Easter Sunday

I wish I could say waking up Catholic felt a lot different than waking up non-Catholic, but when you have two small kids, it's pretty much always the same: any time you hope to sleep in a little, one or the other munchkin wakes up extra early. It's almost like they have some sort of internal radar. And already, they both know better than to wake Daddy up. It's okay, though. I actually like the early morning one-on-one time with one of my kids on the rare days it happens.

We'd thought about attending Mass at 9:30 as usual, but DH had trouble getting out of bed so we decided to let the kids find their Easter baskets and go to a later afternoon Mass at a different parish.

By noon, we were all on our way to the family farm, including our dog. This is my husband’s family farm, not mine. I grew up in Chicagoland, surrounded by concrete. The Hansen farm has been in the family for well over 100 years now, and my in-laws live in the frame house that Great-Grandpa Hansen built himself with a kit around 1909, I think. The original farm grew to quite a large number of acres when Great-Great-Grandpa was running it, but it's been carved up in enough portions for offspring that my father-in-law and his siblings are down to about 240 acres. My father-in-law and one of his brothers run the operation, now. They plant corn and soybeans, like most of the rest of Nebraska, and they have a portion set aside for native prairie grass reclamation, plus a large pond, which is home to beavers and frequently visited by owls, eagles, deer, coyotes and other wildlife. For a city girl like me, it's a pretty magical place.

After dinner, my husband took our son, two nephews, a niece and our dog out for a walk to the pond. My father-in-law, his brother and some of the other men were talking in the kitchen, and I joined the rest of the adults at the dining room table with the baby on my lap. And then my mother-in-law started dropping hints that she wanted to talk about religion.

I probably haven't mentioned this yet, but my husband's family is not entirely open to the Catholic faith. Well, to be perfectly honest, some of them are pretty hostile toward Catholicism. I don't have any good reasons why. My husband told his dad we were converting a few weeks ago, and while my father-in-law was respectful, he indicated that he didn't think it was a good idea, and then when we were leaving, he grabbed my husband and me and cried.

We attribute most of this reaction to simply not understanding Catholicism. My husband grew up with a lot of misconceptions about the Catholic Faith -- ideas that my in-laws still believe. It took a long time -- years -- for my husband to overcome some of these beliefs, and I certainly don't expect my in-laws to take any less time.

Anyway, my dear father-in-law had said he'd tell my husband's mom himself, but I guess he never got around to it. A few weeks ago, she called and I let it slip that we'd been to St. Mary's -- not thinking about the fact that any church called "St. Mary's" is probably going to be Catholic! She didn't say anything at the time, but there she was yesterday, trying to work religion into the conversation like a hound dog going after a treed possum. Hmm, that's not a very attractive way to say it. Kindly replace "hound dog" with "honey bee" and "treed possum" with "flower's secret nectar." Much better.

Initially, I thought the news would be best coming from my husband, so I politely ignored the hints. And then she finally asked me point blank, "What church are you going to now."

I might have hesitated a second, I don't remember. But I smiled and said, "Actually, we joined St. Mary's last night."

"Really?" she answered, in a tone that sounded surprised and not surprised all at once. My husband's brother and his wife were sitting there, and their jaws dropped. I didn't look to see how anybody else reacted, but they're pretty much all fundamentalist Protestants, so I can guess.

I said a few things about liking the church and the pastor -- important criteria from a Protestant perspective -- and then mercifully, the baby filled her diaper, so I excused myself to go change her. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see baby poop in my life.

So what happens now? You got me. My husband's not worried about it. I'm sure tongues were wagging after we left, but since they are all part of the "once saved, always saved" crowd, I don't think they'll be all that worried. The subject might never come up again. Heck, they all had plenty of notice when we started going to that Anglican church 6 years ago. They were all around for my kids' baptisms there, so they knew how "Catholic-y" we were becoming. You'd think.