Last weekend before Christmas our son was home from college, and after we came in from doing something, I saw that if we really rushed, we could make 5:00 mass. Knowing that he has issues with his future, I seriously suggested that we go - hey, God answers all questions worthy of answers, no? His reply: "Sure - I really want to hear the same bad voices sing the same lame songs for the same boring service." Yes, I thought, that is at least partially true. We did not go.
However, Christmas mass, if one is in town, is always mandatory. My father always used to joke about holiday Catholics, and he was right, of course - people who never ordinarily show up do show up on Christmas and Easter, much to the light derision of the faithful. With that, the masses, particularly the more convenient one that we went to this year, are always crowded to the hilt. Folding chairs are set up in the vestibule (narfex? I forget the term) and the last of the travelers are forced to park their cars out on the street. Inside, the church is awash in colored lights and trees and glittery things, and if you are older, the chorus of children who always are brought out to sing brings a soothing nostalgia to the soul.
Most interesting, though, are the people. While I try to focus on the mass normally, on Christmas, the packed- in crowds of the unknown call ceaselessly for attention, and in that I have to comply; and in watching, dozens of stories come from them, whether they know it or not. In front of us was a young couple with a rambunctious boy of about three who was alive with curiosity and questions. He also had on very thick glasses and a contraption strapped to his head that looked like Jordy Laforge's (or some name similar) from Star Trek: the Next Generation. It even pulsed with electronic lights, a technological innovation obviously meant to overcome a congenital deafness. He was irresistible in his happy curiosity, but his parents seemed warn-out, less than happy, and one has to wonder: did the kid's maladies break the bank? Are they disappointed with having an imperfect kid? Is their marriage strained? Did they come to church with an eye towards some magical intervention that would save their young marriage?
Who knows - but it quickly became apparent that this couple's troubles were, or should have been seen as, nothing; there were the old, obviously on last legs, with air tubes and crutches and large bumps under their clothing necessary for God knows what; and those with children in wheelchairs, some needing breathing devices of their own; and there were those others with perpetual children, those born mentally defective with tortured skulls and walking gates like zombies. So many of those parents looked worn, too, and no wonder. Oh boy, you have to say to yourself, count your blessings.
And then there was the elderly man, in his 70's but in good physical condition. Passing him after communion, he alone of everyone was deeply, passionately in prayer as if no one but he and God were present. He continued as such, and at the end of mass, he went to the candle area on the side of the church, this one dedicated to Mary, where it is believed that if one lights a candle and prays for something, that prayer will be continued for the duration of the flame, a plea to Mary to intercede with God and help whatever troubles one has. There again he got on his knees in full view and prayed passionately, regardless of others, alone with his suffering and his need. What was it? A dying wife? A grandchild in the hospital? A child in prison or addicted to drugs?
What stories, what stories. The first inclination is to bless our lucky stars that those with huge troubles are not us - for now. It is no wonder on seeing our maladies even now in this age of medical miracles, that a god that offered mercy instead of pure might, like the gods of Olympus, would become so popular. The second is, I think, to begin to grasp the strength of people, how any situation can be suffered, and how pivotal faith can be. If god is ultimate mercy, if the suffering shall be relieved now or in the hereafter, if it all makes sense in the grand scheme, then our suffering becomes not only endurance, but a light, a path to spirituality and another world greater than our own.
I, too, can be a skeptic; I know something of the history of religions, and how easy it is to see that they come and go with the times and circumstances. For Jews, their religion was made whole by suffering, through the Egyptian captivity and the Babylonian exile; and for Christians, by a single act of supreme suffering by God Himself. We see in these stories a kin to our own lives, but that does not make them any truer; for some, these stories are just that, security blankets for bad times. But even skeptics - honest skeptics - know that we do not understand the reason for our being, and have to admit that we cannot deny that there might be a reason for being. And to the faithful - of any god of mercy and meaning - suffering may indeed create a portal for them to a higher reality, for in suffering they are forced to try to understand greater meaning. They are forced to realize that it is an intricate web, this life, that goes far beyond our understanding, but never-the-less enfolds us all. Suffering can truly be the beginning of wisdom, the opening to whatever greater reality is hiding behind the bad voices of the choir and boring service.
Not that I want suffering - no! But we can see how suffering can serve just as plainly from afar. Like death, its presence can bring a magical quality to life, as if the two tug us, however reluctantly, into a more grown-up version of reality - where, if one has faith, mercy reigns and all suffering ends in the incomprehensible being of God. FK
However, Christmas mass, if one is in town, is always mandatory. My father always used to joke about holiday Catholics, and he was right, of course - people who never ordinarily show up do show up on Christmas and Easter, much to the light derision of the faithful. With that, the masses, particularly the more convenient one that we went to this year, are always crowded to the hilt. Folding chairs are set up in the vestibule (narfex? I forget the term) and the last of the travelers are forced to park their cars out on the street. Inside, the church is awash in colored lights and trees and glittery things, and if you are older, the chorus of children who always are brought out to sing brings a soothing nostalgia to the soul.
Most interesting, though, are the people. While I try to focus on the mass normally, on Christmas, the packed- in crowds of the unknown call ceaselessly for attention, and in that I have to comply; and in watching, dozens of stories come from them, whether they know it or not. In front of us was a young couple with a rambunctious boy of about three who was alive with curiosity and questions. He also had on very thick glasses and a contraption strapped to his head that looked like Jordy Laforge's (or some name similar) from Star Trek: the Next Generation. It even pulsed with electronic lights, a technological innovation obviously meant to overcome a congenital deafness. He was irresistible in his happy curiosity, but his parents seemed warn-out, less than happy, and one has to wonder: did the kid's maladies break the bank? Are they disappointed with having an imperfect kid? Is their marriage strained? Did they come to church with an eye towards some magical intervention that would save their young marriage?
Who knows - but it quickly became apparent that this couple's troubles were, or should have been seen as, nothing; there were the old, obviously on last legs, with air tubes and crutches and large bumps under their clothing necessary for God knows what; and those with children in wheelchairs, some needing breathing devices of their own; and there were those others with perpetual children, those born mentally defective with tortured skulls and walking gates like zombies. So many of those parents looked worn, too, and no wonder. Oh boy, you have to say to yourself, count your blessings.
And then there was the elderly man, in his 70's but in good physical condition. Passing him after communion, he alone of everyone was deeply, passionately in prayer as if no one but he and God were present. He continued as such, and at the end of mass, he went to the candle area on the side of the church, this one dedicated to Mary, where it is believed that if one lights a candle and prays for something, that prayer will be continued for the duration of the flame, a plea to Mary to intercede with God and help whatever troubles one has. There again he got on his knees in full view and prayed passionately, regardless of others, alone with his suffering and his need. What was it? A dying wife? A grandchild in the hospital? A child in prison or addicted to drugs?
What stories, what stories. The first inclination is to bless our lucky stars that those with huge troubles are not us - for now. It is no wonder on seeing our maladies even now in this age of medical miracles, that a god that offered mercy instead of pure might, like the gods of Olympus, would become so popular. The second is, I think, to begin to grasp the strength of people, how any situation can be suffered, and how pivotal faith can be. If god is ultimate mercy, if the suffering shall be relieved now or in the hereafter, if it all makes sense in the grand scheme, then our suffering becomes not only endurance, but a light, a path to spirituality and another world greater than our own.
I, too, can be a skeptic; I know something of the history of religions, and how easy it is to see that they come and go with the times and circumstances. For Jews, their religion was made whole by suffering, through the Egyptian captivity and the Babylonian exile; and for Christians, by a single act of supreme suffering by God Himself. We see in these stories a kin to our own lives, but that does not make them any truer; for some, these stories are just that, security blankets for bad times. But even skeptics - honest skeptics - know that we do not understand the reason for our being, and have to admit that we cannot deny that there might be a reason for being. And to the faithful - of any god of mercy and meaning - suffering may indeed create a portal for them to a higher reality, for in suffering they are forced to try to understand greater meaning. They are forced to realize that it is an intricate web, this life, that goes far beyond our understanding, but never-the-less enfolds us all. Suffering can truly be the beginning of wisdom, the opening to whatever greater reality is hiding behind the bad voices of the choir and boring service.
Not that I want suffering - no! But we can see how suffering can serve just as plainly from afar. Like death, its presence can bring a magical quality to life, as if the two tug us, however reluctantly, into a more grown-up version of reality - where, if one has faith, mercy reigns and all suffering ends in the incomprehensible being of God. FK
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