#ATLT: my first love, margaret felice

Welcome to #ATLT, At the Lord’s Table: A Conversation, a series of over 50 posts from varying authors about the beautiful, mangled Church. Look for at least two new posts every Monday through Saturday between January 25th and February 22nd. Join us in the conversation? See you in the comments.

I have always loved church.

I agonized over how to begin this post on church, going through a few hooks that I thought were wonderfully artistic before realizing that telling my story of church had to start with this most basic of statements.

I literally don’t remember life before church choir and bible school. I took great pride in knowing more than anyone else in CCD (I was a deeply unlikable child!), I snuck old missalettes out of the back of the church so I could go home and “play church”, banging out the melodies of my favorite songs on my Casio keyboard.

Looking back, I recognize how lucky I was to have this time to fall in love with my holy, beautiful, broken church. I didn’t know the deep divisions not only among Christians but among my particular subset of Christian, Roman Catholics. I did not know how banged up Catholicism could get in the media. I didn’t know how often we deserved it.

What did I know? That when I was in church I could sing, and loudly. I knew that when people in my family died, or were joined in love, that was where we went. Holy ground was the site of our holy lives. Liturgy was magical, and we all did it together. The stories of our religious tradition were rich enough to satisfy my curiosity for forever and a day. I knew that I was learning from my family, that this was something special we shared.

So I became proud, not in an arrogant way, but proud in the sense of knowing who I was, and liking it. I was Catholic. I am Catholic, and not by chance or luck or even choice but by passion.

In addition to my institutional church, my church has been many people over the years. It has been classmates, neighbors, roommates, coworkers and friends. Usually we shared a religion (hey, I live in the northeast, everyone is Catholic up here). But that wasn’t what made us church. Neither was it the secrets we shared, or the way we loved each other. It was the shared sense of mission, the unspoken agreement we had that we were going to try to do the right thing, that somehow, some way, holiness was our goal.

This is what I write about, when I write about church, because this is what matters to me. Regardless of what I am “supposed” to care about, this is where my heart lies: with people, with liturgy, with stories, with history, and with the church, which I can never fully understand but which I love desperately, nevertheless.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Margaret Felice

Margaret is a self-described “religion teacher by day and opera singer by night”. She blogs from Boston on spirituality, scripture, family, performing, politics and whatever else crosses her mind. She loves humor, food, and liturgical music. Margaret blogs here and tweets here.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.