If you've been following the news today (13.03.2013) you'll know that the Catholic Church has just elected a new Pope, to replace the emeritus Pope Benedict, who in February took the brave, and controversial, decision to retire due to ill health. Pope Francis I is from Argentina, and thus the first non-European Pope in a thousand years. The rather fun Pontifficator game on the Guardian website describes him as moderate, a social champion open to relationships with other faiths and with some progressive stances, although he has previously spoken against homosexual marriages, as have many of the Cardinals. But you know this, if you've been following the news, and if you've been following this blog (I flatter myself that you have...!) you'll know this isn't the first post I've written about Catholicism; in October last year I wrote about attending Mass at university, despite having just become a committed member of the United Reformed Church.
Things have moved on for me since then. Coming back after Christmas, with the Youth Assembly of the United Reformed Church ahead and a wonderful visit to my home church behind, I decided to look for a United Reformed Church in my university town. One church in particular had been recommended to me, so one freezing, snowy morning, I headed out across the city to the 9.45 am service. One later bus and underestimated walk later, and (an hour after I started) I reached the church, late but happy. For a few weeks I attended services there, and I really wanted this to be the right place. I told the people there that it was the right place, told them I'd come back, and tried to convince myself that it was. But I knew, somewhere, that it wasn't right. The people were lovely, offering me lifts and looking after me, the music was fantastic, and it was obviously a lovely community of people dedicated to worshipping God. I didn't really get on with the preaching, but as several churches in the area are sharing one rather over-stretched minister, just to have a service at all in the weeks when he was elsewhere is an achievement. I meant to email them and thank them for their kindness, but the moment past, and now I think it's too late, but I am grateful.
When God calls you, there's only so long you can ignore him, and on Ash Wednesday, I started listening.
I've been ashed every Ash Wednesday that I remember. It's an integral part of my life, part of the rhythm of my year, like Christmas and birthdays and the start of the holidays. On Ash Wednesday I planned to go to Mass at the chaplaincy, purely for convenience - although I think I already knew this would be decisive. If it went well, I'd go back.
Instead it went badly.
I decided to collect my post before Mass, but set off too late, leaving only a few minutes before the post room shuts. Instead of giving in, I cycled as fast as I could up the university drive, collected my post, and had a combined asthma attack/panic attack on the floor of the chaplaincy building. It was spectacularly undignified, and a little scary, as I didn't have any asthma medication. The lovely Catholic chaplain looked after me, and made me a cup of tea whilst I lay on the floor, breathing into my hands. By the time Mass itself came around, I felt almost normal, if a little shaky.
Sometimes we need to be shaken up.
As Mass went on that evening, I felt calmer and calmer. I felt like I'd come home, a feeling I'd also felt when I found my Church at home (which is United Reformed). A prodigal daughter, I returned to my mother Church, a Church I was baptised and raised in, rejected, hated, and dissociated myself with. Often people tell me God is full of surprises, but the God I know doesn't just surprise people - he plays practical jokes as well...
I started going back to Mass. Then earlier this week, the Catholic society, of which I am a nominal member (I haven't paid my subs yet. Oops) started advertising for committee members for the next year. During Mass on Sunday I had a sense - or perhaps, even, a calling - that I should apply. Ever shy until spoken to, I hovered around after the Mass, hoping someone would ask me if I was interested. They did. I don't want to say more because there's no guarantee that I'll get a role, but I'm hopeful. Praying about it over the last few days, I've realised I'd be prepared to commit to the Cathsoc, which also means committing to Catholicism, and embracing that part of my identity. Above all, I am a Christian, I am someone trying to follow Jesus, to love God, to act in the Holy Spirit, but I'm also a Catholic. Those words still sound strange, but at the moment, they also sound right.
This post has been for me. I know it won't interest many people, although I hope a few people read it, and enjoy it, but sometimes just writing is important, and I don't keep a diary any more. If you've got this far, thank you. I won't keep you much longer.
I've been trying to pray for people during Lent, as I struggle to understand prayer, and I have also been praying for a deeper understanding of prayer. How praying for other people makes a difference has always puzzled me, and as I've tried to pray, an understanding - not in clear words, but something outside of myself, something right, came to me. A reminder to trust God, and a reminder that as he touches us, we can touch him, if we open our hearts to him.
And in that personal journey, God has reached me through the Catholic church. The theological differences I have with the Church - transubstatiaton, the Hail Mary, women priests, celibacy of priests, the rosary, the apocrypha, the attitude towards condoms - these things haven't lost their importance, but they aren't the be all and end all in the way they were when I was thirteen and loudly denouncing Catholicism as heretics, or whatever nonsense I said at the time. Theologically, the United Reformed Church is where I stand, and where my membership will stay. But in this moment, this place in my life, I know I am called to be a Catholic. It's confusing, and strange, but also wonderful, and to me, these things together look like God's fingerprints.
It's not about denominations, of course. Whether you're Catholic or Anglican or Methodist or Pentecostal or Baptist or Orthodox or United Reformed - or, I'm not afraid to say it, Muslim or Jewish or any other person of faith, to have a faith and follow it is wonderful. There's a story I always remember from a 'book of wisdom stories' in my Mum's study. Although it's probably plagiarism to write it up here - without the book, I can't cite it - the gist of it goes like this:
God, looking down at the earth, sees a group of workers in a field, and decides to play a practical trick on them, maybe to amuse them or make them think, so he walks through the field wearing a hat with four sides. One is yellow, one white, one green, one red.
When he's gone, the workers realise they've seen God, and eventually fall to discussing the colour of his hat.
'It was white!' says one worker.
'No,' the second disagrees, 'it was green.'
'You're both blind!' chips in the third, 'it was definitely yellow.'
'You fools!' says the last, 'didn't you see God's hat was red?'
And instead of sharing the miracle of seeing God in the field, they fall to arguing about the colour of his hat. It makes God sad.
The idea isn't that God is a trouble maker, by the way, (although the tower of Babel story is more than a little playful!) but that God shows us all different sides of himself, perhaps to allow us to cope with his infinity, but instead of learning from each other, we argue about who is right. It's a metaphor I find useful personally, being an interchurch child, confirmed ecumenically, and torn between different denominations. Being interchurch is difficult, but sometimes you see wonderful things, God looked at through different lenses. None of them show the whole, but I learn more. If only we could all come to together and worship together for a day. If we managed it, without just fighting, imagine what we could do...
And tonight we have a new Pope, a man who according to his Guardian profile, is open to dialogue with other faiths, who is about to take on leadership of the biggest faith group in the world. If you have a faith, no matter what, please pray for him tonight.
J.R.
*I want to mention that whilst I've used 'he' in conjunction with 'God' in this blog, that is only because English has no neutral pronoun, so 'he' is the convenient, as its traditional usage makes it invisible. Believing that both genders represent God, it bugs me to gender God in my writing, but unfortunately language is only an inadequate representation of reality. Apparently. This is the kind of thing you say a lot in university level English literature.
