The Daily Grind

I must be on a movie kick. 

I watched another film last night, on Patrick Coffin's recommendation, called Calvary. It is about a good priest ministering to his congregants in a small town in Ireland, all of whom who have lost faith in God and the Church in the aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal. It reminded me of the Irish countryside version of Diary of a City Priest (based in Philadelphia), which I read years ago. It was human and heavy, mixed with grit and the unpolished realities of living in a fallen world with nothing but scorn for the Church and among those who regard religion as little more than a naive fairy tale.

I made me think back to my days at the Catholic Worker in inner-city Harrisburg. I was helping manage a house of hospitality for men with drug addictions. The house was at 14th and Market Street in Allison Hill, a notorious neighborhood for drug dealing and shootings. I was 22 years old, a Catholic of four years, a kid from the suburbs, and a bit green. I would walk to the corner store for the newspaper and a pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes every morning for my co-Worker, Bruce. We would go to to morning Mass across the street at St. Francis of Assisi parish, and eat in the soup kitchen for lunch. Most of my days were spent driving our guys to appointments and attending AA and NA meetings, helping the neighborhood kids with their homework after school, restocking our food pantry, writing and editing our community newspaper, organizing volunteers from the local colleges on the weekends to help paint and rehab our houses for women with children and refugees, and serving the needs of the inmates at the county prison. There was a seminarian who came by to help from time to time to volunteer, but he seemed out of place--kind of proper and concerned with churchy and clerical things; I couldn't relate. The summers were hot (no AC), the work was unpaid, but I was happy to be serving the Lord and getting a crash course in the Works of Mercy in the grit and grime of urban daily life.

I remember one of our guys in recovery who came to us in particular. We were about the same age, but from vastly different worlds. He was from Brooklyn originally but came to us by way of Pittsburgh. He had killed a man in retaliation for the murder of his father (who was in the mafia). We got him a job at a restaurant downtown. He lied about being clean, he was using heroin the whole time he was with us, went to NA meetings and faked it good. He stole my stuff and sold it for drugs, had no use for religion. He eventually left one night and didn't come back. He thought we were all a bunch of sissies anyway. It was a daily grind and a seemingly hopeless cycle of poverty and drugs and crime and violence. But the needs were still there, and who was going to do the work? 

The temptation to the safety of spiritual escapism is strong when faced with entering into the fray of the daily despair of this seemingly futile and endless cycle. It's a scary world--a lot safer writing words on a screen, or discussing religious things in comfort. I don't think we realize what our parish priests endure--the daily battles of indifference and sometimes outright hostility towards them in places where faith has all but fallen by the wayside in places like Europe and Ireland. On top of it, they many times have to do it alone and maybe with inner battles and demons of their own (as in the film) and temptations to despair. They are like the teachers in the classroom, doing the hard work in the trenches in a culture gone mad. The priest in Calvary--he was a good priest, a good and ordinary man. He cared about people and their well being, trying to meet them where they were at, even when they scoffed at his belief and repaid him with derision.

If we are doing the work of the Lord, the daily grind, we have to sanctify it somehow. The pain of rejection and being made fun of for our naivety is nothing compared to the pain of a meaningless life. The Devil will always try to convince us that what we do doesn't matter, that our efforts are futile in order to drive us to despair. When we lose our raison d'etre as Christians--our faith in Christ--we have no faith left for humanity in its sin and brokenness. We can't live in a spiritual cocoon, a perpetual retreat or religious buffet--we have to come out of the womb at some point and enter in to the grimy fray of human existence. There is a lot of work to be done, and that work ain't always pleasant.

Some days it weighs on me--not doubt or despair, but that there are so few who believe, especially those in post-Christian cultures which hold their Christian heritage with contempt. Christ bore the sins of the world on his shoulders, felt the searing pain of the indifference of those whom he died for. We are not Christ. We are men, human and fallen, but we are still called to do the work--priest and lay person alike. We can't do that without faith, and we cannot maintain faith without prayer, and we cannot stay rooted in prayer without effort. And, let's face it, effort gets tiring. Just like life sometimes.

"They Will Know Us By Our Love": Paul, Apostle of Christ

If you want my opinion about whether or not to see "Paul, Apostle of Christ": it's worth seeing. Heck, even The Village Voice's atheist film critic noted that "Paul, Apostle of Christ is Somehow Not Terrible." An understatement IMO, but worth noting for reasons I'll get to later.

I'm not qualified to write about the nuances of film, but I appreciate good art, good storyline, good writing, and good acting that doesn't debase itself to make a buck or force-feed an overt statement. There's nothing overwhelming about the movie, nothing really novel, but that for me was part of the appeal. Some reviewers said it was on the slow side, but I appreciated the pace. I was also very moved, coming close to tears in two scenes, and not being able to hold them back in one.

Acts is an incredible book in scripture--one of my personal favorites--because it tells the story of the early community of believers and those that fortified them. From geography to remembrance to inter-personal conflict, the story of the ecclesia is one anyone--believer or unbeliever--can appreciate. But because I am a believer, I viewed the film through the eyes of a believer, and that was what was so moving at times for me--these are my kin, my spiritual brethren...my family. 

In all honesty, for most of my years as a Christian, I never "got" Paul. He was too much--that guy that could never rest, could never joke around, was just, well, obsessed and overboard. It has only been in the past few years when Paul has grown on me, and has become one of my favorite saints and figures. He was a man with a singular mission--to preach the Gospel of Christ, and woe to him if he does not preach it. (1 Cor 9:16)

But he was also a man with a past, a past that haunted him at times. Sure he did a complete one-eighty, but he had blood on his hands, the blood of believers. He was a man who knew redemption, what he had been saved from, and that resonated with me and was communicated in the film, such as when Ananias places his hands on Paul's eyes after his blinding and he is able to see again.

Another reviewer said that he was disappointed at the lack of joy and boldness portrayed in the early community. I saw it somewhat differently. I could relate to the fear, the trepidation, the very real possibility of losing one's life on account of the Way. The most moving scenes for me were those that involved children--the orphan child that offers to go out as a scout from the community in Rome and comes back beaten to death; the child that dies at Saul's hands; the children (and their parents) lead to "the games" and their ultimate death on account of their belief in Christ. I think of my own children, my own flesh and blood, and shudder to pray that these, even these, my Christ requires of me as a condition of being a disciple. I think of those through out the world--persecuted Christians in Iraq and Pakistan and Syria--who are modern day followers of the Way paying the price with their lives and witnessing to the faith. 

The community in Rome were begging for "wisdom" from Paul, what the early disciples of the desert fathers would calls "a word," to sustain them in their faith. I had regarded Paul in the past as a kind of arrogant overachiever, but in recent years I have come to appreciate his unwavering, confident faith in Christ as a model for others to emulate to "be imitators of" when they had no living example of Christ in the flesh (1 Cor 11:1). He was bold, and took the beating like a man of conviction. How important this is for us as believers, to have those to turn to who believe without wavering and who can fortify others during the storms. How much love is shown by a man willing to lay down his life for his friends.

Paul and Luke were enigmas to Mauritius, the prison prefect. Paul boasted of his weaknesses (real men boast only of their strengths), reveled in his poverty (rather than desiring riches and wealth), and accepted what came to him (versus making his own way). He couldn't figure them out. Christians are called to be different, to be set apart, by the strength of their convictions by the Holy Spirit. Whereas the pagan gods could not cure the prefect's daughter, Luke by the power of Christ, does. And when Paul loses his head in the end of the film, he is welcomed in the Kingdom with open arms by the little girl whose life he had taken. This is family. This is the Christian family. This is home.

Everything these Christians do is upside down. Everything we do today as Christian believers is upside down in our neo-pagan culture. We are continuing the story where our brothers and sisters have left off. In a world that has gone mad, what's upside down might just be right-side-up in the end. And in the end, the only way they will know us is by our love. This, as Paul tells Luke, is The Way

Converts Are Made By Witness, Not Pastoral Letters

Last night as I was doing the tedious work of painting the floor grout in the kitchen, after everyone had gone to bed, I was listening to a talk on Sensus Fidelium by Fr. John Echert on confronting the great Catholic crisis of our time. The talk--on the pernicious heresy of modernism, the homosexual factions in the seminaries in the seventies, and the marginalization of orthodox priests--was given three years ago, and is even more true today. He even makes a somewhat prophetic statement in the last minute of the talk about the upcoming synod that was spot on. As I went to the fridge to get something to eat I noticed a slight but off-smell; some black beans in the back had gone bad, making the fridge smell.

There is something rotten in the church. Those who stand up for Catholic teaching are thrown under the bus and left to fend for themselves. No one from above is coming to their rescue. Our bishops talk a good talk with their letters and their "strong statements" but would they take a beating, lay their life down for their sheep? In some countries they are outright subversive of orthodox teaching. There is something rotting in the church, and people are starting to notice the smell.

Today's Old Testament reading from the book of Daniel is one of my favorites. In it we see the firm witnesss of the youth--Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego--who refuse to bow down to worship the idol of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. At first the King was pleased with them as government administrators, but when they refused to bow down and worship false gods he became enraged and ordered their death by fire. They reply “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” They are thrown into the furnace but the Lord saves them; they do not die.

These are young men who know the God they serve. They politely and firmly take a stand against a king and refuse to bow down. Like young St. Jose Sanchez del Rio, who boldly broke the necks of the cocks fighting in the Lord's house and who stood firm against those blasphemers without fear, we need to trust the Lord to deliver us when we are called to be such witnesses. Do not get too comfortable, do not get too cozy.

You want to bring people to Christ? Take a stand. Be bold. Honor God, even with your very life. Refuse to bow. Something is rotten in the Church, and appeals to the top are not worth holding your breath for. It may take your life on line, and even then people may scroll past your story and you die in obscurity. No matter. The Lord sees.

Be faithful with what you have. Don't bow, don't cower. Answer the call in the way the Lord has called you. Converts are made by witness, not pastoral letters.

You Visited Me

Received my first letter back from the inmate I've started corresponding with. His name is John.

I'm thankful I grew up at least half-out of the era of email, texting and technology. I still have a box full of letters I wrote and received over the years in college and after college--lined paper, envelope, stamps and all. I saved them all and often would make carbons or at least retype my letters to others. 

There's something exciting about getting a letter in the mail. Like getting your film developed. I would always make a cup of tea and sit down and carefully tear open the envelope and read and re-read what was written. You know the person writing took time and care, because it was by hand and usually thoughtful, they had to go to the trouble to mail it, buy a stamp, etc. I tend to forget (or at least take for granted) that when we hear the Word of God in the Epistles in the New Testament, we are listening to the recitation of a letter--letters formally composed with thought, care, and divine inspiration, and sent to particular communities.

Dorothy Day and St. Teresa of Calcutta were a big influence for me in learning how to "approach" the poor, the infirm, the forgotten, our enemies, those in prison: We should do so as if approaching Christ the King Himself, who comes to us in this life under guise. Take Matthew 25 *literally*. Take the works of mercy *literally*. Remember the words in 1 John 3:18: "Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." It gives you new eyes, an incarnated spirituality, and allows you to view those who the world has forgotten and who are thorns in your side as God's V.I.P.s. What an exciting honor to serve the King of Kings, as Christ humbled himself and gave us an example in the washing of his disciple's feet and showed us how to live as his followers. We can't always do big things. But sometimes we can do little things.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make some tea. Please keep John in your prayers.

No Gods Before Me: The Dangers of Religious Syncretism, and My Re-Conversion To Christ Alone

Like many young men who read him, I was taken with Thomas Merton. I connected with him on many levels, from his struggles and complex personality to his path to conversion, his thirst for experience, and being a seeker. Though I discovered his writing about a year after I came into the Catholic Church in 1998 at the age of 18, I felt I had found a spiritual kin, and considered him a kind of older brother in the Faith.

Like Merton later in his life, I had always had an interest in the East. One of my earliest exposures to it was a small thin Penquin paperback I found in high school titled "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones," a collection of ancient Zen and pre-Zen writings. They were eccentric and esoteric, while also being simple and parabolic. What really drew me to it (this was prior to my conversion to Christianity) was that these Zen monastics were serious about finding the truth of existence, and sought after the Dharma "the way a drowning man seeks after air," as the saying goes. I also read a lot of "Beat" literature--Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg. I wanted to be a writer, and Jack Kerouac was by far the biggest writing influence in my life. He and many of the other beats were into Buddhism as well, so I just took to it, their kind of rag-tag Dharma bumming and never-ending quest for kicks and Enlightenment.

In high school I read and studied the basics of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths, the Eight Fold Path, the sutras, and of course the enigmatic koans and parables found in my little Zen paperback. I meditated--not with a strict regularity, but I would set up a straw beach mat under the maple trees in our back yard and cross my legs and just count my breaths and try not to think. It was somewhat neutral (this breathing) I suppose, considering I had no religious faith to speak of and no real exposure to Christianity, but that would soon change by the time I got to college.

I came into the Catholic faith by way of personal conversion and encounter with the Holy Spirit; I really didn't reason or think my way into it. Although Buddhism held appeal intellectually, I knew experientially, and by God's grace, that I was a sinner in need of a savior, that I could not save myself, and that Christ was the answer. I wanted to protect those experiences, and the Catholic faith seemed to be the most authentic and true to the roots of Christianity; it was Truth, after all. And so, I became Catholic. Unfortunately, I had laid the stones for an Eastern intellectual foundation on which I would build the life of faith with my newfound Catholicism. The brick and mortar was Christian, but the foundation it was built on was Buddhist. So I ran into some difficulties throughout my early years as a Catholic, that were exacerbated by those who were supportive of a kind of mutually-complementary synthesis of Western Christian belief by way of Eastern praxis.

I discerned monastic life for about ten years (I discovered Merton's writing about a year after beginning that discernment process), which led me to visiting different religious communities across the country. I spent my first summer at a contemplative Benedictine monastery in New York as an observer, and subsequent summers in New Mexico and Virginia. It was at a Trappist monastery in Virginia that I worked closely with their vocation director, who agreed to serve as a spiritual director for me during this period of discernment. We exchanged letters for many years, and he was very kind in taking the time to write. He also was generally encouraging of my interest in Eastern spiritual practice, seeing it as somewhat complementary to the Christian contemplative life. I suppose this is where the "Centering Prayer" practice began to grow out of, and I eventually was given a book by M. Basil Pennington, OCSO, on the practice. I also read about Catholic monks like Bede Griffiths who devoted their lives to living in a way that synthesized traditions. So, I thought, maybe there is nothing wrong with this, it is a non-traditional way of getting closer to the Divine and maybe Catholics can learn something from the East.

During all this time I attended Mass regularly, was convinced of the Truth of the Catholic faith, but did not realize the dangers--or at least the lack of fruitfulness--in being of "two minds" seeking to supplement or synthesize Catholic truth with the practice of Eastern meditation and mindfulness. I thought it was kosher, so to speak, to seek a deeper experience in prayer in this way, and I really had no guides or teachers to tell me otherwise. I was kind of making my own quasi-monastic-hybrid blend of spiritual practice, taking the "best of" two opposite traditions and seeking to synthesize them.

For me, in my pride, I was put off by who I saw as the 'goody two-shoe' Catholics who were pious and devout, because I was nothing like them. I struggled and struggled to be good, to turn away from intoxication, fornication, and the like, but I continued to live like a prodigal, vacillating between two worlds--the flesh and the spirit. I felt very alone in my faith, but largely because I had shunned conforming to an established tradition and praxis and was piecing together my own esoteric quasi-Buddhist Catholicism. I didn't see any contradiction; looking back, I can see it as a wholly Gnostic and self-serving approach.

I continued in this vein for a number of years. What did this look like in practice? I continued to try to practice Centering Prayer and contemplation as I understood it from Fr. Pennington's book, and the piecemeal compilations of Eastern practice. Friday nights in my apartment I would listen to a master of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) on CD ode to the kumuso, the mendicant monks of the 13th century Fuke Zen sect, as a way of deepening my meditation.

One night I walked down the street from my apartment and into the woods of Fairmount Park to meditate. I knew there was a "hermit's cave" known as the Cave of (Johannes) Kelpius from the 17th century less than a mile into the woods and I decided like the Buddha in front of the Boddhi tree, I would meditate there all night. It was a site popular with the Rosicrucians, an esoteric mystical sect, who had erected a monument there. I laid out my straw mat and lit my candle and some incense and sat cross legged in the dark cave and began to meditate. But I was disturbed by what felt like a malevolent force, spirits, and it freaked me out, as this was not a positive spiritual experience. I left before sunrise, shaken, and did not return there.

I attended talks by the Dalai Lama when he came to Philadelphia, and also Buddhist retreats in New York City when an acclaimed Lama came to the Shambhala Center on West 22nd St to offer teachings. I simply saw this as training in the mental and spiritual life. Yes, it was not strictly Catholic, but if I could gain control of my mind perhaps it would help my spiritual life and life of prayer as a kind of complement to it. I was on my own, spiritually speaking, and no one was warning me that maybe this was not the best idea. I did not find the American Buddhists in NYC or in Philly to be very friendly people. They were cold and impersonal and seemed to be more concerned about their own self-awareness than that of others. They did not talk to me, but I didn't care as I was there to learn and train.

My practice in meditation was taken to the next level when in November of 2007, after a breakup and needing a change and looking for greater discipline, I booked a flight to Thailand after hearing about a Theravada Buddhist wat (monastery) deep in the jungle of the southern province of Surat Thani named Suan Mokkh, founded by Venerable Ajahn Buddha­dasa Bhikkhu ("Slave of the Buddha"). Buddhadasa was a reformer--he tired of the corruption and laxity in the city wats and sought a purer form of Buddhism, getting back to the Theravada (old school) roots. I flew to Bangkok and made my way south to embark on an 11-day Vipassana (meaning "to see things as they really are") retreat. There was no way to 'sign up' for the retreat, you just had to show up at the gates and hope that the monks let you in.

There were people from all over the world wanting to learn the dharma and the ways of mind-training. It was a rigorous monastic schedule of meditation, yoga, and teaching, and strict silence was expected to be observed. We were not allowed to write either or take notes. We slept in individual cells on a bamboo mat atop a concrete slab, with a wooden block for a pillow (the infamous "wooden pillow"), washed in cisterns, had a candle for light, and ate vegetarian meals. The gates to the monastery were locked every night, so no one could leave. The monks who lived there would regularly meditate in the jungle in where they knew to be tigers present, so as to cultivate an acute awareness that comes when one is so close to death (being devoured by a tiger at any moment).

There were strict rules governing behavior as well. The required tenant of 'no killing' extended even to mosquitoes. At one point during sitting meditation a mosquito landed on my leg and I could feel every movement of its stinger inserting itself into my skin, but I couldn't kill it, nor could I scratch the itch of the welt when it developed. The silence and not talking was very difficult for many people as well. At one point the young Irish man whose cushion was next to mine failed to show up for meditation one morning. I heard (from another participant, after the retreat) that he couldn't take the rigor anymore and climbed out the bathroom window and over the monastery gates in the middle of the night and ran off into the forest! Although it was rigorous, I enjoyed the structure and the tranquil setting and the simple pleasures that come from not having many material comforts. I really thought that studying and practicing non-sectarian Buddhist meditation would make me a better Christian. No one was telling me otherwise.

I did have one Christian friend, though, who questioned it, when I returned home from Thailand. She basically said point blank, "What's with all the Buddhist stuff? Are you becoming a Buddhist?" She was a faithful Christian. I tried to explain that no, I was Christian, anyone can practice meditation and take what they want from it, whatever is useful, and leave the rest, but it wasn't very convincing. But I don't think she bought it; we are not in touch anymore, though I would like to ask her if that was part of why we did not stay in touch. But otherwise, I did not have too many Catholic friends, no one to kind of call me out on all this syncretist nonsense.

A few years after my experience in Thailand, I came across a few articles on the internet that gave me pause and made me just slightly begin to question the efficacy of this kind of religious syncretism. The first was titled, "Can I Trust Thomas Merton?" on a website called Catholic Spiritual Direction. The author said,

"My advice? Well, it’s not like the Church is hurting for solid and perfectly trustworthy writings on the spiritual life. I personally don’t know why anyone would want to carefully sift through this kind of literature when it is clear that Merton had serious issues. It seems a bit like sifting through the refuse at the back of a good restaurant. You are likely to find much that is of nutritional value, but why not just go take your seat at the table for the best and purest meals available? I would encourage you to stick with the spiritual doctors of the Church."

Now it seemed kind of square to question Thomas Merton since he was so beloved by so many people and was such a renaissance man and after all, he was a Trappist monk so he was authentically Catholic. Right? In seeing my own tendencies and personality in Merton, though, it made me think, "what if I, too, had "serious issues" like Merton? In fact, I knew I did have serious issue. I was struggling with bi-polar disorder, submission, obedience, chastity, temperance, prudence, patience, gluttony, fornication, idolatry, and blasphemy. All this hip meditation was perhaps training my mind and making me fit in with my secular friends (who I deeply cherished) but was not redeeming my character and may, in fact, be justifying my sinful and self-destructive behavior.

So, the Merton article gave me pause. There was one more article that I came across titled "Yoga: A Cautionary Tale" that also made me begin to question the things I could not see beneath the surface of my spiritual life. I was not big into yoga, but we did do yoga at the retreat every morning. I did not know the Theravada stance on 'Buddha as a god," but there were certainly statues everywhere and I just didn't know what kind of spiritual influence I had subjected myself to during all these years, the way you may drink water tainted with an odorless, tasteless chemical that causes cancer. Yoga was not my issue, but in regarding it as a more macro-issue of non-Christian 'worship,' I just began to get uneasy. My sins during this time, the volatility of my spirit, and (as I realized years later) not being in a state of grace all made me vulnerable to influences that may not have been of God.

The woman in the Yoga: A Cautionary Tale article made mention of a deliverance priest named Fr. Mike, and I knew a guy I went to college with who was named Mike, became a priest, and did deliverance ministry now as a priest, so I wondered if it was the same guy. I never reached out to him, but when I was at a conference in Detroit last year for the street evangelization apostolate I am a member of, I witnessed healing of many people of infirmities. I asked one of the men healing in the name of Jesus to pray over me "for forgiveness and deliverance from any of those things from my past to which may have been not of God." I did not know for sure, but I just had a suspicion that those years of being in an esoteric spiritual wasteland of my own making was not good. And I begged God's forgiveness for it.

I don't care much for labels--being a 'traditionalist' or a 'social justice warrior,' a 'conservative' or a 'liberal.' But I will say that I have become much more traditional in the practice of my faith. I remembered the words of the person who wrote them on the Catholic Spiritual Direction website: "like sifting through the refuse at the back of a good restaurant...why not take your seat at the table for the best and purest meals available?"  God helped lead me--via Confession, inner-knowledge of my sins, and certain sacramentals (such as the scapular and Miraculous Medal)--back to the Faith that was not tainted with these kinds of esoteric and gnostic attempts at enlightenment.

Even now I am somewhat wary or delving too much into spiritual things of contemplative practices, since I don't have a guide, and choose instead, like St. Therese of Liseiux, to just trust the Lord. Attending daily Mass and rosary, monthly Confession, regular prayer, and remaining in a state of grace have become indispensable for my spiritual life as a Catholic. I still have a long way to go in terms of mental prayer, as Catholics understand it, but I find that being obedient to the Lord and Church teaching has taken a greater role in my life now that I have abandoned these Eastern practices of meditation. I can instead focus my energy on serving the Lord and not being "a man of two minds," as St. James says.

I am glad at least prior to becoming Catholic that my parents had me baptized--I shudder to think where I would have been without that grace at least. And after becoming Catholic, He continues to be patient and gently correcting me in my waywardness as I find my way. He has sent me orthodox friends to help me in my journey, "strong meat" in the way of traditional writings and teaching, and grace to discern those things which are not healthy for me spiritually, and courage to leave them aside. Our Catholic faith is too rich, the depths too deep, to need to look outside of it for nourishment. It is all right there; the Lord has given us everything we need to attain holiness and salvation. You cannot serve two masters.

I am a prodigal. I've eaten the husks and have finally found my way home. I can never repay the Lord for all He has rescued me from. I simply have no other way to explain the graces in my life--a supportive wife and woman of God, a healthy mind, a spirit properly disposed to the workings of grace, and a life ransomed from death and confusion. I can say with confidence, like the Psalmist, "The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." (Ps 118:23)

On Communion

This Sunday my mom joined us for Mass. It was nice having her--everyone who knows her jokes that she is, literally, "sunshine in a bottle," one of the kindest, most patient, and good natured people I know. My dad is in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, and I always ask her, good-naturedly, "Mom, when are you going to join us? Just give me the word when you are ready to jump the Episcopal ship and I'll get you on the first RCIA boat out of the harbor!"

Ever since she has been going to Mass with us (occasionally, and on holidays) she always refrains from going up for Communion. And, not being Catholic, this is the right thing to do and I respect her for taking that initiative herself humbly and with grace. Still, my heart always tears a little bit when I see her sitting in the pew herself. I know it can't be any other way. "You know, Rob, the liturgy is so similar, it's so close (in the high Episcopal service)." Close in form, but no cigar.

I have great respect for church-goers who attend Mass regularly but, for whatever their reasons, do not receive Holy Communion. It is a source of great pressure to "just go up." No one wants to sit in their pew alone; everybody wants to a do what everyone else is doing. I cringe at weddings and funerals when time to receive the Holy Eucharist comes. I pray and pray that the priest will make mention something about the need for Confession, or the Church's guidelines about reception of the Eucharist, or what it means to be in a state of grace, or even that non-Catholics should not be going up to receive Communion. But it always just ends up being a cacophonous cluster, and the words of St. Paul ring in my ear “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor 11:29–30). The lackadaisical attitude towards the Lord fully present in the Eucharist and the lack of discernment is like a dagger to the heart sometimes, which is why I usually close my eyes and not open them, for my own benefit to keep from the temptation towards judgment, until the priest takes his seat.

Those who are in the process of becoming Catholic but who are not yet permitted to receive the Lord in the Eucharist describe a kind of aching for it. The not being able to receive is so hard, because they know Who it is (not what "it" "represents"). But their time will come at the Easter vigil. And they will know the sweetness of the Lord.

Those too, who, for whatever reason--be it an irregular marriage or a sin that they cannot yet bring themselves to confess--who refrain from the Eucharist at Mass yet who fully worship and participate with their whole hearts. As long as it's not a kind of Jansenism or scrupulosity, I think it indicates a healthy respect and self-knowledge that believes and trembles, like the publican who would not raise his head to Heaven but beat his breast saying "God, be merciful to me a sinner." There has to be something to that. Contrasted to the brazen attitude of those who march up and 'demand their Eucharistic due' for their tithe or good behavior or whatever, like the Pharisee, eat and drink condemnation on themselves.

I liked what the Archbishop of Toronto, His Eminence Thomas Card. Collins said, on the topic of not receiving Communion at Mass:

"Many people who are divorced, and who are not free to marry, do enter into a second marriage. There are various reasons that can lead to this, and their fellow parishioners should not occupy themselves speculating about them. Catholics in that tragic situation can be involved in many ways in the life of the community, but they may not receive the sacraments, such as Holy Communion, since whatever their personal disposition is or the reasons for their situation, known perhaps only to God, they are continuing in a way of life which is objectively against the clear command of Jesus. That is the point. The point is not that they have committed a sin;  the mercy of God is abundantly granted to all sinners. Murder, adultery, and any other sins, no matter how serious, are forgiven by Jesus, especially through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the forgiven sinner receives communion. The issue in the matter of divorce and remarriage is one’s conscious decision (for whatever reason) to persist in a continuing situation of disconnection from the command of Jesus. Although it would not be right for them to receive the sacraments, we need to find better ways to reach out to people in this situation, to offer them loving assistance. 

One thing that would help would be if all of us realized that receiving communion is not obligatory at Mass. There are many reasons why a Christian might choose not to receive communion. If there were less pressure for everyone to receive communion, it would be some help to those who are not in a position to do so."

I try to walk a line and draw a balance between recognizing my unworthiness as a sinner to receive the King of the Universe under guise of bread and wine, while also recognizing that He thirsts for us to "eat his flesh and drink his blood" so that we may "have life in us" and that my sustenance in the spiritual life depends on being fed this heavenly food. I used to struggle with scrupulosity, but not anymore by God's grace. I am wholly dependent on His mercy and completely unworthy of this gift. I will never be perfect or completely without sin. But that's no reason or basis for spiritual neurosis. It just means that I NEED Him to LIVE, lest I starve. The devil often exploits scruples to keep us from God's mercy...it's a different kind of problem than those who cavalierly presume it

I would want everyone in the world, including my mom, to be unified in God's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.  I suppose God has His reasons why He permits that not to be the case at this time. The Creed--what we believe--unifies us as a family, and we profess it each time we attend the Mass. It's like a renewal of vows. As Catholics, we are not some kind of exclusive country-club, but a family. We have our beliefs and our statements of faith that bind us but are open to all, without the limitations of caste or class or race or sex.

But we can make it easier for people to at least be exposed to the awesome wonder of the Lord fully present body, blood, soul, and divinity at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass--invite someone to Mass. Instruct the ignorant (a spiritual work of mercy), in a compassionate way, why the Eucharist is reserved for those members of the family. Pray for them, that they may have a hunger and burning thirst for the Eucharistic Lord. You yourself do not be hypocritical or a source of scandal. Do not judge those who receive or not receive, leave it up to the Lord. And remember to beat your breast when your eyes are cast down before Him, repeating the words of the publican: "God, be merciful to me a sinner."