On Learning To Be a Catholic, Revisited

I wonder sometimes if cradle Catholics fully understand what we converts go through as we begin dipping our toes into Catholic waters. In our case, when we finally made the decision to stop attending our Protestant place of worship, and we attended the nearest Catholic parish for Mass for the first time, it was slightly uncomfortable. In the first place, most good Catholics know the mass liturgy by heart, and use the worship aid sparingly if at all. The worship sheet usually contains the Psalm response, which is helpful, and the page numbers for the hymns. I didn't know the liturgy, other than the Creed and the Lord's prayer when we began our wonderful Catholic adventure. I didn't even know that you can follow along in the front of the hymn book, or bring along a missal if you are unsure of things. It's hard to explain just how strange it all was at first, even though it was also exhilarating. The kneeling came easily; I loved the humility I saw being expressed by eight or nine hundred people all kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer. I loved observing the outstretched hands or the upturned faces as each member received, one by one, the body and blood of Christ. I wasn't sure when to make the sign of the cross. I didn't know to bow my head as we recited the incarnatus est during the creed. As for genuflections...I was afraid I would fall down and not be able to get up again. It reminded me of my first day as a camp counsellor at Camp Chimney Corners. 

The staff, mostly college students, had arrived a week prior to the opening of camp for orientation. After a long and fairly chilly day in the refreshingly cool Berkshires, we were all ready for hot showers before retiring to our cabins. The showers were rather rustic, being outdoors and consisting of wooden partitions with no roof, sited on a cement pad, with individual shower heads in each "stall". By the end of the summer I found it quite wonderful to shower in the moonlight with an occasional owl off in the distance to keep us company, but that first evening was more a matter of waiting for a turn to let the abundant hot water warm up shivering limbs. There was in fact plenty of hot water. The difficulty was that in order to get the hot water to run, you had to hold on to a chain. As soon as you let go of the chain, the water stopped. I quickly grasped the essential task, and held on with my right hand, allowing the hot water to flow down. Then I paused. I reached for my shampoo bottle with my left hand, and could not for the life of me figure out how to open it and wash my hair with only one hand. I tried biting the cap with my teeth, but to no avail. And I really did not want to let go of the chain and stop the flow of hot soothing water! But, seeing no way around it, I let go, soaped up, and then pulled the chain and rinsed off. Well, it was camp after all. It was a night or two later, while showering again, that I noticed the nail in the wall. Oh...that's how it was done. You attached the chain to the nail, and then you could have both hands free. Another hurdle crossed. 

 By the time I learned when to make the sign of the cross during Mass (by watching everyone else) and when to bow during the creed, (my husband pointed that out) I had also figured out that most people did not in fact genuflect, and I could relax and not worry about tripping over myself.

 I am not one to suggest that becoming a Catholic can be reduced to learning the appropriate gestures and rituals...far from it. But a lack of familiarity with such things does give pause to someone previously steeped in a different tradition. Which may not be a bad thing. It is the "otherness" of Catholicism that is so attractive, the world previously unknown and unexplored that lies before a newcomer and seems to beckon continually, inviting converts into one new experience after another. It is a constant series of surprises at first, each one more delightful than the last. It is daily Mass, and the Easter Vigil Mass, then the season of Easter punctuated by sprinkling water and a renewal of baptismal vows; the daily calendar of saints and blesseds, feasts and solemnities; the statues and medals; the rosary and the devotion to Mary; lighted candles everywhere, adoration and prayer in the real presence of Jesus. I am still experiencing and discovering, and I see no sign that the end is in sight. 

 Learning how to take an outdoor shower for an entire summer, and indeed the other camp experiences, learning to sleep at night with a bandanna sprinkled with a smelly substance called "Fly Dope" to keep the mosquitoes away, being comfortable with a resident bat the girls adopted and named Igor, hiking eight miles in the rain and then setting up camp along side a lake, these were all new and inviting experiences also in their own way. But the still on-going season of discovering the Catholic Church is by far the richest and most rewarding one I have ever known. It is always in the end a discovery of truth, of things sacred, divine, holy. I suppose it is the difference between driving in a car across America, and riding in a rocket ship into outer space toward infinity and beyond! Here's to the Catholic Church, to her new members as well as her long-time faithful. May we all continue together on the journey of discovery, the road that leads us closer to God. Deo gratias!