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Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
December 2004

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WHAT I EXPECT FROM GOD

At my wedding, the old Jesuit who celebrated the Mass promised that any married couple who attended Mass together and received the Eucharist daily would never have any significant troubles in their married life. He was not given to such optimistic pronouncements. Usually, his certainties tended in the opposite direction: given the chance, people will, as a rule, disappoint, fail, and sin. Suffering is the norm, even (perhaps especially) within the borders of the matrimonial state. He really seemed to enjoy assuring people that they would suffer. But here, he made an exception.

It's a hard claim to test. I haven't attended Mass daily; neither has my wife. Neither has any couple I know, at least not to my knowledge. Still, I believed him absolutely; such was my faith in the power of the Eucharist. It wasn't just that people were willing to take time out of their day and haul themselves to Mass and participate in the life of the Church; it was that they were daily communing with Jesus. The Eucharist is not a magic wafer. It is, however, God Incarnate, the source of all grace and strength. If ever there was a "do this and you'll be fine" aspect to the faith, that would probably be it.

It's easy, however, to start imagining that there are other such aspects, things you can do that will inure you to the failings so common to much of the world. I once heard Janet Smith say something along the lines of, "If you practice natural family planning faithfully, coming together to pray and consider God's will for your life, there's a 95% chance that your marriage will succeed."

It makes intuitive sense to a Catholic mind. If you can keep sex — the physical expression of your sacramental union — tethered to the sacrament, if you can keep it the occasion of grace by keeping it open to life, and if you consciously strive to submit decisions about your behavior to the will of God, then odds are you'll make it.

Then you hear about Bud McFarlane — NFP, four kids, "America's best loved Catholic novelist," founder of Catholicity.com — seeking to divorce his wife, despite her opposition. Of course, practicing NFP does not mean practicing NFP faithfully — of all the men I've heard talk about it, only my brother has said anything about its actually meaning something more than pure, miserable self-denial. The "faithfully" part, I guess, would at least mean having some sense of connection to God's will, some notion that your abstinence meant something more than your own desire to avoid more kids.

In my own soul, it has gone even further than that. I discover opinions in myself that are not born from any kind of thoughtful consideration; instead, they've grown in the dark, like fungi. Things like: If you keep to the rules, if you do the things you ought and try to be good, God will prosper the work of your hands. Or at the very least, He won't make you suffer for doing right.

My friend Marcus and his wife Erin just welcomed their sixth child into the world. Their fifth was only 13 months old. Their eldest is eight. They practice NFP, but keep conceiving nonetheless. Erin is worn. Marcus won't be singing with the San Diego Opera chorus this year, and his remarkable voice has grown rusty — he doesn't have time to train it. I get frustrated on their behalf when I think about it. They've tried to be open, tried to cooperate with God. Why did God give the voice, if He was also intent on sending so many kids that it went unheard? Why is God grinding Erin down? Those are the questions I ask myself, before I stop and realize how foolish the questions are. I have discovered another fungus in myself.

I go further. Marcus is from a large family, very large, and I have become accustomed to telling astonished listeners that the family, though enormous, is not breaking down. Everyone still in the Church, everyone married, nobody addicted or destroyed. Without my thinking about it, they became my poster children for the possibility of large families. But there are troubles when you look closer; there always are. A marriage strained to the breaking point. Difficult personalities. I, a man who prides himself on seeing things as they are, without the gloss of pious sentiment, have fallen prey to precisely that. It is folly to have particular expectations of God; it is even grosser folly to have them of my fellow sinners.

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