Bad Mass
Sometimes church sucks.
Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly mentally healthy, I like to remind myself that behind the damp gray clouds in the stratosphere there is a radiant sun. I had to do a figurative version of that one Sunday because Mass, to be frank, was a bag of flaming dog-shit. It was a first communion Mass for about 5 little kids, so there were lots of visitors. Cool for the kids, cool for the community at large, a fucked-up disaster for the communion lines. People were going backward instead of forward, leaving one pew and returning to another, taking the host, crossing themselves, and walking straight into the person in line behind them. A real shit-show.
The singer (may God bless her to the very bones, I certainly don’t have the courage to stand in front of hundreds and sing) was a painfully shrill, uh, “soprano?” that actually physically hurt my ears, and caused actual facial grimacing among many. And the best part was when the priest forgot it was a first communion Mass and remembered almost at the end and had to do a frantic last-minute improv thing to accommodate the anxious small persons. My husband and I, side-eyeing each other, could barely contain our guffaws.
And YET. No matter how severely we fuck up the liturgy, God is there. He1 is constant, and remains constant despite this complete bungling, this utter garbage Mass. Despite the number of times I flip him the bird in a given week, or say “shit!” really loud in the echoing sanctuary when the kneeler lands on my foot as it’s time to pray. This is one of my favorite things about God! No matter whether we stumble and spray the bread all over the floor on the way to the altar, no matter whether we drool in the baptismal font or botch our wedding vows, he’s still completely perfect and beautiful, radiant and powerful.
I have cause to think about this aspect of the Most High a lot, because I have a real wretched case of clinical depression2 and have spent lots of quality time hovering over the Void these past decades. I often must remind myself3 that God’s goodness and love is present whether or not I can feel it, see it, understand it, and so on. He/she/it is present whether I can sense it or not. In fact, there’s an ancient aphorism4 about it: VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS, DEUS ADERIT. It means, loosely, “whether or not you ask, God is present.”
God is. When Moses asks him his name, it’s “I AM”; “To Be”. He looks after both black sheep and white, takes care of you whether you believe it or not, whether you deserve it or not (you don’t). I would jump in front of a train for this truth5. And in a pettier sense, whether you royally fuck up the liturgy (or prayer, or meditative practice, or rules, or whatever), he’s there behind the damp gray clouds. Shining, perfectly and with a totally insane warmth, as always.
Amen? Amen.
/her/it/they/what have you. Suit yourself.
like you couldn’t tell from the content of this here
blog.
just a few days ago, in fact, whilst educating myself
about the role of the Catholic Church in the Rwanda
genocide
whether the Oracle at Delphi, Erasmus, or Jung
said it, who gives a shit, not the point.
not literally, I don’t need a Wellness Check but thanks.