That is the first reason it is fun to be Catholic. Catholicism is thus a religion of festivity and celebration, of holidays and parties, of a sacred calendar, of Christmas cribs and Easter lilies, of processions and pilgrimages, of seasons and colors, of special prayers and special patrons. They are all part of the explanation of why Catholicism is a happy religion and why it is fun to be Catholic. Catholicism teaches, and Catholics believe in their bones, that we relate to God as part of a network of family, friends, and neighbors. So we express our intense communal relations at every level of our lives and most particularly in the neighborhood parish, which is the church for us.
Catholics cluster, they bond, they converge, they swarm.
We draw our boundaries out as wide as we can and, in our better moments, include within the boundaries even those who think they are outside. It's hard to stop being a Catholic. We are not a religion for only the saved, much less for those who think that they are saved. We are a religion for everyone. Even those who have been excommunicated are still Catholics.