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Grace Does Not Depend on Us

by Kelly Dolin in Faith on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 5:48 PM

Here’s a question recently posed by a visiting priest: Which two sacraments can be received again and again and again? The answer, of course, is the Eucharist and confession. The anointing of the sick and Holy Matrimony can be received more than once, but not over and over and over again.

I just loved Betty Duffy’s piece about confession. I love the sacrament of confession. So many people find it intimidating or see it as a liturgical rap on the knuckles, but, gosh, it’s just pure grace. That being said, I totally understand Betty’s thoughts on long lines and frustration. Let me tell you, I’ve had a desire to confess what Betty dubbed “a booger of a sin” somewhere in suburban Melbourne (Australia, that is, not Florida).

Betty’s post made me flash back to a trip to Lourdes about seventeen years ago. So many people have deep spiritual awakenings on pilgrimages. I, as a rule, do not. Lourdes is a fascinating city. For a place teeming with visitors, it’s supernaturally quiet. It’s a place of prayer.

On my last afternoon there, I sat in a chapel and prepared for the sacrament of reconciliation. I recall there being four of five confessionals in an oddly shaped chapel. Each confessional had a sign listing the languages understood by the priest. There was no rhyme or reason as to how one got out of a pew and into the confessional.

I waited a l-o-n-g time for confession. One person after another cut in front of me and trotted into the confessional with the English speaking priest. As this went on and on, I gradually progressed from slightly put out to just plain livid.

Jockeying for position in the confessional line, you pious pilgrim, you! My list of sins is growing faster than the line! Thanks ever so much!

I eventually made it in, and shared an ironic laugh with a kind and oh-so-patient priest.

Holiness Is Not a Pose

My family attended a parish mission a few weeks back. The visiting priest left me with a dozen gems to ponder and chew on. Holiness is not a pose, he shared, folding his hands just so, donning a beatific facial expression and gazing off into space. You could almost hear the organ hit a reverent chord. The mother with nine kids shouldn’t spend her days like this, he assured us. Her nine kids aren’t gathered around her striking a similar pose.

The mission was inspiring, so inspiring our thirteen-year-old asked to keep going back. It was back-to-the-basics Catholicism – loving God, frequenting the sacraments, growing in virtue, forming the conscience.

Prompted by the priest’s wise words, I rounded up the three youngest children and headed for confession. The line wasn’t too long, but it was moving s-l-o-w-l-y. I sank into the pew and immediately noticed that pew was the word – baby Ainsley needed a new diaper and fast.

I left four-year-old John and nine-year-old Kolbe and ducked into the narthex to take care of her. Five minutes later I returned with a much sweeter-smelling baby and found that my middle children had nearly pummeled each other during my brief absence.

What the rest of the fine folks in line thought of this, I can’t say. I’ve clocked a fair amount of time waiting in confession lines with bored children or a cranky baby. You encounter a wide assortment of people. I’ve had more than one generous man offer to let me take cuts and more than one thoughtful mother offer to hold a baby or supervise a toddler so I could receive the sacrament uninterrupted. Sadly, I’ve also encountered a Church Lady or two with little tolerance for children, at least children who may have a pesky tendency to be both seen and heard.

Playing it safe, I avoided all eye contact.

The line continued to move at a snail’s pace. Clearly, this priest was spending quite a while with each person. I was up next. The little ones were getting restless. I can do this; it’s worth the wait, I told myself. Kolbe had just gone over to a different priest when my turn came. What to do with the little people? I told John to sit in the pew, and I brought Ainsley into the confessional.

Grace Does Not Depend On Us

My experience was ... odd. And hurried. Almost abrupt. The priest who had spent fifteen or twenty minutes with each person couldn’t get me out of there fast enough, or so it seemed to me. I asked for his opinion on something. His answer seemed superficial.

I left confused. Was he miffed I had brought the baby into the confessional? Had he heard the kerfuffle between my boys? I ran through a variety of thoughts he might have had. Maybe he had suddenly looked at his watch and realized he was running late?

And then I made a conscious decision to dwell on the words he had actually spoken: I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The truth is that I have no idea why he seemed rushed.

The truth is that these sacraments confer God’s grace. That grace is present if the priest is thoughtful and compassionate and insightful; it’s present if he’s annoyed or rushed or distracted. It’s present if we’re annoyed or rushed or distracted. Our faith is in God, not in a seamless liturgy, as uplifting as it might be. It’s not in the priest, as holy as he might be. It’s not in our own demeanor or comportment of even preparedness, as important as these are.

Grace is not dependent on a one of them. As the visiting priest shared, Holiness is not a pose. Not for the laity, not for the priest.

My brother-in-law is a practicing Jew who attends Catholic Mass from time to time. Occasionally he complains about lackluster homilies. Check out the Baptist Church, I once told him. The center of their service is the sermon. The center of the Catholic Mass is the Eucharist. I understand my brother-in-law’s point. I love an inspiring homily. As I enter our church, I glance to see which priest is celebrating the Mass. We’ve had many gifted homilists. We’ve had a few who could lull you to sleep no matter how well-caffeinated you were upon arrival.

But we are a sacramental church. The focus of the Mass is the elevation of the Eucharist and the words of the priest acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ: This is my body; this is my blood.

It’s not a pose.

—Kelly Dolin blogs at In the Sheepfold.

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