Category: The Catholic Weekly

Duty and salvation

When my oldest kid was about four, she happened to wake up around midnight to go to the bathroom. She stumbled through the living room, where my husband and I were sitting.

On this particular night – which was not a typical night! – we happened to be watching Daffy Duck cartoons and eating candy. She didn’t say a word, but just nodded to herself and kept walking. She was clearly thinking, “I KNEW it!”

It was, as I say, not a typical night. A typical night would be more likely to find us filling out insurance paperwork, trying to get stains out of someone’s favourite overalls, or simply trying to muster up the strength to get up, brush our teeth, struggle our way under the covers, and get a few hours of sleep before the baby woke up for her first feeding, so we could catch another few hours of sleep before it was time to get up and do it all over again, take care of everybody and everything all over again.

But what she saw was burned into her brain, and she thought she had found the real secret of adulthood: As soon as the kids’ bedroom door closes, you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT.

She wasn’t really wrong. Adults CAN do whatever they want. The catch is, if they DECIDE to do whatever they want, they’ll almost certainly ruin their lives and the lives of everyone around them, and go to hell when they die. It’s kind of a big catch.

What I tell my kids is that, when you’re a child, people make you do things you don’t want to do. But when you’re an adult, you have to make yourself do the things you don’t want to do. You have to be the unwilling worker and the strict taskmaster, both!

It occurs to me that we, even as adults, often fall into thinking of God as the strict taskmaster: the one who descends from on high, telling us what we can and cannot do. Every time we feel the urge to do WHATEVER WE WANT — uh oh, here comes God, saying “no, no, no.” Get up, take care of the thing, don’t do the thing you want to do, do the thing you don’t want to do instead. Then, tomorrow, do it all over again, even though you’re tired.

Following the ten commandments can feel very much like this, some days, or some years. And then we go to confession and admit, “I didn’t do the thing you told me to do. I failed.” And God forgives us, which is nice.

I’ve been teaching my faith formation class, over and over again, that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep. We are the silly ones who need to be saved, and He is the saviour. We are the wandering ones, and He is the one who finds us. We are the ones who fall into the hole, and He is the one who pulls us out again.

So I was making up my lesson plans and I realised that, with all this talk about sheep, I had not yet introduced the kids to the idea that Jesus is the paschal lamb. And boy, the strangeness of it hit me right between the eyes. God is not only the shepherd, but also the lamb.

I know you know this. You’re a Catholic, so you’ve heard it all before. But have you ever thought about how strange it is?

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

The cracks in the wall of the church

Have you been to one of those churches that is tidy and fine and in good repair, but the architectural style is . . . ongepotchket? A little of this and a little of that, and it all adds up to much too much.

Church buildings like this have clearly gone through countless renovations. Some parts are neoclassical, some are vaguely nautical. The light fixtures are from the 80s; the stations of the cross from the 50s, and the tabernacle is from who knows when. When was it okay to put those particular colors and textures together, and when was that shape ever anything but grotesque? And that’s where we keep Jesus.

It’s not just church buildings, but the Catholic Church itself that is this way. It has undergone more renovations that we can imagine. What we think of as Catholicism is not a coherent, uniform, elegant whole carefully curated by the Holy Spirit, but a sort of yard sale arrangement patched together out of whatever is made available to us in our era, in our region, in our budget, in our tradition.

That goes not only for architecture and decor, but also for styles of worship, for what we emphasize in how we incorporate our faith into our life, and for which virtues and which sins we emphasize, and for how we think about God.

The indispensable core of what unifies us as Catholics is smaller and more basic than we may realize, and so much of what feels normal and even central is actually just cultural, and may very well someday be renovated away.

Does this thought cause some discomfort? It should. The Church is not just about us or our times, and never was meant to be. Even the things that appeal to us and nourish us and give us comfort and support are not as central as we might imagine.

But wait, it gets worse! For some Catholics, living the faith is like coming into their old familiar ongepotchket, hodgepodge, yard sale church building, and one day they spot not only some aesthetic incoherence, but an actual crack in the wall.

And suddenly, they can’t shake the idea that the crack isn’t just a crack, but a portent. That everything they see around them, the things that appeal to them and the things that don’t, are an edifice built over a sinkhole. They feel they must tread carefully or the whole thing will cave in. That the cracks are structural; that there’s a yawning abyss under our feet.

Sometimes that emptiness seems like the only real thing, and every part of the church that has been built over it looks like it’s moments away from tumbling down into gehenna.

What to do if your kids want a pet

So your kids want a pet, and you don’t?

I’m not saying you absolutely have to let your kids have pets. I’m just saying, sooner or later, your kids are going to despise you for not letting them get a pet.

Here’s where it’s handy to do your homework and have on hand a list of all the worst things that can happen when you welcome a cute little animal into your home. You can lean on me, the sucker to end all suckers. I have rarely said no to a pet, and I’ve spent the last 20+ years systematically learning how stupid I am.

Here is the short list:

Hermit crab. I mean, it’s basically a bug, so have fun with that, I guess.

Some fish are suicidal, but it takes them a really long time to die. They’re going along, going along in their crystal clear waters with the right amount of food, and healthy plants doing their part to increase the physical and psychological wellness of the environment, and the temperature and ph are well controlled, and they get just the right amount of indirect sunlight and just the right amount of everything, and for some fish, this is just TOO MUCH.

As soon as you go to bed, they will gather their strength and hurl themselves out of the water, up over the side of the tank, and then somehow fly sideways so they stick to the dishcloth you keep nearby to polish the outside of the tank to give it a pretty gleam.

Then, when you haven’t had your coffee yet, you will have to decide if you’re ready to admit you have the kind of life where you have to unstick a somehow still not dead fish from dishcloth before you’ve had your coffee yet.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Not like one of these

Hello, I am 45 years old. I hurt my ankle three months ago, and it’s still not completely well. The stupid part is, I hurt it doing nothing whatsoever. It just randomly swells up from time to time, and then I have to ice and rest and medicate before I can hobble around; and it will probably never be completely fine again.

Sometimes I forget how to sleep; and there are two pills I must take every day if I wish to live. Little bits of my teeth fall off every once in a while; my digestive system is ridiculous; and my eyebrows are slowly disappearing.

I am, in short, starting to get old. Not terribly old. I haven’t lost my marbles yet, and I go running several times a week. Not that you asked, but I could probably even still get pregnant if I really wanted to (which I do not).

I’m reasonably energetic and capable, more or less. But 45 years are certainly enough to cast a faint but undeniable shadow over my days. I am, as they say, over the hill. There’s lots left to do, and I intend to do it, but I can’t deny I’ll be doing it on a downward slide.

I was grumbling about this state of affairs not long ago, and a reader chided me for my fear and weakness. She said that she was not afraid of getting old. She knew that old age led to death and death was the door to Christ! And she loved Christ! So what was there to fear?

What indeed! She wasn’t wrong. But she was, as I suspected, 22 years old. That is why she had no fear of getting old: Because she was young. I wasn’t afraid of getting old, either, when I was in my 20’s, because I was in my 20’s. Nothing easier than bravely facing something you’re not actually facing.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

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Image: Illustration from “A natural system of elocution and oratory : founded on an analysis of human constitution, considered in its three-fold nature–mental, physiological and expressional” (1886)From via Flickr 

Who will help?

I was already running late. I had picked up all the kids from their various schools and activities, and everyone was packed into the van, impatient to get home and have their snacks and shed all the cumbersome baggage of the school day. I just barely had time to zip home and unload everyone before locking myself in my room for a phone interview scheduled for 5:00.

But wait, I was almost out of gas! I would never make it home with the needle so low. So I swung into a gas station, charged out of my seat, squirted a few gallons of gas into the tank, hurtled back behind the wheel, and cranked the engine while slamming the door closed.

Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing. The lights came on, but that was it.

It was cold, and snow had started to fall through the darkening air. As the windows fogged over with the breath of nine cranky children, I struggled to hide my rising panic. I had somewhere to be, now.

This was several years ago, before I had a cell phone or AAA membership. My husband was at work, over an hour away, and I couldn’t think of anybody to call. It was, perhaps, not the screamingly horrible emergency it felt like at the time. But I was pregnant, sweating, and I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, and lived in constant fear of letting people down. The interview was an important one, and I was already anxious about it even before I thought I might be late for it. Cars lined up behind me, waiting for their turn at the pump where my van lay dead.

I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t think. The toddler began to wail as I climbed out of my seat, hoping that someone behind the counter of the convenience store could give me some advice. But inside was a long line of people waiting their turn. All normal people, competent people, people who had a right to be there, unlike me with my panic and my emergencies and my sweating self and my window-fogging family.

So I crept out again and stood beside the van, clenching and unclenching my fists. The younger kids began to fret, asking over and over, “Mama, what is it? Why aren’t we going, Mama?” and the older ones shushed them, sensing something had gone very wrong.

Then a car pulled up to the pump opposite my dead hulk of a van. It was a sleek little BMW in dark blue. A man in a fitted overcoat and leather gloves stepped neatly out and began to fill his tank. I gathered my courage and called out in a shaking voice, “Hi, hello, I’m so sorry to bother you, but my car won’t start. Do you think you could–”

He turned to look, and saw . . . I don’t know what. A mess. An entanglement.  A quagmire. And he said, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” and turned his back.

I tried again, this time with a pleasant-looking woman in a sable-colored minivan.

“Hi, I’m so sorry, my van won’t start. Do you possibly have a phone I could . . .”

Same story. She looked grieved for me, but there was nothing she could do. She had places to go. She had her act together. She was all tidy and intact and well-planned, and could not afford to get sucked into someone else’s knot of misery and irresponsibility. And I understood! I wouldn’t want to get involved with me and my nonsense, either! But unlike her, I couldn’t just leave.

Not knowing what else to do, I opened the hood of my van to show that I wasn’t just hogging the spot for no reason, and I sat down behind the wheel again. I left the door open so I could breathe, and the cold winter air picked out the hot tears leaking down my face. Nobody was going to help.

And then, someone did. Read the rest of my latest at The Catholic Weekly. 

In defense of, stay with me here, communion rails

I was talking to a fellow who works as a missioner with the Maryknolls in Tanzania. He’s still learning Swahili, and wasn’t sure whether the liturgy itself is much different from what he’s used to in the states; but one unmissable difference comes during the offertory.

Along with the bread and wine, parishioners will often bring up gifts of live chickens and goats for the church. These wander about the church grounds and are eventually slaughtered and eaten by the priests.

The frivolous thought popped into my head that I should have asked him about the architecture of the churches, because no matter what your liturgical leanings, you have to admit: If there are going to goats involved, it would be nice to have an altar rail installed.

I grew up in a church that had an altar rail. My family was relatively new to Catholicism, and our first experience of parish life was at a church so enlightened, it threatened to float away on the gaseous fumes of sheer liturgical reform.

We reached a breaking point when literal clowns made an appearance in the nave, and, after a little church hopping, we discovered a rather stodgy Polish parish nearby, where very little had changed since 1920 or so.

As I understood it, the bishop would stick his head in every once in a while, decide that a fight with a Polish pastor was a fight he did not want to have, and sagely hurry on back to the cathedral.

Altar rails were not, as many believe, abolished with Vatican II, but they did become less common. But this church still had and used one. We got used to it very quickly… Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.

Communion rail in All Saints, Newland
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Chris Brown – geograph.org.uk/p/5498877

What I learned on Corpus Christi this year

The first Sunday we went back to Mass was the feast of Corpus Christi. I was delighted to realize we could mark this feast, one of my absolute favorites, by receiving the actual corpus Christi inside the church building at last, back where we belong.

I have never been angry or bitter at our bishop for keeping Mass closed to the public. If we’re Catholics, we can’t just go get what we want and ignore the risk to the vulnerable. Even if it’s the body of Christ we want. Especially if it’s the body of Christ we want.

But oh, it was good to be back, even with masks, in alternate pews, with the sweet smells of early June roses and candle wax blending strangely with the increasingly familiar scent of hand sanitizer. I was so glad our separation was over, so glad we could be moving forward and starting to figure out how to safely make life more normal again.

Then came the first reading, and it hit me right between the eyes.  It’s a short reading, and very pointed. Moses exhorts the people to remember how God brought them out of Egypt, and how God dealt with them in the desert.

It’s a reading chosen for Corpus Christi because it reminds us: Look, from the very beginning, God has been leading you and feeding you. God doesn’t mind his business up in heaven, but he comes to us in the desert and gives us manna, and then he brings us home. Perfect for the feast day.

But it hit me so hard because of how it’s framed. It doesn’t just tell the story of how God cared for the people. It’s also the story of why God treated them as He did, and it’s a command to think about it and remember it, learn from it…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

What’s it like to be a third order Franciscan sister? A conversation with Sr. Agnes Therese Davis

I recently had a chat with Sr Agnes Thérèse Davis. Sr. Agnes is a 32-year-old sister who is a member of the Franciscan Sisters, TOR, a contemplative-active religious community that was founded in 1988. Her order values mendicancy and itinerancy, and I knew next to nothing about them or how one comes to join the order. It was a joyful, fascinating conversation, and I thought you’d like to hear it. My questions are in bold.

When did you first hear the call to become a sister?

For me, thinking about religious life only began when I started praying more intentionally as an adult. Growing up, we were Missouri Synod Lutherans. When I became Catholic, I started living a sacramental life, and in a lot of ways lost my personal prayer life. In high school, all my religious energy was diverted toward proving to my protestant friends that it was okay I was Catholic.

Did your whole family convert?

We trickled in. My mom entered some years before; my brother entered the same year as I did, but a few months before. Then several years later, my dad. We’re still waiting on my sister. For me, it was mostly an intellectual conversion. I already loved God. After my mom became Catholic, she knew that I was a voracious reader and if she left things around, I would read them. She left things around that spoke about the history of Christianity.

Looking at the teaching on the Eucharist, I don’t see how you can get anything but the true presence from John 6. I was convinced in my mind, but I was really nervous. I was very close to my grandmother, who was very desolate when my mom entered the Church.

I was confirmed in the Lutheran church when I was 13. I knew it was provisional.

I knew I had to pray, not just sit in the chapel and read holy books. I had to be silent, and I would only get myself go in with scriptures and a journal. I can’t just read the Bible; even that can be a distraction. Just forcing myself to be in silence. I remembered God is a person who loved me. Not a checklist I need to complete or a rulebook in the sky I needed to appease. Remembering God was a person who loved me and had a vested interest in my life. I realised I should be asking him what to do with my life. I was in college by this point, and I thought, “I can’t just do whatever falls in my lap. I need to ask God what He wants.”

Read the rest of this interview in The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Detail of photo courtesy of Sr. Agnes Therese

Returning to Mass after a long separation can be an emotional experience. Or not.

It’s been a long, dry spell. Many Catholics have never gone this long without receiving the Eucharist since before their first communion.

Now that more and more parishes are finding ways to safely offer public Mass or some form of communion service, many Catholics are taking to social media to describe what an overwhelming emotional experience it has been for them. Some are even sharing photos of themselves with tear-stained cheeks, overcome with emotion after receiving communion again.

Much of this emotional response is surely sincere, a spontaneous outpouring of joy and gratitude after a time of trial and deprivation. It’s understandable to want to share our delight in the Lord with people who will understand.

So let’s set aside the question of how spiritually healthy it is to take and share selfies of pious displays, and look instead to Catholics who aren’t coming to pieces over the opening of churches.

There are a lot of them. There are a lot of Catholics who most certainly want to return to the sacraments, but they aren’t feeling wracking pangs of longing as their separation continues.

They aren’t spending their days in misery and distress, ceaselessly imploring the Holy Spirit to open the church doors again. And when they do receive the Eucharist again after a long time away, they aren’t going boneless with spiritual bliss. They believe in the saving power of God with all their hearts, but they’re not getting very emotional about it.

I’m here to tell you that if that’s how it is for you, it’s okay. It doesn’t prove there’s something inferior about your faith. It doesn’t mean you’re lukewarm or spiritually mediocre. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about the sacraments, and it doesn’t mean you don’t understand how precious they are. It might mean any number of things, but it’s certainly not automatically a sign that you’re the wrong kind of Catholic.

Emotions are just emotions. They are not nothing, but they are not the same as faith. Sometimes emotions come to us unbidden from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes they are given to us as a gift. But sometimes…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Photo by kevin laminto on Unsplash

Interview your parents

When I was in ninth grade, a teacher assigned the class to interview someone older than us about their childhood, and write up the results. Being shy and lazy, I decided to interview my father, because I knew where to find him (upstairs).

I remember showing up with the absolute minimal effort: a scrap of paper and a pen, and no preparation whatsoever. He was very annoyed when I asked him to just sorta talk about his life, and he sent me off to do more preparation. Equally annoyed, I slunk off to write up a proper list of questions.

As so often happens with good assignments, I started off just trying to fulfill my minimum obligation, but discovered in the process that there was a lot I actually was curious about. I knew what his favorite holiday treats were, but what did he eat on normal days? What games did he play with his friends after school? Who were his friends, and why? Was there anyone he was scared of? What did his parents expect from him? Did he get along with them? Did that change?

I ended up with a decent article, and I’m fairly sure my father enjoyed the evening. We didn’t get along well at the time, so that’s a stand-out memory in itself: Him relaxing and telling stories, and me listening attentively.

As I listened, I slowly realized something that hadn’t hit home to my self-centered teenage self: This is a real person, not just a rule-maker and the bringer of unfair consequences. This is someone who had a favorite candy and a favorite tree and a favorite uncle as a little boy, someone who got in trouble with his teachers and his parents. This is someone who once wasn’t in charge of anyone.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image by jbauer-fotographie