SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai
As I enjoy my time away from the classroom doing what academics do during their sabbatical – researching, writing, giving lectures, and learning to relax – I have also taken on the hobby of participating in the FAITH FEEDS events organized by C21 – The Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College. What I want to reflect on here comes from a short reading that we are reflecting on this week. It is written by Fr. Brian Doyle and title, “THE JOY OF HAVING LOUD AND MESSY KIDS AT MASS.” Many of us have gotten accustomed to wanting to have a quiet church where the distractions from children are not experienced. After all, we have been taught that authentic devotion and participation are achieved by a solemn presence saturated with silence. The cries and laughter of children are seen as stealing away from such an experience.
Don’t get me wrong. There is time for silence. Silence has its place in our encounters with God. But have you ever wondered about the following: All encounters with God is first mediated by distractions. The first encounter we have with God which motivates us to embrace a life of conversion is itself a distraction from the mundane realities of life. Conversion is itself an existential distraction. All attempts to respond to the invitation of life that God initiates ought to always evoke a sense of distraction in us.
Bringing this insight to the liturgy, one notices that we tend to have limited the rich vision of what participation ought to look like. We think that participation is simply about avoiding mundane encounters with others which are themselves human modes of being. We want what I call a mausoleum church where everything is manicured. Seats are clean. everything is well arranged. No distraction whatsoever. Where did we get this idea from? I think it comes from a false understanding of stoicism that has shaped our sense of a monastic spirituality. We forget that the hermetic tradition is itself not a flight from encounter or from the mundane distractions of the world. It is the opposite. One becomes a hermit so that one can see clearly how God makes God present in the chaotic realities of life. This point is not lost among the Desert Fathers and Mothers. I recall reading during my novitiate years how Abba Asenus would insist that his followers embrace the silent vocation. On the other hand, Abba Moses would embrace the life of laughter and conviviality as the pathway for encountering the God of life. Both of them are correct. The silent vocation invites us to embrace the God of chaos who is found in the messiness of life. The chaotic vocation invites us to see and embrace the God of silence who is found in the praxes of reflection through withdrawal.
If the above is correct, then participation in the liturgy cannot be exclusionary. It ought to embody both the silence of reflection and the messiness of encounter. Children who cry or play around at Mass are also participating actively in the liturgy. In fact, that is exactly how the Spirit invites them to the altar of encounter. We who may have lost the ability to find God in the messiness of life, the presence of these children become a pneumatological witness and invitation to us to reclaim what we have lost in our embrace of a mausoleum church.
I, who is writing these lines, sometimes find it difficult to embrace the distractions our children gift us with. But I write as a form of witnessing. Without participation through distraction that we are all invited to embody as children, we may not always understand fully the silent reflection that may be part of our ways of encountering God later in life. It is on that note, that I think we ought to reclaim fully the gift that our children bring to us through their cries, playfulness and distractions when they gather with us as a church oriented towards an encounter with Christ.
Reflection in preparation for Lent
February 9, 2024.
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