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This makes me think… about the feminine soul

April 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

The soul of woman must therefore be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear, so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self-contained, so that no invasions from without can imperil the inner life; empty of itself, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, it is mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call.

- Edith Stein, Essays on Women, pp.132–33 -

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22 March 2013 Splinters from the Cross… on disappointment.

Splinters from the Cross… on disappointment.

March 22, 2013 By 3 Comments

It’s another Friday. And this is what this post is about. There are other posts on  anger, worry, perfectionism, and overworking… and today is on disappointment.

:::

Splinter from the Cross

Little headaches, little heartaches
Little griefs of every day.
Little trials and vexations,
How they throng around our way!
One great cross, immense and heavy,
so it seems to our weak will,
Might be borne with resignation,
But these many small ones kill.
Yet all life is formed of small things,
Little leaves, make up the trees,
Many tiny drops of water
Blending, make the mighty seas.
Let us not then by impatience
Mar the beauty of the whole,
But for love of Jesus bear all
In the silence of our soul.
Asking Him for grace sufficient
To sustain us through each loss,
And to treasure each small offering
As a splinter from His Cross.

- Author Unknown -

:::

Here I am again, looking for splinters, and one of the toughest ones for me is dealing with disappointments, and unrealized expectations. So many disappointments come along, some from our own mistakes and failures, and some that come through the failures and mistakes of others. Some cannot be avoided and some could have. That’s the nature of disappointment. There was a certain level of expectation, of anticipation, of performance or circumstance that we desired, but the outcome fell short.

The bigger issue is not so much that we are disappointed, but how do we deal with it? And that largely depends on the circumstances, but it is also a faith question. Disappointment is a form of suffering.

Sometimes a disappointment can be shrugged off; it’s a little thing, so don’t sweat the small stuff.

Sometimes its a big thing and it affects the lives of other people. Then we may be disappointed, but we may also be in a position to act, to correct something, to repair a wrong, or even just to soften the outcome. We move to help, to solves problems, to seek a new path, a way out of the disappointment toward fulfillment.

Or we may not be in a position to help at all, and we feel helpless. Or we’ve tried and failed. The the best thing we can do is try to be patient until feeling passes, and often staying a bit busy helps to deal with the emotional fall-out of disappointment.

It takes a measure of faith-filled discernment to know what’s best in dealing with disappointment. It helps to look for the kingdom thread. Jesus told us to “seek first the kingdom”…  and if we can see a little glimmer of that as we deal with disappointments, we are likely to choose the best part in dealing with the disappointing things in life. We are not to just seek first the kingdom when things are going great…but always.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

- Matthew 6:33 -

Over time, I’ve learned that disappointment is one of the wedges of the devil. When something disappoints us, it has the potential to drive a wedge between God and ourselves, and ourselves and others. Disappointments can be setbacks with regards to tasks and achievements, or they can hurt us in relationships. Both kinds of disappointments  – with people or things — can lead to discouragement.

Discouragement is the older brother of disappointment, the bigger, more muscular brother who is often ready for a fight. If disappointment is a wedge, discouragement is the sledge hammer that can crush disappointments and sever us from ourselves, and others completely. Discouragement has the potential to separate us from God, both as a momentary distraction — it keeps the focus on ourselves and our miseries. And that’s when we need our focus on God the most! For when discouragement leads to despair, it seals off the heart from allowing God to enter it because the despair becomes a kind of blindness, even though the Lord is close to the despairing.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.

- Psalm 34:18

So it’s best to do as this little poem advises, “for the love of Jesus bear all in the silence of our soul. Asking Him for grace sufficient to sustain us through each loss.” This is not about being a martyr, as it is about trusting in God in good times, and especially in the bad times.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.

- 2Cor 4: 8 -

Let us offer up these disappointments as they come our way. Still, if we must act, let us not grow weary of doing what is right.

The poem talks about the little splinters we encounter from the Cross, but I think it’s helpful to take a deeper view of the bitter pain and disappointment of the Cross. Jesus was indeed, afflicted, and perplexed by not driven to despair.

Some people find that hard to believe given that Jesus uttered the words of Psalm 22 in his bitter agony…

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

- Psalm 22: 1 -

Indeed, yes, that certainly seems like despair does it not?

And yet…

Jesus was quoting the psalm fully aware that it was a foreshadowing of that very moment in time — a prophetic cry of all the hurts of humanity being nailed to that tree.

And yet…

Like a good Jewish Rabbi that he was, Jesus also knew the rest of the psalm that invokes the ultimate trust in God…

O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
Yet thou art holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In thee our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
To thee they cried, and were saved;
in thee they trusted, and were not disappointed.

-Psalm 22: 2-5-

There’s more, but you get the point. The deepest disappointments need not lead to despair. God is close to us in our brokenhearted moments. We may be crushed, but we oughtn’t despair.

May we ask for grace sufficient. For when we do, it will be there.

“In thee they trusted, and were not disappointed.”

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16 March 2013 Among Women 158: Greeting the New Pope, Plus Meet “Theologian Mom”

Among Women 158: Greeting the New Pope, Plus Meet “Theologian Mom”

March 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In this new episode of Among Women, I talk about this history-making week with the election of our new pope, Francis, formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio from Argentina. Plus in our first segment I discuss the significance of the Pope’s early morning visit on day one to pray before Our Blessed Mother at her basilica in Rome, St Mary Major. I also give some of the history of Mary and that basilica as I discuss some of its interior treasures.

Salus Populi Romani – a much venerated icon of Our Lady with the Child Jesus (found in St Mary Major)

In our second segment, I’m happy to welcome Angela Franks, PhD, wife, mother, author, professor and moral theologian at the Theological Institute of the New Evangelization (TINE in Boston) — whose twitter handle is “@theologianmom”. Together we talk about some of Angela’s professional interests regarding the eugenic legacy of Margaret Sanger and its harmful longterm impact on our culture, as well as our attitudes toward our bodies, sexuality, contraception, and good health. We explore the Catholic Church’s position of the beauty of the human person, and of women in particular. We cover why the Church continues to oppose contraception and upholds NFP (methods for natural family planning), and why our personal trust in God is key to fuller Christian life. If a new feminism incorporating the beauty of the gospel appeals to you, you’ll want to listen to this episode of Among Women. 

 

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8 March 2013 Splinters from the Cross… on perfectionism

Splinters from the Cross… on perfectionism

March 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

So I missed a week of blogging due to my travels… but now I’m back.

:::

For the Fridays in Lent, I’ve been reflecting on the trials we have in life, and looking at them as if they are splinters from the Cross of Christ. To catch up on this theme on “splinters from the cross” you may wish read the poem that the phrase comes from by looking back on my original post on anger, and the one on worry.

:::

I have long struggled with perfectionism. It’s really a clinging to some kind of control in different situations, as a form of power over things or circumstances. It has been a liability that I’ve tripped over time and again… that things are not good enough, or worse, that I am not good enough. This tendency has been something God has asked me to lay down, time and again. And slowly, over the years, I’ve gotten better at spotting perfectionism sooner rather than later.  A real turning point for me came in the days leading up to a health crisis, a time of grace that God used to lavish me with his unselfish, unfathomable merciful love… reminding me that he really does have my best interest at heart, even when I face a cross.

In the summer of 1996, in the few days between the biopsy surgery for breast cancer and getting the results, I went to a conference sponsored by Franciscan University on “Mary, Mercy, and the Eucharist.” There I heard a profound talk by Fr George Kosicki, CSB, on the divine mercy message. Fr Kosicki explained several spiritual things, including the path to heaven. Paraphrasing him now, he shared this keen insight that has never left me: if we want to be saints and go to heaven, the quickest way to heaven is to die for the faith. Indeed, Christian martyrs go straight to heaven when they die. For the rest of us, he said, we have to die daily.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

- Matthew 16: 24-25 rsv -

We have to die daily. That’s another way of saying that the Cross comes to all of us in ways that are meant for our good, for our transformation. It configures us to Christ.

But let’s face it, back then when I heard Fr George’s words, I was a tad hypersensitive about that whole subject: I didn’t want to die! No, no, NO!  I was 36 and scared I was facing a disease that might pre-empt the rest of my life — the life where I would live to see my children raised and grown — the life that was supposed to be a “happily ever after” with my husband. I was afraid to die. Afraid to leave things undone, unfinished, unsaid, and, ahem, out of my control. My plan was not going according to plan.

I never knew how strong my perfectionism streak ran until I came across something like cancer, something that totally made me undone… and completely at its mercy for where it might take me. (Fortunately, six months earlier, God saw what I would need — precisely when I would need it — and prior to any threat of breast cancer, I had already sent in my application to attend the conference on Mary and Mercy.)

In the course of that weekend, I spent a lot of time on my knees experiencing the deep and wide mercy of God. I had a good, cleansing confession, and I came away from Mass with a sense of supernatural peace that came from a new and deeper trusting of Jesus than I had before.

In sounds like a cliché, but it was true: God was in control. Not me. I left that conference knowing I was in a state of grace, unlike I had ever known before. I had encountered Divine Mercy.

Meanwhile, life was going to seem quite a bit out of control very shortly thereafter. Hours after my return home from the conference, the biopsy results came in positive. And the rest, as they say, is history. Surgeries and check ups and recoveries dominated months out of my life. But I was so grateful for the palpable presence of Divine Mercy, and the Christian community that surrounded me through it all. One of the fruits of the state of grace is that we can do things that would not necessarily be within our own powers, for grace builds on nature. The weeks that followed my diagnosis were the first time that I ever knowingly, willingly, embraced the words of Jesus to pick up and embrace my cross. What’s more,  in so doing, even more graces were released. Prior to this time in my life, I had always received crosses with an attitude of disdain, of inconvenience, of “why-me?”

Divine mercy showed me the inverse: true power is picking up the hurts and struggles — the splinters– with love, a love that comes from the Crucified One, who is truly with us in our pain, our own Good Fridays.

Years later, even though I’m quite scarred in body, these little aches and pains that come both physically and emotionally from cancer continue to be an opportunity to die daily. More than that, they are an opportunity to remember Who is in control, and whose Cross lightens my own. Carrying my own cross becomes another way I can be grateful for God’s mercy on me.

To die daily is the antidote to my perfectionistic bent. The little annoying splinters from the cross that come my way are helping to heal me of the need to want to control things, to be in charge, to make things perfect. My struggles with perfectionism has not ended but they are lessened — for the goodness of grace builds on my weak nature. Thanks to grace from the sacraments over the years, I can see a change. I’m not as obtuse to perfectionism as I was, and I can “let go” of things a lot sooner than before. Perfectionism is one more thing I can offer up… to release the things that vex me… as a way of better fitting the cross to my shoulder.

 

 

Photo taken by Maria Johnson

 

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This makes me think… about the genius of Benedict, and the clarity of his teaching…and the meaning of life

February 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Benedict XVI is a biblical scholar and an expert in Augustine’s writing and teaching. This section of his encyclical, Spe Salvi, is simple and profound, much like Augustine himself would teach.

:::

27. [I]t is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without the great hope that sustains the whole of life (cf. Eph 2:12). Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us “to the end,” until all “is accomplished” (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30). Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what “life” really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal Rite: from faith I await “eternal life”—the true life which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is simply life. Jesus, who said that he had come so that we might have life and have it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has also explained to us what “life” means: “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live”.

28. Yet now the question arises: are we not in this way falling back once again into an individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope for myself alone, which is not true hope since it forgets and overlooks others? Indeed we are not! Our relationship with God is established through communion with Jesus—we cannot achieve it alone or from our own resources alone. The relationship with Jesus, however, is a relationship with the one who gave himself as a ransom for all (cf. 1 Tim 2:6). Being in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his “being for all”; it makes it our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole…

Loving God requires an interior freedom from all possessions and all material goods: the love of God is revealed in responsibility for others. This same connection between love of God and responsibility for others can be seen in a striking way in the life of Saint Augustine. After his conversion to the Christian faith, he decided, together with some like-minded friends, to lead a life totally dedicated to the word of God and to things eternal. His intention was to practise a Christian version of the ideal of the contemplative life expressed in the great tradition of Greek philosophy, choosing in this way the  “better part” (cf. Lk10:42). Things turned out differently, however. While attending the Sunday liturgy at the port city of Hippo, he was called out from the assembly by the Bishop and constrained to receive ordination for the exercise of the priestly ministry in that city. Looking back on that moment, he writes in his Confessions: “Terrified by my sins and the weight of my misery, I had resolved in my heart, and meditated flight into the wilderness; but you forbade me and gave me strength, by saying: ‘Christ died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died’ (cf. 2 Cor 5:15)”. Christ died for all. To live for him means allowing oneself to be drawn into his being for others.

29. For Augustine this meant a totally new life. He once described his daily life in the following terms: “The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved”. “The Gospel terrifies me”—producing that healthy fear which prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass on the hope we hold in common. Amid the serious difficulties facing the Roman Empire—and also posing a serious threat to Roman Africa, which was actually destroyed at the end of Augustine’s life—this was what he set out to do: to transmit hope, the hope which came to him from faith and which, in complete contrast with his introverted temperament, enabled him to take part decisively and with all his strength in the task of building up the city. In the same chapter of the Confessions in which we have just noted the decisive reason for his commitment “for all”, he says that Christ “intercedes for us, otherwise I should despair. My weaknesses are many and grave, many and grave indeed, but more abundant still is your medicine. We might have thought that your word was far distant from union with man, and so we might have despaired of ourselves, if this Word had not become flesh and dwelt among us”. On the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and to his city—renouncing his spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.

—Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, par 27-29. (Bold emphasis, mine.)

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22 February 2013 Splinters from the Cross… on worry

Splinters from the Cross… on worry

February 22, 2013 By 3 Comments

I’m a worrier by nature. But I don’t have to live that way. There’s more on this below.

:::

What’s with the splinters from the cross? Read this post from last Friday to catch up. This is my little attempt at keeping Fridays a bit more solemn in Lent. Last week’s post dealt with anger. This week, it’s worry.

Splinter from the Cross

Little headaches, little heartaches
Little griefs of every day.
Little trials and vexations,
How they throng around our way!
One great cross, immense and heavy,
so it seems to our weak will,
Might be borne with resignation,
But these many small ones kill.
Yet all life is formed of small things,
Little leaves, make up the trees,
Many tiny drops of water
Blending, make the mighty seas.
Let us not then by impatience
Mar the beauty of the whole,
But for love of Jesus bear all
In the silence of our soul.
Asking Him for grace sufficient
To sustain us through each loss,
And to treasure each small offering
As a splinter from His Cross.

- Author Unknown -

:::

Everyone worries sometimes, but some of us get caught up in it more than others.

For lack of a better way to describe myself, I have a outward side and an inward one, thanks to a choleric-melancholic temperament. That probably sounds a bit fake. It’s not being two-faced, or false in front of others, as much as its about having a strong persona that is capable of carrying on in the face of challenges and adversity. That take charge thing has a tendency to take charge, and protect the meeker spirit within. It’s like the British myth of keeping a still upper lip. But when stuff on the inside is churning, I am capable of waiting until I’m alone, or with someone I hold very dear, to come apart. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, as the cliché goes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an intensely passionate and sensitive side. I’m am all of those things all at once. Sensitive and spiritual, while dealing with a strategic pragmatism that wants to figure things out, charge ahead, and be not afraid. In social situations my choleric Pat tends to dominate my sensitive melancholic Patty. My choleric tends to have the voice. But the melancholic is the one with the words, and the strongest love. If you really get to know me, I’m a quirky combination of seriousness and silliness, but the serious side often wins out. If you read that link about this kind of temperament, you’ll see St Paul was thought to have this temperament. That’s a strange comfort to me. It’s good to know that to be a saint, God can work with the raw materials I’ve already got, just as He has before.

Looking back over decades of living with this temperamental mix, I can see the best and the worst of me. The best of my choleric qualities have worked as a fine combination in business, when things are task oriented and goal driven, but in its extremes, its not always the best when it comes to the ways of the heart and the needs of marriage and family life. That’s a been a cause of worry and grief, when my gusto far outweighed my gentleness. The melancholic tendencies I possess make my thoughts run really deep and ponderable, while at the same time they make me a deeply loyal and noble friend. The self-donation needed for marriage and family is easily offered, while in its extremes, a melancholic’s weaknesses lead to being easily hurt and resentful — always a source of worry, too, or too much self-focus.

It took me a long time to figure out how my “lion” ought to lay down with my “lamb”, to poorly paraphrase the Scripture. And that there is real beauty in both aspects to this temperament. It also took me until my forties, and many graces from the sacraments, to really understand just how my strengths and weaknesses could intersect with ministry, and the kind of work that I do now…

All of this is a long way to say I have a very vivid imagination — I’m full of ideas and zeal — yet I’m prone to worry and left to my own devices I can brood over things. It’s like my default becomes stuck and set to pessimism, to seeing the glass half full. It worries me. I don’t want to be this way. It seems antithetical to a Christian’s faith, or so my rational choleric take-charge mind tells me. But I can’t escape the still waters of melancholic worry.

So what do I do? I’ve learned there are three things that help. They all address fear in some way, which is the root of all worry.

(That’s why some of my favorite passages in the Bible are “Do not be afraid” and “Do not fear”. There are multiple references to them, so its a message God really wants us to hear and know: Fear is useless. We must trust.)

Trust for me has three elements: prayer + a big God + my knowing my dignity as a Child of God.

#1 I pray. 

Worry drives me to my knees. Precisely because I am a Christian I’ve learned that I am no end in myself. I can’t change the way I’ve been made, but thanks to grace, I can change the way I react to things. In other words, I think God made me with this temperament, precisely, to bring me to him. The things I don’t like in me, like the melancholic worry-gene, and the strong striver-take-charger, I can bring both extremes, my roughest edges, to God. Over and over again. And He doesn’t mind. In fact, he’s prefer it that way because he’d rather work through me than have me do things without him. Whenever St. Paul complains about his thorn in the flesh, I often think he had a melancholic streak that drove his choleric up a tree. A self-critical nature can bring can ruin in a soul without God. So can worry. I do both. So I need a lot of God.

Fortunately, we have a great many saints whose counsel against worry have lit a path for turning fears into faith…

“Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

– Padre (St.) Pio –

That part about God being merciful? That really addresses the heart of my self-struggles with worry. It demands that I trust Him. And that’s a good, healthy way for my lion and lamb to coexist… they both find peace in the trust of a merciful God.

#2 I trust in a Big God.

I’ve racked up a pretty big pile of annoying self-inflicted splinters over worry that did me no good — before I learned that trials and concerns must be borne in trust of God. Jesus wants me to seek him first of all in all things. Worriers would do well to memorize his words.

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.”

John 14: 1

Now what I’ve learned is that Jesus can take a worry-wart like me, and by his grace, turn me into a powerful intercessor. There’s always a reason to pray, and now I don’t hesitate. Now I even ask other people what I can pray for on their behalf. You would think if I’m already given to worry by nature, why would I want to take on anyone elses worries? But in prayer a curious paradox takes place. By my sharing their load, and by having a few fellow intercessors take my concerns too, it, ultimately reduces my worries! It increases my faith and trust in Christ, and in his Body, the Church!

Jesus said, “I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?  And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

Matthew 6: 24-34.

The Father that is mentioned by Jesus in that passage is my father, too. I often forget that. That Big God is not some impersonal omnipotent deity. He is my father.

#3 I remember whose I am.

When I can remember that God is a father, and I belong to him, it has the power to calm my racing heart. My worries find the exit. Someone else is the true grown up in the room, the  weight-carrier, the one with the world on their shoulder. I can curl up in his lap, and, as the 12-steppers say: “Let go, and let God.” This is why, when I faced the deepest worries of my life — related to my breast cancer diagnosis in  1996 — I found my deepest consolation in the wisdom of Scripture, and in the example of the saints, like St. Francis de Sales. They both teach me how to live the radical trust that is the birthright of a Child of God, given to me at baptism.

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;

rather look to them with full hope as they arise.

 God, whose very own you are,

will lead you safely through all things;

and when you cannot stand it,

God will carry you in His arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;

the same everlasting Father who cared for you today

will take care of you then and every day.

He will either shield you from suffering,

Or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace

And put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.

– St Francis de Sales–

Taming worry into trust has been a lifelong process for me. But I offer it up to God, again, this Lent, “asking him for grace sufficient.”


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Faith and friendship and evangelization: Who has invited you “come, and see”?

January 4, 2013 By 1 Comment

From Morning Prayer:

“The Lord’s friendship is for those who revere him; to them he reveals his covenant.” - Psalm 25:14

I’m contemplating the sheer graces of God’s friendship this morning as I chew on this little morsel from the psalms I found in the Magnificat this morning. Often the call to be a saint starts with the call to be a friend of God. The saints truly are friends of God, and that should be our aspiration, as Christians.

I love today’s Gospel too.

“John was standing with two of his disciples,
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God.”

The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them,
“What are you looking for?”
They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher),
“where are you staying?” 
He said to them, “Come, and you will see.”
So they went and saw where he was staying,
and they stayed with him that day. (See John 1:35-39.)

 Jesus says: “Come, and you will see” to the two who inquire after him.

A simple friendly invitation initiates a life-changing friendship with Jesus. What a model for evangelization! I know I was brought to Jesus through the holy influence of people who extended their friendship to me. And I’m thanking God for them today.

Who has invited you to walk alongside Jesus, to “come, and see”? And who will you invite?

 

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14 December 2012 Among Women Podcast #153: Joy!

Among Women Podcast #153: Joy!

December 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This week’s episode is a special edition of Among Women, where we depart from our normal format and take time to consider a subject more in depth, with input from our listening audience. In this episode I spend some time sharing on the subject of joy, and how J.O.Y. is an acronym for a Christian life that puts Jesus first, others second, and yourself last. I also share from Psalm 37 and spend a little bit of time unpacking what that psalm means to me.

I’m grateful that several listeners and former guests of Among Women phoned in and wrote to me about the subject of joy, and its a pleasure to add their voices to the podcast. There’s also a giveaway of the new book from Cheryl Dickow and Teresa Tomeo, Wrapped Up: God’s Ten Gifts for Women, and Cheryl Dickow’s novel, Elizabeth. 

This is the last podcast for 2012, and I plan to return the week of January 7, 2013 with a new show.

Listen to the show here.

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6 December 2012 Adventing… a microcosm of real life

Adventing… a microcosm of real life

December 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

So, my latest column at Patheos is the requisite nod to the liturgical calendar, but its more about ALL the comings of Christ in my experience… that the season of Advent really lights up an awareness of the sacred found in every day.

Here’s a excerpt:

Advent is not just a liturgical season, it’s a spiritual reality that has been touching, moving, and changing me all my life. In Advent, we prepare ourselves to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord’s coming. In this season, I reflect not only on the coming of Christ in history, but Christ’s coming to my own personal history. His presence is tangible in all the advents of my life.

Advent means “coming,” “arrival,” or “appearance.” These all makes sense when I relate “advent” to the coming of Christ. By the miracle of the Incarnation, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. Through that same incarnation, I can understand the Lord’s coming in all the “advents” of my own life.

Let’s start with my conception and being alive in my mother’s womb—my “coming.” My mother was, and is, an active Catholic. During her pregnancy with me, she received communion during Mass. As she “received” the Lord, in some way, so did I. As the Lord touched my mother through those frequent communions, he also touched me. For as a mother is fed, so is her unborn child. All nutrition passes from mother to child. The body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist pumped through my veins even as a tiny baby hidden from the world but known to God and my parents.

The next advent or appearance of Christ was at my baptism. Even if I was not fully aware of my being baptized as an infant, I didn’t need to be. I was baptized into the faith of the Church. Christ’s presence permeated the process of my “becoming.” “In him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28  RSV).”

The rest is here. Subscribe to my columns at Patheos here.

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12 November 2012 This makes me think… about finding hope in the desert of pessimism…

This makes me think… about finding hope in the desert of pessimism…

November 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the [Second Vatican] Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path. The first reading spoke to us of the wisdom of the wayfarer (cf. Sir 34:9-13): the journey is a metaphor for life, and the wise wayfarer is one who has learned the art of living, and can share it with his brethren – as happens to pilgrims along the Way of Saint James or similar routes which, not by chance, have again become popular in recent years. How come so many people today feel the need to make these journeys? Is it not because they find there, or at least intuit, the meaning of our existence in the world? This, then, is how we can picture the Year of Faith, a pilgrimage in the deserts of today’s world, taking with us only what is necessary: neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, nor two tunics – as the Lord said to those he was sending out on mission (cf. Lk 9:3), but the Gospel and the faith of the Church, of which the Council documents are a luminous expression, as is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published twenty years ago.

~Benedict XVI, Homily to open the Year of Faith.

 

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