This is long. Also churchy. I AM WARNING YOU.

[This has been in my drafts folder for months. I'm posting it now because the only other thing I wrote today? EVEN CHURCHIER. With a large helping of Controversial Topic so OBVIOUSLY that one REALLY needs to sit a few months.]

When we finally had the What Are We Going To Do About Holy Week conversation, we decided we couldn't all go to both Good Thursday and Good Friday, and that the babies probably shouldn't go to either. Bedtimes, impossibility of no whining, etc. Then I asked Phillip which one he wanted to go to, knowing he'd pick Good Friday, which he did, and I was glad, because I am immature and un-holy and find Good Friday to be the ultimate in Depressing. And then I decided not to let Catholic Internetville make me feel inadequate and lazy and a myriad of other lame things because I couldn't hack the entire Tridduum.

I picked up my elderly neighbor Thursday night and drove us to church. I let her pick where to sit, because I know she likes to sit up front and center and never gets to, because we have kids and try to hide out at the ends of the pews. A bunch of our friends were there, kids in tow, and again I made the decision not to feel inadequate, lazy and, now, slackerish because I left mine at home. It's hard to keep making those decisions, people.

I should note here that I am going to say some less than lovely things about my 90-something-year-old neighbor, things that I would never ever say to her in person, which totally goes against Blog Policy. But of all the people who know me in real life, she is dead last in the Might Find Out About My Website category and I can't really tell you guys the good part without sharing the annoying parts.

So. Our priest had major surgery several weeks ago which meant he wouldn't be celebrating Holy Week. We had a replacement who looked very cartoon priest-like- bald, paunchy, happy eyes. I did my best to pay attention to the homily, although I'm not sure how well I did because several days later I can't think of a single thing he said. (On Easter Sunday, however, when I was not at ALL listening because Jack was climbing Mt. Daddy and Molly was trying to eat her headband, I caught the words "Britney Spears" in the homily and have been KICKING MYSELF for having no freaking clue why Replacement Priest was talking about BRITNEY SPEARS on EASTER SUNDAY. Drat.)

Anyway. Holy Thursday is when you have the washing of feet. And the only thing that's really mattered to me is that I don't get picked to have my feet washed. HORRORS. I hate watching it too. It's just so... intimate. And something else I can't put my finger on. I hate admitting that, because Catholic Internetville is all over Holy Week and waxing rhapsodic about the rituals and of course they have to quote something in LATIN and share all sorts of thought-provoking LINKS and here I am cringing while some lady can't figure out how to tie her feet-washing apron and the altar servers are almost dropping tubs of water and it takes some old dude twice as long as it takes everyone else. But the un-holiness and immaturity prevent me from much else, so there I sit, twiddling my thumbs.

Except Replacment Priest picked a KID. He kicked off the washing of feet with, like, an EIGHT-YEAR-OLD. And the first thing I think of is, "Great, this is going to take FOREVER" because, as I may have mentioned before, I am immature and un-holy. But then I realized that even though I'd never seen this kid before, I've talked a lot with his MOM, who I LOVE, and I've heard a gazillion and a half stories about this kid and his brother. He took on a bit of meaning, you know, and there WAS something sort of... well, something, about a sixty-something-priest crouching down to wash a quiet and nervous eight-year-old's feet.

And then when it was his turn to wash someone else's feet, the eight-year-old picked his six-year-old brother.

Maybe that's what started it. I didn't CRY, as I am very very VERY apt to do, but the symbolism was really banging me over the head. An interesting experience for a girl who cares not one way or the other about how the Palm Sunday processional is done, yet mysteriously finds herself on the liturgy committee.

The rest of Mass drifted along and finally it was time to pack up the Eucharist and march it over to the only-on-Holy-Thursday Adoration Closet of Stifling Heat. This room is in a building across the street, so everyone was supposed to follow the priest and his crew out of the church, across the street and into the other building. I watched Replacement Priest carefully wrap the little box of hosts (see, a good Catholic would know what that little box is called, SIGH) in his fantastically glittery shawl thing (again, don't know what that's called). He held it in front of him and I thought, "DUDE." You know? Like that thing that everyone always says is so powerful but you've never noticed? I felt it. I watched him carry that little box and my heart just felt huge and full. That box was VERY. IMPORTANT.

This is when my neighbor leaned over and whispered, "You don't want to go over there, do you?" Like Adoration was coffee hour and she didn't want to be late for her mid morning hair appointment.

I shook my head even though 1) I told the internet I wanted to participate in Adoration at least once during Lent and 2) I actually really wanted to go. But my neighbor is the elderly side of elderly, she needed to get home and it was painfully obvious she had no interest in going anywhere near the Adoration Closet. In fact, her entire body was communicating the fact that Mass had gone a whole half hour later than it was supposed to HOW DARE IT.

Replacement Priest and Crew was quietly processing down one side of the pews and my elderly neighbor suggested we make a run for it. I agreed- I am easily pressured- but the people on either side of us weren't moving. No one else was moving either. The couple to my left, however, seemed to figure out that my neighbor wanted out (she was shooting Looks at everyone around us) and gracefully moved out of the pew and stood against the wall. So my neighbor and I slowly escaped the pew, only to nearly run headfirst into Replacement Priest processing up the OTHER side of the pews. Duh, I thought to myself. They only do this EVERY YEAR. You're only on the committee that DECIDES HOW IT'S DONE.

I practically shoved my neighbor into another pew, lest the little box and glittery shawl run us over. She wasn't pleased, and she was ready to now duck out the center aisle, ahead of the procession. And that's when I thought I would die of shame. She said, "We could go out right here," and my response roughly translated to, "You can wait THREE MORE MINUTES, woman!"

I felt bad. My neighbor is at LEAST sixty years older than I am. She is SO my elder. But no. I was not dashing out before the little box walked by again. And when it did, I just FELT it. I know I know. How can a tasteless little wafer that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth be GOD, blah blah blah I HAVE NO IDEA I just believe it because they tell me to. But YOU GUYS. In that moment I just KNEW.

I stood there, transfixed, and was enough in the moment to realize that maybe THIS is what people are talking about when they tell you to go to Adoration. I wasn't in a prayerful quiet place, the way Adoration is supposed to be (SO I HEAR) but I was in the presence and I knew it and it was warm and bursting and supernatural. It'd only taken me nearly thirty years of church-attending, but I knew.

After the little gold box and the glittery shawl and most everyone in the church (nearly all, it appeared, headed for the Adoration Closet) passed by, I huffily allowed my neighbor into the center aisle and snippily drove her home, fuming ALL THE WAY that I might have missed that moment. And yes, I realize that my attitude on the way home sort of DEFEATS THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE but look, at least I am BLOGGING IT.

Comments

[Kate P]

Really moving, Maggie! And, um, I think the shawl's called a "cope" but I'm not sure--just knowing that the priest's hands had to be covered to handle the Eucharist has been significant enough for me! The box. . . I don't know if I've ever seen a ciborium that was a box, but maybe that was it?

As for the post-Mass fuming, I know what you mean. My mom's famous for yelling at us kids when we'd start fighting on the way home from Mass: "Who here just went to Holy Communion?" But ya know, if we got super-holy all at once, instead of a little bit every time, we wouldn't grow spiritually.

Thanks for sharing your experience. :)

[Sarah in Ottawa]

Maggie,

Hooray! What a wonderful story. It's so amazing when those "AHA!" moments happen; thanks for sharing.

Also - I do not purport to be a fabulous Catholic, either, but I am assuming that the box is a cyborium. And the ONLY reason I know that word is because the equivalent word in Quebecois dialect of French is a dirty, dirty swear. As are the words for chalise and tabernacle. In fact, the verb 'to swear' is 'sacrer', based on the word 'sacred'. Catholic schoolgirl FAIL. And my Dad was an RCIA Cathechetical guy for like 15 years. Shh - don't tell him about my faulty vocabulary!

[Lindsay]

Sarah in Ottawa, sadly my church smarty pants words are also known mainly from Quebecois french and I even went to Catholic elementary school. Oy. Very interesting post Maggie.

[anonymous]

Yay! I'm just so happy for you. I'm sort of in love with Adoration, and... those moments when you just know are what made me want to go in the first place. He's so awesome, isn't He, all warm and bursting and supernatural? :)

[Dana]

I think the "little gold box" is called a Monstrance. That's what the host is placed in during Eucharistic Adoration, but the one at our church isn't a box, it's more of a statue with a hole in the middle to hold the host.

All those years of CCD are finally paying off. :)

[Jess]

Not being religious at all, I can't really relate to this on a personal level... but it sounds really good. Despite the elderly neighbor.

[Megan]

I think it was a great post, Maggie.I loved it. I came to be a practicing catholic later in life (after my kids were born, although I was baptized as a child and had first communion and everything, we sort of stopped going after that...I was just confirmed four years ago) and so are lots of words and practices that I don't know but feel like I should know...I have never been to Holy Thursday or Good Friday. Sigh. I have never been to adoration either, but my church has it all the time (perpetual adoration? is that what it is called?) and I have been thinking about going. Maybe this will be my push.

[-R-]

I like your churchy posts!
I'm Catholic, but I never write about it. Maybe I should, I don't know.

[Jen]

See, this is what makes you a really good writer because you made that story both all meaningful and also hilarious at the same time.

[Rosemary]

Maggie, This is awesome. Jesus. You just can't get any better.

[CATHY PARKER/Psychic Mama]

You have been TAGGED by Psychic Mama. I was TAGGED by Confessions of a Moody Mommy, who was tagged by another blogger Mom’s Fortress of Solitude. And I'm so behind on this!! The more hurrieder I go, the behinder I get!

Here are the tag rules:

* List Six Unimportant Things That Make You Happy.
* Mention and link to the person who tagged you.
* Tag six of your favorite bloggers to play along, and comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been tagged! Here are mine:

Waking up at 5AM and hearing the birds' singing!

Going to bed with clean body, clean hair, clean nightgown, and clean sheets!

Eating Peanut Butter Captain Crunch whenever I want!

Listening to Willie Nelson sing "Amazing Grace"!

Shopping at Goodwill on 1/2-Price Day!

Shopping at ShopGoodwill.com whenever I want, day or night!

Here's the New Six:
* The Mommy Files

* Running Away? I’ll Help You Pack
* Type-A Mom
* Zoom About Ellen
* Mighty Maggie
* Daring Young Mom
Have fun!

[Jen Pierce]

LOVED THIS. you so have to write a novel. this was very novelesque. or at least short story-esque. i love when you beat the 90 year old back into her pew, like she's Jack whining for more pears.

[annie]

Yay for the churchy post, Maggie. It was awesome. A few things:

1.) My mom says Drat. She says it all the time for as long as I can remember. IN this post, you said Drat. You are the only other person I have ever known in my life to use that word. That is all.

2.) On the last day of my Catechetical Methods class in college, my professor, Sr. Anne Marie, washed our feet. It was uncomfortable and strange - but moving. Moving enough to encourage me - every holy week - to wash the feet of my own students in my high school religion classes. Strange and uncomfortable for them too - but I always did it with the hope that they'd be moved by the experience as I had been. From what I hear, they were. And, not surprisingly, I was moved by the act of doing that for them. Every single time.

3.) We didn't do the Triduum at all this year and I was mortified by my non-attendance. Yes I was in the throes of morning sickness, and yes we had both boys to juggle, but as I read your post it occurred to me - "why didn't we take shifts?" We could easily have done that, and at the very least, I could have venerated the cross or sat in the Stifling Heat (ours is always like that too) or SOMETHING. But we did nothing. And I didn't even go to Confession before Easter this year. Sigh.

4.) I was very touched by your reflection, and humored by your impatience with your Elderly Neighbor, as the entire encounter reminded me more than a little of my Mother In Law. I'll spare the details...well, maybe I'll share IN SACRAMENTO!!!!...but anyway - touched by your experience and grateful that we share the gift of our Faith. I wasn't there - but you were, and your writing about it allowed me to share in what I love so very dearly, but had to miss this year. So, thank you.

[annie]

And yes - it probably was a ciborium. A monstrance is that big, gold, fancy, trophy-looking thing that holds the Eucharist inside a little window during Benediction and Adoration.