Rudy presided over MP most of the time. He was, after all, chaplain and all that. You don’t have to be in the line of Apostolic Succession to lead the Rite, but some things work differently if you are a priest. Subtle things like the plural pronoun in the absolution changes from “you” (or y’all, or y’uns depending) to “us” if MP is being lead by notapriest. Absolution is, of course, the forgiveness of sins. Notapriests get their sins absolved at the same time as everyone else. Priests have to take care of their shit in the locker room and be ready to ball when they get on the court, I suppose. So Rudy would stand up front and offer absolution for the sins of all y’all.
When he was done, our big boss Rusty Hipps could never resist getting a few words in. He too stood in the line of Apostolic Succession, but I sometimes wondered if he had actually attended seminary classes or, before that, undergraduate composition courses. Rusty may have, in fact, been the inspiration for John Blutarski. Nevertheless, he was the big boss and got to have his say at the end of every Rite, if he wanted it. On this particular day, he wanted to speculate publicly about the sentences just prior to the Absolution: the General Confession.
Ok, so we are going to skip over the discussion of how all of this being written down and standardized might be considered a little weird and get to the real matter of this post. Rusty Hipps wanted to know — challenged the English teachers to explain — why in the confession it says, “we have not loved you with our whole heart.” Singular. Heart, not hearts. Why, he wondered, did they leave the “s” off given that this book had been proofread many times.
If you think that religion is supposed to enhance your personal relationship with God, this is a fair question. If you think that religion is only supposed to enhance your personal relationship with God, I believe you have missed most if not all of the point. Ligo is a Latin verb meaning “to tie.” Re-ligo is a tying together of things, of people. I am destined to fail at loving God completely, and I am equally destined to fail at loving my neighbor as I love myself. What the confession points at, however, is our collective failure to work together for the love of God and our neighbor.
So this is news? To anyone but, apparently, Rusty Hipps no, it is not news. It is so not news that I think we dismiss it without consideration or allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by despair or guilt that we are not of one heart. In confessing it, however, I find great hope. Hope in the possibility, the expectation that it can happen, that it will happen. That we will ever be of one mind seems like an impossible dream, and one I am not sure I desire. That we will some day recognize that we are one heart, one soul is a hope I give voice to each dawn.