Sunday, February 1, 2009

My realizations at the light on the Hill

Today I went to mass for the first time in a few months and it felt good. Before this morning I forgot why I used to go to church. I used to go because I actually liked it. And I am glad I remembered that.

But, that is not the point of my writing today. I had two much needed and humorous realizations as the priest at St. Anne Catholic Church began to introduce the congregation to the Book of Mark. As he started talking about John the Baptist and the scribes and the Jewish synagogues and the demonic spirit Jesus drove out of the convulsing boy, I felt my heart pumping harder and the wheels in my brain kick into learning mode. My hands wanted to reach into my bag and grab a pencil and paper and start writing. I wanted to start taking notes. This led me to my first realization: I am, more or a less, a Scriptures geek. I thirst for a deeper understanding of the Bible and its contextual histories. I cannot help but want to absord it all. And I laughed at myself because I have actually considered dropping my Scripture classes to focus on my major. Ha.

As the priest kept talking, a second realization quickly came upon me like a deep, cold breath of fresh air: here is a Catholic priest preaching the word of God to a congregation and supplementing the miracles, the teachings and the wanderings of Jesus with historical and contextual facts. How dare people claim that Catholics do not know their Bible. And come to think of it, there had previously been readings from the Old Testament. Of course there were because there are always readings from the good ol' O.T. I cannot tell you how many Protestant churches I have walked into without once hearing about the Old Testament. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked out of those same churches only hearing about how Jesus loves me and the lowest of the lows. That is really important but there is so much more there. And I will be the first to admit that Catholic churches are not perfect and not all Protestant churches only focus on the New Testament, but the Catholic Church is pretty freakin' holisitic.

(And now I just had realization number two point five: I do not have to worry about leaving SPU and no longer having access to knowledgeable theologians because a good church should be teaching the congregation about the Bible and offering classes in order to go deeper with the Word.)

Lastly, I read this article from the BBC and it made me giggle. It is about the word "bankster" and is more or less criticizing Wall Street and the corrupt wealthy people in this world.

Peace be with you.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I almost said, "Hey, that's what we heard today, too"...and then I realized that we were both in Catholic churches, so it didn't matter if you were in Kenya and I was in Sydney...we'd still hear the same thing. And it makes me happy.