Tag: The Catholic Weekly

Relics are friends

Do you have trouble focusing at Mass? Does your attention wander, and do you find yourself forgetting why you’re there and what you’re doing?  

May I recommend worshipping with 18 saints? That’s what has helped me.  

Here’s how that came about. As I describe in Our Sunday Visitor, I found a first-class relic of St Helen and a second-class relic of St Peter’s own altar at a second-hand store.  

I paid six dollars to rescue them, got them restored and authenticated, and then set about learning why these little bits and pieces of bodies and cloth are so central to our faith.  

I ultimately turned the relics I found over to my pastor, who put them together with 16 other relics another parishioner had donated, and now all of them are in two glass cases at the altar. And we all go to Mass together: St Helen and St Peter, Sts Bridget, Bernadette, Peregrine, Anthony, Maria Goretti, Mary Magdalen, Monica, Augustine and Cecilia, Therese of Lisieux, and the apostles Phillip, Thomas, James, Bartholomew, Andrew and John, and me.  

I did not anticipate how moving it would be to see them all there, and to be there with them, with the Lord. 

I grew up in a Catholic home and had some exposure to relics, but I never really understood why the heck the church was so involved with them. I knew we were supposed to avoid treating them like magic talismans, and I understood that they were holy, but it always felt a little bit embarrassing – the kind of thing you have always done in your family but you gradually realize nobody else does; and when you ask your parents why you do it, they don’t have a good explanation.  

It felt like something that wasn’t sacred, because it was clearly a scrap of something with a little glue; but it also wasn’t profane (in the sense of ordinary and everyday), because it was a saint. It felt like something that should be hidden away, something that I would simply rather not deal with.  

It feels very different now.  

One of the things I learned, as I researched this piece, is that Catholics (and before that, ancient Jews) have always cherished and venerated physical relics of their holy dead, even – or especially – when the rest of the world found that practice creepy or dangerous or just kind of gross.  

We just really like our saints, and we like being with them, and ever since God came to earth and took on a body like ours, it just makes sense for a people who believe in the Incarnation to worship God together with bodies of the saints – not only after they die, but especially after they die.  

Because they are dead, we know they are on to something better, something we can anticipate if we stick close to them. It’s a whole group effort: Some of us are in heaven, some of us still on earth; some of us have passed into eternity, and some of us are just making our way through the 9:30am Mass on a Sunday in October; but we are all still doing the same thing, visibly together, before God. 

Seeing the relics displayed on the altar helps me tap into the mysterious gravity of what we are doing when we assemble in the church.  

When I start to feel that vague, rambling, everyday sensation, I try to remember to glance up at the altar and see the relics of the saints who are enjoying the Beatific Vision RIGHT NOW, silently but unmistakably joining in to our imperfect human form of worship here in my little New England parish. I feel, for the first time, like this august collection of saints are my friends.  

Me from 20 years ago would have rolled my eyes at this. … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Poetry for your walls, Vol. 3!

Several years ago, I suggested printing out good but accessible poems and hanging them on the walls of your house. I listed 50 poems, mostly short enough to fit on one page. 

The good thing about having a poem not just tucked away in a book, but hanging on the wall of your home – especially on a wall that you’re likely to spend time staring at anyway, like one next to the toilet, or on the cabinet by the sink when you’re washing the dishes – is that you are likely to read it over and over again, and let it really sink into your imagination.  (The mark of a good poem is that it can be read over and over again, at different stages of your life, and it won’t go stale.) 

Of course the downside to having poems in all the places where people naturally hang out is that they may be literarily inexhaustible, but they do get beat up physically.  

Of course you could do it right and print them out on good paper and frame them, but it is too late for me to turn into that kind of person. As Chesterton said, if a thing is worth doing, then it’s worth doing badly. Anyway, the first batch of wall poems inevitably got stained and torn and crumpled; so I made a second list and printed out more poems.  

I’ve kept it up over the years, on and off, whenever we manage to have both ink and paper in the printer.  Whenever I come across something that sounds good, and like something I would like my kids to see, I print it out right then and there and stick it to the wall.  

Some of the kids don’t care at all, and just ignore them; but some of them like the poems, and memorize them, and seek out more poetry now that they’re adults. What a delight! 

I’m here today with a new list with another 15 worthwhile poems (or excerpts), short enough to fit on one page:  

  • “No Time” by Billy Collins 
  • “California Hills In August” by Dana Goia 
  • “Praise in Summer” by Richard Wilbur 
  • “Saint Judas by” James Wright 
  • “Antiphon for the Holy Spirit” by Hildegarde of Bingen  
  • “Holy Week” by Sally Thomas …. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Don’t quit; rest

Today I did my normal 20-minute workout routine, and, having some energy left over, I decided to shake things up by trying a new dumbbell workout, which was also only 20 minutes. 

Or, as I did it, five minutes, and then four minutes, and then four minutes, and then four minutes, and then three minutes, with panting, sweating, and mild cussing in between. It was harder than I was expecting! It turns out routines specifically designed for middle-aged women are easier than routines that are not. Guess which kind this one was! 

But I did it. Eventually. With lots of rests.  

My ten-year-old gets some perverse pleasure out of watching me struggle, so as she lounged on the couch, I took the opportunity to give her one of my favorite mini TED talks: Don’t quit; rest.  

I told here there will be lots of times in life when things get really hard, and you’re going to want to give up. You will feel like you just can’t go on anymore, and you just want to stop. And that will be okay! You can stop.  

But don’t quit; just rest, and then see if you can start up again. I told her that getting in the habit of taking a break, rather than giving up entirely, will serve her through every aspect of her life. (I waved my arms around a bit, at this point. EVERY ASPECT.) 

I wish somebody had told me that when I was ten, because it’s taken me 50 years to figure it out. There are very few things in life that absolutely have to be a full-bore, all-out, no breaks, start-to-finish push. But there are quite a lot of things that you really must not quit altogether, but which have room for some rest, so you can get yourself together and then keep going.  

This rhythm of work and rest and work again is really baked into how we’re designed. It’s how we give birth, with the contractions coming in waves, with rest in between. It’s how we get through the week, with five or six days or work, and then a sabbath – not so we can quit, but so we can rest. It’s how our bodies and minds are made. If we do not ever sleep, we really will quit: We will die.  

“Rest” doesn’t always mean stopping completely. Sometimes it means lowering your standards. 

Now here’s the important part….

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Siesta By Vincent van Gogh – Musée d’Orsay, Public Domain

Finally! Religious liberty for (white) Americans

American Catholics were jubilant recently over a new religious freedom guidance issued by the Trump administration.

Some of it is fine, as far as I can see. I can think of instances where people were bullied or harassed for openly expressing their faith in the workplace, and where they were made to feel inferior for being religious.

Some people have taken the Establishment Clause of the Constitution to mean that to mean that religious expression is sort of vaguely illegal, and should be quashed. So this new guidance says federal employees are allowed to have Bibles and crosses and so on in the workplace. (It’s notable that all the examples it gives are either Christian or Jewish, explicitly mentioning tefillin and rosary beads, for example, but it avoids any mention of Islamic, Buddhist, or Hindu practices of faith. Which is a clear violation of the Establishment clause. Note this. Note. This.)

Some of the guidance makes me extremely nervous. You can click through and read it for yourself if you don’t trust me to summarize—it’s just five pages—but it essentially says that federal employers and employees can display signs of their religious faith, pray and organise prayer groups in the workplace, and talk about and argue for their faith with others in the workplace, as long as they’re not aggressive about it and respect requests to stop.

Here is what I promise will happen: Decent people will adhere to the guidelines, and indecent people will not. People who are good Christians will quietly wear a cross and pray sincerely at lunch and be welcoming and inviting to others; and people who are bad Christians will bully and harass and intimidate people they don’t approve of, and they will point to these guidelines and say they’re entitled to do it.

This is not just a Christian thing; it’s a human nature thing. If people think they can get away with bullying other people, they’ll do it.

I just wanted to establish that the guidelines are absolutely guaranteed to be abused. They were deliberately written to give cover to people who will abuse them. That is how this administration functions, on every level, and it is what we have come to expect from them.

But let’s assume for a minute that it’s all been done in good faith. Let’s pretend that all they want is for Christians and a few docile Jews to be able to keep worshipping God all day long, and not have the government forcibly stripping away their religious convictions and expression.

It sure sounds like that’s what they’re calling for. The first paragraph says:

“The Founders established a Nation in which people were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by their government.” President Trump is committed to reaffirming “America’s unique and beautiful tradition of religious liberty,” including by directing “the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law.”

And the fourth paragraph says:

“The First Amendment to the US Constitution robustly protects expressions of religious faith by all Americans—including Federal employees. The US Supreme Court has clarified that the Free Exercise Clause “protects not only the right to harbor religious beliefs inwardly and secretly,” but also “protect[s] the ability of those who hold religious beliefs of all kinds to live out their faiths in daily life.” Indeed, “[r]espect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic[.]”

That’s what they say.

What are they actually doing? … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Raising teens? Raising ducks? Here’s what you need to know

We have four adolescent ducks who have grown out of their brooder box and it’s warm enough outside that they can play in the yard during the day.  

They’re getting along well with the older ducks, and it’s great to see them having a bit more freedom, growing bolder, and discovering the wonders of the wider world.  

Also, last night my husband ended up wading through the still-frigid stream to rescue these same imbeciles, who somehow managed to cross to the other shore by themselves but couldn’t cross back.  

They got back indoors, wet, upset, and decidedly lacking in affectionate feelings. Back in the box they went, with fresh cedar shavings and a nice heat lamp to take the chill off, a bowl of their special food, and a little tub of water, which they immediately stomped through and pooped in. 

I don’t know if we would have been better parents if we had tried to raise ducks first, but I do know we’re better duck handlers because we’ve raised so many kids. Here are a few of the things we’ve learned, that could apply to raising young’un in both the family anatidae or the family hominidae.  

Don’t go it alone. Ask for help from people with more experience, or at least listen in while they talk to each other. There’s no reason to assume you just naturally know how to do this. Why would you?  

But also, there’s no reason to feel bad for not knowing how to do this. There definitely some wrong ways to do this, but there are lots and lots of different kind of right ways. …. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.

Before the world ends, plant a tree

What would you do if you knew the world would end tomorrow?  

Some people would probably go the “orgy of worldly pleasures” route. Loot the stores, max out all the credit cards, drink yourself blind, and bed anyone you can, because tomorrow we die. I hope nobody reading this finds that even vaguely appealing.

Some people would probably say it’s best to head to the church, go to confession, receive Communion, and then spend your final hours in penance and fasting, using up your last chance to stave off God’s just punishments. I can’t really argue with this, but I also can’t claim this is what I would do (except for the confession part. Always go to confession!).

So what would I do?

The other day I read a post on social media that said: “If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree today.” This is a paraphrase of a quote often attributed to Martin Luther, but there’s not really any evidence he said it, and it doesn’t really sound like him to me.

What it did sound like is the kind of whimsical, glitter-tossing sentiment that generally makes me roll my eyes. Something along the lines of “Dance like nobody’s watching” or “Angels are just teddy bears with wings” (an actual bumper sticker I saw one time, which still haunts and baffles me).

But the more I thought about it, the better I think it is. Possibly the best possible answer to the question, “What would you do?”

Don’t think of it as a statement of brainless optimism, sassily tra-la-laing in the face of reality because you are a magical being that dances like nobody’s watching and then posts about it on Instagram before everything goes black, and we are supposed to find this in some way beautiful.

Don’t take it that way. Think of it instead as doing your Father’s work.

I actually have planted a lot of trees in my life, and there is something about planting a tree, and always has been….Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Detail of  “Christ Appears to Mary Magdalen as a Gardener (‘Noli Me Tangere’),” ca. 1603 National Library of Wales via Wikimedia Commons

Pope Leo may not have a list. But I DO.

Pope Leo, God bless him, seems to be making a big effort to resist a “Francis vs Leo” narrative, and appears to be making intentional gestures of respect toward his predecessor, emphasising unity and continuity.  

If he has grievances, he’s not airing them, and if he has disappointments, he’s not letting them control his behavior. This is clearly the right thing to do. Everything he says and does has huge, universal ramifications. He needs to be very wise, and the last thing we need is more division in the church.  

That being said, it does seem like he has a list. It’s early days, still, but in the first month of his papacy, he’s brought about several things that can’t have been spur-of-the-moment decisions. It’s hard not to feel like he had been thinking quietly to himself over the last several years, “Boy, if I ever find myself in that chair, here’s what I’m gonna do.”  

So now he is, and here are some little things he has done: He reinstated the bonuses for the staff that served during the Conclave. The Vatican website abruptly shed its adorably insane parchment background and now looks like it belongs to this century. And the scandalous, hollow-eyed spooks of Marko Rupnik have vanished from the Vatican media.  

Little things! Not huge changes. But that is how wise leaders do things: Not by storming in and wrecking up the place, but gradually and thoughtfully doing what needs to be done, as he and everyone else get used to the new regime. So far I’m really impressed by his thoughtful and deliberate but clear and direct approach. I’m trying to imitate him and focus on good works without being a jerk about it.   

But yes, I have a list…. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

A hymn for the conclave

Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest,
And in our hearts take up Thy rest;
Come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

[DEEP BREATH. MAKE SURE DOOR IS LOCKED AND CARDINALS CAN’T HEAR. DOUBLE CHECK THE DOOR. TURN ON WHITE NOISE MACHINE.]

O Comforter. You know the deal
No man is worthy to wear that seal.
Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ
That’s a big deal, any way it’s sliced.
That’s a big deal, any way it’s sliced.

O Comforter, to Thee we cry,
We need a pope who is just the right guy.
One who is wise, and not insane,
And always naps when he’s on a plane
And always naps when he’s on a plane.

Come Holy Ghost. We’ve been so lucky
John Paul was great and Ben 16 was ducky
Francis’ church….. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Holy heroism doesn’t come out of nowhere

During Lent, I have been reading my family The Hiding Place, the account of how Corrie Ten Boom’s family hid Jews in their home, were discovered, and got sent to a concentration camp.

Four of the Ten Booms died—the number of Jews they saved is something like 800.

I last read this book as a teenager, and the dramatic scenes of great cruelty met with great holiness made a huge impression on me.

I remember the miraculously multiplying vitamin drops that kept the prisoners alive; I remember the scene where Corrie’s sister was thanking God for everything they had, including a horrendous infestation of fleas.

Corrie was horrified that her sister wanted her to thank God even for the fleas, but her sister insisted. Later, it turned out these vermin were a kind of protective army for the prisoners—the guards didn’t want to come into the infested barracks, and so the prisoners were allowed to continue the prayer and scripture readings that kept them from despair.

I also remember reading an account of Corrie Ten Boom, many decades later, meeting one of the very guards who imprisoned and tortured her family, and how she took his hand and forgave him.

The flea story very often comes to mind, and I use it as shorthand for when I’m stymied by something in my life and I can’t think of any way to deal with it rationally. So I just go, “Okay, God, thanks for the fleas, I guess.”

I can’t really relate to Ten Booms’ heroic level of trust in God’s goodness, and in fact I tend to crumble under some extremely light burdens. I don’t think I’d be one of the ones organizing prayer sessions in a prison barracks.

But I understand the general concept of what they were doing. I can break off a little piece of this story for myself and carry it around for when things get hairy, by my standards.

As for the other story, the story of supernatural forgiveness of a sadistic murderer—I remember it, but it goes way over my head. It’s something beyond my experience and beyond my imagination, and all I can do is stand in my low place and behold it, like a fiery sign in the sky.

But they are both part of the account of how the Ten Booms lived, and how they died; and the entire book is hitting me very different, this time around. The parts that are standing out to me are not so much the brilliant acts of holy heroism by this family, or even the more relatable inspiring examples they set. Instead, I’m noting all the little things that got them there.

The book doesn’t begin in the concentration camp….Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: A group of German Wehrmacht soldiers in a village via Picryl (Public Domain)

The princess and the fig tree

Halfway through Lent, we heard the Gospel reading where Jesus tells his disciples twice, in fairly stark and violent terms: If you do not repent, you will perish.

Then he tells them a story: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now, I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’

He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.’”

If the fig tree (you and me) isn’t just failing to bear fruit; it’s exhausting the soil around it. It’s hurting the other trees and crops nearby by taking without giving back. It should be destroyed, says the owner of the garden.

The gardener (Jesus) agrees that the fig tree shouldn’t be allowed to go on this way. It must bear fruit—repent—or it should perish. But note something extremely important: he doesn’t just insist that it should repent. He doesn’t even just give it extra time to repent. He comes and helps it. He gives it what it needs so it can, if it will, turn things around before it’s too late.

This reading dovetails so nicely with a short book I recently re-read: The Lost Princess by George MacDonald. It’s not as well-known as his excellent longer “princess” books, the two Curdie books or The Light Princess, but I think it deserves more attention than it gets.

To summarize without spoilers: Two young girls are raised by disastrously indulgent parents. One girl, Rosamond, is a princess, who has become monstrously selfish and capricious, terrorising the whole household. The king and queen are at their wits’ end with their daughter’s violent temper, so they summon a wise woman to help them. She abducts Rosamond and takes her on a brutal journey of self-knowledge and self-control, with many trials and many failures.

Then we are introduced to the second girl, the daughter of a shepherd and his wife, who isn’t openly monstrous, but she is so profoundly self-satisfied, she doesn’t really believe anyone else is real. She, too, is taken in by the wise woman for cultivation, and at some point, the shepherd girl and the princess switch roles, with varying consequences. At the end, both girls are returned to their homes to live the lives they have chosen.

The story, being Victorian, is pretty openly preachy. The narrator frequently delivers little lessons about life directly to the reader, which was the style at the time. But if you think of it as a sermon with a compelling and entertaining story, rather than a story that preaches at you, it’s wonderful, and harrowing in the best way—and don’t get me wrong; the fiction stands up on its own and isn’t solely a vehicle for a message. It has some scenes and some imagery that have stayed with me for 40 years or longer, and that have not lost any of their power when I read again it last week.

One such scene … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Detail of painting by Julie Le Brun (1780–1819) Looking in a Mirror (1787) via Rawpixel (Creative Commons)