For those of you reading who are Catholic, you know that Advent starts this week. It's the four-week period before Christmas that the church uses to prepare for the birth of Christ.As the Church prepares, so does its parishioners, who decide that after neglecting the Church for most of the year that they'll grace the house of God with their presence, lest they burn in eternal damnation. So, they start trickling in this week, and then by Christmas day, the Church, which usually welcomes around 300 people per mass, is busting at the seams with more than double that.
This puts a terrible strain on RoadRage. All year I work to keep the Sabbath, as the Good Book tells me to do. While I'm there I usually sit in my personal favorite spot, I have room to move around, and I'm not forced to commiserate with my fellow Christians in tight quarters.
But, Christmas reminds these part-time Christians that they haven't paid their respects to their maker for sometime, and that this is the perfect time to do it -- kind of a birthday present for Jesus.
That's all fine and good, and I'm sure the Church enjoys getting the extra revenue in their coffers to help them stay in business, but for people like me, it's a pain in the ass.
First off, trying to find parking becomes hell on earth. Then, during mass, the seat that I was in for the previous 48 weeks, suddenly is gone, or the pew that I am in is so packed with you heathens, that I don't even want to sit there -- so I'm forced to sit farther back.
Then, as the mass goes on, I'm forced to hold hands with people during the Our Father, when in weeks past, there was so much space between me and the next person that it didn't seem like I was blowing the person off closest to me when I didn't participate.
This year, as a little holiday gift to RoadRage, why don't you part-timers treat mass like a health club membership -- send in your check, and just stay away. The Church will be happy to get the money, you'll be happy to not have to give up a whole hour of your time each Sunday and, most importantly, RoadRage will be happy not to have to look at you all the next four weeks.
But, I'm guessing I'll have to see you through Christmas and again at Easter.
Merry Christmas, losers!
RoadRage
2 comments:
One of the reasons I stopped going to Church in the first place. The last time I went to Church was a Sunday after Christmas. That Christmas I stood in the foyer of the Church with my Mom. I wasn't as mad about having to stand for me , but in my mind I was going crazy that my Mom had to stand after faithfully attending mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation for over sixty years. That was a Saturday; come Sunday I walked into church and greeted the priest with, "Hey Father, no problem finding a seat today ay!"
Christmas is about celebrating the birth of our savior and not about the thoughts going through my head:
Let's dress up the kids and show them off at church...why doesn't Father Beaven remind these people that they can't receive communion if they haven't gone to confession? Well he wouldn't want to take the chance of them not coming at Easter and missing all that cash...
Then I had an epiphany, Jesus wouldn't tell people they couldn't partake in communion if they hadn't confessed their sins and all the other crap the church came up with to control people and the world.
So I celebrate the birth of Jesus with my family now, who have faith in the promise of his love and forgiveness and not in having the bulletin from a mass to prove my kid went to mass and put some coin in the basket.
I used to find peace at mass, but I don't any more...I find it elsewhere through HIM.
That';s the Christmas, Chritian spirit!!! You Go Raodrage!!
BTW, thatnks for changing the font, it's a lot lesss strainful on my eyes!
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