I went to church at St Pius Sunday
night. It was Lauren and Chris’
anniversary. And that happens to be the
day I started my 52 churches plan and I’m feeling a little nostalgic.
It’s hard to believe that was five
years ago. I’m pretty good at going to
church now, not perfect, but much better than before. I realized I missed out on a lot of good
stuff by not going. Which isn’t to say
that you have to go to church, but that there is so much to check out in this
world that you need to get out there and find it.
Without this little project, I
wouldn’t have gone to the last printer’s mass at St. Vincent’s, which was the
perfect amount of melancholy. I wouldn’t
have stumbled into a Sunday afternoon Byzantine mass or made it a point to look
for a church when traveling. I never did
write about Saint Augustine by the Sea in Honolulu. Our work book club had just finished reading The Colony, a book about lepers exiled to Molokai. The church had pictures of the missionaries who cared for them, including one of my new favorite saints, Sister Marianne Cope.
Some things have changed over the
years. Our beloved pastoral life
director has retired and we have a pastor now.
We’ve been paired with the church down the street. I’m volunteering with the youth group and
figuring out the pizza to kids ratio.
And just so you don’t think I have
deviated too far from my old format – a different Fr. Sam celebrated mass and
we were done in 45 minutes – with music!
I feel we are switching back to the Nicene Creed and we’ve been saying
the Apostle’s Creed for so long that I don’t remember the words. And as I wondered if the man sitting two pews
in front of me is single, it occurred to me that I am officially too old to be
a young adult. Huh. Just when I thought I was carving out a place
for myself.
And there’s bigger stuff. I lost my mom the year of the blog and we
lost Mark after that. So while I’m using
words like nostalgic and melancholy, I’ll wonder how seems like yesterday and
seems like forever feel the same. Maybe
one day I’ll get it. Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane. Maybe we'll play Catechic this weekend, for old time's sake.
