God's Hat

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. 

 

And so, to Mass

If you'd rather not read all this, but are interested in praying/being prayed for, please skip to the bottom! 

If you'd told me, a month ago, that I would become a part of the Catholic community at university, I would have laughed at you. Maybe, I would have said, but that's not my thing. I mean, it's nice to go once a year, for old times sake, but I'm a Protestant. A member of the URC church. I'm going to find a URC church somewhere in Norwich, first Sunday, and I'm going to enjoy being a dissenter for a bit. Also, I'm going to join the Socialists. (Yeah...that didn't happen. I've never met people who so strongly resembled zombies before...)

The problem with that plan was that it seems God has his own plan for my life. Sometimes I doubt that God is doing things in my life, because it's easy to doubt when you think you have everything sorted, and you're in control. Yet this week has shown me, more than ever, that God is helping me out and guiding me. If this new path hadn't been so surprising, I might not have noticed it. How many times has God done this for me, I wonder? Corny as it might be, I've spent the last few days thinking back to that 'Footsteps in the Sand' poem, and wondering if right now, God is carrying me. I'm trying to manage so many different things, learning to run my own life for the first time, and I have a thousand things to organise and worry about, yet I feel strangely content, even peaceful.It's illogical; I am always worried and stressed. It only makes sense in the knowledge that God is helping me out massively at the moment, carrying me and all the baggage that comes with being a new university student so that I can cope. Tonight's homily (sermon/talk) in Mass was on thankfulness, and tonight, I feel like I understand how much I have to be thankful for. I'm just not sure I have the words to express it.

But I've kept you waiting to hear about this surprise, the sudden new direction God seems to be sending you on. 

I may be going back to Catholicism. 

I say may because, as I'm finding is usual for plans the Big Man's had a hand in, it is almost impossible to predict what is going to happen next. This might just be a temporary thing to help me get through the first few weeks of university. It might be forever. All I can do is trust and hope.

But why should this be so surprising? I've already told you that I'm a member or the URC - the United Reformed Church - but my relationship with denominations has been a complicated one. As an adult Christian, I've found my place in liberal, free church Protestantism, but when I was brought up ecumenically. I was baptised jointly in the Catholic Church, and the Church of England, in a shared service, and brought up as an equal member of both churches. Incidentally, I understand mine was the first baptism of this kind, ever. They're not common; my parents and the Association of Interchurch Families (AIF) worked really hard to bring it about and make it feasible. People still disbelieve me when I explain it, but it's true. To add to the complication, when I was fourteen I was confirmed through our Local Ecumenical Partnership, becoming a full member of the Church of England (or, the Anglian communion), the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, and the United Reformed Church, a move which effectively annulled my baptismal membership of the Catholic Church. Then a year ago, I moved to my local United Reformed Church and became a local member there, and in that Church community I believe I have found where I belong. When I moved there I was spiritually tired. I needed to receive rather than give for a while, and I know God guided me there for a reason. They've encouraged me and supported me in my faith and my personal life, and helped me slowly become an active part of the church again, helping out with an early morning toddler service. 

To cut through the religious jargon: Some churches get on and some don't. They believe in most of the same things, but belonging to more than one is often considered paradoxical, because of their minute differences. Some of us ignore these differences and do it anyway. One of my friends called me 'a mongrel of religion'...I think that sums it up accurately.

So why, after effectively removing myself from the Catholic Church years ago in my early teens am I once again wrestling with it? My relationship with the Catholic church has not been easy. As a child, I thought that Mass was boring, because it had no Sunday school, and this led to my desire to quit Mass as soon as I could, only attending when I was forced to go. I was still a regular church goer, attending protestant services on Sunday morning, so until now I never thought of it as 'leaving church'. I never understood why young people drop out of church till now, thinking retrospectively. I don't blame myself; Mass is not designed for children! 

As a young teenager, I became conscious of the divisions between the Catholic church and the protestant churches. Issues like the ordination of women became important to me, and I realised that the little theology I'd worked out for myself fitted on the Protestant side of things. Within a year or two, I became and angry teenage ex-Catholic. I was angry. How could they be so stupid, and so obviously wrong? I wanted to correct everyone who had made the mistake of being Catholic. I was rude, and it stills hurts me to think of the nasty things I said to good Catholics at the time, at school and in my family. The teenage brain is not programmed for empathy, according to the BBC news, and I was in that respect typical.

But alongside all this burgeoning teenage angst, I was trying to find an adult faith of my own, working things out. A few months after my confirmation, at 14 years old, I had an experience that changed how I think and understand God forever.

I won't go into details here. Let's simply say that I had a private experience of the numinous. I told people at the time and I was ridiculed, which I perfectly understand, so I'm saving that event for my own prayers, and encouragement when I'm struggling. Strangely enough, it happened in a little URC chapel, downstairs from the conference house I'd been staying in (On a Methodist course...). I think this is important. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm wondering now if God is saying to me, you can find me in the United Reformed Church. By which I don't mean that the URC has a monopoly on God, but that I specifically am meant to be a URC member. 

At the same time, I was at a Catholic school, and enjoying being the one person who refuses to say the Hail Mary in class. Small rebellions are the source of endless pleasure as a teenager! 

Yet the last few years, things have begun to change. Having identified everything I dislike about the Catholic Church, and more importantly, found a place where I can be comfortable and develop on my own faith, I've begun to find my attitude to the Catholic Church changing. It started with a supportive priest, the realisation that going to Mass with my school and taking communion with them was important to me, and a grudging respect for Catholic moral authority. I'm not sure I agree with everything the Vatican says, or the contents of the Catholic Church Catechism, but more and more I find myself respecting the moral teachings of the church, with its sound, loving ground, and turning to it for guidance. After all, it is the bedrock of a third of the world's population, and the morality of the western legal system. You have to respect something that has commanded that degree of authority. 

But it's more than respect, more than acceptance of our differences. At Mass, I find a reverence for God, a sheer state of adoration, that is rare in any other denomination. (Although I think my home church do it pretty well!). There are times when I want to be quiet, to reach out to God in my heart, and to think on how wonderful and awesome he is, and this is so apparent in the majesty of the Mass service. Catholicism, at heart, is simply beautiful. You can criticise it's teachings or policies however much you like, but the beauty is always there, shining through. 

And Mass on campus is something special. For the first time, I'm going to Mass with a group of energised young Catholics who care about their faith, and we have an excellent priest who preaches the most brilliant sermons. I've been twice and loved it, coming back feeling more in touch with God from each one. I've also made it to an ecumenical church once, and tried but failed to make it to a URC church this morning, so it's not just laziness that draws me back to the on campus service. Even when I find a protestant church of my own, I'm going to stay a Mass goer, which I suppose will make me a two-service a day girl... Don't bash me with your bibles or anything, right? 

From one angle, it sounds like the Prodigal Son story, but the truth is that whilst I am returning to the security of my childhood church, the church which has come to mean safety and reassurance to me, I'm not renouncing anything I've done since, or going backwards. On the contrary, to grow in my adult faith I need to belong to a church which is nearer to my particular beliefs, and in which I can participate fully - hopefully a United Reformed Church, although I'm open to any of the denominations I belong to! But I'm glad to have made my peace with the Catholic Church, and I think there's more to come from our brief encounter. God is doing something, sending me to Mass at the very time when I'm attempting to make a new start in my life. I look forward to finding out what it is, and trust that God knows, as always, what he's doing.

Your prayers for me at this time would be greatly appreciated, and I'd love to respond in kind. I remember to pray far less often that I should, so having names would be a wonderful thing. If you'd like me to pray for you/exchange prayers, leave your name as a comment, or tweet/DM me @corybantically, or if you have me on facebook, private message me!

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings about the interior working about the Christian church. Leave any questions in the comments and I'll try and explain more clearly :) 

God bless!

J.R. x