Mary, Hail Holy Queen

 

I included this rather poor quality picture in my prayers on the Assumption because it was taken in the lower portion of the church of the Dormition of Mary, when Mary fell asleep.  There is disagreement in the eastern and western rite churches as to whether Mary fell asleep or died, but both agree that she was assumed into heaven.  There is also a theory that Mary spent her last years somewhere else besides Jerusalem where this church honors her.

What you really can't see in the picture is the gold leaf that adorns the image of Mary.  Her face is the pale oval as though she were laying there for us to view her.  Since she is in heaven there is nothing to see except the artist rendering of her.  Gold leaf, mosaic tiles, flowers decorate this place in honor of the Mother of God.

Latin Mass

 I have written about the Latin Mass before, but it bears thinking about again in light of the Pope's recent recall of the Latin Mass.  Some people are up in arms about it.  I am not one of them.  I don't enjoy Latin in the Mass.  To me it creates a distance from the love of God, from the message of the Gospel.  I know that is not true for everyone, but it is my truth.

I received First Holy Communion at a Communion rail in a Latin Mass.  The nuns told us that if the host touched our teeth we were doomed to spend eternity in hell.  Imagine that?  Christ says--Gnaw on me, but the nuns told us that the host couldn't touch our teeth.  I remember that I had a method of sticking the host to the roof of my mouth and trying to dissolve it with my spit. At some later point I heard that the teeth thing wasn't real and I was relieved. 

I think Confirmation for me a few years later was the Latin Mass as well, but rumors of change were in the air.  The Mass would soon be in English.  I felt like God had given me a special gift.  It was hard for me as a child to pay attention in the Mass when it was in a different language.  It was hard for me to explain the Mass to cousins or friends who asked me questions about the Mass and they did ask me questions.

For me the first English Masses I went to were like a light had turned on.  It was to me as if God was talking just to me.  It listened and I participated in Mass.  I came to love the Mass in English, my language.

Then, sometime in my adult years Latin started to creep back in.  During Lent some of the responses were Latin and some of the songs.  It felt old and tired to me, but I offered it up.  I could tell that some people enjoyed it.

But, I totally understand what the Pope is saying about divisions in the church caused by the Latin Mass.  In recent years I have met some Catholics who attend or belong to Latin churches.  Most of them are rather superior about it, as though they were attending the real church or the more sacred church.  Church is church.  The Mass should be assessible and friendly to all people. The Mass in Latin is okay, but it is not better than the regular Mass that one might find in any Catholic church.  If we don't strive for that kind of unity, then we are in trouble.  Strive for unity with love.

Back to Mass

 I have been physically present at Mass since I was able to go for Easter.  I am starting to see people I recognize from pre-pandemic times, even if I don't know their names. I have to admit I am much more comfortable waving at the sign of peace than I ever was at hand shaking.  I still find myself tearing up a bit each week at Mass as the reality hits that I am really there, and that I am going to receive Jesus personally.  It is such a gift.

But, even though we are socially distanced, every other row, and masked, I am uncomfortable that mask wearing has gotten sloppy.  The man I used to see when I watched livestreamed who didn't wear a mask, still comes to church without a mask.  He sat behind me this week.  It made me mad, which isn't how I am supposed to feel at Mass.

The thing is, I am relatively safe.  I have had both shots.  I wear double masks. We are 6 feet apart.  He probably isn't sick.  But, I don't want any of the variants that might not make me sick, but might be carried to m grandchildren or perhaps to my mom, who at 100 might have a weakened immune system even though she is vaccinated.  There are signs going into church and free masks offered.  This man is defying the system, it seems to me.

As mad as I felt, I turned to the thing I know, I pray for him and for all the other people who in my opinion are not showing love and care for their fellow humans.  I pray that their minds and hearts will open.  I pray for me and my anger.  I am so happy to be back at Mass.

Eucharist

 Today, Holy Thursday, the Church celebrates the institution of the Eucharist.  It celebrates the Last Supper.  I haven't received Eucharist in many months.  I went to daily Mass in August, so it hasn't been a year, but it seems like it.  One Eucharist in a year.  One confession in a year. 

I have debated taking a chance and going to the Holy Thursday service.  I am so close to the end.  Easter will be the end of the 2 weeks since my second shot.  I am signed up for Easter Mass.  I long for that. I have decided not to go to Holy Thursday this year.  It is a tough decision.  But, I am comfortable with it.  Follow the rules, do what they say.  Don't take chances.

The thing about following the rules these days is that it isn't just for me.  I care for my grandchildren who are very young.  We are all up in each other's faces, so to speak.  I care for them in their home where my son and daughter in law work these days.  There are four of them I could expose to the virus.  Four who have been very careful this whole year.  Four who have also not been to Mass.

Holy Thursday isn't a Holy Day, but it is a holy day. Such a blessing that Christ left the Eucharist.  Such a blessing I wait to receive.

Child of God

 My grand daughter was baptized this past Sunday.  It was a different event than her brother's baptism.  After that Baptism there was a party and lots of people were there.  This time the grandparents viewed online and only the Godparents and their children were in attendance. The sound was terrible because the mic kept cutting in and out. Fortunately, I have been to a few Baptisms so I knew the drill.

My granddaughter didn't cry at all.  She seemed hardly affected by the water on her head. She arched her back a few times, protesting being held so long.  This was a fortunate age.  She is 7 months old today and has already starting pulling up and moving around.  I suspect that in a couple of weeks she would have demanded to be put down. She wore the same gown worn by her mother at her Baptism.

My grandson struggled to be still.  It was his nap time.  It was not a familiar setting or event.  Daddy had to wrestle with him.  I had offered to babysit, but they wanted him to be there.  Maybe he will remember something of being there.  Maybe he won't.  At least he didn't cry throughout the whole thing which happened at one Baptism I attended.

So, now my little granddaughter in a member of the Church. Her little light will shine.  

Wedding Guest

 The Gospel this Sunday was from Luke.  It was the one about the wedding guest who was not dressed appropriately and was bound and thrown out into the cold to wail and gnash his teeth.  I viewed 7:30 am Sunday Mass.  It is the Mass that most of the oldest people go to.  It is the not the Mass I usually went to in real life.  But, these days when I just roll out of bed, quickly dress and make a cup of tea, the early Mass works just fine.  I don't have to allow travel time.

I watch the people at Mass because I imagine that if I went to Sunday liturgy, this would be the Mass I would go to.  I assess the threat. So, watching the people who had received Communion return to their pews, I again saw the unmasked man.  He is a dark haired, bearded man around 30 years old.  There is no mask in evidence, not in a pocket or around the neck.  He unapologetically wears no mask to the service attended by the oldest people in the parish.

I don't know what his reasoning is. Perhaps he had Covid already and has recovered, so he feels that he is no threat.  Perhaps he has a health condition that precludes wearing a mask.  Extreme stupidity is the only condition that comes to my mind.  If you aren't going to wear a mask, go to a service where there are more families and some of the kids won't wear masks, you won't stand out, man. But, all I could think about after hearing the Gospel was that he was the wedding guest who should be bound and thrown out to wail and gnash his teeth.

Obviously, I still have a lot to learn about Christian charity, not judging others, and love for sinners.  I am working on that.

Who Was That Unmasked Man?

 I was able to attend a daily Mass on a rare day off last week.  I even made it to Confession.  So, I feel more normal in my faith life.  Still, I hesitate on attending the weekend liturgies.  The transmission rate in my county is up there.  There isn't a mask mandate in my county and so people are passing the virus willy nilly, in my opinion.

I do attend Mass online.  It isn't the same, but I have gotten used to it.  I choose to attend my own parish.  I know of people who find Masses all over the world for variety.  I need familiarity more than novelty during this pandemic. 

My most commonly attended Sunday Mass is 7:30 am.  Our priest has made many homilies about how wearing masks is pro-life and respectful of others.  He and most of our deacons are in the ages of risk. I feel concern for him.  For the most part as I view Sunday liturgy I feel safe and as though I could be there.  I think about going some week.  The 7:30 Mass is mostly old people so I wouldn't have to be concerned that unmasked children would be spreading the virus.

This past week I saw something that shocked me.  A man who appeared to me to be somewhere in his 20s or 30s, not a teenager and not old, was not wearing a mask.  He was coming back from communion and no mask was in evidence, not hanging from his ear or around his neck or in his hand. No Mask! There is only one entrance to the church during the pandemic and there are masks available at the entrance.  This man chose not to wear a mask, at 7:30 Mass, despite all the signs and free masks. Why?

At first I thought he must be the devil himself.  Who would come to mask and defy all requests?  What right had he to come and expose everyone there to whatever germs he might carry? I was shocked, horrified and glad that I was watching from home.

After I calmed down, I reflected that the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints.  This man made a mistake.  I will pray for him. I will pray for the people at church with him that this does not become a super-spreader event.  Chances are it won't.  But, what would anyone want to take that risk?  And why would they defy the requests of the priest to come to Mass and receive communion but have no compassion for people like me.

First Holy Communion (Since March)

A week ago I went to daily Mass.  I had been watching on line the whole pandemic and recently my church started to stream the daily Mass from the church instead of the chapel.  I could see how many people were there and that they were wearing masks and distancing.  There were daily about 12 people at 7 am Mass.  My church is fairly big and it looked distanced and masked.  I picked a day that I didn't watch the grandson and went to Mass.

It felt safe. It felt both strange and familiar at the same time.  It felt like a long time ago and yesterday that I was at Mass.  Since I watch on line nearly every day, that was the truth.  But, Eucharist, receiving Jesus in my body, that had been missing.  That I had missed.  I had heavenly food last week.

I don't go to Mass on the weekends.  There are a lot of people and most or many of them are younger.  The church is fuller and they sing.  The weekend Mass takes longer.  I don't feel safe.  It feels like risk.  It feels like risk to go to the grocery store and I go.  I have a list and get in and out as fast as possible, but it is risk.  That is the thing about risk, which ones to take?

I discussed Mass with my spiritual director. She encouraged me to do what felt safe. I am not sure when I will be able to go to Mass in person again.  I will be full time watching the grandchildren by the time this appears.  I will have to drive to work instead of Mass.  But, regardless, I have received Jesus in my body and I was missing that with all my heart and soul.  It was like first holy Communion.

Gifts

In crisis, opportunity.  I attend Mass online these days.  I don't go many places and I don't go lightly.  Mass concerns me even though there are so many safety precautions.  I worry because of other people, I can't control other people and some people are not as concerned as I am.  So, I watch Mass and long for the Body and Blood of Christ.  I am thankful for the online Masses.

That being said, my own parish has chosen to do YouTube as the online Mass host.  I suppose if you count all the Masses on all the days there haven't been that many glitches. But when you are me, on the receiving end and you can't attend a Mass that you had planned for it feels like a lot of glitches.  This Sunday for example, I couldn't get on 7:30 Mass.  Since it doesn't appear on the YouTube channel used by my church, I suppose it didn't broadcast for some reason.  Since 7:30 is the only Mass my church broadcasts, I was out of luck.

Fortunately, I knew of other churches that had Masses.  I had marked in my mind the televised Mass at 8:30 and I watched that one.  Nice homily, beautiful church in Wisconsin and so I attended Mass.  Still, I was feeling frustration that I couldn't be at the Mass I wanted to attend.  I knew that at 9 there would be a Facebook Mass at a church I used to attend.  I tuned in and prayed that I would find the peace I hoped for. 

I was surprised to see that the son of an acquaintance of mine who had become a priest was the celebrant at this Mass.  It was a lovely Mass.  I recognized many faces and I loved seeing my old church.  By the time Mass was complete I had achieved the peace I had hoped to find. 

Afterwards, I thanked God for the gift of the Masses.  If my regular church had broadcast Mass as usual I would not have had the opportunity to "visit" these other churches.  I could have, but I wouldn't have.  The glitch in the Mass from my home parish was a gift.  It didn't feel that way when I was frantically uploading YouTube at 7:30, but when all is said and done, it was a gift.

Letter to a Suffering Church

The Archdiocese of St Louis recently released the list of abusive priests.  I was surprised by the name of a former pastor who I had admired.  This makes 8 known pedophiles that I have personally had as pastor or associate pastor of parishes I have belonged to in my lifetime. Not all of these were in St Louis.  Not a good record.  Not for me personally and not for the Church.

While my divorce was my mistake at least in part because I went down the garden path and married a man I did not know, I was aided and encouraged in this mistake by one of those priests.  Then as I went through years and years of suffering through a non-marriage non-partnership, I never felt like there was a priest I could confide in and looking at the records of most of the pastors I had,  I was not wrong in my distrust of them.

I have kept the faith and have practiced it to the best of my ability, but I have been discouraged.  I have suffered.  Recently, my parish distributed the Letter to a Suffering Church by Bishop Robert Barron. I read it at my first opportunity.  While I still feel anger at the bishops who let this whole situation become what it did, and personally the priests who served me so poorly, the letter helped.  It put things in perspective for me.

There is much suffering in this life.  For me personally, marriage, infertility, loss during pregnancy, career disappointments, personal failures, divorce, and then all of this mess in the Church have been troubles.  I have prayed and trusted and cried and prayed.  But, I am finally reaching acceptance that Christ is here with me in these trials and He wins, every time. Love wins.

Thanks to Bishop Barron for putting it so well.

Ice, Ice, Danger, Will Robinson

On the snow day (a couple of weeks ago) this was the top of the church. Looks like there was a little ice up there.

And a little more ice up there.

And even more ice. There was ice all over the eaves.

As it heated up, it slid off and made tracks like this down the roof.

Those icicles were no tiny ice spears. They were at least a foot long. They made crashing noises as they came down. Lucky we don't have ice often.

Of course today, when I am actually posting this it is supposed to get to a balmy 70 degreees or somewhere around 20 for those who are metric among us. But that is life along the line for north and south. We get cold, we get hot, we will get cold again.