Church and State…well sort of.
I meant to blog about this two weeks ago; however, I am still not the master blogger. I have had two rather interesting interactions between Church and State this month.
The first was when I went to vote in the New Jersey Primary, Part II. In case you are not from NJ, we now have a new and somewhat weird primary set up. For as long as I can remember, the NJ primary was the first Tuesday of June, following the first Monday. Thus, this year it fell on June 3. However, I guess some politicos decided that by having our primary so late in the primary season, NJ was having a lesser impact on the choice of national candidates. For example, in this year’s Republican presidential race, it was all wrapped up months before the June primary, so the candidates would not have had any reason to really campaign much in NJ. I believe that this was the first year that NJ moved its presidential primary to February; on Super-Duper Tuesday. However, it was only the presidential primary that was moved, to give us more of a voice in the selection of presidential candidates, and not the primary for State and local offices.
Now, some people (I am one), do not understand this reasoning. First, I have to believe that it is more expensive to have two primary elections than one. In a State that is already too expensive to live in, why waste more money on having two primaries. Either just have it in February or in June. Now, which month to have it is another debate. This year it could be argued that we had less influence on the Democratic Presidential Primary, because, being on Super-Duper Tuesday, the candidates had to divide their time among a lot of States. I think NJ would have played more influence with its June primary, at least among the Democrats, because of the tight race between Obama and Hillary (please NOTE VERY WELL, I AM NOT endorsing any political party or candidate. I am just commenting on the effect of the timing of the primary). Of course, the June primary did not effect the outcome for the Republicans. Therefore, I do not have a strong opinion for either February or June, just not two.
Now, all of that was basically just rambling. This June 3, as a dutiful citizen, I went to vote in the largely meaningless primary (I think in both parties there was only one race contested). But God wanted me to be there to be an instrument of His Grace. As I was signing in, one of the poll workers said to the worker signing me in, “Ask Father. He’ll know.” I said, “Ask me what?” and the woman said, “Father, how would I go about getting baptized.” We then had a nice discussion about baptism. Neither she, nor her two children are baptized, and they would all like to enter into the Catholic Church. I spent time talking to her about it, what it entails (RCIA, etc.), and then left her my card. It is pretty amazing to think I went into the polling place largely thinking “what a waste of time,” and I left maybe bringing three souls closer to Christ. God truly works in mysterious yet wonderful ways. Blessed be His Name!
The next day I received some exciting news. I have been invited by the Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives to be a guest chaplain, leading the opening prayer for the House on July 16 (about 10 a.m. EST). Over 26 years ago I worked as a Congressional Page in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was an incredible learning experience. My family has been friends with our congressman, Rep. Christopher Smith, since before he was in Congress (mom worked as his office manager here in the district after he was elected, and now my sister works for him as a case worker). For over a year, his aide has been working at getting me the invitation. I am pretty excited. I need to start working on my prayer. It has to be short (no more than 150 words), and not directly address political matters. I have an idea or two floating about my head. Of course I will post the prayer on my blog.
