Yeast

Last night I talked to my sister-in-law about the problems of not fitting into the world. Her 11 year old son made the State Finals for Baseball. They lost in one of those heart-breaking, can only happen to an elementary kid type of way. The kids took it hard. The adults took it harder. There was lots of yelling at officials, and scoreboards and other kid's batting averages. There was not much modeling of "losing with grace."

"It's so hard," my sister said. "You try to tell your kids to be a good loser and there are your friends undermining that lesson. Tom (her husband) and I have a different perspective because we are teachers. We're not better than our friends. You can't judge and be a snob. You can't say anything because these are your friends and you want your son to be accepted and to have friends . . ."

I'm not a teacher (at least not a paid one) and I don't have kids on sports teams. Yet I know the uncomfortable feelings of having your ethics rub uncomfortably against the crowd.

We're Catholics. We're supposed to have different ethics than the world. We're supposed to have different goals and different standards than most of our non-Catholic friends, even if they are "good people", good friends, good neighbors, good co-workers and good parents.

Sometimes that difference is minor, we might just cross ourselves and say a Hail Mary before a big soccer match while our friends will just say an Our Father, or no prayer at all. Sometimes it's major, like telling our kids that they can't jump on the bandwagon of tearing down the winning team.

But we are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be Yeast. The laity is the one charged with the task of transforming the world to more closely match life in the Kingdom of Heaven. That happens everywhere, all of the time, in ordinary space and in ordinary time.

I'm a shy person by nature. Rubbing the crowd the wrong way doesn't come easily to me.

That's why I go to Daily Mass. I'm not some together saint who loves to drag sleepy, squirmy babies to church at 6:30 AM. I'm a deeply flawed girl who falls down on the mothering job every single day. I could not get through the multiple car-seat buckles, and the potty-training accidents, and the trying to enforce reasonable dietary rules and TV time restrictions, without my faith. For me, the best way to insure that my hand stays firmly on the handrail of my Catholic faith is to start each day eating Jesus.

I realized talking to my sister, in those time of mental conversations I have so often with myself, that my shelter is my church. Each morning, I get to immerse myself in a totally loving, supportive environment. My babies elicit smiles there instead of "boy you have your hand full!" My priest blesses me, encourages me to do better and offers confession at 7:15 for times that I fail. My parishioners encourage me in holiness, offer sacramentals, and pray for me when I'm in trouble. Each morning, I get to start my day immersed in this comfortable bubble of safety.

That bubble of love in my church helps me deal with a sometimes hostile world. If the world starts to tear at my peace, I just slip back into the bubble again. I drink in the Eucharist, I do Adoration, I talk to a choir friend, I pray the rosary, I read Scripture and I hang out on a Catholic website. I can do one of those things or many of those things. I carry my "safety" bubble with me at all times.

I don't have to worry that the world is not always kind or righteous or a good model for my kids. My kids and I have a safe home, our Mother Church. Our home keeps us safe. Our home makes us strong. Our home helps us carry out our job to be the 'leaven' in the world.

The Royal Priesthood

Three weeks ago, the exulted status of our royal priesthood hit my soul during a funeral. The fragile embroidery on the hem of our Deacon’s robe clashed with his firm stride and heavy, purposeful swings of the brass incense burner. “Deacon Ken is here to serve at Mass,” my mind registered. Deacon Ken, a busy lawyer during the workweek, is here on a Tuesday morning because funerals come first.

We were gathered in the parish church to bury a banker. A loved and respected banker, but not a rich one. A banker who served his church by leading a poor parish out of bankruptcy. A banker who had three kids and couldn’t afford to buy his own house until he turned 60 because he paid for their Catholic schooling. A banker who led our parish prayers of the faithful for several weeks after he suffered a fall in his house, became severely paralyzed and eventually died from his wounds.

Washington D.C. is a town that knows funerals. We house massive Funerals of State for deceased Presidents. We hold 21 gun salutes in Arlington Cemetery for fallen soldiers. We give columns of copy in the Washington Post for obituaries of the rich and famous.

My friend’s husband was not rich or famous. Yet he was royal. His funeral reflected the awesome beauty of our faith in its full majesty.

As Christians, we believe that death is not the end. As Catholic we celebrate the “pause button” on life’s story in a Mass. We have visiting hours in a local funeral home. But we don’t celebrate the funeral in that space. We don’t scatter ashes in the wind. We come together in prayer with incense, and Scripture and purified hearts. We pray for the dead. We share a broken Body with ourselves and the world.

At the end, there is a procession, a procession so long that it needed a police escort which waved us through stoplights and non-turn lanes.

“Why do we get to go through red lights?” my three year old asked his Dad.

“Because we are in a royal procession today,” my husband answered. “Sort of like a funeral parade."

"We are in a funeral parade," I think. I imagine buttoning up my son's blue oxfords like Di and Ferge. My kids have to squirm in uncomfortable dress shoes during the day for funerals, and weddings, and important affairs of State. Only this State has dominions which can't be traced on any world map.
**********
Last week, my husband got a call from his sister. His Dad lay in a medi-vac helicopter miles above the Adirondack Mountains. Dad’s doctors at the local hospital knew that he sick, they knew he had a seizure so violent it took seven men to strap him onto a hospital gurney. Nobody knew what caused Dad's seizure. Was it a sign of a heart attack or a stroke? Was Dad going to live or die? Dad had to be flown to a larger hospital in Vermont for more tests.

My husband sat hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Yet he did not feel helpless. We sent up hundreds of prayers for his Dad. We called many faithful Catholics to ask for prayers and we emailed hundreds more. We lit our Blessed Candles and took out our rosaries. We prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the rosary and a prayer to Our Lady of Divine Grace.

We prayed for Dad to live. But we mostly prayed for Dad to come back to the church. That was our biggest fear. That this teddy bear of a guy, born on St. Nicholas Day, would die voluntarily exiled from the Catholic Church.

Then my husband, did this action, that only royal members of the priesthood can do. My husband call the hospital where Dad was set to land and asked to speak to the priest on duty. Almost immediately, a desk clerk transferred Jon to Father Finealus. “My father is in a medical helicopter headed to Fletcher-Allen hospital right now. I’d like him to receive the sacrament of the sick as soon as he lands. I’m most concerned that he’s been out of the church for almost 30 years. Can you make sure he receives confession and is taken care of there, please.”

Within moments, my husband hung up the phone feeling peaceful and relieved. “Father actually thanked me,” Jon said. “He thanked me so much for calling him. He was so grateful to bring another soul back to the church.”

My husband and I sat in awesome wonder of our faith. Here we were hundreds of miles away for a sick man. Yet here was a faithful priest, happy to help Shepard our beloved Dad home.

Father strove into the ICU soon after our phone call. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law watched him enter the restricted area. Dad hadn’t stabilized enough to be permitted to see Mom yet. However, the nurses waived the priest right through. My father-in-laws first contact with his family came when a priest said “I’ve been sent here by your son.”

I didn’t grow up as a Catholic. Due to an inter-family squabble that happened 350 years ago, I spent the first 28 years of my life turning down invitations to join the universal church. Who needed those pesky “extra” sacraments of the sick, confession, and marriage? I was fine reading my Bible and hanging out on Sunday's with like minded "independent thinking" friends.

As a result, my jaw dropped when my husband was able to personally contact a priest at 7 PM on a Wednesday night. A priest who was OVERJOYED to visit his sick father in the hospital.

“Honey, do you realize what a gift that it?” I said. “If my Dad got sick, there is no one to call at 7 PM. Even if I could somehow find a Methodist church in the area, I’d get an answering machine on at 7 PM. There’s no 24 hour emergency number. Even if I did talk to a kind-hearted secretary, the best she could do is send someone over in a few days to say a joint prayer with my Dad. It's more a corporal act of mercy than a sacrament. Heck, even we can visit the sick.”

My Catholic Father-in-Law got the royal treatment. He got confessed and pardoned. He got the blessed fragrant oil. He got the prayers that united his current sufferings with that of Our Blessed Savior on the Cross.

As Catholics, we rarely get to glimpse into our immense stash of “riches” in heaven. Our lives are supposed to be hidden within the ordinariness of daily life. Sometimes those clay pots crack and reveal the treasure within. Then, even in the midst of suffering and fear, we realize how truly Blessed we are to reside within the safety of our Mother Church.

Reducing Your Eco Footprint

Hanging out for an unexpected weekend in Vermont reignited my green streak. I went to college in a "crunchy" area. My husband used to be vegan. I used cloth diapers with baby number one and banned all sweets. By baby number three, we've greatly slipped off this lifestyle. A cloth diaper has ne'r touched her bum and the mere crinkle of a smartee wrapper in church on Sunday made the wee lass scramble for candy.

I've gone all over the grocery budget debate. This summer I started shopping at Aldis & Bottom Dollar. I loved practicing my Spanish while waiting in line at these stores, I loved the friendly sense of humble community. (So different from what are you doing squeezing three kids behind me in my aisle I feel at my closer Safeway store). Yet I hated the food. It was cheap, but it was tasteless. It was impossible to buy natural peanut butter there. The organic milk I bought for cheap turned sour in my fridge. Jon and I had this huge debate about the problems of Bottom Dollar & the poor. The poor are the most stressed people who need the best diet. Yet here we are filling their shopping carts with rotten oranges, over-processed meat and hunks of cheese devoid of real milk.

After months of food dieting, I've found there are no easy answers. I cook all three meals a day, seven days a week. There are no quick measures of cutting out fast food, brown-bagging lunches or skipping the shrimp for Sunday dinner. If we go with the "cheap" food, it's mostly pre-packaged corn-syrup junk. We can do that for a two week stint if the money is super duper tight. Everyone feels the pinch, however. Everyone is cranky, and gains weight from over-snacking on cheap junk treats.

What's a city girl to do?

Vermont gave me an unexpected answer. I'm encouraged to go organic. As a Catholic, I'm supposed to avoid sin. The sins of the current agriculture business is pretty huge, everything from pesticides, to collapsed honey bees, to underpaid migrant farm labor, to foam containers landing in a landfill. It's hard, so hard for me to plunk down $4.00 for a pound of beef stew when I know Safeway usually has a special where ground pork is $2.50 a pound. Yet I can do it if I know that the cow was healthy, treated humanely. I can do it if I know that the farmer wasn't ripped off or sold his soul to mistreat a Mexican farm worker. I can do it if I know that by eating meat only 3 nights a week instead of 6, is better for my children.

I don't know how this fits into the food budget exactly. Currently, we spend about $130 dollars in groceries to feed a family of 5 for a week. Shopping at Whole Foods isn't a fiscal option, right now. Yet I'm going to do a small part and trust the Lord to make up the rest.

The advantage of being a City Girl, is that while having a home vegetable garden isn't an option, low-cost home delivery of organic food is an option. I found a local dairy which can deliver milk and eggs at below grocery store cost for a weekly delivery charge of only $3.50. (Meat can also be added but it's more expensive that at the store).

I also found an organic produce farmer who can deliver produce to our door. It seems expensive at $45 dollars a week. I'm telling myself that right now I'm skipping all fruit except apples, bananas, carrots and brocolli because the produce seems like such a "bad value" in my tiny grocery budget. This move can't be good for our health.

My hope is that if I can get the whole organic bill under $80, and that covers all our milk, egg, meat, fruit and veggies-- that's most of our needs. I can always go to the store to buy some extra rice, twice a month. Less trips to the store, never going in with distracting young kids, that's got to be some sort of "savings" right? Even it it's just saving Mama's mind?

Here are the two links that I'm using this week.

http://www.southmountaincreamery.com/home.php

http://www.doortodoororganics.com/

Has anyone else found that "going green" actually helped save them money on the grocery bill.

Home Again

Whew! Home Again. Many thanks for the prayers for Jon's Dad and his entire family. My father-in-law is back at home. Hopefully, he will have no lingering effects from his 4 day stint in the I.C.U.

Even more incredible, Jon's Dad is back home in the Catholic Church! A priest came to the ICU with the sacrament of the sick. The next day, my modest prayer to Our Lady was for Jon to say one "Our Father" with his dad. Instead, Mary sent us a priest. Jon's family got to receive communion together in the I.C.U. for the first time in Jon's memory.

We were just surrounded by signal graces the whole trip. We got much actual grace for the 14 hour car trip home yesterday. I promise to write more details soon. As for now, the massive laundry pile awaits.

Urgent Prayer Request

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading my non-updated blog, but if you do stop by, please say a prayer for my father-in-law, Bob Benjamin. Jon's beloved Dad is being airlifted as I post this to a hospital in Burlington, Vermont after he suffered a severe seizure. We don't know yet if it was caused by a stroke or by a heart attack. (Jon's Dad is 72 & had an ER Trip earlier this week for congestive heart failure.)

My father-in-law, who has been so loving to me, all of his grandchildren, and a devoted Dad to my husband, was born on Christmas Day. He has a twin brother. He's also been out of the Catholic Church for over 30 years.

Please take a moment to pray a divine mercy chaplet with the specific intention that he receives Divine Mercy while he is near death. (As Catholics, we have a special concern for the soul of the dying, even more than our intense desire for healing in the physical body) Here's the link, which you'll have to copy yourself. Sorry for making you do a little extra work. I'm feeling a little to rattled to look up the link code.

http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/dmmap.htm

So far, my husband is calm and collected. He is a rock! I'm so, so thankful that as Catholics we are "always prepared" as the Boy Scouts like to say. Within a 1/2 an hour we had made multiple prayer calls, had our Blessed Candle burning, said 2 divine Mercy chaplets and started arrangements for the sacrament of the sick in a hospital nine hours away. (Look how much we needed the Eucharist today. Get to Daily Mass if you are at able to make the journey with your family!)

Please say a special Hail Mary for my mother-in-law, Lois, and Jon's two sisters, Tami and Keli.

Thank you!

(Hat tip to Conversion Diary Jennifer F, who knows that I love her even if I can't link to her blog right now!)

Happy July 4th

Reason to love the Catholic Church # 7,044

Not only is my favorite, favorite patriotic hymn in the Catholic hymnal --(I fell in love with this hymn when I sang it in the Alps at age 15 on a German/USA youth exchange program) BUT my priest happily explained today that "This is My Song" comes from a larger piece called "Finlandia", a national celebration of Finlad against Russian occupation in 1899. Wisdom and Music Theory all rolled into one. Thank you Father Brennan!

This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for lands afar and mine
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are every where as blue as mine
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations
A song of peace for their land and for mine

This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth's kingdoms;
Thy kingdom come; on earth thy will be done.
Let CFhrist be lifted up till all shall serve him,
And hearts united learn to live as one.
O hear my prayer, thou God of all the nations
Myself I give to thee; let thy will be done.

Check out the full symphony "Finlandia" on You Tube

Exotic Travel Close to Home

The Smithsonian Folk Life Festival brought a close peep into the reclusive country of Bhutan. Here's the National Dish which Jon and I found highly addictive.

Ema Datse (Chillies in Cheese Sauce)

This traditional Bhutanese dish comprises large green (medium hot) chilies, prepared as a vegetable, not as a seasoning, in a cheese sauce. Warning – this dish is hot! You can make it milder by choosing a milder chili.

Ingredients
2 cups large green chilies (medium hot)
1 onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup of cheese (Feta or Farmer's cheese)
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup of water

Directions
Cut each chili lengthwise and combine with the chopped onions in a pot with the water, oil, and garlic, and boil for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and boil for 2 minutes. Add the cheese and simmer for another 2 minutes. Let sit for a few minutes and serve with rice. (Preferably Bhutanese red rice, which is available in some markets and can be ordered online at places such as Lotus Food.)

Pope Benedict is Quoted in the NY Times Today!

"To many, “lowest low” is hard evidence of imminent disaster of unprecedented proportions. “The ability to plan the decision to have a child is of course a big success for society, and for women in particular,” Letizia Mencarini, a professor of demography at the University of Turin, told me. “But if you would read the documents of demographers 20 years ago, you would see that nobody foresaw that the fertility rate would go so low. In the 1960s, the overall fertility rate in Italy was around two children per couple. Now it is about 1.3, and for some towns in Italy it is less than 1. This is considered pathological.”

There is no shortage of popular explanations to account for the drop in fertility. In Athens, it’s common to blame the city’s infamous air pollution; several years ago a radio commercial promoted air-conditioners as a way to bring back Greek lust and Greek babies. More broadly and significant, social conservatives tie the low birthrate to secularism. After arguing for decades that the West had divorced itself from God and church and embraced a self-interested and ultimately self-destructive lifestyle, abetted above all by modern birth control, they feel statistically vindicated. “Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future,” Pope Benedict proclaimed in 2006. “Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present.” In Germany, where the births-to-deaths ratio now results in an annual population loss of roughly 100,000, Ursula von der Leyen, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s family minister (and a mother of seven), declared two years ago that if her country didn’t reverse its plummeting birthrate, “We will have to turn out the light.” Last March, André Rouvoet, the leader of the Christian Union Party in the Netherlands (and a father of five), urged the government to get proactive and spur Dutch women to have more babies. The Canadian conservative Mark Steyn, author of the 2006 best seller “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It,” has warned his fellow North Americans, whose birthrates are relatively high, that, regarding their European allies, “These countries are going out of business,” and that while at the end of the 21st century there may “still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands,” these will “merely be designations for real estate.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

On Praise of Bankers

On Friday,my friend's husband died. Pat's death came as a shock to my husband and myself. Just last week, I'd carefully copied out the Scripture reading from Elijah, the one where he prayed hard on Mount Carmel for rain to end a 3 year drought. Elijah sent his servant seven times to the top of the mountain to look for a rain cloud. Finally the servant sees a tiny cloud the size of a human fist. That is enough of a sigh for Elijah- "the rain is coming," he said.

I told my friend in an email to have hope. "Keep looking for those tiny fist size rain clouds," I wrote. "The entire church is praying so hard for your husband."

I promised to pray a rosary every day for a year for Pat, to sustain him during a long and difficult recovery process. Instead, I got to pray that prayer for only seven weeks.

What happened to our prayers? "Is death somehow different?" as my husband Jon suggested? Can we ask St. Joseph to find our lost car keys, or Mother Mary to heal our quick tempers, but asking for a death to be delayed is somehow too closely tied to God's elaborate plan?

My entire parish was rattled by Pat's accident. Pat fell down the stairs in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom at 3 AM. He suffered a severe spinal injury as a result. As fellow choir member, Yomi, said, "Pat was just being considerate. He didn't turn on the light because he didn't want to wake his sleeping wife. Who turns on the light on the way to bathroom in the middle of the night? I don't." As my priest said at Pat's funeral, "we've all tripped in the night. We've all misstepped in our homes. No one else has fallen and suffered a spinal injury that meant death. No one, but Pat."

Friday night, my husband and I felt humbled and depressed. By Saturday night we felt completely rattled. Death comes like a thief in the night. Were we ready? We clutched at the catecism and spent hours studying it with the intensity of preparing for a final.

On Sunday, I felt so emotional at the 8:30 AM Mass. I hated hearing Pat's name moved from the "sick list" to the "recently deceased list" during the prayers of the faithful. I hated thinking about singing in an hour next to a new widow. My poor friend, who loved her husband so much.

As is always the case whenever I'm having a rough time, my three kids were beyond awful at church. This past Sunday was one of our priest's, Father John, last Sunday service before getting transfered next week to a new Parish. We went down to the reception in the parish hall to say goodbye.

Jon had flubbed and put most of the money we had intended to "buy donuts" after Mass into the collection plate. This left money for only one post-Mass donut. Ideally, Hannah and Alex, as two Christian siblings should be able to share donut peacefully between themselves. That "share" message is the main bulletin point on our home-education program so far. But that would require that they first compromise and select a donut flavor which they both like. Despite my maternal presence at the Boy Scout donut table, this didn't happen. Hannah chose "chocolate sprinkles" and paid for the purchase herself. Meanwhile, Alex had not budged from wanting a "pink icing" donut. This denial of a "pink donut", while not covered in the Geneva Anti-Torture Statute, nevertheless, brought out massive amounts of hysterical crying from Alex. He would not stop.

So several minutes later, we we finally reached our time to say a personal goodbye to one my favorite, favorite priests- Jon and I were only able to mutter incoherent "Thank you SOOOO much" over a loudly sniffling boy who kept muttering "I want my donut." Things were so bad, Father Jon made a special inquiry into the reason behind Alex's sadness and said "I hope you get your donut Buddy".

Meanwhile, after such an exhausting venture to get a hysterical three year old into his car seat, I turn to Jon and said "I feel miserable." He came over to give me a huge hug outside of our car. I started to cry. "I can't imagine how I'm going to sit next to Theresa in a few minutes. I'm so spent already. I can't believe Pat's dead and we're Here--at church, a place of such peace yet we feel miserable."

At this exact moment, this joyful voice rings out. "That's what I like to see. A husband and wife hugging each other! You never know how much time you have together, so hug each other often."

We turn and there is my friend Theresa. The New Widow. The one who's husband died after a horrible struggle in a Baltimore hospital room not 48 hours before.

AND SHE LOOKS INCREDIBLE! You will think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. She looked beautiful! Happy. Radiant. She wore a beautiful floral print suit. She had a full tooth smile. She radiated joy and happiness.

She says "Can I join you." And suddenly there is my friend, joining my husband and I in a grand three person hug. I looked at her. "I love you!", I said.

"I know," she said. "I got your emails. I loved that one about Elijah and the little black rain cloud."

My husband took off with the kids, while I turned back with Theresa to head into the 10 AM Mass to sing in the choir.

That brief 5 minute walk from the parking lot into the church building was incredible. I can only tell you that I thought "This is what the friends of Mary Magdelene thought after she came home from Jesus's empty tomb."

There I was drenched in mourning and sadness. I thought God had said a firm "no" to our prayers for healing. I was shocked and sad about it, but also okay that at the very least a "no" keeps us humble and in our place as "servants of God" --firmly not in charge of his master plan.

Then my friend shows up radiant in grace. She tells me that Pat had a beautiful death, surrounded by her and all three of his adult children. "It felt like we were moved along on waves of prayer," she said. "All of your prayers got redirected. And it was amazing. It was beautiful. Pat had no idea that God would love him this much. Pat saw God as he died."

Pat saw God? What?

I don't know, I'm just reporting the facts. I know that my friend looked radiant on Sunday. She looked radiant at the funeral home on Monday. She looked happy and radiant at Pat's funeral yesterday.

I know that I got to sign glorious hymns of invitation to the Eucharist and "The Wonders of the Promises" of Heaven to many, many depressed bankers at the funeral. I know now that this quiet man who sat in the section row on the right hand side each Sunday, quietly saved my parish. A former priest came back to speech in the memorial part of the Mass. He said when he came to St. Martin's in 1991 the parish had a debt of 1.2 million dollars. The priest who founded our church in the 1920s, would go to bed so nervous about the building cost of 106,000 dollars that his bed would actually shake at night. This priest said, he didn't worry so much about a 1.2 million dollar debt. And Pat, this quiet man who happened to be one of the best bankers in D.C., showed him how to pay it off! We, this humble parish of recent immigrants, paid off our debt! Pat handled the budgets for our parish school. He was chairmen of our church finance committee until the day he died. He showed my parish how to afford to build our convent! The first new convent in D.C. in a decade.

The most amazing part, is that because I know Theresa, I know another part. Pat lived a life of simplicity. They just bought their first house two years ago. All of the family's money went into affording Catholic school for their three children. They bought their first home at age 60. And Pat was a real estate banker!

The funeral mass was incredible. Such a moving experience. It was incredible to sing the Mass with the body of my friend's husband beside the choir. It was incredible to sing about the Eucharist to a group of Pat's co-workers who were not Catholic. And at the end, it was incredible to realize how diverse the talents contained in the body of Christ.

I am an artist. Bankers have to be about as far removed from my creative, non-practical, math-impaired mind. Yet here were the priests in such high praise for the work of this humble banker. And I realized how important the work of a banker is for a church. The priests and the nuns have to be about as impaired with money as my husband and I. Yet they didn't need to worry. God gave them a "Patrick" in the midst of a financially troubled parish. Three priests, listened carefully to what he said, and our tiny parish can support ministry for 2,000 active families!

I gave a lot thanks to Catholic bankers yesterday. And I gave such thanks for my own humble ability to sing. It is such a beautiful gift to give some one in mourning. My husband has started saying that "song is ornament for the air." And that's what happened. The air inside that church changed with all the beautiful hymns selected by my friend and fellow choir member, Theresa.

My prayers are for Patrick Burke to rest in peace with our Lord Jesus. I pray for Theresa and for their three children. I pray for all of us to become worthy servants of God, to bear our cross well and hear "Welcome my faithful servant" at the end of our lives.

Converts of Old

Today's Mass Reading:

2 Kings 22: 8 - 13

And Hilki'ah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD." And Hilki'ah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD." Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, "Hilki'ah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read it before the king.And when the king heard the words of the book of the law, he rent his clothes.

And the king commanded Hilki'ah the priest, and Ahi'kam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micai'ah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Asai'ah the king's servant, saying,"Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us."

I sat in the pew with my squirmy toddler and felt a wave of comfort after the Lecture read this reading. What a story! They found a last book of "the Law." How could it be missing? How could the people forget? The King is struck with such horror that an entire book of holy rules have been "lost" and ignored that he tears up his clothes.

That's how I feel as a convert to Catholicism. How could my ancestors, the pious Protestants who sent their children to Vacation Bible School, and Wednesday Night Prayer services, and double church services on Sunday forget Mary? How could we forget to pray for the constant intercession of the Saints? How could we forget the crucifix, and confession, and the Sacrament of the Sick? How could we forget the real presence in the Eucharist?

The Protestant Reformation is nothing new. This is an old struggle that goes back to ancient Judaism. The struggle I have as a convert- who has to constantly navigate between duty to God and duty to honor my parents-- that ancient Jewish King and I could have a long chat about that issue. He'd tell me that while it seems impossible to turn your religion around on dime, the conversion process is fairly straight forward. First repent. Then study the "real" rules. Then pledge to live my life differently. He'd remind me that "God's mercy is shown to every generation who fears the Lord." That King would say, run your race and pray hard for your family. The change they see in your life, might be the very thing that gets them curious enough to read "that lost book of Laws" for themselves.

Today, I broke through 32 years of morning sleepiness to attend 6:30 AM Mass with my family. This is the gift our Pope gave our family. We started attending Mass together back in April as preparation for the Papal Mass. Now we can't image starting our day without the Eucharist. It's transformed, broken me open and rearranged so many settled, sinful parts of myself.

May we all have a blessed, holy day as fellow servants of the Lord!

Best Post I've Read All Year

All those prayers for the Pope's intentions for Christian artists last month, must be paying off. I had one of the sweetest confessions ever with our beloved Father John this Saturday. I'm telling him about this vivid La Salette dream I had while the Our Lady of Fatima parish statute was visiting our house and how I think that means I'm supposed to start working on that art project I've got rattling around in my head for three years. Instead of calling me crazy, Father bellows out this memoriable line "You don't have to be another Chesterton! Just write what Our Lady wants you to write with simplicity and sincerity. WRITE FROM YOUR HEART! "(That last line was said with so much conviction and love that the screen that seperated us started to shake.)

Which is one of the the 1,000 thousand things that I love about being Catholic. Where else do you go for an encouraging writing workshop, but the nearest confessional with your local parish priest!

So coming home, I told my husband that I need to find some steady time to write during the week. Filled with the Holy Spirit my husband suggested that I stop doing all laundry and meal prep for the next three months. Only kidding! No, he wisely suggested that I channel the time and energy that I put into writing blog posts and surfing the internet, and start exclusively use my screen time to work on this big, scary art project--which of course, Father has already assured me isn't so scary, because I'm simply writing from MY HEART!"

So I'm announcing a blog fast for at least three weeks. Maybe longer. My husband wants me to try for three months. At this point, I'm not sure if I can fast for a full three days. I would appreciate all of your prayers. If you pray for me to getting into a good writing groove, then I can be back earlier to post on topics other than "how I had to confess that I was dodging a writing assignment given by Our Lady."

In the meantime, I'm happy to redirect you to what promises to be a very exciting blog in the next few weeks. After eighteen years of battling the twin heartbreaks of multiple miscarriages and infertility, Anne Marie just got called "Mom" this weekend by her newly adopted son! Go read the best God is Good post I've read all year. Drop her a line and send her a few prayers. Then go hug your beloved spouse and your kids!

Feeling Sorrow for the Kennedys

The news about Ted Kennedy's health has the D.C. beltway a buzz with political speculation, but my thoughts run into a deeper nature.

As the daughter of a Poly Sci Professor, I grew up with mythic Kennedy family. A poster of JFK on a Sail Boat with the word's "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do .. ." hangs in my parent's living room and a soft photograph of JFK Hugging Caroline Kennedy with the line "It's Okay to Dream" hung in my little brother's bedroom. More than a symbol of 1960s idealism, as a Protestant, the Kennedy's were my one insight into the Roman Catholic faith. I remember so clearly a photograph of Rose Kennedy praying the rosary in church after the murder of her son. I didn't know what the rosary was at the time. Yet I remember being impressed with her strong fingers gripping the tiny beads and the way her mantilla covered head bowed with a quiet resignation. I knew just from her body position that those "Mary prayers" were important. "There must be something to that rosary thing", I thought at the age of eight.

After my conversion to Catholicism, I hung onto the Kennedy's example as the political ground shifted beneath my feet. During the Democratic Convention in 2004, I found myself in Boston with a husband, a one year old and a huge pregnant belly in the house of a still single college friend who couldn't believe a former staunch Democrat was now avidly Pro-Life. I didn't yet know how to square my political beliefs with my newly found religion. I remember feeling shaken and stirred after yet another "look how much you've changed" discussion with my friend and turning on the News Coverage to see the reassurring sight of Ted Kennedy. "The Kennedy's are Catholics and Democrats. They've carefully studied the issues," I thought to myself. "There must be some loophole in the catecism that I don't know about yet." With that thought, I happily clicked off the remote, rubbed my enlarged tummy, and fell asleep."

"There must be some loophole," that thought fills me with chargin these days. There are no loopholes of course, as I spend my day desperately trying to throw off my many, many habits of venial sin (gossip, a quick temper, stubborness, impatience, just to name a few) in order to put on the new robe of Christ.

And some where along the way, the Kennedy's have gone from heros of the Roman Catholic faith to me, to people that need my prayers every day. I don't get "mad", I just feel sad. Because the sin of scandal is real. I was one of those "in transition" people who put off dealing with the political ramifications of the pro-life issue until the last weeks of the 2004 campaign. I wanted to believe that if John Kerry and Ted Kennedy thought that there was no conflict, then it didn't really exist. That doesn't excuse my behavior, it just highlights the extra burden of responsibility that Catholic leaders carry into the political arena.

That's the background for why I had such strong, sad feelings when I read this passage about RFK by his daughter Kerry Kennedy in the New York Times today:

"As an adult, I recognize that the lessons my father taught us children mirrored the beliefs he wanted the nation to embrace — that we must build a system of justice which enjoys the confidence of all sides; that peace is not something to pray for, but something everyone has the responsibility to create every day; "

That line "peace is not something to pray for" hurts my heart again. I pray the rosary everyday for Peace, just as Our Lady of Fatima asked us Catholics to do. And on days when the Iraq death toll continues to mount, sometimes it seems like prayer doesn't accomplish anything. Yet I know praying works. Peace is something beyond us humans. Peace isn't something we can create out of our own handiwork. Peace is a gift that we have to receive from the Holy Spirit. Peace is a conversion of the interior heart which then pours out into the world.

My only tangible proof that my prayers for peace are working may be too small for Kerry Kennedy's comfort. I only know that daily reception of the Eucharist and frequent recetation of the rosary has caused my quick temper to cool. Yesterday I handled the loss of electricity in our house for over twelve hours with grace and humor. I cooked dinner, washed the dishes, and cleaned the house in the dark. I entertained two anxious pre-schoolers. I nursed a fussy baby who had no milk to drink. I joked with my husband and cared for two elderly neighbors. Yesterday, our little corner of our apartment building was a haven of peace, even though the threat of Tornados loomed over us until 1 AM.

Prayer and Action for Peace and Social Justice isn't a either/or dichotomy, Ms. Kennedy. I pray so that I know what to do. I pray so that my actions contain great love. I pray so that the Holy Spirit will bless these puny, human size endeavors and turn them into great fruits for Jesus.

In Him, With Him, Through Him. May I do a better job of being a contemplative this week. My little town of D.C. is certainly in need of greater numbers of faithful laity.

Kissing My Scapular

At this point, it’s a pretty fair bet that any Catholic devotion that I turned my nose up during RICA as being “too weird”, is now on my “must have-- can’t live without it” list. NFP, Daily Mass, the Rosary, First Saturday devotions, Our Lady of Fatima, all of these have won their way into my heart. My latest, “How did I live without it” item is my Brown Scapular.

I cannot tell you how much this small piece of brown wool has changed my prayer life. I love that the back feels scratchy, like the camel hair clothes of John the Baptist. I love that mine comes with a St. Benedict medal that reminds me to pray for the pope. I love that it’s unfashionable and sticks out of my hip black tee shirts. I love that I can kiss it every time that I sin as a concrete act of penance. When I’m going into a tense situation (especially when I have to make difficult phone calls), I clutch a cloth picture of Our Lady in my hand. I love that wearing Our Lady of Mount Carmel makes me feel so close to St. Theresa of Avila (my patron saint) and her namesake St. Theresa of the Child Jesus.

Wearing a scapular is a reminder of the maternal hug that Our Lady extends to each of us. I’m so grateful that Our Lady extended this kindness to St. Simon Stock.

PS: Don’t forget to read about the Ugandan Martyrs Feast Day today and discover an inspiring example of male chastity.

You may be raising a nun, if...

So Maria's Birthday celebration has caused alot of talk among her oldest siblings about their choices of themes for their own future birthday parties.

Here's Alex's list:

"First I want a Space Birthday, then I want Speed-Racer Birthday, then I want Dinos & Volcanoes Birthday- with a real volcano that explodes in the air and pours red stuff all over the dinos!"

Here's Hannah's list:

"First I want an Easter Birthday, Then I want a Twisty Balloon Birthday, because they are really fun, Then I want Jesus died on the Cross Birthday, with a little Jesus on the Cross on my birthday cake made out of plastic, not made out of candy Mom, because eating Jesus directly might hurt his feelings , Then I want a Mary Birthday, because I love her so much, then I want Little Flower Theresa Birthday with little pink roses on my Birthday Cake."

Wedding Anniversary

Today is my seventh wedding anniversary! We celebrated by getting a special blessing for our marriage during the 9 AM Daily Mass. Many thanks for Our Lady for sneaking into my sedate Methodist wedding and injecting some true Wedding of Cana Wine.

I daily reap all the blessings of having a sacramental marriage to my loving husband as a result of my one simple act of obedience. During the crazy period of wedding planning, my dream of a joint Catholic/Protestant wedding service suddenly seemed like to much trouble. "Let's just use my minister and get the marriage blessed in the Catholic church afterwards," I suggested after a tiring discussion of how to coordinate Catholic wedding prep plans between Ohio (my home), New York (his home) and West Virginia (the place of our wedding.) "I can't explain why, but I really think it's important now to have the wedding recognized by my church from the start," my nervous groom suggested. (This was a complete flip from the hands-off, "whatever you want", & "don't bother with that stuffy Catholic stuff" which had dominated Jon's speech during the countless hours of pervious discussion we had on this subject.) "Okay, If it's important to you, then I'll come" I answered. So I drove through three hours of heavy snow in Cleveland and Buffalo to hit a pre-cana retreat session with my then barely Catholic fiance.

That simple sacrifice made our "mixed marriage" blessed by Jesus Himself, and over-flowing with graces. Today as we stood for our anniversary blessed with three noisy children (and one saint in heaven), we were a "mixed" marriage no longer. Now we share one heart, one fleash, and one Faith.

Happy Birthday Maria!

Last year, I celebrated my first Feast of the Visitation Mass at Holy Cross Hospital with a HUGE Baby in my Huge Tummy.

This year my "newborn" turned into a one year old who can now eat chocolate cake.

Thanks Our Lady for a safe delivery and countless graces from a happy, healthy year with little Maria Elizabeth.

Invited to the Party-Corpus Christi

I had a rough time at my first Corpus Christi procession. I had high expectations for Sunday’s march. Most of my life, I spent as Protestant, with a mere slip of the true grander of the "Last Supper" to hang on to each Sunday. I had no idea that Jesus was patiently sitting in the real Eucharist, waiting for me to show up for adoration.

After falling in love with Adoration this year, I had high hopes for the joy of singing in my first Corpus Christi procession. This Verse from St. Thomas Aquinas's "Pange Lingua Gloriosi" (1227-1274) jumped out at me during choir practice:

"Word made flesh, the bread of nature
By his word to flesh he turns;
Wine into his blood he changes,
What though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest.
Faith it's lesson quickly learns."

"Ah, that line 'What though sense no change discerns? really captures my new feelings towards the Eucharist," I thought during our practice. "I can't wait to belt that question out loudly during the Procession next Sunday!"

Of course, the reality of trying to sing a 13th Century medieval chant while helping my husband shepard three children across a highway proved challenging. Since there were only ten choir members and my family crew is understandably a little slow, I quickly lost my place in the alto section. Surrounded by non-singing a 100 non-singing parishioners, I kept losing the thread of the melody and pitch became a huge problem.

Then, Hannah accidentally stepped on my left foot drawing blood.
Now I had to limp across a major-highway while trying to stay in time and in tune. A kind Legion of Mary member noticed our distress and took over the stroller with the sleeping Maria from my husband. That gave Jon two hands to hold a wiggly 3 year old who kept trying to dart into traffic.

In the midst of verse number four of Pange Lingua, Maria wakes up. The baby sees an unfamiliar face above her, and starts wailing. Nothing will stop her cries. That left me to hold the wailing baby, hold the hand of tired 5 year old and jiggle the photocopied packet of hymns.

When we finally arrive to the open field to kneel reverently in front of the monstrance, I feel anything but reverent. My knees hurt in the uneven ground. The baby is heavy to hold and fussy. She won’t let me put her down in the grass. I’ve forgotten to pack her sun-hat. I keep repositioning her baby blanket to shield her tender Irish skin from the sun as I vigorously jiggle her up and down.

About the time that I apologize mentally to Jesus and reposition myself from a reverent kneel into an awkward squat, I hear my husband call out “You need to sit still Hannah. That is the really Jesus sitting up on that porch. This is not pretend!”
That comment sort of slices through me. This is really Jesus, and I know it. I’m still having to sit down, instead of kneeling, I’m still saying “sh, sh!” to a baby instead of reverently singing the closing part of Pangis Angelius. Even if Jesus in his full glory sat on the parish rectorary porch, I’d still be lost!

I get this depressing mental image of being one of the blessed one sitting at Jesus feet while he shared the Sermon on the Mount. I’d be the one worried about my scratchy tunic and worried about my fussy baby. I’d miss most of his words completely.

I go home and fall in bed completely depressed. “I stunk today!” I told my husband. “I didn’t get to praise Jesus at all.”

Then my loving spouse, with the full wisdom of the Holy Spirit gives me a tender chat. “Abby, that Corpus Christi Procession, was for the rest of the world. The world that DOESN'T know that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. You and I have a standing invitation to come visit him any time.”

“In fact, let’s go see Him right now.” With that, my husband pulls me out of bed and takes me back to Adoration. This time, it’s just me and Jesus in the Adoration chapel. No fussy baby’s to hold. No painful places to kneel. I’m not much better at dropping deep into contemplative prayer this second time, but I get some graces never the less.

That’s my Jesus. Always willing to meet me where I am, and lending me the graces necessary to run towards His Holy Presence.

The Real Miracle

Father Francisco at Daily Mass at St. Martins of Tours:

"The miracle of the gospels is not that Christ said to the blind--"see"
or to the lame, "walk"

The miracle is that Christ tells us "love", and we love

He says "forgive", and we forgive.

We are called to love our enemies, we pray for those who persecute us . . .

By doing these actions we call others to Christ."

Doing It Mary's Way

This weekend marked my first visit with my in-laws since my consecration to Mary. We drove to New York State to attend a SUNY graduation ceremony of my niece. As all long car trips go with a family of young children, the trip itself was both an act of charity and serious penance. All along the way, however, we were showered with graces.

Our first accidental stop brought us to the truly beautiful, National Shrine of the Lourdes Grotto. A seventy foot Mary statute marks the spot where our first American Saint, Mother Seton attended church. I saw the rock where Mother Seton sat to teach her children catechism.

I have a special place for Mother Seton in my heart. She started the Daughters of Charity, which is the order of my RICA instructor, Sister Rita. I started RICA two weeks before September 11th. All during that numb aftermath, Sister Rita strengthened our faith by describing the heroic works of Saint Peter's chapel, the closest Catholic parish to Ground Zero. (Saint Peter's is the oldest Catholic parish in New York City and was were Mother Seton was formally received into the Catholic faith as an adult.)

Turns out that Mother Seton's official shrine is only forty minutes from my house. I look forward to exploring more of Maryland's fascinating Catholic past this summer.

"What Sarah Said"

I had an incredible Mass experience yesterday. I prayed next to my best friend, Theresa, whose husband had become paralyzed since her last Eucharist. On May 4, Theresa was her usual sunny self; she led my choir’s alto section, she helped me flip to the right page in my hymnal. Her husband, Pat, sat in his usual place in the second row from the front.

This Sunday, Theresa showed up early to sing for the crowning of Our Blessed Mother. She wore a red suit in honor of the Pentecost. She had her special yellow collection envelope for the convent our parish is building for our Dominican Sisters. She still knew the order of the hymns better than me, even though she had to miss Wednesday choir practice because her whole life had flipped upside down.

At 3 AM on Wednesday, May 7, Theresa's husband got up at night to use the bathroom. In the dark, he leaned a little to close to the stairwell. He fell down six stairs with such force that his head broke into the wall by six inches. Theresa told me before church that the sound was so horrible that she rushed out of bed. Her husband asked her to “take his head out of the wall.” As she helped him, she realized that she couldn’t put his head down on the floor. The pain that he had was overwhelming. She said simply, “I held his head in my hands and he said, “I can’t feel anything.” We both knew things were very bad.”

That feeling of celebrating the Mass with a friend whose spouse is currently undergoing massive spinal surgery, who is uncertain if he’ll be “one of the lucky ones who gets to push his own wheelchair someday,” or if he’ll remain completely paralyzed from the neck down, was overwhelming.

There was so many “practical things” I wanted to do for my friend. I wanted to get her some tea and honey because her throat was horse from talking so much on the phone about Pat’s condition. I started thinking about when I could drop by some meals. Each time I sort of drifted off into the ‘problem-solving” realm, I jerked myself back. What my friend need most, was God. And she was here, in her red suit and holding the proper collection envelope to get him. The best thing that I could do for her and for her husband was to pray with her and for her.

My friend took the Eucharist at daily Mass on Tuesday before the fall. The grace from that sacrament sustained her for four harrowing days. On Sunday, she ate the bread and body of Jesus. She gained the strength she needs to sustain her during the next week. It was humbling to realize that celebrating Mass with friends who are hurting “is all we can do,” at the same time “it’s all we need to do.”

And because my friend is such a devote Catholic, she was already able to see graces from such a challenging family crisis. Her three adult children, who had all drifted away from the faith, came to celebrate Mass with her on Mother’s Day. As my eloquent friend said, “this crisis is allowing my kids to exert spiritual muscle they never knew they had.”

Please pray for my friend’s husband that he makes a full recovery and that he fights off depression during this marathon of a recovery process.

And please keep the Pope’s intentions to pray for all Catholic artists this month.

Today, I started messing around with music and found this haunting lullaby by a husband in the I.C.U. I played it a lot on my computer as I prayed for my friend Theresa. The lyrics are powerful:

"And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of --- and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"

So who's going to watch you die?.."

So clear. So true. And yet not true. "There's no comfort in the waiting room." That line is written by a guy without hope and without Christ. My friend found hope in the I.C.U. I watched her vividly renew and sustain that hope during Mass.

The song ends with the line “who is going to watch you die?” That’s a real problem for my generation who makes it through life without marriage and without children. Their worried about who will be beside them unconditionally at the end. Even though my life is already filled with a loving family, I’m not even worried about dying alone in an I.C.U. For me the question isn’t, “who is going to watch me die?’ it’s ‘who is going to meet me at my death.” My hope is that it is Christ. The same Christ who faithfully sustains my friend through Eucharist. The same Christ who doles out grace after grace as I stumble after him in my daily life.

We need better Christian art, the art that reflects reality but also transcends present pain to give hope. If you’re a Catholic writer, please write. The world is fill of I.C.U. patients and brooding secular artists who need the light of Christ. And I need some better music to listen to while I pray.