Recently, I was talking to a priest. When he realized that I am a Catholic writer, he suggested that I write something about the changes in the Liturgy. “It will be hard for the musicians and some of the people. And it will be hard for priests. We’ll probably stumble awhile, as we try to learn the new wording.”“Oh, Father! You’ll feel just like a convert!” I told him about my year in RCIA. I was just beginning to get it. I knew what was coming next in the Mass and could say it and sing it without too much stumbling, and then I went to a later Mass and the organist was different and she played a different arrangement for the Gloria. Once I adjusted to that, Lent came along. And we lost the Alleluia. And the dreaded sense of being out of my element returned.”
The church secretary who was sitting near us smiled then. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It might be good for priests to feel like a convert.”
She’s right. We all need to feel like converts every now and then. We need to be shaken up and stirred sometimes. We need a little bit of Lent in our lives.
Change is never easy. And this change will be particularly difficult for many. If you are a priest or a musician, offer it up for a convert who finds the entire Liturgy something of a foreign language. Offer it up for the one who longs to be part of the Church family, but feels like he will never fit in as easily as the cradle Catholic sitting beside him. Offer it up for the one who is trying to learn everything in just a few months of RCIA. Yes, it can be overwhelming. Change is never easy.
But I will let you in on a secret that every convert knows. You will look back on that part of the journey and miss it a little. You will realize that God was there. You knew it. You felt it. You relied on it.
And maybe that is the most essential part of the journey.
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