So that was my bad catholic sermon rant.

Things I miss about the Catholic Church:
beautifully decorated churches
all that wonderful stained glass
the statues
the stations of the cross art
prayer candles
altars to various saints galore
lots of services to attend because there are times in one's life when you have to go to church every day
kneeling - I always found kneeling very spiritual, don't ask me why. We don't kneel in protestant churches.

Things that I liked about this catholic church:
a very racially diverse congregation (way more than my protestant church)
the church has a sunday mass in cantonese and one in arabic
confessionals that say "Hearing Aid"
confessionals in languages other than english
confessionals that say "face to face"

Things I like appreciate more about my protestant church:
sermons that remind me of my childhood catholic church
bibles in the pews (catholic churches have no bibles in the pews)
great music and choir
for a protestant church, mine has a ton of stained glass windows and a giant mosiac of Jesus, and yes the fact that we faintly resemble in decoration a catholic church does come up once a year. Most protestant churches are very plain.
My church has communion every other week, which is way more than a lot of protestant churches

One last thing. If the catholic church believes that during the communion the bread and wine actually turn into the body and blood of christ or transubstantiation, can the priest act like the miracle that this is, instead of a "I'm so bored with communion" delivery.

Transubstantiation is a "miracle" darn it! Like the resurrection, it's like "amazing, glorious and unbelievable." Can't we at least treat it like the miracle that it is, instead of delivering the service in this "haven't we done this is all before and isn't it boring" way. I hate rote robotic delivery of the church service, no matter what the religion is.

See, this the fault of my childhood catholic priests. They took their catholic service rituals and their religion deadly serious. Communion was like delivered in a hush, like "this is such a miracle". In fact, the whole service was delivered in this, what I can only describe as totally spiritual.

My childhood catholic priests did everything during the service with gratitude and they preached that church and service was something you should feel priveleged and grateful to attend.

I still feel that way. I go to church on Sunday, and sometimes I still feel that I feel blessed that I have faith and that I can sit in a Sunday service and worship with other people.