Slept in, which is always a pleasure for me, but thought that maybe I would go to a daily Mass. The idea of moving from my cocoon apartment, cluttered and comfortable, caused resistance, but I placed the contact lenses and applied quick makeup, sweater and sweat pants and went.
It was pretty empty at the Church. There is never a huge crowd at a daily Mass, but usually a few more people are praying in the pews. It's early though, 20 minutes before the celebration.
This is the former pastor's to celebrate. He is nearly 83 and debiltated by the damage of a benign tumor taken from his spine years ago. Even with a walker, though, he manages to command any space in which he appears, and this, the Church, is his life's stage. This is the thing he will fight to continue, the celebration of the Eucharist. All else he is willing, even content, to forego. Belief gives him the energy, the persistence, the mission and the reason to continue.
Usually, when I come in I can hear him chatting with the server who will assist, but today, there is silence. It is clear he, or some priest is in the sacristy, because the candles are lit. But no one comes out to arrange the altar and it is close to the time to begin. I cannot serve. Yes, in today's society women often act as acolytes. But my former pastor, and my friend, limits such engagement, still believing that the role is a subcategory of priesthood, and priesthood is only for men, as Jesus was a Man, and founded his Church naming 12 males as His apostles. Acolyte is a minor order which is bestowed upon a priest in training. I can hear some reader saying, "Why don't you leave that parish?" because so many women have deeper involvement in other parishes, or "Become an Anglican/Episcopalian" where they allow women priests, let alone other ministries. Here's the thing, my membership in the Catholic Faith is not about the "right" to become a priest, or to have some more intensive minstry, like deacon, or server. It is about the Center, the Eucharist Himself, the Really Present Lord, before me, in my hand as I receive. Although human beings imperfectly guide the Church, they guide it with this Essence at its center, and I will leave it to the Holy Spirit to direct what, if any, ultimate change there is in individual parishes or in the Church at large. Meanwhile, this erstwhile pastor is also my friend and has been good to me, and, has even allowed some inroads into his resistance to a woman on the altar, when there has been a lack of servers. I have stood by him as he receives the "gifts", the bread and wine before the transformative miracle. I have held the book as he reads the gospel. I have told him that the rarity of my being able to do this makes me appreciate it even more.
Nonetheless, knowing that he would be loath to use my help beyond these moments, I went into the sacristy to see what help might be needed since no other server was yet there.
I expected him to be sitting in a chair, given the difficulty he has in standing for any period of time. But when I came in, his back was to me. He was fully robed, and leaning over a platform reading. There was something startling about the figure, with the markings of his role on the back of the vestment, the sign of the Good Shepherd. In that brief moment, I had the the feeling, not just the intellectual comprehension of, In Representio Christi. I almost hated to interrupt him. Seeing me, he said he had been reading the order of the Latin Mass. I had noticed the old lectionary on Sunday. He suggested it would be hard for him to celebrate the Mass in Latin. I noticed the heading of one of the prayers, "Confiteor", "I Confess", the one in which we together profess our sinfulness to our Lord. I asked him if he needed whatever help he would allow. He said, "A woman?" but in that way that has always been a friendly and humorous exchange between us. I said, "Can't do anything about that. But I will do whatever you will allow." He said that it was likely that someone would come at the last minute, but he did want me to place the unconsecrated water and wine, the Book, and the Chalice onto the altar. I had never done that. This is the sacred work of the acolyte. He noted my informal dress but said nothing to inhibit me. I placed each item, sneakers squeaking, one at a time, onto the altar. I wanted to put the key into the Tabernacle but the lock was not obvious to me close up, as often as I have seen it from something more of a distance, so I did not. I placed each item, first bowing to the Tabernacle where He is, and then again as I went for the next item.
I returned to the sacristy to tell him I would be about if he needed me. He did not. A minute or so before Mass the server arrived.
The homily was about transformative moments of two or three saints, the moments before the complete giving over of themselves to God, in which their paths were set. For Martin of Tours, while still a soldier, there was tearing his cloak in two to give half to a cold pauper. For St. Francis of Assisi, it was giving a coin to a man consumed with sores, and then going back to take his hands and kiss them. For Damien, the priest of the lepers at Molokai, it was (he speculated because no one really knows) it might have been the day he discovered the first sore on his body that said he was one of them. What was ours? Will we have one? I wondered. I wonder now. When or will I have a moment of such transformation. Helping today, was that such a moment--when belief becomes something more transcendent? Did the saints mark that moment? Perhaps the essence of the moment is not to be aware of it and to proceed steadfastly on the road, believing and confessing and thanking God for His forgiveness and Grace praying for that moment, but not grasping it as something owed to us.
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