The most Catholic thing I've ever done.

While I should be chronicling the adventures of Teh Bear and I while he is visiting, I'm putting that on hold (bahah, I say this like I've already started blogging about our adventures something) to tell you a funny story.

I was raised/am Catholic.  We might have discussed this before.  I didn't get out of going to church unless I was deathly sick (as in, probably missed Saturday morning cartoons due to illness), bleeding, or dying.  I can't remember more times than I could count on one hand that I missed church while I was living with my parents/either of them.  No JK.. Church was serious freakin business in Teh Household.

Teh Mom converted to Catholicism (from Baptist) when she married Teh Dad.  Teh Dad was raised Catholic and converted to "Independent Southern Baptist" (which is apparently different than just being Southern Baptist, as I was promptly educated when I got it wrong once) when he married Teh Stepmom.  Yes, that last sentence is 100% true, as strange and potentially awkward as it may be.

So, what is the funny story?  Patience, Gentle Reader.

I'm used to the same mass every week, despite not having gone to mass consistently since before I left home, home.  Catholic Mass rarely alters it's course.  Say the same things at the same point during the mass every week.  Sit, stand, kneel, repeat.  There is also Communion each week.

In the past few years, I've tried to get back into going to church each week.  In GTMO, I went to mass several times tour the end of my tour.  While I was in Bahrain, Mass was on Fridays, which was extremely weird to me, but since we worked with the Arabic calendar, their weekend is Fri/Sat, that's when it was.  It did not work with my schedule though, so I never went to mass in Bahrain...  I mean, I got to enjoy prayer call 5x a day, I felt really close with Allah, does that count?  I kid, I kid.

So anyways, now I'm in MD.  I've been trying to find a church to go to.  I went to the base chapel for a few weeks, for the Catholic service.  I just couldn't get into it.  That, and recently someone somewhere made changes to the things we always say, which I struggled with.  So I started looking elsewhere.  I really wanted to go some where that had a 0900/0930 service (not too late, not too early).  I found a United Methodist church that had a 0930 contemporary service, I figured I'd try it out.

I've went the past 2 weeks and enjoyed it, but this week, since Teh Bear is here visiting, he went with me.  He got to witness firsthand my very Catholic habit..

Funny story:

This past Sunday, there was Communion, which was the first time they'd served Communion since I've been going there.  In the Catholic practice, you eat the bread/wafer given to you, then drink the wine from the chalice/cup.  Nothing about drinking after everyone else in the church is sanitary, but you just pray that you don't catch all the germs from all the sick folks.  That's how I've always done it, so that's how I tried to do it.

Oops.  Apparently that's not how its done in the Methodist church.  They give you the wafer/bread, and you're supposed to dip it in the wine chalice...  Which is NOT what I did.  I ate my bread (like a true Catholic) and then the pastor had to give me another piece to dip.  Not even sure what the pastor had to be thinking at that point, but probably something along the lines of, "Silly Catholic girl."  Oops.  Sooooo very Catholic.

Teh Bear was laughing at me when I walked back to sit down beside him.  It was fair, because despite my bright red face, I was chuckling too.

What I'm used to. (image)

NOT what I'm used to.  (image)

I've been to places where they do communion where they give you the bread and the little plastic cup of wine, that was pretty self explanatory, except for the wait for everyone else part....  My bad, again, too Catholic.  In my defense of this situation though, I was raised to sit up front (no jk, we always sat in the very front left pew.  Only when we visited different churches did we move a few rows back, but usually on the left), so I didn't get to observe what was happening due to being towards the beginning and being vertically challenged.

On the other hand, lesson learned.  Less singing in line, more focusing on what people in front of me are doing.  Righto.