Some favorite Pope moments

Some of my favorite images and words from some of the Pope's recent visit to the United States.  So much joy shared!

"We are celebrating the feast of the family," he told the crowd. "Families have a citizenship that is divine. The identity card that they have is given to them by God so that within the heart of the family truth, goodness and beauty can truly grow."

"Some of you might say of course, Father, you speak like that because you're not married," he said.

"Families have difficulties. Families -- we quarrel, sometimes plates can fly, and children bring headaches. I won't speak about mother-in-laws," he quipped.

"However, in families, there is always light" because of the love of God's son.

"Just as there are problems in families, there is the light of the resurrection," he said.   

"The family is like a factory of hope," he said.

"In the family, there are indeed difficulties" and children bring challenges, too, he said.

"But those difficulties are overcome with love," he said. "Hatred is not capable of dealing (with) or overcoming any difficulty. Division of hearts cannot overcome a difficulty; only love can overcome."

http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2015/pope-delights-philly-crowd-with-spontaneous-talk-on-families.cfm

Faith opens a “window” to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures. “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded”, says Jesus (cf. Mk 9:41).

These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work. Homely gestures. Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work. Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love. That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/09/27/popes-homily-at-world-meeting-of-families-mass-full-text/

There are some things we really need to take care of: the children, and grandparents. Children, whether they are young or older, they are the strength that moves us forward. We place our hope in them.

Grandparents are the living memory of the family. They passed on the faith, they transmitted the faith, to us. To look after grandparents, children, is the expression of love. The people that does not care for its children or grandparents is a people that has not future. Because it doesn’t have the strength or the memory to go forward.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/sep/26/pope-francis-visits-philadelphia-us-tour-live

Do you know what the title was of the Pope that ought to be used? Servant of the servants of God. It’s a little different from the stars. Stars are beautiful to look at. I like to look at them in the summer when the sky is clear. But the Pope must be, must be the servant of the servants of God. Yes, in the media this is happening but there’s another truth. How many stars have we seen that go out and fall. It is a fleeting thing. On the other hand, being servant of the servants of God is something that doesn’t pass.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11026

Photos from http://abc7.com/religion/photos-pope-francis-in-the-united-states/998428/ and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3248871/Heartwarming-moment-Pope-Francis-blesses-17-year-old-girl-wheelchair-suffering-spina-bifida-wants-actress.html

Rainbows welcome Pope Francis: http://abc7.com/religion/rainbows-spotted-throughout-pope-francis-visit-to-us/1008705/

Popishness

I am still reading Dickens, and recently came across a character described as "popish." I know it is a derogatory term, but with Pope Francis arriving in Washington, DC, perhaps at this very minute, I think it is a term that could be reclaimed with some pride. It's a good moment to be a Papist and to be interested in popish things.

Being on the west coast and in want of a Catholic newspaper - or any newspaper at all right now, we are a little removed from the fanfare and controversy surrounding the Pope's visit to America, fresh from a visit to Cuba.  But still I'm excited about it, our DRE is excited, and our priest brought it up at Mass on Sunday. Unfortunately, I am getting most of my news secondhand from my husband and son who read cnn.com and foxnews.com on their phones for their news information. We don't access the most reliable sources. My boys were heatedly discussing their disappointment in the invitation list that President Obama issued to a reception at the White House that Pope Francis will attend, along with thousands of other people. The invite list includes a pro-abortion nun, a gay rights activist, a transgender activist, and other liberal types.  Political conservatives see this as either an act of disrespect to the Church or a trap to get Pope Francis in a position where the media can snap a photo and post a headline about the Church changing its position on marriage or something similar. Liberals, I would guess, are excited to see conservatives get worked up about it and cause divisiveness in the ranks, a real Screwtape moment.

Which was the case in our house last night. The guys railed how our liberal government is trying to undermine the Pope's visit and how the media seems to poised to swoop in and capture the Pope in a moment of hugging a transvestite.

Perfect! He should be caught on film hugging a transvestite. Or hugging the President.  Or hugging a pedophile priest and also a victim of sexual predation. One of the early popular photos of Pope Francis' papacy was the image of him hugging a severely disfigured man. It was an image that called to mind Christ's ministry to the lepers, the outcasts, the suffering.  Now here is an opportunity for the Pope to continue to walk in the footsteps of Christ by dining with tax collectors and sinners. He already socialized with Communists.  He's visiting prisons and homeless shelters and Congress. Obama, through his guest list, is handing Pope Francis the opportunity that Christ encouraged: to share a meal with sinners - a moment of Communion that transcends politics.

Let's pray that instead of causing division and pain, this visit will be a moment of healing and transformation.  I recently came across a link to David Brooks' and Mark Shields' comments on Newshour on the blog Across the Page. The blog post commented on the fact that religion is having a  positive moment in the news lately, in between this visit, the shootings in Charleston, and Jimmy Carter's brain cancer, among other topics.  She quoted Brooks' rhapsodic hope that this will be a moment of spiritual awakening and healing.  But she ended her post by pointing out that the Pope is just a man, and we shouldn't be giving him any undue adulation, which belongs to Christ alone.

And yet, everything the Pope does points to Christ. Christ will be present during the Pope's visit.  Christ will be present in the man through the sacrament of the priesthood. He will be present in the Word that the Pope will proclaim.  And He most powerfully will be present in the crowds that will gather in His name to witness to the ability of grace to change lives, to heal and forgive, to unite enormous crowds in celebration and hope. I wish I could be there as a witness to be moved, also.

In 1993, my generation was profoundly inspired and changed by the visit of Pope John Paul II to Denver. I missed that visit also, but the graces extended far and wide through the movement of the Spirit in those who attended and were called to serve. May the Holy Spirit use this visit also to extend the grace of conversion to those of us far away.

From David Brooks:   
I hope we don’t overpoliticize this visit.

The first thing we’re going to see is our countrymen, thousands, millions of them moved by faith, their eyes looking to heaven, their heart warmed by God’s love. And we’re going to see that in public. And we’re going to see that in tens of millions of people. And that will be a moment of seeing faith in a way we rarely see it in this country in public.

And, secondly, we will see the example of the man. The message is the person. It’s the way he conducts himself. His love for the poor is not out of any self-congratulatory. He — whether you’re Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever, he is the embodiment of the Christian virtues that I think we all admire, the — seeing the meekest, seeing the poorest, seeing the lowest, and lifting them up, and seeing the brokenness in people, and then lifting them up with joy.

And so, to me, it will be a theater of spiritual — a spiritual theater more than a political theater. And I suspect tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people’s lives will be changed, in the way that politics can never change them, from within. Their lives will be transformed because they will be at this visit. And they will be moved by something they had never felt or only have felt weakly before.

And to me, that’s just a seismic event, whatever happens to our political culture.

HARI SREENIVASAN: David, so what about — how does that translate when that spiritual theater is finished? Does that translate into any sort of policy action or rethinking something that might be in the works in Congress that’s stalled?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I hope it transforms hearts. And I hope it transforms hearts in the ways Mark just suggested.

The pope is not going to visit the homeless or the prisoners once in his visit. He’s doing it six, seven, eight times in the visit. So, the constant focus will be there on those who are hurting the most. And I think that enlivened attention will carry over into people’s eyes, both in their private lives and their private giving, but also in their public lives.

Mark has said this many times over the years. We have a political culture focused on the middle class. We have lost some of the contact with the poor, some of the contact with the needy, and not only — and not from high to low, and, frankly, some of the compassionate conservatism and some of progressivism has been from high to low, but treating the poor as those closest to God and worthy of respect maybe even more than everybody else.

And that’s an attention that has been absent from our political culture or in short supply, and maybe it will be in slightly bigger supply.

Wisdom at the BBQ

The other night my husband and I went on a mini-date to our parish's men's ministry BBQ supper, which was being headlined by our parish's new pastor who will be coming from a teaching job at the seminary in a month or two. He has never been a pastor, but he has been in charge of human formation for fifteen years, so he has a sense of humor.

Our parish has had an interim pastor for a couple of years, who has had the hard job of bringing the parish accounts back into the black.  He followed in the footsteps of a very charismatic pastor, beloved by all, energetic, a missionary leader.  That priest was called to work in the vocations office at the Archdiocese Headquarters, probably based on his record of recruiting 8 deacons, a great youth minister, a marriage and men's ministry full time employee, and other parish employees. Apparently, he was generous and always said yes if parishioners came to him with a request. His generosity, though, left the church in the position of having to make some cutbacks.  Our current priest was brought in to be the belt tightener. He has not won many friends because he has let people go, he has not expanded ministries, he has eliminated positions at the parish, and he was done away with a perfectly awful Gloria arrangement.  We have liked this priest, but he hasn't made many friends.

So a huge crowd showed up to meet the new guy. He said it was like meeting the parents in an arranged marriage.  Since it was a men's ministry event, it was casual. Everyone was jovial. Beer was served, and lots of meat. 

Before we arrived at the BBQ, my husband and I were talking about some of the challenges of life lately. We have big decisions to make, we have some family issues, we have had some difficult email exchanges with teachers and student employers, we've had to negotiate some other unforeseen business issues, in particular a dispute over a parking lot fender bender in which the other party won't admit mutual fault. In sum, we have had the difficult experience of being let down by inflexibility, carelessness, thoughtlessness, selfishness; all those peccadilloes of human nature that we exhibit regularly ourselves.

Earlier in the day, just when I had been mulling over a wound inflicted by an unkind email, or a thoughtless word, I read a passage from Pope Francis's The Church of Mercy about how people always let us down.   We cannot put our trust in others, even those - or especially those - closest to us, who sometimes fail us in radical ways.  We can only trust God.  If we find our joy in God, we can forgive others more easily. Only if we recognize God's mercy to us, can we in turn have mercy.

The new priest seemed to speak directly to me when he announced he was going to talk about mercy.  In the context of his talk, he read off the corporal and then the spiritual works.  The corporal works of mercy are easy for me, as a mother, to remember - clothing, feeding, sheltering, incarcerating...  oh wait, visiting the incarcerated we don't do so often.  ... But I sometimes forget to think about the spiritual works. Plus they are hard.  Sure, I regularly admonish the sinner and instruct the ignorant in our house.  Not so often outside of the house.  More difficult to do is to bear wrongs patiently and forgive all injuries. 

One of my big weaknesses is a tendency to lick my wounds, to keep them fresh, to make them worse, especially those I think are caused by someone else.  But I only hurt myself when I dwell on my frustrations with others.  My fretting and stewing does nothing to heal the relationship.  Being angry is the opposite of being merciful. Being hurt and bitter is not being merciful.

The new priest mentioned that mercy is a translation of the Greek word "eleos."  He said it can also be translated as "to take delight in."  Now I am not finding this translation online, but the idea that mercy flows from delight is a fruitful one. It is easy to have mercy on our children. They fill us with delight, love, joy.  Poor Baby is likely to be spoiled because her siblings and parents only smile at her stubbornness.  But having mercy on the stranger, on the acquaintance, on the people who let us down, is harder.  How do we take delight in those we barely know?  We have to see the face of Christ in them, like Mother Teresa.

Only by loving God, attaching to Christ, is it possible to detach from the world's opinions, to forgive injuries, to bear wrongs patiently.  We are going to be bruised by the world, but, as Pope Francis writes, it is better to be bruised by going out and trying to love the sinner, than to be ill by staying shut up inside all the time.

One thing our interim pastor has done that the congregation does appreciate is add at the end of the prayers of the faithful "And for those we love and those we have difficulty loving."  Sometimes that person is the person closest to us.  Sometimes it is the person in the parking lot.  Sometimes its ourselves. 

In my English class, we just spent a class talking about good and evil.  I assigned, "Young Goodman Brown,"  "A Goodman is Hard to Find," "Batter My Heart" by John Donne - and then two other sonnets that allude to it, Benjamin Alire Saenz's "To the Desert" and Mark Jarman's "Unholy Sonnet," which goes like this:

Unholy Sonnet
by Mark JarmanAfter the praying, after the hymn-singing,
After the sermon's trenchant commentary
On the world's ills, which make ours secondary,
After communion, after the hand-wringing,
And after peace descends upon us, bringing
Our eyes up to regard the sanctuary
And how the light swords through it, and how, scary
In their sheer numbers, motes of dust ride, clinging—
There is, as doctors say about some pain,
Discomfort knowing that despite your prayers,
Your listening and rejoicing, your small part
In this communal stab at coming clean,
There is one stubborn remnant of your cares
Intact. There is still murder in your heart. 

Murder in the heart. The fruit of free will. But to forgive is another fruit.  To have mercy. To take delight in the land and the people. To love and bear wrongs patiently.  Hypocrisy haunts us. It makes us human. But to forgive, to have mercy, makes us like God. The new priest ended his talk with a reminder that God loves us because He sees Himself in us, just like as parents we see ourselves in our children. If God is in each of us, we all share a likeness.  I need the reminder to see myself, the part of me that is in the image of God, in others, and have and seek mercy. 

Mercy

Over the weekend, my husband's youngest brother came to visit. This is the third week in just over a month that out-of-town company has come to warm up on the sunny Southern California coast. This evening my mother arrives, and ten days later, my father will show up to admire his newest granddaughter.  Of course, they aren't coming for the sunshine, but to meet the baby. And since all these guests are family, I don't feel any pressure to make the house sparkle, more than the usual cleaning, or to cook to impress, other than the usual cooking, or to plan site-seeing outings, other than the usual haunts.

It's wonderful to live close enough to have family visit. My in-laws are talking about coming in May. Another cousin may show up for spring break. And we'll head back to the Midwest in the summer to see all the cousins.

Since my brother-in-law stayed at my other brother-in-law's house ten minutes away, we weren't really the hosts, although we hosted dinner one night and lunch another day at our house. Our kids love their uncle, who is young and fun-loving.  There was golf, surfing, music. It was a great, albeit short, visit.

It gives me a lot of joy that my kids know their extended family and love them, even though this is the first time we've lived in the same town with family since we were married.  We've always tried to make an effort to spend time with family or call or send birthday cards. My husband and I both feel like our best friends growing up were our siblings and cousins, and as I've mentioned before, we want our kids to feel that rooted connection to family that we had, even though we're transients.

In some ways, though, it's easier to live far away and only have idealistic thoughts about the relationships with siblings and parents. What living closer to family and having family visit reminds me is that when you are close to someone or spend much time together, you inevitably are going to rub each other wrongly every once in awhile. There were a couple moments during his brother's visit when my husband and I found ourselves bickering about "the plan" or lack thereof.  We were trying to coordinate the activities of our kids with the desires of my brothers-in-law. There were a couple times when their ideas about what to do next changed suddenly. And there was some uncertainty about the times our older boys were going to finish up what they were doing or where they were going.  In the end, everything worked out, but I fretted about trying to be three places at once, so needless to say, I got a little irritable.

I feel badly now that I griped to my husband needlessly.  I made him feel guilty. Perhaps I was more irritable than usual because I'm pregnant, but also because I had to sacrifice what I wanted to do. Once everything fell into place, I could see how I was being inflexible, and I apologized to my husband, but not before my edginess had rubbed off on him, making him grouse at the kids. Ruffled feathers have a way of reproducing.

The fact that irritability is contagious is one of the reasons why "I'm sorry" is one of those three important phrases mentioned by Pope Francis that I'm trying to use more often during Lent: "Please, thank you, I'm sorry."   "I'm sorry" is perhaps the most important of the three statements, and perhaps the most difficult to say.  How many times do we let anger or fear or passion cloud our judgement so that we make poor decisions, or say hurtful things, or seethe in silence that is intended to wound those around us?  Is there a day that passes that doesn't call for some kind of apology?

This minor little incident during a weekend that was supposed to be all sunshine and smiles reminded me yet again that family relationships - and friendships - aren't guaranteed to be free of conflict. In fact, they shouldn't be. We shouldn't hope to be in conflict-free relationships, but in relationships in which conflict is endured, discussed, forgiven.  We work out our salvation in marriages and families in order to cultivate the humility of apologizing, the generosity of forgiving, the peace of forgetting.

When we were kids, we fought with our siblings all the time, just like our own kids do. We hurt each other's feelings, we blamed each other, we hoarded stuff, we punched and pinched, to the point that I'm sure that our parents wondered, like we do, whether what is being cultivated in family life is selfishness and insensitivity. We used to play that game "Mercy" where you tried to bend each other's fingers back until the pain made you cry for mercy. "Winning" was both enduring or causing the pain.

But thankfully, at some point in life, with the help of grace, we realized that winning is about giving and receiving mercy, not inflicting pain.  I almost like the word "mercy" better than "forgiveness." How close is the linguistic relationship between the French "merci" - thanks - to mercy? (Wikipedia answer: both from the Latin for "wages paid" or the root of "merchandise." Something given, accepted. Benevolence, kindness, forgiveness. Mercy is a "work.")  As our siblings and we have aged, we have been able to move beyond that state of self-centeredness to more adult relationships of really enjoying each other's company, caring about what happens to each other and our families, and to loving in-laws and cousins because they belong to the clan. We learned to recognize that people have bad days, or weeks, that we all still have selfish sides that want our own way, that we are still learning how to be understanding adults. Those lapses happen and then pass.  The better self reemerges. We learn to forgive each other for giving in to the childish self and to give each other space to grow and change. Mercy is practiced.  Love is just as contagious as irritability. And it does mean having to say sorry, despite claims made in sentimental movies.

At one of his Angelus addresses, the Pope said:
The joy of God is the joy of forgiveness. It is the joy of the shepherd who finds his lost sheep; the joy of the woman who finds her lost coin; the joy of the father who welcomes home his lost son,” the Pope said.
“This is all the Gospel, here; this is Christianity! But this is not sentimentalism or bland 'do-goodism'; on the contrary, mercy is the true force that can save man and the world from the 'cancer' of sin, from moral and spiritual malaise. Only love can fill the gaps, the negative abysses that evil opens up in our hearts and in history. Only love can do this, and this is the joy of God.

Thankful for siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who bring so much joy and opportunities to practice forgiveness and to experience being forgiven.

The Pope is even celebrating a "Celebration of Forgiveness" around the world, from Dallas to Scotland to Mumbai this Friday.  Time to hit the confessional.



Benefit of the work of giving/receiving of mercy: beach life:

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).

Please and Pleases During Lent

In church yesterday, my thoughts went wandering a bit, but at least they were focused on Lenten themes.  I remember that the readings were about temptation and sin and the homily focused on three types of sin: sins of resentment,  "I know what is wrong, but I'll do it anyway" sins, and one other type that I can't remember because my mind drifted (sins of neglect?), but instead of paying attention I was thinking on  about the Pope's recommendation to use the words "please, thank you, and sorry" often. Thinking about the several ways we use the word "please" reminded me of ways my heart needs to be converted this Lent.

First, there is the courteous please that expects what follows will be accommodated, such as "Please pass the butter" and "Could you please pick that up?" It's a polite request, or, in the case of the parental please, a polite command.  Because the demand is tempered by courtesy, the hope is that the person to whom the please is directed will be more compliant. Civility and courtesy are forms of respect and ways of acknowledging the freedom of our peers and children to decline our request, but the expectation is that they will not.  So using the word in this way during Lent is a reminder to treat everyone with dignity.

Then there is the "please" that is really sort of a thank you - the response to "Would you like me to get that for you?" is "Yes, please."  Probably a foreshortening of "if you please," or "if it pleases you," this please is more closely related to the root word pleasure - as in "it would give me pleasure to accept that dessert." This usage reminds me that we are dependent on the kindness of others.  During this past week of modified bedrest, I have had many offers for help from well-meaning friends. While I don't feel incapacitated by the doctor's orders - I have only had to back out of events that would require a lot of activity (and fun: like the Seabee Ball); I don't have to refrain from doing laundry - I know that people, myself included, like to be of service to others.  I don't like asking for help or admitting that I need help, so accepting these offers of assistance when the baby is born will be a sort of Lenten penance to acknowledge my neediness, my inability to do everything I want to do. I am trying to think of ways to accept help from those who offer. I'd really like someone to come scour my bathrooms or fold and put away laundry, but that would require real sacrifice on my part and theirs.  Something that would genuinely be useful is if someone would entertain my younger children for a few hours away from home.  Another idea I had is if, instead of making a dinner because my husband likes to cook and because I hate to ask someone to cook for a family of 8 including 3 teenage boys, someone would make a stack of sandwiches to send in the mornings for the kids' lunches because I'm sure the mornings will be more chaotic than ever if Baby wants to nurse or has a diaper explosion right before we have to walk out the door.

Back to please: The next usage I thought of relates to the verb form: "It pleases me to eat chocolate." This usage does not seem to be very Lenten in spirit. To recall some of my past interest in language, I remember that please comes from the Latin "placere" - to please - and perhaps is related to "placare" - to placate or satisfy. To gladden, to prefer, to wish, and to provide contentment are synonyms with varying shades of meaning. Pleasing ourselves is one of our basic instincts.  What things give me pleasure? That's a relatively easy question to answer: aside from sensual pleasures like chocolate, wine, and coffee, the things that please me are things like free time by myself, doing well at a job or at making something or at running - success, in other words; or having a really stimulating conversation or attending classes or reading a really good book - mental stimulation.  These things all center around me and my wants and my pride.  What things should give me pleasure? The idea of "ordering our desires" seems sort of archaic but would perhaps be a good focus for Lent.  One of my weaknesses is mourning what I lack or am prevented from doing rather than being grateful for what I am able to do or have. Lent is a good time to refrain from desiring the pleasures I don't have to taking pleasure in the bounties I do have (which relates to the next phrase, "Thank you"). But even more during Lent, I should reorder my desires and actions from doing what pleases me to seeking to please others - for isn't that what pleases God?  Little things that are mortifications for me, like cleaning off the counters and table before my husband gets home, sitting down to read with the youngers instead of reading my own books - or the internet, or agreeing to transport the teenagers to some social function that requires getting into the car at 11:00 pm, are easy ways to please my family.  It would please me to find some way to serve the community, to do some good work for those who need help, but I need to discern if that is something that I should postpone in order to keep up with the demands of the family right now.

Finally, there is the please of supplication, the "please" of a dying man, the "please" of the beggar, the "please" of the petitioner who fears his prayer will not be answered.  Actually, this was the "please" I was thinking of  during Mass.  "Please, thank you and sorry" are basically 3/4s of the types of prayer in the ACTS acronym that I used with the kids when they were younger: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Contrition was part of the emphasis of the homily on Sunday. Only Adoration is missing  -- and perhaps Pope Francis should have added it explicitly to his speech to families, but I think his intent was to say that using these words is how we show our adoration, our love, for others. As someone who appreciates "acts of service" as my love language, I can justify the omission of "I love you" from his list of words.  But having family members who thrive with those words of affirmation, I sometimes need to be reminded to use them more often, along with other words of appreciation and praise.

The connection between asking, "please help me," and love is the faith that someone you love is going to answer your request because he will want to please you. This Lent, I want to use the word "please" as a trusting supplicant, not only if I need to reach out for the assistance my helpful friends have offered, but also in faith.  How often do I offer up petitions that I really don't expect to be answered? Or how often do I fail to petition God to help me with struggles because I don't really believe my little concerns are worth his care? Or because they are selfish concerns? How often do I forget to petition God for intentions I've promised to pray for - for that friend's sick grandmother, for the family member who lost a job, for another family's adoption procedure, for my godchildren, for my own children?  Some people are naturals at being prayer warriors.  Were I to be a nun, I would never enter a contemplative order; I'd be something active like a Dominican or Benedictine. Work, then pray, might be my motto.  "Beseeching" is not something I think to do often.  I know people who have a list of prayer intentions that they bring to the labor and delivery room, and then they offer up their contractions for all these needs of others.  I rarely have the composure of mind to think about offering up labor pains. But to remember to pray for these intentions is both an act of love for these people and an act of trust in God's care.  I suspect my weaknesses in petitioning stem from a lack of trust, a weakness of faith, that these prayers will be answered favorably.  My faith suffers from a kind of stoicism - or deism? - that perceives God as uninvolved in the here and now sufferings of the world. I believe He is grieved by our sins and pleased by our sacrifices, but rarely do I trust that He is going to work miracles because of my prayers for help and intercession.  But part of the message of Lent is to put on the sackcloth and ashes and become like a beggar for God's mercy and intervention in our lives.  Repent and believe. Convert me, O Lord, help me to "turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." Please hear my prayers.

A Start to Lent and Pope Francis on Beauty

Lent at last is underway! I'm feeling absurdly happy about Lent arriving. For one thing, it means most people in the house will not be eating sugar, so I won't be tempted off my diabetes diet by things like Sweethearts and whoopie pies being left around.  Ash Wednesday didn't even seem difficult this year. Of course, being pregnant, I didn't do a very strict fast, but the supper I made turned out to be a little too good: homemade whole wheat, flax and oatmeal bread and soup with quinoa, butternut squash, cauliflower, kale and garbanzo beans.  Sounds a little gross, but the flavors, with salt, pepper, garlic, curry powder, and cumin, blended really well together.  The soup was even a hit with the kids (granted, they were all really hungry), and making bread and soup made me feel really crunchy, even though both items were unplanned and made with whatever I had leftover in the fridge on the verge of rotting because it's been there for weeks since my husband went on a health kick for a couple weeks.

I know Lent isn't supposed to be a self-help mechanism, but my spiritual life needs an overhaul, and Lent gives me the motivation to get it in order (as does having a baby on the way). Fast, pray, give. Along with Pope Francis's "Please, thank you, I'm sorry," these are going to be my mantra for the next few weeks. Easy to remember. Simple, yet meaningful.

Reading more of Pope Francis's writing is another goal for Lent. Quotes like this one jump out at me: “Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.” (quoted from Evangelii Gaudium in an article from the Image Goodletters blog.

Any difficulties I've encountered in the past week have been minimal, but enough to turn my attention away from being joyful. It's much easier to feel self-pity and complain about bedrest, than make something beautiful out of a little bit of suffering.  (Actually, I have felt some guilty relief to decline invites or postpone some activities in order to stay home and read or work on photo books of our last year in Guam.) So now I'm trying to piece together how to make our life as followers of Christ more beautiful.  So often the days pass so quickly that I don't have time to think much about what we can do to make our kind of life more attractive to skeptics.

If living a joyful, attractive life is the way to evangelize, I have a ways to go. In fact, I'm more often fretful than joyful when faced with decision about how to live. For instance, there is the recent study on breastfeeding that downplays the longterm benefits of breastfeeding. While reading it, I came across this article from 2009 by Hanna Roisin, who is similarly skeptical about the benefits of breastfeeding and who is tired of the guilt placed upon those who don't nurse their babies for years. This conversation perhaps wouldn't have stood out to me if it weren't for the fact that I have a baby on the way, whom I will nurse, but have thought about leaving with a babysitter much more often than I ever did my other children.  Most of the time that babysitter will be one of my own children, and I plan to pump to give the baby breast milk in my absence.  In between the responsibilities of taking care of the older children, volunteer obligations at the school, and the social obligations of my husband's job, I have to/would like to attend more events that would be awkward to bring a baby to than I did when the other kids were younger, and I'm thinking about trying to continue subbing next year.

But will me trying to earn a little extra make our life more or less frantic? One the one hand, paying school tuition for six kids, three of whom will be in high school next fall, will really stretch our budget.  We'll see. My husband thinks we can make the budget work even if I don't work, but I feel like every month we've had some unexpected bill - vet, car, unplanned travel - that wrenches our carefully mapped financial plan. Can I bring myself to leave the baby with a baby sitter a couple times a month/week and to leave her with a bottle in order to make life a little easier for the other kids? Evidently, according to this study, it won't hurt her academic achievement, but Baby's future success was never why I nursed in the first place.  Does nursing/attachment parenting really foster the development of more well adjusted, loving, compassionate individuals? There really isn't any parenting style that can guarantee or completely undermine the nature of loving, creative, compassionate children.  So do I practice a different style of parenting with this baby so that I can still participate in the life at the school, or do I try to find some kind of job that I can do from home? I am not an entrepreneur or a salesperson.  We may be completely overhauling our lives again in a little over a year to move again anyway.  Do I simply parent this child and the others and keep house? What to do?

So many choices of how to live a life, how to be a mother, a wife.  The rebellious side of me wants to say sorry, Baby, you are not going to get the attention the other kids got.  You are too late to the party.  I have other duties and demands on my time.

But really, what do I do that is more important than loving a baby? Nothing. We spent the weekend getting a little more prepared for this baby's arrival after the scare on Friday.  Clothes washed, bag packed, car seat washed and readjusted, crib partially assembled - my husband has some ideas for reconstructing it to take up less floor space in our room, along with making a storage cubby for baby stuff. We'll see if that gets finished in time.  I'm excited to see this baby's face, to hold her tiny self, to share her with the other kids, who, while relieved that the baby isn't at risk from preterm delivery, are disappointed that they have to wait more days or weeks for her arrival.

All this daydreaming about how to rearrange our lives to accommodate this new person corresponds with another conversation we had while my sister was here - how do we understand what Pope Francis is saying about how to live out our Christian vocation, how to evangelize, how to order our thoughts about life and our choices about our actions and emotions amid the rapidly changing social dynamics in a radically secular world?  In some regards perhaps our life doesn't need to change at all, but in others, I feel like we really must be more radical ourselves, more ascetic, more generous, more humble, more active.  Can you live as a Christian without being a missionary of sorts? Can we give to others when we can't let go of our stuff and activities? How do we love Christ in all these people we disagree with?

I don't want to retreat from the world in order to live my faith without feeling something of an anomaly, although it's tempting to look for that ideal Catholic Commune.  Life might be simpler if we stepped out of the school zone. Paying for Catholic school is stressful, as is balancing the desire to give the kids opportunities for athletic, academic, and artistic enrichment with a need to minimize the amount of schedule-juggling we have to do. I don't like fundraising or asking for a break in tuition when we aren't poor.  But right now I don't want to send the kids to public school, nor do I feel called to home school.  I wish there were some other big families who were taking a break from home schooling because I'm lonely for the bonds that bloom naturally between people who have made similar difficult choices about how to live their lives.  Have I sacrificed the ability to make our lives simpler and more peaceful by being influenced by the world's standards?

I suppose this conversation comes back to the theme of is it possible to be in the world but not of it?  Surely, Pope Francis is telling us yes, it is possible and necessary.  Perhaps by making the home a sanctuary, a place of beauty and refuge from the harshness of the world (another discussion). Perhaps by smiling at those who question our choices. Perhaps by smiling at those whose choices we question.

Lent seems the perfect time to reconsider the "art of living" and, as that article by Peggy Rosenthal at the Image blog highlighted, the "art of accompaniment," which Pope Francis recommends in Evangelii Gaudium:

We “can make present the fragrance of Christ’s closeness and his personal gaze. The Church will have to initiate everyone—priests, religious and laity—into this ‘art of accompaniment’ which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other.”
So this is how, for Francis, we evangelize:
We don’t preach.
We don’t even necessarily do good works.
We practice the art of listening with compassion and openness; we honor the other person as sacred ground; we find forms of beauty that will show Christ’s face to those who have not yet met him.  

Full text of Evangelii Gaudium:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.pdf

Pessimism/Optimism

My husband came home with news the other day that a friend from college was in a rehab center for alcoholism and anorexia.  Wait a minute. I thought I got a happy-looking Christmas card from that family with photos of their four cute kids...

Turns out our friend's husband has been managing for a few weeks with the help of a babysitter and family members to work and run the house.  I don't know how long she'll be in rehab or how long after that her real recovery will take.

And what I really don't know is whether or not I write to her. "Hey I heard this about you. Just wanted to let you know you're in my thoughts and prayers!" Would it be a comfort or proof that the gossip network spreads far and wide?

I can't say I'm surprised that this friend suffers from anorexia.  All of my college friends had weird eating habits. We were high achieving college student-athletes.  The alcoholism part is a bit of a surprise, but I could certainly understand how anyone in a similar situation could drawn into a substance abuse problem. There are a number of our friends/acquaintances who probably also need to cold turkey quit some substance or another. I tend to think most people have secret vices they barely have under control.  So it doesn't surprise me that much to hear about abuse, infidelity, addiction, etc.

My husband and I have an ongoing discussion about whether this makes me a pessimist. I like to think I'm a realist - Sin exists and everyone sins.  War, poverty, disease and criminal behaviors are never going to disappear.  We're at the age when marriages start falling apart.  Not as much fun as the post-college "Everyone's Getting Married" stage, or, a few years later, "Everyone's Having Babies" stage.  Now it's the "Who's Next in the Line for the Counselor" stage.  Unfaithful spouses, substance abuse, children getting into trouble with the law, parents getting sick and dying.  The next decade is when we earn our wrinkles and gray hair. The future sometimes look bleak.

While it doesn't surprise me to hear about people having problems, usually of their own making, I'm not sure this makes me a pessimist. I also have this sort of expectation that people are usually more fascinating - more intelligent, more talented, more together - than they usually are. Easy to assume about people in the internet world: everyone presents their best side to the camera.  But I also assume it about the people we meet. And sometimes it's true - we've met some people with really great stories and experiences.

Nonetheless, usually people are a lot more normal than I anticipate. Their houses aren't always perfectly clean. They forget things, they lose their cool with their kids, they may have had a homebirth but they feed their kids McDonald's. And sometimes they are alcoholics or embezzlers or unfaithful.  No matter how often I witness or experience failure, I still don't think I expect it as a pessimist would. It's not surprising that most of our efforts fall short of our goals or that sometimes we fall into deep pits of despair and disappointment and disillusionment, but rather than throw up our hands and quit trying, we dust ourselves off, try to crawl out of the pit, and try again to live a faithful life. Even better is when we try to help each other up.

Besides, there would be no stories without conflict or suspense or impending disgrace, without a potential redemption in sight.  That is the end of the story, right? That's why it's not pessimistic, but Christian, to expect failure and shortcomings and disappointments, as long as you equally expect people to survive, to endure, to be broken and then healed.  I do believe my friend and her husband will endure this difficult time.  Maybe it will take years. They won't be the same people. Their children will suffer, too, but they will, hopefully, learn about forgiveness and mercy and the need for grace.

The need for grace is why we get married after all - not because we believe in fairy tales of happily ever after, but because we believe life is a struggle and we need a companion who holds our soul's sanctification dear, someone who will be Christ to us, someone who will forgive us over and over and over. I admit, I was perhaps more optimistic about marriage as a newlywed, but I also knew that marriage was not just about the pretty pictures - plenty of people warned us about the "work" of marriage.

Here's Pope Francis from last October's pilgrimage of families:
And that is what marriage is!  Setting out and walking together, hand in hand, putting yourselves in the Lord’s powerful hands.  Hand in hand, always and for the rest of your lives. And do not pay attention to this makeshift culture, which can shatter our lives.

With trust in God’s faithfulness, everything can be faced responsibly and without fear.  Christian spouses are not naïve; they know life’s problems and temptations.  But they are not afraid to be responsible before God and before society.  They do not run away, they do not hide, they do not shirk the mission of forming a family and bringing children into the world.  But today, Father, it is difficult…  Of course it is difficult!  That is why we need the grace, the grace that comes from the sacrament!  The sacraments are not decorations in life – what a beautiful marriage, what a beautiful ceremony, what a beautiful banquet…But that is not the sacrament of marriage. That is a decoration! Grace is not given to decorate life but rather to make us strong in life, giving us courage to go forwards! And without isolating oneself but always staying together. Christians celebrate the sacrament of marriage because they know they need it!  They need it to stay together and to carry out their mission as parents.  “In joy and in sadness, in sickness and in health”.  This is what the spouses say to one another during the celebration of the sacrament and in their marriage they pray with one another and with the community.  Why?  Because it is helpful to do so?  No!  They do so because they need to, for the long journey they are making together: it is a long journey, not for a brief spell but for an entire life! And they need Jesus’ help to walk beside one another in trust, to accept one another each day, and daily to forgive one another.  And this is important!  To know how to forgive one another in families because we all make mistakes, all of us! Sometimes we do things which are not good and which harm others. It is important to have the courage to ask for forgiveness when we are at fault in the family. Some weeks ago, in this very square, I said that in order to have a healthy family, three words need to be used. And I want to repeat these three words: please, thank you, sorry. Three essential words! We say please so as not to be forceful in family life: “May I please do this? Would you be happy if I did this?”.  We do this with a language that seeks agreement. We say thank you, thank you for love! But be honest with me, how many times do you say thank you to your wife, and you to your husband?  How many days go by without uttering this word, thanks! And the last word: sorry. We all make mistakes and on occasion someone gets offended in the marriage, in the family, and sometimes - I say - plates are smashed, harsh words are spoken but please listen to my advice: don’t ever let the sun set without reconciling. Peace is made each day in the family: “Please forgive me”, and then you start over. Please, thank you, sorry!  Shall we say them together? [They reply “yes”] Please, thank you and sorry.  Let us say these words in our families! To forgive one another each day!

Please, thank you, and sorry.  Again and again. To each other and to God.

I also started reading Evangelii Gaudium, finally.  Pope Francis begins by acknowledging the darkness in the world:

 2. The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.

3. I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”.[1] The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!

Without Christ, I would be a pessimist. But although my faith waivers often because I am so frequently caught up with my own "interior life" that crowds others out, including God, I know I have witnessed healing and redemption, and the reality of these "resurrections" confirms my belief in the goodness and grace of God.

I don't know if I'll write to my troubled friend or not. Perhaps I lack courage, though I tell myself I don't want to embarrass her. But I have thought and prayed for her. And I'm optimistic about her recovery.

News from the other side of the world

Woke up to the exciting news about the election of Pope Francis!  Called my mom and dad to share in their excitement.  Spent more time than I care to admit searching the internet and watching tv rebroadcasts all saying the same thing - "We don't know much about this guy."  I'm looking forward to reading more of what Pope Francis has said and written in the past.  After two scholarly popes, I wonder what Pope Francis' gift will be. Can I still get the indulgence from the Papal Blessing if I watched it several hours after it happened? The protodeacon did say it was available to users of new media. . .  I thought the conclave might last a little longer, but a quick election seems to say that this was the obvious choice.

So Viva il Papa!  May he lead the Church well.