Easter’s proximity to April Fool’s Day this year — plus a sermon yesterday mentioning how an agnostic might think that Jesus’ disciples hid his body to build the case for resurrection — makes me ponder faith, naivete and what it means to believe.
As the mother of a teenager I’m accustomed to defending my church-going behavior. It’s not hedging bets, not really, but at some point I think we choose to believe.
This may not be faith. But it’s close enough for me.
This was going to be the day I wrote about math. 3/14. Pi Day.
But then there was some news from Rome, and now it seems silly to write about math when I could be describing a small man on a high balcony asking people to pray for him. A man who didn’t take the papal motorcade back to his residence last night but hopped on the bus instead.
I looked at the crowd of faithful in St. Peter’s Square yesterday and thought about what a global phenomenon the papal selection process has become. The puffs of smoke. Habemus papam. The red shoes from Gucci. Everyone in my office crowded around a small TV.
The first pope named Francis. The first pope from the Western Hemisphere. First Jesuit, too. Conservative and progressive. New World and Old.
The looks on people’s faces as they heard the news. There was excitement, of course, and something else. I think it was hope.
On Saturday, I sat in a small church and listened to 1 Corinthians 13. This bible verse was read not at a wedding but at a funeral. Perhaps because of this context — or because it had been a while since I heard these words — they surprised me with their depth and power. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I reprint them here:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
One of my favorite Christmas carols is actually an Advent hymn, “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” Every time I hear it this season I wonder (even as I sing along) why I like it. Certainly not because of its sunny key and tone. It’s slow, solemn and in a minor key.
But there is something noble and ancient and timeless about it. The very essence of Advent, of waiting. In it I hear the echo of the human voice through the centuries, processing down the stone aisle of a medieval cathedral. In it I hear the sighs of longing and of patience.
Advent is often overlooked in the pre-Christmas rush to buy, wrap, mail and decorate. But I’ve always found it a soothing season, one of hopeful waiting and pleasant anticipation. In a way, I don’t want it to end.
Yes, we are creatures of habit. This was on remarkable display at yesterday’s mass, the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year and the introduction of the first changes to the Catholic liturgy in four decades. Even after all the hoopla and publicity surrounding the change, even holding the laminated text of the new language in my hands, I still said, “And also with you” instead of “And with your spirit.”
I wasn’t alone. The community of the faithful sounded more like the community of the confused. I’ll admit that many of us sometimes say the words without thinking. And while counteracting rote recitation isn’t the point (the point is to pray the mass in a way closer to the original Latin), it’s what I thought about as we hesitated and fumbled our way through the ancient prayers.
Change isn’t fun. Even if change is for the better (and many think these changes are not), habit pulls us back to the way things have always been.
The liturgical changes are proof that little things matter, that words are important — and that most of us must be drug kicking and screaming into the future.
Today — on the date some Christians predict the Rapture will happen, believers will enter heaven and non-believers will be left behind until the world officially ends October 21 — we decide to hammer out the dates for a family vacation. Which puts us in the ranks of the nonbelievers, or at least nonbelievers based on the predictions of Christian author Harold Camping.
When I was a kid I worried a lot about the end of the world, a result of strict Catholic schooling and an overactive imagination. But since then I’ve fretted about all sorts of other things — from finishing my homework and finding a job (when I was younger) to the myriad concerns of raising children, which if you’re looking for things to worry about, are pretty much unlimited.
What keeps us sane, what keeps us going, is making plans anyway. Lighting the candle in the darkness, that sort of thing. It’s the only way to go.
Last night’s Holy Thursday service brought back an old friend — incense. I grew up with the stuff, but it’s pretty scarce these days, at least in my church. Last night they pulled out all the stops, though, and by the end of the evening, incense was wafting all over the sanctuary. It matched the solemnity of the mass, the Pange Lingua, the stately procession at the end.
Some people coughed and sneezed when the incense came our way. It was too much for them. But I took deep breaths. The incense was more than just an odor, more than particles in the air. It reminded me of ritual and childhood piety. I didn’t mind it at all.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I heard a few years ago — and have since confirmed — that the word “lent” comes from the old English for “lengthen.” Lent happens in spring when days grow longer and light grows stronger, when we leave winter darkness behind. In this way, then, Lent is more hopeful than often portrayed. It is about moving ahead not just leaving behind.
I am never ready for the penitential parts of this season, for Lent’s fasting and denials. I usually give up chocolate, which isn’t easy but seems increasingly beside the point. Surely more is asked of us. So I seek an ally in etymology. When I think of Lent as Lengthen I concentrate on spiritual stretching, on growth.
I imagine the trees about to leaf, the seeds about to sprout, the grass about to green. All around me is the restraint of nature, a restraint that makes profusion possible.
I’d thought about another post for today, but then my eyes fell on this headline:
“‘Bless me, Father’
Going to confession? There’s an app for that.”
Apparently there is an new iPhone application that allows for a customizable examination of conscience. Don’t remember your sins? Can’t recall the Third Commandment? No problem. Just whip out your cell phone and it will walk you through the process.
It works like this: You enter your name, age, sex, vocation and date of last confession (I imagine that one is key) and the program takes it from there. The program provides three versions of the Act of Contrition, the prayer you say after receiving the sacrament, including one in Latin. (Venn diagram assignment: Map iPhone users with those who say their prayers in Latin. Hmmm.)
The device also acts as a digital notebook where you can jot down sins as you remember them. Of course, privacy is guaranteed. “Once you go to confession, all that information is wiped out,” said one of the designers.
I think back to my first confession at age seven: my head swimming, clammy palms, the close smell of the confessional, the ominous sliding sound that meant the grate was open and my confession could begin, so nervous I could barely eke out the words, “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”
Perhaps I was born a few decades too soon.
Yesterday’s gospel was a story that always rankles me. Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus, are entertaining Jesus. Martha is running around playing hostess while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to him talk. When Martha complains to Jesus, he says, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.”
Every time I hear this Bible passage I want to scream. This is because I identify with Martha, even though I’d rather be Mary. I love to sit and talk about ideas, but I can’t unless I know the homefront is secure. And the tension between these twin impulses makes me anxious.
So when I heard this familiar story yesterday I sat with my hands folded, waiting for illumination. “If I had to choose, I would side with Martha,” the priest said. “But good deeds are spoiled by bad attitudes.” Ahhh. Yes. That is true. It removes none of the injustice. My blood still boils. Someone has to cook the food, make the bed, sweep the floor. There will always be people who roll up their sleeves and others who wait for the sleeve-rollers. But attitude is important, and it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time — even from the pulpit.
