>>15295837God bless you friend. I'll tell a story that might help you here:
A friend of mine was a bigshot on Wall Street and had been away from the Church for 15 years. He was supposed to be giving a presentation for JPMorgan in The World Trade Center first thing in the morning on September 11th, 2001. The meeting got rescheduled though to the afternoon and he ended up being in Connecticut. The plane impacted right where he was supposed to be that morning and everyone he was supposed to meet died that day. In the months after, he really didn't have a lot to do (all his clients and friends were dead) so he took to wandering around the city during the work day. Somehow or other, he ended up walking into Holy Innocents Church and they were having confessions. So I after a little reflection and praying, he made the decision to go to confession for his first time in 15 years. And within a few minutes of him finishing his confession, Mass started and he received Communion for the first time since he had left the church.
So yes and no. It is like the movies in that you can just walk in and go to church - but you need to go to confession before you receive Communion. Yeah. People will probably know you aren't a regular - the abhoration of a Mass translation that they used 15 years ago has been corrected (thankfully) to be more accurate to the Latin so the responses are slightly different.
If you want to feel less out of place, go to a Latin Mass parish - you won't be the only one who doesn't really know what's going on since people are always trying it out. Don't feel bad or self-conscious about returning to Church though. God loves you regardless of how you feel and wants nothing more than for you to be happy with him for all eternity. And no matter what you've done, don't be embarassed to confess it - priests generally don't even remember what people have confessed, much less recognize your voice and most have heard worse.
God Bless friend! I'm praying for you.
