In Search of Belonging

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Three times in the past two days I have been reminded that I am beloved of God, and that the Catholic Church is meant to be a welcoming place for those of us who are lost, who are broken, who are seeking shelter from life’s storms.

The first reminder came during the retreat for the Diocesan Pastoral Council, when the presenter, who was focusing on how to implement Bishop Solis’ Pastoral Plan, spoke of how we are meant to make people feel at home in the Church, to welcome them and include them and give them a voice so that it becomes their church as well.

Sitting in the back of the room, not as a participant but as a photographer, and hearing how the Church should be welcoming, all I could think of were the times when I have been rejected. Years ago in California, I attended a diocesan retreat where the tables were arranged according to parishes. Because I had just moved there, I knew no one, so I introduced myself as I approached my parish’s table, and asked if I could take the last vacant seat.

“No,” I was told. “We’re saving it for someone else.”

Then there was the time in Idaho when, again new to the parish, I responded to a request in the bulletin to help prepare for the parish festival and was told there was nothing for me to do.

And the time I knelt in prayer after Confession and was asked to move by a parishioner because I was in “her spot,” despite the fact that all the pews around me were empty.

Or when I attended an event for a group seeking new members, and was greeted when I paid my money at the door but ignored the remainder of the time.

Each of these experiences had the same message: “You are not wanted, you are not welcome, you have nothing to offer.”

And yet, the same day as the retreat, the entry in my book of daily meditations stated, “You are beloved of God. You were wanted. You were placed here. You are seen and you are heard.”

This, too, is problematic for me because I was trained, as a traditional journalist, to be an observer, not a participant; while working I am supposed to be neither seen nor heard. This carries over into my personal life as well, partly because as an introvert I would just as soon remain in the background.

It came as a shock last night to find that the renown author, theologian and priest Henri Nouwen also felt himself to be a bystander, that he “kept choosing over and over again the position of the outsider looking in,” as he writes in the prologue of The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Nouwen, who spent almost two decades teaching at notable institutions such as Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard, stepped away from that illustrious career to spend the last years of his life ministering to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Toronto. There he lived with individuals who had never read his books, who had no interest in theological discussions, who were, as he phrased it, “far more sensitive to what I lived than to what I said.”

In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen initially identifies himself with the wayward youth, “anticipating how it will be when I finally reach my Father’s house.” These words startled me, because they echo so strongly what for many years has been my prayer at the start of the fifth Joyful Mystery of the rosary: “Help us, Lord, to find our place in the Father’s house.”

Like Nouwen, I am still struggling to allow myself to surrender to the Father’s embrace. Unlike Nouwen, however, there is nowhere else for me to go – at least he, as a priest, had something of obvious value to any faith community where he sought welcome.

Which brings us back to the Church, where I should feel welcome no matter how little I have to offer; and to the Father, who waits from afar for the opportunity to run toward me with open arms if only I would return. I know this, and yearn to fling myself into his embrace, but there is something within me that insists I remain the prodigal, perhaps not squandering my life on debauchery but not yet in sight of home.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. She can be reached at marie@icatholic.org.