last sunday at St. John Mary Vianney's

call me a hypocrite, i won't be offended.

so i pray when i feel like it, and when i feel the need to side with science, i criticize the hypocrisy of certain Catholic. this is me, a proud Catholic. and by Catholic, i mean 'universal'. this is one thing my high school teacher taught that had sense.

going back to last sunday, so there i was, with  my mom, about to go up the tiny church on a man-made hill. well, the church was on the second floor of the building. church-goers had to climb the steep steps. the church is in a community well-known for its crime rate and infamous for being a deviant's paradise.

i was not enthusiastic to be there. heck, this is where people would brush past you and break your ribcage and not apologize. i convinced myself that i was there for the spiritual experience, but with that kind of crowd, i felt it was impossible to feel holy or at least spiritual.

there were kids who, seeing that the place was cramped with people, still snaked their way from one corner to the farthest point possible.  there was this woman who would pass stuff like handheld fans and misalettes to her son and wipe my mother's and my face in the process with those objects. rude!

it didn't feel like it was a big event, as the priest, in between crucial points in the mass, would say something like: all together, let us read antiphony 1. antiphony 1.
like in a rehearsal.

there also were parts where people raise their hands and sway it to the music.
how so very unoriginal, i thought.  they  must have copied this from pit senyor (Sto. Nino festival in Cebu City).

and in the part where people came up the stage to recount the miracles of St. John May Vianney, there was this woman, a church organizer at that, who challenged the saint. come on! how dare she. what a hypocrite!  she said she asked St.John to perform a miracle. the imposed miracle did happen. what's wrong with that woman??

no miracle here yet.

but for no reason, when that woman told us how St. John Mary Vianney, as an old priest, loved children, that really got me. i was reminded of my grandparents and how they performed miracles for me. i imposed upon them to perform miracles form me. man, was i a brat. i missed lolo and lolo.

i could hardly breathe, i had to keep myself from blinking, else, i've niagara falls on my face.

i felt humbled, remembering lolo and lola and how St. John Mary Vianney could've been like them.

so there i realized, i was in that church to commemorate the life of a good person, and not to play Ms. Minchin to ill-mannered church-goers.