Becoming Catholic, Again by Loyola Press

Spirituality/Inspiration

$13.95 U.S.

FOR MANY CATHOLICS, practicing one’s faith may have felt much

simpler as a child. This was true for author Catherine Wiecher Brunell; but as she matured, she encountered a tension in her faith—a disconnect between the faith she learned as a child and the faith she lived as an adult. In Becoming Catholic, Again, Brunell shares her realization of a spiritual identity that is both congruent with her lived experience and Church Tradition. Becoming Catholic, Again examines how to maintain an authentic spiritual life and a connection to the Church in a postmodern world. For example, Brunell describes her experience with “theology of inadequacy”: if we only prayed more and did more, then blessings and grace would flow. But that attitude might actually box God out of our lives—to find grace, we should focus on the lives we lead and meet the needs we see in the world from where we stand.

CATHERINE WIECHER BRUNELL is a pastoral minister of the everyday. Her life’s work is about finding meaning in ordinary things by teaching and practicing faith. She has a master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Boston College. She lives in Natick, Massachusetts, with her four children and husband.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8294-3751-5 ISBN-10: 0-8294-3751-7

BRU N E LL

Brunell invites us to experience a faith that grows through personal discovery. Like Brunell, we may no longer have the absolute faith of a child, but we can nurture an adult faith that reconciles any differences.

Becoming Catholic, Again

ARRIVI NG AT A FAITH THAT MATTE RS

Becoming Catholic,

Again Connecting the Faith We Were Taught with the Faith We Live

CATH E RI N E WI ECH E R BRU N E LL

Becoming Catholic,

Again

© 2012 Catherine Wiecher Brunell All rights reserved. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Art credit: Warling Studios. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brunell, Catherine Wiecher. Becoming Catholic, again : connecting the faith we were taught with the faith we live / Catherine Wiecher Brunell. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-0-8294-3751-5 ISBN-10: 0-8294-3751-7 1. Brunell, Catherine Wiecher. 2. Catholics--Biography. 3. Catholics--Religious identity. I. Title. BX4705.B8773A3 2012 282.092—dc23 [B] 2012021413 Printed in the United States of America. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Bang 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Becoming Catholic,

Again

Connecting the Faith We Were Taught with the Faith We Live

CATHERINE WIECHER BRUNELL

To Matt: You knew that I was enough before I knew it myself. I love you.

Contents

Introduction................................................................................. ix How to Use This Book............................................................... xiii Part One

Permission to Believe ............................................... 1

Chapter 1 Somewhere in the Gray........................................... 3 Chapter 2 Our Father Who Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in Heaven........................ 15 Chapter 3 A Good Friday Tethered to Easter Sunday ............ 33 Part Two

Longing to Stay ..................................................... 45

Chapter 4 When Do We Go In?............................................ 47 Chapter 5 The Liturgy of Our Everydays .............................. 61 Chapter 6 The Catholic Buddha ........................................... 71 Part Three

Arriving at a Faith That Matters ............................ 83

Chapter 7 God Is Possible ..................................................... 85 Chapter 8 And So Are We ................................................... 103 Chapter 9 Faith Because of Hope and Love ......................... 115 Epilogue.................................................................................... 129 About the Author ...................................................................... 133

vii

Introduction

Finding the Path, Living the Story

When we are quiet, and when we take a minute to listen to our lives, something pulls at us. For me, it has always been the quest for meaning; my mind and spirit naturally drift to making sense out of what I encounter. I ask questions such as “Is my life on the right track because of this?” “What’s the lesson this time?” and most deeply, “What is my purpose, and what do I use to get there?” We are naked before the experiences of life, and we drape ourselves in the meaning that explains who we are and how we frame our experiences. From that meaning, we land on an ethic, a way of seeing and being in the world, that makes sense from our vantage point. As we define it, our ethic drives us toward everything that matters. For my first twenty years, my Catholic faith mattered. It was the source I relied on to make sense of things. I was raised Catholic in a parish that served pancake breakfasts and had a huge carnival each summer. It was the place of my first communion, my wedding, and later, my son Hank’s baptism. I also attended school there for thirteen years. I won my first political office in student council, I learned to play soccer, and I met my first love, all within a three-building ix

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complex. Then, in what I thought at the time was just a coincidence, I found myself at a Catholic college. What I know now is that Catholicism is my first language in meaning-making. I am drawn to it because its symbols, rituals, and community feel like home. But, as with the physical home of childhood, we find it difficult to remain there at times. We evolve, but the roles we play and that others play for us in that space called home do not always adapt in tempo. I hit this tension in faith and thus became a reluctant Catholic. I wanted my relationship with God but not the limited experience I saw in the church. I continued to attend Mass and be part of various churches, but I often left the experiences feeling annoyed or offended. I thought of the church as another manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s club and vowed to pray only with feminine images. And yet, even though I was so angry, I still could not leave completely. I was a resentful Catholic and felt shut out of the very place that had prompted many of the questions I was asking. This is not unlike being lured into a situation or behavior by an older sibling only to be left alone when something goes wrong. At that point, I chose distance. To my benefit, the longing to be connected to my faith only intensified. What was essential about a spiritual life began to emerge because of its absence. Having a new definition of what I needed and wanted, I saw that I was actually very Catholic and in a way that was congruent with my experience and the tradition I loved. With a clarified vision of the whys and hows of my spiritual life, I began letting go of the stuff that was preventing me from celebrating it. I saw that being Catholic as I am is the only way I will ever be Catholic, and it is enough. Theologian Paul Tillich once wrote â&#x20AC;&#x153;Faith is the courage to accept our acceptance.â&#x20AC;? This struck me when I was struggling to find a way to be Catholic, because it made the quest internal. God is

Introduction

simply asking us to be who we already are and therefore to be part of the story that is unfolding. Zen Buddhism puts it another way: “Do nothing extra.” When I can trust that it is that simple, I know that our human vocation is to dig inward and find that divine gift of our fullest selves, a gift that is already there. It has been placed gently within our capacity from our very beginning. The psalmist writes “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). When we do this, we have a faith that ultimately leads to freedom. This book is about my own discovery and acceptance of the meaning I find because of such faith. It is about widening a very narrow window of what I assumed my purpose should be and expanding the window by which I see faith. It is about accepting who I already am and of being aware of the stuff that prevents more of my becoming. Through the players and events in my life, I have been shown a spiritual path—as a woman, a Catholic, a partner, a mother, and all the rest of me. This book is a retelling of my choice to stay on that path and a description of the freedom I find when I take part in that story of God.

How to Use This Book

This book emerged from a series of questions in my ongoing quest to understand myself and my faith. Each of these questions reminded me of stories from my life and eventually became a chapter in a book I didn’t realize I was writing. I’m certain many people have asked these same questions, so at the end of each chapter is a section designed to help the reader reflect, take action, and pray around the chapter’s themes. I have created these knowing that there are many different entry points to wisdom and insight. I suggest you scan the prompts I’ve provided and engage with those that interest you. You might be drawn only to the action prompts, or you might shift between the forms in each chapter. Do what is best for you, and use the guides only as suggestions. Also, this work does not follow my life chronologically. I invite you to flip to the section or chapter that grabs your attention and begin there. My greatest hope is that this book will inspire your own questions and aid you in a deepening awareness of your spirituality. I want you to give yourself the same permission I found in writing these pages. Here’s an explanation of the prompts. The reflection is written to trigger your memories and questions. Use it to engage with the chapter’s theme. The reflection invites you to write your own spiritual memoir of sorts—to explore how your life experience influences your beliefs and vice versa. A pen, a

xiii

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notebook, and the space to think can be instrumental in bringing you to a place of more spiritual freedom. The action is simply a way to add specific movement to your reflection. After you complete an action, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essential that you notice how you experienced it. Reflection on an action actually helps to complete the action. The prayer can be experienced as a noun, something said intentionally. Or it can be experienced as a verb, a way of being that brings you into contact with what is holy. How do you know you are praying? You will notice a desire for connection with God or however you name this benevolent source of love. This desire is the root system of a prayer life that will grow from it. One example of prayer is reading a text mindfully. You can imagine the details of what you read, repeat the phrases that grab your attention, or contemplate how the reading is speaking to one area of your life. Prayer can also be much more active. Taking a walk, having a cup of tea in the quiet hours of the morning, writing in a journal, listening to a piece of music, or doing a favorite hobby are all examples of active prayer. In any form you choose, acknowledge the desire you have for a connection and trust that because of it, you are already in the presence of the sacred.

Part One

Permission to Believe

I do not understand the mystery of graceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Chapter 1

Somewhere in the Gray

I was not always conflicted about religion. In fact, for a long time, I lived happily in a place of security within its rules and teachings. Now, however, I am in my midthirties, and I live in the suburbs of Boston. I never thought I would actually age and that aging meant Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d grow less certain about things that are tightly held in authority rather than in experience. I am convinced that there is something essential about religion as a channel toward God, but I am unmoved by most of the minute details that once attracted me. For some time, this left me wondering where I fit into a belief system and a community that had played a central role in my formation. During the wondering, I became multiple kinds of Catholic: the daily Mass goer, the feminist in disbelief, the social-justiceabove-all-else Catholic, and the apathetic believer. At each point, though, I found the same basic story, a larger narrative that captivated me and kept me engaged as I found my place in this tradition and also in the storyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;of Jesus, born into the world and into the history of a people to whom God made a promise. It is a story about possibilities, about an all-redeeming hope, and ultimately, about a love that changes everything. This is all that matters to me about

Becoming Catholic, Again

faith. It is a story that I cannot outgrow or intellectualize into a place where it is not relevant. It makes sense to me, and it helps me make sense out of everything else. With that, I recognize that most of the specifics are ornamental, while the big picture compels me spiritually. Within these broad strokes, I find a way of being that celebrates life and inspires my becoming. When asked, “Are you Catholic?” my best response is that mostly, I am Catholic, but more important, I am someone who found a relationship with God. My aim is not so much to be Catholic; my aim is to live toward freedom and, through that, to find the God who is both within and beyond me. I need a spiritual language to do this, and Catholicism serves that role well. Being some kind of Catholic, I have a calendar that keeps me enlisted in spiritual practices and celebrations; a list of heroes and saints both living and deceased, who inspire my life; and a community of people who share a way of thinking with me. Like any language, though, it has its limitations. My work now is finding where I fit into its religious practices and its spiritual tone. The first step in locating my place is to attend to what I allow for my spiritual growth and to practice that without reserve. I am Catholic even in my shifted practices and personalized rituals, and I need not be Catholic by another’s standard.

My father helped this epiphany along, especially when I feared that he would not go to heaven. I was probably ten, dancing around our kitchen island as dusk settled over the back hill. We lived in a middle-American town in Ohio. Our home, “1010” as we still refer

Somewhere in the Gray

to it, was beautiful. It sat on top of a hill that overlooked a cornfield, with railroad tracks and horse farms in the distance. My mom and dad moved us to this home under the distinct protests of all three of their young children. We liked the friends on our old block, we had an imaginary town down by the creek, and we already knew the best houses for trick-or-treating in our old neighborhood. What we didn’t know was that they were giving us a little oasis in which to grow. It was a 1920s Tudor mansion built by one of the founders of Ohio Energy. At the time, he and his brother bought land at the edge of town and built three enormous homes, tennis courts, a pool, and a horse barn. Later, the rest of Mansfield grew up around the property, making Ballylin Farm a secluded estate in the middle of middle America. I knew my house was larger than other houses and that my friends never mentioned an elevator or “a wing” when speaking about their homes, but such privilege was mostly lost on me. We regularly ate fried bologna sandwiches (which I hated), and my dad preferred to listen to baseball games on the radio, by candlelight no less. On this particular night, my mom was talking on the phone and doodling in her elaborate way at the kitchen table. She had a handful of friends who could never take the cue that a conversation was over, and I could tell that she was trapped by one of them just then. She motioned for me to get my coat and to go get everybody. “We gotta go,” she mouthed. I walked down the hallway painted canary yellow, the color the previous owners had used way too much of, toward my dad’s den. This den was framed with bookshelves and rows of square wood panels on all four walls. It was dark and executive. There was a window seat on a bay window and a fireplace intended to make the room cozy but that instead just added a draft. It was the room where

Becoming Catholic, Again

those parental talks happened that you wished away more than the pimple on your nose or where you holed up on sick days from school. It also held mystique for us because we were told that there was a secret panel in the room. My brother, sister, and I tried, for all our childhood, to find the panel and unearth the cash we believed to be stored inside. We even developed a specific technique, working systematically around the room, knocking on the panels in the spot we thought most likely to reveal the vault. Years later, my dad confessed there was no such panel. My dad’s office was the room we forgot to decorate. Sitting in the middle of all the panels and shelves of war books was a navy blue couch with huge pastel orchids and some kind of long-beaked birds brushed onto the shiny fabric. Paired with an oriental rug whose tassels were all knotted from my brother and me jumping over the back of the couch, the combo wanted to look classically Asian. Instead, it looked as if the movers couldn’t find the formal sitting room in the house, and so they dumped the items into a room in the back. As a finishing touch, above the mahogany mantel, someone had hung a beautiful painting of a Native American and his horse. Fusion. I slid into the room across the hardwood floors, anchoring myself to the back of the couch. My dad was just about to stand up, but before he did so, he rubbed a thumb into his newly discarded Marlborough ashes and quickly make a cross on his forehead. He was creating the impression that he had attended an Ash Wednesday service that day. I drew in a breath and thought, Was that legal? “Um, Dad?” I said after a moment. “Mom says we’ve got to go.” “Hey, Caty. How was school?” He didn’t seem concerned that I had just watched him fake the Ash Wednesday ritual. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I thought, You mean the Catholic school where you pay tuition? The school that had five hundred people

Somewhere in the Gray

at Mass today to receive their ashes? The place where even the lunch ladies reminded us not to scratch at our foreheads because the symbol was sacred? Did he mean that school? “Fine—it was fine, Dad, but I don’t think it’s OK to give yourself ashes.” He replied with no remorse, “Oh, that. Just didn’t have a chance between appointments today.” Now I was unfazed. “Dad, you need a priest, and the ashes have to come from the church.” I was stunned. “Wow—I can’t believe you just did that.” “Caty.” He narrowed his gaze over the Asian birds and straight into me. It was the kind of look a child so rarely gets from a parent—whole-bodied, full attention—“promise not to tell your grandmother. It would just about kill her.” Then he relaxed and tried to explain his rationale. “I went to church daily for more years than I care to remember, so I figure I have some freebies coming.” I looked back down the hallway and toward the light in the kitchen. My mom was still “mmhming” her friend and was no help. My dad was worried about Grandma’s perception of him, and I was a little worried about his salvation—and mine, as a matter of fact. What did this mean, ashes from an ashtray? “I’m going to get Buff and Stephen,” I said. “Man, I wish they’d seen this, too.” I left, wondering if I finally had the material to blackmail my way into getting my ears pierced. The five of us put our usual chaos into our wood-paneled navy blue Buick station wagon, and we drove down the road to my grandmother’s condo. I sat way in the back, facing away from everyone else, talking myself through a proper reaction. In some ways, it was cool; my dad didn’t care about a rule I thought was untouchable, and he also didn’t feel the need to hide it from me. But in many other

Becoming Catholic, Again

ways, it was disturbing. Did he believe in any of it, or was it all about Grandma? Did this mean I had to go to church on Sunday? My grandmother taught us how to pray before we went to bed, and she went to church even on days when it wasn’t required. She also cooked dinner for us every Wednesday night. We would fill her little condo, carefully rearrange her Precious Moments figurines and sit on her lap while she did finger plays about blackbirds taking flight. She was a grandma straight from the books: warm, kind, and soft, with glass bowls of candy sitting on her end tables. She was also the one my brother took along as legal guardian when he had to appear over charges of a speeding violation. She stood up and told the judge a bold-faced lie about our parents being out of town. She seemed benign, yet, my forty-something father with a wife and three kids—a surgeon who told everyone else what to do during the day—could not appear on her doorstep without the proper symbol on Ash Wednesday. I kept my father’s secret, a feat, considering my age; maybe my silence was an act of self-preservation. At that point, I was much too young to rationalize about the gray areas of faith. As a ten-year-old, I was quite certain that you were either in or you were out. Later, when the memory floated into the workings of my own religious nuancing, I wondered when and how my dad began to make distinctions between his faith and his practice. He really does believe in God, but the practices around his belief certainly could be questionable. On Sundays, the rest of us went to Mass while Dad did his rounds at Mansfield General Hospital. We would all meet up later for Sunday chicken dinner served in the hospital cafeteria at lunchtime. It came with a ladle of yellow gravy, mashed potatoes, and a fake glass bowl of red Jell-O topped with a curl of whipped cream. My dad simply was not engaged in faith in the ways I was

Somewhere in the Gray

being taught were mandatory. His nonchalance even when caught in the act at the ashtray suggested that while Grandma’s specifics were not his, there was something that kept him at least in the periphery. I wonder now how Dad found this way of being Catholic as he was while every now and again pretending to be the kind that Grandma would have preferred. I hope his decisions to opt out of most of the formal pieces of its practice weren’t only out of laziness or, when completed, from the guilt of pleasing his mother. I hope that my dad had some moments when he considered the essence of his Catholic upbringing and found ways to integrate it into his life that were free of obligation and full of his unique yearning toward God. I assume, just by knowing him, that he considered himself Catholic in the ways he felt necessary. He supported his children through Catholic school, was incredibly generous to our community, and practiced medicine in a way that made it clear that he cared deeply for people. This was his version of a lived faith and why the ashes in the ashtray were a nonissue for him. His ashtray brings me to these questions: for whom and for what is my participation in any of this? Guided by this reflection, I am much less compliant with the church yet more authentically engaged with God. When I hear other people asked the question “Are you Catholic?” they often respond, “I’m sort of Catholic” or “Not a practicing one.” People have disengaged from the institution, and yet on some level, they still have a nagging connection to it. We judge ourselves based on others’ rubrics of how our faith should look, and in doing so, we remove ourselves from the only experience we can actually have. The judgment is a waste of time, because God doesn’t care what kind of Catholics (or any religion for that matter) we are; God wants us to be connected to one another and to God. If we find these connections, we’re simply being Catholic in the way that we need to

Becoming Catholic, Again

be. Sometimes this means disengaging from the very practices that are assumed to actually make us Catholic as we look for meaning in other ways. When I do turn to Catholicism’s rituals and practices, it’s often because they give order to moments that have none. The ritual of a funeral as my good-bye to a loved one, the sign of peace at Mass after I’ve had a fight with my husband, receiving communion when I feel restless—participating in this way is sort of like driving with cruise control. When it’s done right, I can spend more time observing what is on the journey rather than operating the mechanics of getting from here to there. This is when religion, as a conduit, is at its best. It provides a structure so that I can simply show up and experience its movements instead of being lost in wondering what I should do. When the rituals become about the rules, however, they feel insulated and not very relevant to real life. If I force myself into the pew or a belief, the result is only anger at an institution and discontent with the connection I am seeking. This is when I return to the ashtray, and I imagine myself equipped to hold what is gray within faith without the certainty or affirmation that I once craved from it. I let go of the assumptions of how I should be Catholic and slide into my experience only to find God waiting for me, without judgment, in that unique moment of discovery. If there is one ritual that I hope for all of us, it is choosing to practice faith in ways that reveal God in reformulated rituals. Sometimes those might even happen within the church.

Somewhere in the Gray

Lo oking for the Practic es That Fit Our Lives Re f l e cti o n When I reflected on the memory of my dad giving himself ashes, I wondered about my own distinction between my faith and the practices that formed it. I want to be inspired, not authored, by faith practices. When I release myself from an obligation to practice, I find a desire that is far more motivating.

• Think about a memory you have of participating in some spiritual practice—consider rituals, habits, or activities. Here are two kinds of practices that you might find. First, there are some that will be outside of your faith tradition—ones that you have borrowed from other traditions or even secular experiences that you can see in a spiritual way. For example, writing a thank-you card can be a moment of prayerful gratitude, watching your child sleep can be a meditation, being truly present to someone can be an affirmation of all that is holy. To find these, look back for an experience you have that holds great meaning. What were you doing to help experience its power? How can you continue to do this kind of practice in your life?

Becoming Catholic, Again

Second, you might find others from your faith tradition, even if you have modified them to fit your experience. For example, during a time when we had not found a church that was a good fit, we practiced “home church.” My kids still ask for it because we let them eat all the snacks they want and they get to light the candles. We pray, read the readings, share our thoughts on the stories, and break bread together. It is liturgy, but a different kind. What have you adapted from your tradition?

• After you have named a few practices that matter or have mattered to you, think about what each does for you. What does it add to your life? • What do your practices reveal about your spiritual needs and how you grow? For example, you might notice a specific trait they all share. Perhaps it is a setting or an atmosphere that best creates the possibility of connection for you. Look for these patterns as a way to understand what helps your spirituality thrive.

A cti o n Choose a ritual from your faith tradition. It might be one that no longer fits into your life now or one that is still important. How can you adapt it to add meaning to your life now and to reflect your experience of God? Try it out if you can. If you cannot, imagine its change and write about the experience of rethinking this holy moment.

Somewhere in the Gray

Praye r First, begin by forming an intention: What do you want to happen in your life through your spiritual practices? Write this down. Then, begin to pray by using your imagination. See the intention you named developing in your life. What would change in your relationships, your career, your outlook on life if you were served spiritually in this way? Hold this image and ask God for the guidance as you practice your way to it. Notice in the coming days which practices begin to sound appealing. Where and in what ways are you being invited to practice your spirituality?

Chapter 2

Our Father Who Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in Heaven

If we can get out from under the scripts that others write about faith, we also need to get out from under the religious and spiritual expectations we have for ourselves. I began forming mine when I met Sr. Grace at my elementary school. I was eight, and under her influence, I decided that I, too, would become a Sister of St. Francis. I was enthralled by the intensity of religious life and obsessed with the absoluteness of it. As a nun, I would travel to dangerous places, I would toil for those who needed it the most, and I would finally have an excuse for my lack of fashion. Obviously, I would live a good and worthy life. The call was radical and yet so simple; its realization, in some form, was the central tenet to my belief in God and what I thought was Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s belief in me. Instead, my life evolved to include four wonderful children, a loving partner, and a not-soexotic first-world North American life. This left me playing catchup with my concept of self and my perception of a good and worthy life. I had to rework both and, along with them, my definition of action. Before I did this, I was my own obstacle to faith.

Becoming Catholic, Again

Rumor had it that Sr. Grace was in Latin America when Vatican II happened and didn’t get the memo that being Catholic had gotten easier. She was my third-grade homeroom teacher, who left a legacy at my small Catholic school. She taught us how to make the sign of the cross with (only) our right hand and how to properly fold a tissue to the clean side and push it under our sleeve for a second use. On Fridays, religion class meant that someone would have to recite one of the prayers from the memorization list. It hung in the back of the room, written in perfect D’Nealian (a form of writing once taught in Catholic schools). Staring at us with impending doom, it hung between the poster of St. Francis posing with a host of animals, and a banner of a cross made out of our hands in different colored pieces of felt. On the day I was called to recite the prayer, I scanned the list while sending a begging plea to God: Please, not the Our Father. As if she had intercepted my prayer, Sr. Grace called, “Caty, please stand and pray the Our Father for the class.” My jumper was crumpled in the front and allowed me a minute to stall. The pattern of our uniform has recently become popular at the Gap, but at the time, the polyester twenty-pleated skirt attached to a bibbed top felt ridiculous. At that moment, my jumper and the hole in my cabled tights were the least of my problems. I began, “Our Father who aren’t in heaven.” Sr. Grace quickly interrupted, “Caty, you said ‘aren’t.’ Is God not in heaven? Where else would he be? Try again.” I laughed uncomfortably to show her that it was a silly mistake, and began again.

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

“Our Father . . .” and I began to trail off, because the truth was that I knew only that line, and apparently I knew it wrong. I did the only thing I could; I said it again, just quieter, “who aren’t in heaven.” This time the whole class laughed. Fortunately, Sr. Grace was as serious about piety as she was about the Golden Rule. I was off the hook because she was aghast. Infusing the room with guilt and shame, she said, “A group of third graders who would laugh at a friend’s mistake? I am disappointed!” She came and swooped me up into the folds of her habit, and as she berated my classmates with a passage from the Bible about the Pharisees and their judgment, I hid behind her holy cloth and had my first experience of GRACE. When I learned about grace much later, I learned about it as something that one could also name in prayer. St. Ignatius, sixteenth-century spiritual writer and the founder of the Jesuit order of Catholic priests, suggested this to the people he mentored and guided in spiritual direction. For him, grace was a centering and hope-setting tool in the movement of our lives. He used the obvious definition of grace as God’s action in the world and extended it as a bridge into our experience. Ignatius spent his lifetime conveying the idea that in being aware of our truest desires of what we really, really want, we help God’s grace become manifest. I love this idea, that God moves with us in our authenticity. My biggest challenge is to access the truth God has already planted in my deepest desire and wisdom. Sometimes I still say the Our Father wrong, but I have learned that God moves in our lives and that the movement is intimately connected to an important truth within.

Becoming Catholic, Again

Sr. Grace also impressed upon me that faith should be lived and not merely believed. Once, she shocked us all and made a mockery of our earthly desire to be first by changing the direction of our line to music class. At age eight, one’s place in line is critically important. When she announced that it was time to go, we stood up, quietly pushed in our chairs, and found our spots on the black line separating the diagonal black and white speckled tiles in the hallway. The goal was to be fast enough to be at the front and also to position yourself between two people you liked. I remember carefully pulling my folder out of my desk and onto my lap while we were still doing independent work so that as soon as Sr. Grace announced it was time to line up, I was one step ahead in the process. We all did this, of course, without appearing that we were trying; lining up needed to seem effortless. On that day, my ploy with the folder had worked incredibly well, and I stood only two places away from the front. Sr. Grace came into the hallway and said, “Students, please turn around. We are going to change the direction of the line and walk to music class a different way. Remember,” she intoned, “Jesus said, ‘The first will be last, and the last will be first.’” I was moderately annoyed that she had chosen such a lesson on this day, but I was also in awe of her. Religion class had followed us into the hallway as Sr. Grace illustrated that even how we stood in line counted. I decided that being religious was really going to take a lot of effort. I knew that I shouldn’t be jealous of the people in the back of the line whose fate had been flipped. I also knew that my spot would still take me to music class. But I felt the sad “life is unfair” emotion that children know well. I didn’t want to feel this surge; I wanted to be a model student who could see the value in the lesson. Instead, my eyes filled with tears, and my nose tingled with

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

the feelings I was hiding. As we walked silently down the stairs and into music class, I made a mental note of one more thing I could add to my list for the reconciliation service we were preparing for later that month. I also began to wonder if I was cut out for religion. That’s when Sr. Grace pulled five of us aside. She remarked about how we had made her proud because we had given the people at the new front of the line a gift without protest. She said we had pleased God. Suddenly, I saw the line as an opportunity and one that I could easily re-create without her help. I was only eight, but something I was capable of, like giving someone my coveted place in line, would allow me to please God. Maybe being religious was not that difficult.

Sr. Grace also began our education about Jesus’ social message, with a box of crayons and an art lesson. During Lent, every homeroom in the school was assigned a developing country to study and for which to collect money. Sr. Grace’s homeroom always represented Chile, the country where she served before coming to teach at our parish. One day after recess, we returned to room 203 to find a white envelope on each desk. The envelopes contained Monopoly money. “Students, please take your seats and begin counting the money that you’ll find in the envelope. You’ll use this money to purchase crayons and pencils for our art class today.” That was an awesome thing to walk into after recess. While we were reveling in the pink, blue, and yellow stacks that made us feel rich, Sr. Grace described how this imaginative world was not the United States but a country in South America called Chile. The 100s and 1000s in our hands were pesos, not dollars.

Becoming Catholic, Again

Our first lesson in a global economy: the peso did not have the same value as a dollar because of inflation in the country. Inflation, and what balloons had to do with money, was lost on us, but that each crayon would cost 500 pesos was not. Once we realized that most of us could afford only one or two crayons, there was much alarm. Across the room you could hear students asking one another, “How much money do you have?” Quickly we realized that the amounts differed greatly. In particular, there was quite a response to one student’s large stack of bills. (“You counted wrong!” “Sister, he’s cheating—he has way too much.”) Usually, all of our work was done quietly, but on this day, Sr. Grace allowed the banter to go on. Disbelief and anger gave way to indifference. “It’s not real money anyway—I have more at home” and “I don’t even like pesos.” One at a time, Sr. Grace would call us to the back table where Sr. Kenneth—the ninety-year-old teacher’s assistant, sitting in full habit—acted as the crayon vendor. We could purchase as many as we were able with our pesos. One student had only enough to buy a pencil, while another went back to his desk, gloating over his enormous pile of crayons. I used my 500 pesos to buy a yellow crayon because I’ve always thought God was the warmest, most buttery yellow you could imagine. After the lesson in the hallway with the line, I was certain Sr. Grace was going to pull God into this one as well. I was going to be ready this time. Sr. Grace then instructed us to use what we had to make the best picture we could. Thirty minutes later, Mr. Kelly, the principal, entered the room to judge the pictures and to pass out prizes. The winners would receive bookmarks, Dum Dums, or a strangely popular phenomenon at the time: pom-poms turned into troll-like

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

creatures with googly eyes and feet glued onto them with a message touting, “You did it!” “Great Job!” “Super!” coming out of their naked bottoms. Of the winners that Mr. Kelly picked, all the people had ten or more crayons to use. This was not fair, and despite Sr. Grace’s absolute control over the room, there was a cry from the masses. Sr. Grace turned on the slide projector at that moment and, to the hum of the carousel, we learned about impoverished people in Chile and began to consider our connection to them. By using our frustration with the crayons, Sister gave us a glimpse of the life into which many people are born. She showed pictures and told stories from her years of teaching in Santiago while working with the Sisters of St. Francis. That Lent, we collected change—more change than any class had ever previously collected—and brought it to school to send to Chile. Our pennies felt like gold when we saw them at the end. Sister had given us a reason to care deeply about people we would never meet and connected us to them in a way that made us certain that the change from our piggy banks would affect them. The real impact, however, was the moral imperative she began writing for us that day. If we were going to have faith in God, God needed us to have faith in the world by serving it. My understanding of God took shape under these ideas. I trusted that God moved in our lives through our own internal movements, that I was capable of reflecting God’s invitations in concrete ways, and that there were places and people in the world whom God was asking me to help. These ideas inspired me and introduced me to the faith that I continue today. Even in my years of teenage angst about everything from a mean cheerleading coach to the suicide of a friend, I was secure because of these core beliefs.

Becoming Catholic, Again

I lost my balance, though, when I decided that a college diploma was also a rolled-up mandate for action. My assumptions about the kind of action and its impatient timeline soon dominated my faith. I assumed that because the needs in the world were so great, the call to serve had much more weight than any of the other aspects of my beliefs. I forgot that God was as personally invested in me as I wanted to be in others. This culminated in an interpretation of the Gospels that God would be with me only if I had a desire to serve with radical intention and did so with obvious impact. An act such as giving up my place in line was no longer Gospel living; God’s grace was something to earn with big-ticket items and had little to do with my own happiness. When the time came to begin living this way, though, I walked straight off a cliff without even knowing I had lost my footing.

Ironically enough, the cliff was a classroom, and this time I was the teacher. In my early twenties, I moved to Chicago to teach at a Catholic school on the South Side and to live in a faith-based community with other young do-gooders. In certain circles, you can say “faith-based community” and have people react with a physical gesture of discomfort. They stop drinking their beverage and try to exit the conversation for fear you are going to try to convert them. Boston College, my alma mater, is not one of those places. You can easily surround yourself with people who think it normal and even desirable to live with eight other volunteers and teach in a rough neighborhood for five dollars a day. This environment only fueled my narrowly focused faith, and I boarded the plane blinded by my own efficacy.

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

Two months into the job, I arrived at my classroom early one morning, and my blurry eyes made out the words “Perhaps you should pray more.” I should pray more? It was written in my lessonplan book, from the top of the page to the bottom, in red ink. My principal was its author, and she was disappointed with the education I was offering in the classroom. I wasn’t offering much of an education because I was still having problems getting the students’ attention. Comparing my experience in Sr. Grace’s line to the line that my students stood in sums it up well. She used lining up to illustrate a broad philosophical point; I only hoped that my students would get into line without having a fight. One day, after the supervisor observed my teaching, she wanted me to stop all lessons for the rest of the week and spend time reteaching the classroom routines. The day we spent relearning how to line up was the worst. When the students came in that morning, I had a sentence written on the board for them to copy and to fix grammatically. It read, “Today we our Going to practice lining up in a calm and ordered way?” Little did I know that the question mark at the end of the sentence was not an error. I began the morning with full confidence and told the students we were going to practice lining up in a way that we could videotape and show as an example to the kindergartners in the school. “When I see that you are sitting quietly in your desk, I will ask you to line up.” Then I waited. After about thirty minutes, I had only five kids in the line. I wondered if this rehearsal was a good idea. I decided to call an entire table of kids the next time I saw they were even close to ready. Calling the red table was a huge mistake, though. Kyla was tripped on the way to the line, Daniel and Joshua were fighting each other

Becoming Catholic, Again

to make it first across the room, and Victoria was drooling because she had fallen asleep at her desk—a move for which she was teased the rest of the year. When I went to deal with the boys’ fight, the class used the distraction to begin a series of other fires. Paper balls flew across the room, one child pulled his packed lunch out of the closet and began eating it, and another student, one who had actually made it into the line, wrote “bitch” in small letters on the bottom of the chalkboard. I couldn’t think of a phrase from the Bible that I could use in quite the same way that Sr. Grace had back in my third-grade year. Maybe, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I knew the students were as frustrated as I was, but I had no idea how to fix any of it. My strategy was to yell more and to issue as many notes home as possible. At the end of that horrible day, I walked around the room, handing out a stack of notes, detailed reports of the infringement that the student made that day, with the requirement that the parent sign the note. When the announcement came over the PA for the bus riders to walk to the gym, Joshua put his note back on my desk. Unbelievably, his parents had signed it already. The lack of authority I had in the room was appalling, and it was only October. I began to believe my principal’s message written in the lesson planner. Her suggestion for me to pray more fed upon my insecurity: my faith was not enough. If it was stronger or more authentic, then this would be obvious in my ability to manage a classroom of children I wanted to teach. Each day when I awoke after too little sleep, I prayed, “Lord, prepare me to be sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true.” With the same desperation I’d felt before it was my time to recite the Our Father for Sr. Grace, I begged God to make me into a person who could weather the storm of fourth graders and be a

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

stronger, better person. And yet, every day I prayed this request, the day still gave way to chaos. Through the year, I became more convinced that I was lacking something that was spiritually critical. I turned what I knew about God’s grace and the call to serve into an algebraic equation: My Action X = God’s Love Y. I seemed incapable of any level of effective action, so my belovedness, my worth, resulted in the net sum of 0. I had heard the call loud and clear, even as a young child, and I was finally in a place to serve in a profound way, but I just couldn’t get the job done. Clearly, something was wrong with me.

As I was falling into a spiral of depression, I began flinging my arms around for any saving device. One of those attempts happened during an altar call at a Sunday liturgy in Catholic Mass-goneBaptist. My school was connected to a parish that had shifted its cultural emphasis during the racial changes of the neighborhood in the 1960s. Each week a gospel choir began the service with forty minutes of praise and worship music, the homily was preached, and altar calls were not uncommon. At Mass that day, the priest made a passionate plea for people to “stay plugged into God.” He said, “We keep our cell phones charged, why not our Spirit?” Then, in a theatrical fashion, he bellowed for all of us to make a commitment. I remember walking forward to the front of the church and kneeling down with a host of others. I asked God to help me connect, to baptize me again if necessary, and to make me able to serve those I was called to serve. I asked God to take away whatever characteristic I had that was preventing our connection and ultimately my ability to serve. I was trying to assuage the guilt I felt in disappointing God. In

Becoming Catholic, Again

the background, the whole church was vibrating, the organ blaring, the drums pounding, and the priest speaking as if in tongues into the microphone. My principal, her hand on my shoulder, shouting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I was sobbing by the end of it, shaking my head in sorrow, just wanting to be more and do more. Failure in the classroom was chipping away at my confidence to serve at all, and my faith was submerged in shame because of it. Much later, I came to a hard-won realization that my desperate clutch at why I thought I had been called was, itself, the only thing drowning my faith. My call to serve was bound up in that equation of my worth balanced by my deeds. There is a line in the Bible that still gives me the shakes: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I was the prodigal son who was too ashamed to go home. In his story, he eventually returns to a huge reception, and his father is overjoyed just to have him back. I knew this, but it wasn’t a story I believed could be for me. If I was going to return home, I wanted the security of knowing that God could throw me a party because I had actually done something. My relationship with just about everything was dissolving into a growing blob of self-remorse, and I was especially weary of even showing up before God for fear of what I would have to admit about myself.

Though not as acute as in my years of teaching, this theology of inadequacy still creeps into my consciousness from time to time. The message is that if we prayed more, did more, if we were more, then the blessings would flow. That reasoning didn’t serve me in my classroom—some serious coaching did that—and it didn’t serve me in my faith, because ultimately it boxed God out of my life. I

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

allowed one aspect of faith—service to others—to overtake all other components of faith. When my service wasn’t working out, I was isolated in my sinking self-worth. My expectation of what one should do with faith was cutting me off from the very source of faith itself. I’ve come to see that if we are in God’s image, God is also in ours. What we expect from ourselves and what we believe about our purpose influences what we can imagine about God. When we pigeonhole ourselves, we stuff God into that same hole, and we prevent God from being all God is. Even more so, living faith becomes a mandate instead of an invitation, and as such, it loses hope and begins to act like the standardized testing of religion. I came to some of these realizations on a five-day silent retreat with the help of a spiritual director. He was the priestly version of Mr. Rogers; he wore a cardigan sweater as we sat in the sunroom of a retreat house on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. What I thought was going to be awkward turned out to be truly comforting. We met each day, and he promised that he would only listen and reflect back what he heard, through prayer suggestions and soothing reminders such as “Do you know how much God loves you?” He invited me into the Gospel scene of Peter attempting to walk toward Jesus on the water (Matthew 14:28–30). In the scene, Jesus invites him out of the boat. Timidly, Peter takes a few steps and then begins to sink. After we read the story, I was expecting a lesson about my lack of faith. Instead, the director asked me to spend the day in prayer with the scene. He asked me to imagine that I was Peter and that Jesus was inviting me to talk with him after the boat went ashore. I imagined a campfire dug out in the sand and a crisp, dark night above us. The rest of the disciples were down by the shore, throwing rocks into the water, while Jesus and I sat together in a comfortable quiet. I imagined that Peter was probably pretty upset

Becoming Catholic, Again

with himself for falling into the water. I started talking to Jesus as if I were Peter but quickly slipped into my own body. I began sharing how sorry I felt about the last six months of teaching. I was sorry that I felt depressed and that I was so angry. I was sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to teach in my classroom. I wanted to sneak away from it all under the cover of the night. But then I looked up and saw Jesus beaming at me. He interrupted my next litany of all I lacked and said that it wasn’t the point. I was using those things so that I could prove to myself what he already knew. Sitting on the beach, I saw Jesus in a way I had never envisioned. I had been trying so hard to plug into God, to be a faithful person with all of my actions. Yet the most profound moment of my faith was happening in the form of a heart-to-heart while I was on a vacation from any of the action I held as radical. In that moment, there was only love coming toward me, dispelling my thoughts on the results that I thought God needed from me and allowing me to imagine God as ultimate love. It was the start of deconstructing the myth of worthiness that I had interpreted from the Gospel call to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves only”(James 1:22). As I broke down my theology, I went back to the pieces that were in its foundation. The grace I first found in the folds of a habit on a day when I forgot the prayer was the same grace available to me when I was standing in front of a class of fourth graders I could not manage. I was relearning that grace moves in our lives because God is God, not because we are perfect. I also revisited the concrete actions I assumed God wanted from me. I was swayed by the idea that to follow the Gospels, I should do it in a radical way. I assumed that all of the small opportunities, like giving up my place in line, were but small Gospel actions and

Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

even a mockery of the real teachings about social justice. My mistake was misunderstanding the emphasis of radical in the teachings. The Gospel message is not just that we should do something radical—it is that we should do what we do in radical ways. It doesn’t start with finding what is extreme but with paying attention to the lives we are leading and finding where they meet the need we see from our vantage point of the world. Pursuing this place with radical intention and a disposition to love is the only thing God is calling us to do. I certainly have a desire to be of service in the world, but I’ve spent fifteen more years learning how that call should also reinforce who I am instead of acting as a substitute for who I think I should be. Since I stood up in Sr. Grace’s room to recite the Our Father, I’ve grown stronger in my original interpretation of the prayer. God actually is not in heaven. God is in us. What we can see about ourselves and our lives is critical to what we can see about God. To encounter the divine, we need only to dig into the place of truth within ourselves—where God has already been speaking to us and working in us. And what we discover there is that we need be nothing more than who we already are. My faith is not constructed on an image of what I think I should be but rather, on the real truth of who I am. I am not left searching for an external affirmation of faith to prove my worth or connection to God. By laying down what I thought faith had to mean, I create some room to hold all that faith is and to recognize all that I am because of it. Years later, I realize that I am already the sanctuary that once I prayed to be.

Becoming Catholic, Again

How Our Religious and S piritual Exp ectations A f fect Us Re f l e cti o n My faith narrowed (and still narrows at times) around a message that dominates a holistic faith ethic. At one time, I expected that to be religious and spiritual, I needed to be doing radical work with those who were poor. The message and my definitions of radical and poor were all very limited. Working for others is a central message of Jesus’ teachings, but when it blocked all the other teachings, it got in the way. What kind of religious and spiritual assumptions do you carry that get in the way of your faith? What is an unhelpful message that sometimes dominates your faith? It may come from the readings, teachings, or messages from another source. With other aspects, it may be an important piece, but alone, it drowns out all the others. To get at your assumptions, it may help to complete this thought: “In order to lead a good and worthy life, sometimes I think that I have to . . . or that I should . . .” Now consider what else faith can mean outside of your previous answer. “When I find a connection with the divine, I know that . . .” Look back at your assumptions and at the possibilities you listed. How can you begin to let your faith expand? For you

Our Father Who Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in Heaven

to practice faith in the most holistic way, what are you being invited to change, add, or let go?

A cti o n Do something in a new way. Specifically, think of something in your life about which you can be quite rigid. It could be something rather silly, such as how you load the dishwasher, or something more serious, such as how you pray. Do this one thing differently for the next week. Then reflect on your experience. What else is possible when you ease back and look at something in a new way? This experiment is a reminder to see what else is possible in all realms of your life.

Praye r Imagine a God who is not just in heaven but who is intimately a part of you. Spend five minutes tonight in prayer, contemplating or imagining this. Then consider this question: When you imagine God in this way, what new things do you see about God?

Epilogue

Enough Room for Faith

Once, my cousin Annie and I were making our daily pilgrimage to The Creamery, an ice-cream store in my grandparent’s hometown. We were alone because Delphos, Ohio, could have been a substitute set for The Andy Griffith Show. Walking in our 1980s translucent jelly shoes, we strolled along, stashing the rock-hard pieces of gum from our bubble-gum ice cream into the corners of our mouths. We turned into a cut-through alley and happened upon what I thought was prophetic and Annie thought was just weird. He was a mural painter using geography to make biblical connections. The most obvious was that Ireland looked like the baby Jesus. (It actually does look like a fetus in an ultrasound.) Coming upon something like this was by far the most excitement a week in Delphos held. I remember the man’s long brown hair, a mess of paints under his scaffolding, and his certainty. He looked like a homeless Jesus. I wanted to hear more of what he was saying, especially about why he was so sure about God planting hints through geography, but our grandpa’s tin-roof sundae was melting. We smiled in that shy preadolescent way and kept walking. At the end of the block, I walked backward and watched him.

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“What if we just met Jesus, Annie? I mean, what if that was a test about how much we believe? He could have been God, you know. He was sure about something.” “Caty, why would Jesus be in Delphos, Ohio? Let’s just get home before he follows us.” When we arrived home, Annie bounded up the back steps into the kitchen and announced to the whole family that I thought we had just met Jesus. “Hey everyone, Caty thinks this guy we passed on the way home was Jesus. She practically invited him over for dinner tonight.” I tried to defend myself but quickly realized that my only option was denial. “I did not. Be quiet, Annie. He was weird, and I was just trying to freak her out. You should have seen how nervous she was.”

I didn’t really think I had met Jesus that day, but I did wonder if that man had a secret about God and why he—why anyone—would dedicate that much time to something that others thought was an expression of mental illness. I’m still not interested in how right or wrong he was. But I am interested in what we use to frame our lives, their meaning, and their purpose. I’m interested in what motivates our souls and how we actualize it day by day, in how we see ourselves in relationship to that which is most divine and that which is most human. Spirituality allows me to find my way when I need the whys and hows in order to live a meaningful, caring, and joyful life. I’m on the path, and I’m grateful for all the ways I have learned to express its meaning and practice its hope. Despite the ridicule I received when I sang too loud in church in my tone-deaf way or joined the handbell choir in high school (the

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hand-job choir as my friends maturely referred to it), I am grateful for this interest. I feel this way especially because it continues for me now, even in the moments of confusion about how to pursue it. I will always be in the gray space of Catholicism, but my practice of it will also continue. I have found enough room in an important story for all my questions and doubt. Indeed, these are the central reasons I rely on the story today.

About the Author Catherine Wiecher Brunell is a pastoral minister of the everyday. Her lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is about finding meaning in ordinary things by teaching and practicing faith. She has a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in pastoral ministry from Boston College. She lives in Natick, Massachusetts, with her husband and four children.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-8294-3751-5 ISBN-10: 0-8294-3751-7

BRU N E LL

Becoming Catholic, Again

ARRIVI NG AT A FAITH THAT MATTE RS

Becoming Catholic,

Again Connecting the Faith We Were Taught with the Faith We Live

CATH E RI N E WI ECH E R BRU N E LL