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31 days of blogging, Catholic, children, kids at Mass, Latin Mass, military families, military wife, mothering
Please forgive me, I have missed a couple days of the October blogging challenge.
I hate that term “church shopping“, because as a Catholic, the church should be UNIVERSAL. Sadly, that’s not always the case.
As a military family, we’re changing parishes every three years (on average), and it’s always challenging to find a parish home.
You want a parish that is true to the Catholic church and her teaching.
You also REALLY want a parish that is accepting of children. Lots of children.
We have been to churches where anything goes, with the priests (flash back pop songs as homilies?), with the families (toys with sound/lights and messy snacks).. and we’ve found that isn’t the best fit for us, we want our “bells and smells”.
We’ve also been to parishes that are filled with the most perfect of children, all well dressed, all sitting with perfect posture..
That’s not us either.
We are more of a “trying really hard to keep the kids from burning down the church” and a “gee, I hope someone is getting SOMETHING out of this Mass” family. We don’t bring snacks or toys, but I do attempt to bring crayons, coloring books, and religious books for those too wee to be still. We also try to take any monkey business to the narthex, when possible.
Our current parish is such a wonderful fit for us, Mass in the extraordinary form and LOTS of REAL children! (including but not limited to our kids)
It is so refreshing to find this (im)perfection!
It’s also just another amazing way that The Lord has always ALWAYS made sure we’re in the right parish for us at the right time.
Tattered Veil 
I have lived in the same town my entire life. When we came back into full communion with the Church, we started attending the parish were I grew up. It is not perfect, but we like it. The only downside is that there is a school, so there is not homeschool community. The boys and I have to drive about 30 minutes to another parish to hang with the other homeschoolers.
It is hard when the homeschoolers aren’t at your parish!!
We’ve had similar parishes in the past..
I agree with you about the “Church shopping”! I wish we could be at our neighborhood parish, but we are so blessed to live close to a beautiful and reverent homeschooling parish so that is where we are. They just brought back the communion rails, love, love, love and so do my children! We have also been really curious about an FSSP parish that was just finished in our area too. We have only been to one Mass in the extraordinary form. Happy for you and your family!
Another way to look at the same thing is that my family is just two people here on Earth (the rest interceding from Heaven) and being in a parish with only large families (like my home parish) is really painful right now. I’m grateful there are churches where we can just quietly worship and try to focus on God’s will for our lives, without the constant painful reminder of what we’ve lost and what what we deeply long for. It doesn’t make parishes with beautiful, vibrant, large families any less beautiful. But it just goes to prove that the parish that brings one family a sense of peace and belonging can bring another family a deep pain. I’m glad we live in a world where there are both parishes and everything in between! 🙂
Absolutely, I have just been to parishes where we were made to feel unwelcome, and that’s just not right either.
I really appreciate a parish that serves the Churxh as a whole.