Week 18 - The Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist

This Sunday we landed in The Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist in Edmond. St. John’s is a beautiful church with beautiful grounds. Everything about it is inviting and feels like community. The service was inspiring and the singing (especially the gentleman that sang a solo in Spanish) was fabulous. The service followed a pattern of worship and responses that everyone there seemed to know and was very comfortable with. This created a sense of unity among them. As a non-Catholic, I did occasionally feel like everyone was looking at me and thinking “well she certainly isn’t Catholic.” I doubt that was the case, but the rituals, the closed communion and routine responses can make an outsider really feel like an outsider. At the same time, I found all of those things somewhat charming and comforting. I have an affection for order, routine, tradition and feeling a sense of belonging. I understand how those practices give you all of those things including a sense of security and comfort, of knowing what to expect. I get why this is appealing to people. It is a sharp contrast from the emotional spontaneity of some of the other churches we have visited. The message was about loving one another as God loved us, focusing on the idea that people will know we are Christians by the way we love one another. I have really been questioning my ability to love people I disagree with this week. Questioning how I love without judgment, how to love without agreeing with the behavior, how to love while being persecuted. Once again, God provided a timely message. I think I’m finally starting to get that God has so much to say to me, that it doesn’t matter where I worship, He’s going to show me something. It brings a whole new sense of purpose to getting up on Sunday morning.