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Hi, guys —
I suppose I have an etiquette question. I
recently attended a Catholic funeral service
and Mass for my boyfriend's grandmother along
with many members of his family. He's never
really been a member of any church as he considers
himself agnostic. I was raised Southern Baptist
but no longer attend a church either, though
I still consider myself a Christian. We had
discussed ahead of time that neither of us
should probably be receiving the Eucharist
because:
- he is not really a believer and
- I am a baptized Protestant and fairly
sure neither of us is in a
state of grace at the moment anyway.
I have a great deal of respect and love for
his family and they are all extremely accepting
and loving people.
I also have a huge amount of respect
for the Catholic faith, which is how I knew
we had no business participating in the Eucharist.
I think we were the only people in the whole
church who didn't go up to receive Holy Communion.
When people were leaving the pews we stood
aside to let them pass, and his step-mother
gestured for us to go, but we both declined.
No one said anything to us about the incident,
and
I believe we made the right choice.
I don't think we offended anyone, but it was
a family funeral and I would hate to think
we were a distraction, or if we were, at least
had valid reasons for abstaining. I'm fairly
sure there were non-Catholic relatives
that did go up to receive, so I wasn't sure
if we should have gone with the flow or
if we honored the faith more by remaining
where we were.
I'll just add this on as well — if you
still need editors
for your questions, I'd be happy to help.
I usually have some free time during the week
and I have an advanced degree in English
so I like to think I'm fairly good with grammar.
; )
Thanks for your help.
Kim
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