Immaculate Conception of St. Mary

Note: if you'd like some great music to listen to while you read, scroll down and hit play. I'll wait. . .

Nothing better than getting back to your roots. There's just something about familiarity that

makes you say "Aaaah, I'm home". This Sunday I got back to where your Reverend got his theological start, the Roman Catholic Church.

I've been wanting to stay local, so I went on over to Immaculate Conception (Catholic churches have the best names evah!) in Kenmore, located right across the street from Kenmore High School, your

reverends alma mater! This is the place where I had catechism, took my first confession, and my first communion way back in the day.

However, I think the last I was in there was for the always awesome IC Festival, where one can lose their money playing cards, shooting dice, and drinking beer, all on the top floor of the attached Catholic school. And this is why Catholics are so much cooler than Protestants!

I left the house (left my Bible at home, no need for one at the Catholic church. They have the misselette!) and got there with plenty of time to spare. The people there were friendly enough but if you're looking for people to introduce themselves to you or give you a free gift (Lighthouse, you're still the champ!), then keep looking. People are there to take their sacraments and get out. No time for milling about or fellowship, which is kind of sucky if you ask me (which you did by reading this).

So it's been a few years since I've been to mass and I have to be honest, I've forgotten some of the moves. When to sign the cross, when to kneel, and what some of the words are to the Nicene Creed and other call and repeat sections. As a vistor, especially if I was someone who has never been to church before, this would have been a total put off. Not to mention, does anyone really know why they're doing it? Or is it just some ritual that ya do cause that's what you're supposed to do? Hrm. . .

Worship was bleh. Yes. Bleh. First of all, they called out the number of the hymn you're supposed to be singing but the number they called out wasn't a page number and I couldn't seem to make the connection with the books that I had at my disposal (3 books were in the pew, mind you). So I just kind of stood there and hoped they sang one I knew (they did sing one I knew). With that, however, the band was pretty good and they were into it (they even had a tamborine! My favorite instrument!) but again, it sucked that I couldn't sing along.

The priests sermon (or as they call it, homily) was good for content but not in delivery. His tone was dry and he used, what I thought, were too many big theological terms that I guess he assumed everyone knew. The subject was the Trinity and how there is one God, consisting of three distinct persons but one essense. After he expounded on that for a few minutes, though, he switched up and talked about how as Christians, we're called to be apart of our communities and that we should be in the world but not of the world. Again, good stuff that could have been delivered a little better.

Before I render my final opinion, I want you to know that I am no Catholic hater, which some Protestants are. Sure, I have some problems with a few of their doctines but I give them props for being constant for almost 2,000 years. They've had their problems (Crusades, Inquisition) but they hold strong on other issues I'm passionate about (abortion, death penalty, etc.). Not to mention, these are the people that taught me my first bible stories and got me in on the ground floor (my favorite being when we re-enacted the Good Samaritan parable, and we all got to pick parts. Being 8 year old boys, we ALL wanted to be the bandits beat up on each other!)

With that, I wasn't too impressed with it. Not knowing "the moves", no fellowship, and poor worship all combine to make for a bad Sunday. I really wanted to like it but just couldn't get around those things.

Oh well, next week is another Sunday and another church. God is good.

Peace,

Rev.