st. marys.

So, last week I went to church for the first time on my own in my adult life.  I had thought about going after I found out that one of my best friends, Candice, told me that her Aunt Linda had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer that has already metastasized to her liver.  I know you can pray for someone outside of church, but for some reason it seems like the prayers get to God faster in church.  So, I decided to bite the bullet and get my ass to mass! (hahaha)

Sunday morning I woke up and thought - I can either put on my old sweatshirt and Christmas socks and plop on the couch for a few hours, or I can get in the shower and go to church.  Thankfully, I chose the latter.  I decided to go to the church that was built around the time I moved to Richmond by our old town house.  After looking at it online I realized that it was more of a modern style church, but I thought I would give it a try.  Emily had been to St. Michaels (another Catholic church in the area) and wasn't very impressed, so I thought I would try St. Marys to see if this would be the church that I wanted to bring my family to in the future. 

I knew that I would think of Grandma during church because she, along with my mom, have been the two biggest faith figures in my life.  I remember going up for communion and spotting Grandma and Grandpa in the pews on my walk back and being soo excited because I knew they would insist on taking us to McDonalds for lunch after mass!  Anyway, as I sat down last Sunday I became somewhat overwhelmed by the memories of Grandma.  I kept thinking - she would think this church is stupid...way too modern for her taste.  It didn't help that November in St. Marys is the month where the congregation brings pictures of loved ones who have passed and put them by the altar to be prayed over.  So, as I sat there I got to the point of choking back tears...it doesn't seem to get easier that she is gone.  I cry at random times, but sitting in a church where I know NO ONE is not the best place to have a break-down!  I almost had to get up and leave, but I was able to get it together after a few minutes and decided I would stay.  It would make her happy and I hope she was proud that I went...


As I said before, I knew the church was more of a modern style, but I realized as I walked in that the church was VERY modern and I didn't enjoy the set up at all.  The 'altar' was towards the middle of the room and wasn't even a real altar...it just didn't feel holy enough to me.  I don't know, it felt weird...so as I sat in the pew I realized there were NO kneeling benches.  Ummm...did they expect me to kneel on the floor?  How rude.  Well, it turns out that, no, they do not expect you to kneel on the floor because they don't kneel in this church!  Wtf?  I hated kneeling as a child in church, but now that I'm older I realize that it is a part of mass and quite frankly, I was irritated that they took that out of the mass.  Then I realized that the altar boys (ok, I guess they are called altar 'servers' now, but I think it is stupid to have girls do this because traditionally it is boys...don't judge me) weren't even wearing the cloak things!!!  They were wearing regular clothes!  What kind of operation are these people running?!?!  Then, the last straw was the fact that they give wine at communion.  REAL WINE, PEOPLE.  Not only that, but everyone drinks out of the same cup!  WTF?!  First of all, it's flu season, second of all, it's 2010 it is NOT ok to share a cup with another 100 people.  Good God....needless to say I skipped the wine station.  Sick. 

I was less than impressed and will probably be on the lookout for a new church.  This week I found a BEAUTIFUL cathedral in downtown Richmond that is actually closer to my house and looks phenomenallllllll.  However, it faces Monroe Park which is the park where all the homeless people congregate in Richmond.  Soooo, I need to think about that one for a bit.

But, overall, it felt good to go to mass and I am really glad I did.  I hope to try to go more often from now on. (you know, more than once every 5 years) I plan on raising my children Catholic, so I should probably get right with God before I start preaching to the choir, but I've got plenty of time to do that because there are no babies in my near future!

toodles.