Lent and Easter are coming up really fast this year! Ash Wednesday is February 4!!! Whenever this season rolls around I long for the ritual and mystery of the Catholic/Orthodox Church. The pomp and ceremony, which sometimes annoys me at other times, is just the ticket during Lent. People cringe when I cater my spiritual whims this way, but I’m with Elizabeth Gilbert on this one. She writes,
We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feeling around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn’t have the specific ritual you’re craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need God (page 187).
It is indeed.
When I am at the end of my own spiritual rope and cannot even muster up the “right earnestness” I go to the Catholic church and get fed. I find that in Protestant houses of worship, the faithful are expected to come to worship and give, give, give to God all that you have and lay it spiritually at the alter. This is it’s own reward and sometimes we feel the Holy Spirit move and sometimes we don’t. I find, though, that in the Catholic church the only thing I have to bring is repentance and be open to receiving the mystery; in penance and the Eucharist. Sometimes, and more and more lately, I find that I can’t sustain my own spiritual highs in Baptist churches. I couldn’t possibly be charismatic or pentecostal and do what they do Sunday after Sunday. I’ll go for weeks feeling devoid of all desire to worship. When my spiritual “gas tank” is on E, I trot down to the local Catholic church, put aside my problems with their doctrines and dogmas, and fill up again.
Cafeteria Christian? Perhaps. But I refuse to be bound by artificial denominational boundaries and petty rules about exclusivity. That’s for man to answer for. I’m simply following the call of the Spirit in my life.
I’ve been thinking lately about attending a Catholic church. I’ve never been, but it calls to me now and again. In fact I was talking to a coworker yesterday about going and even thinking about catechism. Why? For the exact reason you say above.
Kay,
Yes, my husband and I went through RCIA to join in 1988 when we were tired of our fundie church. I’ve not regretted joining, although I do NOT subscribe to every doctrine and dogma. You can’t beat the silence, the mystery, and the Eucharist though for sheer spiritual fulfillment.
Interesting. The Catholic church is steeped in ritual. Rituals make us feel comfortable, safe and we easily can get lost in the ritual. I understand your feelings.
Hi, Mystery.
It’s great to have your blog back. You sound like you’re more at peace with where you are, compared to when you stopped blogging.
** If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need God **
** If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need God **
I always find the concept of “need” interesting. Usually, when I’m told I “need” God, it’s one of those things where people have to convince you you’re sick, becaues that’s the only way they can provide you the “cure.” One of those, you’re automatically going to hell simply for existing and behaving, unless you take the cure. And too often, I see the need God associated with that type of mindset, and so shove it away.
However, if the need is more of we need God like we need mercy, love, justice, truth, light … then yes. It’s a more abstract need, and a more abstract view of God, almost panentheistic. Sometimes, when things are dark, it’s too easy to get sucked down into that darkness. That’s when we need God, to break out of whatever we’re trapped in. We need God to survive, just like we need love to survive.
I wish we saw the latter picture more.
onesmallstep,
Good to be back AND to hear from you!
Yes, from reading Gilbert’s book, her idea of “God” is indeed bigger than the going-to-hell for sinning variety most people espouse. It is indeed an abstract concept that, define however we might to make us feel comfortable, people will distort toward their own ends and needs. I think that I’ve found my concept of God finally big enough to handle all the contradictory boxes theologians and pundits put God into.
I wish we saw the latter picture more too.