2001 CONFESSIONS
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Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

SEPTEMBER 2001 CONFESSIONS

IS COMFORT POSSIBLE?

Apart from the occasional bout of unreasoning doubt, often brought on by thinking overmuch of the actual moment of death, I am a comfortable Catholic. The term almost sounds oxymoronic to me, for it is through my Catholicism that I am so comfortable. Man is a mystery, and endless effort has been spent plumbing the depths of that mystery, but on a general level, I don't feel terribly mysterious to myself. I know why I am here. I know why I do not always feel at home here. I know my place in the universe, and my destination. I know why there is suffering, why even the seemingly innocent suffer. I know why I do things which I know are evil. I know what I must do to overcome that evil. I know what it takes to be happy; I know the source of the hunger that outlasts every good thing. I do not expect to be truly satisfied by anything in this life, except whatever foretaste of heaven I may receive.

But, you say, mysteries abound in the Faith. Very well. I am comfortable with mysteries, having been around them my whole life, beginning with the mystery of God's love, the love which created, then redeemed the world. The love which looks for me and sustains me and listens to the prayers and petitions of a comfortable young man in Southern California. Astonishing, but I am not astonished. I am comfortable, comfortable with the idea that a man can forgive my sins, that a man can change bread into God without changing the accidents of that bread. Is this the peace of God? No. But it is the peace that comes from faith in that God and His Church.

Other people are mysteries, perhaps. But if there is a God, and He is their ultimate source and destination, then a lot can be determined from the nature of their relationship with Him. The rest, seen in one way, is a collection of particulars.

Does this worldview make me smug? I like to think it doesn't -- I don't imagine that I've earned the knowledge that so eases my mind and stills my heart. Does it make the world dull? Hardly -- a great battle rages between good and evil, in the world and within my own soul. It is a battle between radiating love and sucking self, and that "collection of particulars" is crucial to its outcome. The call to holiness and perfection is an impossible one -- Scripture assures me that I can never be entirely without sin in this life. (I am even comfortable with the impossibility, though I can see how it would frustrate someone whose self-esteem rested on unqualified success.) In fact, I suspect that the holier I become, the more conscious I will be of my own sinfulness. The better I get, the worse I'll look -- the more improvement will be required.

One real danger of being comfortable is becoming complacent -- it has not been a great month, spiritually. I spent several weeks trying to get extra work done so I could go away for a couple of weeks, and began treating God as little more than a source of help in time of need. I usually remembered to thank Him for his blessings, but I started seeing morning prayer as something you did to insure a productive day at work, rather than seeing a productive day as a good which followed from giving priority to God.

I got my work done, flew east to visit family, and promptly collapsed with the flu. I was down for five days. I suffered anxiety from the helplessness -- there's a special suffering in knowing that you are causing suffering. My four-year-old's behavior turned sour because of my absence.

And if it was hard on my son, it was much harder on my wife. Already out of the comfort zone of her own home, she was now managing our three kids without me. My brother and his wife helped out, but they had five of their own, including two-month-old twins. As the days passed, I watched the strain and exhaustion build in my wife's face, and I could do nothing but pray. Most of the time, I didn't feel like doing even that.

In my better moments, I offered up my fever and chills, the sweats, the aches, the time lost and guilt over stress caused, and hoped those better moments would carry with them all the other moments spent in dumb misery.

Now, with my health returned and my memory, as it always is, almost entirely purged of those five days, what remains is an evening spent sitting next to the toilet, waves of nausea rolling over me. The prickling beads of sweat popping out along my arms and legs. The cold, hard floor replaced by the cold, wet shower mat. The great desire for it just to be over with, and me thinking, "This is just a touch from God, His finger resting ever so lightly upon me." Something to hang on to, a little prick to keep comfort and complacency apart.

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