The third installment of my awkward summer moment series.
Before Esther came home for the summer, she told us that she wanted to become Catholic. This year she will be a college senior getting her philosophy degree from a catholic university. With Catholicism being a huge influence in her life, I suppose her decision isn’t surprising, but it was very difficult for Mike and me to accept. We grew up protestant and converted to Orthodoxy because we are convinced that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is what Christianity is meant to be. They stayed faithful to the traditions passed on through the ages in a way that was lost when the East and the West separated and when the many protestant denominations splintered from the West. I know many devout, faithful people in many denominations. We have fellowship even though we don’t go to church together, but I still wish for all my friends and family that they would find what I have found.
I especially want to be able to worship together with my children. It was hard to envision a future with Esther where we no longer take communion together. A future in which Esther’s children wouldn’t have their aunts and uncles as godparents. I don’t judge other people’s salvation, but when Esther has grown up in a church with the fullness of the faith, it is heartbreaking to see her leave it. We asked her to wait to become Catholic at least for the summer.
I wanted one last chance to talk to her face to face. As it turns out, I am poorly equipped to have a philosophical conversation with a student of philosophy. I hoped to find a way to remind her of the faith she grew up in. She came to church with me once during the summer to the midweek liturgy for the Feast of the Apostles. Every Sunday she attended mass with her boyfriend at various Catholic churches. I had nothing more to offer her. Instead of being the influence I hoped I would be, I allowed Esther the chance to show me how strong her convictions are. I am convinced that she sees beauty and truth in Catholicism.
At the beginning of summer, she and I went to boxing class together, but a few weeks in she decided to go to the Catholic church at six o’clock every morning for the service of Adoration. I wanted to be back from the gym before the younger kids were up for the day, so our schedules diverged. We both went to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and compared our workout experiences with each other later in the day. Her going to church so early and so often without the benefit of seeing her boyfriend impressed me. I began to consider going to the service myself some time to see what the attraction was.
One day Esther told me that she was going to meet her boyfriend at Adoration and go out to breakfast in downtown Fort Worth afterwards. She asked if I could drop her off so that they wouldn’t have the inconvenience of having two cars. I told her not only would I drive her, I would stay for the service.
On the way over there, when I asked Esther, “So what’s this service?”
She gave me an anecdote, “There was an old man who went to church every morning. When people asked him what he did, he told them, ‘I look at Him and He looks at me.’”
I pictured the priest in The Little World of Don Camillo who had long conversations with the Jesus on the massive wooden crucifix in his church.
It was still dark when we parked and walked around the stone building to the street entrance. I stepped into the dim interior and smelled aged wood.
A sign in the entry way said, “Jesus is present so dress modestly and silence cell phones.”
Another sign on the way in said that Jesus was present so be silent.
I believe that Jesus is everywhere present and would expect to find his presence in a church. I had no idea that the second sign meant something very specific.
I looked for the huge crucifix in the novel, but it wasn’t there. A bust of the Virgin Mary was at the top in the front looking down on the dim stained-glass windows. Angel statues stood on either side. Saint statues stood in alcoves all along the front of the church. There was a simple altar table covered with white cloth and a crucifix was set in its center. I didn’t feel like I was in heaven as I do when I enter an Orthodox church with the wall of icons and the smell of beeswax candles and incense, but it felt like a nice place to pray as would any church.
We walked up to the front. Esther kneeled and then entered a pew. I followed her. She pulled down the kneeler and went to her knees. There was only one other parishioner, a man in his thirties in business attire. He also was on his knees. My knees were still sore from kickboxing so it didn’t occur to me that I should join them. I sat down, brought out my prayer rope and began to pray. There were so many people to pray for, I lost track of time.
When John Ben arrived, I noticed that there was an old woman in front of us and a mother with her daughters in the pew to our left. I looked over at Esther at some point and saw tears in her eyes. I didn’t feel what she felt but could tell that she was experiencing something very real and profound.
It wasn’t until the end that I realized that I had missed the point of the whole service. A man in a white robe said a prayer from the far-right pew. He walked up to the altar and removed a wafer from the center of the silver cross, wrapped it up in a white, cloth napkin, and locked it away in a safe. That’s what we were supposed to be adoring. Everyone else rose from their knees. I had been the only one sitting in the presence of God.
In the Orthodox Church, we also have sanctified gifts in the tabernacle on the altar. That is why we stop and bow when we walk past. During services, when I encounter the body and blood of Christ, it is in the context of preparing to consume it. We don’t have a service when it is set out for adoration. I had never before been in such a service and it had never occurred to me that the cross was anything but a cross.
I apologized to Esther and John Ben later for my lack of respect. Considering that my knees were hurting and that I had never considered what I might do in those circumstances, I was glad that I could plead my ignorance. I felt better once I got the feeling that they appreciated my joining them and hadn’t thought anything of whether or not I knelt.
The sun had risen while we were in the service, Esther adoring the body of Christ and I praying for everyone who weighed heavy on my heart that morning. The massive crucifix that I had looked for from the beginning appeared in the now illuminated stained-glass window. The once dim church now brightened by the morning sun was beautiful.
Esther recently asked me for her baptismal certificate and pictures of her baptism. I assume as proof of her baptism before confirmation into the Catholic church. I keep waiting for the call that will tell me that it is done.
People tell me, “At least Esther still has faith.” She could have stopped going to church altogether as Sophia has done. As much as I want to tell my children that I have done the work to find the True Church so that they don’t have to spend their lives searching and tearing the bonds of church and family ties as I did, they have their own faith journey.
I used to think that I would grow up and that I would come back home and sit around the living room with my sisters singing praise songs. Then I went from church to church so much that sometimes I’m still confused with an occasional Baptist Amen flying from my mouth. When I found the Eastern Orthodox Church and started my own family, I once again thought that in the future I would gather with my family and sing hymns and pray together. It’s more of a prayer than a certainty anymore. Lord have mercy on my grandchildren.
My adult children are off discovering the world and figuring out everything for themselves. It’s so hard to see my children leave behind the good plans which I had laid for them. My plans. Not theirs. Not God’s. Motherhood continues to be a continuous dying to self.
My housekeeper Maria has offered to lend me her copy of Catholicism for Dummies to help me be better prepared for future catholic services and conversations. For the sake of not making yet another faux pau, I just may take her up on it.
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