Churchin'

Erstwhile Xmastime buddy Andrew Sullivan on going back to Mass after missing it for a year (THANKS, Covid!):

When I ask myself what exactly I’ve missed, I realize it sure isn’t a weekly revelation. I don’t expect to feel something profound every time I go to Mass — because most of the time, I don’t, and rarely have. Every now and again, grace appears. But it’s rare. And it isn’t necessary. The one thing Catholicism teaches the bored and distracted church-goer is that your own mood doesn’t really matter. The consecration will happen regardless. Your inspiration is not the point. And what makes this all cohere somehow is physical, communal ritual — and that, I realize, is what I really miss. 

I miss the silent genuflection; the chanting in unison with others; the simple standing up and kneeling down and standing up again. I miss the messy democracy of the communion line, and the faces I recognize from decades in my parish, and the faces I don’t. I miss enacting something ineffable with my body, using words I never chose myself, and using them uniquely in this space. I miss the irrational, collective order of it all. I miss the liberation of submission to something far larger than myself. 

I myself was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked going to Mass for a short stretch back in 2012:

As for the service itself it was fine; I kind of enjoyed it actually.  Amazing how relaxing church can be when 1) you can remove any religious mumbo-jumbo from the whole affair, and 2) you can simply get up and walk out at any time without the fear of your father burying you next to the septic tank in the backyard.  Father Lynch, whom I met the other day, made a point of coming up and saying hello to me shortly after I arrived (being one of half a dozen people in the building, I wasn't hard to miss)(wait - do you think it's because he knows about my life above the rim?), and I saw him while leaving and told him I enjoyed his Homily, which I did.  The gist was we all need to take care of those who can't take care of themselves, which to me is the single most important tenet of any religion, so it was nice to hear in a very specific way (again - no mumbo-jumbo, just straight-up be compassionate/golden rule stuff.)

I enjoyed going and will go again; hell, it's nice to do something on a Sunday morning other than stew in my own juices being a fucking loser for whatever reason.  Next time I'll try the 12:30 service, the "young, brunch-going crowd" one.

NOTE: it's well worth your time to see the rest of the post as my Facebook musings were comedy gold, comedy gold people!]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand on top of all this church talk it turns out fewer people are going than ever, mostly thanks to the Religious Right being such fucking asshats:

It's a story with a moral so blunt that it could very well be a biblical fable: Christian leaders, driven by their hunger for power and cultural dominance, become so grasping and hypocritical that it backfires and they lose their cultural relevance. Not that there's any cause to pity them, since they did this to themselves. The growing skepticism of organized religion in the U.S. is a trend to celebrate. While more needs to be done to replace the sense of community that churches can often give people, it's undeniable that this decline is tied up with objectively good trends: increasing liberalism, hostility to bigotry, and support for science in the U.S. Americans are becoming better people, however slowly, and the decline in organized religious affiliation appears to be a big part of that.