SIMCHA FISHER

Yesterday on the radio, Mark Shea and I spent nearly an hour talking about mercy — what it means, what it’s for, how we receive it, and how we pass it on. (Some faulty equipment forced me to use my phone to join the conversation, so this hour also includes stunning audio of my ridiculous dog barking, my baby crying, my older kids slamming doors, and of course someone clattering by on stilts. On stilts. Savages.) 

I had a small epiphany as we talked. Mark mentioned the parable of the unforgiving debtor. You know the story: This fellow owes his master a huge sum of money, and throws himself on his mercy, begging for more time. The master has pity and forgives the debt. Rather than rejoicing, the servant immediately turns around and finds a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money. He refuses to have mercy on him, but grabs the poor man by the throat and has him arrested. The king finds out about it and has the first servant sent to prison and tortured.

The message gets repeated several times:

[I]f you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. 

It certainly sounds like a simple tit-for-tat arrangement: if you refuse to forgive, then God will get back at you by refusing to forgive you. Or, if you are forgiven by God, then you better pay Him back by forgiving other people. It seems fair, but it’s always bothered me a bit. I understand that the unforgiving servant is behaving abominably, but after all, the master has endless wealth. He can easily afford to forgive the debt anyway, even if the guy he forgives is a jerk. Can’t he just eat it, because . . . well, he’s the master?

Setting aside the parable for a moment, I thought about how giving and receiving mercy, how offering and accepting forgiveness, seemed to proceed in my own life, in my actual experience. The truth is, I sympathize a little too much with the unforgiving debtor. It’s horribly easy to go to confession, collect my $200 — uh, I mean absolution — and then turn around and get mad at my husband for some minor thing, like not offering to strap the baby into her car seat. And I just got out of confession, where I probably wouldn’t even bother to confess something so minor as a trifling act of omission of courtesy. How can I act like that? And what can I do to be a better servant, more grateful, more forgiving in response to the forgiveness I’ve just received?

I find that I fail miserably to forgive when I behave as if the forgiveness offered to me is a transaction, a simple tit-for-tat arrangement — as if forgiveness is a heavy responsibility that I have to lug around until I can palm it off on someone else.I find it harder to forgive others if I behave as if I am receiving forgiveness in return for going to confession. Of course, absolution still “works” — I really am forgiven — even if my contrition is imperfect and my disposition is lousy. But I’m far more likely to be able to change my behavior afterwards if I remember to receive forgiveness in the context of a relationship with God.

This means calling to mind that forgiveness is offered out of sheer love, and allowing myself to just kind of revel in it, rather than make sense of it. There is no reason for it, no sense to it. He didn’t have to do it. He did it just because He wanted to, because He loves me. It’s not about me at all; it’s all about Him.

Perhaps that was the real mistake that the unforgiving debtor made: maybe he never really acknowledged the love that was at the heart of the master’s forgiveness. Probably he convinced himself he had it coming, somehow — that it was unfair for the master to expect him to pay off his debt. Maybe he resented him, and persuaded himself that it was the least he could do.  Isn’t this how we sometimes act when people are very good to us? We twist it around in our heads until their generosity not only seems fair, but the very least we can expect, rather than unfathomably more than we have any right to even hope for.

Little wonder that, even after receiving mercy, this servant was unable to find it in his heart to forgive his fellow servant even a small debt. He couldn’t find mercy in his heart because he hadn’t ever really let it in to his heart.

Okay, now let’s return to scripture. Notice that it says, “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” (Emphasis is mine.) I think that was the problem all along. The servant couldn’t pass on forgiveness because he hadn’t received forgiveness into his heart.

Oh, the heart. 

Mercy and forgiveness flow both ways because that’s how living things operate. We breathe in and out. Our heart has veins and arteries, and the blood flows through the chambers both ways. One way isn’t enough. It would be absurd to imagine that we could be healthy if we inhaled as much as we liked, but never exhaled. We wouldn’t be pleased if our heart did a great job of pumping blood in, but couldn’t let any blood out. It’s not that we’re trying to be fair; it’s just how we’re designed. It’s how living things operate. We’re not dead ends; we’re a series of systems that ebb and flow, cycle, and exchange. This is what it means to be alive.

And this is what it means to forgive: first, to accept forgiveness for what it truly is. It seems like bestowing mercy would be the hard part, but maybe receiving mercy is where we need to start. Next time, I’d like to talk more about what that actually looks like, and why it’s so hard.

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Photo: The Sacred Heart of Jesus by Tony Alter via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Last week, I wrote a bit about scruples and how to recover from them. One reader responded:

While appreciating your exposition on scrupulosity, I dare say that the real problem among the faithful is a lack of scruples …

As a Convert from Protestantism, it is easy to see this embrace of the heretical Protestant beliefs in the total depravity of man (therefore don’t worry so much about sin – Hello, Year of Mercy) and that of “Once Saved Always Saved; I’m hearing these errors and those like them from Catholics all the time.

Many more Souls are in danger for the lack of scruples than are from an excess of scruples; so why so much in so many venues about too much concern for sinfulness when there is obviously too little?

Another reader agreed, saying:

Yup. I don’t see much of that either. A few scruples & a little fear of God would go a long way.

Do they have a point? It does seem a bit odd to write about how to recover from a crippling sense of sinfulness when, well, look at us. Look at the world. Civilization as a whole is suffering from scruples in the same way that Kanye West is suffering from shyness.

Part of the problem is that there is a specific spiritual meaning for the word scruples, and then there is a more general meaning. In general, in secular usage, having “scruples” just means having some hesitation before doing something that you think might be wrong. It means being careful and prudent, thorough and meticulous, and not letting yourself off the hook. And yes, many of us could use a bit more of that.

But scruples in a Catholic context isn’t just about being cautious. It’s not an antidote to laxness, and it’s definitely not a movement toward God in any way. It’s simply another kind of sickness, just like laxity — another tool that the devil is happy to use to pry us apart from our Savior. There is nothing extra-holy about being scrupulous, nothing super-Catholic. It’s a perversion, and should never be encouraged or lauded. It’s not seeing with extra sharpness; it’s just another kind of blindness.

Yet a third reader responded with a comment that deserves some attention:

This may sound a bit strange, but I think that scrupulosity and the apparent loss of scruples are both symptoms of failing see the love and mercy of God  … Knowing God’s mercy does not mean that we will sin more, it means that we can safely acknowledge our sins and find forgiveness.

I’d like to especially emphasize that last part: “Knowing God’s mercy does not mean that we will sin more, it means that we can safely acknowledge our sins and find forgiveness.” Scruples — and wishing for more scruples in others — is not a sign that we understand sin or forgiveness, or that we see things especially clearly. It’s a sign that we don’t trust God. It’s as if we believe that, in order to accept mercy and forgiveness, we have to already do the work ourselves — to perform surgery on our own bodies, and present the diseased tissue to God, already excised and packaged, just waiting for Him to sign off on the fact that, yes, it was malignant and needed to go.

When we believe in scruples, we think we need to do the work ourselves. We reduce forgiveness, and God Himself, to a rubber stamp. “MERCY” [whomp]

But mercy isn’t the fee that God is contractually obligated to pay to us after we submit an invoice for our sin in the confessional. Mercy is, itself, the transformational work. Mercy opens our eyes for the first time. Mercy is diagnosis and treatment and good health. It is bigger than we can imagine. It grows. It makes us grow. It simultaneously reveals the true horror of our sin and shows us how empty and powerless that sin is. That’s the full picture that we’re missing, whether we’re lax or scrupulous: sin is horrible, and sin is eminently conquerable.

In a way, the first commenter is right: the Year of Mercy does tell us “don’t worry so much about sin.” But he’s wrong if he thinks that mercy means “go ahead and keep on sinning, because there’s always mercy.” Instead, the penitent who brings even his paltry, imperfect regrets to the divine surgeon will come out the other side worrying less about sin — not because it’s no big deal, but because God is so much bigger. So much bigger.

When we accept mercy, that means that we are ready for God to do whatever He wants . . . even if it’s better than we think we deserve. We are all the man born blind. We know we’d like to see, but we don’t even know what that means, until here comes Christ. What do you think the man born blind saw first, when his eyes were opened? Surely it was the face of Christ. There is nothing else worth seeing.

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Image: Christ and the pauper. Healing of the blind man. 2009. Canvas, oil. 100 x 55. Artist A.N. Mironov

 

There will be no April Fool’s Day jokes in this post. Mama too tired.

The week after Easter is probably the weirdest culinary week in our household, unless maybe the week after I have a baby. On Holy Saturday we have our Passover seder, and then we eat the leftovers mixed with whatever food I can scrounge up after having no time to shop because of the seder and Easter. There is, of course, candy debris all over the place, and the fridge is utterly crammed with hard boiled eggs that nobody wants.

I kept forgetting to take pictures, too, and every few hours, Benny feels the need to remind me with the blazing opprobrium of a four-year-old, “You and Daddy ac-ci-den-tal-ly put black jeddy beans in my baksket, but I don’t like black jeddy beans, so next year you won’t put black jeddy beans in my baksket!”

[img attachment=”97255″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”benny easter basket” /]

You know, I kind of regret what I said about gentiles celebrating Passover. First of all, it’s not in line with what the USCCB says:

A. Many Christians are given the opportunity to participate in a Passover Seder during Holy Week.”This practice can have educational and spiritual value. It is wrong, however, to “baptize” the Seder by ending it with New Testament readings about the Last Supper or, worse, turn it into a prologue to the Eucharist. Such mergings distort both traditions.” Ideally, then, Christians who wish to attend a Passover Seder should do so at the invitation of Jewish friends, families or synagogues that often welcome guests to this important meal. This allows Christians to experience the Seder as a Jewish family liturgy, still deeply meaningful to Jews everywhere. However, in the event that Christians celebrate the Seder alone, the following advice should prove useful:

“When Christians celebrate this sacred feast among themselves, the rites of the haggadah for the Seder should be respected in all their integrity. The Seder . . . should be celebrated in a dignified manner and with sensitivity to those to whom the Seder truly belongs. The primary reason why Christians may celebrate the festival of Passover should be to acknowledge common roots in the history of salvation. Any sense of “restaging” the Last Supper of the Lord Jesus should be avoided…. The rites of the Triduum are the [Church’s] annual memorial of the events of Jesus’ dying and rising.” (God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching, no. 28)

I didn’t present my opinion as doctrine, but still, I try to listen to the bishops, and you should, too!
Second of all, I made it sound like I feel more strongly about it than I do. This is a pitfall of blogging every day: you get ahold of an idea and, in your zeal to express yourself clearly, you end up working yourself up into a vehemence that you don’t necessarily feel.

So if I caused you any distress, I do apologize. As long as you are discreet and respectful, I think there is a lot of wiggle room here.

We had a very lovely day with my parents and one of the kids’ friends.

[img attachment=”97252″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”seder” /]

My mother, who has Alzheimer’s, had a lucid moment as she was leaving, and said, “Your house is so little, but it . . . shimmers!” It was a day that shone, and not just because of all the chicken fat molecules suspended in the air.

[img attachment=”97253″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”seder dessert” /]

All right, so here’s what we ate:

SATURDAY

-Chicken soup with 94 matzoh balls
-3.5 lbs. Chopped liver
-2 jars Gefilte fish
-About four gallons of Charoset
-Roast Leg of Lamb 
-2 large roast Garlic Cinnamon Chicken 
-about a pint of horseradish
-Spinach pie

Dessert:
-2 large Lemon Sponge Cakes
-Assorted macaroons (store bought)
-Jelly fruit slices; chocolate-covered jelly rings 
-Almonds
-Chocolate-covered halvah
-About a cubic yard of Chocolate-covered caramel matzoh, which the kids eat like it’s offended them and needs to be punished with their teeth

You can find the recipes for all of these things here. Except I used the sponge cake recipe on the canister. It was a little simpler and turned out just fine. Having a silicone pan was very helpful, as this is a fragile cake. Someday, I will buy a bundt pan, but not until I get around to using my springform pan at least once!

Oh, this is the first year I’ve used a food processor for the chopped liver, rather than a manual meat grinder. WOW, what a difference. It was like velvet. Liver-y, oniony velvet.

Also, my father brought Blackberry Mansichewitz, rather than grape, and guess what? It tasted good! A Passover miracle.

This year’s matzoh balls were perfect. Just perfect. Big and light and fluffy, every one. I’m very proud of myself.

[img attachment=”97260″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”matzoh balls cooking 2″ /]

I’m also proud of how much not-yelling I did while cooking. I made the matzoh balls in the morning, rather than cooking them ahead of time. I boiled them in plain water and then transferred them to the soup.

We also made the charoset on the same day:

[img attachment=”97257″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”sophia charoset” /]

SUNDAY
Seder leftovers, matzoh meal latkes, candy

The kids had their Easter baskets in the morning, then we went to Mass, and then we went to the playground. A sweet and happy day with my favorite people.

[img attachment=”97258″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Easter morning” /]

I went with the simplest possible latke recipe — just matzoh meal, water, eggs (of course eggs) and salt, fried up in oil. They were lovely.

Oh, and Damien made homemade waffles for lunch. I forgot how much better they are than frozen!

[img attachment=”97254″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”corrie waffles” /]

MONDAY
Frozen pizzas, candy

A.K.A. what I could grab quickly on the way home while the baby did her Tasmanian Devil routine.

TUESDAY
Hamburgers and chips

The kids were really craving something that wasn’t egg-based.

WEDNESDAY
Bangers and Mash

Mashed potatoes and sausages. I made some quick gravy using the drippings from the sausages. Tasty.

THURSDAY
Gochujang Bulgoki, white rice, roasted broccoli

Must order some more gochujang. I also used the food processor again, rather than slicing meat and veg forever and ever, and it turned out great. But man, that machine is violent. I’m used to the brisk and powerful but sort of poetic orbital motion of the standing mixer. The food processor is all business.

Sauce recipe:

5 generous Tbs gochujang
2 Tbs honey
2 tsp sugar
2 Tbs soy sauce
5 cloves minced garlic

and cooking instructions here.  I’m cheating with a picture I took last time:

[img attachment=”97249″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”korean plate” /]

Also *whispering so Korean grandmothers don’t hear*: I didn’t have any honey, so I used maple syrup, because it kind of looks like honey. And I skipped the carrots, and crushed the garlic instead of mincing it. And I used terrible American rice, and skipped the lettuce. IT STILL TASTED GOOD.

FRIDAY

I have no idea. The inside of my refrigerator makes me want to weep. I guess we could have matzoh brei! Okay, yes, this sounds like a plan. It may not have meat, but it’s definitely not penitential.

Is it Eastertide? Is it the springtime? Or is it the Zoloft finally kicking in? Either way, I’m having a terrible time buckling down and worrying about serious things, and look at the time! Let’s play a little game.

The rules are simple: Remove one letter from a famous movie title, and briefly describe the new plot. Here are a few of my favorites from last time:

Ear Window A Being John Malkovich-esque metathriller in which Alfred Hitchcock witnesses a murder after crawling inside Grace Kelly’s head through her ear

He Godfather  Tarzan must decide whether to resist his destiny as a mafia overlord

Even Samurai . . . get the blues

Star Was A melancholy rumination by Mark Hamill on the fleetness of fame

Full Meta Jacket  A tightly knit band of overeducated hipsters wear jackets printed with pictures of other jackets

Chintown A buddy action movie starring Jay Leno and Bruce Campbell

All Abut Eve Are women individuals, in command our destinies? Are we truly free of the ancient past? Or when it comes down to it, don’t we . . . all abut Eve?

STUPID, RIGHT? Dangerously stupid.

Okay, here are my new contributions:

Dadpool: We’re so, so tired of antiheros. Time for the greatest regular old hero of all: Dad. Get that man some sun block!

Fifty Shades of Ray: In no particular order, because I already got yelled at enough this week: Ray Charles, Ray Romano, Ray Liotta, and Ray Krok. That’s four. Thirty-six to go…

God’s Not Dad: In this inspiring Christian drama, a courageous young cult member finds the guts to speak truth to power and calls out his father as not, in fact, being the reincarnation of Zeus. More edification than you can shake a shtick at.

Aging Bull:  Ferdinand: The Latter Years. What happens when all the pretty ladies no throw no flowers no more?

EST Side Story: In this gritty daylight savings time-inspired reimagining of a classic, two star-crossed lovers come very close to dying tragically for love, but forget to reset their clocks to Eastern Standard Time, and miss the rumble altogether. Oogly-oo!

It’s a Wonderful Lie: Everyone would have been way better off if George Bailey had never been born, but his kind neighbors conspire to delude him into thinking he’s well-loved and productive.

Be-Hur: The Caitlyn Jenner story. Gladiator booooots, OMG!

Finding Emo: Is that an ocean, or are you just crying a million million billion billion tears?

To Ill A Mockingbird: You gotta fight . . . for your right . . . to nest in corncribs.

Good Ill Hunting: He’s the illest mathematician from here to Gardena!

The Best Ears of Our Lives: In this chatty, semifictionalized biopic sponsored by Q-Tip, Leonard Nimoy and Vincent Van Gogh wax nostalgic. HA.

Aws: When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and a grizzled fisherman set out to conquer it . . .with an adorable army of feisty shih tzus! Aww.

The Eer Hunter: At this point, my daughter shouted, “They can’t all be about ears, Mama!” Fine.

All Quit on the Western Front: They were sick and tired of Judy’s nonsense, that’s why.

You can’t possibly do worse than that. Whatcha got?

 

Scrupulosity might look foolish or even funny to outsiders, but for people gripped in its claws, it’s hellish. I mean that literally: it feels like we are locked away from God and His love. Scrupulosity is a coil of fear, doubt, guilt, and despair.

Read the rest at the Register. 

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Detail of “Anxiety” – Sculpture by Ahad Hosseini, photo by Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Raise your hand if you expected the Supreme Court’s response to the Little Sisters of the Poor case yesterday. No one, right? I know! I had very little hope that they would rule in favor of the sisters, and I didn’t expect any response at all until summer at the earliest.  There hasn’t been a decision yet, but they did basically ask the sisters, “Okay, fine, we’re out of ideas. What do you think would work?”

That’s no victory, of course, but it’s no defeat, either. A couple of things made me laugh as I was thinking over the situation. First, it looks like the GOP has accidentally blundered into a good deed for once. I had been so mad at them for refusing to even consider Merrick Garland. I get that they are super mad at Obama for being Obama, and I get that it’s super unfair that an outgoing president should get to exert such influence over the makeup of the court. But Garland was really the best that anyone could hope for, unless we think that Hillary or Trump were planning to use their necromancy skills to nominate zombie Scalia. Which they were not. The stonewalling was yet another example of the dysfunctional and spiteful short-sightedness of the party. It feels so good to lash out now, and who cares about next week? Bah. It’s like they’re all five years old.

But look what happened. The court was split 4-4 when the Little Sisters’ case came up, and if they couldn’t come to an agreement, then the decision would automatically bounce back down to the lower courts’ previous decisions, which is an inconsistent mess that was guaranteed to bubble back up to the supreme court again eventually. Nobody wants that. So the court was very motivated to search around for some kind of workable solution.

This brings me to the second thing that made me laugh yesterday. I realized that this is, in fact, the way the constitution was designed: to be so cumbersome and complicated that, out of sheer frustration, we sometimes get backed into doing the right thing. What a marvelous machine! It’s like a circuit breaker. We have this moment of panic when the lights go out, but then we realize that it’s better than the entire system getting fried. Turns out we can’t run the air conditioner and the space heater at the same time — and when you think about it, why would you want to? Pick one. What kind of house are we going to live in, hot or cold? Just stop and think, why don’t you?

This country isn’t over yet, and it’s our dysfunction that might actually save us. What do you know about that?

***

image of “Contemplation of Justice” photo By Daderot

Reminder! Friday is still within the Octave of Easter, and so it’s not a day of penance. There is no requirement to abstain from meat or make some other sacrifice. (Even the more stringent Catholics say so.) On the contrary, all the days within the Octave of Easter are solemnities, which means it’s time to feast.

So, meat it up! And thank God that we belong to a Church which teaches that the Beatific Vision is the most sublime experience of perfect happiness, and simultaneously thinks that we can rejoice in our Savior by having a big ol’ juicy steak. What a deal.

 

When I was pregnant with my Corrie, the doctors told us that she might have Down Syndrome or Trisomy 13. It wasn’t that she showed any clear symptoms, but more that she had certain traits which sometimes go along with these conditions. Modern technology and good insurance means you have to decide how much you want to know.

Spoiler for new readers: Corrie just turned 13 months old, and she has neither Down Syndrome nor Trisomy 13, nor any other abnormal condition besides an overwhelming enthusiasm for life that wears us out all day, every day. She was 10 lbs., 1 oz. at birth, and is now . . . glorious. She wears size 3T, she started walking at 7 months, she says at least a dozen words, she has a giant, heavy-headed mastiff wrapped around her finger. She tells baby jokes, manhandles us, and behaves like the healthy, beloved, cheerful little anarchist that she is. All is well.

But at the time, when the doctor took us aside for a special talk, we had no idea what we were facing. Naturally, we prayed that she would not have a condition that caused severe deformities and a likely early death. But a diagnosis of Down Syndrome was a slightly different question.

My husband and I had different responses. He is a crime reporter, and sees people mainly when their lives have gone horribly wrong.  His days were filled with families who routinely neglect and abuse even healthy, typical children, so you can imagine the dark life of a kid with special needs. He’s also more practical than I am, and was already thinking about how we could pay for special care, how we would fit yet another school system into our bonkers schedule, and how she would live after we died. For my husband, the possibility of a disability was an unmitigated disaster, a guarantee of suffering, and the only reasonable prayer was, “Please don’t let this happen.”

I was less fearful, but even at the time I was aware that my perspective was skewed, too. I spend so much time around pro-lifers, who in turn spend so much time pushing back against a monstrous eugenic tide. You hear so often about the delights and affections of children with Down Syndrome, you can almost get the idea that life with them is a walking dream, that their parents have won a golden opportunity to enjoy sunny childhood forever and ever with a sort of blessed, human Winnie-the-Pooh — a fantasy which is depersonalizing in its own way. People with Down Syndrome are not pro-life mascots or bunny rabbits or huggy-wuggy puppets; they’re people, with immortal souls and distinct personalities. And they often have myriad health problems which are anything but cute.

But I did know that, as we waited for the next doctor’s appointment, we weren’t waiting for something to happen to our child; we were waiting for a description of the way she already was. Above all, she was our child, our beloved. Months ago, as I set the timer for the pregnancy test, waiting for that second shadowy line to appear, I prepared my heart to embrace whatever was already true, and to focus all my emotional energy on being open, rather than wishing for one thing or the other. I wanted to be welcoming from the first moment. I did the same as we waited for our level two ultrasound appointment.

When the day came, we got a sitter, my husband took the day off work, and we drove up north to the hospital with the specialist who could peer into our baby’s shadowy insides and tell us what it all meant. First we met with a geneticist, who questioned us minutely about every inheritable abnormality both our families carried. I made sure she knew that there was no condition on earth that would make us even consider aborting our baby.

Then, I lay for a long time in the twilight of the ultrasound room as the technician probed and scanned and shoved my organs around, with none of the normal “Sorry about my cold hands!” or “I bet you have plenty of pink clothes already, huh?” She had to fight with the baby, who wanted to roll away and not reveal the secrets of her anatomy. Finally, the tech flicked on the light and told us, “You have a beautiful baby girl.” And smiled at us.

Yes? We already knew she was beautiful. All of our babies are beautiful. All of everyone’s babies are beautiful. I had seen her heart beating, beautifully. And then what?

Then we realized that she thought she had already given us a diagnosis. When she said, “You have a beautiful baby girl,” she was telling us, “Your child isn’t defective; instead, she is beautiful.” But seeing our still-expectant faces, she hastily elaborated that the baby showed no signs of any kind of abnormal condition. As far as she could tell, this baby was entirely physically healthy in every measurable way.

And that was that. I wanted to tell the technician, “We were ready, though! We already loved her.” I thought of how many times she must open the door of that dim room and let out parents who are crushed, grieving, already making plans to undo what was already true. Already making plans to stop a beautiful heart from beating.

It felt strange to be so relieved. How we burden ourselves, trying to show grace in carrying loads that haven’t been given to us.

There’s no tidy bow for this story. If our child had been born with and died from a severe birth defect, we’d still be mourning. If she had been born with a genetic abnormality, I suppose we’d still be in the early stages of learning how to care for her. As it is, she’s who she is, just like she would have been if she had been born with some grave defect. We did love her from the start, and we still do. Like all of our kids, she’s changed us. She’s brought joys and trials. We still have no idea what the future will hold, or how much heartache and pride she will bring us, or how she will live when we die. She is the light of our life, a life that is already full of light.

I’m writing this down not because I’ve learned anything, or really been through anything. I am grateful that I was given the grace to hold open the door of my heart from the beginning, loving her already in the twilight of uncertainty. No one can probe all the shadows and tell us what they mean, what they will mean. A heart that is open is a heart that can beat, and that is beautiful, beautiful enough.

 

from “East Coker,” from The Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Holy Thursday is many things: the day of the Last Supper, the day when Christ was betrayed, the day when Christ washed the feet of His apostles. It was the day that Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. And it was the day that He instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders, giving the first priests the power to turn bread and wine into God, body, blood, soul and divinity.

A great day for humanity! So much help was poured out for us on that first Holy Thursday. In particular on this year, I’m grateful for our priests. I’m thinking of all the men who’ve poured out their lives for their flocks . . .

The priest who let me in in the middle of the night when I went for a hysterical walk across town and decided I needed to go to confession for the first time in years now now now. The priest who took us seriously as a dating couple and encouraged us to stay on track. The priest who thought some of my spiritual struggles might be physical, and told me which tests to ask for.  The priest who took over our parish when the pastor retired. The pastor who came back out of retirement to help the new pastor, because there weren’t enough priests to go around.

And all the hundreds and hundreds of priests who forgive our sins, baptize our children, bury our dead, officiate at our marriages, and bring us the Eucharist. All the priests who proclaim the gospel, who bless and encourage us, who counsel and comfort us. All the priests who sing, whether they can sing or not. The priests who fight a thousand spiritual and physical battles on our behalf. The priests who endure suspicion and ridicule from a jeering world, and criticism and grousing from their own people. The priests who are expected to know everything, fix everything, pay for everything, and please everyone. And yes, all the priests who are tired and grumpy sometimes, and who say the wrong thing, or miss opportunities, or make things worse because they are just men. Every single priest wakes up in the morning and see an impossible job in front of him, and he gets up and goes to work anyway.

We love you, our priests, and we are praying for you, especially during the glorious marathon of the Triduum.

A prayer for a priest from Catholic.org:

O Jesus, our great High Priest, Hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priest, Father [N]. Give him a deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of his priestly life.
In his loneliness, comfort him In his sorrows, strengthen him In his frustrations, point out to him that it is through suffering that the soul is purified, and show him that he is needed by the Church, he is needed by souls, he is needed for the work of redemption.
O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your son who is close to you because of his priestly ordination, and because of the power which he has received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs him so much.
Be his comfort, be his joy, be his strength, and especially help him to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.
Amen.

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Photo: By Matthias Ulrich. The original uploader was Matteo3000 at German Wikipedia – selber fotografiert, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19508162