Expert: Griff Ruby - 7/4/2007

Question
I have been raised Catholic my entire life and am about to turn 35.  This, it seems, is a time of deep reflection and life inspection for me from all aspects.  And apparently my place of worship is also part of that reflection these days.  I respect the Catholic teachings and had every intention of raising me two very small children that way.  My husband was also raised Catholic although it appears I am the reason he goes to church each week.  When our first child was born three years ago he started to complain less about going.  Our priest was very down to earth, positive, easy to understand and we enjoyed going to mass together.  About two years ago Father Jeff left and Father Steve was sent to our church in his place.  He is a totally different type of minister.  He is very negative, very rigid and actually kind of rude.  He turned a large number of people away from our thriving community church and unfortunately about 9 months ago that included me.  We had a very unfortunate discussion on the phone which included him telling me that it was not his job to give spiritual guidance to my children but that was totally my job.  When I told him I have never felt unwelcome in that church in all my years up until now he told me to find a new church.  So I did.  I searched and went to a number of local churches.  The leaders were nice but never felt like home again.  We settled for another local Catholic church and now I struggle each week to get my family there.  Recently a young cousin was asking me about God, going to church and what will happen to her since her parents don't take her.  I felt my answers were compassionate and helpful as much as they could be in a short conversation.  But it really started me questioning my own needs.  One thing I wondered was if God was meaning for me to ask her to attend with me - I couldn't do.  Why?  Because I don't feel she will understand the sermons.  At 11 years old she will be bored and lost.  I suddenly felt like going to church is as much about ceremony for me and my family now as enlightenment.  I listen to my good friend talk about all the spiritual guidance she gets from her local church (advertised as non-denominational although I do believe they are registered as baptist).  It is a hugely popular church locally.  They have teachings for children of every age group.  They provide a lot of opportunity for spiritual growth and understanding each week.  They teach on a more basic level.  I haven't met a soul who has attended that church that didn't leave feeling more in touch spiritually.  Why wouldn't God want that?  Why would it be a sin for me to find my way in that church?  I am struggling with this.  Why am I taking my children each week to a church where they are not getting anything out of it other then the habit of going to church?  Why can't Catholics have churches where they are not so poised on ceremony but go for spiritual teaching and enlightenment?  Did God really want us to just repeat the same prayers and readings and ceremony each Sunday as a habit?  I do believe in the sacraments but what about all the "stuff" that goes around them?  I am calling into question a lot of things in my life but this is the biggest thing weighing on me these past few days.  I admire the peace and spirituality my friend has found in her church and I can't believe that she will not go to heaven because she has found a stronger faith outside of being Catholic.  Is it truly a sin for me to find God in another building then a Catholic church?  What if my beliefs in God were to become stronger there?  Please advise!

Answer
I have been thinking long and hard on what to say, so sorry for the delay.
An important distinction must be made between "feeling close to God" versus "being close to God."  The two are obviously not the same; either one can occur without the other.
So what is the role of ceremony in Church?  This opens up a massive can of worms that must be opened if I am to address your question.  Let's start with a basic:  What is the difference between worship and veneration?  In Protestant churches, they know of no discernable distinction.  What they call "Praise and Worship" would most charitably be described as what Catholics call "veneration."  Singing songs, hearing speeches, making prayers, these things can be as much done towards the holy saints as towards God.  (Well, Protestants won't, because they know of nothing higher than the "worship" (actually veneration) that they do, and they do understand the scriptural concept of worship being for God alone.)
There is certainly something to be said for this sort of thing, and there most certainly is room to venerate God along with worshipping Him (but I wouldn't do it in a Protestant church because of all the heresy present that in fact is a grave insult to God).  A person might "feel close to God" standing with their eyes closed and their hands in the air singing slow songs and swaying with the crowd, but when such gatherings are centered around some heretical principles (as they inevitably are), God is far removed from them and such feelings have no basis in reality.  And that is not worship.
In the Old Testament, worship, whether of the true God or of idols, invariably involves altars and sacrifice and standard prayers and an element of mystery.  It is not about intellectual enlightenment and understandable sermons any more than it is about hands in the air and feeling close to God.
You mention a husband, so I can assume that you are married.  Think of those intimate times alone with your husband (as an example).  True, there might be some variation from one to the next, like whether he kisses your left leg first or your right, and so forth, but basically it all boils down to the same old thing, again and again.  Intellectually speaking, such times would have to be described as boring, repetitive, certainly not the least bit enlightening.  Yet such times produce fulfillment on an altogether different level, and your marriage would be in serious trouble without such times coming at least once in a while.
So it is with true worship and altars and sacrifice and the Mass (but the fulfillment in this case is entirely spiritual).  The Scripture readings and some few other prayers, and the homily will vary from one Sunday to the next, but basically it's the same thing again and again, feeding your spirit in ways your mind can never really fully understand.  By contrast, picture a marriage in which all the wife and husband ever do when alone together is sit in armchairs across the room from each other and carry on a conversation, perhaps occasionally singing songs to each other or saying "I love you."  Whatever intellectually stimulating and enlightening value such conversations might indeed have, there would be something missing, wouldn't you say?
But perhaps you might say "But I have been Catholic all my life and there is nothing there that seems to be of sacrifice or mystery or anything much besides the Scriptures read (and perhaps the occasional good homily?) that in the least even makes me inclined to believe in God; in fact the whole thing seems kind of Man-made, if you know what I mean."  I think your reluctance to bring your 11-year-old relative reflects such an observation.  And this is where that much bigger issue comes in.
Being only 35, in all your life you have seen only one thing which has been presented to you as being "Catholic."  But that "one thing" is not typical for Catholicism, and in fact is perhaps as fully wide the mark of real Catholicism as anything going on at the church where your friend goes.
The real Catholic Church has the distinction of having been around for nearly 2,000 years, and in all that time has had plenty of time to define all that it means to be a Catholic, what we believe, what we do, and how we worship.
If your parents or grandparents were Catholic, they grew up in a Church markedly different from the one you grew up in.  It is no mere variation of fashion or mere minor details, no matter how much some may wish to minimize the difference.  Different in belief, different in praxis, and substantially and obviously different in worship, in that what they did really WAS worship, with ceremonies written not by Man but by God, a difference even more vast than that between a Mozart Symphony and some banal advertising jingle you hear on the radio or TV today.
That Church is eternal, and therefore does still exist even today, though you may have to travel a bit to see it.  But it's worth it.  See if there is any place listed in this directory near you that you can go to on a Sunday.  Even if it is far, it may be the most important pilgrimage of your life.  The Latin Mass is NOT merely about doing the same thing as you have already seen every Sunday of your life, but in Latin, but in fact something substantially different and far more truly awesome.
For myself, until I found such a thing, I have to wonder how much I really had believed in God.  I had of course intellectually accepted the idea of God, made prayers, even felt that some prayers may have been answered, but it is only in the presence of a God-written liturgy that does much that no mere mortal could have ever even thought of that really brings it all home with that awesome sense of "My God, there really IS a God!"
I know that Benedict XVI has today finally published a document calling for more Latin Masses and more "reverence," whatever that is, and that is certainly a commendable step on his part, but frankly I don't trust the "Fr. Bob's" of the world (or "Fr. Jeff's" or "Fr. Steve's" for that matter) to what they themselves have never seen and know nothing about.  That kind of reminds me of a cartoon I once saw where a Hollywood director type complete with the funny hat, shades, pointy beard, and overall bohemian look (along with his equally uncouth cronies to whom he is speaking) saying to them "The new *%&*$ trend is for @^&$&# wholesome movies, so we need to get some &*$%*@!*!^% family-type !*&@&* wholesome stories to shoot on our *&!%#%$ sets."  (With all due respect, even if any such "Fr. Bob" is really serious about taking this new document to heart, you'd best give him at least several years to go though a significant "learning curve.")
No, travel as necessary to some place where they have been doing it for many years and the mystery of it is alive and well.
In such places, the whole room is a sanctuary of God, where all that is not prayer is silence, where you don't sit and gab with your neighbor about what you are doing next week or what's wrong with So-and-so and what not, where the priest (who really is a  priest, a man set apart for God) faces God, where the Host is truly treated as though it really is the Body and Blood our our Lord instead of like some sort of blessed potato chip, where people dress up since they know they are coming into the actual and royal presence of God, where reverence is not merely a word but a whole way of doing things that casts a whispering awe over all that takes place and everyone who so much as sets foot in the door.  This is the Catholic Church, the real one founded those thousands of years ago and which will still be there when the world ends.  This is the Church your parents and grandparents (all the way back) knew as the Catholic Church (whether they were part of it or not) when they were growing up, and which any of such advanced age would readily attest.
Here is where to find the directory:
http://www.traditio.com/nat.htm
If in going to one of these places you do not find a place worth bringing your 11-year-old relative, your friend, and your parents, well I just won't know what to say...