Sunday

     This morning I attended mass with my better half.  We were once part of a foursome fed with weekly inspiration at Xavier, a parish where all are welcome and hundreds take to heart.  But football and work have veered my children off the path today.  In fact, there are many days as of late with many excuses for their absence, and so today there's plenty of room in the already empty pews at a less popular church.  We crashed the 9:00 mass there because it was a block from the meeting place to where my football-playing, muscle-building 14-year-old has been called. The other teen in my house ran out the door at 6:50 for a 7:00 am call to the cafe a half an hour away.  There, Sunday worshipers will have their prayer over a cup of coffee and the New York Times looking out at the Hudson River, their dogs in tow.
     This is not how I spent my Sunday mornings on Melville Avenue.  Instead there was French toast sizzling over the gas stove thereby smoking up our house.  It would wreak in that kitchen for two days.  (French toast was Mom's least favorite breakfast to prepare, but her family loved her all the more when she gave in to their pleas.)  After a whole loaf of Home Pride, two sticks of butter, a dozen eggs, a half a gallon of frozen store-brand orange juice and pound of Oscar Meyer bacon, we were ready to fight over the one bathroom that served the six of us and then dress for Sunday mass.
     That beautiful, old church, dark and mysterious, packed with catholics was not the choice for Rose and Steve and their four kids.  Instead, we left our car often on the street to avoid the mobs of cars that jammed the parking lot.  We went to the parish hall across from the church for the 11:00 mass.  That was where Ms. Benson led the community in the 1970's Billboard top 10 Christian hits at Father Dennis' folk mass. "Open your ears oh christian people...open your ears and hear the news...." It was home for me.  That sense of community and comfort. I saw my friends there. We met our neighbors there.  We had barbecues with families there.  We attended the yearly summer picnic with rides and cotton candy there.  It was an effortless Sunday ritual that I have not yet found a way to establish in my family, in my church, in my city.  But the memory of it keeps me connected in my adult life, and with or without my kids, I return weekly for that inspiration hoping that they, too, will have enough to carry them over into the next chapter of their lives.  Hoping that despite their occasional break from the one-hour-a-week that is asked, they will find their way back someday with both feet in.
     When I think of churches in Italy, I think of a painted canvas with no white space showing.  That the artist has created a piece rich with divine color and beauty. I imagine that churches are everywhere. And stained glass blinds you like the sun.  The holiness of the buildings embraces you and you are left breathless. I don't know if that's true, and I hope that when I get there I am not praying to find a catholic church.  Somehow I doubt that will happen. Somehow I imagine they're like Starbucks, found on every corner.  Or something like that.  In fact, I think that it won't be too difficult to return home 4,000 miles away.  For me, home is where faith abounds. Where people relish in tradition rather than run from it.  Where families pray together. Where Sunday rituals still exist for people like me. And where I can feel safe with my whole family at my side.