About ten years ago, during Advent, our parish held a 3 day retreat.  I received a phone call at dinnertime (never answer the phone during dinner) and it was Father John, asking me if I wouldn’t mind sharing with the community my thoughts on the next day’s theme: Jesus as Light in our darkness.  Sure, why not?

Here’s what came out of it, and what I said on the pulpit the next night.  What is so special about this for me is that the following week a young mother came up to me at school, near tears, and told me how  I had touched her, that she had been feeling the same way, and thanking me profusely for sharing.  I was humbled by this and realized then that our trials in this world should not be hidden away as if they are shameful.  They should be shared so that others will know they are not alone, that there is hope, that there is light in the darkness.

Here is what I spoke:

My children teasingly call me a “church lady” – a reference to comedian Dana Carvey’s hilarious characterization of people like me.  Yes, I do involve myself in  many aspects of pairsh life.  I have brought my faith to our family dinner table.  I am very public about my faith.

But it was not always so.  I am a “cradle Catholic” – baptized before I can remember.  I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college.  That wonderful gift of faith foundation that my mom and dad gave me is only part of what made me a church lady today.  The rest of the story depended upon me opening myself up to God and, like Mary, saying “whatever.”

The Advent theme of Jesus being the light in our darkness has great meaning for me, because I know that I opened myself to conversion, to true faith in God, during my most difficult times. In high school, whenever a relationship went bad, when friends betrayed me, when I felt alone – I would find myself in the school chapel.  This, despite the fact that like most high school students, going to Mass with my parents seemed a fate worse than death.

Now I must explain that at my high school there was one building, but two schools – the girl’s side and the boy’s side.  I’ll let you figure out why, but I always went to the boy’s chapel.  Because I didn’t usually find many boys in the chapel, I was stuck telling my woes to the Man on the cross.  It was always so quiet in there, and the answers to my confusion seemed to settle over me so peacefully.  I left feeling better each and every time, ready to face “whatever.”

That habit of going into a quiet, empty church when trouble strikes has stayed with me.  In my younger years, it was great.  I got my prayers answered, and I didn’t have to embarrass myself by admitting to a secular world that I was a practicing Catholic.  It wasn’t until a period of deep, dark wilderness in my adult life that I experienced a conversion to practicing my faith in depth and in public, my heart fully open to God’s will.

I married Al and we moved to California on our honeymoon in 1982.  Although I was sad to leave my family in Illinois, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to raise babies without Mom down the street and my sister Jan around the corner.  In those early years, I because very unhappy in my life.  All this work of marriage and family was not what I had envisioned on my wedding day.

Now, I did not and do not have a bad life.  I am married to a great guy, I have three gorgeous, intelligent sons, a wonderful career waiting in the wings and a roof over my head in an enviable part of the world.  I knew the darkness I was experiencing was not warranted, yet I was tempted to walk away.  I talked to friends, I talked to my husband, I tried talking to God.  But even in my old standby, the empty church, I heard no answers.  The temptation and desire to leave seemed to have dug in its heels. 

In my adult life, away from the rules of my parent’s home, I had stopped going to Mass regularly.  Now I began to go to St. Mary’s in Walnut Creek, just to get out of the house and away from all my guilt and pain.  I was in such pain I couldn’t even pray anymore.  All I could do in church was cry.

My faith…was gone.

As I knelt there, broken and despairing, my head in my hands, I started to hear the OTHER people praying around me.  Week after week as I went and let other people do the praying for me, it dawned on me that I was not alone in the wilderness.  I can still remember the moment my faith was returned to me, all those people in that crowded church – they must have known I was sobbing.  I realized that I surely couldn’t be the only person in that church who had faced such trauma, but there they all stood, praying anyway.  I began to understand that my prayers would be answered, that this demon would pass me by, if I could just be patient and give God a minute.

Al must have sensed my peace whenever I came home from Mass, because he began to join me.  We would pack up our three rambunctious boys and go every Sunday.  Al and I found ourselves holding hands at Mass.  The healing began and with it a conversion – a knowledge that I would never take my faith for granted again. I learned that just because my prayers didn’t get answered via e-mail, didn’t mean they wouldn’t be answered.  I learned that my sin was not the experience of darkness, but in despairing that God would help me withstand it.

I now look to the troubles and temptations of life as moments to search for God’s meaning and love in my life.  Sometimes I still just don’t get what He’s up to, but I don’t care anymore.  With Jesus as my rock and faith as my shield, I try, with the courage of Mary, to say “bring it on!”

So now I’m a church lady.  I show up week after week not only to pray for myself, but for those whose faith is missing in action. 

I WILL warn anyone who’s thinking of becoming a church lady to beware – one minute you’re experiencing the joy of God’s love and forgiveness, the next you’ve agreed to make three hundred cupcakes for children’s liturgy.  Just remember when Father Kasper call at dinnertime, he’s not inviting you to dinner.  It’s best to have your kids say you’ll call him back later.

Thank you for allowing me to share my experiences with you and may God bless your faith journeys, as He continues to bless mine. 

— Well, that’s it.  Of course, if you’ve read recent blogs you know my weekly habit has been a bit “off” lately, but it is this kind of revelation that has me headed back to the fray again.  Last night at chorus rehearsal I asked a Lutheran minister how long he’d been pastor at his church, where we were rehearsing.   It was about ten years.  I joked that it was long enough to know who loved him and who didn’t – he laughed and said “oh that only takes about two weeks.”  Community.  Most of us can’t live with it, can’t live without it, whatever your preferred spiritual path!

Somehow today I found myself sitting at 11:30 a.m. Mass in my parish.  I have been rather hermetic for quite some time now in  that department.  I was just sitting in bed, doing my Sunday morning crossword puzzle, when it came over me that I wanted to go to Mass.  I texted my friend, Terri and asked what Mass she was going to and planned to meet up with her there.  It was only while I was getting ready to go that I remembered a dream I had last night.

In my dream, I was in a public place, like a farmer’s market or something, and crossed paths with John Kasper, OSFS, our pastor.  We greeted each other warmly and went on our way quickly, both of us with places to go, things to do.    John is from Ohio, and is the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet, but that’s not to say we haven’t butted heads on occasion.  Well, okay, it’s usually me doing the butting, but he’s no pushover.  I think it’s safe to say that we both love and respect each other greatly.   Unlike me, who liberally goes into monastic mode and eschews the community aspect of my religion for periods of time, John is committed to leading his parishioners as best he can, and with the various decrees from Rome dogging his heels.  He does it day after day, year after year, and I pray for him a lot.  I cannot be easy to be a Catholic priest these days.  He’s amazing, really.

I haven’t shown my face around the parish in a long time, but when I am involved I am involved, so people know my face.  I am a cantor, I do my share of the work at the parish carnival (including making a total fool of myself advertising the Oktoberfest as the Fraulein from Mundelein – I have retired her and want to do a spoof of Danke Schoen dressed as Wayne Newton but so far I have lost that particular head-butting session with John).   John accepts my retreats in stride now, and always greets me with his big smile when I show up again, as he did today. When I told him about my dream he laughed his huge laugh and said to Terri: “In my neck of the woods we call that a NIGHTMARE!”   

I didn’t get out of the Church after Mass without being dragged over to the new music minister who was told my voice is “like an angel’s.”  Many people greeted me and said how nice it is to see me.  I teased them that really should stop this trick I play – to stay away just long enough for people to miss me and make me feel like Saint Mary when I return. 

The reality is that I missed them, too.  Community is difficult for me.  I am a loner at heart.  I get easily irritated by the human faults of my fellow parishioners, and even more irritated when they don’t seem to be irritated by mine at all.  Today’s Gospel reading? The Prodigal Son.  I’m no prodigal, I keep my faith alive and kickin’ when I don’t attend Mass regularly (see Retreat), but it seemed serendipitous anyway.  The final hymn is a perennial favorite and was the first song I ever sang solo for a crowd: Amazing Grace.  Guess it was also right and true that I be dragged back to the music minister to shake his hand.  The last time I was away for a period of time, the first song that was scheduled when I returned as cantor was “How Can I Keep From Singing.”  The community got a kick out of that one when I pointed it out.

Don’t tell me the Holy Spirit is not alive and well in the Catholic Church. From where I stand in the little community of St. Perpetua, it’s still there, fooling around under the pews during Mass with the little ones, in the kitchen where the donuts are prepared for the kids after Mass, in the church hall where we participate in the Winter Nights program and house homeless people during the winter, protecting the old timers who still show up much more faithfully than I do.   This morning, the Holy Spirit called to me from my dreams, led me away from my crossword puzzle and back to the community that nourishes my faith so that I may take my occasional sabbaticals.  It is my turn again to return the favor in a way that may be uncomfortable to me at times.  Time to take the light out from under the bushel basket yet again.  See y’all next Sunday…