There's no place like home

Posted by Molly

One of my favorite friends and her family moved cross country earlier this month.  Before she left, when I was talking to her about her new home, my friend mentioned that when she went out to Texas to look for a place to live the first thing she did was to go to all the Catholic churches in the area.  Knowing that the church would be a big part of her life, she wanted to pick a home near the one that she thought would suit her family best.  She wanted to pick her church community before she picked her actual neighborhood. 

I've been thinking about the way Kathryn picked her new home a lot. 
My husband and I tried out several other churches in the area before we found St Raphaels.  None of the other churches were bad but they just weren't right for us.  When we came here we immediately felt home.  How smart of my friend to realize this when she was house hunting and pick her church before she picked her home because outside of the place where we live with our family, the place that makes us feel most at home is supposed to be our church.  My friend is brilliant.

The thing I love about being part of a church community is that while we are all different, I trust that our core values are the same.  If someone I know from church wants to host my kids for a play date, I don't think twice about it.  There is a package mailing store in my neighborhood that is owned by parishoners and it is the only store that I will let me kids go into on their own.  They love it when I sit in the car and let them go in and drop off a package and they always say "it's safe in there because Mrs. Reynolds goes to our church". 

Having a community of people who share your faith is a gift that we all share.  Getting to know those people sitting next to you in mass week in and week out only makes it better.  When I was growing up we always had priests at our house.  I'm not as good as my mother was about entertaining, but I try to invite our priests over when I can.  It's important to me that my kids know their priests and their fellow parishoners.  It's important to me that they feel that sense of community and know it's something they can depend on.

When I moved to Rockville, I found my house first and my church second.  I'll never do that again.  My family will always be happy in any house but only certain churches can be a home.  I'm so glad we found this one.