The husband and I have been going back to church. There are a few good reasons for this. 1) My mother lives right around the corner and knows if we skip, and 2) we have a baptism to buy. For the past few Sunday’s it’s just been me, my mother and the little yellow envelope as the husband has found some excuse or another to bag. Last Sunday, I forced him to join us using the greatest weapon a Catholic can wield: guilt.
Maybe it’s my parish, maybe it’s me, but I just don’t think that I am cut out for Catholicism anymore. A few weeks ago (the last time I went) the homily was all fire and brimstone about baby killers and those politicians (KERRY) that claim to be Catholic, yet support the right to choose and *gasp* take communion. I figured this was because the NOW march was in town and padre was just keeping things topical.
Last Sunday? Same priest, same sermon, only this time he fingered directly those Catholics right before him that choose to accept Holy Communion every week while not embracing all tenants of the church. Um, ok that’s me.
His homily went on and on. It was desperate. I think he spent 10 minutes alone on the evils of gay marriage and those that promote or support it. The husband and I kept poking each other in the leg, and shooting each other little side looks. According to Father Fearthelord, we’re both sinners and, given our thoughts, friends, actions, beliefs and the last time we went to confession, horrible rot-in-hell hypocrites for receiving communion. I leaned over to him and whispered, “how ‘bout we pass on the host this week?” and he nodded, wide-eyed. But after a homily like that, can you imagine the looks we would get as people more pure climbed over us in their walk-up to accept the body of Christ?
I knelt to pray during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. At least, I think it was that part. (Ask any Catholic and they’ll tell you mass is like Simon Sez. You just go in and do what everybody else does, and then you leave. It’s religious auto pilot. Total habit. I have been reciting the Apostles Creed - - that’s the really long one -- since I was six, but if you asked me to recite it right now, I probably couldn’t. Every week is the same. You say what everyone else says, you kneel when you’re supposed to kneel, and you stand when you’re supposed to stand. You get communion, and then you go to the grocery store.) So I’m kneeling down trying to be all holy-like when the guilt sets in. I’m a bad Catholic. I’m a bad person. While the guilt was strong, it was brief, because I pretty much went straight from feeling guilty to being pissed. Pissed that the Church was condemning me, and excluding me for not agreeing with some pretty disagreeable stuff. Pissed at all the judging when they themselves haven’t fully dealt with some of their own “issues.”
That’s when I began to feel sick to my stomach. No, I mean I really felt sick to my stomach. I got hot, woozy, sticky, and claustrophobic. I haven’t had a moment of illness this entire pregnancy, and here I was about to puke in the pew. The good Catholic girl in me started freaking out, God is punishing me!! This is a sign! I am a bad person. Repent! Repent! But among the many things me and the church differ on is I don’t believe in a malevolent God. My god does not smite pregnant girls with nauseous for declining communion. So I took my purse and went outside, sat on a bench, breathed slowly through my nose, and spent the last 10 minutes of mass communing with my nice God, my good and forgiving God. My God that made the nice day, the beautiful roses and my gay friends. The God that sent me the naseous to give me an excuse to leave. The God that brought me the husband, who joined me on the bench and patted my hand. The God that made us both feel much better.