Smells and bells

I love smells and bells! I am not the organized type, I buck structure, perhaps that is why high liturgy has appeal to me, it gives me something I normally lack: discipline.

We protestants are quick to judge Catholics, we grew up with ideas about them. When I first went to some services, I was amazed that any Catholic could be nominal. I found the smells and bells powerful reminders of the mystery. Personality wise they appealed to my imagination and creativity.

But nominal Christians should never surprise us, nor should they cause us to cast nasturtiums on a tradition. They are in fact in every tradition where the culture allows them to comfortably call themselves Christians (the persecuted church has few of these). The practice of infant baptism brings the person in to the church, they can claim that affiliation forever if they wish, and never go to church (not that the church or priest is happy about them doing that). Parents bring their children to be baptized because of cultural tradition and as a form of fire insurance, just in case there is a God, and cross their fingers to the promises they make to bring them up to love God.

Perhaps coming from the outside, with out those cultural impediments allowed me to experience the forms of worship with awe and wonder. Perhaps my experiences with the Spirit allowed me easily to see the forms as full of life, rather than empty religion.

I told the retreatants at the Abby with me, that I wanted to plant a pentecostal church with all the smells and bells. I think they all ready had an inkling that I was crazy.

veneration of saints

I can’t get my head around the doctrines concerning Mary: her immaculate conception, her ascension, her various appearances, her intercessory roll… But, I am starting to see the place of devotion as love.

Today I was walking around the cemetery imagining I was Paul looking at the shrines in Athens. When I came to the head stone of Rev. John and Sister Ora Rosetta Dearing, I stopped. I knelt beside it and thanked God for saints, and the courage to stand in their place as a pastor and follow in their footsteps.

Pastor Dearing served my church for ten years. That is quite an accomplishment especially in light of the church having an average pastoral stay being about six months. He was much beloved. He died suddenly while away for General Council in 96. His wife was a dear saint. She sent us encouragements regularly. She saw in Elaine and I a mirror of her life with her husband in their early years. She profoundly impacted me with her notes, her visits and ultimately her death. Her funeral was the third in my pastorate here.

As I left the cemetery I did something very much resembling a devotion to Mary. I blew a kiss to their tomb stone. The connection suddenly came to me. For those who respect and love a saint (and Mary is at the top of the list to be loved and respected), such acts should be the acts of lovers. If we leave aside the pedantics concerning her veneration perhaps we can simply love her.

The Mission

I watched a clip of The Mission for my class. I wanted to see the rest of it. It came this week from Netflix. It devastated me. I realized that I had been there. Not in a figural sense, but literally... there. The filming took place at Iguazu Falls. The natives the Jesuit priests were ministering to were the Guarani.

I know Guarani people. I visited Iguazu Falls when I was on a missions trip to Paraguay. I walked out on the observation deck looking into the devil's throat with Pastor Donald, a Guarani native from Paraguay. We talked about the ring tailed coatí and the river, and how Paraguay lost the falls to Brazil.

I more than identified with the priests efforts to protect their flock. I wept when they stood with them under attack. With heavy heart I asked, “Where was Christ in all of this?” Then Father Gabriel, leading his congregation out to meet the troops, singing hymns, lifted high the monstrance. I am lucky as a protestant to understand the significance. The monstrance contains the host, in Catholic theology transubstantiated into the actual body of Christ. The monstrance is a holy place to place the host so it can be adored. So as I was asking, “God where are you?!” Father Gabriel answered, “Christ is here, He suffers with us!”

I am left in tension. Will brother Rodrigo’s way of taking up arms, or will Father Gabriel’s way of love prevail over the senseless violence? Neither. Violence has its way.

After watching I spent the next day with burdened heart. Not only does my heart cry out to God because of the injustice, but because the Guarani have been the people of my heart from the time of my visit (The Mission reminds me of this). As I am mourning, I turned to the Office of Readings for the day.

Psalm 10

1 [a]Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.

3 He boasts of the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.

4 In his pride the wicked does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

5 His ways are always prosperous;
he is haughty and your laws are far from him;
he sneers at all his enemies.

6 He says to himself, "Nothing will shake me;
I'll always be happy and never have trouble."

7 His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue.

8 He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent,
watching in secret for his victims.

9 He lies in wait like a lion in cover;
he lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.

10 His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.

11 He says to himself, "God has forgotten;
he covers his face and never sees."

12 Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.

13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
"He won't call me to account"?

14 But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.

16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.

17 You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

I prayed this psalm with many tears. The antiphons were powerful confessing my burdened heart and God’s protection for the poor. Alleluia!

The body of Christ

Today as I was praying the rosary, my mind began to wander to all the rich symbolism of the Catholic church. I remembered a healing service I went to at Holy Family last year. The Franciscan friar leading the service took a host, and put it in a special display called a Monstrance. It is for them a way to look at the real body of Christ and adore him. The priest then held the monstrance in front of his face, hiding behind it and a shawl that represented Christ. We were then invited to pretend we were touching the hem of Jesus' garments as we touched the shawl and asked for healing.

The Catholic view of the bread being the real body of Christ is so compelling. In it's presence you are literally able to be with Christ physically like the first disciples were. What if we viewed the church, the body of Christ, as being his real physical body in that way? O Lord so indwell and transform our bodies, so that if someone wanted to see what it was like to touch you, they only need to touch us, or to hold on to you they would only need to embrace us!