Author: Meg

I'm a Catholic, madly in love with the Lord, His Word, His Bride the Church, and especially His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. I'm committed to the Church not because I was raised this way but because the Lord has drawn my heart and convicted my reason. After 2 degrees in theology and 5 years in the classroom, I quit my 9-5 to follow Christ more literally. Since May of 2012, I've been a hobo for Christ; I live out of my car and travel the country speaking to youth and adults, giving retreats, blogging, and trying to rock the world for Jesus.

How to Go to Confession

Sometimes my Ordinary Time toes even match my clothes! Okay, rarely.

Back before I gave everything away to enter the convent (one day I’ll tell y’all more about that), I used to have enough clothes that I could wear purple for all of Advent and Lent–pink during the pink weeks, of course. These days, I stick with nail polish to match the liturgical season. It’s fun in the winter, when I go from purple to pink to gold to green. But my toenails have been green for months and I’m getting pretty sick of it.

Does anybody else feel like Ordinary Time just drags on and on? The first half of the year is all exciting, and then it’s just ordinary for six months. If you’re anything like me, your spiritual life matches the excitement of my nail polish. When the vestments are changing, I’m focused and intentional, adding spiritual practices and going to penance services and whatnot. But during these green months, that intentional living fades.

For most people, I think, the biggest casualty is confession. We go in Advent, we go in Lent (when it’s every Wednesday evening in every parish if your diocese is as awesome as mine), and that’s about it. So if it’s been a couple of months (or years), here’s a refresher course on how to go to confession.1

1. Examination of conscience. Do not just waltz into the confessional unprepared. Keep in mind that this is an encounter with the God of the universe who was beaten and crucified exactly so that you can have these three minutes in the confessional. Not something to be taken lightly.

Spend some time with a good examination of conscience. Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you and then reflect on everything that’s happened since your last good confession. Bear in mind that you must confess all mortal sins in kind and number–that means be as specific as possible. For something to be a mortal sin, all three of the following conditions must be met:

  1. Grave matter–it’s really wrong.
  2. Knowledge–you know it’s really wrong.
  3. Full consent of the will–you choose to do it anyway.

Venial sins (sins that don’t meet all three conditions) should be confessed, but don’t have to be. You can also be broader in your enumeration of venial sins: “I have been selfish” as opposed to “I drop-kicked three babies.”

The distinction is that mortal sin breaks your relationship with God, while venial sin “just” damages it. Think of it this way: if we’re best friends and I walk up to you and you’re busy and walk away without saying anything, that’s not cool.  But you don’t have to beg forgiveness, just send a quick text message or go old school and actually say something.  If you jump me from behind and beat the tar out of me, though, you really have to beg. We’re talking on your knees, tears pouring down your face, handing me presents. In the same way, when we damage our relationship with God, we can ask forgiveness without going to confession; when we destroy it, we need to get down on our knees and beg–in the confessional.

As you go through your examination of conscience, you may want to write out your sins and destroy the paper afterwards. Or not. As long as you’re thorough, the method doesn’t much matter.

2. Contrition. In order for your confession to be valid, you actually have to be sorry for your sins. In fact, your confession’s invalid if you’re not sorry at some level.

Fortunately, our God is merciful beyond belief, and he’ll take whatever he can get. Ideally, you’ll have perfect contrition–sorrow for your sins out of love of God. But God will accept imperfect contrition, too–sorrow for your sins out of fear of hell. Contrition just means that at some level you regret having sinned, even if your regret itself is self-interested.

3. Resolution. The oft-overlooked third step in the process, resolution means that you resolve to try not to sin again. This doesn’t mean you won’t sin again or even that you expect to make it ten minutes without sinning again; it means that you really want to stop sinning and you’re going to try. You don’t have to succeed. God knows you’re weak—he’s not going to withhold forgiveness because you’re fallen.

Of course, this also tells us that you can’t validly confess something you have no intention of changing. Let’s say you never go to Mass on Sunday–that’s definitely grave matter, and assuming that you know it and are choosing to do it anyway, it would be a mortal sin.2 If you go to confession with the intention of skipping Sunday Mass the next day, then confessing that you skip Mass wouldn’t do you any good–the sin wouldn’t be forgiven.

If you’re stuck in some sin that you know the Church condemns but that you’re not willing to give up, don’t just avoid confession! Go to confession and explain to the priest that you’re addicted to pornography (or whatever) and don’t intend to stop. Let’s hope that the Holy Spirit takes over and you get some good counsel there.

4. Confession. The moment we’ve all been waiting for…the Sacrament itself. In order to be absolved (barring extreme circumstances), you have to take your sins before a priest. You must confess all mortal sins—if you leave one out on purpose, your whole confession is invalid and you’ve added another mortal sin. If you forget one, on the other hand, it’s okay—even the one you forget is forgiven. God’s good like that.

Your confession should (God willing) look something like this:

Priest: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Penitent: Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been _____ weeks/months/years since my last confession. These are my sins:
      List sins
Penitent: For these and all my sins, may God forgive me.

It’s a good idea to end your laundry list with some closing line to let the priest know that you’re done. For years I went with “And, uh, I think that’s it,” which was kind of a lie, since I knew that was it. I think some closer makes it less awkward for everybody.

Who’s seen Hitchcock’s I Confess? A psychological thriller about the seal of the confessional? Yes, please!

Father may interrupt you to ask for clarification or motivations. Hopefully, he won’t interrupt you to start chatting. I once mentioned in confession that I had just been to the Holy Land and the priest started asking me about the political situation there. After a few minutes, I realized that he wasn’t ever going to get back to the confession part of things, so I started awkwardly inserting my sins into the conversation: “Well, I never felt unsafe, even though I’m really impatient and judgmental. But that might just be because of my pride.”

After you list your sins, you will hopefully get some advice from the priest. Even if he’s way off the mark, keep listening because he may slip your penance in there and you really need to know that. Sometimes they get sneaky, so pay attention.

Father should ask you to say an act of contrition after that. It’s good to have one memorized, but don’t worry if you don’t. Most confessionals have one on the wall inside. If all else fails, you can make something up. I once found myself going to confession in Italian. I’m pretty good at Italian, but it turns out that I don’t know works like “judgmental” or “selfish,” so the whole process of confessing was kind of like Taboo:

Me: I said…things…that were not…good…about others?
Father: Uncharitable!
Me: Yes! Uncharitable!3

When he asked me to make my act of contrition, I thought I was going to die. I mean, I know how to say “I’m sorry I bumped into you,” but I was afraid it wasn’t quite the same as “I’m sorry I nailed you to the cross.” And I didn’t want to say the Italian equivalent of “my bad,” so it came out like this:

Oh, God…I sinned…I don’t want to sin any more…help me!4

Very awkward. But good enough (although Father did laugh at me). In any event, go ahead and memorize one.

Then you get absolution and BAM! you’re good as new.

“Nepomuk Takes the Confession of the Queen of Bohemia” by Giuseppe Maria Crespi

5. Absolution. When you hear the words “I absolve you of your sins,” you’re forgiven. In that moment, your sins are taken away, if you’re intending to do your penance. If you forget to do your penance and can’t make it up, you’re okay, but if you’re not intending to do it, it’s an invalid confession. Basically, pay attention and do it, but know that you’re forgiven right then, not when you’ve finished your ten rosaries (or the one Our Father you slid out of there with).

As a reminder, it is God who absolves you through the priest. By the merits of Christ’s Passion, God forgives your sins; the priest is just the vessel.5

6. Satisfaction. While your sins are forgiven by Christ’s mercy alone, independent of any works of penance you might do, God asks us to cooperate with his grace. So when you say your penance, you’re not earning your absolution, but putting forth a token of your good will and your desire to serve God. Plus, while confession takes away your eternal punishment (saving you from hell), it doesn’t remove all temporal punishment (making things right with the world your sin damaged). Your penance helps you to make reparations to the world for the evil you’ve done; whatever you haven’t made up for will be taken care of in purgatory, which I’m sure I’ll talk about in November.

Gone are the days when your penance involved a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or fasting in sackcloth and ashes. I’m lucky if I get more than my standard three Hail Marys. Since your penance is probably pretty easy, try to do it intensely, really focusing on every word. Consider that in the moment of your absolution, God snatched your soul from the jaws of hell; in return, he asked for, what, a decade of the rosary? By God’s mercy and the power of the Cross, your soul does not depend on those words. But it can’t hurt to pray them like it does.

 

If you haven’t been to confession in a long time, might I suggest a good soul cleansing? I promise you won’t regret it. If you’re a frequent confessor, maybe trying to be more intentional will help you to recognize the beauty of this Sacrament. And whether you go weekly or haven’t been in decades, take a moment to thank God for the incredible gift of Sacramental absolution and for our Church that is anything but ordinary.


  1. If you still need to be convinced that you should go to confession at all, see if this post helps you. [↩]
  2. I’m not judging you–this is theoretical. [↩]
  3. Incaritatevole, in case you were wondering. [↩]
  4. O Dio…ho peccato…non voglio peccare piu…aiutame! [↩]
  5. Jn 20:21-23 [↩]

Birthday Blessings

September birthdays are awkward. They’re at the beginning of the school year, so you don’t know quite who your friends are this year. Or you’re at a new school and nobody knows it’s your birthday. Or maybe you’re (I’m) just an awkward person. For whatever reason, my birthdays are often anticlimactic: the day in high school when not one person remembered; the party I threw for myself while I was teaching that almost nobody could come to; the cafeteria chow mein I celebrated with my last year in Kansas. Much like New Year’s Eve, my birthday just doesn’t live up to the hype.

For some people, birthdays are about cotton candy. I want to be friends with those people.

So a few years back, I started to look at my birthday a different way. Instead of spending the day getting other people to celebrate me (which I’m not averse to), I try to take a good chunk of time with the Lord to look at what he’s done in my life over the past year.

For some people, birthdays are about presents or parties or long phone calls with faraway friends. For me, they’re examens, days of gratitude and contrition and petition. The day I turned 20, I learned to be grateful for the suffering I’d endured that year. The day I turned 23, I was so overwhelmed by the blessings of the previous year, I asked God for fewer consolations. The day I turned 25, the Lord asked me to be his bride. These are days that stand out in stark relief against the confused background of my busy life.

Today I am 29—which seems much older than I could possibly be—and I am just so grateful. I wanted to take a moment to share the things I am most grateful for:

1. My vocation. More than anything else, I am so grateful that the Lord has called me to belong completely to him, to give him my undivided heart. The greatest joy of my life is the promise that I will be his bride. He has given me such a deep love for him—despite the nonsense that I try to fill my heart with—that I’m really beginning to hunger for him, to delight in him and to rest in him.

The day he called me—4 years ago today—I sobbed. I told him I would be his, but I “knew” I’d never be happy about it. But God is so much bigger than my shriveled little heart, and gradually it’s been swelling with love for him and his Church and his people until there’s so little room left for envy or anxiety. I almost don’t long for marriage any more. I almost don’t ache for children. I almost don’t worry about being alone. I almost don’t feel bitter. And each time I forget how enraptured I am by the gift of my vocation, he lifts my chin and gazes on me and I know—I know—that I am radiant with his beauty and captivating. I am so beautiful and so worthy–by his grace–and oh just so blessed to be his.

The more I love him, the more beautiful I am because he begins to shine through me. Most of the time I’m just little fallen me, but more and more I’m reminded of who I am in Him. More and more he draws my attention back to him and I fall in love again.

Marriage is so beautiful and so holy and such a blessing, but this? This is so me! This fits the joys and the struggles of my heart so perfectly—there’s nothing I would trade for this. Nothing.

2. My faith. I so very nearly wasn’t the person I’ve become. Everything good in my life is so clearly a product of grace. I am so grateful for having been chosen and claimed. It’s not just loving Christ that brings joy to my heart but knowing him, especially in the Eucharist. I’m so blessed to have been drawn into the Church and led to seek truth in his Word.

I was too cynical and too arrogant and too enamored of my own intelligence to  accept the truth of the Gospel. I’m still a self-important mess but–wonder of wonders–he’s given me the gift of faith. Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of the life I could have been living if not for his grace. I am so blessed.

3. My ministry. I haven’t written anything that wasn’t assigned since I was in grade school and I never would have started had it not been for the Lord—but I love this! I love expressing myself in this way and I love that my work is touching hearts.

But more than blogging, I’m so grateful to be able to travel and speak to such different groups of people. This week, I got to talk to a group of holy young women about discernment and my particular vocation and answer their questions. The next day, I was off to a youth group to talk about God’s desperate love for us. Yesterday, I presented on defending Christianity and the divinity of Christ. Then this morning, I met a young woman for coffee and an incredible conversation about discernment and prayer and mortifications and consecrated virginity.

I feel outrageously blessed that the Lord continues to use me with large groups and in one-on-one settings to speak his truth to souls. I’ve wanted to be a missionary since I was in high school and I’m so grateful that he knows how to use me best and that he’s entrusted some part of the mission of his Kingdom to my weak hands.

I am especially grateful that these kids put up with me.

4. My loved ones. I’ve mentioned before that I hate to be needy or burdensome. All this living out of my car and off the generosity of others? It’s really hard for me. But I’m surrounded by beautiful people who are so gracious, people who don’t think they’re doing me a favor by letting me stay with them—people who even ask me to stay longer and longer still. They offer prayers and spare rooms and graphic design and introductions—and they’re happy to do it! It’s so humbling to be so well loved by so many amazing people.

5. You! I can’t believe I have so many subscribers (almost 500)! I’m so grateful to you for reading my posts and sharing or liking or commenting. Thank you for praying for me, for offering a place to stay, and for helping out financially. Thank you especially to those who’ve invited me to come speak! God is continuing to surround me with generous people who are so willing to help me even if we’ve never met and I’m so blessed by all of you.

 

This year, I got the rug pulled out from underneath me—again. After 15 years of wanting to be in the classroom until the day I died, the Lord asked me to teach in a new way. After a lifetime of wanting roots and stability, he called me to drop everything and follow with nothing but a walking stick. He is providing, as he always does. He is blessing me, as he always does. And he is holding me close and drawing my heart gradually, gently, with such tender love. I just—I can’t—friends, there aren’t even words. I am so blessed. Praise God with me.

The Anglican Use Mass

**Note: this is a long one and probably only exciting if you’re kind of a nerd and want to know about rites and ordinariates and such. I find all this fascinating!**

My last post on the Church of England was, I know, not the usual for this blog. But the new ordinariates are just so complicated that I thought you’d want some background explaining the context from which this all arose. Now we all know that the Church of England came from the Catholic Church (didn’t they all?), that there is great beauty in their traditions and liturgies, that there have been divisions from the beginning, and that these divisions have recently become so significant that many members have been returning to Rome after nearly 500 years.

Because of the age and beauty of the CofE liturgy, because it is so similar to the Catholic liturgy, and because of pastoral sensitivity, the Church in her wisdom has determined that former Anglicans shouldn’t be expected just to dive in to the Catholic melting pot and lose their particularly Anglican culture. Instead, she’s established the option of entering via the ordinariate. Distinct ordinariates have been established in different countries; so far, there’s one in England, Scotland, and Wales, one in the US and Canada (although Canada will be establishing its own soon), and one in Australia. I’m going to go ahead and refer to all three as “the Ordinariate,” by which I’ll mean any one of the three–as far as I know, the only distinction is regional, each being headed by a different ordinary but without any other real differences.

For a little more background, let’s talk for a minute about different rites in the Church. The Catholic Church is divided into two arms, the Western and the Eastern. The vast majority of Catholics (98%) are Roman Catholics, members of the Western Church whose liturgical language is Latin. The other two percent belong to different Eastern rites of the Church. There are 22 different Eastern rites (check them out here–very cool information). Each of these rites is completely in union with Rome; they have all the same doctrine as Roman rite Catholics but different liturgies and some different rules. For example, Eastern rite priests are permitted to be married. On the other hand, many Eastern rite churches require that the faithful abstain from meat throughout all of Lent. Nothing huge and nothing doctrinal.

Eastern rite Catholics are not the same as the Eastern Orthodox. The Eastern Orthodox are not in union with Rome; they don’t recognize the authority of the Pope. So while Eastern rite Catholics may look much more like Eastern Orthodox (bearded clerics with their wives, ornate vestments worn by a priest behind an iconostasis), they’re totally different. As a Roman Catholic, you’re welcome to attend a Melkite Mass, receive communion, go to confession, even register at the parish. Because they’re Catholic. We are not welcome to receive Sacraments in the Orthodox Church (although they’re valid) because our two churches are not in communion with one another.

Got that? Okay, well, the Anglican use Mass celebrated by the Ordinariate is not a rite distinct from the Roman rite the way that the Melkite or Ruthenian is. In much the same way that the Extraordinary Form (Tridentine/”Latin” Mass) is a version of the Novus Ordo, the standard form of the Roman rite, the Anglican use is a version of the Roman rite. Because it’s not a distinct rite, it feels very similar to the Novus Ordo Mass that you’re used to attending every Sunday. It’s generally the same shape and many of the words are the same or similar. Eastern rite liturgies, on the other hand, can be dramatically different. I was once 20 minutes into a Ruthenian Mass before I realized that Mass had started!

Because it’s not a different rite, members of the Ordinariate don’t have any different rules from other Roman Catholics. Priests of the Ordinariate1 are permitted to be married if they had previously been CofE priests, but the norm will not be for married men to be ordained. Even those who have converted have to get permission from the pope to be dispensed of the obligation of celibacy. They use the same lectionary, a very similar liturgical calendar, and the same Code of Canon Law (as opposed to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). What’s different is the liturgy, as I’ll explain below, and the fact that it’s possible through the Ordinariate for entire Anglican parishes to convert to Catholicism, as was the case this past Saturday with the Anglican Cathedral of the Incarnation. Although there have been many difficulties because of red tape and property ownership, a number of entire Anglican parishes have already come over to Rome, maintaining their traditions and community while receiving the fullness of the Truth.

The idea is not to establish a new rite in the Church but to serve the needs of people who are so accustomed to lofty, sacral language in their liturgy, who cherish their roots in 16th century English Catholicism, and who may have lived for 60 years in a parish of 300 souls, a community much smaller than your average Catholic parish.

The Ordinariate is similar to the Archdiocese of the Military in that it covers a large area that is divided into more traditional geographical dioceses; parishes belonging to the Ordinariate (or the Archdiocese of the Military) are not part of the dioceses in which they physically exist but report directly to their particular ordinary.

Yet while the Archdiocese of the Military is in fact a diocese, the Ordinariate is not, technically. In the case of the U.S. Ordinariate, for example, the Ordinary is a former Episcopal bishop but has not been ordained a Catholic bishop. Msgr. Steenson is married, and while there have been many married priests in the Catholic tradition, there have never been married bishops (nor are there in Eastern Orthodoxy). Not being headed by a bishop, the Ordinariate clearly isn’t a diocese, although it’s closer to a diocese, as far as I can tell, than it is to anything else. The website of the U.S. Ordinariate explains the distinction this way:

However, a diocese is “territorial”: its members live in a specific geographical area. An ordinariate is “personal”: its members may live anywhere the ordinariate is authorized to function. They belong to the ordinariate because of a shared attribute; in this case, because they are former members of Episcopal or Anglican churches who now are Catholic, but wish to retain elements of their Anglican heritage.

The reason this is so hard to explain is that a personal ordinariate is a totally new thing in our Church. That’s why it was so exciting when Benedict XVI explained that this was going to happen–a totally new type of institute within the Church established to respond to a particular modern need of a particular group of people. Talk about New Evangelization–talk about pastoral compassion! I just find this all so exciting.

I’m hoping that gives you enough of an idea of what the Ordinariate is (not a rite, kind of like a diocese, similar to a movement, but mostly just all its own) to hear about the Mass I went to last week.

I was invited to daily Mass at the parish of St. Gregory the Great in Mobile. Since there are so few members of the Ordinariate in Mobile, Fr. Venuti is the pastor of St. Gregory, a community that meets at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, as well as being in residence at St. Mary’s, saying the Novus Ordo Mass for the rest of us. This is often the case with Ordinariate priests, especially as the Ordinariate is so new.

When I say “so few members,” I’m not kidding. At daily Mass, there was one person outside of Father’s wife and son and the friends I brought with me. From what I hear, Sunday Mass isn’t much bigger, providing you with an intimate community, if not the ability to sit back and observe. Fortunately, Mrs. Venuti was in the front, so we all just followed her lead. If you want to read exactly what we did, check out the order of the Mass here.

The first thing you notice, of course, are Father’s old school vestments and the fact that he’s facing ad orientem (or “with the people,” as opposed to towards the people). The language is different but familiar somehow–a more beautiful version of the usual, I guess. It really made me grateful for our new translation but hungry for the language I was hearing here: “that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name,” for example–it just feels more glorious to me.

The first moment my jaw dropped was right at the beginning: before the Kyrie, Father read the greatest commandment:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

The rubrics said, though, that he could have chosen to read all 10 Commandments. A real examination of conscience, not just a second to think about our day. It made begging for mercy feel much more real.

When the Liturgy of the Word began,2 the different translation of Scripture (the Revised Standard Version or RSV) had that same foreign-yet-familiar feel. I can’t say that I prefer one or the other, but it certainly made me listen when the cadence was so different from the norm. The Mass had the standard form–first reading, psalm, Gospel acclamation, Gospel, homily–so familiar, I kept slipping and forgetting to say thou.

Father recited the petitions, filled with strong and poetic language like:

And to all thy people give thy heavenly grace, and especially to this congregation here present; that, with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear and receive thy holy Word, truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.

And we most humbly beseech thee, of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succor all those who, in this transitory life, are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.

Now those are prayers! None of this “for Mary Sue on her birthday, that she would have a really fun day” nonsense that seems to creep into the Novus Ordo. The petitions seem to come only in four forms with no option to add specific intentions; they covered so much, though, that one wouldn’t really need to.

After the petitions, there was another penitential rite. I’m beginning to see why people talk about Catholic guilt–and yet I’m convinced that those who really humble themselves before God don’t drown in shame the way seculars often do. In any event, I found the placement beautiful; we’ve asked for blessings and we beg again for mercy before we approach the table:

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remebrance of them is greivous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.  Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It’s hardcore, but it was followed by Father saying, “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” (Other consoling verses were possible there as well.) In case that wasn’t sensitive enough for you, it was followed by the sign of peace.

The placement of the kiss of peace was once of my favorite things about this liturgy. It followed an act of contrition, so the act of offering peace to our neighbor stemmed directly from expressing our sorrow to God. It made the handshakes feel more like an effort at reconciliation than a coffee break, the way they often do in the Novus Ordo. And this reconciliation is just as tied to approaching the altar when placed right before the consecration as it is right before communion. I think moving it earlier also helps me stay focused from the Sanctus all the way through communion, rather than taking a break from prayer to chat before the Agnus Dei.

The Offertory seemed (to my untrained eye) to be almost identical to the Novus Ordo. The Eucharistic prayer was very similar as well, albeit with that high sacral language that I love. It wasn’t until the Our Father that I saw another significant difference–we kept going! We didn’t stop after evil. You know that awkward moment that you always forget to warn your Protestant friends about and they say “for thine” loudly while everybody else is silent? It didn’t happen. No “deliver us, Lord,” just straight through to the end and moved on. If that’s not a concession to Protestant prayer, I don’t know what is.

“Lord I am not worthy” took on greater depth and humility when preceded by this prayer, recited by all the people:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

We received communion kneeling at the altar rail–love it. And then prayer and blessing and dismissal. Like in the Extraordinary Form, the prologue to John’s Gospel is read at the end of Sunday Mass, a little throwback to the Tridentine Mass.

For most of the Mass, I pretty much knew what I was supposed to do and say, even if I didn’t know what was coming next. I had to remember to say “thee” and “thou” and keep my eyes on my missal for sudden divergences from the Novus Ordo, but it was much more familiar than the Eastern rite liturgies I’ve been to, much more accessible than the Extraordinary Form, and much more profound than the Novus Ordo.

Yup–I liked it better. Now, a lifelong Catholic can’t be a member of the Ordinariate–the purpose is to serve converts. I can, however, attend Anglican use Masses whenever I want to, and believe me, I will. The Latin of the Extraordinary Form is off-putting to me, but I’m beginning to understand when people lament the vernacular of the Novus Ordo. Maybe what we need, though, is a less vernacular vernacular–language that’s comprehensible but clearly sacred. That’s what the Anglican use Mass offers us, and that’s what I’ll be back for.

 

If you want to check it out for yourself, here are the American Ordinariate parishes, listed by state. If you’ve got more questions, check out the U.S. Ordinariate’s FAQ–very helpful. Fr. Venuti and some of his priest friends write for a blog on the Ordinariate, in case you’re a stalker like me and kind of obsessed with different liturgies.

  1. I met the first one ordained in the U.S., NBD [↩]
  2. read by Father’s wife, standing at the ambo holding their baby [↩]

The Church of England: A Brief (Catholic) History

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you’ve probably figured out that I’m a grade-A nerd. I love old books and math jokes and I once consoled myself after a terrible football loss by reading a commentary on the Code of Canon Law (Bush Push 2005. I don’t want to talk about it.).

So I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I literally squealed with joy when I was invited to attend an Anglican use Catholic Mass on Thursday. By the (Catholic) priest’s wife, no less! I want to tell you all about the Mass, but I thought we might need some background first to clarify why this liturgy exists and how it connects to Anglicanism and to more mainstream Catholicism. So here you have a brief history of the Church of England1 (from a Catholic perspective, of course) from 1534 to Thursday at 1pm. Now, I’m not a historian, but I’ve studied this period some. I do think the background is necessary to understand the current situation, so I’m going to do my best. If you have to correct me, please be nice.

Courtesy of David M. Luebke

In the early 16th century, the Church was being torn apart like never before. Martin Luther began it all in 1517 by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg. That wasn’t in itself an act of rebellion,2 but it opened the door for the Protestant Reformation. Before long, most of Northern Europe had declared for Luther (or Calvin or Zwingli or anybody but Rome) and France was on the brink. England, though? England was strong. Often called Rome’s most faithful daughter, England had no interest in reformation. King Henry VIII was even declared a defender of the faith after St. Thomas More ghostwrote a tract for him that argued against Protestantism.

But then, tragedy. Henry wanted a divorce.3

Now, to be fair, this was rather a sketchy marriage. Henry had married the wife of his dead brother. Canon law forbids this. But Henry had gotten permission from Rome to marry her, so the marriage was valid. The Church can dispense from her rules,4 after all, just not from God’s rules.5

So Henry was married to a woman who “couldn’t give him a son.”6 Divorce is impossible,7 so Henry had to claim that the marriage had been invalid, that he couldn’t have married his late brother’s wife because the Pope didn’t have the authority to dispense him. Because the Pope didn’t have jurisdiction in England.

And so, because he wanted a male heir,8 Henry declared himself head of the Church in England.

But–and this seems ludicrous to Catholics today but it wasn’t as unreasonable before Vatican I reaffirmed papal infallibility–Henry still wanted to be Catholic. He wanted Mary and the Saints and Mass and Purgatory and really everything but, well, the Church. Henry was decidedly not a Protestant, so when he split, he created a church that was in schism, not a heretical sect.9

And throughout Henry’s lifetime, it stayed pretty darned Catholic. He considered himself an “English Catholic” and repeatedly condemned Protestantism. Without Rome, though, things can devolve rather quickly, and Englishmen were becoming Protestants in dramatic numbers. But the Church itself stayed fairly Catholic in “conservative” Henry’s lifetime.

When he seceded from Rome, Henry appointed Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, the head bishop in his church. Unfortunately for Catholics, Cranmer had very Protestant sensibilities. He maintained much of the pomp and circumstance (and Catholic doctrine) during Henry’s lifetime, but when Edward VI took the throne in 1547, all bets were off.

Cranmer’s reforms were fairly gradual, beginning under Henry and continuing until Cranmer’s death in 1556. The great challenge he faced was developing a theology for one united church composed of every type of Christian, from the most traditional Catholics to the most radical Protestants. What resulted was a church defined by compromise and filled with language so vague as to allow for widely varying interpretations.

This is most evident in the gradual development of the language of the Eucharistic liturgy. In the 1549 liturgy, Cranmer changed the Roman “let this bread and wine become unto us the body and blood of Christ” to “let this bread and wine be unto us”—leaving room for physical or symbolic interpretation and widely regarded as a compromise between Catholics and Protestants. Three years later, the liturgy was changed to ask that those who receive the bread and wine “may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood,” language even less oriented toward the doctrine of transubstantiation, yet still without excluding it entirely from the language of the liturgy (although the rubrics very clearly deny it).10

Cranmer’s reforms were significant enough (rejecting purgatory, the Deuterocanonical books, and five of the Sacraments) to make the Church of England a decidedly Protestant church. The basic tenets of the CofE are expressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, a document written after Cranmer’s execution11 but based largely on his writings.

Then follow a few centuries of great music, beautiful language, and some significant theological confusion (as some eras were more Catholic, others more Protestant). I’m going to skip over all that and jump to the twentieth century, where the Church of England’s roots in compromise begin to bear fruit.

Since its foundation, the CofE’s congregations have varied widely in their interpretation of church teaching. While the structure of services is generally the same, they can look dramatically different depending on how “high” or “low” the congregation is. It’s not just a matter of incense and statues, though, but of core beliefs. Some congregations, for example, believe in transubstantiation and sacramental absolution;12 others wouldn’t touch that popery with a ten foot pole. It’s even possible to find two priests in the same congregation with views on the Eucharist that are diametrically opposed, one saying it is actually Jesus, body, blood, soul, and divinity, the other saying it’s a piece of bread that symbolizes Jesus.

This spectrum of acceptable beliefs has increased divisions in the Church of England for centuries (sometimes but not always resulting in new denominations), but it came to a head in the late twentieth century with disagreement over the ordination of women. Different bishops’ conferences began ordaining women in the 1970s; the 1978 Lambeth conference allowed each region to determine its own policy on women’s ordination, saying, “…the holding together of diversity within a unity of faith and worship is part of the Anglican heritage.”13 The Church of England14 voted to allow women’s ordination (and got it signed off on by the Queen) in 1992.

Not surprisingly, all this didn’t go over so well with the more “Anglo-Catholic” communities, who agreed with Rome that women weren’t capable of holy orders. According to some reports,15 some 500 priests (and many more lay people) left the church over this development, most becoming Catholic.

In response to this mass exodus (and predating much of it), Rome issued a pastoral provision allowing that former Episcopalian priests might petition to be ordained as Catholic priests, even those who were married. Hundreds of priests have been ordained by virtue of this pastoral provision, issued in 1980. Many of these priests were permitted to celebrate the “Anglican use” of the Roman rite, a version of the Roman Catholic Mass that is heavily influenced by CofE language and traditions, based on the Roman Missal (Catholic) and the Book of Common Prayer (Anglican).

When this flow of converts slowed to a trickle, another controversy began to shake the Church of England: the question of homosexuality. Just as members differed widely on matters of faith, they disagreed vehemently on matters of morals. The issue came into the spotlight in 2003 when Gene Robinson was ordained a bishop despite being openly gay and living with his partner. Naturally, this event was extremely divisive in the Episcopal Church,16 with some entire congregations severing ties from the Episcopal Church and forming the Anglican Episcopal Church, a communion of traditional Church of England congregations in America.

In the years since, divisions between liberal and conservative members of the CofE have widened. I’ve been told that some of the more conservative congregations even use the Baltimore Catechism17 in their Sunday school classes. Those communities are far closer to Rome than they are to Canterbury, but their particularly Anglican traditions and liturgy and communities are rich and beautiful. Many have felt drawn to communion with Rome but are rightly reluctant to forsake their Anglican heritage.

Enter Benedict XVI.18 Since 1980, converted CofE priests had been permitted to “retain certain elements of the Anglican liturgy.”19 But this was a concession to a limited group and considered temporary. It allowed for the establishment of Anglican use parishes, but the understanding was that this was a temporary solution. In 2009, in a document called Anglicanorium Coenibus, the Holy Father announced the establishment of ordinariates, canonical groups with essentially the status of a diocese (think Archdiocese for the Military) formed to “allow Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining much of their heritage and traditions.”20 These ordinariates are permanent groups intended to preserve perpetually the Anglican use liturgy and the communities with Anglican roots.

So here we have a community of Christians–fully in union with Rome–with all the benefits of Canterbury and of Rome. But you’ll have to wait to hear all about their rules and liturgy and canonical status–my “brief” history of the Church of England is already too long, so the Ordinariate will get its own post. Get excited!

  1. I’m going to use this term or “CofE” throughout–Anglicans and Episcopalians are Church of England, but the words aren’t interchangeable. “Church of England” might not always be correct, either, but it’s the best I can do. [↩]
  2. 91 of the Theses were perfectly fine. Even those that weren’t were his proposal for debate, not his rejection of the Church or the Pope, of whom he speaks very highly in the Theses. [↩]
  3. It’s all so very much more complicated than this. Here’s the CliffsNotes version. [↩]
  4. No meat on Fridays in Lent, you can’t be ordained until you’re 25, etc. [↩]
  5. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not lie, etc. [↩]
  6. She bore him daughters. When a man can’t father sons, that’s his fault, not his wife’s. Y-chromosome and all. [↩]
  7. Lk 16:18 [↩]
  8. Not just an heir–he had an heir. Women can inherit the throne in England and he had a daughter–“Bloody Mary.” [↩]
  9. Schism: denial of Church authority without denying any Church doctrine, e.g. the Eastern Orthodox; heresy: denial of Church doctrine, e.g. Protestantism. “Heretic” is not a derogatory term. All it means is that you disagree with the Catholic Church on a central issue. Protestants disagree with Catholics on many central issues. This does not make them bad or stupid or damned. When I say “heretical,” I am not suggesting that we burn anyone at the stake. [↩]
  10. Search for “partakers” on this page–very interesting. [↩]
  11. He was executed under Queen Mary, the Catholic queen who followed Edward, for his Protestant beliefs. [↩]
  12. The Catholic Church does not recognize these Sacraments as valid in the Church of England. Although their priests do have apostolic succession in theory, the changes to the prayer of ordination were significant enough to make the Sacrament invalid. Without valid Holy Orders, only baptism and marriage can be performed validly. [↩]
  13. http://www.religioustolerance.org/femclrg3.htm [↩]
  14. kind of but not really in charge of all members of the Anglican communion [↩]
  15. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1032526/Church-England-plans-male-superbishops-rebel-clergy-refuse-led-women.html [↩]
  16. the CofE in America [↩]
  17. A traditional Catholic catechism. [↩]
  18. and the point of this whole post [↩]
  19. http://www.pastoralprovision.org/history [↩]
  20. U.K. Ordinariate [↩]

Faithlessness

I’m such a jerk. That’s probably not news to those of you who’ve met me, but I thought I’d put it out there for the many of you who only see the nice polished stuff that I put on the internet.

When I ran into that car issue, I didn’t feel like I was suffering terribly. I wasn’t moaning and lamenting the great difficulty of my life. I was well aware that there were people struggling dramatically more than I and that by all rights I owed God nothing but gratitude.1

And still I whined. I was so frustrated with the situation, with the fact that I was trying to do some really good work and it just fell apart. I checked flights and buses and even trains (turns out Mobile doesn’t have those) and I just knew there was nothing to be done. They couldn’t get me my car in time and I couldn’t afford an alternative.

And so because I couldn’t see how God was going to work this out, I added that petulant line about not knowing whether I’d see the good it brought this side of heaven. Because I knew nothing good was going to come of it now. I’m sure this is good for my soul somehow, I thought, but it definitely isn’t going to work out in the short run.

But God is so good and so generous and so much bigger than I give him credit for. I was cranky and mopey and he just busted my world wide open.

An incredible family—people I’ve never met in my life—contacted me and asked if they could fly me to Florida. Free. (Say a quick prayer for the Hanks family that God would reward them for their incredible generosity. Ready, set, go! … Okay, thanks.)

In case you missed it, that’s a free plane ticket the day before I needed it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And once again I went to sulk at the tomb and found it empty.

In addition to the flight, I had offers of help (financial and spiritual) from friends, an invitation to dinner in Mobile, and the continued hospitality of my hosts there. Once I got my travel plans figured out (bus to New Orleans, fly to Ft. Meyers, drive to Ave, reverse), I had two offers of a place to stay in New Orleans and three offers of a ride to the airport. My friends in Mobile are going to pick up my car while I’m gone and even offered to pay for it and let me pay them back if I couldn’t pay over the phone.

Grace and joy and charity unbounded.

I knew from the beginning that there was a lesson in this. But the day before it happened, this was the reading in the Office:

The waters have risen and severe storms are upon us, but we do not fear drowning, for we stand firmly upon a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot break the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the boat of Jesus. What are we to fear? Death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Exile? ‘The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord. The confiscation of goods? We brought nothing into this world, and we shall surely take nothing from it. I have only contempt for the world’s threats, I find its blessings laughable. I have no fear of poverty, no desire for wealth. I am not afraid of death nor do I long to live, except for your good. I concentrate therefore on the present situation, and I urge you, my friends, to have confidence…. Let the world be in upheaval. I hold to his promise and read his message; that is my protecting wall and garrison. -St. John Chrysostom

And then that day was the Triumph of the Cross, and then Our Lady of Sorrows, and finally Sunday readings about suffering and taking up your cross. So I figured that the lesson was, “Sometimes things go wrong and there’s nothing you can do but God is still awesome so quit whining.”

And then I got that email—the one that told me that God continues to work miracles today through his body the Church. And I realized how close he holds me and how much he blesses me and how completely undeserving I am. Even when I’m faithless, when I forget how powerful he is and how desperately he loves me, he continues to work for my good. Even when I’ve decided what he can and can’t do, he’s not limited by my faithlessness. Even when I’m a jerk and get all caught up in myself, he keeps drawing me close.

If this trip to Ave had gone off without a hitch, it would have been just another trip. Now it’s a gift, an opportunity for grace, a challenge to deserve what’s been given to me.

Sometimes the obstacles we encounter are there to strengthen us, sometimes to teach us, and sometimes to smack us upside the head and remind us how little we are and how big is our God. Meg, consider yourself smacked.

So thanks to David, Melissa, Coleen, Chrissy, Sean, Margaret, Elizabeth, Grace, Veronica, Calleen, Cathy, Katherine,2 and everyone who was sending silent prayers my way. Thank you for being the hands and feet of Christ.

I’m beginning to think that some great things might happen while I’m down at Ave—it sure seems like Satan doesn’t want me to get there and God clearly does. So will you throw up some prayers for me and the souls I’ll be speaking to? And let me know if you’re in that area—I’ll get you the info on the sessions that are open to the public.

God is good, my friends. Even when we can’t see it.

  1. And in case I didn’t know that, I found out soon after posting my last that a dear friend has suffered a miscarriage. Please pray for their sweet little family. [↩]
  2. I hope I didn’t miss anyone! It’s early and I’m writing this in the airport–thank you, too!! [↩]

Trusting God in the Little Things

I was planning a much better-developed post on this topic, but God kind of forced my hand.

I’ve been praying recently about the fact that I do crazy, radical things because I trust God. I consent to perpetual celibacy, I quit my job and live out of my car–you know, pretty much the usual for a successful, educated woman pushing thirty. And yet I’m super anxious and obsessive about stupid, unimportant matters: whether I might run out of gas before the next rest stop because I didn’t feel like stopping at the last one even though the light was already on; whether I’ll be able to find a parking spot downtown in time to make it to Mass early enough for it to count as Mass; whether the check that’s been following me around America will finally catch up with me in time to cover my bills.1

This is ridiculous! Why do I trust God with the salvation of the entire world but I don’t trust him with my calluses? Why am I willing to offer him hours in prayer every day but I just can’t give him the two minutes left in my holy hour because what if my host is waiting for me?

Seriously, it just feels pathetic, largely because it’s so irrational. I trust God with the creation, care, and salvation of every human soul, with the design of the genome, with the tiny little flashes of inspiration that lead to a life of faith. I trust him with my whole life–just none of the details of it.

So today in adoration, I made a list of things I trust God with:

  1. The happiness and salvation of everyone in the world.
  2. My vocation.
  3. My soul.
  4. My career.
  5. My heart.
  6. My life and health.
  7. My homelessness.2

That’s pretty BA, huh? I’m, like, practically a saint.

So then I made a list of the things I don’t trust God with:

  1. My car. (It might break down.)
  2. Traffic. (I might be late.)
  3. Other people’s opinion of me. (I care more than anybody ever should.)
  4. My success. (What if I never get any jobs?)
  5. Anything involving paperwork. (That stuff stresses me out!)
  6. My stuff. (I don’t have much, so if I mess it up, I’ll have to replace it and that’s really frustrating.)
  7. A place to stay. (I trust God to provide in general, but what if I can’t find someone to put me up next Thursday?)

And, like a good little Christian, I asked God to teach me to trust him. I told him I wanted him to be Lord over the details in my life, not just the big picture. I prayed to delight in his will3 and offered every moment of this day for the glory of his name and the salvation of souls.

And then I went to my friend’s mechanic because my brakes had suddenly started feeling squishy. Quick patch on the brake line, I thought, and we’re good to go.

Nope. $800 fix. Oh, and the part won’t be here till Thursday, so I have to stay in Mobile till then because my brakes will almost certainly go out completely if I do any more driving on them.4

I’m supposed to be at Ave Maria in Florida on Monday.

So, for those of you keeping track at home, that’s an expensive car repair (#1 and #6) that makes me miss speaking engagements (#4) and strands me at someone’s house (#3–what if they think I’m a burden? They absolutely don’t and I know that and they’re wonderful but what if??). Oh, and if I skip Ave, I don’t know where I’ll go before Indiana on the 23rd (#7).

So here’s all the wisdom I can muster on the cross I was handed on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross:

  • Don’t pray it if you don’t mean it.
  • Somehow, this will be exactly right.5

If I figure out this side of heaven what the silver lining to this is, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ll enjoy an extended visit with dear friends and wonder why Megabus doesn’t go from Alabama to Florida. Feel free to throw some prayers my way, for miracles, resignation, or both.

  1. Notice that these are all travel-related. Because that’s pretty much all I do. [↩]
  2. You know, that he’ll take care of me even though I’m living out of my car and don’t have a real home. [↩]
  3. Ps 40:9 [↩]
  4. It’s the brake master cylinder–apparently that’s important. And I think it’s all legit because it was a Firestone, so he’s got no real incentive to mess with me, especially since he spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get the part quicker. He managed to get a promise of “Monday or Tuesday.” I’m not optimistic. [↩]
  5. Rom 8:28 [↩]

Dear Charlotte

Dear Charlotte,

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Baby girl, we are so glad you’re here. I just can’t wait to hold you and gaze at the perfection that is your sweet little face and your tiny hands. But until I get to whisper in your ear, sweetheart, sit back a moment and let your Auntie tell you just how precious you are.

A very blurry picture, to be replaced when your parents stop reveling in your beauty and start indulging my auntly needs.

You are so beautiful. You’re not too fat or too thin, your feet aren’t too big, your hair isn’t too stringy, and your nose is just the right size. You’re not too smart or too loud. Your laugh is precious. You’re interesting and you have such a loving heart.

It’s funny how I know all this. You were just born this morning, after all. But I know about you what I know about all little girls: you’re lovely. And you were made just right to be exactly you. Nobody else in the history of the world has ever seen things the way you do. Nobody’s had quite your smile or your sense of humor. The world needs you, love, not some copy of a girl you think is better. So don’t try to be that girl–be Charlotte Ann Hopkins. There is someone alive today whose life will be transformed by you being you. Don’t cheat the world of the gift that you are by hating yourself.

Because, sweet one, you are so loveable and you are so loved. Your parents have loved you since the moment they knew about you and maybe even longer. They have longed for you and ached for you. You are a miracle.

And oh, darling girl, this life is going to be so hard on you. People will hurt you and ignore you. You will fail in ways that seem earth-shattering. There will be days when you don’t know why you bother. But I have seen through to the other side of suffering and I know that there is joy. Through the darkness of heartbreak and mourning, dawn breaks again, brighter even than before.

Hope, dear one. Trust that there is meaning in life, in suffering, even. When you can’t see the purpose, step back to look at the beauty of this world. Sit in a dimly lit room with Nora Jones and a cup of peppermint tea. Keep company with Claude Monet and John Donne. Just once, climb a mountain by yourself to watch the sunset from the top. And when your heart aches beyond imagining, Rachmaninov.

Fight for the weak (I know your daddy will teach you that), rejoice in beauty, read till your eyes hurt (Mommy will be proud), and oh, baby girl, love until you have nothing left. That’s what makes life great.

As you take on this world, I wish you passion and joy, a cause to fight for, and a home that comforts your weary heart. I wish you a life filled with beauty and laughter and music and simple pleasures. I wish you a love that calls you out of yourself and makes you greater. I wish you an open heart and an open mind and the wisdom to cling to what is true. I wish you strength to endure suffering and loving arms to hold you up when your strength is gone. I wish you loyal friends who challenge you. I wish you peace but never complacency, success in many things but not all, and a life of laughter tinged with tears. I wish you a road that sometimes seems too steep, sometimes too rocky, sometimes too dull, and I wish you the determination to press on. Dear heart, I wish you a wild, mixed-up, terrifying, joyful, confusing, incredible life.

Sweet girl, I love you already! I’m counting down the days.

Aunt Sister

 

As We Forgive Those

I have a schedule to help me read through the Bible once a year. Every September 11th, I’m surprised by the scheduled Gospel passage. Every year, I’m convicted anew:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“To you who hear I say, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.
(Lk 6:27-36)

Love, do good, bless, forgive. That is our response to evil and hatred and senseless violence. That is our response to prejudice and war and vengefulness. That is our response to suffering and sorrow and grief. We cast no aspersions. We refuse to wallow. We take each other by the hand and keep each other strong as we stand in grace to do what is impossible: to embrace those who hate us and weep with those who curse us. It will never be easy, and for many the wounds won’t heal until we find ourselves held by his pierced hands and surrounded by glory. But we pour out the blood that still seeps from those wounds in love for those who suffer and for those who caused that suffering. With St. Paul we rejoice in hope, we endure in affliction, we persevere in prayer.1

Today, I am so grateful for God’s grace and mercy poured out on me when I will never deserve it. Today, I ache for those who know loss and rage and bitterness in a way that I never have. Today, I beg to be emptied of myself and filled with him who is love, to love those who don’t deserve it because he first loved me.2

Today, I choose love.

  1. Rom 12:12 [↩]
  2. 1 Jn 4:19 [↩]

Mary: Not God, Still Kind of a Rock Star

When I was little (and even snarkier than I am now, if you can believe that), I used to take pleasure in criticizing statues of the Madonna and child:

While I have tried balancing toddlers on one hand, it rarely works out this well.

“What’s wrong with sculptors, anyway? Haven’t they ever seen a woman holding a baby? All of these statues of Mary holding Jesus are so unnatural. She’s not a mom, she’s like a Jesus-holder. He’s all hovering in front of her in some impossible position. It can’t be that hard to sculpt a woman holding a baby!”

I’d go on to mention that if you want a baby to face out, you have to hold it by the crotch (because, you know, I had so much experience holding babies) and that was too awkward for the artists’ prudish sensibilities.

Clearly I, at 12, was an authority on art, theology, and child-rearing. I have no idea why anyone put up with me. I can only hope that I’m less obnoxious now.

The Manger, by Gertrude Kasebier. Lovely, isn’t it?

I’m still not a huge fan of awkward-looking art, but the above statue in a church in Missouri got me thinking the other day. While I still prefer the beauty of more natural, maternal images, there’s something to be said for the “Jesus-holder” approach to the Blessed Mother.

In older works of art, I find,1 Mary and Jesus are posed much less naturally. This might in part just be the style of the day, but I think there’s more to it than that. Before the Reformation–maybe even before the 20th century–art wasn’t just beautiful or devotional, it was catechetical. When Mary seemed to exist merely to present Jesus to the viewer, it taught believers the essential truth that Mary exists expressly to present Christ to the world.

Madonna and Child in the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
Mary, Star of the Sea
La Vierge au Lys, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

See how Mary’s purpose in all these images is to bring Christ to the audience? Like somehow the artists didn’t get the memo that Catholics worship Mary and she is the center and meaning or our existence.

Oh, yeah. Cause we don’t. And she’s not.

Let’s go ahead and get a few things out of the way:

  • Mary is NOT God.
  • Catholics don’t think she’s God.
  • Catholics don’t worship her.
  • Mary didn’t save herself from sin.
  • Catholics don’t go to Mary instead of Jesus.

So why do we honor Mary, why celebrate her birthday (today!), why put up statues and pray rosaries and name all our daughters after her? A few simple reasons.

1. As Christians, we want to imitate Christ. Jesus was a good Jew,2 so he obeyed the commandments, notably the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother.3 Since we want to be like Christ, we honor his mother, too.

Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles. -Archbishop Fulton Sheen

But this is honor, not worship–dulia, not latria, for those Greek nerds among you. When we “pray to Mary,” we’re really just asking her to pray for us. We get that she’s just a creature, but we know how much Christ honored her,4 so we do the same.

Besides, how rude is it to go to somebody’s house and totally ignore his mom? That’s what we’re doing if we try to have a relationship with Christ without Mary. It might be possible, but it’s awkward and counter-intuitive.

2. We’re all about following the Bible. In Luke 1:48, Mary says, “From this day, all generations will call me blessed.” So we do.5

The Dominicans seem to have a corner on the “images of Christians under Mary’s mantle” market–at least online–but imagine more of a hodgepodge of Christians under her protection and you’ll see what I mean.

3. Mary is our Mother. On the cross, Jesus said seven things. Given that he was dying of asphyxiation and getting enough breath to say anything involved ripping the nails a little further through the flesh of his hands, I think we ought to take anything he says from the cross pretty seriously. One of those seven things was giving the Blessed Mother to the Beloved Disciple:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (Jn 19:26-27)

Note that John doesn’t use a name here, although we know that it’s him. He uses instead the title “the disciple whom he loved,” a title he uses for himself not because he’s super-arrogant but because he wants us to insert ourselves into this scene. We are the disciple whom Jesus loves and he gives us his mother, just as we recline on Jesus’ breast and follow him to his death and recognize him after he rises. So when Jesus gives Mary to John, he gives her to all of us.

And, of course, Revelation calls her the mother of all Christians (Rev 12:17).

Since Mary’s our mother, we honor her, we spend time with her, we keep pictures of her around the house, we ask her to pray for us. Maybe we even sing songs about her.6

She’s there for strength and guidance, but she’s not the goal.

But she’s our mother, not our God. Mary’s purpose in our lives is to hold our hands as we walk to God. Just as a baby learning to walk will hold his mom’s hands while walking to his dad, we hold Mary’s hands as we go together to the Father. It’s not about her and if we focused entirely on her, we’d fail, just like the baby would fall on his butt if he tried to walk forward while staring up at his mom. Any spirituality that has Mary as its ultimate goal is not Catholic–Marian spirituality is always to Christ through Mary.

4. Mary always brings people to Christ. Every time we see her in Scripture, she’s all about God. The reason she existed was to bring Christ into the world. The reason she continues to play such a role in our faith is because she’s bringing him to us again, just as she brought him to Elizabeth at the Visitation.

Mary and Elizabeth at the Visitation, by Corby Eisbacher–look at that joy!

She lives a life of obedience to the Father, directing people always toward her Son. Mary says very little in the Gospels, speaking only once during the adult life of Christ. On that occasion, at the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2), Mary first intercedes for the people. Then, her famous last words: “Do whatever he tells you.”7

Do whatever he tells you. That’s it–that’s what she’s about. Any authentic Marian apparition always points people back to the Sacraments, to Christ present in the Eucharist. Because Mary knows, as do her children, that it’s just not about her.

For centuries, the moon has been a symbol of Mary, not because she’s a modern fertility goddess but because she, like the moon, has no light of her own. She’s only able to reflect the light of the sun.8 The moon is lovely only inasmuch as it shares slightly in the immense beauty of the sun; Mary is holy only inasmuch as she shares slightly in the immense holiness of her Son.

So we love Mary not instead of Christ but because of Christ.

Now, I wasn’t raised with Mary, so this was hard for me, too. I started praying the rosary long before I even thought it made sense, simply because I felt that God was calling me to. It took years of trying to develop a relationship with Mary before I came to understand that every single interaction I ever had with her was always drawing me closer to Christ.

I often hear Catholics say that you go to Mary when you “can’t” go to God, a statement that Protestants (and many Catholics) justly find outrageous. And yet there have been moments in my life because I am so broken that I felt I couldn’t go to God. I was angry or bitter or scared or whatever and I just needed my Momma. And as I tried to storm out of the church, she gently called my name, calmed me down, and brought me back to her poor, patient Son. Or she lifted my face, cast down and covered with tears, to look once more on my God. Those were moments when, rightly or wrongly, I couldn’t go straight to God. So my Momma took my hand and led me there herself.

My friends, Mary is nothing without Christ. And she does nothing but lead us closer to Christ. She’s so devoted to presenting Christ to us that she sacrifices her artistic sensibilities so we can see her as a Jesus-stand, awkwardly holding a baby holding the world in his hand. And somehow that awkwardness becomes more beautiful when we see what it really means: the Blessed Mother asking us to gaze on her son.

So join me today in honoring Our Lady for her intercession and guidance and motherly love. If this Mary stuff is still hard for you, maybe just chat with her for a minute to thank her for saying yes to God. If Mary’s your bffl, why not rock out a whole rosary as a birthday present? Definitely bake her a cake–it’s a feast day, after all.

Here’s to Mary of Nazareth–2000+ years and still going strong. Happy birthday, Momma!

 

Want some more hardcore apologetics on Mary? Try Mary, Ark of the Covenant, An Ancient Assumption, and Mary, Queen of the Universe.

  1. I’m not an art historian, I’ve just spent an hour googling images of the Madonna and Child. There are a lot of ugly ones out there. Also, Jesus is naked more often than seems natural. [↩]
  2. You did know that, right? [↩]
  3. The numbers are different for the Protestant commandments, but they say the same things. [↩]
  4. a lot [↩]
  5. “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Both a line from the Hail Mary and a line from the Bible–Lk 1:42 and 11:27. [↩]
  6. I have a distinct memory of 8-year-old twins I know “singing” about how they missed their mommy: “Don’t take my mommy awayyyyy! She’s beautiful like a gypsy princess! Don’t take my mommy awayyyyyy!!” I’m not saying all Marian hymns are more poetic than that, but they certainly stem from a natural, human place, not an idolatrous one. [↩]
  7. Jn 2:5 [↩]
  8. St. Bonaventure: “As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the divine sun of justice.” [↩]

In Defense of Liturgy (With a Little Help from the Irish)

I read an essay a while back in which the author said that he never understood liturgy before he went to Notre Dame.1 It was the stadium, though, and not the Basilica that taught him about the importance of ritual. As he wandered the campus, he saw that there were certain things that must be done on a football Saturday: playing corn hole at a tailgate with a red solo cup full of cheap beer in one hand; eating a charred burger cooked by some student organization at a concession stand on God Quad; watching the band step off from the steps of Bond; lighting a candle at the Grotto.2 There was a certain dress code: jeans and an ND t-shirt (polos acceptable on men of a certain age). The game itself was filled with ritual, from the holler heralding kickoff to the keys jingling on third and long, from “we are ND” shouted like they meant it to the “pushups” on top of the crowd every time the Irish found the end zone. This completely unreligious experience was as liturgical as any the writer (an Evangelical, I think) had ever had.

In this supremely ritualized celebration, we begin to see that there is something liturgical about the human person, something that demands ritual and repeated actions. Just as game days and Christmas dinner and road trips take on the same shape each time, so must our worship. It’s unnatural to try to make worship “spontaneous,” as though resisting the urge to revel in what is familiar somehow makes the familiar less sacred, as though spontaneity is the ultimate value in worship, rather than faithfulness and truth.

There is, of course, an Evangelical Protestant inclination to reject “liturgy” because the “liturgical” becomes scripted, rote, stilted. To that I can only reply that all that is holy is liturgical, if by liturgical you mean ritualized and repeated. Every new mother  gazes at her baby with tears in her eyes and murmurs, “He’s beautiful.” Every groom looks on his bride with something like wonder as she walks down the aisle. And everyone watching at a deathbed holds his breath as the dying man takes his last. That our rituals become empty is our fault, not theirs. We coast through the Mass not because it is insufficiently passionate but because we are. If we could see it with new eyes, looking on the football festivities with the eyes of a freshman, not of a professor who’s had season tickets since Ara, we might begin to appreciate the liturgy that combines the passion of a thousand Saints into the unimpassioned droning of a twenty-first century congregation.

But the worse rejection of liturgy, I think, comes from within our own ranks, from those who want to cut some parts, embellish others, and add commentary throughout. Rather than lamenting the “vain repetition” of the Catholic Mass and moving on to their own (often more passionate but rarely less “liturgical”) services, as do our Protestant detractors, they try to change the liturgy that is cherished by so many. They sit during the fight song or drink milk at the tailgate or wear sundresses and pearls. There’s nothing wrong with those things–and yet, there really is.

One consequence of my new itinerant lifestyle is that I find myself at parishes as varied as American Catholics are, often with little advance warning of what I’m about to experience. In the past 6 weeks, I’ve been to Mass in 12 different states at about 35 difference churches, and let me tell you, there are as many ways of being Catholic as there are Catholics. And despite the joys of seeing Catholics of all shapes and sizes coming together for Mass, what’s struck me most has been the liturgical abuses: the Gospel proclaimed to a seated congregation, the Eucharist distributed to EMs before the priest has received, the hand-washing omitted, the precious blood consecrated in a pitcher and then poured into wooden chalices. And I just have to wonder: why?

I know that some of these priests or liturgy committees or parishes really feel that there’s a good reason to change the way Mass is celebrated. But I just go back to football Saturdays. If the band decided that they were going to skip the fight song and play instead a recently-deceased student’s favorite U2 song after every touchdown, that would be kind, but it wouldn’t be appropriate. The stadium would erupt in boos, letters would be written to the school newspaper, and sizable donations would be withdrawn. The fight song is sacred–you don’t mess with that, no matter how compelling the cause.

How much the worse if such a dramatic change was made arbitrarily–let’s say they decided to change from the traditional student-painted golden helmets to some half-black, leprechaun-emblazoned monstrosity for no apparent reason. The outrage would flood facebook like a clever new meme. Whether you loved football or not, you’d be shocked. When I asked my friend Steve if he’d seen the new uniforms, he shrugged: “You know I don’t care much about football.” Then I showed him the new helmet. “That’s not okay!” Because while the uniform itself may change, the helmets shouldn’t. Maybe the color of the helmets doesn’t matter, but the tradition does.

What makes the fight song or the helmet or “May I have your attention please” or pushups sacred isn’t their inherent value; the Irish are no less likely to win a championship with ugly helmets as they are with the lovely gold ones. What gives every moment of every fall Saturday meaning isn’t why we do it but that we do it. That 80,000 people put their arms around each other and sway to the Alma Mater, that we pump our fists like fighting Irishmen when a certain song is played (or keep our arms crossed in an X if we have the misfortune to live in Zahm), that we risk salmonella to eat an undercooked brat–we do that, together. We join as one body and in doing so give meaning to meaningless ritual.

Now, there’s nothing meaningless about the Mass. But there are steps and words and rites whose meaning we might not grasp–or whose meaning we think we understand to be patriarchal or misogynistic or whatnot. Yet there is a sanctity even to these, not because of what they mean, in this instance, but because seeming to mean nothing they mean obedience and unity and faithfulness. They mean that the Mass is home whether I’m in Jerusalem or Jersey. They mean that we have chosen our God and our Church over our own sensibilities. They mean, in an era of jumbotrons and snazzy uniforms, a tradition that goes back generations and honors those who’ve gone before, uniting us with our ancestors in a way that the latest trends in football or worship never could.

Of course, I’m not rejecting top-down innovations like the forward pass or Vatican II. I’m just begging stylists to leave the uniforms alone, players to stay classy, and fans to keep waving the coach’s initials during the 1812 Overture, whatever you think of his coaching abilities. And I’m not condemning anybody; I try really hard not to judge anybody, especially priests, for whom I have a particular love. I’m just begging priests to say what’s in black and do what’s in red, musicians to remember that this isn’t their show, and people in the pews to rejoice in your Church, even if you think you could do it better.

What makes the liturgy magical isn’t just the consecration or the proclamation of the Gospel; it’s the whole glorious game-day package. Chipping away at the parts we don’t like doesn’t do anything but cheapen it. So here’s to glorious football traditions and deep liturgies–may our rituals ever be mystery and our hearts ever rejoice to seek understanding.

  1. I have googled and googled to no avail. Anybody know where I read this? My apologies to the author for this attempt at paraphrase, but my memory of the essay is essential to the point I’m trying to make. [↩]
  2. If you haven’t been to a home game at ND, you’re missing out. [↩]