The Call

When I was a very young child, I wanted nothing more than to go to church EVERY day.  My mom told me that children's mass was only on Sundays.  I longed for days when my Grandma Bernadette and my Grandpa Frank would take me to the "grown-up mass" at Maria Regina in Seaford, NY.

 I didn't understand one song in particular, and I remember asking my mom about it, since it was never sung in the children's mass, or at least, not in the same words.  This Memorial Acclamation is upon which we hang the entirety of our religion: "Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again." 

My mom explained that Jesus and Christ were the same person (for this autistic kid, I could not fathom why this Dude had so many names!), and that He had died, but it was okay, because one day He would come back.  I remember my response as if it was yesterday, "What do you mean Jesus is dead?  He's alive and we sing that about Him in church every week!"  

I was weird, quirky theologin as a child.  I prayed daily.  I asked to go to mass every chance I could.  If I'm being honest, it was mostly because I loved the joyful music and I was praying that the monsters would stay under my bed.  

The summer before high school, I attended a retreat, Steubenville East, at LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro, MA.  There was a thunderstorm, and the tent I was camping under began to flood (it was a huge open tent, the size of a tent for a wedding).  The adult women in the tent began to say that the structure wasn't safe, and the tent could collapse, so my friends and I floated our belongings on our air mattresses to the reconciliation tent.  We were soaked and cold, but we were safe.  I remember a dear friend of mine, RB, had been camping beside me, and we giggled as we landed in the reconciliation tent, drenched, and the priests who had all been drinking coffee and sharing a moment of respite from the very enthusiastic teens were very confused, as this was before cell phones were popular and no one had told them we were on our way.

I think of that moment frequently, the look of surprise on all of the priests faces, as this group of giggly girls arrived at the reconciliation tent.  We didn't belong there, but that was exactly where God had pushed us: out of our comfort zones, through the thunder and rain, to a dry spot.    

The next morning, the rain cleared up, and as a group of us sang on the hillside, a rainbow formed.  I had been praying, asking God to send me a sign.  I said "God, if you want me to be a priest, and I don't even know how that would be possible, send me a sign, and if you want me to get married and have kids, send me a sign, and Oh, God?!  Just let me know?"   As I cried big huge tears, on my knees in that gravelly path, I heard "Both is good."