Asleep On A Pillow

We experienced a small miracle today: Rome granted permission for our pastor to continue to celebrate the Latin Mass in our diocesan parish. Our pastor,who is the judicial vicar for the diocese, had anticipated the rescript and our (new) bishop had sought a dispensation a few months ago, which was granted by the Holy See. Our pastor made this announcement to the congregation at the 11 o'clock high Mass. 

I was not expecting that kind of news. In fact, for the past few months, I had been anticipating the worst and speculating about our fallback options as a family. I am not an optimist by nature; I also tend to worry and project into the future to predict future outcomes. I see the glass as half empty and that death by dehydration is imminent. I'm often fed doomer projections by priest and lay friends alike, and get temporarily worked up. 

Worked up like the disciples in the boat with Jesus during the squall in Mark 4:38. You can cut the anxiety in that scene with a knife, and imagine the disciples desperately seeking reassurance to allay their fears of, well, dying: "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" they cry. "Jesus," you can almost hear them say, "We're going to be okay, right? Right?" Instead of reassurance, though, they earn rebuke. And not for their fear, per se, but for their lack of faith.. Not only that, they woke Jesus up from his pillow nap. 

Who sleeps through a tempest at sea? Someone who has one hundred percent assurance that God is in control of the situation. Who is untroubled at the outcome. Who sees with eyes of faith. 

For those who have staked their faith lives on worshiping in the usus antiquior, these can feel like anxious times in which we are trying to build a house and foundation on bedrock of sand. Are we the plaything of Rome, to be batted around at will like a cat with a mouse? Will we be thrown a bone for a year or two, as the concession akin to that of a benevolent dictator keeping his subjects on a short leash?

You know, this could very well be the case. And we may be the exception to the rule. You don't have to naively believe in the benevolence of those in the Vatican. But you also don't have to de facto assume the worst about things, which is what I have gotten in the habit of doing, and even more so in the past two years as I've been steeped in all things traditionalist. Again, it's not without good reason to be skeptical and on guard, either. 

But today, I'm choosing to not take the doomer mindset, the scoffer perspective, the incredulous doubt of the apostle Thomas. Instead, I'm counting the reprieve as a moment of unmerited grace. 

What if tomorrow, though, it was all taken away from us at the whim of the Dicastery for Divine Worship? Is the Lord instead trying to teach us something--a divine deference, a holy indifference, a virile passivity, an admonition against anxiety and distress? What if in applying ourselves and leaning in to the whispers of the Holy Spirit we learn to say, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away--blessed be the name of the Lord!" (Job 1:21)?

Anxiety about what we can't control is so pernicious. Perhaps that's what St. Francis de Sales was getting at when he advised,

"If any one strives to be delivered from his troubles out of love of God, he will strive patiently, gently, humbly and calmly, looking for deliverance rather to God's Goodness and Providence than to his own industry or efforts; but if self-love is the prevailing object he will grow hot and eager in seeking relief, as though all depended more upon himself than upon God. I do not say that the person thinks so, but he acts eagerly as though he did think it. Then if he does not find what he wants at once, he becomes exceedingly impatient and troubled, which does not mend matters, but on the contrary makes them worse, and so he gets into an unreasonable state of anxiety and distress, till he begins to fancy that there is no cure for his trouble. Thus you see how a disturbance, which was right at the outset, begets anxiety, and anxiety goes on into an excessive distress, which is exceedingly dangerous.

This unresting anxiety is the greatest evil which can happen to the soul, sin only excepted. Just as internal commotions and seditions ruin a commonwealth, and make it incapable of resisting its foreign enemies, so if our heart be disturbed and anxious, it loses power to retain such graces as it has, as well as strength to resist the temptations of the Evil One, who is all the more ready to fish (according to an old proverb) in troubled waters.

Anxiety arises from an unregulated desire to be delivered from any pressing evil, or to obtain some hoped-for good. Nevertheless nothing tends so greatly to enchance the one or retard the other as over-eagerness and anxiety. Birds that are captured in nets and snares become inextricably entangled therein, because they flutter and struggle so much. Therefore, whensoever you urgently desire to be delivered from any evil, or to attain some good thing, strive above all else to keep a calm, restful spirit,--steady your judgment and will, and then go quietly and easily after your object, taking all fitting means to attain thereto. By easily I do not mean carelessly, but without eagerness, disquietude or anxiety; otherwise, so far from bringing about what you wish, you will hinder it, and add more and more to your perplexities." (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Ch 11)

 

Part of this anxiety for traditionalists is because we want to know where our bread is coming from tomorrow. But we are given manna from the sky only today. It is not trite to trust in the God who gives us enough light to illuminate the path only right in front of us, while the rest of the dark path we walk by faith. The scripture is not trite in admonishing us to trust, not fear, that we will be cared for, given what we need to live:

"Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?  And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?  And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin.  But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.  And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?

Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?  For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.  Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.  Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." (Mt 6:25-33)

This morning at Mass, we also had lavished upon us another gift of hope, on a more local level: a man we had gotten to know for a brief time came into the Church. He was to be received at Easter, but due to job circumstances and an impending move, concessions were made for him to be Confirmed and receive his First Holy Eucharist today at the 11 o'clock Mass. A man who was dead in sin, who now lives and has become an adopted son of God robed in white. A man who has found the well that never runs dry.

These are the things, the sign posts, the cairns we are meant to be focusing on. We cannot always change the circumstances, but we can adjust our perspective. We can put on blinders if need be, be selective about who and what we listen to, eschewing Chicken Littles in the Catholic media who feed on drama and distress for their daily bread. Our circumstances are not always within our power. To the degree that we become people of hope, allayed of anxiety and long faces, who shine with the assurance of divine adoption, that is within our power. 

My wife usually starts dreading going into her overnight shifts a week before she actually goes in. As a result, she tends to rob herself of peace for that week leading up to it. It's hard not to, but I told her maybe this week, try not thinking about it at all and just trusting that it will all be fine. 99% of the time, it is. And even when it's not, God has always given her the fortitude to overcome whatever she was thrown in the ER. 

For a lot of us, we've been doing the same thing with regards to our beloved Latin Mass. We fret and we make concession plans. We worry about our children, and how they will receive the sacraments. We take the current unfavorable situation and cast it into the future in the same trajectory with one hundred percent certitude. We shield ourselves from accusations of naivete by assuming the worst--the worst about motives, about outcomes, about the ability to live out our faith the way we envision it should be lived out. And that all could very well play out. 

Or, it could not. 

I think our pastor had a measured approach of taking to heart the sixth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel: that we should not worry, that it does no good, does not change things, does not add to our life, does not enrich our current circumstance, does not accomplish anything really. It even robs us of faith, which is why our Lord rebukes the disciples in the storm from his pillow as a lesson to them: trust is greater than fear, and a prerequisite for faith. And faith extends just beyond the spiritual, but even the material and corporal. Our homes. Our livelihoods. Our churches. Our communities. Our families. There is no aspect of our lives that God is not in control of and has neglected to account for. He wills the good for those who love Him (Rom 8:28).  

Today I witnessed a man born again, ransomed from death into life, before my very eyes. He has been adopted into our family of faith. He now lives, lifted from the miry pit by the strong arm of grace. 

After Mass, I went over to him as he sat alone in the front pew after his adoption, and embraced him. It warmly took me back to my own confirmation and First Holy Communion 25 years ago in a sleepy Byzantine church, sponsored by an older couple from the parish that I hardly knew, but who loved me and stood beside me that day as a miracle took place--a dead man being brought to life. 

These signs of hope are what fortify us, and lead us to remember the First Things of faith; when we too were babes, taking milk for food, naive of the hardships to come, the temptations and disappointments. On the day of our redemption, we too were innocent and basking in the warm glow of grace. We were oblivious to the storms raging in the world outside. There was only today. On that first day of the rest of our lives, we were not anxious or distressed. We simply napped in the arms of Christ, asleep on a pillow.