Rites of passage. What images does that phrase bring to mind? Masai warrior rituals? Debutante balls? Walkabouts? Bar mitzvahs? Uros Indian boys knitting hats so tightly that water won’t leak through? Menstruation? Graduation? Marriage?

We moved to Mazatlán four years ago. Since that time, Danny and I have attended church every Sunday. Same church each week. Same Mass each week. Same people we see there each week. Four years. I love Sunday Mass. Love to sing. Love communal prayer. Love the people we celebrate with each week.

During that time, we have gotten to know the priest. We greet the greeters: those women at the entrance handing out bulletins. We sit in the same pew, pretty much, every week, too. There are about three women who will sit in our pew and greet us. I like them. They help me feel human, not just gringa. There are lots of other people who will sit in our pew and act as if they’ve never seen us before, even though of course they have seen us every Sunday the past four years. And, there are loads of people who avoid sitting anywhere near us. Maybe they’re afraid we won’t speak Spanish, or know the rules, or…

Now, it’s a Catholic church, and anyone who knows Catholicism will tell you that good Catholics don’t fraternize at Sunday services (written tongue in cheek, but true). You come, you pray, you leave. No small talk. The priests basically have to order us to shake hands with the person beside us in the pew.

Well, a few weeks ago we had something going on in the morning, and we went to the Sunday evening service instead. Lo and behold, the altar guild lady asked me if I’d do the collection! Wow! A rite of passage! I had never been asked to take up the collection before. I was becoming a regular part of the parish after all!

But this was not “my” Mass. It was the evening Mass, which I rarely attend. It was a welcome invitation, for sure. Now, in the parish’s defense, I have made no effort to get involved in the church outside of Sunday Mass. My schedule right now doesn’t allow it, my preferences right now aren’t prioritizing it. There are people who attend our Mass that I know outside of church. They of course greet us.

Well, unwittingly this am, as Danny and I knelt in prayer before the service started, the altar guild/greeter lady at OUR service, our church, came to our pew, and asked us if we would be so kind as to take up the gifts! “Would you take up the wine, and your Mami take up the bread,” she asked Danny.

Wow! How cool is that!

As if that wasn’t cool enough, one of the “friendly” ladies sat down beside us. She actually KISSED me during the giving of the peace.

Four years, people, but we feel included. We have received our rite of passage.

I will say I attended church in Tokyo and in the US longer than we’ve been here, and was never ad-hoc included in this way.

Now the Episcopal Church, where Danny used to serve Mass every Sunday morning, and I was the greeter, that’s a different story… 🙂