“If I ever lose my faith in you
There’d be nothing left for me to do . . .”
- Sting
This has been a heart-wrenching time for the practice of my faith. A confession: For the first time in over thirty years of active, committed, adult Catholicism, I have weighed leaving the Church. I don’t mean considered the option: I mean really wrestled with the idea that perhaps God is calling me to leave the Church I love as a statement of conscience.
I love the Church because I believe in the Eucharist. I know that’s how Jesus feeds me. I find that going to Communion is a visceral experience, as well as a spiritual one: when I eat Christ’s body and drink Christ’s blood, I feel full. Sated. And for a few moments, like I’ll never have to eat again.
But then I get hungry. Of course I need to eat again. And Jesus feeds me, without fail.
But such turmoil has happened this year: statements and decisions made that have so alienated me, have so made me wonder if we Catholics even know what Jesus was talking about all those years ago. Much of my personal pain has stemmed from writing columns in the secular press in support of civil marriage for same-sex couples and the ordination of women, and the unpleasant admonishments and consequences thereof. Public dissent, apparently, has no place in ministry. I have been politely removed from the Catholic part of detention ministry, although I am still welcome to serve in a nondenominational capacity. People in power have told me to shut up or leave, but is God telling me to leave? Is God telling me to shut up?
Through prayer and discernment and soul-searching and sorrow, I’ve come to believe that shutting up is not the path I am to take. But neither is leaving. I am a Catholic, and like a marriage, the commitment is for better or for worse. Like my marriage, I prefer the “for better” part.
I know I cannot change the Church. I don’t even know if I am right. But in my heart I do feel called - even compelled - to speak up for what I believe. As a lay person, I am as powerless in the Church as the persistent widow in the Gospel of Luke. Like her, I can but nag. I can be a voice, no matter how insignificant or ineffective, or, for that matter, personally inconvenient.
A small revelation sustains me: In order to stay Catholic, I’ve had to cut away, at least temporarily, my distraction with everything between the Eucharist and me. The parish, the ministry chain of command, the diocese, the Roman hierarchy: everything. A day spent alone and in prayer led to this understanding, born not of conceit but of desperation. My relationship with the Eucharist has been the only way to salvage and practice my Catholicism. If all of the extraneous stuff has actually had me considering other churches and other ways of worship, then that’s obviously the stuff that has to go. I will not divorce the Eucharist. And I do not walk alone: there are priests, sisters, bishops, cardinals, theologians, liturgists, whose hearts and minds are open and whose work is courageous. I am especially blessed to be able to rely on some of them for their gentle wisdom and impeccable guidance.
While I am deeply grateful to be encircled by God, who always loves me and always takes care of me, I am not comfortable with this uncluttered, unbuffered, unsupervised relationship with Jesus. I am used to layers and layers of rules and traditions and people between us: the safety of numbers. I feel like I am practicing my faith without a safety net, and without backup. I feel naked and more unworthy than ever to call Jesus friend. Yet he feeds me.
And I miss the community of parish, the fulfillment of ministry. I miss meaningful membership in the institutional Catholic body whose many arms do so much good in the world. I used to be an enthusiastic cog in the machinery of organized ministry. I used to be puzzled by the people in the parish who were pleasant and devout, but whose only involvement in parish life stopped at Sunday Mass. When I worked for the Church and was responsible for recruiting volunteers for various educational ministries, I was even annoyed with the Sunday Catholics. I was rarely able to draw any of them closer into weekday parish life. Now, ironically, I am one of them. I go to Mass every Sunday, but as a nomadic Catholic. I count on the Church for the Eucharist, but I keep my distance. My confessors are men I’ve never met, the homilies I hear are at out-of-town parishes, and maybe a visiting priest will have to bury me. The rest is onward into the wilderness, right behind Christ, nourished by his holy gift.
Practicing Eucharist
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For years now I've called myself a "Catholic in exile". I don't know if I'm in or out. If I'm in, I'm way out on the edges.
But there's something that keeps me calling myself Catholic. I was formed in the Catholic faith; my whole perception of life and death rests on this notion that God became human and gave us Eucharist. If I really believe this, how can I walk away? How can I not avail myself of this sacrament, and often?
Recently I asked a priest-friend if he thought the institutional Church used the Eucharist to keep people in and under control. Does the Catholic Church, alone, hold the mysterious key and uniquely Eucharistically way to being fully human in the world? So if you turn away from the Eucharist (ie, the Church) you are turning away from this gift of God. He was inclined to think that the Church abused the Eucharist to make it an "In" club. You're either in or out, and you can't recieve the Eucahrist unless you are fully in.
I read some of the comments above, and Claire B's really jumped out at me. I've heard this from another friend, that the Eucharist was given to all of us, and each of us really do have the power to turn bread into the body of Christ.
So, I remain muddled. Another friend tells me: "don't get so far out that you're not willing to get in and messy with the rest of us". There's a lot of wisdom there as well.
And then, Merton said in his last talk, on the day he died, that we shouldn't look to institutions for support because they could come tumbling down, and from here on out, "it's each man on his own 2 feet">
Stay and continue to witness. I had to fight to be able to receive communion when there was not a Mass available in a mission parish. The bishop granted my request after months of waiting but had I not spoken, I and others who desire daily Eucharist, would not have it. Jesus knows our hearts and will always nourish those who seek him.
Blessings to you and all who try to follow Jesus way today.
Maybe you should try not writing articles promoting anti-Catholic rhetoric. How brilliant of the Devil to tempt you with the opportunity to write on secular hot topics knowing that your participation in the great compassionate works of the Church would lapse.
But now changes are endemic. Changing parishes, attending liturgy somewhere else, isn't going to work. All the wonderful Vatican II changes I so rejoiced in, are being relegated to the dustbin.
And as much as I love my parish, we just got told that as Eucharistic ministers, we could only distribute from the cup, and the long lines waiting for Father to distribute Our Lord's Body don't seem to matter, only he can do that now.
How many more changes can I handle?
How long will I manage to swallow my anger and hurt and remain a Roman Catholic?
I would think any time anyone breaks bread with Christ in mind and the Last Supper and all that He meant at the time He said all that He said, in illo tempore, He is present.
I have yet to do it. But the idea has crossed my mind. In fact, it bubbled up from my heart. Jesus is with the marginalized. He is with you always. He promised it. No one, absolutely no one, can take Him away from you.
We need not give power to those who claim to have it. Without our power given to them (Vatican & Co), they have none.
(((((Valerie)))))
That is why we may say he allows the fallen angels, who are demons of pride, to lead us into sin so that we might grow in humility.
The deepest humility is the realization in my heart that I am a sinner. Whatever people may think of me, I know better. I know that I have offended my Creator and Lord. I know that I have been seduced by the father of lies to think that my will is my will and does not have to be obedient to the will of God.
Certainly persons can be humble without being converted sinners. But in the genius of God’s providence, most people learn humility from the realization of their sins - especially the sins instigated by Lucifer, the personification of pride". Hardon SJ
I promise to keep you in my prayers, Valerie.
I would encourage you to find a church home in which you are comfortable. I travel a distance to my parish because I know that I need not only to be fed by Jesus in the Eucharist, but also I need to be fed by God's word, and part of that is receiving the grace of a good homily. We need your prophetic voice!
Blessings on your journey.
First of all, thank you for publicly standing up for civil marriage for same-sex couples and the ordination of women. Thank you for being honest and truthful; I, too, struggle to stay. Even my young children bring to my attention the disconnect between the message of love, mercy and compassion of the Jesus they read about in the Gospels and the messages (verbal and symbolic) that they sometimes get from the Catholics around them, whether it be from the homily, the notices they read in the bulletin or just conversations they hear. As a nomadic Catholic, I try to make it to mass everyday at one of our local parishes. This helps me to keep bringing the kids with me on Sunday. I believe that Eucharist will continue to sustain and grace us to seek and speak the truth with courage and humility.
Please do stay.
The Church desperately needs women like you, now more than ever.
It's good to focus on the essentials.
Will keep you in our prayers.
God Bless
As a comment to the heartfelt cry by this post as to the Real Presence in the Eucharist, this heretical whimsy is not merely ignorant, but rather insulting.
I agree that the statement you cite is ignorant; however, it is the logical - if extreme - conclusion of the solipsism and misconceptions contained in the essay above.
Be like so many of us who restrict our Catholicism to what we find in a parish we love. All the rest is so much bumfodder (ask Austen Invereigh what that means).
You can either be true to Christ and his Church or true to your own emotions and personal opinions - they are not the same thing. And claiming that they are is pure sophistry and solipsism.
A famous Rabbi once said that the Torah could be summed up as love God, love your neighbor. The rest is commentary. Jesus said the same thing.
Christ called all of us to repent before the Kingdom of God - he did not make exceptions from the repentance of sin based on some type of ideological or sexual identity politics like modern liberal Catholics do.
I need to hear you, and Cathleen Kaveny's outstanding ''Long Goodbye,'' in which I recognize my own thoughts. In a strange way, just knowing you are out there helps me find shelter in my own Church.
By contrast, reading those like Brett Joyce just makes me want to run for the door.
Having learned that almost nothing good or enlightening comes from commenting on blog posts (the gnostic temptations are far too treacherous), I have until now merely followed the responses to Valerie's moving post, which comes so clearly from her heart. I am not so bold as to offer her, whom I have met only once, any commentary or advice save my prayers as a fellow member of the Body of Christ.
But, as your brother in Christ, Brett, I'm not sure you want to go there with the Pharisee-"liberal" equation. I don't know; perhaps the intent is to place "conservatives" in the role of the apostles or, perhaps, Christ himself, but the analogy is rather forced at best.
Jesus, after all, conspicuously dined with Pharisees and shared many of their commitments, if not their exacting focus on certain religious practices. Indeed, when one considers the historical information about Pharisees as opposed to their depiction in gospel accounts, Jesus seems rather close to their party in many respects. Paul, of course, calls himself "a Pharisee," (not a former Pharisee), "and the son of a Pharisee."
The Sadducees (Tzedukim), in contrast, accused the Pharisees of adding dangerous new suppositions, accepting modern ideas, and watering down the clear truth of Torah. Accordingly, the Sadducees rejected such novelties (not found in Torah) as angels, the afterlife, the resurrection of the dead, and the oral Law. From the little we know, they saw themselves as holding on to the true way in a dangerously heterodox world. All of Jesus' recorded encounters with the Sadducee party are adversarial, and there are no NT accounts of any Sadducee becoming Christian.
I point all this out not to shame or refute you, only to let you know that your identification of modern Christian "liberals" with Pharisees carries baggage you may not care for.
I suppose one of the reasons I don't leave the Church is that I'm plain stubborn and don't want our Faith highjacked by reactionary and defensive forces. But I'm stymied on how to continue-and how to convince my kids that this is still a faith generous in spirit and one that honors the process of forming one's conscience. We have the facts on our side, but is that enough? To that end, I like the way you have managed to carve out a spiritual space among those with an increasingly pinched view of the modern world.
Perhaps you have discovered the spiritual equivalent!
Best wishes and amdg, bill
"...They have been taught and believe that God's saving grace is everywhere, not merely within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church. They emphasize the generosity of a loving God, who would not refuse anyone whose knee bends at the name of his Son. So they believe they will remain within Christ's church, even as they loosen their ties with the Catholic communion."
I honor your devotion to the Eucharist, and will keep you in my prayers.
I actually do not like the comparison either, but was simply responding the Pharisee-"traditionalist" equation that was posted by Micheal at #21.
It is tough to say on blogs - there is mostly heat on here, but also a little light at times in the battle of the tribes of the Church ;)