An Unseen Failure

One byproduct of the priesthood shortage that I've noticed is an increase in the number of priests who speak with a foreign accent.  As some churches struggle to find enough men of the cloth to say Mass, priests from other counties have visited my parishes to lend a helping hand.  At times, their exotic accents are so thick, it's difficult to understand what they are saying.  I admit to checking out mentally during more than a few broken English sermons.

I've seen visiting foreign priests from many different countries over the years but the vast majority of them seem to come from India.  At times their mispronunciations almost make me laugh.  One Indian priest encouraged us to “say the grocery.”  (say the rosary)  On the altar, he held up the “brad and wine” (bread and wine) as we celebrated the “epi-funny.”  (Epiphany)  He also talked about the time he walked to a nearby symmetry.  (cemetery)  Another visiting Indian priest didn't quite understand all of our phrases and expressions and during the Christmas season he mentioned how the “three intelligent men” followed the star to Bethlehem.  (three wise men)           

Their sermons have also touched upon topics many of my American priests tend to shy away from like the abject poverty of third world countries, the struggles of spreading the Gospel in remote villages where even a simple bicycle can make all the difference and conflicts with other religions...namely Islam.  During one Easter Mass with little kids in the pews who probably had colorful thoughts of the Easter bunny in their minds, a visiting Indian priest told us about Christian hostages who were beheaded by ISIS in 2015 because they would not deny Jesus.  I found the sermon to be very inappropriate and quite depressing.  Not everyone is inspired by graphic tales of martyrdom.
 
In another sermon, one of these priests told us about a Catholic woman he knew from India who was going to marry a Muslim man.  They had fallen in love but he refused to convert to Christianity.  Instead, he insisted she embrace Islam and give up her religion.  After a period of soul searching, the woman agreed to his terms and just before she was to abandon her Catholic faith, she sought out our priest to discuss the matter.  After hearing her story he got down on his knees and begged her forgiveness.  He then apologized for failing her.
 
Our priest explained that this woman had been educated in a Catholic school, went to church all her life, was intelligent, and a successful doctor yet she was willing to give up her religion for love.  Had her fellow Catholics done a better job raising her in a community of faith, then maybe she would not have been willing to abandon her beliefs so easily.  As a single person, I saw a very different side to this failure.

My priest and the Catholic institutions that educated this woman did fail...but they failed to give her options for finding a good Catholic husband and THAT is what drove her into the arms of a Muslim man.  Perhaps if they had done more to bring Catholic singles together for the purposes of dating and marriage then maybe my priest wouldn't be asking this woman for her forgiveness. 

Most people want to experience romantic love.  Most people want to have a healthy outlet for their sexual desires.  These are not trivial things and if we can't obtain what we are looking for in life, sometimes misery sets in.  Sometimes we are willing to compromise our beliefs and settle for less.  Sometimes we even overlook obvious red flags.  Why?  Because falling in love is extremely important and it's about time our religious leaders recognize this.
 
I can't tell you how many priests just don't get it.  They say things like, “The only relationship you need is with Jesus.” or “Happiness is a choice and marriage won't automatically make you happy.”  But these statements really fail to understand the depth of a single person's needs.  It's not selfish to seek out love or to desire all the things (good and bad) that love brings but far too often, Catholic singles like me are made to feel this way.
 
A while ago, one of these visiting Indian priests told us in a sermon that he was 15 years old when he felt the call to the priesthood.  My mother wondered how someone with that kind of perspective could truly understand the average male.  At 15, my hormones were raging and I certainly wasn't thinking about the priesthood.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It just means I wasn't meant for the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

After Mass, I wanted to share my thoughts about this woman's decision to give up her faith but the priest was so busy greeting and blessing the departing crowd, I decided not to wait around.  Unfortunately, he did not return to our parish the next week or the week after that so as the relevance of his sermon faded, I lost my chance to revisit this subject...not that it would have made a difference.

The Invisible Among Us

Something very curious has been happening during Mass, lately.  For two weeks in a row, whenever the priest gives a sermon, he indirectly references my mother.

For many years now, my mother has endured one medical setback after another.  Just when we think a physical ailment has been cured, another one pops up out of nowhere. Despite these difficulties, she's always made an effort to attend weekly Mass even when the Boston Archdiocese reopened churches with new social distancing measures.  Many sermons from around this time in 2020 tended to focus on the value of suffering with one priest in particular saying that it was a gift from God.  After Mass, my mother jokingly said to him, “Father, tell God that I don't need any more gifts.”  He got a laugh out of it then blessed her saying that her suffering had meaning.  My mother expressed the hope that her aches and pains here on earth might help souls get out of purgatory.

Most worshipers in my parish are very elderly even though the area has a high concentration of young people.  During a recent sermon, our priest lamented this fact and asked why.  He then looked around the room and noted how some parishioners have managed to attend Mass every week despite the fact that a few of them suffer from great physical difficulties.  He then glanced at my mother with a smile and nodded with approval.  We both knew who he was talking about.

After Mass, my mother again talked to our priest and he indeed admitted that during his sermon, he was specifically referring to her adding that her example was an inspiration to everyone.  As they chatted, I thought about all the sacrifices I had to make to get her to Mass.  My mother does not drive so she wouldn't be able to go to church if it wasn't for me.  When she walks with her cane, she also grabs onto my arm for stability.  (God forbid the elevator is out of order at our parish because then it means a long slow climb up and down several stairs.)  Our priest enjoyed his little chat with my mother while completely ignoring me and as he continued to heap praise on her I felt like saying, “What am I?  Chopped liver?”
 
Often, it's the caregivers who are invisible.  We put in a huge effort to help our loved-ones maintain some quality of life but most people tend to see only the sweet old lady courageously sitting in the pew.  The trouble with the narrative my priest shared during his sermon was that it left out all that I have lost but this isn't the first time a man of the cloth has ignored the whole truth for the sake of a good story.
 
When I attended St. Mary Star of the Sea parish in Beverly, one of our pastor's favorite words during a sermon was “edify.”  If there was a large crowd at Mass, it edified him.  If he saw an elderly couple who had been married for 50 years sitting in the pews, it edified him.  If he saw lots of children and families at Mass, it edified him.  But in those same pews were the lonely, the depressed, and the people whose faith was threadbare.  Adding us to his narrative would cast too much of a dark cloud on his rosy vision of our parish so we became invisible.  This only increased our sense of alienation.
 
The next week, my priest again talked about the suffering some people endured with another knowing glance toward my mother.  Afterwards, he thanked her for her sacrifice but this time, I spoke up saying that I too had to sacrifice to get her to Mass.  He was so focused on my mother, he didn't seem to understand what I was saying.  I added, “Sacrificing is fine but people also have to live their own lives.”  My words seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Guess that narrative was too much of a dark cloud.

Caregiving for me means that I live at home with my mother which makes my value on the dating scene quite low.  I have a menial job just to be close to home and when I'm not working, my life is a blur of countless doctor's appointments for her.  As I sit in waiting room after waiting room, there never seems to be any women my age around, just the miserable sight of elderly and / or obese patients I call the walking wounded.
 
There are the big things that take an emotional toll like seeing my mother fall and not being able to lift her back up, trips to the emergency room in the dead of night, realizing that her time on this earth is winding down with each passing year, seeing her cry because she is so frustrated by all of her physical ailments.  Then there are the small things I have to endure like not being able to go away on long road trips, having to turn my headphones down really low just so I can hear her calling me, emptying her commode, accidentally seeing her partially clothed when she changes into a hospital gown, worrying if I will find her in distress when I come home from work.  This way of life certainly doesn't give me that many moments of joy to call my own.
 
My mother's difficulty walking made it necessary for me to accompany her to a recent eye doctor appointment.  Instead of hanging out in the waiting room or in these socially distant times, waiting in my car, I sat in a small chair across from the examination chair.  For the first time, I saw her much-talked-about but never seen doctor who turned out to be an attractive Asian woman in her 40s.  Not once during this appointment did she look at me or even acknowledge my presence.  It wasn't until she was on her way out the door that my mother said, “This is my son.”  She briefly glanced over and said hi as she left.  Invisible indeed.
 
While on my way out to the car, I asked about the doctor and my mother said, “She's married with kids.”  I added, “Of course.  Any beautiful, successful woman would be.  Guys like me don't stand a chance.”  For the rest of the day, my mother had trouble seeing things and when she dropped her glasses on the carpet, the frustration to even perform small tasks got to her.  With tears in her eyes she asked, “How much more of this can a person take?”  It's a question I find myself asking God a lot.