Catholics Come Home

During the recent ten years that I lived in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, my almost-daily walks usually included a brisk walk along Harvard St. through Brookline Village past St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, a towering and magnificent display of architecture. On some level, I think it must have brought me comfort, all those years I was so far from home - both geographically and religiously - simply to walk by the place. I could just as easily have walked west on Harvard Street, or up or down Beacon Street, or chosen a multitude of directions and neighborhoods in which to walk, but I almost always chose to walk through the Village.

In those ten years, out of deference to the Judaism I had embraced, even though I often wondered what it looked like inside, I never went in to St. Mary's (except for the one Palm Sunday a few years back when I popped in ever-so-quickly, not even daring to gaze beyond the narthex, in order to grab a palm to take to my godmother who was in a nearby hospital).

Today, since I was in Boston for the weekend, and in need of going to church, I attended the 10:30 Mass at St. Mary's. It was a beautiful Mass, with beautiful music, in a jaw-droppingly gorgeous sanctuary that felt more like being in a European cathedral than being in suburban Boston. It was wonderful being back in Brookline, and even more joyous being in St. Mary's, finally inside that big church I had walked past almost every day but hadn't even dared to peek into. It was especially meaningful being there as a fully-home-again Catholic.  Nobody sang louder than I did today. 

For the past few years there's been a sign on the front of St. Mary's, part of a church-wide campaign to reach out to fallen away Catholics (a category in which I, very interestingly, thought that being a convert to Judaism I was exempt from), that proclaims: Catholics Come Home (which I had been "mistakenly" reading as an invitation all this time, as in: Catholics, Come Home).

I now know that that sign was placed there specifically for me.

Catholics come home.

Indeed, they do.

These photos, from my phone, do not even begin to do justice to the magnificence that is St. Mary's Church in Brookline (nor do the words above even begin to describe my joy at having attended Sunday Mass there):

Okay, I knew I had a few St. Mary's photos on file (these are from March 17, 2011):