I grew up 1 block from a Catholic Church and school. My dad bought our house because of its proximity to those institutions. In retrospect, I am glad he did, because the Church was a great comfort to him in the years after my mom died and he lived in that house alone.
I never liked attending Catholic school, particularly, the nuns, who seemed so out of it, peddling a lot of sanctimonious baloney. Of course, I didn’t think it was all baloney, in first or second or even third grade—my cynicism evolved until a particularly bad experience with a nun in 5th grade pushed me, irrevocably, over the edge into apostasy.
No, first grade was the Kennedy assassination and nuclear air-raid drills. Second grade was first communion and confession—I had to make up things to confess because I couldn’t really see how anything I was doing at 7 years old merited soul-saving graces.
Living so close to a church, being drawn deeply into its orbit, has an effect on a child. I particularly liked the idea of making the sign of the cross on my forehead with holy water. [what made it holy?] A priest, it was said, blessed the water, and that it was made it holy, because, back then, we believed that priests were somehow closer to the source of all holiness—but still, it looked and felt like any other water.
Then there were the little white envelopes they gave us to put in the offering basket on Sunday. Mom would slip our big family envelope in the basket first, and then we children would follow suit, earning our own little blessings by placing our little envelopes containing coins, not green bank checks, in the basket—hopefully [I’m certain the Church would say], instilling a desire to contribute to our holy church that would last a lifetime.
It didn’t. I mostly attend the Lutheran Church, when I rarely go, and I put cash in the basket, believing that my offering DOES NOT make me holy or pure or blessed or saved. But it DOES keep the lights on, in the church, it does pay the salaries of the ministers and church staff. It enables them to visit the sick and distribute money to people in need.
The $20 or $50 or $100 bucks I put in the basket is not a great burden on my finances. But even if it were, contributing this money DOES NOT make me part of some great holy cause; it does not confer purity or righteousness, or goodness. To believe that it does confer those ethereal qualities is to believe as a child believes, and St. Paul reminds us to ‘put aside childish things.’
Like holy water. Because either all water is holy—even the water Donald Trump uses to water his lawn—or no water is holy. And a $20 or $50 or $100 donation to my particular iconic, holy human being, does not place me on the right side of any holy cause, no matter how badly I want to believe that it does.