God's Eye: Attention and Discipleship
On the dangers of distraction
Yesterday was a busy day. I did the coffee line, prepared for a big job interview, visited my grandma and brought her dinner and swept her house, and then I got called in to the adoration chapel where I serve as a substitute.
So, in the interest of balance and of paying due attention to all these deserving tasks, I decided not to go to my usual 4 o’clock mass, but to attend the 9 p.m. mass at the university parish.
I ended up being a bit early. As I sat in the car, I scrolled through instagram. On the story of one my dear and esteemed comrades, was a blurred rectangle, with the “sensitive content” warning. I clicked to view, and was confronted with a video of three dead Palestinian children; their cold, waxen faces peeking out from body bags, laid in a row.
I locked my phone and sat there. Thankful for the brutal reorientation, the reminder not to be hurried with my importance, but rather to be urgent with my care. But also I was just brutalized, and feeling guilty for my discomfort, because after all I wasn’t the one who’d been killed in my sleep, and I wasn’t the survivor(s) burdened with grieving the loss of a loved one. Of course I should suffer at such a sight, at the knowledge that these things are happening right here right now, but also, I was aggrieved at the imperfection of my suffering. As if I wasn’t feeling it in the right way.
Cue my entrance to the church. Before the doors to the sanctuary was a sign: as announced the previous two weeks, the 9 o’clock mass will commence shortly after the Super Bowl.
OK, I thought. Whatever.
I enter the sanctuary, cross myself with the holy water, and take a moment to visit the shrine of Divine Mercy. That particular church has a relic of St. Faustina, my confirmation saint. So I always pay her a visit when I’m there. Finally, I genuflect before the altar and slide into a pew. People begin to assemble. It’s always an interesting group. Far more diverse than you would expect for a university parish. Lots of older people, couples, families, all different races. Not just college kids. And the inclination to go to a 9 p.m. Sunday mass is a particular one. I very often get the impression that these are working people, so diligent about their Sunday obligation that they take this rare and precious opportunity; as far as I know, it is the latest Sunday mass regularly offered in the city. I myself was there precisely because I had been busy with other aspects of discipleship (primarily corporal works of mercy), but had not excused myself, nor been tempted to, from the privilege of this work that we do.
About 15 minutes after the normal start time for the mass, the priest bustles in, and reminds us that the arrangement had been announced, and that we were welcome to join the viewing party downstairs. At about 9:30, he comes back in to inform us that the game has gone into overtime.
At this point I am having to censor numerous judgemental thoughts, and try earnestly to not be scandalized. To me it seems preposterous and irreverent. But I remind myself that the priest is evidently aware of this, or else he wouldn’t have been going back and forth between the sanctuary and the basement. By 9:45 several people have left. I worry about this. Then remind myself it’s not really my business, and that people are less fragile than I give them credit for.
At maybe around 10, a thunderous din of applause and cheer erupts from the bowels of the church, which I took to mean that the Chiefs had won (I’m in Wichita, Kansas). The priest rushes in, red-faced and gleeful, disappears for a brief moment, and then clangs the bell, reentering the sanctuary now vested. What followed was the most hurried and dispiriting mass I’ve heard. As is often necessary however, I simply prayed my usual mantra regarding priests: in persona christi, in persona christi, in persona christi.
Today I wake to find that while most of our national eyes were on the Super Bowl, Israel, after systematically coraling Gaza’s population into the city of Rafah, escalated its bombing of Rafah, in advance of a planned ground offensive. At least 67 people were killed.
I am writing today to urge myself and my brethren: do not succumb to spectacle, train your eye to God’s sightline; keep those pallored, dirty, dead faces before your eyes, and grieve the infinite loss of possibility represented by each one.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.