After church was over, I introduced myself, welcomed her to the congregation and complimented her singing. Over the next few months Ethel became one of the most active members of our parish. Sometimes during services she would become so caught up in the moment that her eyes would close and her hands rise, palms upward, as if on their own.



Her intensity made me more aware of my usual state of distraction. Too often during Mass my mind would be in another place and time ? planning Sunday lunch, Monday work or summer travel. I was where I should be physically but not mentally, and willing could only make it so for short periods of time.

Many people stop going to church under such circumstances. If they're not getting anything out of it, the argument goes, it's hypocritical to sit in the pew and go through the motions. Their time is better spent elsewhere.

Others quit because of personal issues ? disputes, grudges or aches from long-ago offenses. They're unwilling to make themselves vulnerable to more pain.

But my choice was to be in the pews, kneel and stand when I was supposed to, and listen to the word of God through Scripture readings and the homily. Often I felt enlightened and connected, in the sense of a communal experience.

Still, I envied Ethel's intimate relationship with God.

In the years to come, it would give her strength and peace as she fought and lost a battle with cancer.

My mother had a personal relationship with God as well, rooted in her childhood worship tradition and fortified by intellectual inquiry as a young mother and professional. ?She read her way into the Catholic Church,? my dad often said. His church pastor engaged her intelligence and introduced her to St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Merton and other Catholic thinkers. She and Dad grew in their love for each other and their love for the Lord. The two of them became daily churchgoers and leaders in the faith community. They received high papal honors as members of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

In the years before Mother's death, stroke-related dementia robbed her of the ability to read and engage in debate, theological or otherwise. But during prayer services, familiar words would come to her lips and she seemed engaged on some deep level where we could not join her.

I know now that Ethel's focus, like my mother's, was not totally a matter of will. It was not a matter of faith or intellect. It was a matter of opening oneself to a relationship that will only grow sweeter and stronger.

It is a matter of trust ? setting aside fears of being hurt and placing oneself in the hands of another.

There's a reason it's called love.

We each have to find our own way to this lover-and-loved-one relationship, and I have only begun to find mine. The rewards have been modest but sweet.

I finally, after years of consideration, treated myself to a three-day silent retreat. I'd been warned it would take a couple of days to shut off mental distractions, but I was ?in the moment? from the beginning. I was emotionally ready.

I discovered rich content in the silence, and I felt divine presence in the kiss of the breeze.

Since then I've been seeking quiet moments every day, mostly out of doors, to renew the sense of God in my life.

The other day at church I closed my eyes during the hymns after communion. My hands found their way to my collarbone, clasped lightly, and I lost all sense of time. I came to just before the last hymn ended, and sat down on cue with the rest of the congregation.

Smiling inside, I thought of Ethel.