Sinners Sit in the Front

It's easy come, easy go, right? The "sinners" usually sit in the back of the church, but at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, it was just the opposite. Arriving about 5 minutes after the service had started, our tardy crew was marched up to the front pews as Cardinal Mahony looked on from his stained wood throne.

Michelle and I--both fairly new to Catholic services--looked on intently while at the same time trying to take in the design of the new cathedral. I stumbled through what little of the Apostle's Creed I remembered from my Foundations of Christian Thought class and tried to guess the next words of the liturgy. The real hard part, however, was when we went to take communion. Following the middle aisle queue to the front, we went to the nearest sacrament giver and stared blankly. I'm sure I saw an amused smirk on the eyes of my priest as he gave me a blessing and put the wafer in my mouth.

After we got our bread, neither Michelle nor I knew where to go next and we accidentally converged on the wine lady at the same time. I walked up to the small grandma (I'm sure she was) as she was wiping the spit off the rim goblet from the person before. Great. "Dude, I'm actually supposed to drink from this?" Michelle and I both peered into the cup until Grandma put our hands on the cup and started tilting. Bradley, who was looking on from the front row, was highly amused.

Though the communion was slightly unnerving, I really enjoyed the service a lot more than I expected to. Cardinal Mahony, recently known for allegedly neglecting the punishment of sex-offenders in the Catholic priesthood, was very down to earth in his message on forgiveness. The scripture passages were beautiful, the choir was stunning, and the sermon challenge hit home.

I found myself being happy in the fact that my God is one of....JOY! I'm so glad I can come into his presence without ceremony and praise Him.

Michelle in the Cardinal's chair.