How often have I heard the words “Life is a journey?” I’ve lost count. But over time, I’ve learned that, within that so-called journey, that goes on however many years we have allotted to us, smaller side trips are sometimes called for. We can consider them however we want: as totally separate ventures that take us from our main path; as detours that ultimately lead to the same destination we would have reached had we not veered off; or shorter journeys that we embark upon that move along in the same direction as the main path, yet offer us additional insights and experiences that we might never have gotten had we not taken that turn back there.
At some point, all our journeys, the main one along with all those little side trips, eventually converge. And at all those points, we must, like cars on a highway, merge into the main traffic flow, being careful not to disrupt it. It’s not that we will interrupt anyone else’s journey, but that we will rejoin ours, having acquired new information of having made decisions we would not otherwise have made.
Such has been the case as I’ve traveled my own path these 60-or-so years of adulthood, my journey up until then being made up primarily of early formative influences and experiences that hopefully prepared me for the more difficult terrain ahead, a landscape whose often difficult challenges came as a surprise to me as it does to all other young people who think that adulthood is a time of freedom and liberation from the rules and obligations placed upon us by those adults who were tasked with raising us.
As is the case with many young people, my early life consisted of being exposed to religion, namely the Catholic faith. This involved going to Mass every Sunday, performing all the rituals necessary to a solid understanding of that faith, including attending a school run by a denomination of teaching nuns trained in the art of shaping us into good Catholic children. What we learned at school and heard in church every week was carried over into our homes where our parents did the best they could to impress upon us the importance of growing up to become pious and faithful believers who would live their lives to glorify God and all the saints, all of which were honored at different times of the liturgical year.
It was common practice back then for each good Catholic to develop a devotion to a particular saint. Many women chose Mary, the Mother of Jesus, also known as the Blessed Virgin. Mary offered as many different incarnations of herself as there were Catholic cultures, and millions still revere to this day.
My father had a particular fondness for St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes, while my mother, whose name was Anna, favored St. Anne, thought to be Mary’s mother and Jesus’ grandmother. Her existence is more legendary than Biblical, as there are no references to her in any of the books of the New Testament.
That portion of my early Catholic experience was also marked by certain organized rituals, such as the Adoration of the Sacrament, held on the First Friday of each month, and the recitation of the Rosary, which was offered in church at different times of the year for the more devout. Of the many personal rituals performed by worshipers, the one I recall most distinctly is performing the Stations of the Cross, which involved saying specific prayers while stopping in front of images that depicted each stage of Christ’s journey to Golgotha, the hill where he was crucified. I still have many strong and vivid memories of carrying out that devotion in church on a quiet afternoon, the only sound the rattling of rosary beads, an occasional cough, or doors being opened and closed by the church sexton performing his duties.
The hallmark of those prayerful afternoons was, however, the scent of the votive candles burning in front of statues of Mary and St. Joseph, and the lingering aroma of the incense used at the most recent funeral masses. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t state that I do, to this day, miss those particular attributes of my early Catholic experience.
After the Second Ecumenical Council that took place in Rome in 1962, the rituals and the liturgy started to change. The Latin masses were done away with, and the French masses reduced to one on Sundays and every weekday. Masses said in English became the norm, and the ethereal strains of organ music and a choir were also gradually replaced with folk music performed on guitars and sung to a livelier more “modern” tempo.
I remember my father’s disgust with that particular change, which he summed up quite succinctly with the words “Guitars don’t belong in church.”
So there you have the sum and total of all that my Catholic upbringing consisted of. If it seems sparse or rather lacking in some ways, that’s because it was. And it was only recently, at this ripe old age, that I realized how inadequate it had all been and how truly little I understood what Christianity was all about. Essentially, I spent the first half of my life trying to live up to some semblance of devoutness. I was taught what to believe, what to say, and how to behave, but I never knew why. Again, I came away from those years with the basics, which consisted of nothing more than following rules instilled in us at church, at school, and at home.
In 1973, I married a young man who professed no sort of religion whatsoever. His knowledge was confined to what little he’d heard, most of it in a humorous light. At the time, I believed I was much more advanced spiritually than he and his people were. But as time went by, I realized that, while I might know certain prayers and was still familiar with all the rituals, I couldn’t have explained any of it to him. Over time, I was to return to my Catholic roots in order to give our daughter some sort of foundation. But I did it mostly to please my parents, who were mortified that I had strayed so far from my roots.
At some point in time, I forget exactly when, my journey veered off in a very unhealthy direction. The details aren’t important. Suffice it to say that, along that particular stretch, I did many things I am still, to this day, not at all proud of and that still elicit some measure of shame and a lot of regret in me. I was to head in that direction a few more times in my life, and I never questioned my motivation or my inability to reverse it. It is only recently that I discovered and began to understand why I had taken those sad detours, and that discovery would not have been possible had I not been on a path that I hoped would draw me closer to God.
A few months ago, I began a nightly prayer session, which I always seem to start at around 9 p.m. First, I read a Bible verse from a small devotional calendar, write it down if it speaks to me, and then I read the day’s message off another devotional calendar. After that, I work on Bible study, if I have a lesson to complete, and/or I read several chapters of Scripture. Following that is prayer time, when I spend a few minutes praising and thanking God for all his blessings, asking forgiveness for my sins, and presenting him with any requests for what I think I need. I always include prayers for others in that time, a practice which is called intercession.
From what I’ve learned so far (and that I never knew up till now), the most effective way to pray involves four basic components: praise, thanksgiving, requests and intercession. I thank God that other more astute individuals have broken this down, particularly for those who, like me, were never given much by way of actual spiritual practice.
During these prayer sessions, I sometimes go into a sort of trance. Others might see it as one of the levels that can be reached during intense meditation. As I talk to God (which is what prayer is basically), I keep my eyes closed and feel myself moving into what I can only describe as a soft place. At that time of the night, it’s pretty quiet here where I live, so there is very little noise to distract me and turn me away from my focus on God.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.(NKJV)
Not long ago, I poured my heart out to the Lord about those times in my life when I had turned completely away from him and instead pursued something that would eventually prove to distance me from Him even more. The more I spoke and dug into the reason for those sinful actions, the more I realized that I had traveled to that very dark place from which all these behaviors had come. I felt again the old sense of aloneness and isolation in a place that had cut me off, not only from God, but from others as well, including many of the people I loved.
When I finally emerged from that place and from that experience, I realized that I finally understood why I had done those things, and that I had managed to trace that particular part of my journey to my childhood when certain influences had broken something inside me that was to continue to manifest itself until I finally confronted it, which I did that night...at 9 o’clock, alone in my kitchen, where it was just me and the Lord.
If for no other reason than what I learned that night, this new journey toward God has been worth it. After 60-plus years of bouncing around inside a box like a ping-pong ball, I finally had an answer. My one regret is that it too me this long to arrive at this point.
There is so much more to this that has all happened to me in the short time since I began this trek, and I was add more to it in the coming days and weeks.
But like the Prodigal Son, this wayward daughter has finally returned, broken, destitute, and desperate, but totally ready for what will happen next. And the celebratory banquet the Father provided for her has been nothing short of magnificent.
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