Experience Rich, Language Poor

In this diverse world, it is always a bit stunning and often a bit humorous to find a person who is extremely similar to one’s self. Meeting and interacting with a stranger who turns out to share your worldviews, interests, favorite artists, and other quirks can be a surreal experience. You can learn a lot from those interactions. I sure did on Easter Saturday this year.

Each year, I gather with a close group of friends (we go all the way back to high school ministry days) right after the Easter Vigil for food, drink, and general merriment. This year, a new face joined the posse: a man whom I shall call Mark (not his real name).

Mark and I had so much in common. I knew from the fact that he attended the Vigil that he and I probably shared a general Catholic worldview, but the similarities went further. We’re both the thoughtful type (my favorite euphemism for nerdiness), and we both love diving into deep, philosophical issues. We’re both that type of Catholic who spends hours thinking about how the hypothetical existence of extraterrestrial life might affect the Christian narrative. Mark and I also share a position called neovitalism – the idea that the necessity of a metaphysical element of human existence can be posited outside of the realm of philosophy, as a fact of biology. We even spent nearly an hour discussing the philosophical implications of language itself, and its possible connection to the soul. We’re both Catholic nerds to the max!

However, there was one glaring difference between Mark and me: Mark hadn’t been to church in years, prior to that Easter Saturday.

I know this because he eventually told me, but I could also deduce this fact Sherlock-style from little details I picked up throughout the night. I could see an awkwardness in him in the communion line – a look similar to one a teenager might have upon approaching their boyfriend or girlfriend after failing to answer one too many text messages. He also fumbled about when trying to put down the kneeler quietly with his foot as we entered into the Eucharistic prayer – a maneuver that’s muscle memory for those who frequently attend Mass. But on top of all those signs, I knew that he hadn’t been to Mass in a while from the way he talked about God.

Mark was what great American pastoral theologian Robert McCarty would call “experience rich, but language poor” (a phrase I picked up from a course he taught at the Catholic University of America that I had the privilege of taking). Multiple times throughout the night, when Mark would try to communicate an idea about God, he just didn’t seem to have the words. Sometimes there was an obvious scripture passage addressing an issue that Mark probably wanted to cite, but hadn’t heard in a few years.

Mark knows God. He even has a few theological ideas about God that are uniquely Catholic. However, he struggled to express those ideas on Easter Saturday, and I think that this deterioration of language around God resulted from his absence from church.

I’m not writing this to flex my personal church attendance, or to shame anyone for failing to attend church regularly enough. I am sharing this story to demonstrate that the Mass does have a real and positive effect on people. A common spiritual misconception is that communal worship is irrelevant to one’s relationship with God. In fact, frequently attending church has the very real effect of providing people with the language necessary for the exploration of faith. We are all experience rich; stay language rich by celebrating the Mass whenever your can. Pray for those who have been away for a while, and help them to find the words they lack by inviting them home.