I’m getting my Catholic on this holiday season.
I can’t really say I was raised Catholic because for those who truly were, my story falls far short. I also don’t want to trade on pop culture cliches of Catholicism to convey what being Catholic meant to me. I never wore a plaid school uniform because I did not go to Catholic school. I’ve surely sinned, and done plenty of penance. But I don’t recall many formal confessions.
I was baptized late – at age 4 – after my younger brother was born and I was well on my way to heathenism. I am not sure I set foot in St. Mary’s again until I was 7.
I was signed up for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes so I could make my First Communion on time, likely at the behest of my French-Catholic grandfather, who I called Papa. He took me to Mass with him on Sunday so halfway through I could be dismissed with the Catholic children who had years of religious education on me. We sat in a circle in the basement community hall learning catechism from picture books.
I wrote about some of my Catholic memories many years ago in a column for the newspaper where I worked. The kind of Catholic who probably knew for sure when to kneel and when to stand during Mass came to the office to complain about the column to my editor.
I no longer remember exactly what I wrote, but I still feel ashamed of whatever ignorance caused me to write something that offended that Catholic. I revered Catholics like her who genuflected without hesitation, unlike me. I made the sign of the cross on a two-second delay to make sure that’s what I was supposed to be doing. My face still flushes at memories of making shapes with my mouth because I didn’t know the words to a prayer.
Additionally, an uncle called me to share his concerns when that column ran. He was not even from the Catholic side of my family. But he was the kind of older relative who insisted that because he knew me as a little kid and teenager, he knew me still, decades later – better even than I knew myself. My uncle shared that he had no memories of me going to church with my grandfather.
Interesting. My uncle’s wife – my aunt – was none other than my godmother! There she is in pictures of my baptism holding my younger brother over a gold basin while holy water poured over his head.
My uncle implied I made up my church memories.
It may not have been the Catholic story of my mother, who was raised with all the rites, plus extra restrictions only the French could divine from Scripture. But I didn’t imagine it. How could I forget learning to get dressed and sit still on a Sunday morning after spending 7 years watching cartoons in my pajamas instead?
So I am wary of writing about my Catholic experience at all. I never felt like I was doing it right. So I worry I won’t be able to write about it right. I’m about as clueless as a Catholic could be – or should be if she’s going to call herself Catholic at all.
But I want very much to experience Advent as the spiritual – and for me, Catholic – journey it’s meant to be. It’s not just a chocolate countdown to Christmas.
So I showed up as the admittedly bad Catholic I am at St. Mary’s Mass on Dec. 3, the first Sunday of Advent. I mouthed over prayers, kneeled and stood when everyone else did, and put some money in the collection basket while we sang a hymn.
Afterward, I wandered around the sanctuary admiring the stained glass windows that so mesmerized me as a child. I used to track the light that poured through them at 10 o’clock family Mass, the sun signaling it was about time for coffee and refreshments, a highlight of my early church experience.
On the sill of each window was a necklace of rosary beads formed in the shape of a heart. A card said they were compliments of the Knights of Columbus, but just to be sure, I asked a woman who was passing out fliers if they were to borrow and bring back, or if they were for keeps.
“For keeps,” she said, and told me about a book study group starting soon. She wrote her phone number on a flier and handed it to me.
I chose a strand of purple and green plastic rosary beads with the Virgin Mary on the cross. Somewhere, I know, I have the rosary Papa gave me. That was for keeps, too. I searched my mind for where it might be kept after all these years. I wanted to hold it again in my hands, follow along with the instructions for How to Pray the Rosary, also compliments of the Knights of Columbus.
But all I really had to do to experience Advent as something holy was open my heart. I call forth my own imperfect Catholic story, tucked like a folded note hidden in a hymnal. I didn’t choose it, and there are parts I wish could be changed, but it’s unquestionably mine.
I unfold it now and hold it in the light of Advent. The first candle is for hope.
And I sure hope I am doing this at least a little bit right.
Raye S. Leonard 