Tomorrow will mark five years since I returned to full communion with the Catholic Church after more than thirty years away. Below is an excerpt from something I wrote about that beautiful day:
I’d never been a Christmas Catholic.
There had been those times in Naperville and in Cincinnati that I’d tried going back to church on Easter for the joy and the power and the awe of celebrating the resurrection. But never in my life had I been to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
I arrived twenty minutes early, and the sanctuary was already half-full. I thumbed through the bulletin announcements and smiled. There it was again, the announcement I’d read back in August when I came to St. Charles for the first time: “…Landings is an eight-week discussion series, a safe landing place for returning Catholics to ask questions and update your faith as an adult. We begin our next session in the spring. If you are interested, please contact Anna LaNave…”
The processional began, with music. “O Come, All Ye Faithful”; “Joy to the World”; “Angels We Have Heard on High”; “Silent Night”; “The First Noel.” I sang my fool head off, every song, mostly with my eyes shut. The intensity of the feeling, the closeness to God, was almost too much to bear.
I couldn’t keep the tears inside as we sang “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” the “peace on earth and mercy mild” line. Mercy mild indeed: an uncomfortable ninety minutes with my pastor, Advent retreats, a reconciliation service, and personal reflection were all it had taken to get back into God’s good graces once I was ready. Either I had been incredibly lucky, or His mercy was incredibly mild. Or maybe they were the same thing.
In what seemed like seconds, we were past the readings, past the homily. It was time for the Eucharist. I closed my eyes, until I heard the people in the row in front of me stand. I opened my eyes and rose from my knees with the rest of my pew. I wondered whether I would faint or burst out sobbing before I reached the altar.
I was about halfway there when I saw one of the Landings facilitators seated on the aisle with her husband and their two sons and daughter. I reached over and touched her shoulder. She turned around and looked at me with a big smile.
“Thank you,” I mouthed.
She looked puzzled, then smiled again and mouthed, “Merry Christmas!”
I approached my pastor, hands out.
He gave many people communion during that mass, before and after me. But for a split second, he and God and I were the only ones in the church. He stopped for an instant, looked at me with those piercing eyes, no smile at all; said, “The body of Christ”; and placed the host in my hands.
“Amen,” I said and turned to my right. Slowly, I took the host in my right hand and placed it in my mouth. As I stared at the crucifix, I made the sign of the cross, ingesting the wafer and the miracles of transubstantiation and transformation. Communion. The wafer melted in my mouth and into my soul. Once again, I was one in the Spirit.
I returned to the pew and knelt with my eyes closed, occasionally wiping away tears, until I heard those around me sitting up. One part of my life was done. Another was just beginning. I thanked God for my rebirth, for my church, and for the people who helped me find both.
