Walking the Streets of the Heart: The Table, the Pilgrim and Mystagogy
by Michael Mallory (Fall 2010)
I slept on the streets of San Francisco for a week. Twice. I was not homeless. I was on a retreat with a group from the Faithful Fools, a ministry in the Tenderloin neighborhood of downtown San Francisco. To bear witness to the lives, otherwise unseen and forgotten, of people who share with me a common humanity and to have the courage to walk with them for awhile are the ways that the Faithful Fools street retreat helped me deepen my understanding of God in my life and this world. The city streets became the tabernacle, the soup line became the line to receive Eucharist, and the stories of hope in the midst of despair became the Holy Gospel. I sojourned with this group for more than a year, including two weeks in the barrio of Managua, Nicaragua. This group helped my mystagogical development in tremendous ways by bringing me face to face with my own judgments and by challenging me to move beyond my comfort zone. Using insights from my experience with the Faithful Fools, I will explore the multiple dimensions of table as a symbol, the importance of pilgrimage, and the need for stronger understanding and development of mystagogy.
According to Mary Collins, “The church in the United States on the cusp of the third millennium seems to have little heart either for lay mission or transformative liturgy.”[1] The obstacle, she considers , is in the way we perceive ourselves as church.[2] Who is this church? For each of us, it is different. We may name a local parish as our church, or refer to the building as the church. Yet, the truth is the church is dynamic and evolving. The church is the mystery of God’s actions in this world drawing us together as one people. Where we meet God is a sacrament. The liturgy is a place where sacraments can happen. But where does liturgy take place? In a church. Who is this church?
While I was with the Faithful Fools, the “church” was for me a wildly diverse group of people. While on a week-long street retreat, we would gather around three o’clock at the City Hall plaza for reflection. Poems would be read, reflections and food shared, friends would drop by to join us. Sometimes are moods were elated, other times frustrated. Three o’clock meant time for friends and fellowship. If I was a time to bear witness to each others’ stories. Gathered in a circled, around an invisible “table” where food, pennies, and pages of poetry were laid, we were church.
There are four actions constituted by Jesus at the Eucharistic table—take, bless, break, and share. These actions, according Don Saliers, are not things we do, but “are what we are to become.”[3] While on the street retreat, I would eat at the soup kitchens. I got a number, stood in line, got my food and sat down at a long cafeteria table with a bunch of really hungry people, including myself. The table was a place of refuge and sustenance, but it did not always lend itself to being a place of community. Of course, it did depend on which soup kitchen you went to. St. Martin de Porres lent itself to an atmosphere more hospitable to conversation and hanging out. These large kitchens downtown San Francisco, moved a lot of people through their doors and often it did not feel like a place to linger for too long. Nonetheless, it was at the table that I had the opportunity to hear the story of someone. This table, the Eucharistic table, is a table in which the sharing is not unilateral. The breaking open of our heart to receive the story of a stranger is an action that blesses both.
Sometimes the table becomes a counter, a place of serving. This is unilateral action that diminishes the one who humbly receives. One afternoon, while eating at the soup kitchen, a young Christian evangelist sat to eat with us at the table. Before taking a bite of his food, he pulls out a Bible from his jacket and begins to preach salvation and redemption to the man in front of him. This young man failed to first recognize Christ in his midst by first breaking bread and sharing in the presence, in the moment, with the man in front of him. Instead, filled with assumptions and misperceptions, the evangelists acts in a pious way that misses the connection of the heart.
. The table is an altar. An altar is both a place of sacrifice and a place of memorial. While living in Mexico, I was told that a mother would go without her own food if a guest was to arrive unexpectedly. In other words, the dignity of the guest is so great that the mother would do without a meal for a night in order to make sure there is enough for everyone. Sister Carmen Barsody, a Franciscan nun and co-founder of the Faithful Fools, said, “We don’t go to Nicaragua in order to do or build any particular thing, we go in order to build relationships.” The building of relationships is truly eternal, even through separation as in death, those who we have loved continue to impact and shape our lives. They do so especially when we gather around the table to remember.
The table by design draws people together. It is up to us to have the courage, as Jesus did, to sit at the table of those that society may not dignify. The table is the place where we are served, the place where we commune, the place where we find refuge and sustenance. The table is not a counter in which a impersonal, or contrite, interaction takes place. At the Fools Court, where the Faithful Fools live, is a table where we gather for Bible Study. This Bible Study consists of people who are Christian, Jewish, Pagan, and atheist. In other words, all kinds of people reading the Bible together. This happens somewhat successfully because the stories in the Bible bring us in touch with the reality of being human and because the Faithful Fools is committed to acknowledging each person’s incredible worth (as is attested by their mission statement).
The table is the space in which the fourfold actions—take, bless, break, and share—takes place. It is not just a physical reality, but also a spiritual one. The table of the Lord is always with us, because we always go to the table of the Lord. The Sunday Assembly is the anchor that connects are daily lives to the Holy Life of God. The Liturgy of the Assembly helps mold and shape the liturgy of our individual lives. The message of Jesus is a message of transformation and the liturgy must encourage us to move in bold ways to enter into relationship with the poor. This is a much more difficult task because it is risky. There is no risk in serving at a soup kitchen, or giving money to the needy. But to enter into the heart of another person and to dare to love him as you love yourself is a very risky action. There a numerous unknowns and countless inconveniences, but I believe that the message of hospitality urges us to make bold and risky liturgy that can move us in a direction of wider inclusivity.
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy reminds us that “In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims…”[4] A pilgrimage is a more than just going somewhere. The Faithful Fools taught me to walk the streets as if I had a mirror in front of me. The facilitator of the retreat on the first day reminded us where we were and where we were going. She would say, “We are beginning our journey here on top of Holy Cathedral Hill. We are surrounded by wealth and prestige. We will move down the hill into the Tenderloin one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in our city.” She would make explicit the symbols of wealth and poverty in the geography of the city.
We walked together as a group until we got to the Fools Court. Then we were left alone. The most unsettling feeling for me was not knowing what to do, or where to go. We were encouraged to eat in the soup kitchens, but being early still I walked up and down the streets finally resting by the fountain at the United Nations Plaza. I have been here a hundred times, but this time I felt as if I was here for the first time. In this state of liminality, I feel as if the world is alive and pregnant with miracles. As the days go by, I begin to merge more comfortably with the homeless community and appear less like an outsider. On this pilgrimage, every encounter is a holy encounter and in the encounter we are letting our hearts be shaped by the Holy Spirit.
Joseph Campbell warns against the concretization of the symbol. The symbol always points beyond itself and the symbol, as in the table, contains a multiple shades of understanding. Regarding pilgrimages, he says, “It’s good to make a pilgrimage if while doing so you meditate on what you are doing. And know that it is into your inward life that you are moving.” He tells the story of a young Jewish man that resents being called a diaspora Jew, as if he was exiled from the Holy Land. For this young man, the land in which he was raised and lives is his Holy Land, even if it is not Israel.[5] The pilgrimage leads us into the shadow and darkness of our own hearts and minds.
Thomas Merton wrote: “Learn how to meditate on paper… Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country… Above all, enter into the liturgy and make the liturgical cycle a part of your life—Let its rhythm work its way into your body and soul.”[6] The liturgy is the work of the spirit in our lives and the gospel being manifested through us. The liturgy must provide the transformative power necessary to engage diverse peoples and divergent worldviews. This means that we must be willing to meet people in places other than our sanctuary. As I walked the streets those weeks in San Francisco, no concerns about anything outside of that week, each encounter glowed and each face lingered in my heart. Walking the streets of the Tenderloin in San Francisco, eating and drinking with people at a soup kitchen, and the gathering for reflection with the Faithful Fools, I realized was a kind of mystagogy.
Mystagogy has been described as a time of deepening the faith of the newly baptized. The period of time set aside liturgically are the fifty days following Easter and culminating in Pentecost. Sister Sandra DeMasi, a director of Liturgy and Worship, likens the mystagogical journey to the road to Emmaus; “sharing scripture, remembering all that has happened, discussing, reflecting, leading to a recognition of the bread and an empowerment for witness and mission.”[7] She insists that mystagogy is a process that goes beyond just these fifty days. The journey for deeper meaning is a “sacramental adventure.”[8] When we are sent out from the Assembly on Sunday morning, it is imperative that we view the world with fresh eyes, attentive and awake.
Mary Collins suggests that “we can reach new levels in understanding the public liturgical event if we distinguish the official, the public, and the private dimensions in discussing Eucharistic liturgy as sacramental manifestation of the mystery of Christ.”[9] Essentailly, she seems to posit a great divide between the laity and the ordained. The official dimension is related to the official texts used in liturgical services. The public dimension, however, is a local response and expression to the official texts which can take on various forms. She argues that the distinction between active and passive participation has led the clergy to understand themselves as an instrument of Christ. Yet, she insists that “the baptized also learn that in baptism they are ‘configured to Christ,’ and in the the weekly eucharistic assemblies they are being transformed psycho-somatic-pneuamtically.”[10] If we contend that this transformation is real, then it follows that our actions and perceptions in the world would also transform.
The Faithful Fools Street Retreat gave me an opportunity to take a pilgrimage. The land I traveled were the city blocks I thought I had already known. Yet, I walked the streets as if I had just arrived. William Ury, in a presentation at TED Talks, talks about the Abraham Path—a pilgrimage in the Holy Land in which you can walk the supposed path of Abraham from “womb to tomb.” He asks the audience, “How many of you know what it is like to go to a foreign country or unfamiliar land, and a perfect stranger comes up to you and shows you kindness. That’s the essence of the Abraham Path.”[11] Well, like Joseph Campbell reminds us, we do not have to go anywhere in particular to enter into this kind of journey. The presence of God is waiting literally everywhere in the hearts of every person waiting for us to unravel the mystery within the agony of the human soul.
The connection of the actions of the Sunday Assembly to that of everyday life is of prime importance to a revitalization and renewal of the Church. Yet, according to Edward Foley, “this theory has not always translated into credible praxis. Often the moral imperatives celebrated at the heart of the Eucharist—the dignity of all human life, the lifting up of the poor and lowly, the vision of Christ’s peace—are overlooked or ignored.”[12] He goes on to say how particularly difficult this is in a consumer society such as the United States.
The Christian must not forget that she is on a journey. The journey is as geographical as it is spiritual. We must be willing to be engaged by the stranger, to open up our hearts to the stories of the oppressed and underprivileged, to grow in awareness of our judgments and wrong perceptions, to continually grow deeper in our relationship with God and her church. The church is never static. It is dynamic and ever-present. When a person opens up their heart to you and shares with you intimately of their lives, it is imperative that we guard their dignity and affirm their worth as genuine children of God—no more, no less than we who are baptized. By bearing witness to another life, our own life is touched, moved and healed.
Bearing witness and spiritual accompaniment are two major themes in the work of the Faithful Fools. Bearing witness to the lives of others is an act of validation and affirmation. The story, the message of God in their lives, will change who we are and how we move in this world. This is a deepening of our relationship with God. Is this not mystagogy?
In summary, I believe that the liturgy is our work as a members of the body of Christ. This body is made relevant to us by the Holy Scripture, especially the Gospels. The message of the Gospel is a story of crossing boundaries and growing in intimacy with God. The image of gathering around the table of people who were despised or unpopular is pervasive throughout the Gospel. Jesus meets us in the breaking of the bread. The table represents many things and by understanding the semiotic value of this symbol perhaps our liturgies can be shaped to incorporate a mystagogical element. How does the table become a counter instead of a place of dialogue? When is the table a place of sacrifice instead of a place of memorial? The pilgrimage is a great example of moving out of ordinary time entering into a state of liminality which prepares our hearts and minds to see things new. We should walk as if a mirror was placed before us—constantly reflecting on what arises in us.
It takes great courage to move out of our comfort zones. However, for the sake of the integrity of the Church we must move boldly into the world. Otherwise, what is the church? Who is the church? Unless we challenge ourselves to recognize the mystical body of Christ in the world we may never be able to create effective transformation of ourselves or our planet. The implications for this kind of movement is manifold. We must break down walls that separate us from the truth—the truth of the ecological realities of the planet to the truth of the suffering of others. Without crossing that line we live in illusion, and I dare say that we live in sin. The light of God cannot be hidden, it absolutely must be shared.
[1] Mary Collins, OSB, “Liturgy For a Laity Called and Sent,” Chicago Studies 39, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 62-63.
[2] Ibid. p. 63
[3] Don E. Saliers, Worship and Spirituality, 2 Revised ed. (Maryville, TN: Order of Saint Luke Pub, 1996), 61
[4] Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, #8 from: Kevin W. Irwin, Liturgy Documents Volume 1, Fourth Edition (Liturgy Documents), 4th ed. (Chicago, IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 2007), 5.
[5] Joseph Campbell, “The Inward Path (episode 1),” Mythos, DVD, directed by Roy Cox ( Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2007)
[6] Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, illustrated edition ed. (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2007), 137.
[7] Sr. Sandra DeMasi, SSJ, “Too Tired For Mystagogy ?” Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, http://www.fdlc.org/Liturgy_Resources/LITURGICAL_TIME_Easter-Mystagogy.htm (accessed December 5, 2010)
[8] Ibid.
[9] Mary Collins, p. 69
[10] Ibid. p. 73
[11] William Ury, “The walk from ‘no’ to ‘yes’” TED, http://www.ted.com/talks/william_ury.html (accessed December 5, 2010).
[12] Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Revised and Expanded Edition), Rev Exp ed. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009), 351.