A Real Community of Faith

The one thing people usually say about St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly is how beautiful the church is.  There's no denying that.  It really is a magnificent house of worship to behold but one of the biggest complaints I had about the place was how impersonal it felt to me.  “Mass is like a roomful of strangers,” I jotted down in my journal back when I was in my mid-twenties.

This wasn't to say the church lacked a faith community.  Rather, the faith community that existed at St. Mary's seemed very cliquey.  For a time, the parish published a newsletter with a section that profiled certain parishioners but my takeaway was only people who were part of the pastor's circle of friends would ever be featured.
 
I now attend a smaller church with my mother that's mostly made up of elderly parishioners.  Each week we see “the regulars” meaning certain people who almost always go to the same Mass and sit in the same pews.  At first, these worshipers were just faces in a crowd, but after a while, my mother and I would wave hello, smile or nod.  Eventually, we'd actually start talking to them.  Sometimes we'd even exchange personal details about our lives including our hardships and struggles to the point where they were no longer strangers.  For one group of regulars, getting to know them was as simple as me asking, “I see you here at Mass all the time.  What are your names?”     

A few of these regulars learned about my struggles as a single and vowed to keep me in their prayers.  When I started dating a woman from Catholic Match this year, she insisted our third date include a visit to my parish for Mass.  I cautioned her that the sight of me with a female who isn't my mother might actually give some parishioners heart attacks...or at the very least, they'd faint.  Indeed, our third date did raise a few eyebrows among the regulars.  Even my priests wanted to know who this woman was and they hoped to see her again at many more Masses.

Everyone in my life was extremely happy for me and they noticed a certain spring in my step.  Gone was the hopelessness that had plagued my life for such a long time.  Even though she wasn't my girlfriend yet, I could actually start to see myself build a future with her.

For our fourth date, I traveled over a hundred miles to visit her church and the same thing happened with her parish's regulars.  Almost immediately, we got singled out to bring the gifts up to the altar and that made this already shy woman a bit flustered.  Others wanted to know who I was and if I'd be coming back to Mass in the upcoming weeks.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be and after our fifth date, she no longer wanted to see me.  When the regulars at my church asked for their weekly update about my relationship, I had to break the bad news to them.  Two regulars who my mother and I knew for a long while now handed me a card after the following week's Mass.  Per their wishes, I opened it later on.  The card featured a cartoon lion holding an umbrella that had rain pouring out of it.  The caption read, “When life just doesn't seem to make sense...”  Inside the card the caption continued, “...trust God to carry you through the storm.”  At the bottom was a passage from Hebrews 11:1.  They signed the card with their names and added, “Your church buddies.”
 
I was greatly moved by this thoughtful gesture because it showed me that someone out there cared.  This is what a real community of faith looks like.  Simple acts like that don't contain a solution to a problem but they don't have to.  The fact that someone went out of their way to acknowledge my troubles gave me a sense of comfort.  In that moment, I definitely felt less alone and more connected to the parish.

Let this be a lesson to us all.  A church shouldn't be so big that some parishioners get lost in the crowd.  Perhaps there are people at Mass that you see all the time but you don't even know their names.  Make 2023 the year you say hi and introduce yourself...even if it's just to finally find out what their names are.  Such gestures could sow the seeds of a real community of faith.

No Followers No Problem

After reading the last blog entry, I think it's safe to say I have a tendency to not get along with other Catholics.  When I started this blog back in February of 2016, I really didn't know what to expect.  Before this journey into the blogosphere began, I had spent quite a lot of time reading articles and blogs about Catholic singles and the one thing that made a huge impression on me was the comments section.  A heck of a lot of people were hurting, lonely and miserable.  They were not only questioning their faith but how the Church treated singles.  I thought starting a blog would add useful perspectives to the conversation and the closet optimist in me hoped other like-minded singles would become fans of this site.  Perhaps a future spouse would identify with what I had to say and reach out too.

The eternal pessimist in me thought otherwise and even after all these years this blog still doesn't have a single follower...but that's okay.  I write to get things off my chest and while trying to jot down my thoughts into something mildly coherent is incredibly challenging, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders once a blog entry is posted.

Some of the Catholic blogs I routinely check out enjoy a good number of followers but they usually tow the party line when it comes to the Church.  That's not this blog and as the title states, I am quite the black sheep.  I don't put on airs and tend to see right through people who do.  It's no coincidence that I've glimpsed the not-so-nice side of individuals who seem to be universally respected.  It could be a popular politician who campaigns on a platform of transparency and inclusion but holds secret meetings to quash different perspectives.  It could be a beloved pastor who says he looks after his congregation but then coldly ignores the singles in his midst.  And as we saw in early 2020, it could even be Cardinal Sean O'Malley who was clueless about the struggles many Catholic singles face on a daily basis.

Some people equate negativity with always being wrong and positivity with always being right so when an inconvenient  truth emerges, they run and hide...and remain silent.  These are the same people who never question the Church or their faith.  Instead, they find comfort in the logic, “If the Church says so, it must be true.”  That's not this blog and perhaps this is one of the reasons why Long Lost Black Sheep doesn't have any followers.

Going along with crowd is much easier than listening to the little voice inside your head that wants to speak out against an injustice or call out what you know to be a lie.  When someone tries to sell me a line, my mind is always testing...always challenging...always looking for consistency or inconsistency.  Sad to say, I've seen a whole lot of inconsistency from my fellow Catholics and it's just not in my nature to look the other way.

I also can't deny the things I've seen with my own eyes.  While some Catholics minimize the struggles of singles, I keep going back to those heartbreaking reader comments from other blogs.  Each remark represents a real person who is enduring real pain.  Shouldn't we be doing more as a faith community to help?  No doubt some think I should just shut up but that's not this blog.

Chatting with other singles on one particular online forum has only reinforced the misgivings I had about my fellow Catholics.  When discussing loneliness, one user accused me of “making the vagina into an idol.”  (His words.)  Other users hold very outdated views on masculinity, femininity, chivalry, and who should and should not be the provider for a family.  One online forum member cautioned everyone against bringing a date into your bedroom because the temptation to have sex would be too strong.  Others spoke out against pre-martial kissing and they considered all forms of attraction that led to arousal to be sinful...including those puppy love crushes most of us had as teenagers.  Needless to say, I've gotten into my fair share of online flame wars with these people.

As someone with a creative side, I find a lot of Catholics to be boring and unimaginative.  While trying my hand at online dating, it became clear that I couldn't share certain music, TV shows or movies with my fellow Catholics because they seemed too close-minded.  No wonder why I tend to get along better with my secular friends and acquaintances.  Unfortunately, they don't share many of the Catholic values I hold so dear and that leaves this black sheep straddling both worlds without ever finding a place to call my own.  But that's okay too.

The Cure for Starvation is Food

It amazes me how little support Catholic singles get from not only the Church but from other Catholic singles.  Loneliness is not a good thing.  In fact, it can be quite hazardous to your health and study after study shows when people lack meaningful connections with others, they tend not to live as long.  It's even been said that loneliness is worse for your long-term health than smoking or obesity.  Then there's the oft quoted factoid that on average married people live longer than their unattached counterparts.  So why do a lot of my fellow singles think being alone is no big deal?

On one particular Catholic dating chat room, I earned a “Gloomy Gus” reputation because I dared to say that being single was miserable.  Despite all the talk of brotherhood and fraternity, there wasn't much sympathy to be found from the Catholic men on the site.  Instead I was told to suck it up.  One chat room member even went so far as to question my mental health because he did things by himself all the time and it didn't bother him.  He said he could travel, take in a concert, go to a restaurant and do many other activities without having to dwell on being alone.  Well, I've done many of those things to death by myself and I just get tired of never having anyone to share those experiences with.

I guess a lot of Catholic men (and many women) think the only emotions the male gender of the species are entitled to fall somewhere between stoic and angry.  In their eyes, to complain about loneliness is to show weakness and that isn't tolerated.  Sometimes I'm reminded of a public service announcement on the radio that starts with someone saying, “It's only cancer.  Get over it.”  Then the point is raised, “If we wouldn't say that to someone with cancer then why do we say that to someone with depression?”  Then it's explained how serious a mental health problem depression is with thousands of people taking their lives each year.  I guess for many Catholics, there's no legitimate reason to be sad about being single.  These folks often quip, “Others have it worse than you.” or “God loves us and that's all we should need.”  Maybe they'll say we should be patient because God has a plan for us.  Despite their good intentions this advice isn't very helpful and sometimes, it's actually hurtful because it trivializes those deep feelings of isolation that can't be shaken off so easily.

Some Catholics in this chat room have said we need to view being single as an opportunity to better ourselves.  A few of my fellow brothers in Christ suggested taking up weightlifting and eating healthier so that when a woman does enter our lives, we'll be on our A-game.  Well, this assumes we'll actually meet an eligible member of the opposite sex at some point.  Then there's the Law of Diminishing Returns.  Self-improvement only goes so far and it's a pretty useless thing if you never actually find anyone to date.  Besides, I know plenty of people in successful marriages who tied the knot when they weren't in the best of shape or when they didn't have ideal jobs.

Then there are the numerous articles put out by Catholic dating websites and bloggers alike that seek to put a Band-aid on a gaping wound with titles similar to: “Being Single Doesn't Mean You Have To Feel Alone” or “A Survival Guide For Catholic Singles During The Holidays” or “How To Be A Happy Single.”  I think articles like these can be helpful in the short-term but they are ultimately useless to chronic singles who have seen decades slip by without a significant other.
 
When someone is starving we don't send them articles like: “Ten Things To Take Your Mind Off Eating” or “You Can Be Happy and Hungry.”  We give them food.  Sure, we want to comfort singles when they feel despair but anything short of helping them find a spouse fails to address the root cause of their problem.

After so many years of being alone, I finally met someone through a dating website this year.  She found my profile photo to be attractive and decided to reach out to me.  We chatted for a few weeks via the online messenger and then met in real life at a restaurant of my choosing.  The date went very well so we continued to see each other.  In that time, it felt so good to be with someone.  All my years of loneliness and isolation (and the anxiety that came with it) just melted away.  I was no longer that strange loner sitting by himself.  I was part of an “us” whether we were going for a walk on a rail trail or just innocently cuddling on the couch.  Unfortunately, she didn't think we were compatible enough and decided to dump me after our fifth date but for one brief shining moment, I got a taste of what had been missing in my life for so long.  It turned out, I didn't need psychotherapy.  I didn't need to lift weights, to eat healthier, to take up wood carving or to read more.  No, I needed a girlfriend.  It's time my fellow Catholic singles and the websites that cater to them realized this!