reconciling things

Chatting recently with my book club, someone dropped the name of a prominent Catholic teacher/writer/celebrity. I won’t mentioned his name here, because I don’t need that smoke. This name carries a lot of weight in most Catholic circles. For me, he’s…..meh. When I read his books I feel like I’m reading any twentieth century Protestant theologian. I said, “Well, he’s basically a Protestant who believes in the Eucharist.” A hot take that not everyone agrees with and that’s fine.

Nevertheless, our culture is so saturated with Protestantism that most do not recognize it. American Catholicism is dang hard to live, because everywhere we look for the Gospel there’s a Protestantized version–sadly, even in the Church a lot of the time. A protestantized Jesus makes for an antsy and angsty Catholic.

You’ve seen the symptoms, I’m sure. These can include:

• Losing sleep over whether or not the Pope is likeable
• Caring who had a personal audience with the Pope
• Going to a different parish because your new parish priest is not like the old one
• Coming back to your old parish when the priest you didn’t like gets reassigned
• Following celebrities simply because they are Catholic
• Getting too invested in Catholic X (formerly Twitter)
• Expecting something groundbreaking, revelatory, or innovative in a homily and being disappointed when you don’t get it
• When Barron/Hahn/Marshall/Gordon/Schmitz/Sri/Kelly are more recognizable and quotable to you than St. John Chrysostom or St. Ephrem the Syrian or St. Augustine
• If after Mass you think “what did I get out of church today?” rather than “what did I offer the church today?”

It’s so easy to forget that the Faith is not primarily about a personal relationship with Jesus. (If you’re a Catholic and that makes you uncomfortable, you might just be a Protestant who believes in the Eucharist, too. Just saying.) Jesus didn’t come to earth, suffer, die, rise, and ascend for me to have a cozy time with him on my couch or to get warm-fuzzies at Mass. He came to establish a Kingdom, a Church. And to have that Church be the pillar and foundation of truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)

And so….my obligation to those who worship with me is as important as my obligation to myself. I do not just have to be in Mass to receive grace for myself, I also need to offer myself to the person across the aisle who drives me crazy. Or maybe to the priest who drives me crazy.

(True story, this past weekend while out of town, I worshipped at a parish whose pastor I have a personal beef. As I was saying my prayers before the liturgy began I had to wrestle with myself and bring my own heart into submission to the truth. The truth that my personal feelings about this man have zero to do with the Gospel and a lot to do with my own spirit of offense. The priest was not present to represent himself, but to stand in persona christi and I could not approach him on my high horse.)

There is something much bigger and more ancient than my weak faith that needs me (somehow) to stand and confess to Almighty God and you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned. (from the Roman Rite Confiteor) This is beautifully represented in the Maronite Liturgy’s insistent use of the first personal plural.

The priest enters the sanctuary saying “I have entered your house, O God, and have worshipped before your throne. O King of heaven, forgive all my sins.” and the congregation replies, “O King of heaven, forgive all our sins.” and again later “May God accept your offering and have mercy on us through your prayer.” This use of the plural is throughout the whole of the liturgy in all the responses from the people. We ask God to hear our prayers, accept our sacrifices, and we proclaim “We believe in One God…” Even during the Sign of Peace we see this communal aspect of the Faith. If you’ve been only to Novus Ordo liturgies in the Roman rite this might seem strange. In the new Mass you hear the priest or deacon say “Let us offer one another a sign of peace” then commences a meet and greet with people getting chatty and hugging and throwing two finger peace signs at one another. It is not so in the ancient liturgies.

In the Maronite rite, the priest is blessed by the altar saying “Peace to you, O Altar of God. Peace to the Holy Mysteries placed upon you. Peace to you, O server of the Holy Spirit.” Then he takes the peace from the Mysteries and places it in the hands of the deacon and altar servers. They take that peace with them and leave the sanctuary to place that peace on the hands of the congregation, one person at the edge. And that person passes that peace by the hand to the next person. The peace spreads one by one. It’s slow. It’s reverent. It’s real. The congregation says “Peace, love, and faith, brothers and sisters from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, and may the God of peace be with us. Amen.”

It’s much more difficult to be a Protestant Catholic when you link yourself to every other person in Christ’s mystical body, but particularly to the ones whom you are literally touching with your hands and humbly receiving peace and more humbly passing it on. As we approach the altar to receive we sing “The Host of angels have come to stand with us at the holy altar…”

We must approach the altar as a community or not at all.

In those moments what we make of the Liturgy will never be as great a thing as what the Liturgy will make of us–if we consent to it.

In conclusion of my hot take for the new year, a quote from Tolkien:

“The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

“Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn – open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a Mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.”