Jeff C’s Story…

Jeff C sent me several stories that I will be sharing with you over the coming days…here is another:

A few summers ago I was dating a girl I worked with, who was neither Catholic nor religious at all.  I waited a few weeks as our relationship developed, before asking if she would come to Mass with me on our day off.  She was not especially interested, but said if I wanted to, why not? 
 
So that first week I took her to an Extraordinary Form Mass and she was just baffled.  Ok, so the next week we went to the Ordinary Form instead.  I found I was striking out…  She didn’t like the Latin Mass because she was confused the whole time, and she didn’t like the Novus Ordo because, in her words, “It just seems silly!”  That was when a friend gave me Treasure and Tradition, which I read through in one night and then passed on to Deb. 
 
The next time we went to the Extraordinary Form, she tried to follow along with the book.  She did pretty well, though she lost her place once or twice.  By the week after that, she had read the whole book through on her own and was able to follow along through the whole Mass.  “Now I know why you love going to Mass!” she said. 
 
I wish this story had a better ending, but Deb and I turned out to be just a summer romance.  I was laid off at the end of the season and she took a better job out of town.  When last we saw each other she gave me back the CD’s and movies I had loaned her, but she asked, “Can I keep the Mass book?”