That’s right. I enjoy going to church.

This is my new church - it's a really great house of worship.

I’m sure that there are scores of CCD/Sunday school students, kids, and teenagers who would read that comment and say, “Blech! Church is SOOO boring!” I know. I said the same thing just a few years back. But it’s true – I enjoy attending mass each week.

Before some of you think that I’ve turned into a holy roller or a crazy religious person let me be very clear that that hasn’t happened at all. From time to time I’m unable to go to the weekly mass service and I don’t get hysterical when that happens. Sometimes you just can’t make it to church and as long as your reason for not being able to attend isn’t frivolous, then God understands. However, as I get older I’ve found that I’ve grown into a routine. We all have our routines. You wake up to a certain rhythm, you get ready for bed with a certain rhythm, you arrange your office to a certain rhythm, etc. Over the last few years I’ve found that after I added regular spiritual worship to my weekly routine via weekly mass and (more recently) the occasional penance service, that I really do enjoy attending these services. They’re short, to the point, and a good chance to get out and be part of something bigger than yourself.

And if there is anything that is bigger and more worthy of our attention than ourselves then it obviously has to be the Church.

The church that my Grandmother attended when she was young.

One thing that I’ve been missing in my worship is a dedicated church and parish to call my own. To fix that problem, I spent the better part of each Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning over the last few months trying out different churches. Below you can find some thoughts on what I was looking for in my search for a new church.

Here are a few of the important items that I looked for when I was searching for a new church to attend:

• Interior Church. Let’s face it – we are all greatly influenced by our surroundings in all that we do. When it comes to worship I think you need to be in a place where you feel a good mixture of comfort, reverence, austerity, and ritual.
• Proximity to Current Area. Even though I haven’t moved to a new apartment in three and a half years, I still move around a lot more than other people in my age group. Not having a set place to call home really bungles up some things in life including finding local communities in which to participate. Finding a parish that was near to my current location was important to me because I’ll probably wind up staying in this general area for the next few years.
• Volunteer Opportunities. Many folks who read this blog wonder why I spend so much of my free time volunteering. Well, I enjoy the whole volunteering process including helping people. Understand where I’m coming from, though – I have a few large-scale, national volunteer obligations coming to an end in the next year and I think the next time I dedicate a great portion of my “time, talent, and treasure” to a cause I would like for it to be closer to home. So, the availability of volunteer opportunities is important to me.
• The Process of the Mass. This item may seem a little bit weird to those of you who have not been to multiple Catholic churches, but one of the things that I’m looking for is a little bit of commonality in my masses. Sometimes I got to a mass and I can’t follow the basic parts of the service because the particular church that I’m attending has their own music, process, and/or added verses. For example, I can’t tell you how many different times I’ve heard the “Gloria” sung with different words, added words, different melodies, different tones, etc. It gets confusing and, frankly, a bit annoying. Makes me wonder about the fuller impact of the Third Roman Missal, but that’s a blog entry for another time.
• The Songs. The parish that I wound up registering at has an excellent selection of music for each service. They don’t choose obscure songs in the hymnal, but instead choose songs that the people will probably know. For example, during the Christmas season at my church we’ve sang Ode to Joy, Hail Holy Queen, Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, etc. There’s no reason to sing some ancient, old song that no one “gets” these days. The church that I registered at understands that fact and gives the parishioners the opportunity to sing songs during mass that are known in most households.

The first picture in this entry is a picture of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Farmingdale. It is a great place to worship. The second picture above is from Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Long Branch. This is the church that my Grandmother attended as a child with my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother. Of all the churches that I attended, I would prefer to attend Our Lady Star of the Sea simply because of the family connection. However, this church is a bit far from where I live – about 25 minutes away – so I only plan to attend services at that building every once in a while.

There you have the summation of my great church search during the latter part of 2011. I’m very pleased with the church that I wound up registering at which is only about ten minutes from my house. The interior of the church is beautiful and they keep it very clean and tidy. There seem to be ample volunteer opportunities if at some point in the future I decide that I want to volunteer for the church locally. There is a very consistent, very by-the-book process for the mass. The songs are all well-known and not obscure, random songs that don’t connect with the congregants. It appears to be a great parish to grow in faith and I’m looking forward to continuing to attend services there in 2012.

Getting there. Slow and steady.

Down to $84 thousand...

I try to lessen the impact of sending away so much money each month by being hyper-involved with my finances to the point where I check and recheck them at least twice each day. In fact, I budget out my expenses – including these bimonthly student loan payments – at least three months in advance (yes, my expenses are currently budgeted through the end of August 2010). I take a conservative stance on my budgeting because I know that unexpected expenses will likely pop up from time to time and I have to be able to handle them. I have my finances all organized in a multi-sheet Excel Workbook that I designed which tracks money in and money out all the way down to the penny.

It’s pretty cool, actually.

Another way that I try to lessen the blow of sending away this money is by trying to find ways to either generate more income or reduce expenses. Pretty basic stuff, right? Over the last few years, the three biggest monthly expenses that I’ve had are these student loan payments, monthly rent payments, and charitable donations. I’ve given you a bunch of updates on the student loan payments and I have to pay my rent every month (more on how housing affects the ability to repay student loans in my next student loan update), but I thought I’d spend a paragraph or two talking about how my student loan repayment schedule impacts my charitable donations.

Since I started this repayment plan, I’ve knocked back my charitable donations considerably. In fact, I selected four charitable organizations that I am going to focus on sending my donations to each year: my Church – St. Jerome’s Church in West Long Branch, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation, Monmouth University’s Athletics Department (specifically, the basketball team), and the Monmouth County SPCA. I have different reasons for choosing each of these organizations. I donate to my Church because I believe in tithing to the extent that you can (I can’t really donate as much as I’d like because of my student loan debt). I donate to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation because I believe in its mission and, as a board member, I am obligated to donate a certain amount every year. I donate to Monmouth University’s Athletics Department because I am impressed that the school managed to get that Multipurpose Activity Center built and I enjoy going to the home basketball games. And finally, I donate to the Monmouth County SPCA because that’s where I adopted one of my family’s pugs – Odie.

The difference between my donations on the repayment plan versus before I went on the repayment plan is that I used to send money to these (and other) charitable organizations whenever I had an extra $50 or $100 in my monthly budget. For this year, I’ve laid out certain dollar amount goals that I’d like to reach in terms of donating to each of these organizations. I’m going to knock them down one at a time (I’ve already made my budgeted donation for this year to one of these groups).

It’s all about budgeting and, in my case, it’s all about creating an extreme budget and sticking to it.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $84 thousand, which breaks down to $29 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways:
I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. If anyone knows of it, it will not count. I will do at least two things I do not want to do – just for exercise. I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not show it.

Father Brian D’Arcy

Isn’t that nice? Just for today, I think I’m going to try to get that quiet half hour all by myself and relax. Sounds refreshing. Enjoy!