Losing gracefully

[rug]

Nov. 18th, 2012|11:28 pm
Scott

The next part of The Swerve is a violently anti-Catholic screed, which I will put on hold because today is one of those exceedingly rare days when violent anti-Catholic screeds might not be fully appropriate.

Today I had the great pleasure of getting to meet Leah Libresco of Unequally Yoked and support her at her baptism. And by "support", I mean that I was waiting for the priest to say "If anyone knows why this ceremony should not proceed, speak now or forever hold your peace", and then I could shout "God is an antiquated idea with insufficient evidence to even rise to the level of consideration let alone become a working hypothesis and Leah is far too good for you people and you can't have her!" But it turns out priests only ask that question at weddings, which under the circumstances is probably wise.

But it was actually a lovely service. In the course of growing up Jewish and then losing my religion I'd managed to never attend a church service before, so I was excited to see what all the fuss has been about for the past two thousand years. It was very...well, yesterday I got to talking to another doctor I met at the job interview. He spent his entire life in Nepal and India before moving to America a month ago. I asked him if it was scary, if there was a big culture shock. To my surprise, he said no. There's so much of America in books and TV and movies that everything just felt perfectly natural, albeit slightly disconcerting as if you had stepped into a TV screen. That was how I felt going to Mass.

I've always had an interest in myth and ritual, and people have always told me that the Catholic mass is the ritual par excellence, honed over two thousand years to instill a deep feeling of awe. I was looking forward to it and didn't get it. The church itself was spotlessly beautiful, but when you're sitting next to a lot of screaming kids and everyone was sort of fumbling through their hymnals and muttering the songs - then if there was supposed to be a spell, it was pretty thoroughly broken. Also, thanks to my synagogue experience I find it hard to take a service seriously if it's conducted in a language I understand.

http://squid314.livejournal.com/341902.html

Here's her webpage.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/

[dimbear]

1. The experience she's looking for is still available. Look around for an SSPS chapel. n/t

[rug]

2. Do you mean the SSPX or the FSSP?

The former is in schism, the latter is not.

Either way, I doubt that's what Leah is looking for.

[dimbear]

3. SSPX.

Sorry for the typo. Sounds like what she had in mind, Latin mass with all the trimmings.

The way I remember it, from way back when, and then just visiting.

Likely going to have to do some traveling, but it's still out there.

[rug]

4. The FSSP itself split from the SSPX and sought readmission into the RCC.

(I haven't read a sentence like that since I stopped following the Spartacist League.)