Tag: saint

When the Ordinary Prepares the Way for the Extraordinary

When the Ordinary Prepares the Way for the Extraordinary

Kids are really good at living in the moment.  It is what gives them the ability to swing from laughter to tears in a matter of seconds.  They can have great joy eating an ice cream cone and then become distraught with five minutes in time out.  Right now, right here is the most important thing for kids.

My niece is a prime example of both sides of this.  I gave her a mermaid tail blanket for a belated Christmas present.  She was enthused as she slipped it around her legs and then flopped along on the floor.  Coming to me, she grabbed my legs and exclaimed, “I look exactly like a mermaid, Trish!”  Contrast that scene with several weeks prior when she fought against the injustice of being forced to sit at the adult table while her two older brothers sat at a kid table.  “Not fair!” she sobbed, pointing at her brothers, “They get to sit at the little table!  No fair!”  A few minutes later, having switched places with one semi-willing brother, she was more than content.

Adults can be similar, but we also are more prone to live in the past or the future.  Sometimes we can forget that the present is all we really have.

Precious moments can slip away because they don’t come shrouded in the extraordinary.  Everyday moments, ones that are ordinary yet give life beauty, are some of the most treasured once they have passed.  I’ve heard it said that people often miss the ordinary moments when they lose people close to them.  I have found that to be true in my life.  My paternal grandfather died a few years ago and one of the things I miss most is giving him a hug before leaving his house and hearing him say, “Come again.”   Continue reading “When the Ordinary Prepares the Way for the Extraordinary” →

The Best Defense is Encountering Love

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” →

The Evangelized Family

The Evangelized Family

I am a long way from having a family and kids of my own, but this morning I was led to consider what I would want it to look like.  Although I didn’t come up with specifics, I reflected on a few elements that I would like to implement somehow.  From my vantage point, I am still able to be filled with high-minded ideals and hopeful expectation of a peaceful family life.  In the midst of fighting children, endless laundry, and a whirlwind of activities, I am sure my ideals will be made a bit more practical and a bit less perfected.

While at times difficult to discern, parents have a tremendous impact in shaping their children’s personalities and values.  Yesterday, my sister and I took our niece and nephews to a play.  Throughout the whole play, my niece would slide over to me and say excitedly, “I can’t wait!” or “I’m so excited!”  It never really made sense to me until I re-told the story to her mom later.  My sister-in-law said that her daughter was probably saying what she had been saying over the past few days in anticipation of moving to a new home.  If this can happen for phrases or actions, then the same would be true for matters of faith.

Parents are the primary educators of their children in the faith.  When parents model the faith, the children will seek to do the same thing.  It is a monumental task that can seem a bit overwhelming.  At their baptism, you promise to instruct them in the faith and lead them to Heaven.  So this morning in Mass, I considered: how does one do this?   Continue reading “The Evangelized Family” →

That Heartburn

That Heartburn

Last year, Fr. Mike Schmitz came out with a video.  And this year, I showed it again to all of my classes.  Sometimes I mind watching the same video six times in one day, but this was not one of those times.  Each time I watched it, I was filled with this desire to be holy and to persevere in running the race.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”  (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Before we watched the video, I put this passage on the board and gave my students time to reflect on it.  Each class period, I found something new to consider in the passage.  I could go through it, line by line, and tell you what stood out to me, but that probably wouldn’t be interesting for you.  Instead, I’ll highlight just a couple.  Of course, the video focused on the “cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us and how the saints are there to push us forward when we want to give up.  Yet I also noticed the “also lay aside every weight” as it shows that we are to, like the saints, strip ourselves of everything that does not help us reach the finish line.  Finally, I was struck by how we are to run the race “set before us” and that it is not necessarily the race that we choose or would want to run.

In listening to Fr. Mike Schmitz and reflecting on that Scripture passage, I am filled again with the desire to be holy.  Though my life is a good one, I do not always feel the adrenaline of being in the midst of a race.  I want it to be exciting always, otherwise I tend to forget that I am in a battle/race. Continue reading “That Heartburn” →

Not Too Holy

Not Too Holy

“I want to be good!  I want to be good!” my nephew exclaimed a couple years ago, near tears.  He had been caught, doing again, what we had recently instructed him not to do.

“Then be good!” I replied.

It seemed simple.  We were very specifically asking him to not do something and he would go and do it again.  It was amusing, though, to hear those words come from him–a proclaimed desire to be good while yet desiring to do the same things again and again.

Don’t we wish we could say that was a problem simply for the young?  Too often I am encountering the Lord saying, “I want to be good!” yet lacking the desire to do what is necessary to be good.

“If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be one.” William Law

The first time I read this quote, I was a bit surprised.  I found myself wanting to argue but all arguments dying within myself.  It is true.  If I truly wanted to be a saint, I would be one, or at least I would be far closer to one than I am right now.  God’s grace is sufficient: what is lacking must be found in my own desire and willingness to receive His grace.

There is a healthy sadness within myself when I admit that the plan God has for my  life does not match up with my own desires.  I say I want to be a saint, but my actions have a voice that speaks to the contrary.  Because being a saint does not mean to strive to be better then most.  It doesn’t mean to work so that others think you are saintly.  The quest to become a saint is one of the few things in life that cannot be determined by your placement to others.  Even the witness of other saints, while inspiring, cannot tell you if you are the saint you are called to be.  If Bl. Teresa of Calcutta spent her whole life comparing her mission to that of St. Therese of Lisieux, she would have missed the mission to which God was uniquely calling her.  We, too, will get confused if we routinely use others as a measuring stick for our own holiness.

Unlike a credit score or an ACT score, being a saint isn’t boiled down to being in the top 10%.  In high school, it felt like I was one of the only ones who cared about my faith.  I would look at the choices my classmates were making and I would see the choices I was making.  I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I felt pretty good in terms of faith.  And people seemed to recognize that I valued my faith and thought of me accordingly.  When I got to college, I was surrounded by people who were deeply invested in their faith.  I had good formation from my parents, but I remember freshman year looking around and thinking, “Oh, no!  I’m way behind!”  While I was coasting in high school (feeling like I was the only one who cared), these people were going deeper in their faith.  It was a good wake up call, but I was still dealing with it in terms of where I ranked in comparison to others.

In many ways, I am still fighting that battle.  Sometimes I find myself wanting to not get too holy.  It honestly shouldn’t be a concern of mine, because that is a distant dream, but I understand why I think that way.  The closer one gets to Christ, the more one realizes the failings of this world.  The more we act like Christ, the more we run the risk of making others uncomfortable.  What if I get too holy and just being myself makes other people uncomfortable?  I bet some people left dinners early when Jesus would show up.  “Ah, there’s that guy.  Something about him makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Instead, I find myself wanting to be “just holy enough.”  Holy enough that I’m following God, but not so holy that others really notice.  Not so holy that I actually suffer for it.  I want to be called and chosen to live a life of sanctity, but one that makes me well-liked and a perfectly balanced introvert-extrovert.  Oftentimes I romanticize sanctity and assume it means that there will be no problems other than surrendering to God’s will.  People will be wonderful, beautiful beings and my encounters with them will be filled with a gushing of God’s love.  Isn’t that silly, though?  I seem to think holiness will make life easy.  Jesus, however, speaks of picking up a cross and following after Him.

I have several reasons that I am not yet a saint.  One of which is because I fear the persecution and loneliness that will come from selling all my pearls to buy the one of great price.  I worry that putting God in an undeniably central place in my life will make other people step away.  And if you ask me if I think Christ is sufficient, I will say, “Yes, Jesus will fulfill all my wants and desires.”  Yet if you ask if I live like I believe that, I must admit I do not.

I want to be good.  I want to be a saint.  But I do not want it entirely.  Otherwise, this holiness thing would be far closer to being a reality.  If I compare myself to others, I will always be able to find a reason to justify my present state, there will always be motivation to say I’m good enough.  But if I use the correct measuring stick, then I will always see the need for growth.  If I ask, “How closely do I conform my life to the cross of Christ?” I will see the areas of disparity.

Clearly, I am not “too holy.”

Litany of Humility
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
From the fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…