Okay, get this, you have got to hear this. You have got to hear this one. A Dominican priest walks on to a college campus and is mistaken for… oh, you’ve heard that one? Never mind.
How about this one? A Franciscan TOR from the local university and a Byzantine Catholic priest from the church across the river walk into a Chinese restaurant. The host says “Is there a Star Wars convention in town?” Yes, that really happened.
This one is my personal favorite, though, and it involves a Dominican. Back where I come from at Saint Patrick Church, the good priests hear confessions before and after every Mass. Just before Sunday Mass, the confessional opens and out walks a smiling and extremely youthful rosy-cheeked gentleman in a long white robe. Never mind that this is not a one-piece alb but a white robe with a scapular down the front. Never mind that he’s got a big honking Rosary wound a million times around his waist, jangling with every step. Never mind that we know the Province sent another priest to be an additional associate pastor and we’re all waiting to meet him. You know what happened next? You’ll never in a million years guess what happened next, unless you’ve been a parishioner at a very old Irish Catholic church staffed by Dominican friars. Then you know immediately. A couple of the impossibly ancient mantilla-clad ladies- you know, the ones who are stationed 24 hours a day in Irish Catholic churches, praying the Rosary aloud at breakneck speed and making it impossible to concentrate on saying your own penance after confession? The ones who never seem to arrive and never seem to leave, so you honestly wonder if they’re some kind of modern-day anchorite? A couple of them actually left their pews, left the sanctuary, left the actual church to go over to the rectory and find the pastor. They were horrified, you see. They warned him that there was an altar boy hearing confessions.
I presume that some of the noble anchorites actually went back into the church for Mass later that day, where they saw the “altar boy” in a priestly vestment processing in with several actual altar boys in attendance. It turned out that this was our new associate pastor, straight out of seminary, Father Jordan. In defense of the anchorites, the man did look about fourteen years old, and he still does. I still think the scapular and Rosary should have been a clue, though.
What’s to be done about all of this? We have to do something, don’t we? We’re always doing something. Well, perhaps we should return to a more traditional habit, whatever that means. Some people are vehement about a return to a more traditional habit, after all, even if they have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s a fun idea. I think it would be nifty if Dominican friars always wore their striking, thick black capes with their white robe, Rosary and scapular. I think they should wear them all the time, even in the armpit of summer when the air conditioning conks out and all the parishioners show up to the Noon Mass in shorts and tanks for their own safety. I think that Franciscans should go back to an authentic tattered and filthy Medieval beggar’s robe with live woodland creatures crawling all over it, just like their Seraphic father. Marians of the Immaculate Conception should go back to wearing white robes, though maybe they should embroider “I am not an altar boy” on the front and back just in case. Carmelites should do what they’ve always done and stay home; or, if they must leave the monastery, they should carry a caramel apple.
Honestly, though, when all trappings are stripped away; when the mantilla-clad anchorites go home and the church is dark; when you’ve finished praying Compline and gotten into your pajamas, isn’t it good to worship a God who sees the heart? When a blogger laughs at your mistake even though you were only trying to warn the pastor of a sacrilege, isn’t it nice to go back into the church and pray to a God who sees the heart? When people misunderstand who you’re supposed to be and do what you never intended; when they mistake you for a KKK member or the god Jupiter, can’t you let it rest knowing that God sees the heart? When the unbelievers insult you and persecute you and spit on your habit, when they strip your habit away? When you die naked in a cell block, because you gave your life for another man? When your own church despises you and locks you in a closet for nine months, and God turns the dark night into a journey of faith; when you’re called before the Inquisition; when your writings are put on “the list;” when you’re burnt at the stake by one group of Catholics only to be canonized centuries later, isn’t it good to worship a God who sees the heart?
In the end, when all appearance is brushed aside and only the heart remains, your heart will bear a mark, the mark of the cause to which you gave your whole life. Every heart will bear one; your choice is only Whose mark it will be, and that is the one thing you can control. God sees the mark clearly, and in a very real way nothing else matters. Though, in the meantime, it’s good to laugh at ourselves. The heart needs that as well.
(image via pixabay)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In