Church

It’s been written that many people find religion during arduous periods. In a war it’s no different, I imagine. I remember attending my first mass in theater at a modest, wooden chapel in Camp Virginia, Kuwait last November. I went there in the company of a Navy commander who was part of my group that went through training at Fort Jackson. We made our way through the dusty walkways to the chapel on a Saturday evening.

The inside of the chapel was much nicer that the outside. It boasted proper wooden pews and even a few stain glass windows. The Catholic priest, an Army major, was stout man with white hair, kind face, and quiet voice. He came forward, before the start of the mass, and urged us all to sit closer to the front of the chapel. As we did so, he said there was shortage of Catholic priests in theater and that he had been in another part of Kuwait that morning. There was a quiet, intimacy in the way to spoke to us (we numbered scarcely more than twenty). He said something I’ve never heard another Catholic priest say. He urged us to look up during the preparation of the sacrament and watch what was happening. Although something that is done during every mass, he said people rarely look up to see what the priest does. It is simple ceremony, for those who many not be familiar with it, a series of blessings on bread and wine that become, symbolically something more. He spoke quietly, almost conspiratorially.

Maybe it was because of his suggestions or our small number but it this was one of the most special and intimate masses I ever attended. As soon as it began, it hit me that I was very far from home and about to embark on an uncertain and possibly dangerous tour. In that moment of realization, I felt terribly small and during the opening prayer, I felt tears welling up as I thought of my attractive wife and infant son back home. What would the coming year bring? How dangerous would it be? Would they be okay? What if I didn’t come back? The priest went on with the mass, his voice still very quiet. I had to strain to hear him properly. Was he tired? Or did the weight of his tour bear down on him?

Later, it was the same for the first few masses I attended after I arrived in the International Zone. Being so busy, it was only when mass began that I realized I was in Iraq and separated from my family. I found comfort in the prayers and the ceremony of the mass.

It helped that we had a wonderfully charismatic Franciscan priest, Father Kerry, an Air Force major, who converted to Catholicism and who grew up as an evangelical Baptist in the south. This winning combination made for fantastic and energetic homilies. Yet he also had a calmness that showed itself during several tense moments last April. Beginning on Easter Sunday, and for four weeks in a row in April during Sunday mass, the International Zone was hit by rockets. During one mass, a particularly heavy barrage occurred while we were singing the closing hymn. Father Kerry usually was the first person to leave mass so he could say goodbye to everyone as they exited the chapel. In the second verse of the hymn, he walked back into the chapel and said over our singing, “I need everyone to duck and cover now…” which we did. As we did so only then did we hear the warning alarms of an incoming attack. Everyone lay prone in the chapel, the only sounds from outside were the alarm and the periodic explosions of impacting rockets. It went on this way for an interminably long time. After a particularly close impact, someone began whispering the Hail Mary prayer which we all began to recite.

Our parish is called the Roman Catholic Community of Saint Michael, The Archangel, of Baghdad, Iraq. As patron saints go, St. Michael is particularly apropos for this place; he is mentioned in both the Bible and the Qu’ran. At the close of each mass, we say the following prayer which was penned by Pope Leo XIII in the late 1800s:

“Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”

During those four weekly rocket attacks I can say with some surety that St. Michael took care of his parish here in Baghdad.