Ite, missa est

c. Tina Gulotta Miller

It's been just over a month since the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report describing the ways in which many American Catholic bishops covered up credible reports of abuse by priests of their dioceses. The Church is roiled by accusations.  I'm horrified to hear people — children of God, made in the image and likeness of God — called "filth" because of their sexual orientation in the comments of a Catholic news site. Fingers point. There are cries of "not me" or at least "not us anymore." Prayer services are scheduled.  Let's all fast on the Ember Days or say a rosary or adore the Sacrament.

Personally I want to rent my garments and wail on a street corner for the wounds to my beloved Church, nothing so decorous and planned as a prayer service will do.  No delicate rosary is clasped in my hands, that I might count off grace-lit prayers on its jewels. The rough wool of a prayer rope chafes at my wrist and the knots catch on my fingers, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I sit not in a church redolent of incense, candlelight glimmering off the gold of the monstrance, but watch a woman rock a tiny child to sleep so her worn mother can do her homework, the smell of bleach drifting past, the holiest thing I have seen today. I keep vigil at the door of the shelter, a tabernacle for this one night, the Body of Christ kept safe.

Ite, missa est.  Go, they said, the Mass is ended. Go, not to repeat what has been done here in all reverent beauty, but to do it again amidst the wild roughness of the world. Go knowing how to hold the Body of Christ up, and say, this, this is God incarnate, come to dwell among us. This wailing child, this exhausted mother.  If you cannot see Christ in the beggar at the door, said St. John Chrysostom, you will not find Him in the chalice.