Greetings!
As you see from the title, I did indeed join the church this year at Easter Vigil.
It was a beautiful moment and wonderful Easter Vigil service which I experienced for the first time along with my family.
There is quite a lot of drama during the service where we start outside the church with a fire, and then light a candle to carry into the church while a cantor sings, and then halfway through the lights all come on and the choir sings Alleluia. We were nearly blinded! It gives great context to the stories of the angels in the Bible appearing in a great light and everyone was afraid. Especially living back then when they had no experience of electric light.
It was a suitably dramatic time for me to step over the line into Catholicism, which is quite a moment if you’ve been raised Protestant.
I think I’m slowly getting used to it. But occasionally I still catch myself in surprise and say “I’m a Catholic!” With joy of course.
I was very pleased to have the whole family with me. Miles managed to make it despite being given a hard Maths assignment at the last minute due on Easter Sunday. Who does that?!
We all dressed up smart for their first experience of a Catholic Cathedral.
Aiden said he felt like he was walking into a movie set as they walked down the aisle before everything began.
Fortunately we arrived in daylight as I had to be there early to run through the procedure, so they saw the stained glass windows with light shining through. It really did look like a movie set.
And now that’s my church! I do drive across town 20 minutes to get there. There is a local parish church I can go to, but so far the Cathedral has met my needs.
I love the choir they have on Sunday mornings with the pipe organ. I’m wondering if I could join now that I’m family. It depends on the commitment required.
I’d like to find somewhere I could serve the church and join in with everyone in ministry. We’ll see how we go as time goes on.
I’m so happy my journey of two years has finally ended, and yet in a sense it has just begun.
I say journey of two years, but really I’ve been searching ever since I left our Baptist church 20 years ago, with many different churches sampled in the meantime. So I know this is the right place.
And I’m grateful for my illness mentioned last post, that caused me to have to pause my proceedings because then I realised how upset I was, and how much I wanted it. But I had needed the extra processing time to be sure.
I was concerned about the acceptance of queer people, and although not overt, there is a presence of those who are working underground to change things. When I found that out I felt I could finally commit and join those beautiful souls.
I love all the ceremonies, the sacraments, the holiness, the beauty, the history (all the way back to Jesus!), and I’ve been surprised how Christian it is. Ha! It is the original church!
I feel the Church thinks like I think, looking for deeper meanings, thinking in a poetic sort of way.
I also love the emphasis on the body and the physical. Incarnational as we say.
No matter where I go it will be home. The Catholic Church is widespread. And for someone who has been searching for home that is huge.
And of course I had to buy myself some bling to mark the moment!
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