Fleshing out the teachings of the Catholic Church is like turning around an aircraft carrier: it’s done slowly and methodically, taking considerable time and care. And she typically only takes on that task when her teachings are under attack. Take contraception, for example…for nearly 2,000 years, “Contraception is immoral” was sufficient for most Catholics to eschew it.

Then the Pill offered couples easy, reliable family planning and suddenly, the Church’s teaching seemed inadequate. Especially when compared to secular feminism and humanism, which touted contraception as the enlightened path to equality for women, more satisfying marriages, and stronger families.

The Church caught up–eventually–with God giving us the profoundly beautiful teachings about conjugal love through John Paul II’s “theology of the body,” as well as modern natural family planning methods that are scientifically proven to be as effective as the best hormonal contraception. Catholic couples today are blessed that they have not only the means to be faithful to Christ, but plenty of compelling reasons to be, too.

We see the same thing happening today with same-sex attraction (SSA). Until now, the Church’s concise teaching was enough: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” (CCC 2357).

The Church also says that “This inclination…constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” But for many people, the call to compassion is hollow. Why? Because this is what they really hear the Church saying:  

We’re sorry you aren’t attracted to the opposite sex. We’ll pray for you to conquer these filthy desires. Sure, you’ll be lonely and miserable for the rest of your life if you’re celibate, but what’s a little suffering to gain heaven in the end?

Then there’s the secular world, which for the most part accepts and even celebrates SSA, claiming the orientation is so innate that it’s analogous to skin color. (And what kind of unenlightened bigot could fault a person for simply being who they are?) The world says homosexual acts are just another normal expression of human sexuality. These messages are more palatable to folks, especially to those who actually struggle with SSA and its stigma. The secular world seems so much more, well, loving and compassionate than the Church does on this issue…so much more enlightened. It’s not, but it’s the perception that’s killing us.

I understand this better than most because I’m a practicing Catholic and I live with same-sex attraction. I’ve known and loved many souls who struggle with it, too. Some of whom are trying to live as faithful Christians and others who live an openly and unapologetically gay life. If what the world says is true, then it’s easy to understand why so many with SSA reject the Church’s teachings. Who wants to be celibate–and thus, alone and miserable–for the rest of their life? 

If living a lonely and miserable life was the only way a person with SSA could be a faithful Catholic, I’d probably have jumped ship long ago. But that’s not God’s plan for us. Instead, God’s plan is so simple, so elegant, that it escapes the notice of even most Christians:

Intimacy.

God wants nothing less than the deepest, most profound communion with his creatures. But for a culture that thinks almost exclusively in physical terms, the only relationship worth seeking is the one that ends in sexual union.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, though. We seek the physical union because we hope it’s the means by which we’ll achieve the spiritual union. We intuitively know that the most sublime joy we can experience is spiritual, not physical. Would any of us suggest that a mother’s overwhelming joy at seeing her new baby for the first time is on par with savoring a good steak dinner? Or imagine that any sensory pleasure could compare to a father’s happiness at seeing the son again that he thought had died in the war, alive and well before him instead? The same is true of marriage. We don’t marry because we want a sex partner at the ready for the rest of our days; we marry because we want to share our soul with another soul. The physical part of the relationship–in healthy marriages, anyway–is simply the most intimate way we express that spiritual connection.

What every human person seeks–regardless of sexual orientation–is spiritual intimacy. We want to love and be loved by the other unconditionally, with such intensity that it scorches the soul. We want this: 

Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! You were within me, and I was outside; and I sought you outside and in my loneliness fell upon those lovely things that you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you…. You called me and cried to me and broke open my deafness; you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness; you breathed your fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for you; you touched me, and I burn for your peace.

Would you be surprised to know that St. Augustine wrote this about God more than 1500 years ago? Most people are. God, of course, desires this intimacy even more than we do, which is why he pursues us so relentlessly, no matter how many times we reject him. Even those of us who love God and are engaged in vibrant friendships with him can only dimly comprehend the depths of his love for us:

Is it a small thing in your eyes to be loved by God…to be the son, the spouse, the love, the delight of the King of glory? Christian, believe this, and think about it: you will be eternally embraced in the arms of the love which was from everlasting, and will extend to everlasting, of the love which brought the Son of God’s love from heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to glory, that love which was weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, crucified, pierced…which fasted, prayed, taught, healed, wept, sweated, bled, died. That love will eternally embrace you. (English poet Richard Baxter)

The person with SSA yearns for love because he is made for love; we all are. But the love God plans for those of us who suffer SSA looks nothing like the world imagines it to be.

Please join us next Thursday for Part 2, in which I explain why same-sex attraction is a sign of God’s special favor.  

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Another project I felt called to start is knitting a baby blanket for our new little boy.  I had tried to start knitting a couple summers ago, buying yarn and needles.  This past Christmas, my sisters and I went shopping and got specific in buying supplies for a baby blanket.  I even bought a book on learning to knit that my sister recommended.  Yet, there it all set, taunting me.  “Look, I’m just another project you had the good intentions of doing.”  My grandma had a saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  She believed in DOING not talking about it.  Well, I had moved too far into the talking about it realm.  God was calling me to DO something about at least one of these projects.  I decided I would start by knitting the blanket.  My youngest sister bought me a magnet to “inspire” me.  It has a picture of a worm reading a book titled, “Anyone Can Knit.”  The caption reads, “Leonard was hopeful.”  This was me.  You see, I am not a crafty person by nature.  (See above, I tend to DO, which for me translates into, “I don’t have patience for perfection when it comes to crafts.”)

So, swallowing my impatience to be moving and letting myself make a few mistakes as I go, I am slowly knitting a blanket.  As I knit, I listen – I listen to Bryan tell me about his day or other things on his mind; I listen to the kids tell me about their day or listen to them playing with each other.  Not that I didn’t do these things before Lent, but I would usually be making dinner or paying bills or cleaning while they talked.  Without the other distractions, I hear more of the nuances of how they are feeling.  Of course, the other activities need to be done, but it is amazing how giving time to God actually seems to create more time in the day.  Before Lent, I would have the intention of just sitting and reading – once I finished this, that or the other.  Because of Lent, I forced myself to sit with the Lord first most days.  On those days, I felt freer and more relaxed and accomplished MORE than on the days I rushed headstrong into MY plan for the day.  Of course, I slipped up, I’m human, and I could tell as the day went on that something (Someone) was missing.  Turning back to the Lord, giving my day over to Him, made all the difference.  Not that stress disappeared or problems just magically solved themselves, but as the bible tells us, “For in Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28).  Without Him we flounder about, trying to find our way blindly.  He is always right by us, though, waiting for us to turn to Him.

So as Lent ended and the Easter season began, did I rush back to the way things were?  I won’t lie – I do find myself rushing around a little more, but I think I have learned a little better how incredibly important it is to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31).  I am trying to make it a point to spend time with the Lord before I start my day.  As for my baby blanket?  I am really enjoying learning how to knit.  For an expert, this blanket will be no masterpiece, but it is being done with love, and I *am* working on it a little every day.  Hopefully, it will be done before our little boy has his own little boy!  As the spring blooms and the weather warms, I will be trying to take the time to listen and really hear all that God wants me to hear – both from Him, my family, and those around me.

Dear Lord,

In the craziness of life, it is easy to let myself get caught in the whirlwind of my own plans instead of turning to You.  I turn to You today.  I give You this day.  Please show me what You would have me do today.

I ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

About Amy M.

Amy is a “cradle” Catholic who is trying to learn more about God and her faith every day. She is a wife and mom, trying to raise her children to know God. She works part-time as a pharmacist and leads a moms’ group and bible study at her church.

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We have heard time and time again that forgiveness is not about the offender, but about the victim, and the offender need not be contrite for us to forgive him or her.  These two factors in forgiveness pose many problems for me.  Why should I forgive someone who has hurt me so deeply and let him off the hook?  That is not justice.  If I don’t forgive her, maybe she will hurt just as much as I do—especially if she is not even sorry.  That is justice.  I realize the biggest flaw in my mentality here is that, when I think of Christ hanging on that cross and His words, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do,” I understand just how much I need to forgive.  Jesus’ murderers weren’t sorry—at the time; Jesus certainly did not need them to be, nor did he need the peace, because He is Peace itself.  This is the divinity of forgiveness.  I need to forgive, because I need forgiveness myself.  When my daughter was a toddler, she looked up at the crucifix and said, “Jejus has owies.  MWAH!  All better, Jejus?”  How do we kiss His “owies” and make them “all better”?  The only way is to forgive those who hurt us.

Since I myself am weak, I must accept others’ weaknesses.  A friend recently (and wisely) reminded me that “When we are weak, He is strong.”  I depend on this, just as I depend on God’s forgiveness.  I recently experienced offense due to my own and others’ weaknesses.  I find it almost impossible to forgive.  I find myself rationalizing to justify my anger, hurt, and sense of righteousness.  Can I forgive without allowing people who are destructive to me win?  But, as Kurt Vonnegut said, I can’t allow “bitterness to take away my sweetness.”

I finally realized that I need to think of who my real enemy is.  It is not the person who was disloyal; it is not the person who disagrees with me or criticizes me, but it is sin itself.  I cannot risk becoming any less than what God has made me to be.  I do not want to face God with grudges or anger in my heart; my salvation depends on my being forgiving.  I do not have time to waste either.  None of us knows when our time has come.  Do I want to have to explain why I kept so much anger inside of me, not justified anger, but the kind of anger that made me wish ill towards others?  My wounded pride is what causes me to hold on to the grudge; pride is usually the issue with most people– concerning myself too much with what others’ opinions of me are.  It is only in putting aside my relationship with others and in putting aside my caring what others think about me that I can focus on my relationship with God and on what HE thinks about me.  It is not about THEM and ME; it is about ME and HIM.

When Pope John Paul II forgave the man who almost killed him, we all lauded him and praised what all considered a difficult task.  He did not do it for appearances, nor did he do it because he was divine; he did it because that is what God asked him to do, in order to achieve peace and in order to achieve salvation.  As Catholics, we are so blessed with a means of ensuring God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We admit out loud what we have done; we express our contrition out loud, and we are absolved out loud.  Our wrongdoings are real, but so is God’s forgiveness.  God gives us all this; the least we can do is forgive each other, because in the end, it is not about you and them; it is about YOU and HIM.  Forgiving in our hearts is what we desire, but when we can forgive out loud, it brings us a peace unlike any other, just like Reconciliation does.

“May we never risk the life of our souls by being resentful or by bearing grudges.”  St. Gregory of Nyssa’s words resonate with me in my need to forgive. Let us all take an inventory of our grudge holding and decide to let it go during this most Holy of Weeks.  God asks this of us and he gives it in return. 

About Charla

Charla is a life-long Catholic, married since 1995. She has three children, all who attend Catholic schools. for over a decade, Charla has been teaching high school English at the same Catholic high school she attended. She has been a stay at home mom and is a graduate student studying Gifted and Talented Education. Charla has served as a lector and Eucharistic minister at her parish. She enjoys reading and all activities involving her children. Her special devotions are to the Blessed Mother, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Padre Pio and the Holy Rosary.

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Pilate again addresses us and tells us he can find no fault in this man Jesus.  Again he asks what we want done with Him… “Crucify him! Crucify him!”  Everyone around me shouted but the words caught in my throat.  I couldn’t utter them at all.  I felt tears welling up in my eyes.  They threatened to spill over and I fought to keep them from doing so.  My mind raced and I suddenly had a vision.  I was up front, standing next to Jesus, facing the crowd.  I wasn’t just a person in the crowd wanting to have Barabbas released and Jesus crucified, it was so much more than that.  What I had come to understand in that split second was that I was Barabbas and that the crowd was shouting for Christ to be crucified in my place.  I knew that while I deserved to be crucified, Jesus did not.  I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.  They quietly slipped down my cheeks and dropped to the ground.  It was because of my sins that someone so perfect, so loving, so kind would be tortured and killed.  I hung my head in shame.   I don’t think I heard another word of the Gospel that morning.  I prayed instead that God would forgive me of all my sins that insured His son’s place on the cross.  I prayed in thanksgiving that Christ loved me so much that He would take my place.  I prayed that God would help me deserve this second chance.

We hear all the time that Christ died for our sins but how often do we truly contemplate what this really means?  When we read through the Gospel this coming Sunday I challenge you to put yourself not just in the crowd but up in front of the crowd.  Become Barabbas.  Stand next to Christ as a liar, a cheat, a thief, a murderer, and let the crowd choose you over someone who has no sin.  When you do this Christ’s offering becomes something so much more.  It becomes real.  Christ chose to stand in our place.  He suffered tremendously for us.  He died for us.  He knew our sins, our shortcomings, and our failures and yet He still stood before the crowd and let them choose to release us instead of Him.

Our lives were changed in a way we could never understand on that fateful day.  We were given a second chance at life… a chance to live our lives in a way that personifies Christ’s life and teachings.  We are called to a holiness that encompasses all that we say and do.  With this second chance we are asked to lay down our life of sin and pick up our cross as Jesus did.  We will suffer and we will die but we will be forever changed and will rise with Christ as He did that glorious Easter Sunday.

The question remains- will you stand as Barabbas, sinful and proud or will you take your place beside Christ on the cross, acknowledging your sinfulness and begging as the criminal did “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”?

About Michelle

Michelle is a daughter of God, a cradle Catholic, a devoted wife of 20+ years to amazing husband Mike, eclectic homeschooling mother to ten wonderful children. She has experienced the loss of 12 babies in her call to be open to life, but knows that God is always loving and always gracious. She and her husband know that they have an army of Saints already in heaven! They try to show their faith in everything they do and hope that all who come to know their family, also come to know the Lord.

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• Why are you homeschooling? (tip: do not stick to only the negative reasons)
• What is it that you would like to accomplish with your children? (hint: think in general terms mostly)
• What are your children’s gifts and/or impediments?

Now grab this list and create a one to two paragraph Mission Statement. This will also come in handy to re-read on those more challenging days. Now that you have an Philosophy Statement written, you are now ready to start setting goals. This is long term goal setting. Now think of the specifics of how you will accomplish your statement. Make five lists under these categories:

1. religious goals – obviously, have to do with matters of Faith and the Church
2. increase in virtue goals – have to do with those things that teach manners and build character
3. academic goals – depends on what each child’s abilities are
4. extracurricular goals – join teams, choir, co-ops
5. social goals – sometimes covered in other areas but still important to incorporate

Since some states require you to submit your goals when you begin homeschooling, this list will come in handy. Make sure your goals are realistic, you don’t want to set yourself up for failure from the start. Here are some examples of each goal by category:

1. Religious Goals:

• go to daily Mass
• go to monthly Confession
• get son involved in altar serving
• get children to join the Church choir or schola
• follow the liturgical calendar; follow it more closely

2. Increase in Virtues Goals:

• children to be polite and use appropriate responses in conversations
• sit correctly at the table and learn appropriate table manners
• learn to be helpful around the house with chores
• to be charitable with others specially parents and siblings
• to learn to be appreciative of what God has provided us

3. Academic Goals:

• have child needing testing for learning issues or possible high IQ
• complete a grade level within the required time frame such as 180 days or 9 months
• advance student in area(s) they are gifted in
• support student in areas where there are gaps or having difficulty with
• attend therapies for those students needing it such as occupational therapy, speech, and reading remeditation

(You can also look up any of the Scope and Sequence of any of the Catholic Curriculum providers for ideas in this goal and then tweak it for your family.)

4. Extracurricular Goals:

• look into getting involved in a co-op in your area so that students can participate in group activities
• find out about clubs like Blue Knights or Little Flowers
• join a sports team or individual sports like tennis or swimming (some offer programs during the day for homeschoolers)
• take music lessons individually or as a group
• participate in a homeschool band

5. Social Goals:

• join a manners class or class like the Junior Cotillion League
• join a youth group, if of age or participate at your parish’s events for kids
• attend events at your parish for families
• go to the park, you’ll be amazed how many other homeschooled families you will meet there
• join a play date group

In conclusion, setting goals will help create a vision for what you and your spouse would like for your homeschool to be like and also it will give you a list of well thought out reasons in case anyone questions you. It will help you feel more confident about your decision to Catholic Homeschool. This list is also a great thing to have around and revisit, and possibly tweak, each school year. Having goals written will help you and your children stay focused, motivated, and on task. Describe four enabling goals needed to achieve the long-term goal. Keep it to four or five minimum as each year you will set more age/grade specific ones. Each year you should use these goals as the foundation for whatever curriculum or yearly goals you set for your children.

What’s Next in the Catholic Homeschooling 101 Series? Next week we are going to discuss homeschooling methods. I really like the way that Catie over at Our Catholic Homeschool has set her’s up by style and then the pros and cons. I suggest you visit her blog and see what she did to get an idea.

Did you miss our past posts?

10 Steps to Start {Catholic} Homeschooling

About RaisingSaints

RaisingSaints is a group of Catholic Mothers throughout the United States that chose to bring their children home to educate them. "Catholic homeschooling is the planned and organized teaching and training of children at home, for their peaceful and effective life in this world, and for their eternal salvation in the world to come." ~Father John Hardon

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Now is the time. Well, that’s kind of vague. Now is the time for what, exactly? I’m one of the world’s greatest procrastinators, so in my mind, now is usually NOT the time. Later is the time. Always later. Ironically, even this post is being written at nearly the last minute before it’s supposed to go live. But I know this is a flaw of mine. I know deep down that later is not really the time, because we might never see later. And that is what God was communicating to me. Life is precious, and short. And unpredictable. We may be problem-free and merry in the morning, and facing our own deaths by nightfall. For some things that we might be putting off, it’s okay if later never comes. But for the important things, we can’t bet on later. Now is the time. 

Now is the time to make amends. God is calling us to reconcile with Him. If there are major sins we have committed that we are holding onto—whatever they may be—now is the time to let go of them and seek forgiveness. There is no unforgivable sin and there is no confession that will shock a priest these days. Go to the confessional and be set free. And then forgive yourself.  In light of the recent 40^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this message is especially for those people who have been involved with abortion, whether by seeking one themselves, helping another person to obtain one, or being a proponent of ‘choice.’ We Catholics abhor the act of abortion, but still love those who have lost their way. I want you to know that God wants to forgive those who are regretful, and is waiting for you with open arms. Go to Him before it is too late.

For those of us who struggle with “minor” sins, now is the time for us to change, as well. Now is the time to commit to speaking more gently to our children and spouses; to being more patient; to gossiping less; to wasting less time on Facebook; to being less selfish and more giving; to being better stewards of our bodies, our houses, and our finances; to loving each other. “Lesser” sins are still destructive to our souls. They put distance between us and God. They weaken our wills and distort our moral compasses. Now is the time to turn away from them, before our consciences become so dull that we turn away from God completely. Lent is beginning soon and this is a perfect opportunity to seek the mercy of God, as we prepare to commemorate the greatest act of Love and Mercy ever carried out – the self-sacrifice of our Lord on the cross.

Now is the time to reconcile with others, as well. We must say we are sorry to those to whom we’ve been unjust or unloving. We must offer forgiveness to those who have been unjust or unloving toward us. The sibling, or in-law, or former best friend about whom we’ve been harboring negative feelings could be gone in the blink of an eye. We must not wait to set things right.

Now is the time for us to develop a healthier spiritual life overall. Pick up the rosary and the Bible. Try to make it to a weekday Mass. Pay more attention during Sunday Mass. Go to confession more regularly. Read more Catholic spiritual works. Study the lives of the saints so as to learn to be more like them. Start today. We will not “earn” our salvation by doing these things–as salvation cannot be earned–but we will grow closer to God and we will grow in grace and holiness, thus making ourselves more ready to meet Him when He comes for us.

Now is the time to stand up for what is right. In the USA we are facing an attack on our values, and our religious freedom. We don’t have the luxury of sitting back and remaining comfortable anymore. We have no choice but to speak out now, or watch our society be overtaken by radical secularism, perhaps even to the point that authentic Catholicism is no longer allowed.

We need to get off the fence and take a side when it comes to important issues like abortion, marriage, and mandated violations of our consciences. And we need to be unafraid to act on our convictions. We must share the Good News of our faith with those around us. We must write to our local/state/federal representatives about unjust and immoral laws. We must stop hiding behind the excuse that “we don’t judge.” Now is the time to judge! Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean that we should usurp God’s role in judging individual souls. But we most certainly should be judging actions. That is a critical distinction. Judging actions simply means recognizing the difference between right and wrong – seeing some things in black and white instead of seeing the entire world in shades of gray. It means acknowledging that everyone’s actions in this life have eternal consequences. It is a spiritual work of mercy, an act of love–not a “judgment” in the sinful sense–when we kindly instruct the ignorant and admonish the sinner.

In the last 40 years, 55 million unborn human beings have lost their lives to abortion (and untold numbers of women and men have lost their souls to the same), just in the USA, in part because people are unwilling to “judge.” What would happen if, instead of refusing to get involved (and claiming the moral high ground in doing so), we reached out to women and men considering abortion and told them that there is a better way? What would happen if we said to our friends and sisters and brothers and spouses that a child should not have to die so that they may live as they wish? What would happen if we told our post-abortive neighbors that God is waiting to shower them with mercy if they will acknowledge the injustice of what they have done? How many lives would be saved? How many souls, perhaps including our own?

What if the abolitionists who helped put an end to slavery had refused to judge? What if the civil rights activists who helped to end segregation and institutional discrimination had refused to judge? What if those who liberated the Nazi concentration camps had refused to judge? The world certainly would be a different place. As it turns out, the people who did refuse to judge were on the wrong side of history then, just as they are now when it comes to abortion and other injustices in our society. Refusing to judge actions does not help anyone else, and it does not make us better people. In fact, it harms our souls. When we are silent in the face of injustice, we become guilty as well.

Now is the time to be thankful – for all the blessings we have been given, and even for the crosses that were sent to sanctify us.  It’s time to tell the important people in our life how thankful we are for them, rather than taking it for granted that they already know.

To sum it all up, now is the time to strive to be who God has created us to be. According to St. Catherine of Siena, if we are successful at that, we will set the world on fire.  

About Mary

Mary is a 20-something wife and mother of two beautiful girls and one baby boy. She has been a Catholic since her baptism as a baby, married for six years, and a mom for five years. She loves studying theology and apologetics and is very passionate about our beautiful Faith.

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As I read, I picture myself clinging sweetly to Jesus, saying things like, “Your will be done, Lord!” and “Be it done to me according to your word!”

That’s me, kneeling at the right.

Then I am awakened from my dreamlike state to the sound of someone screaming.  It’s the five-year-old.  The twelve-year-old has taken his toy sword.  From the sound of it, the plastic weapon must have then been used to cut off the five-year-old’s left arm.  About this time the phone rings.  Would I care to take a survey about my TV viewing habits?  It will only take five minutes of my time.  Just then, the 18-month-old toddles in without a diaper…and what is that she is holding out to me in her dirty palm?  The sixteen-year-old, meanwhile, desperately needs help with an advanced math problem, but the nine-year-old has already staked her claim on me and is waiting impatiently with her spelling words.  The doorbell rings.  It’s my father-in-law.  I hope he doesn’t mind seeing me in my pajamas with unbrushed teeth and hair.  Then again, it won’t be the first time and it will provide him with fodder for entertaining all the extended family who live nearby.

As I try to sort out the press of people and things vying for my attention, my blood pressure rises.  I find an ugly snarl has replaced the radiant smile so recently beamed upon Jesus.  If only I could get away, even just into my closet, and finish my prayer time in peace!  If only my family were better behaved, I wouldn’t have to resort to anger and unpleasantness!  If only my father-in-law would quit showing up at my door when I’m least prepared to welcome visitors!  I should have been a nun.

So it was a miracle when, one day, in the midst of some storm of emotion, I had the thought, “Abandonment!” And I paused.  “Wait a minute.  So you mean that when I burn the toast for the 417^th time, the proper response is not rage or despair…but abandonment?”

Thoughtful-toe-tapping and chin-scratching ensued.

“You mean, when my husband calls to say we’re going to the 8 a.m Sunday Mass after I’ve already gotten everyone dressed for the 5 p.m. Saturday Mass, the proper response is not muttering and slamming…but abandonment?”

Arms crossed.  One hip cocked out to the side.

“Are you telling me that when the airline closes the jetway and won’t let me get on the plane because I arrived two minutes late due to security delaying me for a hour, and I’m carrying a baby and the next flight isn’t for two hours and I’ll be late to my grandmother’s wake, the proper response is…abandonment?!?”

Big eye-roll.

Abandonment is not part of my nature.  I want what I want when I want it.  But the more I read this book, the more I know with deadly certainty that it is right.  I have to lay myself down.

While I’m underlining and making notes in my book, it all sounds so simple—even romantic!  I can be the next Mother Teresa, the next Father Damien…a hero of the faith!  All I have to do is submit my own will to God’s!  I have found the express train to holiness!  Until the gas man shows up with a past-due notice and is prepared to terminate my service.

So how do I practice abandonment in the middle of 21^st century America?  What should abandonment look like in my life?

As far as I can tell, Fr. de Caussade’s ideas on abandonment can be summed up thus:

1. The first priority is to be faithful to the duties of Christianity and of my state in life— or said another way, I must do the things that God and my vocation require. Fr. de Caussade says, “The will of God gives to all things a supernatural and divine value for the soul submitting to it.”  Translation: folding a mountain of laundry with the right attitude has as much value as climbing Mt.Calvary.

2. The second thing I must do is accept everything (good and bad) as God’s gift in that moment—and suffer all these things with gratitude, sweetness and humility.  Fr. de Caussade says, “Each present moment contains what is best for you, and as such must be loved and esteemed.”  Translation: when I’m at Mass and my child vomits all over the man in front of me, I must gently apologize to the ungracious man whose new leather jacket is busily absorbing permanent odors, hurry the offender out of church and miss Holy Communion while washing out her hair—all the while thanking God for loving me this much.

There is also a corollary to the above:

3. I must let go of my attachment to things and embrace God alone.  Fr. de Caussade says my prayer should be, “Lord, I sacrifice all this; I give up all my miserable interests to you. ”  Translation: If my daughter accidentally drops my brand-new camera while its zoom lens is extended, thus cracking small internal parts whose cost of repair is more than a new camera, I must breathe deeply and force a smile, realizing that any created thing, idea, or plan of mine is subject to recall by God at any moment, and that sudden and total recall of any and all things should be expected, and greeted with the cheery phrase, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Fr. de Caussade emphasizes that God expressly wills or permits everything that happens to me.  Therefore, anything that happens in my life—good or bad—is exactly what I need at that moment to grow in holiness.  When things happen that do not coincide with my own plans, then I must set my preferences aside with the knowledge that God will guide me along a path more perfect than any I could make for myself.

Personally, I like the notion of living a life like Gladys Aylward in “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness”.  She travels by train to China, becomes an esteemed and revered member of the community, and radiates Christ love to those who have never heard the gospel.  She also gets played by Ingrid Bergman.

Now there’s a saintly woman!

Mediating with machete-wielding criminals in a Chinese prison riot and taking fifty children on a hundred-mile hike over the mountain never looked so inviting!  Fr. de Caussade uncannily anticipates my noble desires and remarks:

  “You say you would be delighted to find an opportunity of dying for God, and would be completely satisfied with some such action, or with a life leading to the same result.  To lose all, to die forsaken, to sacrifice your life for others, these are indeed charming ideas!”

The good news is that these romantically noble desires are dismissed by something more realistic and attainable.  He laments:

“If they could realize the merit concealed in the actions of each moment of the day; I mean in each of the daily duties of their state of life, and if they could be persuaded that sanctity is founded on that to which they give no heed as being altogether irrelevant, they would indeed by happy.”

This, then, is path to sainthood for me.  It is most likely to be one of obscurity, and will be found in letting go of thousands of little things rather than moving to darkest Africa.  It might be called, “dying by degrees”.  My holiness will be found in humbly throwing the burned toast in the trash and preparing a new batch with more care; or by helping everyone change out of their church clothes while thanking God that my husband has a good job and that he wants to go to Mass; or by saying a prayer for the airline workers who callously turn me away while I quietly vow never to fly with them again.  It will be a life-long task to internalize the fact that “[e]verything is a help to [the soul], and is, without exception an instrument of sanctity”—even airline employees.

I will not always be able to let go of my will immediately or entirely.  Even if I try to accept God’s will for me, it may be with regret and bitterness, apprehension or fear.  My goal is to “be content with being discontented, for as long as God wills or permits.”  Fortunately, God is prepared to grant me the graces I need to do everything he asks of me, at the moment he asks it.

If I practice really hard, maybe someday I will be able to say, “I agree to all, Lord, I wish what you wish, I resign myself entirely to your will.”  Pray for me!

Abandonment to Divine Providence is available through Ignatius Press.

About Lynne

We can never know where God's amazing plans for our life will take us, and Lynne is a perfect example. Growing up, she was a Baptist girl in deep East Texas. After college, she married, converted to Catholicism and spent the next fifteen years growing in faith in the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado. Now, she lives with her husband and seven children on a farm in a tiny Midwestern town. Though twenty years have passed since her conversion, she still feels like she's only scratched the surface of the glorious riches of the Church. She has a special love for Teresa of Avila and Blessed John Paul II.

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Do you feel like everything you plan just doesn’t work out?  Looking around and seeing so many people moving forward in life in so many levels but you feel like you’re stuck in neutral?  Do you sometimes feel like you pray, and pray, and pray and maybe God is not listening?  Do you feel like He is punishing you for something you have done in the past?  Do you feel spiritually dry?

We’ve been there and felt that way.  The economy is so bad, so many people out of work, it can get a bit depressing.  But looking back, I remember specific things we did to get out of this and move forward WITH God!  In May of 2008, my husband, Peter, was first laid off.  The timing was terrible, I was seven months pregnant with our fourth child.  Subsequent to this lay off we experienced a move to another state and another four lay offs in a matter of four years and a fifth child in the picture.  Finally, in early 2012, our prayers were answered and he now has a secure job.  Here is a recipe that worked for us.

1. Give all your worries and finances over to God. Trust the HE will provide for you, not you, not your husband.  Make sure your husband, the head of the household, understands this and verbally acknowledges this to God.

2. Trust in God’s will for you. I know this isn’t easy and sometimes scary sounding but it really isn’t.  Say, “I would love this Lord but I want your Will to be Done not mine.”  (I know this is easier said than done but trust me once you really do ask God for His will not yours, the graces start to flow because you trust the Lord.)  The BEST thing that happened to me was coming across a book by Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri entitled, “Uniformity with God’s Will.”

3. Go to Confession and Mass as often as possible.  I now go to Confession every other week.  Think of it like preventive medicine for the soul.

4. Keep on praying even if you don’t feel like it.  This was really hard for me, but I just kept going through the motions and going to Adoration.  Sometimes I said short prayers and just remained quiet and did more listening than anything.

5. Get your kids to pray for your situation, teach them to say, “Lord let your will be done for our family.” Pray the Rosary as a family.  If you don’t do this yet, start slow.  Get the kids to build their Rosary stamina.  We did one decade a day for a long time, especially when the children were smaller.

6. Ask your pastor to come over and bless your home at least once a year and ask him to also consecrate it to the Immaculate and Sacred Hearts.

7. Say the Old St. Joseph Novena daily until the perfect job comes.

Saint Joseph, I, your unworthy child, greet you. You are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. You know that I have special confidence in you and that, after Jesus and Mary, I place all my hope of salvation in you, for you are especially powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. Therefore I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me and all that belong to me, to your intercession. I beg of you, by your love for Jesus and Mary, not to abandon me during life and to assist me at the hour of my death.

Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the Immaculate Virgin, obtain for me a pure, humble, charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.

Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Divine Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore:

(Mention your request & don’t forget to ask for God’s will to be done with your family!)

Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I feel confident that your prayers in my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.  Amen.

8. Don’t be shy to ask family, friends, and even strangers for prayers. (SUPER IMPORTANT)  I used to be shy to ask for this but after seeing the fruits of it, I don’t shy away from it.

9. Be thankful for every. little. tiny. thing you have. I was even thankful we had running water, no joke.

10. Accept the answer God gives you with grace and a smile on your face, sometimes the answer is NO, andis  not necessarily an unanswered prayer.

About Alessandra

Though I am a cradle Catholic, I was a little lost sheep for sometime. Thankfully, I found my way in December of my Junior year of High school. I now write from the NE USA, where I live with my husband, a convert, and five young children. I have a Master of Science in Reading Education. In 2008, after more than fifteen years in the education field, I “retired” to begin a new career as full time mommy and home educator--a world I felt so foreign to--but now have embraced it as a total lifestyle for my clan.

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The post My 10 Step Recipe for Spiritual Happiness appeared first on Catholic Sistas.

Have you ever known someone that when you looked at them, really looked, you could see something different about them?  Perhaps it was in the way they smiled, laughed, or interacted with others.  Maybe it was the way their eyes shone with a sincerity that perhaps took your breath away.  You’d say they were happy but the word “happy” just couldn’t seem to accurately describe the person.  You knew they faced hardships and difficulties and yet they rarely lingered on those things but they seemed to have an ability to keep the smile on their face and a song in their heart.  What was different about this person?  The answer: joy.

Isn’t joy just another word for happiness?  What is the difference between the two?

Happiness is defined as, “the quality or state of being happy” and “good fortune; contentment; pleasure; or joy”.

Joy is defined as, “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation”.

While each definition contains the other word they are not interchangeable.  In addition to this we also need to remember that what we are focusing on is a joy that comes from the Holy Spirit… a spiritual joy.  The joys of the world are vastly different from the joy that we receive from the Holy Spirit.  Let’s take a closer look.

I know many “happy” people.  They smile and laugh and make others smile and laugh too.   Unfortunately their happiness is often fleeting.  Their happiness comes all too often from “things”… whether their job is going good, if they were able to buy the latest gadget on the market, if their children got good grades, if it was a sunny day when they hoped to do something fun, and the list goes on and on.  Still, these same happy people can be dramatically different if their situation changes.  Their happiness is dependent on what is happening around them.  Things need to happen in the way they are expecting it to or want it to, otherwise they have a hard time finding reasons to be happy.  Happiness, it seems, is very fleeting.

Spiritually joyful people though are different.  Their joy isn’t dependent on their situation.  They may have amazing things happening in their lives or they may be facing such difficulties that we wonder how in the world they could ever hold a smile on their face, but their joy is apparent.  This isn’t to say that joyful people never feel down, they can and do. It’s not to say that joyful people never encounter problems… on the contrary! They experience more tribulation, more adversity, and more distress than most people.  The difference is that joyful people embrace their hardships and trials knowing that these situations are there to bring them closer to Christ.  They are encouraged to embrace the cross they have been given and continue on their journey toward Jesus.   As St. Ignatius of Loyola tells us, “Here is the difference between the joys of the world and the cross of Jesus Christ: after having tasted the first, one is disgusted with them; and on the contrary, the more one partakes of the cross, the greater the thirst for it.” 

A spiritually joyful person can see that the cross they are being asked to carry helps them become more like Christ.  They gladly accept the cross because they know that they are called to be like Christ and if this helps them in the journey then it is a great honor to carry the cross.  They are happy to do it because of the reward it brings.   In James we read, “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:2-3  A JOY to encounter trials?! This goes against our worldly view of joy and happiness doesn’t it?

When we ask the Holy Spirit for a life of JOY what we are truly asking is that He brings us the ability to endure hardships and trials with a heart that knows God is right there with us, never abandoning us, and always holding us close.  We are asking, not for an easy life, but a life where regardless of what we encounter we accept it with an open heart and a belief that no matter if what we are encountering is suffering or happiness it will bring us closer to Christ.

Spiritually joyful people also possess other gifts and traits:

• They put God first in their lives.  They realize that “things” the world tells them they need to be happy are not what truly brings contentment.  They find that happiness in following God.  They regularly say, “Thy will be done!”
• They are patient, not only with God but with themselves and others.
• They make forgiveness a priority. They not only forgive others but they forgive themselves.
• They don’t focus on what is going wrong in their world but try to see the good in every situation.
• They pray.  They relinquish their troubles to Christ.
• They are thankful.  They are thankful not only for the good but for the times where they are asked to pick up their cross.
• They put others before themselves.  They know that to serve with an open and giving heart is part of finding joy.  They know that when they serve others they are serving God.

Cardinal Dolan tells us that, “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God within.”  When a person has true spiritual joy one can’t help but see God in their eyes and soul.  They simply can’t hide that God resides within them. When we are truly joyful our soul magnifies the Lord.   When our soul magnifies the Lord others can’t help but take notice and want what we have.  As Mother Teresa says, “Joy is a net of love by which we catch souls.”  When we have true spiritual joy we help bring others closer to God as well.  What a tremendous gift!

Joy requires us to die to ourselves and live completely for God.  It requires us to say yes to God in all aspects of our life.  It is a complete giving of ourselves to God.  The moment we say, “Thy will be done” we begin to live for the Lord.  We begin to experience a joy that nothing else in this life can compare to.  While we know we will experience pain and adversity we also know that those hardships will only bring us closer to God’s love, grace, and peace.

Are you ready to live a joyful life?

About Michelle

Michelle is a daughter of God, a cradle Catholic, a devoted wife of 20+ years to amazing husband Mike, eclectic homeschooling mother to ten wonderful children. She has experienced the loss of 12 babies in her call to be open to life, but knows that God is always loving and always gracious. She and her husband know that they have an army of Saints already in heaven! They try to show their faith in everything they do and hope that all who come to know their family, also come to know the Lord.

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We hear people so often say, “Yeah, I’m Catholic, but I don’t really believe (insert dogma here.)”   Or “I know I’m divorced and remarried, without an annulment, but why shouldn’t I receive the Eucharist?”  “Yeah, as long as two people love each other and are consenting adults, no matter what their gender, why shouldn’t they be allowed to be married?”  “I would never get an abortion, but if someone else makes that decision for herself, that is okay.”  “I am living with my partner, but I should be able to be married in the Church if I want, no questions asked.”  “Contraception isn’t a bad thing.  The Church is so outdated and out of touch.”

The Church is very clear and steadfast in her teachings, and these teachings are not negotiable. There are too many Catholics today who feel entitled to the identity CATHOLIC.  It baffles me that if someone does not like what the Church teaches, they continue to call themselves Catholic.  Do not get me wrong, but I really feel that if you do not like the rules, then don’t join the club.  This sounds harsh, but this is not a call to judgment, but simply a plea to those Catholics who find themselves in the position of picking and choosing according to one’s moral relativism to understand exactly why the Church teaches what she does.  We have been so programmed to believe that whatever we personally deem to be okay or true must be accepted by everyone else—including the Church. It is as if the Church needs to accept that her followers will not actually follow and that is supposed to be okay.  In a sense, acceptance of the individual beliefs of others is desirable, but by definition a Catholic follows the teachings of the Church.  If your beliefs do not enable you to accept Church teaching and strive to put them into practice, then you have two choices: 1) walk away or 2) trust Mother Church, educate yourself and resign yourself to the guidance of that which has been instituted by Christ.  I prefer the latter.  I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ to choose the latter as well.  This does not mean that faithful Catholics are not flawed, but what it should mean is that faithful Catholics continually work at being Catholic; they make mistakes, own up to them, ask forgiveness of the Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and start all over every single time.

This brings us back to entitlement.  By definition, entitlement insinuates the acquisition of privileges.  Being Catholic is a privilege, a privilege whose invitation is extended to us all, provided we make an effort.  We cannot demand the benefits of membership if we are not willing to put in the work.  We are not entitled to receive the privilege of Christ’s Body and Blood, if we have committed sin that disconnects us from Him.  We have to follow a code of moral behavior that is delineated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is a good code and as long as we follow it, we can call ourselves Catholic.  Christ invites all those who make the choice to be Catholic to do the same.

About Charla

Charla is a life-long Catholic, married since 1995. She has three children, all who attend Catholic schools. for over a decade, Charla has been teaching high school English at the same Catholic high school she attended. She has been a stay at home mom and is a graduate student studying Gifted and Talented Education. Charla has served as a lector and Eucharistic minister at her parish. She enjoys reading and all activities involving her children. Her special devotions are to the Blessed Mother, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Padre Pio and the Holy Rosary.

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Wrong.

Those that the Church recognizes as Saints are people who have tried their hardest to do the will of God, to become holy, to live a good life, and to be virtuous (St. Rose of Lima is one).  Still, there are others who lived extremely sinful lives, recognized their faults and changed their ways, proclaiming that indeed they wished to be holy and become a Christian only to be promptly killed for their newfound faith (St. Genesius is one).  Still others started out very sinful, even persecuting Christians, before they discovered the error of their ways and not only changed their ways but are saints we call Doctors of the Church (St. Augustine is one).  Most saints have struggled with real life issues, doubts, and worries. They have been abandoned by others who think they are “too holy” or “different” or “strange”.  They have been ridiculed for their beliefs. They have fought their desires for sinful things to stay holy.  Often they have failed over and over again and yet, still, despite all the obstacles they continued to try.

We are all called to become saints.  The problem we often face is the sacrifice it takes to become a saint.  It’s hard work to live a virtuous life. While we live in the world we are not supposed to be of this world.  How can we do this?  As my husband said to me, “I’m not a priest, I’m just a guy, there’s no way I can be a saint.”  Of course this led to our conversation about how even if we think there is no way we could possibly become a saint it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  God calls us to perfection.  He calls us to be like Him.  He wouldn’t call us to this if it weren’t possible.  Sure, we don’t have to be perfect to become a saint but we do have to try to live our lives in a way that says, “I belong to God.  I want to be like Him.”

If becoming a saint involves so much hard work, so much sacrifice, so much of losing ourselves for others why in the world would we want to do such a thing?  The answer lies in the fact that each time we put God first and put others first we draw closer to Christ.  Our goal in life is to bring Christ to others and to ultimately share our lives in heaven with God.  When we live our lives for others we do both of these things.  We do have to realize though that the more we try to live as saints the more we will be tempted to turn from God, to give in to sin, to throw our hands in the air and say, “This is just too hard!”

You may be thinking to yourself right now, “Wait a minute!  You’re going to tell me that I have to give up “the world”, I have to sacrifice what I want for others, I might be ostracized, and I’m going to endure spiritual attacks if I want to become a saint?  There’s no way I’m going to go through that!”  My answer to your question would be that yes, this is exactly what you will have to do.  However, you can also look at it this way: live your ordinary life in an extraordinary way.  Don’t focus on the other things, just live your life, doing what God calls you to do, and doing it in a way that always magnifies God’s love and goodness.  That’s easy enough isn’t it?

Even though we are called to become saints we are unable to achieve this on our own.  The grace we need to become saints can only be given to us from God.  We can try our hardest to be good enough but without God’s grace we cannot achieve this goal. Therefore, our first goal to become a saint involves prayer, and lots of it!  We have to pray that God will provide us with the graces it will take to live our lives for Him.

Often we lose sight of what we should be doing.  We fall into sin and we stray from the path that leads us to God.  When this happens we shouldn’t abandon our hopes of becoming a saint but we should instead turn back towards God and renew our efforts to live a virtuous life.  God is forgiving and welcomes us back and is pleased that we are indeed trying to live our lives for Him.

While we should strive to become saints, our actions should not be done just to become a saint.  God knows the sincerity of our deeds and our faith.  He can see into our hearts and knows if we are doing what we are doing just to be noticed or if we are doing it for His glory and to be Christ to those around us.   While it would be a tremendous honor to be recognized by the Church as a saint we know that there are many, many saints in heaven that are not recognized and more than likely never will be.  They are people who lived holy and virtuous lives that we can look at and see God’s love shining in everything they did.   We should be striving to be like those whom we see Christ in their everyday lives.  They have shown us that living a saintly life is indeed possible.

It’s never too late to live the life that God is calling us to live.  It is never too late to become a saint.  The question remains are we willing to live that life?  Are we willing to give our lives to God, to do His will above all, to sacrifice and to want, to face loneliness and rejection, and to strive to put others before ourselves?  It’s definitely not a journey that is easy to take and often the road will be rough, but God will always provide us with the grace we need and the people best suited to help us along the way.  We just have to make that choice to start the journey.

…“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~Robert Frost

About Michelle

Michelle is a daughter of God, a cradle Catholic, a devoted wife of 20+ years to amazing husband Mike, eclectic homeschooling mother to ten wonderful children. She has experienced the loss of 12 babies in her call to be open to life, but knows that God is always loving and always gracious. She and her husband know that they have an army of Saints already in heaven! They try to show their faith in everything they do and hope that all who come to know their family, also come to know the Lord.

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One of the most amazing attributes of God is His generosity: He gives spiritual blessings to us freely, gratuitously, simply because he loves us. When Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us at Pentecost, we could never have anticipated the Advocate’s overwhelming outpouring of spiritual gifts, which according to the Church are wisdom, understanding, good judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence, and wonder of the Lord.

These seven gifts are infused into our soul by sanctifying grace and if we cooperate with that grace, they will bear beautiful spiritual fruit that will help us move closer to the perfection God desires for us. In this article, we’ll focus on just one of those fruits: charity. Or in layman’s terms, love.

I’ve struggled with being charitable, or truly loving, all my life. I grew up with highly critical parents, who assumed the worst about each other, their children, and their neighbors and consequently, taught me to do the same. And because others were assumed to be inherently selfish, they didn’t deserve to have love extended to them. Certainly not self-sacrificial love, which is the highest kind, as taught to us by Christ.

In time, by meditating on Christ’s own sacrifice, I realized that whether or not a person deserves charity is entirely irrelevant to our call to live it out. It goes back to the truth about ourselves, really: Christ laid down his life while we were still sinners and there’s no question of whether we deserve the redemption and salvation he offers–we don’t. I shudder to imagine the hell, both of this life and of the next, should Christ have decided to give us only what we deserve.

It’s because of the Lord’s love, offered to us as a free and completely undeserved gift, that we’re called to offer that same love to others. Jesus emphasized this again and again in the Gospels…particularly in the parable about the servant, who was forgiven a great debt but who then refused to forgive a much smaller debt another owed him. We’re told that the measure we measure out to others will be measured out to us. So if we measure out judgment, we’ll get judgment…if we offer love, we’ll get love.

But what is charity? It’s many things, but at its core, it’s treating others as we would want to be treated. That means assuming the best of them, as I would want others to assume the best of me. When we act or say something hurtful to another, it’s usually unintentional and we appreciate it when the person doesn’t take it personally and still assumes we’re a kind and good person who just thoughtlessly and temporarily screwed up. Yet how many times do we feel wounded and instantly assume the person was malicious and the blow intentional? We assume the worst about their motives toward us, when in fact people are rarely intentionally cruel. Thoughtless, careless…yes. But cruel? More likely, they were just being human.

What about those times when a person does say or do something to deliberately wound you? We’ve all been on the receiving end of those kinds of actions, but if we’re honest, we’ll admit we’ve also been the perpetrator at times, too.  Haven’t we all said something we knew was going to hurt someone, because we wanted to hurt them? I’ve done it too many times to count, I’m ashamed to say.

Admittedly, it’s much harder to be charitable to others when they intentionally hurt you. Yet we do this to God all the time. We offend him intentionally with sin a hundred times a day and he still chooses to forgive our offense. The advantage we have with God is that when we offend him, he knows why. He knows that usually, our offenses have little to do with him and everything to do with our own brokenness. He knows that the man who fails to speak out against evil was criticized constantly as a child, making him fearful. He knows that the woman who commits adultery is starved for affection from her workaholic husband. He knows that when we sin, we usually do so from a place of pain. Because he knows all this about us, he doesn’t turn his back on us in indignation, but loves us even as we commit the most heinous offenses against him. And works tirelessly not to punish us, but to effect reconciliation so that we can remain in friendship with him.

Yet human beings take every offense personally even when it’s personal. But it never really is. When someone lashes out at me, when the person does or says something hurtful, my first and selfish instinct is to focus on my own wounded dignity. But if I want to be like Jesus, then I need to see them as Jesus does, and that means recognizing that their actions are about their own souls, not about mine.

I remember distinctly the first time I was even able to practice this change in perspective. It was a few years ago, when I was home alone with four children while my husband was in another state working. I was trying to hold down the fort while preparing our family to move to Alaska. I’d made tentative plans with a friend to get together over the weekend, but ended up having a nervous breakdown that weekend instead and didn’t follow up with her until the following Monday. I explained to her that I’d just been overwhelmed and apologized I hadn’t called or firmed up our plans.

Her response shocked me. She haughtily said it was a good thing I’d apologized, because she had decided to scrap the friendship entirely and never talk to me again. But she was willing to give me another chance, assuming I was genuinely sorry I hadn’t called.

Her response seemed so over the top that it gave me pause. Normally, I’d have been so irritated by what I perceived to be her disregard for MY feelings and difficult situation that I would have responded with, “Good riddance, then!” But then I realized this woman’s reaction revealed not that she was self-absorbed, but that she was terribly damaged. I knew she had few friends and struggled to trust people due to past betrayals. So why was she so willing to toss a supportive friendship aside so quickly? Of course…she’d been so hurt in the past that she was willing to end a friendship over a minor slight rather than risk a more devastating betrayal in the future. Her actions weren’t vindictive, they were protective. It was about protecting her own heart, not about wounding mine.

Being charitable toward other people, in both thought and in deed, is the hardest battle I’ve faced as a Catholic. For years, I dragged this sin into confession, almost despairing of ever being able to assume the best of people and act in their interest over my own. It’s only been recently that I’ve made real progress in my quest to offer real love to others and the first step was making a conscious choice to replace those negative thoughts about them with positive ones. If my husband goes to work without doing a chore I asked him to do, I remind myself of all that he does do for our family and tell myself that he must just be overwhelmed. If someone says something unkind, I tell myself they must be having a bad day (which we all have). If my priest doesn’t preach as forcefully as I’d like, I remind myself that as a priest, he faces spiritual attacks I can’t imagine so I need to pray for him instead. Being uncharitable, particularly in my thoughts, was a bad habit that I allowed to run unchecked for more than 30 years. It’s going to take time, probably a LOT of time, to correct the habit of assuming the worst about people to offering them the same tolerance and unconditional love that Christ offers to me despite my own sins.

The second thing I did was to accept that being truly charitable means acting lovingly regardless of whether I get anything back from the recipient. And that includes good feelings. If I spend two hours making dinner for an overburdened mother who fails thank me for it or even mention it, then I need to be happy with the fact that I performed a loving act. It’s helped enormously to choose to do a loving act for Jesus first, for the person second. Jesus always sees and appreciates it when I choose to love and I earn merit in heaven regardless of whether I get any earthly reward for it.

Charity puts the other person’s needs first, even at great cost to yourself. This change in perspective has enabled me to eradicate much of the self-interest I’m prone to wrap up into the kindnesses I choose to do for others. It feels good to do good, but I need to do good even if I don’t get those warm fuzzies back. This also has enabled me to avoid the painful disappointment and emotional withdrawal I would easily fall prey to in the past when others didn’t reciprocate or seem to appreciate my loving kindness toward them. Making my actions a gift first to Jesus means the gift is always accepted and appreciated in love…regardless of how the human recipient reacts to it.

Being charitable, or loving, to others is a work in progress for me and for most of us. It takes a continuous infusion of divine grace for us to cultivate this fruit of the Holy Spirit, because we have to work against our own selfishness and egotism to live it out. I look forward to the day when being charitable toward my fellow man is no longer a struggle, but effortless because I’ve embraced true humility and holiness. Until then:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.  

About Misty

Misty converted to Catholicism from atheism 10 years ago, just a week after becoming a mother to her first child. Prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom, she worked full-time as a magazine writer and editor. She has been married to her best friend for nearly 15 years and looks forward to many more decades by his side. Her days are now spent cooking, doing laundry, freelance writing, and homeschooling her four children. After spending so much of her life in spiritual darkness, she revels in the joy of being Catholic. Without a doubt, the Lord’s greatest gift to her has been saving her from a life without Him.

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A friend recently bemoaned her inability to ‘get into the Christmas spirit’. Her discomfiture was painfully evident and brought to mind the necessity of a properly observed Advent. We humans have been an impatient bunch from the very beginning – always looking for a shortcut. In fact, throughout the ages the virtue of patience has had a rough ride. Holy Scripture is filled with admonishments for patience thus demonstrating that we are not alone in our lack of it. I don’t think that lack of patience is ever more evident to me than when Christmas is hustled into the forefront all too soon. This year appears to have been the worst in memory. Even before all of the Halloween merchandise had been marked down for clearance, the Christmas décor and songs began. What a dizzying debacle it was! Ghosts, witches, Pilgrims and turkeys joined Santa and Christmas ornaments on store shelves – all at the same time.

For Everything there is a Season

There is an important reason to let all things have their day to shine. After all, “for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven”.  Eccles. 3:1

Why rush when a bit of fortitude can reap a much more beneficial outcome – both earthly and spiritually? If Jesus hadn’t come to us as an infant in a humble manger; grown into the learned child in the temple; and then manifested Himself as the native son healing and preaching in the streets; would His life, death, and rising have made the same resounding impact to even casual observers? Getting to know Him first and slowly learning His ways made His ultimate sacrifice that much more poignant. His life, itself, had an important story to tell.

Even in our human relationships, a bit of patience goes a long way. That’s why the Church demands a waiting period – and contemplation – before marriage. We are to get to know our beloved before making the lifelong commitment when pronouncing our vows. Clergy and religious also undergo a lengthy time of pondering – a thorough ‘getting to know you’ period. If you think about the success (or lack thereof) of things done in haste you might quickly come to the conclusion that a more measured approach is preferable. The beauty of a well thought out relationship is apparent.

The Church has given us Advent to Prepare

In her wisdom the Church has given us the season of Advent as such a preparatory period. It precedes the fullness of the joy of Christmas. Not unlike Lent, which comes before the glory of Easter, Advent is a season of charity and introspection. If we choose to ignore this vital step, our Christmas joy will not be complete – because we’ve taken a shortcut. Every year, during the liturgical cycle, we relive the life of Jesus. With the First Sunday of Advent the liturgical calendar begins again and we are taught to turn our minds to preparation and waiting. This is a time of moderation – hymns and church décor are more subdued. We prepare, much as a mother awaiting the birth of the child in her womb. It is important to see outside of our own selfish desires and seek ways to renew our wonder and faith.

In this, the Year of Faith, we have a renewed call to learn about our ancient faith and to revel in all it has to offer. Again, the liturgical calendar gives us many opportunities for preparedness. We are reminded that, not only is Advent an anticipatory season before Christmas, but that we are to be ever watchful for the Second Coming of Jesus.

At Mass the scriptures we read take on a tone of anticipation and preparation. Reminding us of the various signs of the Second Coming, Saint Luke tells us that “people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken”. As these things come to pass, and the Son of Man comes again in Glory, the people of God are to “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” Will we be properly disposed to receive Him when he comes again?

During Advent the decorations and music are also subdued and reverent because the fullness of Christmas joy has not yet been realized. The liturgical color is violet except for suitable colors for solemnities and holy days of obligation. Where it is observed, the exception to this rule is the Third Sunday of Advent also known as Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday. This halfway point in the midst of Advent focuses us on our heightened joy as the coming celebration draws near. Everything else about liturgy reflects expectant anticipation. Funeral Mass is not allowed on Sundays during Advent and the Gloria is not included in the Mass prayers/songs.

So How do We Apply What We’re Taught?

Having delved into the spiritual relevance of Advent, how should we celebrate it with the proper disposition? As our priest admonished us this past Sunday,

“You’ll spend several hours at the mall and in preparing your home for the holidays.

Won’t you spend one hour in adoration?”

In addition to making regular visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, then, we should take each week of Advent as a personal challenge to improve our prayer life. As the weeks progress, so should we give our full attention to the two comings of Jesus – His birth as a humble infant and His return as the Triumphant King. One of our most popular seasonal hymns alludes to this. Composed by George Handel, Joy to the World was written by Isaac Watts and based on King David’s Psalm 98 in preparation of the Second Coming. It beautifully and joyously blends the commonality between His birth and His Second Coming.

Feast days also abound during Advent.  As we know, The Blessed Virgin Mary also plays an integral role in our salvation by having said ‘yes’ to being the Mother of God. It is fitting then, that both the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe are observed during Advent.  The Feast of St. Nicholas also falls within the season of Advent. This model for the eventual development of the secular Father Christmas – Santa Claus – was a real life bishop and model of charity. Finally we have the feast of Saint Lucy or Santa Lucia – the festival of lights. All of this is observed as we await the arrival of the Light of the World – Jesus!

So there we have it – four weeks to prepare our souls for our observation of Christmas and  our preparation for the Second Coming. There is a plethora of opportunities for observing this exciting, season. I leave you now with a few links to some of my favorite resources. Let’s  join the Church in marking this special time in a manner befitting the anticipation of the arrival of Our King!

Happy Advent!

Advent Resources:

From my friend over at Phat Catholic Apologetics comes an amazing array of material.

For your children, you will need only check out A Colossal Set of Resources for Advent over at Raising and Teaching Little Saints.

You may also want to wander over to my personal blog, Designs by Birgit to check out the children’s Advent crafts listed there.

Advent Countdown Craft

Hand print Advent Wreath

About BirgitJ

Birgit is a 50-something cradle Catholic who is passionate about the pro-life movement. She enthusiastically serves on the Diocesan Gospel of Life Committee where she chairs pro-life events and writes pro-life articles. Birgit has been married to her Catholic convert husband, Rick, for 37 years. They have four children and seven grandchildren (all age eight and under). Their frequent visits eliminate any fear of an empty nest! Her vibrant Catholic faith colors every aspect of her life. She also sings in the church choir with her husband and daughter. Other interests include politics, as they relate to ‘Life’, and Church liturgy as well as photography, cooking, and gardening. She can also be found on her personal blog, Designs by Birgit.

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Me on our recent vacation.

Two weeks ago, I was blessed to be able to travel with my husband for an early celebration of our 15-year anniversary. It was the first time we’d been away without children on an extended vacation since we were childless.

We had a great time during those four days, shopping the downtown area, eating in gourmet restaurants with friends, and taking long afternoon naps in our hotel room. In addition to our anniversary, we were celebrating the sale of our home back in Virginia, which had taken us two years to unload. It was wonderful to have the freedom to purchase gifts for our children and a few indulgences without the financial anxiety that had plagued us for so long.

We celebrated our last evening by having dinner with friends at a prominent seafood restaurant. The meal was sumptuous and the company great, but at one point I realized I felt a certain emptiness…a spiritual emptiness. I couldn’t figure it out…I was having a great time, without the burden of daily responsibilities, and able to indulge my every desire. Isn’t that what we all strive for–not just to eliminate suffering, but to actually enjoy this life to its fullest? Was I just a malcontent at heart?

Then I knew what was wrong: the longer we’d vacationed, the more tepid my prayer life had become. Since arriving, I had prayed little, never opened my Bible, and given my eternal destiny little thought. I had quickly slipped into spiritual sloth, where God became an occasional thought instead of an intimate and constant friend.

At home, faced with my daily invitation to pick up my Cross and follow Him, I pray intuitively and frequently. I relish grabbing my Bible during those rare free moments between doing laundry and raising kids to recharge with Scripture. I keep religious books laying around, which feed my mind five minutes at a time. When I’m frustrated, exhausted, or discouraged, I call on the Lord to lend me His strength patience, strength, and perseverance. I pray with my children and look forward to going to confession and Mass. My own unique road to heaven, filled as it is with suffering and sacrifices large and small, provides the opportunities (and reminders) I need to stay close to the Lord.

In the movie Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, the priest goes into a house of drunken, licentious leprosy patients to retrieve a young Hawaiian woman who has fallen in with the dissipated crowd. She initially resists returning to her family, saying to Father Damien, “I have the right to the good life.” He replies, “The good life was when you cared for the sick, when you held the children when they were scared.” In other words: a life of service, and not one of self-indulgence, is the key to “the good life.”

I discovered that truth anew on our vacation. Despite all the struggles of living out my vocation as a faithful Catholic wife and mother, it’s those struggles and sacrifices that give true meaning to my life. And that keep me close to God. There’s nothing wrong with taking time to refresh your soul and sometimes, it’s necessary. Even Jesus often went off by himself to pray after meeting the needs of the crowd. It was a great blessing to spend time with my husband and to reconnect with him as my loving partner and not just my coworker in raising our children. It was a blessing to enjoy God’s bounty of good friends, good food, and relaxation. Those temporal gifts allowed me to return home better able to live out my vocation; I’d shed many of the anxieties that had crept into my daily life, stealing my energy and compromising my ability to serve others.

But as is often the case, feasting the body can starve the soul. I was surprised it took so little time for my soul to assert its need for God. Years ago, I read a beautiful conversation between the body and soul by Saint Catherine of Genoa (you can read it here), so I was at least able to recognize the conflict when it occurred in my own life. The trip made me realize that there’s a good reason Jesus warned us about the perils of wealth. Not because wealth per se is evil, but because it so easily enables us to feed the body at the expense of the soul.

I came home from our vocation grateful for the responsibilities of my vocation, because now I know that’s what God uses to keep me close to Him. Help me, Lord, to always remember that “the good life” is rarely found on easy street.

About Misty

Misty converted to Catholicism from atheism 10 years ago, just a week after becoming a mother to her first child. Prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom, she worked full-time as a magazine writer and editor. She has been married to her best friend for nearly 15 years and looks forward to many more decades by his side. Her days are now spent cooking, doing laundry, freelance writing, and homeschooling her four children. After spending so much of her life in spiritual darkness, she revels in the joy of being Catholic. Without a doubt, the Lord’s greatest gift to her has been saving her from a life without Him.

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Later that evening, our priest visited to check on us and bless our daughter. As I looked at our baby, I said to him, “I never realized how much you’re willing to suffer for the people you truly love.” And it was true. Looking into her sweet face, I knew without a doubt I’d go through that same hell all over again for her.

That was my first real lesson in the truth that’s at the heart of All Saints Day: that when you love a person, you’re willing to endure any sacrifice or suffering for that person’s benefit. I’ve read about hundreds of saints since I became Catholic a decade ago and what’s struck me (and terrified me, too) is that every one of them suffered intensely during his or her lifetime. And most of the suffering they endured makes my worst day look like a trip to Disneyland; our martyrs especially endured agonizing, drawn-out physical tortures as part of their gruesome murders. Even saints who died in less dramatic ways usually suffered profound physical and interior pain for most of their lives. When it comes to suffering, the saints were no lightweights.

Yet despite experiencing so much suffering, the saints also had so much more joy than most people, even those who appeared to have everything the world can offer. How can that be? Few saints, after all, were blessed with visions or spiritual consolations during their lives that could be said to temper the bitterness of their suffering.

I’m convinced the reason is simply that they understood two critical things: 1) that suffering is the currency of love, both for God and their neighbor, and 2) that joy is something we must choose, even in the midst of the darkest valleys.

When we offer our suffering in union with Christ’s on the Cross, we offer to be His companion on that long, bitter road to Calvary. Out of love for Our Lord, we offer to be with him during His Passion. When we offer to suffer for others, either to expiate their sins or to procure graces for them, we live out that highest form of love–agape. The saints did both; they suffered in union with Our Lord and suffered for their fellow man. They did this because like me with my child, they profoundly loved Jesus and their neighbors.

The other thing the saints did was choose to be joyful. And yes, that is possible! As a mother of many young children and as a chronic pain sufferer, I know how easy it is to succumb to life’s daily grind…to flirt with despair that we’ll ever see the end of life’s countless trials and sacrifices. If we endure this long enough, we usually find ourselves in a period of spiritual dryness, when we feel like we’re going through the motions of faith instead of living out a vibrant, authentic faith. More than once I’ve wondered where all that joy is I heard about during RCIA.

It would be foolish to think the saints didn’t experience the same temptations, too. The difference is, they chose to be joyful…they chose to see life’s blessings and beauty over its darkness. Even in the midst of pain, sorrow, and the humdrum monotony of life, they chose to thank God for the simple things, like friendship, food, health, a beautiful sunrise, shoes on their feet. Instead of complaining about cleaning their home, they thanked Him they had a home to clean. Instead of wishing they had better food, they thanked Him they had food at all. Even beyond that, they were able to view the trials of life as opportunities from their loving God to grow in holiness. St. Therese said it perfectly when she said, “All is grace.”

It can be tempting to believe that our saints with a capital “S” were blessed with supernatural graces that enabled them to be holier than it’s possible for us regular folk to be. But the fact is, most of our saints were ordinary people just like us, who endured all the monotony, suffering, disappointments, hopes, and frustrations that we do today. They simply knew how to do something most of us need more practice in: choosing to be joyful, even when our fallen nature wants to throw a pity party for ourselves instead.

Thank you, God, for these holy men and women that we celebrate today. May their lives inspire us to see that there is joy in every life lived for You–if we will just accept it. 

About Misty

Misty converted to Catholicism from atheism 10 years ago, just a week after becoming a mother to her first child. Prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom, she worked full-time as a magazine writer and editor. She has been married to her best friend for nearly 15 years and looks forward to many more decades by his side. Her days are now spent cooking, doing laundry, freelance writing, and homeschooling her four children. After spending so much of her life in spiritual darkness, she revels in the joy of being Catholic. Without a doubt, the Lord’s greatest gift to her has been saving her from a life without Him.

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