Who is your father?

“Who is your father?”

The words are spoken by the silver-tongued devil as Jesus agonizes in the garden.  I am always struck by the way Satan is portrayed in “The Passion of the Christ” and how perfectly it is done.  Part of me thinks he should be far more evil in appearance and words but I think they actually did it correctly.  Satan doesn’t tempt us with murder at first.  Rather he sows seeds of doubt and distrust.  Jesus agonizes in the garden and Satan is attacking His very identity.  To attack His identity means to attack the very relationship that defines Him, that defines us.

Who is your father?  The question is laden with subtle hints that a loving father would not subject His only beloved son to such torture.  Such suffering is unnecessary, it is unkind, it is not good.  Satan is trying to shake the belief that God is all-good and all-loving.  Once the question of doubt is placed about the Father, then he attempts to destroy the very image of the Son.

“Who are you?”  Such simple questions.  With such simple answers.  Yet in the midst of despair and confusion, the answers can be hard to come by.  I am….who am I?  Once the relationship with the Father is cut, then it is much easier to destroy who you are.  Think of the Lion King.  Mufasa appears to Simba and says that because Simba has forgotten who he is, he has also forgotten who his father is.  We also can fall into the same trap.  We forget ourselves because we have forgotten who the Father is.

Satan plants these little lies, these questions, these doubts and then lets them wreck havoc in our lives.  Who are we?  “You are my son (daughter), the one true king…and you must take your place in the circle of life.”  Theological translation?  You are the son/daughter of the one true King and you must take your place in the Body of Christ.

He is.

You are because He is.

Never think that He is because you are.  You are the dependent being.  You are the one who relies on Him for everything.  Do not let Satan shake your foundation.  One of the best things I have learned (and strive to put into practice) is simply asking, “Would Jesus speak to me in this way?”  Jesus challenges us and pushes us forward but He doesn’t do this by tearing us apart.

St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “Who are you, Lord my God, and who am I?”  This is very different from how Satan approaches the issue.  He attacks when we are weak and questioning.  He uses the questions to create distance, not to draw us nearer to Our Lord.  Satan’s questions cause unrest, lack of peace, and sow doubt.  The prayer of St. Francis encourages depth and seeking the Truth about God.

Who is your father?  Who are you?  You are the Beloved of the Father.  The Father is transcendent and immanent.  He is Mercy, Love, Goodness.  He is the great I AM.  He doesn’t need you but He loves you radically.  He is the origin of all things, the Creator of the Universe.  He is wonder, awe, and beauty that we find all around us.  He is.  And because He is, we are.

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”
–excerpt from ee cummings [i carry your heart with me (i carry it in]

The Warmth of Church in Winter

The wind is chilling as it caresses my cheek with a frigid wisp of air.  Walk quickly, breath in the exhilarating fresh air, and scrunch my shoulders to my ears to keep in the warmth.  Of all the things I do, this is one of the things that makes me feel most like an adult.  I am hurrying from work to a little chapel, tucked away in a hospital.  My feet will lead me out of the wintry cold and into the warmth of a chapel.  I will be united with the universal Church in prayer and receiving the Eucharist.  I will rest in the pews and hear the readings proclaimed.  While I like going to Mass during the school day, I feel most adult-like when I am trudging through the snow on my way to Mass.  Something seems so beautiful about that prospect.  In college it was typical for people to go to daily Mass often.  There were multiple Mass times on campus but it was only when I would go to Mass off-campus, surrounded by people who had come from work or brought the young children from home, that I felt a strong interior gladness.  It was as though college was an artificial world and stepping off the campus and into the town I was stepping into reality.  I was taking my place among the adults of the world and showing the importance of the Eucharist.  The fact that I wasn’t going because it was so accessible or expected, but because I desired to, my heart longed to go.

I love Mass regardless of the season or location.  But there is a special beauty found in going to Mass when it is cold outside and the church embraces you like you were in your mother’s womb.  The outside world might be cold and hostile, but Mother Church will always take you in, nourish you, and send you back out to fight the good fight.

Surrogacy and Women: A Rant

“Wouldn’t spending the money and going through the extra effort prove they loved the child more?”

“Isn’t is just nice to do for someone?”

In a move that was perhaps questionable from the outset, I decided to open the floor to questions for the entirety of a class period.  After a couple weeks of my classes being off-sync, I wanted to finally draw them together and the rampant questions of one class had provided the perfect opening.  However, that class asked questions that flowed naturally from one to the next and with only thirteen in the class, there was a feeling of closeness and simplicity.  Trying to re-create that atmosphere for a class of twenty-nine was a different story.  I offered to them the chance to simply ask questions that they had about the Church or the faith.  The first class had found questions that flowed from Our Lady to salvation to exorcisms.  The next class found a different route and were spurred on by different questions.  They followed the line of exorcisms with a leap to evolution and surrogacy.  The result was a class that ended with a bit more intensity and moral depth.  Time ran out and they left unsatisfied with some of my answers.

I have never really discussed surrogacy with a class before but I had recently talked about such things with a friend of mine.  One girl originally asked the question and she seemed alright with my answer.  Others were not.

“Wouldn’t spending the money and going through the extra effort prove they loved the child more?”

I tried to explain that spending money doesn’t mean more love.  (Only later did I think of prostitution as a fitting example.)  Can the couple love this child?  Of course.  I’m not denying that a couple can love a child they “paid” for, but I don’t think it means they love him/her more.  A great example came to mind (thanks, Holy Spirit) that the true statement of love would not be that I can afford to create a life in a laboratory but rather that I can let go of my desire to have a biological child and rather adopt.  (They argued that adoption was spending money, too.  A different matter, I believe.)  The love is found not in the willingness to spend a large sum of money so that their desires can be fulfilled but rather that they can accept the disappointment and then love a child that isn’t theirs biologically but is accepted totally into their loving family.  That seems to indicate a great love.  
“Isn’t it just nice to do for someone?”
The heartache of infertility is not one that I have experienced nor one that I hope to experience.  However, lending my womb to a friend doesn’t seem to fall under that category of “nice.”  This world tends to approach situations with an “how can I get what I want?” attitude.  The desire isn’t simply, “I want a child.”  That would be easily remedied.  The desire is, “I want a child that is biologically mine even if I cannot carry that life in my womb.”  Perhaps, even, the “want” is changed to “deserve” or “have a right” to a child.  
It isn’t “nice” to let yourself be a host for a child.  You can love that child, you can love that couple, but you are not permitted to let your womb be used in a paid/unpaid transaction.  The worth of woman is more than just a womb.  I don’t quite understand what people mean when they say the Church suppresses women or has a negative view of women.  They have never read Chesterton.  Chesterton will throw men under the bus and elevate the dignity of women in one fell swoop.  They also have never looked very closely at theology.  The Church says no only so that she may say a greater Yes. 
Woman, you may not engage in sex outside of marriage because you deserve the lasting love and devotion of a man who will offer his very life for you, not just a few moments right now.  

Woman, you may not have an abortion because that little baby in your womb needs you and you will only inflict a great wound on yourself.  You deserve better.  

Woman, you may not use contraception because you are a precious gift in your entirety and when you offer yourself to your husband, you must offer your whole self holding nothing back, masking nothing of your beauty.  Your ability to create life is not something to be disabled but something to be exalted.

Woman, you may not be a surrogate mother because you are far more than a host for the baby of your friends or strangers.  You are not an object to be used but rather you are a person to be loved.  It is beautiful for the gift of life to grow within your womb but it should be planted there by God and your husband, not by the doctor in the laboratory.  You are more than what they would lead you to believe.
How any of this becomes heard as “Women are stepped on by the Church” is beyond me.
This “niceness” is not something that should be encouraged because it is the same “niceness” that will cause me to put you out of your misery if I think your quality of life is not good enough.  “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” is a cliche because there is truth to it.  It is not enough to just intend to do good things, you must actually do them.  And this good must go beyond my personal understanding of good.  (Cue Hitler and his quest for what he deemed good.)
I was surprised with the direction the class took the Q&A session and how we wandered into the realm of sexual morality.  Again I am convinced that the way to win the next generation is to have holy couples that teach their children the faith in their home and live it out daily.  My rant is finished but I cannot help but wonder what the future holds for this world.  The youth are such an important part of the future and their hearts can be in a world-imposed ignorance.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

I forgot to look for Jesus…

Last night there was a moment in spiritual direction when the priest was talking to me about seeing Jesus in my students.  I was nodding my head, having heard this before and thinking I already knew it but still glad to hear it again.

Then I realized.  I haven’t been looking for Jesus in my students.  I teach them about Jesus, Sacred Scripture, and the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church and I forgot to look for Jesus in them.  I mean, to seriously look for Jesus in them.

I briefly imagined what that would look like.  To look at a classroom full of students and see 25 varying pictures of Christ looking at me.  To teach to Jesus residing within each one of their souls and to know that, despite exterior appearances, despite however little response I may receive, that Jesus is resting within them.  To know that Jesus, within them, is receiving my words.  To know that not every person is against me because Christ, dwelling in them, is very much for me.  I imagined being able to look at a student who was annoyed with me, making a scene in my class, or being extremely critical and having the grace to calmly ask myself where Jesus was in that student.

That changes everything.  It doesn’t make all of the problems or troubles go away.  It doesn’t make all of students like me.  But I can know that there is someone, very present in the room, who is rooting for me, who is willing me to remain faithful, who is sympathizing with me.  He is not just with me, He is with them, too.  Mother Teresa found Christ in the poorest of the poor.  The streets of Calcutta might not be my streets to go out on but I have a different kind of mission field.  And like the streets in India, it is brimming with the many faces of Christ.  If I but have the eyes to see and the heart to love.

Bl. Mother Teresa, pray for us.
Bl. Pope John Paul II, pray for us.

A Country Heart

I’m fairly convinced that my little heart would shrivel a bit if forced to reside in a major city.  I could do it, mind you, because I’m stubborn and (I like to think) tough.  However, it would be difficult.  Recently I made the move from my beloved parents’ farm to the “big city” of 150,000.  Today, as I sat in traffic caused by a train I had a couple thoughts.

1. It is nice to see these tracks actually being used for a train.  I miss the train tracks that run by my home in the country.
2. Lord, I could never live in a big city for too long.  Or if I did, my heart would ache a bit and feel a little restricted.

I’ve been to big cities–New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Rome, Madrid–but I think it would take a lot to be at home in one.  The novelty would eventually wear off and I wonder if I would just walk around with an extra weight on my shoulders.

Freshman year of college I found myself on the phone with my parents telling them that there were people everywhere.  I went to a school boasting about 2500 students but I felt that wherever I turned there were people.  My room was no longer a quiet sanctuary and I couldn’t think of one place where I could go and be alone.  It was a frightening prospect to an introvert.  Even as I got used to the people that surrounded me, there were a couple times when I wanted to just go be by myself.  Whether it was to have a good cry (and not have to explain why–can’t we just feel like crying sometimes?) or to just let down all of my defenses, I longed for a quiet place of my own.  I was used to being in the country.  My summer days were isolated from the rest of the world with only my sisters, a TV, a stack of books, and the great outdoors to occupy my hours.  In the country, if you want to be alone you have so many options to choose from.  You can even walk down a road and not encounter any people for quite a while.  It was a haven from the rest of the world and I loved it.

Now I find myself driving home most weekends and relishing the sight of stores fading away, houses fading away, and finally paved roads fading away.  Then I will turn off my car and hear…nothing.  The beautiful sound of silence that is deep and hearty.  I can go to my favorite window in the house and gaze down at the surrounding countryside.  The creek that forms a frozen bridge to the pastureland and a sprinkling of trees that provide refuge for the wildlife.  If you ignore the lone white house on the hill and the power lines, you could feel like you are all alone for miles and miles.  That, my friend, is a very good feeling.

I’m a country girl at heart.  My soul is rooted in simplicity and silence.  The concrete jungle isn’t really my thing and house after house isn’t the landscape I long for.  All of this leads me to conclude (obviously) that Heaven, while being a great communion, must also be filled with deep silence and that beautiful feeling of being alone.  I’m not quite sure how it works, but I look forward to finding out.

Fullness

I’ve learned some lessons the hard way.  As a teacher I’ve done things that I thought would work really well but did not.  I’ve said things that I thought they would understand and yet I could not believe how horrible they would misconstrue them.  So sometimes I am left understanding that I made a mistake yet not certain how to actually do it the correct way.  That obviously didn’t work.  But what will?

My first year of teaching (way back last year) I talked to my classes about objective truth, subjective truth, and how the Church has the “fullness of truth.”  The phrase rolled off my tongue easily after hearing it said with great love and passion at Franciscan.  Little did I realize that this was, to some of my students, a very offensive thing to say.  Some were pretty upset with me and I was baffled as to why they would feel such emotions.

The Church has the fullness of truth.  Wouldn’t nearly 12 years of Catholic school lead them to see the beauty of such a statement?  I said it as fact and they resented it.  I paid for my “sin” the rest of the semester.  I was a new teacher, a bit timid, trying to preach the Gospel, and ending up making students dislike me and the Church.  That was how I felt, at least.

So I became a little gun-shy of the statement “fullness of truth” because I knew what a powder keg it could be.  Yet isn’t the truth of the Church supposed to be explosive?  It radically transformed the world as it was and, if unleashed, can do the same thing in our modern world.  Yet I waver.  I wonder if I will push the students away more if I speak too strongly.  Yet I refuse to water Theology class down to “Jesus loves you.”  I want to delve into that truth.  “Jesus loves you and so He gave His life for you.  Suffered and died for you.  His human heart ached for you.  He loves you at every breath you take and wills your very heart to keep beating.  That is what I mean by love.”

So when the “fullness of truth” phrase came up today in one of my classes I was hesitant yet determined to speak clearly.  While being gentle and charitable, I wanted to not be apologetic.  I didn’t want to say:

“Yes, the Church believes she has the fullness of truth but I am very sorry that she says it like that.  She could just say she thinks she is correct…it would be essentially the same thing.  Let’s just say the Church is a really good institutional body but sometimes we let it go to our heads.”

OK, perhaps a bit dramatic but I didn’t want to give them the wrong impression by swinging my gavel down and condemning the rest of humanity to Hell.  I don’t think that but students can conjure up rather impressive falsehoods in their minds.

I said the Church has the fullness of truth.  That to hide this truth or to claim to be just another church, any one of which would be fine to join, when we believe that it was instituted by Christ Himself would be a lie.  Christ was pretty dogmatic.  “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  That statement doesn’t leave much room to follow some other way.  He also was known to anger people and to upset modern notions.  Perhaps that is what we need today.

Tomorrow I might be facing a class full of students who have thought about what I said and have thrown me in a camp of Catholics who think they are better than everyone else.  Maybe I will find another tempest brewing for this semester.  Whatever may come, I hope they know of my sincerity to teach the truth and, despite all of my fumbles and quirks, that they will come to know Jesus Christ in a deeper way.  The real Jesus Christ who desires to break into our lives, wreck havoc, and bring us to Heaven.  The fullness of Heaven.

Jesus Take the Wheel

“OK, Lord, this is Your classroom.”

That might make you think that I am a very holy teacher.  Trustingly surrendering my classroom to the Divine Teacher and allowing Him to work through me.

In truth, that was a prayer murmured out of necessity.  A final spiritual dropping to my knees and surrendering out of the inability to do anything else.  It was the first day of a new semester and I was becoming nervous again at the prospect of being scrutinized by new seniors with the inevitable assessment of found wanting.  My emotional transition to a new home wasn’t really playing in my favor and to make it a bit more challenging, I forgot my school bag.  Of course I remembered to bring my prayer journal, Bible, cell phone, and prayer materials.  However, I had completely neglected to bring my computer with my introduction PowerPoint and a fun brain activity for them to go through.

At 7:30 in the morning outside my car in the school parking lot, I frantically thought of racing home (15 minutes away) and back to school with my computer.  It was possible, though, that I would come to school late–something I am certain would have led to a melt-down.  Yet if I managed to not be late, I would assuredly come in panicked and short of breath.  This was not a good beginning.

It was here, in the midst of panic and stress that I “surrendered” my class to the Lord.  I realized, as I prayed this silent prayer, that it was because my own means had failed that I was giving God the reins.  If I would have had my computer with the PowerPoint filled with cute family pictures, I would have started the semester in a state of semi-confidence.  Instead, the Lord was given control at the last minute.

This image just come to mind as a plausible analogy of what I did:
I’m in a car driving.  Then the roads get slippery.  My omniscient, omnipotent passenger asks if He can help.  But I’ve got it.  All of sudden the car is careening toward a cliff or an oncoming semi and just when I’m about to slip over the edge or be crushed, I pull my hands from the steering wheel, cradle my head in my hands, and shout, “Fine!  Take over!”

I felt a little guilty surrendering my classroom only after all my plans had failed.  Perhaps it is a lesson for the semester.  I am not in control.  It is better to just give God my classroom and myself right now instead of waiting until things are crashing and burning all around me.

My goal for this brand new semester is to take the passenger seat and allow God to dictate my classes.  Not once I tried my way and it failed.  But His way, always His way.

Who knows—maybe God will have a better method than me.

One Little Success for the Holy Spirit

It is the little things that seem to make a world of difference.  I remember reading a quote by a saint that essentially critiqued the readers for allowing their emotions to control them so much.  That we allow ourselves to become unduly happy when things go well and inordinately depressed when things go badly.  Instead, we are to remain more constant, trusting everything to the Lord.

I do not do that very well.  Nevertheless, today is one of those days that I am perhaps unduly happy.  I’ll take it.  There were a couple moments today that I felt a beautiful joy.  The simple thing of placing in the classroom another tissue box decorated by a student in a Theological theme.  Silly, perhaps.  I just loved the idea that even my tissue boxes are decorated with Scripture and pictures of saints.  The little things.

Today I felt elated as I won a victory when I didn’t even know I was in a battle.  A couple weeks ago I was perusing an online Catholic bookstore.  I love books.  I love to buy books.  I wish I could buy more books.  I saw that Delivered was being sold, a book that gives testimonies of people who have fought and conquered, with God’s grace, an addiction to pornography.  I looked at the cover, read a snippet of the book, and was intrigued.  The price was $8-9 for one copy.  However, one could purchase 20 books at only $2 per book.  I love a good deal.  Good deals and good books make one of the most irresistible combinations.

Trish, do you really need 20 copies of a book you have never even read?  I was just about to say “No” when I felt something within that told me to just buy them.  So I did.  And then I impatiently waited 2 weeks for them to arrive at my doorstep.  Last night I opened the box, took off the plastic wrap from one of the books, and began to read through it.  I didn’t read the whole book, but I read a few of the stories and I was taken.  I don’t know much about pornography.  In many ways it seems like it is in a different world than I am in.  I know this crisis affects me because it affects people I interact with, but I don’t typically think of pornography on a daily or weekly basis.

The problem that remained was how would I get them into the hands of my students.  I could have the most life-changing book but unless they were reading it, it wouldn’t make a difference.  So I did what any self-respecting teacher would do.  I offered them extra credit.  The good sign was that neither class asked how much extra credit.  All they have to do is read one of the stories (10-15 pages) and write two paragraphs–one summarizing the story and another speaking about pornography and the effect it has on the world, what they think of it, or other problems that go along with pornography addiction.

Nine students from each class took the book and I was thrilled.  Just having it in their hands is a success I am willing to celebrate.  My hope is that the one story they have to read for extra credit will turn into curiosity about the other stories.  Maybe they will tell another classmate or someone in another class about the book and lend it to them.  The possibilities are endless!

This is a rather small thing considering that maybe none of them will actually follow through.  Yet it seems like a triumph to me.  I will take that triumph, minuscule though it may be, because victories do not come often or easily in this battlefield.  So perhaps the Holy Spirit is doing something great through these little books that my students are being bribed to read.

Now who says that buying an excessive number of books is a bad thing?

(Purchase your own copy of Delivered and spread the truth!  http://shop.catholic.com/catalog/product/view/id/2364/category/44/)    

UPDATE:
After the first day, I am still running on excitement.  One of my students spoke to me after class about something and as I was looking for a paper he quietly asked about the book and how I found it.  I told him I received an e-mail from a place advertising the book and I just decided to buy 20 copies.  Quietly he told me that he wished he had the book 5 years ago.  It took a moment but what he was telling me finally sank in.  He told me he plans to read the whole book.  Deo gratias!  Keep going, Holy Spirit, keep going!

To Thine Own Self Be True…

Morals get in the way of fun, don’t they?  I remember taking a Christian Moral Principles class in college and then I began to analyze everything I was doing.  Well, probably not everything…but many things that I hadn’t considered before seemed to present the possibility of being immoral.  Even to this day I cannot quite decide if this semester (because it didn’t last until now) of near scrupulosity was a blessing or a curse, was good or bad.

At times I think we are able to give ourselves passes or excuse ourselves from seeking holiness in every aspect of our lives.  I want to be holy…but it isn’t that bad if I ____________________ (insert current vice or guilty pleasure).  I’m pretty good most of the time but I’m human, which means I am not perfect and thus I ________________________.  While the Lord doesn’t call us to beat ourselves up for being imperfect, He does desire perfection.  We are to strive for the perfection that our Heavenly Father has.  Yet we are really good at excuses for ourselves.

So this semester of questioning the morality of different actions was interesting.  Was speeding a sin?  Would not obeying posted signs or rules be sinful?  Was it a sin to lie to the Nazis standing at the door asking if I was harboring Jews?  The professor I had insisted that it was morally good to follow all just laws to our fullest extent.  Lying, he said, was always sinful, even in the case of the Nazis at the door.  (Side note: Before you get upset about not being able to lie to Nazis, he also said that we were not supposed to tell them the truth either.  Interesting, huh?  We should use “discreet language.”  They don’t have the right to know the information they are seeking because they desire to hurt others.  Anyway, lying in this circumstance would you make less morally culpable because you under pressure.)  Now I wanted to follow all of the rules and I am a person who typically likes to do so anyway.  I think I have a pretty good sense of right and wrong but this class was challenging me to look at things I had always accepted as “not that bad” and strive to look for what would be virtuous.

The memory that comes to mind is from when I traveled to Switzerland and Germany.  The semester that I took the Christian Moral Principles class happened to be when I was studying abroad in Austria.  One weekend a few friends and I traveled to Germany and Switzerland.  We were not in Germany for long but during our time there we went to Fussen, Germany and saw Neuschwanstein Castle.

Isn’t it gorgeous?  Sadly, I never really realized how beautiful it was until I was looking for pictures of it.  We were there for such a brief time.  And now I wish I would have actually toured the castle.  Instead, we got there, looked at the outside, saw the price to tour, and decided against it.  I regret that a little but I think I was getting so used to seeing gorgeous cathedrals and opera houses that touring a castle didn’t seem that special.  It seems a bit crazy now.

The story: We are at this gorgeous castle but decided against touring it.  However, there was a bridge one could get to that gave a lovely view of the whole castle.

Unfortunately for us, it had recently snowed and was closed for safety or to clear it off.  Doubly unfortunate for me was that posted sign was in German and English.  It was easy enough to slip around the gate and several people were doing it.  The people that looked like they would be in charge didn’t seem to mind that much or shoo the people away.  Here was the dilemma–do I obey the rule (made, presumably, with my best interest in mind and clearly posted in English (drat!)) or do I dismiss the rule out of a desire to see the castle and acknowledging that it wasn’t really very bad conditions.

What did I do?

I didn’t go on the bridge.  Instead, I sat by the bags with another girl (who didn’t want to go–not because of a moral dilemma but because she had little interest in it) and felt an internal tugging over the situation.  I can see it going both ways and I hesitate to say that I should have just done it because we are to strive for perfection, not “OK.”  Yet part of me thinks this is being scrupulous.  I don’t exactly know but I know it was a semester of pondering the morality of different things.  (Was it wrong to sit in the lovely window seat even though we were told not to sit there?)

Why does this reverie surface today?  Today the school tried to surprise all of the students.  The original schedule was altered and afternoon classes were not to take place, unbeknownst to the students.  However, word spread (as it always does) and students began to question if we had afternoon classes or not.  Today was a shortened day anyway but the students wanted to be in the know.  Yesterday I managed to dodge all of the questions, carefully replying to afternoon classes that my plans were to watch videos or not do too much.  All true.  However, today I received a direct question and my little “don’t-lie-but-try-to-evade-question” was uncertain how to morally respond.

“Do we have afternoon classes or not, Miss –?”
Pause.  No way to skillfully evade this question without it being obvious.  This was a student just coming into class and many of them were not yet there or paying attention.
“Please don’t ask me direct questions about the schedule.  I don’t want to lie to you but I can’t tell you the truth.”  I am so skillfully secretive.

They kind of laughed at that but I hoped nobody else would ask.  They did.  For them I just responded, “Accept whatever happens today…just don’t worry about it.”  I overheard some of the students talking and saying that other teachers had said there were afternoon classes and that whatever rumors they heard weren’t true.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.  I have lectured my classes on different occasions about always being truthful.  Not that one always has to tell the complete truth all of the time.  (Ex. How do I look?  You look fat and ugly.  What do you think about me?  Well, to be honest, I really hate you.  I can’t stand the way you….)

I wonder sometimes if I take things too far.  I read an article about how telling your children that there is a Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, and Easter Bunny is not sinful because it is helping them develop an imagination.  (If that is not the thesis of the author, I apologize.  I actually skimmed it more than read it thoroughly.  The main gist of the article: you can tell your kids about Santa.)  My professor argued that we shouldn’t tell them things that aren’t true.  People gave examples of kids who, upon finding out that Santa Claus didn’t exist, wondered if Jesus was made up, too.

I think I can see both sides of the story but I am left wondering what is the most virtuous decision.  Because I hesitate when people give the excuse of “it isn’t that big of a deal” or “everyone does this” or “don’t be so serious/strict/restrictive.”  If we are called to be saints, perhaps we will have to look different than others and behave differently.  Not perhaps…we will.  Does being a saint mean being super serious, never joking, and never fun?  No, definitely not.  But saints do strive for virtue in everything that they do.

I end with no neat conclusion because I do not quite know the answer.  Is one being “over the top” attempting to follow all rules and laws?  Or it is simply a death to my desire to be my own boss and do things my own way.  Sometimes just going the speed limit is an act of self-denial.  Do we make excuses for the little flaws we have because we do not desire to put the work into weeding out these things from our hearts and habits?  Or am I being legalistic and missing the main message of God in favor of focusing on little details?  I don’t know.  Maybe all are true to a degree.

“Strive even to death for the truth and the Lord God will fight for you.” -Sirach 4:28
“A lie is an ugly blot on a man; it is continually on the lips of the ignorant….The disposition of a liar brings disgrace, and his shame is ever with him.”  -Sirach 20: 24, 26

The Providential God

The only thing certain about life is that it is uncertain. 

That isn’t deep or profound.  But it is true.  Yesterday I found out that a young woman I went to college with lost her husband of 5 months.  It made my heart ache even though we never talked much.  I was surprised the effect it had on me.  That evening and this morning I found myself thinking a lot about her and how hard it must be. 

Yet it made me worry for myself.  Too often I trick myself into thinking that my complete happiness will come when I am engaged, or finally married, or starting a family.  Everything is transient, though, and it can all be taken away in a moment.  My heart began to feel restricted and desired to be closed off.  I began to desire that I would never be in a situation where so much could be lost.  So quickly I was being tricked into thinking that to be closed off was a better option than suffering at the hands of love or for the sake of love.

I imagined what she was feeling and I knew I never wanted to feel that.  I didn’t ask the age-old question, “God, why do bad things happen to good people?  Why did this tragedy happen?”  I didn’t ask that question because I didn’t wonder it.  The question I asked instead was “What can I cling to, Lord?  How could I endure losing that which I hold closest to my heart?”  In honesty, I was thinking that having God alone wasn’t enough for me.  I wanted more than the assurance that God would always be with me.  Instead I wanted promises that specific people would always be in my life, that certain things would never happen to me, and that parts of my heart would be left unbroken. 

I know that God alone is enough.  That He provides the graces for every heartache.  Yet in all honesty, I do not live as though He is enough.  I do not cling to Him now as though He is all that is certain.  I cling to other superficial things or to things, good as they are, that cannot fulfill me.

My mind knows the correct answer.  God will provide.  In fact, God is providing.  It is not some future promise but rather a lived reality.  The paradox of love is that one must love with one’s heart vulnerable and revealed or it is not actually love.  Yet to love means one will suffer and feel sorrow.  I have a natural tendency to want to protect my heart, to guard it from all that could injure it.  This can be good but it can also close it off from a deep, penetrating love.  The battle within is between self-preservation and self-gift.

This little heart has a lot of expanding to do.  She needs to begin to live as though everything rests in the hands of God and that He will truly provide for every need.  To be so grounded in the Lord that should all else be lost, she could rest assured that not everything was truly lost.  Sacred Heart of Jesus, sanctify our hearts.

P.S. My household sister who lost her husband has a fund set up for her and their unborn baby.  If you feel your heart moved in that direction, please give a gift of money.  Regardless, please pray for them.

http://www.gofundme.com/5fd75k