end of internship update
What follows is my essay for The Catholic Agitator it'll be printed in their October issue along with whatever other interns wrote. just to preface I had a great time with my friends in the community though I never fit in with the other interns and by the end of the six weeks I had given up at even trying. It's remarkable what a four year age difference can do. I really felt alone some of the time because I wasn't an "intern" in the same way as the rest of them were and being straight edge I couldn't really mix with them easily in our off hours because they were all about partying and that's something I burnt out on a long time ago. I'm also not quite a member of the LACW because I an a Catholic Worker in Vancouver though I have hopes and plans to go down there for six months to live and work with them when they are short staffed in the winter but that's not going to be for a year at least I have stuff I want and need to do up here in the interim. Here's the essay:
Where Am I and What Am I Doing?
Chris Rooney
So it’s the evening before the end of the summer program and I’m in the Agitator office trying to hammer something out. Writing about my faith journey would take a long time and, it’s something that I’ve been trying to write about for years, one of my more successful attempts took three hundred pages before I ran out of steam and gave up.
A lot of things have combined in my life to bring me to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. On my first trip here I wrote on what I called Divine Futility, knowing that caring for people and trying to serve the homeless wouldn’t ever end homelessness and that in a strange way the act, though at times wearying, had in itself a kind of perseverance and that this perseverance comes from God.
I think that when I wrote that essay I downplayed the very mundane feelings that come along with it. It scares me a little to write about the other side of that coin and as I do I’m reminded of the title of Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness. The other side of this vocation for bringing good things into the lives of the poor is the real and heavy feeling that some times you have a lot to carry around and that it might never get any easier.
I was making the August issue of The Christian Radical when I asked Catherine what she did when she felt defeated. She made a knowing sound and told me that the trick she’d learned was to keep so busy that you don’t have time to think about it; that’s solid advice, but it’s not always easy to follow.
This past year has been one of searching and reconciliation for me. As I returned to Vancouver from my pilgrimage here, and to Jonah House, and the Toronto Catholic Worker I was coming to terms with the history of the Catholic Church and with the false doctrine of papal infallibility. I found it easier to be a Catholic without thinking about this, but as I started to read more what I learned was enough to make me want to leave. Leaving was an easy thing for me to do because I don’t really have any special attachment to the Vancouver Archdiocese. I don’t have anything good to say about the Roman church in Vancouver so I’ll talk more about the things I found while I went looking, and what I did with them.
Coming back to Vancouver I started attending mass at the Old Catholic church where I found a community which was pleasant enough but though I have an affinity for the Old Catholics I didn’t feel that I fit in there and I didn’t feel comfortable talking with the clergy or most of the congregation. I left after a lot of hard questioning, and after even more questioning I started going to an Orthodox mission with one of my best friends. The community I found there was young and vibrant and intellectual, concerned about social justice and interested in the Catholic Worker movement. To date they are the only church in Vancouver that reads The Christian Radical and they are like family I don’t visit enough. As I struggled for more understanding of where I was and what I was doing I wrote to Fr. Steve Kelly and he also gave me some good advice about the importance of prayer, I don’t remember if I ever thanked him.
I was preparing to become a catechumen in the Orthodox Church and all the while ignoring that I was doing it because I was running from the Catholic Church. My pastor at the Orthodox mission told me early on that if I weren’t running towards Christ in choosing to convert then it would be better for me to remain Catholic despite my issues. And that’s why I’m not an Orthodox Christian right now. I had to admit that my whole reason for leaving the church in the first place was because of my unwillingness to forgive it for lying and for the awful things it has done in Christ’s name. Faced with this I had no other choice but to start going back and to forgive this church for it’s sordid past and present. I’ve said this a lot and it keeps proving true that sooner or later everyone has to forgive their church, I’ve had to do it a number of times already and I’ll probably have to do it a lot more before I’m dead.
I’ve still got issues with Catholicism but they are mine and I know these things won’t change on my or anyone else’s account, all I can do is remember that I’m charged with the responsibility to forgive unconditionally and to try and do my small part to be a Christian in the midst of a heavily corrupted institution.
As I packed my bags I asked myself one question everyplace I left last year; “If I could only go home with one thing what would it be?” Last year when I was packing to leave this place I said to myself that it was the graciousness and total hospitality that I was shown by this community, this year it’s the stoic determination that Catherine hinted at when she advised me to just plow on through.
The last time I went to the Cathedral in Vancouver I was upset by signs that had been taped to the inner doors of the church. The signs told people absolutely not to sleep in the pews or on the floor inside. I wanted to take the signs down but as people started to exit I got scared of being caught and I left them up. When I go home I’m going to go back up to those doors and if they’re still there I’m going to take those signs down. And I hope to get caught doing it I want to remind the priests that the church is the mansion of the poor. That no matter how much wealth it accumulates, no matter how much they might want to close and lock their doors to the panhandlers on the steps outside, those are the people Christ came to meet, not the rich families who gather there for mass every Sunday.
So this brings me back here, to me sitting in the office trying to make something for the Agitator. I have to thank God for stoicism; I think that it might be an underrated grace. Perhaps it’s the only way to keep living this vocation, like Dennis Appel said in a talk he and Tenzie gave here, the spirit of God blows where She will and we’re all just holding on until She blows back in. Sometimes it can be easy to feel alone in this work but then there are these moments where for one reason or another I’m reminded that my struggle is just a small part of a very beautiful thing, something that is so very much larger than any one person, and I thank God as I write this that despite my occasional lonliness the view is still better from the cross.
Where Am I and What Am I Doing?
Chris Rooney
So it’s the evening before the end of the summer program and I’m in the Agitator office trying to hammer something out. Writing about my faith journey would take a long time and, it’s something that I’ve been trying to write about for years, one of my more successful attempts took three hundred pages before I ran out of steam and gave up.
A lot of things have combined in my life to bring me to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. On my first trip here I wrote on what I called Divine Futility, knowing that caring for people and trying to serve the homeless wouldn’t ever end homelessness and that in a strange way the act, though at times wearying, had in itself a kind of perseverance and that this perseverance comes from God.
I think that when I wrote that essay I downplayed the very mundane feelings that come along with it. It scares me a little to write about the other side of that coin and as I do I’m reminded of the title of Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness. The other side of this vocation for bringing good things into the lives of the poor is the real and heavy feeling that some times you have a lot to carry around and that it might never get any easier.
I was making the August issue of The Christian Radical when I asked Catherine what she did when she felt defeated. She made a knowing sound and told me that the trick she’d learned was to keep so busy that you don’t have time to think about it; that’s solid advice, but it’s not always easy to follow.
This past year has been one of searching and reconciliation for me. As I returned to Vancouver from my pilgrimage here, and to Jonah House, and the Toronto Catholic Worker I was coming to terms with the history of the Catholic Church and with the false doctrine of papal infallibility. I found it easier to be a Catholic without thinking about this, but as I started to read more what I learned was enough to make me want to leave. Leaving was an easy thing for me to do because I don’t really have any special attachment to the Vancouver Archdiocese. I don’t have anything good to say about the Roman church in Vancouver so I’ll talk more about the things I found while I went looking, and what I did with them.
Coming back to Vancouver I started attending mass at the Old Catholic church where I found a community which was pleasant enough but though I have an affinity for the Old Catholics I didn’t feel that I fit in there and I didn’t feel comfortable talking with the clergy or most of the congregation. I left after a lot of hard questioning, and after even more questioning I started going to an Orthodox mission with one of my best friends. The community I found there was young and vibrant and intellectual, concerned about social justice and interested in the Catholic Worker movement. To date they are the only church in Vancouver that reads The Christian Radical and they are like family I don’t visit enough. As I struggled for more understanding of where I was and what I was doing I wrote to Fr. Steve Kelly and he also gave me some good advice about the importance of prayer, I don’t remember if I ever thanked him.
I was preparing to become a catechumen in the Orthodox Church and all the while ignoring that I was doing it because I was running from the Catholic Church. My pastor at the Orthodox mission told me early on that if I weren’t running towards Christ in choosing to convert then it would be better for me to remain Catholic despite my issues. And that’s why I’m not an Orthodox Christian right now. I had to admit that my whole reason for leaving the church in the first place was because of my unwillingness to forgive it for lying and for the awful things it has done in Christ’s name. Faced with this I had no other choice but to start going back and to forgive this church for it’s sordid past and present. I’ve said this a lot and it keeps proving true that sooner or later everyone has to forgive their church, I’ve had to do it a number of times already and I’ll probably have to do it a lot more before I’m dead.
I’ve still got issues with Catholicism but they are mine and I know these things won’t change on my or anyone else’s account, all I can do is remember that I’m charged with the responsibility to forgive unconditionally and to try and do my small part to be a Christian in the midst of a heavily corrupted institution.
As I packed my bags I asked myself one question everyplace I left last year; “If I could only go home with one thing what would it be?” Last year when I was packing to leave this place I said to myself that it was the graciousness and total hospitality that I was shown by this community, this year it’s the stoic determination that Catherine hinted at when she advised me to just plow on through.
The last time I went to the Cathedral in Vancouver I was upset by signs that had been taped to the inner doors of the church. The signs told people absolutely not to sleep in the pews or on the floor inside. I wanted to take the signs down but as people started to exit I got scared of being caught and I left them up. When I go home I’m going to go back up to those doors and if they’re still there I’m going to take those signs down. And I hope to get caught doing it I want to remind the priests that the church is the mansion of the poor. That no matter how much wealth it accumulates, no matter how much they might want to close and lock their doors to the panhandlers on the steps outside, those are the people Christ came to meet, not the rich families who gather there for mass every Sunday.
So this brings me back here, to me sitting in the office trying to make something for the Agitator. I have to thank God for stoicism; I think that it might be an underrated grace. Perhaps it’s the only way to keep living this vocation, like Dennis Appel said in a talk he and Tenzie gave here, the spirit of God blows where She will and we’re all just holding on until She blows back in. Sometimes it can be easy to feel alone in this work but then there are these moments where for one reason or another I’m reminded that my struggle is just a small part of a very beautiful thing, something that is so very much larger than any one person, and I thank God as I write this that despite my occasional lonliness the view is still better from the cross.
posted by Chris Rooney | 12:59 AM
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