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ME AND MY GOD
ME & MY GOD
In this series, contributors reflect on their understanding of God and how it has evolved.
Mary Rose McCarthy
AN ONGOING ADVENTURE
BY MARY ROSE McCARTHY
Until my mid-20s, my idea of God was of the old white man in the sky, with a long beard, who could see absolutely everything about me. It wasn’t until a nun asked me “Do you ever pray – and I don’t mean just saying the Hail Mary?” that I began to reassess that image.
My faith life had been a patchwork of true faith when in primary school, to the teenage angst of off-again on-again belief, to a healthier scepticism about the meaning of life and what to trust.
And yet the fear remained that somehow God did see my every move; that this mostly old guy, often wielding a stick, was just waiting, suspended up there above the cumulous, to catch me out the minute I stepped out of line. The notion of a God who set me up for failure was hard to shift. I considered myself mature in my mid-20s and yet this was the God I believed in sporadically, but convinced at other instances that such an entity couldn’t possibly exist.
Thus, for a nun to say “And I don’t mean Hail Marys” was, to me, almost bordering on blasphemy. It was a shock, as I had been educated by fully veiled nuns in habits, figures who were authoritarian and distant. They didn’t exude common sense or speak in ordinary language.
That moment of questioning my prayer life was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with that nun, and a lifelong adventure between me and my God. Firstly, the nun loaned me The Cloud of Unknowing, which was another eyeopener. I was lucky to work with her for about 12 months, which allowed time for many discussions about God, Scripture and the Mass. This nudged my understanding of God to a greater maturity.
It also was timely as I’d always been a curious and, hopefully, non-judgemental person. In the past when opportunities had arisen to speak to people who weren’t raised Catholic, I’d relished them. So, the Jehovah’s Witnesses weren’t sent packing when they rang my bell at a bedsit in the city. They were welcomed in, given tea, and pestered with questions. None of the answers convinced me of the existence of God. But these interactions did show an eagerness to know more about religion and faith.
Later, I worked with a woman of great faith. A ward sister on a very busy, intense male medical ward, she was a committed Baptist. While she never evangelised or proselytised, she did speak of her conviction of God at work in her life. Again, my innate curiosity meant I peppered her with questions about
God, life, death, and the whole meaning of the universe.
AROUND THE TABLE
So, you could say that by my mid-twenties God had well prepared the ground of my being for the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. All along, God put people in my path and planned that I would come to experience him on a different level. My know-it-all self of that period was completely unprepared for this God, the authentic one, to play any part in my life. It was hard to admit I didn’t have all the answers, that I was but a novice When peers and colleagues and friends on the road to knowing God. I ask “But what about the scandals, the abuses, the laundries?” sometimes I’m began attending daily Mass and communion. I had the enormous privilege of living near a small just flummoxed and unable to answer. community of nuns who invited me to join them for daily Mass. Again, this was another revelation. Gathered around an ordinary kitchen table, practically within touching distance of the elevated host, made the ceremony very real and concrete. I find it hard to put in words what that experience was like. Instead of half paying attention, or almost dozing off during Mass, as had been my norm, I now listened to the words and to the prayers as they were offered up. From then onwards, God became an active and real part of my life. ‘Me and my God’ is something I thought would be simple and straightforward to write about. But when it came to siting down and
doing it, the realisation dawned that it’s not something I have ever put a structured, coherent narrative on. Articulating clearly who and what God is in my life is not my strong point. I far prefer listening to others’ stories rather than talk about myself.
STUMBLING BLOCKS
One of the stumbling blocks in speaking about God is that my version of God is different each day, depending on which version of myself wakes in the morning. When life is running smoothly, the sun is shining and there are no reports on Morning Ireland of any atrocities, it is easy to see God everywhere. Each bird song, or piece of music on Lyric FM, or smile of the checkout person in Aldi, are all signifiers that “God’s in his heaven and all is right with the world.”
On days that begin with rain and wind, and rejections for writing projects in my inbox, the doubts that are never far below the surface raise their ugly heads. The headlines are full of atrocities, and it is easy to question what kind of God could allow such misery and suffering.
Many days I disagree with him and argue with him as I might a friend. Our conversations are usually one way, me doing much giving out. His response: silence. Sometimes it seems like he’s on holiday or is taking time out. But never have I doubted the faith I formed back in my 20s that keeps me practising as a Catholic through all the upheavals and scandals the church in Ireland and around the world has faced.
But just like the little child who wanted ‘God with skin on’, there are moments in life when something more tangible is needed than words translated from Greek. Those are the moments when the sublime majesty of poetry, good music, nature and birds resonate – not in words but in something deeper and more interior. In the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “for all this… there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” I’m never sure if Hopkins is referring to green shoots in the garden or inner human growth. I like to interpret it as both.
SACRED MOMENTS
In an increasingly secular world, it is sometimes hard to defend why I remain a practising Catholic. When peers and colleagues and friends ask “But what about the scandals, the abuses, the laundries?” sometimes I’m just flummoxed and unable to answer. On those occasions I feel defensive and somehow as if I’m not being asked about my own faith but to justify atrocities that should never have been committed.
Secular society now seems to think that the church is a punchbag, that anyone associated with church can be shouted down, jeered or held culpable for the sins of the fathers.
The simple answer is: I believe in God because there is no other explanation for the beauty of nature, for the song of the collared dove, for the spine-tingling sound of mixedvoice choral choirs.
Recently, I sat with a book in the warm April sunshine. Goldfinches appeared almost beside me. They seemed oblivious to my existence, and I remained immobile for minutes in their company. It reminded me of the sacredness of being near the elevated host. In a different way, the feeding birds were God manifest right in front me.
The late evening rays illumined them as they bobbed and ate and checked for predators. The red band around their heads glowed iridescent in the sun. There is no language to convey that colour, highlighted by the solar rays. That, to me, is God.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
