Why I Will Drink Coffee on Sundays

In my youth, giving something up for Lent meant you didn’t have it from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday. When one of my sisters came home from college, she revealed a secret: you can have the things you gave up for Lent on Sundays. She claimed it was a “mini-Easter.” At the time, though, it seemed like cheating and an excuse for people who couldn’t handle giving something up for the entirety of Lent. I didn’t need a cheat day, I reasoned, I was strong enough to last all of Lent.

Over the past few years, I have come to realize the wisdom in allowing Sunday to be a relaxed day in the midst of a penitential season. There is a particular wisdom found when I remember my own temperament.

I like a good challenge. Tell me I can’t do something and I will probably try to do that thing (if I care enough). I’m stubborn and prideful to a fault. So when I tell myself that I can go without coffee for the entirety of Lent, I start to feel a little smug. It sounds challenging and I can already feel a sense of pride within myself. Of course, it is a sacrifice for the Lord and yet I am quick to make it about what I can do.

However, if I acknowledge that I will go six days without coffee and then break that fast on Sunday, it is hard to get overly prideful about that. Really? That’s it? Six days? And I find myself almost convincing myself to “be strong” and go through all of Lent without it.

The purpose of Lent, though, is not to build up my ego and pat myself on the back for all of the difficult things I did. Hopefully, Lent is a time of challenging ourselves and saying no to our own habits and desires. Yet if I walk into Mass on Easter Sunday, bursting at the seams that I was able to forego a long list of comforts, I might miss the fact that Jesus is the one saving me. Continue reading “Why I Will Drink Coffee on Sundays” →

Unrestricted Access to My Heart

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,
“You are lacking in one thing.
Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Mark 10:21

It is because Jesus loves this young man that He challenges him. By many standards, this man has done all that he has been asked to do. He has kept the law since his earliest days. Yet, he comes to Jesus to ask what he must do to inherit eternal life. Either he wants to be affirmed in how excellently he has kept the law or he feels there is something more to which he is called.

Jesus looks at him with that gaze that pierces through the heart and is filled with a great love for this young man. The authenticity of His love compels Him to call the young man to something greater. Jesus tells the young man to put aside everything of this world and to follow Him. It is out of love that He invites the young man to run with reckless abandon in the race for Heaven.

Yet the man leaves saddened. Though he follows the law, he is unwilling to set aside everything for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus issues His challenges out of love, but they vary based on the person. Some He invites to follow Him and they cannot, refusing to leave behind possessions or family. Others long to follow Him and He tells them to remain home, sharing the Good News among their own people. When it comes to living in God’s will, there seems to be no one-size-fits-all approach for the Lord. His will is customized to the individual and it often seems to be contrary to what we want.

This is why the life of contemplation is the boldest and most adventuresome of undertakings, for what could be more radical, more truly earth-shattering, than the willingness to be dismantled and created anew, not once or twice in a lifetime, but day after day?

The Way of the Disciple, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

He is not satisfied by things done half-way. Our souls, though we may attempt it often enough, cannot be half His. The young man wanted to comfortably follow the law and yet Jesus calls him to a life he did not expect. Sell everything? Why? Where is that in the law?

While I may be tempted to mentally chastise the young man (Jesus was asking you to follow Him! How could you not?!), I must admit that I am he. Continue reading “Unrestricted Access to My Heart” →

He Meets Me in My Poverty

Mountain passes are closed.

I’m not from a mountainous region; rather, I live in the vast plains of the Midwest. The prospect of driving nearly three hours through a mountain snowstorm seemed daunting. Yet with the mountain passes all closed, it seemed impossible.

So I thought about it often, prayed for things to work out, and nearly obsessively checked the weather and mountain pass website. The people I was traveling with didn’t seem particularly concerned, so I felt a need to worry for all of us. Also, I had rented the vehicle and was to drive through these mountains. I wanted to trust that the Lord would make all things work out, but I also wanted to not stupidly walk into a bad situation.

Generally, I like flying, but the flight from Denver to Seattle was riddled with turbulence. The uneasiness about the drive was only exacerbated by the bumpy flight. A headache developed, probably a combination of too much stress and a lack of sleep, coffee, and food.

Arriving in Seattle, my sister and I checked the mountain passes and, thankfully, one of them was completely open with no road restrictions. I was grateful, but the tension of the past week could not be unraveled so quickly.

After picking up our third traveling companion, we started the trek through the mountains. The roads were clear and open. The scenery was beautiful. Yet my stomach remained in knots and I felt sick. A few days of worry was wrecking havoc on me physically. We journeyed into the mountains and it started to snow a bit. The snow piled on either side of the road reached higher than the semis that surrounded us. Then we came to a complete standstill due to an accident. Sitting there, with snow starting to fall and stressed despite the fact that everything had gone well so far, I had to admit defeat.

As we waited, I had been close on multiple occasions to stepping outside the car, confident that I would embarrassingly get sick on the side of the road. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I told my sister. I switched places with our third traveler and slid into the back seat.

For the next 1.5-2 hours I sat there with my eyes closed as we flew around curves and over mountains. At first, I was angry with myself. I don’t like to view myself as weak and I am generally a very stubborn person. The driving wasn’t difficult and I knew I could do it. Yet there I was, unable to continue driving because I had let my fears and worries take their toll on me physically.

Instead of being annoyed with myself, I tried to do something fairly new–I accepted my humanity. I recently began reading The Way of the Disciple by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis. The rest of the drive I reflected and prayed with one section of that book.

Our business, then, as Christians and as contemplatives-perhaps our only business-is to work tirelessly at becoming destitute and needy orphans and widows who rely only on the mercy, goodness, and power of God….The Cistercian John of Ford, for one, exclaimed that he desired nothing other than to rest with Jesus as the center of his own poverty, the special place where Jesus had chosen to meet him.

And so I rested in my poverty. Continue reading “He Meets Me in My Poverty” →

My Seeking Heart is a Sought After Heart

This blog is entitled “Seeking After His Heart.” Ideally, I like to think of my life as a pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Yet sometimes I overlook the fact that it is really about the Good, the True, and the Beautiful pursing me.

God initiates all of our encounters with Him. If He did not reveal Himself, we would not know Him. If He did not allow us to perceive Him, then we would be completely unaware of His presence. Even prayer, which can sometimes be viewed as something we do for God, is actually something He does for us.

In conversation with my spiritual director, he told me to not overlook begging Jesus for the grace to go to Him in prayer. And sitting in the adoration chapel the other evening, I reminded myself that I was there simply because I responded to God’s grace. I mean, it kind of felt like it was purely my choice, but I knew that it was God offering His grace and me, finally, responding to it.

This initiation on God’s part is timeless. All of the Old Testament covenants are made because God interacts with a human person and desires to be in relationship with them. They don’t start the process. “Hey, God! I’d like to be a part of Your family!” God reaches down to us and adopts us as His own. Even greater still, He enters into the human family so as to bridge all gaps between us. There is nothing left for us to do but to respond.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman with simple words, “Give me a drink.” He seeks her out, He encounters her, and He asks her to enter into relationship with Him. Yet I love the way that the Lord does this. He reaches out to her and expresses His thirst for her. Continue reading “My Seeking Heart is a Sought After Heart” →

God Died

“God died, Trish. God died.”

I was a little surprised at this statement, coming from my five year old nephew. We had just started the drive from my house to my parents’ house. Perhaps it was the fact that we were passing a Catholic church or maybe the thought just came into his mind, but the statement seemed like it was out of left field.

“Who told you that?” Even though my mind was immediately jumping to Nietzsche’s famous ‘God is dead’ statement, I was pretty certain my nephew had a different source. Did he have a little atheist friend at school? Did his teacher say something? Was an older student filling his mind with such things?

“My mom and dad.” Well, that changed it a bit.
“What did they say?”
“They said that He died. He really died.”
“And that He rose from the dead?”
“Yeah.” That detail didn’t seem quite as important to him.

Yet the Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most important details of all. If He was who He said He was, then the Resurrection verifies His claims. If not, then there could be no greater blasphemy than claiming to be God and, by all rights, the Jewish leaders were correct to condemn Him to death.

The incredible aspect of the Resurrection is sometimes lost on those of us who have spent our whole lives hearing about it. But if we take a step back, we might be able to appreciate more fully the bold claim we are making.

We claim the Incarnation is true, that God took on human flesh–He didn’t just appear to be human or was merely human–and dwelt among us.

Later, He was condemned to death, scourged, crucified, and then died. After wrapping His body in clothes, He was laid in a tomb, which was sealed with a large stone and had a Roman guard stationed in front of it.

Three days later, the tomb is empty, the guards are confused, and His body is nowhere to be found.

We claim that He rose from the dead. He actually died and then He resurrected. Not “came to” or was revived, but entered into a new life, one that could never end again in death. Continue reading “God Died” →

Pausing for Perspective

Walking out of the school building last week, I took in the afternoon weather. It was overcast and wanted to rain. Part of me was a little annoyed that it wasn’t a sunny winter afternoon. Although it was warmer than a typical January day, it was a bit bleak. Yet before I could be too down about it, I unexpectedly thought, “If I were in England, this would feel like a wonderful day.”

For a moment, I took in the cool air and imagined traipsing around London. The cloudy sky seemed to fit perfectly for a stroll down the streets of London and seeing the sites. If I were in London, I wouldn’t sit in a hotel room and be annoyed that it wasn’t sunny. I would step out with an umbrella and soak in the delight of being able to explore a new town. In fact, the cool air and the cloudy sky might even seem to add to the romance of the excursion.

It is incredible what a change in perspective can do. On an afternoon in South Dakota, the weather seemed to be rather unremarkable, bothersome even. Yet if I pictured myself somewhere else, be it the English countryside or a pub in Dublin, it suddenly seemed to add to the beauty of the situation. I think there is something about the unfamiliar and the novel that makes us more prone to find it enjoyable. The same thing in an everyday setting is easily overlooked or forgotten.

I’ve experienced this stark difference several times in my life. The easiest examples are from when I’ve been traveling. When I studied abroad in Austria, I had to walk a couple miles to the train station every time I wanted to explore Europe. It is amazing how invigorating it felt to strap on a backpack and trudge through the snow, headed to someplace completely unexplored. I’ve spent my whole life living in a state that experiences cold winters and sufficient snowfall, but there was something about an Austrian winter that was exhilarating.

Or there was the time that I went to Honduras for a mission trip. There was something soul-satisfying about waking up in the early morning and stepping outside to hear the birds chirping. In those moments, there was some indefinable joy and sensation. To this day, on specific spring or summer mornings, I can go outside and there is something “Honduran” about the atmosphere.

These moments of travel and exploration are times where I have experienced what it means to be fully in the present. It happens in ordinary life, too, though not nearly as often. Continue reading “Pausing for Perspective” →

The Best Defense is Encountering Love

You can, in the broadest terms, call it “Catholic culture.” However it’s described, though, it’s not something you simply argue yourself into. Rather, it’s something you experience aesthetically as well as intellectually, with the emotions as well as the mind, through friendships and worship and experiences-beyond-words as well as through arguments and syllogisms.

“Letters to a Young Catholic” by George Weigel

Something I am intent on drilling into my students this semester is that Christianity is necessarily a life of encounter. It is the tremendous beauty of being able to experience an authentic and lived relationship with Christ while also delving into the rich intellectual tradition of the Church. Catholicism is chock-full of the “both/and” that makes life so simple and yet so deep.

I teach high school Theology to sophomores and seniors, making it somewhat safe to assume that I am not an advocate of an anti-intellectual, touchy-feely Christianity. Specifically, one of my courses is apologetics, which is teaching how to defend the faith against attacks. And there are many, many attacks launched against the Church in every age, no less in this one. Defending the faith, though, is not merely done through well-chosen words or precisely articulated statements. These are helpful, but much of the battle is done through actions. If my students do not love the Church, they will be far less inclined to defend or understand Her.

I am well aware that the love I have in my heart for the Catholic Church is not the norm. My students need to encounter more than the beauty of truth to be convinced. I read the Church’s teachings and my heart stirs with the acknowledgement that these are profound truths. Often when my students hear the Church’s teachings, they hear how their freedoms are being minimized or that they are being told what not to do. However, if they love the Church, they will see that She is a mother caring for and protecting Her children, even if they do not always understand.

This is where the necessity of encounter comes in. Catholicism, in Our Lord’s great wisdom, is a faith filled with the tangible. We hear the words of absolution at Confession, we feel (and smell) the oils at Baptism and Confirmation that claim us as members of the Church. The incense, like our prayers, rises up to the Heavens as we adore Our Lord in the Eucharist. On pilgrimage, we travel to the places where the bones of the Apostles and saints of the Church rest. Oddly, we touch our rosaries and prayer cards to their tombs, praying that we will follow the Lord’s will as radically as they did. We light candles before altars, hoping that our intentions will be continually presented to Our Lord’s throne. As George Weigel says throughout Letters to a Young Catholic, there is a grittiness in Catholicism. In this book, he also says the following:

Catholicism does not rest on a pious myth, a story that floats away from us the more we try to touch it. Here, in the scavi [excavations under St. Peter’s], we’re in touch with the apostolic foundations of the Catholic Church. And those foundations are not in our minds. They exist, quite literally, in reality. Real things happened to real people who made real, life-and-death decisions–and staked their lives–not on stories or fables but on what they had come to know as the truth.

To be Catholic, George Weigel argues and I concur, means to live in reality. And as someone who so often feels that people think my ideals mean that I don’t live in reality, that is uplifting to hear. Being Catholic means living in the greatest love story while also fighting the greatest battle of all time, primarily because it transcends time. As a romantic with more than a touch of stubbornness, these intertwining elements make the Church my perfect home. It is not merely a battle of the wits, arguing and defending a supernatural institution to a world rooted in earthly affairs. It is also, and primarily, an encounter with Love, being transformed by Love, seeking to enter into Love. If love is not at the heart, all is meaningless and in vain. Continue reading “The Best Defense is Encountering Love” →

As Promised, He Remains

Several months ago, I was making a mild attempt to listen to the overpowering political discourse, if it can be called that. As I heard one awful thing after another, I found myself seeking for something to hold onto, some hope or reassurance that things wouldn’t get as bad as some thought. That is when I remembered–Christ said that He would never allow anything to overcome….Oh. Yeah.

Christ promised that nothing would overcome the Church. Of the United States of America, Christ made no comment. He didn’t prophesy that this nation would come in several centuries and would be indomitable. Throughout Scripture, we hear about how the Lord will remain and endure. Throughout history, we see nation after nation fall. There are uprisings and reformations, divisions and unifications. All is changing and all is temporal.

Except the Lord.

He remains. He endures. He is steadfast. He is “I AM WHO AM.” He is existence itself. And He promised that His Church would remain until the end of time. He promised persecution, the cross, and many difficulties, too. But, He would always remain.

I don’t happen to think our nation is on the verge of dissolving. However, I do think it is clear that we need prayer and that we need the Lord. While I am fully aware of the separation of Church and state, I am also aware that one of the longest running institutions is the Catholic Church. It isn’t such because the leaders have been flawless; on the contrary, they were deeply flawed from the very beginning. The Gospels are replete with accounts of the fumbles and foibles of the Apostles. If the Church has not endured because of the perfection of Her members, it must endure because of the perfection of the Lord. Continue reading “As Promised, He Remains” →

When will I feel like I’ve arrived?

The other day, I was filling my glass with water and perusing the pictures and cards decorating the refrigerator. A picture of a young couple with a smiling baby captured my attention. I found myself wanting to be them and thinking how lucky they were. They were married, had a baby, and lived in a warm climate.

“When will I feel like I’ve arrived?” I found myself wondering. And that question struck me. Most of us spend much of our lives waiting for the next phase, one that we idealize as better than our current state. Perhaps this couple is hardly sleeping and they are looking forward to the days when they can. Or maybe they are longing for another child. So I asked myself, “At what point will I have all I want?”

Will it be when I am married? Or when I have my first child? Or when I have a big family? Or when they start to grow up and we can go do things together? Or when they are all moved out and have families of their own? When will I be in the place that I want to be? What do I consider the end goal? Continue reading “When will I feel like I’ve arrived?” →

The Mission of the Classroom: A Desire Renewed

I entered the evening with no expectations. Sometimes that is the best place to be with the Lord.

My sister had an extra ticket and so I figured I could go to the event. There would be adoration and so it couldn’t be a waste of time. The Lord, in His mercy, blew me away.

The talk was good, but it wasn’t that. The music was nice, but it wasn’t that. In all simplicity, it was the Lord. He knocked, I opened, and He came in. There were no specific words that He spoke to me, but He filled my heart with a burning desire to be wholly His.

Over the last few years, I have grown more and more comfortable with my role as a teacher. This year, I have found comfort in reflecting on how my responses have changed since my first year of teaching. While grateful for the experience I now have, I realized that I was becoming more of a teacher but less of a missionary. It is good and necessary to think of new projects or ways to present ideas to the students. Yet I was feeling less and less of this desire to present the glorious truths to them. Convicted of my mediocrity, I asked the Lord for renewed zeal.

At the beginning of this year, I wrote that I wanted to enter into spiritual battle for my students. In that, I have failed miserably. During adoration, as Jesus was processed around the auditorium, I was convicted of that failure and filled with a desire to go to war for them. I don’t want to just teach them; I want them to encounter the living reality of Christ. Continue reading “The Mission of the Classroom: A Desire Renewed” →

Seeking After His Heart

A Blog Following the Quest of A Human Heart

Category: Jesus