The Clam Rampant

admin February 20th, 2007

Giving Up for Lent

I thought I had the best idea EVER for a Lenten penance.

Ready?

I was going to give up sarcasm.

So I told The Big Seester about my plans. She thought it was such a great idea that she promptly decided to bogart it, which was fine with me. It’s actually an even better idea for her than for me. Mind you, I don’t think sarcasm is necessarily sinful, though it’s often used to tear down rather than build up. I just thought it would be a good exercise in guarding my tongue, giving up something that I enjoy, and growing closer to Jesus.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe it wasn’t such a good penance for me. I mean, I use sarcasm and enjoy it, but it seemed like there was something that would be a better choice.

I considered giving up unnecessary use of the Internet, but got into difficulties in defining “necessary” – is online banking necessary? what about Yahoo Yellow Pages? E-mail? Instant messenger, when I have both personal and work contacts on it? Then I considered fasting from blogs. I may do that next year, but this year, especially with RCIA continuing and my entrance into the Church at the Easter Vigil…

But I think I’ve got the perfect penance for me this year. The Canuck is free to comment on how difficult this will be for me:

I will get up when my alarm goes off every morning. I will not use the snooze button.

Yes, I’m fasting from the snooze button this Lent. I think I will also do some sort of food-related penance, since once I’m out of bed and stumbling toward the bathroom my penance is (more or less) over for the day…I think I’ll give up sweets – that’ll be especially difficult, as my Girl Scout cookies are due to be delivered this week.

And Father John challenged us in RCIA to spend at least one hour per week (at one time, not piecemeal) at Eucharistic Adoration. So I’ll be doing that as well, plus (of course) the requisite fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and the requisite abstinence from meat on Fridays.

This will not be an easy Lent. But Father John does say that “You get out of Easter what you put into Lent.” And Sister Mary Martha says “No one let up on Jesus, you slacker.”

I think they’re both right.

• Catholicism , RCIA
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admin February 16th, 2007

Input received

Thanks very much to everyone who offered their thoughts on my situation with the Rite and my family. I heard back from the DRE, and actually, she said anyone I invite will be taking their chances for seating, as they had to book a certain number of seats for catechumens, candidates, sponsors, her and Father John. So while The Big Seester is still invited if she wants to go under the circumstances, everyone else (including the Canuck) is pretty much off the hook.

That said, I was interested in some of the comments posted. I feel like I should explain why I was so leery of telling the family (although TBS is right that I don’t like conflict, there is more to the story than that).

Did anyone here happen to read TBS’ post about our family’s penchant for creating crises? Take a look here for a small sample of the insanity of Beloved-But-Nuts Mother. The story about our uncle is true; his girlfriend really did break up with him by telling him that in our family it was one kee-risis after another (in fact, I think that was how she turned down his proposal of marriage, to be painfully specific). OK. Now that we know that my family’s flair for drama is nothing new (as said uncle died in 1980), we can move along to the meat of the post.

So initially I was trying to think of how I would “come out” as a then-prospective convert to my parents. My mother is Unitarian-Universalist (mind you, she isn’t a theological unitarian, as that presupposes a belief in God). My father is an atheist.

My father will think I’m gullible and have been duped. I can handle that.

My mother will take this as a personal betrayal of her and various things about her life. That’s harder to deal with, because my mother has brought guilt-tripping to the level of an art form. (You’d think SHE was Catholic, ha…ahem, anyway.) But ok.

So the question, more than whether to tell them, was when and how to tell them. I considered a few approaches:

THE STEEL MAGNOLIAS APPROACH:
“Mom/Dad, I have bad news. I have cancer. I have six months to live.

“Hey folks, I’m only kidding! I’m just converting to Catholicism!”

What was that about drama and kee-rises?

THE NYAH-NYAH APPROACH:
“So you know how you don’t like the Catholic Church, and think it’s oppressive and antiquated?…”

Um, no. Definitely not.

THE “I’M TRYING TO BE MATURE ABOUT THIS” APPROACH
“Mom/Dad, I have something to tell you.

“You know how everyone takes their own spiritual path…well, I’ve been looking into the Catholic Church, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to convert.”

Honestly, this was the approach I had planned to take, but the real problem is finding an appropriate place in the conversation for it. Well, that and the follow-up, like explaining how I happened to decide to move away from the Episcopal Church (in the case of my mother) and explaining why I’m not actually a self-loathing closet misogynist who is nursing on the opiate of the masses to my father. Come to think of it, I’ll have to explain that to my mother too…and my aunt…and my cousins…

THE DELUSIONAL “YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY BE HAPPY FOR ME” APPROACH
“So I’ve got some really exciting news – I’m going to be received into the Catholic Church at Easter! …Mom, please stop crying!”

I briefly considered this, then dismissed it as disingenuous. I mean, I think it’s exciting, and TBS thinks it’s exciting, and I’d guess most of my readers (being Catholics) think it’s exciting…but I know perfectly well that my family won’t see it that way. It’ll be more of a case of “another one bites the dust,” especially when they figure out that I won’t be modeling my Catholic conscience after Bp. Gumbleton.

But back to the point about kee-rises. I feel like bringing the topic up, no matter how I do it, is stating to them that this needs to have a crisis made of it. Which they will gladly do. I don’t see why it needs to be a kee-risis. But then, it’s only in the last 50 years or less that changing religions (or even denominations within Christianity) has become less than utterly shocking in this country. I know another uncle of mine, when he married my Catholic aunt in the 1950s, ended up having to convert because her family stopped talking to her for having married a Protestant. (I don’t think his parents minded, but then, they were a mixed Catholic-Protestant couple themselves.)

Ah well…just one more thing to pray and reflect on, I guess.

• Catholicism , RCIA , Silliness
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admin February 13th, 2007

Clam Polls Readers

Ordinarily I don’t toss out a broad solicitation for advice on matters like this. However, I have a lot of respect for The Big Seester’s opinion, and since her opinion and mine are so completely different…well, I guess the best way to put it is that I’m not sure if I’m just being Clammish about this. So I’d like to invite input in the combox.

One week from Saturday are the Rites of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion, in which I, along with all the other candidates and catechumens, go to the Cathedral for a public declaration of our desire to enter the Church. It’s the next big step in the RCIA process, the final one being the Easter Vigil, at which we are confirmed and receive the Eucharist for the first time.

I invited The Big Seester and The Canuck to attend. My sponsor will (hopefully) be there, and I was considering mentioning it to a few supportive friends. Since the point of the endeavor is not so much a happy-clappy get-together as it is a solemn religious rite, I wasn’t planning to, say, invite my mother, or my aunt, or even my Protestant friends. Why not? Because that doesn’t seem to lend itself to the solemnity of the occasion. In other words, inviting people who are not Catholic, who do not have a frame of reference for the rite, and who (frankly) are probably not going to be especially chuffed to hear that I’m becoming Catholic, seems to turn it into a spectacle.

For clarity’s sake, here is Wikipedia’s description of the Rite:

The conclusion of this Period leads onto the Rite of Election or Enrolment of Names for those who are unbaptised and the Rite of Calling the Candidates to Continuing Conversion for those who are baptised. This is a very significant and important step in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It is usually celebrated on the First Sunday of Lent at the local Diocesan Cathedral, led by the local Bishop. All of the Catechumens and Candidates, their Godparents [for Catechumens] and Sponsors [for Catechumens and Candidates] gather together on this day. It often involves hundreds of people coming together for this occasion. The Church formally ratfies (sic) the Catechumens’ readiness for the Sacraments of Initiation, and the Candidates’ readiness to be received into full Communion with the Catholic Church. In turn the Catechumens – from now on known as the Elect – publicly acknowledge their desire to receive the Sacraments of Initiation, and the Candidates’ their desire to be received into full Communion with the Catholic Church.

So this IS a public declaration. However, it’s not about me ‘coming out’ as a converting Catholic to my leftist parents. It’s not about them coming to snap pictures of me at the Cathedral. When I was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in high school, I invited both sets of parents, my boyfriend at the time (who was Catholic) and two Episcopal friends from my parish. Afterwards we snapped pictures and went to Baker’s Square for celebratory pie. Is it much surprise that, while I remember the confirmation moderately well, what sticks out most in my mind is the dorky outfit I was wearing and the pictures that captured that for posterity (including us enjoying our pie)?

I e-mailed our DRE to ask whether this is even something to which one invites people, and gave her a sketchy outline of my reason for asking. However, I’d love input, especially from people who have been through RCIA and attended the Rite. Any thoughts? Am I being Clam-tabulous about this, or do I have a pearl of wisdom in my shell?

• Catholicism , RCIA
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admin January 30th, 2007

The RCIA retreat

Sunday was our RCIA retreat. I have to preface this by saying that I’m not generally a fan of the whole ‘retreat’ concept, at least not as an organized affair. A quiet day or weekend spent in prayer, sure, but the ‘retreats’ I’ve attended have tended to feel awkward at best. My division at the university has mandatory quarterly retreats, plus a two-session, day-and-a-half annual retreat. After I came to work for the division full time and had to start attending them, I began to understand why my former boss had no patience for ‘retreats’.

This one had its pros and cons, like anything else. Since it’s lunch time and I’m not particularly hungry right now, I think I’ll seize this opportunity to talk a little about the whole experience.

My parish is in the Birmingham/Bloomfield/Troy vicariate, so our retreat was held at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills. To keep my comments charitable, I’ll say only that it’s a very spacious building. …well, I guess I could also say that it would work better as an auditorium or an Evangelical church. Gerald at The Cafeteria is Closed could have a field day there with his camera. It’s a very large stone building; the sanctuary is mostly white and stone, with light wood pews; the installed cross is hollow metal and has no corpus, and while I saw a processional crucifix at the start of Mass, I have no idea where they put it. I didn’t see a single statue, which isn’t SO awful, but I also didn’t see Stations of the Cross or anything like that. The baptismal font was nice (there was actually a small pool), but when I went to cross myself with the holy water, I initially thought “Eeuw, gross, it’s WARM,” thinking it was fetid or something. But then I noticed it was moving, so I guess they have a heated baptismal font for your sacramental comfort. (wry smile) Overall the sanctuary felt cold and uninviting to me.

For the record, my parish (St. Anastasia) has a hollow metal cross with no corpus as well. However, the cross is far more prominent at my parish – this one was set on the floor and was off to the side, rather than being front-and-center like ours. Also, while my parish is far from being the most beautiful or traditional building I’ve ever seen (I often privately compare the ceiling of the sanctuary to an Aspen ski lodge), they’ve really done a lot to make it warm and inviting. St. Hugo’s has a very Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it, with a sort of ultra-Scandinavian décor. If that’s your thing, great. It’s not mine, especially not for a church.

It was very well orchestrated, on the whole. We attended noon Mass, and after the homily they dismissed us for Scripture reflection as usual. Despite my best efforts to follow directions and sit with people I didn’t know, five of the eight at our table were from my parish (of course, I think we were the largest group, so can’t really help that). Not a very chatty group, but our Scripture reflection leader was very good – he’s a sponsor from St. A’s, and pretty much always does a good job.

Then was lunch, catered by Fox and Hounds Inn (everyone say “Ooooh!”). It was very good, though not what I would call outstanding. Again, five of the seven people I sat with were St. A’s folks, though in this case the deck was a little stacked because I was sitting with a woman whose sponsor is married to another sponsor (whose candidate wasn’t able to attend), and who also has a personal sponsor from St. A’s who came.

Now comes the actual ‘retreat’ part: we opened with a song (eek); heard some Scripture readings, which were only slightly drowned out by the incredibly loud dish-clattering and conversation from the kitchen, where people were cleaning up from lunch; and then heard a ‘reflection’ on the Scripture readings from a priest who seems to have attended the Most Rev. Thomas Gumbleton School of Politics. (My friend’s personal sponsor, who was sitting to my left, commented after the reflection that “I think Father So-and-So is a pacifist.” So it wasn’t just me.)

The theme of the retreat was “We Are the Clay, You Are the Potter,” and to fit the theme, they gave us some modeling clay as an activity. Our mission: to make an image of how we saw ourselves before God, and no begging off based on lack of artistic talent allowed!

I have somehow managed to have an artistic talent score of negative three. I can’t paint, can’t draw, can’t sculpt, can’t act, and can only sing well enough to not get banned from the sanctuary. I looked at this block of clay and thought, “Heck no!”

And I thought, and thought, and thought.

A brilliant idea came to me: what if I did NOTHING with the clay? After all, He is the potter, right? So if I left it alone…the metaphor works!

I decided to work it a little bit, so no one got suspicious of my cunning plan. So there we were, going around the table after the clay exercise, and Patty, our DRE, came and sat down at our table right before my turn. (Don’t you hate it when the teacher is about to hear your answer?) But I sucked it up and told them what it was; my friend ruefully told me that I had ‘won’. I laughed and said, quite truthfully, that all I had done was parlay a complete lack of artistic ability into a clever answer.

Some of the clay work was very nice, and very interesting. One of the sponsors (whose artistic talents probably rivaled mine) did a little head, with ears and eyes and mouth, saying that her ears and eyes were open and her mouth would praise Him. Her husband, who had some talent, made an altar with a monstrance and a figure bowing down before it. My friend made herself bowing down before rays of light. The DRE made open hands.

Then we had a break, with cookies and pretzels and such, and then there were the obligatory skits. I’m not sure why skits are required for retreats, but I don’t think I’ve ever been on a retreat that didn’t involve skits. These weren’t too bad, but I always feel embarrassed for the performers, even though they’re clearly volunteers. These were little vignettes with characters from Scripture – they called them Scripture companions – like Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, Nicodemus, St. Peter, etc, talking about how they felt about Jesus or how they had changed as a result of knowing Jesus, and we were supposed to decide to whom we could best relate. Then we were supposed to go find a quiet place (yes, about a dozen of us, myself included, made a beeline for the sanctuary) and journal about it.

It was OK, except that they decided to truncate the retreat because of the weather (it was snowing pretty hard), so first they were going to give us 35-40 minutes, then gave us 30, then interrupted us about 10 minutes into the 30 and told us to come back. Which annoyed me because I was intensely praying when they interrupted, but I understand why they made the decision.

So we went around the table to talk about who we picked and why (I call foul on this one; I think that should have been strictly private). Then we prayed, and sang a couple more songs (including “All Are Welcome,” which sounded suspiciously Unitarian), and closed.

What stuck out the most for me, out of the whole retreat, was one conversation in which a grown man broke down crying talking about the Eucharist. That experience alone made the whole retreat worth attending, and I don’t mean that in a malicious way at all. I just don’t think I’d ever seen a layman get so emotional talking about God, least of all a layman whom I respect as much as I do this man. It was a profoundly moving experience.

They sent us home with more clay. Ack.

• Catholicism , RCIA
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