Happy National Catholic Week! at Prinsiana, at least
In a new attempt to keep this journal interesting, we're going to attempt a new way to keep this journal interesting. (The last sentence illustrates why I don't have more paying writing gigs.) Each day this week, I will be writing about Catholicism: my issues with it, my agreements with it, why "On Eagles' Wings" is a horrific song, et alia.
A bit a background: I am not a Catholic, but I am drawn to them. Of the three women who I'd probably consider ex-girlfriends (though one is iffy, and I know of a fourth lady who considers me an ex-boyfriend), one was baptized Catholic and switched to Protestantism, the second had one Catholic parent and one Protestant parent, and the third was a full-fledged Catholic. This was an intelligent bit of planning on God's part in preparing me for my Catholic wife -- a woman who barely knew any non-Catholics before college. While I have strong ties to the two churches I attended pre-college, I don't have strong ties to my Protestant denomination, so it just sorta happened that married Matthew and Kimberly attended a Richmond Catholic church together.
That wasn't the plan; the plan was that we'd each find a church and attend mass/services like this:
Week 1: Matthew and Kimberly go together to the local Catholic Church; Matthew goes by himself to the local Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Week 2: Matthew and Kimberly go together to the local Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Kimberly goes by herself to the local Catholic Church.
I never found a church that did more for me than Kim's, and I didn't really want to go to two services in the same day, so I became a demi-Catholic. I'm a not a feckless one, either: I attend mass every week, I hit most of the other Holy Days of Obligation, I direct the bell choir and sing in the voice choir, and I now have my own key to the church (in my role as bell choir director). Not only that, but I'm even a disciple of that "dogmatically conservative, politically liberal except on abortion" dogma that most of the Catholic leadership believes.
So. Why don’t I just do the smart thing and become a Catholic?
1) Transubstantiation is nonsensical. Given how much Jesus talked in parables and metaphors, I can't think of one compelling reason to believe that Matthew 26:26-29 is any different. (For that reason, I have no issue with not being allowed to take communion; as a "heretical" consubstantiationist at best, I wouldn't want to take communion that is believed to be the actual body and blood of Christ.)
3) That I would have no choice in believing numbers one and two. There are problems with the "no dogma but Christ" position of the denomination I grew up with, but I consider that better than having one's Christian dogma dictated by a book other than the Bible.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
