Rules

Ugh, I know I am posting a lot but I'm so frustrated. Yesterday, two friends of mine posted an article (I am too lazy to find it) about a woman who was denied communion at her mother's funeral. It said that the priest said he couldn't give her communion because she lived with another woman. If a priest had knowledge of that, I suppose he couldn't give her communion, that's a fact. It seems KIND of weird that he would know that she was living with this woman, but whatever, if he did, the thing to do would be to not give her communion, although I guess he could have handled it better, i.e. talked to her before Mass. It then said that he walked out while she was giving the eulogy, and that he fell ill (or pretended to) so that he didn't go to the graveyard. The woman said she was a life long Catholic AND that she didn't think her sexual orientation would have anything to do with receiving Communion.

So. The communion thing is clear, I guess. My question is, why was she going to communion if she was aware of being NOT in a state of grace? I bet I know the answer, I bet she was not a church goer and was not a confession goer and had no intention of changing her life, which is all fine. It is hard to live your life according to the rule of the Catholic church, I agree! We are all sinners, the way I figure it. What I don't understand is WHY are you marching up for communion if you know all these things? If you were, to use a phrase I despise, "raised Catholic?". If you don't go to church anymore, if you don't believe in it, then don't TAKE COMMUNION! Sheesh! And I have no idea how someone could be raised in the church, be a life long Catholic, and not be clear on the homosexuality thing. Really? REALLY?

As far as the eulogy goes - no one except the priest is supposed to give the homily. This is also a fact. People want to have a more personal reflection of the person who died, at a funeral, which is COMPLETELY understandable, but if you want to do that, I think you should either talk after the Mass, or do something at the funeral home. Or better yet, at the wake after the funeral. I think a lot of people forget that a funeral Mass is a Mass and has rules, just like every other frickety fracken Mass that they have.

A friend of mine was saying that the priest was giving her trouble about playing a spiritual at her mother's funeral. It was Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and a favorite of her mom's. They did play it, as a recessional, which makes perfect sense to me, both because of the lyrics of the song (coming for to carry me home) and because it was outside of the Mass. Personally, I think a priest presiding over a funeral mass for a mom who died very young should try to err on the side of the KINDLY but people are imperfect, I guess.

I think a lot of people don't know about the rules of the Mass, or about having to have sacred music for a Mass, because a lot of churches have gotten very lax about it and it's confusing. But just because people don't know about it, or because they are constantly showing movies where they are playing the wedding march at a Catholic church, doesn't mean it's not true. I feel like such a jerk, but I also feel I have to defend the church. Because I am insane.

Kids

Yesterday we all went to Mass together, as we've been doing for around four weeks in a row. Veronica was hateful, horrible BAD! during Mass so finally Mike took her out to the car. She fell asleep so hard when we got home, I assume she didn't feel good or was super tired or something and that's why she was so bad. Anyways, I took a picture of her and put it on Facebook and said basically that. A friend of mine posted a comment that said "I will never understand why you CATHOLICS TORTURE YOURSELVES AND YOUR CHILDREN by expecting them to sit still for an HOUR! That's what you GET!". I was all, what in the who now? First of all, this girl is a Christian Scientist, which is a much maligned church and second of all, an hour's not really SUPER long. I take the girls to a frickety fracken story hour at the library and they sit there for most of that. Also, we don't expect her to sit exactly still or we whack her hands with a ruler or anything. She brings a book, we will gladly take her to the foyer, she just can't run up the damned aisle or SLAP at her father's FACE! GOD! What is wrong with people?

But it made me think, typically Catholics don't have Cry Rooms or whatever. We were always expected to just behave in church. If we didn't, and sometimes we didn't, we got spanked after church. I don't care so much, it wasn't TRAUMATIZING or anything but Mike and I don't want to do it so we have to discipline in other ways. So I was thinking why do we torture ourselves? Why do we take them all? I work on Saturdays so we have to go on Sunday and we would rather be together than alone at home with them all. It's good for Anthony to practice sitting and being quiet (and not smacking the head of the guy in front of him, which he did this week). I think God is right there in that church and I like to bring my family there. So that way when I pray for them, I can be all, "These people! Right here! THESE are the ones that I am praying for!".

I have to run, Felicity is crying, but I wanted to get that thought down before it flitted out of my ears.

HHS Mandate

Here's my long thoughtful post on the Health and Human Services mandate that all institutions that provide health care for their employees, including Catholic employers, have to provide birth control, including known abortifacients.

That is a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

And as I say to Maria 1000 times a day, that's it. Period. The end.