If this is supposed to be a journal, I am failing. Perhaps I am too busy. It's been 11 days since my last post and I intended to post every two days after the last one. FAIL! I also fully intended to read my material for class well before the chat sessions and paper was due. Guess what? Paper is due tonight, chat session at 5 PM and I haven't read a word. I took it to Tuesday Eucharistic Adoration fully intending to read it there after rosary and Evening Prayer (my two starting points for weekly adoration) and discovered I took LAST WEEK's lecture material with me. Another fail!
However, it is a good day to write. Last night I went with two other Aspirants to a Bible Study at the Church of Christ. This was my first ever venture into another faith community in their meeting space. I've talked with many other faith filled people, but have never ventured into their territory. I probably would not have if Doug (thanks brother!) offered up the invite. Following my plan of "just say Yes" I ventured out, with support in numbers. It was painless and eye opening for me. I went in thinking "I am a Catholic in your midst" with a mix of fear - would I know enough about my faith to defend it if necessary? and anxiety - will they think I am here as a spy?
Instead, everyone went out of their way to welcome us strangers and make us feel at home. No one asked the right question early on - What brings you here. But everyone introduced themselves to us, welcomes us, asked where we were from and then treated us as one of them. We opened with singing and lots of it. I like to think "these are not Catholic songs" but then there are no such things. We have Christian music, some of which we sing regularly in the Catholic church. Then we shared the Pastor's lead in discussing Mark 8:1-21, the feeding of 4,000, the second feeding of a multitude in Mark. I recalled my NT instructor last year - How dumb were these disciples? Jesus had just fed 5,000 and they still wondered how they were going to feed 4,000 now with some loaves and fish? These guys really had short term memory problems.
Anyway, at the end of the hour, we engaged in conversation with a few people, including the pastor. Eventually someone asked where we worshiped and BAM - straight between the eyes. We announce (gasp!) Catholic Churches. That caught the inquirer off guard, but not most others. We then spent the next 30 minutes talking with Pastor about their faith, his faith journey, our Formation as Aspirants. As we left, we spotted a Baptist church across the street and quickly planned our next venture out.
OK - off to work - but now my goal is to post a few short bursts over the next few days....
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