Holy F*@# !

This is unexpected. I was going to write about the Remembrance Day service at the University, and what it means to me in my life.

And now for something completely different.

I went to the same church my whole life: I was baptized there, received first Eucharist there, was confirmed there, and, illogically, I want to have my funeral there. (The feasibility of this plan remains sketchy. I also have music picked out, though the list is constantly evolving.)

My relationship with this congregation has been one of the most rewarding relationships in my life thus far. I love the people there. They watched me grow up, as I watched others grow up. I love people there very deeply, and it’s those people who make me miss the congregation most.

This church brought me to God. I felt God there, I loved God there, I hated God there, and I clung to God there. The Church was my life, which is why of course I will never fully let it go. Not really. This is still my church, my home, the place to go when there’s nowhere else. Even in all the sorrow and grief – especially in the sorrow and grief – it is the place to which I return. There are some things that never change. In many ways, the Roman Church is still the center of my world, and will be forever.

Sure, there was strife. For example, the priest and I sometimes disagreed. Vehemently. But, then again, I loved and cared about him very deeply all the same. So stubborn, but so sure of his vocation; so traditional, but so in love with the Church; such a terrible homilist and uneven in pastoral care, but the most love and the biggest heart that there could be. He loved this church, and I don't think he really wanted to leave it. The church was prepared to send him off into retirement, but they also would miss him desperately. He defined the church, and it defined him.

Now he’s dead. That was unexpected. It seems as though he died in his sleep, which would be good, since he wouldn’t have felt any pain. But he always said he’d rather have a priest by his deathbed than a saint, because he wanted to receive unction and Viaticum. Instead, he died alone. It’s so haunting, to not have the one thing you’ve always wanted, having performed the rite so many times yourself. He was sixty-five years old, and was a priest for thirty-eight.

I loved that man. Oh sure, sometimes I wanted to strangle him, but that doesn’t mean I loved him any the less. I believe that God put me in his life on purpose. Over the years, interacting with him forced me to think about what I thought Church was. What the priesthood was. What it was that God wanted for me in my life, in the sense of discerning what is important to me about my faith and what isn’t. Ultimately, this meant that I left the Roman Catholic Church because I realized that what matters most to me is Jesus: loving and following Jesus, not any church. A church is a community in which I can do it but, ultimately, the path is only mine to take. I do, of course, need the Church. The sacraments are very important to me, and I have a…profound reverence and awe for them, as well as a fairly full and robust understanding of them. He gave that to me, and for that alone I will always be grateful.

He also taught me the importance of Canon Law, being a canon lawyer himself. I was always a ‘canon-law-observant’ Catholic, which meant that I could not receive Eucharist in other particular churches outside communion with Rome, and that I cannot now receive Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church. He taught me the language of the Church, and to be respectful of its traditions. At the same time, the language he taught me opened up a world in which I was able to explore and question things like doctrine, tradition, and Church. His ecclesiastical ministry has shaped the entirety of my life in the Christian faith. He married my parents, baptized me, gave me Eucharist, and was there at my Confirmation. He prayed over me (although I don’t think he was the one who’d actually decided I was possessed). I owe him a lot, including, ironically, my stubborn refusal to just accept things as they are without prying into them, always questioning, always trying to better understand.

I have always observed Canon Law. I do it because it was important to him, and so it was important to me, and it forms a very real part of what I understand the Roman Catholic Church to be.

However, I’m going to Holy Family tomorrow and I plan to receive Eucharist (should no one stop me). Fuck the law: life is short. See, he taught me something else, too. About what matters in the living of one’s life. Because ultimately Eucharist isn’t about him, it’s about Jesus and my relationship with God. And I want it. And I need it. Therefore, probably only this once, I will break the law. Which I’m sure he would have found infuriating.

May the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit; May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.