2002-04-05 - 9:59 a.m.

Okay...I know both of you that actually read this are just hanging on tenterhooks waiting for Installment Two (Of three, or maybe four...can't quite figure that out yet...guess we'll see...).

The rest of you who haven't read part one, just hit the "Previous" button now...trust me, this one will make a lot more sense if you board the bus at the beginning of the route.

Incidentally, this is all true, this isn't some made up "Just how weird can one person's religious experiences be" kinda thing...this all happened to me...which probably explains my distrust of the entire genre...although I must admit Ben Hur is a cool movie.

Anyhow...when we last left our intrepid hero...(that's me) he didn't know nuffin, other than that religion was a touchy subject around Mom and Dad, but that other kids seemed to do something sometimes...

It's all Pia's fault.

Pia was this girl in College, who was engaged to a Catholic guy, and they were planning their marriage. One of the things that she willingly went through (since she was about a zillion times more pliable than my Mother) was the little "What's it like to be married to a Catholic person" classes.

Apparently, she liked it so much, she joined the religion, full fledged conversion and the whole nine yards.

So she'd been a Catholic for about 8-10 months or so, and she'd been in my little circle of friends for about 6 months (my College circle of friends was a very diverse, yet almost completely geeky, group), and it was a rainy Saturday.

The rain matters, you see, because I had a car, and noone else in the group did.

So Pia and Amy (another person in the circle, one I actually dated for a while, but that's another story) want to go to Saturday evening service, but it's raining and they don't want to walk the 1/2 mile and get all soaked and sick. So they ask me if I'd drive them.

I said "Sure, no problem" (I always said "Sure, no problem" in college...haven't broken that habit yet either).

So Pia asks if I wanted to attend the service rather than just either drop off and come back in an hour or sit in the parking lot looking like a freak.

I pondered on this for a bit. I knew the story of my birth and all the crapola associated with it. I knew that my dabblings in looking at most of the big (and several of the small) players in the religion field had been...well...bleah. But I had never actually gone to a Catholic Church. Part of the reptile brain was convinced that I was a Bastard child doomed to Hell and that a big bolt of lightning would strike me down if I so much as entered the Church (one too many of the movies Balynar likes to watch, I imagine).

And I said "Sure, why not?" (Hey, it was a dull and rainy Saturday in February in rural Illinois...it was either that or...umm...nothing).

So Pia and Amy spent 20 minutes or so giving me the "Surviving a Catholic Service when you're not a Catholic for Dummies" class. Little things, like "don't drink the Holy Water, even if you're *really* thirsty", "Resting your feet on the kneeling benches is okay, but it's not really what they're there for", "When everyone else stands up for Communion, let them past, but you can just stay there, it's okay" kinda stuff.

So we went to the 5:00 service at St. Luke's Church in beautiful Uptown Eureka, Illinois (population 5,000, Catholic Population 125 or so).

And things made sense.

I'm not going to say that there was a bright light passing through the stained glass like that scene from the Blues Brothers, nor am I going to say I heard a voice saying "Heyas, this is God, nice to see you" or anything like that. There was just a feeling of...comfort I guess is the best term...this was a bunch of folks who had something in Common, and got together to celebrate this nifty thing for an hour or so, and hear the cool stories, and all of that sort of thing.

It probably helped that Father Purcell was the Priest. Father Purcell was a white haired, 6'2, 200 lb, probably 45 or so year old kinda guy, who had this minor speech impediment (a little stutter, nothing bad, just noticeable), but he could get into the rhythym of the service and you could see the impediment go away for a bit.

So after the service, they have the little "receiving line" kinda thing, and Pia and Amy introduce me (I get the feeling they had told him in advance we were coming). He says Hello and says he understands there are some things I have questions about and if I would like he would call me the next day in the afternoon and we could discuss it.

I said "Sure, why not"

So he calls me on the following Sunday, and we talk for about 45 minutes. He listens to the entire story as I understand it, and he makes the appropriate "I understand" noises along the way.

After I explain it all, he says "Okay, that's one of those things that is unfortunate, and here's what happened and why." and proceeded to explain about the changes that happened in the late 60's, and how some pockets of the Church (notably Boston...) were real slow to adapt, and how things were really different 22 years later and how No, I wasn't a Bastard comdemmned to Hell, Monsignor Mann was being reactionary and not at all correctly, and he'd be glad to talk to me and explain everything more if I wanted.

It seemed like a fair deal to me, so I agreed. We set up an appointment for the following Thursday afternoon.

At that appointment, he had (apparently) called Massachusetts and talked to old time folks and found out the entire story, because he told me that Monsignor Mann wasn't around any more, but that the folks there now agreed that he had handled things badly.

So we talk, and I ask questions, and he asks me what I know about the Bible and Religion and stuff, and I tell him the story of the Gospel as I understood it (which wasn't all that far off from the "correct" version, not bad for a heathen :) ), and we talk, and he explains what the focus of the Church was (Caring for that part of the spirit that goes looking for something more), and the community, and all of these sorts of things, and he hands me a bunch of books. Like 4 of them, and they were *all* 400-500 pages.

Fortunately for me, I'm a speedreader. I went through them all that weekend. I think I impressed Father Purcell when we talked the next week and I had a bunch more questions.

That process went on for three or four iterations, and eventually, he said "Okay, I have to ask you an unfair question at this point...what do you want to do next?"

I said "Umm...dunno...what do I do next?"

And the planning for my Catholic Triathlon began.

I never went through "formal" RCIA. I went through kind of an informal RCIA light. It took about a month of meeting 2-3 times a week and talking and asking questions and the like.

And then, on the Sunday before Good Friday, 1992 (Nope, I don't remember the exact date...it's on a certificate somewhere, I'm sure), instead of a homily, Father Purcell brought me up to the front of the Church, Baptized me, Comfirmed me, and generally set me up as a certified (Hey, I got a certificate, so it's certified) Roman Catholic.

It made sense to me. Would things be different if I had had to wait until the next fall and gone through the entire formal RCIA process? Maybe...maybe not.

I have no problem whatsoever with the Church in Illinois. I was in fact very active. I was a lector, I even pondered Ministry for a bit. I determined it wasn't the path for me, but I did consider it. Things made that much sense.

When I went off to Grad School, I joined the congregation at Northern Illinois University (it was one of those Campus Centers...I don't remember the name). I wasn't as devout as I had been in undergrad, but I was a comfortably functioning Roman Catholic. I didn't make Church every week, but I made it every 2 or 3 weeks. I didn't go to confession very often, but you didn't have to. Basically, I consider myself to have been about average.

Then, the bottom dropped out of my world, Grad School stopped making sense, I was way too deep in debt to continue, and I moved to Omaha, Nebraska to take a job with the only skills I had...and I discovered just how much things can change if you move as little as 400 miles.

But, that's Monday's entry.

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