Easter iii

Easter Tuesday morning, I began this letter to my old inspiration and professor; Sister Patricia Robinson . . .

Dear Sister Pat,
When I heard about Sister Catherine I thought of sending a card. But, no. Sending a card is what you do for the old woman in church you don’t really know who loses a husband you don’t really care about. A card wouldn’t do. An e-mail was completely tacky. So I thought, only a letter would be fitting.
I hope this letter finds you well. Aside from that I’m not going to go into any trite platitudes about the beauty of going home to God. It is beautiful, I’m sure. And I know it’s good when pain and suffering end. But death is still sad. Living without someone is still living without.
I’m on my way to study, and if this letter isn’t finished before I have to go, then I’ll wrap it up later today. There’s so much I have to tell you I don’t know how it can be finished before I have to go.
Firstly: you were right when you said that things would work themselves out and I would find my place in the end. Not that this is the end: I hope not. But if we are willing to be surprised then God will always take us where he needs us, and to what we need.
Last year was less than stellar, and I’ll leave it at that. Right now I’m reading Unveiled a new book about nuns. I thought I was through reading about Catholic religious life, but no. Right now I’m reading, once again, about the indomitable Margaret Traxler, and though I respect her decisions, I cannot make them. My time is a different one. She chose to stay on in a church that she felt was opposed to her, to keep a distance from priests, bishops, the Vatican, Mass and everything, but call herself Catholic.
I chose to become an Anglican.
The half bitter rationalism of some ultra-liberal Catholics is, to me, even more unbearable than the lack of imagination or reality displayed in conservatives. You have heard variations of it: I do not believe in Rome, the Vatican or the priesthood. I do not attend Mass but I AM Catholic. I do not like other Catholics. But I am still Catholic. The office I write in is my church. The soup kitchen I work in is Mass. Ah, but an office is an office. A soup kitchen is a soup kitchen. Bitterness is bitterness. Church is church and the Mass is the Mass. I had no time be bitter or half hearted. And, what was more, out of all the places I was actually able to be of assistance or offer ministry not a one of them was Roman Catholic. The door to anything remotely Roman was shut to me. When I heard Gene Robinson’s ordination had the green light, it was like a green light for me. And I joined an Anglican parish.
It is Roman Catholicism without Rome. With a minimum of red tape and a dependence on male domination justified by “tradition”. It is like being Roman, but being free to do the work as a writer I need to do. There is not a thing I have written or an opinion I have spouted in the last few years that would ever receive a nihil obstat, and that’s the God’s honest truth. I remember there is this rumpled, distracted woman at Saint James. Well, one day, we were waiting for the priest to begin Mass. And out she came. And I just sat there sort of laughing to myself. Everyone else took it for a given. I looked at it like a miracle. It was one of the realest Masses I’d ever been too. And not because she was an especially good priest. The truth is we have two ordained women and they are both slightly flaky. But they want to serve God and nothing bars them from doing it. Nothing stops them from being who they are. Everyone is includes, so the Mass is still miraculous. No, not miraculous. The Mass is real. It’s what it’s supposed to be.
It gets better. Yes. I finished up a novel. And then some no name publishing company took it. Only it was my first book so I didn’t care that the company was no name. But then they decided to drop the book. That same day Notre Dame dropped me. And then the following day I received news from IU South Bend that there was nothing to bar me from earning the Masters I needed there. There I will probably have to teach and teach students who need someone. Not just the well heeled and fortunate who—I’m sorry—I have very little sympathy for. And that same day I found Whitmore Press, which actually probably will take the book, and not tear it up the way the first company was going to do. And Whitmore actually has a history of publishing books I’ve heard of. This first company was four years old and the only book that sounded remotely interesting was called: The Frightening Tales of Mommy. Or some bull like that.
Well, it is almost time to wrap this up. The letter is getting long I see. But I have to tell everything. In church, on Friday, God seemed to be telling me to go to the Catholic church after I’d finished up at Saint James. He wanted to show me something. Besides, I needed to kiss a cross, probably. It took me awhile to realize what I was being shown (aside from several reasons I left). But I’m not totally stupid. God was calling me out. I think I was tempted to take the easy way. Say, I am about inclusion. We are all God’s people. And then turn my back on the very people I had been born into. I would have gone into stupidity and bitterness and sworn off ever having been Catholic. But no, these people are God’s people. Not because they are Christian. Certainly not because they are Catholic. But because they are breathing and human and we are all God’s people. So many of these people in this church have been dreadful to me and to each other. I know so many of their secrets. So many of them want to be helped and loved. Deep inside they want to help and be able to love. But they don’t know how to do it. I would not make so bold as to say that I can show them. That’s vain. I do not know how to make peace, but what God needs from me now is the desire to make peace. The willingness to stand, if somewhat less frequently than before, beside the people I come out of. So I still do. Some comment, “We do not see you anymore. You come here so seldom.” Some even say, “We miss you.” How to explain I can’t return that sentiment?
To end where I started: I picked up the book Unveiled. Suckered again. Men my age like to go on about the right woman and marriage and sex and it turns me off and makes me shake my head. I’m getting to the age where some marry. Nothing makes me less sympathetic than seeing other guys my age go on about their wife and their newborn. To them this is the whole world. They cannot understand I feel the same way about my friends, or about the whole world. They don’t understand I think the same way about the habit and the calling of a friar. My vows to my community expired at the end of March. I did not renew them because I was leading it. I was tired of leading and no one else seemed willing to do anything. Almost the next day I stumbled upon the Order of Saint Andrew. Oh, no, I thought. No, I won’t do this again. I will read on and see what is wrong with it. An Anglican order. It requires my time in cloister twice a year. There is a full habit. Though, knowing Anglicans, no one would wear it outside of the monastery. Thank God. There are men, women, married and unmarried and none are counted as more important than the other. The rest of the year we are out in the world doing what God has required of us, our daily work. For who knows your vocation like you?…. So far I see no reason not to apply.

Yours,
Chris