“Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures…hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility which inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation.”
Andrew Greeley
I love that quote. I found it on Amazon.com, when I was ordering The Catholic Imagination by Andrew Greeley, a book recommended by a spiritual “guide” of mine who always seems to be reading my mind.
I’ve been trying so hard to explain to friends and other curious onlookers, sanely, a side of Catholicism that scares some people. I used to call it the “voodoo” side. The world of “reminders,” of statues, incense, candles and holy water.
It’s the side that turns to St. Anthony or St. Dismas when something is lost. Or to St. Expedite for financial assistance, or says Mother, or now Saint Teresa’s “express novena” nine times in a row when all seems lost.
This is not how I was raised, mind you. My Baptist mother’s God was distant and a little bit dangerous.
If we were very, very good, we would see Him in Heaven. If I did something bad, He would “smite” me. Or something. I never quite understood what that meant. But in my child’s mind, I saw Him shooting lightning bolts at people, like the angry aliens in sci-fi movies.
Even before my conversion, that changed drastically. That’s what made my conversion so easy. Jesus had been hovering over me, to paraphrase St. Teresa of Avila, for decades. I was still “spiritual, not religious,” when asked. But I knew Who was driving.
Now, after baptism, I call Him by name. There are altars everywhere. There’s holy water in a stainless flask in my purse, a turquoise rosary slung over the rear view mirror of my car.
I’ve bought two of the most gorgeous rosaries I’ve ever seen, handcrafted from beautiful Biblically significant stones by a woman in Oklahoma, and slung them over the open doors of the armoire in which my desktop computer is housed.
In doubt, fear, sadness and daily prayer, I reach for the Pardon Crucifix at the end of one or the other as if it were Jesus’ hand. Or press one to my heart, when meditating.
My pulse slows, my blood pressure lowers. I’m in the presence of my Beloved. All’s right with the world.
I feel so odd when I try to describe this. I can see friends recoiling, as I try. Yes, it sounds like…okay, magic, for lack of a better word.
And there is an element of magic in it. A feeling that almost anything can happen, any time, now. A feeling I haven’t had since childhood and did not have, even in childhood, about God.
Perhaps that is why Jesus advises us to “become like children” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. One has to suspend disbelief entirely, to surrender to the mystery and just let it work. And as adults, most of us have a hard time believing this knowing what we know. Seeing what we see.
And the stock “You have to see it to believe it” response we offer, when asked why we believe it, rankles.
“I knew you were going to say that!” they snap. And I understand. I feel ridiculous when I say it.
But it is the only answer that fits. Until you have seen it, you cannot enter the enchanted world in which we live so comfortably. And until you’ve been there, you cannot understand why we love living there so much.
We’re “crazy,” by most standards. We hear voices. We see visions. Carolyn Myss once told Oprah that God was “law,” and a miracle is when God bends that law for you.
In my world, miracles abound. Jesus and I “talk” all the time. He’s an amazingly attentive and supportive if sometimes rather mischievous male friend with whom I am completely besotted.
Greeley, quoting Richard Wilbur, perfectly describes Him as “The Cheshire smile which sets us fearfully free.” I know that smile. I adore that smile. In fact, Greeley also posits that Catholics uneasily equate love of God with “the passionate love between man and woman.” So do I.
And it’s not unrequited. Jesus does the heavy lifting in my life—the Superman stuff. After he’s stood back and let me wrestle awhile on my own, of course.
My father used to do that. So I recognized at once the wisdom behind that approach. It is as if Jesus knew I would respond more readily out of love for both “fathers.” That’s how He rolls.
Mary, who showed up very recently to my surprise–some of you may remember I wasn’t so sure about her–is Mom. And she apparently wants to handle matters of the heart. To be that woman friend I can sigh to, when an emotional crisis arises.
I discovered this via a split second “How do you like me now?” moment that stole my breath. I had decided to appeal to her honestly, admitting my doubts, but asking her to forgive me for them. She not only forgave me, she also deftly fixed the problem like a plumber working on a leaky faucet. A couple of “twists,” a little test run–problem solved.
How do I know this for sure? Couldn’t it be coincidence? Or the product of small, imperceptible steps I might have made without being consciously aware that they would eventually solve the problem?
Of course. But I don’t think so. Because the solutions are too stunning, too unexpected and more “comprehensive” than anything a mere mortal would have done or “stumbled upon.”
Divine “interventions” defy not only explanation but expectation. You get ‘way more than you asked for. And answers to questions you didn’t ask. Effortlessly, I might add, just to show you the difference between things you can do and things only God can do.
Similarly, I’ve now realized that the Bible bests Freud and Jung et al. Those “stories” I read as a child are not fairy tales. In them, people do what we do, face what we face and give us specific, sometimes seemingly scientific or psychological solutions to real world problems.
That “Jonah and the whale” story that you found so silly even as a kid? Read it again, as an adult. Jonah’s pettiness, jealousy and childishness may sound or even feel familiar.
He prays like mad when he’s swallowed up by that whale, for sure. But once he’s delivered, he’s back to his old self in no time. In fact, the story ends with Jonah still as pig headed and blind as ever, “angry enough to die” because God hasn’t done what he thought He should.
I kept turning pages, waiting for a nice happy ending. Never happens. Which is, for most of us, how the story goes, right?
In my Catholic world, these aren’t “stories.” They’re ink blot tests: “What do you see? And what does that mean?” The blots and their meanings change according to what we’re up to—Greeley says we “emphasize the metaphorical,” and he’s right.
To many of us, everything is God. All day long, in our enchanted world, God smiles that Cheshire smile, and says, “Watch this.”
Talk about “close encounters,” we live them, 24/7. Crazy like foxes.
Photo credit: http://www.cinco-japon.com/?pid=3870756
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