Common Courtesy

It’s about that person speaking loudly on their cell phone in the restaurant. Sometimes it’s a about the office. Occasionally we are privy to a family or personal matter, which we have no right to be part of, nor any desire to be involved. Quite frankly, the overheard cell phone conversation is just too much information. Whatever happened to plain old common courtesy?

Or, how often we find ourselves in another restaurant sitting where two people are discussing the impending divorce of one of the parties with all the gory details? Often enough we might be watching a soap opera with even its tears and voices raised in anger. This is not to mention the times when the conversation has words strong and forceful enough to embarrass even the hardiest among us.

It’s about common courtesy. Personal things are best shared in appropriate settings with trusted friends and family. As my mother would often remind the children in our family: “Picnics are good things, but not in the middle of Main Street.” Sometimes the ears of the pious should be protected from some topics and modes of expression.

Searching Out the Treasure
Courtesy, with its manners, is a lost treasure that might well be rediscovered. Courtesy, with its high regard of the human person, sets personal limits on what we share with other people and what we really shouldn’t impose on others. It’s about respecting other people. It might well be respecting even ourselves and to discover what is privileged and sacred in our own lives.

How are we to go about the rediscovery of courtesy? Several years ago, in my liturgical studies, one of the required readings was a book entitled “Behavior in Public and Semi-Public Places”. The author presented the simple rituals which hold societies together. The invitation was to notice how people interact in public or more or less public places. Rituals, for example, like the interaction of waiting for an elevator after pushing the button or riding the elevator without speaking but with a sure eye on the illumination of the floor numbers is a pattern of our lives. Courtesy might be found in the observance of such rituals and seeing how they help society to function and protect us from the unpredictable behavior of others.

A renaissance friend gifted me with my personal copy of a small black book, “A Gentleman at Table”. It was written for aspiring business men whose sense of behavior at business lunches and dinners was lacking in its development. Confronted with a complicated place setting and a dinner of many courses, our fast-food gentleman was at a loss when invited to an evening of conversation, food, and gentle

interaction with people. In the end, such learning was about the bottom line and how to advance one’s career.

Courtesy in the Church
As brothers and sisters in the Lord, we might find courtesy to the upbuilding of the community if discovered among us. How do we check our interaction with each other? Wherein do we respect ourselves and others? Is it possible that respecting our own personal space and that of others might increase our awareness of God’s Presence among us?

Courtesy in the end is about identity, who we are and who our neighbor is. Aidan Kavanagh, the late Benedictine liturgist, in speaking of the Eucharist, asked what would happen if Catholics had the same awe of Christ’s presence in each believer after communion as they had for his real presence in the Eucharistic bread and wine. His suggestion was that the church would not only have one sanctuary lit by the tabernacle, but a candle by each believer within the community.

Courtesy has a very practical face within our community. We might look to our ritual behavior as we encounter Christ in each other.

• Do I chatter loudly before or after Mass, even to greet my friends, while others are at prayer?

• Do I allow my cell phone to interrupt the community’s prayer? Or worse, do I speak with my friends by cell, when God is trying to talk with me?

• Do I visit with my friends when the communion lines are too long for my taste? I keep the Lord waiting, while he is searching me out.

• Do we teach our children to respect the personal space of others, while they are at prayer? Do we teach them the rituals of the worshipping community?

• Do we fail to show respect to the Assembly, the celebrant, the symbols of the Cross with its candles, as we rush out to get out of the parking lot first?

• Do I rush in with my opinions with no regard of the views, opinions, and beliefs of others? Do I present my way as the only way?

Perhaps all this is to say what I learned long ago in Catholic grade school from a poem whose author escapes me: “The Grace of God Is In Courtesy”. Gentle people show God’s love by being gentle with each other.

CDH