Transcript

When I was a Presbyterian, I was introduced for the first time to the liturgy.

Um, and then when I became Anglican, there was the liturgy and also, uh, at every, every Sunday they celebrated communion.

And in both of those denominations, the that was very satisfying to me to a point.

I loved the liturgy and I loved the sacred music and I loved the celebration of, um, the Lord's table, but always without fail at the end of church when it's time to leave, there was still this hollow feeling that something was missing.

And I never could put my finger on it.

And it always sort of made me feel a little sad, because I felt like maybe I wasn't measuring up.

And yet it was so consistent.

It was always there.

So Sunday's church service is a little different for me now that I'm Catholic.

I remember growing up going to church on Sundays in the Baptist Church.

And the inspiration for the service very much came from the hymns, the fellowship, the sermon, and, and while all of those things are obviously present in a Catholic mass, the Catholic mass is something different, something more entirely.

It's sacramental.

You're receiving graces when you receive the Eucharist.

It's, it's an otherworldly experience in the sense that at the moment the priest is consecrating the host, all of the angels, all of the saints are right there around the altar in communion with us right there in that church.

Um, and it's, it's amazing.

When I was a child reading the stories of, of Jesus in the gospels and especially the story of our Lord's passion, how many times did I think, I wish I could have been there?

As terrible a thing as it was, as, as bloody and as gory, as sorrowful and sad as it was, I thought, I wish I could've been there at the feet of Jesus on the cross.

I wish I could've worshiped him then.

I wish I could've loved him then.

But here I am 2,000 years later.

And so it's a very powerful, powerful realization for me.

What I learned as a Catholic that in the mass, I do get to be at the foot of Calvary, at the foot of the cross.

That that same sacrifice from 2,000 years is made present to me.

It's as if I can go back in time or, or better yet, the event in time comes forward to me.

That it's outside of time when I encounter Christ in his body, blood, soul, and divinity in the mass, that I am at the foot of the cross.

And because of that when I receive our Lord, I do worship, I adore, I sorrow with him, and I rejoice with him knowing that his resurrection has come.

Because he did that for me and he loved me enough to give me through the Eucharist in the mass the opportunity to, to be at his feet in the most important moment in all of history.

As a child, my best friend growing up was Catholic and I often went to mass with him and his family.

It was a bit different from the church service that I had in my own Methodist church growing up.

I liked the pageantry of it.

I, I liked the ritual.

I always found it to be very, very comforting.

When I made the decision to convert to Catholicism, I went back to mass after having been away from it for a few years.

And again, I immediately found that, that comfort in, in saying the same prayers and doing the same ritual actions over and over again each and every Sunday.

As a priest, of course, I have an even greater appreciation for the awesomeness of the mass.

It's an amazing thing to, to be chosen from amongst men to go represent men to God and to bring God back to men through the holy sacrifice of the mass.

I'll be honest, with three children and a family, it's not always easy to get to mass on Sunday.

We have hectic weekends with busy sport schedules and homework, and, um, obviously a social life, and sometimes, quote unquote, fitting in mass is not the easiest thing to do.

But we always make it there.

I know that ordering our weekend around that being the priority and actually spending the time there at mass receiving those graces, um, is worth every bit of the headache or frustration that it may have taken to get there.

So when The first time I went to mass in a Catholic church, and I love the Latin mass, everything was so beautiful from the moment I stepped into the church, the, um, the music, the architecture, the surroundings, the sense of reverence.

Watching little children kneel before they sit down in the pew, just that little tiny picture of Catholicism right there, it just filled me with a sense of, I think I'm, I think I'm getting close to home.

Um, so I'm just only I'm still in RCIA, so I haven't, I don't, I have not received the Eucharist yet, but I'm really looking forward to when I am received into the church and I can receive the Eucharist.

But even now, that sense of, I'm not home, I'm already home, and I, I know it to the depths of my being.