My Return...

As I mentioned yesterday, I have rejoined the Catholic Church.

Now, don't take this the wrong way. I'm not going to turn into a holy roller; I'm not going to proselytize; I'm not going to beat all of my guns into plows; I'm still going to be the same profane gun nut biker I've always been. But now I've got a Sunday morning commitment. Hell, the gun club's closed until after lunch; might as well do something with the morning, right? And they've got free coffee and donuts, how cool is that?

Kidding aside, this is something that's been in the works for a long time. I've been, well, pretty much an average Catholic - you know the joke:

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister were having coffee one morning and the subject of pest control in the rectory came up. The rabbi complained because he had to have an exterminator come in to rid the temple of mice, and was concerned about having to kill the animals. The minister agreed, noting that they'd recently had to set traps in the food kitchen to stop the infestations.

The priest clucked his tongue and chided his companions. "Gentleman, I implore you to stop these murderous methods. Surely this cannot be G-d's will, killing his creatures like this."

The minister and the rabbi agreed, but argued that they had tried non-lethal methods with no success. They asked the priest how he managed to keep mice out of the rectory without hurting them.

"It's very easy. I baptize and confirm them, and then I only see them at Christmas and Easter."

Well, I was missing even Christmas and Easter.

It was easy to pass on church growing up; my mom had (has) issues with organized religion in general (which she passed on to her son) that stem from her having grown up during the tumultuous days of Vatican II. She watched her fellow high school students, who happened to live in a different archdiocese that had already ratified the new rules, eat meat on Friday without immediately going to hell, and asked her priest why they could eat meat on Friday and she couldn't. His answer was along the "blind faith" lines, as it's hard to explain why, by virtue of mere geography (some 5 miles as the crow flies and a state line), her consumption of meat on Friday would send her to hell but not her friend from NH.

Dad, well, Dad's in the Knights of Columbus but doesn't attend church either. I've never asked him why; I've always been pretty much the same way; content to sleep in on Sundays (in the past; these days I consider sleeping until 7 AM sleeping in), run errands, or lay on the couch watching cartoons with the kids (which is still a damned good use of my time, no matter how many chores I have on the honey-do list...).

There was never much pressure to attend church; I was told I "had to" when I was a child and attended CCD after mass. I never got a satisfactory answer when I asked, "Well, how come you and mom don't go to church?". Sometimes it's easier to say "Because" than to give an answer. And once I was confirmed, I didn't have to go any more. That suited me just fine.

Well, I didn't want that to be the case with my kids. I didn't want to just roar up in front of the church at 9, drop The Boy off for church and Sunday School, and come back two hours later to retrieve him. I wanted him to see that this was something I felt was important for us to do. I wanted him to see his Dad going to church rather than just telling him he had to go.

I wanted my kids to have a religious upbringing that, at the very least, they could use as a springboard for their own spiritual journey. Sure, the path of least resistance would have been to do nothing; to refrain from sending them to church and CCD based on my distrust of organized religion. But I was raised in the Catholic faith; I'm familiar with the doctrine, the prayers, the routines and rituals; and I wanted my children to be brought up at least to adulthood (in the eyes of the church, that is) with knowledge of some form of faith. I chose Roman Catholicism because it's familiar to me.

Well, something funny happened on the way to my impartial, detached "get the chillens some religious learnin'." I started feeling like I wanted to go back. It felt a little weird, really, celebrating Christmas without acknowledging Christ Himself. I found myself wanting to explain the miracle of Resurrection as the basis for our Easter holiday rather than letting the kids think it had something to do with Lagomorphs who magically laid eggs.

You know what the funniest thing was?

When I talked to the usher upon walking into the church, ostensibly to ask where the Sunday School classes were held, I wound up giving the Reader's Digest condensed version of my religious life story - that I'd grown up a Catholic, lapsed for a bit, but was coming back for my kids.

You'd have thought I handed him the winning Powerball ticket.

Something else interesting happened, too. I saw a good number of people that I recognized (interestingly enough, most from Scouting, go figure). All of them were genuinely happy to see me in church; not a single person questioned why they hadn't seen me before. It was surprisingly refreshing to be accepted without question. I would have bet money going in that I'd have to explain myself a dozen times over. As it was, only our Pack Committee Chairman gave me any grief, and even that was just to rib me about my bald head...

The Boy, BTW, sat through his very first mass in such a grown-up, mature manner that my heart was just bursting with pride at his maturity. Sure, towards the end I got the inevitable "is it almost over, Dad?" - but that was literally 5 minutes before the end of mass. He was respectful (for the most part - he is only seven, after all...), paid attention, and when asked afterwards what he thought told me that he enjoyed it.

Now, I'm not going to say that bells rang, a light shone on me and I did cartwheels through the church. I'm certain that a good portion of my son's behavior springs from the novelty as well as the pleasure of having Dad all to himself (I left BabyGirl G at home because there's enough upheaval in The Boy's day to have to put up with his sister competing for Dad's attention; she'll get her chance soon enough). But we'll be back next week, my son and I. I'm going to give this a second shot.

That is all.