Happy Easter...

Oh, I'm so angry! As there was no mass at my home parish this morning (what a great idea to substitute mass with an ecumenical service on a holy day of obligation) I thought I'd make the trip to our cathedral to go to midday mass. Mass was nice there, all fine, up until communion. They gave out the eucharist under both species and after I had received the body I went up to the chalice. But the eucharistic minister denied me the blood of Christ - she simply refused to let me drink from the chalice and fervently shook her head when I asked to receive the blood. After mass I went into the sacristy to mention the incident (I thought it only honest and necessary to tell them, after all, it might just have been a misunderstanding). The priest bluntly told me that in this church you are not allowed to drink from the chalice but are supposed to intict the host. So I told him that this makes me feel really irritated - I receive communion on the tongue and get funny looks most of the time, anyway, but to be denied to receive the blood of Christ when everyone else is allowed it is just a bit strong (I didn't mention the fact that you're not supposed to intict at all lest you're a priest...). He said it would be rather awful just to imagine that everybody drank from the chalice - and next time I should just ask the priest to intict the host for me.
I'm still so infuriated! These are the kind of little incidents which really make me want to leave this diocese as soon as possible. As much as I love it here and as much as I feel I am needed in this church, it's almost impossible to just be catholic here - either you're an evil trad (and then no one will take you seriously or listen to what you say) or you're a flaming liberal (then people will applaud you even though or maybe because you aren't catholic any more).
Ah, so much for celebrating the risen Lord. Alleluia.

Back from outer space...

... well, back from parish life, a new job and all that goes with it...

I didn't really expect this to happen but here I am - enjoying my job, even coming to terms with the fact that my parish priest is... somewhat liberal, to say the least. Yet I have to admit (yes, there always seems to be a 'yet') that once again in my life I seem to be a little bored. Once again it's not a lack of things I could do but the fact that none of the things I do really challenge me. Don't get me wrong, I like what I do, and I usually enjoy my work. But it's not enough.

I decided I'm not going to do anything about this for the first year - I need to get used to my job, there're loads of things I need to work on, many areas where I can improve, so it seems wise to stay focused on these things first. But in the back of my head (well, the very far back...) I am yearning for more.

Sometimes I wonder if this could be my very own proof of God's existence - that this life is never enough, that there has to be so much more to the world than there is here and now, that there must be something so much greater which I just can't see but which is there nonetheless.

Ah well, for now I'm musing whether I should start a new blog in German, just to write about things, maybe together with Madders, who knows...