Rituals.

It was during the Easter Vigil of 2009 when I officially joined the Catholic Church. As a former Evangelical youth/non-profit director, my transition to Catholicism has raised many questions. One frequent question centers around the many rituals involved within Catholicism and how I find this to be beneficial. Ritual was a dominant motivation in my journey toward becoming Catholic (that and my belief in transubstantiation, but that is a topic for another day.)

Faith has never come easy for me. I appreciate doubting Thomas and his need to see the evidence. For me, it was not so much a need to see the facts and evidence but rather a need to trust completely that which I was going to follow. I needed to trust before I could be vulnerable, be seen, and be known. I realize that an all-knowing God already knows, but I preferred to live with the illusion/delusion that in my lack of trust I could somehow remain invisible. When I was twenty, I hit a major “crisis of faith.” I felt nothing, believed nothing, and yet longed to be intimate with God. I sought the counsel of Dr. Higgins. Dr. Higgins taught a Sociology of Religion class I was taking and found her to be a woman worthy of seeking spiritual advice. In a surprisingly simple statement she said, “Look to the liturgy and rituals to hold you through your unbelief.” To a Catholic or mainstream Protestant, this would sound familiar. But, within the Restoration Movement/Independent Christian Church I was coming from, ritual and liturgy were nearly absent. We were taught, “No Creed but Christ.” In other words, worship and church life focused on “preaching the Word” and the only rituals I can recall were marriage, ordination of preachers, and baptism by immersion. I heeded Dr. Higgins advice and I began looking for ritual and liturgy.

As a therapist, a lot of my therapeutic practice has been working with children who have experienced abuse and trauma, and as a result have difficulty forming a trusting attachment and bond with their caregivers. Even children who have been removed from horrible conditions and placed with loving and devoted adoptive parents resist being loved. They fear people getting close to them and so they use protective means to maintain a fortress of protection. These children often believe they are unlovable and so rather than resist others finding this out and rejecting them, they do the rejecting first. It is a painful cycle that is difficult to break. But there is something that helps these children begin to trust that their new world is safe, that there new relationships are not painful. This something is consistency. The more the child’s environment is predictable, the safer they feel (this goes for all children, but especially those who have experienced trauma.) In other words, families that create rituals and routines help these children heal and feel safe.

Life in a predictable and consistent family is full of rituals. My own children learned from a very young age that we have a clear bedtime ritual. We have bath time, movie time, story time, prayer time, turn on the music, and then I move from bed to bed and rub their backs and give kisses and hugs. Last night, Bill tucked our kids into bed and did not follow the routine. He left the room and the crying began. I asked him, “Did you say prayers and rub their backs?” He shook his head no. I went back into their room and completed the ritual. No more crying and they were asleep within minutes (it does not always work this well.) They knew their ritual and they knew when it was being altered. The alteration left them feeling anxious and the return to ritual calmed them down. Children feel safe when they know what to expect.

Religious rituals, I believe, have a similar effect. The predictability leads to a feeling of safety. There are clear expectations, forms, and patterns. In times of anxiety or “crisis of faith” the ritual provides a consistent environment. I remember sitting in a Mass in Germany. I was clueless and feeling out of place. Bill, a cradle Catholic, was able to follow along and speak his parts in English. While the Mass was in German, he knew the rituals and form and this gave him a sense of belonging. I told Bill I was ready to join the Catholic Church. I wanted to be connected to the Church universal and all its rituals.

Faith, at least in my experience, is also like a marriage. There are times I do not like my husband (and I am sure he would say the same about me), and during these times I remain married out of commitment rather than a romantic love relationship. Loving my husband during times of “marriage crisis” consist of acts/rituals of love rather than a feeling. These acts (kisses on the lips, conversations about the mundane, date nights . . .) carry our relationship through until the romance is rekindled and/or I have sought reconciliation for my toxic attitude. Spiritual rituals have a similar function. During the “Dark nights of the soul” where there is no passion or zeal to be devoted to God the rituals carry me through until the passion returns. I continue to pray, to cross myself, to state the Creed through those times when I lack a vibrant intimacy with God. Rituals remind me of my need for reconciliation even when my pride tells me I am “right” and do not need forgiveness. Rituals keep me physically connected even when I feel emotionally isolated from God.

Rituals connect to memories. My late grandmother always kept gardens – flowers and vegetable. Every spring as I grab my garden tools and start the rituals of prepping the soil, planting seeds, and pruning trees I remember my grandmother. I feel deeply connected to her when my hands are dirty. I can picture her looking down from heaven and smiling. Like gardening, Church is full of rituals. This past Sunday, Father Tom stood at the baptismal font and as a congregation we reaffirmed the vows of our baptismal covenant. He then took water from the font and walked up and down the aisle sprinkling each of us. The ritual reminded me of my own covenant as well as the covenant Bill and I made with the baptisms of our three children. Within the context of a ritual repeated every Easter I am reminded in a very real and tangible way of the covenant I made with God as well as the covenant God made with me and the Church.

And then there is Tradition. Since the time of Moses, there have been rituals associated with God. Rituals regarding food, cleanliness, sacrifice . . . rituals guided the Hebrew life. Rituals dictated the early Church, especially around the Eucharist, baptism, and catechism. We do it because this is how it has always been done. Sounds a lot like family holidays – we expect certain foods prepared in certain ways because that is how grandma and her grandma and her grandma before that did it. Holiday traditions connect us to our lineage. Religious rituals connect us to our spiritual family including their stories and legacies. We do it because they have done it for hundreds and even thousands of years.