No Doubt

This has been a rough week. One of the ways I volunteer at my parish is as an adult catechist. I’m part of our OCIA team; we teach the faith to those adults seeking baptism or full communion with the Catholic Church.

We have a great team – we have some folks who are real theological heavyweights, some folks who lean more towards the pastoral or cultural side, and even a former Carmelite who teaches prayer. My role within the team is generally to teach the classes on the sacred liturgy and the sacraments.

On Monday and Tuesday this week, I taught the class on the sacraments of service: matrimony and holy orders. This absolutely wrecked me.

I’ve taught this class many times over the years, and I have always brought up my own personal experiences with these two sacraments. When we discuss holy orders, we spend a bit of time on the idea that no one is entitled to this sacrament – otherwise we would all be popes. We must discern this calling within the Church and with the Church. It has proved very useful to mention my experience in applying (twice) to the diaconate and being rejected both times. Yes, there is certainly a hurt there, as I have discussed in numerous posts over the years, but also a certain serenity in the certitude that the Church has discerned that this is not where the Lord is calling me.

But preparing to talk about the sacrament of matrimony this time – not to mention actually teaching the class – was an emotional pain and desolation that I was not prepared for.

It was a painful and difficult experience, and, if I’m honest, it didn’t meet my usual standards for teaching. I think it’s only now, days after the fact, that I’m pulling out of the depression spiral that preparing and teaching this class put me into.

However, and it is a big however, I am more and more convinced that this was a thing I absolutely had to do – needed to do – as part of my grief journey, my healing journey.

Sometimes the pain is a requirement of the healing.

So what is the catalyst for me posting this today? Graffiti.

This morning, as part of my Camino training, I did the dreaded “hill hike”. Pistachio House sits at the top of the hill overlooking downtown Tacoma. Indeed, my neighborhood is not called “Hilltop” for nothing.

The hill hike is simple: I walk from the top of the hill to the bottom, back up to the top, back down to the bottom, and then back up home. It’s only 5 km, but it is absolutely exhausting.

There’s a photo I took of Francine on one of these hill hikes that remains one of my favorite training photos. It was even included in the montage of photos we played during her wake.

Today, at the very spot where that photo was taken, there was a bit of graffiti that said, “was it (ever) real?”

I immediately imagined the superimposition of this with the photo of Francine, and my reaction was one of determination. Not sadness. Not mourning. Not even anger.

Determination. 

It certainly knocked me out of my depression.

Was it ever real? Of course it was real. She was real. Our love was real. The objective reality of the sacrament was real. It cannot be erased, and it must not be forgotten.

I am reminded again of the truism that just because you cannot prove the existence of something mathematically, or scientifically, or materially, it does not follow that it does not exist.

She was small, and she was fierce – and she is real.

So thank you to whoever scribbled that graffiti on that wall. They were the words of the prophets, and I will shout it from the rooftops.

You cannot doubt that love is real. And God is love.