Holy 'terp!

I’m back from my fabulous weekend with Helen and family in Hoosick Falls. Sunday was Madison’s first communion.

First Holy Communion, is a ceremony of mostly the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. It is the colloquial name for a person's first reception of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and in Roman Catholic churches occurs typically at age seven or eight depending on national custom. Catholics believe this event to be very important, as the Eucharist occupies a central role in Catholic theology and practise.

I went to Mass with everyone to witness the occasion. Helen, that wonderfully awesome girl, arranged for a Sign Language ‘terp to come in so that I could understand what was happening. Very cool but this meant that I had to actually pay attention, not zone out into my daydream-land of paints, trikes and cats.

Since I’m far from ASL fluent, following along was exhausting but certainly interesting. I was surprised that I was able to get most of what Natalie, the tremendous ‘terp, signed. I even got the jokes (apparently Father Tom is quite the card). Yea me!

This past Sunday marks the second time I’ve darkened the Pope’s doors in four decades. The first time? My mother’s funeral in November of ’12. I was raised in the Church but quit being Catholic a few years after I shook the dust of parochial school from my Mary Janes. No, I didn’t tender a formal resignation — I just stopped going.

Now that I think of it, I’ve been inside of Catholic Churches way more than that but not for Mass. While on holiday in Italy, Giovanni and Cindy would take me on tours of the great art housed in these joints. My fav was the Duomo di Siena which truly seemed like something out of the Wizard of Oz.

The digs, while beautiful, always trigger a flash of anger and indignation in me. You know, the long, varied sordid history and the modern day malfeasances of the Church on top of all that money spent, not on helping the poor, but on opulent architecture. OK, the architecture is astoundingly beautiful but still, I’ve a hard time just purely enjoying and appreciating it.

I’ve got weapons grade ambivalence.

In any case, I tried to find pics from my own first communion but they don’t seem to exist. If this happened at seven years of age, we were living in Providence , Rhode Island where I was going to Saint Sebastians. A church I’ve no recollection of at all. If the deed went down when I was eight, we lived in Townsend, Massachusetts and, funnily enough, I’ve no memory of going to church there but we must have. I think.

Here’s me at six in my lacy white Easter dress. Close enough.