37/365 History: Our First Time

We sat in the back half of the church, to one side. We didn't know anyone in the room. I had talked with the pastor on the phone, briefly, long enough for him to convince me to give it a try. It was June.

We walked out the front door and found Fr. Bill on the steps. He's so much younger than I expected, I thought to myself. My grandmother made him out to be older. I know this is the guy, though. She couldn't have put it more clearly: Go there. Fr. Bill Richardson is there and he's so charismatic. I needed charismatic. After we left the Jesuits in college, we church-hopped. Fr. Stoker down at St. Cecilia's was not charismatic. The really really horribly old priest in residence at St. Henry's Immaculate Conception wasn't either. No, that isn't the real name of our former parish. I just like to pretend it was.

At the time, I was about to start teaching at another Catholic school run by very un-charismatic unapproachable alcoholic priests. I was 23. Catholic schools were comfortable even though they didn't pay for nothin'. We'd bought our house, though, on Mike's salary alone, so any additional was better than the assistant teacher's salary out in the ritzy private school in the county. To be honest, I sought out the parish partially because I needed something to fill a void in my life, but the biggest reason was so I could talk about a parish at school.

Seriously. I needed an experience that would match, closely enough, the experience of my team teacher or my assistant or the music teacher I would sit next to at lunch. Later in the year this would prove fruitful when my pastor was interviewed on TV about the Pope's upcoming visit. Mrs. Matusek turned to me in the faculty lunchroom while everyone was talking at once and said, "that pastor of yours! His face belongs on television!" She was always falling for inappropriate unavailable men.

But that would be later. At the moment, we stood on the front granite steps regarding each other.

"We'd like to join the parish," I announced.

After a duel of calendars, all three of us realized that right then was the best time. He showed us how to go downstairs for coffeeanddonuts and promised he'd be right behind. He was. Ten minutes later we were filling out the paperwork.

"I think I'll have Frank and Jessica call you," he said, staring out into the middle distance and clicking his pen. "Young couple like yourselves, energetic, welcoming. Just to help you make a connection."

We left without parting gifts. It's not like signing your child up for kindergarten or signing on the loan for a house or a car. All you do is say sure, I'll come here for mass. And we did.

God, we were young.