Twenty-Five

“Love seems swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”
-Mark Twain

Paul and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last month.  Just writing that out makes me smile.  We've been married for exactly half of our lives.  It feels so comforting to know someone so well, to have traversed illness and health, joy and sorrow, struggles and ease, side by side with the same person who loves you even when sometimes they might not like you very much.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing how we might celebrate this milestone, and in the end decided that we would take a full week of vacation from work and spend each day doing some small, enjoyable activity together.  It was the first real, week-long vacation that we can remember taking in many, many years.  We rented bikes and went riding downtown, we walked in scenic parks and out on the pier of  Lake Michigan, we visited antique shops and my hometown of Manitowoc, and we loved every minute of it.  But the highlight of our anniversary week was when we traveled to Indiana for a short stay.

The morning of our anniversary I was as nervous as a new bride as we drove to meet our friend Bishop Don who said Mass for us and invited us to renew our vows. I was surprised to find that Paul was just as choked up and emotional as I was. Following a delicious Italian lunch we bid farewell to our friend and traveled to northern Indiana for an overnight stay at Serenity Springs, a resort with private cabins overlooking a small lake.  It was so peaceful and quiet.  The resort was definitely well named!  When we arrived we were taken by horse and carriage to our cabin.  I had to resist recreating a scene from my favorite movie, Barefoot in the Park.  I wanted to stand up and shout "We just got married!" but to Paul's relief, I refrained from embarrassing him.  We completed our vacation with a stop at Michigan City, an artistic little town with a sea glass jewelry store where I had my favorite piece of glass re-wired, and a nice hike in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  I never wanted the anniversary week to end.

Serenity Springs horse and carriage ride

Serenity Springs

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore-half of the trail had been burned by the DNR

The burned forest-not exactly my kind of paradise; this sign made me laugh.

Now this looks a little more like a paradise valley.

And Lake Michigan must be pretty close to paradise!

A week later, we drove to Lake Villa, Illinois to bid farewell to our friends, The Handmaids of the Precious Blood, at a final Mass as they prepared to move to their motherhouse in Tennessee.  On that sunny afternoon we took the backroads instead of the freeway for the one hour trip and were treated to a delightfully scenic drive that included farms, horses, white fences and fresh spring flowers.  It felt like an anniversary vacation all over again!

That night I dreamed that Paul and I were in heaven, and the heaven of my dreams looked very similar to that drive to Illinois, only we were walking together instead of driving.  I do hope and pray that after at least twenty-five more years of wedded happiness, when the time arrives for Paul and I to leave this earthly life, we will truly be walking hand in hand together through paradise.

The Language of Love with Fr. Tim Kitzke

Fr. Tim Kitzke at Roses for Our Lady's May Crowning

On May 20th, his 26th anniversary to the priesthood, Fr. Tim Kitzke, the pastor of four parishes (including 7 churches), spiritual advisor for many groups within the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and newly appointed Vicar General of the City of Milwaukee, a role in which he hopes to bring peace and hope to the city which has been beleaguered by violence, came to speak to the de Chantal Society at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary.   The de Chantal Society is led by Susan McNeil of the Nazareth Project and Lisa Brielmaier of Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, and their mission is to "spiritually form and inspire Catholic women who, like St. Jane de Chantal, are integral to families, vocations and the Catholic Church."  Following thirty minutes of silent Eucharistic adoration, Fr. Tim's talk was lively and inspiring and within it he gave us three challenges for the spiritual life.

The Language of Love by Fr. Tim Kitzke

Fr. Tim said that whenever he's preparing a homily or a talk, the Lord gives him little signs to help him in his preparation, and recently these signs came through a little girl, Magdalena, or Lena, for short, who accompanies her mother  when she meets Fr. Tim for spiritual direction.  

Peacemakers

Fr. Tim said that his office is not child-friendly, and in it he has a large portrait of Our Mother of Perpetual Help that is on the floor leaning against the wall.  When Madgalena was a toddler and was learning how to crawl she used that picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to hold onto as she was learning to stand.  Fr. Tim, feeling nervous about the picture, told himself, "Tim, it's just a thing, let it go."  And the next thing he saw was little Lena looking at the image on the painting, and then she took her pacifier out of her mouth and tried to put it into baby Jesus' mouth!  He said this was a great symbol!  We're supposed to be pacifiers if we're living the language of love.

When Jesus ascends to heaven it's not to leave us as orphans, but so that we can take our proper role.   If Jesus were still here living in the world and walking among us, we wouldn't want to be listening to Fr. Tim, he wouldn't have a job. We'd be sitting at the feet of Christ, hanging on to His every word. But because Jesus ascended, we have to become peacemakers.  It's our first challenge. 

If you say that you love Jesus Christ, then you have to find peace in your heart before that peace can go out to others.  We have so much to worry about-the world, the Church, our children-but Jesus wants us to pray first of all for real peace to begin in our own hearts.  We have to find peace so that we can be peace and then we can find ways to pacify the world.

Open Doors

source

After Lena tired of sharing her pacifier with Jesus, she went to every door and tried to push it open.  That's our second challenge.  We're to open doors for others, and whatever door you open, open it wide.  We have a tendency, like the disciples, to stay behind locked and closed doors for fear.  But we need to engage, to open up our hearts to possibility.  Fear is paralyzing.  It closes our heart off.  There's an old Portuguese Proverb that says:  "A life lived in fear is a life half-lived."

Our demons come and they wake us up in the middle of the night causing us to lose sleep.  You have to cast out fear and get rid of whatever is demonic in your life.   Name your demons.  Give them a name  For example, there's the demon of self-loathing. Ask him to please leave.  And then pray to St. Michael the Archangel for his help.  Think about our baptismal promises.  Do you reject Satan?  The demonic powers have personal power.  They know the chinks in our armor and they know what will set us off into tailspins of fear.  We have to open the doors of our house to grace and peace.

Think of Jesus facing the demon in the desert, and in death, and when he descended into hell.  Why did Jesus have to go to hell?  One thought is that he had to face the devil in his own territory as an example to the disciples.  Another thought is that he went to hell because he was looking for Adam and Eve.  He had to go to the lowest part of hell to find them because they started this mess.  And there he found Adam with apple juice caked on his chin and Eve with tears crusted over her bereft eyes.  He tells them, "You weren't created for this.  Come with Me now."

When you wake up in the middle of the night tormented by demons, go to the medicine cabinet, and after you get over the shock of seeing yourself in the mirror, tell yourself, "You weren't created for this."

Use the Keys

After Lena found that pushing on the doors wasn't going to open them, she dumped out her mother's purse, found the keys and took them to the doors and tried to use them to unlock the doors.  Like Lena, we have the keys, it's the Church.  The Lord said to Peter, you are the rock and upon you I will build my Church.  We are challenged to use the keys of the Church to open and release fear, doubt, and anxiety.

Read holy scripture, pray the rosary or other devotions, spend quiet time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, go to Mass twenty minutes early or stay twenty minutes after Mass to pray.  Spiritual reading and coming to the de Chantal Society are also keys that will help us to live a spiritual life.  These are the keys that will help us to face the devil in battle.

Facing Failure

When Lena found that the doors were still locked and that her mother's keys didn't open them, she threw them down and jumped into her mother's lap.  Like Lena, we're going to face failure in the spiritual life.  We're going to obsess and face difficulties.  But the spiritual life is not a matter of success.  It's a matter of fidelity.  Half of life is just showing up!  So sometimes we just have to jump into our Mother's lap-into the arms of the Church and our Mother Mary's arms.  Yes, sometimes you will fail, but learn the language of "I kept trying." Sometimes you have to just let go and trust.  Faith is often a walk in the dark.

Fr. Tim said that after 26 years of the priesthood he's discovered that the more you let go, the better it is.  Somehow God works things out.  That's why we call it the mystery of grace. God will write straight with the crooked lines of our lives.

Realize that there have been people who have gone before you that know the way.  The saints give us an example and encouragement.  Aren't we lucky as Roman Catholics to have the saints?  We have a body of witnesses to walk with us.  They have a ladder of love that will take us to heaven.  

What the World Needs Now

Fr. Tim shared a story about his mother and how, in her last years on earth, he and his three siblings would all go to take care of her in her home.  They would clean her house, do the laundry and cook for her.  Fr. Tim went every Monday but one week his sister filled in for him.  The next week he asked his mom who cleaned better and his mom told him that he did.  So he called his sister to brag and she said, "That's odd because mom told me that I clean better!"  So Fr. Tim went back to his mom and asked her why she told both of them that they clean the best and she replied, "Oh Timmy, I only tell you what you need to hear!"

We all need to hear that we are loved unconditionally and irreplaceably.  As  St. Augustine says, God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us and He wants to help you.  Bask in the love of God.

If we take this seriously we can learn a new language, the language of love.  Or, as Fr. Tim has been frequently saying in his homilies and talks, what this world needs now is love, sweet love.

The next de Chantal Society meets on November 18th and 19th, 2015 at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, 3257 S. Lake Drive in Milwaukee, with Bishop Richard Sklba.  The hour of adoration, benediction and spiritual formation is always followed by a wine and cheese or coffee and cake social.  It's a wonderful time for women to be uplifted and to visit with old friends, as well as to make new friends.  Visit their website here for more information.

Look To Him

I woke up feeling moody and grouchy this morning, both tired and discouraged immediately upon arising before I even began my day. I didn't have the energy to fight off the ugliness and I was quickly caving into gloom.

I lector at daily Mass three days each week and today was one of them. As I approach the ambo I usually whisper a prayer to the Holy Spirit asking Him to speak through me and allow everyone present in church to be moved by the words of scripture as I proclaim them. But today I only muttered a half-hearted prayer to Jesus as I bowed to His presence in the tabernacle asking, "Please, help me get through this."

The readings were so beautiful on this Feast of St. Martha and despite my lack of fervor in prayer, I quickly felt the love of the Lord through the words I was reading. Who couldn't feel His love when reading 1 John 4:7-16, this beautiful passage about the love of God? But although I could sense His love, I was still distracted by my emotions and I lost my place which resulted in me reading verse eight twice: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." My mistake brought about the heat of an embarrassed blush quickly rising in my face.

By the time I came to the psalm, however, my embarrassment proved to be unfounded, for there I was reading my favorite scripture passage from Psalm 34: "Look to Him, that you may be radiant with joy and your faces may not blush with shame."

God's timing is amazing, is it not? Despite my negativity and my half-hearted attempt to proclaim His word, He would not allow me to forget His great love for me and maybe it was His doing after all, that caused me to repeat verse eight today. I think He had a message in that passage that He wanted to drive home to me; He wanted me to know that in my contrariness I was failing to love, failing to look to Him and know Him.

Through His amazing providence and His perfect love, all shame and embarrassment is cast out, all moodiness, fear and hate are gone. I will always look to Him and know that

God is love!

Calling Me Closer

Having just come from Tiffany's blog, Family at the Foot of the Cross, I find that I have been deeply moved by her story of a recent experience at Adoration where she witnessed a woman who was clearly in a deep love relationship with the Lord, and I feel that my whole perspective on my relationship with the Lord has been challenged.

Whenever I go to Adoration or attend a group Holy Hour or daily Mass, I always sit in the back (unless I'm the lector.) I guess it's my way of saying I'm not worthy to come closer and I also enjoy being able to see all of the other people who are there, drawing a feeling of loving community from them, realizing that we are all there to offer praise and worship to the Lord. I'd been in the habit of looking at all of the people gathered as one, and I always ask God to please hear all of our prayers, not simply my own.

But, maybe I've got it wrong-maybe I should be right in front, as close as I can get. Perhaps God is calling me to come closer in prayer and not let all of the other people distract me from Him. Maybe for the short time that I spend in worship at Church and at Adoration Chapels, He wants me all for Himself and wants me to feel His love as a gift for me alone. Could it be that through that hour of close and loving rest near His Eucharistic Heart, I will be strengthened to carry on with all of the responsibilities for which He has commissioned me?

O Lord, draw me close to you. Let me inside of Your Most Sacred Heart, where love and peace abound. Give me the courage and the strength to carry on Your will for me in this world of temptation and pain. Keep me forever within Your love. Amen.

Humble Love

Again...He holds my sins and failures before me...reminds me that all I need is humble love.

Why is it so hard to remember? Like a child with attention deficit disorder, His lessons go through me and disappear. I need reminders-and they always include pain.

A rebuke from my supervisor.

An argument with my son.

A little word of restraint from a friend.

I wince when I learn once again that this life is meant to include sorrow, that this journey to the perfection of heaven means that I am not perfect yet, but must continue to work towards that ideal.

And then He brings me to silence. Bowed before Him in adoration, watching the blood spill from His side, wanting so much to stop it, to cup it in my hands, to hold it forever...but it drips right through my fingers.

He wants me to stay small and to give my love to others over and over again, even when I grow weary and would rather not put any effort into loving. Like His blood that keeps on flowing, my love is meant to continuously be given to others, not pridefully kept to myself.

Humble love...grown in the silence that follows hurt pride and embarrassment...requiring restraint of tongue and abandonment of self...it's His gift to me; the one thing that I can hold on to forever, if I will only remember...

“At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide, ‘I will combat it with humble love,’ If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it.” — Fyodor Dostoyevski

Four Degrees of Love

Ending the year, feeling like a failure-knowing it wasn't completely without merit-just not as perfect as I would have liked it to be...I'm ready for a fresh start, longing to leave the past behind, ready to begin going DEEPER-- DEEPER into His arms, His heart, His love...

I look at St. Bernard's Four Degrees of Love once again and decide I want to begin going deeper right here, want to look at those degrees more closely, want to challenge myself to move through those degrees with more intensity--

1. Love of self for self's sake.
2. Love of God for self's sake.
3. Love of God for God's sake.
4. Love of self for God's sake.

I begin with why God should be loved:

St. Bernard says: "the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love."

And I think of his great love, choosing to become one of us-frail, weak, human-dependent upon the care of others. He knows. He knows what we suffer. He knows our joys. He is not a distant creator, but a God become one of us in the form of a helpless baby. And even more significant, he didn't take on human form just to understand us, but to die for us. He was born to die. For us. Because He loves us.

St. Bernard goes on to quote the famous line seen along country roadways on the sides of barns and held up in football stadiums everywhere. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

EVERLASTING LIFE. That life that includes EVERLASTING LOVE. This is the fourth degree of love that I am after, that we are all after.

O God, on this threshold of a new year, a year in which I want to go DEEPER into knowledge and love of myself so that I may grow DEEPER in knowledge and love of You, I ask You to guide me, slowly, patiently, gently into the DEEP where I will openly receive every good gift which You desire to bestow upon my weak and fragile heart, even the gifts which don't feel so good at first, those that might cause me pain in the growth. Open my heart to love of self for Your sake, not for mine. And along the way, when I stumble and fall, as I am sure to do, remind me that I am not a failure as long as I remember to take all of my efforts and place them into Your loving hands as an offering of my self, the very self that You have always loved. Amen.

Little Orphan Annie/Hands That Will Dip In Any Water

"I will never forget you, I will not leave you orphaned, I will never forget my own."

~from Isaiah 49

When my dad passed away four and a half years ago, I felt a bit orphaned. Although I was forty years old at the time, and had been without my mother since 1999, it wasn't until this time without my dad that I felt truly alone for the first time in my life. It was a strange feeling, and even now, it seems almost silly to write it out. Here I was, a grown woman with a husband and five children, perfectly capable of caring for myself and others, including helping to care for my parents in their last years. How can an adult be an orphan? Isn't that title reserved for little children who lose their parents? Yet, orphaned was a perfect word to describe how I felt in my loneliness for my parents, in my sorrow for my past mistakes and resentments toward them and in my lack of appreciation for all that they had done for me in my life. Why is it that we often fail to really see the love that we have been given until it is gone?

My Mother's Hands

"For years I have been haunted by a single line in an unpublished poem which seems to me to be very close to a definition of sanctity:
'Hands that will dip in any water." (an unpublished poem by Joan Bartlett)
I have seen the hands of a foster-mother chapped and bleeding from continually being dipped in hard water in frosty weather and have thought to myself that the stigmata are not, after all, reserved for a few rare mystics." ~Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ

The above passage from Caryll Houselander gave me chills the first time I read it, and it continues to chill me each time I read it again. If this is the definition of sanctity, then I am certain that my own mother is in the Kingdom of Heaven with a halo upon her head. You see, for years after my father's diabetes and back injury left him unable to work, my mom supported our large family by working in a factory, a job she despised, yet took on due to necessity. Each day, she had to work with chemicals, dipping her bare hands in the solution which detrimentally affected her health for the rest of her days. The result of working with this chemical caused nerve damage that left my mother's hands with a constant painful burning sensation, and her hands were so swollen and without feeling that she could barely hold on to anything without dropping it. It was rare that she would be seen without an ice pack between her hands to bring a little comfort from the burning sensation. Despite visits to many specialists, it wasn't until the last few years of her life that the brain tumor that had resulted from the chemical nerve damage was found; it was the brain tumor that eventually took her life.

She dipped her hands in any water to support and love her family; to live her calling from God. It was those same hands that held and comforted me as an infant, that spanked me when I misbehaved, that soothed my fevered brow during many illnesses, that fingered countless rosaries during hours of prayer, that lovingly refinished antique furniture bringing it to a smooth and glossy sheen that I can never replicate no matter how hard I try, and that cooked and cleaned for my benefit and for the benefit of my eight brothers and sisters. She was without a doubt, a saint, and if anyone had ever questioned that fact, they had only to look at her swollen and pain-filled hands-her own form of stigmata- and they would know that these were the hands of a truly holy mother.

Today, I look for the stigmata of motherly love in many other hands, and I find it in the friendly wave of an elderly parishioner at the sign of peace, in the firm handshake of our pastor after Mass, in the gentle squeeze of my daughter when she's feeling loving, in the calloused hand of my husband as he works to fix up our old house, and in the nervous trembling of a first-time mother in my WIC Clinic as she hands me her newborn baby to hold. These hands are all signs of the continuation of my mother's love for me. These are hands that will know pain in one form or another, yet through the pain, they will bring love to the world around them.

The "hands that will dip in any water" are the hands of His love that will always surround me and will never leave me orphaned.

...To be continued...Little Orphan Annie/My Father's Eyes...

The Shortest and Best Homily I Ever Heard

"When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep." John 21:15-17

Last night my family and I were visiting at another parish. I don't think that Father was feeling very well, and when it came time for the homily, he simply repeated several passages from the readings without expounding on them. Mary, my eight-year-old, busied herself re-reading the gospel passage from the Mass leaflet. After the homily she turned to me and said, "This is my all-time favorite reading! It's all about LOVE!!!" Her few words and her sweet smile said more to me than anything I had just heard in the homily. And she's so right, it is all about love, because God is Love and that's all we need, always!