My First Mass After Baptism

Danny   4 May 2003

I went for the Saturday evening Mass on 26 April, a week  after baptism, at St. Ignatius Church. Father Phillip Tan, CDD, gave a wonderful homily on peace.

During Mass, the rain started to pour. After Father Phillip dismissed the parishioners, Charmaine and I had to make our way out of the pew with the usual crowd of devoted parishioners. I can't figure out why Saturday evening mass tend to be so crowded.

When we reached the entrance of the church, we met Brother Damien who is doing his seminary in the Penang College General. I know him through some of the previous church activities. I asked him where I could get a religious book.

Anyway, we got to the car after that. Two cars were honking us. At St Ignatius, there isn't enough place to park the car. So, you are bound to block someone. Anyway, it was my mistake and I apologised. However, the driver of the Mercedes kept honking at me in spite of my apology, in spite of me going into the car and starting it. He only stopped honking after my car moved.

Guess what? Even when we moved the car, we could only move a few inches because the car park was still jammed. I asked Charmaine; didn't we just say the Lord's Prayer? Didn't we just say the part about forgive us our sins as we also forgive those who sin against us? Didn't we just listen to a homily on peace?

On many occasions (before I even started going for RCIA), we had to wait for someone to get to their car. I didn't use the car horn because I felt it is disrespectful to use the horn in the church compound; because I knew people had trouble leaving the pews due to the crowd.

On Easter vigil at Assumption Church, people came over and hugged me and shook hands and made me feel welcome. That feeling seemed so far away on Saturday, 26 April 2003, just a week after Easter vigil.