Jubilee 2003, Otherwise Known As "Catholicstock '03"
Why Catholicstock? Perhaps it reflected the free-spirited openness of the original Woodstock, but only in Catholic form. Or maybe it captured the revival of the importance of youth, whether in pop culture, or in this case, the Catholic faith. Or possibly, it was something that sounded like a good idea, but only resulted in rampant consumerism, overpricing, burnings, rapes, and pillaging.
If you answered the latter, then you were probably close to what Jubilee 2003 was like.
Well, not entirely. I don't remember any burning, rapes, or pillaging, but then again, I left after communion. Hey, who could blame me? Many Catholics tend to sneak out of mass right after communion. You pay your tithing, you get your wafer/Cracker/body o' Christ and sip of wine/grape juice/blood of Christ, and then you get the hell out of there before the insane people try to get you to buy baked goods from whatever youth group is going on a mission trip, or buy tickets for the 50/50 raffle to raise money for the local parochial high school. Or at least, you try to get out of there before the mass mob of people floods the parking lot. Still, didn't Jesus, the man himself, get uber-pissed when he saw trade being conducted within the sacred confines of the church walls? I'm no theologian, but I can vaguely remember that basic story from Sunday school.
This is beside the point. What I'm trying to get at is that although a gathering of the faithful sounds like a good idea, doing it in the Midwest is an entirely bad idea. Granted, it doesn't have to be as nice as Vatican City, but the fact that it took place at the fairgrounds, a place originally built to house livestock and encourage trading and commerce amongst farmers in the state, is just plain absurd.
As soon as I walked in with my mother, for if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have even thought about staying in town that weekend, I saw a flock of seemingly unsupervised children running for the carnival rides. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gang of priests walking across the street. All right, it would be in poor taste for me to even think about making some sort of joke about this, but hell, I know that whoever is reading this right now is thinking the same thing. So, I won't even say anything more. I'll just leave you horrible, filthy, sinners with your minds in the gutter.
All right, I apologize. After a day of brainwashing...er, exposure to so many faithful Catholics, I tend to lose control over my mouth to a more pious, holier-than-thou, force bigger than myself. Keep in mind, this was after one day. Now imagine if I had gone to bible camp when I was a kid...or if I went to a private school. The horror...the horror...
Back to the celebration! And what exactly are we celebrating? The 150th anniversary of the founding of the local diocese. I always thought it was funny that the word "diocese" looked a lot like the word "disease." Maybe that's just a coincidence.
Near the entrance was a little kiosk which was actually handing out bottled water. "Handing out water?" you ask, "Surely, this is preposterous! You can't get anything for free these days! Especially water, at $10 a bottle at various music festivals!" Sure enough, I got free water, two bottles in fact.
Still, nobody ever gives away anything without thinking of their own best interests. I read the bottle, which had the words "Get a life in Christ" printed in large letters on the bottle. Beneath it was the web address for information about vocation, basically, becoming a priest or a nun or some such person of faith who can't have sex.
After reading that, I was a bit hesitant to drink it. For all I knew, they put mind altering drugs in it so that you would end up spending the rest of your life believing that your calling in life was to preach to starving children in some third world country and not have sex.
Once more, I revisit the whole concept of celibacy in the church. At one point in time, priests were allowed to be married and have children. Then, I think that was about the time when God saw all the corruption in the church and decided that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to let these people breed. Thus, he declared that members of the clergy were to be celibate. Some corruption remained, but at least hopefully, they can't pass it down to future generations.
So, I drank the water, which was surprisingly refreshing. Perhaps it was holy water. Then again, holy water is just tap water that was blessed by a priest. I thought it was funny how much they charge for most other bottled waters, which have often been found to be simple tap water with a fancy label, yet holy water is free. After thinking about this, I had the funniest image of a truckload of priests in a water bottling facility waving around rosary beads and chanting blessings in Latin. The way I see it, if they did charge for the water and donate the money to charities, they could sell tons of this stuff. If figure if I'm paying so much for bottled water anyway, I might as well go to heaven for drinking it, right?
At the same kiosk as the holy bottled water were entry forms for some sort of raffle. I've always been a sucker for anything where you write down your name, phone number, and address in order to hopefully win something, so I entered. Strangely enough, the lady told me that the entry forms were supposed to go at the "Vocations" kiosk in the Expo building. She then asked me if I could enter her name in the raffle as well, and with me being a good Catholic girl, I couldn't help but oblige.
So, my mom and I went to the Expo building, which is usually used during the state fair by people selling their wares like cleaning liquids, impossibly sharp knives, and massaging chairs. The irony wasn't completely lost on me since the first table there was selling various items from around the world in order to raise money for, you guessed it, missions. My mother looked at a few "handmade" wallets from Guatemala or something and I looked at the novelty musical instruments. I ended up buying a flute, supposedly from India, for $10. For all I knew, if I just peeled off the "Made in India" sticker, it would have read "Made in China" or Japan or some other heavily industrial nation which isn't India. All right, so I fell for the oldest trick in the book. Still, I collect musical instruments anyway, and I did have a bit of fun playing around with it while I was waiting for my mom to go to the bathroom.
Throughout the Expo building were other kiosks of people selling their wares such as oil paintings of Mary or "handmade" bracelets. There were also booths where people were busily recruiting for parochial schools and private colleges. It sort of reminded me of the college fair I had to cover for newspaper this year, except for the fact I would have never been caught dead on their mailing list, let alone on any of their campuses. I know, I sound like a public school snob, but when you can get the humiliation and pressure at a fraction of the price, I'd rather pocket the money to spend it on something important, like saving the endangered habitat of the pygmy marmoset or something.
At any rate, as if the "Catholic Career Fair/Bazaar" wasn't weird enough, there were corn dog stands and funnel cake stands after that. Since my mother told me that we were going to the 4:00 mass later that day, at the Grandstand (which is the same place where they hold horse races and rock/country concerts, "On SUNDAY, SUNDAY SUNDAY!"), I had the strangest image in my head of some fat guy with beer and nachos watching the mass. Perhaps we'd all be doing the wave when the Bishop took the stage. At the rate we were going, I wouldn't have been surprised about anything.
Don't get me wrong, if I sound like a jaded, cynical columnist...Well, I am, but that's beside the point. There were some useful things there. For instance, people could get their cholesterol and blood pressure checked at the senior center. If anyone cares, my blood pressure was 104/56 and my cholesterol was 188 mg/dL. I'm still not sure what that means, but I'm laying off the donuts for awhile just in case.
Also, for some reason, there was a group of skateboarders demonstrating their physical prowess in the food-o-rama enclosure. I saw a couple of people that I knew who I would have never expected in a million years to be Catholic, but still, I think it proves my point that there is nothing good to do in this town. I mean, if the skateboarders are hanging out at a Catholic function, what will happen next? Are they going to open a tattoo parlor in the church rectory? Still, I think it's a refreshing change from the old Catholicism. It's not as cool as the Buddy Christ from "Dogma," but I think the Catholic Church would get a bigger draw if they had bowling ball balancers, yo-yo artists, and skateboarders in the church. I figure if they do this sort of thing at Jubilee, they should do it on a weekly, or even a daily basis.
At any rate, after my mother conversed with a few of her friends that she had just met at the Central Illinois Philipine-American Society picnic (which is an entirely different story) last week, we made our way to mass. It was sort of scary how everyone was converging to the grandstand at once. I felt like I was an extra in "Night of the Living Dead" or something, except for the fact that there were statues of Peter and Paul everywhere.
For those of you who are Catholically impaired, Peter was the founder of the Catholic Church, and Paul was formerly Saul, a Jewish guy who used to persecute Christians until he had some sort of epiphany while walking down the road. This weekend was their feast day. I mean, I could be wrong here, especially since I usually nod in and out of consciousness during mass. Still, next to someone like the fat guy over there with the nachos and beer hat, I'm a freakin' theologian.
In the line, we passed yet another tent promoting something or other. My mom was handed a pencil and a pamphlet. I didn't read it, but I saw a headline in there that said something about the "spreading pagan plague" and a "new world order...a call to war." Needless to say, I took offense to that, saying out loud that most of the pagan people I knew were much nicer than some of the Christians I knew. Of course, I received many a dirty look from the bible-thumpers of the Midwest. After that, I held my tongue. If I wasn't too careful, I would probably end up being burned for heresy. Then again, years later, I would probably be pardoned and canonized as a saint, so it wouldn't be a total loss. The funny thing was, as I passed by numerous garbage bins, I saw a lot of copies of those same pamphlets. So, I guess this "pagan plague" has spread further than these people had imagined. Perhaps we should just hold off on this war between the righteous and the sinful until hopefully never.
We finally made our way up the bleachers, and on the way, I was met with another surprise. A guy randomly grabbed my arm and said "Cowboy Bebop is cool," referring to the button of Spike (which was made by my friend Amy) that I keep on my purse. Ah yes, anime, the universal icebreaker. Unlike religion, you can't really offend too many people whenever you talk about anime.
I wish I could say that being surrounded by so many faithful people inspired me and renewed my own faith. However, my sense of spiritual wonder was squashed when I heard everyone reciting the Apostles' Creed with the same fervor that I heard in myself and my classmates whenever we recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Yet once again, my point is not so much that religion and patriotism is a bad thing. I feel quite the opposite. However, when it gets to such fanatic levels as when people are saying "Fuck Iraq" and "Kill all Muslims," yes, I believe that it is a bad thing. I know that not all people think that the war is a good thing, but they shouldn't have to hide in the dark in order to express their feelings. They shouldn't be considered un-American because they don't necessarily agree with the so-called Conservative right.
I didn't mean to get up on my soapbox about this, but I've found that lately, it is rather difficult to avoid the rest of the world and retreat into my own little idyllic existence. If people actually thought about these things more instead of ignoring them, they might finally come to a logical answer for their problems.
So, as I left the Jubilee, I overheard people commenting on how many people left during communion, and how disgusted they were by it. I found it to be a rather difficult task to hold my tongue, but I knew that like myself, these people would have a hard time being convinced about an opinion outside of their own scope of thought. They can believe in their piety and faithfulness. I just don't appreciate somebody other than myself questioning my own faith, sort of how I seethed a little bit when my mother labeled me as an "Atheist" to some of her friends earlier. In all truth, I'm most likely a Universalist or an Agnostic. I believe in things, but I just question whether or not I should throw so much of myself into it. Sometimes faith can be a dangerous thing.
In the end, the Jubilee experience left me feeling slightly nauseated despite its sweet exterior. If I wanted that, I may as well have just eaten a donut. Then again, I wouldn't have gotten the neat bottled holy water and the "handmade" flute. Instead, my cholesterol would have gone up. So, overall, Jubilee was a lot like religion (and donuts) in general. In moderation, it can be an enjoyable experience, but a full day of it is just nauseating.
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