The Hope to Hope Despite Agoraphobia and Algorithms

My friend Ruth's daughter Adrianna gave me permission to share her last Facebook post. She wrote...

"The Triduum is the time of year when I most feel sorry for every single person that isn’t part of the Catholic Church… they have absolutely no idea what they are missing, what we have here, how incredibly blessed we are. It’s so sad to see so many people misunderstand or hate or leave our Faith."

Adrianna is not an old patriarchal Latin-Mass only daily Mass goer. In fact, she hasn't been able to attend Mass in years. She is a young divorced mom of three children and suffers from agoraphobia which is... "fear of places and situations that might cause panic, helplessness...".

In a world that preaches that patriarchal institutions (especially the Church) is outdated and venomous,  it is beautiful to see someone so young, so scarred by life, so wounded,  so "normal" not dismiss the faith as irrelevant or unnecessary but as an "incredible blessing" and of value in her disabled, remote life.

She is the voice of many in our towns, our community, our homes today. A young, divorced, single mother with a crippling illness. She unperfectly represents us all in our own humanity. Her disability is found in a fear we all share. The fear of rejection.

Hers is manifested more publicly by her willingness to share a life that is deep within our own innards, a fear we all share and a burden we carry together.

Fear of rejection by our family and peers is so great that we reject the Christ that offers us a hope beyond...a living breathing hope that generations have clung to for a lifetime. We fear rejection and so we reject. Then we justify it. Each lifetime starts anew.

In a world absorbed by algorithms and getting it right, the Church says you can get it all wrong and still be saved. Then it offers us a list of things to practice in order to do better. But we don't want to do better yet we want everyone else to do better. People rebuke this because they have no room in their own heart to forgive. In a world where people shun the *rules* laid out by God in order to lead a better life, we accept forms of algorithm that makes our lives look a certain way on a surface level but never in a deep soul-changing way. It's too hard. Yes, Christianity is hard.

When I asked to share, Adrianna wrote me..."Absolutely! No need to leave my name out either, I don’t mind :) I try to share all of my struggles so others know they aren’t alone ❤️ any details about my life are open to sharing :) I know a lot of people struggle with being divorced or chronically ill and disabled as well, and some people believe they aren’t allowed to attend Mass or receive the Eucharist after divorce either which is so sad :( "

And she's right. The Church is big enough to hold us all...the hurt, the wounded, the rejected, the unloved, the doubting Thomases among us.

Yet there are so many misunderstandings within the Church of today. Adrianna and others of her generation who hold fast to the tainted, tattered, threadbare remnants of a fading faith that assures them they matter are the ones who know they matter and they matter enough to be saved inspite of themselves, inspite of society's rejection, inspite of their flawed algorithm and agrophobia. They are the shining example of how being a Catholic is not meant for only Pinterest-perfect families but especially meant for those struggling, wounded, and scarred living a parent's basement, disrobed, beaten down, overlooked. 

Perhaps that is why so many young people put on the image of rejection because the Puritanized image of Christianity has told them that they are only worthy if they act a certain way or walk a certain walk or talk a certain language. Catholicism is not that. It is for all of us. It is the universal language of hope.

Christ has said it and Christ has proven it.

"The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The Triduum displays the ugliness of our humanity, something none of us can turn away from. Yet the Resurrection manifests the beauty of each of us that exists behind the unspeakable, un-Pinteresty reality. We live in a very filtered sanitized world and there seems to be little place for the crucifixion...OR...is it that the crucifixion is larger-than-life and so hideous around us that we...myself included...run from it, avoid it, turn away from it. We simply cannot bear the weight of our own crosses much less someone elses. So we turn away from any hope of redemption. Perhaps out of blind necessity. And by doing so all that is life for them to turn towards is...Calvary. Without the empty tomb there is nothing but the place of the skull.

Some say the Resurrection isn't reality. It never happened. They reject it. That is what is so sad. That is what Adrianna...sitting in her single brokenness...barely able to enter a store much less attend weekly Mass...finds so sad. That people would reject the HOPE in something greater than this earthly imprisonment she experiences is sad to her.

Mark 9:24 "Lord, I believe; help me in my unbelief" should be the poignant prayer that escapes our lips every morning...every time we awaken to a hurting world, a friend who rejects us, an illness that crushes us, a spouse who leaves us, a child who neglects us, a job that robs us, a neighbor who allows their dog to dump on our perfectly manicured Easter yard. 

It is NOT to accept these things and sit back and not speak up or do something about it...absolutely NOT. Identifying as Catholic Christian is to see life as it is, do what I can to make it better, and then to be fool enough...yes, FOOL ENOUGH...to say I believe in something better than the moment I stand in. Christianity is to believe in a Resurrection so beautiful and holy that it rises above this life and beyond death, allowing death to have no hold on it. And then living as proof of that effortless hope.

“O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (Corinthians 15:55-58)

Even if that grave is left full of dusty diseased riddled bones, I am able to live a life of Faith, Hope, and Love....because those weak bones danced due to the strength of the Spirit that lived in them. 

In that I find my salvation...despite my questions, my doubts, my unbelief, my humanity...I believe in my divinity...to be one with God. That is my Hope. At Easter time it is offered to each and everyone of us.