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Thanks for the measured response. I wasn't sure if you'd ever been in a Catholic parish - thought this may advance some understanding.

I'm willing to make a deal with any evangelical, Presby, Baptist, etc - I'll attend one of your services with open eyes and ears if you'd do the same with a Catholic one. Wonder if either of us would be offended by what we saw - and I also wonder how much we'd learn.

I grew up a Catholic, and have great memories of Catholic grade school, and am quite familiar with the Catholic mass. I don't think you would be offended by attending an evangelical, etc. church service. It's just that they tend to be so mundane compared to the ceremonialism of the Catholic Church that you would probably feel like you still hadn't been to church. There is no one who does church like the Catholic Church does, though I'm sure the EO are not far behind.

But to me anymore, the church service is secondary. What I learned after years in small and large evangelical churches is that God is bigger than the walls of the Church, and not limited to the performances that take place therein. He speaks to man more through the pages of the Book than through the sermons of a pastor or the liturgy of the church service.

I don't attend church right now and haven't for years because I have one of those thankless 24/7 jobs looking after an elderly parent who requires constant attention. And yet in all these years without church services, sermons, hymns, and liturgies, God has never failed to meet with me everytime I have opened the pages of His Book. He has been faithful to His Word and to me through it.

I appreciate your offer and the olive branch. Perhaps I will take you up on it some time when it is more convenient.