Fewer masks in 2008.. I hope.

In RCIA class last night, we talked about heaven, hell and purgatory (including the impacts of penance and indulgences on the same) and.. modes of existence. Fascinating discussion.

Part of preparing for each week of class is a handout (usually The Catholic Update) given out the week before. While the handout for tonight's class indeed dealt with H, H & P, one section of it jumped out at me, and that was the notion that the Final Judgment is really not so much focused on condemnation as it is the experience of "being fully known" by God, and having His knowledge of us made known to us. We will get to see ourselves as He sees us. And that can be a very scary thought... or a comforting one, depending.

One paragraph from the handout said this:

" 'At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.' (I Cor. 13:12) We wear a lot of masks to keep from being known. Perhaps no one judges us more harshly than we judge ourselves. But every now and then someone catches us off guard by peeking behind our masks and loving us as we are - a surprise someone called the most magical: 'God's finger on one's shoulder.' Truly, no one knows us so well and yet loves us with such enduring passion as God does."

Yeah, I get that. God knows me as I really am, and loves me anyway. With people, I have no such confidence. The love of so many people is conditional - for what I can do or be for them. Those times where I have been loved unconditionally by someone - where someone knows me as I really am, and loves me anyway - I have thought of that person as loving me in that moment like God does, and *will* do forever in the next life.

I have, then, seen God's face in that person's eyes, smiling or tearful, felt God's hands in their touch, heard God's voice on their lips. And I will forever after associate them with the love of God somehow, as in some way representing God to me. And in my better moments, I am able to love the same way - no matter what that person does or says or.. is.. inside.

I need more of those moments.. both giving and receiving love that way. I ran across the following the other day, that felt to me like I could have written it myself just yesterday. Maybe it resonates with one or more of you as well.



Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
Masks that I'm afraid to take off
And none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one, but don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it is followed by acceptance,
If it is followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls
from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to. I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a façade of assurance without
And a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of Masks,
And my life becomes a front.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings --
very small wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator --
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from the shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books may say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

----- Charles C. Finn