The Catholic Church Changes

Our Family with Sister Mary Ann at St. Ann's

Jake and I started attending Saturday night mass soon after we started dating.  I really started enjoying the ritual of going to church with Jake and then going to dinner.  We attended St. Mary's in Lancaster for about nine years.  I started enjoying the fact that unlike the little Methodist Church I had attended my entire life, no one knew me there.  Rarely did anyone ever even talk to us.  We were married in that church and both of our girls were baptized there.

When we moved to Nebraska we immediately found St Ann's Catholic Church.  This church was different because they had four services, two in Spanish and two in English.  Jake and I stuck really close to the tradition of attending Saturday night mass just like when we dated.  However the difference was the girls enjoyed sitting in the very front row, so that's where we were on most Saturday nights.  The other big change was we got to know most of the people that went to the masses we went to.  We even went to dinner after mass with some of them. I also suddenly had the time available on Wednesday nights from August until Easter to take the classes to join the church and become an official member.  I was excited to finally be able to take communion at church again.  After taking these classes I really felt like I had a grasp on the church and the order of the mass.  We really enjoyed the mass at St. Ann's even though it was slightly different then St. Mary's.

Now that we are in St.Clairsville we attend St. Mary's and we have been learning about all the changes the church is making for the mass, the changes started this weekend.  I am not going to lie, these changes are a little frustrating.  I just learned all of the wording, I felt like I was really on the same page (literally) as everyone for once.  Now all of these changes.  After talking with Jake's grandma though one of the most devoted Catholic women that I know, she says "I think this is good".  She thinks that it is good that we don't get in a rut of attending church and reciting things and forget what we are even saying.  I still don't like it . . . it's just to hard but Grandma Triance is right about the change.  So I am just going to have to work harder through advent to master this change.