Since my mother is working on accepting me and understanding my lifestyle, I figure I should work on accepting and understanding her lifestyle: I went to mass today.
Today at 5:40 I left my apartment to attend Catholic mass at the Paulist Center. Since I decided to actively reject my Catholic up brining three years ago I have attended mass a handful of times. This was the first time in three years that I actually participated in the mass, I spoke the parts, took the host and wine, used the holy water...everything.
It felt good to be there, to be doing something for my mother and for myself. It is a pretty liberal church, it has a Lesbian, Gay, and Friends group that meets after mass, they never refer to God as "He", there were songs in Spanish, a song that referred to hearing a God rather than our God or the God. The priest took time to mention that 10% of the collection was going to a house for women and children who were victims of domestic violence.
There were some parts I had trouble swallowing. A child was baptized during the mass and the congregation sang things about rejecting sin and believing in God and Jesus...I didn't sing these parts and felt a little like I was being yelled at. I suppose if it was entirely easy it wouldn't be making a sacrifice for my mother, which was my main point in being there.
At the end of the mass the priest asked all new people to stand, and since the congregation seemed small and tight knit (thus I was probably already recognized as an outsider) I stood. There was a number of "new people" and the congregation clapped to welcome us. So I have decided that as a sign of respect and gratitude for my mother's willingness to work on accepting who I am I will continue to go to the Paulist Center whenever I can for mass. That is until I find a good Unitarian church to be involved in- even though the service was welcoming and the church is very liberal I still have problems with all the dogma and the long and sordid history that comes with Catholicism.
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2 comments:
I miss you too Claire Bear...soo much. We will have to catch up sometime when I come home for a visit. And you should come out here. It's really beautiful, I can see leaves that are turning red from my little cubicle (sp?)
I KNOW! It is one of the reasons I have "abandoned" catholicism...I just can't find a way to reconcile with that past.
My mother told me today that a friend of hers says, "The Red Cross has some bad aspects but overall it is good, you have to take the good with the bad" (something like that)...still, it is hard to swallow.
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