Catholic Life Ministries

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The Beauty of Catholicism

by Robert Fontana

When I was in high school, I went to a movie with one of my brothers and a family friend. We were walking down the aisle of the theater looking for a row to sit in. My brother, walking ahead of me, found the row he wanted and promptly turned into it. Our friend did the same, and when it was my turn… I hesitate to admit this… I genuflected while making the sign of the cross. My hand was just coming down from, “In the name of the Father” and heading to the “Son” when I realized what I was doing and practically leapt off the floor in embarrassment and quickly found my seat.

Now a good evangelical Christian watching me might say, “See, that’s what’s wrong with these Catholics and all their empty rituals. They’re so brainwashed that they’re now genuflecting at the movies.” However, I think this story speaks to something that is, in fact, very beautiful about Catholicism: using ritual, gestures, and symbols to help our community of faith encounter our God.

Each summer Catholic Life Ministries hosts a family faith retreat, and one of our customs at this camp is a candlelight procession on our first night together. I ask children to lead the procession out of the meeting room, into the large open meadow, while holding high the “Christ candle” and beautiful ICONS of Mary and Jesus. All who follow [with parental supervision!] carry lit votive candles and sing a familiar Latin chant such as Jubilate Deo, Alleluia (Rejoice in God!).

We process into the dark night led by our ICON bearers to the opposite end of the meadow where the Christ candle is placed on the edge of an outdoor stage and the ICONS are placed on its right and left. I then invite the families to come forward, one family at a time, to set their votive candles before the ICONS and pause for a quiet moment or two to pray. I remind them that the candles represent all the joys and sorrows which they are experiencing, and that their act of setting the candles before the images of Jesus and Mary represents surrendering their lives to God.

The families do come forward one at time and set their candles before the ICONS while the rest of the retreat community continues to sing, sometimes a familiar hymn like Amazing Grace and other times a simple chant like “Jesus, remember me.” It is a most beautiful and lovely celebration that truly touches everyone. Even family members who are tag-a-longs, perhaps dads or teens who don’t have a strong church connection, are profoundly moved by the sight. Here are children, youth, and adults bonded together in a very deep communion through a simple ritual of prayer, candles, and song, through a reverent procession of families who then kneel before the sacred images.

WOW, what an awesome way to begin a family retreat! But I also do this with youth for Confirmation retreats, and with adults at retreats and conferences. Yes, such rituals can be empty and perfunctory, but when done well, with faith, hope, and love for Jesus, they are able to draw us, all of us – from the very young to the very old and everyone in-between – into “holy communion” with God and one another.

My family participated in one of the most beautiful and inspiring Masses that we have ever been a part of last April at the Easter Vigil at Seattle University Chapel. The Easter Vigil is the “big enchilada” for Catholics. It has it all: lighting of the Easter fire; procession into a dark church; a dozen Scripture readings with Psalm responses; preaching; baptisms by immersion of children and adult catechumens; confirmations, and Eucharist.

The Jesuit priests leading our prayers and the music team assisting were simply phenomenal. Each rite and gesture was extremely well done and sometimes lavishly so, as when the newly baptized were anointed with Chrism. The sacred oil was poured onto their foreheads and ran glistening down their faces. The chapel radiated with joy!

When it was over, Colleen, our high school senior, said to me, “This is why a person comes to Seattle University.” I agreed. She continued, “It was two hours and forty-five minutes long, but I was never bored or restless. It was all wonderful!”

Catholicism is beautiful, and intrinsic in its beauty are the rituals, symbols, and gestures that we use to help us pray. When done well, they enable a Church filled with worshipers or a family camp brimming with campers to experience the awesome presence of God!

What do you find beautiful about Catholicism? Leave us a comment here and we may publish it in the October issue of The Troubadour.

Coming Clean

by Kristin White

Our first camping trip of the summer was to Eastern Oregon with some friends. It was in the high 90’s in the high desert. While the company was good, I was miserable. We came home with a thick coating of dirt all over. My boys had quarreled a lot. Grace, my ultra girly-girl spent the whole time on the ground in a dress, smiling at all of us as she shoved clumps of dirt down her dress. When we got home, the kids took three baths in one night and still didn’t look clean for a few days. I don’t plan on camping in that area again.

The next trip was to the Oregon Coast. This time we went with some of our closest friends, and the weather was perfect. The campsite was lush with trees, and everyone got along wonderfully. We left this time covered in a sheath of sand that quickly washed off, and, despite finding sand in our shoes a week later, it was the best kind of trip.

This past Friday we returned from Montana and a week camping out in Wanda. It was our longest trip this year, and we were spending it in my favorite part of Montana with family. We fished, sat near the campfire, and I watched my kids play with their cousins for hours and hours. We went through an entire bottle of bug spray and still returned home covered in bug bites. I drank wine with my sister and laughed for hours.
But after 7 days with only one shower, I was ready to come home. Not only were my kids covered in dirt, a week’s worth of sweat, and hands stained with remnants of cheese puffs, Chris and I were equally as dirty. He’d grown stubble that hurt when he kissed us and the creek hair-shampooing I’d been doing wasn’t cutting it. We arrived at the KOA in Spokane, and I wiped all the kids down before going out to dinner with our family. I knew we didn’t look refreshed or clean. We looked like people that had been out all week under the sun, and I couldn’t tell if my kids were tanned or dirty. We weren’t unhappy, we were just tired…and a little smelly. Later that night Chris and I showered at the campsite. It was the lap of luxury. As we made it into Oregon late the next afternoon, we got stuck in traffic. What would have been an hour-and-a-half ride home turned into a 4-hour adventure in stop-and-go traffic. I became antsy looking at the itchy faces of our kids. Antsy to get them home and clean.

And for some reason it made me think of God.

Let me be the first to admit that I am a conditional parent. I like when my children have clean fingernails and when their hair is trimmed. In fact there is a possibility I love them more then. I have spent the past several years of my life being puked, pooped, and wiped on and so I really welcome cleanliness. Therefore I will be the first to admit my shallowness in this. But I thought about God and all his greatness…and our sin and dirt and how we bring it to him, and thought, “What does He want? He wants to bathe our hearts, forgive us, to smell our clean hair.”
But sin and our choice to sin can be multi-layered. Sometimes we are so dirty we can’t wash it off for days, and we hate ourselves for it. Other times it’s sandy and we instantly brush it off, realizing it’s not worth it. But then there are the sins that come on gradually, the sins we choose again and again. And suddenly we can’t tell the dirt from a tan, and we don’t remember what it was like to be clean. This has become our life, and the fresh clean grip of Our Father seems a distant memory, a past life.

Those are the times when I cling most to my Christianity and our Catholic faith. The times when I can go to confession and receive the Eucharist with my hands clean. I cling to my God, folding myself in his Great Grace, knowing that he loves me, forgives me.

Because you know what? No matter how much fun we’ve had this summer, no matter how much my kids like
being dirty, they love being clean. There is something about clean things. Fresh sheets. Vacuumed floors. After baths we all curl up on the couch in our pajamas straight from the dryer and I read to my kids. I smell their clean hair. I thank God for them, and for dirt, and soap. He is good. And so is my life.

Camp St. Francis 2010

by Robert Fontana

Every Spring LuAnn from Volunteer Chore Services calls me in anticipation of Camp St. Francis. Volunteer Chore Services provides basic in-home assistance to low-income elders and adults with disabilities to help them continue living independently, safely, and with dignity in their own homes.

LuAnn saves big jobs for Camp St. Francis because she knows that we bring in a large number of talented, hard-working, and compassionate “campers” who will get the work done.

This year was no different. LuAnn told me she had a house to prime, paint, and repair, a porch that needed scraping and painting, another porch that needed to be built, and a third porch that needed steps to be replaced. We said “yes” to it all, confident that God would send the right families with the right skills to do the work. Of course, God did!
51 volunteers came: the youngest was four-year-old Benjamin; the oldest in his late 50s (it wasn’t me), and lots of folks in between, including a good number of teenagers, like Daniel, who offered their muscle and skills to help Beatrice have a home make-over.