Retreat

February is usually a rather quiet month dedicated to settling into new routines and thinking about making good on Lenten promises. But this year Lent is delayed, and we have had a spate of activity. Three weekends in a row I have spent at least two nights away from home. I was anxious about how the five-year-old might cling after all of this separation, but although she seems a bit demanding, she doesn't seem any more or less anxious.  I am thankful for her father, siblings, and grandparents who showered her - and the other kids - with love while I was gone.

The first weekend I left to attend our parish women's retreat. The past couple of years, I had told myself and my friend who always goes that I was going to go next year. This year seemed to present no obstacles when I signed up in October. The weekend fills up quickly. But after the new year, when I was filling out the calendar, I realized that the Seabee Ball was the same weekend. Ugh, guilt. If my husband was not the CO of the biggest Seabee command in San Diego, I wouldn't have felt badly about missing the Ball, but I felt some obligation to be a good example of a supportive Navy spouse. I have only missed one ball, and that was when I was on bed rest for baby seven. But I had made this retreat reservation first, and I really was looking forward to it. When my husband mentioned to the wardroom that I was having a hard time deciding what to do, they all encouraged me to go, so I think that gave him some peace of mind about going to the ball solo, and it was all the "permission" I needed to leave.

This retreat was not a silent affair, nor was it a somber weekend, although it was prayerful. It was very much about fellowship, coupled with thoughtful talks about faith, hope, and love. Although we had little time for silent reflection, we did have opportunities to share and spend time outdoors. The retreat center sits on the edge of the state forest in the hills outside of town, and the weather was ideal for some long walks in the woods, although I happened to take some of us on a detour off the trail for a little bit accidentally. The trail we were following just petered out. Perhaps it had been a deer trail. We maneuvered between chaparral and manzanita until we found our way to the top of the hill and there recovered the main trial. 

The dining hall specialized in vegan meals and a seedy homemade wheat bread that I devoured. In fact, our retreat leader chose this site owned by the Episcopalians over the Catholic retreat center because the food is so much better. Mass was held in their outdoor chapel since the weather was so mild. And the second evening was centered around a quiet and moving time for Eucharistic adoration, followed by evening fellowship - I've never been to a retreat before where everyone brought wine. Heartfelt conversation is certainly a form of prayer, of connecting with Christ in one another. New friendships were made and old ones cemented. And half the fun was the drive up and back. Honestly, a good part of the reason I wanted to go on this retreat was because I have seen these women at Mass and around town, and thought, “I like these people. I wish we could hang out more.” And praying together and sharing requests for prayer connects us in a way coffee and conversation don’t. I came away with a renewed sense of belonging - and of being blessed. So many people have such heavy burdens to bear. I am so grateful that our crosses have been light for the most part. This weekend was a reminder to dwell in that gratitude more fully. 

A perfect climbing tree to Heaven. I can picture John Muir scampering up a tree such as this in his essay "A Windstorm in the Sierras."

Retreat center tree house - i"m sure this is a favorite at youth retreats.

The beautiful image of Christ carved from wood shaped by wildfire.

Evening sky

Part of our homework is to reflect on Psalm 139:  

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

On Lent

A good part of the US may be huddled before fireplaces still, but we are two weeks into Lent, and it looks like spring in California. The orange blossoms smell sweet, and freesia is blooming, and some landscape plant - sweet olive? photinia? - is flowering and perfuming the air with a scent reminiscent of hyacinths.  Only those who suffer winter are able to rejoice in that the beauty of spring. I miss the bulb flowers of spring in the Midwest - daffodils and tulips and especially little grape hyacinths -- and I miss the idea of a mid-winter slog that mirrors the spiritual slog of mid-Lent. Bougainvillea out here is pretty, but I don't notice its part in the landscape any more.

When glutted with good things, it is hard to appreciate them, which is what is so invigorating about Lent.  Stop being a glutton! Get rid of all these comforts!  Detach!  And then appreciate the Alleluia of Easter even more!  I welcome this period of deprivation, even if two weeks into it, I'm already failing.

Maybe I shouldn't be blogging about my plan for Lent in light of the readings for Ash Wednesday, but since I feel my resolve weakening, I'm recording my offerings here as a means of accountability. Not that anyone will know if I check Facebook "just to read a message" or have some semi-sweet chocolate chips during the chocolate hour for a pick me up before dinner because they aren't "dessert." And I've already decided I can have a glass of wine on Saturday night after the vigil Mass, even if I didn't attend that vigil, because it's like Sunday already. But since this is a diary of sorts, writing down these "plans" is kind of an examen, a scrutiny of my own weak will. And even as I write these words, I know I will not eat those chocolate chips, because it would prove to me the puniness of my spiritual muscle.

But I also found support in a recent homily. At daily Mass last week, the priest encouraged everyone to rethink the reading about hiding prayers and good deeds.  When Jesus spoke these words, religion was in the public square.  Everyone wanted to appear holy in public.  Now no one is praying in public. No one wants to appear "holy" because "to be holy" is now conflated with "to be holier than thou" or to be a zealot. If this indicated a resurgence of humility, not the effect of a desire to identify with the secular majority as open-minded, it might be a good thing.  Instead, it is an act of humility to pause for that moment of silent prayer at a restaurant before digging in like everyone else. The priest encouraged the congregation to be sign of faith in a world that increasingly views the faithful as ignorant or intolerant.

So an accounting: For my penances, I am giving up sweets and alcohol - that glass of wine after the kids go to bed has become a crutch.  My husband is giving up meat, so it will be a penance for me to figure out menus for all of us. Last night it was scrambled eggs. We'll probably be eating more tuna, which is good for our brain health anyway. Cooking is a sort of penance for me on the nights when I'd rather be doing something else, so another small penance will be trying to cook and do dishes without inner complaint.

I was going to discipline myself to go to bed by 11, but that hasn't happened. I need God to give me another 24 hours in a day.

For prayer: Reading Pope Francis's Joy of the Gospel finally.  Planning to go to Stations on Friday, but so far every Friday we have had a conflict.  Trying to do a better job at offering up little prayers throughout the day.  In so many ways, I could give God more time and attention, but right now I am just trying not to be gloomy, like Jesus exhorts in the Gospel, by giving the kids more positive attention. (the reason I won't give up coffee...)

Perhaps the homily I heard grew out of the priest's reading of Pope Francis on living the Gospel joyfully and being full of mercy.  Pope Francis points out how the Gospel message is one of hope and joy, and if we are living with it, our joy and mercy will make the gospel attractive to others.  I'm trying to take to heart his message as I read by heeding his encouragement to delight in small gifts so that my gratitude and joy might let God's invitation shine through me.

For almsgiving: Again a plan that hasn't happened is to take the family to do Many Meals again. I like the little project my sister-in-law did - crocheting scarves to give away, which got some attention from the local news, but I don't crochet.

 Instead my goal is to fill a bag a week with stuff to pass on.  I really have a selfish motive - I have to de-clutter before our move.  The linen closet needs to be culled, but some of our linens are too worn to give away except to the animal shelter for rags. Do we keep using them or pass them on and buy new?

As I look at my closet, the garage, the kids' rooms, I see all sorts of things that I am hoarding.  It is surprising how much can fit into 1500 square feet. I think about my reaction when my brother-in-law suggested we buy a house for his parents because of recent crimes in their neighborhood. I immediately cringed and thought of all the things I'd have to give up. My selfishness seems to grow as I get older.  I want to cut that strangling weed of stinginess out.

So one other work I'm offering this Lent is to try to give things easily.  Depriving myself of luxuries, treats, drinks, fancy meals is something I'm not bad at, and I kind of enjoy.  I inherited a frugal gene.  What I did not inherit is a magnanimous gene.  I have a hard time giving until it hurts.

Perhaps I should meditate daily on the quote from St. Basil that was in The Monastery Cookbook, one of the worst presents I ever gave my husband, or so he claims. (Since he plans to give up meat for Lent, he might rethink his valuation of this gift.):

Who is a man of greed? Someone who does not rest content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes away what belongs to others. And are you not a man of greed? are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation? The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.
https://bekkos.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/st-basil-on-stealing-from-the-poo

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.

On Motivation and Prayer

Some time ago I posted about Walking the Literary Labyrinth, a book in which the author talked about “providential books.” The phrase felt familiar at the time, but I couldn’t think of a particular example. But I just finished a book that definitively belongs in that category.  I want to go around proclaiming it as a great book, but I don’t know that it would strike anyone as particularly brilliant. It’s just that I’ve read it at a time I needed to hear what it had to say.

Is it also  providential that my mom sent Thomas Dubay’s Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer to me just when I was ready to put aside the youth fiction and turn back to some spiritual reading? (after being disgusted by Dork Diaries, which my daughter snagged at the library.  I have to admit I found Diary of a Wimpy Kid somewhat amusing, but this knock-off was bad enough that I want to flush pages down the toilet and pay the library fine, so they wouldn’t have it on the shelf.)  I’ve been stuck in a malaise for some time, in need of spiritual renewal, which I suppose my mother intuited, because its message was just what I needed to hear.

With our recent move, I’ve been focused on material things, organizing, furnishings, schedules, etc, to the detriment of my soul, or at least to its neglect. I’ve had this nagging feeling that I need to be doing something, to living my faith more radically in some way – not necessarily selling everything I own and heading out to proclaim the gospel, but something akin to that.  On the other hand, I’ve found it hard to feel rooted in the faith when feeling rootless in the world, although I suppose that is just the time to turn to God as a safe harbor.
   

Now that we finally have found a home and are unpacked, I can read this book and focus on making some of the changes it recommends – which are simple really.  Dubay writes for the person who recognizes his or her life does not live up to Christ’s call to “be converted and accept the gospel” (Mk 1:15), who sees that change is needed but doesn’t have the motivation to enact it.  Dubay quotes St. Bernard’s famous saying that “There are more people converted from mortal sin to grace, than there are religious converted from good to better.” So this book is directed to the person stuck in venial sin who repeatedly gossips, is lazy or wasteful, overeats, is habitually late, or simply puts little energy into the state of his soul. 

Sounds familiar.

Fr. Dubay even accuses that person of confessing these venial sins and then falling right back into them, as if true penitence and the firm resolve to amend their souls was absent at confession.

Uncomfortably familiar.

Like the person who knows all the healthy foods to eat and has access to them, but still binges on junk food, the person who knows what a saintly life looks like but doesn’t change has a greater culpability than the hardened sinner who doesn’t know any way out of the dark depths.  I cringed as I read this.  I’ve read plenty of books about saints and theology and prayer. I shouldn’t be so halfhearted in my attempts to become more loving, more forgiving, more prayerful.

Describing conversion as a change from vice to virtue, Dubay writes, “from the point of view of attention to and intimacy with God, supreme Beauty, supreme Delight, conversion includes a change from little or no prayer to a determined practice of christic meditation leading eventually to contemplative intimacy, “pondering the word day and night, ‘ leading to a sublime “gazing on the beauty of the Lord” with all its varying depths and intensities.” (Ps. 1;1-2, 27:4)

So basically, the real goal is to move from moral mediocrity to moral excellence, which requires developing a deep prayer life and turning away from the little sins that distract us from this goal.  These little sins all signify a deeply rooted selfishness and egotism. In other words, a lack of real, selfless, sacrificial love.

Dubay's prescription is to offer a list of motivations to prayer. When people pray, they learn to love truth and goodness. "When we come to love objective truth and goodness, we have made progress toward conversion from our radical 'I-ism'. This fundamental transformation is completed with the love of beauty, first the beauty of God, and then the beauty of man and the rest of creation Altruism and egocentrism are opposites.  . . . When honest men love objective reality, the way things actually are, and then go on to pursue the goodness of all the virtues and are sensitive to genuine beauty, they are like a starving man sitting before a banquet. He immediately sees the answers to his needs. When people who love truth, goodness and beauty hear the gospel, they spontaneously love it. This means of course that they immediately see its attractiveness and splendor, how it magnificently fulfills their human aspirations and needs." We naturally want to overcome mediocrity, and are drawn to the unity and beauty of  the gospel.

Just a few pages into Dubay’s book, I was convicted with guilt for the selfishness and lukewarmness and laziness that Dubay describes. I also recognize that desire for beauty that Dubay says is the beginning of conversion.  I just struggle with moving out of the inertia of selfishness.

My husband and I were talking about selfishness, and he commented that it’s a part of being human, like having hair. We’re all ego-centric, we all have a deep-ingrained selfishness. The manifestations I see in myself: Ignoring my children’s requests, ignoring my husband in preference for reading or blogging or whatever distraction is at hand, a messy house indicating misplaced priorities, wanting to talk about myself, a fear of getting asked to do stuff,  but also a desire to do stuff just to gain recognition, envy, etc. I won’t list all my confessional items, but you get the picture.

So I know, and have known, I need to break these bad habits, and to silence that voice that says, hey, those aren’t really anything to get worked up about; why bother. It is going to take a sharp tool to uproot that vice.  This is where I wish Dubay’s book were a little more inspiring.

Rightly, Fr. Dubay points out that love is the inspiration for change, and that love for God is nourished with prayer and contemplation.  If my love for God were more intense, I’d have more motivation to shut my mouth or turn off the negative voices in my mind. For example, married couples don’t get married believing that they’ll grow more selfish and demanding. They believe they’ll become more selfless and giving. But so many marriages don’t improve as time goes by because people forget the intoxication of early love that encourages selflessness. Dubay even writes that "real love is uncommon in our world because full conversion is uncommon." I certainly see in myself the tendency to become more protective of my time, more stingy with my affection, more demanding of my own desires, instead of more willing to make sacrifices.  My kids probably will remember me as being a grumpy, nagging mom, not a calm loving mother, unless I can kick myself into gear, beginning with spending more time in contemplation  But what will make me pray?

Dubay's list of reasons that compel a deep conversion includes contemplating the shortness of life and endlessness of eternity, studying the "sheer goodness and beauty of the saints," describing the joy inspired by deep conversion, envisioning the evangelical effect of becoming a person infused with real love, the improvement of human relationships especially within families when spouses are of one mind about the nature of real love.

But we slip so easily back into egocentrism, just like the Hebrews complaining to Moses, and the lukewarm Christians scolded by St. John, so Dubay also exhorts his reader to be specific and persevering.  People spend billions of dollars and hours of time on physical beauty; we need to spend just as much energy on our spiritual beauty.

Actually, that image of what my kids will remember is perhaps one of the biggest motivators for me. I want them to see me as someone who was joyful and generous. I want them to recognize the beauty of creation. I want them to see how acts of service bring joy, to see the face of Christ in the people they serve, to feel the person of Christ acting through them when they serve another. And getting down on my knees more often is probably the only way to move from someone motivated by selfishness to someone motivated by love.


As I'm typing this up, I'm aware of how often I've read the same advice. I've written this advice down to remind myself before. And I've failed to persevere time and again.  But here we are in a new place with a new routine. So here's to a new start.   

Almost Famous

Another anecdote from my parents' visit: One evening we fell to talking about acquaintances from the town where I grew up, a little black dot on the Indiana map where drivers had to decelerate while traveling down a state highway, but never had to pause at irritating stop lights, at least while I was in school there.

One of these acquaintances was the middle school athletic director, who disappeared in anonymity, sometime after I left eighth grade. He is remembered for his strange gait and for claiming to have met Bobby Knight, the infamous IU basketball coach.

He probably also knew the famous Angela Ahrendts, a fellow alumna of my high school in a class a few years ahead of mine.  What, you've never heard of her?  Probably to most people, she isn’t famous. But on Saturday evening, my mom and I were flipping through W, the Wall Street Journal’s monthly magazine, and came across a profile of Angela, who was living large during Fashion Week. Now she is the CEO of Burberry’s, and responsible for pulling it into profitability. She lives with her husband and three kids on an estate outside of London. (Not only did we read, almost lasciviously, the article, but then we googled her to find out more, and to figure out if maybe our paths had crossed at some point.)

So how does it come to pass that a small town girl, from a place about as far from the London fashion scene as you can get, lands this dream job? Providence? (The article mentioned she wore a gold cross and prayed.) Connections? Hard work? Combination of all three, plus good karma?…

It’s hard not to envy such a person. On the other hand, the article offhandedly mentioned that her daughter spent 6 hours a day skyping her cousin, her best friend, back in Indiana. And that her husband, who manages the estate, once told his wife, when she came home barking orders, that he didn’t work for her. So maybe there’s a bit to pity in that life, too.

We all desire a little recognition of our talents. That old athletic director found his claim to fame in the brush with Bobby Knight. Mrs. Ahrendts hobknobs with the rich and beautiful. It’s easy to fall into the trap of why her, and not me? (not that I want to be CEO of a fashion house, but I wouldn’t mind the English estate.) Sometimes it’s hard to satisfied with a small life.

But then I watch a movie with the kids like Driving Miss Daisy. Here are Miss Daisy and Hoke, both living in the confines of their social roles, southern lady and chauffeur. They never go anywhere far; their influence on the lives of others is limited. But they develop a beautiful friendship that transforms their small lives into something extraordinary.

And really, it is the magnum opus of a lifetime to perfect our ability to love others.

Another prayer of Newman’s:


God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in His -- if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness, or perplexity, or my sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about; He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me-still He knows what He is about.

From here.
(When I googled for this prayer, the text I was looking for was the one familiar to me from the Notre Dame campus ministry prayer book. Apparently it is still meaningful to another ND grad, Hannah Storm.)

Day is Done

At 4:59 yesterday afternoon, I was outside hanging up the beach towels over lawn chairs to dry out. The 4 yr old followed me out to make sure I wasn’t doing something fun without her. At 5, Taps began to play. We live close enough to a military base to hear it broadcast over the loud speaker system (called affectionately “Big Mouth”). The 4 yr old put her hand over her heart and called me to attention.

I really didn’t want to stop what I was doing. I wanted to go back inside and make something fast for dinner before I had to take the older boys to sweat off some pounds at football practice. But I paused. And then sang along with the National Anthem when it began right after Taps. Had to set a good example.

If you are on base when Taps begins to play, you are supposed to cease what you are doing. Sometimes in my car the noise is so loud I can’t hear the loud speaker, so I have to rely on visual cues – stopped traffic, pedestrians standing at attention, gate guards pausing in their ID checks. If I happen to be running on base, I sometimes resent the 3 minute break – I only have so many minutes to jam exercise into my day. But the song is to memorialize those who have no minutes left, for whom time has stopped forever. To stand at attention, to stop rushing, to remember respectfully the service members who have sacrificed everything and the country they defended is a small enough ritual to offer up for their souls.

Original Lyrics: 

 Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar drawing nigh,
Falls the night

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the skies
All is well, safely rest;
God is nigh.

Then goodnight, peaceful night;
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright.
God is near, do not fear,
Friend, goodnight.

John Wayne Lyrics:
      Fading light
      Falling night
     Trumpet call, as the sun, sinks in fright
      Sleep in peace, comrades dear,
      God is near. 

At one point in time, church bells rang out a similar call to pause. If we lived close enough to a church maybe we would remember to pray the Angelus more faithfully. When we were homeschooling, we said the Angelus at lunchtime. The boys said it as fast as humanly possible, but at least we stopped what we were doing, ever so briefly, and offered that prayer together before digging into lunch.

Of course, once they started school, we aren’t together at lunchtime to pray. We could say the Angelus at dinner or in the morning or in the car, but I simply haven’t made the commitment to do it. Apathy? Acedia? The same thing with morning prayer. When school is in session I get up early enough to read Magnificat by myself before the rush begins, but during the summer I’m embarrassed to admit that I take a vacation from some of these rituals, to my soul’s detriment, I’m sure, and also to my peace of mind. An early morning usually heralds the start of a good day.

I actually started this post a few days ago and didn’t know where I was going with it, but since my sister tagged me with the devotions meme, providentially, I’m provided with a way to close.

So my favorite devotions are:

1. Bedtime rosary with the kids. They like it as a means of deferring their bedtime.

2. Morning Magnificat readings

3. The Angelus

4. First Friday (I think Mass is supposed to be a given, but the First Friday devotion is a little different. Of course, I have to admit with chagrin that this is another practice from which I’ve taken a summer holiday.)

5. Taps/Star Spangled banner (can that count as prayers for souls?)

Other prayers I actually say sometimes:

• Prayer to St. Anthony. Most recently he came through with a lost hermit crab, but my favorite is when he rolled a missing Lego into the room.

• Guardian Angel Prayer – a favorite to deter nightmares.

• We add in a little prayer for the dead after grace before dinner and a prayer for my friend with cancer through the intercession of John Paul II. 

• We also say a short prayer to the Holy Spirit after the rosary for the graces to love others:

Holy Spirit, enlighten my heart that I may see all there is of God.
Holy Spirit, enlighten my mind that I may know all there is of God.
Holy Spirit, enlighten my soul that I may belong only to God.
Sanctify all I think, say or do that all may be for the glory of God. Amen

So now I’m supposed to tag someone to blog about their favorite prayers. Actually, after a little research, I realize it is supposed to be tag 5 people about their 3 favorite prayers.  But I’m not sure this blog has five readers. So if you happen to see this and if you haven’t already, please write about your favorite prayers. I’ll come and read about them.

Parenting with prayer

Mass was packed on Mother’s Day with adult children accompanying their mothers to church to make them happy. We got hemmed in the middle of a pew, with very little wiggle room left. The toddler was relegated to my lap. A mistake: She is getting too big to sit on my lap. And lack of room does not stop my kindergartener from wiggling. His wiggles only encouraged my daughter, who had been at a sleepover the night before, to exhibit her grumpiness.

I was not a picture of motherly love by the end of Mass, and only because of supernatural graces was I able to fend off the desire to shake and pinch these youngers. And although I really did make a heartfelt apology to the lady next to me in the open toed shoes, whose exposed toes were crunched multiple times, I had to fight the urge to say, "Sorry, but you should've found another place to sit, Lady."

I’m used to being told by older ladies behind me “I’m praying for you,” but the worst was that my big-enough-to-behave daughter wasn’t even trying to get along. Normally, she follows along in the missalette, sings the songs and is mostly well mannered. Her lack of sleep the night before must have really thrown her off because she was very contrary.

So I got caught up in wondering whether I should let her go to her third communion or not. At one point I tried to send her out to wipe off the tears from her face, but she refused to leave. Then I told her she needed to say an act of contrition before going to Communion. But I didn’t outright tell her NOT to go to communion.

This is where scrupulosity kicks in. She was not in the proper frame of mind, but she also was under the influence of sleeplessness, so some of her culpability was removed. But she knew she was being naughty because she said herself she probably shouldn’t go to Communion. I decided to assume that she said her act of contrition when she stood up to go to receive the Eucharist.


Her first communion was the weekend previous to this past one. She was so nervous the night before that she woke up three times. Fortunately, the kids had to be at church at nine, so she didn’t have too long to wait in the morning because she couldn’t sit still.

She wanted her dress on at 7 – not that she was so tickled about the dress. I sweated more about it than her. Disappointed by the choices in my price range, I decided to make a dress – not bright considering I haven’t made anything to wear except costumes, which don’t have to fit right. Then the pattern I had didn’t have her size, so I thought I’d estimate… needless to say, the dress looked very homemade. She was willing to wear it because she loved the shoes I had found to go with it – little ballet flats with a pointelle effect. But I was too self-conscious, and had her wear a dress I found on sale.

When we got to church, she blended right in, but there were a couple of girls in sentimental dresses that had been their mother’s – or in one case, her grandmother’s. I was a little sorry I didn’t have her wear the dress I made just for the memory (she did wear it for her second Communion). She also wore my wedding veil and the little gold cross I received for my First Communion – which was then lost. And found: St. Anthony came through for us, happily – the cross showed up the next day in the hallway where we all had walked 100 times the day before.


I’ve been concerned all along that I wasn’t doing enough to catechize her before her sacraments, but every time I’ve informally questioned her, she’s made the right responses, so I think her teacher has done a good job. But after this weekend’s display, I realized I need to communicate more. I need to do a better job of talking about faith and its practice as a part of our everyday conversation.


I received my own First Communion shortly after being baptized at age seven. My siblings and I were baptized shortly after my parents were received into the Catholic church, so they had had their First Communions just a few months before mine. Only my youngest brother happened to be baptized as a baby. So my parents were still learning about the culture of Catholicism as we were growing up. We didn’t celebrate saints’ days, pray the rosary, or go to adoration. On the weekends my mother worked as a nurse, sometimes we would just play Mass at home with my dad, instead of going to the real thing.


But even so, having converts for parents helped encourage my own faith development, not because they went around evangelizing when I was growing up – they do that more now – but because as a teenager I thought to ask why they chose one church over another. I had a friend who went to a fundamentalist church, and she was concerned that I wasn’t truly baptized since I wasn’t immersed in water. So I began to do a little research to answer her challenges.


After I checked books out from the library on comparative religion, read some of the Catholic books and magazines my parents had around, and started to go to Mass an extra day a week one year during Lent with my dad, I decided they had made a good choice. I didn’t change my friend’s mind about the status of my soul, but I began to take responsibility for my faith life.


For a number of years, I felt I had to catch up on learning about my faith. I read and read, went to Mass more, learned to pray the rosary. In a way, my college years were my convert years: I experienced that thrill of discovery and a resulting burst of zeal as I began to read Church documents and Catholic authors. My affection for my future husband was confirmed when I found out he went to daily Mass. And we started our marriage committed to the ideals of Church teaching on the matrimonial sacrament.

That commitment hasn’t faded, but the zeal has. Years of interrupted sleep tend to dampen fires. And so I feel a little disappointed in myself for not being more involved in my daughter’s First Communion preparation. With the three older boys, I was more engaged; as their primary teacher, I made notebooks with them, read more scripture and saints’ stories, spent more time participating in the life of the church, doing things like Armata Bianca and delivering Meals on Wheels. I miss being as involved as I was when we were home schooling, but with home work every night and sports, straight up catechesis doesn’t happen often …


I could make more excuses, but frankly, the problem is me. I haven’t made my beliefs as much a part of my everyday vocabulary as I could have. I’m not naturally talkative about my faith.

But you’d think with my children I could be. I think I sort of sat back a little, feeling proud of myself for doing so much for the older boys, but my daughter was a baby when we were reading lots of Bible stories aloud.

I was encouraged to see the post on Like Mother, Like Daughter about making the practice of faith at home an easy thing – not a production or a lecture. I could beat myself up for not making a scrapbook, or I could continue on with what we’re doing, as minimal as it may be at this point: grace at meals, religious pictures and crosses hanging around the house, nightly prayers.

And I can hope that these little things add up to an experience of a lived faith that the kids will carry with them and eventually adopt as their own. A devout friend who had led a wild adolescence once said that his parents couldn’t control him and his brothers, but they continued to pray for them, outloud, and this is what led all the boys back to the faith in their adulthood, confirming the experience of St. Monica: even when you are tempted to despair about the vices of your children, hold on tight to the hope that your prayers for their souls will be heard.

First Communion                      and               Second Communion

Life of the party

My daughter’s First Communion is quickly approaching – it’s this Saturday, and it looks like a party is not happening. The Church has a nice reception after the Mass, but the three other families I invited over for lunch are unavailable. Most of my girl’s classmates have family of their own in town – and it’s hard to invite one or two and not all.




So it may be just us going out to a special lunch.



On the one hand I’m relieved not to have to prepare lunch for 30. But on the other hand, the celebration deserves the glory of a spread of foodstuffs and pretty napkins and a bouquet for the table. But even a bouquet feels out of reach since we have no blooming flowers in the yard (except a couple pincushion scabiosa), unless it’s a purchased one, which doesn’t feel as fret with love.



Once I read an article (Where? by whom? in one of the politico-religious magazines like Crisis or First Things, but I can’t remember exactly who or where – for some reason I think it was Rachel Teti. In our old house I know it was a in a stack under my bedside table, but after we moved, things like that are still missing.) about preparing for celebrations. It was published probably around Christmastime or maybe Easter, when everyone is rushing about trying to get ready for an Event. And the column was responding to the criticism of this behavior, by saying that a little bit of work, a little sacrifice, a little fasting, is necessary for a celebration.


Sometimes it seems like people don’t want to have parties anymore because it is too hard to prepare them. Or they have big elaborate parties, like a wedding, and don’t enjoy them. The challenge is letting go of the planning when the celebration is taking place. (By the way, I did enjoy my wedding – my grandfather said it looked like I had more fun than anyone else there. The groom had a good time, too, I think. An advantage to marrying young: no pressure for a fancy wedding.)


There was a paragraph in my Bible study book by Priscilla Shirer that reflected on how we often pray to ask God what we should DO, or we fret about how we should discern and live out our calling. But sometimes we need to respond to our calling as an invitation.  We don't need to take over the planning and preparation; we just need to show up to the celebration and participate. Be happy that we’re here. Trust that God has a vision for it all.
That struck a chord.


So I’m going to show up to the First Communion celebration and enjoy it and not worry about popping a ham or a casserole into the oven before we scoot out the door. Will try not to take too many photos, but instead stay recollected on the unfolding of the Mass. Of course, I’m probably now putting the emotional energy I might have spent on a party into deciding on a dress – one I made, with bunchy shoulders and bad buttonholes, one she wore in a wedding that’s ivory, or one off the sale rack at TJ Maxx that’s glittery. My daughter changes her mind daily and so do I. Ah decisions… easier for boys.

A break

A blessed Holy Week to everyone. We are off to Texas to see family for the week, since the kids are on spring break. The car is mostly packed, the laundry is mostly done, directions printed out, kids excited to see their cousins. ..

I’m reposting this prayer for my friend, a mother of five young kids, who has terminal kidney cancer. The fifth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death is Good Friday, so she and family and friends are increasing their prayers and offerings that day. If anyone wants to add a prayer for her and her family, here is the prayer they are using:




O Holy Trinity,

We thank you for having given to the Church Pope John Paul II,

and for having made him shine with your Fatherly tenderness,

the glory of the Cross of Christ and the splendor of the Spirit of love



He, trusting completely in your infinite mercy

and in the maternal intercession of Mary, has shown himself

in the likeness of Jesus the Good Shepherd

and has pointed out to us holiness

as the path to reach eternal communion with You.



Grant us, through his intercession,

according to Your will, the grace that we implore,

in the hope that he will soon be numbered among your saints.

That he may seek a miracle healing for K. H. - mind, body and spirit.

Amen

Conversations with others and self

My oldest asked today about what is a classic when I told him he “owed” me a book of my choice after reading a bunch of fun books. I could think of the Mark Twain quote about a classic being a book everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read, or a classic being a book you’ll read again (a quote from?). A classic has noble and eternal truths, added Dan. A classic has beautiful, or at least original diction, I threw in. A classic is a book that stands the test of time. Not statements that make you want to run out and read classics. I thought I’d be more eloquent about this topic after my expensive education, but I didn’t have any great one liners to offer.

J complained that classics don’t have enough action, but what he really meant to complain about (after we gave the examples of Romeo and Juliet, Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson) is the difficulty of the language. So perhaps it is the words that make a classic, more than anything else: good plot and meaning and character development can be found in books that won’t be read again, but if they don’t have any lines that stick with you, you’ll forget them. So a classic has great one liners.


Then he asked if he could sit down and write a classic, apparently because Irene Hunt, whom he’s reading in English, said “There aren’t enough classics” and sat down and wrote Across Five Aprils.


Well, if you have a gift, you could. But you wouldn’t know it for years, we decided, and probably not until you’re dead. That led to the naming of some living classics: Eric Carle. Jan Brett’s version of The Mitten (not all of her books). Strega Nona. Wendell Berry’s essays. Beloved. Others?
**So to add to my love list: these spontaneous conversations between parent and child that hit big topics.

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Also on my love list: this prayer we say at bedtime:

         “Come Holy Spirit, enlighten my heart,

                 That I may see all there is of God.

          Come, Holy Spirit, into my mind,

                  That I may know all there is of God.

          Come, Holy Spirit, into my soul,

                  That I may belong only to God.

           Sanctify all that I think, say and do,

                    That all may be for the glory of God. Amen.”


Dan learned this prayer at Notre Dame. I don’t know the source, but we have prayed it as a part of our nightly family rosary since we started doing one when the oldest boys were little (after we realized we couldn’t stay awake to say prayers together as a couple after we put them to bed.) I love this little prayer; it encompasses a lot in a few simple phrases.

But I realized tonight that I really need to work on that third petition. I’ve spent time admiring God in Creation and in His Creatures and looking for evidence of God's hand in the events of our lives. I’ve spent perhaps more time in study, trying to get to know God through the wisdom of the Gospels, the Church Fathers, the medieval enchiridions, the Scholastics, the mystics, the Popes and theologians. But although I’ve done a fair share of spiritual reading, it’s not prayer, and it’s not opening my soul to the Holy Spirit. I haven’t given up my will or my desires. (Perhaps making a life list is a reflection of valuing my will more than God’s?) Nor have I really bent my heart to the love of serving others. And this I’m sure is a source of my dissatisfaction with the way things are, because there are always more desires and needs after some are fulfilled. I haven’t learned to offer all I do to God’s glory. I haven’t learned to just be.

Perhaps this is why the last several years have been a blur. They have lacked intentionality in my actions, but also in my meditations.  After saying the words of that third petition all these years, I need to remember to surrender to it every now and then.