Faith: Church and baseball . . .

So I went to Mass for the second week in a row. Same small church in Cambridge, NY. The priest’s first name is Liam, and he has an Irish accent, except on days like Sunday, when his voice is all gravelly.

 

I think a lot when I go to church. One of the things I was thinking was that I go because it’s comfortable. It’s ritual. It’s a place where I know (almost) all the words. There is a pattern. One transition leads to another.

 

It occurred to me that Mass is a lot like baseball. You have the same things, the same ritual, the same transitions, and it is something I understand.

 

I understand the Mass. I may not necessarily understand the church behind it. But I understand prayer, and I understand being with people who understand what’s going on around them. We know why things are happening in the Mass and where it is going.

 

Of course, I was one of the few adults who didn’t take Communion. I am in no way ready for that at this point. I have a lot to work out. Plus, I had stopped at a buffet breakfast at the VFW on the way there.

 

To me, the one thing that interrupts the flow of the Mass is the homily. I find this to be quite different from the sermons I hear in non-Catholic churches. I compare it to a rain delay in baseball. You do not know how long the homily is going to be, nor whether or not it will be useful/good for the team.

 

For background, I was raised Catholic and my first marriage was in the Catholic Church. I went fairly steadily into my early teens, and then it was hit and miss for a while, until I the girls started going to Catholic school and I later taught at one for two years.  After that, there were sporadic visits, but as a feminist, I had issues with the church’s treatment of women, and my views of abortion and Gay marriage are quite different from the church hierarchy. I had often thought about going, but I hadn’t until Eastern Sunday, and then I went again this week. Someone who knows me well said they felt it was no coincidence that I hit 50, then looked for something familiar.

 

There is a lot of thinking and processing that needs to go on here. I certainly know a lot more about other religions and beliefs than I did before. I do not know where this is going, but you are welcome to follow along.

 
Note: True baseball fans, who know "Bull Durham," will notice that the subject line is close to Annie Savoy's declaration of "Me? I believe in the church of baseball." 

I have gone over to the dark side . . .

First facebook.

Now, Twitter.

Surprise: I am there as LiamStLiam

I am looking for interesting feeds.

Faith: On belief . . .

 

Speaking of homilies – well, yeah, that was in the last post, but still I was speaking of homilies -- this past Sunday was the first Sunday after Easter, so the topic was belief, and the specific Gospel verse it was based on follows.

 

John 20: 24-29

 

 ²⁴Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
      But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

 ²⁶A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

 ²⁸Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

 ²⁹Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

So, naturally, the homily was about belief. The priest re-told the Gospel story, then used an analogy where someone is blindfolded and a bucket of water placed at their feet. He talked about various levels of “knowing” it was there, such feeling the water, hearing a quarter dropped in the water and having your mother tell you there was water. The point being, if someone you trusted said something, you could have faith in it and believe it. You could also have faith in yourself.

This again got me thinking about baseball. (Hey, it was a nice, Spring day).

I started thinking about believing and knowing and the Boston Red Sox. See, I believe – and I know – that the Red Sox are the best team to be a fan of, and I have believed that since 1967. My Dad told me that, my friends told me that, and, well, that’s the way it ahs been since then. I know they are a better team to root for than the Yankees, or anyone else for that matter. It’s not rational, nor could I build a list of specific reasons, but it is what I believe.

Oddly, though Dad was also a fan of the Celtics, Bruins (to a small degree) and Patriots, none of those really connected. But he was a URI basketball fan, and I wound up going to school there.

This line of reasoning has taken me off on a total tangent – How baseball is like Catholicism, but I will return to that later.

For now, I am pondering belief. Do I believe in the Catholic model of Heaven and Hell? Do I believe that if  I ask Jesus for forgiveness, and he forgives me, I will still go to Heaven, even if I have been a schmoe on Earth? I would like to believe that.