The Worst Catholic Talk I've Ever Been To

When a talk on the Eucharist leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach

I recently had the opportunity to hear a priest speak on Eucharistic Revival. I was really, really looking forward to the talk. I am not a Rad Trad, but I do think that many of us could do with more reverence and understanding of what happens when we receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament into ourselves.

I sat down in my seat, notebook open, eager to learn a priest’s thoughts on the situation, as well as how we can be positive influences in terms of Eucharistic reverence and belief in the places we are called to in our lives. The priest giving the talk was well-known enough to have a Wikipedia page, and to have been interviewed on many large Catholic platforms.

I left the talk with an uneasy feeling in my stomach, like the world was slightly off-kilter. Disappointed is probably the best word to use, but it somehow also doesn’t quite feel like enough. I wrote recently about the first time since my Catholic conversion where I experienced significant ugliness from the people in the Church, and how I’m working to separate the fallible people in the Church from the Church itself.

This talk was another chance for me to put that separation into practice.

Most of the talk was fine. One section involved reasons why it’s a good idea to receive Communion on the tongue vs. in the hand, but also affirmed that while one way may be best, both are acceptable. As someone who receives in both ways, I found this part of the talk to be encouraging and helpful. There’s something in my little fired-up convert heart that loves the idea that receiving on the tongue is the truest way to receive the gift of the Eucharist, in that I am doing no action to bring Him to myself. Jesus is completely brought to me. It helps me realize the Eucharist as gift more fully. This was part of a larger sharing on the need for increased reverence on the whole in and around the distribution of Communion, which was also helpful to hear.

But then things started to get strange.

A Eucharistic Comedy Set

After all that talk about the importance of reverence in Communion, the priest went into what can only be described as a stand-up comedy portion of the talk, where he went through a list of ways he had observed people receiving on the tongue…people who only opened their mouth slightly as if it were a slot machine, people who stick out their tongues too far as if they’re in some metal band in the 80’s. He had a long list of ways that he had seen people receiving on the tongue, and he made fun of them all.

I couldn’t help but think…he just gave an impassioned speech about the goodness of receiving on the tongue, and of the absolute necessity that we increase in our reverence as a Church…and now every single one of these people here knows that you are watching and judging how they open their mouth to receive the Eucharist?

I don’t know how that could that possibly not be harmful, even to the point of entirely undoing the points he had just made.

And I am not a person who shies away from Catholic humor. I love seeing the Catholic Guide to Ashes for Ash Wednesday. I own not a small amount of slightly humorous Catholic shirts and Saint socks.

And thus, I’ve spent hours wondering if I was taking the whole Eucharist joke set too seriously. After all, a priest was saying these things…surely it must be okay? Hundreds of pretty orthodox Catholics were sitting all around me and laughing all the way through.

But I keep coming back to the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t actually okay.

Maybe the Eucharist is not something that belongs in a comedy set. Especially when it is making fun of people who in all likelihood are sincere in their reverence, who are in a literal posture of humility when they kneel before a priest, open their mouth, and stick out their tongue. Maybe that moment where the priest sets our Lord and Savior on a person’s tongue shouldn’t be turned into fodder for laughs.

In the end, he is a priest who loves the Eucharist.

And he is a priest who told icky jokes about people receiving the Eucharist.

I think both of those things are true.

“I Don’t Need to See That”

But the most discouraging part of the talk for me by far, was the commentary on modesty during Mass. Look, I get it. People coming to Mass in their pajamas isn’t spectacular. Women dressing immodestly in Mass is a problem.

But not in the way that this priest thought.

The pajama piece is easier for me to discuss than the modesty stuff. Or maybe it’s that it’s just a bit easier for me to be calmer about pajamas. I grew up in the heyday of the Evangelical purity culture movement of the 1990’s and so any time modesty comes up I often feel a certain way about it.

It’s possible that a person wearing pajamas to Mass truly doesn’t know what happens at Mass. Maybe their ignorance is real. And if that’s the case, then we don’t need to turn up our religious noses. Maybe we need to reinvest in forming the faith of the people in our parish. Or, an even more gracious approach might be to think about how God feels at the fact that a person who could not or did not get out of their pajamas still came to Mass at all. Does Jesus look at their sweatpants and want those people to be farther away from Him than they are in that pew? If I had to guess, I’d say He wants them near as can be. Are pajamas in Mass great? Probably not. Would it be better for that person to not come to Mass at all? For me, that’s a hearty No.

Now, to modesty.

I wrote this down because I was so shocked when I heard it come out of a priest’s mouth. He was talking about women dressed in tight leggings, or revealing clothing at Mass or especially at weddings.

He said: “I’m a priest but I’m also a man and I don’t need to see that.”

Long, heavy sigh.

Could you imagine Jesus saying anything close to that? Could you imagine our savior speaking to a crowd and saying: “I’m God but I’m also a man and I don’t need to see that.”

Can you even fathom?

A young woman who arrives at Mass or attends a Catholic wedding in immodest clothes is not in need of the Judgement of the Church. She doesn’t need a priest to look down at her, or for people to whisper or stare. She doesn’t need a room filled with Catholics to applaud at a priest when he sneers at the outrage of cleavage and short skirts in a church.

No. What that girl needs is to better understand her dignity and worth.

And I’m the perfect person to speak on this point. I know what she needs because that girl used to be me.

I used to show up to youth group and church sometimes wearing clothes that were not modest. I would wear stuff out in public that asked for attention. I thought that how I looked was in a very real, very important way, tied into my value as a human person. That getting attention for my looks made me matter more, somehow.

You know what I’ve seen? You know what I’ve lived? When a woman understands her inherent dignity and worth as a beloved child of God…her dress begins to reflect her heart.

And so instead of looking down on a woman and saying how dare you make me look at your cleavage, we need look at women and say do you know how immensely you are loved?

The behavior so very rarely precedes the love, and we so absolutely need to start there. Especially on this issue. Women dressing provocatively often comes from wounds or a lack of understanding of their absolute preciousness in the eyes of God.

It is so much more likely that Jesus would look on that woman as his beloved, that he would be glad that she came into his house…that she drew close to Him at all. We have examples of this in scripture- the woman who was about to be stoned for being unfaithful to her husband for example. How I wish the posture of the priest during this talk mirrored Jesus’s reaction to that woman. But, alas.

I haven’t seen a single woman be judged by a member of the church for what she’s wearing and have an easier time returning the next week.

And honestly, if a priest is saying that, then I hope that priest is working with God on seeing people more like He does. There’s a story that JP (my husband) and I talk about when we share Theology of the Body with people. It’s the idea that the problem with an immodestly dressed woman isn’t that it is revealing too much, it’s that it’s revealing too little. It’s revealing too little of her worth and her dignity as a whole person, a body-soul composite built in the image of the divine. When we look at a person who is immodestly dressed, may we look on them with love like our savior does. May we weep because they don’t know how much they are loved. May we walk alongside them and be that love to them, so they can, in time, better understand.

I am raising three daughters, and I hope that there are many other spiritual fathers out there who understand this better.

Leaving the Bad Behind

To be fair, I have only been Catholic for seven years, and so maybe this experience is not that surprising. I haven’t listened to the viral college speech yet, and maybe this was only the first of many disappointing Catholic talks in my future.

I’m still a unnerved by how many rounds of applause this talk got all throughout. It leaves me a bit deflated. Maybe I’m just not a “Hot Takes for Applause and Stand-Up Jokes about Sacraments” Catholic talk kind of girl.

Thankfully, I’ve had some practice this past year separating the Church from the people inside it, and this was an opportunity to grow those muscles a bit more. Our trust is not in the fallible words of human people. It is in Christ. I can love all the good things about our faith and decline to put stock in a person’s opinion that is not edifying.

I hope we call can do that. Keep the right things in their right place.

I am drawn much more to abundant grace, deep love, and peace in the souls of my fellow Christians. Those are the places where I feel God’s love reach into my soul and shape me and challenge me in ways that bring me closer to Him. It’s okay to lean into those places and lean away from others.

The other thing I can do after this talk is pray. I can pray for greater consistency in our faith, starting with me as I have my own fair share of hypocritical stretches. For reverence all around. For instruction that leads us to view others around us more and more like Christ does. And I can pray for this priest and his fairly public ministry, and trust that God will continue to pour out His grace and shape us all.

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-Lorelei

My Children’s Books

I write middle grade novels! My three books are currently published with Penguin Random House. While I’m published in the secular market, all of my stories are deeply informed and inspired by my Catholic faith. They are a good fit for kids 8 and up who can navigate some suspense/spookiness.

Titles:

The Circus of Stolen Dreams
The Edge of In Between (A Catholic & CS Lewis inspired retelling of The Secret Garden)
The Night Train (features a Catholic sidekick/friend)

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