The Missing Pieces: Mind The Gap

There are many things I know I’ll miss now that I’m not Roman Catholic, things that I have no idea where else to find, though doubtless it is possible, and even likely in some cases. Here are a few:

-stations of the Cross (it’s not the same without pictures on the walls of a church that you walk around to in order, without a marble floor to kneel on)

-Latin in the Mass; ‘Lord Have Mercy’ in Greek

-reservation of the Blessed Sacrament

-adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

-exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

-benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

-keeping vigil with the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of repose on Holy Thursday through to Good Friday (I love just after the Mass of the Last Supper, 3:00 AM, 6:00 AM, and just before the Sacrament is removed from the Altar)

-veneration of the Cross on Good Friday

-frequent use of incense (I’ve never belonged to a church that actually does this; I just complained for years that we should be using more incense. I mean, at least cense the Gospel and the altar)

-holy water

-Eastward worship (also haven’t ever actually experienced this, but I have ‘theological’ ideas that make me like it)

-elaborate processions involving the use of a crucifix

-fancy vestments, especially the cassock, roman collar, amice, alb, stole, cincture, chasuble, cope / humeral veil; dalmatic; surplice; maniple; zucchetto (gloves would also be cool, but I’ve never encountered them)

-lots of kneeling (also haven’t belonged to a church where this is practiced)

-daily Mass

-random religious statues around the church

-praying for the dead

-indulgences (which is ironic because I don’t really like the theology behind them; nevertheless, I actually like doing them)

And many other things which I’m sure I’ll discover as I go along. I suppose the point of all this is to say that I am still very much worried I’ll never find a church to live in. I mean, I subsisted in the Roman church for years, so I don’t doubt I could do that elsewhere: I just wish there were somewhere I could be accepted while being fully myself. I worry that if I can’t find a liturgical home I’ll never be able to commit to a church, to her Sacraments, to her presence in my life. I worry that I will fall away, not have any church at all – that I will be all alone and find it even harder to get up the courage to take that necessary step of visibly belonging: receiving the Sacraments. I know how deeply receiving Eucharist binds me to a church, and I am not ready to be so bound. The thing is, how do I allow myself to so deeply love another church without knowing that she will accept me, when I am afraid of being thrown out as some sort of imposter? If someone knows of any way to make me believe I’ve been welcomed or received into a faith community, please tell me so that I can pursue it.

I love liturgy, and I guess you could say I like it ‘high.’ I like being able to feel it, to look at it and see it, to be carried away in beautiful symbolism, to taste it in the back of my throat, smell it and feel it on my skin. I’ve gone to evangelical and other mainstream Protestant churches, and I know exactly how much I need liturgy when I feel like it’s not there. Liturgy is intimately connected to my experience of the Divine: I love how it can pick me up and carry me away, lift me up, reveal hidden truths, wrap itself around me, follow me about in the world. I like how the incense separates the space out into something sacred, the film of it rising in the air a visible sign of our worship. I like the ringing of the bell during elevation. I love the colour and the carefulness and the orchestration: I love everything about it.

What I don’t know is whether or not the liturgical traditions I love in the Anglican church (for example: calling down the Spirit after the words of Institution) will love me back. And whether or not she will object so strenuously to my own liturgical longings that she will reject me just for having them.