprised to see people that other than the priest helping him hand out Communion.
What’s with the wine drinking, we never had that! Only the priest did that in my day.
I didn’t enjoy learning latin as a kid, but I got used to it, and I simply must say, the mass was missing when done in Engllish.... it just didn’t feel like mass to me.
When the priest took to the podium, I had expected to hear words of celebration about these young folks that had just received their first Communion. That was hardly even mentioned and it was only in passing when he did bother to bring it up.
Most of what the priest had to say was a long story about sheep and shepherds..... that worked it’s way into asking for money, being sure to give more than 10% if you could— because if you could— you were supposed to, and instructing any folks that were new to the church on how to fill out the identifying information on the envelop provided for the offering. AND THEN, he explained that we could use a debit card.... A CREDIT CARD!!....a credit card in church... that one amazed me and it also made me feel disappointed in where the church has gone.
This is already too long, so I’ll shut up and leave out the moral to the story, if there even is one.
Don’t get too worked up about the credit card deal...lots of churches allow you to do your weekly contributions via credit card or checking account. Basically, you sign up and commit what you want to commit and it’s withdrawn every week or whatever just like any other bill.
Traditional Masses are still available. You wouldn’t notice any change in them because there isn’t any.