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Palm Sunday
Author: TriSec    Date: 04/10/2022 13:04:41

Good Morning.

For those of you that do celebrate, I hope you have a fine Palm Sunday.


When I was a Catholic, I always liked this one better than Easter Sunday. The story of Christ's Passion, no matter what your belief system, is still a good tale.

Plus, we in the congregation get to shout "Crucify Him" as a part of the ritual without any irony or repercussion.

In any case - sometimes this gets me thinking. My own faith journey is a perilous and halting trail. As a Sicilian, I was initially raised Catholic, but due to my long association with the local Scout troop where I grew up, actually spent far more time tending to Methodist services and instruction (where our troop met.)

Drifting away during my 20s, I returned to Catholicism to get married - I was Confirmed as an adult specifically so we could have a mass at our wedding.

It was twenty years ago now that the Catholic Church in Boston imploded. I decided then and there that I was done. I even went so far as to investigate how to renounce my Confirmation, but I never followed through.

In the ensuing two decades, there has been little in the way of organized religion in my life. I sometimes do miss the ritual of the holidays - Palm Sunday, Easter, and in particular Midnight Mass at Christmas, which we always used to go to. But all that is in the past.

I have dabbled in Islam, but never followed through there either. Today, I have embraced the quintessential Now England theology of Unitarianism, of course with a strong lean towards the teachings of Mohammed. But I digress.

It's since October that a new "faith" of sorts has given rise in me. You know I fulfilled a lifelong (and covid-delayed) ambition by finally becoming a Mason last fall. I am on the eve of my next degree, which I'll be receiving in two weeks' time.

We're an interesting breed, Masons. There is a quasi-religious element to it, but I will freely admit that I was attracted more to the organization because their values are in line with much of Scouting - which of course, are my own personal values. (Service, Loyalty, Care for your fellow man, etc.) The whole organization is based on an individual belief in a higher power, without any requirement to belong to an organized religion, which also falls in-line with my current Unitarianism.

But guess what? The Catholic Church hates us. This has become my newest fascination, and may be a pathway to new discoveries in Masonry as well.

At the end of the day though, by the simple act of taking upon myself the Solemn Obligation of an Entered Apprentice, I have severed myself from Roman Catholicism. So guess who is excommunicated? THIS GUY!


Those who join a Masonic sect or other societies of the same sort, which plot against the Church or against legitimate civil authority, incur ipso facto an excommunication simply reserved to the Holy See. (Canon 23350


Honestly...nothing pleases me more.
 

1 comments (Latest Comment: 04/10/2022 14:19:05 by BobR)
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