As someone who has always held things pretty tightly—out of a need to plan and control what happens in life—I am learning a lot by letting go of many of those things. As this blog develops, I will be writing about my experiences with letting go. I hope it offers some insight and starts good conversations Here’s a post about something I’ve been letting go of recently: overthinking.
My sister-in-law and I go for a three-mile walk every Sunday at the local Penn State campus. Back in August as we were working our way around the track, she told me about a church up on the mountain that had been offering the Catholic mass in Latin. She asked me if I would be interested in going, and I said yes.
Some background: I was raised as a Roman Catholic. When my first marriage ended in divorce and I re-married in a civil ceremony, that was the end of the road for me in the Catholic Church. After a long period of spiritual exploration, I was received into the Episcopal Church in 2018.
I said yes to Chris’ invitation because I’ve always been interested in how people worship God. It also helped that the mass was at 11am, allowing me time to get my mother’s morning needs taken care of.
Chris picked me up for the 45-minute trip to Queen of Peace, which turned out to be a beautiful church in the small town of Patton, Pennsylvania that was quite clearly well and faithfully maintained.
This images of the church interior don’t do the church or the parishioners justice. Over 100 people attended this low mass on a hot Sunday in August. I was amazed at how full the church was with large families, young women wearing chapel veils, denim jackets and Penn State shirts, and men who folded their hands in prayer with the reverence of new communicants.
Five altar servers who were completely spit and polish worked alongside the priest, a Benedictine monk who obviously put his heart and soul into reviving and celebrating a mass that is some 1700 years old. I was struck by the precision with which the servers bowed down to the floor before the altar and said the long prayers in Latin. Father Ananias gave a homily that resonated with me, which I hadn’t expected. He seemed at once of this world and not of it at all.
I used my mom’s Latin missal to follow along, a gift her mother had given her in 1951.
I got lost and confused throughout the mass, but kept finding my way back, thanks to the words themselves that are the root of every language I ever studied. Every one of those words was exactly as it appeared in Mom’s pre-Vatican II missal. This mass was more than an elaborate prayer. It was a chance to live history.
On the way out, my mind was in such turmoil. I didn’t know if I loved it or hated it. It was at once beautiful and disturbing.
What was I doing at a service where no women served—something that always bothered me about Catholicism when I was a teenager. What about the pall of the sexual abuse horror that still hangs over the Catholic Church? What was I doing in a Catholic Church in the first place? I’m an Episcopalian. Why was I doing this? I’m not getting my first marriage annulled.
Then a voice inside me said simply, “Let it go.” And I did.
I let go of the questions, the need to know the end game, the mental roadmap, everything. I believe that voice was God telling me to stop overthinking this experience…and just be in it.
A few weeks later, Father Ananias talked about why so many people attend Latin mass at a time when the Catholic Church is changing to a more progressive entity. He said that some “find solace in an ancient rite.” I think that’s me right now. And I think that’s enough.
I don’t receive communion at this church because I am so not “a Catholic in the State of Grace."
There was once a time when that term used to make me feel like a leper. Now it doesn’t. I’m letting go of that term and just being open to this experience.
It doesn’t mean I’m going to seek an annulment of a marriage that took place 35 years ago. It doesn’t mean I have walked away from the Episcopal church that welcomed me and allowed me to unfold spiritually and grow. It is just something I am called to do now, and I am not burdening it or myself with overthinking. I am just going up the mountain and being.
In the end, what matters is your relationship with God. I’m talking to God in Latin on Sundays right now, and that’s okay.
A Postscript Story
Two weeks after that first Latin mass, my cousin Mike came into my brother’s butcher shop. He had with him an old pamphlet from the Holy Childhood Association. Inside it were my mother’s maiden name and a little cross made of palm.
Mike and his family live in Patton, Pennsylvania. His wife, Pauline, had been cleaning up the pews after mass and found this little pamphlet. When she looked inside and saw my mother’s name (which is her married name as well), she gave it to Mike so it could get back to my mom.
The pamphlet had fallen out of the missal I was using at that first mass. Anyone could have picked it up and thrown it out. But it was our cousin who found it, opened it, and was called to return it.
My brother, Chris and I all knew that this find was laden with meaning. But what? We didn’t spend much time overthinking it. Somehow we just knew we were being called to go back to the church on the mountain and say the ancient prayers. And so we do.
Comments