What's Taking So Long?!

I've lost count, but I believe my journey home to Rome has thus far been a 3 to 4 year trek.  Excitement seems to have fizzled among my Catholic friends, though their prayers have not.  My closest family is getting tired of my waffling.  My priest is waiting for this mysterious lurker to come out of the shadows and contact him.

Pandemic aside, what in the world is keeping me from coming into full communion with the Catholic Church?

Throughout my journey I've had several large hurdles to jump through.  I've learned a lot about myself and have been able to delve into my own psychology more deeply and in an eye-opening and maturing way.  None of them were really doctrinal.  I could fairly easily intellectually conclude the Catholic Faith.  It was mostly psychological/relational.  I'll break down the hurdles:

1.  Tradition, aesthetics, and that old-fashioned feeling:

I love history and tradition, which are things that drew me to Catholicism to begin with.  However, I idolize it to the point of believing quite strongly that life was far better back then and that the nostalgic warm-fuzzy feeling I get about it is indication of rightness.  If I feel that emotion, I must be in the right.  Evidence of this idolatry came within my first 3 months attending Mass.  I got all dressed up in trad-approved church garb, veil included, looking quite pious and old-fashioned.  I attended the beautiful old church, went to Latin Mass, and cried the first time I heard the pipe organ.  But, I also balked at the guitar, the casual dress of the cradle Catholics, and the complete lack of veils.  It ruined my dreams of traditional aesthetics.

I had to step back and reevaluate exactly why I was on this journey.  Was I looking for the outward or the inner?  Was I draw to Catholicism because of the story I wrote in my own mind about it?  Am I dressing this way to play a role or to honor God?  I cannot commit to an entire faith walk simply because the church is pretty and organ sounds nice and I get warm-fuzzy feelings.  Catholicism is Catholicism in the glorious Cathedrals and in the muddy trenches.  It's in the FSSP tradition and in the modernist building with felt banners and guitars and tambourines.  Am I there for Christ, or to pretend?

Once I sorted myself out on those fronts, which included not going to Mass for a while I considering going back to an evangelical church, I had to face the next hurdle.

2.  My family:

My husband and children do not share this journey with me.  While my husband is supportive for my own sake, it bothers me that we are no longer united.  In fact, they have quit church attendance all together and it seems Covid-19 lockdowns were the final nail in that coffin.  I have battled the idea that perhaps it is better for us to attend an easy, basic evangelical church as a united family than for me to be Catholic alone while they fall into a sort of apathetic deism.  I told my husband that if he has a church he wants to attend, I will go along, honoring him as spiritual leader of the family.  He doesn't.  I received some counsel on the matter and was informed that I am no use to my family if I deny my conscience.  Furthermore, I am not the weight-bearer of my husband's spiritual choices.

With that hurdle past, it was time to face the big one:

3.  My mother:

I love my mother dearly, but she, an ex-Catholic, is very anti-Catholic and full of modern evangelical protestant lies about Catholicism, the main one being that "Catholics aren't saved."  Or at least Catholics don't have the assurance of salvation.  In other words, though not said in these words, "Catholics go to hell."  I kept my Catholic-seeking as closeted as possible from her, but somehow word got around to her about my journey.  We had big discussions, but I was able to keep them as just discussions by assuring her that I wasn't making any decisions.  I had no idea how I'd manage to tell her I wanted to join.  I went so far as suggesting to my husband that we move away, and I even considered waiting to join after my mother passed, which, with my family's longevity, could be another 30 years!

My mother provided the hurdle-crossing for me, though, with a difficult phone call.  Without going into details, we are well, she and I, but now I am "out of the closet" and can more freely pursue joining the Catholic Church.

My next hurdle I realized just this past Sunday.

4.  Facing more of my narratives and personal responsibility:

I have this little hope and dream that my priest would reach out to me.  I'd come running like a little girl to her daddy if he would only initiate our relationship as Father and congregant.  Don't get me wrong, he has invited me to contact him two or three times, and it's hard to be welcoming when I slip out a different door away from where he is greeting people after Mass. There have been a few times our paths crossed, usually when he had to exit quickly for another engagement, and I hoped he would cast an eye my way and give me brief instruction or make an appointment.

This past Sunday, I finally was able to attend Mass.  To follow guidelines for the ongoing pandemic, all visitors are to joined the communion procession for the Eucharist or for a blessing, and then immediately exit.  This would be my actually first face to face, one on one meeting with my priest, brief as it would be.  I was excited and my silly wheels started churning out my typical fictional tales. My knees actually shook in anticipation.  It was my turn.  I was hurried to my priest.  I looked up with wide child-like eyes into his, I received the typical blessing, but nothing else.  *POP* went my party balloon.

I wasn't angry.  I wasn't really upset.  I was simply struck with reality and my own silliness.  In a wave of personal embarrassment, I exited, and fought back additional narratives of him seeing right through me and disapproving, or perhaps I did the whole thing wrong.  Was I wrong to look him in the eyes?

My hands shook as I made use of the hand sanitizer near the back door, and tears stung at my eyes.  The petulant child in me, and I am sure in others who may read this and wrongfully think my dear priest is in error somehow (he's not - he is exactly how God has ordered him to be), wants to be angry that things aren't going the way I imagined them, but the woman growing in maturity in me realized that truth I am avoiding:  I am responsible for myself.

I am not a lost lamb stuck in a thicket that needs to be sought and saved.  I will not grow in my faith as I ought to if others clear the path for me.  Oh, it would be so easy if my husband announced, "we're becoming Catholic!" and he called the priest and arranged everything.  Oh, it would be so easy if my mother never left the Church to begin with.  Oh, it would be so easy if my Catholic friends dragged me to the priest and to all the functions and ministries with contagious enthusiasm.  Oh, it would be so easy if my dear priest would pursue me and coddle me like a favored child.

While I would like to slump into a chair, arms crossed, pouting, and blame every one of these people, and while I pray to Christ that I would so easily and readily obey if He just cleared my path, I must acknowledge that He does not wish for that because I have other growing to do.

The biggest hurdle I must leap over to become fully Catholic is myself.  The only one in my way is myself.  The scariest person I must encounter is myself.  The most adored idol in the way of coming to Christ is myself.

I made up a Catholic story for myself and turned real people in to characters who served me at my bidding so I could become what I designed to be a good Catholic.

And that brings me to my 5th hurdle:

5.  Myself and being a good Catholic:

When I was Protestant, I would brag that "I would make a good Catholic."  Some Catholic friends would smile and tell me that indeed I would.  That just added hot air to my big head.  When I actually started pursuing Catholicism, I did so under the idea that I would knock it out of the park.  That is, until I started actually studying Catholicism and facing it full on within the realities of life and who I am.  In agony I recognize that I am not a good Catholic and probably never will be.  I'm the kind of person who if I cannot do something well, I don't bother doing it, or I abandon it quickly.  I considered abandoning Catholicism because of this realization.  And I put off contacting my priest and arranging my first confession because I do not want to face myself.

I've always been considered the good girl and thus when faced with a failure I would receive double the blow.  The talkative girl in class would get a basic reprimand a hundred times a day for talking.  But, if I, the good girl, talked out of turn just once, the teacher would look at me as if a saint had just broken its halo on purpose, and I would receive double the reprimand because I had stepped out of character.  The chastisement was always deeply felt and I was always deeply grieved and contrived various penances to alleviate my guilt and utter failures.

It is true that a naughty girl can be loved for being charming some of the time, but a charming, good girl can lose all trust and feelings of love with just one error.  Any time in my past when I tried to reveal, confess, or discuss my faults, I was hushed and dismissed, or made fun of, or looked at with bitter disappointment, or I felt unsafe.  Sometimes, in the evangelical church, we were encouraged to confess publicly.  But, I knew the faults of others.  I knew the gossip.  I knew I would be looked at differently, and that their knowing wouldn't bring forgiveness and redemption.  This is a lot to unpack, and I know that what I really must do is jump into the deep end and just go for it.  But, I am desperately ashamed of myself, and if evangelicalism teaches anything well, it is to stuff all that we are ashamed of in the box labeled "Christ died for my sins."