Faking Holy Thursday

I took the kids to Holy Thursday mass last night. I hadn't planned on going this year. Kirk had to work late in Frankfort, and I had made dinner for Anne's family. It was gorgeous outside, and the kids were playing, and I just didn't feel like getting ready.

I'm in a tough place right now with the Catholic Church. I have a lot of questions and disappointment in a lot of areas, the least of which is the sex abuse scandals. How can an institution that proclaims to defend the innocent allow grown men to abuse helpless children for decades? How can they then try and deflect responsibility onto someone else? Why isn't the pope standing up and saying, "This was wrong. We made some terrible choices. We are deeply sorry. We will make sure it never, ever happens again."??? But I digress...

So anyway, all day, I was finding reasons not to go to church. I had been asked to have my feet washed, and I had said no because I hadn't planned on going. I needed a shower. I had a messy kitchen. The kids were dirty. My clothes were wrinkly. I could have given you 100 reasons why it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to stay home, but for some reason, after I dropped off Anne's dinner, I came home, fed the kids and said, "Get ready. We're going to church."

Not a single one protested. They put on something clean, I didn't care what, washed their faces off and combed their hair. I wore what I had had on all day, jeans and a t-shirt, and touched up my make-up. We left with 15 minutes to get to church. I'm sure we looked like misfits to everyone, but I thought, "God doesn't care what I'm wearing. He knows that I wrestled with coming and is glad I decided to do so."

Normally, I am moved by the services during Holy Week. I grew up in an era of incense and candles and silence at school on Good Friday. I can vividly remember the priests singing, "This is the wood of the cross..." as they walked down the aisle at OLC, and waiting in line to kiss Jesus on the crucifix, debating until the last minute whether to kiss his poor hands or his pitiful feet or the awful crown of thorns in his head. I loved the smell of incense and bowing as our side got blessed. I loved the red candles in the gold holders that the servers carried up.

We would go to services four times over Holy Thursday and Good Friday, once at school each day and once with our parents in the evening. One year, my mom got her feet washed by the priest. She was one of the first women in our church to do so. I remember she went to get a pedicure beforehand and worried over what color polish to put on her toes. She didn't want it to be too red, you know.

The Holy Thursday service was always a mystery to me with the big, sunburst monstrance paraded around the church, and Fr. Fred or Fr. Arnold in a gold and silver cape. We'd sing the Latin song, Tantum Ergo, and I would marvel that Mom knew the words by heart when I couldn't even pronounce a single one. After the blessed sacrament was placed on the altar, we would kneel for a bit and leave in silence. It was always a time of seriousness and majesty in my mind. I loved the rituals and found so much comfort in them.

That followed me throughout my life. Kirk didn't grow up in a Catholic school, and his mom is a convert, so he doesn't have this ingrained, deeply rooted sense of tradition that I do. I want the kids to have that because it has helped me get through so much stuff. Sometimes when I've been so messed up I couldn't even think, I could at least follow along and take comfort in the routine. Pretend, if you will, that I was with it.

And that's what I did last night. I pretended. I faked it. I went to mass, not really wanting to be there, doubting many things about my faith, but needing that consistency, that sameness, that unity that the Catholic Church offers, and I felt better after I left.

I cried at Tantum Ergo. I was 8 years old again, kneeling next to Mom in the middle section on the left side of OLC, looking up at her singing, "Salus, honor, virtus quoque..." (it's the "quoque" that I remember most), marveling that she knew all those words. I closed my eyes, and I was there, and so was she.

Today, I will take my kids to Good Friday services, maybe still faking it a little, still struggling, but doing it anyway. I have a holy card of Mother Theresa on my visor, and see her face every time I flip it down. If she can do it, so can I.