It inordinately annoys me that driving up "church row" (the street on which our church is situated has a Presbyterian church, a Bible church, an Episcopal church, and our Catholic church) I saw the Episcopalians advertising on their sign board an Epiphany service which is actually on Epiphany. Whereas we, of course, have Epiphany today, on the tenth day of Christmas so as to celebrate it on the nearest Sunday.
Sigh...
I understand the bishops' desire to have people actually at mass to hear about feast days, and thus to move them to nearby Sundays, but treating a feast day like a bank holiday to be rounded off to the nearest convenient day (especially a feast day which has always been celebrated specifically on the twelfth day after Christmas) seems to take away rather from the importance of the feast as well.
So if you can forgive my reactionary tendencies, I shall be wishing everyone a joyous epiphany on the sixth.
Showing posts with label parish life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parish life. Show all posts
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Dangers of Hobby Catholicism
More years ago than it would be legal for me to confess, I fell in love with beer brewing as a result of reading the charmingly entitled An Essay on Brewing, Vintage and Distillation, Together With Selected Remedies for Hangover Melancholia: Or, How to Make Booze
by John Festus Adams. Adams opens with an extended discussion of what sort of hobby book this will not be, recounting his experience with a book on growing mushrooms. Written by the Brit who Took Food Seriously, it eventually became clear to Adams while reading this book that the author did not actually expect him to be able to master this most occult of gardening hobbies. It took skill. It took patience. It took a ton of fresh horse manure which simply be be obtained fresh (preferably from a ladies' riding academy) and in the quantity of about half a ton. And it must be composted for six months -- no more and no less. It must be turned every four weeks -- not three weeks and certainly not five. And if you weren't prepared to do all these things Right, there was really no point in doing it at all, because your mushrooms, if they even grew, would be No Good At All.
This, Adams promised, was not the sort of book he was setting out to write. His book was a book about brewing for those who actually wanted to brew. And it was based on the theory that they would brew, and the resulting beer would be pretty good when they did.
All of which is a somewhat self-indulgent introduction (though I do recommend Adams' book for the sheer joy of reading it, even if you have no intention of brewing) to a rather basic point: It is the inevitable danger of being deeply absorbed in some topic that one begins to draw lines in the sand and say, "If you don't do X, Y and Z in my favorite way, you are clearly not serious about this and should get out." And yet for those of us who make reading, talking and writing about the Catholic Church a hobby of sorts, this presents a serious danger. Those of us who are "Catholic geeks" need always to recall that however much the more abstruse corners of Catholic history or theology may fascinate us, that Catholicism is not a hobby or field of study -- the exclusive territory of those with sufficient levels of detailed knowledge and experience. Rather, the Church is the Body of Christ on earth, and the source of the sacraments which are channels of grace to those of us in the Church Militant.
The Church is no stranger to intellectualism and knowledge, and there is much benefit to knowing the Church's teachings and history in detail. And yet, knowledge itself is not our end as Catholics. In the simple yet powerful words I was made to learn as a child, "God made us to know, love and serve Him, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven." The rest is all details. Important details, to be sure, to the extent that they help us to love and follow our faith. I'm sure that all of us know many people (often members of our own family) who were easily lead away from the Church because they never really knew and understood it.
And yet a little work around the parish is easily enough to lead one to the humbling conclusion that the people who show up to daily mass at 7:30 every morning and fill the adoration hours in the middle of the night are people with much stronger faith, even if many of them have never cracked open an encyclical. This is certainly not to say (as one determinedly unorthodox old fellow on RCIA team used to assert to my constant annoyance) that, "All knowledge is for not." But I, at least, often find myself in need of a reminder that knowledge is not all there is. At the deepest level, Catholicism is something we believe and live, not just something we read about.
by John Festus Adams. Adams opens with an extended discussion of what sort of hobby book this will not be, recounting his experience with a book on growing mushrooms. Written by the Brit who Took Food Seriously, it eventually became clear to Adams while reading this book that the author did not actually expect him to be able to master this most occult of gardening hobbies. It took skill. It took patience. It took a ton of fresh horse manure which simply be be obtained fresh (preferably from a ladies' riding academy) and in the quantity of about half a ton. And it must be composted for six months -- no more and no less. It must be turned every four weeks -- not three weeks and certainly not five. And if you weren't prepared to do all these things Right, there was really no point in doing it at all, because your mushrooms, if they even grew, would be No Good At All.This, Adams promised, was not the sort of book he was setting out to write. His book was a book about brewing for those who actually wanted to brew. And it was based on the theory that they would brew, and the resulting beer would be pretty good when they did.
All of which is a somewhat self-indulgent introduction (though I do recommend Adams' book for the sheer joy of reading it, even if you have no intention of brewing) to a rather basic point: It is the inevitable danger of being deeply absorbed in some topic that one begins to draw lines in the sand and say, "If you don't do X, Y and Z in my favorite way, you are clearly not serious about this and should get out." And yet for those of us who make reading, talking and writing about the Catholic Church a hobby of sorts, this presents a serious danger. Those of us who are "Catholic geeks" need always to recall that however much the more abstruse corners of Catholic history or theology may fascinate us, that Catholicism is not a hobby or field of study -- the exclusive territory of those with sufficient levels of detailed knowledge and experience. Rather, the Church is the Body of Christ on earth, and the source of the sacraments which are channels of grace to those of us in the Church Militant.
The Church is no stranger to intellectualism and knowledge, and there is much benefit to knowing the Church's teachings and history in detail. And yet, knowledge itself is not our end as Catholics. In the simple yet powerful words I was made to learn as a child, "God made us to know, love and serve Him, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven." The rest is all details. Important details, to be sure, to the extent that they help us to love and follow our faith. I'm sure that all of us know many people (often members of our own family) who were easily lead away from the Church because they never really knew and understood it.
And yet a little work around the parish is easily enough to lead one to the humbling conclusion that the people who show up to daily mass at 7:30 every morning and fill the adoration hours in the middle of the night are people with much stronger faith, even if many of them have never cracked open an encyclical. This is certainly not to say (as one determinedly unorthodox old fellow on RCIA team used to assert to my constant annoyance) that, "All knowledge is for not." But I, at least, often find myself in need of a reminder that knowledge is not all there is. At the deepest level, Catholicism is something we believe and live, not just something we read about.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Staying Rooted in Parish Life
I suspect that my family was hardly unique among serious Catholics in the 80s in that my parents often found working around our parish to be key to bringing their children up with a strong appreciation of the Catholic faith. When I was in 2nd and 3rd grade my mother helped teach CCD for a while, until the point where a fiat was handed down from the DRE on lent: There will be no discussion of Christ's suffering and death and crucifixes should not be on display in any classrooms for the younger kids -- that would be too scary. (I believe this was the same DRE who gave an inspirational talk about how one of her deepest spiritual experiences was cutting shapes out of construction paper. Nice lady, but not what you'd call a deep thinker in matters of religion.)
From that point on, my parents made a conscious decision to provide complete catechesis at home, and it was a good thing too as the quality of parish CCD classes only got worse as the years went on. There were liturgical issues as well. The 10:30 "rock mass" continued to rock out standard modern hymn as if they were early 80s hard rock well into the late 90s. And there was "Fr. Vaudeville" who was stationed at the parish every summer for several years. One of the high points I recall was his sermon on how the form and substance of sacraments didn't matter. "This stuff?" ask, splashing water from the baptismal font across the sanctuary. "Doesn't matter! Words? Don't matter! What's in your heart, that's all that matters!" Or the well-intentioned young priest who seemed to think that his vocation was similar to that of Mr. Rogers and gave all his sermons through puppets.
One could go on, but I think you get the point. There was much that was worth avoiding, and little that was of any formative value, and so like many families struggling to bring their kids up in a liturgical and educational wasteland, my family pulled back, taught the kids out of the Ignatius Press Faith & Life series of religious education books at home, maintained a strong family prayer life, and did our best to avoid getting too snippy on the drive home about the liturgical and homiletic antics each week.
All of us kids grew up with a strong understanding of and faith in the Church, and I've no one but my parents to thank for that. Countless other families did the same during the same period, and they along with a scattering of converts and reverts are the sort of people who make up much of the active core of parishioners who are involved in all the liturgical and catechetical ministries in the parishes I've seen since we moved out here to Texas.
However, one thing I've noticed in myself and in others is that while this hunkered-down, catacombs approach to surviving the liturgical and catechetical vacuum of the 80s and 90s helped many of us learn more about our faith and stay Catholic, it can make it difficult to build a solid parish life when many of the active people in the parish are used to having to maintain their faith and that of their children in spite of, rather than through, parish life. When some of your most active parishioners see religious education, youth group, and other child and family parish activities as something guilty until proven innocent (and that's a reasonable reaction, given how frequently those programs come up guilty in recent experience), it's hard to get good people involved in running these programs. Even knowing that our parish is pretty solid and run by good people, I constantly find myself having to check an instinct to think in regards to any sort of formation for the kids, "Of course, we'll skip that and do it at home." (I'm considering putting a decisive end to this particular hang-up by signing up to be a religious education teacher next year -- since my overcommitment load is going down with the expiration of my term on parish council. We shall see...)
It's perfectly reasonable and right to want the best for one's family, and yet I think that one of the dangers that those of us among the mainly self-educated post-Vatican II laity is that the vast majority of parishes cannot (by the law of averages) be staffed by brilliant liturgists and theologians. Even with an absence of silliness (and we're by no means past that in this country, though it's got much better in many regions) there will always be mediocrity. And yet, we lose an important element of Catholic life if we allow ourselves to pull back into an essentially individual approach to Catholic life which leaves us isolated from any sort of parish life. While "community" has been used as a buzz-word to justify all sorts of foolishness in the last 30 years, Catholicism is a visible not an invisible Church. We are meant to be part of a parish, a diocese and then the universal Church -- not think of ourselves as direct members of the universal church while attending various parishes as needed to meet our sacramental obligations.
Something was lost in the 70s and 80s when we had that massive breakdown in parish life and culture, and as we strive to build it back, we'll have to re-learn the necessity of dealing with imperfection. I think the right balance probably depends very much on one's parish situation, but virtually no parish will have the purity of finding on ones own the best that 1900 years of theology and liturgy and sacred art and sacred music can provide. Yet it is by forming real, on the ground community through our parishes that we can help bring what we've found back into the experience of others around us.
From that point on, my parents made a conscious decision to provide complete catechesis at home, and it was a good thing too as the quality of parish CCD classes only got worse as the years went on. There were liturgical issues as well. The 10:30 "rock mass" continued to rock out standard modern hymn as if they were early 80s hard rock well into the late 90s. And there was "Fr. Vaudeville" who was stationed at the parish every summer for several years. One of the high points I recall was his sermon on how the form and substance of sacraments didn't matter. "This stuff?" ask, splashing water from the baptismal font across the sanctuary. "Doesn't matter! Words? Don't matter! What's in your heart, that's all that matters!" Or the well-intentioned young priest who seemed to think that his vocation was similar to that of Mr. Rogers and gave all his sermons through puppets.
One could go on, but I think you get the point. There was much that was worth avoiding, and little that was of any formative value, and so like many families struggling to bring their kids up in a liturgical and educational wasteland, my family pulled back, taught the kids out of the Ignatius Press Faith & Life series of religious education books at home, maintained a strong family prayer life, and did our best to avoid getting too snippy on the drive home about the liturgical and homiletic antics each week.
All of us kids grew up with a strong understanding of and faith in the Church, and I've no one but my parents to thank for that. Countless other families did the same during the same period, and they along with a scattering of converts and reverts are the sort of people who make up much of the active core of parishioners who are involved in all the liturgical and catechetical ministries in the parishes I've seen since we moved out here to Texas.
However, one thing I've noticed in myself and in others is that while this hunkered-down, catacombs approach to surviving the liturgical and catechetical vacuum of the 80s and 90s helped many of us learn more about our faith and stay Catholic, it can make it difficult to build a solid parish life when many of the active people in the parish are used to having to maintain their faith and that of their children in spite of, rather than through, parish life. When some of your most active parishioners see religious education, youth group, and other child and family parish activities as something guilty until proven innocent (and that's a reasonable reaction, given how frequently those programs come up guilty in recent experience), it's hard to get good people involved in running these programs. Even knowing that our parish is pretty solid and run by good people, I constantly find myself having to check an instinct to think in regards to any sort of formation for the kids, "Of course, we'll skip that and do it at home." (I'm considering putting a decisive end to this particular hang-up by signing up to be a religious education teacher next year -- since my overcommitment load is going down with the expiration of my term on parish council. We shall see...)
It's perfectly reasonable and right to want the best for one's family, and yet I think that one of the dangers that those of us among the mainly self-educated post-Vatican II laity is that the vast majority of parishes cannot (by the law of averages) be staffed by brilliant liturgists and theologians. Even with an absence of silliness (and we're by no means past that in this country, though it's got much better in many regions) there will always be mediocrity. And yet, we lose an important element of Catholic life if we allow ourselves to pull back into an essentially individual approach to Catholic life which leaves us isolated from any sort of parish life. While "community" has been used as a buzz-word to justify all sorts of foolishness in the last 30 years, Catholicism is a visible not an invisible Church. We are meant to be part of a parish, a diocese and then the universal Church -- not think of ourselves as direct members of the universal church while attending various parishes as needed to meet our sacramental obligations.
Something was lost in the 70s and 80s when we had that massive breakdown in parish life and culture, and as we strive to build it back, we'll have to re-learn the necessity of dealing with imperfection. I think the right balance probably depends very much on one's parish situation, but virtually no parish will have the purity of finding on ones own the best that 1900 years of theology and liturgy and sacred art and sacred music can provide. Yet it is by forming real, on the ground community through our parishes that we can help bring what we've found back into the experience of others around us.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Some photos, and a liturgical music post
Music first.
This past weekend was our parish's ministry fair, in which all the ministries set up tables in the parish hall and try to convince the post-Mass-going hordes to sign up for their ministry. My job as hawker-in-chief for the Schola is to "build awareness" so that those interested in listening will know we exist, and those interested in singing (the few, the very few) can be winnowed down to those with the requisite ability. To that end, I utilized my mad calligraphy skillz and made a nice display board, of which I display a poorly-photographed selection here.
My table was in the music ghetto with the tables of the five weekend Mass choirs. I had a CD player set up to waft chant and polyphony to draw in the music lovers. As I stood at my station on my third go-'round, two guys with guitars hustled over to the table next to mine, dedicated to the choir whose Mass had just ended. They started playing some vaguely familiar yet distinctly non-liturgical instrumental. In another moment, another choir member sauntered over and started singing along with the guys in what she must have thought was a soulful, down-wit'-dat sort of style. Although I couldn't understand a word she mumbled, I finally recognized the tune: The House of the Rising Sun. After a while, they switched to Good Riddance by Green Day.
On the other hand, I had more people show interest in the Schola's music after that Mass than after any other.
And some photos:
These are our Greek charts, for the edification of the young ladies here. (Do you know that with a few small adjustments, you can sing the Greek alphabet to the tune of the Alphabet Song? Try it.) We keep them behind the computer so that when the girls sit down to play games, they're really picking up the Greek alphabet by osmosis!
This past weekend was our parish's ministry fair, in which all the ministries set up tables in the parish hall and try to convince the post-Mass-going hordes to sign up for their ministry. My job as hawker-in-chief for the Schola is to "build awareness" so that those interested in listening will know we exist, and those interested in singing (the few, the very few) can be winnowed down to those with the requisite ability. To that end, I utilized my mad calligraphy skillz and made a nice display board, of which I display a poorly-photographed selection here.
My table was in the music ghetto with the tables of the five weekend Mass choirs. I had a CD player set up to waft chant and polyphony to draw in the music lovers. As I stood at my station on my third go-'round, two guys with guitars hustled over to the table next to mine, dedicated to the choir whose Mass had just ended. They started playing some vaguely familiar yet distinctly non-liturgical instrumental. In another moment, another choir member sauntered over and started singing along with the guys in what she must have thought was a soulful, down-wit'-dat sort of style. Although I couldn't understand a word she mumbled, I finally recognized the tune: The House of the Rising Sun. After a while, they switched to Good Riddance by Green Day.
On the other hand, I had more people show interest in the Schola's music after that Mass than after any other.
And some photos:
These are our Greek charts, for the edification of the young ladies here. (Do you know that with a few small adjustments, you can sing the Greek alphabet to the tune of the Alphabet Song? Try it.) We keep them behind the computer so that when the girls sit down to play games, they're really picking up the Greek alphabet by osmosis!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Eleven tips for keeping yourself sane (in a less-than-sane parish)
Rich Leonardi offers some excellent advice for serious Catholics trying to make a difference within their own parish.
Every troubled diocese has at least one affinity parish known for its doctrinal orthodoxy and liturgical fidelity. Serious Catholics tend to gravitate toward them, either as frequent guests or parishioners. But many choose not to do so for various reasons, e.g, a sense of obligation to reforming their territorial parish, a fear that leaving would "let the terrorists win," a connection to a school, or a desire for a neighborhood parish. If this latter group includes you, here are ten tips in no particular order for keeping yourself sane: Read More
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Presenting: The Church
As I mentioned, I'm giving a lecture in our Adult Catechesis series on "The Church". Well, for them that's interested, here's my PowerPoint presentation, though I don't know how much sense it will make given that it's mostly a visual for me to talk over.
Still I've tried to make the visuals good.
The presentation itself is here:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dgjj8n7q_13g8tsnf6m
[It looks like on some slides the text goes off the bottom in the GoogleDocs version -- and my Greek text on one slide got lost. But hey, what can a fellow do?]
The outline that I'll be speaking from is here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjj8n7q_78fwh8f8d4
Still I've tried to make the visuals good.
The presentation itself is here:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dgjj8n7q_13g8tsnf6m
[It looks like on some slides the text goes off the bottom in the GoogleDocs version -- and my Greek text on one slide got lost. But hey, what can a fellow do?]
The outline that I'll be speaking from is here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjj8n7q_78fwh8f8d4
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Church in 90 Minutes
I'm on the team giving the Adult Catechesis lectures at our parish this year, and this coming Thursday is my first presentation. The topic is the "the Church", covering chapters 10-11 in the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults
. I certainly won't lack for material...
Thus far, my plan is to deviate a bit from the way the book covers the topic. I'm going to spend the first 45 minutes doing an overview of Church history, and then after a 5-10 minute break I'll cover the doctrine covered in the catechism, using the history we've covered to provide concrete examples of what I'm talking about.
Given that we're supposed to be presenting with a target audience of those who have attended mass for most of their adult lives but have not had much formal Catholic education, I'm thinking that explaining how the Church is "one, Catholic, holy and apostolic" and other doctrinal elements from the catechism will make more sense after covering historical context.
I'll post my powerpoint deck and outline when its all done. (The which is front of mind right now because I'm trying to get the lion's share of the writing done this weekend.)
Does anyone have a recommendation for a fairly short and accessible history of the Church which might be listed as "further reading"?
. I certainly won't lack for material...Thus far, my plan is to deviate a bit from the way the book covers the topic. I'm going to spend the first 45 minutes doing an overview of Church history, and then after a 5-10 minute break I'll cover the doctrine covered in the catechism, using the history we've covered to provide concrete examples of what I'm talking about.
Given that we're supposed to be presenting with a target audience of those who have attended mass for most of their adult lives but have not had much formal Catholic education, I'm thinking that explaining how the Church is "one, Catholic, holy and apostolic" and other doctrinal elements from the catechism will make more sense after covering historical context.
I'll post my powerpoint deck and outline when its all done. (The which is front of mind right now because I'm trying to get the lion's share of the writing done this weekend.)
Does anyone have a recommendation for a fairly short and accessible history of the Church which might be listed as "further reading"?
Friday, October 31, 2008
A Short Halloween Rant
Today is Halloween, or for those traditionalists out there, All Hallows Eve. Not a bad day to put a jack-o-lantern in the window, put out a bowl of cream for your local hob or nob, and read some ghost stories around the fireplace. (Except here in Texas where it'll be 80 degrees today.)
The girls are eager to go to the parish Halloween party and lark about with their friends in princess costumes. And here, unfortunately, is where the rant comes in. Because the party at the parish tonight is not a Halloween party -- it's an All Saints Day Party. One is not supposed to come as a princess or fairy or night or (as our eldest ambitiously proposed) Lyle the Crocodile, but rather as one's favorite saint. Every year some people flaunt this and come in normal custumes, which is probably what will happen with us this year, but I'm assured by the daughter-in-law of one of the organizers that, "It really drives them nuts when people do that."
I don't have anything against the idea of having a saints themed costume party on All Saints Day -- there's no real tradition behind it, but it's not a bad idea. However, All Saints Day is Nov. 1st, not Oct. 31st. And I'm not really sure why we as Catholics should feel the need to counter-program against Halloween parties. Certain Protestant groups, certainly, are convinced that all that surrounds Halloween is evil superstition, but there's no reason for Catholics to go off the deep end about this stuff.
Indeed, as a Catholic, it annoys me a bit to see All Hallows Eve (with all of the cultural texture that originally surrounded that day) turned into an All Saints Day party. Not that modern American Halloween is much in touch with older traditions surrounding All Hallows Eve, but if we're going to insist on changing it as Catholics, we should get in touch with some original All Hallows Eve traditions, not do a All Saints counter program to American Halloween.
The girls are eager to go to the parish Halloween party and lark about with their friends in princess costumes. And here, unfortunately, is where the rant comes in. Because the party at the parish tonight is not a Halloween party -- it's an All Saints Day Party. One is not supposed to come as a princess or fairy or night or (as our eldest ambitiously proposed) Lyle the Crocodile, but rather as one's favorite saint. Every year some people flaunt this and come in normal custumes, which is probably what will happen with us this year, but I'm assured by the daughter-in-law of one of the organizers that, "It really drives them nuts when people do that."
I don't have anything against the idea of having a saints themed costume party on All Saints Day -- there's no real tradition behind it, but it's not a bad idea. However, All Saints Day is Nov. 1st, not Oct. 31st. And I'm not really sure why we as Catholics should feel the need to counter-program against Halloween parties. Certain Protestant groups, certainly, are convinced that all that surrounds Halloween is evil superstition, but there's no reason for Catholics to go off the deep end about this stuff.
Indeed, as a Catholic, it annoys me a bit to see All Hallows Eve (with all of the cultural texture that originally surrounded that day) turned into an All Saints Day party. Not that modern American Halloween is much in touch with older traditions surrounding All Hallows Eve, but if we're going to insist on changing it as Catholics, we should get in touch with some original All Hallows Eve traditions, not do a All Saints counter program to American Halloween.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Bureaucratic hassles at the parish level: Baptismal edition
Here's the quiz of the day for Catholic parents: how long does it take you to schedule a baptism at your parish?
In the last months of my last pregnancy, I called up our parish to try and schedule the baptism. We had a tricksy time frame with godparents graduating from college and only having a few days of time overlap to be in the area, so I wanted to get in good and early. Baby was due in March, and we needed the baptism in May. The parish secretary said, "Oh no, we don't even have any classes available until June." No class, no baptism.
So I spoke with a priest who'd just been moved from our parish to a parish about 20 miles away, and he scheduled the baptism right then, over the phone, for the day we needed. We didn't have to take the baptism class, and I made sure I got the paperwork he needed to the office in good time.
Now it's time to schedule another baptism. As before, I'm starting before baby is born because it's very important to us to have the baptism as soon as possible. I'd like to do things the right way because Darwin is on parish council and it seems important to set an example, and yet I'm running into the same hassles. Seeing as once again both my godparents are coming in from out of state, it's important to me to be able to set a date as soon as possible, but one can't schedule the baptism until one's taken the class, which one can't even sign up for without the proper paperwork from the godparents, who need to know the baptism date so that they can take time off work and buy plane tickets... And then there's the issue of requiring a birth certificate, which, as I hope to have the baby baptized two weeks after the class (which we can't take until next month, four days before baby is due), is simply not going to be possible.
I appreciate the need to ensure that parents and godparents take their responsibilities seriously, and I can understand that our priest doesn't want to be granting exceptions left and right, but the laid-back time frame on which the parish seems to operate seems to de-emphasize the vital importance of baptism to a child's soul. I don't want to wait a year or six months or three months -- I want my child baptized right away. Even in these technologically advanced times, children can die unexpectedly. I'm not willing to take the chance of pushing out baptism until some parish bureaucrat has ticked off every last box on the checklist. For now I'm going to try and work with the system, but if takes pulling a few strings to ensure that my child's soul is cleansed of original sin as quickly as possible, then so be it.
UPDATE: You guys have some crazy stories in the comments, but I defy you to top Opinionated Homeschooler's anecdote:
In the last months of my last pregnancy, I called up our parish to try and schedule the baptism. We had a tricksy time frame with godparents graduating from college and only having a few days of time overlap to be in the area, so I wanted to get in good and early. Baby was due in March, and we needed the baptism in May. The parish secretary said, "Oh no, we don't even have any classes available until June." No class, no baptism.
So I spoke with a priest who'd just been moved from our parish to a parish about 20 miles away, and he scheduled the baptism right then, over the phone, for the day we needed. We didn't have to take the baptism class, and I made sure I got the paperwork he needed to the office in good time.
Now it's time to schedule another baptism. As before, I'm starting before baby is born because it's very important to us to have the baptism as soon as possible. I'd like to do things the right way because Darwin is on parish council and it seems important to set an example, and yet I'm running into the same hassles. Seeing as once again both my godparents are coming in from out of state, it's important to me to be able to set a date as soon as possible, but one can't schedule the baptism until one's taken the class, which one can't even sign up for without the proper paperwork from the godparents, who need to know the baptism date so that they can take time off work and buy plane tickets... And then there's the issue of requiring a birth certificate, which, as I hope to have the baby baptized two weeks after the class (which we can't take until next month, four days before baby is due), is simply not going to be possible.
I appreciate the need to ensure that parents and godparents take their responsibilities seriously, and I can understand that our priest doesn't want to be granting exceptions left and right, but the laid-back time frame on which the parish seems to operate seems to de-emphasize the vital importance of baptism to a child's soul. I don't want to wait a year or six months or three months -- I want my child baptized right away. Even in these technologically advanced times, children can die unexpectedly. I'm not willing to take the chance of pushing out baptism until some parish bureaucrat has ticked off every last box on the checklist. For now I'm going to try and work with the system, but if takes pulling a few strings to ensure that my child's soul is cleansed of original sin as quickly as possible, then so be it.
UPDATE: You guys have some crazy stories in the comments, but I defy you to top Opinionated Homeschooler's anecdote:
But my friend got it worse from our parish. Her godparents, like all of her family, were Cuban refugees. They had no sacramental records, as Castro wasn't going to fax them over. The parish flat refused to allow them to stand as godparents. She is outraged to this day.
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