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The Annoying "Yes" Lady at Mass
Due to many scheduling conflicts a few Sundays back, I went to Mass by myself without the wife and kids. Over the past month or so we began to notice a curious and regular disruption at the 9:30 a.m. Mass. The weird part was, I began to take a strange pleasure in it. It went something like this:
Priest prays out loud, "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your ha-"
"YES LORD," interjects the affirmation from what sounds like an old African-American woman somewhere in the pews to the far back and right.
And it continues...
"For the praise and glory of your name..."
"YES LORD."
"For our-"
"YES."
"-good and the good-"
"YES."
"-of all our Church."
"YES LORD."
And it goes on and on like that, with the older lady interceding between every ten or so words from the Priest. Heads everywhere are trying to make clandestine surveillance of the pews around them without making it obvious that they are clearly distracted and pissed off.
Now I'm not going to lie, the first time my wife and I heard the Yes Lady we did what every other couple did. We looked at each other with faces of smirky inconvenience and gossiped after Mass about how obnoxious and distracting this woman was being, resolving that SOMEONE had to do SOMETHING.
I mean holy righteous anger batman! We are trying to PRAY here!
But this Sunday was different. Right around the Eucharistic prayer I noticed a small but steaming pile of self-righteous indignation in my pew. Curious, I kicked it up under the pew in front of me and listened again to the Yes Lady.
"Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ."
"YES."
A quick burst of willful naivete shot through my brain and I asked a question based on giving the Yes Lady the benefit of the doubt:
What if she really believes she is doing something important?
Suddenly I felt angry. I was angry at anyone who was angry at the Yes Lady. I was angry at the 59% of U.S. Catholics who don't attend Mass weekly. I was angry at the 62% of U.S. Catholics who don't claim a strong religious identity. I was angry at the 29% of U.S. Catholics who don't believe in a personal God. But most of the anger was aimed at myself, because I suddenly became ashamed that I felt so entitled to a distraction free Mass.
What do Catholics who leave the Church to join a Protestant denomination say one of their biggest reasons for leaving is? "My spiritual needs are not being met."
DISCLAIMER: There is a big conversation we could have about the discrepancy between a person's perception of not being spiritually fed, and the actual reality of the depth of spiritual fullness made available in the Catholic Church. And I could fill a hard drive with reasons why I don't think anyone should be constantly giving their public verbal consent to the Eucharistic Prayer. I'm not saying active participation must be busy participation.
But do we, who know the sublime reality of Mass, worship like we are being spiritually fed?
As I honestly examined my frustration with the Yes Lady, I realized I was really just frustrated by the notion of anything "happening" at Mass.
I watched the Priest raising up our gifts and the work of our hands - the bread, the wine, and all intentions we lay at the altar - but part of me didn't really expect God to accept them. I heard the Priest calling the Holy Spirit down on the altar with the conviction of Elijah, but part of me would have been inconvenienced by a rush of wind and tongues of fire. I heard the Priest imploring the help and intercession of an army of Saints, but part of me didn't really want them to show up. I cried aloud telling the Lord I'm not worthy for him to enter under my roof, begging Him to only say the word and heal me, but part of me didn't believe He could actually deny me. I waited mere minutes as we shuffled to the front of the Church to hold the endless, to consume the unconsumable, to swallow the sea, to insert infinite love into my size 34 waist, like a candle trying to hold the Sun, but part of me would be impatient if anyone took longer than seconds to take their wafer and move on.
Who is really being inconvenienced here anyways? Me? The guy who wanted a woman with expectant faith to shutup so I could go back to thinking my own thoughts during Mass?
Or God, who sits through Mass revealing Himself lovingly through His Son, humbly through bread and wine, vulnerably through His death on a Cross, and intimately through bodily communion, only for people like me to look on with blank stares like we're checking email? I've sent prayers to God soaked in tears asking Him to stop being so distant, and the next day been so impatient with a Priest who fumbled slowly through the Mass you would have thought if God himself showed up I'd tell Him to keep His homily short.
Thank God for the Yes Lady. I think only Yes Ladies get healed by Jesus. I think Yes Ladies walk out to Jesus on the water. I think the upper room was full of Yes Ladies at Pentecost. I think Yes Ladies' prayers heal the sick. I think Yes Ladies convert cities. I think only Yes Ladies can be tortured and martyred for Christ.
Is this a call for everyone to go all Southern Baptist this Sunday at their local parish? No. Please no.
But lets smile at the Yes Lady.
Because thanks to her, I pray more often for God to show up.
I pray more often for liturgical inconveniences.
(Photo by Cameron Zohoori)
The Mass: A Model for Personal Prayer
St. John of the Cross Statue by Magdeleine Weerts
What should the rhythm of our personal prayer look like? Is prayer just one action, or a movement toward God with a beginning, middle, and end? The Church gives us an answer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This rhythm is akin to the Mass and can help us enter into prayer more easily and develop a habit of prayer that moves us towards God.
Personal Prayer and the Mass
If we look in the fourth pillar of the Catechism on prayer (remember, the Catechism is split into four pillars - Creed, Sacraments, Morality, and Prayer) especially the section on contemplative prayer, the Catechism makes the connection between contemplative prayer and the Mass:
"Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy" (paragraph 2711).
Remember, contemplative prayer is not something only reserved for Nuns or levitating Saints, contemplative prayer is nothing more than "a close sharing between friends" and "a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus" meant for every Christian.
As we'll see in the Catechism, there are four movements to this rhythm of prayer: GATHER, RECOLLECT, ABIDE, ENTER.
Let's unpack the rest of paragraph 2711 to find a rhythm of personal prayer and its connections to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
GATHER
"Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "gather up" the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us." CCC 2711 __________________________________________________________________________
At the beginning of Mass, we begin with the sign of the Cross and with an opening prayer, called the Collect. Thus the beginning of Mass is a call to gather ourselves up from the world and reorientate ourselves in relation to Christ.
When I first walk into Mass, there are a thousand thoughts and distractions going through my head, as when I first begin to pray. At the beginning of prayer and the Mass, the first step is gathering our attention and thoughts and disengaging from the world around us (like Kevin Costner in that baseball movie...) so that we can place ourselves in the presence of God. Making the Sign of the Cross is a good way to begin prayer because it reminds us why we pray and to whom we pray.
St. Francis de Sales offers four ways of disengaging from the world and placing ourselves in the presence of God in the Introduction to the Devout Life:
1) Realizing God is omnipresent; that God is in everything and everywhere 2) Realizing God is in a very special manner in your heart and the depth of your spirit 3) Realizing God looks down on us from heaven, especially those in prayer 4) Imagining Jesus Christ in his humanity as though he were near us or next to us
RECOLLECT
"Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "gather up" the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us." CCC 2711 _________________________________________________________________________
At the beginning of Mass after the opening prayer is the Penitential Rite, where we acknowledge our sins and repent of them, followed by the Gloria praising God for his mercy and love.
Likewise the next phase of prayer means being honest with ourselves and with God about the state of our our soul and our heart. "We do not know how to pray as we ought" (Romans 8:26), but if we ask, the Holy Spirit teaches and guides us in prayer to acknowledge and relate to God truthfully who we are, where we have been, our thoughts, desires, baggage, and even our recent sins and shortcomings.
A few paragraphs back, the Catechism explains contemplative prayer in the words of St. Teresa: "Conteplative prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends" (Catechism 2709). It's like answering the question "How ya' doing?" from a friend you haven't seen in awhile.
ABIDE
"Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "gather up" the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us." CCC 2711 __________________________________________________________________________
During Mass, we abide in the presence of God and listen to Him. We hear His voice in the Old Testament, His glory in the Psalms, and encounter Him in the flesh in the Gospels, all during the Liturgy of the Word.
After coming to God in prayer and talking to Him about what is honestly going on in our heart and in our lives, the conversation begins to turn over to God. Just like on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), after we unload what is on our hearts we give God the opportunity to respond to us. This is when true contemplative prayer can begin.
In the following paragraphs of the Catechism, it explains that "contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God." (Catechism 2716) In order for us to hear the Lord, we need to be patient and wait on Him (Psalm 27:14). I can't stress enough how important interior silence is for prayer. How can we hear God speak to us if we never shut up? Don't be afraid that you are doing nothing by sitting in silence this way. "Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus." (Catechism 2715). As long as you are focused on God, you are praying. Sometimes God speaks words to your heart, sometimes He sends you peace, sometimes He may just be present with you in that moment, pouring out His love on you.
ENTER
"Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "gather up" the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us." CCC 2711 __________________________________________________________________________
The most intimate moment of Mass happens when we receive our Lord in the Eucharist and come into communion with our God.
Contemplative prayer is a gift beyond words. Initiated by God, we become caught up in the life of the Trinity and are led to share in the love between the Father and the Son. There is no way to make this happen, we must abide in God's presence and wait for Him to bring us into communion with Him. But when this gift does occur, when God allows us to enter into His mystery and experience a foretaste of heaven, it is like an blaze of faith, hope, and love being ignited in your chest!
It's That Easy! (Sort of)
Prayer is hard work, especially contemplative prayer. Remember, God is the one who initiates contemplative prayer, it is a gift and we can only patiently wait with a loving gaze fixed on Him. Realize that it will be hard at the beginning, but if we put in even the smallest effort to reach out to God in love, God graciously reward us. Set up a time to regularly practice praying in this way everyday and you will begin to experience the deep love, joy, and peace of a life in intimate relationship with God.
A Rhythm of Prayer from Catechism 2711 "Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "GATHER up" the heart, RECOLLECT our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, ABIDE in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to ENTER into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed."
+JMJ
###What do you think? Was this helpful? Let me know in the comment box. God Bless!
Obama Invited to Say Mass at Notre Dame
I'm excited to see that the University of Notre Dame is finally being a little more inclusive and less judgmental and intolerant.