Stained Glass Window Reflection

From The Pope's Homily at St. Partick's Cathedral

I would like to draw your attention to a few aspects of this beautiful structure which I think can serve as a starting point for a reflection on our particular vocations within the unity of the Mystical Body.

The first has to do with the stained glass windows, which flood the interior with mystic light. From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor. Many writers – here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne – have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself. It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit. It follows that we, who live the life of grace within the Church’s communion, are called to draw all people into this mystery of light.

This is no easy task in a world which can tend to look at the Church, like those stained glass windows, “from the outside”: a world which deeply senses a need for spirituality, yet finds it difficult to “enter into” the mystery of the Church. Even for those of us within, the light of faith can be dimmed by routine, and the splendor of the Church obscured by the sins and weaknesses of her members. It can be dimmed too, by the obstacles encountered in a society which sometimes seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality. You, who have devoted your lives to bearing witness to the love of Christ and the building up of his Body, know from your daily contact with the world around us how tempting it is at times to give way to frustration, disappointment and even pessimism about the future. In a word, it is not always easy to see the light of the Spirit all about us, the splendor of the Risen Lord illuminating our lives and instilling renewed hope in his victory over the world (cf. Jn 16:33).

Yet the word of God reminds us that, in faith, we see the heavens opened, and the grace of the Holy Spirit lighting up the Church and bringing sure hope to our world. “O Lord, my God,” the Psalmist sings, “when you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30). These words evoke the first creation, when the Spirit of God hovered over the deep (cf. Gen 1:2). And they look forward to the new creation, at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and established the Church as the first fruits of a redeemed humanity (cf. Jn 20:22-23). These words summon us to ever deeper faith in God’s infinite power to transform every human situation, to create life from death, and to light up even the darkest night. And they make us think of another magnificent phrase of Saint Irenaeus: “where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Adv. Haer. III, 24, 1).

Coming In under the Flag of the Holy See

My tears at the sight of our Holy Father yesterday came from the recognition that I’ve spent most of my thirty-three years without his guidance & protection. As a baptized Christian, I’ve always been loved and prayed over since my birth by each successor to the Chair of Saint Peter. The “block” on following the Pope was entirely my own.

I come from a line of rebels that stretch back 450 years. An Irish Protestant ancestor signed a petition demanding that King Henry VIII break with the Catholic Church back in 1520. King Henry, spurred on by lust & a desire for an illicit divorce, fell into the “pride” trap that he could create a more pure religion without the Pope. He started “The Church of England,” which had the same Mass minus that pesky oversight of the Vicar of Christ.

I got baptized and raised in a reform movement of the Anglican Church, called the Methodist Church. My church experience as a young girl was loving & sweet, if a bit “vague.” We had communion. We had “ministers” who wore the same collar as a priest. We said the Apostle’s Creed which recognized “one catholic church.” But we definitely weren’t Catholic! That was sort of the guiding principle of our form of Protestantism, “we weren’t under Rome.”

How we grew up to hate the Pope. I didn’t think of the Church as the “whore of Babaylon” but I had a definite distaste for all thing Roman Catholic. All those unnecessary ornaments on the church walls—things that detracted from my “pure” contemplation of Jesus. That weird insistence on confession before a priest, I could go straight to Jesus for forgiveness anytime I wanted to! And the horror, oh the horror, of letting some guy in Rome dictate what I should and should not believe. Who was he? Why should I listen to him?

When I started RICA in response to this hard to define, yet insistent notion after my marriage that I should “figure out this religion that my future kids will be raised in,” I sat tensely in my chair during my first class. All of the people around the table introduced themselves one by one. Each spoke of a strong, strong urge to become a Catholic. “Well, that is not me!” I thought. “I’m quite happy being a Methodist!” and I mentally rattled off three major breaks with the Catholic Church, “worship of Mary, denial of birth control and following those “made up” doctrines of the Pope, such as Mary’s lasting virginity and her immaculate conception.” (Here’s where I pause to encourage readers of my blog to laugh out loud, since I’m now a devoted Pro-lifer, consecrated to Our Lady, love to worship at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and just started crying after seeing our Holy Father!)

One by one, the loving Sister who ran my RICA class showed me that the “Church of Rome” I had divorced myself so completely, barred little resemblance to the actual Catholic Church. I found that everything I had learned about Jesus was embraced in my new church. Yet at the same time, there were so many more spiritual wonders to embrace and contemplate. The rosary drew me closer to Jesus. The Eucharist carried me along the river of grace without my puny efforts to paddle myself. The sacrament of Marriage made my own commitment to my husband more certain, more secure since it no longer held the possibility to “divorce” when times got too tough.

A few months before Easter Vigil, I found myself ready to convert—except for the Pope question. Why should I have to listen to him? I hadn’t answered my inbred skepticism by drenching myself into the teachings of Church on the seat of Saint Peter. Peter wasn’t really a “saint” to me yet. I’d read the bible before, that didn’t answer any Pope’s legitimacy questions. To my Protestant eyes, Peter was just one of the gang of twelve. The whole apostles were just “tag-alongs” to Jesus during his ministry. We were all called now to be “disciples” of Christ. Why didn’t we get an equal say in how the church was governed. After all, isn’t democracy a good thing?

During my time in RCIA, my husband and I were living nine hours apart. Jon was in his final months of a masters program in Rochester, New York. Like a fool, I had decided that I couldn’t abandon my important “saving a small corner of Appalachia” job to follow my husband to on a temporary grad school quest. As a result of my foolish stubbornness, I gave myself room to work out my new feelings towards Catholicism entirely on my own. I also made it incredibly stressful on my husband who faced all the overwhelming tasks of his final thesis with a roommate, instead of a wife.

By February, we had both realized that this “living as devoted husband and wife, just in different states for nine months” was an incredibly stupid idea. Jon hated sleeping alone. I hated not being able to make him a cup of tea & rub his feet after a ten-hour shift doing thesis work. To compensate for our misery, I drove to Rochester with our three dogs every two weeks. Jon vowed to spend the entire visit outside of his computer lab. We’d rent a hotel room and play house. Each Saturday we’d take a drive into the country and then watch double features at our favorite “artsy” movie theater. On Sunday afternoon, I’d get back into my car and start the next 13 day count-down until we could be a family again.

During one of these February movie theater trips, I suggest that we watch “Witness to Hope.” I walked into that movie thinking it would just be one of the many documentaries we had consumed that winter. I walked out of that movie theater shaking and crying. I remember that I was so shaken afterwards that Jon couldn’t take us to Spot Coffee, our usual post-movie hang out. I had no idea that Jon Paul II suffered so acutely under the Natzi Regime. The story about how his fellow forced quary laborers would cover for “Karol” so that he could have time to read theology moved me. I made Jon buy me a copy of “Witness to Hope.”

When we finally reach “The Pope” a few weeks later in my RICA class, I made a silent decision of conversion in my heart. “I don’t know about the Papacy in general. I’m not sure about those “from the chair” statements. But I do know this Pope and I’ll gladly follow such a holy, devout man.”

I joined the church at Easter Vigil 2002. I joined the year of the priest scandals (which didn’t phase me but did give great hope to my RICA leader and new parish home.) John Paul II is “my pope.” He was an artist, like me. He was a world-traveler and a man of great faith and great charisma. He is the Pope under which I gladly decided to live in obedience under his gentle direction.

Pope Benedict is also “my Pope”. He is the gentle, humble presence that made me devote myself not to the “man” who is the Pope, but to the Papacy itself. I love Pope Benedict for his intelligence, his clear, concise writings, his focus & love of his priestly duties. Yet Pope Benedict himself helped me to trust that the Holy Spirit guides the selection of each Pope as one who is truly "God's Choice" for each moment in church history. I’ve come to adore that fact that we still have a “Chair of Saint Peter” 2,000 years after Christ. I love that we are protected from the current splintering of the Anglican church. I love that in this confusing, chaotic post-modern shred of Christianity, I can easily tune my ear to hear the call of our “one Shepard” on earth. I’m a lost sheep of Christ, who finally found my true Shepard. I’m so grateful to two Popes, best-friends in real life, who helped me happily commit myself to the banner of the Holy See.

The Pope & Me

The Papal Mass had extraordinary moments and ordinary moments. I'm blessed to have both.

Extraordinary moments:

Holding my five-year old daughter in the air as she frantically waved a huge Vatican flag towards our Holy Father in his Popemobile. The Popemobile slowed and the Holy Father leaned out of the widow to bless our section of the crowd before the start of the Papal Mass. Seeing our Holy Father, unobstructed, shook my soul. The full force of my conversion to Catholicism hit me at once. I realized what grace it was to come home to the church, to greet the Holy Father in a reverent manner, and how it was because of me & my struggle in the faith, that my little daughter can laugh so happily under the flag of the Holy See.

It was extraordinary to ride the Metro at 6 AM this morning. First, as Anne Maria pointed out, we used a special Metro card with the key of Saint Peter. Second, we ran into my spiritual director, Father Jaffee, at the start of our trip. He gave us a happy blessing to start out our day. Third, it was just amazing to watch all these little groups of Catholics (we were the only one's headed into the city so early) grow and grow until we ran into a subway train filled to maxium capacity with priests, religious, and cheerful laity. We had to let 3 subway trains pass before we found space for our family of 4! While we were waiting, Hannah & I kept singing "This Train is Bound For Glory". We then reversed the process coming home from Mass. First there was the crush of fellow Catholics on the Metro and slowly it dispersed to fewer and fewer among the regular business folk and tourists.

Watching the dignified priests and bishops act like "little boys" during their walk to the alter. A group of bishops had to host up an elderly bishop, who had a cane, out of the dug-out entrance & it went right to my heart. First, because the bishop was walking a long way with difficulty out of such love for us and the Pope. Second, something about how they accomplished this task made them look like happy little boys, instead of serious, dull bishops. I caught their joy at being in such intimate contact with the Pope and the holiday feeling of such an occassion. After the Mass ended, the young priests on the edge of the baseball field, ran, without any dignity in their long white robes, they just ran as fast as possible to get a better view of the Pope before he exited the Stadium. I'm probably not describing it well, but the enthusiam and tenderness of the clergy for the Pope was so evident. As the mother of a squirrely young boy who spends many, many moments in the naughty chair-it gave me such hope to imagine my son tripping over his white alb in a race to say a last goodbye to our Holy Father.

Praying the Our Father with 500 members of my church and being surrounded by 45,500 other Catholics.

I put real pink roses in Hannah's hair and she made so many adults smile. The hot, hot sun made the kids sleep all through the homily. I got to truly drink in our Pope's words. Sitting with Jon, while we both held sleeping children, when our Holy Father sincerely thanked parents for their role in passing on the faith, was an extraordinary moment.

Ordinary Moments,

One of the biggest surprises for me was the "ordinariness" of the Papal Mass. For that fact, I'm so grateful. The Pope prayed my English liturgy. We sang many of the same songs I sing in my choir. My kids got restless during the same prayers. The Eucharist tasted the same. I can't tell you what an amazing pleasure it was to know that the Holy Father's Mass, with the exception of having Hymns led by Opera Stars, is much the same as I experience each day in my church. The Easter Candle is the same. The prayers of the faithful are the same. The Eucharist is the exact same. (In fact, I had a little envy watching people on the scoreboard take their communion directly from the Pope. "How cool would that have been?" I thought. Then my next thought was "The Eucharist would taste the same!")

That last sentance is a miracle to me. The Eucharist always tastes the same. For a girl who grew up on Protestent services which tended to vary a lot from Sunday to Sunday, the fact that the Holy Father presided over a similar Mass to the one I attended in my little parish church on Wednesday morning is breath-taking. Sitting in that huge crowd, I "got it." Each of us, in our humble way, in our tiny domestic churches, in our small parishes, are part of the world wide Roman Catholic church. Each Sunday, as I sit in my little church with it's wooden roof and rotten acoustics, I'm directly participating in the same Mass as happens under Michelango's Sistene Chapel. The Eucharist is the same, which means that each time that I receive, I can walk away with all the graces and uplifted spirit which accompanies as Papal Mass. This is what it means to "receive" the sacarment of the Eucharist. I'm so blessed to have been called to sup at Our Lord's Table.

I wish you all a blessed and holy day!

Preparation

I had my little sketch of what this week was supposed to be, intensive prayer, reading and teaching about the Servant of the Servant of God. I meant to reread Spe Salvi with a highlighter and make notes on the margins. I meant to get through Jesus of Nazareth & share my insights with my husband. I meant to drink orange soda pop with the kids, decorate our front door with "Welcome Pope Benedict Signs", and read "Joseph and Chico".

Then on Monday night, around 8 PM my homelife feel apart. A neighbor two floors above us called her son, instead of our apartment's maintenance man, for help when a pipe burst in her house at 7 PM. By 7:45 PM, Jon noticed that the sprinkler over our washing machine was leaking. He put a bucket under it and continued to put our kids to bed. When he called for me to check with the maintenance guys, it was 7:55 PM. We sat in a mixture of fear and facination as leak after leak exploded in the front half of our apartment and six inches of water poured into our entry way, our laundry room and our kids room. Jon and I frantically moved all of the kid's furniture, toys and photos further and further back into our apartment as the soaked carpet stain grew and grew. The maintenance guys shut off the water at 8:35 PM. It was only 40 minutes, not 40 days, but we still felt like Noah.

Unfortunately, I did not have the faith of Noah. Instead of praying for strength and sensibly thanking the Lord that no one was injured and not even a child's horse poster was ruined, I started to whine: "I just finished spring cleaning, now look at this choas! Every surface of our living room is crowded with dangerous items and I can't even get to the kitchen to make a snack. How am I supposed to handle breakfast tomorrow? How am I supposed to get through tomorrow with 3 cranky kids and no place for them to nap? Why did this have to happen during this MOST important week of our Holy Father's visit!"

Tuesday, I woke up and felt like I had been run over by a train. I fought with Jon (who thankfully is a calm optimist during all such crisis), I fought with our kids, I fought with the baby who didn't sleep, and I fought with our apartment manager. My low point was flinging myself before Jesus during Adoration, saying "you have to help me!" and hearing the back door of the chapel bang open. The three year old had escaped during my 30 second prayer, flung open two sets of chapel doors and had his hand on the last door needed to exit the building. I flung my kid on his rear end, shoved him up against the wall and barked "NO! NO! NO!" three times in his face. As I'm yelling so loud that spit is flying into my son's eyeballs, I think "Jesus is watching right now. I'm bullying my kid because he won't let me do a few minutes of uninterrupted Adoration." I had about a half-second of clarity on this situation but then I went right back to "I REALLY need to pray right now, and you never listen to me, and I so need you to learn obedience RIGHT NOW."

Yikes! The cringes I'm going to have when Jesus reruns my life for me at the end of time.

Thankfully, I did get something out of my non-restful time at Adoration. I made it to the Bascilica of the Immaculate Conception. There we were surrounded by clouds of human kindness. A parking lot attendant pushed up my stroller "Chitty Bang Bang", loaded with 3 heavy kids, up the steep hill to the main entrance. We met lots of smiling priests and nuns. We bought rosarys for the Pope to bless and a shiny new copy of Joseph & Chico. We ate red jello and chocolate pudding. Everyone was so happy and shiny. We joined in the good will and wished everyone a blessed time during their visit with the Pope.

We were hot and tired when we drove home, but happy. The kids couldn't wait to read their new book, Maria couldn't wait to nurse and I couldn't wait to take a nap. We walked home and discovered that the repair guys had not replaced the carpet. It was ripped up, nails exposed in almost every room. Huge (read dangerous for small hands) fans were blowing in each room. The entire house smelled like mildew remover.

I watched the Pope's plane land in the middle of my non-fruitful discussion with our apartment manager.

Suddenly, it just didn't seem worth it to fight for a hotel room voucher anymore. Our Holy Father was here. Everything else seemed like small potatos. That's when I remembered that the upstairs neighbor, the one with the former leak, was also a former Catholic. I know this because her son, who is also a former Catholic, attempts to convert my husband to Scientology everytime they walk their dogs together. I don't know what the possible spiritual metaphor is for Monday's flood, but if it's going to get her to take a second look at our Holy Father during a time of trial in her own life, I'm all for offering up my suffering.

Today, we made Daily Mass as a family & ate the Eucharist. We drank our orange soda & we sang "Happy Birthday." The kids learned about our Holy Father's love for a little tabby cat named Chico. I'm feeling prepared for my first Papal Mass. My preparation has little to do with clean clothes for tomorrow's church service. Last Sunday, I thought I could make myself, my spouse and my children "ready" to hear our Pope. Jesus showed me the best way to hear his good friend, however, is to humbly acknowledge my own weakness and be "ready" to receive the message that "Christ is our hope!"

The Pope is Almost Here!

Are you ready? Get your heart and your children's hearts ready tonight! Here are some wonderful resources.

Did you know that the Pope's favorite drink is orange soda? Do you know why our Pope chose to place a bear with a backpack on his papal seal? Check out fun facts, papal coloring pages and more at this site. ht: Cottage Blessings

There is still time to read Spe Salvi before Thursday's Mass homily. To find a copy of "Christ is our Hope" along with an excellent study guide,click here.

My parish is participating in a "Hunger to Hope" Food drive. The goal is to fill up the area food banks in honor of the Pope's visit. Even more importantly, we registered for a "Spiritual Bouquet" in honor of the Pope's visit. Catholics pledged to do a certain number of any of the following acts: Attend Daily Mass, Spend time in Adoration, read Scripture for at least 10 mins, pray alone, pray as a family, offer up Holy Communion, help the poor, etc. A letter containing the total number of each act will be forwarded to the Vatican Embassy. You don't have to be in D.C. or NYC to join in these beautiful acts of homage to our Holy Father.

The Pope needs our prayers! Please pray for the conversion of hearts by the hears of his message. We should also pray for his safety and his health during his visit to the United States. (There are intended protests/disruptions of all of his public speeches.) Good times to pray for specific intentions during his trip to D.C.:

Tuesday: The Pope lands on US Soil
Wednesday: The Pope celebrates his 81 birthday & meets with the President of the United States
Thursday: The Pope celebrates his First Public Mass around 10 AM.