I confess that I’m not a regular churchgoer, nor have I been for the past thirty-some years. So don’t concern yourself that I’m going to write a weekly religion column from here on out.
Trust me, Father, it won’t be happenin’.
In a different era, I would have been snubbed and snidely described as a FAC (Fallen Away Catholic). But today’s SPC’s (Still Practicing Catholics) are much more benevolent to their wandering brothers and sisters, so they kindly refer to us as NPC’s (Non-Practicing Catholics).
Just because I don’t do the weekly pew and kneeler routine at St. Hubert’s in Langley doesn’t mean that I never darken the doors of Pater Noster. On Christmas Day, I attended the high noon mass at St. James Cathedral in Seattle and was swept away. It was a combination of the cathedral’s grandeur and beauty; the feeling of being oh, so small; the scents and sounds of incense, trumpets and hundreds of people singing “Joy to the World”; it was the highlight of my holiday.
I’ve always loved the drama and theatrics of a high Catholic mass.
But flipping through the cathedral program, I realized we weren’t in the 1950s anymore. The list of services and ministries offered at St. James was impressive, ranging from caring for persons with AIDS to volunteer tutoring; providing meals for low income neighbors and making sandwiches for a downtown shelter; giving aid to the elderly and implementing a justice and peace committee. There was even a group who welcomes back returning Catholics (I left my Baltimore Catechism and CYO card in the car).
But the one that really caught my eye was oh, so Seattle: “Cathedral Espresso: Serving espresso beverages to parishioners and friends after Sunday morning masses. Barista training provided.”
Barista training in the cathedral? I don’t remember Jesus quaffing a double-tall cappuccino with extra foam after The Last Supper, do you?
I’d been away far too long.
Church coffee hours have been a time-honored tradition for many years. In my little parish in Arlington, it was the next best thing about Sunday mass (the highlight was singing in the choir loft upstairs, where we could spy on all the people from on high). After mass, we’d all pour piously out of the little brown church known as the Immaculate Conception and head to the basement of the rectory.
Awaiting us would be the Women of the Church (second in command to the Men of the Cloth), who brewed MJB, Maxwell House or Folger’s coffee in those big, unwieldy urns. For the younger parishioners, we slurped up watered down hot chocolate. And spread out in front of us was a tempting array of glazed, chocolate or plain cake doughnuts. So what if we were going over to my grandparents for waffles afterwards? We were blossoming boys and girls (and that small wafer at communion was but a fleeting memory).
According to coffee lore, the “modern” coffee drink was invented at the end of the 15th century when coffeehouses begin appearing. The story goes that the Arabs drank so much coffee, it prompted the Christian church to denounce it as “the hellish black brew.” But Pope Clement VII, who loved the taste of coffee, baptized it and made it a Christian beverage saying, “Coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.”
Today, things are getting slightly out of whack with this holy bean connection. According to the Material History of American Religion Project based out of Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School, one of the first evangelical coffee bars opened at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., in 1995.
The church not only attracts 20,000 worshippers every weekend, they are constantly scoping out new ways to attract the “unchurched.” In 1991, they built a food court next to their auditorium, and four years later added a coffee bar to attract a younger crowd. Today they can be seen “sharing cappuccino and sharing Christ” on any given occasion.
WWJT (What Would Jesus Think?).
He’d probably be the biggest barista of all.
Sue Frause can be reached by e-mail at skfrause@whidbey.com.
