Confessions of a Catholic Priest in a Mid-Vocation Crisis

After 14 years as an itinerant preacher, Edward L. Beck was offered a sabbatical by the Passionist order of the Roman Catholic Church--a year “in the world,” as he puts it.

Like many other men in very different circumstances, he yearned “to start fresh, do it better, transform our lives, live more deeply.”

“God Underneath” is the byproduct of Beck’s year off, a graceful and gracious work of self-revelation and spiritual wisdom.

“Traveling the country to lead parishes in retreats and missions had depleted me in ways I hadn’t even realized,” he says. “I needed a break from the constant movement and lack of rootedness.”

“God Underneath” can be approached as the confessions of a priest in a kind of mid-vocation crisis. That’s certainly how Beck’s mother saw it--he discloses that she insisted on inspecting the “bachelor pad” in New York City where he planned to spend his year off. And when he escorted her to an off-Broadway comedy that featured male frontal nudity, her worst fears were confirmed.

But she need not have worried. As we see for ourselves in the pages of “God Underneath,” Beck may be worldly wise, but he is also sure and serene in his faith. He may admit to moments of “disenchantment with the institutional church” but has always been confident in his calling.

“God Underneath” is a work of confession, but Beck has chosen to express his revelations through the medium of storytelling, the same approach that was favored by Jesus and Buddha, the Sufi tradition of Islam and the Hasidic tradition of Judaism.

“I realized early in my ministry that, if my preaching was effective, it was because of the stories I incorporated to illustrate the salient points,” he explains.

Each chapter is a kind of sermon in miniature--Beck’s musings on the spiritual meaning that can be mined out of ordinary experience. The fact that his parents planned to name him “Adelaide” if he had been a girl, for example, is the occasion for Beck to reflect on the spiritual significance of names and naming: “From the moment I was conceived, I am confident God has been whispering, ‘Edward,’ beckoning me forth into a fullness of life that only God can ultimately provide.”

“Adelaide,” as it turns out, was the name of his paternal grandmother--and the chapter titled “A Hebrew Revelation” refers to the day when he first learned that Adelaide was a Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism, thus making his father a Jew according to Jewish religious law. When this “theological pearl” is revealed to young Beck by a Jewish neighbor, he confronts his father: “Tell Mrs. Goldstein,” cracks his father, “if she ever needs someone to sit shiva, she knows who to call.”

Other experiences are far more harrowing. As an aspiring adolescent actor, Beck is confronted with the old theme of the starlet and the casting couch; significantly, his first instinct is to say “no” and go to the parish priest.

And when his mother is diagnosed with a brain tumor, he is moved not to humble prayer but angry confrontation with God. “My sophisticated theological training took a holiday, and I prayed with my guts rather than my head, threatening God and then bargaining with him,” writes Beck. “I became a damn priest. I’ve given you that. I’m not ready to give you my mother yet. You fix this.”

But Beck’s experience of the world is always redemptive. When he celebrates his lifelong friendship with a fellow priest who was his “spiritual director,” he concedes that there were “moments of anger and hostility and occasions of misunderstanding and lack of communication,” but ultimately he elevates the relationship to an exalted plane: “I’ve come to realize that intimate friendship is imperative for my life as a celibate,” he writes. “It’s theology I can touch, positioning God in the midst of my human experience of friendship.”

Beck is firmly rooted in Catholic tradition, but he strikes an ecumenical stance in “God Underneath.” His sources range from the poet Conrad Aiken (“Music I heard with you was more than music/And bread I broke with you was more than bread”) to songwriter Leonard Cohen (“There are cracks in everything; that’s how the light gets in”) to the Dalai Lama (“My true religion is kindness”).

And Beck clearly means to reach far beyond the Catholic circles in which he usually performs his work. “I trust that you will see yourself reflected in these stories,” he confides, “because I’m confident that, ultimately, our stories are the same.”