Eternal Rest, Grant unto Us

On All Saints Day we celebrate the souls in heaven and ask for their prayers, and All Souls Day we remember those who have died and pray for them. But how do we know who gets sorted into which category? Other than the canonized saints, how are we to know who is a soul praying for us in divine glory or a suffering soul in need of our prayers?

From our perspective, it’s a rather nebulous distinction. We have no way of knowing for certain the state of others’ souls. At best, we must rely on a person’s reputation and private revelation. We may feel the assurance of a passed loved one watching over us, or sense the urgent need to pray for another. But ultimately, we have to rely on faith.

We have to trust God that all will be sorted appropriately in the hereafter. Maybe that means years of purification. Maybe that means an empty hell. Maybe it means that annoying neighbor is now desperately praying for you. We may have our ideas of what that may be and who may be where, but we are working blindly, reaching out in the dark with only the faintest outline of what that reality is. 

Still, we reach, because we don’t want to sever that connection. We want to know what happens next. We want to still feel connection with passed loved ones. We want to believe in healing and justice and comfort and mercy and peace. 

If we pray for the dead who need prayers and ask the saints for prayers, I trust that God can sort out any categorical errors on our part. The important thing is to pray. And in seeking grace and comfort on the other side, maybe we can realize the need in praying for those around us as well, and working to make this time on earth one of mercy and peace too. 

What's Worship?

I’ve recently been thinking about defining worship. It’s one of those words that is used all of the time but really has a vague meaning. In English, the word worship comes from the Old English worthscipe, meaning to give worth to something. A Google search defined worship as “showing reverence with religious rites” and “the honor and homage given to a divine being.” But that just makes me want clearer definitions of reverence, rites, honor, and homage.

When I think of worship, I think of liturgy. I think of transcending time and space and being as present with God and Christ’s passion as earthly possible. It’s separate from prayer or music. But other churches have worship teams and worships bands, and worship is a set of praise songs. So obviously, interpretations are vast. Is worship a feeling? Is it an act? Is it a time? Is it as complicated as I’m making it, or is it really nothing more complex than attitude?

I’m inclined to think it is attitude and intention. I can sing and sway to a praise song and be rolling my eyes, or I can sing and swag and be reaching out to God. I can sit quietly in a pew at Adoration zoned out or I can sit quietly in a pew and be internally singing to God. Worship is hard to define and recognize because it is so personal, internal. It is demonstrated in acts and rites and prayers and music, but they all fall short of the intention, the longing for, looking toward, and devotion to God. We give our best, knowing it falls short. And God accepts our efforts, like macaroni pictures parents place on the fridge.

I think worship can happen alone, but that it’s best at Mass, when you are part of the collective worship. Worship with a community is a whole other level. It’s falling on your knees not from emotional manipulation or blind obedience, but because before you is a king completely worthy of your humble expressions of gratitude. It’s the emotions that come naturally and the obedience freely given. It’s standing or kneeling or prostrating before the creator of existence. It’s saying “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” with the entire Church, the militant on earth, the suffering in purgatory, the triumphant in heaven, the hosts of angels, all gathered to share in a moment of adoration.

Holy, Holy, Holy

Lord God of hosts.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Chasing Death

It’s said that people fear death almost as much as they fear public speaking. It’s true, according to the studies, but it’s also a joke. We’re a country of extroverts; public speaking shouldn’t be a problem. And besides, as living creatures, death is obviously the biggest fear we should have. Punch line: what silly, illogical humans.

Now, I’m an introvert, but I’ve never understood the fear of public speaking. I don’t like it, and I’ll avoid it if I can. But when I can’t, I just get up and speak. I don’t even get nervous if I’ve had the time to prepare what I’m going to say. (Maybe this is because I’m not a good conversationalist, and public speaking is usually a one-way street.) In any case, I don’t want to speak in front of a group of people, but I’ll do it.

And that’s sort of how I approach death as well. I don’t want to die, but given time to prepare for it, I don’t think it would even make me nervous. My fears around death are more focused on avoiding pain and embarrassment during the dying process, not the death itself. But I don't want to talk about people's fear of dying today; I want to talk about people's love of death.

The relationships humans have with death are surely signs of original sin. Other animals act on instinct to avoid death; self-preservation (or preservation of the species) dominates actions. We think we are like that; we go to great lengths to hang on to youth, security, health, thinking we are instinctively avoiding death.

But we love death. We invite death in. Our actions are suicidal ones. We eat things of no nutritional value. We fill our lungs with smoke and alter our bodies with drugs. We drink in excess. We ride rollercoasters and jump from planes to induce rushes of adrenaline. We do things that “feel good” knowing that they aren’t good for us. This extends to spiritual actions as well. We gossip, we cheat, we lust, we covet, all while knowing these things leave us spiritually dead. Doing the right thing becomes counter-intuitive. Sin is the default; death is the familiar.

I have been in end-of-year mode for the past couple of weeks, sort of a default mode where I don’t make many decisions and just get tasks done. I felt empty, neither happy nor unhappy. Nothing was specifically wrong, but I felt spiritually dry. I knew I needed to get myself out of this funk, but I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t crack open my Bible, I wouldn’t pick up my rosary, I wouldn’t spend one extra minute on my routine nightly prayers. Part of me was telling another part that nothing was wrong, and I chose to believe that. I could see solutions all around me, but I wouldn’t reach out. I convinced myself that little things like a prayer or a Bible verse can't make much difference. I chose death instead, even seeing it for what it was, even knowing I was wrong.

One night last week I actually finished everything up in time to go to bed early. But I had been pumping my body full of caffeine, so I wasn’t going to sleep any time soon.  I figured “what the hell” and picked up my rosary for the first time since Holy Week. It started off as nothing more than trying to make a good use of time, but it turned into pretty good prayer. By the time I finished, I felt better. I hadn’t even realized how bad I had felt before until I felt so much better after. And I wondered why I harm myself in such a way, denying the good that is within reach, choosing deadly actions instead. What makes it so hard? Why do I forget how wonderful the good is? Silly human.

Uncomfortably Comfortable

When I first got my hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I read the entire thing in 10 hours. I was too eager to get to the ending to truly enjoy the book. It took a second reading for me to truly read it. Even now when I reread it, I’m tempted to glaze over some passages to get to the parts I want. And that’s how I treated Holy Week. I already knew the ending, so I wanted to skip ahead to that part. The fact that I was joining the Church made me just that much more eager to get there as fast as possible. The result is that I didn’t properly appreciate Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

So now that the rush is over, I want to go back and read at a better pace, even if it’s a bit liturgically off.

I want to be able to meditate on the suffering of Christ. But the truth is, I don’t know how to. I don’t know how to relate to suffering. It seems like such a foreign concept. I can know that bad things happen, but knowledge doesn’t make it feel real. I’m in my white, upper middle class bubble, with my stable family who spoils me. The biggest problem I had this week was that I got in a 2:15 section of a class when I really wanted to get in the 9:45 section. As a senior in high school, I would jokingly complain that I couldn’t write a good college admissions essay because I had never overcome anything. Five years later, it’s still true. I have a very, very easy life. And some days I take that for granted, but for the most part, I have learned to be truly grateful for the plethora of blessings I’ve received.

The flip side of that, of course, is that I feel very undeserving. With so much wealth and opportunity, I should be doing more. Since I’m not one of the needy, I should be helping them. I know my charity far under-represents my wealth.

Which goes back to not knowing suffering. It’s difficult to throw myself into a cause without feeling passionate about it, and it’s difficult to feel passionate without having experienced it. It’s hard to fight for workers’ rights when my only knowledge of labor injustice comes from reading The Jungle. It’s hard to know what the needy actually need when I’ve never been hungry, or homeless, or swamped in debts, or abused. I don’t see them in my daily bubble. I just hand over donations of money or clothes or food, which I know helps in some way, but it doesn’t teach me anything about suffering. I feel like to better know Christ, I have to know suffering. It feels like cheating to celebrate the victory of Christ without having suffered with Him.

My only solace is that even if I knew suffering, it wouldn’t equal His. There isn’t the “perfect” status or amount of suffering that makes someone closer to Christ. So, maybe, for me, mediating on the suffering of Christ isn’t as dark and painful as it is for others. Maybe it’s just me looking at Him and acknowledging, “I don’t understand, but thank you.”

Yelling at God

Earlier in the week (Sun-Tues), I hit an emotional bump. I was anxious for no clear reason. Then I started looking for reasons, try to find the problem that was causing this sense of panic. I began to doubt what I was doing. Suddenly, six weeks seemed very, very short, and I felt utterly unsure.

I was still sure I was going to join to the Church, just unsure that it would be this year. Or that maybe I would join too soon and then regret it. And then what? I kept running things over in my head. Rationally, nothing was different. I still believed the same things. But there was this hovering anxiety, keeping me up at night, making my breathing short. Why was this feeling taking over if it wasn’t even going to provide me an insight?

So then I got mad. I’m not normally an angry person; I just don’t have the energy for it. But for three days, I got mad at God. My prayers were demands for explanations. Why make me doubt just days before the Rite of Election? What kind of timing is that? Don’t let this turn into some Dark Night of the Soul; I’m not ready for that. I had never prayed in anger before. I was mad at Him, and mad at myself for getting mad.

But then the feeling passed, still with no explanation. The deep depression I was sure would follow the anxiety never came. No one observing me could even tell that something was/had been wrong. I’m fine, and I’m sure that I’m on the right path for me at this time. But for three days, God let me throw my tantrums at Him. I’ve never been more sure that He’s listening to me more than when I was making angry demands, like He was there patiently waiting for me to wear myself out.

And maybe that’s the perfect way to start Lent: a little angry, a little hurt, a little embarrassed, and worn out from it all.

So, Why Catholic? part 7

This is the conclusion of the reasons I've accepted the Catholic faith.
Part 1 here.
Parts 2 and 3 here.
Part 4 here.
Part 5 here.
Part 6 here.

7. Beauty. The churches. The art. The literature. The music. The vast amount of beauty inspired from the Church isn’t something to be ignored. There is the first, obvious way beauty attracted me, and the second, subtle, more important way. The first, I admit, is shallow. I like being in pretty places. One of my favorite things about my college was its campus of matching buildings in a quad. The uniformed, colonial style said, “This is a place of learning.” In contrast, I would get a mild depression when visiting schools whose buildings were scattered about a city and had no architectural similarities to one another. The collegiate feel was gone along with inspiration. I should have the fortitude to be able to study or pray or find inspiration despite the setting. But I like being in pretty places. Churches with narthexes and calices and an altar make it easier for me to focus. Add stained glass, statues, and candles, and I’m seduced even more. The higher and more beautiful the liturgy, the more positive reaction I have. It grounds me and points me in the right direction.

The second reason is the higher beauty that is the source of the more obvious kind. Mystics like Julian of Norwich and John of the Cross had powerful, personal experiences with God. I want what they had. I want the overwhelming joy and peace that come from a strong prayer life. The Church knows people are weak and often stupid. The religion is in place to help us lift ourselves up to be the best we can, to hold us accountable for our sins and cleanse us, to strengthen our praying, to always point toward God. And the saints serve as positive role models. I’m not afraid to admit that I need all the help I can get.

The Church (while remaining one) is big enough and wide enough to meet each of us wherever we are in our faith journey. She is rigid enough to provide structure for someone just learning about the faith and unrestrained enough to allow mystics room to search and meditate and constantly deepen their relationship. That’s Love. That’s Beauty. It’s that beauty that inspired the architecture and art and literature and music, as well as the missions, the charities, and the martyrs. And it inspires me.

So, Why Catholic? part 6

This is a continuation on the reasons I've accepted the Catholic faith.
Part 1 here.
Parts 2 and 3 here.
Part 4 here.
Part 5 here.

6. The Trinity. I have always believed in the Trinity, but I never really experienced it until I started this journey. When I prayed, it was always to God the Father. He felt like a better fit for me. Jesus was the cool dude personality for the evangelical crowd, and the Holy Spirit was for the emotional Pentecostals.

But I’ve learned that to understand God at all, you have to understand all three parts of the Trinity. The Spirit led me to make this change in my life. My prayer life is blossoming. The Spirit opened me up to accepting things that defy my sophomoric logic. Sometimes coincidence is providence. Sometimes an emotion is a reaction to a reality, objective instead of subjective.

And is there any doubt I’ve gotten closer to Christ through Mass? Human and divine. Tangible God. Protestants use the empty cross to represent the risen Christ. And while the Resurrection deserves such central focus, looking at an empty cross or an empty tomb can often just feel empty. Jesus came to earth, where existence is dirty, and gritty, and painful. He suffered for you. He is perpetually hurting when He sees how we make the world an even harder existence than it has to be. He understands pain and persecution and struggle. And He chose to endure it for you. God is beauty. There is beauty in the kind of love that will get ugly and dirty and common. My relationship with Christ stems from that kind of love.

I needed a better relationship with Christ. The Catholic Church has shown me a real Christ to connect to. The Trinity, though fundamental, is a challenging concept. Believing in a Trinity and actually experiencing each person of the Trinity are two different things.

I’m far from the first to compare a relationship with God with a romantic relationship, but the two are so parallel it’s hard not to. (Probably because romantic love is just a microcosm of God’s love). I’ve experienced the infatuation, the uncertainty, the compromise, the humility, the joy, the wanting to tell everyone you know, and the wanting to keep it quiet all to yourself. Understanding God is a creator but also a sacrifice and sanctifier makes Him more complex and more concrete.

Just Like a Prayer

I don’t like praying in groups. Either I feel uncomfortable having someone speak to God for me, or I feel under pressure to make my prayer sound good for the other people listening. Outside of a worship service, I like prayer to be left to the individual. But there are obviously times when groups need to have a group prayer, and I struggle with focusing on the prayer more than the awkward situation of having someone else speak to God on my behalf.

I don’t get much out of the Just Lord prayer. Do you know which one I’m talking about? (hint: It has nothing to do with the Lord’s justice.) It’s the one people pray when they are leading prayer for a group and they are trying to sound casual but respectful, but it comes off as ill-prepared.

Example: Dear Lord, we just come to you today, Lord, to just thank you, Lord, and to just ask that you just forgive us of our sins, Lord, and just look over us, Lord, as we just go about our day. And Lord, we just ask that You help us to be good witnesses for You, Lord, and just help us with any struggles, Lord. Just use us for your will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Nothing is technically wrong with that prayer, seems sincere enough and all, but I always get so distracted I end up counting “just”s instead of praying. After the first Lord, I’m pretty sure God knows we’re talking to Him, and I’m not going to forget that’s who we’re addressing in the two minutes a prayer takes. “Just” is the “uh” and “Lord” is the “um” of prayers. (I admit my prayer "uh" is the word "and." I'm working on it.)

In my opinion, group prayers are better if it’s a well-known, already written prayer (unless you are praying for specific people/situations obviously). That way, everyone can participate in saying it, and they can know beforehand what they are agreeing to. Have you have ever been listening to someone lead prayer and think, “Wait, I’m not sure I theologically believe the same as that. God, I’m editing that part out, but I offer up the rest. Oh, except this part where she got political.”? I feel like I got tricked into praying something I wouldn’t. Memorized prayers alleviate that. You know before you start whether you can be sincere or not.

The problem with memorized prayer is that some people just go through the motions. But just because you know what you are saying doesn’t mean you can turn it on autopilot; you still have to be sincere with each statement and request. Jesus warned against just repeating prayers, and some use that as a reason to never used pre-written prayer. But I think He meant don’t just say words without meaning, out of tradition or habit. Pray sincerely. Always mean it.

In high school, I would occasionally eat out with a group of kids that were super-Jesusy. The kind that went to the “cool” youth group and wrote Bible verses in my yearbook and questioned my faith since I didn’t get moved by alter calls. So they always insisted on praying before eating, which I had no problem with. The problem was that they would play the nose game to determine who would pray. Last one to put finger on their nose was the one stuck with doing the prayer. This bothered me to no end. If you don’t want to pray so much that you compete to get out of it, just don’t pray at all. Or if you are so uncomfortable with asking the blessing in front of eight or so friends, just suggest we do a group prayer.

That gets me to the Lord’s Prayer.
It’s the best one to do in a group since odds are everyone knows it. Until, that is, you get to the line, “And forgive us our...as we forgive…” Oh, no! Is it “debts” or “trespasses”? If the group praying isn’t from the same church, it’s practically guaranteed someone will stumble out “debt-passes” or “trets.” I grew up in a debt-saying church, but I know a majority say trespasses, so I’m good at covering my one-syllable word in their three-syllable word.

Maybe it’s because I grew up saying debts, but it just seems like a better word-choice. Debt is something owed, a heavy weight, something accumulated. It sounds financial, and Jesus talked about money a lot. Trespasses only makes me think of stepping into someone’s yard. The debts translation is older (John Wycliffe, 1395), but the trespasses translation was used in the first English Book of Common Prayer (1549). The Latin word is “debita” which clearly looks more like debts than trespasses, but that’s no argument against someone who grew up saying trespasses. Once that rhythm is set in your mind as a kid memorizing prayer, it’s hard to adjust.

In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter. The idea is the same: forgive us as we forgive others. Judge us by how we judge others. Which when I think of how I judge others, I get really depressed thinking how God might judge me, which I’m pretty sure is the whole point.

[Portrait of a Praying Woman by Hans Memling, 1485]