When I married in my 20s, I knew I was marrying a guy who was not habitual in regular church attendance. My extended family has been Catholic since before Vatican II. My dad converted to marry my mom, as was the rule in the late 60s. They raised their kids in the faith, sent us to Catholic grade and high school with the assistance of my grandparents and insisted on Sunday attendance as a family unit unless copious amounts of bodily malfunctions, or imminent death, prevented such.
During the course of my courtship, my boyfriend would attend services on occasion as part of the wooing process. When I specifically asked him to or there was a special family event or meal afterwards to which he was invited. After our marriage, I didn’t insist on his attendance as often and his lack of attendance rubbed off my habit.
Any Catholics may get the nun joke there…
When we had children, it was time to up the ante. They needed to be baptized and we needed to put in face time to achieve that goal. There are hoops to be jumped through for every sacrament, and Catholic parents are stellar hoop jumpers. When I was pregnant with our first son, we sampled every Catholic church in a 20-mile radius of us. We chose one, registered and attended classes and the final baptism class happened the evening that our son was born. I was recovering in the hospital and my spouse attended the final class alone – and got challenged by the priest. ‘She had a baby this morning? Should be fine to come to class 12 hours later.’ Really? Have you sneezed a watermelon recently?
The logic of the
celibate - a mystery.
So, our first son was baptized. By a visiting priest, while the baptismal
font was under renovation… in a plastic horse trough. Literally.
We were in a rural county and the best substitute around was found at
the feed store. That should have been my
first clue that his relationship with religion might have a 'hitch' in it.
At age 2, he was with me and we were at our second Catholic
church. This Sunday was another child’s
baptism, during the service we repeat the vows made at our own baptism, to which everyone answers
“I will,” to various statements of belief.
Our guy was a little uncooperative that day and when we all answered, “I
will,” he countered with “I won’t!” in his best Exorcist voice. I could see the priest looking all over
wondering where to throw the holy water and burn the hell out of the little demon.
When our second son was born, we were in a church where all
children were baptized naked in a beautiful clear glass font. Every time I put our son in bath water, he
launched the human fountain up front and usually a turd out the back as
well. Needless to say, he was fully
clothed when he was baptized to prevent an event requiring the intervention of a hazmat team and subjecting
us to excommunication.
As the boys grew older, I did not insist on attendance. Dad did not attend and it became a losing
battle temporarily. I used my church time to refuel my mom tank, while Dad watched
the boys – also known as you get what you pay for babysitting service. We moved and were within walking distance of
an Episcopal church that served a hospitality meal after EVERY service – not
just donuts once a month! And that
coerced the boys to not only attend and go to Sunday school, but to learn to be
acolytes. For a while, all the relative faithful and faithless coexisted in peace.
Then the boys recalled that Dad didn’t go to church and the
youngest declared himself an apathetic agnostic. “Don’t know; don’t care. Not my thing. I’ll go on Christmas
only.” He is more than willing to be of
service to keep the elders off ladders and moves chairs and tables
readily. But sitting in a pew for
services is just not part of his church experience.
Our older son took part in media service when he lived at
home running the responses on the projector from the choir loft where he didn’t
have to participate in the sign of Peace – shaking hands with 90% of the
congregation. When he moved to college,
his church attendance did not move with him.
Finding the chance to sleep in on Sunday mornings is much more
attractive to a college student balancing studies, social life and genetic procrastination.
Over the years, we have the unwritten family
commandments regarding church services:
- If mom or the grand parents are involved in an event and requests your help, “sure-what time should we be there” is the only answer. You will stay until we say we’re done.
- Christmas service attendance is required, if you wish to open Christmas gifts
- Your behavior at church is a direct reflection on your family. If you embarrass me, look out.
- You need to mumble along with the correct responses.
- Now is not the time to have an in-depth dogmatic discussion – see Rule 4.
- Eucharist is not optional; wine is your choice. Follow my lead – I dip gingerly.
- Prepare a 10 second sound bite to answer all the normal questions comments.
- Obscene tee shirts, sagging trousers, etc. don’t fly.
- Bring your best date manners, and leave phones on silent in your pockets. Not even a prayer app, I don’t want to see it out.
- We're done when I say we’re done and not before.
- If the Seahawks/Mariners/Huskies are playing during a church service, we will not be there
- On days of fair weather, there is an option to tend to church grounds instead of attending service inside which counts as attendance.
- If someone dies, we embrace the Taoist tradition of death = birth to new life and to celebrate births, cake and ice cream will be shared.
- Treat the earth gently and others in the way you wish them to treat you. All else is relative.
Over the years, our guys have been called into service to
light candles, take out garbage, put up and take down trees/cedar
swags/decorations of all kinds, set trees on fire, start a fire, put out a
fire, inflate helium balloons, find keys, unlock doors, set up tables, take
down tables and rearrange chairs. I
figure with all the hard labor, St. Peter isn’t going to turn them away; he’s
going to put them to work. In the big
scheme of things they treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves,
honor their parent s and follow all of the commandments even though they could
probably not name them all with 100% veracity.
But that is a whole nother story…
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