I was visiting my aunt in Philadelphia this weekend after a long week in our nation's capital. We found time on Saturday night to attend Mass at Old St. Joseph's Church, the oldest urban Catholic Church in America. It's hidden in an alley; a throwback to the days when Catholics in America were decried as a fifth column and regularly attacked. It's a sweet little building, too - the interior design is OLD and good.
So we went through the motions and ritual of the Mass, the way I've been doing since I was a wee babe, and then we came to the priest's final blessing. He gave a few announcements and bade us all to leave in peace. But then he did something very, very strange (for me, at least). He asked if any of us were visitors to Old St. Joseph's. I didn't know what to do. Both my aunt and I had never been there before, of course, but the very fact that he asked was completely foreign to me in the context of a Catholic Mass.
I've been to a LOT of different houses of worship, not just Catholic churches, since I started down the path of interfaith dialogue. I try to visit a new one every Sunday/Saturday/Friday/Tuesday/whateverday. One of the things that I noticed was that after or even before every service, visitors would be asked to identify themselves. There would always be someone afterwards who would chase me down and ask me who I was and why I was visiting. Sometimes I'd even receive small gifts! The imam at my local mosque regularly pointed me out in the back of the room as an "honored guest." This has never happened to me at a Catholic Church, and it is one of the criticisms that I have of my religion - it is sometimes quite insular and cold.
Now maybe I've simply been going to all the "non-welcoming" Catholic churches, something I doubt, and hearing a priest ask for visitors was such a shock that it took me a few seconds to stand. But stand I did, and I smiled while rising. He welcomed us, and expressed his desire that we return to share in faith and fellowship. I sat back down.
For the first time in my life, someone was welcoming me to my own church.
So we went through the motions and ritual of the Mass, the way I've been doing since I was a wee babe, and then we came to the priest's final blessing. He gave a few announcements and bade us all to leave in peace. But then he did something very, very strange (for me, at least). He asked if any of us were visitors to Old St. Joseph's. I didn't know what to do. Both my aunt and I had never been there before, of course, but the very fact that he asked was completely foreign to me in the context of a Catholic Mass.
I've been to a LOT of different houses of worship, not just Catholic churches, since I started down the path of interfaith dialogue. I try to visit a new one every Sunday/Saturday/Friday/Tuesday/whateverday. One of the things that I noticed was that after or even before every service, visitors would be asked to identify themselves. There would always be someone afterwards who would chase me down and ask me who I was and why I was visiting. Sometimes I'd even receive small gifts! The imam at my local mosque regularly pointed me out in the back of the room as an "honored guest." This has never happened to me at a Catholic Church, and it is one of the criticisms that I have of my religion - it is sometimes quite insular and cold.
Now maybe I've simply been going to all the "non-welcoming" Catholic churches, something I doubt, and hearing a priest ask for visitors was such a shock that it took me a few seconds to stand. But stand I did, and I smiled while rising. He welcomed us, and expressed his desire that we return to share in faith and fellowship. I sat back down.
For the first time in my life, someone was welcoming me to my own church.
