In this week’s SojoMail, Karen González writes about the one Christian liturgy she always understood as a kid — one that never took place within a church:

My first experiences of Christian sacraments, including baptism and the Eucharist, were mysterious and somewhat confusing. As a Catholic little girl, I didn’t remember my infant baptism and could never quite wrap my head around eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood.

What’s more, these solemn events happened within the confines of a giant, cavernous church — a place where I had to be still, quiet, and serious. During weekly Mass, I learned implicitly from the nuns that reverence and fun do not go together.

I understood these sacraments were important for a life of faith, and as I grew older, I learned to appreciate the embodied practices of breaking bread, baptism, pilgrimage, and anointing with oil. As a kid, however, these practices made me feel that God was cold and remote, just like all the rigid statues of the saints who peered down at me during Mass with somber faces. They failed to engage my heart and mind as well as my body.

The one Christian tradition I understood was the sung liturgy of Las Posadas.

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