What does it mean when the readability says “Good” and I count only fifteen words? Worse, I don’t know where the next words will come from? It means I’ve fallen off the writing wagon, where writing is about voyaging into the interior, while reporting the exterior.
This piece might be called a tale of two masses, meaning both that marriage celebrated between Heaven and Earth on Sunday and on this past Thursday, and of two clumps of cells biopsied.
Where am I today? Forgetful? Scared? Tired? Nope. Mostly irritated. Not by anyone or anything, but also by everything and everyone. Cancer rage is real. Knowing it exists does not make it go away, but it does make one culpable for one’s actions/reactions to life.
I spend a lot of time beating down the tempation to snap not because anyone deserves it, but because as a friend who is a cancer suvivor told me, you go through all the stages of grief and they aren’t static or merely a process, they’re ongoing and always present, like the cancer. Does it mean I was fake before? No. It means I wasn’t struck with cancer or grief over it before. Going to mass helps, even if both times, I felt like I was anywhere but present. It means I’m wrestling with all of life other than God, and sometimes the all of it pins me.
Fortunately, my children don’t let me stay still too long. Today the youngest wanted to make eggs for herself, but wanted supervision. Paul needed clothes to get dressed, and they wanted me to kill a fly. I’m known for being the Annie Oakley with a swatter. A fresh load of laundry and pile of dishes lay waiting for me even though we’d ordered out the night before. (Not sure how that happened but life demanded I get up and get going).
Last Sunday, the priest gave a homily trying to get at the justice of God, of a merciful loving God allowing for suffering. He used the example of cancer and I could hear two of my children’s minds and hearts shutting down because for them, this wasn’t a theoretical question. Why would God allow this in their lives? What possible good could come from letting someone they love suffer? Saying, “It’s a mystery” doesn’t satisfy. Saying God works through all things, even hardships and sufferings is harder still. Answers like “every moment is allowed for the glory of God” dizzies the soul. I didn’t quite have an answer anymore than the priest did.
Thursday night, we celebrated our eighth grader’s graduation from our parish school. This week, the readings come from the Book of Tobit, and we had that passage for our marriage sacrament, “Not for lust but for a noble purpose.” and the answer lay in that reading, in the memory of and ongoing nature of the sacrament itself. We weren’t created, any of us, for anything other than a noble purpose.
The sacrament of marriage is a choice one makes, to be knit to another forever. It is a freely given will to promise the unknown of forever to a person today going forward, and trust that God wills and will work great good through the sacrifice and minutia of all the time given in advance of doing. So why allow a created beloved creature to suffer? The answer came down to, if I trusted God is all good, then this too, no matter how hard, could bring about great good. How wasn’t mine to know, only to know God could and would will good out of this.
Sitting in the pew, chewing on the readings, on the prior mass, on the need for a second biopsy, on the cancer we know and what we do not know, I know my distraction is a reflection of my own worry and weariness with the news, the desire to get on with dealing with it, the fear of all I will have to weather, and how bad is it? What I return to, is what a gift free will must be, that it must be allowed always. I can know God wills a great good out of all and for all, and yet it is hard to come to the table at times.
Christ wants us all to come to the feast, but He does not insist. Christ does not want us to sin, but He offers His body and blood to His denier, His doubter, His betrayer, and all who ran away or went away sad, again and again. Having the free will to love is a constant, to which the truest and best response is a constant refrain freely given of love back. Writing brings me back to the reality of the interior life deeper than any cancer might penetrate.
The vows at a wedding, for better or for worse, love is to remain, faithful, life affirming, constant, in sickness and in health, are a promise that irrespective of the season of one’s life, until death do us part, are how we are to respond to and reflect God’s love to the world. Love is always always. Revealing itself most when one would be most tempted to betray, deny, doubt, run or fade, the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord reveals that love is bigger than suffering, bigger than death, bigger than all that irks. Death is not the insurmountable obstacle to love our fallen nature thinks. The ressurection and promise of our own reveals this bigger reality. It comes down to trust…do we believe like Saint Martha, that Christ is the ressurection? If so, we will see our brothers come from the tomb. The masses in my breast seem very small compared to the mass being offered the heart.
As the final song concludes, it strikes me as amazing, that I can be so distracted, and equally astonishing, that God still invites this distracted guest every time. He’s presenting yet another opportunity to exercise free will well, and revealing with each invitation, how much He loves even my distracted flawed company. He’s hoping this time, I will choose the better portion, for if I do, I will not be denied.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In