Again, apologies for being so sporadic. Although not so sporadic as I thought, since I have now fixed the date on some entries that I wrote in November but mislabeled as October. Also, with the Thanksgiving break the RCIA class hasn’t been meeting as frequently.

Most important things first: Sunday I took part in a Rite of Welcoming, in which we were introduced to the congregation and welcomed into the Church. The priest asked us what we asked of the Church, and we answered “Faith”. He pronounced a blessing, and our sponsors made the sign of the cross on our foreheads, eyes, lips, ears, shoulders, hands, and feet. I don’t have a sponsor yet, so a parishoner named Gary filled in. I haven’t thought of any profound things to say, but the whole experience was moving. I am very much looking forward to my baptism.

I’ve decided to tell my parents about this when I go home for Christmas. Perhaps it’s a bad time to break this kind of news, but I don’t see them all that often and this will give us a few months before Easter to talk about what’s happening. In the end I think they’ll understand, and even if they don’t agree with me I hope they’ll come to see that this is an important step in my relationship to God. But the initial reaction probably won’t be all that good. Both of my parents come from very conservative traditions within Protestantism. My dad was a Baptist missionary to Brazil and an avid student of theology. Baptist views on grace and sacraments are almost diametrically opposed to Catholic positions. I’ve spent a lot of time in these entries dealing with these sort of conflicts (and I realize most people couldn’t care less about whether grace is forensic or progressive) both because there’s a lot of the theologian in me and because I’m anticipating the sort of objections my father is likely to raise. My mom, I think, is likely to see things in less abstract terms. She used to work with Catholic parochial schools in San Francisco and still has a lot of respect for some of the people she met there. On the other hand, her brother-in-law converted from Catholicism and became an evangelical minister back in the seventies, and that’s probably left her with an impression that most Catholics aren’t really “saved”.

Back in July and August, when I was first considering becoming a Catholic, I was especially worried about what my parents would think, to the extent that I considered keeping it secret from them, or breaking it gently by first becoming a Lutheran or somesuch. It was less a fear that they’d disapprove than that they’d be hurt. I suppose they will be, but one of the things I’ve been realizing lately is that I’ve been making a big mistake – for much of my life – in identifying “causing pain” with “doing something wrong”. True, it’s not right to hurt someone out of neglect or malice, but the wrong is in the neglect and malice, not in the hurt. Doing the right thing often involves hurting yourself and other people.