Our Lady of Wisdom Church and Catholic Student Center on the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus was packed for the noon service on Ash Wednesday.
This came as no surprise to the Rev. Bryce Sibley, pastor and chaplain, who noted that on Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday the church is always full.
And it's not even a holy day of obligation. That the church was crammed with worshipers is a pretty cool thing.
![Congregants arrive at Our Lady of Wisdom Catholic Church]()
Before I go on, here's a full disclosure: I'm a lapsed Catholic. Aside from weddings and funerals, I do not go to church. Any church. I'm also a cynic, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it. However, I'm also an optimistic-pessimist or vice-versa.
It's not that I don't believe; I don't know what to believe or how to believe or why to believe. I guess I'm one of those people who tries to do right by man, beast, insect, fish, bird and the planet overall.
I cringe when harm is done in the name of a religion. I shake my head when religion is used as a barometer to judge someone.
As a 10-year-old kid, I prayed along with a whole church parish and others, too, that my mother would not die from leukemia. It didn't work.
And as I got older, I found no comfort that God needed my mom more than five kids and a husband did.
I am one of little faith, if any.
At the same time, though, I've been thankful for the good things in my life, the near misses that would've been tragic had they not missed.
I also thank my mom, my dad and other deceased relatives and friends when something else inexplicably goes right.
So I went to Our Lady of Wisdom on Ash Wednesday as a bit of a Doubting Thomas. As the Mass got underway, I sensed a communal environment among the diverse crowd — college kids, middle-agers, young couples and their tots, and the old folks, too. It was moving to see how this diverse group could come together through song and by reciting and participating in the call-and-response prayers.
I knew most of the prayers and mumbled along for a bit until I felt dishonest for doing so.
The hallmark of Ash Wednesday Mass is when the priest marks the foreheads of believers with a sign of the cross as a symbol of repentance and a reminder of our mortality. Chances are you encountered at least one person Wednesday with a smudge on his or her forehead.
As the service moved along, Philip Domingue, a sophomore at UL, asked me if I wanted to help with the collection. I declined, saying I was working; but my real reason was that I'm not a parishioner and I didn't want to deprive someone of the honor.
But Philip didn't know that, and I'd imagine — especially after talking to him later — he wouldn't care. He was genuinely welcoming. Open. Honest. Optimistic.
Phillip, like Anna Didier, whom I also talked to after Mass, are active in the church. They both appreciate it, their faith, fellow parishioners and the priests there, too.
I left the church still a lapsed Catholic. But I must say that between Philip and Anna and what I observed this Ash Wednesday, I have more faith in mankind than I did before I got there.
This came as no surprise to the Rev. Bryce Sibley, pastor and chaplain, who noted that on Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday the church is always full.
And it's not even a holy day of obligation. That the church was crammed with worshipers is a pretty cool thing.
It's not that I don't believe; I don't know what to believe or how to believe or why to believe. I guess I'm one of those people who tries to do right by man, beast, insect, fish, bird and the planet overall.
I cringe when harm is done in the name of a religion. I shake my head when religion is used as a barometer to judge someone.
As a 10-year-old kid, I prayed along with a whole church parish and others, too, that my mother would not die from leukemia. It didn't work.
And as I got older, I found no comfort that God needed my mom more than five kids and a husband did.
I am one of little faith, if any.
At the same time, though, I've been thankful for the good things in my life, the near misses that would've been tragic had they not missed.
I also thank my mom, my dad and other deceased relatives and friends when something else inexplicably goes right.
So I went to Our Lady of Wisdom on Ash Wednesday as a bit of a Doubting Thomas. As the Mass got underway, I sensed a communal environment among the diverse crowd — college kids, middle-agers, young couples and their tots, and the old folks, too. It was moving to see how this diverse group could come together through song and by reciting and participating in the call-and-response prayers.
I knew most of the prayers and mumbled along for a bit until I felt dishonest for doing so.
The hallmark of Ash Wednesday Mass is when the priest marks the foreheads of believers with a sign of the cross as a symbol of repentance and a reminder of our mortality. Chances are you encountered at least one person Wednesday with a smudge on his or her forehead.
As the service moved along, Philip Domingue, a sophomore at UL, asked me if I wanted to help with the collection. I declined, saying I was working; but my real reason was that I'm not a parishioner and I didn't want to deprive someone of the honor.
Ash Wednesday with Philip and Anna Dominick Cross
Phillip, like Anna Didier, whom I also talked to after Mass, are active in the church. They both appreciate it, their faith, fellow parishioners and the priests there, too.
I left the church still a lapsed Catholic. But I must say that between Philip and Anna and what I observed this Ash Wednesday, I have more faith in mankind than I did before I got there.
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