We chose to purchase a home in the little town we live in
because of its history, its charm and that “small town feel”. We have farmers markets, an annual city
celebration with a parade led by the high school marching band, summer concerts
in the park and a main street with a barber shop where the men sit outside and
smoke tobacco pipes.
On a warm summer afternoon we walked back to our car after
our city celebration on Main Street. I smugly commented on the boring nature of
our town and how grateful I was that it’s so
safe.
The next morning we were in full Holmes Family fashion, late
as usual to mass. We struggled to find a
parking spot and then raced across the street.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed two police cars parked in the
middle of the road. They were parked side
by side, each facing opposite directions as if both officers had simply stopped
to chat with one another….you know, right in the middle of the street, because
it’s Sunday in our town, and nothing
interesting ever happens here.
I shook my head and smiled and ran into the church. I plopped down and went through the motions
of mass.
This is where I’m going to stop for a moment to
explain. Yes, I just said, “went through
the motions”. A few years earlier my
husband and I stopped going to mass for a period of time. We had been struggling with our faith and little
by little, a few small choices eventually led to not going to church all
together.
It was a tumultuous time in all aspects of our life and we
just couldn’t seem to find our way. Job
loss, job change, moving to a new place with no real connections and watching
the life we had so carefully planned crumble.
It was the perfect storm for a spiritual crisis. We weren't angry at God and never stopped believing in Him but we strayed into
complacency. The foundation we built our lives upon was not built upon God as much we pretended it was.
Finally, when we had enough of wandering in our proverbial
desert, we knew it was time to return.
And I can’t speak for my husband, but I can say that I arrived with some
baggage. I carried with me hesitation
and doubt and a good dose of egotism but somehow I returned week after week.
A few years later God blessed us with a son. The difficult pregnancy and delivery showed
us without a doubt that we were never in control. And in
all of the trials I knew God was with me.
And yet my heart, as I sat there in that pew, was still hardened.
I never understood what St. Paul meant when he said, “If
today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” I always thought if God called you, you
would naturally come running. But that’s
not the way it is sometimes.
God speaks
truth and truth is light to the dark corners of our life, the ones we sometimes aren't willing to examine.
We turn away because “we know better than the teachings of the church,”, or we think “I'm really a good person so why do I have
to do those things?” or “those
teachings are archaic and don’t apply today.”
The litany of my excuses went on and on. Going to mass felt like an activity I needed
to check off my list, yet I was longing for more but didn’t know how to find it.
And that’s what I carried in my heart that summer day.
After mass I overheard some old ladies behind me saying
things like, “He was carrying a back pack.
Who knows what was in there?” And
the other woman piped up, “Did you see how he was dressed? His face was covered. That was really strange.”
I thought two things: first, they must have been talking
about something that happened in the news and second, they sounded so
prejudiced.
Just because someone is dressed differently, don’t automatically assume
there’s something wrong with them Church Lady.
And so I smugly walked away.
Chatting with our friends after mass I discovered just moments
before our family rushed into church and sat down, a man covered from head to
toe with only his eyes showing, carrying a rather large black backpack walked
into our church. He entered through the
side door closest to the altar, marched down the center aisle and planted himself
in a pew. Everything about him, from all
accounts, was menacing to say the least.
In the time since then, I’ve learned just how welcoming, unassuming and
decent the people at our parish are.
They’re the kind of people who take to heart the idea that Jesus shows
up in the faces of the poor and outcast.
However, it was very clear that this man was not here
to worship. He was eventually asked by
an usher to leave. I’m not sure how long this took or how this went down
exactly but it was enough to warrant calling the police. This man was sitting in the church when we, in our blissful ignorance, sat down in our
pew.
Our friends who arrived just minutes after we did were not
allowed into the church and had to wait outside until the man was removed from
the building.
Persecution of Christians reached historic levels that year (2014) and it continues to escalate today. At the back of my mind were recent events of
Christians all around the world dying because of their religious practices and
beliefs.
What was this man’s intent? Was he just drunk and belligerent or did he
choose to enter a Catholic Church for a sinister reason? I couldn’t help but wonder if I were in the
shoes of any of the Christian martyrs dying around the world if I would be
willing to die for my beliefs. Was my
faith strong enough? Did I really know
what I believed in? And would I be
ready to stand judgment for the life I’ve led?
The answer was sadly, no.
I realized that I needed to make a choice. I could no longer
sit on the fence with my faith…I needed to take it seriously or not at
all.
I could hear God asking
What do you really believe, Maria? Are you ready to follow me or do you
want to continue sitting on the sidelines?
I will never know why that man chose to walk into our church
that Sunday. But I do know that the day
a possibly drunk man, with poor fashion choice and a bad attitude walked into
our church was the day everything in my spiritual life changed. That might sound silly but God works through the oddest situations to break open the hardest of hearts. He shows us what we need to see when we need
to see it.
In what unexpected ways has God spoken to you? Have you ever felt like you've been sitting "on the bench" with your faith? Are you still struggling with this now? If you've made the choice to get off the bench and "get in the game" how did you do it?
I'd love to hear from you.
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