Murphy’s Oil of the Spirit

This week at my church, we lost two elderly parishioners.  The previous week, I believe, it was three.  If you slide into the last pew, you can scan a sea of white and graying heads, the faithful remnant who grew up with the tutelage of dedicated women religious, the invariable regularity of fish sticks on Fridays, and the Confession line on Saturday afternoon.  The gentleman of the ushers’ society stream forward conscientiously at offertory, a bit stiff in the joints but persevering.

When contractors updated the ancient bathrooms next to the vestibule a year or so ago, the whole church got blanketed with dust, and I joined the church cleaners to help tackle this project.  This tiny coterie is headed by an active 82-year-old lady who confessed that she finds it difficult to get under the pews and dust.   Sometimes, when ill health decimates our forces, we can’t get much done beyond vacuuming the green carpet that covers the sanctuary floor, but it does make a difference.  As I shuffle forward in the communion line, I find myself distracted by tiny scraps and bits of fluff on the floor, and I think, “It gets pretty dirty after two weeks, doesn’t it?”

It’s funny, though.  When you think about it, cleaning is a very intimate thing, kind of like marriage.  When you look closely at an object that you’ve casually passed by a million times before, you become more attuned to its flaws, its room for improvement, but you also develop a fondness for its virtues, for the way it fits into the whole picture:  “This isn’t just any carpet…it’s the carpet I’m walking on to go and receive the Body of Christ, and it’s something I’ve cared for.  In caring for it, I also care for the Body of Christ, the Church, which is represented by everyone who walks on this same carpet.”

When you get right down to it, physical engagement with the ordinary objects of our faith instills a comforting familiarity that we can come home to. You can see it in the little old lady rhythmically caressing her Rosary beads or in the homely gesture of the priest wiping out the vessels after Communion.  When Jesus walked the earth, he engaged powerfully with material things—with water and wine, with bread, with sticks for writing on the ground. The repetitious act of running a sweeper, of scrubbing and polishing, gives rise to reflection. It tickles me to imagine that it was in running a meditative finger over the wood grain of his desk that Thomas Aquinas formulated the doctrine of hylomorphism.

As I consider the future of our church, I can’t help looking at it through my “youth ministry” glasses.  Whatever has the attention of our children now will directly impact the kind of Church we have when they become adults.  I am blessed to have the opportunity to share our Catholic faith with twenty middle-school students, who are at that difficult time in their lives when they are torn between the growing desire for adult independence and the child’s need to feel safe and protected.  Some of them don’t get to Mass very often, and a few, I suspect, never go at all.  They don’t have drivers’ licenses, and sadly, it’s not a just priority for some parents.

Since CCD class happens at a time in the morning when many of the kids are not quite awake, we find it is best to start off in the cafeteria so that we can take advantage of post-Mass coffee and doughnuts.  Every week, my co-leader and I arrange four rectangular tables in a big square to facilitate conversation.  Even when we remind the kids about the doughnuts, many of them aren’t interested.  They prefer to huddle over their iPhones and play Block Blast.  When I remind them that CCD time is for being with others, not their devices, they docilely stash their phones.  But they wouldn’t do that if I didn’t tell them.

Though the default engagement is whatever’s trending on a screen, it is actually not that difficult to redirect these kids.  They won’t tolerate sitting at desks and being preached at for twenty minutes, but they’re actually pretty receptive to anything outside the stale and sedentary classroom experience.  We have discovered that one of the best ways to engage these students in the life of the church is to give them chores.

Last year, an older gentleman at the parish pointed to out my husband in passing that there was a handful of disused raised beds at the far end of the church property.  As an amateur gardener who has been frustrated by the limitations of my very shady yard, I was thrilled with the idea of getting my hands in the earth again, and my heart leaped at using this space for a youth ministry project.

On a cool but sunny spring day, we all headed out, armed with rakes and wheelbarrows, to spruce up the gardens.  Bent and twisted tomato cages littered the beds, which were overgrown with weeds.  With surprisingly little guidance from the leaders, the students began clearing out the rubbish and loosening the soil.  They laughed, they raked, they dug, and there was not a cell phone in sight.  From now on, when they pass that corner of the church property, they will be able to look over to the right and through the trees and remember, “I had something to do with that.”  It’s only a tiny thing, an hour spent playing with wheelbarrows, but it’s a real investment in their attitude about the parish.

We have beautiful bas-relief Stations of the Cross in our sanctuary, carved with graceful smoothness out of light-colored wood. Parishioners can participate in the devotion once a week during Lent, and some families do, but not very many of them.  Last week during CCD we marshalled our young forces into the church (where I ended up giving them an impromptu talk on how and why we genuflect), and then the kids were delegated in small groups to wipe the dust from the Stations.  One sweet girl, who tends to get easily distracted and giggly during class time, became wholeheartedly absorbed in the process of filling the water buckets.  After going a little crazy with the Murphy’s Oil Soap, she found her groove and assumed leadership of this particular task.

No one balked.  Everyone was thoroughly absorbed.  It was a beautiful thing.  Next week, when I walk them over to the church to say the Stations with their little booklets, they will have a new consciousness of these simple artworks, almost an ownership: “This is the Station you and I cleaned!”

This ownership is never an end in itself, but a spur to enter more deeply into the mystery of the Catholic faith.  Since our diocese moved up the age of Confirmation to ninth grade, our CCD kids leave our class to go straight into Confirmation prep.  I spend a lot of time talking to them about how they must “own” their faith, too, and not expect their parents to do everything for them.

A while ago, at a youth ministry meeting, I ventured the idea that we could devote one class period for the students to go to Confession.  “I’d like to have them go every month!” I chirped.  Someone else said that there just wasn’t time, and I didn’t press the issue.  But our pastor graciously agreed to have Confessions for our students one morning between the two Masses.  At least one of the students hadn’t gone since her first time.  Some of the students were nervous, but no one tried to get out of it.  Their courage brought tears to my eyes.

Last week, one of the quietest girls in the room volunteered to lead a prayer at the end of class.  She spoke completely from the heart, asking the Lord to bless the students who were gathered there and guide them through the week.  This young woman is in her second year with the group, and only a year ago she barely spoke to anyone.  I don’t know why I was so shocked—I had been with her the whole time, and I’ve seen the marvelous workings of the Holy Spirit up close.  After this same class, my co-teacher mentioned an exchange he’d had with one of the boys, who to all appearances isn’t interested in much besides sports.  The boy volunteered the information that he and his father were helping at a local food pantry.

My co-teacher, who has the endearing vagary of avidly listening to podcasts by a lot of mission-driven Protestant preachers, says that young people are not driven to be part of a Church that is a social club.  Rather, they are hungry for meaning in life.  They are not so jaded that they cannot recognize the truth and beauty of Christ’s call to them, when they hear it.  The hard part is piercing through all the distractions of modern life to offer that transcendent reality.  But gone are the days when churchgoers thronged the pews because everybody else was there.  We cannot wait for them to return…we must go to the people, as Jesus did, crisscrossing the roads and fields of the Holy Land to call with His disciples, one person at a time.

The Church has explicitly stated, time and time again, that parents are the first teachers of their children.  In some cases, we have to teach the parents at the same time as we are working with the children.  That means, foremost, reaching out to and being willing to walk with them toward the goal of full participation in the life of the Church.  We may have to invite again and again.  We must not be afraid to sit down at an unfamiliar table in the social hall and get to know our people.

Recently, I went to Confirmation for some of my former students and ran into a mother who has not come to very many of our parent classes.  Her daughter is a very fine young actress, however, and I’ve gone to a few of her plays.  The mom came straight up to me and gave me a friendly hug.  I sat down with her family at the reception afterwards, and we had a few more moments of connection.

The visit ended abruptly in that tragicomic vein which so often besets us in life.  After biting into a cookie, one of the ladies at the table discovered she had been eating peanut butter, to which she is allergic.  The whole crew, in a panic, but with apologies for their desertion, set off at once to go home and get her EpiPen.  Later, the mother emailed me to let me know that everything was all right.  The whole experience had been slightly awkward but nevertheless significant.  In drawing closer to the strangers among us, we also draw closer to Christ.

G.K. Chesterton wisely said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult; and left untried.”  This maxim applies especially well to our Catholic obligation of “going out to teach all nations.” We try to sidestep our call to mission by saying, “They’re too plugged in,” or “He never goes to Mass,” or “I just feel uncomfortable talking to strangers.”  No excuse absolves us of our duty to draw near to the distracted and the disengaged. How can we, when, despite our imperfections, our Lord Jesus is always drawing nearer to us?

Meanwhile, I take another breath, not sure how to connect with the people God puts in my path but knowing that the Holy Spirit does.  Just in case I get tongue-tied, I will bring along the Murphy’s Oil Soap and a couple of rags.