December 20, 2021
I sometimes make the effort to confront my dark moods. Really. About eighteen months ago we went to Mass at Prince of Peace parish in Taylors, S.C., not far from our new neighborhood in Greer. We were visiting our kids and grandkids, and at the time had not thought of moving, here or anywhere.
If you’re Catholic, it doesn’t matter where you go to Mass. A Mass off the back of a truck in a Southeast Asian jungle is equal to Solemn High Mass celebrated by the Pope in Saint Peter’s in Rome, surrounded by cardinals in red hats and a thousand choirboys. Apart from the hoopla, or lack of it, the miracle and the mystery of the Eucharist is the same: the replication of the First Mass, the Last Supper on Holy Thursday (or whatever day it was) 2,000 years ago.
By that Sunday, covid had slowed enough to allow most Catholic churches to reopen, with safeguards like mask-wearing and alternate pews off-limits. The diocese of Arlington, Va., kept it strict: masks and social distancing required, warnings to sick people to stay home.
Not here. Although the virus still raged in the Southland, at Prince of Peace people were crammed in every pew. Hardly anyone, including the old folks, wore masks. The priest distributing communion didn’t wear one. People around us coughed and wheezed. I shuddered. We bolted out of there. I sent an email to the pastor asking why the indifference? He wrote back: “We’re doing what the bishop directed us to do, no more.”
After landing here we watched Mass “online” for months. We then joined a parish ten miles away that resembled the one we came from. For no reason, I assumed they’d be careful. I hoped they’d be careful. We went to the early Mass, it seemed more people wore masks. The priests wore them while distributing communion—until they didn’t. Over time, maybe numbed by bad news, people quit worrying. Indoor church functions without masks came back, as businesses reopened here and elsewhere.
In September the Bishop of Charleston, the one who apparently told parishes to make covid precautions optional, released a letter defending people who claim their consciences told them not to get the covid vaccination. He dragged in some out-of-context quotes from Saint Paul VI about man bound to “follow his conscience” such that we’re to believe it’s okay not to get vaccinated if you really don’t want to, even at risk of endangering others. He wrote: “The State of South Carolina protects the right of any parent to refuse a vaccine for a child based on religious exemptions. The Diocese … affirms that all private and governmental organizations maintain the same protections of individual conscience and personal freedom.”
Still grumpy, I wrote him to complain. He wrote back: “there may be many reasons for someone to reject vaccinations, and it is not my place to judge those reasons.”
We watched the state’s statistics on covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths soar. We went on some trips. Masks were nearly invisible. We got our boosters. Then a few weeks ago we went back to Prince of Peace. We sat up front, away from the crowd. Then we noticed the masks. Not many, but more than on that first Sunday. The priests, or at least some of them, and some of the altar servers wore masks. I wondered if they had read up on delta and omicron.
The priests’ homilies were low-key, sticking to their reading of the Gospel and the lessons therein that come to us about belief, forbearance, compassion. We were in a place where the practice of faith is orthodox, traditional, the faith of those who remember the Latin Mass. I slipped into a couple of the early weekday Masses. “Today is the feast of St. Lucy,” the priest announced on Monday. He said a few words about Lucy, a third-century martyr under Roman Emperor Diocletian. On Tuesday it was St. John of the Cross, the Spanish mystic-author of The Dark Night of the Soul.
I recalled St. John’s words. “Into this dark night,” he wrote, “souls begin to enter when God draws them forth … to the end that, after passing through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.”
We thought, about then, this is where we should be. I know something about those dark nights.
In front of the church is a giant statue of the Angel Gabriel thrusting a huge sword into a satanic figure. In the back there’s a portrait of Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, a secretive Catholic organization. No multi-lingual banners here, the missals are in English, the only other language used is Latin. The liturgy is the pre-Sixties rite: the priest faces away from the congregation. I winced when one priest asked for prayers for “free and fair elections,” revealing himself as a disciple of Bishop Trump. The hard-right Republican gospel echoes loudly in these parts.
We set that aside. Folks were friendly, I set that aside, too. Folks are friendly all over this town. It’s the South and, after all, I’ve lived in the South, with a single year back in Yankeedom, since 1975. The attitude is, we’re in this together, here in Dixie. Those Democrats can stay in Washington.
Maybe that’s unfair. Meanwhile, we persevere. At 6:30 Saturday morning, at the end of the third week of Advent, we attended the Latin Rorate Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin, the church lit only by candles. The life of the spirit often seems elusive, but it seeks us more urgently, lately, and now in this unique place.
We stopped at the parish office and filled out the form to register as members of the parish. The receptionist was friendly. She said the pastor wants to know who’s actually coming to Mass, not just who’s signed up and sending in a check.
That’s OK with me. I’m also generally OK with what the pastor, in his first homily after a six-month sabbatical in Rome, Turkey, and England, referred to fondly as the “church militant.” The receptionist said she’s a greeter, who holds the door open at the 8:00 AM Mass. We said we’d see her there. “Welcome, again,” she said, smiling.
On the Road 