When I was a young girl, I had similar moments when I knelt and prayed during Mass, particularly at the moment when the bread became the Body of Christ. While I have gone to Mass many times over the years, I have not experienced that sort of extreme miraculous overwhelming emotion very often.
I do experience it, oddly enough, on Christmas Eve, when the lights are dimmed and every one sings 'Silent Night' very softly. The tears stream down my face. I am utterly undone emotionally. I am not quite certain why... part of it is the beauty of the moment. Part of it perhaps is the magic of the creche and the birth of the Christ Child in the cave, surrounded by the animals. It is NOT an entirely Christian moment. It belongs to all the ancient Mystery religions and is more powerful for that. Perhaps part of it is being a mother myself. I never wept during the Christmas Eve Mass before Freya was born. I love my daughter dearly but I miss my baby girl and will miss her forever I daresay. Every single moment of her infancy was precious and miraculous to me. I pity the women who march off to work, leaving an infant child behind in the arms of some one else. Those moments cannot be recovered. They are lost to those women forever and perhaps they do not even fully realise the price they paid. I vowed that I would live in abject poverty if need be while Freya was a baby, if that were necessary to stay with her. I do not regret an instant or the opportunities I rejected.
I was overwhelmed emotionally the first time I visited the Tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides. I went down on my knees on the elegant marble floor to pray to/for my Emperor. Was it really Napoleon who sparked that extraordinary degree of emotion and loyalty in me or some image of him? Probably the latter... but is that not true of any religion?
Yet, of all these, it is the rites of Muharram that have the greatest power. There are moments in 'Lord of the Rings' that reduce me to helpless tears every time I watch them, but one is not participating there except in spirit. During Muharram, one IS a mourner, a witness of the martyrdom of the Imam and his followers. One is at Karbala. 'Kullu yowmin Ashura, kullu ardin Karbala.' (Every day is 'Ashura; every land is Karbala.) One can taste the dust of the desert, feel the unquenchable thirst and hunger, the desperate determination not to falter and not to fear the hand of Death... it is re-enacted every year and each year only gains in potency.
It is interesting that the greatest power is held by thoughts or experiences that elicit tears. They do say that weeping is a form of catharsis. We all have our personal losses and tragedies. To weep for ourselves is pathetic. To weep for another is ennobling.
In Roman times, the tear vial became popular and people would catch their tears in a glass vial to send to another.
Unfortunately, no one wants a person who does not belong exclusively to THAT club. You cannot be 'neither fish nor fowl' and expect to be accepted and embraced into the fold. You will be an outsider forever, barely tolerated if tolerated at all. I believe in too many miracles. I am no agnostic. I am a person who believes in all sorts of magic, including the magic of Catholicism and the magic of the Shiani 'Ali... and the magic of Odhinn and Freya and the runes... and of course, the very potent magic of Tolkien's Middle Earth.
