Imprisoned in my Bones

Ten Minutes More

2012-01-26T14:14:00.016-06:00

"We have become so accustomed to the idea of carrying God in our hearts in Holy Communion that many people, for no reason at all, omit remaining after Mass for a short thanksgiving; we have lost the sense of awe for the terrible power of God within us." ~William G. Most, Mary in Our Life

I've been keeping a log of ten minutes...of how it feels to spend ten minutes alone with God immediately after Mass in Thanksgiving for His gift of the Eucharist...

At first it feels like a punishment, like everyone else gets to visit on their way out of church and travel on to their daily events but me...I have to stay behind like the child who remains at her desk during recess with her head down in her arms because she misbehaved...she always misbehaves...and how many hours filled with ten minutes will it take before she learns to get in line and stay in line?

On Sunday it feels awkward...family goes home and leaves me behind. I hope I blend in as the church empties out from 7:30 Mass and fills again for the 9 AM. I wish I were able to go to my room and close the door so no one could see me with God. Thoughts wander...

On Monday the Church empties quickly. One person stops to ask if I am ok. I do my best to empty my mind of everything but God. It's so hard! Can anybody really do it? The time passes slowly and I check my watch too often.

On Tuesday I ask God to help me to love Him and to think only of Him. I picture His hand pressed back by the nail, blood staining His fingers. Wouldn't He have loved to yank the steel out and walk away? But He didn't. He stayed there on that cross for me and I will stay here in church for Him.

On Wednesday I neglect my time with God to race back to work. I leave Him crying behind the heavy door of the church...and I cry, too.

On Thursday it feels impossible...on Thursday a group of people stay after Mass to clean the church and they chatter...loudly. They stand right behind me and talk about their gardens and their blood pressure and their grandchildren. They are still there talking when it's time for me to go. God hides inside the tabernacle on Thursday and does not make His presence known to me.

But on Friday, with a shiny clean church, God gleams in His house of gold and the church quickly empties into dark and silence. I can feel the radiance of His love in the quiet peace of His home. Ten minutes becomes fifteen and I don't want to leave.

And I wonder why it was only a few weeks ago that He played hide and seek with me and made me search at three different adoration chapels before I could finally find one that was open and fall to my knees in His presence, and now, throughout this week of ten minutes, He drew me to Himself more than once, with many more opportunities to spend ten minutes and then some in the presence of His Eucharistic Self. Suddenly every Adoration Chapel was open and beckoning to me throughout the day! Could He be like me-never satisfied with just a little and always wanting more love? He asks me to love Him ten minutes at a time and I want to give in to His desires, to learn to love Him fully.

This thinking about ten minutes with God turns my mind to Etty Hillesum's An Interrupted Life and her lovely words:

"And when the turmoil becomes too great and I am completely at my wits end, then I still have my folded hands and my bended knee...it is my most precious inheritance...the girl who learned to pray. That is my most intimate gesture, more intimate than even being with a man. After all, one can't pour the whole of one's love out over a single man, can one?"

Prayer, Penance and a Pledge

2012-01-24T06:22:00.001-06:00

I'm still aching over the words I read in The Broken Path, a book written by Judie Brown from the American Life League, about her concern that the Bishops in our Church don't do enough to defend life. Her views have certainly not been my experience where I see many examples of leaders in the Church who consistently and bravely stand up for life in every aspect on a daily basis. Just this past weekend I was greatly encouraged by the many events that were held and the words spoken in defense of life by the bishops, priests, deacons and other church leaders in Milwaukee and I hope to always hold that promising spirit within my heart; the spirit that all will be well, that we all do our best for one another and that the Catholic Church is a church in love with life. I am proud to share these few examples of the wonderful ways in which the Church in Milwaukee upholds the sanctity of life, knowing that this is just a small sample of all of the wonderful things that are done by the leaders of the Catholic Church throughout the world to defend, protect and nurture the sanctity of life.

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I had the opportunity to chaperone at the "Ignite" Youth Rally for Life in Milwaukee this past Friday. Over 700 beautiful and brave teens from throughout the state of Wisconsin gathered on a snowy evening to pray and witness to the sanctity of life. For many of those teens their time in Milwaukee was only a short visit before journeying on to the March for Life in Washington, DC. The evening included Mass with Archbishop Listecki and a talk by Vicki Thorn, the founder of the National Office for Post-abortive Reconcialiation and Healing and Project Rachel. Vicki's talk which received a standing ovation from the teens was followed by a Holy Hour led by Bishop Hying after which he powerfully spoke about his own personal experiences in the defense of life. He shared one of his favorite gospel passages about St. Peter stepping out of the boat and compared it to his own life and said:

"In 1989 after I had only been ordained to the priesthood for a year and half I had seen a great many men and women whose lives were shattered by abortion, a scourge that damaged families and scarred lives.

The Lord put it on my heart that I had to get out of the boat and do something about it. So along with five parishioners, I took a large crucifix and we processed to a nearby abortion mill; one of four in Milwaukee at the time. I was scared to death and didn't know what to expect. We watched women come out of the clinic. Some of them had only been there for a consultation appointment, but others were coming out after having had an abortion. Those that had just aborted their babies were carrying little brown bags and they looked dazed with dead eyes. I realized that with each abortion it was two lives that were lost-that of the baby and of the mother.

Hatred was poured upon us at that clinic and many people were arrested. I always thought "I can't get arrested, I have a wedding at 2 O'clock!"

One day I went inside the clinic and put green scapulars inside the furniture. The clinic closed shortly after that(not because of the scapulars)and then something beautiful happened. The clinic was made into a pediatric medical clinic that healed lives instead of taking them away.

In the 1990's I prayed that God would raise up a vast army to defend life and here you all are!You are not the Church of the future, you are the Church of the now. You are meant to do something beautiful that no one else can. Fall in love with God. When you do, you won't count the cost because there are no limits to love. When a man and woman are in love they don't say "I already kissed you five times this week, I'm not going to kiss you anymore." And God doesn't say "I already made the sun shine long enough, I'm tired of that."

When you fall in love with God you will step out of the boat and defend life again and again without growing tired and here you are doing just that."

And his words were met with a roar of applause and a standing ovation and I pray that each of those teenagers that were on their way to Washington DC carried his words in their heart and vowed then and there to step out of the boat and swim into the deep wherever and however they were needed to bring God's love to the world.

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In the Sunday, January 22nd bulletin at my parish, St. Matthias, Fr. Dave Cooper wrote:

"The weekend marks the anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision which legalized abortion in the United States. Our Bishops have asked us to offer thanks for the gift of human life and to pray that all people would protect human life from the time of conception to the moment of death with dignity. Catholics have always been and continue to be pro-life; and that must be more than pro-birth. We want every child conceived to have the opportunity for life as we do. But we also want to protect human life from the ravages of war; from poverty and the lack of education, healthcare, food, employment, and everything considered necessary by our Catholic teaching for life with dignity. For those reasons we also oppose euthanasia and the death penalty."

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On Sunday evening my parish was one of ninety parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that held Holy Hours for Life led by the deacons of the Archdiocese. I was deeply moved to have the opportunity to silently kneel in prayer before our Eucharistic Lord with fellow parishioners and listen as Deacon Dave Sommers spoke profoundly using American Sign Language about the value of all human life, sharing his personal experience of the great joy he felt when his first daughter was born.

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Our Monday morning daily Mass became a Mass for the Sanctity of Human Life led by our Associate Pastor, Fr. Paul, who lovingly spoke about the gift we have in following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI in valuing both our Catholic faith and the gift of life.

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Finally, on Monday night in honor of the National Day of Prayer and Penance, the seminarians from St. Francis de Sales Seminary led a rosary for life prior to a Respect Life Liturgy led by Archbishop Listecki. Although the beautiful St. Jerome Parish where the Mass was held is on the outskirts of the diocese and was a 45 minute drive from my home, all of my children were willing to join me in this important prayer and when we arrived at the church we found it to be packed with others from the Archdiocese who felt an important call to attend this Mass and pray for the sanctity of life.

In his homily and in his closing remarks Archbishop Listecki spoke about how abortion is the social justice issue, for without life nothing else matters and he spoke about how he had always been involved in the pro-life movement since his days as a transitional deacon. He said, "You have my pledge to continue to lead the Archdiocese in pro-life efforts." And before everyone left to view the many pro-life displays and share ideas with others in the pro-life movement, Lydia LoCoco, who is the director of the Nazareth Project for Marriage and Family Formation, summed up the weekend events and the final evening with these words: "You matter. Prayer matters. This Mass matters." I couldn't agree more. I am so grateful to be a part of a Church and an Archdiocese that puts the sanctity of life first and foremost, and has done and will continue to do everything it possibly can to protect and care for all of human life from conception to natural death.

I encourage you to visit the Archdiocese of Milwaukee website to view Bishop Hying's uplifting video where he offers suggestions on how you can help the pro-life efforts of the Church, read Lydia LoCoco's blog "Feed the Flames" about how the youth of today are involved in the pro-life movement and Archbishop Listecki's Living Our Faith reflection on Roe v. Wade.

I Just Can't Take It Anymore!-A Book Review and Giveaway

2012-01-20T11:11:00.008-06:00

"I bet I can make you smile!" So says author Anthony DeStefano, about his latest book, I Just Can't Take It Anymore! due to become available on the first of February. And in fact, with this sweet and simple book he does indeed make me smile!

In the past I've had the great honor of reading and reviewing his children's book Little Star as well as The Invisible World which was a great look into the unseen presence of the spiritual realm within our lives. When he offered to send me a copy of his newest book, I Just Can't Take It Anymore, and asked me to read and review it, I was quick to agree!

The book is charming and inspiring; a fast and easy read that certainly did put a smile on my face and it's sure to put a smile on your face as well! The pictures are adorable and the message is loving and uplifting. It would be a perfect gift for a friend who is struggling through a difficulty, and although the message is intended for adults, with it's colorful and cute photographs of children, it would make a nice and loving read-aloud for a young person facing one of the many trials of childhood as well.

As an additional gift, the author has sent me a second copy of the book to share with you-the faithful readers of Imprisoned in my Bones! If you would like a chance to receive your own copy, please send me an email or leave a comment below and I will enter your name in a drawing. I will ask my daughter Mary to draw the names of all of those who show an interest in the book on February 1st, the date that I Just Can't Take It Anymore! becomes available for purchase. Good luck to all who enter!

To read more about the book, to read sample pages and to order your own copy, click here.

The God of the Snowy Field-A Guest Post by Susi Kurek

2012-01-20T10:34:00.006-06:00

(My friend Susi is the volunteer coordinator for Catholic Charities in Milwaukee and she has a beautifully poetic soul which she generously shares here.)

Three inches of week-old snow covered the field in front of me. The numbers on the dashboard flashed, warning me that the outside temperature registered at three degrees. Better take the long way home tonight so that the motor is warm before I shut down for the night. I stared out of the window at the tall reed-like dry grasses standing in the snowy field. The stalks were bent with the wind, leaning away from the gusts. The snow formed petite hillocks at the base of each clump of reeds, making the landscape look lonely and barren.

I often feel as if I am one of those dry reeds. Temptations and troubles buffet me and I bend and sway with them like tall grasses in the wind. Those temptations deposit the snows of sin and guilt at my feet and I am anchored in problems caused by my own failings. It’s a cold, lonely and godless place.

The thought of me being compared to a tall, thin reed makes me laugh! I am exactly the opposite of tall and thin! Then why can’t I be stronger against the blustery blast of temptation? I need to be stalwart and steadfast, unwavering in the blast of Satan’s enticement.

Another thought passes through my mind as the car warms enough to safely drive: if we lean away from one thing, we are also leaning toward another. When I flee wrongdoing, I tend to run frantically toward God, as a frightened child runs toward its mother. I seek the comfort of my Parent, needing to be held and reassured. Feeling warmth creeping through my being, I’m not sure whether it’s the car heater or the knowledge that God is always there to forgive, encourage and love. I prefer the latter.

As I drive home, I ponder God’s infinite love and what God has in store for me. St. Teresa tells us that we should be content to know that we are exactly where God wants us to be. I don’t feel that comfort right now. Is it just me? Am I in transition? Your will, Lord, not mine. I’ll lean towards you.

More snow is due tomorrow. I vaguely consider that even with another seven inches added to that field, the dry stalks of grass will still be visible above the blanket of new snow. We may be dry from lack of grace, the winds of temptation may howl, sin may leave our souls in a wintry chill, but we need to stay firmly rooted in our faith. We also should stand tall in our faith, keeping our heads above the lures of evil. It’s easier to see God that way!

The Broken Path-A Book Review

2012-01-18T18:34:00.002-06:00

I'm accustomed to reading spiritual books that both uplift and challenge me in my faith, but for the first time that I can recall, a book came into my hands that challenged me in a way that I was unprepared to deal with. The Broken Path wreaked havoc on my heart and soul and while reading it I could not find any level of comfort that would even allow me to sleep easy at night, this book so disturbed me.

I have considered myself to be firmly pro-life ever since I was in the fifth grade and I won first place in the City of Manitowoc's Optimist Club Oratorical Contest with a speech titled "Together We Will Fight Abortion." I have always voted for pro-life candidates, prayed for an end to abortion and for the sanctity of all human life, displayed pro-life bumper stickers on my van and have recently joined my parish's Respect Life Committee and gathered the courage to publicly pray outside of our local abortion mill. So when Lisa at The American Life League asked me read and review Judie Brown's latest book, The Broken Path, I was sure this would be an opportunity for me to deepen my pro-life views and become stronger in my commitments, but I was wrong. Instead, what The Broken Path brought out in me was a desire to defend the hierarchy of the Church against attacks that seem contradictory and uncalled for-attacks such as filled the pages of The Broken Path.

When I received The Broken Path I was immediately taken back by the subtitle: How Catholic Bishops Got Lost in the Weeds of American Politics and the statement on the back of the book:

"Neither Truth or The Broken Path is always flattering: contemporary Catholic leaders in the Church, worthy of praise, are singled out as are others warranting greater scrutiny."

I am confident that as a defender of life there can't be anyone better than Judie Brown, the head of the American Life League,and I applaud her for her courage and tenacity, but I'm afraid that I can't agree with her tactics to uphold the sanctity of all life. When a Catholic stoops to attacking priests and bishops, no matter how deeply frustrated she might be by their supposed lack of fervor in supporting her efforts and no matter how true her words might be, I simply cannot accept it. When I was growing up my mother always said, "Never say anything bad about a priest or you will die without one." Whether or not her warnings were accurate, I certainly agree that nothing good can come from publicly criticizing priests and bishops.

Judie Brown certainly must be the best there is at defending all life and her words never varied from a very strong stance in portraying the right to life for everyone as the most important value that there is, after all, if you aren't given the chance to live how could you possibly care about anything else? But The Broken Path tries to do so much more than simply defend life, it attempted to bring down the bishops of our Church for their supposed failures to adequately defend life by becoming mired in politics. It was that part of the book that really got under my skin and rankled me, clouding my vision to see the good things that the author wrote, because I have always strongly believed that we are to respect, obey and pray for the authorities of our Church, the Pope as well as the bishops, as the Magisterium; not publicly call them out when we don't agree with their actions.

In the blue Pieta Prayer book with which many Catholics are acquainted, page 68 is entirely filled with admonitions against those who speak out against priests.

"One should NEVER attack a priest, even when he's in error, rather one should pray and do penance that I'll grant him My grace again. He alone fully represents Me, even when he doesn't live after My example!

When a priest falls we should extend him a helping hand THROUGH PRAYER AND NOT THROUGH ATTACKS! I myself will be his judge, NO ONE BUT I! Whoever voices judgment over a priest has voiced it over me; child, never let a priest be attacked, take up his defense...Never again accept an out-of-the-way word about a priest, and speak no unkind word about them EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE! Every priest is My vicar and My heart will be sickened and insulted because of it!"

With the above words from the prayer book in my mind, I just could not justify recommending Judie Brown's book to others. By coincidence, at the same time that I received The Broken Path, I also came across Monsignor Charles Pope's excellent blog post of January 11th, "Is Being a Bishop Like Herding Cats? It Shouldn't Be!" to which he received a whopping 187 comments. I like the final comment that Monsignor Pope posted on that subject:

"Love and respect your Bishop, pray for him and if, there are true doctrinal issues at stakes, take up the chain of command. But in all things, love."

Please join me in praying for all of the priests and bishops in the Catholic Church, for prayer is the only solution to the problems that plague us. We are all called to place our priests and bishops and all of our concerns into the loving hands of God trusting that He will care for us and for all of our needs as He sees fit. I encourage you to visit Rosary for the Bishop and sign up to pray for the bishop of your choice and to consider beginning a spiritual motherhood apostolate or Monthly Prayer Request for Priests apostolate in your diocese. Let us also pray for fearless leaders like Judie Brown and all of those who work in pro-life ministry. With trustful prayer we can make a difference for the sanctity of life and for the Church!

Ten Minutes

2012-01-17T09:05:00.020-06:00

“O let me plead with you, dear ones, to spend at least ten minutes after Mass—I am making this the absolute minimum, ten minutes—and ask Jesus to teach you to realize the personal, intimate character of His Love, to realize the predilections He has shown for you, drawing you to His Heart and giving you the privilege in Holy Communion of resting on the Heart of Uncreated Love.”
~Father Gerald Fitzgerald, s.P.

Last month in my Oblate formation lesson from the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, I found the above direction from Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald,sP, to spend ten minutes in a silent prayer of thanksgiving following each Mass, to be quite daunting, and I wrote to Mother Marietta about my difficutly with that request and shared my letter to her here on this blog with these words:

"I usually have no problem dwelling in silent prayer after receiving Jesus in Holy Communion and I cherish those few precious minutes that I have alone with Him, but I need to look at how I can stretch that minute or two to a full ten minutes after Mass is over. I see that I have a lot of work to do in this regard and I know that it will require a change of habit and a change of heart as well."

After only one attempt to stay after Mass in prayer which was interrupted with visits from other parishioners and the sound of the priest locking the Church doors which prompted me to shorten my ten distracted minutes and leave the Church sooner than I had planned, I gave up even trying to stay with the Lord for ten minutes and put the thought of it out of my mind.

Then I received the next lesson from Mother Marietta, HPB. This lesson which I am currently reading and reflecting upon is centered on the Holy Eucharist and again in this lesson I found the same words from Fr. Fitzgerald pleading for those ten minutes after Mass. I felt disheartened because I knew that there is no way around it, God is calling for me to spend that time with Him each day and I cannot refuse.

I was surprised to find that I almost felt a repulsion to spend that time with the Lord and I looked for excuses as to why I couldn't do it such as having to give up my exercise time and how it might look to others who already see me as quite over the top in my faith and I wondered if I should abandon my dream to become an Oblate of the Precious Blood, thinking that this one simple request for a short period of time each day was one request too many upon my already burdened shoulders. I wondered if possibly, this wasn't the right time in my life for me to embark upon this new and holy endeavor.

I spoke with my husband and children about it and those dear ones encouraged me to continue on the path and helped me to think of ways that I could fit ten extra minutes of prayer into my daily schedule. They assured me that my fears about how my extra time in church would look to others were unfounded. They reminded me that I have always told them not to worry about what others think of them, but to be leaders in the faith, doing what they know is right despite the taunting and teasing of others. Sometimes we need others to remind us of the advice we give when we ourselves are the ones in need of advice!

So today, after Mass and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Devotions, I kissed Jack and Mary good bye as they headed off to school, and I fell back to my knees to begin spending ten minutes with the Lord. I closed my eyes and soon the voices of everyone else who had been at Mass drifted away and I was alone with Jesus. When I opened my eyes once again, I found that the lights had all been turned out and the only light that shone was the flickering candle beside the tabernacle and the devotional candles on either side of the church. Then I saw a man enter the side door, bow to the tabernacle, stand in prayer for a short time before bowing once again and leaving. I thought that he must have been a school parent who simply could not come near the church without coming in to spend a few short minutes with the Lord and my heart was uplifted by his prayerful presence.

Shortly after he left, a woman from the bereavement committee came in to prepare the church for a funeral and I looked at my watch and found that 15 minutes had passed. I left the church and began the treacherous drive to work through the ice and snow and I thought about my mother and her final days on this earth.

"Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." ~Matthew 26:38

When my mom was in the hospital recovering from a second surgery to remove a brain tumor, my son Jack, who was six months old at the time, and I, went to visit her. We only had a few short minutes to spend with her because my husband was expecting us back home. With that short visit we were able to bring a little bit of needed joy to my mom. She was especially pleased to be able to see her beloved grandson whose smile lit up the room. She told us that she was very frightened and lonely and begged us to stay a little longer but I refused because something (which to this day I cannot remember what) was very important at home and we needed to be there. It was the last time that I saw my mother alive. Shortly after we left she developed a headache and slipped into unconciousness from which she never recovered. She died three days later on Mother's Day. I have always regretted the fact that my mother needed me in her final days of life and I refused her my presence for something that was clearly so unimportant that I can't even remember what it was.

So tomorrow I will remain with the Lord for ten minutes after Mass, just resting in His love with a heart full of gratitude for the great gift of His Eucharistic Body. And I will do so again and again, day after day. Jesus is begging me to stay with Him to relieve some of His fear and loneliness and there is nothing that is more important than answering His desire for my company with a short and thankful visit after Mass.

Open Up the Roof

2012-01-14T06:21:00.012-06:00

"Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him." ~Mark 2:4

Each day as I spend a few early morning moments in prayer with the daily readings before I attend Mass, I pick out one line to reflect upon throughout the day. Some days that line becomes more meaningful to me than others and the words of scripture with which I have prayed come back frequently as a gentle reminder of God's presence in my life. Yesterday's gospel reading from Mark contained one line, "open up the roof" that seemed to make a particular impact upon me.

My weekends are usually unbelievably busy and this weekend in particular was exceptionally packed with activity. Within our family schedule we had seven basketball games which included my required 8 volunteer hours in the concession stand all to be managed around the weekend work schedules of my husband and I and our three oldest sons and our son Justin's Confirmation retreat, a funeral,a birthday party and the seasonal chore of snow removal. Sometimes it is really difficult to get everyone where they need to be when we are scattered into so many places at once and even with four drivers in the house we still only have two cars so our busy weekends end up being a combination of divide/carpool/conquer!

And somehow, in the midst of all that chaos, I was able to open my roof and allow God to find his way in and to make a profound impact on my life.

On Friday afternoon I raced from work to the funeral of Pat Jakus, a friend of mine from Roses for Our Lady. Pat was such a beautifully holy and energetic woman who always gave her all for God and even the way she died was a testimony to the joys that God offers to those who love Him. Pat was a lector at her parish and last week while offering her service as a lector during a funeral Mass at her parish, she proclaimed this beautiful passage:

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ~Romans 8:38

Then she looked over to the priest, offered a big smile, and as she proceeded to climb the steps to the choir loft she suddenly felt tired and out of breath. She sat on the bottom step, rested her head against the wall and died while the choir was singing "Alleluia."

What a beautiful way for Pat, or for anyone, to die! Clearly Pat lived her life with her roof wide open and so even in her death it was easy for Jesus to find His way into her heart.

Later that night, with thoughts of Pat and the funeral still working through my mind and heart, I was serving up hot dogs and popcorn at my son Jack's basketball game while two teams were battling it out on the court. The sounds of shoes squeaking, fans cheering and coaches calling out plays were ringing through the air. The plays that the coaches call are usually the names of college basketball teams, but at one point I was sure I heard a coach call out "God's will!" Maybe it was just my over-tired imagination having it's way with me at the end of a long day but I thought whether or not that was actually what the coach said, "God's will" would be the perfect name of a play for shouldn't we all plan out every action of our lives with God's will as the ultimate playbook behind our movements? And so the words that I imagined the coach to say became a reminder to me to keep my roof open at all times to allow the will of God to reach me.

I was feeling a bit of sorrow that I wasn't able to convince my boss to let me have Saturday morning off from work because there was a big pro-life rally planned in our Archdiocese and I had really wanted to attend, as if I didn't already have enough going on this weekend! So when I awoke on Saturday morning and opened my email, I found a message from our local 40 Days for Life leader inviting early arrivals to come pray at the abortion mill as there was word that a 14 year-old-girl might be coming for an abortion today. I wanted to open my roof and respond.

My oldest son John was my designated car-pool ride to work, so he and I left home early so that we could spend some time praying at the abortion mill before I would have to leave for work. We arrived at the abortuary at 7:15 AM dressed for the arctic tundra as the temperature was only 16 degrees outside. (Hard to believe that it had been an unseasonably 60 degrees just a few days before!) When we arrived we were the only ones at the clinic but we were soon joined by a woman and three men holding signs. Just before we left, three clinic employees arrived ready to begin the work of death. All morning while at work, my heart remained in those frigid temperatures outside the abortion clinic praying for that young, pregnant girl and all of those affected by abortion including those three employees who seemed so cheerful about beginning their work day. And I prayed, "Dear God, open the roof of the hearts of the abortion mill employees and those seeking an abortion to allow the light of Your love and truth to enter in!"

It seems so strange to consider the differing locations of a beautiful funeral, a rowdy basketball game and a desolate place of death as places where God's will can be heard and acted upon equally and yet this weekend I found it to be very true that it really doesn't matter where we are or what we are doing, if there is joy and love in our hearts and a desire to please the Lord, He will always have His way with us and it is His will that will be accomplished in all things and all ways if we only open our roofs to allow it.

Ponderings on the Priesthood

2012-01-12T14:05:00.005-06:00

While I was still in the hospital after the birth of my fourth son, a woman from church came to give me communion and as she left my room after feeding me the Body of Our Lord, she carelessly said, "Poor thing! Four sons! One day they will all get married and leave you!" I was left a bit dumbfounded, but not enough to leave me without a retort so I shot back, "Who knows? Maybe they'll all become priests and leave me anyway!"

And when my children were small, my only prayer for them was that God would bring them to goodness and holiness. I didn't pray for their success, their intelligence, their popularity, their health or their happiness. Just their holiness. I didn't pray for them to become married or to become priests. I prayed for them to know God's will and to live it.

So when my oldest son, while still at the tender age of ten, announced that he felt called to the priesthood, I was pleased and carefully nurtured his prayer life along, being cautious not to push and doing my best to always let him know that no matter what path he would eventually follow in life, he would always be loved for who he is, my beloved son and God's beloved son, not for what he does with his life.

Now he is actually in the process of applying to the seminary and it feels as though my world has turned upside down. Now why should it feel that way? It's not my vocation, not my life, but still I'd be untruthful if I said that I wasn't a bit unnerved and stressed right along with him as he fills out the application forms and keeps his appointments with doctors, dentists, psychologists and priests for the necessary interviews and poking and prodding required of all applicants to the priesthood.

I can't help but feel overwhelmed by the entire process, by the thought of my oldest son soon to be packing up and leaving home for college of any sort and the worry that it is very possible that his hopes and dreams won't come true and that he won't be accepted to the seminary. I'm challenged by how difficult it is to listen to his worries and his stresses and to not take them as my own.

On New Year's Eve for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, my family and I attended a nearby church that offered an 11:00 PM Mass sponsored by the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate and celebrated by our friend, and family member in our hearts, Fr. Matthew Widder. Fr. Matthew had asked John if he would help as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. John has never participated in this ministry before and watching him offer the Body of Christ to those at Mass, including me, for the very first time, really took my breath away. It was as if I was seeing a vision of his possible future, holding the Body of our Lord in his hands and offering Him to others and my heart felt torn by the mix of sorrow mingled with joy with which it was filled. And then I recalled the following passage from Caryll Houselander's Passion of the Infant Christ:

"A young priest was celebrating his first Mass. In the front of the church his mother and his young brothers knelt. It was easy to know them by their likeness to him-a family of dark, golden-skinned boys, and the mother like them.

When the Mass was ended, and the new priest came back into the sanctuary for the blessing and the kissing of the consecrated hands, the family hesitated shyly, almost paralyzed by wonder and love; and before they could go first (as they should have done) to the altar rails, the crowd had pushed past them, strangers had taken their place. The faithful were flocking around their new shepherd, and his mother and his brothers had become part of the crowd, waiting their turn until the end.

For one moment the young priest looked over the bowed heads into his mother's eyes, and his face shone.

"My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of God and do it."

Because the priesthood had made him the Christ of the people, he belonged to them; he was their kith and kin, their son and brother, their Christ, their priest at the altar.

People often seem to think of our Lady aggrieved, slighted when this happened to her! I think she and her son looked across the heads of the crowds to one another with just that understanding and gratitude that shone on the faces of the young priest and his mother."

And so I pray that if John will be accepted to the seminary and will prepare for priesthood, that my heart will be as open as that of the Blessed Mother and the mother in this story, that I will understand that this offering up of my son for the good of others is the greatest blessing a mother could ever know. Please hold John in your prayers as he continues this process of discernment and application. And for some really good reading about a mother's hopes for her son, I encourage you to visit the Archdiocese of Milwaukee blog where one of my favorite local writers, Karen Mahoney, courageously shares her hopes for her son, Erin.

A Little Liebster

2012-01-11T08:23:00.011-06:00

There is a new award going around the blogging world and Theresa at carmelitemom has kindly bestowed it upon Imprisoned in my Bones. The idea behind the award is to recognize "smaller" blogs, those that have less than 200 followers and yet have some endearing quality that would make it a liebster (beloved) blog.

I am so grateful to Theresa for acknowledging me and my blog especially since her blog was one of the very first that I ever found and followed back in April of 2009 when I first set out to write my life story here. Theresa's lovely blog set the standard for Imprisoned in my Bones and today, there's more to my gratitude to Theresa than her lovely blogging skills.

Theresa works as an ultrasound technician in Pennsylvania and it was her that I thought of when my son Joe was preparing for surgery to drain his abcessed lymph node last month, for it was the ultrasound technician at Children's Hospital who kindly offered me the most understanding and compassion when I was at the height of worry about Joe's upcoming surgery. She was a voice of comfort and calm in the storm and I knew that dear Theresa in Pennsylvania must surely be the same comfort for her patients as well. How necessary it is to be the kindness of Christ for others in our varied lines of work for we never know how the anxieties that others carry in their hearts might be calmed by our presence. So thank you Theresa, for this award and thank you for the wonderful work you do to help others!

I would like to pass this Liebchen Award on to five wonderful little blogs that are worthy of more attention and notice for they are all great sources of inspiration. The requirements to the five blogs listed below is that they pass this award on to five more blogs that they love, and include their links, in the hopes that more "little" blogs will be found and recognized for the greatness that they contain.

Ann at the Priest's Housekeeper has a great way with poetry and an ability to find just the right words to encourage others in their faith. I admit that I am a bit jealous of her life's work-how I would love to have the privilege of caring for a priest by keeping his house! I can't imagine a more worthy way to support those who bring Christ to the world than by caring for the little details of the life of a priest!

I've long been a fan of Tom's Do Not Be Anxious. Tom is a caregiver to his elderly mother and in his spare time gives care to all of his readers by encouraging us to be peaceful in the presence of Christ.

I consider Tiffany at Family at the Foot of the Cross to be a spiritual hero. She is both a military veteran and a homeschooling mother to five lovely children. Her blog is filled with examples of the wonderful way she raises her family in the faith while growing into an ever deeper relationship with the Lord.

Fr. Jon Hansen writes Redemptorist Preacher from Saskatchewan and he has recently returned to blogging after a long hiatus brought on by the death of his mother. His daily reflections on the Word of God are a great way to start the day.

Finally, my favorite of all the liebchens I have awarded is to a still very new blog written by my dear and wonderful friend in real life, Mary Anne Urlakis. Mary Anne is a homeschooling mother to eight wonderful children and as if that doesn't keep her occupied enough, she shares her faith through her beautiful reflections on Salve Sancta Mater Dei. After visiting Mary Anne's blog, be sure to pay a visit to her son Kenny's blog, God Alone Sufficeth. Kenny is a fine young man who is discerning a call to the priesthood and he valiantly shares his thoughts on his blog for all to enjoy.

Thanks again, Theresa, for this award and the opportunity to recognize some wonderful little blogs that bring the light of Christ to a worn and weary world searching for a little bit of brightness to warm the way!

Solemnity of the Epiphany-A Reflection by Fr. Christopher Klusman

2012-01-09T12:26:00.009-06:00

Each month on the second Sunday, Roses for Our Lady, a group of lay people committed to promoting Marian and Eucharistic devotion in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, prays a beautiful Holy Hour for an increase in good and holy vocations to the priesthood and religious life at St. Francis de Sales Seminary. This past Sunday we were joined by the effervescent and holy Fr. Christopher Klusman, a priest for whom we prayed while he was still in the seminary. Fr. Christopher was ordained to the priesthood last May and since that time he has been a tremendous blessing not only to his parish and the Deaf community in Milwaukee, but also to Roses for Our Lady and all of those who have a deep and sincere devotion to the Blessed Mother.

Fr. Christopher's gospel reflection at our Holy Hour was so touching that I asked him if I could share it on this blog and of course, he agreed. What most moved me was his remark that the wise men didn't just bow or kneel to the infant Christ, but that they prostrated themselves; they worshiped the Lord in the most profound manner possible. I was also inspired by his words about our true vocation: that of a saint.

What follows is Fr. Christopher's moving words to those gathered at the Roses for Our Lady Holy Hour on the Solemnity of the Epiphany:

Reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 2:1-12
Solemnity of the Epiphany by Fr. Christopher Klusman

Thank you so much for having me and I always keep you in my prayers for the wonderful ministry that you all do in “Roses for Our Lady.” Your title, “Roses for Our Lady” is beautiful: I often ponder about the famous quote by our dearly beloved saint and doctor of the Catholic Church: St. Therese of Lisieux: “After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my Heaven doing good upon Earth.”

This is why we are here… we ask St. Therese, all the saints, and Mary, who is the Queen of Saints, to intercede for us to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

And this brings us to today’s gospel for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of Our Lord: today’s readings remind us of a “journey.” All of us here are at various parts of our journey here… different vocations, such as sisters, mothers, fathers, teachers, and so forth with their own challenges and joys… To this they would say, “That is wonderful.” But, the one thing that saints aspire you to say (as they would say themselves), is “I want to be a saint!” Many people may think that is not what we should say because they may think you are “conceited.” But, that is what the devil wants you to think. The whole meaning of you wanting to become a saint is that it tells people you (and them too) want to be exclusively God’s. This is a great joy… a great journey… a great vocation within our vocations. We desire that all that you say and do sends up a sweet smell of frankincense to God.

Now, the Magi were on their journey and, when they came to see the “newborn King of the Jews,” a remarkable thing that they did was that they didn’t bow or genuflect… they prostrated themselves! Their laying on the ground is a sign of complete obedience, submission, and reverence to Jesus, as priests, sisters, and professed people would do!

Their prostration tells us their message that Jesus is our King, our Everything. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is no other. King Herod told them before seeing Jesus that they are to come back to my way. The fact that the Magi avoided Herod’s way proved that what the Magi saw in Jesus is real, profound, and worth the sacrifice!

St. Ambrose, who was one of the people responsible for the conversion of St. Augustine (changing his way), beautifully said, “The star is the way, and the way is Christ; and according to the mystery of the incarnation, Christ is a star. He is a blazing and a morning-star. Thus where Herod is, the star is not seen; where Christ is, there it is again seen, and points out the way.”

As from Mary, at Fatima on a rainy day, she gave the message to pray the rosary every day. Then, she rose toward the east and turned the palms of her hands to the dark sky: the rains stopped and the dark clouds obscured the sun, which is also a big star. Then, the sun burst through and the “Miracle of the Dancing Sun” happened in front of about 70,000 people. Then, St. Joseph appeared with the Child Jesus with Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. Which is almost like today’s Nativity!

So, as a result, thousands were converted to the Way, Who is Jesus. Following the ways of King Herod makes the Sun/Son of God disappear. Following Jesus at all times keeps the Sun/Son of God with us always. In all that we do and say in our journey here on Earth, we aspire to say, “I want to be a saint.” I want to be able to send down a shower of roses because like St. Paul said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

Jesus, the Sun, the Star, the Light of our lives, gave Himself up for us and we pray for the same desire to give up ourselves by prostrating to Him that any journey that leads us to Christ through Mary is all the worthwhile. As it is said, to have Jesus is to have Everything. God bless you.

Do It Again

2012-01-07T05:57:00.011-06:00

"You go back, Jack, do it again
Wheels turning round and round
You go back, Jack, do it again."
~Steely Dan

When my fourth son arrived in this world I spent a great deal of time wondering why God chose to bless me with the work of raising so many boys. In the throes of constant sports, dirt and mud, creepy crawly bugs and worms, fighting that always included a hefty amount of yelling and punching, potty talk through giggles, super-heroes and more sports, I felt my femininity get pushed to the wayside as I tried to accept and embrace everything boy. I longed for a daughter and had visions of dressing her in pink, braiding ribbons into her hair and playing Anne of Green Gables with her, but God was not giving in to my desire... yet.

I decided that the reason I was surrounded with boys was because God felt that I needed more practice being a mother to these strange and wonderful creatures. So with the birth of each son into my life it was as if God was saying, "Well, you've been doing an OK job so far, but I think you can do better. So here, have another son. Keep practicing until you're perfect. Do it again."

I don't think that God decided that after the birth of Jack that I was now a perfect parent to boys, but instead, He became exasperated and thought "Will she never learn? I give up! All right, try your luck at a girl now!" Or maybe He became bored at watching me struggle through the monotony of sameness and thought that it was high time He mixed things up a bit in the Bender household. Whatever the reason behind the ordering of my family life, it is an act of trust to believe that in God's wisdom, my family is exactly the way God meant it to be and my days are ordered according to His infinitely holy and providential will.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that God must delight in monotony and repetition. Or is it that we humans are so thick-headed that we need to wash, rinse and repeat the cycles of our lives over and over because we just can't grasp the idea that holiness grows in our ordinary daily lives filled with mundane and unpleasant tasks? Somehow I need to learn that when I let go of my plans and desires and trust in God, He will show me that through the ordinary sameness of my life He is glorified.

And so I do it again. And again.

I continue with the daily tasks of raising my boys (and daughter!) again. I crawl out of bed each morning and fall on my knees repeating the same morning offering, again. I make the coffee, again. I fold the laundry, again. I cook meals, again. I wash the dishes, again. I do the housework, again. I attend daily Mass, again. I slog my way through 30 minutes on the treadmill, again. I drive the same route to work, again. I review iron rich foods and the importance of breastfeeding with my clients, again. I check over homework, again. I fall into bed at the end of the day, exhausted, again.

And in all of those routines there is great beauty. There is joy and peace and comfort. There is God.

And so I do it again. And again. And again. And as I continue through the sameness of life I praise God for the opportunity to do all things again and again for His glory alone. And tomorrow I will wake up and do the same things all over again. I will keep practicing until I am perfect in the eyes of God.

How 'Bout Those Cardinals?

2012-01-06T16:16:00.008-06:00

Did you really think this was going to be a post about baseball? Nah-you all know me better than that-but it's those OTHER Cardinals that have my heart aflutter with joy today and in particular the one and only +Timothy Cardinal Dolan! What a thrill for those of us in Milwaukee to see our beloved former Archbishop elevated to such a high status, but of course, we all knew it was a sure thing! And my coworkers who are familiar with my frequent gushing about Archbishop Dolan and my standard line-"I love that guy!" were all rejoicing with me today at work even though none of them share my Catholic faith. His blog post about his new appointment is a beautiful example of his humility and holiness.

So I'm feeling sentimental and want to share my favorite +Timothy Cardinal Dolan story-I'm sure I've shared this one here before, but humor me, won't you?

It was the eve of my daughter Mary's First Holy Communion when the phone rang. I answered the phone and heard a man's voice on the other end asking to speak with my daughter. I nonchalantly handed the phone to Mary as if my then six-year-old daughter (she made her First Communion while in the first grade as she had begged to make her first confession while still in kindergarten) got phone calls every day. Mary spoke on the phone for a few minutes and it wasn't until after she had hung up that I finally asked her who was on the phone.

"Oh," she answered, "That was Archbishop Dolan. He told me congratulations on my First Communion." And with that she skipped back to her bedroom to play.

And I was left kicking myself for not asking who it was in the first place and talking with him myself for a while! After all, it's not every day that the Archbishop calls your house!

And my new favorite memory is this lovely letter that he sent to my son John just last week in response to a letter John sent to him as part of a homework assignment. It's beautiful and touching and you can read it here.

Congratulations +Timothy Cardinal Dolan! We are all so proud of you here in America and we are confident that the Catholic Church is in the best and holiest of hands under your guidance!

Baptized in Christ-A Homily by Fr. Dan Murphy

2012-01-06T10:53:00.003-06:00

As always, those who attend daily Mass at St. Matthias are treated to a fabulous homily whenever Fr. Dan Murphy celebrates Mass with us and today was no exception. Please enjoy his comforting and uplifting words:

“You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased."
-Mark 1:11

Today, most commercial airplanes rely on a radio beam. A directional beam is sent out to guide the airplane to its destination. As long as the pilot keeps on this beam, he knows he’s safe. He's safe even if he has to go thru fog and clouds in the darkest night. As soon as the airplane gets off the beam there’s great danger.

We see that Jesus had a beam that kept him safe and on the right course. After he had received the baptism of John, three things happened to Jesus: The skies opened: The Spirit descended in the form of a dove; And a voice from heaven was heard.

Throughout the gospel, we notice that Jesus has to take time out to pray. There may be people who need to be cured; the apostles may need to be taught, Jesus himself may need to sleep and rest. But all these necessary things, all these good things will have to wait because Jesus needs to get back on the beam, Jesus needs to pray.

If prayer was so necessary for Jesus, how much more necessary is it for me and for you? We can see ourselves going off the beam when we start to notice that we’re afraid; afraid of the future, afraid of the unknown, afraid for our health; afraid of being afraid.

We start going off the beam when we stop praying. Maybe your prayers aren’t being answered the way you think they should. Maybe you just don't have a taste of prayer or you find yourself in a period of dryness when God seems far, far away.

In all these situations, you need to get quickly back on the beam by quietly dedicating some time to God, if only 10 minutes a day. Let God's presence find your soul. Let God's love and intelligence take over; give God a chance to keep the promise he made in Psalm 46: "Be still and know that I am God". You’ll know you’re back on the beam when daily prayer is as much a part of your life as eating, breathing or sleeping.

What happened for Jesus at prayer will happen for you. First the skies opened. As you become more faithful to prayer, you can expect the skies to open and let more sunshine into your life and those around you. You’ll surprise yourself when you notice that you’re more optimistic and hopeful than you used to be. The second thing that happened to Jesus will also happen to you. The Holy Spirit descended on him. You’ll have a power within you to face and conquer the challenges of life. You’ll also encourage your neighbors and friends to trust in God's power. This is the action of the Spirit in your life and it happens when you’re a person of prayer.

Finally, for Jesus, the voice was heard: “You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased!” Jesus needed to hear that encouraging voice often. And so do you. There are so many forces within and without that try to tear you down, to make you believe that you don’t count. The psychologists are unanimous in stating that most of the crimes committed in America are not because people have too high an opinion of themselves, but exactly the opposite; they’re due to a very low self-esteem.

When you and I were baptized, many years ago, it was announced to us, our families and the world that we are children of God. If we were baptized as little babies, we were told before we could even understand it, that we were very special in the eyes of God. That’s still true. I, for one, need to hear those special words every day. How about you?

“You are my beloved son; my beloved daughter.
With you I am well pleased."

Poem of the Pilgrims

2012-01-05T09:05:00.006-06:00

distant lands
call to unrelenting dreams
three wander far
to answer the call

weary and worn travelers
fall beneath the star
baby in His mother's arms
could this really be all?

leaving gifts of treasures rare
they work their way back home
hearts now gladdened by the King
it's love that they have found!

plans have changed, hopes refreshed
mysteries now revealed
and all throughout the journey long
three jubilant hearts resound!

(edited from the archives in anticipation of the Feast of the Epiphany)

Offer It Up!

2012-01-04T12:45:00.018-06:00

I was having a crummy morning. I slept poorly which is always a guarantee of an emotionally exhausting day unless I can squeeze in a nap. So in my overtired state, all it took was one little thing to go wrong before I cracked. I took my son (the one who had the surgery) back to the pediatrician, our beloved pediatrician, an excellent Catholic family man, father of nine, who always quizzes my children about the particular feast day (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton today) and reminds them to obey their parents, eat their vegetables and exercise for 60 minutes each day. It was just supposed to be a quick follow-up appointment after his surgery to make sure his healing was on track. Joe was grumbling because after spending five days of his Christmas break in the hospital, the last thing he wanted to do was to go to the doctor again, and I reminded him that it wasn't exactly my favorite pastime either, and that I also had to give up my plans to volunteer at the Apostleship of Prayer to take him to the doctor. How quickly we fall from gratitude for successful surgery and the love and prayers of friends and family to complaining! Yikes! We've got out spiritual work cut out for us, that's for sure!

When we arrived at the clinic I was told that our insurance company didn't renew their contract with the medical group and so our office visit would not be covered by the insurance. Shock! I didn't recall receiving a letter telling me about this very important change! But good and wonderful Dr. Swietlik said he would not charge us for this visit and we had our follow-up appointment after all. But now I'm sad because we have to find a new pediatrician and I am irritated because I spent an hour on the phone with the insurance company trying to decide who might be an adequate replacement for Dr. Swietlik. You know how they make you talk to a computer for half an hour before you can even talk to a real person? And let me just confess that once I finally got to talk to a real person my rude and grouchy attitude probably didn't do much to make her day pleasant, either. Joe is doing fine, by the way, so really, I ought to only be happy about my son's health instead of griping about all of these other issues, but you know, like I said at the beginning of this post,I'm tired, so that's my lame excuse for digging right into the negativity.

Anyway, it was Joe at Defend Us In Battle who unwittingly came to the rescue! He had a link on his most recent post to this awesome YouTube video that he made. I had seen this before and loved it, and possibly even linked to it a few months back, but I had no idea it was his creation! After watching it I feel much better and have my priorities firmly back in place. I especially love the picture in his video of the Handmaid of the Precious Blood in adoration. (It was from Joe's blog that I first learned about the Handmaids, so thank you very much Joe for connecting me with that wonderful group!)

Are you also feeling overtired, weepy and irritable? Watch this! Rejoice in your Catholic faith! Embrace it! Soon you'll feel better and be able to get right back to the work of offering up your days as a prayer for the good of souls without all that grumbling getting in the way of your goodness! We are Catholic, after all, and that's what Catholics do best! Offer it up!

War Horse and Fr. William Doyle, SJ

2012-01-02T18:07:00.007-06:00

My family and I took a few hours this weekend to relax at the movies and we chose to see Steven Spielberg's War Horse, an epic story about a young English man, Albert and his horse, Joey, who served during World War I. It was an excellent movie, a touching story with beautiful scenery and an even more beautiful animal. The war scenes were a bit intense which I imagine was the reason for the Pg-13 rating as the rest of the movie was very family friendly. I was deeply moved and cried throughout the entire show. My favorite scene was that of a priest distributing communion in the trenches before battle. My son Justin, who was sitting on the other side of Jack, reached across Jack to nudge me wanting to be sure that I noticed the priest in the movie. I was certain that the priest was a portrayal of Fr. William Doyle, SJ, who was an Irish priest who served as a front line chaplain during World War I. The wonderful book, Merry In God, is a collection of his journals and letters written during the war and it offers great insight into the horrors of that war and the beauty of the soul of a holy priest who served God and his fellow soldiers very well. To learn more about Fr. William Doyle, visit this blog, Remembering Fr. William Doyle, SJ.

What follows is a beautiful prayer for priests written by Fr. Doyle:

Prayer for Priests by Fr. William Doyle, SJ

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, "This is my Body, this is my Blood," grant them to apply to themselves: "I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another."

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

And, another of his breathtaking prayers:

"O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Who would not love You, who would not give their heart's blood for You, if only once they realized the depth and the breadth and the realness of Your burning love? Why not then make every human heart a burning furnace of love for You, so that sin would become an impossibility, sacrifice a pleasure and a joy, virtue the longing of every soul, so that we should live for love, dream of love, breathe Your love, and at last die of a broken heart of love, pierced through and through with the shaft of love, the sweetest gift of God to man."

"I must eagerly welcome every little pain, suffering, small sickness, trouble, cross of any kind, as coming straight to me from the Sacred Heart. Am I not your loving victim, my Jesus?"

The Inexhaustible Cup

2012-01-02T05:39:00.004-06:00

My friend Christi, the talented iconographer, painted this wonderful icon of the Inexhaustible Cup and sent it to me shortly before Christmas, and it was this image of our Blessed Mother and Jesus that brought me much comfort during my son Joe's recent illness and hospital stay.

Our Lady is revered in Russia under this title as an advocate for alcoholics and all those struggling with addictions. She is shown as tirelessly raising her hands in prayer as her Son stands within the chalice of suffering. During Joe's five day stay at the hospital, he, like Christ, was accepting his suffering with peace and joy while I, like the Blessed Mother, remained nearby with my hands raised in prayer for his healing. And God heard my prayer of petition and Joe's offering of suffering, for the Lord never tires of listening to our prayers and as an answer he sent us great and never-ending love that we greedily consumed knowing that her cup which holds the Lord is truly inexhaustible, and the Lord is always ready to give of himself, to give us His Body and Blood over and over again so that we may truly live.

It was a great blessing that my son who had required surgery to drain an infected lymph node behind his neck muscle was able to put off that surgery until after Christmas Day and was able to return home from the hospital five days later, in time to spend the New Year holiday and Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God with his family in the comfort of our home. During the time that he was hospitalized our family was showered with love and prayer from friends and family like we have never known before. Four days later, I am still in awe and wonder at the beauty that shines through the trials of illness, at the goodness of God that dwells within the hearts of so many and of the great love that exists within this world. Like the love that flows from the Inexhaustible Cup, my love and gratitude flows as well.

I am grateful for:

~lessons of love learned in illness and restored health for Joe
~a good-natured son who smiled his way through his entire hospitalization and didn't complain, not even once
~family and friends from church who brought meals to our house to sustain our family during a hectic week spent mainly at the hospital
~our friend Anne L. and her son Michael who providentially came to keep vigil with us during the surgery; that friendly visit at that particular time helped to distract us from our worry and made the 90 minute surgery time pass pleasantly by
~Fr. Peter Berger and Fr. Dave Cooper who both came to anoint Joe prior to surgery
~Fr. Matthew Widder, Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, and Bishop Hying who came to visit and pray with Joe during his hospital stay
~the steady stream of friends and family who came to visit and to offer cheer
~an ultrasound technician who was a great source of comfort and peace during the height of worry over the unknown
~facebook and email which became easy ways to share updates about Joe's progress with many concerned family and friends all at once
~offers of prayer and words of comfort and kindness from so many people that I could easily have lost track of them all, but I won't, I will remember and be grateful for each and every one
~the knowledge that we are so loved by God through the goodness of others
~home again and cooking and baking for my family-how I love spending time in the kitchen!
~playing games of Trouble and Scrabble with my family
~ushering in the New Year with Mass and receiving a kiss of love from Jesus in the Holy Eucharist at the stroke of midnight
~driving to three different Adoration Chapels before finding an open door to our Lord and quietly kneeling before Him, giving Him my all-sometimes the Lord is hard to find but He is always more than worth the effort!
~watching Jack and Mary work to make an ice-skating rink in our backyard
~repeating my winter mantra "Shut the door-the heat's on!" again and again
~Archbishop Dolan's wonderful response to my son John's letter of inquiry here

How has the Inexhaustible Cup shown her never ending love for you? Join with Ann at A Holy Experience to share your gratitude with multitudes on Monday.

Oblate Joy!

2011-12-31T17:43:00.010-06:00

On October 27, the day that I was to become enrolled as an Oblate Candidate of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood I ran over to Gesu Church on my lunch break for a quick confession and I met Friar Paul Schneider in the confession line. It was a chance meeting with someone that I had recognized from activities at St. Francis de Sales Seminary but had not known personally. I introduced myself and then he told me that he had two more years before he would be ordained to the priesthood and he asked me to pray for him. I took his words as a confirmation that God was pleased with my plans to work toward becoming an Oblate of the Precious Blood. But by the grace of God, that meeting wasn't the end of the story...

During the week before Christmas, I received a newsletter from the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and within it I found a picture of none other than Friar Paul Schneider! The caption read: "In August, Oblate of the Precious Blood and long time friend of our community, Friar Paul Schneider made his Solemn Vows as a Conventual Franciscan at Marytown. We all rejoiced in spirit over this important milestone in his life as he makes his way toward priestly ordination in 2013. Please pray for him." Chills, that's what I had; chills and goosebumps to find his picture there and to learn that he is also an Oblate of the Precious Blood! Surely this was a providential sign from God!

There are only 420 Oblates of the Precious Blood throughout the world, so to find that there is an Oblate living in the very same city in which I live is quite extraordinary! Friar Paul and I have now been in contact and have plans to meet at the end of January, and when we meet I will have something very special to share with him before I send it on to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood at Cor Jesu Monastery in New Mexico, because...

When I first began to discern whether or not to apply for candidacy for the Oblates, I had discovered several books written by Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, the founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, at the Salzmann Library at St. Francis de Sales Seminary. I found his books of poetry, Paths from Bethlehem and Streets in Nazareth and his book of spiritually uplifting words written in letter style, Letters of Father Page, to be beautiful, and I have shared some of his words and poems from these books in previous posts. I decided that I should purchase these books so that I could return to them again and again as a spiritual resource and so I ordered some used copies online and on Christmas Eve they were delivered to my house.

I found that Paths from Bethlehem was autographed with the words: "Asking our Lady to bless you" and Streets in Nazareth was also an autographed copy with the words: "With Mary's blessing." But even more impressive was what I found tucked just under the cover of Paths from Bethlehem. Upon opening the book I found several historical papers, including the Christmas bookmark that graces this post. One of the documents was a biographical sketch of Fr. Fitzgerald that read as follows:

"The author was born on October 29th, 1894, in South Framingham, Massachusetts. He was educated at Weymouth High School, Boston College and St. John's Ecclesiastical Seminary and was ordained a priest of the Boston archdiocese in 1921. After twelve years service as curate of Our Lady of the Presentation parish, he entered the Novitiate of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and was professed in 1934. He is now Rector of Our Lady of Holy Cross Seminary in North Easton, Massachusetts, and devotes his spare time to retreat work. His Letters, written under the pseudonyms "Father Page" and "A. Page," have appeared in Columbia and The Far East. Father Fitzgerald's previous works include Juxta Crucem, Paths from Bethlehem and God's Rainbow."

Also within the book I found a newspaper clipping of a poem written by Fr. Fitzgerald and the following typed poem of which the source is not named with a handwritten note on the bottom. The poem follows:

"I saw the Face of God these last days three
Mirrored in a soul so pure
The vision came clearly back to me.
His eyes, the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost
Blazoned with an aureole alight with Love from His Host
Yet now and then, his brow furrowed with grief
Remembering the Thorn-Crowned Head,
the nail-pierced Hands and Feet.
In another moment his face was wreathed in a smile
Beatific, golden radiance all absent from trace of guile
It was brushed thereon by the lips of His mother
Joyous because her earthly son so loved His Brother.
This little page ever listing for heavenly commands
Walks daily with these Loved Ones, hand in hands.
And the cherished grace I hope from my retreat
Is to find my hand in theirs some day
When I clasp their little page's close in friendship pure and sweet.

And it was signed:

"As to the first, I cannot say, but to the last, I'll be always-Humbly at Our Mother's feet and in His Heart-A. Page C.S.C ."

What a treasure to find these antique papers from Fr. Fitzgerald, the Handmaids of the Precious Blood founder, all for the pittance of $3.00 plus shipping! It's too good for me to keep to myself, so after I show them to Friar Paul Schneider, I will send them to the Handmaids so that they may enjoy them as well. And all of this good fortune only intensifies the joy I feel whenever I contemplate the wonder of the priesthood and the great gift that all priests bring to the Catholic Church.

We've all had experiences in our lives, haven't we, where a priest has been there for us in a special way and through his kindness, we were given a glimpse, a foretaste, of the goodness of God and His love for us? Whether an illness brought a priest to anoint us, our sinfulness brought us to the confessional for the gift of absolution or our desire to receive the very Body and Blood of our Lord carried us to the communion line where the hands of a priest presented our Eucharistic Lord to us for our consumption; our priests have been God's instruments of grace in our lives. When our world turns upside down and we long to bare our soul to someone who can guide us in the ways that please the Lord, it is to the priest that we turn for assistance and direction. When ordinary and Sacramental joys bring cause for celebration in our lives, it is the priest that we invite to celebrate with us. Where would we be without a beloved priest in our midst to be Christ for us though every moment of our lives?

Recently, when my son Joe was ill and spent five days in the hospital, he was visited by Fr. Peter and Fr. Dave who both anointed him, Fr. Matthew and Fr. Jim who visited and prayed with him and Bishop Hying who also prayed and visited with him. I was deeply moved and marveled over how wonderful it is to receive the gift of the presence of holy and humble priests who give of their time so generously to bring prayer and the Sacraments to all of those in need, including my son. What a blessing it is to have priests who love and care for you and your family and what a blessing it is to love and care for those priests in return! And how best to love and care for them? With prayer!

I feel tremendously blessed to be called to pray for all priests, for those who have touched my life through their offering of the Sacraments and through their many kindnesses to me, for those whom I don't know personally but may meet in the future through God's providence, for those men who are discerning a call to the priesthood and studying in the seminary and for those who have spent their entire lives being Christ for others and are now called to rest in the Lord for all eternity. But most of all, I am blessed to pray for the one special priest who has been assigned to me through the Handmaids of the Precious Blood. Through my prayers I am able to lift the hands of the men who lift Christ up for the world.

Prayer is a gift, the most beautiful and precious gift that we can give to others and it is this gift that I offer in joy for God's chosen men, His holy priests, through the loving sacrifice of every moment of my days. I will forever be grateful for the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and for the guidance of the soul of Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP for the opportunity to humbly join them at our Mother's feet and in His Heart in prayer for priests as an Oblate Candidate and please God, soon as an Oblate of the Precious Blood.

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament by Fr. Matthew Widder

2011-12-29T14:08:00.003-06:00

Earlier in December I wrote a post about Fr. Matthew Widder and his moving and heartfelt homily about the Blessed Mother and our Eucharistic Lord given during a holy hour for life on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I recalled that Fr. Matthew has a deep devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and, not knowing anything about our Lady under this title, I asked him to tell me more about her. Through Fr. Matthew I learned that this devotion was founded by St. Peter Julian Eymard after a vision he received of the Blessed Mother in 1851 in France and the feast day is celebrated on May 13th, which later also became the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. He kindly shared an Advent article about Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament that he had written for his parish bulletin with me, and now, with his permission, I share it with you. What follows is a guest post by Fr. Matthew Widder about Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament:

One of my favorite titles for Mary is Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. The devotion to Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is new to me. I came across the image when I was looking for a Holy Card to commemorate my ordination to the Priesthood. In selecting a holy card I was looking for an image that would summarize my spirituality. When I saw the image of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament I was hooked immediately. I would like to share a couple of the reasons why this image of Mary touches me so deeply.

First I love how Mary is looking directly at Jesus, and in doing so is illustrating that devotion to Mary always points us to Jesus. When we pray a Marian prayer Mary is not the end of the prayer. Pope John Paul II used to say, “to Jesus through Mary.” This saying illustrates that Mary always directs us and our prayers to her Son. It is fair to say that we do not pray to Mary but that we pray with Mary. In looking at Jesus, Mary is modeling the manner of discipleship for all Christians. No matter what we get ourselves into throughout life we always look to Jesus.

Secondly, I love the fact that in this picture Mary is not holding the baby Jesus close to her, instead she is holding baby Jesus out as if she is handing him off to be held by one of us. The lesson for us here is that as we live our faith, as Jesus is born into our lives, we eventually have to, “pass the baby.” Our spirituality is never completely individual but is always communal and always leading us to share our faith with others through service.

Lastly, the baby Jesus is holding the Eucharist out to us. In this season of Advent we not only recall Jesus’ birth, and the time when he will come again, but we also prepare for his coming to us through the sacraments, especially through the Eucharist. The closest we will ever get to Jesus on this earth is when we receive the Eucharist. How lucky we are to have a God who wishes to be so close to us!

Whenever I look at the depiction of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, I always feel inspired and recharged. The image always focuses me on what is important in my ministry and in my life: Jesus (through Mary), Service, and Eucharist. I’ve just shared a bit of my own spirituality. Let me ask a question for you to think about. How would you sum up your own spirituality, or means of getting closer to Christ? Is there a particular place, devotion, picture, person, etc, that always seems to recharge your spiritual batteries? In this season of preparing for Christ’s coming how does he make himself known to you?

Woman, Behold Your Son

2011-12-28T09:58:00.005-06:00

"Woman, behold your son." ~John 19:26

That was the scriptural prayer that I held in my heart on the feast of St. John the Evangelist as I stood for 90 minutes at the bedside of my son, Joe, while he was in recovery from surgery. Joe, whose illness I wrote about briefly in my recent posts, Kneeling in the Manger and Lullaby Revisited, was suffering horrific pain from a large, infected lymph node in his neck that required surgery to drain the infection.

Joe asked to put off the surgery so that he could spend Christmas at home with his family, but on Monday morning, the day after Christmas, Joe came to me as soon as he awoke in the morning and said, "I'm ready. Let's go to the hospital." By Tuesday afternoon at 3 PM, providentially at the Hour of Divine Mercy, Joe was in surgery to have the infected lymph node that was behind his neck muscle drained of the infection that was the source of his suffering. Every surgery has possible complications associated with it and Joe's surgery was no exception, as the lymph node was so swollen and large at about 6 cm. in length, that it was pressing on an artery that led to his brain and it was possible that the artery was also infected.

There are times in your life when you can truly "feel" the prayers of others, and this was one of them. Promises of prayer came soaring in from friends and family and although we were all stressed and worried, my family had never before felt more loved and more protected by God than at any other time we can recall. The morning of the surgery we were visited by two priests who both performed the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for Joe, and another priest who came to pray with us after the surgery was over. A quick visit from some dear friends brought cheer just a few hours before the surgery and then, after the surgery began, more friends arrived to keep watch with us and to distract us from our worries with lively conversation during the long 90 minute wait until the surgery was successfully completed and Joe was sent to recovery.

By 4:30 PM, I was allowed to go to Joe's bedside where I remained, standing, for the next 90 minutes until he was recovered enough to return to his room. During those 90minutes, he was continuously given morphine for his pain until he could tolerate it and popsicles to soothe his dry and aching throat. By his third popsicle, Joe was all smiles.

As I stood by his side, I thought about the fact that the surgery occurred on the Feast of St. John the Evangelist and I pictured St. John and the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross and Jesus telling his mother, "Woman, behold your son." In my heart I knew that He was speaking those words to me now. And I beheld my beautiful, brave and wonderful son suffering the most misery he had ever known, yet I felt peace. On the day of the crucifixion, there was no peace for the Blessed Mother as she listened to the jeers of the taunting crowd and solders while witnessing her Son's suffering in the surroundings of hate. But here, at my son's bedside, as Joe suffered with his own cross, we were only surrounded by love and goodness and it felt as if all of our friends and family who supported and prayed for us were truly living the gospel message, the famous words frequently spoken by St. John the Evangelist, "Love one another."

Joe remains in the hospital until the type of infection can be determined so that the appropriate antibiotic can be prescribed, and although he remains in much pain, he knows that he is loved and that is the best medicine by far! And I thank you, dear reader, for your loving prayers as well!

The Wonder of the Incarnation by Bishop Hying

2011-12-25T08:07:00.006-06:00

Because Christ entered into human history, the apostles proclaimed the Gospel to the ends of the earth, martyrs gave up their lives rather than their faith and a new philosophical understanding of the person emerged.

Because of Christmas, soaring cathedrals rose over Europe, universities and hospitals opened their doors and missionaries sailed across oceans in wooden ships.

Because of what we celebrate today, four churchwomen were murdered in El Salvador for their stance with the poor, a pope sold his fisherman’s ring to aid a slum in Brazil and a wrinkled woman in a sari lovingly pulled dying people out of gutters.

The church has never gotten over the wonder of the Incarnation, the startling truth that, in the person of Jesus Christ, this one specific human being living at one historical point in time in a precise geographical place expressed in the fullest possible way the union of God and human nature.

God had entered his own creation to redeem it and restore it from the inside. In his mystical theology, St. Bonaventure expresses this burning, passionate love of God who desires nothing less than complete identification with every human being.

Christmas changes everything! If God is one with us through the power of Christ’s Spirit, alive and active through the church, life is radically different for us. God is not out there somewhere, unreachable and unknowable.

In the tender vulnerability of Christ’s humanity, God has completely united his life with ours. This enfleshed Divine Word has become the language of our own human experience; Jesus explains us to ourselves.

How telling it is that Mary and Joseph could not find a room for the birth of Jesus. In a world of sin, violence, sorrow and selfishness, there was no room for this tiny, warm God who had come only to love and heal.

Is there any more room for God today? Is there space for justice and peace? Is there room for prayer and virtue? Does God truly hold center place in our lives and our global society? If we sometimes feel that God has been pushed into the corner, then it is to the corner that we must go.

There is a tendency within us to want to clean up the Christ story, to make it respectable, orderly and dignified. In so many ways, it was none of that. God was born of an itinerant mother in an animal shelter with smelly manure and dirty shepherds. God died on a bloody cross, scourged and rejected, cut off as one accursed.

We cannot romanticize the Christian narrative without decreasing its potent reality. God comes to us in all of the messiness and lunacy of the real world to save us as we are, not to redeem some idealized version of ourselves.

The Incarnation of Christ powerfully proclaims the humility and vulnerability of God. Setting aside the majesty, glory and safety of heaven, the eternal Word empties himself completely, assumes the radical limitations of our humanity and runs the terrible risk of being misunderstood, rejected and killed by his own creatures!

Divine Love gives itself away in a total act of self-donation. In the Christ event, we grasp the very essence of God, who pours himself out completely for us.

As disciples of this passionate, incarnate Christ, our lives, too, will be marked by humility and vulnerability. How else can we love others with this self-emptying divine life unless we leave our comfort zones and surrender our insulating pride? How else can we give birth to the Word unless we go to the dark corners of this world?

Yes, the manure will smell, the shepherds will be uncouth, the stable will be cold, the scourging will tear our flesh, and the cross will kill us. Often, the way of Jesus makes no rational sense at all, and we do our best to live the pieces of it that we can. But Christmas challenges us to go all the way. Have a blessed one!

(Previously published in the December 22nd, 2005 and December 22nd, 2011 Milwaukee Catholic Herald and reprinted here with the permission of Bishop Hying)

Kneeling in the Manger

2011-12-24T03:34:00.000-06:00

These final days before Christmas bring exhaustion as the work of preparing to make merry brings wear and tear to my body and my soul. In spite of my weariness, I lie awake with worry heavy on my heart for my son who'd been sick with a sore throat earlier this month who has developed unusual complications. He had been fatigued and burning with fever, throat bright red and raw, yet he quickly healed as the virus seemed to move out of his body. Except it didn't. We didn't realize that the infection simply took up residence in a lymph node which generously shared its infective germs with the muscle in Joe's neck. Now with neck swollen to the size of a tennis ball, the pain rages from ear to sternum and my son can't move his head at all for the suffering he bears. Antibiotics should surely bring effective healing but the threat of an emergency room visit on Christmas Eve looms over our heads if that healing doesn't happen quickly.

In the middle of the night, I silently step into my son's room and kneel at the side of his bed, listening to his breath coming heavy and deep, and I offer a wordless prayer, just a movement of the heart in God's direction, a prayer that is for both of my sons who sleep in that room, as morning will bring a final psychological examination as part of the application process for seminary for my oldest son and I know that he carries stress and worry in his heart over that process-over the fear of the unknown-both regarding what the test will be like and whether or not he will be accepted to the seminary. My heart is heavy with a mother's love.

And I think of Mary and Joseph kneeling in the manger, cold and hungry, tired and scared, in prayer and adoration for their Son, the King. Fear and worry surely must have gripped their hearts as well-fear of the unknown abiding side by side with a deep love for their child. Were they, like me, unable to find words of prayer? Were they simply opening their hearts to God's presence in trustful surrender to whatever His plan would bring for their lives? I know the answer to my question is yes; they did surrender wholly to God's plan and so I will, too.

I will let my worry and my sorrow go and I will cling to peaceful trust in God as an offering for all of those who have larger worries this Christmas-for those who have suffered the loss of a loved one at this time of year when they want more than ever to be in the presence of those they love, for all of the clients who come to the WIC Clinic in droves trying to find some financial assistance to provide healthy foods for their families as their pocketbooks are strained by the burden of buying gifts, for those families who spend Christmas in the hospital kneeling at the bedside of their children who are ill with serious diseases such as cancer, for parents whose children have rebelled against their authority, against the law and against God and have brought the wounds of deep and cutting pain to the hearts of those who love them, and for all of those who feel a searing loneliness within-for all of these people, too, are kneeling in the manger.

My sorrow and worry is small and placed in the hands of God it is quickly overshadowed by His great love. Kneeling in the manger of my sons' room as they sleep I know that my blessings far outweigh my struggles and with Mary and Joseph to accompany me on my life's journey I will surely be able to bear whatever sorrows come my way by following their example of trustful surrender to the Holy Will of God.

Dies Domini-Rest in the Lord

2011-12-21T04:28:00.001-06:00

I've often felt that my favorite books to read are books of letters written by saints and those striving for sainthood. I feel that through personal letters we come to really know the mind and heart of others. So, I thought, why not jump into the fray of sharing personal mail by sharing part of the most recent letter that I wrote to Mother Marietta from the Handmaids of the Precious Blood? Since my Candidacy Enrollment into the Oblates of the Precious Blood last October, Mother Marietta has been sending me a monthly spiritual lesson which I am required to read and then respond to the reflective questions which she poses at the end of the lesson. My first lesson was the Primacy of the Spiritual followed by The Holy Spirit. The most recent lesson I received was the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II entitled Dies Domini about keeping the Lord's Day holy, which was interspersed with quotes from the Handmaids founder, Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald. What follows are some excerpts of my response to Mother Marietta about this most recent lesson:

How fitting that the day after I received your email with lesson number three, the daily Mass readings and Fr. Paul's homily focused on the importance of keeping the Lord's Day holy! I think that God delights in giving me these little signs showing how perfectly His plan works in life.

Caryll Houselander is one of my favorite authors and I love to read her books "The Reed of God" and "The Passion of the Infant Christ" during Advent. She writes quite a bit about resting in God and these quotes are especially meaningful in light of reading and reflecting upon Dies Domine:

"The Host is rest. Still, infinite Peace. In this rest is the mysterious activity of Love. It is the rest of love between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity. It is the rest of Christ on earth. It is Christ's rest in Advent: the silence, the dependence, the secrecy of the unborn. In the Host-life men contribute to this rest by giving themselves to be Himself, as Our Lady gave herself. It is the rest of surrender."

"Christ is formed in us, and we are formed into Christ, when we rest in Him and He rests in us."

"It has always been Christ's way to come first in secret, to come in a hidden way, to be secret even in those in whom He abides, whose life He is."

"The Host is resting among us in order that Christ may work the miracle of His love in us, changing us almost imperceptibly into Himself, that through us His love may overcome the world."

But, after reading and reflecting upon all of these beautiful thoughts comes what is really the hard work of resting in God and keeping His day holy. You'd think it would be easy to rest, but it really isn't! Our life seems to rush by at such a rapid pace and carries us all breathlessly along with it so that our beautiful gift of a day of rest seems to get cast off to the wayside, a hazard of the times, and for me especially, a lost treasure in a type-A lifestyle where the name of the game seems to be "hurry, hurry, hurry!"

In the past year I have had the opportunity to attend some holy hours for families that have been sponsored by a young girl hoping to begin a religious order with the sole purpose of praying for the sanctity of families. It was here that I noticed for the first time, entire families who knelt in silent prayer after the Holy Hour offering a prayer of thanksgiving for that precious time with the Lord. I had never seen that anywhere before; in my own experience, everyone, myself included, usually races to shake the hand of the priest and then heads out the door as soon as the final song is over at the end of Mass.

So, in thinking about your final question regarding why it is important to “Spend at least ten minutes after Mass in thanksgiving, and ask Jesus to teach you to realize the personal, intimate character of His Love, to realize the predilection He has shown for you, drawing you to Himself and giving you the privilege in Holy Communion of resting on His Heart,” as Fr. Gerald has requested of his spiritual children, I would say that after we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, not only do we need to rest in Him, but He needs to rest in us as well so that He can carry out His good works in us. I usually have no problem dwelling in silent prayer after receiving Jesus in Holy Communion and I cherish those few precious minutes that I have alone with Him, but I need to look at how I can stretch that minute or two to a full ten minutes after Mass is over. I see that I have a lot of work to do in this regard and I know that it will require a change of habit and a change of heart as well.

In thinking about the statement from Dies Domini, “Time given to Christ is never time lost, but is rather time gained, so that our relationships and indeed our whole life may become more profoundly human,” I see that it directly relates to Fr. Gerald's request of spending ten minutes in Thanksgiving. Ten minutes is really next to nothing in the vast scheme of things, and like my friend Bishop Hying likes to say, "in God's time it was only two minutes ago that you were born" so how can I not afford to give God a ten minute increment of my time following Sunday Mass when He has given me so much more!

But beyond the challenge of giving ten minutes in restful and grateful prayer to the Lord after Mass, I can be pleased to know that in other ways, I do already spend my Sundays resting in the Lord in the company of my family following Sunday Mass beginning with mealtime prayer followed by a large family breakfast where we all relax in each others company. Cherishing my family and our Sunday mornings together is a thankful prayer to God. And, I am grateful to be a part of the organization Roses For Our Lady which guarantees that on at least one Sunday of the month my afternoon is spent in the seminary chapel praying at a holy hour for vocations and thereby extending my restful time with the Eucharistic Lord.

In the year to come, I will look for ways in which I can give more of my time to the Lord on His holy day, His Sunday, so that we can both rest more fully in one another; perhaps I will attend Eucharistic Adoration on my own on the Sundays when I don't attend a Holy Hour, or will spend more time in prayer with my family outside of the Mass, but most of all, I will work at spending ten minutes in silent prayer after receiving Jesus in Holy Communion so that both Jesus and I can cherish the restful, silent presence of His Body within my own and I can be strengthened by His love within me so that I can carry on the work of bringing Him to the world around me in a refreshed an peaceful manner on the remaining six days of the week!

The Purest Love of the Purest Life

2011-12-19T06:22:00.007-06:00

My friend, Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, recently went to Rome for an Apostleship of Prayer International Advisory Council Meeting and while there he spotted this unusual picture of Pope John Paul II kissing a baby and brought it back for me because of my work with all of the little ones at the WIC Clinic. It's now framed and proudly displayed on my desk for all of the young families who enter my office to enjoy and for me to enjoy as well! When I found the following Caryll Houselander quote, I thought it was perfectly fitting for the picture, or in other words, "picture perfect"!

"Knowing that God supplies all our necessities, and that one of our necessities is that we surrender to Him, we should not be surprised that He comes to us as an Infant: for surrender to an infant, any infant, is easy. Surely never did God receive more fully what is due to Him from man than when He was an infant. Every infant demands and receives the most complete self-giving that we are capable of. The perfection of surrender to God is Mary with the Infant Christ.

The service of the infant is a thing of love, therefore of joy. There is joy even in the saddest love; and the love of an infant, even when it has the quality of tragedy as in our days it too often has, is fundamentally joyful. It must be so, for it is the purest love of the purest life."

~Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ

Mary Kept All These Things

2011-12-14T14:55:00.021-06:00

"And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." ~Luke 2:19

As she was nurturing His body for the growth of infancy and for the love of childhood did she realize that she was preparing Him to die?

When she felt that first interior kick in belly swollen with His life, did she think about the nail that would fasten His feet tightly to the wood to redeem our sinful souls?

As she wrapped Him tight in the swaddling, held Him close in the dark damp cave so cold and nursed Him to fill his empty stomach, did she understand about His empty heart hungry for the love of the world?

When He suckled til satisfied and dozed in her arms while one last drop of milk slipped from the corner of His mouth onto the cold stone floor, did she see it as a foreshadowing of the one last drop of precious blood that would drip from His open side?

As His little chubby hand finally released her finger and He gave way to the deepness of sleep, could she feel the grip He would have upon the nail that would one day hollow his hand?

When she stroked His fragrant brow with a mother's tender love, did she picture the thorns meant to pierce that very spot in a vain attempt to mar His perfection?

As she finally set Him down to rest in the manger made of wood, did she know that the wood from which His resting place was made was the same wood from which His beaten and bruised body would hang until lifeless?

When she watched Him as He slept so soundly did she think about the last time His body would be taken from her arms and laid in another dark damp cave so cold?

And do we know?

Do we know that as we prepare our hearts and our homes for Christmas, as we shop and cook and clean, as we wrap and write and decorate, striving to make our hearts and homes a fit place for Christmas joy, that the same child who will be born within us will also die within us? Each time we carry our crosses of suffering, torment and shame, our crosses of sorrow, lament and pain, He dies a little more within us and we inch our way a little further into our own new life because of His death.

Be born in us, O Lord! Be born so that we may die to sin, to hate, to poverty, and to evil. Be born so that we may die to pride, to anger, to jealousy, to vengeance. Be born so that we may die to excess, to waste, to greed and to vanity. Be born so that we may live in Your love and die for Your love alone! Come, Lord, be born, live and die within us, your weak, fragile, tender, human hosts so that we may truly live for all eternity in the light of Your sweet and precious Love! Amen.

A Beautiful Lady

2011-12-13T13:58:00.006-06:00

"All that I am, sings of the God who brings new life to birth in me. My spirit soars, on the wings of the Lord." ~David Haas

My co-workers and I used to play "Secret Santa" at work and each of the employees would draw a name of another employee and purchase a gift for them. One year my friend Chue drew the boss's name and while out shopping for her gift, she came across a statue of a "beautiful lady." Chue had no idea who that beautiful lady was but she was drawn to her nonetheless and purchased the statue as a gift for our boss. A few days after the gift exchange, I walked into my boss's office and saw the statue and was floored to find a religious item in her office, for the beautiful lady was none other than Our Lady of Guadalupe! (My office, on the other hand, is so filled with religious statues and pictures that my clients are often tempted to genuflect when they cross the threshold of my door!) That day, I had a wonderful time educating both my coworker and my boss about Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Yesterday, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, my son John and I had the great pleasure of attending an hour of Eucharistic Adoration for the unborn at nearby St. Mary's Parish in Hales Corners with our friend, Fr. Matthew Widder, leading the prayer. It was a precious time with lots of silent prayer in honor of all newly budding human life within the wombs of women everywhere. As Fr. Matthew was expounding on St. Luke's account of the Visitation (Luke 1:39-47), he had a constant smile on his face. He spoke about how the silent presence of Christ within the womb had an outward effect upon St. John within the womb of Elizabeth. He compared the silence of Christ within the womb to the silence of Christ within the Eucharist. He said that just because we can't hear anything or see anything to reveal Christ's presence, that doesn't mean that Christ is inactive and that He doesn't effect change in the world around Him. All the while he spoke, his smile never left his face. It is clear that Fr. Matthew has a deep love and reverence for the Blessed Mother and our Eucharistic Lord and he just radiated joy as he spoke, for he knew that the woman of whom he spoke was a very beautiful lady!

Today I stumbled upon a beautiful post on Vultus Christi Blog titled "To Each One I Said, "Behold Your Mother" about how necessary it is for priests to have a deep devotion to Our Lady. Read his words:

"Every seminarian and every priest needs to consecrate himself to the maternal and immaculate Heart of my Mother. Apart from my Mother they risk growing tepid and, then, cold. Apart from her they will succumb to habits of sin and find themselves too weak to rise when they fall. Apart from her their lives will be devoid of joy, of tenderness, of sweetness,and of the warmth that her Immaculate Heart diffuses in the souls of those consecrated to her.

Love my Mother, and make her loved. In this there can be no exaggeration; have no fear of loving my Mother excessively...A priest according to my own Heart will love my Mother with all his heart. A priest according to my own Heart will attend to all that my Mother desires; he will listen to her and follow her counsels." ~In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest

Our Blessed Mother is a most beautiful lady and I am so grateful for priests like Fr. Matthew Widder who have embraced her with their whole hearts and then lovingly share her with others so that devotion to our Beautiful Lady may continue to spread among those who know her well and as those who don't know her at all, yet.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, most beautiful lady, pray for us!

Embrace

2011-12-11T21:09:00.003-06:00

"We were born to embrace not accept it."
~from Let Us Love by Need to Breathe

"Ours is the Spirit of the Eucharist, the total Gift of Self."
~ St. Katharine Drexel

~"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." Is 6:1

It's that time of year again, the time to look forward to the year ahead and anticipate how I hope to grow spiritually. One of my favorite ways to do this is by prayerfully choosing a "word" upon which to reflect and then to periodically take a look at my spiritual life throughout the year to see how well I am accomplishing the goal of growing closer to God through the basis of that word.

I began this practice three years ago with the word "surrender," then moved onto "accept" and finally strove to go "deeper" in my faith this past year. All of these words were carefully chosen to help me to come to know and understand God's will for my life and then to learn to fully live it.

Recently I was listening to one of my son's CD's on the drive to work and was struck by the lyrics: "We were born to embrace not accept it." Here was a very fitting word for 2012, I thought, and I was especially touched by how it moves me beyond the simple acceptance of two years ago and brings me into the deeper posture of an embrace. The past three years were difficult and the words I chose to focus upon were very challenging for me, but now, I have gone two full months without a depressive episode and this feeling of consistent peace which is currently marking my life makes me long to embrace all that I am and all that God has abundantly blessed me with; I want to move beyond surrender and acceptance and to remain in the blissful depth of His love for me.

It almost seems too easy, doesn't it, to embrace God's will when I'm feeling peace, joy and happiness? Yet I've learned from the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer that when we offer our days to God, he doesn't want only our sufferings and sorrows, but that He also wants our joys and our happiness, and sometimes, giving Him those things that feel good, that bring us pleasure, can be the hardest thing of all. Sometimes, when darkness threatens to haunt me, remaining in joy and giving it to God is a spiritual sacrifice in itself. Living a Eucharistic life of gratitude means giving God my total self because He wants all of me, and so I will strive to give Him my all and to embrace all that He gives to me in return.

This past Sunday morning I was scheduled to lector at Mass and as I read the first reading I was immediately struck by the opening line- "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," and throughout the remainder of Mass I continued to hold this line prayerfully within my heart. I must have read it an especially profound manner as well, because after Mass my sons complimented me, which is very rare, and they mentioned that there was something very different about how I proclaimed that very first line.

Later that evening I attended my parish's Advent Taize Prayer Service which is one of my favorite ways to pray. There is nothing so beautiful as prayerfully sitting in a near-dark, intimate church surrounded by candlelit icons while chanting scripture punctuated by periods of blissful silence. I sat near the front of the church where I could focus on the icon of the Holy Family and deeply pondered it throughout the service. Here, in this painting, the Holy Family's entire posture is one of embrace. I noticed St. Joseph's arm around the Blessed Virgin and her head resting upon his shoulder. I saw how all three of their hands are gently touching. I looked at the expression of peace on all of their faces. I could clearly see the Spirit of the Lord God upon the Holy Family through the deep love that is so evident in their circular embrace. Here is a family that lived a life of embracing one another and of embracing God's will for their lives!

Praying with that image reminded me of the first time I ever took a weekend retreat alone, away from my family. My plan was to completely focus on God the entire time I was away, but I found that I couldn't concentrate on God when my mind kept wandering to thoughts of my family and how much I missed them. I took a walk on the beach and collected rocks and wrote a word on each rock to represent every one of my family members. On my husband's rock I wrote the word embrace because the thing that I love best about him is being held within his strong arms in a silent embrace every morning before he leaves for work. I realized that my entire life could be like that morning embrace between my husband and I! I could allow myself to be wrapped in God's loving arms and let Him carry me through the coming year, trusting that in good times or in bad, He will always be there loving me and caring for me.

Just as St. Joseph in the icon, my husband in the mornings, and all fathers in life hold and care for the ones they love, God holds and embraces me as well. The Christian life with God is an embrace, a total offering of ourselves to Him and the sweet, precious gift of His total and complete Self in return. In His embrace I can't help but feel the Spirit of the Lord God upon me and I will walk in the peace and joy of His presence every day of the coming year! I'm looking forward to 2012 and believe that it is going to be a very good year!

Bishop Hying-The Dance of Advent

2011-12-08T15:15:00.006-06:00

Have you ever had the experience of relaxing into your pew at Mass, ready to absorb the words of the priest during the homily when suddenly you find your heart racing and your breath coming in short bursts as you realize that his words are directed right at you as if he had peeked inside of your life and your troubles and was offering comfort to you alone as you sat amid the crowd at Mass? Bishop Hying's most recent reflection for the Milwaukee Catholic Herald had just that effect on me; the words I read felt as if they were meant specifically for me, that I could have been the depressed friend he was writing about. Except, this doesn't accurately describe me anymore; my darkness has finally disappeared and I have been walking in the light of joy and peace for two full months now, thanks to the prayers at Lourdes of the very same Bishop who wrote the piece that follows. Perhaps you will feel that these words are meant for you and by reading them, you will also be lifted to a sense of peace and joy in your life this Advent.

The Dance of Advent by Bishop Donald Hying

Several friends have shared with me recently their perception of God’s absence in their lives. One struggles with depression, another is mourning the loss of a loved one and the third is in a spiritual dry spell.

Those conversations drew me back to the dark night experience of Mother Teresa, articulated in the book “Come Be My Light,” which revealed that, in her youth, Mother had prayed to feel what Jesus had experienced on the cross and then was plunged into a decades-long feeling of being abandoned by God. Only gradually did she come to realize that this painful place of spiritual darkness was a participation in the mystery of Jesus’ suffering and death.

Every Advent we hear the beautiful passages from the Old Testament prophets, filled with hope and longing for the coming of the Lord, for the restoration of justice and peace, for a universal salvation, for God to rend the curtain and come down to dwell with his people. As Christians, we know and believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of those deep desires for union with God; he has come to save us and unleash the Kingdom of God into the thick of human history. Christmas is the fulfillment of Advent.

And yet, we sense a deep incompleteness oftentimes in our lives. Peace, justice, mercy and respect seem to elude us more than ever as we scan the morning headlines. Every institution, whether it is the government, the church, the economy, education or health care, seems to be in a profound crisis.

In our own lives, we bear the weight of our human fragility as we cope with unemployment, addictions, broken marriages, sickness, old age or the loss of loved ones. Deep in our bones, we sense that we cannot fix any of this completely on our own, that we need a savior, that God must somehow intervene to set things right.

Here is the struggle. Much of the time, for many of us, God appears to be silent and mysterious, far away and not readily tangible. At times, I have prayed to the Lord in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, pouring out my fears and troubles and I have actually called out loud to God, “Say something! Give me an answer!” But there is only silence. So often, in the despair of our fallen human situation, God seems disturbingly inert. Suffering can break our faith because it feels like divine punishment or, at best, spiritual abandonment.

For me, saints like Mother Teresa, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux offer the solution to this spiritual dilemma through their experience of the dark night. All of them were tested in the crucible of a profound inner suffering during which they felt that God had abandoned them.

Therese went so far as to question the reality of heaven and the existence of God when she was in the tormented throes of her tuberculosis. Mother Teresa, at the height of her spiritual fruitfulness, when she was traveling the world to grow the Missionaries of Charity and serve the poor, felt that God didn’t love her at all.

This terrifying sense of God’s absence seems to be an integral part of the spiritual life, a needed purification on the path of holiness. The mystics would say that God wants to strip us of our false illusions about him and ourselves by seeming to withdraw and remove all consolation. On an intellectual level this makes sense. How will I ever grow deeper into the vast mystery of the divine if I remain content and complacent with spiritual clichés and childish concepts of God? If I want to grow up spiritually, God will have to remove the toys from my playpen and lead me to a more mature sense of his mystery and purpose.

But on an emotional level, this feeling of distance or silence or absence is distressing. We long for a word, an intuition, a caress from God to assure us that he is indeed with us and loves us beyond our imagining. We want to know that we are not alone. Like the prophets, we want God to rend the curtain and come down here in a definitive way that is clear and unmistakable. Yet, the Lord seldom does that on our time schedule or on our terms.

Can we come to see that the mysterious, elusive, silent reality of God is a good thing for us? That the Lord wants to lure us into a quiet and dark place where he can speak to our hearts in a fruitful dialogue of silence? That if we persevere long enough in a disciplined prayer life, we will gradually sense an overwhelming divine presence, even in perceived absence, that the Word will speak in absolute stillness, that God is slowly and gently setting the world and the human heart aright, even when we know nothing about it?

In this holy season of Advent, we dance between the darkness and the light, hope and despair, silence and speech, promise and fulfillment, Christmas and the Second Coming. When you think about it, it is a great place to be.

(Previously published in the December 8th Milwaukee Catholic Herald)

The Power of the Spirit

2011-12-08T11:34:00.007-06:00

"Thanks to the Charismatic Movement, a multitude of Christians, men and women, young people and adults have rediscovered Pentecost as a living reality in their daily lives. I hope that the spirituality of Pentecost will spread in the Church as a renewed incentive to prayer, holiness, communion and proclamation." ~At the First Vespers of Pentecost, a Homily given by Pope John Paul II, Saturday, 29 May 2004

I attended my first ever Charismatic Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception last night at the simple and lovely St. Margaret Mary Parish in Milwaukee. I admit that I was drawn by the name of the church, and once there, was riveted to the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus above the altar, but the purpose of this Mass was to honor the Blessed Mother and the timing of this Mass happened to best fit within my schedule, so not really knowing anything about the Charismatic Movement, yet pleased that I would be able to attend a Mass led by my friend, Bishop Hying, I ventured out for a new faith experience.

The Mass had a nostalgic folk Mass feel about it as the music was led by guitars and it brought back fond memories for me of the late 1980's when my sister and I were members of our parish's Folk Guitar Group. Following the Consecration and Communion, many of the Mass attendees began to "speak in tongues," quietly praying in words that I could not understand. Together, their voices of indistinguishable words made a sweet harmony of praise to God. I recalled the words of St. Paul, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings." Romans 8:26

After Communion, those who desired to share a word, a song, a prophecy or an answered prayer were invited to do so. I was a little unnerved at this portion of the Mass as the woman who had invited the sharing was glaring at me as if she expected me to speak. Had I any bravery whatsoever within me, I would have shared my thoughts on the word "overshadowed" but I kept my silence and instead shared those thoughts here on this blog in the previous post.

I found myself quickly moved by some of the shared stories of healings from cancer and praise for mission trips to Haiti. Then, Bishop Hying and the assisting Deacon were invited to be seated in front of the altar while those who desired to lay hands on them and pray for them were invited to come forward. The Bishop and the Deacon were quickly surrounded by a large group of people so many people, in fact, that they could no longer be seen by those in the pews. Those who had surrounded them began once again to speak in tongues with occasional interjections in English of praise and prophecy for Bishop Hying regarding his gentle spirit and the belief that he will bring about a rainbow of healing for our Archdiocese after the many storms which we have weathered. This was followed by a prayer to the Holy Spirit and the entire church joining in the Glory Be Prayer. I was deeply moved by the sight of Bishop Hying and the Deacon surrounded by the loving prayer of so many faithful and thought it resembled a heavenly vision.

“Love the Holy Spirit, love Him personally,” Father Gerald exhorted us, “for all the good you will ever have in eternity, all the glory that, please God, will be yours, all your joys, all your holiness, all the fervor of your love for Jesus in time and in eternity will be the work of the Holy Spirit in your souls…” ~from Handmaids of the Precious Blood, Oblate Lesson Number Two

Although I hadn't thought of it earlier, while at Mass I reflected upon my most recent Oblate lesson from the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, which just so happens to concern the Holy Spirit this month. How very fitting, and as they say, with God there are no coincidences, that I was able to attend this Mass during a month when I am focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in my life! I don't know if I will ever have another opportunity to attend a Charismatic Mass and I have many questions about the gifts of tongues and prophecies, but I do know that my experience at Mass last night, the things I witnessed and the prayers that welled up within my heart, were a beautiful offering to God in honor of the Blessed Mother, not only because of her Immaculate Conception, but also because of her "yes" to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit through which we have all been saved. As Bishop Hying would say, "It's the power of the Spirit!"

Overshadowed

2011-12-08T05:46:00.007-06:00

"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." ~Luke 1:35

Can you see the lovely girl
alone in the dark of night?
Fear dwells in her heart
right beside an openness
to His holy will.

The reassuring words come softly
"do not be afraid, you have found favor with God"
She is calmed and the question comes-
"Will you?"
She responds with a fiat
and is overshadowed
by the gentle Spirit of Love.

A mysterious presence
covers her,
enters within her,
and she falls to her knees
in awe and wonder
and joy.

She is overshadowed
and because of her
we will never be the same.
Her yes to His Spirit
has brought glory to our lives,
glory to His name,
glory to forever after.

O Blessed overshadowing
that changed the world for all time
that brought the Prince of Peace
to our hearts and redemption
to our souls,
overshadow us as well!

O Blessed overshadowing
we also say "yes".
Overshadow us all
and fill humanity
with the birth of Your Son
in our hearts!

Like our beautiful mother
before us
we long to be
overshadowed!

And Gene Hackman

2011-12-07T06:19:00.024-06:00

I celebrated my birthday recently and my family showered me with love and attention like they had never done before, making me certain that I have the best family in the world. How many teens would willingly give up a night out with their friends or an opportunity to slave away at their dish-washing jobs where they earn college funding in order to spend a Saturday evening at home honoring their mother. And not only did my husband who spends his workdays cooking for others, devote his entire Saturday preparing a delightful dinner of my choice, but my spiritual family-some of my favorite Fathers-Bishop Don Hying and Fr. Matthew Widder, took time away from their busy pastoral responsibilities to join my family in an evening of frolicking fun all because the calendar happened to turn another page and I aged into my 46th year.

After a dinner that rivaled Thanksgiving, we played a rousing game of Apples to Apples. In the game, each player is dealt a hand of seven cards with nouns on them. A card with an adjective is placed on the table and the players choose one of the cards from their hands that, in their opinion, best suits the card on the table. The person whose turn it is chooses one card from all of those played that he feels is the best match to the adjective card and the person who played that card wins the round. If the adjective card played reads "grotesque" some of the cards that might be played to match could include "rodeo clowns" "a corndog" or "a plague of locusts." If the card reads "loyal" some of the matching nouns could be "guardian angel" "Albus Dumbledore" or "haggis". As you can see, some of the answers can be pretty outrageous which is what makes the game so much fun.

Now for some reason, while we were playing the game, the card "Gene Hackman" kept returning to play whether it matched the descriptive word or not, until it became a running joke. The player who read the answers would run through a litany that somehow always ended in "and Gene Hackman!"

Thankfully, God will often bless our spiritual lives with a lot of those Gene Hackman cards just when we feel as if we are at the end of our rope. We might struggle through battling the same temptations, fighting against the acceptance of the monotony of daily life or facing the same difficult person over and over again. Maybe we have difficulty avoiding gossip when we so badly want to spread sweetness each time we open our mouths, or could it be that we find the daily chores of dishes and laundry to be beyond our efforts to complete without complaining? Perhaps we struggle to get along with a negative co-worker, or our trial comes in that recurring headache or the troublesome child who won't seem to obey. We are left to scratch our heads in wonder and maybe even ask "why me" when we grow weary of facing the same sufferings over and over again. Our particular challenges might not seem to make sense, and then, when we feel most alone and desperate, along comes a Gene Hackman card, a little something sweet and joyful that might not quite fit in with our struggles and for that very reason, makes us smile and carries us through.

Maybe that Gene Hackman card is the priest in the confessional who absolves us of our sins of slander, or the child who offers to help with the laundry without being asked. Or our Gene Hackman card could take the shape of a sympathetic co-worker who cracks a joke just when we fear we are going to say something unkind to the bitter complainer. Our Gene Hackman card could be the husband who runs to the pharmacy for aspirin in the middle of the night or the older sibling who distracts the disobedient child with a story. So often, side by side with our difficulties, God will play the Gene Hackman card and thereby bring a smile to our faces as we remember that we are not alone in our struggles, that God is always with us and He will send someone to love us through the darkness of Advent waiting and carry us into the light of Christmas joy where His love is incarnated in our hearts, never to leave us.

May God bless us all with many Gene Hackman cards that bring a recurring smile to our faces and warmth to our hearts as we journey through this season of Advent!

Lullaby Revisited

2011-12-06T10:17:00.010-06:00

My middle son, fifteen-year-old Joe, has fallen ill with the dreaded flu complete with body aches and chills, fever and sore throat. So I've been doting on him more than usual in an effort to nurse him back to health. He asked me for a prayer to bring about immediate health once again, and I suggested to him that although it was good to pray for a restoration to wellness, that doesn't mean that God will quickly bring it about. I offered that maybe it was God's will for him to be sick at this time because he might have been needing extra attention from his mother. At any rate, caring for him brought back this cherished memory, so I offer this repost from two years ago in honor of my beautiful but ailing son...

Lullaby

Well I love my baby sweet and fair
you've got the sky in your eye, the sun in your hair
I rock you to sleep most every night
and sing you this song while I hold you tight

Sleep my baby, the angels keep you from harm
and your Father above
cradles you in his love
safe and warm

Sleep my baby,
nestled in your mama's arms
sleep my baby,
the angels keep you from harm

My baby you'll be sleepin' soon
kissed by the golden stars and moon
I have just one wish for you
may your every dream come true

~Appalachian Lullaby

I don't have any little babies in my household anymore. My last baby is now 8 years old. I am so grateful to be done with the diapers, and the colic, the temper tantrums and the potty training. I do miss the breastfeeding, baby curled up close, skin touching skin, mouth clicking rhythmically as a little drop of milk slips out of the corner of the rosebud mouth while eyes roll dramatically to the back of the head as sleep comes on (often for both baby and me!) That really was my favorite part of mothering so far. I also miss the bedtime stories and the lullabies.

For many years, I had the habit of kneeling beside my children's beds at night and saying the traditional bedtime prayers with my five little ones. But lately, I started to think that maybe they were getting too old to be praying "Now I lay me down to sleep" and "Angel of God" every night. I was thinking that maybe it was time for them to develop their own ways of praying to God with their own words. So, we started an examination of conscience at bedtime and spent a few minutes in silent prayer to thank God for the day and to tell Him that we were sorry for our sins. Before I knew it, I let them take that silent time with God by themselves, and our family bedtime ritual fell by the wayside, as so many honored rituals often do.

Then, a few nights ago, eight year old Mary, who still loves to snuggle in the evening, asked me if I would sing her a lullaby. How could I resist? I sat at the edge of her bed, tucked her up to her sweet chin in her downy quilt, and stroked her face with my finger, just as I did when she was a baby, and I quietly sang her favorite lullaby, soft and low. Soon, her eyelids fluttered one last time, her breathing slowed and sleep overcame her. I left her with a sign of the cross on her forehead and a tender kiss on her cheek.

I began to tiptoe back downstairs, but thirteen-year-old Joe and ten-year-old Jack, listening from their bedroom, stopped me. "Mom, we want a lullaby, too," they told me. "Are you sure?" I asked in disbelief. They nodded emphatically. So, I tucked them both tightly into their beds like I hadn't done in years, and began the song again. I brushed the golden, shaggy hair from their foreheads, and ran my finger across their cheeks and chins. I could see the glimmer of faint smiles come across their faces even though the room was dark. Soon, they also drifted into a pleasant sleep. I made the sign of the cross on their foreheads, kissed their sweet cheeks, no longer chubby, but now becoming somewhat chiseled with the strength of adolescence, and sighed my own breath of contentment as I left them in their slumber.

It felt so good to return to those pleasant days that I had thought were long over for me. This morning Joe asked me if I would do it all over again tonight. I told him I wouldn't miss it for the world! I guess you never outgrow those tender moments of love with your children, hearts gently beating with the warm glow of family love, peace overcoming everyone. A lullaby really is a prayer, isn't it? It's like the words of the great St. Augustine when he said that singing is praying twice. My lullaby was both a prayer of longing for a future with God and a prayer of gratitude in remembrance of the love of days gone by. I can't wait until tonight so I can sing a bedtime prayer to my children once again.

My Heart is Moved With Pity

2011-12-05T15:52:00.005-06:00

Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, VA has written a beautiful Pastoral Letter on the Heart of Christ this past October. The full version of Fountain of Life, Fire of Love, can be read in its entirety here. What follows is the excerpt that I found to be the most profoundly stirring to my own heart. How blessed we are to be held within the Heart of Christ, moved with pity and burning with love for each of us!

"One of the most striking and moving passages in the New Testament, which reveals the tender and compassionate love of God made visible in His Divine Son, comes from the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “At the sight of the crowd Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned”(Mt. 9:36 a).

The Sacred Heart of our Lord was moved with pity at the sight of the crowds that came to Him in first century Galilee. He had compassion at the sight of the burdens and wounds that the people carried. The word “troubled” in this passage from the Gospel is a translation of the original Greek word eskulmenoi, which is figurative language originating in a word that denotes skin lacerations or, more literally and graphically, refers to being skinned alive. This dramatic vocabulary does not indicate the physical condition of the people; rather it expresses the profound pain that afflicted them. Our Lord gazed with deep insight and love into each of their hearts as they came to Him. He saw their history of hurt, self-inflicted wounds, self-loathing, and relationships in family and life that caused deep pain and alienation. He saw them helpless, “abandoned,” under the burden of these wounds, and this moved His Heart. Still today our Lord Jesus gazes upon each of us. He knows our every fiber and He sees our very darkest moments and wounds. Jesus sees all and looks upon us with deep loving compassion for our lacerated souls. For we too have the same interior wounds that burdened those people two thousand years ago.

Our Lord’s compassion of Heart for us is not just a sentiment, but an active loving response that heals. As often as Jesus gazes on the people with pity, He heals them (cf. Mt. 14:2). Healing is of the essence of redemption and salvation. Our Lord does not save us in an external way like someone would grab another person and boost them up to a higher place. He transforms interiorly. As part of this transformation, Jesus heals our wounds of failed and disordered loves with His own true intimate steadfast love. As we gaze upon His Sacred Heart, Jesus invites us to come to Him with our heavy burdens and wounds to receive rest and healing. In His wounded Heart, we experience ourselves as loved and our burdens shared. We see its wound and crown of thorns and we know that He has taken up and suffered our pain. We look upon the flames that pour from the top of His Heart with the Cross in their midst, and we recognize that He has conquered our pain and can truly heal us...

...Part of the essence of the healing devotion to the Sacred Heart is believing in and accepting an intimate and amazing love that we could never earn or deserve, and living in the light and joy of that love. In this confidence we have the holy audacity to look at ourselves unflinchingly and bring all of our wounds and failures to the Sacred Heart of Jesus."

Much thanks to Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, for sharing this achingly loving document with me!

Seven Quick Takes-Advent Joy

2011-12-02T06:18:00.011-06:00

It used to be that waiting was so difficult, but with each passing year, I'm finding this season of anticipation to be filled with joy, so, today's quick takes are all about recent joys in my life. I pray that your Advent is off to a joyful start as well!

1. I often hear people talking about their baptismal dates and I had no clue when I was baptized. So I began looking through the records and found that I was baptized on December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Sacred Heart parish in Manitowoc, WI. But what really impressed me was the name of the priest who baptized me: Fr. Claude LeClair! Claude is not a very common name and I was struck by the similarity to St. Claude de la Columbierre-one of my favorite saints for his part in promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus! I believe that is a clear sign from God that from the very beginning of my life I was meant to have a strong devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

2. Our dentist is amazing! We first met Dr. Baggott and his wife, Marion, when I was pregnant with John and they were the teachers for our baptism class. Their son is now a dentist as well, and Marion works as the receptionist in their office so the family works together. Their dental skills are amazing but their people skills and their faith are even more amazing. They always let me schedule a group appointment for our whole family which is very convenient, but more than that, they take our faith into account when scheduling appointments. Our next appointment is coming up on December 8th and Marion was sure to mention that they would have us out in time to attend the 7 PM Holy Day Mass for the Immaculate Conception. What other dentist would even realize that December 8th is a Holy Day and care enough to make sure that their patients get to Mass?

3. How are you doing with the Missal changes? I'm loving the new prayers, although not a single daily Mass has gone by where I haven't flubbed the new wording somehow and ended up praying some type of hybrid prayer such as "And also with your spirit!" Last week I beamed with pride as my daughter had the honor of presenting one of the new missals to Fr. Dave for his blessing upon it at the all-school Mass. Although the school children have been well-catechized about the changes (my daughter was even working on memorizing the new creed, mistakenly believing that she was responsible to know it by heart already) I think they could have used a bit more educating about the name "missal". Mary thought that she had been asked to carry a weapon of destruction (missile) to the altar instead of a book of prayer! :)

Today as Jack and Mary and I were seated in the front of church for Mass and I watched Fr. Paul as he paged through the missal, I noticed some colorful artwork inside. I'd love to have an opportunity to page through the book myself someday!

4. The Salzmann Library at St. Francis de Sales Seminary continues to be a great resource for my spiritual education! I had wanted a copy of Fr. Robert Barron's Catholicism, but the price was pretty steep for my pocket book. How wonderful that Kathy and Mark, the librarians, were able to set aside a copy for me so that I could watch it without cost! I highly recommend that you pay a visit to this powerhouse of spiritual materials if you are in the Milwaukee area!

5. Speaking of Catholicism, have you had a chance to watch it yet? It is amazing! I was most touched by the episodes on the Blessed Mother and the saints, yet every episode was equally good! The episode about the saints was especially moving to me because of the particular saints that Fr. Barron highlighted including St. Katherine Drexel and St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). My friend Karinann at Daughter of the King prays for heavenly guidance as she chooses a saint to become a companion to those who desire a year-long friendship with a special saint. Last year Karinann informed me that Edith Stein had chosen to accompany me through 2011 and for 2012 my special heavenly friend will be St. Katherine Drexel. It was a thrill to hear Fr. Barron speak about these two amazing women who are now so spiritually close to me!

If you would like Karinann to ask a saint to accompany you during 2012, just visit her blog and leave her a comment. I'm sure she will be very happy to find a spiritual companion for you!

6. One of my favorite places is St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, not only because of its historical significance in naturally beautiful surroundings, but also because of the good work that is done there in forming men for the priesthood. Recently a local news channel ran a great story about the seminary featuring two fabulous seminarians, Patrick Burns and Philip Shumaker, as well as Patrick's brother, Fr. John Burns. Although the headline was a bit negative, the men in the story only gleamed positive. Check it out here.

7. Finally, a visit to the Deacon's Bench this morning made me smile! I enjoyed watching this video , Bethlehemian Rhapsody, so much that I re-played for each of my children as they woke this morning and we all started our day with joy. Maybe you'll enjoy it as well

Visit Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary for more quick takes.

Secret Trust

2011-11-29T16:11:00.011-06:00

I've been asked to speak about the Blessed Mother at my parish this coming March. It's part of a monthly program called Church Chat where "experts" speak about an aspect of the Catholic faith in a question and answer format. When I was first approached to speak about Mary I was so thrilled that there was to be a session about her that I quickly said yes. Of course, unlike the Blessed Mother, my yes's are never really final and peaceful, they always seem to be followed by a great deal of anxiety, and this yes was no exception. I soon found myself panicking over what I should say and the possibility that someone might ask a question that I'm unable to answer, after all, I'm certainly no theologian, I'm just a mom! Besides, I'm most comfortable hiding behind a keyboard, not standing out in the open and speaking to others.

I tried to back out and suggested that they ask someone who really knows what he's talking about and has the ability to inspire, like Bishop Hying. But, everyone knows that the Bishop is terribly busy these days, so my suggestion was downplayed with that excuse and the affirming words that "everyone has great faith in you and is confident that you will do a good job." So, I'm going to speak about Mary this March and you can be sure that I have been praying to her day and night pleading for her assistance and will go on praying to her until that talk is behind me and the people who attend will have gained some new and wonderful insight into the Blessed Mother and why Catholics are so devoted to her.

I'm sure it also helps to read and study all that I can get my hands on about our wonderful Lady, so with that in mind, I recently took my beloved copy of Caryll Houselander's The Reed of God off the bookshelf and have decided to make it an Advent tradition to re-read this enchanting little book each year. Her words, her wisdom, are achingly beautiful and resoundingly true, and the way she sees inside of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the working of the Holy Spirit within her is so inspiring.

Maybe I can just read The Reed of God at the Church Chat session and let Caryll Houselander do all the work! I certainly could use a little of the secret trust that she speaks of in this segment from the chapter Fiat...

"Our Lady was at the most fourteen when the angel came to her; perhaps she was younger. The whole world trembled on the word of a child, on a child's consent. To what was she asked to consent? First of all, to the descent of the Holy Spirit, to surrender her littleness to the Infinite Love, and as a result to become the Mother of Christ. It was so tremendous, yet so passive. She was not asked to do anything herself, but to let something be done to her. She was not asked to renounce anything, but to receive an incredible gift. She was not asked to lead a special kind of life, to retire to the temple and live as a nun, to cultivate suitable virtues or claim special privileges. She was simply to remain in the world, to go forward with her marriage to Joseph, to live the life of an artisan's wife, just what she planned to do when she had no idea that anything out of the ordinary would ever happen to her.

It almost seemed as if God's becoming man and being born of a woman were ordinary. The whole thing was to happen secretly. There was to be no announcement. The psalmists had hymned Christ's coming on harps of gold. The prophets foretold it with burning tongues. But now the loudest telling of His presence on earth was to be the heartbeat within the heartbeat of a child. It was to be a secret and God was so jealous of His secret that He even guarded it at the cost of His bride's seeming dishonor. He allowed Joseph to misjudge her, at least for a time.

This proved that God knew our Lady's trust in Him was absolutely without limit. Everything that He did to her in the future emphasized the same thing. His trust in her trust of Him."

Guest Post on Thankfulness by Bishop Donald Hying

2011-11-28T09:49:00.007-06:00

A few years ago, Bishop Hying came to my parish to celebrate Vespers and to share an evening of reflection with those in attendance. It was here that I first heard about the "chicken incident" which follows in the story below. Being deeply moved by his story of the family who had so little yet gave so much, I shared it with a coworker the next day who asked a practical question: "What did Bishop Hying do with the chicken?" The answer was that the cook prepared it and it was delivered back to the family from whom it originated. Generous giving in gratitude always begets more thankful giving, doesn't it? Enjoy Bishop Hying's Thanksgiving reflection from the November 25th issue of the Milwaukee Catholic Herald.

When I worked in the Dominican Republic in our sister parish, I befriended a family that seemed poorer than most. They lived in an isolated place filled with wind, sky and dust, but without electricity, water or even a latrine and had only one of everything: one child, a one-room house, one chair, one daily meal, one table, one bed, one pot, and one chicken. We often said that we would have an enormous feast together when that chicken was good and fat! They got word to me one day that their daughter was sick, so I went to their home, anointed and prayed with the girl and then sat outside under a sea of stars and talked into the night with my friends. When it was time to leave, the father untied their chicken and handed it to me in gratitude for coming. We proceeded to argue for 20 minutes in Spanish about this until I realized my friend would be insulted if I refused the gift. So here I was, in the end, bumping down this rough road in an old truck with a living, clucking chicken next to me on the front seat, laughing my head off at the enormity of God’s grace.

Whenever I think of Thanksgiving or the Eucharist, I recall this profound experience in my life. Like the widow in the Gospel, this family which had so little gave away a most prized possession as a loving gesture of gratitude. Like God the Father who gives away his Son, the Good Shepherd who goes after the one stray or the challenge Jesus offers to the rich young man, we are called to a heroic generosity which is not afraid to give its all in a love that is astonishingly particular. Perhaps, we can only hand over as a gift to others what we first recognize as a gift poured into our lives by God who is both gracious and generous. Gratitude grounds and forms all actions of charity.

When I think of my friends in the Dominican Republic, I often wondered why they never complained about the poverty of their lives, the lack of money, food and opportunities, the harsh lot of work in the fields that was theirs. One could reasonably argue that they should have been angry at the injustice of life, envious of the rich, trying to overthrow the system, resentful of the hand dealt them. And yet they were not. They were surprisingly happy, faith-filled, generous and free of self-pity. They carried themselves with a dignity and confidence that belied their circumstances. Then I realized that the “chicken incident” was the key that answered my questions. My Dominican friends’ great secret of joy flowed from their deep gratitude to God for everything.

As we pause this week to thank the Lord for all good gifts and as the Church pauses every day to offer praise and thanks to the Father in the Eucharist, we know how much we have been given. Life itself, parents, family and friends, food and shelter, education and books, love and joy, Jesus, the Church and the sacraments, the promise of salvation and the experience of forgiveness, the beauty of nature and poetry and so many other experiences and opportunities remind us that our existence is mysterious and magical. The Lord has given us so much, even beyond our ability to comprehend the enormity of the gift. All we can do in return is offer our thanks and praise to God and then generously share everything that has been lavished on us.

Gratitude frees us from jealousy, anger, self-pity and resentment. A grateful heart stops asking for more and instead wonders why so much already. A spirit filled with thanksgiving clings to nothing because it knows all came from God and all is returning to Him. Gratitude takes me out of the center and puts God there, as we worship the Lord of all gifts in thanks and praise. Resentment seeks a higher place but will never be satisfied; gratitude gladly takes a lower seat because it is already full. Grateful people smile more, forgive readily, volunteer cheerfully, put more in the collection and hand over their only chicken to an astonished friend because they have fallen in love with the Lord of the feast and know that all was His in the first place. Thanksgiving invites us to look about our lives in wonder and awe at how much God must love us because we have all of this from His gracious hands!

Rend the Heavens

2011-11-27T10:44:00.012-06:00

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!"
Isaiah 64:1

I've been a lector for the past four years and with a prayer to the Holy Spirit before I approach the ambo to proclaim His word, I usually do just fine. But every once in a while the power of a passage fills my heart and soul and gets stuck in my throat. My nerves are overcome and my voice quakes as if it were the first time I'd ever attempted to read His holy words. Today was such a day. I wanted to stop right at that powerful passage and cry out with Isaiah...

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

A teenage boy leaves home with a pocket full of money
and wanders the streets all weekend
going from house to house looking for shelter
and a hot shower and a warm meal.
Where is the love of his mother?
Invited to participate in Mass, he asks,
"What is Mass?"

Rend the heavens!

A parish struggles under budgetary constraints
brought on by empty pews and empty hearts
and considers letting a priest go,
considers making do with less prayerful leadership,
less lifting up of God in worship,
in favor of more buildings.

Rend the heavens!

Young boys want to start a basketball team
and the priest rightly asks
"Why should I let you use my gym
when I never see you at Mass and
you aren't enrolled in Confirmation classes?"
We want the Church to serve us but
we fail to serve the Church.

Rend the heavens!

Babies are born to unwed teenage mothers
who barely know how to care for themselves
much less a new young life,
and mother and child cry together
for want of basic necessities and for love.

Rend the heavens!

These are dark days, O Lord.
Our hearts yearn for you
although we hardly allow
ourselves to know it
and we disguise our need behind
a false set of wants and a false sense of self.

Rend the heavens, O Lord, and come down!
Fill our hearts with a deep love for You.
End our misery, our poverty, our want,
and our spiritual starvation.
Show us that with You at our side
nothing else matters,
You are all we need.

O that you would rend the heavens and come down!
O that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Advent: The Season for...Fighting?

2011-11-26T18:35:00.005-06:00

Every year it’s the same story when Advent comes around…Advent, which means, “come”. The ideals that our family holds up, the things we most want to come into our lives are peace, harmony and joy. We always start with the best intentions. We create a homemade Advent wreath, cutting fresh sprigs of cedar from our trees in the backyard and fill a glass pie dish with the greens and four candles, violet and pink. We lovingly place the wreath at the center of our kitchen table. Each evening as part of our dinner prayer, the children take turns lighting a candle and reading a prayer about building the stable in our hearts for Jesus. Doesn’t that sound beautiful? No greedy dreams of Christmas wishes for toys and gadgets. No secular Christmas music blaring from our radio. No loading up on Christmas treats and Christmas decorations before the season actually arrives. Just peace, harmony and joy around our Advent kitchen table.

Now for the reality check. It’s true we make a beautiful Advent wreath each year and lovingly place it at the center of our kitchen table. It’s true the children take turns lighting the candles and saying the prayer. But I’m sorry to admit that it is not as beautiful as it sounds. Each night, after the children are called to the dinner table, the arguing ensues before anyone even sits down. “Mom, can I light the candle tonight?” comes out of nearly every child’s mouth, followed by “You did it last night, it’s my turn!” And “No, it’s my turn!” As whose turn it will actually be to light the candle is decided, the arguments begin over who will do the reading of the prayer. The older boys have long since decided that the fight is not worth the effort, as the smaller ones almost always win out with their louder cries and complaints.

I often wonder if anyone is actually paying attention to the prayer, as it often turns out that the child who is lighting the candle struggles with the lighter and everyone tries to help. Then, the prayer reader usually struggles with some difficult words which seems to take a great deal of meaning out of the prayer, as the sibling next to the reader helps with pronunciation. By the time the candle is finally lit and the prayer is said, my family often has to rush through supper as our busy evening of homework, dishes, basketball practice, laundry and volunteer work looms overhead. The lighting of the candle and the reciting of the prayer seem like one more thing we have to get through, rather than something to slow us down and change our focus from busy activity to quiet contemplation.

But, I believe that somewhere down the line, my children will remember this tradition, even with the fighting included, and have fond memories and traditions to pass on to their own children. I believe that in their hearts they will remember the meaning behind the tradition. They will remember that our main intention was to invite the light of Christ into our home and our hearts, day after day, no matter what challenges stood in the way. They will remember that our family dinnertime was important enough to take place before all of the busy evening activities, and that our family prayer time was important enough to take place before our family dinner. Christ comes first in our lives, then family, then busy activities. They will remember that they had to learn to work out their differences. They will remember the satisfaction of learning to be patient with the lighting of the candle and the reading of the prayer. They will remember how good it felt to forgo their turn at candle lighting to let one of the younger ones enjoy that privilege.

As we journey together through the dark days of Advent, the light of God must be entering our hearts without our awareness, because little by little, the arguing gives way to loving assistance and patient understanding, until the arguing is all but forgotten and only the joy of our Advent waiting in family love remains. Not only do I wait patiently for Christmas, but I also wait for the day when our children will have all left home and Paul and I will be left alone to fight over who gets to light the Advent candle and say the prayer. So I whisper my own little prayer to Jesus, “Take your time, let us enjoy this present moment of dark Advent waiting, and let us enjoy this present time with children in our home to love and enjoy. Teach us not to hurry through Advent and not to hurry through life. Teach us to find you, right here, right now, God with us, Emmanuel. Christmas will “come”, the day that the children leave home will “come”, but for right now, let us remain in the gift of the present moment, even if we do have to put up with a few fights now and then.”

(a re-post from the archives)

Life Lessons by Bob Dolan

2011-11-25T11:14:00.010-06:00

"Realize this: joy is not pleasure! The secret to real and true joy is to be at every moment of our lives convinced of God's love for us and to bask in it and to be grateful for it and then to return that love to Him. When we put our lives in God's hands, when we have absolute faith and hope in Jesus, then we will live a life of immense joy."

~Archbishop Timothy Dolan, from Life Lessons from my Life with my Brother, Archbishop Timothy Dolan by Bob Dolan

My birthday is coming up this week and for a gift I only wanted one thing-a reliquary to properly contain my St. Margaret Mary relic. There is only one place in Milwaukee that carries reliquaries, and that is Stemper's Religious Goods. So, my husband told me to go and purchase one for myself for my gift. As I arrived at the counter to pay for the reliquary, I spied Life Lessons from my Life with my Brother, Archbishop Timothy Dolan by Bob Dolan, on the counter. I had heard good things about the book so I thought, why not pick it up, too, as an extra birthday present to myself. Fr. John Hemsing, the new rector of St. Francis de Sales Seminary was behind me in line and commented that he was also beginning to read the book so I was grateful to know that I was in good company in my reading preference. Even better, the manager at Stemper's mentioned that he had some autographed copies in stock and found one for me. Buying the book was a good decision.

It's rare day that passes without part of it being spent with my face buried in a book, but despite that fact, there aren't many books that I am able I finish in one sitting. Bob Dolan's Life Lessons from my Life with my Brother, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, was one of those books that I completed in one day, and I didn't exactly whip through it, either. Instead, I found myself frequently stopping to ponder what I had read and to put it in perspective with my own life. In a word, the book was excellent!

It's no secret to Imprisoned in my Bones readers that I am a huge Archbishop Dolan fan. I've practically written about him in every other post for the past two and half years! In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find one person who isn't an Archbishop Dolan fan, after all, to know him, or even to know of him, is to love him.

Everyone who is familiar with Archbishop Dolan has got great stories to tell about him. My own favorite was the phone call that was placed to our house on the eve of my daughter Mary's First Communion. Although that was four years ago, I am kicking myself to this day that I didn't ask who was calling when I answered the phone and heard a man ask to speak with Mary. Had I known who it was, I would have lingered in conversation with him for a while before handing the phone over to my daughter. I suppose it's lucky for the Archbishop that I didn't know it was him and he was spared my endless prattling. Instead, I simply handed the phone to Mary and when the call was finished asked her who it was. Her matter-of-fact tone stunned me. "It was Archbishop Dolan calling to congratulate me on my First Communion," as if he had called our house every day!

And I have no idea how in the world my family's name was placed on Archbishop Dolan's Christmas card list, but each year when his wonderful card comes in the mail, I frame it and leave it out for the remainder of the year so that I can enjoy it again and again. Archbishop Dolan is a spiritual hero to be sure, one whose touch through the smallest action can have the power to change your life for the better.

So just imagine what it must be like to have known Archbishop Dolan for your entire life, to have grown up with him and lived with him and to share genes with him! Bob Dolan has said that he is the only one who could write this book from his viewpoint, and of course that's exactly right. Nobody knows Archbishop Dolan like his brother does. The book alternates between important life events for the Archbishop and how those events have impacted his brother, Bob, and faith lessons that Archbishop Dolan has shared with his brother over the years.

I found the book to be easy to read and deeply touching as it was quite evident throughout that Bob Dolan has a deep love and respect for his brother. The personal stories were written with so much love that I couldn't help but feel warmed inside as I read them. It was clear that Bob Dolan finds it challenging to share his brother with the world despite the fact that his brother's place in the Church has brought Bob to share in his joy in some of the most fascinating places and at the most dramatic events such as his installation Mass as Archbishop of New York.

Tender, too, were the sections where Bob interviews his brother about many of the questions and concerns that average Catholics have about their faith. The author writes in such a way as to make the reader feel that even his or her biggest faith questions are normal, but with the wise words from the stories that Archbishop Dolan tells, we are all lifted up to a desire to live our faith better, to become living saints. Bob speaks about how part of his brother's appeal comes from his self-deprecating humor, but it is clear that the author has some self-deprecating humor of his own, especially concerning Jameson and beer!

I absolutely loved Life Lessons! The value of the words and ideals, the example of the loving relationship between the Dolan brothers, and the glory of living the Catholic faith that is contained within this book are lessons that will remain with me for a long time.

Lay Associate of the Priesthood

2011-11-22T15:47:00.013-06:00

"My beloved Jesus, by the Precious Blood which you did shed on the day of the Circumcision, deign to watch over the infancy and early education of the children whom You have destined to minister at the altar, that they may be preserved spotless till consecrated to You by the Holy Unction. Bless the families that honor Your Precious Blood and spread this devotion by choosing from their midst a large number of vocations to the priesthood and by maintaining their fervor till the close of their lives.

Our Lady of the Precious Blood, watch over the living chalices of the Blood of Jesus. Amen."

~part of Prayers for Priests and Those Destined for the Priesthood which is recited daily by the Handmaids of the Precious Blood as a closing prayer after Vespers. The beautiful prayer continues in a litany format comprising the various life events of a man discerning the priesthood and throughout his priestly life up until his time of death.

It was one month ago when I became enrolled as a Candidate for the Oblates of the Precious Blood. Since then I have received my first lesson, The Primacy of the Spiritual, a lovely and inspiring five page document about the importance of placing God first in my life and the value of suffering.

As part of the candidacy process, I have been enrolled as a "Lay Associate of the Priesthood." What a joy it was for me to receive the name of a priest for whom I will pray the following prayer daily for the rest of my life:

"Lord Jesus, live in all priests and help them truly appreciate their unique oneness with You so that they shall never crave for more or less than just Yourself and Your Love forever.

Grant Father (n.) the grace to seek for no other joy than Your Love and the privilege of bringing it to others.

Grant to me, an ever-deepening reverence of Your Priesthood. And when death ends my life here on earth, may You, the Eternal High Priest, reveal to me in the Beatific Vision the consolation everlasting of having prayed and sacrificed for Your priests on earth. Amen."

Do you feel called to pray for a specific priest on a daily basis? You, too, can become a "Lay Associate of the Priesthood." All that is required is a desire to spiritually adopt a priest through prayer and commit to praying for him daily.

There are currently 40,000 priests in the United States in need of prayer. The Handmaids of the Precious Blood, a cloistered community in New Mexico, keep a list of the priests names and they would welcome those who are willing to spiritually adopt a priest and pray for him daily. All they ask is that you commit to praying the above prayer for your priest by his first name each day. If gratitude for the gift of the priesthood in your life compels you to prayer, please consider sending the Handmaids of the Precious Blood an email letting them know about your desire to spiritually adopt a priest and they will send you the daily prayer along with the name of priest who needs and would welcome your prayer.

To learn more about the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and to discern whether or not you might be called to join in association with their mission to pray for priests, visit this link:

http://www.nunsforpriests.org/

By Patient Endurance You Will Save Your Life

2011-11-22T10:11:00.003-06:00

At St. Matthias parish we are blessed with the presence of Fr. Dan Murphy who occasionally celebrates daily Mass with us. So often I hear people say that these are "the end times" and so I found his homily today to be especially beautiful and comforting. I asked him if I could share his words here so that others might also be comforted by his tender and true words and he agreed. His homily follows:

By patient endurance you will save your life.
-Luke 21:19

Some people don’t seem to be satisfied until they have something to worry about; even imaginary troubles. Jesus tells us about some calamities today. The beautiful temple of Jerusalem —it’ll be torn down; not one stone on another. There will be false messiahs. There will be wars, natural disasters and the betrayals of friends and relatives. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. And every one of these things has happened over and over again ever since.

Can you think of one generation that hasn’t seen wars, hurricanes, floods, persecutions and the collapse of some sacred institution? In just the past few years we watched the awesome Twin Towers in New York get smashed to dust. We watched the unfolding of the priest sex abuse disaster and the Catholic bishops attempt to cover it up. Even in your own personal life, you’ve had events that felt like an earthquake.

Are you ready for some good news? Jesus answers: "By patient endurance you will save your life." Jesus warns you to avoid the easy answers. He knew that many false messiahs would come, using his name. And they have. These people claim to have an easy, quick solution to all of your problems. What’s his advice? Don't follow them. Yes, it’s a big temptation to think of faith in God as an easy way out. “Are you in financial difficulty? Try Jesus. He’ll make you rich. Is your health failing? Try Jesus. He’ll make you well."

Is that what he promised? Does he give easy escapes from the very real problems of life? Oh no! It’s just the opposite. “They will persecute you because of my name. All will hate you because of me.” That doesn't sound like an easy escape to me. Jesus has no easy answers. But he does have a promise. "Not a hair of your head will be harmed." "I will be with you always."

When all’s going wrong, you can count on that promise, on that loving presence, on that unfailing nearness. “Come to me all you who find life a heavy burden and I will refresh you.”

The future is in the hands of God. And that’s the best place for it to be. The future is not in your control. You’ll only make yourself sick by trying to go there. The only time that God gives you is right now.

So, don’t look for him on a pink cloud or with a jeweled crown. Look for him in our gathering together right here, right now. Look for him in the words of the Bible, in the Host you cradle in your hand and on your tongue. Look for him at home, on the faces of your dear ones. But look for him especially where he told you to look: in the faces of people who are hungry and thirsty. Look for him in the people who feel alone. Look for him in people who are defenseless, those who feel sick and even for people who are locked up in prison. And the next time you glance at a mirror look for him inside of you. He’s in there. Honor him.

At those times when it’s hard to live in the present moment. Listen to the voice of Jesus: “My name is God-with-you. I will wipe away all the tears from your eyes. There will be no more death, mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone.” Yes, it’s time to stop worrying because:

By patient endurance you will save your life.

Whether the Lord is coming this Thanksgiving or a thousand years from now, that’s none of your business. Your task is to live as if he were arriving this very day. Some day he will come in power and glory to wipe away every tear. But today he’s coming quietly, softly, invisibly.

By patient endurance you will save your life.

Mass for the People by Caryll Houselander

2011-11-21T18:24:00.009-06:00

It's such a blessing to have a friend who knows you well, who perceives what will move you and who shares things with you understanding that it will touch your heart. I have a friend like that in Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, who, while on retreat, came across a story by one of my all-time favorite authors and the subject of many of my past blog posts, Caryll Houselander, and he promptly sent the story on to me for my enjoyment. Not only was it a moving story written by her creative hand, but the subject matter was also near and dear to my heart; it's the story of a priest offering Mass. I tried to find the source of this story online but had no luck, so I will share some of my favorite passages here and I pray that the words will touch your heart as deeply as they touched mine.

(Fr. Jim is currently in Rome and will be sharing parts of his Roman adventure on his blog "Offer it Up." Please pay him a visit to follow along with his experiences!)

excerpts from Mass for the People by Caryll Houselander:

"The priest was on the side of life, he had no other work, no other raison d'etre but to give life, and the life he gave could not be killed. He was not outside of the world's love because he was a priest and alone, he was the heart of the world's love, its core, because the Life of the World is born every day in His hands at Mass.

Father O'Grady made the Sign of the Cross. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen," and bowed down under the burden of the sins of the whole world. His own sins were a heavy enough load, and now he bowed under the weight of all sin. But when he straightened himself up from the Confiteor, the burden of the whole world's sin, and his own with it, had fallen from his back, and his shoulders were strong. For it was Christ who rose up and went up to the altar-Christ who had seen evil naked, face to face, Christ who had been brought down to the ground, under the world's sin to sweat blood into the dust, and Christ who had overcome the world.

He lifted the unconsecrated Host, light as a petal on its thin golden paten, and with it lifted the simple bread of humanity, threshed and sifted by poverty and suffering. He offered the broken fragments of their love, made into one loaf.

He lifted the wine and water mixed in the Chalice, and with it offered the blood and the tears of his people to God.

And God accepted the offering, the fragments of love were gathered up into the wholeness of Love and nothing was wasted.

Slowly, exactly, Father O'Grady repeated the words of Consecration, his hands moved in Christ's hands, his voice spoke in Christ's voice, his words were Christ's words, his heart beat in Christ's heart.

Fr. O'Grady lifted up the consecrated Host in his short, chapped hands, the server rang a little bell, the sailor, the handful of old women and the very old man bowed down whispering "My Lord and my God" and the breath of their adoration was warm on their cold fingers.

Father O'Grady was lifting up God.

A cry arose from all over the world, "Come down from the Cross if you are the Son of God!" "Save yourself and us too if you are the Christ."

But Christ remained on the Cross. His fingers closed on the nails. The Crown of Thorns was in flower, the five ribs like the five fingers of the world's pain gripped His heart, and His heart broke open and the river of the world's life flowed out of it. A crimson flood sweeping His heart and brain and flowing into the tips of His fingers, swept through His Mystical Body. Through the eternal heart of Rome, through the lonely mind of her august Shepherd, out into the least and lowliest of men, and the last little infant howling at the touch of the waters of Baptism, the blood of the world's life flowed into the finger tips, which stretched out on the Cross, measuring the reach and stretch and extremity and ultimate possibility of love.

The world strained at the nails, wrenched and dragged, the Cross was shaken in the earth, bent like a tree in the storm, dragged earthward by the weight of man's body, but it was rooted in rock, and the Cross was built to the shape of man, not man to the shape of the Cross. The world's suffering was built and fitted to the size of each man, and the Cross stood.

"Come down, come down, come down!"

But Christ would not come down from the Cross.

The little server rang his silver bell.
The people bowed down low.
Time stopped.
Fr. O'Grady was lifting up God in his large, chapped hands.
Christ remained on the Cross.
The blood and sweat and tears of the world were on His face. he smiled, the smile of infinite peace, the ineffable bliss of consummated love."

Wait

2011-11-21T11:09:00.011-06:00

Each year on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the WIC Clinic where I work participates in our local community's "Family to Family Thanksgiving" which distributes 3000 turkey dinners to the needy in our community annually. Since I am the only staff member at work who drives a van, my small role is to drive to the warehouse to pick up the 30 dinners that we are alloted and bring them back to our clinic where we share them with our neediest families.

Every year on turkey day (as it is affectionately known) I leave the house in the morning to find that my husband has already lovingly turned the car seats down to make extra room for all of the turkeys that I will be transporting. As I arrive at the warehouse where the dinners are distributed, I pull into a line of cars, turn my hazard lights on and wait for my turn. When I finally reach the loading dock, I am greeted by about 50 volunteers who open the doors of my van and fill it to the brim with the holiday food. How I wish my weekly grocery shopping experience for my family could be like this! Just pull up to the grocery store and a bunch of people come out and load all of your groceries for you!

Today as I waited in line to present my humble and lowly van to the volunteers who would fill it with food for those who are physically hungry, I had ample time to pray the rosary, and I thought about the beauty of today's Feast Day, the Presentation of the Blessed Mother.

Like me waiting in line, Mary waited, too; in fact she lifted the virtue of patience to an exalted state as she waited to be presented at the Temple by St. Joachim and St. Anne, after which she waited to learn what God's will for her life would be. And His will was for her body to be filled with the Bread of Life who would feed those who were hungry not for physical satiation but rather for spiritual fulfillment. Upon His birth, she waited yet again for his quiet and uneventful years of growth to pass by and for His mission to begin.

And she knew.

She knew that His mission would end in tortuous death, yet she waited for it with peace. As the crucifixion occured, she continued to patiently wait as she stood at the foot of the cross, silently suffering with Her Son. Then, after His lifeless body was placed in the tomb, she waited for His resurrection and ascension into glory.

Today, the time that I spent waiting in my van to pick up the Thanksgiving dinners became a perfect pause of thankful prayer united with the Queen of patience, and I hope that the Blessed Mother will continue to calmly stay by my side and by the side of all of her children, as we wait for our own presentations in the heavenly Kingdom of God. I returned to work, van weighed down with food to nourish the physically hungry and myself feeling a bit more satiated spiritually by my quiet time of waiting prayer with the Blessed Mother on her special day.

USCCB and Project Rachel

2011-11-16T04:43:00.012-06:00

I had the chance to listen to a good chunk of the USSCB Conference this past week. I am quite the Catholic nerd, I know, to be interested in all of the nitty-gritty behind the scenes details of our faith. It especially surprises me that I enjoyed listening in because whenever I attend a nutrition or breastfeeding conference for my work as a WIC Nutritionist and Lactation Counselor, I'm usually quite restless and bored throughout and my mind frequently wanders, and so I couldn't help but wonder how many of those bishops in attendance were like me at my nutrition conferences, stifling yawns through the speakers, fidgeting in their seats and wishing they could be anywhere but sitting through yet another long day of speakers.

But no, the bishops cannot be like me, because the fire for the faith that burns within their hearts surely keeps them in rapt attention to the details of their work, and how blessed we ordinary Catholics are that these holy men devote their time and energies to assuring that our faith is upheld with dignity and love in this world which is sadly secular and often times blatantly anti-Catholic.

I loved these quotes from Archbishop Dolan's opening presidential statement:

"That truth — that He, Christ, and she, His Church, are one — moistens our eyes and puts a lump in our throat as we whisper with De Lubac, “For what would I ever know of Him, without her?”

"The Church is a communio, a supernatural family. Most of us, praise God, are born into it, as we are into our human families. So the Church is in our spiritual DNA. The Church is our home, our family."

And this one, in regards to how our faith in ingrained in us like a birthmark, made me laugh. Archbishop Dolan is always good for a laugh, isn't he? Although when I shared it with my family they just rolled their eyes and groaned-it must have lost something in my translation:

"To use a Catholic word, "Bingo!"

To read his wonderful presidential address in its entirety click here.

But by far, in my opinion, the highlight of the Bishop's Conference was the riveting press conference about Project Rachel. The statements offered were deeply moving and as I listened to the speakers I was picturing so many of the clients I see at work, the ones who tell me that they've had one or more abortions and those who are still pregnant and considering aborting their babies, most recently the tearful young mother of four children whose boyfriend left her when she told him that she was pregnant again and as he left he told her that she should have the baby "sucked out of her." I thought that perhaps listening to this portion of the conference was more helpful to me in my work than all of the nutrition conferences that I have ever attended in the past, for by listening to these speakers I learned about the importance of compassion for the suffering of the many poor young women I see who deal with the after-effects of abortion on a daily basis.

I was especially touched by the words of Fr. James Stack who said he is just an ordinary parish priest, just a normal guy who suffered his own trauma in the past and was compelled to do something more with his life in regards to offering healing love and compassion to those who suffer the effects of trauma and stress from post-abortion fallout.

He spoke eloquently about the lines of people who wait outside his office in need of healing from their post-abortive suffering. He shared his belief that their pain is a spiritual battle waged by the devil inside of their heads. The devil tells these post-abortive men and women that there is no hope for them, that they are forsaken, cursed, outcast, damaged goods, broken beyond repair and unforgivable for their actions. They are unable to forgive themselves and cannot establish healthy relationships. Fr. Stack shows them that Jesus is the only one who has the ability to connect them with their unborn baby. He encourages them to name and to know their child. He walks them back through the experience of abortion and offers them inner healing and takes the pain out of the memory and gives them the hope of the future. He mentioned that the hardest thing is getting these men and women to understand and accept the fact that they are deeply loved by God, that they are forgiven and that one day they will be re-united with their child.

And what moved me was the emotion in his voice. I could feel his love for the people he helped through the words he spoke, and my heart quaked tears.

Fr. Stack's talk was followed by Dr. Vince Rue who shared the fact that post-abortive women and men are drowning in despair and self-loathing, suffering from anxiety disorders, depression and suicidal ideation. His words about the mental health suffering from the trauma of abortion were a strong follow-up to the words of Fr. Stack. I strongly encourage you to listen to the entire powerful Tuesday morning Project Rachel media briefing here. Fr. Stack's portion begins at 20 minutes.

How grateful I am for all of those involved with Project Rachel and for all of these holy men, our Catholic bishops, who fearlessly lead us in our faith and safeguard our rights as Catholics in an American society fraught with disregard and disdain for the things that matter-love of God, love for the Church and respect and dignity for the human race. God bless the Catholic Church and God bless those holy men who are united in a spiritual marriage to her, our bishops and our priests, our spiritual fathers.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Pumpkin

2011-11-15T16:17:00.010-06:00

I love it when I get a great tip from a friend who knows what moves me! My dear friend Christi Jentz, herself a fabulous artist, sent this picture on to me, knowing of my great love and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Look closely at this amazing work of (He)art! The Sacred Heart of Jesus, complete with the Crown of Thorns, was completely carved out of a pumpkin by young Hanna Gleason who graciously allowed me to post her creative artwork, dubbed, "Mama's Heart of Hearts" here. The Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Mother's hands is illuminated by the glow of an ordinary candle, but oh, how that glow has the power to warm many hearts!

I'm grateful for young artists like Hanna who use their gifts for the glory of God!

"Pleased to Meet You! "

2011-11-14T06:27:00.007-06:00

My friend, Erin Berghouse, has co-authored a lovely little children's book along with her daughter, Rachel. The book, titled "Pleased to Meet You" is dedicated to "Our Blessed Mother, Cause of our Joy." The story follows adorable Mary Grace as she joins her pregnant mother on a trip to the doctor's office for an ultrasound and learns that what makes mommy's tummy so big is her baby sister growing inside! Be sure to look for hidden Catholic images within the pages such as a crucifix, a statue of the blessed mother and a picture of Pope Benedict!

This book would make a great gift for a family who is expecting a new baby as a means of introducing the concept of life within the womb to a young child.

To order "Pleased to Meet You" as well as Erin's beautiful Catholic CD's please visit this link: Lily4Life.com I especially recommend the single "Just for a Moment," a touching Catholic lullaby, as a nice companion to "Pleased to Meet You."

Love Contained and Love Outpoured

2011-11-12T04:52:00.002-06:00

"Be contented, therefore, dear child, to be what Jesus intends you to be: a silent and motionless little white host in the golden ciborium of suffering."
~Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP

(picture courtesy of © SalveMaterDei.com, 2011, Mary Anne Urlakis taken by her daughter Eve Anna. Please visit Mary Anne's terrific blog, Salve Sancta Mater Dei for her fabulous telling of a pilgrimage with Bishop Hying to Our Lady of Good Help Shrine in Champion, WI where this picture was taken)

We devoutly place the Body of our Lord within a monstrance and we hold His Blood within a chalice of gold and we adore Him. But He simply cannot be contained. He reaches beyond the mystery of all that is hidden and He touches the lives of His beloved children.

His love pours out of His heart like sparks through the stubble (Wis 2:23) of our pitiful lives and it flows into our souls if only we will accept Him and allow ourselves to be ignited by the fire of His love.

O Jesus, lift the veil and show yourself to all of those who long for You and to all of those who don't yet know how desperately they really need You. Pour Your love out upon our miserable lives and fill us with Your glory.

Your Body and Your Precious Blood are all we could ever desire. Let our hearts and souls be open to the love You long to share. It is we who should be contained; contained by Your great love and by Your endless mercy.

“During Christ’s life when He walked as man among men, visibly present, His Precious Blood’s first duty was to nourish His own Body. But in the Blessed Sacrament, His Precious Blood nourishes us who are His Mystical Body. What the Precious Blood did for the holy, all-beautiful Temple of God that was the Body of Christ, It now does for us who are the Mystical Body of Christ—It surges out. The Blood of Christ brings to your soul the life of God, the love of God, the generosity of God, the purity of God, the long-suffering of God.” Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP

(Eucharistic Rosary Procession in the Dominican Republic, H/T Dan Miller, Milwaukee's 40 Days for Life)

A Not So Stylish Seven Quick Takes

2011-11-11T00:00:00.016-06:00

"If you read Christian blogs, or more likely, if you write one, you might find yourself under intense pressure to be happy all the time. You know the secret to life, after all. You've found Jesus! The only thing left to do is share Him with others.

And the best way to do this, one might think, is to prove that God makes you happy: ignore the blue mood. Pray harder. Preemptively change aspects of your life that cause you consternation, so you can be a more authentic witness of God's word. And above all, do not write about the fight you had with your husband, or the check you failed to write for your tithe. Don't write about your children's vicious tendencies or your own neurosis."

~Betty Duffy at Patheos

Mary who blogs at The Beautiful Gate, has kindly bestowed two awards upon me-The Stylish Blogger Award and the I Blog Jesus award. So with this post I will attempt to fulfill my obligations that come with the awards using Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary 7 Quick Takes Method. I've been in a kind of sassy and irreverent mood lately so these 7 QT's reflect my demeanor and therefore are not so terribly stylish, I fear. In fact, they completely ignore Betty Duffy's tongue in cheek advice from the above quote!

The I Blog Jesus Award was created by Monica at Equipping Catholic Families. Every once in a while it's nice to get a pat on the back so receiving this award from Mary was a nice treat! I would encourage others to visit Monica's blog and there you will find all kinds of Catholic goodies for families. Mary also kindly awarded me a Stylish Blogger Award and this one comes with a task to be accomplished, that is, to share seven things about yourself. Since this entire blog has always been a sharing of myself (sometimes far more sharing than even I can believe I share!) I struggled to think of seven things that aren't already widely known about me. When writing about myself I usually try to only reveal the pleasant aspects of my life so this time around I thought I'd offer a little more honesty about some of my foibles and weaknesses. So, here we go-seven things about me and my family that you probably never knew that you wanted to know...

1. Basketball season is upon us once again. Jack, the youngest of the Bender boys, had basketball tryouts for the basketball "A" team at St. Matthias this week, this being the first year that he is eligible to play for the cream of the crop team. His three big brothers could not resist supporting him. John and Justin drove him to practice, and although Joe had plans to "hang out" with some friends, he left his outing early so that he could meet his brothers at the gym to show his support for his little brother. All during the tryouts, the three oldest Bender boys were frantically texting messages home to dad to report on Jack's progress. Paul got varied messages depending on who was doing the reporting: Justin-"He's doing terrible! He fell down twice and missed two lay-ups." Joe-"He's doing ok-missed a couple of shots, though." John-"He's doing great! Wish you could see him!" By now the old folks at home were thoroughly confused but were beaming with pride to see so much brotherly love and support, especially since the final verdict came and Jack didn't make the "A" team.

2. Last summer my van needed a major brake job. My husband kindly offered to follow me to the car shop so he could give me a ride home instead of leaving me to sit at the shop all day waiting for the job to be completed. I didn't bother to get directions to the exact address before we left so we drove around a bit looking for it. When I finally spied it I quickly changed lanes and in the process almost hit a woman riding in the far right lane on a motor scooter. She let out a scream as she veered out of the way. For some strange reason, horror at my carelessness perhaps, I cannot retell that story without laughing; even now as I type this my body is convulsing as I choke back a laugh. My husband, who heard the scream on that long ago day is quite confounded by my behavior. "You nearly killed someone and you laugh about it? Who are you and what did you do with my wife?"

Shortly after this event we had invited Bishop Hying to our home as a guest for dinner and my family egged me on to retell the story and sure enough I laughed all the way through it and the good and dear Bishop teased me and asked if I was going to share the story on the blog. It took me all these months to get over my embarrassment about it and so to please the Bishop, here it finally is.

3. A few posts ago I shared my family's experience about visiting St. Joseph's Seminary in Chicago. My favorite part about that Chicago trip was the singing of the Salve Regina as the closing song for Saturday morning Mass at the Seminary. I think it's the most perfect prayer I have ever prayed and I was most grateful for it as I frequently felt the need to continue that prayer in my heart as we navigated our way around the big city. (See quick take number 4 below for an explanation.)

4. Lest you think that my family life is all beauty and holiness, let me tell you about the "road trip" part of our adventure in Chicago. A family of seven packed in like sardines while driving in a large and unfamiliar city is stressful to be sure. Adding to that stress we had one little girl sitting in the back seat who sang and shouted AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS the entire way until everyone's nerves were raw. (That brotherly love and support from quick take number 1? Not so present here!)

I was assigned the job of designated map reader and direction giver, sort of a human and flawed GPS. I think our van made more u-turns than it ever has before due to all of our missed turns. My husband and I suffer through most of our marital battles when we're traveling, which probably explains our happy marriage-we rarely travel! All of our driving battles are caused by my giving directions and his failure to follow those directions. The one time he did follow my directions very clearly while in downtown Chicago was when we were sitting at a red light and, not watching the traffic signals but only the traffic in front of our car, I told him to "go" and he did. Even when I'm a passenger I'm a bad driver! I suffered the wrath of the entire family thereafter for nearly getting us all killed. The most peaceful part of the drive came on the way home, when Paul had criticized my direction giving skills one too many times for my liking and my pride reared it 's ugly head with an icy hiss- "Well then, you can read the signs as well as I can, you figure out the directions yourself!" And I buried my face in a book. Yes, it's good to be home where peace and love and forgiveness (usually) reign once again!

5. Have you ever had a day that made you wish you could go home and start all over again? Last week I took my son John to an oral surgeon for a consultation about having his wisdom teeth removed. I had never been to this particular office before and in my usual frantic way of rushing about through life, I didn't check the address until it was time to leave (see quick take number 2 above.) I quickly glanced at the address on the referral form and John and I raced out from daily Mass to the oral surgeon's office. There we stood in the cold, wind and rain outside of Klemmer's Banquet Hall wondering where in the world the dentist office could be. What would we do without cell phones, I wonder? Thinking that the dentist might have been renting space from the banquet hall despite the fact that it would be an odd pairing of businesses, I called the office and asked them how I could get into the building to find them and the receptionist told me that they weren't in a banquet hall. She told me that they were inside an office building and the address was 10401 W. Lincoln Ave. I insisted that was where we were as I double checked the address. She simply repeated her address. Then it clicked. We were at 10401 W. Oklahoma Ave. This was 7:30 AM. It was a long day. And no, I didn't go back home and start all over again

6. Being known publicly as a follower of Christ changes not only your life, but the lives of those around you and the way that others treat you. At work, I am left out of many conversations because I believe that my co-workers are trying to respect me and they know that when certain topics come up, I would be offended. Last week we had a little down time before a staff meeting and Roxie was showing a you-tube video to Earma. I could see that she was shielding her i-phone from my vision. Earma told Roxie to show it to me and Roxie said, "Annie doesn't want to see that!" Earma said, "She can handle seeing that, and then maybe she will pray for that guy!" So they showed me the video. It was a blooper of a newscaster who swallowed a bug while speaking and went into a profanity laced tirade. It was funny. But it would have been funnier without all of the swearing. And yes, I prayed for the man in the video-I fear his antics might have cost him his job.

7. Speaking of swearing-one of my daughter's classmates followed the same temper-tantrum behavior of the above newscaster in quick take number 6 and used a few choice words in the classroom when someone was bothering her. The entire 5th grade was scandalized by this girl's language so the teacher had to take some time to calm everyone down. After lovingly disciplining the girl who used the profanity the teacher asked the students if they had ever heard any foul language before. When Mary raised her hand, her teacher acted quite surprised that saintly little Mary Bender would have been exposed to such distasteful behavior in her little life. Had her teacher joined us on our road trip in Chicago (see quick take number 4) she wouldn't have questioned Mary's knowledge of words that are in poor taste.

Now, do you still think I'm so stylish after this tell-all rag about Benders behaving badly? Yet, despite our bad behavior, our hearts are always doing their best to love God and bring our actions up to par with His expectations. Sometimes we get it right and at other times, we need a little extra prayer to stylishly live our faith with flair.

Much thanks to Mary 333 for this opportunity to dish about the scandalous side of my life. Join Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more quick-takes.

Breath of Prayer

2011-11-08T06:00:00.009-06:00

"The Holy Spirit, “the Breath” (ruah), is the One referred to already in the Book of Genesis: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (1:2). What affinity between the words “breath - breathing” and “inspiration”! The Spirit is the mysterious Artist of the universe.

Every genuine inspiration contains some tremor of that “breath” with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning. Overseeing the mysterious laws governing the universe, the divine breath of the Creator Spirit reaches out to human genius and stirs its creative power. He touches it with a kind of inner illumination which brings together the sense of the good and the beautiful, and he awakens energies of mind and heart which enable it to conceive an idea and give it form in a work of art. It is right then to speak, even if only analogically, of “moments of grace”, because the human being is able to experience in some way the Absolute who is utterly beyond."

~from Blessed John Paul II's Letter to Artists

My friend Christi is an extremely talented artist who uses her gift to prayerfully paint icons, and more than that, she shares her vast knowledge of prayerful art with me, increasing my appreciation for the gifts of beauty which are inspired by the very breath of God, the Holy Spirit. Last summer she brought one of her works in progress (the above icon) to my house and invited me to add gold to the halo of one of the three women standing outside of the tomb at the Resurrection of our Lord. I chose the woman that I thought would be Mary Magdalene and carefully applied the gold by first holding a prayer in my heart and then breathing upon the image. They say that every stroke and motion of icon painting is a prayer. So on that not so distant day I breathed a prayer to one of my favorite saints who always holds a favored place in my heart because she loved much and I long to emulate that quality in my own life. I want to cast my soul at the feet of our Lord and breathe continuous prayers of love to His Most Sacred Heart. I want to carry an alabaster jar of fragrant oil into the world and spread His love to others. I want to love much.

I posted the following poem just last July but it's so touching and worthy of repeating. It was written by Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP, the founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and now my own spiritual father as I have become an Oblate of the Precious Blood candidate.

To Saint Mary Magdalene

You claimed
the false
until you found
the True;
your beauty
wounded
until Beauty
wounded you,
and plunged your soul
into a spring so sweet
your tears
fell as chaste pearls
at Mercy's
feet.

For more about icons, you may enjoy this link: Just what do Catholics believe about icons?

An Exercise of Faith

2011-11-08T05:52:00.000-06:00

"I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief." Mark 9:24

A few months ago I came across a great story about Archbishop Dolan's talk to the pilgrims at World Youth Day. I've been saving it, always wanting to reflect and write about it, but after several months of meditating upon his rich words, I just can't come up with anything further to say. He says it all so perfectly. Maybe his words about faith and evangelization bring about thoughts that you would like to share?

*****************************************

During a question-and-answer session, one Australian pilgrim touched on what will likely be a challenge for many young people once they leave World Youth Day: how to interact with those who do not agree with the basic principles of the Catholic faith and who are, in fact, living a life averse to the church’s teachings.

The archbishop’s answer was simply this: with love.

“We can scream, we can yell, we can castigate, we can alienate, we can nag, and most of the time if we do that we lose,” he said. “Or we can be gracious, patient, loving, understanding, persistent, welcoming. And most of the time when we do that, we’re also going to lose. But less than the first one.”

“When we admit our faith is weak, when we admit our faith is shaky, when we admit that our faith isn’t what it should be, actually we’re exercising it, and we’re making it more and more firm,” he said. “Something tells me that’s why we’re (at World Youth Day),” he said. “Our faith is weak, our faith is shaky. We want to be with a million other young people from around the world who love their faith and are trying to make it strong.”

Source: Catholic Herald UK, August 18, 2011

Mystic Treasures of the Holy Mass

2011-11-06T18:27:00.001-06:00

On the first Wednesday of the month when I volunteer at the Apostleship of Prayer (AoP) I always take a few minutes to browse the library shelves. The AoP recently acquired the books of Fr. Richard Tomasek, SJ who has just passed away this past August, and I've found some real gems among his donations including Mystic Treasures of the Holy Mass by Fr. Charles Coppens, SJ which was written in 1905.

One of the very first posts that I wrote on this blog 2-1/2 years ago was about a pilgrimage that my sisters and I made to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in La Crosse, WI. It was at this Shrine where I experienced the Latin Mass for the first and only (so far!) time. I had written in that post that I was mystified by the translation that said that the priest offered a "secret" prayer. I wondered what that secret prayer could be and in Mystic Treasures of the Holy Mass, I found the answer to that long ago question.

"The entire series of prayers and ceremonies that make up the Canon are the most solemn that the human mind can conceive. But the words are not heard by the people; for this part of the Holy Mass is called "the Secret," from the "Sanctus" to the "Pater Noster," The silence entered upon by the priest soon spreads over the entire congregation...So during the secret portion of Holy Mass the incense of prayer from the hearts of the priest and people ascends to the throne of God in Heaven."

Sigh...isn't that a beautiful explanation? I also found this suggestion for prayer during the Consecration of the Mass to be especially touching and effective:

"At the most solemn portion of Holy Mass she suggests propriety of individual communing with Christ by the silence of her ministers at the altar. The time is most appropriate for laying our wants and desires before the throne of God's mercy. A practice familiar to many devout persons, one said to have been dear to St. Aloysius, consists in imaging ourselves at that solemn moment to see the crucified Lord, as He was on Calvary, and recommend our principal requests through the bleeding wounds of our Redeemer. By the wounds of his sacred head we may pray for all of our superiors, spiritual and temporal, the Pope, the Bishop, our pastors, rulers, parents, etc. By the wound of the right hand of Christ we beg blessings for our relatives and friends. By that of the left hand for all sinners, and in particular for our enemies, who hate, persecute and calumniate us. In the wound of the right foot of Christ we ask perseverance for all the just; in the wound of the left foot we recommend the souls in Purgatory, those chiefly for whom we have special reasons to intercede. Finally, in the wound of His Sacred Heart we seek a safe refuge for ourselves, enumerating our own personal wants of body and soul, for time and eternity."

These Hands Bring Me Jesus

2011-11-06T18:06:00.009-06:00

I often wonder if my faith would be the same without Greg Kandra's The Deacon's Bench blog. I learn so much and am often inspired by his posts so I give him a great deal of credit for forming my faith. He recently shared a link to These Hands Bring Me Jesus. I encourage you to spend some time visiting this website reading the stories and viewing the impressive pictures and slideshow by Stephen Golder. You will be moved with gratitude and love for the bishops and priests in your life, the men whose hands bring you Jesus.

St. Joseph's Seminary Chicago

2011-11-06T07:34:00.014-06:00

My family and I just returned from a weekend trip to Chicago. The main purpose of our trip was to visit St. Joseph's Seminary College on the campus of Loyola University where my oldest son would like to begin his seminary formation, God willing. We spent a day touring the campus with the Fr. Mike Scherschel, the Vocations Director and two college seminarians from Milwaukee, Michael Steger and David Zampino. We were all greatly impressed by what we saw and John felt that the one thing that impressed him the most was the community life that the seminarians lead. In seminary formation, the men are formed through the four pillars of faith: intellectual, human, spiritual and pastoral, all of which are ingrained in communal living at the seminary. He felt that discerning the priesthood and being formed in community would be a great benefit as opposed to discerning on your own at any other college that isn't part of a seminary. Please continue to pray for John as he continues the process of discernment.

Upon the recommendation of my friend Christi, we headed over to Navy Pier to see the Stained Glass Art Museum. My favorite was the scene of St. Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If this were the only piece of art displayed in the museum, it would have been enough for me. I can't look at a picture of His Sacred Heart without lingering in prayer and was so delighted to find this image at the museum. It's a blessing that no matter where I go, I always find reminders of God's great love though the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I was also greatly inspired by all of the mosaics in the museum and am now eager to begin trying my hand at creating a mosaic Madonna from all my found pieces of sea glass.

We attended Sunday morning Mass at the Loyola University church, the Madonna Della Strada Chapel. The beautiful chapel overlooks majestic Lake Michigan. It was here at the chapel where we met a couple that we recognized from daily Mass at St. Matthias Parish who were there visiting their granddaughter who attends Loyola University. How funny to travel 90 miles only to meet people whom you could have met any other day of the week at your home church!
No trip to the Windy City would be complete without a visit to Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, and of course, if we had to spend time visiting an iconic sports destination then equal time had to be given to visiting an iconic religious destination so we paid a quick visit to St. Ignatius Parish, the former parish of Milwaukee's Archbishop Listecki. I tripped up the stairs and into the end of a Spanish Mass and was left breathless at the beauty of the church and it's many frescoes. On our next visit to Chicago we will be heading there for more than just a quick visit, we will stay for Mass. (This photo is a sketch version of Paul, John and Joe outside of Wrigley Field.)

It's hard to believe that we are looking at sending the first of our children off to college and adulthood. The word to best describe my emotions would be overwhelmed, but I am grateful to know that no matter how John's adult years pan out, God will always be first in his life. It is a blessing that I will never take for granted.

(St. Ignatius Church, Chicago)

The Joyful Mysteries in the Life of a Mother

2011-11-05T00:00:00.011-05:00

Last summer I was involved in organizing a dinner and evening of reflective friendship for the mothers of the seminarians and those in discernment at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee. My friend Christi kindly hosted the dinner and everyone in attendance had a lovely time. I wrote the following rosary meditations and we prayed them together as part of our evening gathering.

My family and I are presently planning a visit to St. Joseph's Seminary College in Chicago which is associated with St. Francis de Sales Seminary, so that my oldest son may prayerfully decide whether or not this is the place where God is calling him to begin his post-high school education. Please hold John in your prayers as he looks into this next step on the road to the possible vocation to the priesthood.

And might I suggest that you pay a visit to a brand new blog written by one of the lovely ladies who was part of our mother's group? You can read the prayerful thoughts of Mary Anne Urlakis on Salve Sancta Matre Dei here.

The First Joyful Mystery-The Annunciation

Like Mary, we have all experienced the joy of the annunciation. At that moment when our sons made the announcement, “I’m thinking about the priesthood,” we found our lives turned upside down in a glorious way. Think of how Mary must have felt at the words of the Angel Gabriel; she was immediately consumed by a quiet joy, no time for questions yet, just an acceptance of those words and a deep gratitude to God. We, too, experience those emotions at the knowledge that God would choose to work in the lives of our family members in this way, calling our son to a life of service as a priest. Even if it would never come to fruition, just the very thought that this great calling could be considered in the lives of such unworthy souls is a wonder indeed.

The Second Joyful Mystery-The Visitation

We are women of faith recognizing that God has deeply blessed us and is working in our lives in a most wondrous way. Undeserving sinners that we are, He has chosen to use us as instruments of grace and has called our sons, the fruit of our wombs, our children whom we have joyfully loved and nurtured through the years, to consider giving themselves completely to His use as priests. After silently pondering that miraculous thought, how can we not come together to share the wonder of it all? How can we not proclaim with the Blessed Virgin, “He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden…For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and Holy is His name.”

The Third Joyful Mystery-The Nativity

Giving birth to a vocation is not without its labor pains. How often have we been questioned by friends or family members, who, upon hearing about the future our sons intend to live, ask us questions such as: “Are you ok with that? Haven’t you tried to talk him out of it? Why would you want that for him?” And somehow, we must find the courage to bear with those questions and with our own questions, and worries as well, and persevere in supporting our sons in what we believe to be a most holy and beautiful life of servant for the Church which they are seeking to fulfill. We pray that God will bring forth a holy and healthy priest who will faithfully serve the Lord for many years to come.

The Fourth Joyful Mystery-The Presentation

We hope to follow in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary in having already presented out sons to the Church for the Sacraments of Initiation, to one day present them once again for the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a Sacrament of Service. And while we, as mothers, may have experienced nothing but complete joy at our son’s baptisms, reception of Holy Eucharist and Confirmation into the church, we know that with the Sacrament of Holy Orders, there will be a sword which pierces our hearts and in fact, we may be feeling the first stabs of that sword already. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is no ordinary presentation, after all, but one that comes with worry, fear and loss-all common yet difficult stresses of motherhood. We know that for a priest the work will be hard, the hours will be long, the gratitude nearly non-existent, the life often lonely-yet it is the greatest work to which any man can attain and in the end, if he lives his vocation well, our sons will enjoy the most glorious heavenly rewards!

The Fifth Joyful Mystery-The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple

Here is the mystery to which we hope to someday attain; to know the great joy that the Mother of Christ felt when, after days of worried searching, she finds her son teaching the elders in the temple. We know that if we can only persevere in supporting our sons with prayer through their years of high school, college and seminary discernment, we too will know the great joy of finding our sons in the temple of the Lord, teaching the children of God how to follow and serve the Lord and will thereby draw many souls to heaven. There can be no greater joy in a mother’s heart than to know that her son is living a life of an alter Christus, serving both God and others in humble holiness.

To Feel the Pain

2011-11-01T13:01:00.003-05:00

"Remember that to reach the Resurrection, one must always climb Mt. Calvary. No one has ever (or will ever) come up with another way to salvation.

You will never know the depth of your own soul, unless you are willing to climb down deep into it and sit there for a while. It is there, sitting in the muck and sludge of our own sinfulness, our own humanity, our own brokenness, that we come to know the saving power of Jesus Christ." ~Deacon Ryan Preuss

I recently met with a woman at work who was pregnant with her fourth child. She told me that her three sons were all incredibly easy to deliver; she just showed up at the hospital and before she knew it she was holding a beautiful baby boy in her arms without having experienced any real pain. I marveled at that and considered her to be very fortunate as labor pains are hardly something that a woman relishes about having a baby. But she disagreed with my point of view. She said that with this baby she was hoping for a long labor and wanted to feel all of the pain. She wanted to experience and savor every moment of the pregnancy, labor, delivery and parenting of her child.

Thinking about her response made me realize the value of her words. Our lives were meant to be fully experienced and savored, but without the pain which is a natural part of life, how can we fully appreciate the joys?

Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with some good friends who generously host occasional parties in an old barn that has been converted to a gymnasium complete with basketball hoops, trampolines, slides, rope swings and a foam pit. Don and Anne kindly invite the teen boys, including my sons, who participate in the St. Francis de Sales Seminary camps for boys discerning the priesthood, to come and release some pent up energy while re-connecting with their friends that they met at the camps. They will often invite some priests and seminarians to join us and they ask them to offer a little reflection for the boys to ponder. At this most recent gathering we were joined by Deacon Ryan Preuss and seminarian Kurt Krauss who shared their experiences of the World Youth Day Pilgrimage in Madrid, Spain, with us.

It seems that neither of these young men had a joyous and perfect experience on their pilgrimage, in fact, hardship and difficulty seemed to be the defining description. They spent nights sleeping outside on the cold, hard ground in clothes that were soaking wet from the rain, they suffered the effects of sitting closely with crowds of pilgrims from around the world, they went without eating, they lost members of their groups and were barred from entering the tent for the final Mass with the Pope. Deacon Ryan commented that in some cases it almost felt like purgatory as his group was standing outside of a tent where Eucharistic Adoration was taking place and there was a huge sign that said "Welcome" but they weren't allowed inside because the tent was overcrowded. Yet, in all of their remarks they both overwhelming stated that their pilgrimage was a reflection of the Christian life overall. Life isn't meant to be easy, things aren't always supposed to go as planned, there is no guarantee that we will always be happy; and they wouldn't have it any other way. Because in the challenges and difficulties as well as in the joys and successes, we find God at work, changing us, refining us, loving us.

When my struggles with depression were at their worst, my son Joe, who was often most distraught to see his mother suffering and astutely noticed that the timing of my psychological breakdown coincided with a deeper conversion into my Catholic faith, would often complain and ask, "Mom, why is it that ever since you became a Jesus freak, you have been miserable? Why would anyone want to turn to God if doing so makes you so unhappy?" And in my sorrow, I couldn't clearly think of a response other than to reiterate how much I love Jesus and that my depression was not His fault, but just a part of life; but my words felt lame and inadequate and nothing that I could say to him in response to his question would satisfy him. I was at a loss for an explanation and his words cut me to the quick. In fact, there were many times when I joined in Joe's complaint and put his same questions in prayer to God. But here, in the words of Deacon Ryan and Kurt, and in the viewpoint of the expectant mother, the answer became crystal clear; we aren't meant to escape the pain, we are meant to feel the pain and to endure in our faith despite the suffering we may feel.

To feel the pain is to allow God to work in your life, to let Him draw you closer to His love through the entire experience of life, both the painful and the pleasant moments. If we want to follow Christ, we must travel through the trials of the cross, trials which will manifest themselves differently for each of us, before we can reach the glories of the resurrection. If we really want to bear the name Christian, then like St. Therese we must say "I choose all!" and learn to carry on and work through the pain so that one day, we will be able to fully embrace the joys of heaven. There is no "easy out," we must strive to accept the fact that despite the hardness of life, God will never abandon us and our lives have a deep and meaningful purpose that will only make sense to us when we leave this life for our final destiny where we will then clearly see that all of the suffering we endured on earth was meaningful and beautiful, and God used it all for His glory in the mystery of His plan. In the words of Pope John Paul II from Salvifici Doloris, "in whatever form, suffering seems to be, and is, almost inseparable from man's earthly existence." We were born to feel the pain and to remain faithful despite our suffering. Our call as Christians is to unite our suffering with the suffering of Christ and in our pain, however minor or horrific it may be, we will be assisting God as He redeems our souls and those of the whole world.

All Saints and All Souls

2011-11-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

The following is an educational piece that I wrote for our parish newsletter on All Saints Day and All Souls Day:

“How beautiful and consoling is the communion of saints! It is a reality that infuses a different dimension to our whole life. We are never alone! We form part of a spiritual "company" in which profound solidarity reigns: the good of each one is for the benefit of all and, vice versa, the common happiness is radiated in each one. It is a mystery that, in a certain measure, we can already experience in this world, in the family, in friendship, especially in the spiritual community of the Church.” ~Pope Benedict XVI

We are so blessed as Catholics to have so many heavenly friends in the communion of saints to whom we can look up to as examples of faith and upon whom we can call for prayerful intercession to the Father. Who among us doesn’t have a “favorite” saint or two with whom we can identify in our struggles to live our faith each day? Although many saints are given specific days on the church calendar in which we honor them alone, the Church in her wisdom has dedicated one day each year in which we honor all of the saints in the Church Triumphant (those who are in heaven) and the Church Militant (those still living on earth) including those who are known, as well as those who are unknown to us or to the world at large. Together, the saints living and deceased make up the Communion of Saints, to which we confess our belief in the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds.

All Saint’s Day is always celebrated on November 1st and it is a holy day of obligation in which all Catholics are required to attend Mass. The solemnity of All Saints Day can be traced back to Pope Gregory III (731-741) who consecrated a chapel within St. Peter’s Basilica to all of the saints on November 1st, and nearly 100 years later the celebration was shared with the entire Church by Pope Gregory IV (827-844.)

All Saints Day is immediately followed by All Souls Day on November 2nd, where we pray for all of our beloved deceased especially those who are part of the Church Penitential (those who are being purified in purgatory.) Our prayers on this day are meant to help those we love to be released from the pains of purgation for their venial sins and to enter into the glories of heaven. The celebration of All Souls Day can be traced back to seventh century monks who wanted a special day to pray for their deceased community members. By the 13th century it was added to the calendar of the Church. Although All Souls Day is not a Holy Day of Obligation, praying for the dead is a spiritual act of mercy so attendance at Mass on this day and the offering of special prayers for the dead is a beautiful way to love and honor those who have passed through life before us.

Please honor the communion of saints with your prayerful presence at Mass on these days!

Chick Flick

2011-10-31T18:06:00.007-05:00

My youngest two children had a day off from school for a teacher in-service and Jack was invited to spend the day at a Halloween Party with a classmate. That left me in a predicament for what to do with my daughter as she is too young to stay home alone and Paul and I were both scheduled to work. I had asked my boss if I could bring Mary to work with me but apparently there are liability issues involved with that, so she generously told me that I could take the day off to care for my daughter.

What a treat to have a Monday off to spend it with my daughter and what fun we had!

After morning Mass and some shopping for presents for my husband's upcoming birthday, Mary and I did something that we just never do-we went....to the Mall. We haven't gone window shopping and browsing at the Mall in years-everything is so high priced that it seems like a waste of time to walk around looking at all of the things you don't want and can't afford. But today, Mary and I had the time of our lives!

After walking through several clothing and jewelery shops and leaving in astonishment over the tacky items that pass for fashion today, we stumbled into a Sephora Cosmetics store that offered samples of every type of make-up imaginable. Now if there is one thing Mary likes to do it's to experiment with make-up. She must have the most scrubbed-clean face of any ten-year-old girl for all of the times that Paul and I find her dipping into my make-up basket at home and send her to the sink to wash it off. But today, since it was a special girls day out, Mary and I enjoyed sampling every type of eye-liner, eye-shadow, blush and mascara that was on the shelf at the store. We sampled some blush that was clearly not in our color palette and nearly rolled on the floor laughing at how silly we looked. We doused ourselves with Justin Bieber perfume samples and then left the store smelling sweet and feeling even sweeter.

Then we headed over to the movie theater and caught a showing of The Mighty Macs. With a supply of Halloween candy loading down Mary's purse as a movie treat we were well prepared to sit through the movie. We easily found a seat as the theater was empty except for one man who had arrived before us. It almost felt like a private showing! The movie was excellent! It was both clean and wholesome with a great moral. It seems to be pretty rare to find a family-friendly story that includes a strong faith element, especially one that is clearly Catholic. The nuns in the story which was inspired by real-life events, were represented in an attractive fashion and all of the women characters were strong, resilient and faithful to their commitments and vocations. It was a joy to watch a group of women come together as a team and play basketball with the belief that no matter what they would be #1. What was really impressive was the fact that at the end of the movie, the credits showed the real-life pictures of the characters in the story and shared what they were doing today. They all appeared to be successful and satisfied. With Mary's first season as a basketball player rapidly approaching after years of sitting in the bleachers watching her brothers play, this movie was a perfect inspiration to get her fired up to play. Today's trip to the Mall for both the shopping and the movie was definitely mother/daughter bonding time well spent and Mary and I will treasure the memory of this day for years to come.

Two thumbs up (both Mary's and mine) for The Mighty Macs! And, although I titled this post "Chick Flick" I know that my husband and sons would enjoy it just as well as my daughter and I did. Click here to view the trailer.

The Holy and Healing Water of Lourdes

2011-10-29T00:00:00.005-05:00

"I want to be purified. I want to be cleansed. I go to the baths. There, two men instruct me to undress. They wrap a blue apron around my waist, ask me to concentrate on what intercessions I want to ask of Mary, then lead me into the bath and immerse me in the ice-cold water. When I stand again, they pray the Hail Mary with me and give me a cup of water from the spring to drink."

~Henri Nouwen, Jesus and Mary: Finding Our Sacred Center

I'd been spiritually sick and in need of healing for some time and was struggling to cope with the darkness in my soul. My friend, Bishop Hying went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes and while there he visited the baths of holy water. As he was immersed in the water he brought me with him in prayer. What spiritual power a few words of prayer carry with them! Upon his return he told me about his prayer for me at the baths of Lourdes.

I took a few days to ponder and consider his words, his story of prayer for me. I let the thought of it sink deep within me and returned to the visual image in my mind of Bishop Hying being helped down into the water and giving my name to God through the love of the Blessed Mother, and it felt as if I could actually feel the holy, healing water within my soul, as if I were really physically and spiritually there, and I am changed. The ever-present fear, anxiety, tears and depression that had become a part of me are gone. For the first time in years I feel a real joy and peace like I have never known. I don't know if I would have felt that change in me had he not told me what he had done; I am left to wonder if I would have felt the effects of his prayer without the knowledge of it. That will always remain a sacred mystery, I suppose. I also don't know if this peaceful feeling will last. But I do know that I am deeply grateful that God has chosen to use the Blessed Mother as a source of comfort and love in my life and in the lives of so many others who turn to her in faith. What a treasure we have in Blessed Mary and in the gift of healing waters and the intercessory prayer of our friends in the communion of saints!

Please enjoy Bishop Hying's story about his experience in Lourdes from the October 27th Milwaukee Catholic Herald:

Several weeks ago, I was blessed to be part of a spiritual pilgrimage to France with 32 other people. We visited many places associated with great saints, like St. Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial, St. John Vianney at Ars, SS. Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal at Annecy, St. Therese at Lisieux and St. Joan of Arc at Rouen.

We also went to Lourdes, the beautiful shrine of healing, nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains. Highlights there included celebrating a Mass in the grotto at 6 a.m. with a full moon shining, participating in the rosary candlelight procession, going into the baths and climbing up to the fortress which overlooks the town.

The most compelling and moving part of Lourdes is the vast number of people who are suffering a wide variety of illness, maladies and disabilities. They come to this remote French town in the tens of thousands, triumphing over obstacles and enduring discomforts just to get there. As pilgrims, they have come to pray and to bathe in the waters of the spring which the Virgin Mary had instructed St. Bernadette to discover in 1858.

Most will not find a physical healing, although thousands have over the years, but they will come away with a deeper experience of God’s love for them, a stronger resolve to bear the cross of their suffering, a deeper peace that comes from acceptance and surrender.

One of the things that strikes me about Lourdes is that the sick and disabled receive preferential treatment, in the baths, processions, Masses and walkways of the shrine. They are the most important people there. Such a practice is a startling inverse of how the “world” often is, where the powerful, beautiful and elite often receive the pride of place.

Lourdes is a profound incarnation of the Catholic conviction that Christ comes to us in the disguise of the poor, the sick and the weak and awaits our merciful response through them. An attendant at the baths drove this point home to me, as I awaited my turn to go in, saying, with tears in his eyes, that his work at Lourdes was a privilege, as it allowed him to bathe and care for the Body of Christ on a daily basis. This holy shrine is a divinely chosen site where the fullness of human weakness and suffering converge in a startling fashion with the fullness of God’s merciful and healing power.

It may be tempting at times to wish we lived in a world completely free of suffering, poverty, weakness and illness, yet would that be a good thing? Obviously, in the name of the merciful Christ, we seek to eradicate disease, malnutrition, unemployment and homelessness, but we can never fully escape the cross. As maddening as that may be on a human level, could it be that we all need some level of suffering to humanize us?

If I was completely self-sufficient, living with no neediness, weakness or dependency, I would be tempted to shut myself off from other people and maybe even God himself. Suffering in those we love opens up deep reservoirs of compassion in us, as our own inadequacies compel us to reach out to others. How often in our lives, has a harsh encounter with the cross led us to a deeper faith, prayer and awareness of our radical need for God?

Societies that do not tolerate human weakness and imperfection often end up eliminating those who do not measure up to some mythical standard of sufficiency. The Third Reich comes to mind. Our rich Catholic spirituality and theology of suffering can deeply inform and shape our national debate on end-of-life issues, euthanasia and health care. Pope John Paul’s letter on the meaning of human suffering, “Salvifici Doloris,” serves as a foundational document to deepen our understanding of how God and our human weakness intersect in Jesus Christ.

Lourdes reminds us that we do not have to be perfect, strong, healthy and beautiful to be loveable, that God actually finds our disabilities to be attractive, that he is drawn to our weakness, that our sin arouses his compassion.

Ted Turner famously said that Christianity is for losers. I could not agree more. Only those who know they need a Savior can find the crucified and risen One who can heal, forgive and love us into eternal life.

Candidate

2011-10-28T11:24:00.006-05:00

"O Lord, we beseech Thee to cleanse the intent of our hearts with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee. Amen." ~Introductory prayer of the ceremony of enrollment as a candidate for the Oblates of the Precious Blood

On the morning of my candidacy enrollment for the Oblates of the Precious Blood, I awoke with great joy in my heart and was determined to spiritually prepare myself for the sacred undertaking I was about to embark upon. With a heart warmed by kind messages from friends who encouraged me with their own offerings of prayer, my oldest son and I paid a visit to the local Schoenstatt Shrine to spend some time with the Lord. We were alone in the tiny chapel and together we prayed a rosary for priests in the presence of the tabernacle.

Later, when I arrived at work, the clinic was swamped with clients and I was left with no time to ponder the upcoming ceremony. On my lunch break I slipped away to the nearby Church of the Gesu for confession. An event like this requires a clean soul. As I stepped out of the confessional, I recognized one of the men standing in line as a Conventual Franciscan seminarian from St. Francis de Sales Seminary. I had never met him before so I introduced myself to him and told him that my family and I spend a great deal of time at the seminary and that I had recognized him as one of the seminarians. He introduced himself as Paul Schneider and told me that he anticipated being ordained to the transitional diaconate this coming April. Then he looked at me intently and said, "Pray for me." I confidently told him that I would, but on the inside, I was utterly amazed. This man had never met me before and had no idea that on this very day I would be committing myself to life-long prayer for all priests, seminarians and those discerning the priesthood. I felt as is if his words, "Pray for me" were spoken on behalf of all priests and seminarians and were inspired by Christ himself telling me that my calling to the Oblates of the Precious Blood was indeed a heavenly inspired vocation which was much needed today. I returned to work and all during the busy afternoon I kept recalling those three simple words-pray for me- as I anticipated what was to come.

That evening our living room was arranged into an informal church setting with flowers and candles and a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Finally, the moment I had been waiting for since last June arrived. My friend Kurt Keidl, who had kindly written a letter of recommendation to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood on my behalf and Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, who also had taken the time to write a letter, both arrived and the Mass began. My family joined in the celebration as my son John read the first reading, my daughter Mary read the psalm and my son Jack served as acolyte. Fr. Jim, who had just returned that very afternoon from a two week visit in New Jersey where he led a retreat for a convent of cloistered Carmelite nuns, spoke about his gratitude to cloistered nuns such as the Handmaids of the Precious Blood who pray for priests, and also of his gratitude for lay people who pray for priests. He said that no priest can handle his responsibilities toward the Church alone, that they all need the gift of prayer from others.

Following Holy Communion, Fr. Jim officiated at the short enrollment ceremony which included a reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians 1:3-10, a questioning of the candidate, a presentation of a medal of Mary, Queen of the Clergy, a prayer of the candidate and a final prayer and blessing.

The Mass and enrollment ceremony were followed by a dinner celebration with a special treat, Holy Spirits Wine, and all too soon the evening came to an end. In the morning, Fr. Jim would be off on another retreat trip for the Apostleship of Prayer, this time to Minnesota. How wonderful it was that he was able to spend his short time at home helping me to dedicate my life to prayer for all priests. It was a gloriously blessed evening and I am filled with joy to prayerfully begin my formation period and to devote my life to prayer for all priests.

Gratitude For My Many Fathers

2011-10-25T16:10:00.019-05:00

"Why should we not be holy, we who are inebriated with the Life Blood of God's Holy One?" ~Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP

It has been five years since my natural father died. My dad was a good and holy man and while he physically lived on earth, his influence upon me was quiet. I called him "Silent Man." He always rose early and silently began his days in prayer, and then he quietly returned to prayer throughout the day for all of his nine children. He wasn't a perfect man, to be sure, but he was a good man and it was from him that I learned to pray, to give my all to God.

Today I have many fathers. My life is touched by so many good and holy men, all of them priests of God. These men are like my natural father because they also rise early to silently embrace the beginning of the day in prayer and they quietly return to prayer throughout the day for all of their many children, unlimited in number. They might not be perfect men, to be sure, but they are good men and from them I continue to learn how to pray, to give my all to God.

How I love my fathers! I love them for their sacrifices, for their words of wisdom, for their prayerful example, and for their steady presence in my life. I love them because they care about my soul and they show their love for me by holding me in prayer. I love them because they give Christ to me in the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Precious Blood of the Lord. I love them because they are the Body and Precious Blood of the Lord. My many fathers give me all that I need in this life so as to lead me safely to my heavenly home with God, my true and eternal Father.

I long to return the favor. I want to sacrifice for them, to share some words of wisdom like they do, to set an example of prayer for others and to be a steady presence in the lives of my own children. And so I begin with prayer. Each day in the early morning hours I silently embrace the beginning of the day in prayer just like my many fathers. I collect myself before the Sacred Heart of Jesus and I offer Him my day for the sanctity and well-being of these men that I love, these men that have personally touched my life. My fathers need prayer and love! They need to know that they are loved. So I place their names within the greatest love of all-the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He loves them best for they are His sons. They are His other self. They give so much-they give their precious time spent without cost until they reach exhaustion, they give their love and they give their prayers. They work side by side with all of their children for the sole purpose of building up the Kingdom of God. I have only to look to my fathers and I see Him. So, with a grateful heart I pray for my fathers by name. I pray for...

...Pope Benedict, Archbishop Dolan, Archbishop Listecki, Bishop Hying, Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, Fr. Carl Last, Fr. Dave Cooper, Fr. Dan Felton, Fr. Joe Lubrano, SDS, Fr. Dan Murphy, Fr. Dennis Witz, Fr. Paul Stanosz, Fr. Peter Berger, Fr. Phil Hurley, SJ, Fr. Jim Lobacz, Fr. John Endejan, Fr. Edward Radey, Fr. Matthew Widder , Fr. Luke Strand, Fr. Christopher Klusman, Fr. Kevin McManaman...and the list grows...each year at ordination I gain more fathers to love...there are so many on the way! I pray for the seminarians at St. Francis de Sales Seminary by name as well, and I pray for those in discernment, and for the mothers of my fathers-those lovely women who nurtured these men from conception... And I pray for my spiritual son, John Howard, who is studying to be a father in far away England....And I pray for all of the priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and encourage others to do so as well through the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests...and I pray for an increase in good and holy vocations to the priesthood with Roses for Our Lady at our monthly holy hour for vocations...but it is never enough. I want to give them so much more; I want to give them something radical and beautiful. I want to give them my entire life and all of my prayer.

And so on October 27th, in the intimacy of my home and in the presence of my husband and children, one of my many fathers, Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ will offer Mass and will officiate at a ceremony in which I will be accepted as a candidate for the Oblates of the Precious Blood. This will be the beginning of a year-long period of formation before I make a Solemn Resolution of Love. As an Oblate of the Precious Blood I will be under the heavenly and spiritual guidance of another father, Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP, the founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, with whom I will be received into union and affiliation, and I hope to become "leaven in the world, suffering and offering all aspects of my life for the glory of God and the sanctification of priests." Please pray for me as I deepen my prayers of love for all priests, my many fathers, and join me in praying for all priests, everywhere.

Prayer of the Candidate

O God, I desire to make a perfect return of love to You by dedicating my life to the Precious Blood of Jesus and to the sanctification of Priests who offer the Precious Blood to You each day in countless Masses. Because the Eucharist is "the greatest Gift of the Sacred Heart," I wish for You, Jesus, to be the center of my spiritual life, my complete joy, a joy which no one can take from me. I pray, too, for the grace to render earnestly and well my preparation for making a Solemn Resolution of Love as an Oblate of the Precious Blood, if this be according to Your will. I ask these graces through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary; of St. Joseph, Patron of Your Church; of the holy Apostles who were the first Priests; and of my Guardian Angel. Amen.

O Mary, Protectress of the hierarchy of holy Church obtain for us holy priests who will glorify God and save souls. Mary, Queen of the Clergy, pray for us. Amen.

(above quotes are by Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP and the Prayer of the Candidate is from the Ceremony of Enrollment as a Candidate for the Oblates of the Precious Blood)

Death Shall Be No More

2011-10-24T09:35:00.012-05:00

"It is from the blood of Christ that all draw the strength to commit themselves to promoting life. It is precisely this blood that is the most powerful source of hope, indeed, it is the foundation of the absolute certitude that in God's plan life will be victorious. 'And death shall be no more', exclaims the powerful voice which comes from the throne of God in the Heavenly Jerusalem." ~Evangelium Vitae 1

The newly formed Respect Life Committee at St. Matthias Parish (of which my husband and oldest son and I are members) has been very busy during this month of October which is dedicated to Respect for Life in an effort to draw attention to and pray for the sanctity of life. We gathered with 35 members of our parish on October 2nd to prayerfully hold signs and witness to the sanctity of life along a busy highway as part of the Life Chain and then, later in the month, seven of us took a trip to the local abortion mill to pray on an unusually blustery and cold Saturday morning. The cold made our prayerful time there feel extra sacrificial. My daughter, ever so sweet, wrapped her arms around me in an effort to keep me from shivering and someone took our picture.

But for me, the highlight came this past Sunday when our committee sponsored a Holy Hour for Life at our parish. Including my family of seven, there were 25 people in attendance. Yes, some of my teens complained about going and I was ready to let them off the hook but my husband held fast and insisted that they participate. It was joyfully surprising to see how quickly their complaints turned to prayer as they actively participated in the Holy Hour. We listened to scripture and a reading of a portion of Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae. Fr. Paul spoke powerfully about how the lack of trust in God is the source of humanity's failure to respect life and he said that if we would only draw our strength from the Eucharist we would find the power to combat the evils of abortion, the death penalty, disrespect for the disabled and euthanasia.

After a period of silence, I was honored to lead the rosary. While preparing for the Holy Hour, I had looked online for some nice pro-life meditations for the Glorious Mysteries but was unable to find any that I liked, so I wrote my own. They are at the end of this post-feel free to copy and use them if they move your heart.

Our Holy Hour ended, like all Holy Hours do, with benediction. The monstrance that belongs to St. Matthias Parish is the most ornate monstrance that I have ever seen. It's such a pity that it's rarely used, in fact, in the 19 years that my husband and I have been parishioners there, this was only the third time that I've seen the monstrance. I think that if that gorgeous monstrance could think and feel emotions, it would be beside itself with joy to realize that it contains the Body of our Precious Lord. So too, should we all be, for although we may not all be as ornate as a monstrance of gold, we all contain the Body of Christ within us. We are all monstrances, including the sweet little babies growing within their mother's wombs, the criminals serving time in prison, the disabled who depend upon others for their daily care and the elderly living out their last days on earth. What precious life! How glorious to see Christ in others! How tragic that we can't realize and accept the glory of God that resides within all human life.

So, I pray that our Holy Hour for life was only the first of many occasions where we honor our Eucharistic Lord in adoration at my home parish and that more and more people will feel drawn to attend and honor Jesus in the Eucharist and beg Him to bring about an end to the inhumane destruction of human life that is so ingrained in society today until that final day when death shall be no more.

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The Rosary for Life-Glorious Mysteries

The First Glorious Mystery-The Resurrection

Christ, having lain in the dark, cold tomb for three days, rose again to eternal life and with that rising gave us the hope that we too, will rise again in eternal joy and happiness with our Creator. But that hope of the resurrection only comes after a full life lived in his service. How can we attain that eternal reward if our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ are prematurely diminished before our natural end, the end which God alone can determine?

The Second Glorious Mystery-The Ascension

Christ ascends to Glory. Our souls also long for glory. We know that in God’s plan our souls were meant to ascend, to rise, not to fall into the decay of sin. By protecting God’s precious gift of life from the first instant of conception until natural death, we hope to see all life ascend to our heavenly Father.

The Third Glorious Mystery-The Descent of the Holy Spirit

That breath of life that filled the twelve apostles with the love and wisdom of God fills each of us as well. Each human life has received the breath of the Holy Spirit making all life holy. Who are we to snuff that Spirit out through the sins of abortion, the death penalty, and euthanasia?

The Fourth Glorious Mystery-The Assumption

The Blessed Mother first carried our Savior within her womb and now, in this mystery, He carries her within His arms on that sacred trip to heaven. Mary fulfilled God’s desire on earth spoken so beautifully in her fiat-“Let it be done unto me according to Thy word.” Like His mother in the Assumption, He longs to carry us as well, to bring us to glory with all of the angels and saints and his beautiful mother after we have fulfilled God’s purpose for our lives here on earth. May all human life be blessed with the gift of respect as we strive to serve Him well as He desires.

The Fifth Glorious Mystery-The Coronation

Mary, our Mother, always humbly took her place in this world whether that place was in a stable, at the foot of the cross or now, as Queen of Heaven. We are also called to humbly take our place in His service, and whichever place we are called to be, however we are called to serve Him, it begins with the gift of life at conception and ends with our natural deaths.

slipping into silence

2011-10-20T10:21:00.007-05:00

silent tears
in the silent rain
silent sorrow
and silent pain

silent shame
from a silent past
silent suffering
now the silence is cast

silence remains
in a silent heart
can you feel the silence
rip your soul apart?

silent day
and silent night
silence continues
its silent plight

silence holds
and silence ties
looking down
with silent eyes

yet here in the silence
He speaks to me
my soul is listening
I can clearly see

the deep love He has
in His heart so dear
His silent presence
is love ever near

beautiful silence
I will embrace
this quiet time
this silent space

and into forever
silence will remain
a sign of His love
and His kingly reign

silently His heart
melts into mine
and our hearts become one
in a silent shrine

Dear Father

2011-10-19T13:46:00.012-05:00

I recently had the opportunity to hear a priest give a talk called "The Priest-Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask." As one who loves priests you can imagine that I eagerly anticipated this talk. It was really more of a question and answer session than a talk, so his words were geared to the specific questions that were asked. While his talk gave me much to think about, I couldn't help but feel disappointed by what he said. What was I expecting, some great mysterious insight into the holiness of the priesthood, perhaps? What I found was some holiness, to be sure, but mostly I heard the words of a very ordinary man who loves his priesthood but also struggles with the stresses in life, both from the high expectations placed upon him by others as well as the high expectations that he places upon himself and his brother priests which seems to have ultimately resulted in his lowered expectations of everyone in the Church.

I asked him how the laity, the ordinary people in the pews, can help him and help all priests. I especially wanted to know what we can we do to help all men be successful in their priesthood and to remain faithful to their calling. He answered that there is nothing that we can do to prevent a man from leaving the priesthood if he is unhappy. He offered the usual things that strengthen a priest such as socialization and participation in church activities. He seemed to say that the largest burden on the happiness and success of the priesthood falls upon the places of formation, the seminaries, and I'm sad to say that his words about seminary life were not very pleasant. The negativity of his words weighed heavy on my heart and I realized that something important was missing in his response to my question. What was lacking in his answer was the one thing I feel most called to do and that is to pray, because although he was right in that there isn't anything that we can do, our God can do anything if only we would humbly ask Him in prayer. Not a moment of my day goes by without my whispering a prayer for one priest or another as well as for those discerning a call to the priesthood and for those studying in the seminaries.

I just finished reading a most fabulous book, Dear Father: A Message of Love to Priests, by Catherine de Hueck Doherty which I highly recommend. The book is fashioned in the style of personal letters and her beautiful words raised my spirits with hope and joy in a way that the talk I heard did not. Let me share some excerpts:

"We call you "Father" because you begot us in the mystery of a tremendous love affair between you and God. Because you participate in the one priesthood of Christ. You are wedded to the Church, his bride. Even should the law of celibacy be rescinded, you will still be wedded to the Church, and it still will have to take precedence over everything in your life.

We call you "Father" and we are your "family." We need you desperately. We need you where God has placed you, at the head of our family, just as he has placed human fathers in the midst of their families to nurture and love them."

"Christ loves his priests. It is incomprehensible to us how much he loves his priests. He loves them like brothers. But what is more, he loves them as himself. Because, you see, a priest is Christ, and the Father loves them because he loves the Son, and the Icon of the Son is in the heart of every priest. And so the Father bends over each heart with a love that surpasses all understanding, and the Holy Spirit sends his fire and flame constantly upon you. You have a Pentecost every day...

It's a stupendous thing, dear Father. I am just an ordinary lay person, but when you come into our house or I go into yours, I feel a sort of complete joy. It's as close as I come to the living Christ. You think I exaggerate? Oh no, not at all. You are the living Christ, in a manner of speaking. He ascended, but he loved us so much-us, his Mystical Body of which he is the head, us, his people of God-that he couldn't possibly leave us. So he left himself in you. Do you understand that, Father? Do you?

Yes, he left himself if you, in the Bread and Wine, in the Eucharist. He left himself in Icons and in the Saints and in a lot of ways, but above all, in the Eucharist and you."

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And so for the priests who feel that there is nothing the laity can do for them, I ask you to please accept our prayers, for our words to God on your behalf are filled with our love, the love of your children. We need you to be successful and to be happy because we are a selfish lot and we know that our prayers for you will ultimately result in happiness and holiness for each one of us. Keep giving us God through your faithful and loving witness to his goodness and to his love. Keep pouring yourself out for our benefit. Keep being the living face of Christ.

I am now one week away from my enrollment ceremony after which I will begin my formation period as a candidate for the Oblates of the Precious Blood, and will commit my entire life to a deeper way of praying for priests in unity with the Handmaids of the Precious Blood. Please keep me in your prayers in this regard and consider joining me in praying for the sanctity of all priests everywhere. Our Fathers are depending upon us and upon our prayers!

What Do You Expect From a Homily?

2011-10-17T12:51:00.005-05:00

In the past I have written on this blog about my young friend, John H., who is in his first year of Seminary in England. John has been offered the opportunity to help set up a National Center for Homiletics in the United Kingdom and is looking for YOUR thoughts.

John wonders:

"What do you require from a homily at Mass? Are your expectations always met? What support could we offer to priests? Are there any suggestions to improve the standard of preaching?" Regarding younger members of the faith, John would like to know: "Are they bored; does the homily relate to their current faith issues?"

So, dear reader, what information can you offer to John? Is there a memorable homily that you will always treasure? Have you been completely turned off by a particular style? What would you like to glean from the words of the priest as he breaks down the Gospel each week? All shared thoughts will be most appreciated! Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email which I will forward to him.

St. Margaret Mary

2011-10-15T17:03:00.016-05:00

"But, alas, what is there to the joys of this life? There is nothing solid in them and they pass away like a dream. I cannot understand how a heart that seeks God and wants to love Him can relish any pleasure outside of Him." ~St. Margaret Mary

My oldest son is now 18 years old. It's funny how those years raced by in a blur and I barely noticed what was going on-I just said my prayers and focused on the day to day details of raising a family. And then something changed. Just around five years ago, I started to notice the big picture more than just the day to day routine. Suddenly my time for God wasn't just limited to a few quick prayers in the early morning hours and a little bit of catechism sprinkled in for the good of my children, but now, He consumed my entire days; prayer became constant and my family's concerns seemed to take on a lesser importance than the time I devoted to God. I can no longer carry on a conversation without God being the focus of my words much to the chagrin of my sons who would rather have sports or school as the main topic of the family talk.

I often ask myself if my family now taking a back seat to God in my life? If I were to ask my children I'm sure they would say yes. My side of the dinner conversation is peppered with "I love Jesus" and "Let me tell you about the homily at daily Mass" and "Who wants to come with me to a Holy Hour?" and their side of the conversation is full of questions like "Mom, are you going to be a nun?" and "Why is it, Mom, that every time we talk to you, you respond with a homily?" and "Why must we have so many religious pictures in this house? I feel like I need to genuflect every time I walk into the living room!" and "Why should I go to a priest for confession when I could just tell you, that's almost the same thing, isn't it?" To which I respond with another homily and yet another trip to confession with a willful and defiant child in tow to beg penance for the sacrilege that resides in our household.

Just this past week my now 18-year-old and I were discussing his upcoming birthday when he casually mentioned that he has always enjoyed the fact that he was born on the feast of St. Margaret Mary, October 16th. It seemed as if bells began ringing in my nearly empty head. St. Margaret Mary is one of my favorite saints with her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and I often find myself tightly clutching her relic when worries and frustrations conquer my spirit. How did I miss the fact that my oldest son was born on her feast day? At the time of his birth I hadn't been aware of her feast day but thought it was awfully cute that he was born on Sweetest Day and was most determined to name him after the Pope because didn't every good Catholic name their first born son "John Paul" back then? So I gave my son an impressive and saintly name and then promptly put God back on his shelf with an occasional nod to his presence in my life, until the day when He finally demanded that I take Him down, dust Him off and gave Him the proper place as the center of my life.

I just finished reading The Nun by Margaret Trouncer. It is a factual novel about St. Margaret Mary. In the book, St. Margaret Mary's spiritual director and friend, St. Claude de la Columbierre, is quoted as saying in a homily:

"The jealousy of your Bridegroom reaches out to all who may inspire any feeling of friendship and of tenderness...Is there a friendship more praiseworthy, more apparently holy than the friendship you might have for a director showing you the path to heaven? However, if you have too much of an attachment to that director, if you desire his conversation, however holy, with too much eagerness, if you are not ready to leave him at the first command-that would be enough to grieve this Chaste Bridegroom. And what is more, He will sometimes be jealous of the very persons he orders you to love."

Reading this made me wonder, if God could be jealous of a nun's relationship with her spiritual director, couldn't he also be jealous of a wife and mother's relationship with her family, the very people that he created specifically for her life? Could it be that He was so tired of sitting on my shelf watching me devote myself entirely to my family with very little thought for Him beyond the obligatory requirements of Sunday Mass and mealtime prayer? Could He have been smarting from our occasional family rosaries knowing that it wasn't enough to take a firm and steady root in the hearts of my husband and children? Was He demanding more of this on again/off again Catholic?

St. Margaret Mary often snuck away from her horrifically abusive home life during her early years to spend time in natural surroundings where she felt the love of Christ, and during her years in the convent at Paray where many of the nuns treated her cruelly, it was her escape to the chapel alone with Christ that brought her comfort despite the fact that she suffered for it by poor treatment from her fellow nuns. Yet, even with her frequent forays alone with Christ, she never neglected her duties to family and obedience to the rule of the Visitation Order.

I know that the loving teasing which I occasionally endure from my children for placing Christ in His rightful place in the center of my heart is nothing at all compared to the taunting of the nuns who persecuted St. Margaret Mary for her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and like St. Margaret Mary, I aim to never neglect the duties of my vocation as wife and mother. I hope to endure all suffering with the knowledge that the time I spend in prayer and the place of importance that Christ has in my life honors Him and keeps Him from jealously waiting for me to notice Him. My love and devotion to Him has the power to heal His broken Sacred Heart which continues to suffer from the lack of loving attention that is His rightful due from all of His children. I am His alone now and forever.

St. Margaret Mary Alocoque pray for us. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you.

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postscript to the above: Also found in The Nun about one of St. Margaret Mary's novices:

"She wrote the memoirs of her Mistress (the nuns ascribing the loss of all of her teeth to her excessive assiduity in writing."

I can only hope and pray that loss of teeth isn't a side-effect of excessive writing! It might be pride and vanity but I do hope to reach old age with all of my teeth intact! This quote made me think that Fr. James Martin, SJ would have had a good laugh over it and had he read it I'm sure he would have included it in his book Between Heaven and Mirth!

Speed Bumps and Other Helps

2011-10-13T00:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I posted highlights from Fr. Wade Menezes talk on the Blessed Mother from the Gazing on the Face of Jesus with Mary conference sponsored by the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate. Today I am giving Dr. Edward Sri his due. His talk was so engaging and uplifting-really most enjoyable! If you are ever offered the opportunity to hear him speak, I recommend that you do!

His words:

Some people consider praying the rosary to be as easy as saying your ABC's but others say it is difficult to pray it without a wandering mind. Some look at the rosary as a difficult chore and pray it just to "get it over with and check it off the to-do list," and for others every decade seems to last ten years, or they are so busy all day that when they finally sit down to pray the rosary, they fall asleep. But we should never walk away from praying the rosary feeling discouraged or defeated. Simply pulling out the beads and praying is giving something beautiful to God. St. Thomas Aquinas said that just the intention to pray is in itself the beginning of prayer.

If we pray the rosary and go to Mass and it doesn't go well and we're distracted, God sees the intent of our heart and He loves us for it. We should remember that the only one who wants us to be discouraged is the devil. But we do want to get better at prayer. Sometimes it's helpful to focus on meditating upon the mystery of each decade and at other times we want to focus on the words of the Hail Mary prayers. In either case the Lord will take whatever we give Him.

People may criticize the rosary as vain repetition. Jesus himself repeated his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed "Father, not my will but your will" three times. Repetition is the language of love. Every couple repeats "I love you" and they don't sigh and say "Could you come up with something more original?"

When we pray the words of the Hail Mary we are joining in the joy of heaven with Gabriel and the joy of earth with Elizabeth who first uttered these words of prayer. Gabriel who knew God in heaven from all of eternity is in awe over the mystery of the incarnation. And how does Elizabeth know that Mary is pregnant? It's through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which gave her prophetic insight. So the first half of the Hail Mary prayer is all about praising God-praising Jesus. The second half of the prayer, the Holy Mary, is simply asking her to pray for us. But it's the center of the Hail Mary prayer, the hinge, where we find the Holy Name of Jesus. We should treat his name in this prayer like a speed bump, that is, slow down and speak his name with reverence and love.

Get Into Your Prayers

2011-10-12T00:00:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I had the great honor of hearing Fr. Wade Menezes and Dr. Edward Sri speak about Marian Devotion and the rosary at the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate's Gazing on the Face of Jesus with Mary conference at St. Jerome's Parish in Oconomowoc, WI. What follows are some highlights from Fr. Wade's talk:

Each mystery of the rosary is re-lived at Mass, either directly or indirectly.

Mary is blessed not because she bore Christ within her womb and nursed him at her breast, but because she heard the word of God and kept it. We are to follow her example in this regard, to hear the word of God and keep it.

The Eucharist is the only Sacrament that is what it signifies; the other Sacraments effect what they signify such as baptism which washes away the stain of original sin, but the Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Christ.

All Marian devotion is Christocentric and points to Christ. Mary's name is never mentioned in scripture without an implicit reference to her Son. A perfect example of this is Mary's direction to the waiters at the wedding feast at Cana. She said, "Do whatever He tells you." She says the same words to us.

In the rosary Mary stands in the background of every mystery. Even the Assumption and Coronation are but glimmering foreshadows of what we hope to attain for ourselves based upon Christ on the cross who came to save us.

Using St. Thomas of Aquinas' definition of humility: "Humility is seeing your place and taking it." Mary shows her humility by taking her place in the stable, the home, the foot of the cross, and as the Queen of Heaven.

Just as Mary stood at the foot of the cross, she is standing today right next to you, ready to help and support you no matter what may be going on in your life.

The rosary is a contemplative prayer where we are conformed to Christ with Mary.

According to John Paul II the role of the Christian family in the modern world is the foundational and innate vocation of the human person to love.

The goal of Catholics is to stay right in line with the Chair of Peter and to swerve neither to the right nor the left as both camps cause confusion and the devil is loving every minute of it. It doesn't matter if you fall out of the Barque of Peter to the left or to the right-either way you risk drowning.

The spiritual life is not limited to liturgy. The liturgy is the source and summit, but Christians must also go to their room to pray in private and pray without ceasing.

Don't just get your prayers in-get into your prayers!

Between Heaven and Mirth-A Book Review

2011-10-11T00:00:00.014-05:00

Fr. James Martin, SJ has this theory that a joyful nature will attract others to the Catholic faith. By taking a look at his Facebook page and seeing that he has over 7400 likes, I'd say he's got that theory nailed!

I've been a fan of Fr. Martin for quite a while, ever since I read his books This Our Exile and My Life With the Saints. Last year I had the opportunity to hear him speak at the Archdiocese of Milwaukee's Pallium Lecture Series and laughed out loud during his entire program. The man clearly has a great sense of humor and knows how to tell a joke.

I'd been in a particularly low and lousy mood not so long ago and it was during that dark time that I received an email from Trish Collins at TLC Book Tours asking me to review Fr. Martin's latest book Between Heaven and Mirth. I thought it was a providential sign from God that it was time to crack a smile once again. And crack a smile I did, and then some, upon reading Between Heaven and Mirth!

Still feeling a bit joyless when the book arrived in the mail, it took me a chapter or two to really get into it. I thought, "What's so funny about a book that reads like a textbook with footnotes and an index?" It seemed a bit complicated for my dull senses and to top it off, I sensitively took the the first few chapters personally as I felt quite well described by his negative words about religious people who are prudish, touchy, irritable and serious seeing as that was the particular state of mind I was in at the time I received the book. This just seemed to reinforce my bad mood and I thought that if I were to ever meet Fr. Martin in real life, he probably wouldn't approve of my petulant and negative nature.

But after I got past the first few chapters I began to lighten up and enjoy the book. Fr. Martin's joyful spirit was proving to be contagious! I particularly enjoyed his anecdotes about his own personal failings and how he found the humor in them as well as the occasions where he pointed to scripture passages that seemed to tickle his funny bone. My favorite was the example about Jonah trying to hide from God so as to avoid preaching to the people of Nineveh and God's great comeback: "And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city {as if I need to remind you}, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" The humor in this passage is even more evident in the NAB version read at Mass just this past 5th of October which uses "cattle" instead of "animals" as if cattle are much more important than any other animal!

But by far my favorite chapter came towards the end of the book-I'm Not Funny and My Life Stinks-in which Fr. Martin acknowledges the fact that sometimes in life we do have just cause for sorrow and he offers concrete examples of how to survive that sorrow with a joyful spirit. His practical advice from St. Ignatius on the daily examination of conscience in which we are called to "savor" the events in our days for which we are grateful was, to me, the most helpful and uplifting advice this often malcontented Catholic has ever read. I particularly love the saintly quote in this chapter: "Do not become upset when difficulty comes your way. Laugh in its face and know that you are in the arms of God." ~St. Francis de Sales

If, like me, your personality tends to focus on the negative and you are easily brought low by the difficult events in life, you will find that Between Heaven and Mirth might be just the antidote to your depressive nature, and who knows, maybe even your "animals" will be rejuvenated by your more lively spirit! I rejoice in the gift of Fr. Martin and his lovely book Between Heaven and Mirth!

You can read further reviews at the following blogs:

Tuesday, October 4th: JonathanFSullivan.com
Wednesday, October 5th: Scrutinies
Thursday, October 6th: Oh Mandie
Tuesday, October 11th: Imprisoned in My Bones
Monday, October 17th: The Curt Jester
Tuesday, October 18th: Elizabeth Esther
Wednesday, October 19th: The House of the Seven Tails
Thursday, October 20th: Vox Nova
Monday, October 24th: Happy Catholic
Tuesday, October 25th: imperfect prose
Thursday, October 27th: Mom’s Mustard Seeds
Friday, October 28th: A Catholic Life
Monday, October 31st: Why I Am Catholic

Eucharistic Rosary Procession

2011-10-10T10:00:00.024-05:00

On Sunday, October 9th, Roses for Our Lady honored the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary with a special outdoor Eucharistic Rosary Procession as part of our monthly Holy Hour for Vocations on the scenic grounds of the regal and historic St. Francis de Sales Seminary which is always held on the second Sunday of the month at 2 PM. God blessed us with a beautiful autumn day and even nature rejoiced with us-for a time we were joined by two lovely deer who were feasting on the seminary's front lawn! Deacon Yamid Blanco, who will be ordained to the priesthood this May, presided at our Holy Hour this month and he treated us to a Gospel proclamation in chant! Such a lovely way to honor the Blessed Mother! (If you look closely you may recognize some of the family members of yours truly in the photos!)

Gazing on the Face of Jesus with Mary

2011-10-09T03:30:00.017-05:00

There are many nights when I lay awake, mind swirling with worry and anxiety, and then there are nights when I lay awake heart overcome with the love and goodness of God. I love that latter kind of sleeplessness and gladly give up the slumber to relish the joy that flows throughout my heart and soul. Last night I had one of those sleepless nights of joy.

My good friends, Dick and Terry Boldin, are a divinely inspired couple who have given their lives completely over to the purpose of spreading devotion to the rosary. They began the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate in 2003 and have been actively sharing their love for Jesus and Mary with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee ever since. In honor of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary they held a conference, Gazing on the Face of Jesus with Mary, that included a Friday night rosary and Mass with Archbishop Listecki and an all day Saturday conference at the gorgeous St. Jerome's Parish in Oconomowoc, WI. I was so honored to be invited to lector at the Friday night Mass and to be given the opportunity to promote Roses for Our Lady (Roses) and the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests (MPRP)at the conference on Saturday.

The conference included the opportunity to hear renown speakers Fr. Wade Menezes and Dr. Edward Sri speak on the value and importance of the Blessed Virgin and specifically on the rosary, in our lives today. They were both fabulous speakers and my pen couldn't take notes fast enough in an effort to remember all that they had to say.

But the highlights came in the little moments that punctuated the day...the opportunity for confession; seeing my son, John, fill in as a last minute server with the seminarians from St. Francis de Sales Seminary at the closing Mass with Bishop Perry from Chicago and being touched by the sight of John holding the Bishop's staff; witnessing the many, many people who stopped at my booth and offered a prayer at the statue of Our Lady of Fatima that I take with me to promote my organization (the statue belongs to my dear friend and Roses co-hort, Kurt Keidl)and meeting so many people who have a deep love for the Blessed Mother and a desire to pray for priests.

It is an amazing blessing to learn that I am not alone in my vocation to offer my all-my prayers and my life-for the sanctity of the many priests who bless my life, who bless all of our lives, with the gift of Christ personified through the Sacraments of the Church. So when I met people at the conference who were as excited as I am about praying for priests and who share my love and devotion for the Blessed Mother, I couldn't help but be overjoyed.

But by far, there was one person in particular who moved my heart at the conference. As I was busy working the crowd and sharing information about Roses and the MPRP, along came my friend, Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ, who introduced me to Erin Berghouse, a woman who shares my interest in praying for priests. Erin is not only a beautiful person on the outside, but she is also a beautifully holy soul on the inside with the gift of a lovely singing voice which she generously shares for the glory of God. Erin had been the guest soloist of the day, singing Anima Christi after Holy Communion and several of her original compositions about the Blessed Virgin Mary throughout the day. Her music is amazingly beautiful and touching; each time she sang I was overcome with chills and tears. Erin is clearly filled with the Holy Spirit and is as equally moved as I am to pray for priests. How lovely it is to meet a kindred spirit and a new friend!

Please visit Erin's website to learn more about her and to order her music. For a sampling you might enjoy The Priest Song which she wrote in honor of the Year of the Priest.

As I spent time this weekend gazing upon the face of Jesus with Mary, it became evident to me that Jesus and Mary were both gazing upon me as well, and the looks they shared with me were pure love, and so when I finally do succumb to sleep I know it will be under the ever watchful looks of love from my beautiful Jesus and His Blessed Mother. Sweet dreams my friends!