During part of the time that I was away from the church and generally disinterested in religion, I figured that one day I'd start going again. I imagined that when I was married and had children, churchgoing would be a regular part of life. We would pack into our flying station wagon and buzz over to church. After Sunday morning Mass, my imaginary future family and I would all go to the imaginary future IHOP and eat imaginary future pancakes together.

Of course I'd do these things one day. My image of my own future wouldn't be complete without those things. Just like guys think of pitching tennis balls to their yet-unconceived sons and women think about teaching their yet-unconceived daughters to knit and vacuum (or whatever), I figured that church and religion would be part of my life again one day.

Yet I wondered when that day would actually start.

Not the get married and make babies part, I figured (and still figure) that day will come when it comes. But the church thing. I wondered when that would start.

If I just waited until this imaginary future family plopped into my lap to start going back to church, I wondered-- feared-- that this imaginary future family would be so entrenched in my ways that I wouldn't able to cajole them into the flying station wagon on Sunday mornings-- and figured that I wouldn't be up for it myself either. (I have a theory about changing and maintaining human behavior: inertia is strong; objects at rest tend to stay that way).

At this point in my life, I wasn't going to church and wasn't interested in doing so. And I had plenty of reasons to not go! Saturday nights usually crossed into Sunday mornings. I felt out of place sitting in church by myself. I don't really like the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. My roommates or friends would think I'm some kind of space cadet. I'm just so tired on Sunday mornings. I'm strong enough in my religion that I don't need to go every week anyway. Sunday is my only day to rest. I'm not leading the kind of life that befits going to church, they probably don't want me there dirtying up the pews. Like the world needs another bad Catholic. Yadda yadda yadda. None of these were unique to me, none of them very strong on their own, none of them worth doing anything about.

So I didn't do anything about it.

It'd take a pretty crummy point in life to push me from being an inert body into a body at Mass. And my re-energizing to Faith began slowly; I sat alone in an adoration chapel and prayed the rosary quietly. I didn't have any words to say to God other than that-- the routine and formulaic prayers that Catholics say over and over are real blessings to have.

Some critics say that we say our memorized prayers out of habit or routine and that they aren't real conversations to the almighty Lord. They accuse Catholics of mistaking prayer for "magic words". The critics are welcome to their uninformed opinions. Sometimes when you don't know what else to say, it's important to have these prayers in your mind and heart. But I digress.

My journey back started alone, just me and Jesus in a quiet little chapel. Then I started going to Mass again. By myself. There's no feeling of alone-ness like going to Mass by yourself in a new parish-- you don't know anyone and figure they're all staring at you. Wondering why you're infiltrating their church. And the truth is that I did feel out of place at church by myself. I did dislike the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. Sunday was my only day of rest. Giving that up was a real pain. It was a real sacrifice.

Over the last few years, I've taken a different perspective on life. Sunday mornings at Church have changed my opinion of days of rest; they've changed my opinion on parishoners/priests/music/kneelers. It's still a sacrifice, some Sunday mornings still start pretty early. But now I look at it as if I'd miss something if I didn't go to Church. That God is waiting for me and I shouldn't be late to his invitation.

It may sound hokey to you. But I don't go to church for you.

A few weeks ago when I was in New York, I went to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral twice in that week. And on Wednesday morning when I got up early to go to Church with a friend on the trip, he and I walked the few long blocks from the hotel up to the Cathedral. People were on their way to work, to the tour busses, to stampede their way to wherever they were going. But we were there, getting up early on our vacation for church... and there we saw it.

Something we would have never seen or experienced if we'd slept in like people do on vacations.

But it was providence indeed.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes he gives us gifts when we give a little for him!

And this was a very special gift, a very special moment that we wouldn't have otherwise been given.

Hallelujah.

Holy cow.

Hot dog.