The Catholic Faith: This Is the Air I Breathe.

We gathered Wednesday night with our Bishop Emeritus in a Mass of thanksgiving for Pope Benedict who yesterday at 2:00 became Pope Emeritus.

It was glorious.

Getting there was another matter entirely.

The whole process reminded me of a mommy quote I read over at Rachel's the other day: I gave up murder for Lent. Kidding, kidding, kidding. But it easy it tweren't. I'll spare you the specifics save to mention that dinner cost us an entire shaker of salt and nearly cost us my sanity.

And here's the rub: I internalize all of this, over-analyze it, assign it far more weight than I should. I want things to be Just So. And they aren't Just So.

We're going to Mass to honor the Pope. Let's be at happy. No? How about peaceful? I would have settled for civil. I figured I could at least insist on quiet. And quiet they were until John and Kolbe began fake fighting and, rather predictably, John took a for real punch to the temple.

Cue wailing, loud, loud wailing

"It's all fun and games," Tim sternly intoned, "until someone loses an eye."

And I burst out laughing.

We arrived. Ainsley jumped out and noticed the radio tower adjacent to the church.

"It's the Eiffel Tower," she gleefully exclaimed, enamored as she is with all things related to Madeline.

This, too, made me laugh.

In we went. I had no sooner found my seat when a nearly palpable peace began to envelop me. We began the opening hymn -- Come, Holy Ghost.  As we moved into the second verse the words O Comforter, to thee we cry made me cry.

Rarely have I felt the presence of God -- the comfort of the Holy Spirit -- more tangibly than at that moment.

I  took in the first quiet of my day and I looked first at my husband and then at my children (who at that moment really did appear nothing short of angelic) and I realized once again that this faith of mine, it is the air I breathe.

I love the Catholic faith.

I love the smell and bells, the smoke and the candles, the saints and the sacramentals.

I love the vestments and the liturgical colors.

I love times like these when we pull out the big words, words like Conclave and Consistory and Petrine.

I love the phrases pregnant with both meaning and history -- Keys to the Kingdom, Bind and Loose, Apostolic Succession, Sede Vacante -- phrases that remind me that I am but one in a long succession of souls great and souls humble seeking hope, finding solace, being fed by the body and body of Christ, encountering God come to earth.

I love that we can set aside all of the above and embrace what Bishop Boland called the single, essential "kernel" of the faith: Jesus Christ is Lord.

I love it.

Just before communion, we said a prayer that has changed slightly with the new translation that came our way a year or so ago: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

God does enter under my roof, and I'll continue to enter under His. If the trip easy is easy or is fraught with tension. If the music moves my soul or grates on my ears.

It is the air I breathe. 

Fortitude: Do Hard Things

This article recently appeared in the The Dove, the weekly newsletter of the Alleluia Community:

Mr. Hinton, our next door neighbor, is now ninety. Over the years, he has told us stories of the Great Depression and World War II. Since the end of World War II, Americans as a whole have known unprecedented peace and prosperity. While I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War and remember hanging out in the bomb shelter in my friend’s basement, for the most part, I am a child of peace and prosperity.

And what a blessing that is!

Make no mistake about it: I have no desire to go to war to toughen up my kids or to face widespread economic collapse so we can all better appreciate the value of a dollar. But with these blessings can come a softness and, if I’m perfectly honest, a sense of entitlement. My generation, perhaps more than any other, needs to ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of fortitude, the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit that gives us strength over time, courage under duress, stick-to-it-ness in the face of unpleasant or even dangerous tasks.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this of fortitude:

The virtue of fortitude has two components – endurance and enterprise.

Endurance helps us to keep going when we are fatigued, suffering, weak, exhausted, or facing discouragement. Enterprise helps us to undertake great deeds while withstanding hardship. Enterprise requires initiative to see a need and take on the responsibility to carry out a plan for the good of others.

Our teenage son is reading Do Hard Things. "Combating the idea of adolescence as a vacation from responsibility," says the Do Hard Things website, "the authors weave together biblical insights, history, and modern examples to redefine the teen years as the launching pad of life and map a clear trajectory for long-term fulfillment and eternal impact."

 

Fortitude helps us do hard things.   Several months back I conferred with a friend about why it's all sometimes so hard -- harder than it should be, it seems to me. I know that part of my struggle is that I've bought into the myth that life should be easy. At a certain basic level, I don't want to die to myself, to grow in fortitude, to do hard things.

The rub is that when I overcome my weak will, when I fully embrace my life, when I stop cutting corners, when I put off petty feelings of resentment, in short, when I truly love -- the result is joy.

We, like the Israelites before us, tend to murmur. God delivers us from slavery, parts the Red Sea, provides manna in the desert. We shrug our shoulders and ask, “What have you done for me lately?”

When I’m confronted with bad news, I tend to react as though the sky were falling. Despair would probably be too strong of a word, but I fall apart more easily than I should. Having been a charismatic Christian for thirty years, you’d think my first response would be to pray. No, step one is panic. Step two is buy a book. I log on to Amazon and find some handy how-to manual about the problem at hand. (Look at my Amazon history and you’ll find that my last three purchases were Mommy, Teach Me to Read, Parenting Your Teen with Love and Logic, and The Fulfillment of All Desire. You can probably guess the issues we’ve been facing.) Steps 3-5 vary and include, but are not limited to: crying, pouring a glass of wine, and consuming large quantities of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Sometimes simultaneously.

I forget, if only temporarily, all that God has done for me.

Last week I arrived at our support group potluck, and someone mentioned that we had a visitor who had been part of University Christian Outreach in Ann Arbor while I was a student at the University of Michigan. Mike Shaughnessy recognized me right away, although I haven’t seen him in 27 years.

The first time I met Mike was a true turning point in my life. I was twenty-one and miserable. One night I decided to attend a prayer meeting.

I’ll show up, I told myself, and then leave right afterwards.

Before I could beat a hasty retreat, Mike came over to me and asked, “Could I pray with you?” Mike and another leader, a woman named Rosemary, spent several hours praying with me that night. Their prayers changed the course of my life.

Seeing Mike 800 miles away, twenty seven years later really rocked me. Since then I have thought long and hard about God’s provision in my life. At twenty-one I was miserable, and my misery was purely of my own making. Yet God intervened.

A friend of mine recently shared an image God revealed to him in prayer. Chuck recalled different glimmers of God he had seen in beauty, in humor, in tenderness, in sacrifice, in joy. And then God led him to observe a granite stone in the backyard. It is awesome, unyielding, whole, solid, unchanging. These, too, are attributes of God.

The morning after I saw Mike, I prayed about the nature of God and about the specific ways God has carried me throughout my life. I was overwhelmed with God’s great and personal love for me. When I was at my weakest, God touched me profoundly. When I am next confronted by faults and failures that are an inevitable part of life on planet Earth, I hope I will have the fortitude to dwell on the nature of this all-knowing and all-loving God I serve.

As we were finishing a few afternoon chores the other day, Kolbe fed me one of his favorite Calvin and Hobbes lines. Calvin, imitating his father, yells, “Calvin go do something you hate. Being miserable builds character!”

Thankfully, God doesn’t call us to be miserable. But He does call us to be strong. When we find ourselves weak, we can ask Him to send us the gift of fortitude.

Throwing in the Trowel

The weather has turned, and we've been spending lots of time outside. Bonfires, pecan picking, yard work -- these are fall staples, listed in descending order of preference. I stopped by Lowe's for painting supplies the other day and picked up five pots of ground cover.

I used to be an enthusiastic gardener. I had a large and moderately successful vegetable garden. I planted a perennial border that ran nearly the length of the house. In its prime, it was lovely. I nursed a patch of Zinnias each year, a flowering window box out front, various pots scattered around.

The vegetable patch is now officially Lawn. The Zinnias didn't even make it into the ground this year. And the ground cover is the beginning of the end of the perennial flower bed.

Five years ago it all looked so different.

So what happened?

1. The small shrubs I planted behind the perennial border grew and grew and now block out most of the sunlight (which is essential for perennials).

2. I held on to one humble patch, determined to keep it pretty when a neighborhood cat decided to turn it into a litter box and killed every last bedding plant three years running.

3. I birthed John and Ainsley. Growing people leaves less time for growing plants.

As I planted those five pots of ground cover, a wistful feeling briefly overcame me. I loved my perennial garden -- Daffodils and Phlox, Purple Coneflowers and Yarrow. And just as suddenly as that wave of nostalgia came, it left. I felt peaceful and -- does this sound melodramatic? -- free. I thought to myself, "I think I'll pop by Lowe's and grab another ten of these."

What was once an enjoyable pastime had become pure chore, and here's the heart of the matter: I don't need another chore. I can't keep up, and it's depressing to be reminded of that fact every time I walk into the backyard.

So I'm throwing in the trowel.

As I hop around my little corner of the blogosphere, I find women in a variety of walks of life making hard choices about where their time is best spent. Many -- most -- of them are grappling with far, far more serious issues than whether or not to garden. But the common denominator is the same: We have a finite amount of time and energy. How are these best spent for God and the people God has put into our lives?

Dwija tackles this issue head on in a recent post titled "The Tyranny of Something Extra." Dwija is an upbeat, funny lady, and she lives in Michigan, so you gotta love her even more. She writes:

I sit down at the end of the day, kick off my paint-splattered Dansko clogs and sigh. Deeply. And I say to myself "Why am I so tired? I didn't even do anything today!"

Do anything. A thing.

This crippling idea that unless I do at least one "thing" every day, something special and different...something EXTRA, that I can point to and say "look! this is interesting!", I don't deserve to feel tired or take a few moments to relax, is an absolute joy-suck

She concludes:

Friends, I am done with the tyranny of "something extra". The things I have to do (all this mothering business) and the things I want to do (this blog, that writing work)...those are real things! They take time and energy and effort. They are good and helpful. And just because I haven't managed to take people on a tour of a local dairy farm or sewn valances for my kitchen windows doesn't mean I'm not worthy of a little rest at the end of my day.

These regular things . . . they can be enough.

Christine was the first true friend I made through blogging. She is one of the most positive people you'll encounter and is facing some daunting trials right now as her daughter faces a difficult illness. Christine writes:

I’ve already cut back my hours at work . . . and after Christmas I will be taking six months’ unpaid leave. I think it’s very unlikely I will be able to return. However, although I’m a bit sad about both these changes, at this point I’m very relieved to be able to devote myself solely to looking after the Dafter [her daughter] – and myself. It’s not that I’m a martyr, or that I will be with her every single minute of every day. It just means that the very small amounts of time when I can get away, I’ll really be able to relax and do things for myself. As my job entails helping people, and doing a lot of listening, it is very tiring and I come home just beat these days.

As I contemplated the demise of my once flourishing perennial border, I reminded myself that Not Today does not translate into Not Tomorrow; it certainly doesn't mean Never Again.

For a variety of reasons, this year will be an intense one for us. Like Dwija, I am turning away from the tyranny of something extra.

(And I'm sure Christine would appreciate prayers for her daughter's complete recovery).

Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary

Image lifted from Karen's blog.

To my summer reading list, I am adding a book I that arrived last week: The Rosary: keeping company with Jesus and Mary. This is written by Karen Edmisten who blogs over at Karen Edmisten: The Blog with the Shockingly Clever Title.


Karen introduces her book by saying, "I'm not an expert on the rosary, unless expert can be defined as 'an average Catholic who prays the rosary and has found it to be powerful, comforting  and worth talking about.'"

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the loss of our friend and community member, Patrick McKeown. Rachel Balducci, who knew him much better than I did, penned a beautiful piece about Patrick. Rachel writes:

When I was growing up, my friend Susie (Patrick's daughter) was the only person I knew who said a daily rosary. I knew lots of people who said the rosary of course, but no one else came from a family that said it every single day. Seven p.m. sharp. No matter what.

This is the main thing I always remember about Susie’s dad, Uncle Pat . . . he was constant.

Many Catholics -- like the McKeown kids -- grow up praying the rosary. My mother probably did. She attended Catholic schools in the forties and fifties, first grade through college. I attended twelve years of Catholic schools, but this was the height of those experimental, post-Vatican II years.  I prayed the rosary exactly once. I think it was in a religion class on the sacraments. And this class of mostly cradle Catholics had to be taught and tested on how to pray the rosary since few of us grew up with this traditional devotion that must have become passe along with communion rails and Latin.

It would be ten years before I would prayer the rosary again. Then I began working with the Missionaries of Charity. They love the rosary. They pray a long, meditative rosary every morning in front of the blessed sacrament. They scatter a decade here and a decade there as they do their work, ride in the car, meet with shut in folks, run their soup kitchens.

They love to introduce others to the rosary. For many years we had a volunteer -- I think his name was David (?) -- who wasn't Catholic. He'd hop in the van every morning with me and one of the sisters. As soon as the van was in drive, sister would ask which mysteries we wanted to pray. David was always keen to pray the Happy Mysteries. "You mean the Joyful Mysteries," sister would say. "No, the Happy ones," he would tell her. We would point out that there were no Happy Mysteries. David was convinced there should be.

(I should let him know that we now pray the Luminous Mysteries, but still no Happy ones.)

I prayed many a rosary with the Missionaries of Charity, but it typically (not always) felt like I was just getting through it. Hail Mary . . . gosh, it's hot in here . . . full of grace . . .  got to remember to bring the glue sticks to camp today . . . the Lord is with thee . . . wonder if Sister Miriam ever had a boyfriend before she became a nun?

It wasn't always like that, but I struggled (as most of us do).

Lately, though, I have found tremendous solace in quiet. At our parish, Mass opens with an introit, a chant sung by the choir alone. This used to bother me to no end. I have a thing against choirs that perform. One of our neighboring parishes had an accomplished choir that had a penchant for choosing tunes I promise you no one but the choir could follow. Occasionally people would clap for them.

This, too, bothered me to no end. I'm not an expert in liturgy, but it seems to me, Mass calls everyone to participate. It's not a performance.

Back to the introit . . . It no longer bothers me. I see it as a chance to quiet myself after the hurly burly of getting six people in matching shoes, more or less unwrinkled clothing, brushed teeth, etc. all looking presentable and in the pew on time. It's a two minute Whew! And then we sing the opening hymn.

I used to get restless at the pace of Mass. Now I love it. It may well be the single part of my week that doesn't scream faster, faster, faster, hurry, hurry, hurry! In fact, when I go to other churches, I sometimes feel that we're playing a record on the wrong speed. Where's the fire, I want to ask.

Once a month Alleluia Community hosts a quiet prayer meeting. Most of our prayer meetings are full of joyful, lively praise and worship, but once a month, we slow it down, we quiet it down, and we sit in silent meditation. This, too, I now love.

And along with all these shifts -- rather seismic for my personality type -- has come a desire to pray the rosary more frequently. While my mind is no steel trap and is still prone to wander, I find myself in a very different place and much more open to quiet, meditative prayer. With the inspiration of Karen's book and Pat's example, off I go.

Or, I should say, off we go. I read chapter one aloud to the older boys. I was struck by the words of Blessed Bartolo Longo whom Karen quotes:

The Rosary is a teacher of life, a teacher full of gentleness and love, where people beneath the gaze of Mary, almost without noticing, discover they are being slowly educated in preparation for the second life, that which is authentic life, for it is not destined to end in a very few years, but to go on unto eternity.

I'm already inspired.

For the Single Gals

It's 1993. I'm a bridesmaid for something like the seventh time in twelve months.

"You've been a bridesmaid SEVEN times," my neighbor Gary exclaims. "What does this mean?"

"I have pastel pumps in every color of the rainbow," I tell him.

(I should have added that I was also flat broke. When you're always the bridesmaid and never the bride, your bank balance takes a beating.)

Eventually, of course, I was the bride. Marrying at 32 meant that I was single for what seemed a
l-o-n-g time. Those were years of adventure and of challenge. Any time our life takes an unexpected turn, we struggle. I can't speak for the widow who thought she'd be married into old age or for the ex-wife who thought her marriage would be until death did they part, but I can speak to the opportunities and to the pot holes that came from being single well beyond the age I thought I'd marry.

Emily Stimpson has written a book that might have made those single years a little less challenging and a little more joyful. It's called The Catholic Girl's Survival Guide for the Single Years. I haven't read the book, but I liked what I read in Emily's interview with Lisa Hendey of Catholicmom.com. Click here to follow their discussion.

Now married fifteen years, I look back on my single years with colorful memories of teaching and world travel, with gratitude for the people in my life who encouraged me to seize the day, and with just the smallest bit of regret for the energy I wasted on worry and self-pity.

I have a few suggestions for my young (and not so young) friends who are now where I once was. I wouldn't call these pearls of wisdom, but rather a few thoughts from someone who found Mister Right in her early thirties and knew very well what it was to be single when she really, really had hoped to be married.

So here they are:


1. Embrace your single years.

Marriage brings wonderful and radical changes. Children are an unbelievable blessing who turn your world on its head. While single, you have freedom and time and choices that won't always be options.

2. Dote on the little people in your life.

When you're single and an aunt or a Godmother, you have more time and possibly more money to shower on the babies in your life than you will when you have a few of your own calling you Mama. I will be forever grateful to Megan, Nick, Lissi and Hannah -- my oldest nieces and nephew -- who, without a doubt, gave me far more than I ever gave them.

3. Plan things to look forward to.

Great advice given to me from my good friend Dian. Travel, redoing a room, joining a book club -- these can give you a lift, lead to lifelong friendships, help you find joy in simple blessings.

4. Don't put off everything until you get married.

 If you've always wanted to go to Brazil, go to Brazil. If you've always wanted your own home, buy one. If you've thought about that master's degree, pursue it. Pray first, of course, but know that being single does not mean put your life on hold.

5. Seek wholeness.

Seek prayer, ministry, therapy if you need it. Heal the hurts life showers on us all. Whether you eventually marry or remain single, you will be more wholly the person God wants you to be. I attended a retreat during which a wise speaker commented that marriage won't cure what ails you. If you're reclusive or angry or depressed, cheerful or optimistic or prayerful -- well, you'll be those things as a married woman as well. Deal with as much baggage as you can.

6. Recognize that your marital status is just one part of your larger vocation.

The patients you treat, the students you teach, the players you coach, the aging parents you care for -- this is your apostolate, one that is every bit as valuable as marriage and family.

7. Recognize that you are carrying a cross.

No, being single is not cancer or poverty or war, but when your heart's desire is to marry and have children and that is simply not in the picture, you suffer. Sometimes all we need to pick up our cross is to have someone say, "You know, that's really hard."

8. Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Married or single, we are all one step closer to eternity where our only vocation will be to worship God.

If I get my hands on this book, I'll post a review. If you read it, let me know your thoughts. I'll close with a few of Emily's words:

First, we can’t fall into the trap of feeling like our life won’t begin until the husband and babies show up. Today, this moment, is our life. God has something for us to do right now—some lesson to learn, some work to take on, some person to love—and he expects us do it and do it well. Second, we need to always remember that the goal in life isn’t a husband; it’s holiness.

I Should Take This to Heart

Plato: Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Money, Blogging, and Cheese Dip

I was sitting with a friend eating cheese dip and pico de gallo. We've done this once a week or so for the past twenty years. We make it a priority. We've called for a sabbatical when she's nursed sick parents, or I've had unidentified toddlers who did not belong in the public eye. We eat our Mexican food and solve the world's problems.

(We're a little fuzzy on why, exactly, the world still has problems.)

As we chatted, Anna asked me about a household issue. "It's just not a top priority," I said, "and -- you know what? -- I don't think it ever will be."

That thought has stayed with me for a week or two.

Some things will never make it to the top of the priority list. We all suffer from the tyranny of the urgent -- the ringing phone, the nasty, nasty, nasty bathroom, the Boy Scout laundry that screams for attention. But wheels that don't squeak? Those jobs that need to be done, but don't smell, threaten to mold, take up half the hallway, force us to execute the running long jump to get past them? They don't get the grease, i.e. they don't get done.

A friend of mine has one of the loveliest houses I've ever seen. The layout, the decor -- tasteful and soothing. And in the middle of her well-appointed living room, this friend had a toilet. Yes, a toilet. Just past the Waterford lamp and to the left of the sage velvet couch. And there it sat for eighteen months. See, the toilet was headed for the second floor bathroom, and the wife, well, she couldn't lift it, and the husband, well, he had other priorities. So there it sat.


When I stand at the sink and wash dishes, I look out a small window -- a small window that for a l-o-n-g time has looked like it's speckled with yogurt. Something opaque and sticky exploded some time back and left a thick residue all over the screen and window. But that window? I don't trip over it, and it doesn't reek; ergo, it will never rise to the top of the to do list.

Last week I decided to move one long neglected task to the top of the to do list everyday.

I washed the window. I dusted the window sill. I washed a few other windows.The next day I cleared off the clutter on my desk. The day after that I folded an air mattress and put it away. These trifling jobs each took about fifteen minutes and gave me a little lift all out of proportion with the task itself.

In Ephesian 5, Saint Paul writes, "Defer to one another out of love for Christ." In the nitty-gritty world of marriage and family life, this means shifting out priorities out of love for the other person.

Like most people, I tend to be faithful to the household jobs I like (or at least those I don't positively loathe). I do the laundry, but I invariably put off matching the socks. I clean the bathrooms, but ignore the ironing. I am really, really bad about entering receipts and checks into our budget program. During the weeks Dave was out wandering the Far West, I had a print out of our bank statement sitting on the desk. Balance me!, it screamed. I think I put my hands over my ears.

I don't actually set out to be so negligent. Homework and dinner and, um, blogging and, er, eating cheese dip with my friend Anna, well, priorities, people!

So Thursday I sat down with not one but two months worth of statements to tackle and, my goodness, what a jumbled mess. I couldn't find the May statement, so I decided to dive right in and tackle June.

Note to self: um, no.

After two hours of entering figures and crossing off numbers and squinting and pondering what in the world that charge was for, I had succeeded in reducing the discrepancy from $965 down to a mere $300 or so.


Dave does a stellar job of handling our bills, a job that formerly fell on my side of the ledger, a job that I am perfectly content to pass off to him. And, you know, it's tough to pay the bills when your spouse says, "Okay, this is what we have in the checking account . . . or maybe $300-900 less than that. I think . . ."

I need to make his priority my priority, enter my receipts, and then get back to blogging and cheese dip.

Dave would probably spend less time travelling than I would. I say, "Let's go to the beach!" And he usually says, "Okay with me." I say, "I really want to go to Hannah's graduation." And he says, "Alrighty." He makes my priorities his priorities.

Meal planning is another big one for me.

I'm a snacker. Given the option, I would rarely sit down and eat a meal at a table with silverware and a napkin and the whole deal.

But snacking is not good for a growing family. It's not cheap, not healthy, not efficient. Hence the need for meals.  Have you seen the cartoon with the wailing woman, book on the floor, crying, "Why do they have to eat every night?"

That would be me.

But they do eat every night, and it all goes better if I plan on that rather than ignoring it.

Priorities!

You Are the Love Song We'll Sing Forever - We Say Goodbye to Patrick

We just returned from a wake for our friend and neighbor Patrick who died unexpectedly last Friday. Please prayer for his wife, children, and grandchildren. Sadly, he died on the eve of his fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Patrick's son, Tim, is a priest in our diocese. Bishop Hartmayer of Savannah joined us to celebrate the life of this man who at six-three stood tall physically but also stood tall spiritually. Bishop Hartmayer pointed out the reading that referred to a body as a "tent." He discussed the temporary nature of our journey here on earth. Our bodies, our tents, provide temporary shelter for the soul that was created for eternal unity with God.

God is the love song we'll sing forever.

Father Tim delivered a homily that touched me to the core. Patrick was a forty-four year-old accountant who had just made partner in his firm when he and his wife, Kathy, discerned the call to join a lay community - The Alleluia Community. They arrived in Augusta with their four young children and for two years Patrick paid the bills by doing janitorial work. Over time he re-entered the field of taxes, but never fully rebuilt the career he had established in New york.

Patrick understood that our bodies are tents, that our homes, too, are temporary dwellings, that God is the love song we'll sing forever. We won't spend eternity singing about our careers or our granite countertops or our cars.

Patrick and Kathy have raised one the loveliest families I know. They have three daughters and a son who love God and each other. Patrick and Kathy put first things first in a radical way and the fruit of their life's work is obvious.

Here in Alleluia we jump start the school year with something we call "The Thirty Days of September." As a community, we might read an inspiring book, limit our use of media, agreed to exercise together, etc. Last year we focused on love and respect. We decided to have the children serve the older folks in our neighborhood. My boys did yard work for Patrick and Kathy. While my kids know most of Patrick and Kathy's grandchildren, they didn't know the grandparents.

How grateful I am that they had an afternoon to spend with these wonderful friends. Patrick and Kathy, in turn, sent my boys the kindest notes along with a finger rosary for each of them.

The prayer and praise at Patrick's wake and funeral along with the inspiring words shared about this dear brother have gladdened my heart and left me with a greater desire to lay aside all that encumbers me and my family and to run this race with a heart less divided.

God is the love song we'll sing forever. Patrick's life and legacy have reminded me of this once again.

Because I Thirst

After a whirlwind graduation weekend in Detroit, I am home again, home again and so very glad to be here. Kudos to Dave for keeping the ship afloat and sending off our oldest for a week of high adventure. Preparations apparently involved Dave saying, "Tim, go get packed" and Tim doing so without much fuss or bother.

Beautiful.

It was a full weekend, as these things usually are -- lots of coffee, lots of Scrabble, lots of running people here and there.We dedicated a good portion of graduation morning helping my nephew create a board game for U.S. History called Fight to the Finish.  On this topic, I have drawn two conclusions:

1. My sister likes school projects about as much as I do.

2. I have forgotten an astonishing amount of basic facts about World War II.

I bugged out of board game prep to go to 12:00 Mass with Ainsley.There I was treated to three special graces:

1. Holding a sleeping Ainsley for most of Mass. This was a treat not because she was quiet, but because she's nearing three and moments of holding her still and and stroking her hair and feeling her gentle breathing are becoming fewer and fewer. Bliss.

2. A quietly inspiring homily. Nothing flashy -- just good, solid stuff.

3. A singular appreciation of being in the presence of God.

As I genuflected in the direction of the tabernacle, I was struck by my thirst for God and the comfort I experience in His presence.

I thirst.

The Missionaries of Charity mount a crucifix in each of their chapels. The crucifix tends to be a realistic one that shows the wounds of Christ. Each crucifix has a sign or inscription that reads I Thirst.

Jesus thirsts for us. He thirsts for deep communion with our souls.

We thirst for Him -- I thirst for him. I have felt depleted for some time now. I can say it's been this year -- a year indelibly marked by long working hours and travel on Dave's part. But, really, I have felt depleted for a few years now. Is it the back to back babies? Being in my late forties? Dealing with teenage angst? My lack of exercise?

Those are probably all contributing factors. But when I read this earlier today, I thought that's it. Sally writes:

And what my confessor says to me, time and again, in his quiet way, is, "Well, you can't give what you don't have." In other words, if I'm running continually on hot, it's because . . . damn, I hate these tidy little metaphors, but the radiator is empty, okay? I'm running on a deficit of prayer, a deficit of quiet, a deficit of contemplation.

One of the best aspects of summer is the flexibility we have with prayer and the sacraments.

(Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, what I appreciate the MOST about summer is that I don't pack four to six lunches every morning, but one of the BEST aspects of summer is the opportunity to grow closer to God).

This morning we will reflect on this prayer pulled from the Missionaries of Charity website:

I Thirst for You. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for you. I THIRST FOR YOU. I thirst to love you and to be loved by you – that is how precious you are to Me. I THIRST FOR YOU. Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new creation, and give you peace, even in all your trials I THIRST FOR YOU. You must never doubt My mercy, My acceptance of you, My desire to forgive, My longing to bless you and live My life in you. I THIRST FOR YOU. If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all. For Me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you. I THIRST FOR YOU. Open to Me, come to Me, thirst for Me, give me your life – and I will prove to you how important you are to My Heart.

We can look to our faith as a source of consolation, as the impetus to overcome our faults, as the cause of our hope and joy. Faith is, of course, all these. But at the heart of it all is relationship -- a deep communing with the author of it all. In the fullness of my Christian walk I have, in the words of the psalmist, tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord; I have been to the green pastures.

I want to get back there.

Yes, partly I want to get there so that I can apply the grace of God to this situation or that glaring fault, but mostly I simply want to abide in Christ with no other end point in mind but to see His face and hear His voice.

Because I thirst.

Be Not Afraid

Tim's preparing a presentation on torture in the Middle Ages, so I've been thinking about fear. Medieval punishment was very painful and very public. The idea was that you could kill many birds with one stone -- dispatch the guilty (?) party and give onlookers big incentive to toe the line as well.

Fear can be powerful.

I remember the morning I was heading off to the doctor after John had battled croup all night. Hours of crying, wheezing, praying, everything but sleeping -- all mixed in with a marathon of Thomas and the Magic Railway that began somewhere around 2:00 a.m. and continued into the wee hours.

John heard the word doctor and launched into a dramatic meltdown. He whined. He pouted. He kicked things.

I continued making my way toward the door. Where's Ainsley's cup? Check her diaper. Is the coffee ready? Grab the keys.

And John's angst reached a fever pitch that could no longer be ignored.

While every part of my sleep-deprived, under-caffeinated self wanted to bark, "Get in the van already!", I found myself saying, "John, why are you so upset?"

"Shots," he wailed. And I mean wailed. He howled with all the gusto his four-year-old self could muster. Oh. My. Goodness.

His last appointment with the doctor had been his four year check and had included four immunizations. John was afraid. To look at his behavior that morning, you might have thought he was rebellious, undisciplined, or just plain obnoxious. On any given day, John can be all those things. But that morning, he was driven by nothing but raw fear, and so he acted out.

"Fear," says Saint Teresa of Avilla, "is the chief activator of all our faults."

Have you ever lied in a moment of panic? Most of us did this as children. I managed to do it as an adult and -- get this -- to a priest no less.

Father John, an old and dear friend of mine, went on a tour of West Africa. He knew I was teaching world history, so he gave me a copy of his videos to show my class. Months later, I ran into Father John right before Mass.

"How did the class like the video, " he asked as he was gathering his vestments.

"Oh, ah, it was great, just great. They loved it," I answered.

Truth was, they never watched it! I had put it on a shelf planning to show it and forgot all about it. Father John asked me about it, and I panicked. In my embarrassment and vanity, I lied.

To a priest! Minutes before Mass!

Good gravy, I was aghast! I told my friend Katharina, and she absolutely busted a gut laughing. Right after Mass, I found Father John and 'fessed up. He laughed even  harder than Katharina.

Oh, the things we do!

I've been in a few deep conversations trying to crack the code on why it can be such a struggle to think, to say, to do the right thing.  Why do mothers invest so much energy in comparing themselves to other mothers? Why did we so often find ourselves -- in our professional lives, in raising children, in our marriages -- on an endless pendulum that swings between judging other women and condemning ourselves?

Mary Lane over at Catholicmom.com has a great post  called "How to Be Happy for Other People in Four Easy Steps."  She grapples with that green-eyed monster we call envy. One of her key tips for combating envy is to recognize the underlying source. Oftentimes that underlying source is fear.

Mary writes:

Another person’s happiness takes nothing from you

At its core, I think this tendency to comparison and to envy is rooted in fear. We’re afraid that, if good things happen to our friends, there won’t be enough good to go around for us. As a result, it’s hard to be happy for our friends’ good fortune because a small part of us fears that this means there is less left for us. But all we need to do is realize this one simple truth: One person’s happiness truly takes nothing from you.

Long about five and a half years ago, I found myself in a sad, sad place. Dave and I were the parents of two beautiful boys -- Tim and Kolbe. We wanted another child and, instead, experienced miscarriage after miscarriage. In November of 2006, I had just lost my sixth baby. Our doctors had no answers, and I had little hope.

I woke up one morning, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat at the computer to catch up on my favorite blogs. I clicked over to Testosterhome, my friend Rachel's blog, and found a sonogram photo with the headline "Tiny little rice-sized bundle of joy." My friend was expecting her fifth baby.

And do you know what? I grieved. I grieved. I rejoiced for her, but I grieved for me. I processed every thought a person processes when faced with the reality The Rolling Stones captured in their classic tune "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

We can't always get what we want. We want a trip to the park, and we end up in the doctor's office getting four shots. We want a good night's sleep, and we get croup and nebulizer treatments. We want a baby, and we wind up with pain and loss.

It takes an act of faith -- an exercise of hope -- to look beyond the present and embrace Mary's pearl of wisdom: All we need to do is realize this one simple truth: One person’s happiness truly takes nothing from you.

That day I chose to be happy for Rachel. I posted my congratulations on her blog:

Happy news, Rachel! I’m praying that you will have a great pregnancy. It will be neat to see how much the boys enjoy a baby now that they are all a little older.
Love,

Kelly

I meant it. It was hard to write, but I meant it. It was an act of the will. Adults -- usually better than children -- can choose to do the right thing, can choose to say the right thing, and with herculean effort can even choose to think the right thing.

About two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant. In fact, I was early, early pregnant when I posted that comment. Eight months later, Rachel's Henry and my John were born just a week apart.  Over the next thirty months, Rachel and I both welcomed our first daughters into these families full of boys.

Rachel's happiness took nothing from me.

Mary's advice on being happy for others continues with a quote from Cicero who wrote,"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.” 

This is so true of my friendship with Rachel. Her family, her friendship -- they have added to my joy and divided my grief and given me a lot of laughs in between.

Fear has its uses. That state trooper positioned on the median prompts me to slow down and probably saves lives. One frightening encounter with a rip tide instilled in me a healthy fear of the ocean. I want my children to understand that streets and drugs and strangers can be dangerous.


But when fear paralyzes us, when it leads chronic discontentment, when we can no longer rejoice with others, when we lie to a priest!  -- well, then it really can become the chief activator of all our faults.

Why Not Take All of Me

I am passionate about breastfeeding. I mean, really, in another era, I could have been a wet nurse. To me it's one of the easiest parts of those early months -- free, neat, portable, healthy!

Love it, love it, love it.

So when I do my morning perusal of the headlines and spot Does Breastfeeding Cause Divorce?, I, of course, feel compelled to stop. The provocative headline was written to lure readers like me, but I found the author's premise much deeper (and darker) than just another round of ammo in the Mommy Wars. Author Molly Baker begins with government statistics on the potential benefits of extended breastfeeding:

The recent study said that the lives of 900 babies could be saved, along with billions of dollars in lost employee wages, if 90% of American women breastfed their babies exclusively for the first six months. I am not sure which part of that goal stuns me more – the 90%, the six months or the “exclusively.”. . .

But what they haven’t looked at is what these “suboptimal” rates have prevented or gained for American women, children and families. Where are the statistics on how many marriages have been saved by limiting breastfeeding? Or simply what postpartum independence has meant for women’s mental health, and their confidence and trust in their relevance outside the domestic sphere? . . .

In a word, be careful what you wish for. Blue-ribbon breastfeeding goals could -- in the extreme -- lead to increased divorce, depression, and long-term damage to the delicate ecosystem of gender roles in our families, workplaces and society. At the very least, the effort sanctions the message to women that their children and domestic duties come first. For women and researchers for whom long-term breastfeeding is the answer, the question certainly needs to be asked: at what cost?

To any woman entering motherhood with such a cost-benefit analysis at the front on her mind, I say this: You are in for a rude awakening. The author is worried about the cost, and so she should be, because the cost is high, high indeed. Forget about the hours you will spend nursing and wiping poopy bottoms and laundering little sleepers. Forget about the figures news outlets publish citing the cost of raising a child to age eighteen.

Let's just cut to the chase: Motherhood will cost you everything. Yes, everything.

Let me cite the single best analogy I have heard for motherhood: It's a tattoo on your face.

Baker states, “I do resent the expectation that after carrying a baby for nine months, American women should surrender control for six more months.”

Why do I find that line so shocking, so completely out of step with my expectations of motherhood?

Fifteen years ago we announced the pending arrival of our first child, our son, Timothy. My mother-in-law sent me a breastfeeding manual. In it she had written: You’ve now given permission for your heart to reside outside your body. This may seem like a saccharine sweet endearment dreamt up by Hallmark. Mothers know how true to life it really is.

You don’t surrender control for nine months or another six months or eighteen years; it’s gone, baby, gone and gone for good.

When I began labeling my archived writing, I was a tad surprised that most of my writing falls into the category of Real Life. I talk about the struggles and the spilt milk, sibling rivalry and interrupted sleep. I have invested an inordinate amount of words discussing vomit (click here to read Gross) and potty training (colorful details here and here).

I have written fairly transparently about my own struggles ( Losing the bite) and about bad days (So many reasons to have kids). In that piece I wrote:

I wanted this life. I wanted these kids. I prayed and fasted for them. I took fertility drugs! In the face of all that, motherhood remains the hardest thing I've ever done.

By far.

Now, I don't have eight or ten kids, I have never had multiples, and we have not faced physical disabilities. I wake up every morning to the run-of-the-mill start the laundry, sling some hash, load up the van, off to the pool, umpire the shouting match, change the diaper, kiss the boo-boo, read the story, et cetera, et cetera. It is typically exhausting, sometimes mind-numbingly boring, always constant. 

Let me say unequivocally that motherhood is also teeming with moments of grace.

Cuddling a nursing baby. Placing my hand on Ainsley's cheek and feeling her tiny hand rest on mine.

Hearing my two-year-old come up to me and say, "I have a secret," and then lean into my ear and lisp, "I wove you!"

Opening my eight-year-old's writing journal and finding he has written "I love my Mom and Dad" on the inside cover.

Watching my twelve-year-old play with his baby brother and sister and then tell me he hopes we have another one.

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day ended. John came into our bed in the middle of the night. I rubbed his soft cheek and felt the warmth of a brewing fever. He cried and then said in his sweet toddler voice, "Dwy ma tears, Mama."

Yes, it can be exhausting, boring, and constant. In its own imperfect way, it is also joyful, enriching, and blessed.

I write this from the perspective of a woman with relatively young children. We deal with the trivial hurts that don't always seem so trivial: watching a son come in dead last in every heat in the Pinewod Derby, seeing another son being the only player who rode the bench for every minute of the soccer tournament, commiserating when a child has missed first honors by 0.3.

Yes, our oldest is just fourteen and to date our frustrations have been mere irritants in the grand scheme of things. But I was once a teenager and one of four teenagers in my home. As children begin to cut the apron strings and venture out into the wider world, the stakes are higher. Teenagers text and speed simultaneously. They spend 6.5 years working hard on that elusive bachelor's degree. They dump the nice girl and take up with the hot girl.

I have watched friends struggle as their adult child made poor choices. It's the unplanned pregnancy or the hint of casual drug use. It's watching a once fervent faith wane and materialism take hold. Other times, adult children face hurdles beyond their control -- cancer or depression or divorce.

You fervently love, but you cannot control. You desperately fear, but you can no longer protect. You persevere in hope and never cease to pray. You ship care packages full of chocolate chip cookies and socks and underwear.

Your heart resides outside your body.

If  we're going to count the cost, let's count the whole count. It will take all of you. It will take all of me.

Keep Your Eyes on Your Own Nativity

I just gleaned some useful Christmas advice over at Faith and Family Live!. Commenter StephC was responding to a mother who is where most of us have been at one time or another: overwhelmed. Tired, out of steam, even a tad hopeless -- and riding the Polar Express full speed into That Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Steph's advice? Keep your eyes on your own nativity.

I have a dear neighbor right across the street who wakes up the morning after Thanksgiving, gathers a few capable sons, and proceeds to put up every last Christmas decoration. It's pretty; it's tasteful; most impressive of all, it's done -- all before I'm finished de-boning the turkey. Yes, I peer through my front window and see my friend moving with great purpose while I shuffle around in my slippers and nurse my second cup of coffee.

I could engage in a lot of comparisons, but I'd much rather take Steph's advice: Keep your eyes on your own nativity. Or lack thereof. Because that nativity of ours? The day after Thanksgiving, believe me, it was still sitting in the attic.

No matter what our spiritual disposition, it is an undeniable fact that Advent and Christmas bring a degree of busyness and stress. For the record, I had my first moment of pre-Christmas panic this very morning. You know, a moment of Oh My Goodness I've Barely Made a Dent in My Shopping, and I Just Bought Advent Candles Yesterday. This was quickly followed by a major reality check, a trip to confession on unrelated issues, and a lengthy venture into the attic. The nativity is now down!

This was just the first of many forays into that vast repository of stuff we call the attic. Our attic. Our attic is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it's the only generous storage space in this house built in the 50s for people who must have had two kids and maybe three complete outfits of clothing. The closets are minuscule. But the attic? It's large.

Some years I take down Christmas with the same care that I put it up. I label boxes; I discard broken and unused decorations; I do a little organizing as I go. Other years, I pull down the attic stairs, do the heave ho, and slam.

Last year must have been just such a year. Why, you ask? I had no excuses whatsoever. Four of the last five Christmas seasons have found me early pregnant or nursing a newborn. Great excuses to pare back, keep it simple, even be a bit slovenly with the take down. The year I was expecting John, I crawled through the entire season  with one eye on the clock wondering when I could finagle my next nap and one eye on the bathroom door wondering how soon I'd be hurtling myself through it. Ugh! Worth every last ounce of suffering, but ugh! Somehow we managed the trek to Michigan for the holidays that year. I think my logic went something like this: I can remain in the fetal position here in Georgia and do all the shopping and cooking by myself, or I can manage to haul our sorry selves to Detroit, assume the fetal position there, and let my mother-in-law and sisters wait on me hand and foot. No brainer!

I remember the trip home was heinous with a capital H. I was throwing up before we left my sister's house. I was throwing up as we crossed the border into Ohio. We had a portable DVD player that I was known for employing with great moderation and discernment. On that trip I said, "Have at it, boys! I'll see you in Augusta!"

It was the quietest fifteen hour drive we've ever had.

God willing we will all celebrate many, many Christmases. Some years find us in fine form, ready to enter the season of preparation, and excited to celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas day. Other years find us (okay, me) scrounging for Advent candles on December 23rd and happy to come up with three burgundies and a red when purple and pink prove to be somewhat elusive. True story. While three burgundies and a red might make fine choices when buying wine, they're just a touch out of the liturgical norm when preparing for Christmas.

Oh well. Keep your eyes on your own nativity!

My dear friend went to confession one Advent. She lamented to the priest how far short she felt she was falling in pulling together a holy season of preparation. This priest is a good man, a holy man, a man who loves liturgy and the church seasons. You know what he told her? Relax and enjoy your family.

Nearly every magazine in circulation is now featuring a story on dealing with stress this holiday season. They'll print to do lists and last minute buying guides and handy calendars you can post on the fridge.To be sure, celebrations -- all of them -- require work. But Father Brett had it right -- it's also about simply enjoying your family.

For us that means lots of egg nog -- Tim's favorite drink. It means multiple viewings of Elf and The Santa Clause -- liturgically bankrupt and really very funny. It means boiled peanuts and chocolate peanut butter cheesecake and potato soup.

It means pulling out the Advent candles, even if a few days late. It means writing out cards to people I look forward to hearing from once a year. It means fun and busyness and a gentle tug back to the true meaning behind all this hurly burly.

And this year -- to increase our joy and to minimize my stress -- it means taking Steph's wise counsel and keeping my eyes on my own nativity.

Rend Your Hearts and Not Your Garments

And more of Father K. and his words of wisdom ...

Months ago Father K. offered a homily that included anecdotes from his childhood spent in Savannah, Georgia. He grew up as the youngest -- he called himself a "surprise" -- in a large Catholic family whose home reflected their Catholic identity. He shared about his Jewish neighbors with whom he shared a close relationship and the fact that their home reflected their Jewish heritage.

Father K.'s homily focused on the place that symbols -- physical, tangible items -- have on the life of the faithful, be they Catholic, Jewish, or that of another religion. He stressed the importance of inward disposition over external piety. As always he was articulate and to the point. Weeks later I was the Atrium chatting with children ages five to ten. Two of them distinctly remembered Father K.'s homily and quoted it almost verbatim. They got it. We can wear a cross or scapular, decorate our walls with holy water fonts and blessed palms, fill our bookshelves with Bibles and catechisms. In the end, it is the heart that matters so much more than outward conformity. The life of faith is not to be worn like so many spiritual merit badges sewn on a sash.

If wearing a cross reminds me to take all thoughts captive for Christ, great. If leaving a Bible out prompts me to actually crack the thing open, good. If answering  the phone "Hello, God bless you," restrains me from cussing out telephone solicitors, well, victory!

A growing number of women in my home parish have begun wearing veils at Mass. Let me issue one enormous disclaimer: I have never read more than about a hundred words about veiling. I have few opinions on the matter and almost zero in the way of education on the topic. I do have clear memories of my mother wearing a veil to Mass when I was very young. In a similar vein, I recall the elaborate ritual the altar servers (or was it the priest?) would go through to veil the paten and chalice left on the altar at the end of Mass. Both my mother's veil and the veiling of the articles of  the Mass really, really intrigued me as a young child.

In the Atrium we dwell on (and draw on) a child's innate and natural sense of wonder. You don't have to prod a child to be interested in a bird's nest, a wiggling worm, the story of a miracle, a lit candle. Wonder is in-born and hard-wired.

Veiling drew on my sense of wonder. What's under that veil, I thought, and why is it worth covering?

As I have looked around my church and seen the growing number of veiled women, I have briefly considered doing so myself.  And I conclude -- without judging others in the least -- that at this season, my life of faith would be better served by considering the words of  Joel 2:13:

Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents from sending disaster.

On this passage, Spurgeon comments:

Garment rending and other outward signs of religious emotion, are easily manifested and are frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far more difficult, and consequently far less common ... True religion is too humbling, too hear-searching, too thorough for the tastes of the carnal men; they prefer something more ostentatious, flimsy, and worldly; Outward observances are temporarily comfortable; eye and ear are pleased; self-conceit is fed, and self-righteousness is puffed up; but they are ultimately delusive for in the time of death, and at the end of judgment, the soul needs something more substantial than ceremonies and rituals to lean upon ...

Heart-rending is divinely wrought and solemnly felt. It is a secret grief which personally experienced, not in mere form, but as a deep, soul moving work of the Holy Spirit upon the inmost heart of each believer.

The text commands us to rend our hearts, but they are naturally as hard as marble: how, then, can this be done? We must take them to Calvary.

The walk of faith is often more of an amble than a steady trek. As a pseudo-type A accustomed to setting and meeting goals, I grow frustrated at the lack of progress I make in moving further into that interior castle that is a life of deep prayer. But at this juncture, it is this inward transformation I need so much more than a new and different external sign of piety.

Let's be real -- it's so much easier to blog about faith than to live it out, to preach it to my children than to practice it with sincerity and humility, to reach for the externals than to rend my  heart.

(During July Small Steps for Catholic Moms focuses on the virtue of humility. Read Elizabeth Foss' thoughts here.)

Walk Humbly with Your God

Our parish is losing its pastor yet again. He's our fourth priest in about seven or eight years.

Wow. Let's just admit from the get go that we are a stiff necked and cantankerous people in a parish that is quite nearly drowning in debt and mired in a host of other intractable issues. Our pastor has been with us a scant fifteen months. His decision to leave came the afternoon he failed to yield to on-coming traffic and creamed another car. The main memory he has of the accident is being far more focused on the in-fighting within the parish than on his driving. Thankfully, the only damage was to the cars.

In his parting remarks, Father K addressed a few of the issues facing our church. Toward the end of his comments, he gently took us to task for perhaps having a tendency to view ourselves as "better Catholics" than the parishes up the road that sport less traditional architecture and more contemporary music. Lord have mercy, one actually has a youth Mass.

Father K was spot on.

I am a conservative Catholic. I appreciate orthodox liturgy. The atmosphere in our parish helps lift my mind and soul toward God. All of this does not make me a better Catholic.

Arrogance has no place in Christianity. Liturgical one-upsmanship brings with it a disdain for others and a singular inability to love God and neighbor as we should.

Elizabeth Foss shares several points about gentleness here. She writes:

Don't dismiss someone just because they aren't as outwardly pious as you are. Don't dismiss people at all. There's a big world of people out there. And some of those people are people from whom God intends you to learn. Even if, at first glance, it looks as if they aren't nearly as holy or smart or good as you are. Even if they aren't as holy or smart or pious as you are. They, too, were created in His image and each person--each and every one--is valuable. And worth your time. Don't discount someone because they aren't as up on theology as you are or because they don't "have religion."

After Pope Bendict's visit some years back, I surfed the net getting the take on the papal visit. I was flabbergasted at the sheer volume of virtual rotten tomatoes hurled at the papal Mass in particular. Blog after blog expressed disdain for every aspect of his visit. After reading far more than enough of this rot, I asked myself (and posed the question in a combox): Where is the light? 

Something too often goes astray somewhere on the road to liturgical correctness. You can see it in the furrowed brow, the edgy tone, and words bereft of kindness and, honestly, of joy. It all reminds me of a quote attributed to Ghandi: I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians.

If I sound too preachy, no one should take this all to heart more than me, myself, and I. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

The trials within our parish have brought home yet another critical  and rather obvious point: Our priests need our prayers. One of my closest friends is the daughter of an Episcopal priest. She grew up seeing the scrutiny and pressure and division men of the cloth routinely face. It is a tough, often isolated job. You're expected to be a Jack of all trades and a master of all.

The parish priest who was, in my opinion, the finest spiritual director and homilist, wasn't the most gifted administrator. A friend of mine sent hm an email, and called him when she hadn't received a response. "I got back from trip," he confessed, "and had so many emails, I just deleted them all."

However. One day I left a phone message for him asking if I could come by to talk over issues of prayer and spiritual growth. He called me back about twenty minutes later. He was first and foremost a pastor and a teacher. Administrator? Maybe not so much.

But they have to do it all, these priests. They keep near-bankrupt schools afloat. They placate the warring factions of liturgical purists and liturgical experimenters. They seek to assemble a quality staff with meager funds to pay them. They are expected to do the impossiblele, and at every Mass they do the miraculous.

They need our prayer so much more than our criticism.

Loose lips do indeed sink ships. For every divisive comment we made, what if we had offered a Hail Mary instead? What mountains could we have  moved (and could we still move) with a batch of cookies and a Novena instead of petitions and gossip?

I have often said that motherhood isn't for the faint of heart.

Neither is fatherhood.

So Godspeed, Father K.  Hopefully, we will take your words to heart and move forward as a parish to spread the Good News and not the bad.

Confronting the Mess

It's Saturday morning Mass. Tim and Kolbe sit up front. I seek refuge in the back with John and Ainsley, who at one and three are certainly cherubic but definitely Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

Sunday Mass can be a bit dicey with these two (and that's why we love! our! nursery!), but the rest of the week is trickier still. Take one large basilica with a vaulted ceiling, subtract all but about twenty people, and add two chatty toddlers. The echo alone could deafen you.

But this particular morning I enjoy nine, maybe ten minutes of sweet meditation before Ainsley erupts with a series of shrieks that sends me seeking the anonymity of the cry room. In those blessed moments, I thanked God for this church, this parish that holds so many dear memories for me.

It was here that I first came to know Dave through the singles' group.  Here I first noticed his wit and his intelligence and his brown eyes.

It was here that we were married with a throng of friends and family to celebrate the start of our life together.

It was here that three of our children were baptized and two have received First Communion.

I love this church. It's not really close to home. We have had a rapid succession of priests over the past six or seven years. The parish is facing monumental budgetary and other divisive issues. I love it still.

I love the Catholic Church.
 
As I sat reflecting on my own little history, my mind briefly wandered to the larger history of the church which in recent years has included sad, sad stories of betrayal and abuse. It's been a terrible season for many -- including those who love the Catholic faith.

In many ways I consider myself an idealist. I like to think the best, assume the best. I like to believe that people are who they say they are. Idealists set themselves up to be disappointed.

I spent many years as an officer in the Army Reserves. I remember studying ethics as a young cadet. When officers taught us about Duty, Honor, and Country, I believed what they said, I embraced this code of honor. I felt better for being part of an honorable profession. I was commissioned and began my military career. Then, Naval officers made headlines with their behavior at a convention called Tailhook. And I saw first hand corruption and fraud run rampant in one of my reserve units. And the service academies were rocked with cheating scandals. And news came of drill sergeants having their way with young recruits. And then Abu Ghraib. And...

And I grieved.

Of course none of these scandals erased the heroic work of the many, many fine soldiers I knew and respected. But all of them left a painful mark on the profession I grew to love. All of this is nothing compared to the pain of the scandals that have rocked my precious church.

Morley Safer of 60 Minutes recently interviewed Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York.  In this excerpt they discuss the sex abuse scandal:

It's a crisis Dolan witnessed firsthand as archbishop of Milwaukee. He was sent there to replace a bishop who resigned amid his own sex scandal, and Dolan had to deal with a rash of child abuse cases. He revealed the names of 43 predatory priests and had to sell church property to pay tens of millions of dollars to victims.

"Those where some of the more difficult, wrenching, touching moments in my life. Some of them were terribly painful and did not go well. Others I remember with gratitude, crying together, praying together. Those were very powerful moments that you don't forget," Dolan recalled.

"Do you fear that after effects of these scandals are just gonna live on and on and on?" Safer asked.

"In some ways I don't want it to be over because this was such a crisis in the Catholic church, that in a way we don't wanna get over it too easily. This needs to haunt us," Dolan said.

I have a dear friend who fervently rejoices that all this has come to light. We will be a holier church, he says, A more humble church for confronting our greatest failings, our dirt and our muck.


Both he and the dear Archbishop are Catholics of much greater faith than I. They have the courage to face the mess head on. I just want it to be over and fast, not slowly. I don't want our dirt and muck paraded across banner headlines and salacious Internet sites.

For many years it involved someone in Boston or Milwaukee or L.A.. An unknown face, an unfamiliar name, an awful list of crimes. And then one day it was a known face, a familiar name, an awful list of crimes, and a victim I know. Both perpetrator and victim -- people I know. I have spent time with them; I have shared meals with them.

And I grieve.

I grieve for the grave breach of trust that has scarred so many children, so many parents, so many good priests.

I grieve for violations that will never be fully healed on this side of eternity.

I grieve for faithful parishioners who sacrificed money thinking they were giving to the building fund or to the missions or to the poor and, in fact, were funding massive lawsuits.

I grieve for a priest I know -- a rather straight-laced and proper man -- who, at the height of this miserable affair, felt compelled to share from the pulpit, "In my loneliest, horniest moments, I have never desired a child."

I grieve for the many, many people who look upon this mess and confuse capricious, carnal man with an all-loving God who thirsts for them.

It is a mess -- a sad, sorry, sordid mess.

In this valley of tears we call planet Earth, there is mess and there is Mess. Macro Mess and micro mess.

We occasionally have a Sunday morning that seems to simply implode. The whiny toddler, the missing shoes, the slumbering teenager, the testy remark -- trifles, really, a hundred bits of irritant, the whole somehow exceeding the sum of the parts. And there we sit, stand, and kneel in Mass, and all I can pray is, "Lord, redeem this mess."

At the end of day, Christ came because we have grouchy teenagers and defiant three-year-olds and spouses sometimes at odds with each other. Micro mess.

He also came because we have pedophile priests and dishonorable soldiers and hypocritical politicians. Macro Mess.

Christ came to redeem all of it.