The phenomenon of fainting in church

By Msgr. Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington, DC

In my over 21 years as a priest and even longer in serving in some capacity at the Holy Liturgy I have seen more than a few people faint. Some just slump over, others go over with a real bang. Weddings are a big source of fainting spells but just about any long Mass can produce its share of a “lights out” experience. Last year I was serving as First Assistant Deacon for a Pontifical Solemn High Mass in the Basilica and prior to the Mass we predicted at least some one would pass out. It’s usually one of the torch bearers since they have to kneel on the marble for so long. Sure enough right at communion time, one of them went over, torch and all. It wouldn’t be a valid solemn High Pontifical Mass if at least one didn’t pass out!

I hope you don’t mind a “reprint” article, but I learned that a number of regular readers of this blog missed this article I wrote over about a year ago. Since today was a long one, I thought to reprint this older post, with summer weather setting in fainting spells are more common. Further, weddings are in full season. It might not be bad to re post this primer on fainting.

OK, so what’s going one here? Are people overwhelmed by the presence of God and then just “rest in the Spirit?” Well, that’s a fine thought and I perhaps I should just stop the article here out piety. However, beyond the this holy thought there are probably other explanations.

It could be the heat in some churches which causes dehydration. Dehydration then causes there to be a lower volume of blood which causes the pressure to drop and makes it harder to get the blood to the brain and out you go.

Anemia – Some women have borderline anemia especially at certain times of their cycle and this reduces the number of red blood and thus reduces the ability of the blood to deliver oxygen to the brain and, especially after standing a while or getting a little dehydrated, out you go.

Stress – In order to maintain proper blood pressure there must be a proper balance between two chemicals: adrenaline and acetylcholine. Adrenaline stimulates the body, including making the heart beat faster and blood vessels narrower, thereby increasing blood pressure. Acetylcholine does the opposite. Fainting can happen when something stimulates the vagus nerve and causes too much acetylcholine to be produced at the wrong time. Pain can do this, so can “situational stressors” such as something like seeing blood or just prolonged stress that often happens at funerals or weddings. Such things cause too much acetylcholine to slow the heart, dilate the blood vessels, pressure drops more than it should, blood can’t reach the brain and out you go.

Standing for a length of time can also cause the blood to collect a bit in the lower legs. The movement of the blood back from the limbs is assisted by the movement of those limbs. I was always taught never to lock my knees when I was standing since this slowed blood flow and made blood accumulate in the legs. More blood in the legs means less blood that can go to the brain and out you go. It is important when standing to slightly bend the knees a bit and to allow for some movement of the legs by shifting your weight. This improves circulation and keeps the pressure at a proper level to get blood up to the brain. The same is true with kneeling.

In some cases low blood sugar can cause one to faint. The brain requires blood flow to provide oxygen and glucose (sugar) to its cells to sustain life. Hence excessively low blood sugar can cause one to feel drowsy, weak and in some cases to faint, especially if some of the other factors are present. Hence if one has been fasting (rare today!) before communion and also has a tendency to be hypoglycemic it is possible one can faint.

There are surely other causes, (some of them very serious but more rare) but let this suffice. It would seem that Masses and Church services are over-represented in the fainting department due to any combination of the above, especially: stress, dehydration, and standing or kneeling for long periods.

It is surely a weird experience to faint. I have done it a number of times related to an asthmatic cough I often get. When an extreme coughing episode ensues the rhythm of the heart is disturbed, blood pressure drops and out you go. It is a very strange experience to just see everything fade to black, the lights just go out and sometimes I can even feel myself falling but can do little about it. I just hope I fall gracefully  I usually come to a moment or so later but it is strange to say the least. Our brains go only go without blood (oxygen) for a few seconds before unconsciousness envelopes and out you go.

We are wonderfully, fearfully made to be sure. And yet we are earthen vessels, fragile and in need of delicate balance. We are contingent beings, depending on God for every beat of our heart, and His sustaining of every function of every cell of our body. Maybe fainting in Church isn’t so bad since it helps keep us humble and that is always a good “posture” before God. Maybe before the immensity of God it is good to be reminded of our fragility and dependence upon Him for all things, even the most hidden processes of our body.

Enjoy this video of Church faintings and consider well that “To be absent from the body is to be present to God.” (2 Cor 5:8)

Christian Church...it won't last

Interesting satirical post from Matt and Pat Archbold at The National Catholic Register.

Rome
Circa 66 AD

Dear Christian Recruit,

Thank you so much for your interest in joining the Church. Your letter was forwarded to me by the former head of the evangelization and recruiting department. Unfortunately, he met a similarly grisly fate as his predecessor. They were both beheaded and stoned (though not in that order ;)

You asked about the benefits of being a Christian; well things have been a bit dodgy for this young Church. I’m sure that in the future things will get a lot better for Christians throughout the world but for now…

As you might already know Christianity is illegal. Very illegal. And the Roman Empire has been…shall we say…brutal. We’re persecuted so terribly that many of us are in hiding and oh yeah, we’re killed quite often. And not just killed but killed in pretty nasty and inventive ways. That’s why I’m always surprised to see letters like yours in my inbox. In the interest of full disclosure pretty much everyone affiliated with the Church from Jesus on down suffers terribly and then is killed. Somehow the recruiting office says this persecution is having the opposite effect than one would logically expect. But it just doesn’t seem like sound long term planning if you ask me.

I was very much intrigued by all the questions you posed. I wish you could read the Bible we’re working on but it’s still in galleys and you know how editors are. This could take centuries (lol).

You asked extensively about the leaders of the Church, known as the 12 apostles. Please don’t hold their behavior at critical junctures against the Church. Yes, it’s true that the apostles did seem to spend a great deal of time arguing with one another over which one Jesus liked best. And yes it’s true that Peter, our fearless leader, denied Christ three times at kind of an important moment. And yes it’s true that Peter, James and John kept falling asleep even though Jesus asked them to pray with Him. And finally yes, you heard right that Jesus was betrayed by one of our highest ranking members (who later resigned). Now I know that doesn’t make our H.R. screening look competent but they assure me that all legal standards were met. For fear of a lawsuit they say it was a personnel matter so they can’t comment further.

Our infrastructure, I admit, wasn’t all that great but things got better after Jesus, our Savior, was crucified. Well, not immediately. Directly after, the apostles ran around scared and went into hiding. But a few days after that, things got a lot better. Shortly thereafter they even converted an Ethiopian eunuch. Guess they thought, what worse could happen to that guy, right? Don’t ask.

Peter is now in Rome and Paul is on his way there. Now as far as I knew Paul had been trying to kill guys like us but he says he’s changed and is heading out to Rome with Peter. Don’t know how that will work out but my hopes aren’t high. But I received a memo that things are looking up as I hear the Romans are preparing a grand reception for them.

For me, Rome is getting pretty crazy. I plan to retire to Jerusalem in 70 AD.

But in short, if you choose to join the Church you’ll be joining an organization whose members argue incessantly among themselves, who betray the Lord regularly, are persecuted, and often killed just for being a member. Personally, if I were a betting man, with all these grisly deaths, weakness among our own, treachery, and downright stupidity I can’t see how this church survives the month, never mind until the end of time. If it survives longer than this week it will surely be evidence of the Lord protecting His Church.

Gotta’ go now. This may sound strange but I think I just heard a lion outside. I’m going to go check it out. I wonder what they’re going to feed it.

Love,

The Office of Recruiting and Evangelization

Sense of community vs. Sense of sacred

From The National Catholic Register by Matt and Pat Archbold

Of the many things that have been lost during the last forty years in the name of the council, I miss one the most.  Silence.

Noise is my life.  With five children ages ten and under, I know from noise.  My ten year old daughter screaming at my nine year old son “You are SOOOOO rude!” while he bangs on the bathroom door laughing.  The seven year old and the five year old are playing Mario on Wii with the volume up to 147, and my three year old daughter is running around in a princess dress with a light sabre yelling “I’m Apunzel!  Daddy, I’m Apunzel, see?” Noise is my life. 

But these same children who are an endless source of decibels know, the moment we open the doors of the Church, silence is the rule.  This is God’s house, not yours.  That is what I teach the children, now if someone would only teach the adults.

So it bugs me when I read a story like this.  A reporter with an Anglican background goes to a Catholic Church to do a story and is taken aback at the noise level.  This is a Church right?  Shouldn’t it be quieter?  The Pastor, Fr. Reilly responds this way.

I had gone to St. Ann’s in search of sacred space, drawn there by the beautiful exterior architecture. But what I found there during a Sunday service was different from the hushed reverence of my Anglican childhood. Energetic and talkative parishioners filled the open sanctuary, greeting one another with enthusiasm.

This, according to Reilly, is as it should be.

“Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has seen a change,” he says. “A sense of community is stressed. The main church, by which I mean the nave of the church, is the place where the community gathers for celebration, to celebrate the Eucharist.”

While Reilly admits that there are those who may complain about “talking before Mass,” he believes that this is congruent with the liturgy, in which the congregation greet each other and exchange tokens of peace before the Eucharist.

One reason this is possible is that St. Ann’s, like many Catholic churches, has a separate chapel housing the Blessed Sacrament.

Oy. The spurious spirit of the council strikes again!

So now a story. A few years ago my Bishop, Bishop Murphy of Rockville Centre, visited my parish for a confirmation and was appalled at the noise level and the total irreverence he witnessed.  Being Bishop has its privileges and he decided to do something about it.  He wrote a letter to my former pastor and said this…

As I mentioned to you during that day, I am very concerned about the comportment of the faithful in your parish church prior to the celebration of the Eucharist. I am not blaming anyone. I am not trying to say that anyone is at fault. I am simply saying that the comportment is not compatible with proper preparation for the celebration of Mass. This interferes with the ability of the people to enter into the liturgy and have the kind of active participation that the Second Vatican Council calls for.

In my judgment, a major reason for this is the fact that the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a separate chapel that is so removed from the main body of the church that no one knows where the Blessed Sacrament is. I don’t mean that literally but I mean that conscious awareness of’ the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is lacking to those who enter the main body of your parish church. This is further hampered by the fact that the music ministry is set up in front of the doors into that chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. That means that anyone who wishes to go and pray needs to go through the paraphernalia of those who provide music. I find this problematic.

Problematic is Bishop-speak for really really bad.  What Fr. Reilly misses and what Bishop Murphy gets is that real active participation can be fostered by silence, glorious and heavenly silence.  Further, there are plenty of other times to foster community, silence is much rarer indeed.  This manic need to be moving and talking in the misguided notion that it is active participation is, well, misguided.

Bishop Murphy had it right.  He asked my pastor to move the tabernacle out of the chapel and back to the center of the Church and begin an education campaign of the value of silence and her constant companion, reverence.

The pastor did what the Bishop asked and things have improved, a bit.  We recently got a new young pastor who, not long after his installment, wrote a letter to his new parishioners in the bulletin.  I don’t have the full quote here in front of me, but it went something like this.  “If the Church is not on fire, you should not be talking.”  Amen.

So to those who still think that cacophony equals community, I say one thing.  For the love of God, shut up.

Preventative medicine: the gift of the Church's wisdom and experience

From blog.adw.org by Msgr. Charles Pope

As a teenager I remember resenting how adults would try and prevent me from doing what I pleased. They would often warn me not to “learn the hard way” that something was wrong. I would often be told that I should learn from them and their experiences not to make the same mistakes they did. The rebel in me thought that it might be fun and pleasurable to “make a few mistakes of my own.” Of course I pridefully thought that I would escape the consequences.

In the end of course they were right, and one the most valuable gifts I have received from others to have learned from their experience. As a pastor too I must say that my staff has preserved me from innumerable errors through their expertise and long experience with the parish.

The word “experience” comes from the Latin experientia, meaning the act of trying or testing. More deeply it comes from two Latin words,  ex (out of) + periri  (which is akin to periculum, meaning peril or danger). Hence “experience” refers to those have endured trials, perils, testing, and dangers,  and speak out of these to us so we don’t have to endure such things. It is a very great gift! 

The Church too offers us the great gift of long experience. Indeed, one of the great advantages of making our home in the Catholic Church is that we are at the feet of a wise and experienced teacher who has “seen it all.” The Scriptures, the Catechism, the lives of the Saints, all the Church’s teaching,  is a wealth of knowledge and collected experience for us. Through this vast treasury The Church, as a good mother and teacher, helps us to learn from the experiences of others.

At this point I would like for G.K. Chesterton to do the talking:

The other day a well-known writer, otherwise quite well-informed, said that the Catholic Church is always the enemy of new ideas. It probably did not occur to him that his own remark was not exactly in the nature of a new idea. …Nevertheless, the man who made that remark about Catholics meant something….What he meant was that, in the modern world, the Catholic Church is in fact the enemy of many influential fashions; most of which … claim to be new. [But] nine out of ten of what we call new ideas, are simply old mistakes.

The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves….There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and nearly all errors.

The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them. On this map of the mind the errors are marked…[but] the greater part of it consists of playgrounds and happy hunting-fields, where the mind may have as much liberty as it likes. But [the Church] does definitely take the responsibility of marking certain roads as leading nowhere or leading to destruction…
By this means, it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past, but which might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future.

The Church does make herself responsible for warning her people against these; she does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes… Now all false issues have a way of looking quite fresh, especially to a fresh generation. ..[But] we must have something that will hold the four corners of the world still, while we make our social experiments or build our Utopias. (From Twelve Modern Apostles and Their Creeds (1926). Reprinted in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. 3 Ignatius Press 1990)

Yes, what a gift. Many may take of the role of a pouty teenager and be resentful at any warning from the Church. But in the end, It’s a mighty fine gift to be able to learn from others and benefit from their experience. Here’s a funny ad  from yesterday’s Super Bowl that illustrates this:

Things heard in church...

from ncregister.com by Matthew Archbold

1) Whispered by a father in the pew behind me to his children who were being a little noisy: “When we get to the car I’m testing all of you on what the gospel was. And if you get it wrong you’re dead.”

2) Whispered by my daughter minutes before going up for her First Communion: “Dad, I think I’m gonna’ throw up.” (She did. Our parish priest later came to our home to offer her the Eucharist but she was still sick so we waited until the next week.)

3) Said by priest who noticed that two birds had flown into the Church and were dive bombing parishioners: “Oh, I know how to get the birds out of here. I’ll baptize them and then they’ll only come back twice a year on Christmas and Easter.”

4) Deacon in January 2009: “There’s been a lot of talk about ‘hope’ recently and I think we’ve all gotten excited and inspired about it.” (I thought about raising my hand and saying “Not me” but I didn’t.)

5) Jesuit priest from the altar right after Communion: “Are the dancers ready?” Uh-oh.

6) Little girl talking to her younger sister just after Communion in the pew in front of us: “Ha ha. I get Communion but you’re too little.” This was accompanied by a little celebratory dance.

7) My nine year old daughter to my eight year old while walking into Church: “You have to sing because my teacher said you get twice the credit for praying if you sing.” That night they asked me if we could sing our nighttime prayers. I said no.

8) Priest: “Oh the Book of Revelation is a bunch of hooey.”

9) An usher said to me and my wife while handing us the bulletin: “Whoa five kids. You really take this Catholic thing seriously, huh?”

10) Priest at the beginning of Mass: “If this is your first time here, we do things a little differently…Now give the person next to you a hug.”

11) During the homily a woman said to her husband: “This is a really boring bulletin.”

Electronic giving may may collection baskets a thing of the past

from reuters.com

Brie Hall felt awkward the first few times she passed the collection basket at her Catholic church without tossing in a donation envelope.

But it is more convenient to give her gift to God by direct debit from her checking account.

The tradition of passing the church plate might become a relic of the past, as a majority of Americans pay bills electronically and move away from using cash or writing checks.

Despite concerns about commercializing something so personal, electronic giving to churches is growing.

"You just kind of get over it ... because you know you've donated," said Hall, a communications manager for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

At the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, about half of the 1,600 congregants who give regular donations do so electronically, up from 20 percent four years ago.

"For some people, they'll never change," said its pastor, Monsignor John Enzler. "Other people find it's a wonderful way to do their giving."

Along with Catholic dioceses, religious organizations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America have approved electronic giving as an option for their members.

Each church can decide whether to adopt the practice, available from electronic payment processing companies since the late 1990s.

Church staff are often the toughest sell, said Vijay Jeste, product manager for electronic giving for Our Sunday Visitor, a Huntington, Indiana-based maker of donation envelopes for Catholic churches, which started offering electronic payment processing in 2009.

Reluctance to pay a fee to process collections melts away as parishes "realize that this is the way to go," Jeste said.

"This is not an option they can put off for too long," he said.

OBJECTIONS

Some church leaders object to electronic giving because they do not want parishioners piling more debt onto overloaded credit cards. Others say it interferes with the ritual of making a tangible sacrifice during the service.

"Their concern is that giving is not reduced to the act of paying a bill," said Bill Townes, vice president of convention finance for the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Convention does not have an official position on electronic giving and does not track it among its 45,000 member churches, Townes said.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America learned the value of online donations when it made an appeal last year for victims of Haiti's earthquake, said Theo Nicolakis, its director of information technology and Internet ministries.

The archdiocese found almost 4 percent of its online visitors do not attend religious service, and about 28 percent of visitors are not even Greek Orthodox.

"We're technically reaching people who we would never reach," Nicolakis said.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, an early adopter of online giving, allows donations via Facebook and cell phone texts.

"If we don't provide an easy way to give, they're going to give elsewhere," Nicolakis said.

While electronic giving has grown in popularity at Enzler's Catholic church in Washington, which signed up with payment company Faith Direct in 2006, only a quarter of the archdiocese's 140 churches have followed suit.

But last February's epic snowstorm in the Washington area converted some disbelievers, Enzler said. With many churchgoers trapped at home, he estimates the archdiocese lost about $1.4 million -- about $10,000 per church.

Parishioners miss an average of 10 services a year at their home parish, said W. Brian Walsh, founder of the Alexandria, Virginia-based Faith Direct.

Direct debit and credit card payments mean more consistent giving, according to electronic payment companies, which estimate collections increase 10 percent to 30 percent.

Since 2003, Walsh has made contracts with nearly 300 churches in 45 Catholic dioceses nationwide.

For an average parish with 1,500 families, Faith Direct charges an annual fee of about $7,800. Other companies charge a percentage of the total collection.

Relevance of the Church

From Truth in Love blog...

Recognizing the delicate balancing act required to address this topic, I wish to pull together some thoughts regarding the purpose of the Church, and thus, its relevance for people of all ages, including today.

On a feast day such as today, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, it is good to give prayerful consideration to the beginnings of the Church in the call of Jesus and the faith of the early followers.  To build upon the faith of the Apostles means to be aware of the call of Jesus in our own life.  It means to be aware of His message, revealing the love of God.  It means being deeply aware of His concern for us, just as He listened to the many needs of those who approached Him in His earthly ministry, and answered all their needs.

Just as the Apostles could not contain their faith, and had to share it with others, so are the People of God to be so filled with the Good News of salvation that it naturally flows over in all of their relationships, through the course of their entire life.

We are aware of numerous polls telling us some basics of the reality of the Church today.  Most polls would say that somewhere around 1/3 of those claiming to be Catholic attend Mass on a weekly basis.  These tend to be the backbone of the Church, serving the Church in its many ministries and roles of leadership.  For this core group of Catholics, we are very grateful.

Another poll I read just today states that people should perhaps spend less time in the Mall, and more time in Church.  (Poll conducted by researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel with data collected by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council.)  The basis for this study was the “happiness” of people.  The primary point being that money cannot bring us happiness. 

Even though the Church does not exist solely to bring us happiness, there is a fundamental truth revealed in this study, though not explicitly stated, that only Jesus Christ can fill the deepest longings of the human heart…thus the relevancy of the Church!

The challenge for us as Church today is to find a way to preach this Truth in our modern culture in a way that “resonates”.  The same poll asked a poignant question:  So if Church goers are more happy than others, why is it that more people do not go to Church?  One answer to this was that “shopping gives a certain immediate gratification”, which the Church attendance does not necessarily provide. 

I would partially agree, and thus propose that we should be somewhat leery of how we assess things today.  To do so merely from the stand point of gratification leaves us prey to the fleeting nature of this world, and keeps our sights far below the reality of faith, and the necessity of having a profound relationship with God.

Perhaps one way we “preach” the message of the Good News today is to ask people to honestly assess their priorities.  Are the things they give their time and attention to truly satisfying?  Perhaps part of the answer is to ask people to take a little more of a “long-term approach” when it comes to matters of faith, when it comes to giving Christ a chance by making Him and His Church a priority.

One thing is certain:  we come into this life with nothing, and we depart this life with nothing.  This alone tells us the fleeting nature of this world.  That does not mean that the world is bad.  Quite the contrary, all that is created by God is good, but this world is fleeting.  This simple starting point then helps us ask the question about what truly remains, to help us determine the best use of our time, energy, and resources in this life. 

To answer the question of what “truly remains”, one need look no further than St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13:12-13.  At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.  At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.  So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Surely the Church is about proclaiming the Love of Christ.  Truly, the Church exists to strengthen us in faith and hope.  Surely, the Church, who gathers the people of all ages into the family of God is perhaps more relevant today, than any other time.  There are many people in the world looking for meaning and truth today.  May we help them find the ultimate Truth, Jesus Christ by inviting them to walk with us through this life, in the loving embrace of the Church.

h/t  Bishop Paul D. Etienne, Diocese of Cheyenne, WO

When moms pray, good things happen-- even if it takes a good, long time

A blogger writes about "What makes them leave-- or come back?" The blog begins...

When I first began working on my latest book, "When's God Gonna Call Me Back?," I sent out a request for testimonies from people who had left the Church. Although I haven't always been as good as I would have liked to be, it was never my experience to separate from the Church. I had to learn from the experiences of others, so I asked them three questions:

 

1.Why did you leave?
2.What kept you away?
3.What brought you back?

 

In return, I promised them that I would refrain from all judgment and proselytizing, that I would protect their anonymity, and that I would ask all identifying factors.

 

As you can imagine, there was quite a variety of responses. Many of them were so heart wrenching that it was hard for me to hold back the tears – abuse, rape, imprisonment, betrayal, suicide attempts, conflict, loniliness, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, confusion. These brave individuals shared with me some of the most difficult things they have ever told anyone, and I was both humbled by them and proud of them for their courage.

 

I also was surprised by their responses – in particular the number of individuals who credited the prayers of their mothers for their return to the Church, even when they didn't know that their mothers were praying for them at the time.

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The Problem with Cry Rooms

A blogger on Inside Catholic writes...

Today is the one year birthday of my youngest foster child. Over the past five months, I've marveled at her growth, her vice-like grip on anything I'm trying to read, and her amusement as she's discovered how to walk. And even though she's  become far more vocal over the past few weeks, I've also really enjoyed attending Mass with her.

During a retreat several years ago, the retreat master dedicated time on the "family and the Mass." One thing that still stands out was his perspective on cry rooms, which is that they've done more harm than good regarding the acceptance of the family in our Church.

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