Why I am Catholic: the unbelievable

I believe this even as I believe that a lot of what we went through in that dimly lit room was manufactured.

You can find my previous post on why I am Catholic here.

Dear M,

I don't think my parents realized what they had sent me to. I knelt on a small square of carpet near the center of the camp's multipurpose room. The lights had been dimmed, and I was joined by fifty or so other high school students. A table had been placed in the middle, with candles lining both sides of gilded vessel in the shape of the sun. We had our hands in the air, as if reaching out for it.

One of the leaders, a skinny white nineteen year old with bad facial hair, played guitar. Many of the students sang along with him. Others knelt silently with closed eyes, hands still reaching out. Others had slowly fallen forward, their foreheads on the floor. Here and there a student would break out in weeping, and a twenty year old leader would come behind the student and place a hand on their back, raising the other towards the golden sun.

To be "moved by the Holy Spirit" was to start weeping or be struck with silence or add a descant to the song. To be "slain in the Spirit" was to fall forward, as if struck limp by a divine touch. Those of us who looked forward, though firmly attached to our individual squares of carpet on the floor, reached with our hands and inner selves towards a round wafer in the middle of that golden sun.

Then the screaming began.

I had never heard screaming like that. Like a wild animal wailing in agony after being badly wounded. But no one in the room had touched her. At least not that we could see. Many of use thought that something had touched her.

The singing stopped, but the guitar kept playing. Two of the parents and one of the young leaders quietly but swiftly surrounded her. She was writhing on the floor. A couple of students leaned over her, not sure what to do. Others had backed away. Most of the room stayed glued to their carpet squares and were unsure whether to look at her or keep their attention on the tiny host. The adults held her hand and whispered to her. The wailing began to diminish. It became the cries of a young girl, and then whimpering, and then heavy breathing, and then the parents helped her out of the room. Attention tried to turn back to the host, to the singing. But we all wondered about the girl's demons.

We returned to our prior states, but surely everyone was affected by what we had just seen and heard. I can't recall how much longer this went on. When we wrapped up, a leader told everyone that she was fine and resting. We all left the room and went back to the cafeteria for ice cream sandwiches.

Word passed quickly among the students that the girl had troubles back home. We spoke of the power of the Eucharist, of Adoration. We prayed for her.

When I walked back to my bunk, I overheard two of the parent chaperones talking off to the side. "I think she was just over-exhausted."

"Yeah," said the other.

I now think they were probably right. But I didn't know what to make of it then. And she wasn't the only person who had an experience that night that I struggled to explain.

At one point in the evening, the priest who had been present during our singing and praying picked up that golden vessel—the "monstrance"—and carried it around the room. He didn't touch it with his bare hands, but had a sash that he'd placed his hands within to lift it up. The sash ran down both sides of his shoulders, and students could touch it as he passed by them.

We had been told the significance of all this. As Catholics, we had been taught that the round host—the Eucharist—in the middle of the monstrance wasn't just a piece of unleavened bread. We were taught that it was actually the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Catholics believe that the "eucharistic prayer" in the Mass results in “transubstantiation,” where the bread and wine actually become body and blood. “Hoc est corpum meum,” “this is my body,” those words said by the priest, are a bit of “hocus pocus,” some sort of magic where something becomes much more than it appears to be. That small piece of bread is actually Jesus Christ, the man who had died on the Cross for my sins and those of the whole world, the man who loved me more than I could imagine, the man who was and is and always will be God.

I spent much of my teen years grappling with this belief, trying to deal with this little wafer that we casually ate every Sunday but that also was the most important substance in the world, something that was so readily available but also was of the greatest consequence. Catholics really do believe this. It sounds crazy. How could any sane person actually believe this? But I really did. I really do.

I think this belief gives me space to believe a lot of unbelievable things. Like the essential goodness of each and every person. Like our ability to change. Like our responsibility to each other. Like liberation and communion and the divine. Like the reality of love. Like my own ability to love and be loved.

In that dimly lit room, the priest passed by me wearing that sash, the “humeral veil.” I touched it. And something happened. I felt something. I experienced something.

I'm open to dying and going to heaven and God telling me that I was just really worked up and my body was responding to overstimulation. I'd say that I'm also open to just dying and descending into nothingness, but it's not clear to me how one could be open to nothingness. Nothingness just happens—or, rather, doesn't happen. I'm not sure the language of “happening” is really even something you can use when it comes to nothingness. I'm not open to nothingness, because I'm not really sure you can be. In my deepest self, I feel compelled to be open to God.

I accept the reality of what I felt, the reality of my experience as I experienced it. And so I accept that thing, whatever it was. I think it was God.

If it was God, then I also have to grapple with what it means to find connection with the divine. That experience didn't stop me from sinning. It didn't stop my later mental health crises. It didn't make me a genius or a saint. It didn't lead me to become a priest. It didn't prevent my atheist stint after college. And it didn't make my wishes at the time come true. It definitely didn't stop me from becoming gay.

And yet I believe it was real.

I believe this, even as I believe that a lot of what we went through in that dimly lit room was manufactured, that these settings can prey on vulnerable youth, that what happened to that girl writhing on the floor was the result of failing to understand the emotional complexity of adolescents, and that either the leaders knew something like that could happen and were irresponsible in how they managed that sort of event, or they didn't know something like that could happen and were irresponsibly expected to manage that sort of event. I worry about how those sorts of events can open many doors to abuse.

Even so, I believe God was there. In that experience. For both of us. My experience of the Catholic God is one who we find in many ways. God chooses to enter into deeply problematic settings and deeply problematic people. That experience was just one of them. We were just some of those people. The fact that someone might be a “shitty person” in a problematic situation doesn’t make their religious experience any less real or important or true.

But all this also makes me skeptical of reading too much into “religious experiences.” I haven’t found them to necessarily indicate my own holiness. I try not to make too much of them. The Eucharist, after all, doesn’t come to us with a flash and a bang and a voice from the heavens, but from an uncharismatic balding man from Iowa holding up an unflavored wafer and saying a few words in monotone at the front of a Church that’s open to whoever wants to come in. I also think about a friend who attended Eucharistic adoration at a Steubenville conference who saw a priest stopping by students and praying over them, where each and every student fell over, “slain in the spirit.” The priest stopped behind my friend and prayed over him, putting his hands on my friend’s back. And then the priest shoved him from behind, making him fall forward. This is both a scandal and also hilarious. Appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes “slain in the spirit” is just a priest shoving people over. And sometimes an unflavored wafer is God. Or so I believe.

Maybe my experience in that dimly lit room wasn't me connecting with God in the way I thought I was. Regardless, I think I was still connecting with the divine. The retreat helped me at the time. I think that whenever we receive help, we are, in some way, connecting with the divine.

My experience of God is not of someone who only comes to the perfect, or who always makes our crooked paths straight. It's of someone who gives us a lot of space to fuck up, who is willing to laugh with us at ourselves, who lets us have mental health crises and then overcome them. Or maybe not overcome them, and then meets us on the other side, offering us something we only know how to hope for here.

That's just my experience of God. Maybe yours is different. Maybe you don't see how you could believe in God. And I think that's ok too. The point of this isn't to make you believe. It's just to give you a glimpse into the way that I have believed. I won't say that it's "the right way." It might change. But it is where I've been and where I am, and that's all I can offer you for now. So I will.

Warmly,

Chris