Seeking Inspiration by Gene Ciarlo

Occasionally, especially at worship, I want to be inspired, to be “lifted up” in spirit, so to speak. I want to feel as if something good and full of wonder has been breathed into me so that I am no longer just existing, thinking the same usual, routine, everyday thoughts: planning the day, feeling the same even-tempered, there-are-no-problems sort of existence. (Keep in mind, that is on a good day!)

The word inspire has roots in Greek, to “breathe into” and “refresh,” which I might translate as filling with life in an extra-ordinary way. It would be what a da Vinci or a Raphael must have felt when they threw themselves into their creative work. They were lifted up from the mundane and earthbound, transported to a higher plane, a better, richer place in mind and spirit, perhaps even in body. They were inspired, raised up from the ordinary onto a new level of thought and expression.

I’m sure that all of us have had such moments of inspiration. They were not necessarily creative moments, but times when we felt lifted out of the ordinary. Perhaps it was in listening to a great orchestral piece, or even during a movie in an IMAX setting, immersive audio and all. A writer might be inspired so that after she completes a chapter, she looks at her work and says, “Wow! I wrote that. It was an inspired moment.” When one is inspired, a feeling of well-being happens, and one’s attitude seems to take on new life.  

People can be a great source of inspiration. There are certain authors that I read who inspire me, who make me feel good about people and our human nature. For example, Mitch Albom. I don’t know him personally, but through his books I feel that I know him. He is a man with heart and soul. He is a sensitive being who might be characterized simply as someone who cares about people, about individual persons and not just the faceless masses. From his many works I sense that he is gentle, and yet he can be firm about principles that are important in his life. His books are about people and their situations in life—the good, the bad, and the indifferent states of affairs.

For me, as I grow older, people and their personalities are my greatest inspiration. They breathe into me a good spirit and offer me a sense of wholesomeness, goodness, and optimism. I am discovering that a lot depends on my attitude toward individuals whom I meet along the way, even first encounters with ordinary people with whom I may have casual commerce in a grocery store or a dentist’s office. But note well. How they respond to me most often depends on my first words to them, my tone of voice, facial expression, and what I have to say. Our daily encounters can be wonders of interaction, and they very often depend on how we think, speak, and act in routine meetings with strangers.

There are multiple formats for inspiration apart from works of art or theater, personal encounters, books, and fantastic vacation settings. In trying to nudge a richer meaning out of the idea of inspiration, all of the above simply leads to my main focus, which is inspiration in worship and coming together in prayer. “Oh, how boring,” one might say. But that is precisely my point. We often associate religious times and places as ideal settings for either boredom or inspiration. If you ask me whether I am generally and most often inspired in a religious setting, I would have to respond in the negative: No, I am typically and generally not inspired when I go to Mass in a neighborhood parish church, perhaps even my own parish church. I am not inspired with most of the worship services, the Masses that I used to attend. I put this in the past tense because I try not to go to those places where I find no stimulus for my emotions, my sentiments, my heart and spirit anymore. Is that really a lifting of the mind and heart to God? In sum, I am not inspired. I need to be inspired when I go to worship because to remember the past, to memorialize and therefore to make present again a very significant spiritual event in the life of the world, is the major part of what worship is all about. And don’t tell me that regardless of my feelings it’s all for the honor and glory of God. God does not need us.

To ritualize something from the past, even the ancient past, is to remember. Mass, or Eucharist if you prefer, is a memorial service. Sure, it’s all for the honor and glory of God. Does that sound familiar? “It’s not what I get out of it but what I put into it” is another common expression. “To go to Mass means first and foremost to recall that Jesus died for our sins.” Allow me to admit that as the most common of the more popular clichés, which I consider questionable at best.

I dare say that the Mass as memorial is more about the life of Jesus than about his death and resurrection or the forgiveness of sins, or our pathway to the kingdom of heaven when we die. The memory of Jesus in the breaking of bread is to inspire new energy, insight, and desire in me to live according to the mind, heart, soul, and spirit of Jesus, the man for others. That is why I must be inspired when I present myself at Mass. It is to try to transform me in the here and now, for the sake of the here and now.

Worship must be an experience that lifts us up, puts us on a new plane. We must be inspired to become more than we are. People, especially the young, are leaving the Christian churches in droves in our time. They are no longer inspired, lifted up, made to be more than they think they can be in the ordinary circumstances of life. Have we lost a sense of the sacred because these times are really a new age of enlightenment, a period of space travel and budding AI, in which we have become self-sufficient? Perhaps. Or is it simply that our theology about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has been unwaveringly dogmatic and faulty for a long, long time, and we have unwittingly misled the little ones in their catechesis? Perhaps it is not just misplaced priorities in religious training that have left us indifferent to worship, but also that our worship experiences themselves are dead and therefore do not awaken in us a new spirit, a spirit that allows us to be lifted up and inspired so that we walk out of the gathering with a renewed attitude toward life, love, and our earthly existence.

To what can I attribute this lack of inspiration in the celebration of Eucharist at Sunday worship? I would say that it is the general lack of understanding of baptized, Catholic people regarding what it is all about. Furthermore, and perhaps first on the list, is the lack of enthusiasm, spiritual zeal, and perhaps even personal conviction, élan vital, if you will, to give life to the gathered assembly on the part of the priest-presider. I am reminded of the moment in the Gospel of John when Jesus was so distraught during the Passover that he entered the Temple and started a ruckus with the sellers and money changers (John 2:17). John quotes Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for thy house has consumed me.” What every presider at Eucharist needs is zeal in and for the place of worship and what he does there. When a priest presides at Eucharist, he must be the first inspiration for the gathered assembly. They must see in him a serious, deep conviction about the work at hand, this worship experience, as if it were for him the first time that he was presiding at Eucharist. I too often see bored, routinized priests, ritualists, “confectors” of the Sacrament presiding at the rituals which should make present the sacred so that, just like at Emmaus, we will recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

The next most inspiring thing would be the people who make up the worshipping assembly. What do they believe, understand, want from this time of gathering? When we come to the point at which the church is small gatherings of people in each other’s homes, I would like to see them talking about what they believe as followers of Jesus the Christ. What do we understand about this memorial celebration of life, death, and resurrection? I want the people with whom I am gathered to let me know, implicitly or explicitly, that we are all on the same page about Jesus, his life, work, and Last Supper, this breaking of bread. We may not be all of one mind and heart, but we will share where we are. And that is important to hear and to know. It gives meaning to community and oneness at the gathering to remember the Lord.

The two important inspirations that will make this coming together a sacred event are the attitude and bearing of the presider and the minds and hearts of the assembly. Then I will be inspired, I will be lifted up, and I will walk out of the place of worship full of hope, with a new attitude and intention to make my corner of the world a place in which God and God’s messenger, Jesus, are not strangers. ♦

Gene Ciarlo is a priest no longer active in the ministry. Ordained from the American College, University of Louvain, Belgium, he spent most of his ministry in parish life. After receiving a master’s degree in liturgical studies from Notre Dame University he returned to his alma mater in Louvain as director of liturgy and homiletics. Gene lives in Vermont, where everything is gracefully green when it is not solemnly white.  

Image: 8th-century fresco, Deir el-Surian Monastery, Wadi Naturn, Egypt. Wikimedia Commons / Mina.maher.aziz / CC BY-SA 3.0