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Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

DECEMBER 2000 CONFESSIONS

PARISH HOPPING

A friend of mine tells a wonderful story about his father, who, after hearing one too many whoppers from the pulpit and enduring one too many affronts to the ritual of the Mass, snapped, and proceeded to drag my friend and a number of his siblings from Mass to Mass one Sunday, searching for a service that would not offend.

Such behavior was not really an option for my own father -- we already attended the less loony of the two Catholic churches in my hometown. Even if escape had been possible, I don't know if he would have chosen it. He has an earnest, principled streak in him, a zeal for the common good. He is a writer of sincere, thoughtful letters. I think he would have done what he did, and still does -- stayed put, and waged a gentle war against lunacy and ignorance.

I suppose my father's example was why I found myself taking sides against my girlfriend some years ago, arguing that "parish hopping" was a dangerous, if not uncharitable, practice. To me, it smacked of the same insularity as the notion that we Catholics need avoid the rest of the fallen world for fear of what it might do to us -- hardly in step with the command to "go out and teach all nations." If the straight-arrow Catholics kept to their own kind, how would the bent-arrow Catholics ever get straightened out? Charity, I argued, demanded that we stay put and fight the good fight. The parish was a community, offering some common good that was to be put above our own particular wishes -- even if those wishes had to do with the nourishment of our own souls.

Some years later, I left the first parish I joined here in San Diego because my charity failed me. I was too tempted to think ill thoughts about the people who came in as late as the homily, marched to the front of the church, and exchanged grinning handshakes with their neighbors -- to say nothing of the people who waved and chatted as they marched back from communion, the Host still dissolving on their tongues. I was too distracted by the women who, while not seductive, were dressed to the hilt, and caught my curious/critical eye. The priests were excellent; the Mass reverent. But the congregation was too much for me, and I had no idea what to do about it. I was up against a culture, not a doctrine, and the culture was not my own.

Nor is the culture my own at my current parish -- and so I hesitate to call it truly mine. It is not close to where I live. It was close to where I used to live, but still not my designated parish. I went there because I heard good things about the pastor and stayed because those things were true. His Masses are reverently said and full of ceremony. He is orthodox, willing to open the catechism during a homily and read from it. He seems a true shepherd. He gives sermons free of pabulum and platitudes. He says the hard things without sounding bombastic.

I stayed for other reasons as well: the associate pastor provides an excellent complement, giving homilies which display a holiness I find attractive and affecting. The building itself possesses some measure of beauty and grandeur. And the congregation seems animated by their faith -- I admire their devotion and fervor. But as I say, they are not my own -- my admiration is from a distance.

In some senses, though I go there almost every Sunday, I feel a perpetual visitor. Masses are offered in three languages: Vietnamese, Spanish and English. Though English gets the traditional 10 a.m. slot, it is, as far as I can tell, peopled largely by Vietnamese and Hispanic people, along with a smattering of African-Americans and elderly whites. My sort -- younger, white, multiple small children in tow -- barely registers. I am not at home here, not the way these people are. I am an intellectual transplant, here on principle. Without even thinking about it, I have gone parish hopping.

I thought of this last Sunday as I sat in the pew at the church near my house -- a bland, inoffensive building my pastor would probably call a "prayer barn." Though there are highlights -- tabernacle in the center, beautiful statues harvested from the old, too-small church across the way -- the place feels cold to me. The homilies aren't bad, neither is the Mass. I can say nothing bad about the congregation, except perhaps that the youth seem listless in a suburban, Caucasian way. It all just seems a washed-out version of what I get at my adopted parish.

But does that matter? I go to Mass primarily for spiritual nourishment -- the Eucharist, the Word of God, the homily. The communal gathering strikes me as secondary. I think the life of the parish community is important; I just think it finds its best expression outside of Mass. But outside of Mass, I am never near my parish. And since I don't attend Mass at the parish I live in, I am outside the community there. I am in no man's land, and suddenly, I am uncomfortable.

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