Yesterday was taken up with church activities. First Niks and I went to our own Unitarian Church to pick up donated items to take to the halfway house for female offenders who are trying to start anew. Then we had lunch at a funky little off-the-beaten-path Mexican Restaurant. Food is pretty good, place is shabby.
In the afternoon we went to the grandtwins' confirmation in the Catholic Church. Whoa! It was almost two hours long---and I do mean LONG. When you are a Unitarian, these ceremonies really seem bizarre. Grown men in gowns and funny hats, kissing scrolls and such, blowing smoke (literally and I guess for me figuratively).
I don't mean to make fun of anyone's religion, but I have to wonder if people were just repeating stuff by rote, and not actually feeling the words at all. There were about 1,000 people there for about 160 kids being confirmed. The place was packed, and the parking was try-to-find-it. It was amazing. I can't complain about the number of people per kid, since there were nine people there for our two kids. (In addition to the family members there were "sponsors" for each child being confirmed.)
Luckily I was seated next to Lucinda, so I could talk to her some of the time. When we were on the 6th (yes, sixth!) page of the program, and we had been there for an hour and a half or longer, we noticed that we still had TWO INCHES of program left! Oy! Who knew how long two inches of program could last? They still had communion to do. But they really sped up the communion-I have never seen communion go that fast for 1,000 folks. We slipped out to go to the girls' room while they were singing, "Take and eat, take and eat...", ugh. Ghoulish. "Take and drink, take and drink, this is my blood..." Oh my. Communion is not my thing.
The girls were beautiful as usual. I feel for them. I know that they had to say, "I do," to things that they don"t actually believe. Sigh.
6 comments:
I really need to shorten up the ritual. Or at least liven it up with a PowerPoint presentation or something. I'm so sorry.
Good thing you had someone to chat with or you might have fallen asleep.
Isn't the Pope sooo thoughtful? thank you, sir!
You're just lucky it's not in Latin anymore! I think, actually, that part of the reason many Catholics say the words in a way that sounds rote is that it WAS in Latin for so long... they WERE saying words that were just liturgy to them, not necessarily meaningful. It kinda makes sense, culturally, that the words are NOT the central part of Catholic worship. The "bells and smells" (as my friend puts it) are the more important part.
Happy mother's day to you!
The Pope's comments are as usual, provocative!
Note to Pope: PowerPoints are a little passe. How about a "virtual confirmation"? It could be conducted in a chat room, perhaps.
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