Where the Catholic Sun Doth Shine

Resolutions Day Four!

Yes, the churchy resolution is banned to the churchy blog. It just feels cozier over here! 

The resolution, I suppose, is to pray more. HOW NICE AND VAGUE! Right now I am thinking of all the training I've received in long-term and strategic planning, by which I mean I suffered through a year on the five-year-plan committee at church and maybe I could say that my OBJECTIVE is to pray more and my GOALS are to 1) go to prayer retreats/conferences and 2) receive training in prayer ministry. Or wait - did I mix up goals and objectives? I get very confused about these things, Internet. I am now on the committee IMPLEMENTING the five year plan and things get even MORE complicated. (It doesn't help when you've missed the last four meetings due to New Baby Syndrome.) 

ANYWAY! 

A frillion years ago I went to the NDCF fall retreat. As a grown up. Not only was I older than the students, I was older than all the STAFF. That right there was a mind trip. I wrote about it in my last post (which was, holy cats, over a month ago, BAD BLOGGER!) So one thing that happened there, and that I alluded to at the end of that post, was that my friend suggested I join the "prayer team" that Saturday evening at the retreat, and make myself available to pray with/for students. So for those of you who are all, "huh?" (ie: the Catholics in the crowd), the students were probably going to be pretty moved/convicted by/challenged by the Saturday evening talk, and might want to pray about it afterwards. Most of the staff were going to hang out in the back of the room and any student could approach any staff person and my FRIEND (who happens to be the boss of all these people, which is kind of awesome) was going to let ME DO IT TOO. 

Except... UM, NO WAY, LADY. Well, I have to say my first reaction was WHEE! Because... well, this is what I love. I love to pray for other people. I love to pray for people I don't know. I LOVE to just throw stuff out there and see what God does with it. And I have very few personal boundaries, you know, and I don't think it's weird at all for someone to dump all their stuff on ME, and, well, there are definitely times where I feel quite certain that This Is What I Was Made To Do. 

And YES, if you did not grow up in the NDCF or something similar or you're a very private person or what have you, this is super freaking WEIRD. I get that. TOTALLY GET THAT. But it is not weird to me. I love the prayers of the Catholic church but praying for others in this hands-on let's-see-what-God-has-to-say way is not something I ever get to do.

However! I am both smarter and humbler than I used to be (though not much) and I knew that this was not the right place for me to, say, try something out. My friend didn't think this was a big thing to offer, but it was a HUGE thing for me, and I didn't want to treat it lightly. Or turn one of these college kids into a personal experiment or something. 

So I stayed out of the way and just watched it all happen. Then later my friend and I were talking about it and she was all, "we should learn how!" Just like that. And I was all, "REALLY? We can DO that? *I* can do that?!" 

This line I've drawn between my Catholic world and my old NDCF/Protestant world is getting blurrier, or disappearing, or it was never really there in the first place. When my friend told me that one of her staff people just recently converted to Catholicism I about fell over. Seriously. But why can't I go to prayer retreats put on by Protestant ministries? Why can't I go to the NDCF winter retreat and do prayer ministry there? Why can't I learn about prayer ministry from a not-Catholic perspective? 

I don't ever think I've felt like I CAN'T, more like I SHOULDN'T. But I'm not sure why. 

I know people in both places who are super passionate about what they're doing, and I SO admire them. They're so inspiring. But I don't know ANYONE who has a foot on each side. I don't know who to emulate. I don't know who to look to for ideas or guidance. That's always hard for me, not having someone to model myself after, because if a model doesn't exist, then maybe I'm not doing the right thing. And I so want to be doing the right thing. Does that make sense?

What's nice is that my friend thinks I'm a total dork about all of this and is super excited to just try things out and see what happens and maybe we should sign up for this and maybe we can go to that and THAT is really helpful. Having someone who has all of your enthusiasm and none of your neuroses. 

But really, I DO want to learn more about prayer this year, in whichever ways I can. 

Live differently!

Last weekend Phillip and I went to The New Church, just to try it out. I meant to write about it as a way of processing all the differences and thoughts I had while I was there, but I'm glad I didn't. Because even more stuff came up today, when we were back at Our Regular Church, and now I have more to say than, "The New Church has a guitar in the choir!"

I think it's probably a given that we will switch churches; it's just a matter of when it happens. It doesn't have to happen immediately, which gives us plenty of time to pray about it, but obviously what we will do is agonize and fret and prolong and argue until the solution just sort of presents itself and we go along. At least, that's what usually happens. Right now it's not even so much that we've discerned that we should switch churches, it just seems to be common sense. So. We'll see where that goes. 

One thing I liked about the new church was the priest. Kind of a moot point because he's only an interim priest and the new permanent one isn't arriving for a few more weeks. But listening to the interim priest's homily did make me realize that it's been a super long time since I've listened to anyone different (or, to be honest, LISTENED. It's helpful to not have children in order for this to happen.) Then, as I usually do when I'm comparing music styles or preaching styles or whatever, I reminded myself that It's Not About That, and promptly forgot about it. 

Then we had a new priest at the regular church today. He was just ordained last weekend. He's being assigned to a church a few hours away. For some reason he was the presider at Mass this morning and I was skeptical, as I always am when we have a guest priest. Either you can't understand them or they're boring or they're quiet or they're just differen't and you don't like them. SORRY PRIESTS. We are a tough audience. 

Then at some point during the opening prayer I saw him raise his hands a little bit, look heavenwards, and smile. And I thought: this guy is different. 

Turns out this new priest is KICK ASS and I am tempted to drive several hours each way to his new church. He's from Trinidad, he's young, he's loud, and he's passionate. His homily was on fire. His words were modern and in-touch, but so grounded and solid and true. He was funny, but not dorky funny, and not TOO funny. He used his hands. He was... effusive. It was an exhortation to be alive in the faith, to be on fire, to live differently. To live your love for Christ out loud, where other people can see. And you guys, by the end of that homily I was GONNA DO IT! Me! An example! YAY JESUS!

I came home from church feeling more renewed than I have in a long time. 

Anyway, because I am ME and I AM WHO I AM, I felt tremendously guilty about this and had to analyze my whole reaction with my husband, who is used to this sort of thing by now and knew what I was going to say before I even said it. For ten years people I've been telling myself that preaching doesn't matter. Music doesn't matter. Even community and extracurriculars are just not that important. What matters is the Eucharist, what matters is the liturgy and the Mass and if you have communion you have everything you need. You are fed. That is church.

And... I know! I do! Even at my most seriously-considering-leaping-over-to-the-Protestant-side point, I knew I wouldn't do it. The non-denominational services (which were the ones I knew) were not church. They were talks with music. I KNEW that I somehow needed/wanted liturgy, the ritual, all of it. Even though I didn't follow all of it, even though I might only feel that way because it's what I was used to - there was just something about church not being CHURCH without those things. Without communion. 

When we first started attending our regular church, it had an On Fire Priest. He left for Africa after (I think) two years. Then we got our current priest and people left in droves. I'm just being honest. I watched it happen. Our new priest was a solemn, professorial, understated, super serious kind of guy, pretty much the opposite of the previous priest. And big, fiery, passionate, loud, on-fire homilies were not his thing. They aren't his thing. I have since grown to LOVE our priest. He's immensely gifted in so many things. He's incredibly passionate about liturgy and in a small group or in a committee, I could listen to him talk for hours. He knows EVERYTHING. I respect his opinion on EVERYTHING. I ask him questions like I would ask a teacher. He IS a teacher. But I wouldn't say he's a preacher and, until today, I'd kept a tight lid on my desire for being preached at. 

It all tumbled out when I was talking to Phillip. Ten years of trying and I still don't particularly care about liturgy. I want it, I need it to be there, but it doesn't speak to me the way it speaks to so many Catholics. On certain occasions I find it beautiful and touching, but maybe once or twice a year. I have never felt 'different' after taking communion. So I tell myself, it's not about FEELING. Because it isn't. God is there no matter what. 

But is it wrong for me to FEEL more of God when I've heard good preaching? I just... I don't know. I am super sensitive to cults of personality, whether it be in politics or church. I don't like it. It turns me off. And I've been telling myself that to love a church for the preaching means I'm loving the preacher, not Jesus. But is that really true? Isn't the ability to preach well a gift from God himself? I was CLUED IN after that homily. (Again, it helps that the kids weren't there!) I was DIALED IN during communion. I still didn't 'feel' any different, but I had these words ringing in my head, as if God had said them himself. Is that not a good thing?

I have this hope, which I'm not sure is a GOOD hope, that the new priest coming to the new church is a gifted speaker. Because in my years of being churchy, this is the thing, above liturgy and music and environment, that inspires me. 

One phrase the guest priest threw out here and there was "dead church". As in "the young people say the church is dead!" Which started a discussion between Phillip and me about our impressions of church growing up. Phillip was in the same church his whole life, and his impression of Catholicism was THAT church. By virtue of quasi-military life, I got a taste of many churches. On military bases the Christian faiths share a chapel, with a staff that puts the crucifix up or down depending on who's scheduled to celebrate. The priests have 18 month tours of duty. I had a lot of priests, I lot of different chapels, and plenty of experiences inside cold, hard, European town cathedrals. In some places the church felt dead, or boring as I would have said then. Other times it had a spirit, and ALWAYS there were different cultures and different people. 

So one thing Phillip brought up is wanting to take our kids to different churches every once in a while. Not so much that you don't have a 'home' church, but maybe once every couple of months. Attend a minority church, a downtown church, a church where the music is supposed to be awesome, a church that looks completely different from ours. Just so our kids know there are other Catholics out there and while the Mass is the same, everyone puts a little different spin on it. That our church may be full of wealthy white people, but there are churches full of poor not-white people. Catholics are all kinds of people. 

I think I like this idea. 

Anyway... these are all the things I'm thinking about re: switching church. Tonight I am missing the amazing speakers I heard in college, the many gifted preachers I've heard on retreats. 

Could I BE more vague?

So you know how I was all, "I want to do MINISTRY and I don't HAVE to do it in the Catholic church! SO THERE!" Well, now, of course, I have this Idea for a new sort of something at my own church. Specifically for Catholic women. Mmm, this humble pie is delicious. 

One thing I've noticed, in my admittedly limited experience, is that the Protestants are pretty on top of ministering to the Youth while the Catholics are, uh, not. I think it could be argued that the Catholics are not so great at outreach in general (AGAIN, in my admittedly limited experience!) We are awesome at serving the poor (there are seriously nine thousand million ways to help feed the hungry at my church) but small groups always die, young adult ministry struggles, and there's nothing out there for young mothers. As much as I eventually decided I hated MOPS, at least it's something! 

But another thing I wonder: it seems like a lot of Catholics aren't interested in faith sharing groups, whatever they may be, and is that because Catholics aren't the types to be interested? Or because they're just unfamiliar with that culture? Or some third thing I haven't thought of? This interests me GREATLY. I think about it often, but I am easily distracted and I have yet to come upon The Answer.

Even before my detour into Protestant Youth Groupiness I was interested in faith sharing (that's exactly why I ended UP in the NDCF). And I miss it. I have it amongst certain groups of friends and I value it immensely. Over the years I've been involved in various groups at church, all trying in their various ways to Grow and none of them exactly panned out. Or they lasted exactly as long as they were supposed to last and that was it. Which is fine. Not everyone craves it like me. It's not necessary. And perhaps my experiences aren't very common - maybe it IS this hard, and not just for Catholics. 

ANYWAY. I have this little seedling of an idea for a faith sharing group for my demographic at church. And it's weird, because the whole time it's been growing in my mind, I haven't been particularly excited about it. This will sound strange, but I think that's a GOOD thing. Usually when I have ideas they tend to be Grand! Ideas! and I get all control freaky about them, I don't want help, I want to be in charge, I have a specific vision, I have super high hopes, I am completely inflexible about the possible outcomes. I want to SUCCEED. (Hello Type Three! You rear your vain little head again!) But this time... eh. I have an idea. It may or may not work out. I'm not sure if anyone would even be interested. And I most certainly do NOT want to be in charge. I know I will have to do the organizing and asking around and working with the powers that be, but I don't want to be the one, you know, LEADING IT. I am not good at that - and do you know how hard it is for me to say that? OH HUMBLE PIE.

Yes, I know I haven't really told you what my idea is, but to be honest, a lot of the details are still very fuzzy to me. I talked to a not-Catholic friend the other day and she gave me some really great ideas, so I need to mull those over. What I want is to create a place where women in my stage of life can come and talk about God - but a SAFE place. A no pressure place. Where there are no expectations, at least not at first, and where you can participate as much or as little as you'd like. I mean, the HOPE would be that EVENTUALLY it would be deeper, people could be talkier, people would GET it. But my feeling right now is that there are a lot of people who are seeking SOMETHING, possibly something like this, but aren't quite sure about it, or what it is, or whether they really do want it, or they're suspicious, or it's just totally new. Maybe it'd be a total bust, but it seems like something my church could at least offer. 

HOW to do that is another pile of thoughts. I am picking through that pile right now, keeping, tossing, saving for later.

But... that's the [fuzzy, wispy, not-quite-fully-formed] idea. 

In which I start to break a rule I didn't know I had

Would you believe that God took eight years of struggle and despair and frustration and anger and hopelessness and feelings of massive failure and turned them around in the course of one week? 

Eight years - that's how long I've been trying to figure out how to do this Catholic thing. Which I know isn't even the right way to say it or describe it, but seriously, that's all I could figure out how to say for eight years. How do I DO this? How come nothing WORKS? How come nothing FITS? Why do I feel so endlessly constantly strangely LOST? Am I really supposed to be Catholic? If I'm really supposed to be Catholic, how come I suck so much at being one? 

(My choice of phrasing has yet to be transformed, obvs.)

So a few things happened. I started a stupid Catholic BLOG, which you have to admit is kind of ridiculous, not to mention incredibly difficult to update, but I started it and it's been... not exactly fun or amazing, but held me accountable to keeping the struggle in mind. Instead of, you know, ditching it altogether and heading out to the Unitarian church. 

Then my friend who's been harping on me to read the enneagram stuff for YEARS finally convinced me this spring and dude. Type Three rocked my world. I know it's weird. I know it's Not Biblical. I know it's potentially just another personality test. But it spoke to me (one day I'll have to write about how much it's improved communication in my marriage) and it set a few thoughts in motion. 

Then I went to see a spiritual director and wound myself into a good smelly completely-out-of-character funk. 

Then last Saturday I went to a women's conference hosted by a large Christian charity. I went with a Catholic friend and I feel safe saying we were probably the only Catholics in attendance. Both of us having some sort of background in worship music and free form prayer and just the general CULTURE, we were comfortable and eager to be there, but we both felt nervous revealing what church we went to. And when a panelist asked the attendees to share what kind of prayer was especially meaningful to them, both my friend and I (I found out later, when we debriefed in bumper to bumper traffic) kept our mouths shut because neither of us wanted to blurt "the Rosary!" to a room full of non-denominational churchgoers. 

And yet... I feel certain now that God brought me to that conference (I didn't decide go to until almost the last minute) not because he wanted me to start my own organization chapter and start fund raising for anti-human trafficking campaigns (more power to those of you doing THAT!), but because he wanted me THERE. Surrounded by this oh so familiar yet foreign culture. Remembering that I love this culture, that I fit in in ways I never do in Catholic settings. Of course that all made me very anxious, and that was part of our debriefing in the car. Does the fact that we are inspired and challenged and excited mean we are CHEATING on the Catholic church?! 

Were we? One of the workshops I attended was on prayer, which is what I feel most called to do and most confused about doing in a Catholic setting. I loved the speaker immediately. Small, quirky, unafraid to be wildly emotional, kind of nutty, speaking in hushed tones then practically shouting, and so obviously close to God. And half the books she was recommending on prayer, half the PRAYERS she was introducing to us, were Catholic or had their roots in orthodox traditions. It was... well, entirely new to me. Fresh, bright, hopeful. I felt welcome. 

I hardly knew what to say about my experience at that conference. I kept it to myself. This Saturday Phillip and I met with our longtime friends - this is our fifth year doing our couples retreat based on St. Ignatius' Examen. We are the only Catholics in this group and while they all know this is something I struggle with, I've never really laid it out like I did this weekend. I told them how amazing it was to hear a Protestant woman recommend, well, the Examen! And when I finally fessed up to what church I attended, hearing her say, "That's lovely" and actually believing her. I told them how exciting it was to be there and how I was toying with the idea of joining the charity's prayer group. Then I told them how strongly, how deeply, how VERY MUCH I believe God wants me in the Catholic church, and then how much I despair of ever finding my PLACE in the Catholic church. What do I do as a Catholic? I asked this over and over. What do I DO?

I love that my Protestant friends, heavily involved in their Protestant churches, love and trust that God calls Phillip and me to the Catholic church. I am so grateful. And I am learning from you, my not Catholic readers, that I need to not be so fearful of revealing my Catholic identity in Protestant settings. That was one thing I learned this weekend. 

The other thing I learned can be found in the scripture God gave one of my friends as she prayed for me. 

In it were all the earth's four-legged animals and reptiles and the birds of the sky.

13

A voice said to him, "Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat."

14

But Peter said, "Certainly not, sir. For never have I eaten anything profane and unclean."

15

The voice spoke to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you are not to call profane."

 

I had no idea what she was talking about. And I worried that she thought I thought anything not-Catholic was "unclean". 

Later I looked up the entire verse - Acts, Chapter 10 - and then I read it about a million times. The parts that stood out to me were: 

While he conversed with him, he went in and found many people gathered together

28

and said to them, "You know that it is unlawful for a Jewish man to associate with, or visit, a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call any person profane or unclean. ¹⁰

29

And that is why I came without objection when sent for.

and

Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, "In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.

Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.

The word my friend kept hearing as she prayed, she told me, was "reconciliation". 

I'm not trying to make some pronouncement about the Protestant/Catholic divide, I'm really not. I don't know anything about it and far be it from me to act like I do. What I CAN say is that I am somehow in the middle of it, and that for eight years any pull I've felt towards any Protestant organization or church or ministry or bit of culture has felt like I am failing my call to be Catholic. I feel like I finally have the right words for what I've been trying to figure out. That what I am longing for is a ministry, a way to serve God, a way to use the gifts he's given me, and I feel as though I've done my absolute best to find such a thing in my church, in Catholic organizations, in Catholic culture. And I just haven't found it. I'm not saying I've found it in a Protestant setting either, but now I feel like the option is available to me. And I feel like God is telling me that it would be okay, that it wouldn't be cheating on my Catholicism and it certainly wouldn't be a failure. 

We went to early Mass Sunday morning and God spoke to us. In the homily, in the eucharist - it helped that the kids weren't there, it helped that we were in an already churchy frame of mind. I felt so assured, so confident, that Mass is where I belong on Sunday mornings. I sat in the pew realizing how it was ME who decided it was unlawful to participate anywhere else, and how God had just given me permission break my own rules. 

As this is the umpteenth blog post I've written trying to record what has happened over the last several weeks, it's apparent I cannot fully or accurately describe how freeing this is.  

I sort of hoped to write my way through it, but it didn't work this time

I am still reading up on the Enneagram. Shut up. 

I finished Helen Palmer's (secular) book and I just borrowed Richard Rohr's (with a Christian perspective) today. After reading HP's version of things I couldn't tell if I'm a One or a Three. Perfectionist or Performer? Anger or Deceit? I closely identified with traits in both descriptions. I decided to forget about it for a while and think about it later. It's later now, and I've just read this snippet of description in RR's chapter on Threes: 

To be healed and redeemed, Threes, like Twos, must learn to be alone. Both need a place of silence and seclusion where there is no public feedback, no applause, and no admiration. Contemplative prayer and silent meditation are the appropriate "prescriptions". But the path into the depths is wearisome and far. When Threes begin to discover their inner world, in the beginning they generally make that into a project too: they want to meditate successfully. It takes a while before they notice that the point is to do nothing, to learn nothing, simply to exist. As soon as threes learn this, they will make the effort "simply to exist" and "to learn nothing" with as much success as possible. The fruitful way into the depths demands a great deal of patience from Threes and the readiness to experience nothing spectacular for quite a while, or to be confronted with their own hostility, boredom and superficiality.

So, um, I think I've figured it out. (emphasis mine)

There are two things I take from this. The desire for success (and spectacular success at that) and the desire for applause and admiration. These things are fuel for my warped little psyche, a somewhat humiliating thing for me to note, but RR assures me that I'm supposed to feel humiliated when I finally discover my type. 

It took me two years to hunt down Success and Admiration in the NDCF. After a life spent being good at everything (and if I wasn't good at it, I immediately bowed out so as to better maintain the image) it was horrid having to sit out all the important meetings and decisions in the NDCF. Didn't they know I'd be awesome at it?! 

But someone helped me find my niche junior year and I started leading prayer groups. I was good at prayer. Is that a horribly obnoxious thing to say? But I was. At least, it looked like I was. And I desperately wanted to be. I felt I had a place, and not only that, I had some clout and respect. I was known. I have gifts in prayer, and at that point the best thing about those gifts was the way they made me special in everyone's eyes. Success! (Some of it spectacular!) And admiration! 

Then I graduated. I church shopped. I wondered what the hell I was going to do NOW. Because you KNOW the Catholics weren't going to dig my Gifts. There aren't any Catholic churches positioning the members of the prayer team near the altar in case you are Suddenly Afflicted and need an insta-line to God. There aren't any 24-hour prayer campaigns, no prayer walking, no laying of hands, no "let's pray about it and see what happens!" group prayer. And if they DO do some of these things, it's with an entirely different attitude. Lots of rules, lots of caution, lots of annoying skepticism. What a DRAG.

I'm not a totally unredeemed Three, however. I knew I took great stock in my own self. Perhaps this is even why I felt it was safer - safer for my salvation - to remain a Catholic. 

And yet, I struggle. I struggle SO MUCH. For a long time I thought about running away with the Charismatics. For many reasons, the chief one being "it just doesn't feel right", I never went this route. And in the meantime I've read books, I've talked with Learned Ladies, I've experimented in this group and that one. And the whole time I feel that the answer is in front of me: to sit, to be still, to be with God. Alone. 

I just can't do it. 

Well. Let me think about it. I think I CAN. I can do it for MAYBE thirty seconds. And then, after a thirty second tangent on, say, what we're having for dinner or how my knee itches, I can do another thirty seconds. And repeat. (In summary: I am bad at it.) 

Lots of people have this issue. I'm not special. But the other thing I am loathe to admit is that I think I don't want to sit and be still. I'm bad at sitting still in the first place, no matter the circumstances. And beyond that, I've had the most amazing Religious Experiences in which I am most decidedly NOT alone. Beautiful fantastical things have happened in GROUPS. When I am caught up with everyone else. When I have a structure, an outline for prayerful success, when I have an opportunity to share my gifts with others, by which I mean, impress them. (In summary: I want the applause.) 

When I say I think I'd make a much better Protestant than a Catholic, I mean exactly that. 

When I tell you I've stopped reading nearly every Catholic blog on the internet, simply because I cannot measure up to, nor can I figure out how to duplicate, their quiet, dignified, contemplative, solitary, exquisitely holy ruminations on how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours with toddlers or how good it was to go to Adoration yesterday evening, I'm not trying to be mean or negative - I'm envious. I haven't a clue how to do what they do.

Yet, here I am. Catholic. Convinced beyond a doubt that this is where God wants me. Trying on a new Catholic hat every year, hoping that something will stick. Am I good with people who want to convert? Should I help administratively? Do I have something to offer the spiritual life of my parish? Can I whip coffee hour into shape? Do I mold myself into a Catholic prayer group member? Do I start my own Catholic blog? 

I AM SUCH A THREE. (In summary: hopeless.)

I have so much more to say about this. My experience with anxiety factors so completely into nearly every facet of this Enneagram stuff. How uber-aware I am of my need for affirmation, and how it has the opposite effect sometimes, of keeping me from doing things I think I should do. Why I think writing is good practice. Why I BLOG, even. But nap time is over, if the whimpering from downstairs is any indication. 

Tokens

I can't remember exactly when I first heard someone say this, but I know that when I DID hear someone say this: Catholics aren't Christians! my general reaction was: WTF? 

Well, maybe not that exactly, since I was probably in, like, grade school, but you know what I mean. Because, well, doesn't believing in Jesus make you a Christian? Argue with that, Kid Who's Probably Just Repeating Something He Heard His Parents Say And Totally Doesn't Understand! 

It took me a while before I really understood what people meant by that (although far be it from me to attempt to explain it here, my brain is readying the strike signs just at the suggestion I start thinking about it) and while my general reaction is STILL one of disbelief, I have been The Token Catholic enough times to take it seriously.

One of my least favorite questions is, "What church do you go to?" No one asks this question except for friends of my variation-on-Protestant friends, all of whom are variations-on-Protestant themselves. People ask me this at parties, at playgroups, at dinner, pretty much any time I am in a social situation with a bunch of people who know each other from church (which is pretty often in my circle of friends.) 

I answer this question with, "St. Hortense The Great" and when they cock their heads and look a smidgen confused, I follow that up with, "It's the big church in the Rich Neighborhood" and when they STILL don't know I spell it out for them: "It's a Catholic church." 

And most of them, because they are kind and polite, go, "Ohhh!" and change the subject. 

And I NEVER KNOW! I mean, here are the possible reasons they're changing the subject:

1. They've never heard of that church, so nothing in common to talk about THERE. (Totally fine.)
2. They've established we do not go to the same church, so nothing in common to talk about THERE. (Also totally fine.)
3. They have heard of these Catholic people and have some misgivings, but I must be all right because I'm a friend of her friend. (Whatever. I get it.)
4. They've realized they are talking to a PAPIST. Red alert! Red alert! (SIGH.)

Seriously, it is a RARE just-met-person who continues down the church path once it's become clear I go to a Catholic church. 

And you're right Internet, I am probably not giving these friends of friends any credit whatsoever. Just because *I* am comfortable talking to someone working deep within the trenches of church planting and closes their eyes and waves their arms around when they sing worship songs doesn't mean THEY are comfortable with someone who thinks that little wafer thing is ACTUALLY JESUS. 

I'm always nervous answering that question. Always. 

There were ways in which Phillip and I had to sort of gain trust... legitimately or not, I don't know. But thankfully it's now something to joke about. My friend on the volleyball team has hookups for other sports teams, and we were trying to figure out how to sneak me on to one of them. Most of them are outreach ministries, meaning something like half the team has to be made up of non-Christians. "But," my friend said, "it's okay, we'll tell them you're Catholic!" 

We thought that was very funny. 

Phillip and I have been lucky to keep so many of our old and dear friends from our Non-Denominational College Fellowship days. We are the Token Catholics in that group, just like we were in college, and because we're people who talk openly and frequently about our faith, we're grateful it's been so easy to share, on both sides. 

There used to be a nun at our church who felt strongly - very VERY strongly - about reconciliation between Christians. She was (and IS) the only person I'd ever met who ever talked about this, who lamented all the division and prayed fervently for healing. She gave it a name - until I met her it was just "they don't think I'm a Christian" and "they think they can just start a new church whenever they feel like it" and on and on and on. 

I don't even know where to start figuring out what I think about that. It's too huge, too impossible really. People are probably just fine in their own denominations, thankyouverymuch. But I don't mind being a token, not even if I'm asked a million times over what church I attend, and I'll vouch for my Protestant brothers and sisters as well. I welcome the opportunities to ratchet down the weirdness for either group - you know, sometimes I like to sing with my arms raised too.