A Little Smudge
Yesterday, I wore my Catholicism on my forehead in the form of a black, smudged cross. Yesterday, I felt a bit closer to my mom, as it always feels like she’s at church with me. Her faith meant so much to her, sustaining her through many difficult days. Faith was her therapist. Truth be told, I have not always been a stickler for Ash Wednesday or Lenten ritual. Some years we are more in the spirit than others. I felt compelled to go yesterday, Ash Wednesday, as I realized it had been almost a year since I’d attended a live mass rather than a live stream mass. While I’ve appreciated going to church in my sweatpants with a comfy couch as my pew, I realized I wanted to be in community, even from a mask wearing social distance.
Fish Fry Friday
Church and mom are woven together for me in a way that cannot be undone. Mass was a weekly ritual and there was no skipping, no bargaining for abstinence, no thought of even protesting. It was what we did, we were cradle Catholics, grandchildren of a cradle Catholic and Sunday meant mass. Lent for us meant fish on Friday and Ash Wednesday. Even though the Catholic Church loosened the rules (now called guidelines) and mom could eat meat on Friday due to her age, she still insisted on fish and fasting.
You’re what??
People are sometimes surprised that I am a practicing Catholic and that we are raising our kids in the Catholic Church. The fact that our family has two moms would seem to be in direct conflict with the doctrine of the Church, why would we stay in a faith that does not embrace us completely? The same could be said about the doctrine of our country over the years but we’ve remained here and have not moved to Canada. We chose to think globally, act locally.
Our local community has been welcoming and it is the place where we find comfort. We brought our kids up fully included in the Catholic Church with Baptism, First Eucharist, Reconciliation (First Communion and Confession for those of you who’ve been away for awhile) and Confirmation. I taught Faith Formation (old school CCD) for Developmentally Disabled kids and adults for many years and found a faith based community the likes of which I had never known in my youth.
Mysterious Ways Indeed
The old saying, “God moves in mysterious ways,” was true for me. My calling to be part of Faith Formation, working with the Developmentally Disabled, helped prepare me for the news that our son had Autism. There was a time, in the midst of Prop 8 and its support by the Catholic Church, when we stopped our regular mass visits and explored other churches.
Nothing felt right and there were specific things that drew me back. The woman I didn’t recognize who came up to me at the store and said, “You used to go to St. A’s right? You have a beautiful family, I loved watching your boys as they got bigger.” The gentleman we’d never met who came up to us after mass and said, “I just want to tell you that I was raised by two moms and your kids are going to be just fine, it will all be ok and I’m so happy to see your family here, you belong here.”
We realized that if we were gone from the Church, we would never show that families like ours belong in the Church. If we wanted our family to be accepted in the Church, we needed to be a part of the Church. Only by fully participating as our true selves could we ever expect to be seen as part of the collective “we” of our faith community.
All of those things brought us back to the place with the confusing, yet comforting rituals, the ashes on the forehead, peace be with you handshake, kneeling, standing, kneeling again and then standing again. (It’s like one long game of Simon Peter says).
The Bigger Picture
Much like me in my youth, our kids would moan and protest at having to put on “church clothes” and head out the door on Sunday mornings. They attended Faith Formation with minimal protest. I’m not sure what they soaked up from the attendance but it helped give us a platform to talk about community and kindness and giving thanks for all of our blessings. Your interpretation of “higher power” or your religious faith is not as important as having faith in something bigger than yourself and a sense of community. My community happens to be Catholic and it’s where I feel welcomed and at home.
A Long Year
You don’t realize what you’ve taken for granted until it’s no longer available. I took for granted that there would be mass every Sunday. That I could walk in and be greeted by familiar faces and comforted by the routine that has been part of my life since childhood. This year there was no “peace be with you” handshake, no singing, no holy water to dip into, yet the joy of seeing familiar faces (or at least the eyes of familiar faces) remained. It made me realize just how much has been missed in this year of shelter in place, isolation and social distancing.
So, yesterday I walked around with a smudge on my forehead as a reminder to be grateful for my community. To be reminded of the power of prayer, hope and faith in the future. And, of course, to be reminded of Mom.
Regina Stoops is an award winning storyteller, writer, comedian, MS Warrior and Autism Mom living with her wife and three kids in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also co-producer for Six Feet Apart Productions, an online storytelling platform producing monthly shows of both traditional and personal stories.