J
jmcrae
Guest
Feels nice, doesn’t it?
Yes - I actually did it three times. The first time, I was just interested in learning more about the Church, with no desire to convert. I was invited by the priest to go to RCIA because I had so many questions that I kept on asking him - he figured that going to RCIA would be the most efficient way to help me figure it all out.
The second time I went to RCIA, I wanted to convert, but my family was hostile to the idea, so I was advised to work out the issues with my family first, before going through the Initiation rites.
The third time, I finally made it - my family even came to my Initiation on the Easter Vigil.
I actually encountered the Catholic Church entirely by accident.
Prior to this accident, I knew of the name “Catholic Church” but I had no more idea of it than I had (or have) of Buddhism, Jansenism, Hinduism, or Wicca - that is, I had a smattering of information generously laced with a whole lot of incorrect stereotypes. It wasn’t something I would have entered into deliberately, because I thought it was a false and very weird religion.
The thing that happened to cause the accident was this: I was out for a walk one Sunday afternoon just before 5:00, and I was walking along a street that had a lot of churches on it, and I was looking at the churches. As I was walking towards one of them, I accidentally got caught up in a fairly large group of elderly women.
In order to understand what happened next, you have to understand that at the time, I was a very young woman, and very, very shy - so shy that it simply was not possible for me to say “excuse me” and push my way past this group of women (which is probably what any normal person would have done - but they would have missed out on what happened next).
So, I was walking along with these women, and getting pushed closer and closer to this church. I was fine with that, because I had intended to get a closer look at it, anyway.
Suddenly, they turned to enter the church, and I stopped to wait for them all to get by, so that I could continue with my walk. As I was waiting, an elderly priest came out, literally grabbed me by the front of the Church, and said, “You are going to be late for Mass if you just stand around like that - hurry up!!” and he literally pulled me inside the church.
Because of my shyness, I was quite unable to respond to him, or to say, “I’m sorry - I’m not here for Mass; I was just walking by.”
So, there I was, inside the Church, not knowing what the word “Mass” might signify, and wondering how to get out without calling attention to myself - and while I was puzzling that out, I got caught in another crowd of people, and got pushed all the way into the nave of the Church, and at that point, I realized that the only thing to do, under the circumstances, was to sit down and see what happened next.
What happened next completely blew my mind - although I had been a church-goer all my life, I had never seen anything like the Mass - it seemed to me as though the Book of Revelation just suddenly came to life right before my eyes - the incense, the chanting, the music - I was in total awe, and I made a resolution at that moment to learn everything I could about what was going on, there.
That’s how it started, for me.
You are most welcome.