Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Church Shopping

So the rule is you are not suppose to talk politics or religion. So this post here is going to be a rule breaker

I grew up Catholic. I went to catechism classes for 11 years. I was baptized, made my first communion and confirmation. My parents took all 3 of us to church every Sunday morning. Well really it was more like D-R-A-G-G-E-D us to church every Sunday. Joey on the other hand grew up with almost no religion in his house. His parents had him baptized and since his Dad's side of the family is Catholic he would watch with jealousy as his cousins got to go to catechism and he didn't.

After I left my parents house and gained some independance and more education I began to question the Catholic Church and never really went back.

Joey and I have lived together now for over 7 years and our religion was not something we discussed until we got pregnant with The Phi. We were obviously not the perfect Catholics. Here we were living in sin with a baby on the way OUT OF WEDLOCK! Aye Dios Mio!

So why did we have The Phi baptized? Well 2 reasons really. Even though I was not the picture perfect Catholic I had been raised in that religion and I felt that it gave me a very strong foundation in just being a good person, period. And reason number 2 was that I wanted my kid to have god-parents. More importantly I wanted her to have Patty and Jovan as god-parents. This is a super special relationship and I know how much I look up to and lean on my god-mothers and I wanted my kid to have this relationship with Patty and Jovan because they are some really GOOD people.

So we baptized The Phi and when it was time we baptized Lou to give her a foundation and just as equally amazing god-parents to shower her with extra love and guidance. And then we never really thought about religion again. Until this school year.

See The Phi goes to a private religious school that is NOT Catholic. It is still Christian and I have loved the way that this school has not only taught her so much academically but it has also given her a loving heart. Then it came time to think about if we were going to send The Phi to catechism for her first communion. We decided that yes we would so naturally we signed her up at the local Catholic church and we thought we were done.

Oh no. Since A mixture of The Phi starting catechism and a personal family need for some faith we went to Sunday mass. We ended up at 3 churches in 3 weeks.

Church #1 Pros:
  • very close to home
  • baby room where Lou can roam
  • same church The Phi was attending cathecism
Church #1 Cons:
  • baby room is a balcony and no matter where you sit you can't see
  • no stereo system and we could not hear one word of the service
  • cry room is also the teenager hang-out room
Church #2 Pros:
  • Newly built church
  • nice baby room
  • same parish as the church where The Phi is attending cathecism
Church #2 Cons:
  • baby room is to the right and behind the altar and you just see the back of the priest.
  • Speaker system in baby room not working so we couldn't hear anything
  • The priest had a very thick accent and when we could hear a word or too we couldn't understand what he was saying. 

Church #3 Pros:
  • an amazingly beautiful church
  • a state of the art functioning sound system
  • a giant video screen where words to all the songs are displayed
  • a priest who we could understand
  • during the gospel kids between 5-10 are invited into the adjourning chapel to listen to the gospel explained in their terms.
and then after church, in the parking lot was this........



Yes there was a beer truck.

Arts and crafts

BBQ

Games and Rides
We happened to go on the weekend of their big festival. So after I made sure that Joey and The Phi understood that it would not be like this every Sunday. We decided as a family that despite the extra travel time and a little paperwork in switching The Phi's catechism class, we had found a new church.

And our church shopping is done.






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5 comments:

  1. So the beer truck, arts and crafts and bbq got you, huh? ehheheheee Too bad you don't live closer. I'd love for you to visit my church. Sandals is awesome! I think you'd really like it.

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  2. Good for you. Love the Bud truck presence at the church. I grew up Baptist, and never found a good fit, in any type of church, once I was married. My girls joke that I brought them up to be heathens. They are wonderful caring women, so I did something right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I went through something like this recently too. Next year, I'll be getting married at St John Vianney. My family have been really active members there for over 20 years, I made all of my sacraments there (minus baptism) and it very much feels like community. I still feel it when I go to Mass there when I'm in HH. Anyway, before I got engaged, I wasn't going to Mass weekly. After we met with the priest, he told us I needed to go to Mass weekly. I can't expect to receive the sacrament of marriage if I haven't been practicing my faith.

    So now, Sean and I are attending two different churches in LA (depending on if we get lazy in the morning and postpone Mass 'til the afternoon). Both churches have pros and cons, but still don't feel like community. I guess that takes time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3:52 AM

    You really weren't church shopping. The whole thing is the Catholic Church, you were just looking for the right community. When you're Catholic, you are always part of the Church, just which parish do you feel part of or which Mass is convenient...Unfortunately, I have spent more time in court trying to explain to idiot lawyers that St. A St. B and St.C are all part of the same Church and I am not trying to pull a fast one because we may go to the 9 at St. A's and the afternoon Mass at St. B's (Husband walked out; told the kids they weren't really Catholic, won't take them to Mass...)

    ReplyDelete
  5. No we were not religion shopping, just a physical church to start attending. It sounds like you are going through a divorce. I had no idea that what religion or church you take your kids to is part of the custody battle. Wow. I divorced my first husband because we were two very different religions and I knew that we would never be able to compromise when it came to raising kids. Good Luck

    ReplyDelete

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