Matins And A Bruised Reed

I can’t sleep.

That’s not unusual. I have bouts of insomnia throughout the year, and especially in the dark of January. Everything I do to mitigate it makes it worse, so I do nothing but wait for it to stop.

I can’t pray.

That’s the new usual. I used to practice my Ignatian meditations all night when it got like this. But ever since about 2021, I’ve been terrified that God can’t love me.

He certainly doesn’t care about where he left me.

I followed the rules until I broke, and now I can’t follow the rules anymore, and for all I know this was his plan all along– to abandon me in the dark until I broke, and then damn me for breaking.

Last year at about this time, I wasn’t even sure that God existed, but lately I am. I can’t explain the certainty, it just dawned on me more and more the longer I had mercy on myself and permitted myself to not believe. I really do believe. That’s not a merit of mine. Even demons believe, and shudder. There’s nothing special about believing.

I am faced again and again with what I’ve learned: that the Catholic Church’s theology is the closest articulation I can find of what I’ve come to know about God. That Catholic dogmas are beautiful and true. That some of her rules and regulations make no sense, but they evolve toward more sense over time. And that she is a heartless and decadent abusive institution which ruined my life and has done far worse to countless others. That I can’t learn morality from people who have none, so I have no idea what God wants. I can’t do what’s expected of me because I don’t know what that is.

Right now, I suppose, I ought to pray Matins and Lauds.

When I was a little girl and a lonely young adult, I wanted to be a nun. I wanted to be a nun so much that when Franciscan University held their Vocations Week I would hide in my dormitory and be too sad to go to daily Mass, because all the beautiful nuns and sisters made me want to cry. I wanted to be married to Jesus, but my string of chronic health conditions was too long to be a nun and no Catholic community ever waned me anyway. Nuns pray Matins and Lauds at this Godforsaken hour of the morning. If I was what I ought to be, I’d be praying Matins and Lauds. But I don’t remember how, I don’t know where the Breviary is, and I am afraid to start. Michael and Adrienne are asleep anyway; I’d have to whisper my song so only God can hear it. What if God doesn’t want to hear me singing?

After all, why would He want to hear me?

The whole world, the whole Church, and all of creation would be brighter if I didn’t exist. I’d probably like it better as well.

I wish there was an image I could meditate on. I used to be one of those people who prayed Ignatian meditations for an hour at a time with no trouble at all. I would meditate on the Passion of Christ and talk with Him. It came so naturally. Now everything triggers flashbacks. I don’t even want to think about the terrible things that I’ve learned. I wish there was a Bible verse I could think about without cringing and deciding it wasn’t meant for me. Anything. Even one verse.

A bruised reed He shall not break.

There’s a verse.

A bruised reed he shall not break.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.

There’s the meditation.

Then the soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a bruied reed in His right hand. And Jesus held onto the bruised reed for dear life and leaned on it because He was weak from the blood loss and couldn’t see for the gore dripping in His eyes. And the reed was so happy to be there in the right hand of Jesus, so overwhelmed with gratitude to be touching Jesus. But the reed was also afraid because no one else seemed to be doing what she was doing. All around her she saw the faithful of the Church of Rome kneeling before Jesus and saying “Hail” and she wondered if she ought to be doing that instead of being a bruised reed.

And then the faithful of Rome took the reed out of Jesus’s hand, and Jesus was too weak to hold on. The reed was so ashamed that Jesus had apparently ordered his faithful followers who had been kneeling and doing homage to yank her away from Him. And then they started hitting Jesus with the reed, and all the reed knew was that Jesus kept looming closer to her and then she felt pain and got another bruise, again and again another bruise, so it seemed to her as if the faithful were only holding her still so that Jesus could hit her. And then the reed saw the marks on Jesus’s face and realized she’d hurt Him. She burned with humiliation as the soldiers tossed her aside. They stripped Jesus and dragged Him away and left her there alone in the praetorium, and she couldn’t see Jesus anymore.

And the reed sat there, burning with shame, destroyed and broken and soaked in the slick of blood and filth the Romans left behind when they went out to murder Jesus.

And I remember, yet again, that if the Gospel is anything worth my time, the Gospel isn’t the story of how Jesus founded a bureaucracy known as the Roman Catholic Church. The Gospel is the story of how the Blood of Christ permeates wherever we happen to be. And Christianity, if it’s worth anything at al, isn’t about doing the right thing with the rest of the group so Christ won’t smack you. Christianity is about being whatever you happen to be, no matter how odd or damaged or inconvenient for the rest of the Church, and Christ coming to dwell with you. Even when you can’t find Christ just now.

Domine labia mea aperies et os meum adnuntiabit laudem tuam. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. O God come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

Eventually I fall asleep.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.