Falling and Flying

Today might have just been one of those days when you whoosh your To-Do list off the table. It started out normally... Grace wakes up; I trudge in and nurse her on the raspberry couch until she is done, and watch her play until Will comes in before his shower. I whoosh her downstairs to fix coffee and a breakfast sandwich for Will before he goes to the hospital library to study for a few hours before journal club and then his shift. I feed her breakfast, try to eat breakfast too, make a few phone calls and then... derailed.

We ended up taking a trip to the pediatrician for a minor (but worrisome to me) ailment, which took way longer than expected, and resulted in both Grace and I taking a 2+ hour nap once we got home.

<< Insert random activities: fixing dinner, play time, cleaning up/ moving piles somewhere else. >>

Grace's day ended with a walk to the ER to drop off her Dad's dinner (and bring a smile to two ladies' faces!), an extended bath time, dancing to Disney Pandora, reading extra books, night prayers and kisses.

It felt good. It felt like such a full day, even though I only accomplished one thing on my To-Do list. Just one.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned when I was single, and then re-learned when I got married, is the art of being content.

Being is a passive word, but it is not a passive state. One must work on "being" - being yourself, being content.

I've become more content with the reality that I am a slow cook writer (vs. a microwave). I was thinking back to college, when I wrote so many papers a semester, all the newspaper articles, and at least 3 letters a week (plus e-mails!). And as the years pass from writing with a point to writing with a purpose, I am more satisfied with longer stretches between publishing publicly. Less pressure to perform, and thus, more time to experience.

I still have goals! Oh yes. And I still overextend myself and say "Yes!" when I should say "No!", but the magic still carries me with hope and possibility.

I start by asking what is non-negotiable to me and what is negotiable. Non-negotiables, for example, the ability to take care of Grace and Will. The willingness to practice my faith. Keeping in touch with family and friends, and writing as a ministry and as a passion.

Negotiables include where I work, what we spend our money on, how I spend my time.

I am a firm believer that boredness is an unwillingness to engage the world. How can one be bored when there is something to learn or read or try? I believe even stronger than comparison of our one life to many people's photographs or success can do worse than ruin an appetite. It can ruin a life.

People ask if Grace is always smiling. The answer is no.

But I record her joy most of the time because it brings me joy. She is my niche. She is an integral part of my vocation, and I want to continue to teach her joy, and to strive, and to be content with who she is.

Insecurity preys on the discontent. But you're the only You in the whole world. You're on a mission from God. Your worth is not how many assets you have, or where you've traveled, or the clothes you wear. Your character is determined by truthfulness, kindness, goodness, and prudence more than how many people "like" your posts or read your blog or call you on the phone.

We all fall into the trap of wondering, What if...? When we should be thinking, What's next? How am I going to be the best version of myself? Am I working towards Heaven or am I scrolling the internet at 2 a.m. mindlessly? Am I using my gifts? Am I developing my talents? Am I helping others? What can I do better for the glory of God?

And when I re-align my life to a purpose, I find that contentment: to be the best wife to Will; the most loving mother to Grace; a good and kind daughter, sister and friend; a lover of life and appreciator of struggles and triumphs.

Life is not easier as a married person - there are different trials. Your marital status does not change your mindset. If you want the joy of kids but dread the late nights, crying, crumbs and heart ache, you miss the opportunities to experience life. Life is purpose: life is worth loving. Did I like spending Will's day off cleaning the house? No. Heck no! But we did it together because an orderly, tidy house is worth seeking. 

Let us clean house internally - the cobwebs of old hurts, the wishing for a different life, the wondering if you missed your one chance (which you did not, because life is not so linear). We must see ourselves through and love ourselves. 

We must fly to God with our struggles, and fly through life without the boggles of over-worrying and over-emphasis on the things we cannot change. We must try to find happiness during hard days. We must laugh more, forgive more, and think less about what we want. We must pray more for others - we must decrease so that Christ will increase. We must read more Scripture and more literature. Cultivate love and friendship. Think less and less about what others think, and get to know yourself.

Be happy with who you are, wonderful you. Life is too meaningful to want to be anyone else. Write your own adventure.

Source

Darlings, we must fly!

Because You Can't Plan Perfect

I am in super planner mode. I love this mode. It means I get to write lists and then cross the things off the lists, and make more lists, and then re-write the lists in fancy ways. It's fun, because that's the kind of fun I like to do.

I get in this mode when I am:

A) avoiding work
B) stressed about work
C) reality is staring at me in the face and not blinking
D) coping
E) overly excited about something that clearly needs to be planned

(Cough moving again cough)

And so, it should be said that when I was pregnant with my dearest and loveliest Grace Harriet, I did not plan for her arrival. I continued to work 40 hours a week; I pushed through my morning sickness the best I could [I had the best and most understanding employers ever-ever too]; and, honestly, I had the best time being married, while also going through three tough major life events with him.

I was strong for him and with him, and that felt good. It felt very married.

I love this picture - my perfect new baby!

We moved to New Orleans and I spent a majority of my time getting settled and unpacking, writing for my Story Sessions writing workshop, napping, binging on mystery shows of Netflix (specifically, Rosemary & Thyme, Poirot, and Monk if you need awesome show ideas), learning my way around New Orleans, getting my appetite back, swimming with Will, and more sleeping.

I channelled Will and decorated her nursery with our love. I tried to get really excited about meeting her. I daydreamed about what having a baby would be like.

Fast-forward to Grace Harriet's birth: awesome. Steady pace, epidural, no complications, and life-giving. I did not take any birthing classes beforehand (besides a free basics one at the hospital), and while it was mildly informative, I enjoyed seeing other pregnant woman and eating the complimentary cheese.

And I'm tearing up as I type this because I love Grace so much. She is my baby, and she is perfect. She is social and lovely and sassy. She smiles for almost all of my pictures, and we like to laugh together. I've never been so smitten. Grace has legitimately changed my life for the better.

Since Grace was three months, we've noticed that her right arm does not move as intentionally as her left, and she likes to keep her right hand fisted. In a possibly related note, her right leg is a bit weaker than her left. We've brought it up to her doctors, and by six months, we got the go ahead for physical therapy. Thus began a month-ish of interviews and multiple evaluations. Yes, a healthy pregnancy. No, nothing abnormal. Yes, she does have the most beautiful blue eyes.

My beach bum bebe

Finally, we met Grace's therapist - a vivacious woman who has been doing this for over 20 years, and has a young daughter with cerebral palsy. Ms. Lisa is an amazing resource of information. She is gentle and firm with Grace as she stretches her and helps her gain more muscle mass (needed for her fine motor skills as well as her gross), and teaches us how to ESTIM her, since we'll need to buy our own and do it twice (or more) a day to help Grace recognize and use those muscles more (she is responding so well to this treatment!). She'll get a tiny hand splint to help keep her right hand open more.

There are a lot of positives - whatever Grace has, with persistence and lots of therapy, she should do just fine. She has great range of motion, moves her arm and hand voluntarily, and is very flexible. She is able to withstand long PT sessions, and is generally in a good mood as we contort her body and during ESTIM sessions. We're seeing a specialist on Thursday - a physiologist who is triple board certified in pediatrics and sports medicine; the doctor himself also has cerebral palsy and a reputation for diagnosing hard cases.

Ms. Lisa working with GHB

But when Ms. Lisa and Will are talking during a session, and words like cerebral palsy and hemiparesis are being said towards Grace, I want to cry. They are not life-threatening conditions, and for that I am sososososo grateful. I suppose I am just in shock, of sorts - and it is the confirmation that my gut told me everytime someone said, Maybe she's just going to be a lefty.

No! It's something more. Something we did not plan on; or expect, for that matter.

At mass yesterday, I stopped feeling anxiety for Grace. It was temporary, and a good reminder to go to God. God, who loves perfectly. God, who gave his only Son. God, the Alpha and the Omega and the one who loves us and carries us and knows us each intimately. God has the best plans for Grace. I need to trust in him, and talk to him, and avoid the company of scary thoughts. It is Satan who plants doubts. Satan spreads sadness. Satan hates the hope Love gives me.

Mama Mary, full of Grace, guide me to be the best mother to GHB.
{statue at St. Patrick's on Camp Street, NOLA}

Grace is going to be okay. Struggle is okay. The most important things are to continue loving her wholly, doing PT with her, teaching her cheerfulness instead of shame, and continuing to praise and go to the God who made us, who knew each of us before the womb (Jeremiah 1:5). It's amazing to me how babies thrive in the love of their parents. I need to learn to thrive better in the light of God's love of me.

May I continue to be open to his plans, and plan along with God, the Great Creator.

May the Force Be With You

A follow-up, perhaps, on the Vatican's symposium with non-believers:

“Everything that is moved is moved by another. That some things are in motion—for example, the sun—is evident from sense. Therefore, it is moved by something else that moves it. This mover is itself either moved or not moved. If it is not, we have reached our conclusion—namely, that we must posit some unmoved mover. This we call God. If it is moved, it is moved by another mover. We must, consequently, either proceed to infinity, or we must arrive at some unmoved mover. Now, it is not possible to proceed to infinity. Hence, we must posit some prime unmoved mover. Both statements can be proved.” 

--Stacy Trasancos, Ph.D., writes over at the new Atheist-Catholic dialogue website Strange Notions

In conversations I've had with Atheists and Agnostics, I am reminded of the importance of "defining one's terms." It's one thing to not believe in God; it's another to turn the argument to unicorns. Unicorns have never properly defended their arguments through words or action or history for that matter, so I think they can be properly left out of the conversation. The tendency towards the absurd makes talking into babble, and logic into lessening of real thought.

What I like so much about the Big Bang theory, for instance, is the fascinating argument that order can come from the chaos. BOOM! The world, y'all. But if the Big Bang happened, then as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says, God is behind it. Because the bang didn't just "happen." There is always a force propelling motion forward. And even if you don't believe it's God, is the other force so hard to believe? 

Beauty in the rubble of life.

"This life is far too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, 'Scientific Humanism.' That won't do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight; i.e., God. In fact, I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don't see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and wouldn't let go until God identified himself and blessed him." -Walker Percy

Do You Follow the Star?

I've been thinking more about New Year resolutions, and I wonder how successful they would be if we treated them less as things we can do to help or better ourselves, and more as something we can offer up to God.

I was struck by a question I encountered yesterday. In a woman's group I belong to, one of the members asked, "Does anyone ever feel like God hates you?"

This is a common question. Many people see bad and wonder how God can even exist. People feel as if they are always being good, but nothing ever comes of it. Today's readings (especially the Gospel), however, shows us how important free will is and the overwhelming power of good:

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. (Matthew 2:9-12)

The Magi seek the star, which leads them to the Christ child. As believers in signs, they trust a dream, which tells them not to return to Herod. They chose to leave by another route and not risk the child's life. What faith they had!

God never gives you anything you cannot handle. We go through sufferings in life just as Christ suffered for us, on the cross and through human temptations and lamentations. These sufferings, if we so choose, can be signs which lead us closer to Christ. The priest said in the homily today - think of what Mary, who carries so many things in her heart, must have felt when she received the gifts from the Magi: gold, given only to Kings; frankincense, given in homage to the Savior; and myrrh, used in burials, given as a reminder of the baby's humanity and eventual death.

When we consider that God sent his only Son to suffer death on a cross for the redemption of our sins, and when we ponder the very essence of love and how we are on this earth because we were created of Love and for love, we cannot believe or even think God hates anyone. Only the Devil plants seeds of hate. When you feel weak and wonder why God is not intervening, ask yourself: "Have I offered this up to God? Have I asked God for help? Do I want a specific outcome or am I open to God's plans for me?"

Or are you thinking like Herod, and would like to try to fix the end game out of fear? And what of grace?

The Magi followed a star. We follow a much less elusive guide, and still, at times, we can feel lost. And while we are not guaranteed a happy life, we can have a joyful one. On this Solemnity of the feast of the Epiphany, allow the words of the second reading seep into your heart:

Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6)

Have a blessed day! May you find the Christ child and be able to offer to him your most precious gift: that of self, and a devotion of your life in worthy adoration to our Lord.

"The Wise Men" by G.K. Chesterton

Step softly, under snow or rain,
 To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
 That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
 On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all the labyrinthine lore,
 We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
 And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
 And serve the made gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
 Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
 He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed...
 With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
 That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
 And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
 For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
 (... We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone...)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
 The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
 And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
 And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
 That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
 To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
 For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
 Through the snow and rain.



"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/ We Three Kings" sung by The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan (one of my favorite versions and Christmas songs)

Questions and Faith

TBM Topic 27: Counsel the Doubtful

"Questions and Faith" by Julie Robison
Trista at Not a Minx, Moron, or a Parasite
Elizabeth at Startling the Day

We three are from the oft-mentioned, widely-speculated upon demographic of young, twenty-something Catholic women. We're here to dispel the myths and misconceptions- please join us for the discussion on Facebook and Twitter!


During Lent, we will be discussing the Spiritual Works of Mercy every week.

Anything worth knowing begins with a question. ‎Philosopher Etienne Gibson wrote, "Faith comes to intelligence as a light that overflows it with joy and inspires it with a certitude that does away with question."

I like asking questions, so perhaps I'm sympathetic towards the doubters of this world. I like to see them as truth-seekers, wishing to truly know and understand the kind of magnitude God has to offer us. I also like figuring out answers. If something doesn't seem right, I push the subject till I am satisfied. If I still lack total comprehension, especially in terms of theology, I don't mind. I read on. I think about it more, talk about it, pray about it.

But I never doubt God.

Perhaps this sounds prideful. Maybe it sounds like I've got this God response system down pat. I pray, he responds. No doubt about it.

Or maybe I take my place as his child more seriously. When Dad talks, I listen. When Dad says I can't do something, I ask why. He tells me. I might ask a different way. He shows me. When I don't understand, I look at it a different way. When I don't agree, I seek his guidance to discern why the Mother Church leads me to believe such a thing.

What I love most about the Catholic Church is how she guides souls - authoritatively, gently, and humbly. She is sure of herself because her bridegroom is Christ. Her children may wander, but she is there to guide them home when they wish to return.

The hardest part about faith, I think, is that it is a choice. I choose to believe in God. I choose to believe Jesus is the Savior of the world. There are a lot of reasons why I choose these belief systems, and none of them have to do with making my life easier and more enjoyable. I like facts, so the resurrection place in history cements Jesus' authenticity as God, verses a wise man who taught us good things thousands of years ago. Everything stems from that.

The doubtful must be counseled because it shows love towards their human development. Man must know God or remain incomplete as a person. Doubt is not a bad thing either - but it should be used as the fuel towards belief, guiding one's prayer.

Last night, as I was playing Euchre with my fiance and his parents, I told the dealer to pick up the card and B. visibly grimaced. He didn't know I had the two highest cards, plus one more to trump. I asked him, "Don't you trust me?" and his expression turned to pure confidence. We won all five hands of that game.

God is no card player, but he does hold the ultimate trump card. The readings yesterday show us how God the Father did not make Abraham sacrifice his only son, setting up the world to see the great significance and sacrifice God the Son made, to willingly die for the atonement of our sins.

The doubtful may see all the negative parts of God before they choose to see the good, but the road to Damascus is not any easy one for any person. There can be no discipleship without the cross. As Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, "The cross reminds us that there is no true love without suffering, there is no gift of life without pain."

Counsel the doubtful out of love, and perhaps the burden of doubt will turn into a freedom to believe.

For those truly struggling, as I have, I recommend praying a novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Man and Mystery

What saved me from moral and emotional paralysis in this pseudo-philosophy was, I think, a deep-seated interested in humanity. I could not reason myself into believing that men are only machines; I could not smother in logic the sense of mystery that broods upon the world, not find any place in the network of blind chance and fate for the human will. What is the nature of this thing we call life, this irrational power which by its own initiative expands into endless activities, and finally creates for itself a conscious soul of suffering and joy? 

-- from Paul Elmer More's Pages from an Oxford Diary

The Logic of Personhood

Saturday is my Dad's birthday. He'll be 51 years old and he has demanded cherry pie at every meal because it is both his birthday AND the Rapture (supposedly, although Catholics don't believe in that). Cherry pie, the Robison family ambrosia, is divine. Since my cherry pie conversion during childhood, I am wholly convinced pie is the best way to eat fruit.

Dad, about 18 years ago, and one of my younger brothers

My Dad was born 3 months early in 1960, which apparently was not the time to be a preemie. They didn't know if he would live past infancy, but I suppose I just blew the punch line. Dad is still around, and for that, all who know him have richer lives.

But what if they had let him die, because he came too early? What if my grandmother hadn't wanted him? What if Dad had grown up to be a horrible person? What if I despised my father? Could I wish he had never been born, and thus render my own life non-existent? What if my father was a vegetable right now, or had to be changed like a baby every day? He might be that way one day. Would that render him any less of a person? Would he be a lebensunwerten Lebens - a life unworthy of life?

I read a book review this morning by Shelia Liaugminas (from the wonderful MercatorNet) of The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God by Michael Pakaluk. The title of the review is "Pro-choice atheist to pro-life activist" and has been endorsed by both Michael Novak and Peter Kreeft, who knew the couple personally. Besides the gorgeous use of Graham Greene in the title of the book, I was immediately sucked into the "clarity of logic and reason, and the beauty of truth" of Ruth Pakaluk's story, the now deceased wife of Michael. He wrote,

The core of Ruth’s argument about abortion and human rights may be summarized in this way: Human rights are rights that pertain to us simply in virtue of the fact that we are human, not for any reason above and beyond that; the fundamental human right is the right to life, and so, if that right is denied, then all human rights are in effect denied; the thing growing in the mother’s womb is surely alive (otherwise it would not need to be killed by an abortion), and it is human; thus, to deny that the thing growing in the mother’s womb has the right to life is to deny that anyone has any human rights whatsoever. 

Once, an interviewer of a student newspaper at a university where she was debating asked her, “So, it’s not a legal argument you are making but a humanistic argument?” Ruth replied, “It comes from this idea: either you think all human beings are equal, and you don’t kill each other, or you don’t. I have always seen abortion as an issue where you should not need to believe in God in order to be against it. If anyone wants to say human rights exist or that all human beings are equal, those statements are tautologous with ‘Abortion is wrong.’”

The book has been compared to both C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed and Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, and I am beyond interested in reading this book. (For those who remember my New Years' Resolution of purchasing no more than THREE [sob] books a month, I've already decided to buy Christopher Dawson's the Formation and Division of Christendom books, and will add this incredible looking read alongside the pair!)

Earlier this week, I was struck by a comment left on Stacy Trasancos (of Accepting Abundance)'s blog. Stacy holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and is a convert to Catholicism. I enjoy her blog immensely because of how much she continues to engage science, theology, logic and reason. She has a series called "Defending Personhood." Her latest one is titled "Defending Personhood: The Dangerous Womb."

One of her commenters wrote, "Now, you know that I struggle a bit with whether or not the embryo is a person. I will say that it is a human being, but I am still not entirely sure that it is in fact a person. However, the pro-choice viewpoint seems to be: don't question whether or not it is a person--if you don't want it, make sure you kill it before it definitely is. And that is a viewpoint that I have a really hard time with."

Fabulous sign in Ireland (the Motherland)

I had a hard time with this thought process. What is the difference between an embryo [an unborn human baby, specifically in its first 8 weeks] being human being and a person? Are they not the same thing? And why would that difference matter enough to distinguish?

I'm continually baffled at people's refusal to recognize the sacredness of every life and/ or not take medical facts at face value-- except, of course, with the idea that something could be gained by not admitting personhood. Considering how many babies are miscarried, for example, it seems a miracle in itself that fetuses reach full development and life outside the womb.

I was recently introduced to one of my new favorite pro-life defenses. "The Abortion Debate: A Reasonable, Scientific Pro-Life Argument" by blogger The Humble Libertarian, who states the obvious: nothing is created at birth. He writes,

Thus, it is an error to claim, "It's not a human, it's a fetus." That would be like saying, "It's not a human, it's an infant," or, "It's not a human, it's an adolescent." These are category fallacies. The proper answer to these assertions would be, "Sure it's a fetus, sure it's an infant, and sure it's an adolescent. It's a human fetus, a human infant, and a human adolescent." These are simply stages of development in the human life cycle. 

A human starts as an embryo, becomes a fetus, is born an infant, develops into a child, grows into an adolescent, matures into adulthood, and eventually dies. Scientifically and philosophically, there is no good reason to believe a human being is created at birth, because nothing is created at birth. At birth, a fetus simply changes location and changes its mode of acquiring food and dispensing waste, but at no point does it become something entirely new or different. Life begins at conception and proceeds through its stages until death. From the moment of conception, the unborn are human beings.

When President Obama says defining a person is above his pay grade or shows his support of abortion as a valid option, or when people demand better healthcare, but squirm under the pressure of saying who is a human person worthy of life and then attach a price tag to the care of the young, the sick and the elderly like cattle at the market, I am reminded of the opening of Wendell Berry's essay "Life Is a Miracle," in which he says,

It is clearly bad for the sciences and the arts to divided into "two cultures..." It is bad for both of these cultures to be operating strictly according to "professional standards," without local affection or community responsibility, much less any vision of an eternal order to which we all are subordinate and under obligation. It is even worse that we are actually confronting, not just "two cultures," but a whole ragbag of disciplines and professions, each with its own jargon more or less unintelligible to the others, and all saying of the rest of the world, "That is not my field."

Do we the people no longer have the credentials of existing? Can we no longer claim the higher grounds of humanity? Are we not all encapsulated by the Emily Dickinson poem "I dwell in possibility"? When did we relinquish our dignity as human beings and persons, and what are we left with? How can we want for a better world, or fight for any kind of rights, if humans are disposable goods, with some worth nurturing, some worth not... No! We were made by a merciful and generous God who created us out of Love and for love, who said, "It is necessary that you exist." To say otherwise is hateful, and we humans are better than hate, because we are capable of true love and we have the intellect to not only recognize another's inherent dignity and worth, but respond and appreciate such a gift that is life.
‎
In book XXII of Homer's The Odyssey, it says, ‎"Rejoice in your heart...No cries of triumph now./ It's unholy to glory over the bodies of the dead./ These men the doom of the gods has brought low,/ and their own indecent acts."

I was reminded of this bit when I wrote my TIC piece on 'Of Gods and Men' and Osama bin Laden's death: "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

Here is the trailer for 'Of Gods and Men' -- I know it's had limited showings here in the States, but if you have the chance to see it, do:



Have a blessed weekend! I'm glad y'all exist.

Ecce Nostra Feminia

The Bright Maidens' Topic 9: Mary, Our Guide

"Ecce Nostra Feminia" by Julie Robison
"Simple Things" by Trista at Not a Minx, a Moron, or a Parasite
"Mary's vapor rub" by Elizabeth at Startling the Day

We three are from the oft-mentioned, widely-speculated upon demographic of young, twenty-something Catholic women. We're here to dispel the myths and misconceptions- please join us for the discussion!

Last night, Dad and I went to the grocery store after work, to pick up vegetables, bread, cheese and a few more gallons of milk. We were in the bakery section, and Dad was looking at the bread called "Ecce Panis."

"Do you know what 'ecce' means in Latin, Dad?" I asked.

"What is that," he replied, humoring me.

"'Ecce' means 'look' in Latin, so 'ecce panis' is 'look, bread!' The word for bread looks like it is in the nominative case, but really it's the vocative, which is supported by 'ecce,'" I rambled on to him.

"I think it also can be translated as 'behold,'" said Dad. "As in, 'behold- bread!'"

I liked that translation, but more because I began thinking about Mary, the Theokokos, the Mother of God.

Behold, Our Lady! Loving and sanguine, I always imagine Mary half-smiling at Jesus at the wedding in Cana, when he told her his time has not yet come, and she, gentle mother, flicking her wrist and saying to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Just as Jesus is our Savior, wholly part of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, who will come back to earth to judge the living and the dead, Mary is our mother, and de facto, our liaison to God. Her earthly comings are always with the purpose and intent to bear messages from Jesus. She is a reminder of our need for the spiritual, through her vibrancy and consistent persuasion for us to follow her Son, who is the way, the truth and the life. Mary always points towards Jesus, which makes her our own guide in this life, if we are to play the role of Dante.

Marina Warner wrote, in her 1976 book Alone of All Her Sex, "Whether we regard the Virgin Mary as the most sublime and beautiful image in man's struggle towards the good and the pure, or the most pitiable production of ignorance and superstition, she represents a central theme in the history of Western attitudes to women. She is one of the few females to have attained the status of myth-- a myth that for nearly two thousand years has coursed through our culture, as spirited and often as imperceptible as an underground stream."

So good!

I have been reading Judith Dupre's Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art, and Life and give it cannot be more highly recommended. Dupre offers 59 meditations, equal to the number of beads on a rosary. She writes, "This text is a three-part invention: narrative, visual narrative, and marginalia. In the main text, I offer short essays, sometimes personal, sometimes theological or historical, on Mary's place in our everyday lives. The imagery and captions form a 'book within a book' that traces Mary's influence on Western art. The selections from history, poetry, and prose in the margins offer additional insights into Mary and are formatted after the midrash commentary on the text of the Hebrew Bible, which is used also but to a lesser extent in the New Testament and the Qur'an."

One of the most beautiful elements this book has truly brought to light for myself is Mary's ability to penetrate the hearts of many religious traditions. Charlene Spretnak says in Missing Mary that, "Mary saves us from denying the kinship among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: All three live in her spiritual presence."

Though I wrote in my last Mary post that many Protestants reject Mary so as to reject the temptation to idolatry, the very idea that one would idolize such a woman is apt evidence of her power. Dupre writes,

In a 1952 essay, Archbishop Fulton Sheen opined that Mary chose to appear in the sleepy backwater of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 as a "pledge and sign of hope to the Moslem people." Despite the evangelical nature of Sheen's opinion at the time is was made, the idea of reconciliation through Mary is worth considering anew. Muhammad, who has tirelessly warned Muslims not to deify him, embodied his faith, virtue, and surrender to God so wholeheartedly that he forged in his own person a living link between heaven and earth. Like Mary, his will was only to do God's will. At a time when the need to reconcile differing culture traditions has never been more urgent, there has probably been no symbol or concept in Christendom that can mediate and build bridges with more success and amplitude than Mary.

It should not be surprising then that Catholics so whole-heartedly take on a devotion to Mary, Mother of God, and our Mother in Heaven. I've always been amused by the viewpoint taken in True Devotion to Mary, when St. Louis De Montfort states that the Devil fears Mary more than all angels and men, and in a sense more than God Himself, because it is mortifying to be overcome by such a small woman.

Mary cannot forgive sins, but she teaches us how to live without them, as she did. She guides souls to God by teaching them how to love, and anyone who loves God cannot be taken by the Devil, even if they will be tempted by him. Even Jesus was tempted by the Devil, so, in many ways, our trials are compliments. And Mary is there to help.

Behold, Mary! Full of grace, help us also to be filled with grace, to say "yes" to God, and to accept our trials. Let us never forget that Mary was not spared from the worst kind of suffering, be it scorn from neighbors or watching her son unjustly put to death. Still she stands benevolent, the Queen of Heaven, with her hand outstretched. As the Rev. Patrick Ward said in a 2008 homily, "When Mary says, 'Let is be with me according to your word,' what she is really saying is, 'Lead me on, Lord. You have more in store for me than I can possibly imagine.'" Behold Mary, joyfully and lovingly guiding us souls to God.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgins of virgins, my Mother! To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me.
--The Memorare prayer, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Papa B and the Gift of the Tomb

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil makes use of two eloquent signs. First there is the fire that becomes light. As the procession makes its way through the church, shrouded in the darkness of the night, the light of the Paschal Candle becomes a wave of lights, and it speaks to us of Christ as the true morning star that never sets—the Risen Lord in whom light has conquered darkness. The second sign is water. On the one hand, it recalls the waters of the Red Sea, decline and death, the mystery of the Cross. But now it is presented to us as spring water, a life-giving element amid the dryness. Thus it becomes the image of the sacrament of baptism, through which we become sharers in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Yet these great signs of creation, light and water, are not the only constituent elements of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Another essential feature is the ample encounter with the words of sacred Scripture that it provides. Before the liturgical reform there were twelve Old Testament readings and two from the New Testament. The New Testament readings have been retained. The number of Old Testament readings has been fixed at seven, but depending upon the local situation, they may be reduced to three. The Church wishes to offer us a panoramic view of whole trajectory of salvation history, starting with creation, passing through the election and the liberation of Israel to the testimony of the prophets by which this entire history is directed ever more clearly towards Jesus Christ.

In the liturgical tradition all these readings were called prophecies. Even when they are not directly foretelling future events, they have a prophetic character, they show us the inner foundation and orientation of history. They cause creation and history to become transparent to what is essential. In this way they take us by the hand and lead us towards Christ, they show us the true Light.

At the Easter Vigil, the journey along the paths of sacred Scripture begins with the account of creation. This is the liturgy's way of telling us that the creation story is itself a prophecy. It is not information about the external processes by which the cosmos and man himself came into being. The Fathers of the Church were well aware of this. They did not interpret the story as an account of the process of the origins of things, but rather as a pointer towards the essential, towards the true beginning and end of our being. Now, one might ask: is it really important to speak also of creation during the Easter Vigil? Could we not begin with the events in which God calls man, forms a people for himself and creates his history with men upon the earth? The answer has to be: no. To omit the creation would be to misunderstand the very history of God with men, to diminish it, to lose sight of its true order of greatness.

The sweep of history established by God reaches back to the origins, back to creation. Our profession of faith begins with the words: "We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth". If we omit the beginning of the Credo, the whole history of salvation becomes too limited and too small. The Church is not some kind of association that concerns itself with man's religious needs but is limited to that objective. No, she brings man into contact with God and thus with the source of all things. Therefore we relate to God as Creator, and so we have a responsibility for creation. Our responsibility extends as far as creation because it comes from the Creator. Only because God created everything can he give us life and direct our lives. Life in the Church's faith involves more than a set of feelings and sentiments and perhaps moral obligations. It embraces man in his entirety, from his origins to his eternal destiny. Only because creation belongs to God can we place ourselves completely in his hands. And only because he is the Creator can he give us life for ever. Joy over creation, thanksgiving for creation and responsibility for it all belong together.

The central message of the creation account can be defined more precisely still. In the opening words of his Gospel, Saint John sums up the essential meaning of that account in this single statement: "In the beginning was the Word". In effect, the creation account that we listened to earlier is characterized by the regularly recurring phrase: "And God said ..." The world is a product of the Word, of the Logos, as Saint John expresses it, using a key term from the Greek language.

"Logos" means "reason", "sense", "word". It is not reason pure and simple, but creative Reason, that speaks and communicates itself. It is Reason that both is and creates sense. The creation account tells us, then, that the world is a product of creative Reason. Hence it tells us that, far from there being an absence of reason and freedom at the origin of all things, the source of everything is creative Reason, love, and freedom. Here we are faced with the ultimate alternative that is at stake in the dispute between faith and unbelief: are irrationality, lack of freedom and pure chance the origin of everything, or are reason, freedom and love at the origin of being? Does the primacy belong to unreason or to reason? This is what everything hinges upon in the final analysis.

As believers we answer, with the creation account and with John, that in the beginning is reason. In the beginning is freedom. Hence it is good to be a human person. It is not the case that in the expanding universe, at a late stage, in some tiny corner of the cosmos, there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it. If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason.

And because it is Reason, it also created freedom; and because freedom can be abused, there also exist forces harmful to creation. Hence a thick black line, so to speak, has been drawn across the structure of the universe and across the nature of man. But despite this contradiction, creation itself remains good, life remains good, because at the beginning is good Reason, God's creative love. Hence the world can be saved. Hence we can and must place ourselves on the side of reason, freedom and love—on the side of God who loves us so much that he suffered for us, that from his death there might emerge a new, definitive and healed life.

The Old Testament account of creation that we listened to clearly indicates this order of realities. But it leads us a further step forward. It has structured the process of creation within the framework of a week leading up to the Sabbath, in which it finds its completion. For Israel, the Sabbath was the day on which all could participate in God's rest, in which man and animal, master and slave, great and small were united in God's freedom. Thus the Sabbath was an expression of the Covenant between God and man and creation.

In this way, communion between God and man does not appear as something extra, something added later to a world already fully created. The Covenant, communion between God and man, is inbuilt at the deepest level of creation. Yes, the Covenant is the inner ground of creation, just as creation is the external presupposition of the Covenant. God made the world so that there could be a space where he might communicate his love, and from which the response of love might come back to him. From God's perspective, the heart of the man who responds to him is greater and more important than the whole immense material cosmos, for all that the latter allows us to glimpse something of God's grandeur.

Easter and the paschal experience of Christians, however, now require us to take a further step. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. After six days in which man in some sense participates in God's work of creation, the Sabbath is the day of rest. But something quite unprecedented happened in the nascent Church: the place of the Sabbath, the seventh day, was taken by the first day. As the day of the liturgical assembly, it is the day for encounter with God through Jesus Christ who as the Risen Lord encountered his followers on the first day, Sunday, after they had found the tomb empty.

The structure of the week is overturned. No longer does it point towards the seventh day, as the time to participate in God's rest. It sets out from the first day as the day of encounter with the Risen Lord. This encounter happens afresh at every celebration of the Eucharist, when the Lord enters anew into the midst of his disciples and gives himself to them, allows himself, so to speak, to be touched by them, sits down at table with them. This change is utterly extraordinary, considering that the Sabbath, the seventh day seen as the day of encounter with God, is so profoundly rooted in the Old Testament.

If we also bear in mind how much the movement from work towards the rest-day corresponds to a natural rhythm, the dramatic nature of this change is even more striking. This revolutionary development that occurred at the very the beginning of the Church's history can be explained only by the fact that something utterly new happened that day. The first day of the week was the third day after Jesus' death. It was the day when he showed himself to his disciples as the Risen Lord. In truth, this encounter had something unsettling about it. The world had changed. This man who had died was now living with a life that was no longer threatened by any death. A new form of life had been inaugurated, a new dimension of creation. The first day, according to the Genesis account, is the day on which creation begins. Now it was the day of creation in a new way, it had become the day of the new creation. We celebrate the first day. And in so doing we celebrate God the Creator and his creation.

Yes, we believe in God, the Creator of heaven and earth. And we celebrate the God who was made man, who suffered, died, was buried and rose again. We celebrate the definitive victory of the Creator and of his creation. We celebrate this day as the origin and the goal of our existence. We celebrate it because now, thanks to the risen Lord, it is definitively established that reason is stronger than unreason, truth stronger than lies, love stronger than death. We celebrate the first day because we know that the black line drawn across creation does not last for ever. We celebrate it because we know that those words from the end of the creation account have now been definitively fulfilled: "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). Amen.

-- the homily of Pope Benedict XVI on Holy Saturday, April 23, 2011 at St. Peter's Basilica

Out of the Depths

Please tell me you read her and read her often....

"De Profundis" by Christina Rossetti

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

Be Still

“To believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world, taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly… to believe as a Christian means understanding our existence as a response to the word, the logos, that upholds and maintains all things.”

--Introduction to Christianity, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), 1968