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Friday, February 04, 2005
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Reminiscence on St. Blase Day
Yesterday's feast, that of St. Blase the Martyr, brought back a sudden memory for me last night. Back in 1999, I was a passionate Evangelical taking my initial steps in investigating the Church of Rome. I had read a few books by Catholic authors, found some of the arguments plausible, and decided I was finally ready to visit a Catholic church. My general impression of the liturgy was that it more boring and forced than anything else, although I did find some of the ceremonies to be tinged with some degree of tiresome superstition. I don't think it was my first mass, perhaps my second or third, which happened to fall upon St. Blase Day. Now keep in mind, I had been reassured by the all-too-welcoming RCIA instructors that all that hocus-pocus about saints and miracles was 'so pre-Vatican II', and that I wouldn't find 'up-to-date' Catholicism too different than my own church. But on February 3, 1999 I stood in the back of the church with slack-jawed horror as rows upon rows of papists filed to the front to have beeswax candles clapped around their throats while a vested priest muttered ritual invocations against rheumatism to a long-dead martyr. I think I slipped quietly out the back, and it did take me a few weeks before I was able to venture back. It's just one of those humerous moments that'll stay with me at least once a year.
# posted by Jamie : 7:32 AM
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