Category: Church Militant

Papa Francesco



His Holiness Pope Francis



“Francis, rebuild my Church which is falling into ruins.”

Perhaps Our Lord spoke these same words to the new pope as he accepted a new cross to be embraced for the sake of the world.  I do not know this pope but I love him already.  Pope Francis.  Simple and humble–his few moments of publicity have merely seemed to reconfirm that image.  Sometimes I am amazed by my love for the Church.  I do not think this love is even enough, but it causes my heart to reach out in faith and love to a man I have never met but one for whom I already feel an attachment.  My students, upon seeing a picture of the pope, gave a dissatisfied sound.  Their thoughts probably centered on disappointment that the pope seemed to be old.  How little they know!  This Vicar of Christ will do great things.  He knows that he cannot do it on his own.  He desires for us to pray for him.  Before blessing the crowd, Pope Francis invited the people to pray for their new leader.  Re-watching the clip at home I was moved to tears.  This morning I was asking the Lord to end this week, this school year because I was finished and tired.  We received a beautiful new pope and I felt suddenly re-energized!

The media will attempt to destroy him over the next few days and weeks.  Lies will circulate and they will try to poison the minds of the public.  And in many ways, it will sadly work.  But I cannot forget the sight of thousands of people waiting in the square for the white smoke to rise, signaling the start of a new papacy.  The youth were present and filled with such joy.  That is what the media cannot disguise.  Such pure joy emanated from St. Peter’s Square as the billowing smoke proclaimed that a new Shepherd had been chosen.  In my classroom miles away from Rome, I could feel the energy and life of the Catholic Church as depicted on the livestream video.  I wasn’t trying to be dramatic but my students could see my joy.  It was tangible.  That is the hope of the Church.  We have joy!!  Yes, I am a young woman.  Yes, I love the Church.  Perhaps the media is right–there aren’t too many people who are like-minded.  But the joy of the Lord is our strength.  And Truth is with us!  Over the past few days I have come across a few articles mocking and belittling the “new evangelization” saying that it will never work because the Church can never win back the people.  Apparently God thinks otherwise.  This Church, as evidenced by the mass of people, by the sheer joy of Catholics around the globe, by her steadfastness and courage, is not dead.  She is very much alive. 

The Church does not look like the world wants Her to look.  I hear my students speak of the old-fashioned aspects of the Church and how She needs to catch up to the rest of society.  I love Her.  Her beauty is beyond comprehension and Her depths are unable to be plumbed.  She is my mother, truly.  And today the princes of the Church entrusted Her to a cardinal from Argentina.  This pope is humble and knows he cannot do all that is being asked of him.  So he asks for our prayers and then will entrust the Church to Our Lady tomorrow.  The Lord does not fail.  Pope Francis will be persecuted, to be sure.  We will be persecuted if we truly embrace a Christian life.  Church Militant, let us enfold our already beloved Pope Francis in prayers.  How little my problems seem when I think of the task that now lies before this man.  He will lead the Church on earth and I have simply to teach a few teenagers about a God and Church I deeply love.  Come, Holy Spirit, overflow on Pope Francis.  May he rebuild your beautiful Church and show us the pathway to Heaven.

Deo Gratias!

“Thank you, my God, for placing in my heart such a love for the pope.”  –St. Josemaria Escriva

I’m Worn…

I’m Tired I’m worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I’ve made mistakes
I’ve let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left….

My prayers are wearing thin
Yeah, I’m worn
Even before the day begins
Yeah, I’m worn
I’ve lost my will to fight
I’m worn
So, heaven come and flood my eyes

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause all that’s dead inside will be reborn
–“Worn” -Tenth Avenue North

That was how my week ended.  It found me filled with a great sense of tiredness and my inability to be perfect and teach as well as I desire.  I want perfection or at least success.  It is hard to remind myself that God is desiring my faithfulness far more than my success.  My competitive nature wants to win and even though I don’t quite know who I am in competition with, I can feel that I am not winning.  Perhaps part of my mopey feelings stemmed from remembering that I was a natural at school as a student but am not quite a natural as a teacher.  For some reason I assumed that those two went hand-in-hand.  But, alas, they do not.

I received some criticism, some fair and some unwarranted, from a student as the topping to my Friday.  Those words echoed in my mind throughout that evening and into the rest of the weekend.  We are an ungrateful society but it is difficult to find gratitude in the faces of students who don’t even want what you are offering.  So I spent the weekend wondering what God wanted, frustrated with my students and more so myself.  If I was less stubborn and bull-headed I might have considered quitting or finding a different job in the near future.  This sounds dramatic considering the conversation that took place wasn’t earth-shattering.  Primarily what topped the feeling chart was that I was tired of not adequately communicating the love I have for Jesus and the Church and wondering why I was in a position so obviously ill-suited to my temperament.  Yet the weekend continued on and all of this pondering and wondering led to much fruit.  On Sunday I watched “Beyond the Blackboard” and I began to put my situation in perspective.  The movie is about a teacher who faces seemingly insurmountable odds and yet, of course, she manages to come out ahead and be a wonderful inspiration.  I knew the ending would be triumphalistic but it was what I needed to get me back into a “I can make a difference and help people” mindset.

So I decided to pursue a course of change.  For a melancholic, this is a quite a feat in itself.  Monday I started all of my Apologetics classes with my students writing down what they like and dislike about my class.  I encourage charity and criticism with the intention of being constructive.  For the most part, my students were very good.  While my ego was wounded a bit in the reading of them, I found much that encouraged me.  Some students were encouraging since I was a first year teacher and others told me to not take it too personally because religion isn’t well-liked by many people.  It also reconfirmed the realization that no matter what I do, I will never please all of them at the same time.  The weekend gave me time to build things up and feel as though everybody hated me and my class.  Some of the students claimed to have no complaints, others had some reasonable complaints, and others took the opportunity for what it was worth and, hiding behind the anonymity of it, let me have their unadulterated criticism.  I shared with my mother that I was beginning to partially understand how God could be frustrated with us–I have only 115 or so students that I am trying to please while God has 7 billion.  No matter what I due, someone will be displeased.  God does things far better than I and still people are continually unsatisfied with what He is offering.  Too often I am among that number.   

I wonder at times if the Lord has placed me here not because of anything I can teach my students but rather because of something that He desires to do in my own heart.  Perhaps in some way teaching can convert my heart like nothing else could.  Sometimes my stubborn heart is my downfall and at other times it is that which keeps me from giving up and surrendering the battle. 

Lord, I am still in this battle until You take me home.  But I renewed my desire again today that it be Your classroom and not mine.  You are a much better teacher.   

Society’s Plague

At times I wonder how much I live in reality.  I know in theory how the world is decaying but I can say that much of my life has been fairly sheltered.  And I am not complaining.  But sometimes I want to know the secret lives of my students.  I think some of them would shock me.  My students aren’t bad but I am certain that some of them are far more worldly than I am.  While I don’t particularly desire to be worldly I think it would be good for me to know exactly what are the difficulties that my students face on a daily basis, what do they struggle with, how are they tempted.

Last week I was explaining the arguments for God’s existence as a review for our quiz.  While recapping the argument from beauty, one of my students asked if the devil created ugly things them.  I told them that the devil will twist and distort beauty.  A couple more questions and clarifications were added and as I was speaking I felt like I would be avoiding the topic if I didn’t include it.  I told them that pornography distorts beauty.  That woman has this inherent beauty and that the devil distorts that by making her purely physical or an object.  I noticed a shift in the feel of the room.  Some of the boys who previously were making pretty good eye contact were suddenly not meeting my eyes.  It wasn’t as though they all got red or gave tell-tale signs, but I noticed a shift in the atmosphere.  Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but almost a subtle admission of guilt and perhaps some curiosity about it.  And I wondered how the scourge of pornography is impacting our Catholic high schools.  I want to know how prevalent the problem is and yet I feel as though if I knew I would simply feel discouraged.  What a society they are being sent into and are a part of now.  It is difficult to try to teach them the truth when doing so means that one must speak against nearly everything found in the culture.  They begin to think that the Church is against everything instead of seeing that society is running away from God.  This is certain the time of the Church Militant.  But have no fear, the Church Triumphant and Suffering are in this with us!

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.