“I do not want to belong to a religion which cannot kneel. I do not want to live in a world where there is No One to adore. It is a lonely and labored world if I am its centre.

My life is too short to discover wisdom on my own, to learn to identify and properly name my own self-importance, to learn how to love if I have to start at zero.”

I came across these words in a recent article on reconstruction by Richard Rohr. They are prophetic. Few things are as debilitating for true worship today as is the mistaken notion, so popular in many circles, that somehow we belittle ourselves, are regressive, insult human dignity and put-down oppressed peoples, if we kneel, if we bow in obedience and if we genuflect so as to acknowledge that we are below and something else is above.

But that is what is happening in most of our churches. More and more, we are approaching the situation where less and less of us ever kneel and where virtually none of us ever genuinely genuflect.

Even the very language that would do this is under siege. Expressions such as, “To you alone belongs the glory!” “That saved a wretch like me,” are seen as backward, unhealthy and anti-Vatican II.

In the name of religious progress we are teaching ourselves not to genuflect, not to kneel and not to think of ourselves (and feel ourselves) as living under God.

We mean this sincerely and there are some understandable reasons for why we feel this way, not the least of which is, as we shall see, a religious upbringing that many of us are still reacting against. But this is not progress—religiously or otherwise. We are poorer because of this, poorer in every way.

Genuflection is the ultimate moral act—and it lies at the basis of all morality. We become moral on that day when we first genuflect and know what we are doing.

Teilhard de Chardin once said something to the effect that we reach moral adulthood on the day when we realize that we have but one choice on this earth, to genuflect to something beyond and above us or to begin to self-destruct. Simply put, as adults we either genuflect or we begin, in whatever way, to commit suicide.

Past generations of Catholics, whatever else they struggled with, in their own way understood this. For them kneeling and genuflection were the great symbolic way of admitting to themselves that they were not the centre of the universe and that God was to be bowed to. The gesture was the prayer, it acknowledged finitude and gave true worship.

Granted, some of this was tied to a theological cosmology (God is above and we are below) that we no longer accept, nor need accept. As well, on the basis of that hierarchical conception which makes God a Great Divine White Male, not everyone was always treated equally. Hence, the over-reaction today.

But it is precisely an over-reaction, a good thing taken too far. We need not think of God as physically above us, nor do we need to mythically picture God as a white male, in order to continue to genuflect and kneel before that which breathes us anew into life every split second and without which we have ultimately no significance whatsoever.

Perhaps we do need a new language which no longer uses phrases like “under” or ”below” (though, like Rohr, I doubt this) and perhaps we do need gestures other than genuflection and kneeling (though my imagination runs out of gas here). But, whatever language and whatever the gesture, we need again to “kneel” and to “genuflect” and put ourselves “under” someone. Not to do so is religious suicide.

Rohr is right. It is not worth belonging to any religion that cannot kneel.

To kneel does not belittle or demean us. It does not make us smaller. It makes us larger. No adult, woman or man, is taller, in terms of dignity and genuine adultness, than when she or he kneels in prayer, in adoration and in obedience.

Worship is what takes away our littleness and worship is always, an act of prostration. More than good works, more than any morality, more than any fine liturgy and even more than works of justice, God wants from us surrender, just that, surrender.

There are ways of expressing surrender, outside of kneeling and genuflection, and each of us must find his or her own way. But this is one area where we should not too quickly distance ourselves from the wisdom of the past. There are few gestures singularly powerful as is that of bending the knee before the God who made us.

I am not a liturgist. Hence this critique comes more from instinct, and frustrations with many of the liturgies I attend, than it comes from theological principle. Be that as it may, let me propose, for the consideration of all liturgical planners, celebrants, and musicians, a few, corrective, suggestions: 

More is not necessarily better:

 Length does not necessarily good liturgy make! Because a liturgy is long and has excellent singing does not necessarily mean that it is good. Liturgy is like food. It’s good, though never to excess. Anything which is over-done, be it ever so good and aesthetic in itself, is, at a point, counter-productive. For example: I was just recently at a liturgy which was being celebrated to conclude a rather major event in my home diocese. It was carefully planned and every part of it, taken individually, was a model of liturgical aesthetics. The choir was superlative, the homily was excellent, the processions were beautiful but, in the end, the final result was somewhat draining. Why? Because when everything was put together, good as it was, it was simply too long and nobody, other than those leading it, could sustain their energy and enthusiasm. 

It reminded of a meal I once cooked for some European friends of mine. I went to their house on a Saturday evening, having promised that I would cook for them a gourmet American meal. I prepared all of my favourite dishes, including a very rich and heavy dessert, not taking into account that, together, they constituted too much of a challenge for a single digestive tract on one night. After we had finished the dessert, fishing for a compliment from my hosts, I asked them what they thought of my meal. The hostess put it to me gently: “You know, I liked very much every dish you prepared, but, together, it was all a bit rich. Perhaps when you have shrimp served in garlic butter as an appetizer you might want to serve a fruit salad rather than a rich chocolate for dessert. It gives a better balance.”

There is liturgical wisdom in that. Even the good, in excess, is problematic …  “Perhaps when you have an entrance rite that is 10 minutes long you might not want to have an extra 10 minutes of singing after communion. It gives a better balance.” 

New piety is just as bad, liturgically, as is the old: 

When I was child we were blessed with a parish priest who had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was a dear man, transparent in his sincerity, a person of prayer. But he was a bad liturgist. His problem was that he could not preside at any mass without somehow working Mary into it, whether it was her feast day or not. His devotion to her was so great that it was simply impossible for him to contain himself. He had to bring Mary into every celebration. 

I know a number of priests today whose commitment to social justice is so great that they cannot ever preside at a Eucharist, give a homily, lead a prayer service, or indeed lead a single prayer without bringing in the issue of justice. Like the parish priest of my childhood, they too are transparent in their sincerity – and bad liturgists!

New imbalance is no better than old imbalance. 

One person’s creativity is another’s idiosyncrisity: 

The task of a celebrant of liturgy is to not to change the ritual so as to make it more creative, but to pray the ritual in such a way that it becomes truly prayer. That’s no easy task and the best way to do it is not to change the ritual prayers but to truly pray them. However, if you are tempted to make up your own prayers (“to improve the ritual”), you might want to keep these things in mind: 

Very very few persons can write better prayers than are already contained in the ritual itself. Don’t too quickly put yourself in that category. There is already too much bad poetry around. Moreover, the ritual is meant to protect the congregation from the idiosyncratic whims of the celebrant. There’s wisdom a plenty in that. One man’s creativity is another’s bad poetry! Respect your congregation. And finally, never never begin a creed with: “I believe in butterflies!” The words “I believe in God” were put immediately after the homily so that you, the celebrant, after preaching badly, might have something to immediately redeem yourself with!

I do not want to belong to a religion which cannot kneel. I do not want to live in a world where there is No One to adore. It is a lonely and laboured world if I am its centre. My life is too short to discover wisdom on my own, to learn to identify and properly name my own self-importance, to learn how to love if I have to start at zero.

I came across these words in a recent article on Reconstruction by Richard Rohr. They are prophetic. Few things are as debilitating for true worship today as is the mistaken notion, so popular in many circles, that somehow we belittle ourselves, are regressive, insult human dignity, and put-down oppressed peoples, if we kneel, if we bow in obedience, and if we genuflect so as to acknowledge that we are below and Something else is above.  

But that is what is happening in most of our churches. More and more, we are approaching the situation where less and less of us ever kneel and where virtually none of us ever genuinely genuflect. Even the very language that would do this is under seige. Expressions such as: “We live under God.” “Lord, without you, we are nothing.” “To You alone belongs the glory!” “That saved a wretch like me.” are seen as backward, unhealthy, and anti-Vatican II. In the name of religious progress we are teaching ourselves not to genuflect, not to kneel, and not to think of ourselves (and feel ourselves) as living under God.

We mean this sincerely and there are some understandable reasons for why we feel this way, not the least of which is, as we shall see, a religious upbringing that many of us are still reacting against, but this is not progress – religiously or otherwise. We are poorer because of this, poorer in every way.

Genuflection is the ultimate moral act – and it lies at the basis of all morality. We become moral on that day when we first genuflect and know what we are doing. Teilhard de Chardin once said something to the effect that we reach moral adulthood on the day when we realize that we have but one choice on this earth, to genuflect to Something beyond and above us or to begin to self-destruct. Simply put, as adults we either genuflect or we begin, in whatever way, to commit suicide.

Past generations of Catholics, whatever else they struggled with, in their own way understood this. For them, kneeling and genuflection were the great symbolic way of admitting to themselves that they were not the centre of the universe and that God was to be bowed to. The gesture was the prayer, it acknowledged finitude and gave true worship. Granted, some of this was tied to a theological cosmology (God is above and we are below) that we no longer accept, nor need accept. As well, on the basis of that hierarchical conception which makes God a Great Divine White Male, not everyone was always treated equally. Hence, the over-reaction today.

But it is precisely an over-reaction, a good thing taken too far. We need not think of God as physically above us, nor do we need to mythically picture God as a white male, in order to continue to genuflect and kneel before that which breathes us anew into life every split second and without which we have ultimately no significance whatsoever. Perhaps we do need a new language which no longer uses phrases like “under” or “below” (though, like Rohr, I doubt this) and perhaps we do need gestures other than genuflection and kneeling (though my imagination runs out of gas here) but, whatever the language and whatever the gesture, we need again to “kneel” and to “genuflect” and put ourselves “under” Someone. Not to do so is religious suicide. Rohr is right. It is not worth belonging to any religion that cannot kneel.

To kneel does not belittle or demean us. It does not make us smaller. It makes us larger. No adult, woman or man, is taller, in terms of dignity and genuine adultness, than when she or he kneels in prayer, in adoration, and in obedience. Worship is what takes away our littleness and worship is, always, an act of prostration. More than good works, more than any morality, more than any fine liturgy, and even more than works of justice, God wants from us surrender, just that, surrender.

There are ways of expressing surrender, outside of kneeling and genuflection, and each of us must find his or her own way. But this is one area where we should not too quickly distance ourselves from the wisdom of the past. There are few gestures singularly powerful as is that of bending the knee before the God who made us.

Jesus told his followers: “Be in the world, but not of the world.” Lately, as a church, we haven’t fared too badly in doing that. Since Vatican II we have, more and more, been in the world and, to some extent at least, we have managed to give it a challenge. Where we have failed more is that we have not been enough for the world.

Simply put, we do not love the world enough and it is for this reason, perhaps more than for any other, that the world is not interested in our challenge. Christ said: “My flesh is food for the life of the world.” The church exists for the world. Its life must be for the world and its love must be for the world. Today, in virtually all church circles, liberal and conservative alike, there is too little real love for the world and the church life that is generated is essentially food for the life of our own circles and not food for the life of the world.

Looking at what emanates out of conservative circles, one is at loss to find much love for the world. Too often, in conservative eyes, the world is a huge cesspool of sexual immorality. The conservative looks at the world’s sufferings here – the outbreak of AIDS and the omnipresence of so much pain because of sexual irresponsibility and fractured relationships- and there is a certain glee, which is sometimes not even disguised, that this bad, disobedient world is getting what it deserves. The rhetoric of compassion is there (and sometimes even that is not there) but real compassion is not: “The world is getting what it deserves and we, who have stayed on the straight and narrow, are vindicated!”

But liberal circles do not exactly radiate real love for the world either, despite their claim that they are the great defenders of the suffering. Where the conservative sees a great cesspool of sexual immorality the liberal sees an enormous cesspool of Yuppie values and bourgeois selfishness. The liberal looks at the world’s sufferings here – the disarray of capitalism and the incapacity of Western governments to do much about it – and there is the same barely disguised glee that this bad, capitalistic world is getting its just desserts. Like their conservative counterparts, liberals use a certain rhetoric of compassion, but not enough people in the world feel loved by them – especially if those people are conservative in their economics, sexual values, or in most anything else.

There is a famous story, more myth than fact perhaps, told about a former mayor of New York city: Everyone is familiar with the seemingly insoluble problems that confront New York City – its ghettos, its rate of crime, its congestion, its debt, its traffic, among other things. Well, this story has it that one Friday afternoon, just at rush hour, its mayor (and this story is told about Mayor Lindsey) was up in a helicopter with some of his councillors. He looked down at all the noise, the congestion, and the seeming chaos of it all and, tongue in cheek, remarked: “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a plunger and we could just flush this all into the ocean!”

He was joking, of course, but there is something in our attitude towards the world that is caught by that remark. Too often, in truth, that is how we feel. Be it ever so subtle, there is something inside of us, liberal and conservative alike, that wants to say: “Won’t it be nice if we could flush this all (or at least the parts we don’t like) down the toilet!”

How contrary to the attitude of Christ! He looked at Jerusalem, at its chaos, at its hopelessness, at those very parts that opposed him and his mission, and he began to cry over it, tenderly empathizing with it because could not recognize salvation. His was not the glee of the one whose truth has been rejected and who now stands vindicated because those who rejected it have fallen flat on their faces – “There! Now you know! You should have listened to me!” Rather his was the pain of the loving mother who sees her family falling apart and who then lays herself out – body, heart, soul, mind, life, everything – so that the family might come back together. Christ was for the world in that sense and we should be most careful when we mandate ourselves in his name to be “counter-cultural”.

The world is not listening to us. To my mind, the main reason is because it does not feel loved by us. It does not sense that our life and our love are food that we want to offer to it. Instead it feels itself judged by us and it senses our glee when it falls flat on its face. It is time that we all spent a night or two on a hill overlooking the city we live in – weeping tears of love for those who are not interested in our message.

The church needs a new pentecost and there can be no pentecost unless there is first an ascension. Such are the dynamics of the paschal mystery.

Today, in the church, both the conservatives and the liberals are effectively blocking a new flowing out of the Holy Spirit because both groups refuse to reverently grieve a death and let a certain body of Christ ascend and give us its blessing. What does this mean?

The pre-Vatican II church is, theologically-understood, the pre-ascended body of Christ. Thus, today, for us to receive the spirit, the Holy Spirit, we must, like the original disciples of Jesus, let the church we once knew give us its blessing and ascend to heaven so that we can receive the spirit for the ecclesial life that we are actually living. And this is not happening. It is being blocked by our failure to understand what has happened in the church and to properly grieve it. Let me try to explain this:

The church that many of us grew up in, the church of the 1950s and early 1960s which was irrevocably changed after Vatican II, was, despite its flaws and imperfections, both a very beautiful and powerful expression of the body of Christ. Indeed it was, as history will show, one of the better incarnations of Christian church, especially as regards its universality and its gathering around the eucharist. It had its shortcomings, admittedly, but it gave life and meditated grace and helped millions of women and men to salvation, most of our own parents included. It gave us the faith and taught us many of the very things which we are now using to criticize it.

But it had its time and eventually it was crucified – by time, by change, by secularization, and by its own imperfections. Vatican II simply recognized this, it didn’t cause it. For its part, mostly it named a death and claimed a resurrection, a new life.

We are already living that new life – enthusiastically or begrudgingly. But we have yet, on both sides, liberal and conservative, to really receive its spirit. Why?

Because none of us has really grieved what we lost. The Catholicism that so many of us grew up on was, in truth, one of the more powerful expressions of Christianity ever incarnated. It died – and nobody grieved it! Conservatives are not really grieving. They’re angry and in denial. They haven’t accepted that something has died. They’re still trying to resuscitate it. Liberals aren’t grieving either. They don’t admit that the pre-Vatican II church is worth grieving! They’re happy that this particular incarnation of Catholicism has died since, for them, it was not a very healthy expression of church in any case. In both cases, there is no ascension, no reverent letting go of the old in such a way that it can bless the present. The conservatives block that blessing through denial, the liberals through self-hatred.

So this is our situation: We are living in a post-Vatican II church, but the body of the pre-Vatican II church remains with us -ungrieved, unreverenced, unascended, and unable to give us its blessing. And the atmosphere within the church precisely manifests this debilitating situation. Thus, for example:

It is no accident that Catholics my age (i.e., those of us who had an experience of the pre-Vatican II church) are, for the most part, more focussed on our own reactions to Vatican II, for or against, than we are with passing on the faith to the world at large, let alone to our own children. As we do all our infighting, and think it’s important, the world and our own children are indifferent to us … and don’t really give a damn about Vatican II! We’ve too much internal baggage right now to have much in the way of genuine focus beyond ourselves. That shows itself too in our hardness towards each other – the rages, the anger, the bitterness, the ideology, the disrespect of others, and the plain lack of charity that emanates from both conservative and liberal circles. What is evident from all of this is that we lack fresh spirit, we lack the Holy Spirit, on both all sides. There is too little of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, fidelity, mildness, faith, and chastity left. We need a new pentecost.

And that pentecost will happen only when all of us, liberals and conservatives alike, with deep reverence and love, let the old ascend and give us its blessing. But this will happen only when we understand the church of the past for what it was and is, the resurrected body of Christ, waiting to ascend, calling us to the Mount of the Ascension to impart its blessing.

I first heard the name, Christopher Lasch, a dozen years ago when a fellow student gave me a copy of his book, The Culture of Narcissism. Reading it, I was struck by the clarity and honesty of his thought and began to wonder: “Who is this man?” 

In the years since, I have tracked down and read many of his books and articles. My first impression, that there was something extraordinary about him, deepened as I read more of his writings. I knew very little about him, beyond the fact that he taught history at the University of Rochester and wrote things that I considered powerful and, indeed, deeply religious (in a different sort of way). At one stage, I subscribed to the New Oxford Review mainly on the basis that he was one of its contributing editors.  Slowly, piece-meal, from various sources, I learned a little about the man behind the books and articles and my admiration continued to grow. 

Christopher Lasch came out of a Marxist background, though some of what he valued most in life – a monogamous marriage, four children, sex only within marriage, a pro-life stance, and a commitment to speak the truth even when it doesn’t fit liberal theory – did not make him a darling in liberal circles, even as these circles could not help but respect his social criticism. The conservatives didn’t know quite what to make of him, though they liked his personal values and his courage in challenging some of the sacred cows within liberal ideology. But every time conservatives were about ready to embrace him, he would declare something to the effect that neo-conservativism is more interested in capitalism than in traditional values and that it fears hedonism and moral disorder mostly because these undermine productivity. Then the conservatives would complain that he was an agnostic and a wolf (liberal) in sheep’s clothing. 

He was a complex man because the truth is complex and he refused to lie. No ideology was ever able to seduce him. For this reason he never fully at ease with the church, even when, at considerable cost to himself, he often defended what it stands for. Thus, for example, he would defend the social teachings of popes before anti-Catholic intellectuals and he was dropped from the pages of the prestigious The New York Review of Books partly because of his stance against abortion. He was a Christian the way Simone Weil was – in heart, in sympathy, and in courage. Like her, he never found a home within a denomination mostly because he was afraid of breaking the first commandment. He worshipped God by smashing golden calves – and he didn’t discriminate as to whether these were liberal or conservative, ecclesial or secular. He, non-Roman Catholic and publicly thought of as an agnostic, was the first to point out that, today, it is politically incorrect to make jokes or cutting remarks about anyone, except catholics. 

He was a critic in the true and best sense of that word. Critic comes from the Greek, kritus, meaning a judge. A judge’s role is to make sure that the trial is fair and that all the evidence is heard. Hence, a good judge must have equal sympathy for both sides, wide loyalties, and the courage to make his or her decision solely on the basis of the evidence and not because of any predisposition or prior feelings. And a good judge must risk being unpopular. Christopher Lasch was such a critic. If I were on trial, or if the church were on trial, he would be the judge I would want. He stood out among intellectuals for his fairness, honesty, and his willingness to say what needed to be said even at the risk of offending the politically correct.

He stood out for other reasons too. Dale Vree, the editor of The New Oxford Review, says this in his obituary of him: He was a certified “elite intellectual”. But that is hardly a rare breed. More importantly, he was a great intellectual who was also a great man, and that is a rare breed. … He was also a kind man. He was good to his friends, and, though the target of countless vitriolic attacks, gentle with his enemies. He travelled in circles where arrogance and haughtiness are of epidemic proportions, but refused to succumb to those diseases. He was brilliant, but felt no need to advertise that fact. When he came to dinner, he was happy to enter the world of our younger children. He had a rich sense of play and a keen sense of humour. He was not wrapped up in himself. And he loved his wife and children profoundly. It is haunting that a man who knew so much of what love is about left us on St. Valentine’s Day.     

Christopher Lasch died on in February 14, 1994, at age 61, of cancer. The church lost a great friend, the world a valuable critic. His passing should be noted. A truly honest, God-fearing man, has died. We are a little more orphaned.

Recently a young high school student wrote a letter to the editorial section of our local city paper. In her youthful idealism, she was profoundly disappointed that we, as a country (Canada), cannot come to an agreement on a new constitution and are in danger of breaking up. Her comment was most interesting. She didn’t, as do most, simplistically blame the politicians – “How can we keep this country together if we have incompetent politicians? What can we, good people, do when we are led by bad leaders?”   She suggested something else: “I suspect that we will never agree on anything in this country – but what can you expect in a nation of pampered people!”

Her comment puts its finger on one of the major reasons why so much of our peace-making is ineffectual, despite our sincere intentions and efforts. We are too blind to the fact that the greed, the wars, and the violence that we see being played out on a world stage (and which we blame politicians and world leaders for) are, to a large extent, merely a magnification of what is happening inside of our own hearts and among us in our private relationships. When we watch the news at night, most of what we are seeing is a reflection of what is inside of ourselves.

Today almost all groups that work for peace, both liberal and conservative, do not take this seriously enough. There is an intrinsic, never-to-be-neglected connection between what seems radically private and what’s political and social. Thus there can be no peace on the big stage when there is greed, jealousy, unwillingness to forgive, and unwillingness to compromise within our private hearts. When the outer body gets sick, it nearly always signals a breakdown in the internal immune system. Hence given the state of our world today, one can be pretty sure that there is not much in the way of antibodies (charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, faith, mildness, gentleness, and chastity) within the body of humanity, namely, within our private lives.

When we cannot get along with each other within our own marriages and families, we should not be surprised that countries do not get along with each other. When we cannot move beyond past hurts in our own lives, we should not expect the issues causing violence in Northern Ireland, Israel, Bosnia, Iran, and Africa, can resolved simply by better politics. When we spend billions of dollars a year on cosmetics and clothing that serve to build up our appearance so as to be less vulnerable, we have no right to self-righteously demand that governments cut their budgets for defense. Finally, when nearly all of us have borrowed money so as to have, right now, the things we cannot yet afford but want, then we should have some understanding of why our countries have all overspent and are hopelessly in debt.

There are many aspects to waging peace. The social justice literature of the past decades has given us a crucial insight which should never again be lost, namely, that private virtue and private charity, alone, are not enough. There is sociology as well as psychology, systemic evil as well as private sin. In the face of unjust systems and corrupt governments, Christians cannot get away with simply practising private virtue and saying to their less fortunate neighbours: “I wish you well. (Stay warm and well-fed!) I’m a good and honest person, I did nothing to cause your suffering!” There are real social and political issues underlying war, poverty, oppression, and violence. Peace-making must address these.

But there are real private, personal ones as well. Hence, waging peace requires more than simply confronting the powers that be. What must, ultimately, be confronted is our own greed, our own hurt, our own jealousy, our own inability to forgive, compromise, and respect. More than we need to convert bad systems, we need to convert ourselves. We, in the Western world at least, are not a bunch of good, generous, forgiving people who have the misfortune of being governed by a small group of bad and selfish individuals who in no way reflect us.

There is a story told about a Lutheran pastor, a Norwegian, who was arrested by the Gestapo during the Second World War. When he was brought into the interrogation room, the Gestapo officer he placed his revolver on the table between them and said: “Father, this is just to let you know that we are serious!” The pastor, instinctually, pulled out his bible and laid it beside the revolver. The officer demanded: “Why did you do that?”

The pastor replied: “You laid out your weapon – and so did I!”

In waging peace we must keep in mind what our true weapons are and who the real enemy is.

Recently I was invited by a young couple to bless their new home.

This custom, blessing houses, is not exactly fashionable today, both because we move so often that we rarely see our houses as something worth blessing and because blessings in general are often considered as something overly pious, a near-superstition left over from a former religious time.

Former generations used to have their houses blessed as a form of protection. A blessing, it was then believed, helped ward off the devil, lightning storms, prowlers and every other kind of evil.

Today we tend to get other kinds of insurances against these things. So why bless our houses?

That question was on my mind as I set out, complete with a ritual book of blessings in hand, to bless my friends’ house.

But there was something else on my mind too, something that invariably appears in my mind whenever I am asked to bless a house, namely, the house that l grew up in. From the way that house has blessed me through the years, I have some dim sense of what kind of blessing a house can give us, if we, first of all, bless it.

I grew up in an immigrant farming community. We were a large family and lived in a small two-storey farmhouse. Soon after marrying and setting out on their own, my parents had bought an old shack-type farmhouse and then, as finances allowed, twice enlarged and re­modelled that house until it took the shape that it had when I was a young child.

It wasn’t a luxurious house by any stretch of the imagination. It had no indoor plumbing, bad central heating and barely enough space for so large a family. But it was snug, real snug, and as a child, surrounded always by so many family members, I always felt secure in that house.

It was indeed a home, our place, my place, a place where I was away from the world. Perhaps that phrase best captures the feelings of that house, of any real home—it’s a place where you’re away from the world. It’s your place—to be comfortable in, to be sick in, to fight with your family in, to cry in, to dream both night and day­dreams in, to be snug in. That’s what it means to be at home and the house I grew up in gave me that security.

I remember especially the feelings I sometimes had on certain winter days, when it was too cold and stormy for the school bus to operate and we would stay home from school.

Few of my memories are as warm and precious as those. The cold wind raging outside, all of the elements so fierce and hostile, and me inside, secure and surrounded by family, warm and snug, smelling the wood stove and my mother’s cooking as I lounged on my bed or pushed my face against a frosted window to stare at the blizzard.

What was happening outside, the cold, snow and wind, highlighted the warmth and safety of that house, I was as warm and safe as a baby inside the womb . . . and, on those stormy days, almost as peaceful and secure.

Curious thing. Our family still owns that house—which has now undergone a third re­modelling—and through my adult years there have been many times when I have left my present home and place of work and set out for that house, full of tension, dissipation, insecurity, and every kind of restlessness, and soon after arriving there found myself slowly, imperceptibly, growing steady and calm.

It’s nearly infallible, when I walk into that house, I grow steadier, gain calm, become more sure of who I am. Such is its magic. A good house can do that for you.

And it is for this reason that we should bless our houses and it is for this kind of grace we should ask when we do bless them.

When I blessed my friends’ house, I didn’t ask, first of all, that this blessing ward off the devil, lightning storms, natural catastrophes and prowlers.

It’s not that these aren’t real or important or that I believe our age to be above praying for help of this kind. No, it is just that these things are secondary to what really needs to be asked for when one blesses a house.

What do you ask for when you bless a house? I asked that God make this house for them, precisely, a shelter from storms, a place of calm, of peace, of steadiness, a place within which they and their children can comfortably rest, eat, sleep, fight, get sick and enjoy themselves in when a blizzard keeps them home.

I asked too that it be a place where they could smell warmth . . . like people used to smell the wood burning in their kitchen stoves. I asked that it be, for them, a home, a safe place, warm and snug, safe as a mother’s womb.