Blizzard Church

I did something really different this Sunday. I didn’t go to church.

It’s no secret why, of course. I couldn’t get there, and even if I could, it wasn’t open.  So I did something that plenty of other Christians do weekly. I worshiped at home.

I hear a collective gasp in cyberspace! No, I didn’t have a priest visiting my family for the weekend who could celebrate a Mass. I didn’t play church like I did when I was young by taking Wonder Bread and slamming it in an Encyclopedia to make flat, circular “hosts” in order to play Communion. I didn’t convert to another denomination that has thousands, even millions, of members worshiping in homes every Sunday.

It just hit me (read: God put it in my heart) that having some kind of group worship at home would be a good idea.

I had a model for putting this together. We have a weekly prayer time among the Nativity staff every week, led by our Creative Director of Live Presentations, Kristin. She selects worship music and Scripture to complement the prayer, for a very nice and rejuvenating prayer group.

I married this prayer group experience with the pattern of the Mass, at least the part that involves readings from the Bible. I looked up the Scripture readings for that Sunday (easily accessible on the internet) and I read them. After that, I searched my iTunes library for a few songs that were thematically similar. Turns out, most of  worship music is based on Scripture. Who knew.

One reading from this Sunday was from the book of Isaiah, when the Lord puts a hot coal on Isaiah’s tongue to purify him so he is an appropriate vessel for God’s word as he begins his life as a prophet. Isaiah submits to God’s will, declaring, “Lord, send me.”  I then found a song by Downhere, one of my favorite Christian bands, called “Here I Am,” which appears to be based on this chapter of Isaiah. 

After this, I corralled my family. We sat at the dining room table.  We read the readings, listened to/sang a few songs, and talked about the similar messages in Isaiah (“Lord, send me”) and the Gospel from Luke where Christ tells his first disciples to put down their fishing nets and become fishers of men (“and they followed Him”).

I really liked it. My oldest daughter tolerated it. My youngest daughter enjoyed bringing her enormous stuffed Clydesdale horse to it. And my husband participated in it (he read the Gospel). It was pretty cool.

It is such a weird experience for Catholics, I think, to do something like this. It seems strange. But it was a nice experience that, at the very least, communicated to my children that Sunday is a special day, and that despite “acts of God” like blizzards, we can take a few minutes to listen to God’s Word and pray.