I am what they call a cradle Catholic. I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic elementary, middle, and high school and am now attending a Catholic university.
We switched parishes when I was about fourteen. We switched from the parish I had been baptized in and grown up into a new church in the downtown area of our city.
For anyone who believes that all churches of a singular religion are the same, y'all need a serious reality check.
Two churches less than seven miles away were so similar and yet completely different experiences.
I love my church.
This is not your typical Indiana Catholic church. It isn't all white, middle/ upper-class families raising their children strictly according to Church doctrine.
The congregation is a blend of every age, race, gender, and socio-economic class.
And that is why I feel at home there.
It's the people's church. No one is left out or pushed aside.
The marginalized and downtrodden can find peace in the pews.
You will meet a man in a wheelchair with both legs amputated. He's an usher and helps do the collection.
You will meet a blind woman who is guided by her friend every weekend down the aisle to receive communion.
You will meet a cluster of widowed women with their hair blown out perfectly who worship together and act as the church grandmothers to all the children.
Two identical seven-year-old twin girls with ringlet curls and glasses.
An elderly couple, who without fail, will update you on their grandbaby's life, complete with pictures.
A single African American man with a smile that lights up the whole church who recently became a Eucharistic minister.
It's a feeling that you get when you walk in; every parishioner and visitor experiences it.
This intense love and acceptance that flows through the air.
Because Jesus didn't just eat with the upstanding members of the community. He chose to eat with the tax collectors and sinners, the downtrodden and marginalized.
That's what the Catholic church is to me. A safe place for all to come as they are and join in worship of the love of Jesus Christ.
It seems so simple and yet somehow it can get so skewed sometimes.
Whenever I feel as though this mission of unremitting acceptance isn't being fulfilled, I think of the song "All are Welcome."
Let us build a house where love can dwell
and all can safely live,
a place where saints and children tell
how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions,
rock of faith and vault of grace;
here the love of Christ shall end divisions.
All are welcome, all are welcome,
all are welcome in this place.
