In recent weeks when the news spread that the Vatican is making significant strides to revise its handling of clergy sexual abuse cases–all while allegedly linking the severity of these sins to the ordination of women–the questions came in, and I started to ask myself, “How are you feeling about this, Jessica?  How are you doing?“

I couldn’t stop thinking about the story my friend Katie told me the other day. During a recent weekend, she volunteered at a middle school camp for inner city youth run by the Catholic parochial school where she taught for a few years after college. On that Sunday morning, she went to Mass with the students and their teachers in the camp’s quaint wooden chapel. The presider was gracious with the kids, and a good homilist, too. “But the tabernacle there–” she told me.  That’s what got her. “The tabernacle looks just like the boy’s Catholic school down the street. Like the shape of their building.”  I began to smile as she went on.  I delighted in the fact that this friend anticipated the wonder I would share with her as she recounted this experience for me.  ”This is what Catholicism is about, isn’t it? Recognizing Jesus inside an inner city school like that? Like that?  Believing that Jesus dwells with the underprivileged so much that you make a symbol of it with the most important part of your sanctuary?”

I nodded as we savored this moment that captured the best of our Church.  In that small moment, we didn’t have to convince ourselves that we are so blessed to belong to this Church.  We are blessed to have  church that views inner city schools as tabernacles, and tabernacles as inner city schools.  And blessed to be raised in a church that has given us the eyes to see the world in this way, too. “I wish I had moments like that more often,” Katie said. I think she was referring to the tabernacle at the camp, but I was thinking the same thing about the moment we had just shared–that moment of unwavering pride for our faith.

I’ve been telling a lot of people that, for many reasons, I feel sad and disappointed about the recent Vatican stirrings.  And, really, I’m feeling tired of feeling sad and disappointed. But I am also trying to tell a lot of people about my hope. I’m trying to talk about that, too. I’m trying to tell them about the eyes this tradition has afforded me–Katie and me.  Eyes that recognize miraculous transformations in places and people that much of society overlooks. Eyes that see Jesus in the sometimes harsh and unglamorous realities of our cities.  Eyes set on recognizing God’s redemption of our world in any and every place.  Even in our Church.

In Lauren Winner’s memoir, Girl Meets God, she recounts her transition from Orthodox Judaism to Anglican Christianity.  Couched among the tales of her various love affairs, the story of Winner’s tumultuous conversion mirrors her romantic relationships with men.  Winner writes of how she found herself consistently enamored by Jesus while persistently fighting against her burgeoning devotion.  In the end, she gave in to the love affair.  I read this book for the first time when I was sixteen—at the age of first love and first heartbreak—and undoubtedly, it gave me a paradigm for understanding my increasing attraction to the Catholicism of my upbringing.  If becoming Catholic was like falling in love, perhaps leaving would feel something like a break-up.

We have rituals for break-ups, for mourning the loss of a lover, a once-constant life companion.  We let ourselves cry.  We call our friends, and they show up, sit on our couches, and hold us as we try to catch our breath, like Kate. We take down pictures and put old letters into shoeboxes that we shove into our closets, perhaps opening them from time to time for grieving. When we have no paradigm for life without that ex-companion, friends tell us to wake up in the morning, to get out of bed, and they promise that someday it will be a little bit easier. Those around us testify to a hopeful future until we believe it.

Later in the day after reading Kate’s blog entry, I sat at dinner with my boyfriend Jack, telling him how I had carried her heavy words with me all day.  Jack leaned forward to speak—then paused. “I have a frank question for you, if I may?” he asked. “I know you don’t think you can leave, Jessica.  But do you ever wonder if you could, maybe some day?”  Jack has stood beside me during Episcopal liturgies where I wept silently, yearning to belong to a community like that—a more egalitarian space where, for instance, a woman could consecrate the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  Afterward, I told him I was crying because I could never imagine leaving the Catholic Church, even in the moments when I want to.  Feeling stuck in my relationship to the Church hurts sometimes—but I have no paradigm for life without the liturgy and people and tradition that I have loved for so long, even with its major imperfections.

“Sometimes I think it’s possible,” I responded.  “But, I think I would need a funeral first.” Jack tilted his head, wearing a confused look.  This was not a clever way of saying I will be Catholic until I die.  It had simply occurred to me, “I would need some sort of ritual. You know, at funerals everyone who loves you gets together, and they celebrate your life with them.  They mourn your absence but they commend you into another space.  At the very least, I think I would need that to leave Catholicism.  To feel okay about it.”

For many people, leaving Catholicism is a courageous decision made in response to the painful circumstances imposed on them by the Church.  Many suffer within Catholicism for many years before they leave, and for many leaving is a concerted effort to salvage Christian faith.  It is not a rejection of it.  More than ever, it is apparent to me that we need a pastoral response for those who need to leave.  We need some way of communicating those messages of condolence and hope that we share with our friends as they mourn the loss of a lover: “It seems that this is the best thing for you right now, even as it hurts,” or simply, “It’s going to be okay.” We need to go sit with them, and listen to the stories of their grief.  We need some way to say, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”

It was a friend’s mother who gave me Girl Meets God in high school.  She was raised Catholic, and during her college years she increasingly attended a local Protestant church. She became involved in their ministries, and eventually she found herself identifying with this new community much more than the Catholicism of her upbringing.  One summer she was at a Christian camp with young people from her church, and she befriended a Catholic priest who was also there with a group from his parish.  She told him about her life in the Church, and how she had decided to leave Catholicism for this new Protestant community.  This priest offered to say a prayer with her, one that would mark her departure from Catholicism and her entrance into this other Christian community.  And indeed, their prayer marked this transition for her all those years later.

When she told me this story as a high school student, I thought it was so strange. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would intentionally seek a mark of separation from Catholicism. Excommunication was the only thing I could equate to this type of event, and that is something forced on people—not sought out. But today I wonder what a prayer like that could do for people like Kate, or for many of the people I know and love.  And I wonder what the offer of a prayer like that would do for me.

On Thursday I went to an evening liturgy at the Episcopal Cathedral.  Instead of extending my palms over the altar during the Eucharistic prayer as the presider had implored us to do, I attempted to wipe the tears from my cheeks without attracting the attention of the small congregation.  Instead of singing and casually swaying with the melody of the communion song, I was preoccupied by the tense knot in my throat, trying to swallow it–along with all that unbridled emotion.

It was the liturgy of my dreams, right there in front of me: the liturgical prayers and rituals I loved, enacted by a community with lay and ordained ministers of every gender, sexuality, and race, language that reflected tradition while emphasizing the full and equal participation of all.  All this filled me with joy and excitement–yes–but the tears were an outpouring of another kind.  As I stood there amid that liturgy, I imagined what it would be like to call this my church.  And I cried because I could not imagine it.

I could not imagine my church becoming this type of church, nor could I imagine leaving my tradition for the sake of calling this one my own.  Even when faced with the manifestation of this seemingly ideal worship community, being Catholic–or potentially not Catholic–remained overwhelmingly complicated.  There is some complicated power that binds me to Catholicism.

I do not live as Marie Currie died, denying the source of my wounds.  I know it pains me at times to be in this tradition, but I also sense right now that there is a force keeping me here.  Maybe I will figure it out some day, detangle myself from its mysterious pull to enter a space where I can call a liturgy like that my own. Until then…

“‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ gave way–here is the heart of the story–to ‘But into your hands I commend my spirit.’

Sometimes, this is what it feels like to be a Catholic–like handing myself over to nothing.  Handing myself over, but with hope for some future resurrection.

In his autobiography, James Carroll writes the lines quoted above amidst a story about one of his mentors, American poet Allen Tate.  As a young seminarian Carroll visited Tate at his home, finding upon his arrival that one of Tate’s infant children choked and died in his crib only a week earlier.  Tate’s Catholic priest refused the infant a Catholic funeral, as the child died unbaptized and because, according to Tate, the child’s father was a “bad” Catholic.  The young Carroll was dismayed by the circumstances, and did his best to respond to his mentor with compassion and the message of a loving and unceasingly welcoming God.

In this quote, Carroll is telling his friend who God is–who Jesus is.  I can only imagine that Tate, this grieving father, could relate to Carroll’s description of Jesus, for Tate was also a human encountering the absence of God and the difficulty of handing oneself over the to this very real experience of despair.

When I read stories like Tate’s I am angered by the cruelties committed in the name of Catholicism.  I face these representations of the Church, and I think, “God is not there.” –Yet, Catholicism is my faith?

I also read about men and women like Carroll, though, and I remember why I still believe in Catholicism’s resurrection.  I am challenged to believe that God even brings resurrection to places and people that seem to be without God.  I am reminded that I still experience the same strange paradox of Jesus’ experience–and Tate’s experience: I have handed myself over to the God who was not always there–not always in Catholicism.  Yet I still find God there, in Catholicism.

It is comforting to know this strange reality belongs to more than just me.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/colerichards/3975660771/

I started reading a book on major themes in literary theory this evening, and (naturally) the first chapter detailed the topic of “beginning” in literary criticism. The opening lines of Dante’s The Divine Comedy were among the examples treated in the chapter. These lines read: “Midway in the journey of our life I find myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.”  The book’s commentary describes this beginning as a “middling”–a beginning in the middle of life, in the middle of a dark wood–suggesting that Dante’s opening communicates that, “there are no absolute beginnings–only strange original middles.  No journey, no life ever really begins: all have in some sense already begun before they begin” (3).

I thought of my faith when I read these lines. I think the beginning of my faith was a middling.

Some people teach that Christian faith begins in baptism.  (This idea of beginning seems particularly fitting for consideration, as it is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord today!)  They might say that when I was baptized a Catholic by my parents as an infant, something about my existence changed in that moment.  I became a Christian.  Or, they might say that in baptism my parents established the context that would determine my faith in the the future.  Baptism was the beginning of what would unfold in me later in life.

Others cite a one-time proclamation of Christian faith as the definitive beginning.  When one accepts Christ as his/her Lord and Savior from sin, he/she becomes a Christian. Many people tells stories of this moment when they knew something in them changed.  They became Christians.

But I think my faith began with a middling more like the one described in this textbook of mine: “There are no absolute beginnings–only strange original middles.  No journey, no life ever really begins: all have in some sense already begun before they begin.”  I cannot tell the story of how my Catholic faith began, so much as I can look back at the story of my faith and realize that it began before the moment that I recognized it.  When I try to pin down a moment, I always identity some precursor–some prior person or event or moment or memory full of grace and faith and god–one that complicates any notion I have of “beginning.”  Every “beginning” I consider becomes more like a “middling.”

I cannot tell of my faith’s beginning, only that it began.  And the story continues.

[This entry is cross-posted on CTA's Young Adult Catholic Blog]

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/traerscott/3167629678/

I was amidst an intimate evening liturgy with the Jesuit community and a small collection of guests from our university community.  There were maybe thirty of us in attendance.  Everyone could see me as I fumbled around with our Faith.  This was at the heart of my momentary, paralyzing anxiety.  My panic did not stem from a burden of personal shame about carelessly handling the Eucharist—I was confident this mistake was not unforgivable in God’s eyes.  It was the gaze of my fellow Christians that terrified me.  I knew how much the Eucharist means in our tradition, and I feared being judged a sloppy, unfit Catholic because of this incident.  In my struggle to participate and serve the community, I had committed a grave liturgical sin, and everyone watched me do it.

Sometimes I think this is what it is like, being a theologian, or a minister, or simply just a Christian in our world today. We publicly take up a faith, a claim to a community, an allegiance to particular authorities (however ambiguous or ambivalent that may be), and everyone is watching us do it—fellow Christians, religious skeptics, curious inquirers. Everyone is watching.

And sometimes all I can do is stand there before everyone, the Blood of Christ dripping from my fingers, all too keenly aware that I am not the appearance of what a good Christian should be.

Seeing the shock and embarrassment in my frozen expression, Father Ravizza rescued me.  This kind, gentle man stepped out of the communion line, came forward and leaned in close to me. “I spilled,” I said in a whispered confession. “It’s okay,” he replied. “Let’s do this…” He removed the white napkin from my clinched fingers, unfolded it and covered the small red puddle on the floor.  He hurried over to the side altar for another napkin, and before I knew it he was at my side again, placing a clean cloth into my hand. He did not tell me to sit down. He did not replace me with another more competent minister. “Go ahead,” he said, nudging me back to the patient people in the communion line.  “The Blood of Christ,” I began again…

When I struggle with the public imperfections of my Christian life, with the guilt of not being the community member I wish I was, or the person that I should be, I return to this moment for a reminder of redemption.  Jesus will step out of the communion line to clean up this mess with me.  And Jesus will tell me to “Go ahead,” again.

It wasn’t until halfway through the Mass that I realized the deep singing voice behind me belonged to the famous American Catholic politician.  ”Peace be with you,” I said, offering the tall man my tiny hand. Only as he reciprocated the gesture and words of peace did I became aware of who this man is.

It wasn’t mere celebrity that had his presence on my mind throughout the Eucharist and the rest of the Mass. After a week of meditating on the difficulties of being a Catholic feminist in light our nation’s debates concerning reproductive rights, there I was with the famous public figure who has been set apart as the embodiment of this tension between women’s rights and religious tradition.

I was humbled. What kind of courage and devotion must one possess to show up to Mass time and time again, undoubtedly aware of the political implications accompanying every walk one takes toward the altar in that communion line? Although there is real friction in my feminist Catholic identity when it comes to navigating the question of abortion, the discomfort I experience and the Catholic allegiance I profess in light of it is really so easy compared to a man who must work out these tensions so publicly.

From the protest lines to the Communion line. I felt a great deal of courage, standing in that line with him.

Still a couple hundred feet from the park, I could see the flashing blue lights of the police cars that blocked the road along the permitter of the Boston Commons.  I heard horns honking, voices chanting, and as I drew closer I began to recognize the “NOW” logos on the large white picket signs along the sidewalk.  My studies in feminism have familiarized me with NOW, the “National Organization for Women” that headed up America’s Second Wave feminist movement. I have fantasized about marching in their protest lines at the height of their movement in the 60′s and 70′s, a time when it seems collective action was so much more energetic and visible than today.

As I drew closer, there were other familiar images. Banners with the colorful emblem of Our Lady of Guadeloupe.  Masses of people, their hands thrust into the air cradling rosary beads or wooden crucifixes. Women in habit, and men with starched white collars. The anger in the air shook me as I realized: I am walking straight into a feminist/Catholic standoff over abortion rights.  And that’s exactly what it was.

Where do I stand? My eyes darted from one activist crowd to the other like the screams that flew back and forth between them. Where do I stand? For a moment I thought I would just continue to the park, but I couldn’t. These are my people en masse! How could I pass this up?! …But where would I stand?  I kept asking myself this.  Where do I stand? I didn’t fit in among the harsh juxtaposition of the protest lines.  My convictions about abortion–and any other topic for that matter–aren’t relegated to one aspect of my identity (feminist) or any other (like, Catholic).  My views about the world are Catholic and feminist–because I am both Catholic and feminist. In the “us” or “them” of these protest lines–and in much of the moral debate between these parties–there often isn’t a place for someone like me to stand up as I am.

I wanted to stand where I stand–between the lines and posters and the yelling–right there in the middle of it.  You see, I live in the middle of it all the time. And the anger in the air shakes me.