146/365 Religious Tradition

Catholicism has an undeniable culture. There are many different shades of this, and Catholics attending two different parishes in the same diocese might have vastly different ideas of what it means to be Catholic. Forget the universal/worldwide church--there are plenty of differences between me and the folks at Resurrection or St. Clement of Rome. Geography, as usual, is destiny.

But walking into almost any Catholic church, I find myself at the front or side vestibule. There's a holy water font. There are almost always pews or some sort of seating. I'm not the biggest fan of pews, but there's something very homey and comfortable about 90 year old quarter-sawn oak pews. There's some sort of sanctuary with a chair, an ambo, and an altar. There are usually images--stations of the cross, stained glass, tapestries, statues, mosaics, something to help tell the story of our faith. There's a crucifx. Fire. Pathways and kneelers and silence. There might be parts of the mass that seem odd to a newcomer--at one parish I attended in Texas, after communion every Sunday we recited the words: O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine. Other places don't sing as much or don't have as much silence or celebrate sacraments differently. But they are all fragments of the same mirror, reflecting God.

I am thinking about this because of the Unitarian blog I read; she is visiting her dad's family this weekend and is surrounded by Catholic tradition. She is originally Catholic, and she likes that her kids are experiencing this, even if just a few times a year. Because her kids will not make first communion or witness baptisms. They won't say a rosary or know the parts of the mass by heart. They see these things with fresh eyes, but with eyes of strangers.

She and I, on the other hand, know these things from childhood. And my kids, in some similar ways, some different, are learning and living these things, too. And in the end, this was one of the things that kept me Catholic when it really looked like maybe I wasn't supposed to be. Religion kept me going with faith wavered. I realized I wasn't strong enough to find God on my own. I needed a community to help me. I needed tradition and ritual and practice and rules. I'm not talking about morality--I could have managed that just fine on my own. I'm talking about religion. About finding one's way through the noise and static. I'm not going to find God in a pink crystal rosary. I'm not going to reach great spiritual insights sitting at vespers. But if I don't do these things, have these things, teach these things, then I don't have any hope of finding God at all. There are too many ways to lose focus.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
--Leonard Cohen