I just remembered...

We had our first discernment committee meeting this week. Most of what we covered, I was expecting. I’ve been reading a lot about the diaconate in the past two months or so, so most of the information went right along with that, and I’ve served on a discernment committee before, so it was what I remembered, more or less. I will go into the logistics of what this committee is and what it will do, but I wanted to write about something that the meeting triggered for me this week.

First a little background info. I grew up Catholic, and was in the same church from Baptism until I moved away to go to college. And I went to K-8 at the church, so church and school were the same for me, same place and same people and same worship twice a week for most of my life. Then priests all knew me and my parents were really active in helping with youth group and my mom made banners and helped at school, so I was in touch with a lot of people whether I wanted to be or not.

There wasn’t a huge population of nuns in my church since by then fewer people were going into Holy Orders, and nuns had become a bit more liberated, so they weren’t all as easily recognizable as nuns. Some of them wore veils and dark clothes, but none wore those habits we tend to think of nuns traditionally wearing. There were a few, but not many, nuns teaching in my school, but the principal was always a nun. I took for granted that they were there, that they lived in a house and shared a car just like the priests had a house, but each had his own car. I didn’t think about becoming a nun much, but I didn’t think much at those ages about careers or callings to Holy Orders. Plus, the nuns’ car was orange and had plaid seats, which wasn’t cool. I didn’t analyze it much, but you can tell what stuck with me. That vow of poverty was embodied in an orange car with plaid seats.

But this is what I remembered this week. The priests, or others, or my parents, realized that there was something different about me. I had leadership qualities and a spiritual side. I liked church, the liturgy and ceremony of it. And I liked people, being in front of them and participating. So during my freshman year in high school, I was chosen to part of a diocesan group of youth, girls and boys, who met at the diocese offices to pray, study and discern if we were called for holy orders. I don’t think that was ever voiced in that way, maybe it was called a “leadership” group or something, but I participated in it for at least a year. It never came to anything, and by sophomore year, my best friend I knew we could never be nuns because of that whole chastity thing. We liked boys way too much for that.

I remembered this group as I was thinking about the committee this week, probably as I was driving or doing dishes. But this memory triggered an even earlier one.

When I was really small, maybe before my sister was born when I was five, small enough that I had to stand on the kneeler because if I kneeled I couldn’t see anything, I would mimic the priest at the altar during the Eucharist. I mouth the words he’d say, and hold up my hands like I was holding up the chalice and host. This isn’t anything weird, probably, since I’ve seen Fr. Charlie’s little daughter do this too at different times during coffee hour with the small altar in our parish hall. But I don’t remember seeing kids in church do it very often. They are usually interested in anything but what is going on up there like what color lipstick Mom has in her purse, or where the crayons are to color in the hymnal. My sister would dance in the aisle during the procession as her form of participation, but that’s not the same. And sadly, I had no chance to be at the altar as a kid since girls weren’t allowed to serve. And nuns don’t serve at the altar, so when I was mimicking, there would have been no hope for me to ever be up there except as a person to come up afterwards and help hand out the hosts and the wine.

I don’t why I bring this up except as a comment to Chas’s comment on my last posting. He mentions that he has watched me grow deeper in my journey. Maybe I’m not going deeper, but going back. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a child-like quality even though I can be very mature. Maybe as I go through this process I’m connecting with something my child-self knew but couldn’t possibly interpret or analyze. I wanted to be a part of that mystery on the altar, a mystery I was barred from even taking part in at all until after my First Communion in second grade. And somewhere in that childhood others recognized that maybe I was supposed to be on this path, but the path just then wasn’t right for me, and wasn’t the right path. A whole series of forks lead us into our adult lives, but all those forks are connected. I’m really interested to see what comes of this new, clearer discernment that I have been called to, and what forks are up ahead for me.