My Catholic Community

My Catholic Community

I might be what you would call a faithful Catholic. I go to church every Sunday and on every other holy day of the year. I pray first thing every morning, read the mass readings for the day, study the gospel’s meaning, read about the saint of the day and I end my day with prayer. I pray throughout the day for things happening in the news or to friends and relatives and I go to confession weekly. It wasn’t always so.

In my late teens I walked away from the church because like most teens I believed I knew everything. Religion, especially the Catholic religion was restrictive. I couldn’t drink to excess, couldn’t sleep around and I had to respect other people. I had to do an honest day’s work, not lie and essentially, be a good person and I just wasn’t a good person. Worst of all, as a Catholic I was required to attend weekly mass every Sunday.

As a kid, we went to church as a family, my father and mother on each end of the pew and the five of us siblings between them. If any one of us got out of line during mass, we would receive a tart slap on the back of the head. I maintain to this day that the reason that my parents only had five kids was because their arms were only so long. Every night we knelt around our parents’ bed and said the rosary at the behest of my mom.

We all went to Catholic school, learned the Baltimore Catechism by heart and my older brother and I both served as altar boys. I was raised to be a good Catholic. Now, I’m not saying that you must be Catholic to learn morals and how to be a good citizen, but we were taught that it was a part of being Catholic. Always doing the right thing and understanding the sacrifice that Jesus had made for us and that the saints were there to intervene on our behalf.

Eventually, I found my way back to the church. I started by going back to mass whenever I felt like it and then every Sunday. After I got married, I joined a parish and got involved by singing in the choir and by joining the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a Catholic organization dedicated to helping the poor. I thought that if I was going to raise two boys of my own, I should set a good example. Of course, that didn’t work out because I believed that simply going to church was a magic bullet that would keep evil away.

After my divorce, I was a tainted Catholic. I couldn’t receive communion and if I couldn’t receive communion, what was the point in going to mass? Still, I persisted for my mother’s sake. When my father passed away, it fell to me to look after my mother. She continued to live alone and had always been very independent. She worked into her mid-eighties. I would have breakfast with her every day before she went to work, and I would accompany her to her doctor’s appointments. Every Sunday we would go to church.

My mother preferred the high mass with all its pomp and circumstance. There was a procession in and out of the church, incense and a full choir. The prayers were longer, and a full rosary was said before the mass. The church nearest to her that had a weekly high mass was across town from me. I guess at this point I should mention that my mother’s life was not ideal. She had grown up in poverty, married young and didn’t have a very good marriage. Still, she kept her faith, prayed for forgiveness and redemption and for all her kids. Her prayers were rarely answered.

It was while going to mass with my mother that I began to understand the community of the church. We all sang together, prayed together and listened to the homily together. But this was unlike my previous mass experience. Here, the whole church was celebrating their faith. Actually celebrating. I began to look forward to picking my mom up on Sundays and going to mass. It made her happy and even though I was not able to receive communion, something that greatly distressed my mother, I still felt a part of something bigger than me.

A few years later, my mother passed away and I thought that I might stop going to the church across town, but I found that I had made friends in that community. There was Mike the usher, the little Asian woman who always sat in the same pew as my mother and I every week and even the Monsignor himself. This church felt like the place where I belonged.

Now, my sister is attending church with me. Like my mother, she is very devout. We sit in the same pew that my mother and I used to sit in. The mass is the same but is packed every week, even in the summer. I look out on the sea of people in front of me and I see the faithful and their families. Many of the women, young and old, wear the veils that were so common on women and girls in my youth. I have my favorite acolytes, a pair of grumpy looking twins. There’s a guy I know who was a stand in for Dave Bautista when he filmed a zombie movie here. There are families I’ve gotten to know and people I don’t know but worry about when I don’t see them.

The most communal part of the mass for me is when we all sing the Lord’s Prayer together. I look around the whole mass as the congregation as a whole raises their arms in praise. I see every one of them in a state of bliss. After the Lord’s Prayer comes the moment when we all are instructed to offer each other the sign of peace. Since COVID, hardly anyone hugs or shakes hands, but there are greetings and smiles all around and not a single insincere gesture and lots of peace signs.

A few months ago, I was given permission after counseling to receive communion again. It was something that might have happened long ago and would have pleased my mother to no end, but I was too timid to approach a priest about it. I finally did talk to a priest during confession who directed me to a counselor and now I am again a full fledged Catholic again. My place in the community is complete, but I would not have been able find my way back had it not been for my church community. There was never any judgement as people passed me in the pew on their way to communion every Sunday. Just smiles.

Without their inspiration. Without their example, but most of all with out seeing their absolute joy and celebration of their Christianity and their solemn reverence for their Catholic faith, I doubt that I would have ever made my way back.