Thank you, gracias, merci

After the preterm labor scare and receiving the doctor's recommendation to take it easy for a couple of weeks, I spent days thinking the baby was going to arrive any time. Any twinge around my belly was a cause for concern.  Now here we are almost 38 weeks along and still no real labor. So the past few days have filled up with activities, and since the sun has been shining and the weather beautiful, I've been thankful to be able to fit whatever works into the schedule. Each day seems full of potential - Maybe today will be the birth day! - and full of graces.

A catalog of recent blessings:

• Saturday night was the school dinner dance/ auction fundraiser.  I wasn't sure if we would be able to attend this event, but since we missed the Seabee Ball, I was glad we still had an opportunity to go out on a dressy date once it became clear that Baby is taking her sweet time.  It wasn't formal, which could be why it was one of the most upbeat and sociable school fundraisers we've been to in awhile. Or is it just that Californians love to drink wine and dance? We got to visit with some other families who have interested me but whom we haven't really met, and we met some families we didn't know at all who were interesting. The crowd made it fun night, but the absolutely best, most exciting part was that we won the raffle for free tuition for one of our kids! Yahoo! We never win anything! I want to tell everyone, hey guess what! but I don't want to gloat. Several people came up to tell us how happy they were for us - and probably they are a little glad that the same family with one kid who has won the last three years because he (his parents) sells so many tickets (entries are based on how many tickets for the cash raffle you sell) didn't win yet again. Still glowing with gratitude. 

• Sunday night was a different kind of event - Pam Stenzel came to give a chastity talk to the confirmation classes. My eighth grader is in the class, and my two older boys are peer leaders, so all three teenagers were in attendance. Parents were requested to attend, so the gym was overflowing. I have been grateful for the active youth group here - over 300 kids are enrolled in the two years of confirmation class. In the summers the leader, who is a Steubenville grad, takes kids to Steubenville conferences, mission trips to an Indian reservation in New Mexico, and a weeklong urban service project in LA.  She's got a lot of charisma and dedication to the kids. So I'm grateful for her spiritual leadership, I'm grateful that my boys want to be involved, and I'm grateful for the message that Pam conveyed.  I haven't been as outspoken about chastity and theology of the body teachings as I thought I would be.  It's nice to have someone else who is witty and knowledgeable spout off statistics about STIs, anecdotes about lost and preserved virginity, and motivational messages about being chaste for your kids to hear. Half the parents were in tears by the end, I think. It's a scary world out there. But there is also a lot of hope, especially amongst the kids in that gym.  I tried to re-emphasize to my kids in the car on the way home that while it may seem like the hardships of your teen years are more suffering than you can stand, they are a very short period of time compared to a lifetime of marriage and an eternity with God.  I pray they can keep the distant future in sight as they navigate the difficult choices of their immediate future. 

• Another thing that stood out to me in Pam's speech was when she told how she was adopted. Her mother was raped as a young woman and put her up for adoption. She was an unwanted child, but her life has not been purposeless. I think about all the people her crusade has touched, and pray for unwanted children everywhere.

• I'm also grateful I'm no longer on bedrest. The past few days have been beautiful, and I've been taking walks again. The weekend was full to brim - a track meet, soccer games, the fundraiser, a birthday party, a St. Patrick's Day parade two days early.  I let one of the teenagers drive to the track meet along the back highway that runs along beautiful corridor of agriculture property.  The drought out here may be scaring the owners of these properties, but their lemon trees and strawberry fields still look lush.  We pray for rain at Mass, but I am thankful for the cheery sun nonetheless.  (And I'm thankful for getting to go to the track meet. I love track season! I felt nearly as tired after cheering for the runners as if I'd run the race myself.)

• I'm grateful we had time to help at ManyMeals again on Wednesday. This is a once-a-week dinner program our parish provides to the community. We try to go once a month. It is primarily for the homeless, but not limited to just homeless people. One table is full of elderly friends. At another table sit a group of mentally challenged adults, a couple of them were born with their disabilities, one suffered a stroke, another was in a car accident. They have homes, but they come for the meal and the fellowship.  Some of the attendees are regulars. One man, new this week, asked if I knew where he could get cash. I mentioned St. Vincent de Paul Society or Catholic Charities. I had no cash myself and the volunteers are not supposed to give handouts. Then the man told me he had only been homeless a few weeks since he lost his job. He lifted his shirt to reveal a huge scar where he had been shot in the abdomen. Now he was disabled and was still waiting for his paperwork to be processed so he could receive government benefits. One of the regular volunteers, an older woman who comes with her husband every week, told me some of the stories she has learned while serving these meals.  We also learned, through another source, that her husband, who quietly rolls plasticware into napkins and twist-ties them together, refills the butter baskets, and stocks the salt and pepper, is a retired two-star Admiral.  We knew he had been in the military on ships, but he was so humble about his jobs.  My husband was ready to salute him this weekend.

So you never know. Through the grace of God, we have been blessed with bright, healthy kids, supportive extended family, my husband's dependable job, a multitude of friends, and wonderful experiences.  We could lose any of it, any minute.  Still, I can be ungrateful. I can mull over lost opportunities and impossible dreams.  I can bewail my selfishness and sacrifices. I really want to eat cake, not diabetic diet foods.

As I have mentioned, Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us to be grateful to our families, to our fellow human beings, to God.  To say "Thank you" is also to say "I love you."  When Lent first started, I resolved to more aware of what I have to be thankful for. I have started and abandoned gratitude lists. I have written multiple times about gratitude and giving thanks.  But still I fall back into the habit of selfishness and self-pity: What about me? That's mine!  I don't want to! Sometimes I am as grabby as my kids. It's a bit discouraging how often I have to turn again, and turn again, and turn again.

It is a good thing that Lent is not called a time of change, but a time of conversion.  Conversion takes a lifetime, as this quote from Pope Benedict XVI on Ash Wednesday of 2007 reminds us:

"Conversion ... is not something that happens once and for all, it is a process, a journey, that cannot be limited to a specific period but must embrace all existence. ... "In this light, Lent is an appropriate spiritual moment to train ourselves more earnestly to seek God, opening our hearts to Christ. Conversion means seeking God.  It is not an effort of self-realization. Self-realization is a contradiction, and it is too little for us. We have a higher destiny.  Conversion consists precisely in not thinking that one is the 'creator' of oneself, and thus discovering the truth."

And from Pope Francis's homily for Ash Wednesday this year:

Lent is a time to recover the capacity to react before the reality of evil,” the pontiff emphasized, adding that it is also a time “for personal renewal” and for “community” that “brings us closer to God.”

Highlighting the importance of “confidently” adhering “to his Gospel in order to look at our brothers and the needy with new eyes,” during this season, the Pope observed that it is “a suitable time to convert to be able to love our neighbor.”

This love, he explained, is “a love that generates an attitude of gratitude and of mercy with the Lord, who 'became poor to enrich us with his poverty.'"

If we have a Creator, we have someone to thank. One of the first and easiest prayers our kids learn is "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food." If we are filled with love for the things, and more especially, for others created by God, it is even easier to feel gratitude.  And so thank you, God.

From Pope Francis' Easter Vigil homily last year:

To remember what God has done and continues to do for me, for us, to remember the road we have travelled; this is what opens our hearts to hope for the future. May we learn to remember everything that God has done in our lives.
Dear brothers and sisters, to all of you who are listening to me, from Rome and from all over of the world, I address the invitation of the Psalm: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever. Let Israel say: ‘His steadfast love endures for ever’” (Ps 117:1-2).

Arrivederci, auf weidersehen, adios, faretheewell

Last night during our rosary, my husband started to pray, as we usually do, "for the Pope's intentions." That's when it really set in - Sede vacante!

Of course we do still pray for Pope Emeritus Benedict's intentions and for him and with him and all the church. We miss him already.

We only watched news clips online of the farewell address and the events surrounding. What I loved about the clips was how positive all the people in Rome seemed. The newscasters asked some foreboding questions about what's next for the church, but the young people they interviewed (and George Weigel) all had positive things to say.

Perhaps the key to avoiding a sense of doom in these coming days is to stay in touch with the young people on the street and stay away from journalists

Praying during the Pope's last hour.  From The Guardian

More great photos of young people on the Wall Street Journal page, "Auf Weidersehen." 

Lent at Last

I’ve been scouring the house top to bottom. Good practice for Lent: Being clean on the outside aids in being clean on the inside.  I’ve reorganized all the closets, folded all the laundry, and scrubbed the bathroom tile grout on my hands and knees with steel wool and Comet. Books are reshelved, magazines recycled, trash removed.  The disaster known as the garage remains to be organized – as it has since the day the movers piled up the miscellaneous wood scraps and useless, placeless paraphernalia of life that we never get around to throwing away because it might come in handy.  After straightening the garage, I am even thinking of pulling up the sleeping grass.  That job just takes too much time.  But it is penitential, so maybe one day in the next six weeks, I’ll tackle it as a form of mortification.

I’d like to say I’m doing this cleaning as preparation for the holy season ahead, but my motivation is company from the mainland. We’ll have siblings and nieces here for 2 weeks. The house is brimming with anticipation.  We have made a list of things to show the fam and have an instructor lined up to teach them to scuba dive along with our 10 year old daughter. (Which makes me incredibly nervous – I just keep reminding myself that she can’t go deeper than 40 feet.)

Now we just have to hope that it doesn’t rain too much and that the rumor of the best beach closing because of a ship offloading ammunition is just a rumor and that the sea turtles don’t all hide and that the water is not too choppy or too murky and that no one gets sick.

While we’re thrilled that family is coming to visit, I’m also afraid that they’ll be disappointed with our home and this island that we’ve grown to love so much.  When we first arrived, I was depressed by the sort of run-down feel of the place and the lack of tropical blooms. I was anticipating the postcard picture of a tropical island: clean, white beaches, frangipangi and plumeria scenting the air, waveless turquoise seas. 

You could set that picture up on Guam, but outside the frame would be discarded cans, rhinoceros beetle scarred coconut trees, rusty cars, mildew-marred buildings. 

On top of that, we woke yesterday morning to this sad news:  The peacefulness of the island was scarred by a deranged attack in the downtown area by a mentally disturbed guy wielding a knife. At least 2 people were killed – perhaps when his car ran up on the sidewalk – and 12 injured. Reports are contradictory at this point: one says 3 people died and 11 were injured.  It sounds like most or all were Japanese tourists, so not only are people who live here horrified, so is the international tourist community.

This island has very little history of violent crime. An event like this is stunning. The assailant is in custody, but no motive has been released.  No one is safe from senseless violence.

In reality, Guam is not postcard perfect, but what place is?  The other part of the picture that the frame doesn’t show are the great neighbors, the respect for family, the amazing world underwater, the remote waterfalls, the unhurried pace of life that make living here wonderful. Our visiting family may not be able to see all of that in their first glance at the island, but we hope that when they head home in two weeks, they will have discovered it – and feel like the price of their tickets was justified.

So we head into Lent with the sorrow at the Pope’s announcement and the deaths of all those people downtown, but also with joyful anticipation of sharing the things we’re grateful for with our family.  I haven’t thought as much about what we’ll DO for Lent as how I’m happy to have the season to remind me to focus on basics. Like usual, we’ll give up sweets and alcohol, but I don’t want to force my penance on our company, so we’ll have wine and dessert more nights than usual, and I’ll just offer up something else (most likely I’ll have to work on letting go of my plans – always a struggle for me). With company here, it will be easy to fast a bit from the internet. I’d like to work more on being more charitable – both in my heart and in my pocketbook.  I’d also like to do some spiritual reading, but I’m not sure what yet; I’m still slowly consuming Anna Karenina, with more delight than I began it. In many ways, it is spiritual reading.  As for prayer, this year I think I’ll focus more on intentions – so many people are in need, and I need to remember to be grateful and to reach out, even if only in prayer.

I think I’ll find the gratitude part easy these next couple of weeks.

And to close, two passages from Pope Benedict's last Ash Wednesday as Pope that remind us of our communion in Christ and our duty to seek and serve the Lord:

This "return to me with all your heart," then, is a reminder that not only involves the individual but the entire community. Again we heard in the first reading: "Blow the horn in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly! Gather the people, sanctify the congregation; Assemble the elderly; gather the children, even infants nursing at the breast; Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her bridal tent (vv.15-16). The community dimension is an essential element in faith and Christian life. Christ came "to gather the children of God who are scattered into one" (Jn 11:52). The "we" of the Church is the community in which Jesus brings us together (cf. Jn 12:32), faith is necessarily ecclesial. And it is important to remember and to live this during Lent: each person must be aware that the penitential journey cannot be faced alone, but together with many brothers and sisters in the Church.

***

In the Gospel passage according of Matthew, to whom belongs to the so-called Sermon on the Mount, Jesus refers to three fundamental practices required by the Mosaic Law: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. These are also traditional indications on the Lenten journey to respond to the invitation to «return to God with all your heart." But he points out that both the quality and the truth of our relationship with God is what qualifies the authenticity of every religious act. For this reason he denounces religious hypocrisy, a behaviour that seeks applause and approval. The true disciple does not serve himself or the "public", but his Lord, in simplicity and generosity: "And your Father who sees everything in secret will reward you" (Mt 6,4.6.18). Our fitness will always be more effective the less we seek our own glory and the more we are aware that the reward of the righteous is God Himself, to be united to Him, here, on a journey of faith, and at the end of life, in the peace light of coming face to face with Him forever (cf. 1 Cor 13:12).

from http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2013/02/today-we-begin-new-journey-liturgically.html

Surprising news

My husband announced the news about the Pope's resignation about an hour ago. Since then, I've been reading news article after news article searching for more information.  All the articles say the same thing. They all quote his official statement at the consistory and remark how this is the first pope to resign since the 1400's.

I wonder if I have missed something. Has there been conjecture about the Pope's failing health previous to this announcement? Has he been suffering more than most 85 year olds? Am I just out of touch with the news? It's no surprise that the Pope is worn-out; it's just surprising that this Pope, who has seemed so unshakable, should fold.

My cynical side is afraid that some scandal is going to be unearthed.  Ash Wednesday is nearly upon us, and perhaps it will bring more real suffering, not just self-imposed penances.  The focus of prayer for the season is obvious: pray for the Pope and for the Church.  This Lent will surely bring opportunities to examine our faith and our consciences.

No winter, no spring

Apparently it is spring in some parts of the world. My parents told me on the phone the other day that the daffodils I planted years ago at their farm have bloomed and faded.  My husband reminded me that taxes are due in less than a month.  But here in Guam, the sky and flora look just like summer, fall, and winter. 

It’s hard to keep track of the time when the seasonal markers are missing. The plumeria trees bloom perpetually. The bananas and palms seem to be in continuous fruit production. The mangoes, however, are just starting to fruit, and apparently only produce one crop a year.  And I am engaging in the springtime ritual of preparing a garden, thanks to my brother- and sister-in-law who sent some heritage seeds from the Hudson Valley. We’ll see how they do in Oceania. 

 

We’ve also set out some cuttings of bougainvillea and croton.  The kids accused me of stealing when I broke off the branch of a particularly deep magenta bougainvillea on the side of the road, but I tried to tell them I was encouraging stronger growth for the host plant and propagating a more beautiful island if I get this branch to root.  So many plants just seem to need some dirt to sprout.

It may not be the best time to do all this planting, since it has been relatively dry the past week.  Temperatures have been in the 90's, but it’s hard to tell, except when sitting in the direct sun at the soccer fields, since we’ve had such pleasant breezes.  Soccer isn't an indication of season here, either; the league plays all year round, to the dismay of my skin.  Although I wear a hat, sunscreen, and carry a sunbrella, I’ve noticed new age spots on my knees, alas. 

So I miss the time of year when the whole world seems full of promise and propagation. I miss the way the end of Lent coincides with the blooming of bulbs and flowering trees.  I wonder if someone on island grows Easter lilies, or if the Paschal altar will be adorned with orchids and bird-of-paradise and wild ginger. I'd like to wallow in a little self-pity that we don't have lilies-of-the-valley and lilacs here. 

But I honestly can't complain. On Saturday we spent the day at a party at one of the hotels that has a waterslide.  It also has beautifully landscaped grounds, ablaze in purple, yellow and magenta flowers.  The sun was shining, the kids and Japanese tourists were all smiling and bowing to each other as they jockeyed for position on the waterslide, the bartender was serving mai tais and pina coladas at the cabana, the water was turquoise.  And here we are, smelling like Coppertone SPF 80, trying to remind ourselves it's Lent.  So we didn't have any of the tiramisu. It was timely that I had just read the reflection from Benedictus for the Feast of St. Joseph:

"It is no accident that faith in God flows from a 'head sore-wounded,' from a crucified man, and that atheism has Epicurus for father and originates in the world of the satisfied onlooker."

The satisfied onlooker, that's me. A couple of days ago, I was driving across the island, and as I crested a hill, I was greeted by a stunning view of the horizon where the Philippine Sea met an especially vivid cloudless cerulean sky, framed by swaying coconut palms. It was a Wordsworthian moment transposed to the tropics.  The awe it inspired was intensified by the familiarity of having lived here half a year.    

It is easy to get together with other wives and sit around and complain about things like how hard it is to find certain products and to get repairs done correctly – we’ve taken our car in twice for air conditioning work, and it is still not fixed – but at the end of the day, we are blessed to have this experience, even though it wasn't the overseas assignment I would've asked for (Germany? Italy? the Far East?).  The kids are thriving, the pace of our life is steady but not harried, and we have ample opportunities to be filled with gratitude, despite the minor inconveniences and the feelings of displacement. The natural beauty of the island is sometimes obscured by trash and graffiti along the main road, but the ocean and sky are a source of perpetual wonder.  And since the mild weather allows outdoor activities all year long, we’re trying to take in as much of the natural beauty as we can.


The challenge of Lent perhaps is to figure out how to share this abundance of grace with others. The second part of that quote from Benedictus is "We must also learn that in addition to the Real Presence of Jesus in Church and sacrament there is that other, second real presence of Jesus in the least of our brethren, in the downtrodden of this world; he wants us to find him in all of them."  Being grateful is the first step, but not the last.
 

A reminder for Lent

The common theme of these three readings from Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI speaks to me this Lent: Lent is not a self-help program. It is a time to open ourself to the love of God, to the love of others, and to love for God and others. A good reminder to be more Other-focused, more humble, less self-centered - but only possible with grace.

"The purpose of Lent is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact the being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew; that it is not an event now over and done with but a process requiring constant practice. . . . The human person is the being which does not become itself automatically. . . It becomes itself always and only by struggling against the tendency simply to vegetate and by dint of a discipline that is able to rise about the pressures of routine and to liberate the self from the compulsions of utilitarian goals and instincts. Our world is so full of what immediately impinges on our senses that we are in danger of seeing only details and losing sight of the whole. It takes effort to see beyond what is right in front of us and to free oursleves from the tyranny of what directly presses upon us." ...

"No one becomes a Christian by his own unaided power. No one can make himself a Christian. It is not within the human being's power to shape himself as it were into a great-souled person and finally into a Christian. On the contrary, the process of becoming a Christian begins only with a person sloughs off any illusion of independence and self-sufficiency; when he or she acknowledges that human beings do not create themselves and cannot bring themselves to fulfillment but must open themselves and allow themselves to be led, as it were, to their own true selves. To be a Christian, then, means first and foremost that we acknowledge our own insufficiency and allow him -- the Other who is God -- to act in us"

and finally:
"...the proper attitude to one's I grows spontaneously in an atmosphere of freedom from self. We might well speak here of an anthropological circle: to the degree that we seek only for ourselves, try to realize our own potential, and are concerned solely with the success and fulfillment of our I, to that same degree this I becomes disagreeable, irritable, and repugnant. . . Only the yes that comes to me from a you makes it possible for me to say yes to myself in and through this you. The I realizes itself through a you."

Words for Ash Wednesday

Some things I want to think about more as the next 40 days provide an opportunity to practice more attentive prayer, purposeful fasting, and sincere acts of charity:


From T. S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday":


If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice
Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.
O my people.


http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-7/ash_wednesday_t_s_eliot.htm



From the Pope's message for Lent 2012:

"Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works"

(Heb 10:24)

"... This first aspect is an invitation to be "concerned": the Greek verb used here is katanoein, which means to scrutinize, to be attentive, to observe carefully and take stock of something. We come across this word in the Gospel when Jesus invites the disciples to "think of" the ravens that, without striving, are at the centre of the solicitous and caring Divine Providence (cf. Lk 12:24), and to "observe" the plank in our own eye before looking at the splinter in that of our brother (cf. Lk 6:41). In another verse of the Letter to the Hebrews, we find the encouragement to "turn your minds to Jesus" (3:1), the Apostle and High Priest of our faith. So the verb which introduces our exhortation tells us to look at others, first of all at Jesus, to be concerned for one another, and not to remain isolated and indifferent to the fate of our brothers and sisters. All too often, however, our attitude is just the opposite: an indifference and disinterest born of selfishness and masked as a respect for "privacy". Today too, the Lord’s voice summons all of us to be concerned for one another. Even today God asks us to be "guardians" of our brothers and sisters (Gen 4:9), to establish relationships based on mutual consideration and attentiveness to the well-being, the integral well-being of others. The great commandment of love for one another demands that we acknowledge our responsibility towards those who, like ourselves, are creatures and children of God. Being brothers and sisters in humanity and, in many cases, also in the faith, should help us to recognize in others a true alter ego, infinitely loved by the Lord. 


...

Concern for others entails desiring what is good for them from every point of view: physical, moral and spiritual. Contemporary culture seems to have lost the sense of good and evil, yet there is a real need to reaffirm that good does exist and will prevail, because God is "generous and acts generously" (Ps 119:68). The good is whatever gives, protects and promotes life, brotherhood and communion. Responsibility towards others thus means desiring and working for the good of others, in the hope that they too will become receptive to goodness and its demands. Concern for others means being aware of their needs. Sacred Scripture warns us of the danger that our hearts can become hardened by a sort of "spiritual anesthesia" which numbs us to the suffering of others. 
...

These words of the Letter to the Hebrews (10:24) urge us to reflect on the universal call to holiness, the continuing journey of the spiritual life as we aspire to the greater spiritual gifts and to an ever more sublime and fruitful charity (cf. 1 Cor 12:31-13:13). Being concerned for one another should spur us to an increasingly effective love which, "like the light of dawn, its brightness growing to the fullness of day" (Prov 4:18), makes us live each day as an anticipation of the eternal day awaiting us in God. The time granted us in this life is precious for discerning and performing good works in the love of God. In this way the Church herself continuously grows towards the full maturity of Christ (cf. Eph 4:13). Our exhortation to encourage one another to attain the fullness of love and good works is situated in this dynamic prospect of growth.

Sadly, there is always the temptation to become lukewarm, to quench the Spirit, to refuse to invest the talents we have received, for our own good and for the good of others (cf. Mt 25:25ff.). All of us have received spiritual or material riches meant to be used for the fulfilment of God’s plan, for the good of the Church and for our personal salvation (cf. Lk 12:21b; 1 Tim 6:18). The spiritual masters remind us that in the life of faith those who do not advance inevitably regress. Dear brothers and sisters, let us accept the invitation, today as timely as ever, to aim for the "high standard of ordinary Christian living" (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 31). The wisdom of the Church in recognizing and proclaiming certain outstanding Christians as Blessed and as Saints is also meant to inspire others to imitate their virtues. Saint Paul exhorts us to "anticipate one another in showing honour" (Rom 12:10).

In a world which demands of Christians a renewed witness of love and fidelity to the Lord, may all of us feel the urgent need to anticipate one another in charity, service and good works (cf. Heb 6:10). This appeal is particularly pressing in this holy season of preparation for Easter. "

From "Light of the World"

My latest read is the Peter Seewald interview with Pope Benedict XVI, Light of the World. Not as meaty as I had hoped, but this quote was good:


“There does need to be a new realization that being human is something great, a great challenge, to which the banality of just drifting along doesn’t do justice. Any more than the attitude that comfort is the best way to live, that feeling healthy is the sum and substance of happiness. There needs to be a new sense that being human is subject to a higher set of standards, indeed, that it is precisely these demands that make a greater happiness possible in the first place. There needs to be a sense that being human is like a mountain climbing expedition that includes some arduous slopes. But it is by them that we reach the summit and are able to experience for the first time how beautiful it is to be.”

Arduous slopes and higher standards. We were just having a conversation last night around the dinner table about why I don’t want the older kids downloading heavy metal Christian music. Yes, it has a Christian message, if you can decipher it, but the mode of delivery has an anti-Christian origin. Can heavy-metal music be “baptized” like other artifacts of pagan culture? That arduous slope of fighting against popular culture is just beginning to get steeper at our house.

A second conversation with my husband this morning was about whether or not a servicemember who presumably committed suicide should be buried at Arlington National Cemetary.  While I am usually the sort of person who tries to assume that people act with the best of intentions, I surprised myself with how strongly I felt about this predicament.  This suicide victim didn't just give up on the mountain climbing expedition of life, but he deserted his comrades in the military. He may have served honorably until his death, but by taking his own life he went AWOL.  Apparently since he did not leave behind a note, the people in charge of the decision making about this burial are assuming that his intentions were unclear.  The stance they are taking is that, while there is no question he shot himself, maybe it was an accident or he was under some undue influence.  And I join them in hoping that perhaps he regretted the decision as he pulled the trigger.  But burial space at Arlington is not infinite; it should be reserved for those who stay and fight. By allowing suicides to be buried with the pomp associated with military funerals, it may give those left behind the message that it's okay to quit.

I feel very callous writing this, and I wouldn't withhold the right to burial on sacred ground for the young man in question. The image of Ophelia's burial in Hamlet is nagging me, but I'm feeling a little tired of excessive coddling, of trying to make everyone feel okay. Like the Pope says, comfort is not the sum of happiness.