Whom Do You Seek? A Holy Week Meditation

I went into Holy Week, a little sad and apprehensive, not knowing what to say.

I suppose I would have much more success in life, if I could ever wear a face that wasn’t my own. But I’ve tried, and I can’t. All I have is myself. I can only tell you about myself. I can never say what people want me to say, except by coincidence. I can only tell you how I really feel. But I’m afraid the way I really feel isn’t right.

For awhile I loved Lent. It was my favorite season in the Church calendar. I loved singing Tenebrae with my church choir back in Columbus. I wrote a whole book on the Way of the Cross. I loved the Holy Thursday Mass and the haunting Good Friday liturgy. I always felt lost at Easter, when all that solemn sorrow was over and we had to be happy again. Sometimes hearing the “Alleluias” at Easter made me cry because I didn’t want Lent to be over. Then, of course, I came to Steubenville and ruined my life at Franciscan University. All the sickness and trauma and poverty followed. And then came the revelations about the cult activity and horrific abuse there, and the realization that I’d been in a personality cult, was groomed and kissed by its leader, and confessed my sins to at least two horrific sex abusers. The post-traumatic stress became so severe that I couldn’t bear to receive the sacraments at all. I couldn’t go to Mass except to stand on the church porch or watch from the parking lot. And I hated Lent, and felt disgusted with every minute of it.

This year, I have recovered a bit.

I am sorry if I haven’t recovered in the way you want me to. I am very, very touched and thankful for the people who have invited me to worship with them, or to not worship at all. I have readers and dear friends who are Pagan, mainline Protestant, Old Catholic or Independent Catholic, and nonreligious, and you’ve all expressed your concern for me and sometimes invited me to live like you do. I have immense respect for all of you. I don’t think I’m better than you are. I believe the Holy Spirit speaks to you. It’s just that I am a Catholic. Even when I don’t want to be, this is the place where I find myself working out my salvation. I was more or less a lapsed Catholic in 2022 and some of 2023, because of the trauma. Now I am a broken, traumatized, cynical and anxious, practicing Catholic. I go to Mass and sit in the congregation almost every Sunday, cringing whenever I see one of the Franciscan sisters at my parish. I was able to go to confession several weeks ago, but it was not a pleasant experience, and I don’t know exactly when I’ll go back. I still have an aversion to a lot of Catholic devotions. I’d rather rip my skin off than pray the Rosary again. But I am a Catholic.

Lent has been neither good nor bad this year. It’s just been Lent. I’ve tried to pray in that little chapel in the hospital when I can. Adrienne is a much better cook than I am, and has a very good shrimp scampi recipe for Fridays, so abstinence didn’t even feel like a penance.

I walked into the Palm Sunday liturgy, feeling neither excited nor terrified. It just felt like a Sunday. Sundays make me feel a little sad and apprehensive.

We held up our palms to receive the blessing, and got splashed with holy water. We got through that long, long Gospel, where the congregation shouts “Hosannah to the Son of David” and then “He deserves to die! Crucify Him!” all within the space of five minutes. We knelt as He gave up the ghost.

I kept thinking about that other Gospel, the one we’ll read on Friday. I won’t be in a church on Friday. I still can’t bear the Good Friday liturgy. I will go hiking somewhere, as I usually do. But I wanted to hear that Gospel reading: Whom do you seek? Jesus of Nazareth. I AM. 

That was the passage that kept rattling through my head during the rest of the Mass.

Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him,
went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?”
They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
He said to them, “I AM.”
Judas his betrayer was also with them.
When he said to them, “I AM, “
they turned away and fell to the ground.
So he again asked them,
“Whom are you looking for?”
They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
Jesus answered,
“I told you that I AM.
So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”

I said those words to myself over and over again. As I said them, the became a dialogue.

I’m not saying I had some kind of “word from the Lord,” mind you. I’m not a Charismatic anymore and I’ll never be a Charismatic again. I won’t be sure whether the things I imagine when I pray are really from God, until I see God face to face. Maybe the Holy Spirit was directing my prayer. Maybe it was just me, meditating and talking to myself at Mass. But these are the things that went through my mind.

Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

I AM. Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go. 

Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

I AM. Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you sure? Many, many people claim they are seeking Jesus of Nazareth. They profess my name to the four corners of the Earth, but they have never known Me. Whom do you seek?

I am sure that I seek Jesus of Nazareth.

I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go. 

Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you certain? Many who claim they seek Me are looking for something else. They want earthly power or for others to admire them. They want to look outwardly like a perfect Catholic family, or a Catholic institution, or a Catholic parish. They want to have an apostolate or a ministry or a successful book deal or a career as a politician and do it in My name, but they don’t know Me. Whom do you seek?

I am certain that I seek Jesus of Nazareth.

I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go. 

Whom do you seek? 

Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you absolutely sure? Because I am not where you thought I was. I am not in the people who look the right way. I am not in the churches that shout my name the loudest. I am not with the rich, the powerful or the important. I am with the poor and the outcasts, the wounded and the traumatized. I dwell in the neighborhoods you were taught to avoid and the people you were taught to shun. When the people you were taught to admire abuse the helpless, I suffer with their victims. When those abused and tortured people cry out “My God, why have You abandoned Me,” I cry out with them.  My spirit plays over the waters of chaos. The light shines forth, not in light but in darkness. The stone the builders reject becomes the cornerstone. Many who are last shall be first. In the places where you least expect me, I AM. That is the mystery of Christianity. 

Whom do you seek? 

I am absolutely sure that I seek Jesus of Nazareth. Not to go to the places where I thought I was supposed to go. Not to try and look the right way. Not to be the one to shout Your name the loudest. Not riches, power or importance. I seek Jesus of Nazareth. I have learned to seek Him in the places I was taught not to go and in the people I was taught to shun. I have learned to seek Him in chaos and darkness, and in the stones the builders rejected. I believe. Help my unbelief. I seek Jesus of Nazareth.

I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go. Let it all go. Let the fear that you’re doing it wrong go. Let the humiliation that you never fit in to a Catholic clique go. Let the shame that your life doesn’t look the way it was supposed to go. Let your grief and exhaustion and trauma go, and I will suffer them with you until they heal.  Let it all go, and follow Me. 

And then the Mass ended, and Adrienne and I went out into the brilliance of a Northern Appalachian spring, with the bright sun overhead and the whole world returned to life.

I’m sure I will be sad again soon.

I’m sure that the next time I walk into a church, I will be as apprehensive as ever.

Just then, though, all I felt was grace.