Lowering Standards

"As I walked about, inspecting everything, I suddenly saw a crowd of children who seemed to be no older than five to eleven years of age.  When they saw me they surrounded me and began to cry out, "Defend us from evil," and they led me into the chapel which was in this convent.  When I entered the chapel, I saw the distressful Lord Jesus.  Jesus looked at me graciously and said that He was gravely offended by children:  You are to defend them from evil.  From that moment, I have been praying for children, but I feel that prayer alone is not enough."  ~Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

Thunder cracked like the end of the world.  Now fully awake from a deep sleep, my mind went to my five babies sleeping upstairs.  Babies?  Physically that's not right and yet, to me, they always will be.  I wasn't worried about the safety of their bodies in the storm, but instead, I was concerned about the safety of their souls.  The local news has been filled with the story of two young girls who attempted to brutally murder a classmate and my heart has been heavy with the horror of it.  I worry about the influence of peer pressure upon my teens and young adults and how they have to deal with so many difficult situations in the world today. The burden of raising children to be holy in a world gone astray is certainly the greatest challenge of parenting today, and perhaps always has been.  I began to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  "Have mercy upon us and upon the whole world," I repeated over and over again until I fell back asleep.

Yesterday, when my children were babies, I heeded the advice to "lower my standards" and tried not to stress over the often dirty house, substandard meals lacking nutritional value and the lack of sleep all new moms endured.  I just tried to enjoy my family in the moment knowing that time would pass all too soon and they would be all grown up.

In the past 20 years, since God first made me a mother, I have been continually lowering my standards for cleanliness, health, education and finances, and perhaps several other standards as well.  I'm working on giving up my dreams for my children and gradually am coming to accept the fact that they have dreams of their own to sort out and chase.

But I can never lower my standards for their souls.  I can never lose vigilance in my prayers for them.  I take St. Monica as an example and pray for her perseverance hoping that I will have the courage to follow after my children whenever they go astray, and gently, lovingly, bring them back to the straight and narrow path toward sanctity.  I know that my own mother had done the same for me, and now with love, I carry the torch for holiness in my prayers for my own children.

O Lord, my God,  I beg of you to grant the gift of holiness to my children.  May their daily lives be filled with prayer, and may their daily actions glorify You in all things.  Lead my husband and I to holiness, too.  Don't  let our sinfulness become an obstacle to the sanctity to which my children are called.  May we be a witness to the joy that fills one's soul from serving You alone.  Let this request be the high standard that will never be lowered, the prayer above all prayers that You, my God, will see fit to answer.  Amen. 

Becoming Different

On this wonderful Marian Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, when many are consecrating themselves to Jesus through Mary, I thought it would be fitting to share something I learned from my own re-consecration last October. I was struck by the words of Fr. Don Hying, the day's presenter. He began by reading this passage from True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort:

"But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord, who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be 'like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful' Mary to pierce her enemies. (Ps. 126:4). They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God (1Cor. 6:17), who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings.

They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Spirit; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Eph. 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High." ~paragraphs 56-57 True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort~

Then Fr. Don asked, "Are you ready? This passage is speaking about you. This is the job description of every Christian. To live this is going to cause trouble in your life. It will stir up difficulty; even those close to you will think you're off the deep end. In Hebrew, the word Holy is translated as 'different.' How different are you willing to become in following Jesus?"

My son, Joe, who used to feel the pain my past depression quite keenly, would notice that my tears flowed more freely after I underwent a conversion experience (he called it "turning into a Jesus Freak.") He often questioned why I would suffer so much when I had given my whole heart to the Lord. I found difficulty trying to offer him reassurance until I heard Fr. Don's talk last October. I also found help to respond to his question in the following quote from Caryll Houselander, one of my favorite authors:

"It is the favorite accusation of those who, for reasons of their own, are made uneasy by the sight of someone else's honest attempt to practice Faith, that to save one's own soul is a selfish, egocentric preoccupation which makes one introverted, censorious and withdrawn from other people. In reality the opposite is true. As Christ grows in the soul, suffering and the capacity for suffering increase in the life, and with it the desire to suffer grows, not because of any morbidity, such as masochism; but because if Christ increases, love increases; when the love of God increases, the desire to atone for sin increases, because the lover of man wishes to heal the wounds from which mankind is bleeding to death." ~Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ

So, to Joe, and to others who struggle with the meaning of suffering in the life of a Christian, I echo the words of Fr. Don: "Are you ready? How different are you willing to become in following Jesus?" Let's follow the example of our Blessed Mother and allow the capacity and desire for suffering to increase in our lives as a means of healing the wounds of mankind and of God.