TRH on Prayer No. 2: The 'Yes' May Never Come

by Laura Flanagan

What does it mean to pray really hard for something to which you may not ever hear “yes”?

Does that mean you’re praying for the wrong thing? Not necessarily. There are infinite paths to sainthood. There are multiple ways to follow Christ. It’s okay to prefer one path and ask for it. You just may not be given it. What then?

Here, I decided to number the steps I’ve gone through so far in that process, this hashing out of things with God. It’s a particular struggle that a lot of people face, and face for far longer than I have. (Editor's Note: Here's a previous reflection on her family from Laura.)

1. Pray for another child in your family, and not receive what you asked for.
2. Pray, and not receive again.
3. Feel like your body isn’t done with this work, and express that to God.
4. Not receive again.
5. Realize that this disappointment may continue for a long time, or may continue forever - so how do you keep this from becoming a disappointment in God? Or too painful, where you lose hope?

I knew I had to balance this with the hope that such joy might be. Our Lord always wants us to have hope. But it certainly feels more like “getting my hopes up,” leading to more intense disappointment or sorrow.

Gratitude is the key there, I tell myself. If we do not expect specific good things, we are more grateful when they make their appearance. And if we are grateful for both expected and unexpected joys, we are less likely to expect specific ones.

5.1 Strongly resist any temptation to feel like God owes you this.

Related to the above - this feels like progress from #5, but really isn’t. I was pretty confident that I didn’t feel like God owed me a “yes” to this intention. “I’ll love you, regardless, Lord, sure.” But I did feel a little bit like he owes my daughter. That’s the tough part of intercessory prayer - prayer for others. You’re not asking for good things for yourself, but for others. You’re turned outward, as you should be, instead of inward, solely focused your own needs and wants. And yet the answer may not be yes to others’ wants either, no matter how deserving they are.

That “little bit” of feeling Clare’s owed a sibling is probably just about me. I’m resisting the seemingly more difficult path of forming a child who doesn’t have the gift of siblings. I am not perfect, so to be responsible for a third of the love and witness she’s supposed to receive from her immediately family certainly makes me think that it would be better to have more family members to love her. And maybe it would be better - but “good enough” is enough for the Lord to work with in her heart and soul.

6. Consider whether God is calling you to foster care.
7. Discern “no” on the foster care question, and be pretty sure that answer is not subconsciously yours because you selfishly don’t want to do it. You actually kind of do want to do it - but recognize that it would not be best for you, for your family... right now.
8. Start figuring out that the only profitable thing to ask for is “better conformity to the will of God,” since you were investigating the will of God with the foster care thing.

All prayer should have the caveat, implicit or explicit - "but not my will, but yours be done.” Then we also have to mean it. We do not know how to pray as we ought, we may not know if we're praying for the exact right thing, but if we're open, the Holy Spirit can intercede for us in the appropriate way, and make us willing to accept what God does intend to give.

It can be terribly hard to mean it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak - and “flesh” here can be your emotions, your mental state. You may know what the peace-filled, surrendering-to-God attitude would be in a situation, but you just can’t quite muster it. Sometimes you’re just angry or upset that you don’t have what you want. Sometimes you do just feel like God should give it to you.

9. Still cry out to God every so often.

This has a great precedent in the Psalms, which everyone should read and pray. Jesus quoted Psalm 22’s “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross, after all. When you're just telling the Lord that you miss your daughter, or that you wish your family were larger, all that is is bringing him into that sorrow. You’re already feeling the sorrow, and He's already there anyway - you're just consciously letting Him in.

Samwise Gamgee, stalwart companion to the Ringbearer in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, upon seeing the resurrected wizard Gandalf again, says, “Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?” An Easter morning statement if there ever was one.

Everything sad will come untrue, indeed. But that doesn’t always change that it’s sad now, and there’s no guilt or shame to be found in that. “My son was dead, and is alive again,” as the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son explains. The son had been "dead." The father had sorrowed over that. He had prayed that the son might return - but didn’t have control over whether he would. That control belonged elsewhere.

Even if the Father is God and not a human father, as the parable intends, God too has placed himself in that humble, uncontrolling position through his gift of human freedom. He both wants for us life in abundance, and cannot not always prevent ill - that gift and that consequence are partnered until the eschaton.

The first of the “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” by poet John Berryman begins with gratitude for the wonder of creation, then continues,

I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
“According to Thy will” the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

“According to Thy will” I must learn to begin, always.

I recommend reading the rest of the poem. Near the end of this address, he allows for the possibility of great miracles, in which he solidly believes. The examples are those times when the risen Lord appeared to Peter and Paul, but Berryman considers those miracles to be perhaps a “special case to establish their initiatory faith.”

Not all of us can receive the special case.

So we have to return to “Thy will be done,” or the succinct prayer of Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.”

TRH on Catholic Normalcy No. 1: Achievement and Success

by Laura Flanagan

The Restless Hearts have been reflecting a little on how “normal” a Catholic can and should be, and how countercultural our faith challenges us to be. I think it’s always a valuable start to look to Mary, model of the Church. In a homily from earlier this year, Fr. Hugh Barbour describes Mary as “a perfectly normal woman with perfectly normal human sensibilities and manners who also possesses the knowledge and the power of a hidden mystery that utterly outstrips any normal human expectations.”¹

The lack of knowledge of this hidden mystery seems to me to be the saddest aspect of the recent bizarre (and yet unsurprising) college admissions scandal. Whatever the cost to their integrity, whatever the desires of their children, whatever the impact on other prospective admits - the only acceptable path forward for these people’s children was admission to a certain level of university.

This secret network of privilege brought to mind a fictional example; a few months ago I ended up reading Emily Giffin’s recent pop fiction contribution, All We Ever Wanted. Brace yourself for spoilers ahead.

At the beginning of the book, a photo surfaces of the wealthy main character’s son sexually assaulting a fellow student at their prestigious high school. The mother begins to wonders how they must have formed their son that he would choose to behave so despicably. The events of the book primarily spiral from that self-reflection.

Her husband and best friend (whose son was also involved), ostracize and undercut her when she doesn’t seem totally on board with doing everything possible to erase the crime. They both recognize her internal conflict and see it as dangerous to their “saving” the boys from the ramifications of their actions, which will no doubt echo through their lives. Meanwhile, she forms a motherly relationship with the girl victimized by her son. Eventually, she leaves her son to the consequences as a final act of re-formation, while letting him know that she still loves and always will love him. Several years later, the young man tells the young woman: “She saved me.”

The book is obviously meant to bring up the issue of privileged families using all their resources to protect their own from what would ordinarily change the entire course of a less privileged person’s life. If your god is prestige or wealth, as it seemed to be for the families caught up in this college admissions scandal, these are the lengths it makes sense to go to, if you can. This masquerades as “the best possible life for my child.”

The best possible life for your child is one in which they really know the hidden mystery that Mary knew: that God’s humility and love for us overflows, and He calls us to imitate him. When that mystery is the foundation of everything for which your child strives, and focuses how they respond to whatever may come - that’s when they’ve succeeded.

So what actions should set apart the Christian from the non-Christian? How are those of us still in the Church any different from the growing number of “nones” in the country, those with no religious affiliation at all?

People often take the same action with differing motivations. Why would someone support an abuse survivor and value justice for perpetrators, even when the victim is unknown to you and the offender is your own son?

Giffin’s protagonist was a sexual assault victim in college. She sees herself in the victim, and attempts to value this girl in the way that no one had helped her. Others, with no personal experience of that particular sin, see acknowledgement of and justice for assault as necessary in forming everyone - including the perpetrator - in valuing a humanist view of human dignity.

Each of those previous two people show a partial knowledge of the hidden mystery. Catholics take this action because of God’s complete revelation of the human person - created in the image of God, beloved by Him even unto death, not to be abused by the desire and power of the strong and the privileged. That’s a far stronger image than the humanist view. And then we have to say that’s why we did it, when asked.

Towards the end of her life, Dorothy Day said, "If I have accomplished anything in my life, it is because I wasn't embarrassed to talk about God." A Catholic mother in Giffin’s fictional situation might also choose to allow her son to meet the justice system. She might humbly admit her failure in formation (although perhaps not publicly, as that could harden him, and may be more virtue signaling than ongoing virtue formation). She might state her hope that these repercussions would correct the course of entitlement and self-involvement that led to this terrible sin. She would pray that her son would allow Christ into his heart to change it. Such sins are an opportunity for the spiritual work of mercy, “admonish the sinner” - and that work of mercy goes directly against the gospel of prestige and wealth.

What do you do with success if you do come by it honestly?

I enjoy hearing about the family of long-time NFL quarterback Philip Rivers. He lives fairly modestly with his wife and kids, of which there are nine on the outside as of last Wednesday. He did spend a chunk of his ample earnings on a custom SUV and driver so he can watch film on his commute... thus making the most of his drive time and fulfilling his obligations both to his work and his family.

The ultimate holiness of a family is not reducible to whether they put time with each other first, or whether they practice NFP. However, from the distance that I and many others “know” the Rivers family, they seem to be joyful and stable, while honoring their commitments. That witness can go a long way, and Philip Rivers seems to be “always ready to give a reason for his hope,” as the first letter of Peter advises.²

The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, can be very starkly juxtaposed with the current parental and child levels of anxiety about achievement. One of the reasons people often give for not having more children is that they feel they won’t be able to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to their academic/social success. Meanwhile, parents of four or more children generally have lower stress levels than those of two or three.³ Parents of children with Down Syndrome also have less stress than most parents.⁴ What sounds most like the peace of Christ?

Some people will see what those with that peace are achieving, but honestly some of us might turn out to be a “waste” in the sight of the world. I’m certainly wasting the full earning potential of my college pedigree. Whether or not my parents are disappointed by that fact is based on why they thought I should go to college, and in particular Notre Dame.

St. Edmund Campion is a great example of this “waste.” He was a celebrity-level academic, and was primed for an illustrious career in Elizabeth I’s Protestant England. Instead, he stumbled across some cold hard truth while reading the Church Fathers, became Catholic, fled the country, was ordained a priest, returned to minister to England’s Catholics in secret, and was martyred for doing that. His promise and talent were never actualized… or were they?

If you want your kids to go to certain school because it will form them in truth and in mercy, go for it. I think my life and maybe my priorities would be a lot different if I hadn’t attended Notre Dame, but I can’t be sure about that. Obviously, though, you wouldn’t cheat to get them into that school. If your child wasn’t admitted, you would pray - perhaps together! - and take God’s redirection.

If your highest goal for yourself or your child is sanctity, and not money/the best college/the most experiences, you don't have to be so stressed over those things (or pay money to get your pretend-coxswain into USC). While sainthood is hard work, anyone can do it. That’s the hidden mystery Mary knew - even (and especially) the lowliest handmaiden could magnify the greatness of the Lord. The rest of our worldly success is gravy and gift.

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1 Here's the link. The emphasis above is mine.^↩

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2 Here's a secular primer on the Rivers family, and an extended interview where he talks about his faith in real life.^↩

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3 See this story from today.com.^↩

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4 This article, too.^↩

TRH on Racism No. 3: Encounter in the Parish

by Laura Flanagan

The number of the issues of the parish and our racial sin is legion, so I’ll likely ask more questions than provide concrete suggestions. However, I hope to set the framework for what our parishes are dealing with.

On the whole, this astute observation from Brad Klingele is what worries me about the relative lack of diversity in race and economic status we often find in our parishes (and by extension, our parish schools):

We cannot hope to help our children to stay Catholic when they are cut off from the people with whom Jesus is closest. It is very clear that our Lord is most present in the protagonists of history: ‘When I was naked, you clothed me’ (cf. Mt 25:36). If Jesus is closest to those in need, and our only connection with people occurs across the ocean of a soup kitchen pot, we are not close to Jesus. We cannot find our Lord when we are absent from him, and he is with the poor.

As racism is a related but not equivalent injustice, since systemic racism has damaged economic mobility, I’ll amend that to say the Lord is with the marginalized, per Dan’s CST analysis.

Our parishes can and should be places where we are forced into encounter. And all too often, we do not truly encounter one another. We are not made to reckon with ourselves in relation to the “other.”

When I sat in my parish’s perpetual adoration chapel a few Fridays ago, I was struck by wording in one of their suggested prayers for adorers: “I give thanks… for the privilege of visiting you in this sacrament, here in this place.” As Dan noted, “privilege” is a word closely associated with racism, as well as other socioeconomic injustices.

If an unknown black man were to enter the adoration chapel here, would I assume he was here to pray with our Lord? Or would I sit uncomfortably, wondering what his intent was? I’m really sad to say that I would not fully trust myself. The latter thought might at least cross my mind. The privilege of visiting Christ in the sacrament might not be denied by my bias, but someone else’s prayer should not be colored by any self-consciousness, created by my sinfulness and prejudice. He or she deserves the privilege of visiting Christ in the sacrament and to feel fully known and loved while there.

So where do we begin to cross the ocean of racial divide between parish communities? The easiest question and solution that came up again and again for me is representation. As always, representation is only a beginning to a solution, but it is a beginning for which I see some action steps.

​Since Catholics tend to err towards too much respect for the clergy, perhaps we can let that bias work in our favor a little. What would happen if we saw more priests of color? How would parishioners feel if their leadership really brought home to them that the priests of color we are seeing now are here because we're a "missionary territory”? These clerics are doing us a great service; they are venturing far outside their comfort zones and far from home, while offering us the exact same access to the Person of Christ as the priests who grew up in America. We owe it to them to do at least a little of the same.

How do we get a more diverse ministerial priesthood?

Wealthy parishes, practically entirely white suburban parishes like mine, often proudly support vocations from our own parishes. (In truth, we are always very proud and happy to take credit, regardless of whether we personally know the seminarian or did anything to support him).

The next step for us is to coordinate ways to support vocations from the heart of the diocese, where Jesus dwells with the poor and marginalized. Black Catholic children, Latino Catholic children, children of St. Louis’ Bosnian refugee community - they should know, explicitly and clearly, that if God is calling them to be a priest, their local Church will make that possible.

We’re not doing super well. Right now, our fancy youth vocations retreat happens during the school day, in the suburbs. If you attend public school in the predominantly-black St. Louis City? Or really, public school anywhere? If your Catholic grade school in the City doesn’t have the funds to bus the 6th grade there?

Fall into any of these categories, and you will not be able to attend. I would not blame these children for hearing, “This prayer and discernment experience is not for you,” or perhaps even, “The priesthood is not for you.” I’m sure this is not intentional by the organizers. Maybe they just have never considered that anyone interested in the priesthood might come from outside our wealthy, primarily white, suburban Catholic grade schools.

Not only must the privileged consider such vocations a possibility, we should form those youth to consider it a real possibility as well.

While drafting this piece, I got curious and searched out some data.

• In 1984, when “What We Have Seen and Heard” was published, there were 10 black bishops.
• Now there are 9 active and 6 retired. Hardly much in the way of increased representation. There are 456 active and retired Catholic bishops in the US, by the way. 
• Black representation in the American episcopate is at ~3.5%. Meanwhile, 4-4.5% of Catholics in America are black. The clergy is not representative of the Church, but that’s not awful. There is certainly still work to be done. However, 16% of America is black. The Church is not representative of the country.
• Where, if not the Church, are our black brothers and sisters?

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• Native Americans are 3.5% of Catholics. They have their representatives among the saints; where are their bishops?
• In 2000, according to the Association of Native Religious and Clergy, there were two Native bishops, twenty-eight Native priests, eight Native brothers, sixty-seven Native women religious, fifty-one Native deacons, and two Native seminarians. More recent data than that I did not find.
• Where, if not your parish, are our Native brothers and sisters?

If we do get more vocations in total, with an increase in vocations from minority groups, what happens then? More priests means the possibility of smaller parishes, and in smaller parishes you can actually get to know a majority of the people of your parish, and you know and can welcome someone who is new.

In other words, we are more likely to be forced into encounter, and we can practice in seeing Christ in the other. Even if the other with whom you have your parish disputes is of the same race or ethnic background, being engaged in true community and working out your differences is a formative experience that can be translated into racial encounter as well.

I fear that out of expediency, we’d be tempted to keep our larger parishes and just add priests to them. There could be benefits to this; a greater number of parishioners or wider parish boundaries may equal more diversity in the parish at large. But within a large parish, like gravitates to like. (I see this often - my parish is large.) You know the people who are interested in the same issues or devotions as you are, and everyone else is just the person who stole your preferred seat at Mass. While you may see a black Catholic at your Sunday Mass occasionally, you may well not know him.

Formation in encounter is not currently a reality in many of our parishes. In fact, as Jennifer Fitz states in this Patheos post from 2015, “We have set our standards for parish life so low that we’ve forgotten even basic social skills like knowing each others’ names.” While we do need to tackle this related but separate issue with parish life, the priest is the person whose name almost everyone in the parish knows.

These are the stakes:

Servant of God Augustus Tolton,
the first priest in America known to be black,
was sent by Rome to Quincy, Illinois
because the Vatican thought
America needed to have or see a black priest.
(The American bishops of the time
thought America was not yet ready.)
He opened an important door;
his white parishioners also drove him to exhaustion
and an early death with their prejudice.

We need black priests in predominantly white parishes, for the sake of encounter.

We need black priests in predominantly black parishes, for the sake of representation.

We need black priests who have grown up experiencing the particular difficulties of being black in America, so that they can inspire other young black men that the priesthood is an option available to them.

We need priests whose families came here illegally in order to prioritize their first responsibility and vocation - keeping their family together and safe.

We need white Catholics to see a person they would easily dismiss as a racial stereotype standing in persona Christi at the altar and reckon with that image, so that they might more easily see the imago Dei - see the face of Christ - in that priest’s brother or sister of the same race and background.

There will still be some people who say, “I have a black pastor, so I can’t be racist.” Others will retreat behind statements like, “Katharine Drexel was founding Catholic schools specifically for black and Native children when no one else was!” There is room for pointing to the best among us as an illustration of Christ’s goodness seen within the Church, but we must avoid pulling out our token saints and clerics, patting ourselves on the back for having a better record on human rights than many organizations, and moving on with our day.

I fear we will never truly live in a post-racism society, as long as we have a diversity of cultures to celebrate. In short, sin will always exist. But this would be a start.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Immaculate Conception

by Laura Flanagan

I have a college acquaintance who is now a fairly successful Catholic artist. This week, she unveiled a series of canvases with detailed images of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s vestments, and noted she went down a rabbit hole discovering the image’s symbolism.¹ After reading her statement, I chose to fall down the same rabbit hole.

On the tilma of Guadalupe, we see Mary with her eyes bowed, and her hands in a prayer of supplication. This contrasts with the Indian goddesses, whose depictions showed their power by looking directly at the viewer with their (often large) eyes. Our Lady at Guadalupe reveals by her posture that there is a greater God above her, while wearing the symbols often attributed to those indigenous goddesses, showing that her Lord is greater than they.

There are many more beautiful symbols to this image, but one stood out to me the most. Mary’s black sash and a bump in her gown indicate pregnancy. This style signals that she is appearing as the Immaculate Conception. Not coincidentally, this is the same name she gave upon being pressed by Bernadette at Lourdes. I imagine Mary likes this title because, like her posture in the image of Guadalupe, it’s meant to point directly to Jesus. Saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception” means, “I am not myself important, except to magnify the greatness of the Lord and the extraordinary preview of grace He has given to me.”

The solemnity in celebration of this gift occurs on December 8, normally a holy day of obligation. However, if you check your calendar, you’ll find that this year it falls on a Saturday, which under most American circumstances would mean a waived obligation for the holy day.

However, apparently I was incorrect last year in stating that the combination of the 4th Sunday of Advent and Christmas was the only time we maintain the consecutive-days obligation. We maintain it again this year for this December 8 feast, but only in the United States. The reason? Our Lady, under her title of the Immaculate Conception, is the patroness of the U.S.A. Like Christmas last year, we are asked to participate in Mass for both the special feast and our usual Sunday oblation.² Both feasts are so important for us.

Mary’s veneration as the Immaculate Conception, both here in the United States and within her groundbreaking appearance as a mestiza girl in Mexico,³ points to the deep connectedness between the entirety of the Americas. The bishops seem to have come to this conclusion before me, as Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of all the Americas in addition to the country of Mexico in particular.

Mary appeared in Mexico to the indigenous person with the symbolism of the Immaculate Conception. She sent an image to the Spanish in Mexico with that same symbolism. Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Immaculate Conception, gives her patronage to indigenous peoples, Mexicans, and persons of all races and countries. She loves and intercedes for all Americans, and desires us to love one another and serve the Lord.

St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, to whom she chose to appear at Guadalupe, was considered a macehualli - essentially a native without a social category other than “poor.” The Lord is found with the poorest, and to them his Mother also gives her special favor. If our Lady were to appear today at the border between two of her beloved countries, she would likely be weeping from the tear gas with her Son’s beloved poor on the Mexican side.

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1 See this Instagram post for the original image.^↩

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2 Should you need a guide to this request from the Church:
In order to fulfill both obligations, you must attend TWO Masses - no double-dipping!
1) A Mass to fulfill the Immaculate Conception obligation is ANY Mass (regardless of the readings and prayers used) that is celebrated between ~4 PM on Friday, December 7th and the end of the day on Saturday, December 8th.
2) A Mass to fulfill the Sunday obligation is ANY Mass (regardless of the readings and prayers used) that is celebrated between ~4 PM on Saturday, December 8th and the end of the day on Sunday, December 9th.^↩

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3 Mestiza is a Latin American term for a woman of mixed race, especially one having indigenous and Spanish descent.^↩

An Education

by Laura Flanagan

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron made waves with his comment on the need for contraception in Africa, saying, “Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight, or nine children.” Predictably, a very indignant response came from the mothers of large families with degrees from top-tier universities, posting pictures of their families and letters with the hashtag, #postcardsformacron.

A meme has been circulating with 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett (within whom the dogma of Catholicism lives loudly, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein) juxtaposed against Macron's image and quote. Judge Barrett has seven children.



I'm not really eligible to send a “postcard.” I only have two children, and I can't even post a picture of them together. However, it got me thinking about the meaning of a “perfectly educated” woman.

What exactly is “an education”? The 2009 Carey Mulligan/Peter Sarsgaard movie of that name, about a sixteen year old’s relationship with a con man in his 30s, implies, well, that her “education” was not found in her school.

The Nickel Creek song “When in Rome” struck a chord with me recently, and not via Chris Thiles’ rugged power mandolin picking. Addressing a “teacher,” the lyrics go:

Hey those books you gave us look good on the shelves at home
And they'll burn warm in the fireplace teacher

I have quite a lot of books on the shelves at home. I don't remember much of their contents, and I'm not entirely sure how deeply I comprehended them to begin with.

One of the single most embarrassing experiences of my life was the oral portion of my comprehensive exams for my master’s degree. I still cringe when I recall it, and I used to cry. My writing portion was strong, but for whatever reason I simply could not answer several of the questions put to me in that exam, meant to dig deeper into my understanding of the texts. I’m not sure why that was, but I (and certainly my examiners) suspect that I didn’t have a real depth of understanding. I could pull out salient points, but was I conversant with the theology? I couldn’t converse well that day, that’s for sure.

I necessarily absorbed much of my education, and I’m grateful that even if I eventually decide to absent myself from the workforce, Clare will benefit from much of my stellar education. But my motivation for many years was to learn merely as much as was needed for the grade, rather than for the sake of the subject matter. Even as that prioritization changed through my love of theology, the ramifications of the grade’s prior primacy still echo through my life now. I love poetry, beauty, music; but I still struggle to understand them, and sometimes don't bother to try because of the difficulty. The external motivation is gone, and the internal motivation often isn’t strong enough.

What is the goal of an education? What is the goal for ourselves and for our children? Through meetings, talks, and resources, the goal I am trying to place in front of my parishioners this year is simply sanctity. (Again, this prioritization is something I’ve learned but clearly haven’t internalized, hence my many failings.) One of my college professors used a character in his books called “Mrs. Murphy” to illustrate a true liturgical theologian. The premise is that Mrs. Murphy knows nothing of theological works, or even church documents. She knows only the sacraments, the communal prayer of liturgy, the communion of saints, and makes use of them because she recognizes their power. The liturgical theologian here is the one who really does the work of the liturgy together with Christ. By this measure, Mrs. Murphy is a theologian par excellence - or, in other words, a saint in the making.

You don't have to be top-tier university-educated to be a saint. Bernadette Soubirous, who is one of my daughter’s name saints, was considered stupid, but she was well wise enough to say things like “I shall spend every moment loving.” André Bessette was recognized as a saint by the bishop referring him to the Congregation of Holy Cross. This was well before he had thousands of visitors at his gate, and then, all the Holy Cross superiors could see were an undesirable lack of schooling and poor health. Benedict Joseph Labre may have been mentally ill, living as a homeless beggar perpetually on pilgrimage; however,but the people of Loreto, Italy could plainly see the witness of his devotion to Eucharistic adoration.

You also don't have to be the mother of many or any children to be a saint, but you can be. And if you need to burn your books “warm in the fireplace” to keep your many children comfortable, the children were always the better choice.

I am trying to figure out what it means for me if it happens that I am only able to raise one child, just as others are trying to determine what their path to holiness is while awaiting their fourth or ninth child, planned or unplanned. Some feel the despair known by Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, or even Rachel. All of us wonder just how on Earth we are going to manage it.

For various real, serious reasons, a woman (and ideally a couple, together) might choose not to have seven children. To many women, that opportunity and choice is not given. But a woman with multiple degrees and a knowledge of Christ knows that children are more precious than the books on the shelf; they are more precious than rubies, or travel opportunities, or whatever you might name. This woman could actively desire seven children or more. (And as the “postcards” show, she often does.)

The wisest Mrs. Murphys know that God alone bears us up, however many children are given us. Little more education is necessary, and if it is needed, he will provide it.

Three Vocations

by Laura Flanagan

“Actually, I don’t think we need to hire anyone else.”

In April, I had a conversation with the pastor about replacing my soon-to-be-retired administrative assistant, a wise and humble woman who had worked in the various incarnations of this parish’s catechetical ministry for the last 40 years. It included the above statement, which has been the source of my anxiety for the last few months.

Emi was a primary evangelizer of our families with children in public school, who need a dedicated and supportive presence from our parish. This is a huge loss, not simply because of her position but also because of her person. However, the detriment to the detail-oriented, relational quality of our program appears partially avoidable. The simple solution is for me to take on more work and more of her role - and that may be what I am expected to do.

But… put simply, I don’t want to. Work itself doesn’t scare me, but I’m not suited to everything that would be demanded of me. (Our pastors probably have greater right to this complaint.) If I take on this necessary work, I’ll have less time actually to create anything new, to grow the impact of what we’re doing, to rethink and rework what’s not facilitating conversion.

Truthfully, a main reason for my reticence is the greater demand upon the time I have currently set aside for my other vocation: wife and mother in my family. I’m fighting the toxic mentality that we often place upon our ministers: “If you really cared about the parish families, you’d be here more often.” I’m not here all the time because I’m not just working to make our parishioners saints - I’m supposed to be mutually helping along my husband and children too.

Granted, I have the luxury of being able to lengthily discern this. Many people work two or three jobs in service to the basic needs of their family. Yet a cultural shift towards respect for the family by the workplace needs to originate in the Church’s institutions. We need to be the example. Sometimes we do well. Our Archdiocese recently promoted its 100% coverage of Natural Family planning instruction in its health insurance coverage - perhaps an overdue step, but better late than never. My high school is offering an on-campus child care center to faculty and staff beginning this year. These are good steps.

I do like it when my two vocations get a little mixed up out of necessity. I’ve now showed up to the archdiocesan offices a few times with a toddler and said something like, “I have a meeting with the bishop,” to the amusement of the concierge-esque secretary at the entrance. Clare has enjoyed a little date out to Panera, then sat in the booth quietly through a meeting with a potential catechumen. But I do not want the demands of one to push out the possibility of the other.

And then there’s a third, most important vocation - daughter of Christ. Occasionally I go back and reread a post I wrote in 2012 for the Catholic Apostolate Center, about the strange temptation ministers face to skip over prayer in order to “do the work of the Church,” which is naturally impossible to do. At that point, the temptation to be busy on behalf of the parish could have edged out my time for personal prayer, if not for the wise prioritization the Echo program outlined (and nearly enforced) for us.

At this point, I also have the temptation to skip over prayer so as to spend more time with my little family unit. That’s also a dysfunctional practice. One of the best passages I think there is from C.S. Lewis’ fiction is on one of the greatest spiritual dangers I think good people face: treating family as an idol… even that immediate family whom your sacramental vocation calls you to serve.

In the Great Divorce, a saint is trying to prepare a woman in Purgatory for the possibility of entering Heaven. That woman, however, only wants to see her son who had predeceased her. In the midst of their conversation, that saint of welcome (some friend or acquaintance from Earth, but who was purposefully not her son) explains,

‘...there is no such thing as being only a mother. You exist as Michael’s mother only because you first exist as God’s creature. That relation is older and closer. No, listen, Pam! He also loves. He also has suffered. He also has waited a long time.’

Her purification consists of learning to want God for His own sake, and not solely as a means to her son.

My family is a good; a great good; a fantastic good! But they are not THE Good, and I feel my time should also reflect that.

Discipleship will cost everything you have. But how do you split “everything” when you have three different places you’re called to be a disciple?

I think a partial solution is to be present wherever you are. I should be more than merely efficient, but allow my interactions their full weightiness - à la Fred Rogers. A Christlike presence probably involves being conscious but not anxious over the balance of your time, rather than trying to parcel out the best proportional composition of your week as if it were a recipe. This is a life, not a test kitchen.

Prayer, I’ve found, is what makes that presence and peace possible. If you work from rest - if your soul is resting in the peace of Christ - then it doesn’t matter if you eventually need to move to a different job because your current one demands more than you can or should give. Christ is still risen. My husband Kevin said in college that he had the realization that “If God exists, and loves me, then nothing else matters.” I imagine the martyrs would agree.

Another answer probably lies in letting some “mixing” happen - in recognizing that I am not actually three different people called to three different vocations. If I am to imitate the love of God - for what is a vocation but a specific way to do that? - then I have to strive to be the same person in all three areas.

In a book I read recently, the author is counseled by a priest who that day suffered a family tragedy yet seems at joyful peace. Her description evokes the same Lewis quote Rob just used to describe Javy Baez, but I’ll use a different section: “Every so often one meets [saints]... They love you more than other men do, but need you less.” He gives her the advice “Do what God is calling you to do, but do it as one part of something bigger - your family… Unite with your family. Bring them into what you do, and bring what you do into your family.”

Kevin is an excellent listener and clarifier for my jumbled thoughts when working through inspiration on catechesis (whether that catechetical brilliance is meant for my family, for the parish, or both). Clare has begun to be excited about what I tell her I will do at “my school.” If the work matters, they can help.

But I don’t do this well, yet. So I’m not fully present wherever I am. So I fret about what’s required to do these three things and do them well all together. So I don’t pray enough. To start, I’ll take a page from Pope Francis’ playbook and say, “Please pray for me.”

Curating Faith

by Laura Flanagan

One of the most annoying parts of my job is curating the adult faith library, established long ago with grandiose aspirations but which practically no one in the parish utilizes. In fact, in my five years at this parish, I’ve only had two interactions which involved the library, and I don’t think either person found what they needed. Book donations from parishioners have never stopped, though, and whenever I get a “book dump,” as I call them, I have to sift through what we will recycle and what we will keep and likely never read again.

Many of these books are junk; that’s often why they’re being cleaned out of our families’ home libraries. Every so often, though, there are some gems. The good books I’ll usually keep for the library - as intended - but occasionally I have set aside a book for someone in my religious education program who might like it, and just offered it to them. Maybe they’ll never read it, but maybe they will... and that’s more use than I can probably hope for it in our library.

Rarely, the treasures deposited outside my office door are items other than books. I’ve found a number of interesting bookmarks: inscribed holy cards from a century ago, a gold foiled Arabic word which, despite my best efforts, I was unable to Google Translate. People have deposited the occasional olive wood crucifix outside my office door along with their books, and there are often rosaries of varying quality.

At times, I have wondered what to do with the high quality items that have been donated to the parish. I feel like I should get them into other parishioners’ hands, but until recently struggled with how to do so fairly. How do you facilitate the transfer of beautiful reflections of our faith from a family which obviously has myriad to a family which has few?

To accomplish this end, I am planning a “rosary challenge” in my religious education program for this Lent. For each decade of the rosary prayed, the kids can put an entry towards a prize item of their choice. Great, inventory problem solved.

However… my planning is getting out of hand. Rather than simply redistributing the already-donated items, I’m buying a few Catholic items off Etsy that have amused or stuck with me, in order to ensure that there are some really good prizes.

Interior monologue: 

“For what should motivate fifth grade boys to pray the rosary but the opportunity to enjoy perpetually a magnet which says - and shows - ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, punch the devil in the face’?” 

“Surely someone will want this gorgeous Madonna of the Andes.”

Beads are coming from eBay so I can handcraft a rosary on the theme of Stella Maris. Like I said, out of hand.

The way I’ve spent my time on this illuminated for me that I’m basically acting as a Catholic interior designer for my PSR families. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this problem. I’ve ensured that a botanical illustration of the mysteries of the rosary got into the hands of our amateur (but very serious about it) botanist/retired priest. I ran across a beautiful illustration of Mary, Undoer of Knots, and passed it along to someone who had spent a while looking for one.

There seems to be a constant temptation to buying beautiful (or funny) pieces of art - not because I need to possess them, but because someone should.

But should someone else possess [insert art piece here]? Occasionally, my reflection tends toward how my own particular flavor of Catholicism developed from a conglomeration of those who have taught me.¹ For example: St. Meinrad Archabbey, at which we stopped on our way to last week’s family vacation. St. Meinrad is important to me because of the impact it’s had on my faith and the faith of others when I was a kid. I went on pilgrimage there once with my dad and brother, as referenced in my first Restless Hearts post. Benedictines of the Archabbey heard my confession as a child and sealed me with the gift of the Spirit. I have a painting in my house of part of the St. Meinrad campus, which was painted by a family friend on retreat there. It’s inevitable that when I share the Catholic faith, it will flow from my experience, from what I enjoy, and from what resonates with me and the people who came before me. I’m likely to illustrate a catechetical concept with St. Meinrad.

As glorious as my particular Catholic tradition is,² I don’t need to make Catholics in my own image. A few years ago, my husband’s cousin (who works in fashion) bought a hat for her nonagenarian grandmother, which said grandmother loved, and which was probably not something the cousin herself would wear.³ Bridget had worked as a personal shopper, and mentioned that when shopping for someone else, you have to think not about what you like but what they like.⁴ I think this is the perspective that not only personal shoppers but all gift-givers should cultivate.

I’m not offended if those I catechize don’t take to my devotional darlings as much as I do, although the energy with which I present them means they sometimes will. Maybe it will become more relevant later, or maybe there’s something out there in this big, wide Church which will mean as much to them, and I take pride if I can help them find it.

This year, I’ll put out prizes in this rosary challenge which are a reflection of what I think are valuable illustrations and tools of a Catholic home. I’ll see what gets the most votes, and about what people ask me “Where did that come from?”⁵ From there, I’ll reassess what items will move these people to prayer (both because they are drawn to the item itself, and because they quite literally have to pray to obtain it). Hopefully, at the end of Lent there will be several families with a little more tangible representation of their faith in their home - and may their faith grow in equal or greater measure. And I’m sure I’ll be really intense about finding something even more beautiful to offer next year.

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1 I’m certain the sheer quantity of quotes from C.S. Lewis by various authors in this blog comes in part thanks to David Fagerberg at the University of Notre Dame. ^↩

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2 “tradition” with a lower case “t”, of course.^↩

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3 Dorothy passed away in June; eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.^↩

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4 Moral concerns being neutral.^↩

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5 I’ll also see if, in the great tradition of catechesis, this idea is only really good in my eyes and in reality is a total failure to prayerfully motivate. Always a distinct possibility.^↩

Les Misérables

by Laura Flanagan

Last week, I reread a favorite work of mine - Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. While a powerful testament to grace, the brilliance of this book is its ability to have you root for the convicted felon.

From said book: “Despair is surrounded by fragile walls, which all open into vice or crime.”

The protagonist, Jean Valjean, begins the story as a hardened criminal recently released from nineteen years in prison. After being expelled from many places of rest under transparent pretexts, his encounter with the local bishop is one of dignity and mercy offered several times over. While confused and overwhelmed by the one man’s kindness, Valjean steals the bishop’s silver and flees, still despairing of kindness from the world at large - and when apprehended, he is forgiven and given the silver. This bishop gives Valjean the means to become an “honest man” when justice would otherwise quickly have returned him to his hellish imprisonment.

Afterwards, Valjean continually does the right thing, forever transformed by his encounter with Christ’s mercy in the person of the bishop at the novel’s beginning. His life becomes one of heroic virtue. The genius of the book is that you would understand if he did the wrong thing.

The world, embodied in the inflexible justice of Javert the police inspector, continues to pursue and stigmatize him despite his practical virtue of making an entire town and region of the country prosperous, and theological virtue of showing mercy and generosity to everyone he encounters. This relentless evasion and pursuit is maddening to Valjean, and might have induced despair in him if not for the joy of giving and receiving love from his adopted daughter, whom he vigorously protects.

When a person commits a crime out of despair, such as illegally crossing a border, what is our response?

I’ve heard, “Well, despair itself is a sin. They should have hope in Christ for [insert desperate situation] rather than turning to crime.”

Hope in Christ and his resurrection - indeed the boon of martyrs.

...Have we told them of that hope?

Have we been Christ’s mercy to them so they can understand its value and impact?

If we have not been prepared to give a reason for our hope while reaching into their despair, or to know and care for them as a person as Christ does, how would they find that hope?

If we personally cannot extend that mercy, do we have reason to believe that those we’ve allowed to be delegates for us will show mercy? Or do we offer only reason for despair?

Is the law making their action a crime even a just law?

Have we removed from them their children, their natural source of joy and hope?

Also from Les Mis: “If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

One thing I love about the Church is that it holds us to the highest ideals. Heroic virtue is what is asked of us, supported entirely by the grace of God. But the culpability of those without heroic virtue is lessened if they have not seen heroic mercy out of Christians. The grace to bear suffering without despair lies in that mercy and in the sacraments, to which many do not have access. If you, like me, have not always within yourself the heroic virtue to get off your phone, I beg you not to cast the first stone.

For those who are tempted to hold up “justice” as the ideal, recall at least that disproportionate punishment is not justice. The “deterrent” to stealing bread in 1790s France was that it will get you five years as a galley slave; yet Valjean, in an attempt to save from starvation the sister and her children who had cared for him since youth, steals bread. I can hope one would understand why.

Stealing a loaf of bread does not merit five years of slavery. Fleeing a desperately violent situation in your home country and entering a country illegally does not merit the destruction of your family, or the traumatization (and possibly abuse) of your children. No one flees their home and undertakes a dangerous journey of a thousand miles merely as a general preference not to go through years of paperwork unlikely to succeed at prohibitive cost. President Trump’s “solution” given to reporters last Tuesday -- “Don't come to our country illegally. Come like other people do. Come legally.” -- intentionally belies the difficulty therein. I hope others who would point to those words as a simple and just solution unintentionally belie that difficulty.

Our sense of “justice” cannot be based on our own desires for security and wealth, and without balm for those who have already endured a greater injustice than the inconvenience we might (but probably won’t) face by expanding our country’s bosom to accept refugees and the downtrodden undocumented immigrant. Les Misérables aids us in understanding why said downtrodden might not have the greatest respect for that idea of justice.¹ Jean Valjean lives outside the law throughout the book and evades Javert’s “justice” at every opportunity. Every opportunity, that is, except the first: when another man might be condemned in his place via a case of mistaken identity (a case prejudiced by that man’s poverty and Valjean’s wealth at that moment). At that moment, he enters the courtroom and denounces himself.

Victor Hugo again: “There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.”

While he had bootstrapped his way up to the higher class, Hugo’s protagonist knew he would lose his humanity - truly, his soul - if he directly condemned another man to misery, especially one who had merely endured an impoverished existence. The mercy of Christ begat the mercy of the bishop begat mercy in him. We may need to rediscover our own humanity, redeemed in Christ incarnate.

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1 There are real issues with the state of our immigration system as it stands, and no, I am not advocating that we “have no borders.” Those issues need addressing, but our immigration “quotas” have been out of whack for a long time, and the separation of families, whether immediately upon apprehension or by deportation from a community they have already formed, merely makes plain our pure self-interest.^↩

A Blessing Upon Your Children

by Laura Flanagan

In late May, I was privileged to attend a friend’s ordination to the priesthood. Ordained in the middle of Mass, the fresh priests then concelebrate the Eucharist. But before the close of Mass, they each bestowed a priestly blessing upon Cardinal Dolan, who knelt to receive it; after Mass, their first gestures as priests of God and his Church were to offer “first blessings” to all who come forward. I found it telling that this is one of their first acts as ordained mediators of grace: to raise their hands over the people of God and bless them. Even before they celebrate their first Mass, as “Father,” they bring the blessings of God the Father to his children in this particular way.

Fr. Peter, OP, blesses his parents.

In 6th grade, no matter the faith formation process, our parish students learn all about the Old Testament, and particularly the patriarchs. In these stories, in this family of Abraham, the father’s blessing was a huge deal.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all gave their children formal blessings, and Jacob even offered a blessing to some of his grandchildren. You may remember Esau’s plea, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” after Jacob stole the blessing Isaac had intended for him, and the surprise of Jacob’s crossed hands over Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, where he bestows with his right hand the greater blessing on the younger grandson.¹

The power behind the blessings, of course, comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God himself directly blesses in Genesis as well; he blesses birds and sea creatures, Adam and Eve, and Abraham, the father of these sons and of many nations. Psalm 68 calls God the “father to the fatherless.”² No person whose parents have not lived up to the vocation (or whose parents have been separated from their children while trying to obtain a better life for them) is truly without a parent to bless them.³ Blessings are definitely the purview of God, but they are often mediated through us.

We are able to request God’s blessing upon anyone and anything via our baptismal priesthood. There is an entire book published by the USCCB called Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, and it doesn’t require an ordained priest to pronounce the “blessings” contained therein. Even in Genesis, where the father’s blessing is paramount, Rebekah’s whole family blesses her as she sets off to join the family of Abraham. ⁴ As a parent, I am given the specific responsibility to bless my children, and I do when Clare finally gets in bed every night. I use the blessing from Numbers:

May the Lord bless you and keep you:
May he make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you:
May he lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.⁵

That same beautiful blessing was pronounced over me four weeks ago; my friend the new priest had chosen to use it for his first blessings.

It is not for nothing that the blessings of God are so frequently mediated through his priests, from whom we request myriad formal blessings in their ordained ministry. I often remind people that the sacraments exist for us. In the sacraments, grace is mediated through a Father we can see and hear because it aids us in believing the grace is real, while coming from the Father we cannot yet see. The same is true of sacramentals, like the blessing of God. So we bow down for the blessing at the end of our high holy days; we stop by sacristies for blessings upon our rosaries; we bless ourselves with water that a priest has blessed.

My parish has a transitional deacon with us for the year, and I intend to have him bring out the importance of blessings with the 6th grade students of the Old Testament. At the end of the year, after his ordination to the priesthood, we plan to invite those students and their families to one of his first Masses and to receive some of his “first blessings.” I hope this opportunity brings the context of their Scripture study to life, by showing how much value there always has been in the blessing from a Father; and giving them an opportunity to receive it from a Father they care about and know to care about them.

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1 Genesis 27 and 48^↩

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2 Psalm 68:5^↩

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3 I also find Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son to be an important image here, the fatherly gesture of loving welcome reminiscent of how both ordinations and blessings are bestowed. How are we called to reflect that?^↩

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4 Genesis 24:60^↩

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5 Numbers 6:24-26 ^↩

The Ministry of the Tutor

by Laura Flanagan

One of the primary institutions which I support at my alma mater is the Notre Dame Writing Center. To begin to explain why, I will write a short ode to an inspiring family. Their kids might be considered a half-generation younger than I; the eldest are in their late teens, but the youngest is younger than my elder daughter. The whole family, including the young children, are cultured and well read and Catholic, in the best sense - able to see beauty in all of creation, generous, aware of the poor and marginalized, etc. They have homeschooled for that same rarer reason my parents also had: to ensure the quality of their education kept up with their intelligence, not to shelter them from the big, bad, secular world. Essentially, if my kids turned out like theirs, I’d be content.

These parents also believe deeply in the Writing Center (one is the director, and the other a member of the English faculty). Through them, I have come to see that the formation of good writers and good writing tutors can be essentially a Christian ministry, even if not explicitly so. (I was a tutor for the NDWC as a junior and senior.) A good tutor practices several skills akin to a pastoral minister.

First, he or she must listen well.

Writing tutoring may be an intellectual ministry, but it is one that requires intense focus on the person, the author, before you. The Prayer of St. Francis says, “O Master, let me not seek as much… to be understood as to understand,” and this would be a worthy mantra for the tutor. Your job as a tutor is to bring out the best in what the author has to say, rather than what you think would be best to argue or how you might phrase it. The author is especially able to flourish in the peer tutoring at the foundation of centers like the NDWC, where there is less of an inherent power dynamic or knowledge gap.

In short, tutoring writing requires humility. It should not be your style (however delightful you may think it), but theirs that eventually runs clearly. To achieve this rhetorical invisibility, much of a tutoring session relies on asking questions once the author has read aloud his or her work, and asking more questions once he or she has answered. In between, the tutor listens.

Second, tutoring requires a discerning eye.

You are asked to be a tutor because you write well; you know some of what good writing includes, and what a clear argument requires. You become the person who finds the right questions to ask. While you do not want to impose yourself upon someone else’s writing, you do have something to give.

An author who takes full advantage of a writing center may develop a habit of thinking clearly through his or her communication, much as if he or she received actual philosophical training. The tutors’ clear thinking and fresh sight are often their gift to give.

The questioning process of a tutoring session might then be described as Socratic, but I think it is closer to Christlike. Christ’s questions, particularly to challengers like the Sanhedrin, weren't neutral; but he did genuinely want to listen. His questions are meant to open their perspective, change the nature of the game they think they’re playing. When a tutor sees where someone can improve, he or she asks a question meant to help them realize improvement is necessary or possible, but that question may (should?) not lead only to a single means of improvement.

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis puts this necessary humility thus:

"...The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching. Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say “They need me no longer” shall be our reward."¹

Making yourself superfluous is hard, but it is a skill well cultivated for the instances in life (and there are many) where you have no choice but to let go of control over the result.

Third, tutors learn to engender curiosity - the authors’ and their own.

My parish’s pastor wants to begin offering Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.² His stated purpose is to direct children’s natural curiosity towards faith-related objects and stories while young - so then as the children age, they might maintain that curiosity about faith. The next step which immediately jumped to my mind was to include some form of peer writing tutoring in the school for the middle grades (and encourage the use of it particularly for writing assignments in their theology lessons).

At the NDWC, I learned about myriad interesting topics from students who were passionate about those subjects, and just needed some help conveying to others what was greatest about their interests. Now, I often learn interesting tidbits about saints when I read the essays of near-Confirmands.

Imagine if students were given a space to hear about faithful witnesses from a peer who already admires that person, or a new perspective on the Gospel from a peer who has seen something in a parable they haven’t yet? Imagine if students were formed to listen openly, understand their peers better, and advocate well for their beliefs?

To me, this sounds like the formation of an evangelizing Christian, but it is also the formation found within a writing center.

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1 This quote is not entirely applicable, because until we reach the Kingdom of God, both saints and writers can benefit from another’s discerning review.^↩

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2 Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is the Catholic faith formation edition of Montessori education, about which Jenny has previously blogged.^↩

Into the Whirlwind

by Laura Flanagan

In my freshman year of college, two of my three roommates had been unto that point lifelong California residents, meaning they had never experienced a tornado warning. However, tornado watches and warnings were just as common in our new home of South Bend, Indiana as they had been in Indianapolis where I grew up, and we encountered one early in our “Notre Dame experience.” As a person who was familiar with what those sirens and clouds meant, it was amazing to watch these two enlivened by the experience of a tornado-engendering storm. They were torn between following this Midwestern girl's advice to head to the safety of the dorm basement, and sticking their heads out our 4th floor window to experience the strange, unknown weather.

Pictured: A man with similar instincts to Laura.

It is the beginning of tornado season, and even as an older and supposedly wiser, adult, I too desire to stand outside as a storm approaches. A tornado – and the kind of storm which accompanies them – offers a blustering wind, then some ominous calm, but throughout there is generally a perpetual sense of clarifying danger. It’s electrifying, and I enjoy it.¹ It’s standing before the whirlwind.

I know a few people who would think I’m foolish for putting myself a few steps further away from the safety of the basement in order to feel the power of the storm. I’m not on the level of storm chasers, mind you, but it is relatively foolish. It’s hardly true danger; I know that in 99.9999% of cases, I should still have plenty of time to take the few steps to safety should a tornado appear. But there’s always the thrill and the danger of the 0.0001%.

“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” 

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. 

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

This passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the children first hear of Aslan, the Great Lion² explains what I think the mere act of standing during the liturgy - our default posture - should evoke. We have the privilege of standing before God because he lets us, because he has taken the step to call us not slaves but friends,³ a beneficent gesture only He could make. By all rights we should be not only on our knees, but prostrate on the ground before “the holiest object presented to [our] senses.”⁴ I understand why quiet reverence for the Eucharist wins out, but I also understand blogger Rick Becker’s perspective on the magnetic draw, the almost crazed joy that we should feel in approaching the Eucharist - similar to the awe we feel over the chance a tornado might sweep us away. Yet I fully acknowledge that like most, I am often not “there” spiritually or mentally.

As someone who forms families for children’s First Communions, it saddens me to see that mental distance from the miraculous often exists even that first, glorious time.

Last week, our parish held practices for the almost-Communicants prior to the First Communion Masses on the weekend. In my mind, we practice to alleviate worry about how to approach. We practice to let them more easily focus on Christ than on when they are supposed to leave the pew, or where exactly to bow, etc. (because on some level, a Mass where the Communion distribution is abnormal will require a little bit of those logistics). I also attempt to help them understand at each step of the way to Whom all the bowing is supposed to be towards, and why it makes sense to bow.

When we come to the reception of Communion itself, I use Cyril of Jerusalem’s line from his mystagogical catecheses: “Make of your hands a throne.” With this spiritual and physical direction, I hope to translate these eight-year-olds’ natural worry back into a recognition of Christ’s presence.

If they think of their hands as making a throne, hopefully they then make the leap to recalling Who the throne is for, and why he is deserving of a throne.

Then, if he is the King of Heaven and Earth (and Creator of the weather systems which reflect a little of his power), then I hope the children make the next leap to the love involved in approaching him in the Eucharist: We not only stand before this King as friends at his will and behest, but through his gift we become more intimately connected than we would have ever thought possible.

He’s not safe, but He is good.

But why does the stress over a First Holy Communion exist in the first place? With what am I contending? I understand natural concern over a momentous event, but unfortunately, I believe a fair amount of the anxiety is misplaced. Rather than being filled with the “fear of the Lord,” or “wonder and awe” as some listings of the gifts of the Spirit put it, they fear embarrassment. I fear that in much of their experience up to this point, orderliness in church and school is prized over true reverence, and so the children worry about “doing it right” in front of all the watching and waiting family and friends, and often lose the potency of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ into their own Body and Blood in the process.

So what is the real danger of standing before God, the hazard we often forget? What is the peril of the whirlwind? Is it to be swept into a call which takes all of us, body and soul?

Then [the apostles] prayed, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.”⁵

I love the way that the apostles describe Judas - not as a person irredeemably evil (which he wasn’t) or who made the one unforgivable choice (which he didn’t), but as someone who ultimately decided to “turn away and go to his own place.” He turned inward, as opposed to being drawn out from himself, towards Christ, towards others.

This is the way that I often describe our free will to my students, both young and old. It is a matter of whether you turn towards God, and turn outwards toward his children, or turn inwards to yourself and your own desires. Conversion is this turning outward, and it feels thrilling if we immerse ourselves into the experience of it. It feels dangerous. Put frivolously, Judas chose not to enter the Danger Zone, either to cast in his lot with Christ from the beginning when all looked bleak for His earthly realm, or to take the terrible, humbling, painful step to acknowledge his betrayal of God Incarnate and ask for forgiveness.

When we receive the Eucharist, we should understand that we are throwing in our lot with Christ - and that alignment with Him should feel dangerous, if only to our own self-involvement.

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1 ...lightning pun intended.^↩

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2 If you should somehow be unfamiliar with the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan is a character serving as allegory for Christ in a fairly obvious way - more obvious than was to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien’s taste. ^↩

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3 John 15:15^↩

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4 Excerpted from a fantastic Lewis quote which is actually less about the Eucharist than about human dignity. The full quote, from the Weight of Glory, is “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” In another passage, he says, “...the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” If we would be strongly tempted to worship our neighbor when we see him properly, we should definitely be worshiping the Eucharist Lewis places ahead of him. ^↩

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5 Acts 1:24-25^↩

Simon of Cyrene

by Laura Flanagan

I never really thought about Simon of Cyrene until this year. My reflections on that part of the passion were limited to Christ’s suffering; Christ needs help, and the Gospel writers’ inclusion of an aide in bearing the cross emphasizes his helplessness and the extent of his suffering. But who is Simon? Why is he a named character in the Gospels? What does he do? Why does he matter enough to be included in all three synoptic Gospels?

Right now, Simon stands in for me. My second post for this blog was January 1, and in it I referenced the proximity of my due date with my second child. On the morning of January 2, I went into labor. Within five hours, my full term baby had endured a fetomaternal hemorrhage brought on by a cord issue -- a 1 in 5,000, possibly 10,000, unforeseeable, freak kind of accident. Margaret Nancy was born via emergency C-section, named and baptized while I slept under anesthesia, and died while I held her.

It might be an understatement to say this is not a suffering we chose (or would have chosen if the choice had been given to us). In my first prayer through Stations of this Lent, I noticed that unlike Jesus, Simon did not choose the cross he shoulders. He was compelled. How, then, did he carry it?

The disciples who professed “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You” are nowhere to be found. Simon is the first person literally to “take up his cross and follow” Jesus, but whether he also did so figuratively is not known. Is Simon resentful and fearful the entire way up Calvary, or does he choose to aid the suffering Lord to the best of his ability, now the cross has come to him? We can step into his place, and the results may vary, depending upon our choices and the grace given to us.

First, we must recognize evil as evil. In grief, there is no way around the process; one has to go through it. If we are to sit with someone who is enduring something, we also have to be able to sit with their discomfort. But people prefer to skip over the discomfort and unfairness of unchosen crosses. When someone dies, especially young, people offer statements which essentially posit, “This is a good thing! We just don’t understand how it’s good now.” This is unhelpful. Something is terribly wrong here, and that has to be acknowledged before we can accompany someone on to the hope that still exists.

Before Margaret’s birthday, I never really got lines like, “My soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is,”¹ which we used at her funeral. While I had some head knowledge of the theology of suffering, I hadn’t had a “qualifying” tragedy that really let me enter an experiential understanding of it. I had one friend laugh (in a kind way) when I said this, but I feel like a whole new field of dolorous theology has been opened to me.

I am angry that Margaret is not here, that my older daughter doesn’t have a nearly three-month-old sister she's coaching to roll over. I believe it is righteous anger. However, that anger isn’t directed towards anything except the fact itself: she is not here. To carry this cross well, I must avoid turning it upon God or others in bitterness and hardness of heart.

The most difficult thing may be fearfulness of future pregnancies. Previously, I had naïvely thought that a NICU stay was the worst possible scenario, and honestly I didn’t even consider that. Really, an emergency C-section was the worst possible thing that had come to mind, and with my physical condition in both pregnancies, I considered that a long shot. Now I believe that there is a still worse outcome, and I must be vulnerable to that again.

This is our cross, and we will carry it somehow, as we were compelled like Simon to take it up. The Lord himself also carries it, though -- as he emptied himself to do. Simon suffers with Christ; Christ suffers with him. Christ suffers with us. And yes, good will come.

Through that kenosis of Christ, we have the gift of baptism. In taking advantage of that totally unearned grace, our tiny girl can now be a tiny saint. I see the fruits of Margaret’s sainthood already, most amusingly in the jealousy of her older sister, who currently insists that she too is a saint. I’m content if her saintly sister is her “aspirational peer.”

It is in how we carry this cross that the holiness lies. Taking it up to begin with is the watershed moment (or water font moment), but the rest is following those Godly footsteps. This is food for contemplation within the joy of every year’s RCIA group. The baptisms and receptions we will celebrate next week are beautiful, but it is in continuing to carry their crosses, supported by the grace of God, that they will live their earthly lives. Now, the journey is not the destination, as some are apt to claim. The telos of the Resurrection is the reason for the season. But bearing suffering (ours and others’) is the work we have to do, and will reflect both the difficulties and the endgame we have.

Concurrent with the synodal emphasis on the formation of youth in the Church, I want our parish children’s formation to demonstrate how we respond to the wretchedness in our lives.² The kids know the world is broken, and we cannot implicitly pretend that all is well if we intend to show the full coherence of the Church. We already do a reasonably good job of emphasizing that all good things come from the Lord; I want to enable the youth also to respond with authentic Christian faith to the bad that does not come from Him. For instance:

• Anger is okay; but God did not will this injustice, nor should we ultimately refuse to forgive another if necessary. 
• Sadness is natural, and does not mean we reject the hope of the Gospel; but neither should we forget that hope. 
• In short: What does it mean that the Kingdom is truly “already, but not yet?” When life hands you lemons, what should a Christian do?³

I also want to create space for the prayerful experience of the compassion of Christ. We’ll revamp our formation in grades 4-8 for next year with these as the goals.

I hope we know Simon’s name because he chose to carry the cross well. There is mild traditional evidence that his sons became missionaries, pointing perhaps to a father who received the gift of faith when he accepted a conscripted cross and literally followed in the footsteps of Jesus.

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1 Lamentations 3:17^↩

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2 I promise I won’t go overboard; the theme of the year will not be “though we hang our heads in sorrow all the days of our lives” merely because I have suffered a tragedy.^↩

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3 Saints provide excellent examples, and we will be looking at them and praying with them.^↩