Wednesday, March 29, 2006

I'm a church loser, part 2

And so the saga continues, although it now seems to be resolved.

After I wrote that post this morning, I walked the dogs, packed up my stuff and left the house, stopping on the way to work to register with our new church, St. Catherine's of Sienna. They were utmostly helpful, very friendly, gave us a very pretty welcome packet, told me what we needed to know about the baptismal preparation class this month, and told me that if we are very diligent about our tithings and about Mass attendance, the Father might sign our godparent verification papers.

P called his old parish and they told him in no uncertain terms that they would NOT sign his forms unless he was a member for ninety days. He didn't even get a chance to ask them about me.

My old parish in Massachussetts from thirty years ago called this afternoon and I had a lovely chat with the secretary. And thankfully, the parish that married P and I and administered my first Communion and Confirmation did report back to them that I had received those Sacraments, so I was happy about that. (Since I didn't receive certificates for the Communion and Confirmation, I had always wondered about that.) However, she said the same thing...that there was nothing that she could do since I was out of state and wasn't a member of their parish, although she was pretty surprised that all the Texas churches were being kind of sticklers about the ninety-day rule and said that they were making it kind of hard for people who wanted to return to the faith to do so. My thoughts exactly.

So I called my sister in law and laid it all out...and she didn't fire us as godparents! She said that she would call her church and move our class to June and then we would do the baptism a little later this summer.

All I have to do until then is overcome my losery ways and GET MY ASS TO MASS! Our new church is less than ten minutes away. There are a variety of services on Sunday and even one on Saturday night. There is NO reason why we can't get ourselves to go.

I think it'll actually be kind of neat. In our welcome packet, they gave us a ton of stuff about activities, clubs, groups, etcetera, that we can join. I think it'd be a great way to make new friends, and after all, fellowship is one of the main purposes of church.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

That's good to hear that you weren't 'fired'. I'm not Catholic and don't go to church, but here in the UK I haven't heard of a 90 day rule.
When I had my Daughter baptised, I only had to wait because her Godfather (my cousin) was in Australia.
Hope all goes well for you all.

2:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad to hear that all is going better. And as others have said (comments and your blog) I am surprised that they are being sticklers about the 90 rule and the tithing (I realize that it is important to have funds going to the church but makes it difficult when you are on a set income and know of no other money coming in and need to survive with what you have and that they want a certain percentage of it - what happened to the church being there for you? Ah well, my problem, not yours). But glad to know that you can breathe easier and that you get to be a godmother. Congrats!!!!

6:59 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home