My voice comes out in a low hiss, dripping with venom. My daughter’s defiant stare is a dagger that pierces my heart. The somber tones of the “Sanctus” beckon us to prayer, but I am paralyzed. I’m done.
In my third trimester, wrangling three kids under 6 at Mass is what it must feel like to be one of the roly-poly bugs my children flip onto their backs. My limbs are in constant motion, but it does no good. I wish I could just curl into a ball until the threat goes away.
Alas, today it is me and not the bug who falls victim to my children’s poking and prodding. But instead of testing with a long stick, today they’re testing limits. What happens if I dart out into the aisle when they’re not looking? our two-year-old wonders. With his body.
The three-year-old, meanwhile, is testing the limits of physics. How many hymnals can I add to this stack before it collapses? Noisily. Can my body really fit all the way under this pew?
It can’t. “I’m stuck!”
And now the whole church knows it.
Normally, I’d be amused by the fact that he managed to time his piercing cries for the miniscule moments of silent reverence as the priest slowly sits himself back after the homily.
Not today.
Today, I am not. Handling. It. Well.
And so, it’s the six-year-old that gets me. Her flat-out refusal to honor my request to meet some expectation so simple it not need be uttered turns out to be my last marble. Her steely eyes have transported it to another dimension, and in the absence of all my many marbles, there is nothing to hold back the emotions from spilling over.
Fat tears splatter on the ruins of the hymnal tower. Not tiny tears, either. This is no graceful trickle of regret, nor a shy pool peeking over the edge of eyelids. This is a hot hot, shameful flood of failure — the kind that spills out of one’s nose as well as one’s eyes.
I am a sight to behold.
Before I can sink further into this pit of hormonal self-criticism, it’s time for communion. My 6-year-old, shocked by the reminder that I have feelings, has reverted back to human form, but it’s too late. There’s no putting a finger in the dam. I’m crumbling.
We wade up the aisle, and for once I’m not grateful for this robust community. When we left California, it was only a hope and prayer that we might land amongst like-minded Catholic families. For the first time, I’m wishing away these friendships. I want my anonymity back.
I shift my veil forward, hoping it covers my face and shields me from facing their concern, from being made to endure vulnerability.
I take communion. I recover. I laugh later as we all eat together in the Cathedral basement.
I know the veil is not for hiding. At least, not permanently. It’s not meant to be a wall. It’s meant to cover that which is sacred. It’s meant as a sign of the dignity of what is underneath.
And, at the right time and the right place, it’s meant to be removed.
Maybe I’m not ready yet. But soon.
Lord, help me to unveil my heart.
…
I forgot the bobby pins. I cringe as I curse internally and double-back to the holy water font for a double dip of mercy. Women who wear veils aren’t supposed to curse, right?
Women who wear veils are probably also supposed to arrive on time for Mass and have thought about what to pack in the Mass bag more than 37 seconds before leaving the house, too.
Women who wear veils are supposed to have confessed before Sunday rolls around, not begin confession with the vague but accurate, “It’s been…a while since my last confession.”
Women who wear veils check their hemline before leaving the house so they don’t arrive at Mass before realizing that their pregnant bellies have raised the hemline of their skirt so high it could be confused with a skirt out of the closet of Britney Spears circa 1998.
Women who were veils are also supposed to pay attention to the homily, pray reverently, and have enough humility to wear the veil without reflecting on what kind of woman they might be perceived as.
I’m reminding myself of these very facts as the forgotten bobby pins come back to haunt me. I feel my veil slip over my face just before my two-year-old tugs it off.
Oh boy, I sigh. We’ve discovered a new game.
Some remnant of my mischievous pre-mother spirit rises within me: if you can’t beat them, join them.
Before I know it, I am engaged in a game of peek-a-boo and my son’s laughs echo all the way to the large wooden beams of the ceiling.
And before my inner critic can shame me with another lecture on what women who wear veils shouldn’t do, I’m swept away by the image of another Woman who wore a veil.
She’s looking at me, and her face isn’t somber. Her finger isn’t wagging, and her spirit isn’t somber. It’s playful.
Her gaze returns to her own laughing child, his chubby hand raising her veil between their eyes. The love between them is palpable. Up and down the veil goes, and with it my world shifts.
Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what all the women who were veils do or don’t do.
Just the one.
…
When I come across the photo, it looks peaceful. I see what my husband saw when he clandestinely snapped the shot on his iPhone: my children are gathered around me and I’m smiling. The photo doesn’t show the sweat running down my back from chasing them around the gym-turned-temporary Mass space. It doesn’t show my heart thudding with anxiety as I try to keep them around me, to prevent them from darting up the stairs or out the door. A photo might speak a thousand words, but I’m grateful this one says nothing of my experience that day.
Instead, this photo tells a different story. No longer is this moment a brief respite from the chaos of Mass in a gym on a hundred-degree evening. When I come across it later and I see myself veiled, surrounded by my children, it shifts my focus. The ego of the moment evaporates, and I’m left with a renewed sense of purpose. Like Mary, I am keeper of these souls for a brief moment before they return to their Maker.
Motherhood is not primarily about satisfying my desires, but His. No matter the transient chaos, fleeting joys, or passing sorrows, we’ve brought them where they belong.
They are in their Father’s house — even if today, their Father makes His home in a gym.
It’s not the house of a judge or a headmaster. We aren’t here to be weighed and measured. We are here because this, more than any place else on earth, is where we belong.