And now, to follow up on last week’s somewhat negative post, I will share a happy little story from a few weeks ago when the Doctor and I were sharing a meal in a seafood restaurant in Houston. We had chosen to eat there because it was Friday, so of course, like the good traditional Catholics that we are, we ordered seafood. But when the meal came we realized that there was a problem. They were accompanied by dirty rice (for those not familiar, this is rice mixed with bits of beef.)

Our meals would have been rather inadequate with no rice at all, so we asked the waitress to bring us a plate of white. “Don’t like the dirty rice?” she asked, smiling.

The Doctor generally doesn’t offer more information than necessary in such circumstances, but I decided to be more communicative. “Actually, we do.” I replied, “but we’re Catholics so we don’t eat meat on Fridays.”

She frowned at this and gave a startled, “Oh!” After a moment’s awkward pause, she went away and brought the rice and we commenced eating. But near the end of the meal, she stopped back by again, and asked where we were from.

It was a difficult question since I’ve lived all over and was right in the middle of moving. But we answered as well as we could, and then she explained, “Because, see, I’m Catholic, and in my parish everyone eats meat on Fridays.”

We tried to explain, how before Vatican II this was the custom for centuries, and how after Vatican II people were given the option to substitute a different penance “but most people really just do nothing.” She nodded at that. However we explained, she kept wanting to make it into a local thing. “In your region, they must do it differently.” You can see her classic Novus thinking – differences in practice must relate to different regions or cultural customs. She was utterly harmless, of course, and completely without malice, but she had never heard of anything like this before. We had a friendly chat and then left her a good tip. I wanted us to be a good memory for her.

I was raised in a culture that was concerned (some might even say obsessed) with making a positive impression on people through example. We were regularly reminded that our non-Mormon friends would estimate Mormons based on the way they saw us behave. In Peace Corps, too, we were often reminded that, when we were at our sites and interacting with ordinary Uzbeks, “You might be the first American they’ve ever met.” Traditional Catholics generally aren’t as concerned with image, but perhaps we should be. For a lot of people you come across in life generally, you might be the first traditional Catholic they’ve ever met. It would be nice, whenever possible, to make a good impression.