For a very, very, very long time coffee and Catholicism have gone hand in hand. You say Catholic, I say COFFEE! You say family mass, I say DOUGHNUTS! MUFFINS! It’s just how the coffee cake crumbles.
I remember sitting in Sunday morning mass as a child, as a teenager, as a 20-something in my hometown church on Family Sundays hardly able to make it through mass because of the tempting odor of coffee wafting up through the floors from the basement/gathering hall and into the pews. As an adult in my current church, I can’t say that it’s much changed (when my pain doesn’t keep me from attending) because it hasn’t.
Coffee and church: It’s like chocolate and coffee or, you know, mocha.
Coffee and church: It’s like cream and sugar… in coffee.
Coffee and church: It’s like sea salt and caramel or, you know, salted caramel chocolate chip cookies … with salted caramel coffee.
Maybe you can see why maybe just maybe some people are a little confused as to why coffee, Christmas, and Christianity are all tangled up together:
It’s because of Family Sundays aka Coffee and Doughnut Weekend.
Let me just say, though, if you take away the coffee on Family Sundays, there will be a REAL controversy. I remember talking with the former pastor of my current church saying that weekends of Family Mass shows higher attendance. When they have better quality of coffee, attendance is even higher. He wasn’t joking. Not even a little. He felt very strongly that good coffee, frequently, brought families to church.
Don’t mess with Catholic coffee. We will cut you.
Pastor Emily C. Heath is awesome. I’m going to show you why. Christians and Coffee Cups: [CLICK HERE] |Pastor Heath shared some simple and beautiful truth regarding the non-troversy (by an individual who fancies himself to be an evangelist pastor).
Her blog entry could be relevant every year with each new created non-troversy towards the imaginary “War on Christmas.” A strong faith doesn’t worry about every new media-proclaimed outrage. At least, mine doesn’t. But my faith is a whole ‘nother series of posts, ha ha.
What I think I’ll do with the money I could spend on the Starbucks coffee (and for that matter, any money I’d spend on my beloved Dunkin Donuts… mmm Snickerdoodle) is keep some non-perishable food in the car and donate it to the next homeless person I see. I’ll donate more food to the local food bank with my children.
I do find it amusing that the Pagan Goddess in the dramatic forefront of the cups 100% of the time, including Christmas and Easter, doesn’t seem to bother the evangelical versions of my brothers and sisters in Jesus. 😉
Apart from that, my parting thoughts on what Jesus might think:
Luke 6:20 NASB
a.k.a.
“Dudes, if you choose to hate others, ostracize others, insult others, scorn others don’t you dare throw me under the bus when you do it and tell them it’s because I said so. Because dudes, woe to you. Woe. To. You.“