Friday, December 3, 2010

Stealing Baseball Cards

"Well, you can come to church with me sometime if you'd like."

I extended the invitation, thinking that she might actually accept.

"It's not Catholic - is it?" She inquired.

"No."

"Oh good." She expressed her relief and then explained, "Catholics have lots of things to do at church..."

I laughed because having grown up in a not too distant liturgical denomination, I knew exactly what she was talking about. Standing up, sitting down, kneeling, repeating a few words here, reading a group prayer there - Catholics do have lots of things to do at church.

I'd go on, but I'm writing yet another paper for grad school (and I have lots of things to do), so instead of new words, here is yet another old blurb:

My Catholic friend Tom, no relation to MySpace Tom, once told me that he use to lie quite a bit as a kid - but only to his priest. His parents insisted that he go to confession at least once a week, but Tom rarely had any “good” sins to confess, so instead he would make stuff up and lie to the priest about things he hadn’t done – like hitting his brother and stealing baseball cards from his friends. Each time the priest absolved his “sins” Tom would walk away from the confessional booth feeling guilty for having lied to the nice man behind the screen. As one song writer once put it, “Isn’t it ironic. Don’t you think?”

A few years ago I decided to become Catholic – but only for a month.

No comments: