The Kid Sister of Blessed Imelda

New blog home...

2006-09-13T20:08:00.000-05:00

http://kidsisterofblessedimelda.blog.com/

I serve...

2006-02-12T11:19:00.000-06:00

Last night at Mass, I served as Eucharistic Minister for the first time. I have trained for it, am on the schedule to serve, but last night they were short a person and Charmaine motioned at me to go and serve... so it was with NO mental preparation that I approached the altar and took my place for the first time. The place I took was that of the last to arrive, and often a coveted place as the one who takes it assists Father in serving the Body. That means you serve MORE people as many who take the Body pass the Cup by, but it is easier in a way in that you do not have to cleanse anything between Communicants. It was an experience unlike almost anything I have ever had before.

In order to understand what I am going to say, a little background needs to be given. I was once hurt by a stepbrother in a way that has affected my life for many years and will continue to do so for as long as I live. I never saw him again after that, and a 'dance' of sorts began as we tried to remain a part of the family while avoiding someone in it who could not be trusted. Some time passed, and my stepbrother married. His stepdaughter became a grandchild to my father, just like my own children were, and while we never were there at the same time as families... there WAS a time when only the grandchildren came to spend a week with the grandparents, and my children were going to be there with his stepdaughter. Ironically enough, I was there when another stepbrother dropped this young girl, around seven years old- the same age as my eldest daughter, off at my father's house one night, very late after everyone else was in bed. I was the only one awake and I had been lying in bed praying about her. I was concerned that my experience with my stepbrother (her stepfather now) not color my reaction to her and was praying about that, telling God how unfair it would be if she suffered at my hands because of something of which she was not guilty, telling God how afraid I was that I just didn't have it in me to see HER and not her stepfather, and how badly I wanted to treat her with loving kindness. I asked Him to help me, to pour HIS love for her through me because I wasn't sure I could love her of myself. So when I heard the door open, I got up and went to greet them with some trepidation. My stepbrother asked if I could take her and help get her to bed. Of course I said yes, and as I reached out to her (literally, bodily reached out to put my arm around her and guide her) God opened up the floodgates of His love for that child and it poured down into me... I felt it... like torrential flash floods thundering down like a waterfall and then crashing against the ground of my heart and being redirected down through my arms to that little girl. I was filled with love for her that I could never have imagined... and it wasn't mine, it was HIS... so completely suffusing every fiber of my being that I cry even as I type this from the great love for her that is still residual in my heart. I took care of that little girl, helped her change into jammies, tucked her in, kissing her head just as I always do my own... and when the week was over and I came back to pick up my daughter, the love was still there and what's more, she FELT it... it was almost as if I had another daughter. In the short time I spent with them at the end of that week before we all returned to our respective homes, she would call to me to watch her or to tell me about something, just like my own children. She responded to God's love for her that dwelt within me. I have never forgotten that experience, and I have often prayed that God would infuse me with the love He has for various people in my life that I interact with, that He would continue to channel His love for others through me as He did for that child. Yet despite my desire to be a channel for His love like that, it never happened again... until last night.

Last night, as I held up the Body for each of those people, it happened again. I didn't know most of them, half of them didn't even look at me or the Host, part of them didn't respond with the Amen, and half of those who did didn't sound like they meant it... but God once again, in a slightly less overwhelming fashion, poured out His love for EACH of those people through me... I felt it... I could FEEL the love He had for them as though He were moving through me and that it was HE who was holding up the Host instead of me, it was HE who was inviting them to partake instead of me, that I was truly His Body, reaching out to His people and their reaction didn't change that at ALL. It was incredible. Almost indescribable. What LOVE He has for us, and I know that in NO way have I experienced the height and depth and breadth of it, and yet I am so AWED by the drop He has shared with me.

Being a Eucharistic Minister was nothing like I thought it would be, and I am even more aware than ever of the great honor it is to be able to serve God's people in that way.

As for that little girl, I never saw her again... but I have never forgotten her name, I love her still, and I pray for her even now, after all these years.

My Place at the Table...

2006-02-12T10:28:00.000-06:00

Since our first reception of the Eucharist last month, I have spent a lot of time rereading some passages on the Eucharist in books that particularly spoke to me and thinking about what it means to come to the table.

One book in particular is On Being Catholic by Thomas Howard. Consider these quotes (bold emphasis mine)...

"When Catholics go to church they are doing something they did yesterday, or last week, and doing it "again". But the "again" applies only to them, not to the mystery that is always taking place in the heavenly Mysteries, where our Great High Priest offers himself at the heavenly altar (the whole epistle of Hebrews is about this). The Mass unites us with this offering. It is we who go and come. It is wewho experience it as "again and again". The mystery is present. It is "always" present (we have to reach for an adverb of time), and to go to Mass is to return to the center. It is to corral the clutter of ourselves and our time and our distractions and perplexities and joys and sufferings and to bring them to the still point of the turning world."

"To all intents and purposes, it is 8:00 am on Tuesday, June 13, A.D. 304, or A.D. 1995, in Lyons or Peoria. But we have stepped, the way the shepherds did, into the precincts of the eternal."

"When a Roman Catholic " goes to church", he sees himself as joining himself to something that is already going on. He sets aside both the hurly-burly of his domestic or professional situation and any preoccupation he may have with such patently excellent concerns as fellowship or chat or even a certain vitality in the air. He has been summoned to the unum necessarium. He here takes his place- literally, he believes- with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, who incessabili laud and magnify the Holy Name of the Most High, as the Te Deum puts it."

"To be Catholic, then, is to have the Mass at the center of one's whole existence and consciousness. It is to be a "eucharistic" man or woman. It is to see the liturgy as one's greatest "work". It is to have taken one's place at the Lord's Table."

Think about that...God is outside of time. This is a continual offering, it is WE, bound by time, who come and go... joining ourselves to what is perpetual in His presence.

As I 'pondered these things in my heart' (and not for the first time), new understanding dawned. Something so simple, and yet so exquisitely wonderful that it defied imagination. When one takes one's place at the Lord's Table, one doesn't just take A place... One takes THEIR place. It wasn't just an extra seat, it wasn't a folding chair pulled out of some obscure closet. It wasn't someone else's place who didn't show up and so it could be used for us. It was OUR place, prepared just like all the others from before the dawn of time. It has YOUR name on it, and not just an embossed folded paper placard to show to whom it belongs... instead, the chairs at this table are made of wood... the wood of the cross, ornately carved with great love by the One who hung upon it, and the pinacle of that ornate carving across the top of both front and back, are the names of those to whom they belong. One of those chairs is mine, it has MY name on it. Etched into the wood as surely as the David was carved from the marble. To remove the name would be to deface the chair entirely. When I come to the Table, for the first time and all the times after, it is to this chair that I come, to MY place at the Table.

Likewise, one can not think of being at their place at that Table without 'seeing' the faces of those who also come to the Table with them, those loved ones, friends, strangers even, who have taken their places at the Table alongside you... and one can not help but 'see' all those empty chairs with carven names proclaiming the identity of their missing occupant who has yet to come to the Table and who may never choose to claim their seat.

Mystagogy...

2006-01-29T15:13:00.000-06:00

So, it is time for Reflection on the Rite. Have I mentioned that talking about the Initiation is hard for me? Did I mention that I struggled for words, and even then didn't manage it? Yeah, that was this morning all over again, and I could tell by their faces I wasn't coming across. I felt like saying, "Can I just send ya'll a link to my blog? This was hard enough the first time..." I didn't, of course.

As I discussed this with Tracy she said, "you didn't think you would get to bask in the glory of it did you?" Can you say "TTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHBBBBBBTTTTT!"

I didn't expect to feel so... protective of it... maybe even selfish of it... and I didn't expect such difficulty trying to share when I needed to do so.

Just Cindy mentioning the hug Tracy and I shared as she completed her reception of the Eucharist had me tearing up all over again.

The More That Is Given...

2006-01-26T15:54:00.000-06:00

Given the recent events, my recent posts, and my struggles with self-expression therein, the "Meditation of the Day" in my Magnificat (January 2006)was providential.

The More That is Given

While I was about to go to Holy Communion, it seemed that I was being thrown wide open like a door being flung open to welcome the arrival of a dear friend; but after his entry it is shut tight. So my heart was alone with him alone, with God. It seems impossible to relate all the effects, feelings, leaping delight, and festivity it experienced. If I were to speak for example of all the times of happiness and pleasure shared with dear friends in the world, I would be saying nothing (comparable to this joy); and if I were to add up all the occasions of rejoicing in the universe, I would be saying that all this amounts to little or nothing beside what, in an instant, my heart experiences in the presence of God- or rather, what God does to my heart, because all these other things flow from him and are his works. Love makes the heart leap and dance; love makes it exult and be festive; love makes it sing and remain silent as it pleases; love grants it rest and enables it to act (which are nothing other than new activities done for God); love possesses it and gives it everything; love takes it over completely and dwells in it. But I am unable to say more because if I wished to relate all the effects that the heart experiences in the act of going to Holy Communion, and also at other times, I would never finish saying everything. It is sufficient to say that Communion is a room and mansion of love itself.

Saint Veronica Giuliani (1727)
a Capuchin nun at Citta di Castello, Italy

Sharing the meaning of the Eucharist...

2006-01-26T09:04:00.000-06:00

Last night at the Eucharistic Minister training, I was asked to share what receiving the Eucharist meant to me on Saturday. I tried, I really did... but I don't think I managed it. It is so hard to put how much it means to me in words... and as I searched for a way to express it, I realized that even in my rather LONG (stop laughing) post yesterday, I hadn't really managed it either.

How do you describe that which defies description? How do you express verbally that for which no word, or combination of words, carries enough meaning? Perhaps it is in the inability to describe that which I feel that best begins to describe it.

I am home!

2006-01-25T16:54:00.000-06:00

I have come to the Table of the Lord at last.

I tried to post earlier, but just typing the above overwhelmed me and I had to close the window. I’m not sure I’m ready now but I know there are people who want to know. Also, there are two sides of it… there’s the physical, and the spiritual/mental… and trying to describe the latter or explain it to others seems as fruitless as trying to explain any of the Mysteries, but I’ll try. (Please forgive if the details are excessive, I would want to know them if I were awaiting my own Initiation as some of those who will read this are.)

Father began Mass with an announcement of the Sacraments being celebrated and made mention that while these were normally celebrated during Easter Vigil, we (a specifically generic we) just couldn’t wait- which generated a great deal of laughter from the reserved rows where we and our sponsors sat, as well as a few other people who know our family well. (Dh was my sponsor, Seraiah’s godparents Tracy and Stan were hers, then the sponsors for the other three girls were three of the ladies on the RCIA team, all of whom are very special to us and have come to know our family, our story, and know of our journey to this day.) Mass began as it normally does, albeit with special readings, and continued until the homily was over. Then Seraiah was called forward with her sponsors, Stan and Tracy. We prayed a Litany of the Saints, the Font was blessed, and Seraiah made her profession of faith in her baptismal vows. She wore a blue robe, made like an alb, over shorts and a t-shirt. Father had made certain the water was warm, and Tracy was waiting with a towel to wrap her up. She was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, being lowered under the water three times. After she stepped out of the font and faced the congregation, she was so wet she was dripping-ok, puddling would be more accurate, her gown having absorbed a great deal of water. Father addressed her saying, “Child of God, you’re all wet!” whereupon she laughed along with the rest of the congregation. This was so precious to me… this immersion Baptism in the Catholic Church. A few years ago when I had my ‘flaming baseball bat’ experience and the Lord told me what He wanted me to do, I immediately obeyed, but I wrestled with the Lord as well… My three youngest children had just prayed to give their lives to God, and the middle two were actively (read that nagging) seeking baptism, only the details hadn’t been set. I knew that with this (ahem) new (ahem) leading from the Lord they would NOT be receiving baptism as they were baptized as babies in the Catholic Church. Seraiah would need to be baptized but I expected sprinkling for her as well as a young child. I knew I could never step foot in the church we had been attending again without being disobedient to God, much less do anything like baptism. I went fetal and cried and cried, mourning the loss of the baptism I had desired for my children, which I saw as absolutely necessary for their salvation, and I cried out to God about THAT too. (How can they be saved in that horribly misguided place with its statues and rituals and rote prayers? * go ahead, laugh, I am! I can’t believe I thought that!) He replied (I fancy rather testily and through gritted teeth), “Who saves them, YOU? (with your set order of traditions and immersion baptism)or ME? Do you trust ME to save them? Do you trust that even though right now you don’t see how the Sacraments of the Catholic Church can be enough or properly done, that I will honor your obedience and I WILL SAVE THEM?” Needless to say, I got on my face. The very realization that I had, in my arrogance, decided what they must do in order to be saved instead of trusting God to save them was horrifying to me, and I repented of it immediately. Back to the present, at this point, it wouldn’t have mattered to me how she was baptized. She WAS and that was all that mattered, and God would save her regardless. So it was, in a way, a gift from God that I was able to see this one immersed here in the Church where God had led us… He is ever this way with me… He asks me to let go of something which means SO much… and when I do, when I REALLY let go with the fingers of my heart and mind as well as those of my hands, He gives it back to me in a similar form, but one so much more precious than it ever would’ve been the old way.

In the end, nothing was lacking for any of my children, it never occurred to me to mourn that the middle two were confirmed instead of a baptism, it was complete and perfect just as it was... everything was so much richer for my children than I ever could’ve hoped for. When I think that they could’ve been kept from such spiritual wealth and completeness because of a different choice, a selfish choice, a choice of disobedience on my part… it causes me to shudder and give thanks to God for the great things He has wrought in our lives.

Back to the ceremony…

While Seraiah and Tracy went to the Sacristy to get her into dry clothing, the rest of us renewed our baptismal vows and were sprinkled with holy water from the newly blessed font. When Father flicked the water toward us, a drop hit directly in the center of my forehead where I normally touch to start the Sign of the Cross. It seemed appropriate in a way. Then I was called up with my sponsor (dh) to make my profession of faith. If you had told me a few years ago that I would be answering these questions not only in the affirmative, but with absolutely NO doubt in my mind, I’d have probably politely, tolerantly, smiled and thought how wrong you were, poor deluded person. Yet, as Father asked me if I believed in the Holy Catholic Church, its teachings, etc, I was able to say with absolute and complete conviction that I do. Not only that, but it was a privilege to be able to do so, and in a way, also a relief.

After that, we went back to our seats, only to have Father ask if I wanted to go check on Tracy and Seraiah as the door to the Sacristy was still closed. I went in, much to the amusement of the congregation, only to receive a few choice words from Tracy about the outfit ‘I’ had chosen. HA! Seraiah chose her OWN clothing thank you and hose aren’t easy to get on anybody quickly. They came out, were joined by Stan, and she was presented with a white alb which they assisted her in donning. Then the rest of us, with our sponsors, were asked to join Seraiah for the Sacrament of Confirmation. We stood with our sponsors behind us, their right hand on our shoulder, on the steps of the dais. Father came to me first, poured the Chrism on my head liberally, and rubbed it in, bringing some down to make a cross on my forehead as he pronounced the blessing. I responded amen, and shook his hand returning the sign of peace. He then progressed through Rebecca, Seraiah, Micah, and then finally to Kenna at the other end, repeating the process for each of us. As I stood there, watching as my children were also confirmed, I thought of many things. I thought of my husbands parents, who had long prayed for this day and despaired of it ever coming. I thought of my mother-in-law specifically, who had said years before to me that I was searching and would end up in the Catholic Church (and who was treated with one of those polite, tolerant smiles), and who upon hearing where God had lead me never said “I told you so”, and who gave me dh’s grandmothers rosary for my very first. I thought of my father, who taught me so much of the faith, who recently suffered a stroke and had emergency quadruple bypass surgery, from whom I am estranged, have not spent time with in almost six years, have not spoken to for one. I thought of how he was probably sitting in his easy chair at home, reading his Bible as usual, completely unaware of this incredible event in our lives, and I thought how much I would have liked to share it with him. I also thought, as I looked down the double row on the dais stairs … catechists in front, sponsors behind… how God has never left me empty, always given in return for any loss I have experienced and mourned, and how those people standing with me represented the most important of those. (I have lost and longed for my family, God gave me my husband and children. I have lost and longed for the bond- friendship and blessing- a sister brings, God gave me Tracy. I have lost a ‘home church’ and community which knew me and to which I belonged and of which I was a known and contributing part, God gave me the people among and with whom I stood and the church which surrounded us.) As Father reached Kenna, my eldest, and Confirmed her, I thought of how this journey was as much hers as it had been mine… how she had struggled in the beginning and how God had reached down to answer her questions in such a way that she knew He had answered her and shown her His will in her life. I thought of how much it meant to be standing before the Church professing our faith together, and how much it meant to finally be worshipping as a family.

After being Confirmed, we sat back down as the collections were taken, and then went back to bring forward the gifts for the first time. We sat down and Father began to prepare the gifts. All that had gone before was precious, was special, but this… this was the most important to me in a way. All through the Sacraments there had been something… something different and I simply can’t find the words for it. Call it a heightened awareness maybe… while participating with those around me, there was another level of * something * that was in the background, spiritual awareness perhaps? That marriage of spirit and soul that we have as believers?. At this point however, that other awareness/concentration/focus, became the primary one, almost to the exclusion of everything else. A time or two I thought, I need to be paying attention to the girls, remember they are involved in this too… but despite the glance I would give them, I was drawn yet again to the consecration of the gifts on the table. Emotion welled in my mind, in my heart, in my throat, in my eyes… as it has done many times in the past year (as I watched the preparation of gifts I could not share) and yet stronger, though that seems impossible. At last it was time to come to the Table and we were to partake first as new communicants. I bowed in reverence to the Host, cupped my hands, Father presented the Host to me saying, “Anne, the Body of Christ” to which I replied Amen, stepped to the side, placed the host in my mouth, made the sign of the cross, and moved to the Cup. I had done pretty well up to this point, despite the heightened state I was in… probably because I REALLY didn’t want to be sobbing uncontrollably when taking Communion for the first time. Charmaine, pastoral associate, RCIA director, and VERY dear friend to me was the minister of the Cup. As I stopped in front of her she said, “Anne, the Blood of Christ” with tears streaming down her face, one of the few people who REALLY understood what this meant to me… and I lost it. I said Amen, I took the cup, but I was suppressing tears to the point that I was shaking, tears streaming down my face despite my efforts, eyes so full I couldn’t see the Blood to gauge when it would touch my lips. As I went back to my place, so caught up in where I was spiritually that I nearly forgot we were on the front row, I barely registered my children receiving behind me, and by the time my eyes had cleared enough to see, they were all back beside me, one hugged back to my belly, one against my side, the other two reaching hands over to me, so concerned because I was crying. No sooner had I reassured them that it was ok, it was happy tears, than Tracy was taking the Cup. After, she turned to me, tears running down her face and gave me a hug that went on forever… both of us bawling… she also is one of those few people who know… she is the one God used (amid much protest) to start me on this journey, she is the one who knew before I did. Her presence there was so important, more special to me than I can ever express… it simply wouldn’t have been the same without her. It was so good to be truly sisters at last. I understand now what my husband said about his first communion… how he spent the rest of the day in prayer. There was more to do, a reception, dinner for the families (ours and Tracy’s), limited time left to fellowship with Tracy’s family before they had to leave for home (and yes, a bottle of the good Roederer chilled at home to be opened in celebration) … and yet the desire for time to stop, the church to magically be temporarily empty, so that I could just kneel for the longest time in prayer and adoration was strong within me.

We followed Father out, and were hurried over to the Hall for a punch and cake reception receiving line. I asked Kenna, my eldest, if my make-up was completely ruined due to all the crying. She looked at me quite seriously, opened her mouth and emphatically said, “Yes.” I cracked up. Oh well, it didn’t matter… I was too happy to care.

I remember thinking at the time how much like a wedding it was. The feeling was very similar, the joy, the natural high… only better, infinitely better. A foretaste of heaven perhaps. I’m not sure I felt the ground for the rest of that day, and part of the next.

We were given many gifts both before and after our Initiation. Each one was so precious and special, adding to the beauty of the day.

-The Weight of a Mass for Seraiah from Tracy, read before in preparation.
-Pendants from Tracy in memory of the day.
-Five white roses from Charmaine, one for each of us.
-A card, along with My Daily Bread from MaryatHome. (What a beautiful surprise from a fellow sister on the forum… and I have been reading through it daily since.)
-Cards for each of us from our neighbors and friends who also attend our church, John, Kathryn, the boys and of course, Avery.
-Crosses on ribbon for each of us from Marjorie, one of the girls sponsors.
-The Church gave each of the girls a holy water font for their rooms.
-Charmaine gave each of us hand-knitted booties, specially made for us in our favorite colors.
-The church choir, which normally does not sing during that time or at that Mass, showed up en masse and made such a beautiful contribution of music that one person mentioned how much it felt like Easter.

Each of these people, along with many others who attended the Mass out of friendship, sponsorship etc, helped make this day so very special.

I said “I am home” at the beginning. That is true, but in the same way that catholic is not Catholic, this ‘home’ is also a shadow of what is to come. I am home, but I am not yet Home. However, I know that this home God has led me to now, will assist me in finally reaching that Home for which I still long, and make the journey richer than I could ever have hoped or dreamed.

To God alone be the glory, now and forever. Amen.

PS...

2006-01-19T16:50:00.000-06:00

I remember when God said MOVE. I remember knowing WHERE I was being moved. I remember crying out to God that I couldn't DO that anymore, I couldn't be a benchwarmer, not coming to the Table, not serving, not being involved in my Church. These things were vital to me, things that I had yet to be able to do as a result of various factors in my spiritual walk and moving into the Catholic Church (at first) looked like the rest of my life would continue in the same way. I knew Service was one of my main spiritual gifts and not being able to serve was torment. God has a sense of humor... did you know that?

Miss I-Can't-Bear-To-Not-Be-Serving isn't 'official' until Saturday and already is signed up to...

...be Eucharistic Minister during Mass
...be Eucharistic Minister to the Homebound and Nursing Home
...cook for funeral luncheons
...cook for various needs such as new babies, surgery etc
...be available to work on the RCIA team
AND the sign up for substitute teaching in the catechism classes quickly morphed (last Wednesday) into assistant teacher to the 5th grade class.

I know I've forgotten something in the above list, but regardless, I can hear God laughing...

It is time, and I am torn...

2006-01-19T16:32:00.000-06:00

So I have spent the past 7 or 8 months in RCIA preparing for this very Initiation into the Church. Seraiah's baptismal robe and alb are hemmed and ready, Tracy has completed her preparations and their family is on the road, reservations have been made at the hotel for them (hot water heater just wouldn't hold up to 11 getting cleaned up...), and only practice remains. (Ok, so I can't find my good black skirt and will have to go shopping... that isn't a big deal...)*Ahem* These months have been very good for me, and several of my close friends agree on this. That said, I am struggling with some odd feelings.

I had about a week (maybe two) of feeling incredibly unworthy to come to the Table... I mean some REAL hesitation... which God had already prepared for with some of my reading which addressed this EXACT issue. SO even as I was thinking that and feeling that hesitation, I could hear that passage from the book I'd read in my mind battling it, and telling me how it was important to come to the Table anyway.

That dealt with, now I'm having these feelings of 'maybe I should've waited for Easter Vigil... maybe I shouldn't have been in such a hurry... etc, etc, etc...' and yet I KNOW how I suffered at the thought of waiting, I KNOW how the 7 or 8 months looked at the get go (remember, these were only the last months in a journey of YEARS), and I know too that the patience, the acceptance of the wait is part of the fruit of those 8 months. It isn't that I'm changing my mind, or hesitating, but more of a questioning of is this God's timing or is it mine? (Yes, I know I overthink things but roll with me here...) Then in Morning Prayers it occurs to me (I think a lot in Morning Prayers, as you can tell from recent posts... it is a very full, intense 20 minutes...) anyway, it occurs to me that as much as I am looking forward to this Initiation ceremony, there IS a bit of 'stress' associated, if you know what I mean. The very participation factor changes how you come at it... and the reassuring thought came to me that I will be able to enjoy Easter Vigil MORE being fully initiated as I won't have the 'participation stress factor' to deal with.

These are the musings that roll about in my mind like stones in a riverbed these last days...

Confession is Good for the Soul....

2006-01-13T09:56:00.000-06:00

The older three children are all preparing for First Reconciliation tomorrow. Examinations of conscience all around me, with much better results than the last time we attempted this. Thus, when my 8 yr old dd began to talk to me about her list I was rather pleasantly surprised at the depth of her examination. This is going to be so good for them... Dh and I will go to confession tomorrow as well, though dh's First Confession was long ago in the mists of time, and I went back close to Thanksgiving for my First (as soon as I was told I could... I was ready LONG before I got the ok).

Confession has been good for me in so many ways... and I did anticipate that, but it has been surprising how that accountability has dramatically affected some areas of sin that I struggle with in my life. The Lord had impressed upon me some years ago that a certain genre of reading material was not good for me to indulge in and that He wanted it removed from my life. I obeyed, simply because He said so, but in truth there was no conviction in my heart that this was sin for me. As a result, a few years went by and I picked up a book of that genre. It was the beginning of over 5 years of reading material that I knew God didn't want in my life, it didn't MATTER than 300 million other women read it and it is ok for THEM, God had said that for ME it was unacceptable. It was a constant struggle that invariably I lost. Then recently, I chewed my girls out but good over something that SEEMED small but really was important in a much larger way. In the silence that followed, that still, small Voice said to me that this is how I am with Him in regards to this reading issue. It seems small to me, just like the situation seemed small to the children, and yet HE can see with me, as I could with my children, the possible ramifications of that disobedience. For the first time, I really saw the reading issue as a sin for me as HE sees it... not just with head knowledge and trying to obey that way, but with a deeper, heart knowledge... deeper understanding. I went to Confession the next available time and confessed the reading of such material for me as sin, even though to the Priest it might not seem as sin, and to many other women it is not, God has made it clear that for ME those kind of books are sin. (This along with the sin of gluttony, with which I also struggle, prompted a very unexpected penance... Father told me that the very giving UP of those things was my penance... and while I see the wisdom in that, it was rather the odd feeling to have my struggle with the sin in my life become my penance.) This is no small thing, this type of reading material has affected my life in many ways (and not all good) but it is deeply ingrained after some 15 years of it as my 'down time' reading. It is what I picked up at the end of a long hard day, or during a weekend, in order to relax... and that is no small change.

Fast forward to yesterday at the grocery store. I went down the 'book aisle'. I don't know why I did that to myself, I knew when I turned DOWN the aisle that it was stupid. Sure enough, first major test. There in the rack was a book by an author that I loved. A book I had been anticipating the release of, and BADLY, I mean BADLY wanted to read. So there I stood, for at least five minutes, staring down at the book, whining and griping to God. I didn't touch it. I DID know better than that. Finally, I turned and headed off down several more aisles, all the while still muttering and grumbling... (I think I finally found my 'garlic and onions' issue much like the Hebrews in the desert.) In the 'old days' I would've picked up that book and run with it, justifying it all the way to the big sigh of gratification at the last page. What was different? Confession. I knew that if I picked up that book, I would have to confess it. There is a whole new level of 'awareness', of immediate accountability, that has never been there before.

This morning at Morning Prayers, I was thinking back to that. Thinking how horribly tempted I was, how badly I WANTED that which was unclean to me, and how Confession had given me extra strength to resist that temptation (and how glad I was that I could go into tomorrows Confession with victory in that aisle instead of defeat), even if I was whining about it, and I realized that TRUE temptation is no fleeting impulse easily denied. Temptation, REAL temptation, is a wrestling match on a narrow bridge above a mud pit. The question is whether or not you walk away clean or dirty, NOT whether or not you struggled.

As with so many of the rituals and liturgy that has infused my spiritual (as well as phsyical) life in the Catholic Church, Confession has given me strength, added tools/weapons with which to fight so that I may emerge victorious rather than remorseful. Once again I am struck by how those very things (ritual and liturgy) which I thought were crutches for my human weakness and should not be necessary, are instead pedestals from which greater heights may be attained.

I pray this is so for my children, that God may use these aids and graces in their lives to catapult them to greater depths and loftier heights in their spiritual life as well. That they would forever see these liturgical support systems as the essential and valuable assistance to the deeper Christian life that they are, never mistaking them for empty, vain and repetitious traditions of men and losing the power they bring to the godly life.

The Schedule is Set...

2006-01-03T12:32:00.000-06:00

Jan 7th Presentation of the Creed at Mass to Seraiah who will be Baptised as well as being Confirmed and coming to the Eucharist for the first time.

Jan 8th Preparation for a Scrutiny all together

Jan 14th 11:00 am Celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation for everyone except Seraiah. (It will be First Reconciliation for Kenna, Micah, and Becca.)

Jan 14th Celebrate the Scrutiny with Seraiah at Mass

Jan 20th Preparatory Rites around 1pm

Jan 21st Initiation to the Catholic Church at Mass

Jan 29th Period of Mystagogy- A Reflection on the Rite

They are not mine, they are only in my keeping...

2005-12-29T21:56:00.000-06:00

So my beloved Micah has lost a fourth pet. Three cats, and now this bunny have gone on to her future heavenly hovel to wait her arrival. I was at a neighbors house when he passed (reverence must be kept, if not because of the bunny, because of the devotion of my daughters heart) and when I came into the room, Micah was blowing out a candle she had lit and had put down her rosary. She looked up at me with a red, tear-stained face and said, "I shouldn't be sad, he's in heaven now." God love her... she placed him so tenderly and lovingly in his little paperboard box coffin, and wrote a small euology on the top professing her faith that God would take care of him, and that she would someday join him in heaven, along with all the love in her heart.

We put him in a safe place until we could have a funeral for him, and she was given her sisters bunny to love on as the children thought those who mourn would best be able to comfort one another. We sat around her sharing both loving and funny memories of her pet, and then a lull came into the discussion and after a moment, she looked up at me and said, "Mom, you know how I'm thinking about becoming a Nun?" I said yes, and she replied, "Well, I read somewhere that it is good for someone who is going to be a Nun to have a broken heart." I swear I heard mine crack. She accepted this loss and the resultant suffering as preparation for what God has in store for her, and chose to look upon it as a good thing. She aspires now to the possiblity of the religious life, and may someday indeed become a Nun... but regardless, she is right...

In the face of such loss, the death of four pets in total- all hers, can be nothing less than preparation for something God has in store for her. I know that, even the thought of it now brings chills to the back of my neck and arms, but what on earth can He have ahead of her that requires her to experience and become proficient with such grief and loss and suffering at such a tender age? Not to mention that this is no typical child, she has always been different... special in a unique way that even her sisters acknowledge. Such a loving, kind, and tender child with such a heart for others, always so selfless and yet required to bear such suffering... it has made me think even more of Mary.

What was Christ like as a child? Did he also have that tender spirit I see in my daughter? Did the animals come to him and did he love them? Was he as giving and helpful to his parents? Was he as concerned for the welfare of others instead of himself even at such an age? Did she know? Even if she didn't, did she suspect that something great and terrible might lay ahead? Is there something great and terrible ahead of my child as well?

Like Mary, I can not know... and yet my limited experience with God, my pathetic understanding which is so inaccurate and so skewed, somehow makes me apprehensive... in an alert and preparatory way... and so, in my alert ignorance, I pray over her. I fall asleep praying, I wake up and resume, only to fall asleep again... urgency continuing to bring it to mind. I feel so inadequate as her mother, as her teacher... and that helps keep me on my face before the Father. God knows what I do not, and I have committed myself to His use as their teacher, their mother, unto death if I am not His useful tool any longer.

May He continue to equip me and knowing my weakness and repeated failure, honor every effort and not lay it to my children's account, but bring them to the task prepared for them completely equipped to all good works, His ready and able servant. This is my prayer... and the mission of my heart until it is completed.

Like a Child...

2005-12-03T23:07:00.000-06:00

Lately I’ve been reading The Teachings of the Church Fathers put out by Ignatius Press. I’m not 35 pages into it but what riches! I’m really grateful that the Lord allowed me to find this AFTER I was convinced. OY! If C.S. Lewis was a speed bump, these guys would have been a concrete reinforced brick wall.

Just the writings I’ve worked my way through have covered what were some big issues for me coming into the Church and have given a final seal of affirmation which feels similar to a benediction of sorts.

On Worship of God/Veneration of Mary and the Saints

St. Augustine said…
‘It is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs, both to excite us to imitate them, and to obtain a share in their merits, and the assistance of their prayers.’

St. John of Damascus said…
‘We adore only the Creator and Maker of things, God, to whom we offer latria since God is to be adored according to His nature. We also adore the holy mother of God, not as God, but as mother of God according to the flesh. We also adore the saints, the chosen friends of God, by whom we have easy access to Him.’

And listen to this…

St. Fulgentius…
‘True religion consists in the service of the one true God.’

And other commentary on various topics…

‘When you have put off mortality, and put on immortality, then will you see God worthily.’ St. Theophilus of Antioch

‘Let us then in everything believe God, and contradict Him in nothing, though what is said seem to be contrary to our thoughts and senses, but let His word be of higher authority than both our reasonings and sight. Thus let us do in the mysteries also, not looking at the things set before us, but keeping in mind His sayings. For His word cannot deceive, but our senses are easily beguiled. His word has never failed, but our senses in most things go wrong. Since then the Word says, “This is my Body’, (Matt 26:26) let us both be persuaded and believe, and look at It with the eyes of the mind. For Christ has given us nothing sentient, but though things are sensible, yet all are to be perceived spiritually. So also in baptism, the gift is bestowed by a sensible thing, that is, by water; but that which is done is perceived by the mind:- the birth and the renewal. For if you had been incorporeal, He would have delivered to you the incorporeal gifts bare; but because the soul has a been locked up in a body, He delivers you the things that the mind perceives, in things sensible. How many now say, I would wish to see His form, His figure, His clothes, His shoes. You do see Him, you do touch Him, you do eat Him, and you indeed desire to see His clothes, but He gives Himself to you not only to see, but also to touch, and eat and receive within you.’ St. John Chrysostom

The Muratorian Fragment says ‘yet one church is recognized as being spread over the entire world’ and refers to the chair of the church of the city of Rome.

St. Augustine said, ‘If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, “The author of this book is mistaken”; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood…’

Also St. Augustine… ‘If divine works cannot be wrought but by God, take heed lest in This Man God lie concealed.’

And

‘You could not see God, a man you could; so God was made man, that in one you might have both what to see, and what to believe.’

Isn’t that BEAUTIFUL? It sends one scurrying back along pages to the above about giving us the incorporeal sensibly that we might see, touch, consume and receive Him, doesn’t it?

Oh, and this…

Origen… ‘And who would rationally maintain that an improved moral life, which daily lessened the number of a man’s offences, could proceed from a system of deceit?’

My soul thrills at such wealth! Word full of faith and glory, words of passionate belief by those who were so close compared to us that they could still smell the scent of His robes. Some of them recounting first hand what they heard from the apostles! I find myself exclaiming over a passage and look up only to realize that there is no one here to share it with… and as I turn instead to the Lord, enthusing to Him as my children do to me with some new innocent joy about things I already know well, and as I become like a child once again myself I fancy I can see His indulgent smile and hear Him say, “Yes, I know, it IS wonderful”.

Thanksgiving reading...

2005-11-28T09:24:00.000-06:00

A long road trip gives one plenty of time for reading, especially when one's husband doesn't let one drive until the last two hours of the return trip. The book was C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church by Joseph Pearce. I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble in Little Rock, AR.

It piqued my interest because reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity was a ‘speed bump’ of sorts for me as a protestant. Now as a (wannabe) Catholic I was interested to read this comparison of Lewis and the RC. It ended up being one of those rare books in which I wrote. I wore out every straight edge on two paper bookmarks and one pamphlet. Passages are underlined, boxed, and commented upon from the first page of the foreword to the last poem on the last page. It seems I am not alone in having Lewis point me toward the RC church… He is responsible for many conversions and yet, he never completed his journey into the RC Church. He was, for all intents and purposes, Catholic, yet was unable to overcome those prejudices instilled in him at such a young age by his ‘Ulster nurse’. What sorrow, to be held back by prejudice and bigotry from completion of your faith.

May nothing in my walk ever be ‘untouchable’, may every act, every thought, be available to God and godly friends to sharpen and challenge me to go ‘further up and further in’.

A few excerpts…

‘Beauty descends from God into nature: but there it would perish and does except when a Man appreciates it with worship and thus as it were sends it back to God” so that through his consciousness what descended ascends again and the perfect circle is made.’
-C.S. Lewis

Bibliolatry – the superstitious and idolatrous worship of the Bible which results from its being read without due deference and reference to theological tradition.
-Joseph Pearce

Pride and prejudice are always obstacles to sense and sensibility.
-Joseph Pearce

There are traps everywhere…. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.
-C.S. Lewis

One did not learn humility; one gained humility by abandoning pride.
-Joseph Pearce

Eden is, and was always meant to be, a starting-place and not a stopping-place.
-Dorothy L. Sayers

The Liturgical Year...

2005-11-14T21:24:00.000-06:00

RCIA tonight… I ended up sailing in a lovely ten minutes late. Poor scheduling on my part as Joe had a reception associated with the hospital tonight which I also was to attend. 45 minutes there, a wild 20 minute drive, and a wet run into the church saved the evening. As badly as I wanted to stay for the reception, no way was I going to miss an RCIA class. Just not worth it.

Tonight we covered The Liturgical Year. I already knew quite a bit about it anyway, but what really got me was the description given by the team of the way each different portion of the year is celebrated.

I am looking forward to celebrating my first Advent as a Catholic (ok, unofficial Catholic of the heart), and the New Year will bring rare sweetness as the girls and I complete the Sacraments of Initiation by receiving the Sacraments of Confirmation and First Communion (as well as Seraiah’s Baptism). I have so long been looking forward to full reception into the Catholic Church and after at least 15 years of background learning and experiences in which God ‘set me up’ as another convert said, it has taken at least a year and a half of intense spiritual study and some MAJOR movement by God in my life to get me here. What a fantastic journey it has been and I have to admit that as this journey has been winding to a close, I am not without spiritual exercise as the Lord is having me reevaluate my daily life in the light of The Mother’s Rule and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is hardly light fare, and yet after the past year it seems light and a half I will admit to questioning… isn’t there something more? Is it already time for a winter of the soul? It seems time, and yet even as I’ve feasted so greatly upon things of the Lord, even now I hunger for more. Which brings me back to my original point… and perhaps explains my feelings…

The real treasure in tonight’s class was not The Liturgical Calendar, but how the events in the Liturgical Year are celebrated… at least in our parish. As the ladies began to tell us about the special events of the year, and how they are celebrated. My anticipation grew as we discussed Advent, then Christmas, then the small bit of Ordinary Time, on to Lent, and when we reached the Easter Triduum, it burst over me. Such an incredible desire to worship the Lord in this cycle culminating in the Easter Triduum, the incredible urge to pay homage to the empty cross myself… and suddenly my perspective transformed... The completion of the Sacraments of Initiation are both an ending and a beginning. I knew this of course, but it isn’t the same, head knowledge compared to real VISION is like gestation compared to life. A whole new vista has burst on the horizon, a vision of the new life God has called me to and has been preparing me for. My anticipation of Confirmation and First Communion has only increased as I long for the fullness and richness of what lies “further up and further in”.

Shadows...

2005-11-10T10:07:00.000-06:00

Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom once said...

"God is so close, you can only see His shadow."

Dante's Inferno...

2005-11-08T11:00:00.000-06:00

As I struggle with getting our lives back into the routine after several months of chaos due to circumstances beyond our control, I opened my Catechumen’s Lectionary to prepare for next Sunday, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. The first reading was from Proverbs 31… Ouch. I bear so little resemblance to the Proverbs 31 woman right now that if entry to heaven were based on it I would experience every level of Dante’s hell so quickly that only a swift red blur and I would slide up against the back wall of the last level with a resounding THUNK. I think God set me up again. I’ve been getting ‘messages’ lately about the need for order, etc… Ok, ‘messages’ might be a bit strong… how bout ‘heavenly hints’. I kept saying, “but I HAVE a routine, I HAVE a schedule that works… it just isn’t working RIGHT NOW!” I think He’s been saying it is time for a NEW ONE… and I’ve been resisting. (WHY do I do that? What is it about me that it is necessary for Him to SHOW me how badly something is broken before I’m willing to change?) I know women joke about the Proverbs 31 woman, but I firmly believe God put her there to inspire us, as what we CAN attain, not to rub our faces in the impossible. I know that is what HE wants for me. I know that is what CAN be. It is what I WANT for myself…

The second reading was 1 Thess 5:1-6. A reminder that the Lord’s coming will be as a thief in the night. I need to be ready… physically, mentally, emotionally… but not only for the return of the Lord. I need to be ready in all those ways for ANY thing He sends to me each day. I can’t do that if I’m living a chaotic life, regardless of how hard I’m trying to dig myself out of that chaos. I must be ready in order to be of use to the Lord.

The gospel was in Matt 25:14-30. The parable of the talents. I have been given much, four talents in particular, and I need to be working with those talents and preparing them for the return of the Lord. I am doing that… but I would be able to do so much MORE with those ‘talents’ if my life were more ordered.

For SOME reason God has allowed this testing to come. He has allowed our schedule, our routine, to be blown apart and seems to desire that it not remake itself in the same fashion. Oh Lord, as I read through A Mother’s Rule of Life and work through the MOTH scheduling, help me to form the routine, the schedule that YOU desire for our family. Guide my hand, give me wisdom, and love my family through me. As we continue to seek You first each day, show us how You desire our steps to be directed that our ways might be pleasing to You and glorify you in all we do and say.

Another Walks Beside Me...

2005-11-06T20:20:00.000-06:00

Recently someone posted in a homeschool forum I frequent about her recent discoveries in spiritual study. Evidently Catholicism makes more sense than it ever has before and God has lifted the veil for her, much as He did for me over a year ago. I say lifted the veil, that is true, but it was also… as she said… much like being hit by a baseball bat. Such a radical move from previously passionately held beliefs to a place one never expected to go… it does contain an element of violence and certainly the reaction of shock. Even the questioning, is this REALLY happening? And so forth. Her posts have given me such intense joy as I can’t describe… to see God working in her life as He worked in mine, to see someone else saying, “I can’t believe what I’m saying but…” just like I did. I hope to correspond with her more, to hear what God is doing in her life and hear what she is learning. Isn’t it amazing how God gives us a heart for others? Especially when He is working mightily in their lives… it is such joy to see response to Him in an earnest seeker! So wonderful to see His mercies newly evident, regardless of who’s life it is in. I also long for her to experience the same richness of faith and joy I have found. Holding her close in my heart I pray for her, that she would find and act on God’s perfect will in her life and be blessed above and beyond all she could ask or imagine.

As for me, I find my own joy renewed in her experiences and find new energy for the small portion of the road yet before me as I long so desperately to come to the Table in the Eucharist. How my heart longs for completion of this long journey, and the beginning of the next as I begin to walk and serve the Lord as a Catholic as He has purposed and desired me to do.

Hearing myself say it still brings a bit of an incredulous smile to my face…

The Rosary... and Other Musings...

2005-10-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest surprises, as I have delved further into all things Catholic, has been the Rosary. As a protestant, I was very disturbed by all the Marian devotions… at best it seemed idolatry, at worst there were tales of equality with Jesus which just set every last hair afire. A friend recommended a book on the Rosary that she uses with her children, Speak, Lord, I am Listening: A Rosary Book, and so I placed an order. I had a plastic freebie rosary from the church we used to attend, and thought I’d give it a try even though I was certain that the rosary wasn’t for me.

The book arrived and I began to flip through it. First, you make the sign of the cross and say the Apostles Creed… ok… no biggie there. I believe all that and lately I even can say the ‘Catholic church’ part now without mentally screeching “BY CATHOLIC I MEAN UNIVERSAL NOT ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH” which was quite the step forward if I do say so myself. Then you say the Our Father.

After that comes three Hail Mary’s… but not just Hail Mary’s for the sake of saying Hail Mary’s. Each of the three beads represents a virtue… so the first bead is a Hail Mary for an increase in Faith. The second bead is a Hail Mary for an increase of Hope, and the last bead’s Hail Mary is for an increase in Love.

Then when you hold the next Our Father bead, you state the Mysteries you are going to pray, name the first mystery of that set, say the scripture for that, and then pray the Our Father. Then there is a scripture for EACH Hail Mary bead that you read and then meditate on as you SAY the Hail Mary for that bead.

I soon realized that the Rosary wasn’t really ABOUT Mary at all!!! It was a meditation and prayer on the life of Christ! Something that I really hadn’t done hardly at ALL as a protestant and certainly not something that was encouraged as a part of daily devotions! Sure, it was Marian to the extent that you quote what the scriptures say about Mary repeatedly and ask that she pray for you and for all sinners now and at the hour of our death, but how is that any different than asking a living friend in the faith to pray for you? Are not those who have gone before living? Of course they are… the only Marian thing about the Rosary is that it seems to have been given by/inspired by Mary as her way of encouraging us to meditate and dwell upon the life of her son, our mutual Savior.

I have learned much in the brief time that I’ve been praying the rosary and it has become a joyful time of prayer when my girls and I pray it aloud together. Primarily I pray a scriptural rosary, but a friend has written up scriptural rosaries for praying for your children, and one of consecration based on the story of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compeigne as told in To Quell the Terror, which I also pray. I am so excited by how greatly my prayer life and meditation is enriched by this.

Some of the biggest protestant ‘issues’ with the Catholic church that I was aware of before becoming Catholic have been proven completely unfounded not only by what I’ve learned in RCIA classes and observed on my own, but also by simply praying the rosary and what I’ve learned while doing that.

It was said that Catholics worship Mary. They don’t worship Mary, the Roman Catholic church doesn’t advocate worship of Mary and the Rosary isn’t worship of Mary.

It was said that Catholics don’t read the Bible. I have never been a slouch at Bible study etc, but I am becoming even more fully immersed in scripture than ever through my ‘conversion’ process in the Catholic Church. Every time I turn around I’m being encouraged to read scripture, given a Bible with the apocrypha because I didn’t have one, given a lectionary with the reading schedules for Sunday Mass for YEARS to come and encouraged to read them ahead of time in preparation each week, even my penance for First Reconciliation was meditation on scripture and prayer. Instead of the ‘quiet time’ touted by protestants, this is a life SATURATED with scripture. It is unbelievable!

It was said that Catholics left Christ on the cross, not only because of the crucifix but also in their attitude about life and faith. On the contrary I have found that the resurrection is just as celebrated and embraced as it ever was in the protestant circles, if not more, but Catholicism has traditions in place that will not let them forget the price paid for the salvation we enjoy and all too often that was not dwelt on nearly enough in the churches I attended.

I have found the Catholic church more understanding and forgiving when someone fails or falls short of the mark, less likely to shoot their wounded, more willing to come along side to encourage and help you back onto the straight and narrow. The people I have come to know in our Church are much less concerned about appearances and much MORE concerned with the welfare of the person and state of their heart. For example, the evening we had the Rite of Welcome one of the alter servers had leaned the crucifix against the door. A regularly attending parishioner and his wife opened the door only to have the crucifix slide over and hit one of them hard in the head. The husband reacted with a rather loud, “OH SH*T!” and everyone in the sanctuary turned to look but the reaction was what made me laugh and smile for the rest of the evening. The general reaction was not shock and offense that the House of the Lord was somehow desecrated by the use of profanity (as would’ve happened in any protestant church I’ve ever attended), instead it was concern for the people involved… were they ok? Once it was ascertained that no real injury had been sustained, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief and turned back to the front to wait for the Mass to begin. What joy that brought me!

I digress but I get so excited about what I’m experiencing and learning. The riches and blessings God has poured out upon us are overwhelming and the desire to share is intense. However this post has run long and it is late and I need to go if we’re going to get to have evening prayers as a family.

Fall Has Come...

2005-10-26T20:33:00.000-05:00

Emotion as evidence of God’s presence or any issue of our walk or faith is never to be trusted, but there are definite seasons in the life of faith and mine has cycled again. The soul is quieter of late. The time of intense, intimate fellowship with God in Spirit, of learning and understanding has mellowed into a time of obedience, a time of implementing what I have been taught and walking by faith … not by sight or sound of whispered voice. It is not a lack of God’s presence, rather a quiet assurance that remains where the intense presence used to be.

The RCIA classes continue to reinforce some of what God has taught me over the past year and a half. Reviewing concepts, reinforcing understanding, giving time for more meditative thought. It continues to surprise me how far God has moved me… and yet I am so completely moved. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt that peace that passes understanding, but of late it has become almost a perpetual presence. Somewhere in this journey I have let go and begun to trust at a deeper level than before. While my faith has grown, it is still far from a mustard seed… I keep praying, Lord, give me faith, not the size of a mustard seed, but the size of a Job’s Tear… I am not only doing things I thought I’d never do, but being greatly blessed by them as well. Praying the Rosary, going to Adoration, searching for biographies on Saints, among other things. I am finding myself longing for deeper fellowship… though I am greatly fed, I also feel as though I’m starving at times… Not a spiritual failure to thrive, because I AM thriving… but such a HUNGER.. It is not the same hunger I feel to come to the table for the Eucharist, but it is not unlike it either. Oddly, interwoven with the hunger is also a deep well of patience… a willingness to wait upon the Lord, and to allow HIS time to be MY time. It is clear to me that it is completely Christ and none of myself since I have never been the best at delayed gratification…not to mention that anything good in me has never been of myself...but only of Christ within me.

We have added morning prayers (and a portion of the rosary) to our day and when we are well and able, join the staff at the church for them. It is such a wonderful way to start our day… yet another blessing of living in a small town. It would take entirely too much out of the day to have done it in College Station. What joy to hear my children’s voices raised in song to praise, in chanting the psalms and scriptures, in prayer to petition. Each new practice we add to our lives to bring us closer to the Lord will surely be a helpful framework for the next winter of my soul that is surely coming. It is not a lack of faith which makes me say so, or dread… but rather the sure knowledge that it will come as it has before. It is ever a time of trial when the presence of God has withdrawn from me and it is out of love, by faith that I walk, a time when all that has come before, and all that is new, will be tested.

Even so Lord, even so.

The One That Got Away...

2005-10-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

The girls have really embraced the ability to insert personal intentions of their own during morning and evening prayers. They routinely pray for a friend of ours who has lost his wife to cancer, they pray for their grandparents in Texas... and for their cows and crop. One of the younger three will also pray for their grandparents in Missouri, asking that they will have a good hunting season. This is rapidly followed by a prayer by my eldest for the animals being hunted, that they would get safely away.

Last night, my mother (one of the grandparents in Missouri) called to visit and told me of the days hunting... They had gone bow hunting, and come across a lovely buck that my Dad decided to shoot. He gets all set up, good shot, pulls the trigger on the crossbow and.... NOTHING! The bow wouldn't fire! The deer is alerted to them and gets away, much to his disgust. At the time of the call, he was sulking in his easy chair. *big grin* I informed her of the girls habitual prayers and she sent them a message... NO MORE PRAYERS without her approval! lol...

How fun it was to relate the story to the children... to show them that God hears their prayers and answers them... What a joy to see the children growing in faith... and to hear their precious prayers.

O Lord, let me come to you even as do my children... with such exuberant, perfect, complete faith and trust.

RCIA and Homeschooling Collide...

2005-10-24T10:41:00.000-05:00

We have RCIA on Sundays now that it is fall and the regular catechism classes have resumed. Classes are more frequent than they were in the summer, which I very much enjoy. My eldest daughter and I go to RCIA together, as she is mature enough to be able to benefit from the adult class and, if she weren’t so reserved, contribute appropriately. Every week I go to class with great anticipation. I really enjoy the discussion and fellowship, but so far not much has really been new. It has mostly been a review of what I have already learned… which is fine, I still look forward to it and wish we could be meeting more frequently and covering more material.

Yesterday’s class on the history of the church proved very similar, but it was interesting for other reasons. For one thing, Father Joe led which is unusual and a treat, but also because I thought this class had even more likelihood of having some new tidbit which I hadn’t known before. As Father led us through about ten of the most important events in the history of the church, I began to realize that we had covered all this in our schoolwork! I use a Classical Christian curriculum which is produced by a protestant company (not that I cared one way or another when I purchased it), and have used it since well before I felt the call into the Catholic Church. In fact, as we studied through it I remarked several times on how odd it was how much we were learning about the Catholic Church and how if I didn’t know better I would think it was a Catholic curriculum. Either way I loved it and still plan to use it as it is for the most part very pro-Catholic. But I digress, point being just how wonderful it was to sit and enjoy hearing about it all from Father Joe’s perspective and to know that Kenna had background knowledge and understanding of what he was talking about. It was so rewarding to know that we are doing well in educating the children. So often we work and work but have no idea really how well we are doing until something happens like this, something that we can write in our ‘success story file’ to encourage us when all the homeschool days seem dark and we feel like rats on a wheel.

I know the week will go quickly and while I want to make the most of the time I have and not wish it away, I can’t help but look forward to next weeks class… as usual.

Still So Far From Home...

2005-10-23T17:39:00.000-05:00

Another milestone behind, as I celebrated my First Reconciliation on Saturday. It was much easier than I expected, and has given me more food for thought although not in a way I would’ve expected. I had expected Father to want to know more, and to be harder on me than he was. I ended up being much harder on myself. I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose. While giving the assurance of forgiveness, the Sacrament of Penance also reinforces for me how far I have yet to go. How very far I am from the Christ-likeness I so wish to attain. So I find that this too is only another way station, a recurrent way station to keep pointing me yet further along the narrow way God has called me to. A reminder of humility and the desire for holiness as I recognize how far I have fallen yet again from the heights that are my goal. Whether or not it is going to all be spoken in the confessional, I will continue to do the same intense examination of conscience I did for this First Reconciliation for each one… and deal with what I find as I look inward.

It is a long road home and each at each examination of conscience I ask "How much farther?" but examination of the map shows I haven't progressed nearly as far as I had originally thought, many milestones that seemed long past are simply a mirage in the distance and many long miles yet remain.

Blessed be the messenger...

2005-10-21T16:54:00.000-05:00

One of the things most protestants have a hard time with coming into the Catholic church is confession. I hit that wall early in my marriage when dealing with the differences between Baptist doctrine and Catholic doctrine. Since my husband and I both had decided that scripture was the tie that binds, and the final word, I began to search. I found, much to my chagrin, that scripture was on HIS side. So, as I tend to do when I realize that I was wrong, I realigned my beliefs/thoughts/opinions accordingly.

That made it a LOT easier, when God finally made clear His purpose and His call for me to join the Catholic Church, to think about celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. That said, it still wasn't easy. I mean come on, going into the confessional and catching up for lost time (33 years of it) isn't exactly a fun thing. However, I tackled it with the same enthusiasm I would a toothache... let's get it over and done with as soon as possible! To that end I learned what I could about it, picked up some materials on making a good examination of your conscience in preparation and began my list, all before ever stepping foot in the church for the RCIA process. Oh, I knew I would go through that, but it never occurred to me that it would take SO long to get to start (upcoming move to Illinois slowed everything down by six months at least). In the end, I had quite the lengthy list, even after being told that you didn't have to be specific. Grouping sins together generically by type and number (if possible which often wasn't), made creating the list possible, but it was still substantial. In despair, I mentioned to a friend (also Catholic by conversion) that it was going to take multiple sessions with the priest, no WAY could I cover it all in one sitting. She laughed... knowingly. In the end, I not only got a grasp on what needed to be covered but began to anticipate my first confession.

It is a bit of a strange thing to WANT to go to confession... and you tend to question your sanity too when you are coming from a protesant background anyway. Yet there I was, ready to make my first confession, looking forward to it eagerly. Move over, the girls and I had begun the RCIA process at our local parish. WONDERFUL people there, the woman who led the RCIA process in particular won my heart instantly. So when my desire for my first confession did not abate, I went to her and asked if I could do that, and how to go about it. She said she would talk to our priest, but that normally we did that a little closer to coming into the church formally. I confess to feeling dread. However, I knew that she would try and that is all I could ask. Time went by and when no word came, I knew that once again I would have to wait.

Waiting is hard, and tempting too. The opposition knows how to make an area of weakness appear in what would seem at first only a stronghold. I began to hear the tempting whispers of "but you haven't gone to confession yet" in my head. I fought against it, but this new method of temptation only made my desire to go to confession stronger. Most of the time I won, sometimes I blew it. All the while, the desire to go to confession condensed and concentrated.

Last week we covered the Sacrament of First Reconciliation in our RCIA class and our leader had told me we could go to first confession shortly after that the week before. Anticipation once again rearing it's ugly head, I asked the woman who lead the class if we could do so. She didn't know, would check, but that usually they wanted that to happen a few weeks before the ceremony and that isn't until sometime after Christmas! I fought the disappointment, welcoming this new possible wait as I have the one for coming to the table (whole 'nother story), as the Lord's way of preparing me more fully for what is to come. The request had been passed on however and in passing our leader told me that she would check on it with Father.

Then today, on Friday of all days, the phone rang. Children came running with the phone, happily announcing the identity of the caller. It was our RCIA leader, almost as dear to the girls as she is to me. She had good news that couldn't wait she said... even though Father probably intended to tell me on Sunday at class, she just couldn't wait to share the good news. Father had given the ok for us to have our first confessions. (She meant the girls and I as we are all coming into the church together.) I was SO excited... the timing of her call means that I could conceivably go to the regular confession time tomorrow at the church. I can't tell you the joy that exploded through me at this news, and dear, true friend, she was as excited FOR me as I was myself.

Isn't that an amazing type of friend? The kind who when bearing good news runs to you, as excited for you as you are yourself, wholeheartedly, genuinely joyful for you... and especially a friend who so desires to help you as you seek to grow in the Lord. That is a precious gift indeed, and all too rare a find. Such joy her tidings brought to me, that even hours later the glow remains, along with the sweet anticipation of what tomorrow brings.