Category Archives: Spirituality

Identity, Spirituality

Cultural Catholic

While driving home late last night, I caught the tail end of Terry Gross interviewing Dusting Hoffman.  I didn’t know at the time it was Dustin Hoffman, having tuned the station to the middle of one of his responses.  I simply heard a distinctive voice telling me his father was essentially an atheist.  And that, as a child, he would lay on the grass in the backyard, looking up to the sky, and talk to God, asking him questions – and hear God’s answers.

The discussion then turned to ‘being Jewish’ as a cultural phenomenon vs. a religious one.  Hoffman said he most definitely identified with his Jewish heritage, given from where he and his family hailed, his culinary likes and traditions, the idiosyncratic sense of humor.  But it was only a cultural connection, not a belief in or adherence to organized religion.

And it occurred to me – is there such a thing as a cultural Catholic?

Those who pray to St. Anthony when they lose something, but don’t attend mass.  Those who break the commandments knowingly, yet still feel the immense pressure of Catholic guilt instilled in them since childhood.  Those who dangle the rosary from their rearview mirrors yet never recite the prayers.  Those who don’t consider an Ash Wednesday, Christmas, or Easter complete unless they’ve attended mass, but don’t darken the door of the church any other day of the liturgical year.  Those who don’t get married in the church, but insist on baptizing their children.  Those who believe we’re all made in God’s image, but support abortion.  Those who are proud to be part of the institution, but don’t uphold its tenets.

Catholic means universal.  There is no one language, tradition, race, or cuisine that defines it.  So I suppose there is no one way to practice it.  And it would be impossible to divide it cleanly into two halves of religion and culture as one could argue with being Jewish.  But there certainly seems to be a human inclination among some believers to keep secular routines and discard the spiritual aspects.  To consider oneself Catholic, but not practice it.  To tow some of the party line, but not the parts of the Catechism that drag them down.

When I first heard what I learned afterward was Dustin Hoffman’s voice and heard his responses before Terry Gross’ questions, I had no context in which to place them.  They were pure thoughts and information – no judgment, no interpretation.  And the thoughts and questions they provoked here are just the same.  It is what it is.  This is what I see.

I simply wonder if there is such a thing as a cultural Catholic.

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motherhood, parenting, Spirituality

Critical Mass

Taking three small children to church is always a crapshoot.

Taking three small children to mass after a long night of merry-making and a morning of present-opening and candy-eating ups the ante even more.

Our three made it through the three readings from the Bible and the pastor’s homily surprisingly well.  I’ve found, however, that it’s always the second half of mass where the clapper hits the bell.

The fidgets start: the foot-thumping, kneeler-diving, seat-switching.  And that’s only the non-verbal.  Then you have the inter-sibling jibes and jokes, the giggles and snorts.  And the doctrinal observations and questions, which at any other juncture would be welcomed wholeheartedly, but not when presented in a stage whisper in the midst of a lull in the sound issuing from the PA system.  They never make noise when the organ is grinding, do they?

My five year-old came out with some good ones this Christmas mass.  When a prayer included a request for “eternal rest”, she turned to me incredulously: ‘a turtle?’  During the prayer of the faithful for the departed, I hushed her vehemently when she said what I thought was, ‘this is boring.’  Then I realized she was adding to the prayer, ‘like Grandpa Warren’, my deceased grandfather, the great-grandfather she never knew.

At what point do we as parents and parishioners expect children to behave “appropriately” at mass?  There is no magic age at which they suddenly will learn to sit still and attend – especially if they’ve been excluded from mass up until that point.  In my constant vigilance to keep her quiet, I nearly reprimanded my daughter for realizing the importance of a prayer and adding the memory of a loved one to it.

If we shut them down totally, we’ll miss gems like my two year-old last Christmas, who asked loudly enough for all those around us to hear, “Where’s Baby Jesus?”  A woman with three teenaged boys approached me afterward and commented on how nice it was to hear her little voice, to see the innocence and wonder of the young; that she knew the true meaning of the season.  At first, I laughed it off, a bit embarrassed at our disturbance, but then realized how nice it was to hear this older mother’s comment; a validation that this is how children are supposed to behave, that we need to appreciate it; and that it’s not a failing on the mother’s part to seal her child’s lips.

My favorite church faux pas by far, though, is when my eldest daughter was maybe four years old.  She proudly belted out the words to the closing hymn of mass, “All the Ends of the Earth”.  Only she didn’t know that was the refrain.  Instead, she sang, “All the ants of the earth.”  Classic.  All of us can see the power of God if only we look closely enough.  And watch for lessons all around us – even in the wee ones kicking the back of our pew as we try to pray.

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motherhood, parenting, Spirituality

Where are all the people?

Today my daughter and I wandered into church.

New to town and in search of someone/anyone in the rectory, we’d wandered in there a couple months ago.  Apparently to her three year-old mind that signaled a routine.  So today after we finally did complete that unfinished business in the rectory, she wanted to go into the church again.

I hadn’t been planning on it.  I’d finished my list of tasks and was headed to the car.  I began to say we were done and could go home – when I paused.  Why couldn’t we go into the church?  We didn’t have to rush home.  And even so, I make time to do all sorts of ultimately extraneous errands.  Why shouldn’t I stop to spend a moment in the quiet sanctuary of the church?  And at this point in time, in my life, in society, a prayer could certainly be used.

Angela and I entered the dark hush of the church, a sacred feeling sweeping over me in a way that just doesn’t happen with the hubbub of a congregation-filled Sunday.  We quietly trod towards the sanctuary, my eyes on the golden glint of the tabernacle and rosy glow of the Christ candle, Angela’s moving from side to side across the pews.

“Where are all the people?” she asked.

Years of Catholic devotion springing to life through the sense memory of approaching and genuflecting on the altar, I continued forward without answering.  After we both genuflected and crossed ourselves – she doing a surprisingly good job for a three year-old – she asked again.

“Why aren’t the people here?”

Just like my initial response to her request to go in the church, I had a quick and logical answer – it’s not Sunday, there’s no mass right now.

And then I saw this beautiful little being standing next to me, a human in miniature, not even as tall as the altar, asking her question again in her sweetly innocent voice.

“The people should be here,” I said.

“Yes, they should,” she said.

I knelt down and focused on the image of Jesus on the cross, His presence in the tabernacle, the light from the candle.  I acknowledged all that He gave us and how all we do is ask for more.  And then I asked for more.   I asked for strength to give Him my all; to turn it all over to Him.  I prayed to remember this lesson my daughter had unwittingly given me – to go to Jesus; that I should be with Him there and always.

And I suppose, somewhere, inside me, I knew this.  I chose today, a week before Christmas, the midst of a week of trials and tribulations all around me, to officially register at the parish – a task I’d been meaning to do since moving in.  Why now?  The same reason I agreed when Angela suggested we enter the church.  Something inside me needed this lesson, this reminder, this preparation of Advent that always seems to fall short other years.

And it is no small wonder that it came from a small child of God.

 

 

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