#64: Visit Churches

I grew up going to St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Austin, although my attendance started to lag in high school and dropped off almost completely in college--apart from holidays when I'd attend with my family. I've still considered myself Catholic, though, and have been wanting to start going back to church regularly, especially since K and I got married.

Living in Round Rock, the closest church to our house (literally about 10 minutes away) is St. William's. Just before Christmas, I decided to try it out, but ended up at their old church in an empty parking lot minutes before mass was scheduled to begin. Whoops! I knew they had built a new church, I just thought I'd googled the correct new address.

This past weekend, I knew my dad was singing in the choir at St.. Theresa's Saturday night mass, so we didn't make plans to attend there on Sunday. K suggested we give St. William's another try. Naturally, we were running a little later than planned. One of the things I liked about St. William's is a mass scheduled a little later on Sunday mornings, at 11:30. The later time should give us plenty of time to have a little bit of a lazy Sunday morning but also get out the door to church. We arrived at the church pretty close to 11:30, and sure enough, there was a person standing at the driveway with a "Church Full" sign. Luckily, K remembered that they were having additional services at their Parish Hall. . .which I was all too familiar with from my December church search adventure. The old church now serves as the Parish Hall. We arrived there to a mostly empty room--we were now almost 30 minutes early for service. At least we were able to find seats! I was also pleased to see a lot of younger people in the congregation, and many young families with adorable little ones in their Easter outfits. The crowd seemed very similar to St. Theresa's, which I liked.

However. I noticed a few things during the service, and K did, too--we talked through our concerns afterwards and decided to give them another try next week, in case a non-holiday service feels more comfortable for us. In short, the Pastor was not exactly our style. When he opened the mass, he seemed very friendly and made a couple of humorous comments. But, his sermon was very long (30+ minutes) and seemed a little rambly and un-focused. I just couldn't relate to many of the things he was saying. Some of them were interesting to me, and I appreciated his thoughts, but I found my mind wandering more than once. K was irritated by the way he seemed to cut off the congregation in the prayers where the priest says something, the congregation responds, and the priest says something else. Before the congregation was finished, he was already beginning the next thing. (This didn't really bother me, but K thought it was disrespectful towards the congregation.)

But, something that bothered both of us were the comments he made just before communion began. He mentioned that communion was for Catholics only, but others were welcome to come up for a blessing with their arms folded. I have seen/heard this before in other churches, and I remembered seeing people (especially kids) go up for blessings when everyone else is taking communion. The priest went on to say that people taking communion should be prepared to receive it, so if they have not gone to confession in over a year, they should use the time to pray and settle their minds. I haven't been to confession in over a year (in fact, it's been many years), but I felt like I was prepared to receive it and was comfortable with my decision to do so. But the real kicker was the announcement that if people were not members of the church, and just guests, they were welcome to come up for a blessing, but should not take communion. I was totally surprised by this. I have never been a guest at a Catholic Church where I was told that I was not welcome to take communion. I thought I may have mis-heard, and in my confusion assumed that he was still talking about non-Catholic guests. So when time came for our row to stand, I stood. K remained seated and told me he wasn't going. I went, I took communion, and returned to my seat, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. K explained to me afterwards why he didn't take communion, and as we talked, I realized that my initial reaction was correct: as a non-member of that church, I was not welcome to take communion and should have abstained. I still don't understand why. I believe that if I am willing to request and accept communion, I should be allowed to receive it.

Apparently, K & I were spoiled by the churches we grew up attending. Both were very welcoming to all. At various times in our lives, we and our families enjoyed close relationships with our church leaders. We want to feel welcome, even if we aren't able to be there every Sunday. We are planning to give St. William's another try (or two), and I do hope it works out there. It's hard to be ready to renew our commitment to our church, find one seemingly so convenient and close, only to feel discouraged that it didn't work out right away.