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. 

Holiness Is Not a Pose

A while back I was chatting with several kids about the sacraments and asked them how many sacraments there are in the Catholic Church. Their answers ranged from four to five. Survey says? Buzzzzz! Baltimore Catechism, here we come!

Here's a question recently posed by a visiting priest: Which two sacraments can be received again and again and again? The answer, of course, is the Eucharist and confession. Anointing of the sick can be received more than once, but not over and over and over again. I'm a bit fuzzy about Holy Orders. I believe it's a one time sacrament. If a priest becomes bishop or cardinal (a bishop with a vote) or pope (the Bishop of Rome), I think there's an anointing, but not an additional sacrament.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

Long digression ... I just loved Betty Duffy's piece about confession. I love the sacrament of confession. So many people find it intimidating or see it as a liturgical rap on the knuckles, but, gosh, it's just pure grace. That being said, I totally understand Betty's thoughts on long lines and frustration and a desire to confess some really crazy sin somewhere in suburban Melbourne (Australia, that is, not Florida).

I flash back to a trip to Lourdes about seventeen years ago. So many people have deep spiritual awakenings on pilgrimages. I, as a rule, do not. Lourdes is a fascinating city. For a place teeming with visitors, it's supernaturally quiet. It's a place of prayer.

On my last afternoon there, I sat in a chapel and prepared for the sacrament of reconciliation. I recall four of five confessionals in an oddly shaped chapel. Each confessional had a sign listing the languages understood by the priest. There was no rhyme or reason as to how one got out of a pew and into the confessional. I waited a l-o-n-g time for confession. One person after another cut in front of me and trotted into the confessional with the English speaking priest. As this went on and on, I gradually progressed from slightly put out to just plain livid.

Jockeying for position in the confessional line, you pious pilgrim, you! My list of sins is growing faster than the line! Thanks ever so much!

I eventually made it in and shared an ironic laugh with a kind and oh-so-patient priest.

My family attended a parish mission a few weeks back. The visiting priest left me with a dozen gems to ponder and chew on. Holiness is not a pose, he shared, folding his hands just so, donning a beatific facial expression and gazing off into space. You could almost hear the organ hit a reverent chord. The mother with nine kids shouldn't spend her days like this, he assured us. Her nine kids aren't gathered around her striking a similar pose.

The mission was inspiring, so inspiring our thirteen-year-old asked to keep going back.

The priest was offering confessions before and after the mission. One night I rounded up my youngest children and headed over to church. The line wasn't too long, but it was moving s-l-o-w-l-y. I sank into the pew and immediately noticed that pew was the word -- Ainsley needed a new diaper and fast. I left John and Kolbe and ducked into the narthex to take care of her. Five minutes later I returned with a much sweeter-smelling baby and found that my middle children had stopped just short of an all out brawl during my brief absence. I've written before about Church Ladies and Men and how you really can't get a clear reading on their reaction to children, at least the kind of children who may have a pesky tendency to be both seen and heard. 

I avoided all eye contact.

The line continued to move at a snail's pace. The little folks were restless. I can do this; it's worth the wait, I told myself. Clearly, this priest was spending quite a while with each person. I was up next. Kolbe had gone over to a different priest for confession and hadn't made it back when my turn came. What to do with a two-year-old and a four-year-old? I told John to sit in the pew, and I brought Ainsley into the confessional.

My experience was ... odd. And hurried. Almost abrupt. The priest who had spent fifteen or twenty minutes with each person couldn't get me out of there fast enough, or so it seemed to me. I asked for his opinion on something. His answer was somewhat superficial.

I left confused. Was he miffed I had brought the baby into the confessional? Had he heard the kerfuffle between my boys? I ran through a variety of thoughts he might have had. Maybe he had suddenly looked at his watch and realized he was running late? And then I made a conscious decision to dwell on the words he had actually spoken: I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The truth is that I have no idea why he seemed rushed. The truth is that these sacraments confer God's grace. That grace is present if the priest is thoughtful and compassionate and insightful; it's present if he's annoyed or rushed or distracted. It's present if we're annoyed or rushed or distracted (and I was all of the above!). Our faith is in God, not in a seamless liturgy, as uplifting as it might be. It's not in the priest, as holy as he might be. It's not in our own demeanor or comportment of even preparedness, as important as these are.

Grace is not dependant on a one of them. As the visiting priest shared, Holiness is not a pose. Not for the laity, not for the priest.

My brother-in-law is a practicing Jew who enjoys attending Catholic Mass from time to time. Occasionally he complains about lackluster homilies. Check out the Baptist Church, I once told him. The center of their service is the sermon. The center of  Catholic Mass is the Eucharist. I understand my brother-in-law's point. I love an inspiring homily. As I enter our church, I usually glance to the left to see which priest is celebrating the Mass. Over the years we've had many, many gifted homilists. We've had a few who could lull you to sleep no matter how well-caffeinated you were upon arrival.

But we are a sacramental church. The focus of the Mass is the elevation of the Eucharist and the words of the priest acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ: This is my body; this is my blood.

It's not a pose.

Faith and Little Children

My friend Sarah is a mother of three darling boys. She is an ultra-couponer extraordinaire and blogs about her strategies over at providentandresourceful.com. One day she's going to stop by my house and give me a remedial class. I have clearly failed to grasp the essentials.

Sarah recently sent me an email wondering about resources we've used to introduce our kids to the Catholic faith. Here are few things that our kids have enjoyed:

1. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd - While I am wholly biased, having poured my life's blood into this program for years, truly nothing beats this for bringing the faith to life for very young children.

2. The Donut Man – Can't say enough about his CDs and DVDs. Biblical, liturgical, and fun.

3. Little Acts of Grace 1 and 2, Mass Book for Children, Living the Ten Commandments for Children, Just Like Mary – This is a seriers of kids’ books you can find on Amazon. They are beautfiul and simple.

4. Saint Books - My kids have enjoyed these from about age four and on.

5. Bible Stories - Lots of options. Boys love those battle scenes!

6. Faith and Life Series - For Kindergartners and up. Some parishes use this series for PRE. The lessons are clear and basic. You can find the books on Ebay or Amazon.

7. Magnifikid - This is a weekly magazine that follows the order of the Mass plus adds some interesting extras.  For kids of reading age and above. We have given this to our Godchildren at different ages.


8. Prayerful practices - We say simple prayers like "Jesus come into my heart; take over my life." We encourage good behavior in church by letting John light a candle and pray for his grandmother after Mass. We have a prayer table in our living room. We rotate the color of the tablecloth based on the liturgical season.

Piety reigns during evening prayers!

With Tim and Kolbe, who were not close in age, I attended weekday Mass. We would sit close to the Altar so the kids could hear. The Mass was short so they could pay attention better. We would visit the tabernacle after Mass. It was a special time to introduce them to prayer. With John and Ainsley being closer in age, I haven't mustered the courage to try this much at all. Other people manage to bring stair-step kids to Mass. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is definitely worthwhile.

These are a few ideas we have tried off and on. Short and simple has always trumped complicated and lengthy.

I have to pull this back into edit mode to emphasize that the main way we share our faith with our kids is by living it fully and imperfectly. My kids see everyday, in numerous ways, that 1) I love God and 2) I am a flawed human being. In this area, as with so many other aspects of motherhood, it's easy to try to "keep up with the Jones." I do well to meditate on Micah 6:8 which reads, "What does God ask of You? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

All that said, I would love to hear ideas from readers. Do you have books your kids have loved? Ideas for prayer or Mass participation?

Lent

My grand vision for Lent lasted about 8 hours, 5 minutes.

Technically it began to unravel an hour and a half before that.

The short explanation - I overslept, the dishwasher went belly-up, and Ainsley fell and bumped her head. I had plans for a quiet, private prayer time followed by a quiet, family prayer time and concluding with a peaceful breakfast and drive to school. What I got was the usual morning mayhem accompanied by a major meltdown (mine).

At my women’s prayer group the other day, my friend Amy and I were discussing our desire for a good Lent, a fruitful Lent. It’s been a few years since I’ve entered this season with much of a vision. For two of the last three Lenten seasons, I have been battling the tail-end of morning sickness. I haven’t given up a thing, nor have I taken on much. Early pregnancy for me is all the penance I can handle. Some days just putting one foot in front of the other seems a herculean feat. I remember lying in a semi-fetal position staring at a pile of laundry and saying, “In ten minutes I’ll fold it. In ten minutes I’ll fold it.”

This year I am well and – as far as I know – not pregnant. I have been looking forward to a season of prayer and fasting.

Since Advent I have been dwelling on the excesses in my life – the excessive stuff, the excessive pounds, the excessive indulgences, the excessive temper tantrums (once again, mine).

On every front, I am more than ready to pare down.

I am taking on Danielle Bean’s “Forty Bags for Forty Days,” because in a physical sense I want to unload. But more than that, I am in desperate need of a spiritual unload. My prayer life has been spotty, to say the least. Now more than ever, I thirst for time alone with God. I thirst for the sacraments. I want to be nourished by the body and blood of Christ.

Despite 12 years of marriage and children, I still picture a quiet, prayerful, simple Lent. Daily Mass and Stations of the Cross. Time set aside for meditation. You know, maybe a subtle hint of incense wafting through the house. Needless to say, in this stage of my life, this vision just ain’t meshing with reality.

A while back a friend of mine shared a word of wisdom: Let your effort be your goal. Rather than pursuing a lengthy check list of devotions, strive instead to do, as Mother Teresa used to say, “small things with great love.”

This version of the perfect Lent, a Lent of modest prayer and peaceful relationships, would all be quite doable and fruitful if it weren’t for one pesky, persistent obstacle – me. This is a season in which I need to take seriously the Psalmist’s admonition “to rend your hearts and not your garments.”

I need to set aside my vision and simply love – God, my family, my neighbor. This is one area that can’t lead to excess, that requires no paring down.