with trepidation

What will remain of our boys Catholic education? After a lifetime of exposure to the Church, what will remain? John was confirmed yesterday at Christ the Light Cathedral with Tommy as his sponsor, and as much family as could be there, as supporters. The cathedral was full of people, there was robust singing and music, pomp and ritual, worried looking clergy. This was our new bishop's first Confirmation since he stepped up as Bishop of Oakland a few wks ago. Because we belong to a culturally diverse Church, things felt a little awkward. The reading from the Acts of the Apostles was read in Spanish. I recognized a couple of words: Pedro and Juan. We sang a song about Cuerpo de Cristo. The gospel was proclaimed by Deacon Clement who hails from Singapore, and so we listened carefully for the words. The medieval pomp surrounding the bishop struck me as terribly anachronistic for this young generation. Maybe I'm wrong. The building itself is new and still has that "new car smell". One thing, as my brother in law remarked (because we discussed where the Church is headed) that remains the same: Catholics still revere going to the table and receiving Communion. As anyone who has served as a eucharistic minister has witnessed: there is deep desire on the part of the faithful to receive Christ in communion. The gesture of walking forward to open one's hands and receive the bread of life, the Bread of Life, is a gesture of humility and of love. Yes, I need God's very self to live in me. I accept His very self and seek to live out of that relationship. I can not "go it" alone. So, after John and his peers were confirmed, we celebrated our Lord's admonition: to break the bread and to "remember me". Another aspect of the Church that Pete's brother John remarked on: the Church is one institution where dissent can happen, discussion happens, and friction, agreement and disagreement happen. I love the catholicity of the Catholic church. but damn, it's unsettling... except for the communion part and the sacrament part. God's grace is poured out there and there we are given the grace to reckon with the challenges of our lives, not the least of which is being Church. John remarked: "I'm glad Tommy was with me." I am too. That's the part John "gets".