Nativity Catholic Church
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Dress Rehearsals You may not realize this by looking at me, but I have something in common with Groucho Marx! Obviously, it’s not a full head of wild, black hair, nor is it a fluffy, soup-straining mustache. While I do partake occasionally in a fine cigar, for which Groucho was famous, the real thing that connects us with each other is the fact that we both “starred” in the same show! Groucho, and a few of the other Marx brothers, made a movie called Room Service, which originally was a stage play. During my high school days, which involved appearing in several stage plays during my Junior and Senior years, I performed the lead role that belonged to Groucho in the hilarious farce Room Service. There wasn’t much about the play that could be mistaken for serious drama, but it was very entertaining and offered up lots of laughs. We had the audiences nearly rolling in the aisles during those performances…but I was never sure whether it was because of the content of the play script, or due to the awful mistakes made by my fellow classmates, of which there was no shortage! A bright smile still comes to my face whenever I recall that zany play, and everything that went into the production, but the rehearsals were nightmares! The priest who was our drama director was about as zany as the play—and the Marx brothers themselves. While he was an intellectually brilliant man, he sometimes got lost walking the hallways of the high school seminary, needing assistance to find his way back to his quarters. While we were always busy memorizing lines for the play, our director was busy forgetting which scene we were rehearsing—often criticizing us for reciting the “wrong” lines, which actually were from a different act and scene! I remember thinking to myself during rehearsals—we’ll never pull this charade off come opening night! The rehearsals were so pathetic—the lines missed, the scenery collapsing, misplaced entrances and exits, more lines missed, and the pervasive smell of impending doom and embarrassment wafting over the stage every night. To say that we needed the rehearsals was an understatement of the highest degree—to say that the rehearsals really prepared us for the actual performances was probably an enormous exaggeration. I’m convinced that only the grace of God (coupled with intense prayer and pleading that lasted right up until the curtain rose the first night) saved us from what we had actually rehearsed! One of the premier liturgists of the post-Vatican II era, Mark Searle, who plied his trade for many years at the University of Notre Dame, liked to refer to the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy, the Mass, as a “rehearsal” for the life that gets underway once we leave the friendly confines of the church and the Eucharistic assembly. Searle provides a fascinating lens through which to observe the meaning of what we do and who we are every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the sacrifice of the Mass. Indeed, perhaps, if the Mass is a “rehearsal,” then it will be filled with some of the shortcomings and strains of rehearsing a stage play—lines are forgotten, participants zone out and miss their cues, some appear on stage more prepared and committed than others on any given Sunday, the scenery and orchestration isn’t always what we had planned or desired, the “director” isn’t always on top of his game—and simply, we don’t always get it right! But then again…isn’t that precisely what REHEARSAL is all about? Rehearsing is about forming and shaping one into “character.” Rehearsal is about “putting on” another persona—then living that persona. While carrying out the beautiful and awesome ritual we call the Sunday Eucharist is always a challenge for the community, LIVING the Eucharist once the last note is sounded and the parking lot empties is even a greater challenge. Unlike a stage play, where once the curtain drops, all is ended until the curtain rises at the next performance, the Eucharist lives on far beyond the final blessing and sending. In fact, one can say that the real Eucharist, the real presence of Christ is just beginning, as we strive to “become what we have received,” as St. Augustine said so profoundly many centuries ago. Through the rehearsal of the Eucharistic action, we once again “put on Christ,” whose Body we are. We “rehearse” during the Eucharist what it means to be a holy, chosen and royal priesthood. We rehearse what it means to extend peace when bitterness still abounds. We rehearse what it means to listen to God’s Word, so that we can act upon God’s Word. We rehearse an equality we share as sisters and brothers in the Lord that the world rarely recognizes once we return to our jobs and houses and belongings. We rehearse forgiveness as we pray the Act of Contrition and beg the Father to treat us as we treat others. We rehearse humility before the Lord of Creation as we bow, and kneel, and genuflect. We rehearse thanksgiving, so that upon our return to the world, we will not be seduced by our daily claims to entitlement. We rehearse being “centered” in time and space so that we may hold tight upon our exit into a world that spins us wildly off course. We rehearse reverence and respect and decorum so that we might live some of these qualities in a world that celebrates baseness, ugliness, humiliation, depravity, and scandal. We rehearse silence since we seem to forget its place and importance for survival of body and soul. We rehearse being the “Body” of Christ so that we may return to our sorely fragmented and draconian individualistic way of life more whole, and intact and other-oriented. We rehearse what we first claimed at our baptism, “putting on Christ,” as we return to a world intent upon stripping us of that identity. If we accept Searle’s observation that liturgy is “rehearsal,” then these days of Holy Week and Triduum about to unfold are clearly the grandest days of rehearsal we’ll experience this year! We will gather to rehearse being broken and poured out for others; we will rehearse stooping to a position of lowliness so that we might truly see who is master and who is servant; we will rehearse carrying our crosses and knowing the pain of loss and grief and abandonment; we will rehearse being buried with the Lord—so that we might rise with the Lord on the last day! So many years ago, a budding teenage actor doubtfully wondered whether everything would fall into place come opening night—and through the grace of God (and some amount of effort on the part of the players)—the curtain rose, the lights shone, and the stage came to life. Through the grace of God, and some cooperation on our part as the Body of Christ, our “rehearsals” of sacrificing and dying and rising will gloriously come together on that final day when God raises the curtain on the fullness of the Kingdom—and eternal light will shine forever!
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