Jew goes to church

Tonight I went to church for the first time in my life-okay, clarification: I have walked into churches all over Europe (and even a church in Haifa!) and I have been to one Catholic wedding in my life. But an actual service? No.

So tonight I went with my friend from high school who is also not Christian, but who regularly goes to Catholic church. I felt like I kind of had to go since in a little less than a month I'll be a citizen of a Jewish country. This was my last Christmas as a citizen solely of a Christian country, so I figured I might as well see what Christmas Midnight Mass is all about before I leave.

Maybe other Jews reading this will disagree, but as a Jew in America I always felt like the Christians of the US probably look at us as kind of strange people. Our services are probably weird to them. Of course, to me, Jewish services are normal....but I was convinced that to Christians we must seem like total weirdos. And I was also completely convinced that if I went to a Christian service at any time, I would immediately say to myself, "Ohhhhh, NOW I understand why they think we're weird--because they're so normal!"

But tonight--Oh. My. G-d. IT WAS SO WEIRD! There was this procession of these men in white robes, and the cardinal or the bishop or the somebody of LA walked in wearing a pope hat (and underneath it he was wearing a yarmulke-looking thing) and carrying this curvy staff.....there seemed to be a great deal of candle-shuffling during the readings from the scriptures.... at some point there was an actual offering left at the altar, with incense and all....at one point we all had to turn to our neighbor and like hug or shake hands....THEY PASSED BASKETS DOWN THE PEWS FOR MONEY!!!!!!!..I....I....I was so confused!

Having only been to Jewish services in my life, I was so convinced that there was this whole "normal" bit of the world that I was missing out on....but it turns out that that "normal" bit of the world is SO STRANGE! I mean, to me at least.
I'm not being critical of it as a religion--I think all religions are weird, including my own. I'm just saying that I feel like such an idiot for treating Christianity/Catholicism as the standard-bearer for normality in a religion....and after 20 years I finally figure out that it's just as bizarre as any other religion.


During a couple parts of the service, the cardinal or bishop or priest or whatever (hahaha, for all I know it was the pope himself! had the entire congregation pray for people who don't believe in Jesus. I had heard a little while back that the pope decided to put those prayers back in, and it pissed me off a bit, but eventually I didn't really give a shit. But OH how different I felt about it tonight!
Now, mind you, tonight I was a Jew sitting in the LARGEST cathedral in Los Angeles, surrounded by hundreds, maybe a couple thousand, Catholics. And now they were all praying for my soul. I'm not gonna lie, I was seriously uncomfortable. I wanted to shriek at everyone, "I DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING PITY PRAYERS!"
But as I told Abraham, if this pope is going to insist on praying for me even though I don't want him to, I'll be sure to put in a good word for him with G-d during Friday night Maariv.