#TreatYoShelf: 02/07/19

by Dan Masterton

You guys know how Moses makes his coffee? ...

He-brews it...

Now that you've gotten your caffeine jolt, here's this week's links.


"New Year’s Resolution failed? Follow Pope Francis’ lead and try ‘wasting time’ instead." by Haley (Carrots) Stewart via America Magazine

Sorry, Marie, actually
NOT talking about you.

Full disclosure: I read Haley's book recently and loved it, and I generally am a softy for insightful Catholic moms, especially when they share little bits of their family on social media. Anywho, for those who may not want a book-length dive into intentional simplicity, this start-of-the-year reflection is a briefer celebration of that simplicity in light of Pope Francis' advice. Haley celebrates "wasting time" as a way to worry less about productivity and efficiency and instead invite greater presence and wider space for love. One great nugget: maybe, more often than we'd like to admit, interruptions are actually more important scheduled things.

"Democrats Overplay their Hand on Abortion" by Alexandra DeSanctis via The Atlantic (primarily, she writes for National Review)

In light of some troubling movements in New York and Virginia, this article takes a pretty deliberate, measured approach to walking through the heaviness of these lurches in the policies on abortion. While this author is an overt and open pro-life person, she writes the article in a restrained, face-value sort of way. Her focus is not advocacy or persuasion but rather an honest assessment of how the Democrats are embracing extreme policies on abortion to try to firm up the ground in case the courts start to push back more on liberal abortion laws, but in doing so, are giving away the game on what they stand for and seek to protect.

"Trump: Another unconvincing stab at statesmanship" by Michael Sean Winters via National Catholic Reporter

I don't read NCR much, but this opinion summary of Trump's State of the Union Address was pretty solid. The speech didn't touch much on themes especially sensitive to religious listeners, but Winters surveys the reaction to the speech and comments, which included one particularly intriguing and off-putting observation. Describing Trump's struggle with scripted speeches versus his comfort with ad-libbing, one writer commented, "He's adept at pressing their emotional buttons, and even if he is not very religious himself, there is something evangelical about his style. He excites hope that crushing victories are coming, over strange and shadowy forces of evil. He moves around, filling the physical space, improvising. He promises anything that comes into his head..." More fuel to the scary fire that is President Trump.

"The Joy of Having Loud and Messy Kids at Mass" by Brian Doyle via America Magazine (H/T to Josh Noem for the link)

This one was written a few years back, but a lot of people have been writing and sharing links this week about the importance and beauty of children at Mass. I especially liked this piece, a sparse and raw accounting of experiencing liturgy in the midst of children. In addition to the good theology and catechesis relating to children at the Mass being done elsewhere, I thought it was rather welcome to just read a touching narrative and a brief reflection from the perspective of a faithful massgoer.

"Ways to Get Students Involved in School Liturgies" by Katie Diltz via the McGrath Institute for Church Life Blog (University of Notre Dame)

Me, when the kid who just practiced
the First Reading five minutes ago
reaches the ambo and promptly begins
confidently proclaiming the Gospel instead.

This one may be a bit niche-y for some of you, as it's certainly geared toward those of us who minister to young people. However, it might also awaken some nostalgia in your soul as you remember the dear old days of your elementary school liturgies. Mobilizing young people in liturgical ministries is wonderfully easy and potentially transformative. The variety of roles possible for various young people and their various gifts can help connect them to the beauty of the liturgy and the chance to share their gifts with others in prayer and worship. This is a nice little primer to help toward that end.

TRH on Racism No. 1: Name the Tension. Call it Racism.

by Erin M. Conway

Recently I read Jon Sobrino, SJ’s book No Salvation Outside the Poor. In it, he writes about the necessity and impact of calling things by name. Theologically, the simple act of naming, he writes, “means making things real, calling them into existence.”¹ Sobrino cites Genesis here as the first example of the power of names. Names give validity. They give power. They take things previously unacknowledged and confirm their existence.

As a liberation theologian, Sobrino is deeply concerned with Catholics’ particular acknowledgment of and encounter with the poor. Writing in the aftermath of the Salvadoran Civil War, he seeks especially to call attention to the thousands of Salvadorans who were disappeared² or killed in those years. “Just by mentioning the names of the tortured, dead, and disappeared,” he writes, “we recognize their fundamental dignity as human beings who deserve to be remembered as such.” Knowing the names of the poor allows us to enter into relationship with them, and in doing so we are able to acknowledge the dignity that exists within them as children of God. After all, God herself tells us in Isaiah 43, “I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Sobrino examined his historical and cultural moment and cried out for justice. He believed that the central mission of the church is and would be lost when a society lost sight of her poor.

As I finished Sobrino’s book, I was confronted with questions. What massive poverty or injustice threatens our nation today? Who are the people whose fundamental dignity we should be remembering? Who or what, should we, as people of faith, be calling by name?

You don’t have to look too hard in our country today to discover situations fraught with injustice.

• The killing of unarmed black men and women by police with seemingly little legal recourse.
• A president who ran an election campaign inundated with references to Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” “murderers,” and even “bad hombres.”
• Children separated from their parents as they seek asylum on our Southern Border.
• A twitter storm that consumed our country in response to the behavior of students from Covington Catholic High School.
• The divisive rhetoric surrounding Colin Kaepernick’s insistence on kneeling during the National Anthem and the backlash that has met those who followed suit.
• Four years worth of unclean water for families and children in Flint, Michigan.
• A so-called “Muslim ban” which prohibited foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries from entering the United States.

As much as we speak about these events, as much as we talk about them with our friends or post about them on social media, we often fail to name what they all hold in common.

What if we acknowledged that each and every one of those events is affected by, escalated by, or defined by race? What if we called the systemic inequalities that ravage our country by the name of racism? What if we, as people of faith, pushed our country to talk about race and racism in a way that honors the humanity of all people? What if we, as white Catholics, examined the ways in which our privilege has blinded us to the struggles of our brothers and sisters of color? What if as a church we spoke more intentionally and consistently about the racism that exists not only in our country but in our church? What if we spent time encountering and accompanying people of color rather the seeking constantly to explain why we aren’t actually racist? How could this naming change our nation?

To be fair, our world does not often provide us with strong examples. Mainstream media, for example, seems to bend over backward in order to avoid specifically naming any incidents or individuals as “racist.” For example, NPR recently reported on how, in response to remarks by Iowa Representative Steve King, an editor from NBC News sent an email to their staff which read, “Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist. It is okay to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.”

If you listen closely, you’ll hear similar, more subtle rhetoric everywhere. We’d rather say that our immigration policies stem from “concerns over national security,” not an underlying racism for those who look different than us. We’d prefer to argue that poverty in our cities is not the result of historically racist policies such as redlining, but is instead connected to “laziness” or “poor decision making.” It is more comfortable to claim black Americans are killed by police because they “were reaching for their waistband,” not because of implicit racial bias.

We cannot create justice and move beyond the racism that divides our country if we don’t first name it.

Father Bryan Massingale, Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham, speaks adamantly that “virtually every social challenge facing the United States [...] is entangled with or aggravated by racial bias against people of color.” He calls racism “the subtext of almost every social concern in our nation”³ and insists that Catholics lead the way in conversations about racial justice.

Instead of shying away, let’s use names.

Tamir Rice.
Trayvon Martin.
LaQuan McDonald.
Sandra Bland.
Jakelin Caal Maquin.
Felipe Gomez Alonzo.

When we name the black men and women killed at the hands of the police, when we name the children who died in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol, it becomes much harder to look away. It becomes harder to imagine that their lives and deaths have nothing to do with us.

In my own life, I have been able to name the racism I see in our country because of my experiences as a teacher. Working in places like Baltimore City, the Coachella Valley, and Cleveland has caused me to look deep inside, recognize my own privilege, and realize I can no longer stay silent. Once I listened to the stories of my students I realized the privileged place I occupy in the universe and there has been no turning back. I learned names and stories and I haven’t been able to look away.

My job has enabled me, a white Catholic woman, to walk in the door each day and encounter people of color in a meaningful and intimate way. This accompaniment doesn’t mean I perfectly handle conversations surrounding race, however. They are moments my students and I struggle to understand one another, moments when I fail in my role as a compassionate educator, when I put my foot in my mouth and fail to recognize fundamental differences that lies between our experiences and realities. But in these encounters, I’ve been able to NAME the struggle. Racism is real. I see and hear it every day and I truly believe that my students have allowed me to recognize this in a way I never have before.

As a people of faith, we can do what God asks of us and lead the way in the naming of racism. We can recognize that racism and its implications are things we should absolutely care about. We can work actively to dismantle its effects. For many of us, meaningful encounter with people of color is not an everyday occurrence. So we must change our behavior. We must learn names, we must learn stories, and we must enter into meaningful relationship.

But in this effort, we shouldn’t put the burden of story sharing on our brothers and sisters of color. We have to do the work ourselves first. Read books. Listen to podcasts. Check out The Restless Hearts over the next several weeks as we dive more deeply into the ways race and racism intersects with our existence as Catholics. We can examine our own prejudices and begin to recognize our own privilege, and perhaps more importantly, our own blind spots. Let’s begin to call this thing by its name: racism.

---

1 No Salvation Outside the Poor, Jon Sobrino, Orbis Books, 2008.^↩

---

2 There are thousands of Salvadoran’s who went missing during the Civil War whose deaths have never been accounted for - these individuals are referred to as having been “disappeared.”^↩

---

3 Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, Bryan N. Massingale, Orbis Books, 2010. ^↩

Treat Yo Shelf: 01/31/19

by Dan Masterton

Welcome back to The Restless Hearts, friends!

We resume our regular blogging with my new Thursdays series, #TreatYoShelf.



Each Thursday, I'll share a few of my favorite reads from the past week with a little summary or a quick thought. My hope is that I can help draw you toward a handful of faith-relevant articles and reflections to stir your spirit and get you thinking constructively. I may throw a few videos, jokes, and other miscellanea in here, too. Hope you enjoy!

+ + +

"3 Guidelines I Use to Stay Sane on Social Media" by Molly Cruitt via Grotto Network

Donna live streaming
Ron's first selfie slash Vine.

I am a believer that social media isn't inherently evil. It's the classic issue of intention and use -- knives aren't evil when they spread butter but become evil when they're wielded for violent ends. We often end up consuming and utilizing social media is ways that can trend toward dangerous things. It's best to find ways to moderate and limit consumption to keep it in a happy place. One great suggestion I echo from Molly -- try snoozing or muting people who are elevating your blood pressure. It keeps your social connection but gives you a trial run of removing them from your feeds. I am a big fan of taking 30-day snoozes when certain friends push my buttons with their posts.

"What It’s Like for Secular, Liberal Pro-lifers at the March for Life" by Ashley Fetters via The Atlantic

In an increasingly polarized political climate -- especially one where New York and Virginia are pushing abortion law even further left -- it's hard to imagine pro-life citizens as anything but super-conservative and super-Christian, and that's exactly what can be so tough about a two-party system. These two monoliths don't reflect the diversity of the country and its varying stances. This reporter captured a more nuanced portrait of the citizenry at this year's DC March for Life. Here's a good thumbnail: "But despite what the popular narrative might suggest—that the pro-life side of the abortion debate is conservative and the pro-choice side is liberal, and the two sides don’t like each other—secular and left-leaning pro-lifers I spoke with said they felt welcome at the March for Life, and that most of the time they feel welcome in the pro-life movement in general, too. They do, of course, know they’re outnumbered."

"Stop giving young adults special treatment at church" by Emily Sanna via USCatholic

Having belonged to a parish with one of the most vibrant young adult scenes out there, I have seen the pros of it -- strong sense of belonging, friendships started and grown at church, hearty catechetical content at programs, etc. I also know that segmenting a parish can be dangerous, especially if one segment becomes stronger while others lag behind. Ideally, a parish is a healthy blend of its various states of life, age groups, and gifts. In Emily's reflection, she talks about trying to forge a path in parish life that actualizes that. As usual, the best Catholic answers may be both/and's, and I walked away from reading this thinking we need both specialized aspects and combined/all-ages aspects to parish life.

"Want to keep your kids Catholic? Make your home a church." by Katie Prejean McGrady via America Magazine

Sometimes, parents show good hustle
but just don't quite have it figured out.

Having an almost two-year-old daughter, I often wonder how intentional our family faith life needs to be. Mass every Sunday is a top priority but then what -- is grace before meals enough extra prayer? do we need to have more regular pieties? are we active enough in the parish? Juggling two work schedules, caring for Lucy without daycare, and navigating my wife's terminal degree (no more school in two years!) can leave the schedule ragged and iffy. Katie's sparse, simple reflection here resonates with me and my childhood. My parents were not theologically formed, did not have exceptional home pieties, and did not sit us down for bible studies; they were every-Sunday Mass-goers, faithful belong-ers and contributors, and socially engaged Catholics. Our house and our parish were home. Take a deeper dive with Katie here. Sometimes the best plan is to just be a consistently good, thoughtful example.

"The 'Ethics' of Trump's Border Wall" by Cardinal Joseph Tobin via NYTimes Opinion

The politics of the wall have played out ad nauseam amid the shutdown, the temporary budget, and the looming re-shutdown. Meanwhile, the human realities remain. Cardinal Tobin captures important aspects of this in his reflection, namely, that the wall neither changes the underlying motivations of migrants nor the laws of the land, which permit asylum requests. Having spent a week in the borderlands, I can attest that the thought process of many who attempt the crossing is that the danger of dying in the desert is less daunting the imminent threats they face back home; many simply take the calculated risk since the potential, even if unlikely, outcome to stay in the US is better than their status quo. Customs and Border Protection already practices Prevention by Deterrence, which uses walls and resources to funnel crossers into more remote, more dangerous terrain, where the earth's natural challenges will eliminate crossers for CBP, which the maps back up.

Goose Island Beer Company Snow Removal

Here in Chicago, we have a little thing called "dibs." The basic idea is that, in heavy winter weather, if you dig a parking spot out for your car, it remains yours even after you pull away. Typically, people use lawn furniture, trash cans, or other items to mark off their dibs'd spot, and those who observe dibs treat it as an unavailable parking spot. Others find this practice abhorrent and pull their cars right into these spots, casting the markers aside as they desperately try to park their cars. The whole system is a bit flimsy and certainly ramps up when weather hits a fever pitch. Whether you're pro or con, Goose Island gave us something we can all get behind -- help with our parked cars. This is a fun example of stepping away from a well adjudicated and tense debate to focus on the human need. Enjoy!

Are you #ProDibs or #AntiDibs? The Dibs debate can get pretty nasty here in Chicago. That’s why the Goose crew woke up early this morning to help our neighbors. Whether you’re #ProDibs or #AntiDibs, treat your neighbor with respect and kindness this winter and always. pic.twitter.com/YtmyqDxbpc

— Goose Island Beer Co (@GooseIsland) January 28, 2019

Excess Isn't Hospitality

by Dan Masterton

When it comes to social conventions and customs, I am the pig to whom makeup has been applied so it can then masquerade as a bull before he enters a china shop. I am either clueless of conventions or know customs and break them with pitiful gracelessness. This charm of mine was on full display during wedding planning with my wife and our families.

All along the way, I discovered unwritten rules and expectations that I had not previously known -- things like bridal party members receive plus-ones whether they have significant others or not, guests who share that they cannot come upon receiving save-the-dates receive invitations nonetheless in order to formally decline, and more. What’s more, my ignorance and the related frustration was then compounded because all of these rules are actually arbitrary and can in fact be broken or amended and I was unqualified to identify those times when rule-bending was allowed. Oof. Let’s just say married life suits me better than engaged life.

I just don’t seem to have the poise and awareness to function well in social conventionality. Part of it is the Seinfeldian observational humorist inside me. When I see something fishy, I usually can’t help but call it out for what it is, and typically that goes against the grain of what I should be doing. The other part is the minimalist simpleton who I am, who prefers the quick-and-dirty, the straight-forward, the basic versions of most things. It’s a grating combination for those in my orbit, I’m sure. Being surrounded by many accomplished hosts all across my family, friend groups, and different areas of my life, I often feel a bit outcast and outlierish.

This all comes to a head when I’m with larger groups for social gatherings like holiday get-togethers, birthday parties, and other social outings that involve large meals, because the dominant modes of hospitality stymie me. The dictionary definition of hospitality is “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” I’d say, in my own layman’s terms, that hospitality is receiving others into your home, or another setting you’ve facilitated as host, and making them feel welcome and cared-for; typically that involves food, drink, conversation, and the chance to socialize enjoyably.

Yet, for some reason, hospitality often is largely about excess. I’ve seen it in the Midwest and the South, in Ireland and Italy, among Germans and Mexicans, from millennials and boomers. If you’re not overdoing it, you’re not hosting. Gatherings of ten people have to have enough food for fifteen, and nights that may call for a couple six-packs or two bottles of wine have to be stocked like an open bar wedding.

I think there’s at least three odd presumptions here.

First, it’s assumed that most everyone will take home extras and leftovers. Sure, sometimes some people could use the leftovers as a quick lunch, a meal for work, etc. Other times, people just shopped for their groceries or don’t enjoy leftovers or are leaving town tomorrow. I’ve been both witness to and recipient of the “invitold” leftover; it often feels like my host just wants me to take it so they don’t have to eat it or guiltily throw it away.¹

Second, it feels like people think that folks will be offended if the host runs out of something, or worse, label the host as a “bad host” for under-preparing for guests. Sure, if you’ve got a tray of glorious chicken strips that I’ve been eyeing and it then runs out, I might be bummed. But I also might be an adult and eat the other foods that are offered or simply be grateful to have been hosted and served. It can be hard to predict how much everyone will want, but it feels like we tend to overshoot it by a lot, perhaps out of fear.

Third, there’s this weird expectation that excess also has to include a ton of options. We definitely live in a day when food allergies and more narrow diets are more front of mind, but most of the time, it doesn’t seem like catering to that is the chief motivation. Seeing spreads with both ham and turkey,² with five different sides instead of one or two, with a dessert table instead of one central dessert -- I think people expect quantity to more easily impress. Making one thing really well is seemingly more risky; a myriad of options gives people control and the chance to find the thing they like (though they still may not find their favorite!).³

Finally, when it comes to curating these options to guests, I often feel compelled or even coerced to consume and embibe at a dangerous clip. Hosts narrate the options I have for appetizers, drinks, main meal, and dessert. Then, they may ask me if I want something, but often, they’re not interested in my actual answer, instead skipping ahead to getting me something they’ve prepared and want to share. If I take a smaller portion of some main dish or dessert, or God forbid, even decline dessert altogether, I’m almost certain to be thought of as rude.⁴ I usually feel not like I’m being hosted but like I’m being run through a restaurant week fixed menu or something.

Ultimately, I will certainly sound like an ingrate. And to some extent, I just am. I always have wonderings about others’ thought processes, choices, and MOs. And my curiosity usually manifests as somewhere between skeptical or critical. Can’t you just appreciate being hosted, Dan!? No, I wish. God made me analytical, and He wired my analysis to loop back and forth with my spirit. Hence The Restless Hearts blog title. Gotta keep seeking rest in God via pilgrimage through an engaged life of faith.

I think a few things would sate my crusty old grumpy soul. First, I feel much more at ease when hosting and hospitality are transparent and communicative. I am much more anxious walking into a situation where I know nothing about the shape of things; I am way more comfortable when I know how the night was planned, who was invited, and what people were asked to bring/not bring, etc. because the hosts share that all ahead of time. That all makes it feel more like hospitality to me.⁵

Most of all, nothing would make me more relaxed than knowing that excess has been mitigated. Have the amount of food and drink been closely estimated to reflect the amount of people coming and their appetites? Or, if a host insists on making extra or feels it’s too difficult to guess on quantity, are there arrangements penciled in to take care of the leftovers? And I mean a greater arrangement than forcing leftovers on hesitant guests and/or the kitchen garbage can. Maybe hosts of larger gatherings could even grossly overestimate their output because they’ve prearranged with a soup kitchen to take half the yield as their supper to serve the next day? That’d be a party I want to attend.

The sum of hospitality is that is has to be done in a way that is honest gift, or it isn’t love. Insistence on excess food, tons of options, and no empty hands declining drinks or empty plates taking small portions feels like genuflection to a social convention rather than honoring a beloved guest. The menu of food and drink can’t be so important that it overshadows the very guests it was curated to serve. And fueling the throwaway culture with careless excess of food and drink dishonors our solidarity with those who go without each night. The love of hospitality is so fundamentally about giving, but to really be love, it must also receive.

---

1 There are certainly times when we aren’t leaving town or haven’t recently shopped for groceries when I happily receive leftovers. I was just at a birthday party where my party favor was a bag of extra fajita meat. Yum. However, at a family Christmas party on December 22, I feel like I personally insulted my aunt when I told her I’d be at parties where the food/dessert/etc. was already spoken for on each of the next three days and declined to take anything but a handful of sweets home.^↩

---

2 Full disclosure: my wife, Katherine, and I made steak and salmon for Christmas Day with our family. However, our whole meal fit on a salad plate. Small portions of each, a neat pile of green beans, and a twice-baked potato half. We finished the sides that day, and the leftover steak became quesadillas for a subsequent lunch.^↩

---

3 One of the myths of the technological/social media age is that more choices are better. As well profiled by comedian/amateur social scientist Aziz Ansari in his book Modern Romance, having more choices often breeds greater indecision and creates impossibly high bars for what should be easy calls.^↩

---

4 Again, I have larger problems with tone and body language that make me seem like a grumpy jerk. But you can’t tell me I’m thin and look good AND expect me to overeat and pound desserts. I prefer regular self-denial and occasional milkshakes. ^↩

---

5 I don’t need a minute-by-minute accounting of the night’s plans, but I don’t like flying blind. Do I bring something or not? Is it a full meal or just “heavy hors d'oeuvres”? (Whoever popularized that, to heck with you. I need real meals.) Is it a big gathering that will intimidate introverts or a small, chill crowd and/or familiar folks with whom I can relax?^↩

An Open Letter to Gift-Givers from a Clumsy Minimalist

by Dan Masterton

Dear Gift-Givers,

I am hard to shop for, and I know it. I don’t really like stuff and things; I like places, people, and experiences. I’m not drawn to the fancy, the luxury, the high end; I am more pleased by bargains, efficiency, resourcefulness, and utility. I am also a horrible recipient of gifts; I do not frequently offer the sort of major visual reactions that creative gift-givers hope to elicit. I’m a real piece of work.

At our core, I feel like most minimalists don’t hate gifts. I swear -- we really don’t. I think one of the major problems is that the types of gifts we minimalists prefer are not the type of gifts people want to give or think they’re expected to give, and trying to break that social expectation and convince people it’s ok to go rogue in this way is pretty tough. People often think they need to spend a certain amount of money or procure a certain magnitude of thing in order to have sufficiently pleased their friends and family. When it comes to minimalists, don’t worry! In my case, let’s just say my Amazon wish list of a new tape measure, carabiners for my stroller, a dustbuster, and new bowling shoes didn’t knock any gift-givers’ socks off.

I guess my hope as a minimalist is always that -- while I know a gift giver should be free to gift as the conditional love of their gift-giving sees fit -- they’ll consider the type of gift I’m hoping for as they creatively decide. Some gift-givers are wonderfully considerate of this. At my recent birthday party, one of my friends gave me a gift card to a movie theater to help treat my wife, Katherine, and me to a date and flatly declared that this gift of a bought-and-paid-for experience was chosen “because you don’t like stuff.” However, folks frequently insist instead on the more conventional gift route; thus, the considerations a minimalist might hope for can get easily set aside in favor of the things and the stuff.

But rather than rambling on about simplicity, minimalism, and aversion to materialism, I need to admit the problems I introduce and aggravate in this equation with my imperfect attitude, chiefly that my outlook clouds my ability to be grateful. Rather than receive a gift and express gratitude and appreciation before all else, my mind jumps all too quickly to my thoughts and opinions on the gift.

Just the other day, my dad brought me a rally towel from the Bears-Packers game, a big win he witnessed in person by which the Bears clinched their first division title in eight years and eliminated the Packers from playoff contention (with help from the Vikings). Rather than immediately thank him for thinking of me by grabbing an extra towel off the seat next to him, I responded, “I already have one of these from a game earlier this year.” My mind leapt instantly to the rally towels already on my office wall, in my daughter Lucy’s toybox, and sitting in piles in my bedroom, a portrait of the excess of possessions I’ve incidentally accrued. Rather than fixating on excess, my priority should be gratitude. Say “thank you,” Dan. UGH. Facepalm emoji. The idealism in my mind wishes the world would meet me closer to halfway than I think it tends to do, but by worrying too much about that, I mess up the most important part -- expressing love by my gratitude first and foremost.

So, to all of you creative, thoughtful, selfless, others-oriented gift-givers:

First, SORRY! Minimalism can get us tied up in austerity so intently that we’re not attentive to the love, generosity, and thoughtfulness demonstrated by others. Please accept my apologies for how such a perspective can spill over and extinguish gratitude. You don’t deserve such a poopy reaction.

Second, please keep trying to challenge your creativity to meet a minimalist halfway. Tickets to a show or concert? A membership or subscription to a great periodical or event venue? Admission to a museum, zoo, or neat attraction? A donation to a favorite charity? A custom coupon promising a future experience together? Any effort toward the gift of a shared experience and new memory goes a long way.

Third, THANK YOU! Even though we minimalists may not give the effusive, demonstrative reaction to gifts that you may hope for, thank you for doggedly attempting to love us and care for us nonetheless. Your earnest attempt to bring love in the world by giving of yourselves is worth doing, even if we as recipients can seem a bit grinchy. While we hope we can work toward healthy, moderate ways to live out minimalism, we also need your creative warmth to temper us and love us.

Sincerely,
Dan, a clumsy minimalist

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.

---

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

---

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.^↩

---

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

The Words to Pray

by Dan Masterton

As long as I can remember, I’ve known and regularly recited the Hail Mary and the Our Father. I cannot remember when or how exactly I learned them. I remember saying these prayers in elementary school classrooms with my classmates. I remember joining hands during Mass as a child to say the Our Father. I remember learning the rosary and raining Hail Mary’s down over the rolling beads as we prepared for May Crowning. In a time when rote memorization is giving way to the short-term recall named Google that lives in our pockets, the ingrained words of these prayers endure deep in the unforgettable memories of my brain. As a punk teenager, I remember feeling critical toward the especially frequent use of these all too often robotic prayers. If we say them so often that we barely pay attention to their meaning, what’s the point?

At times as an adult and professional minister, I’ve seen our go-to prayers utilized with particular laziness and/or misguided intention. My all-time favorite (or least favorite) has to be a dean of students with whom I formerly worked. He possessed a particularly booming, monotone voice, which he utilized regularly to call for attention, scold kids, and in some cases, (mis)use prayer to quiet a crowd. He’d step up to a microphone at an assembly or before an all-school Mass and belt, “Quiet, please. Let’s begin with a prayer. OUR FATHER. WHO ART IN HEAVEN…” The droll, flat recitation the kids offered back was indicative of the fatigue often felt about these prayers.

Another time I see this trend rear its head is when young people are asked to pray before a group. While they possess varying degrees of comfort with speaking extemporaneously, they have no shame about leaning on their memorized prayers. In this case, it is often far from welcome piety. You’ll regularly hear something like this: “Uh, dear God, thank you for everything you’ve given us. We appreciate it. And, um, let’s just pray an Our Father…” Good hustle, kid.

This brings me to the retreats I direct. We pray frequently on retreat, from small-group blessings to before-meal grace to student-led prayer. The latter unfolds primarily as a precursor to witness talks, when the leadership team steps out of the room and offers a private blessing over the speaker with hands extended. Over the years, I have struggled to get young people to approach this as a prayer of blessing; instead, they often use it as a time to tell stories, offer the person compliments, or crack jokes to loosen the mood. These things can be helpful in relaxing the speaker, but they fall short of inviting God’s grace intentionally to the person being blessed, and often seem like a way to garner cheap laughs or even steal the spotlight from that person. As much as I try to give narrower parameters that focus our blessings toward God, grace, and the person being blessed, detours and tangents arise. So I’ve more or less resigned myself to laying out my hopes for that blessing once, loud and clear at the start, and hoping we stay on that track.

This brings me to the last retreat I directed. Initially, it followed the same trends I mentioned, but the first student who prayed kept his spontaneous reflections brief and efficiently transitioned into a request for everyone to pray the Our Father together. And we did. And I liked it. Sure enough, as teenagers are wont to do, the next person’s blessing followed the same shape – a short but sweet ramble and an invitation to that old familiar prayer. And so the next and the next until our pattern incidentally became focusing and aggregating our prayer behind the words that Jesus taught us. It was really nice and shifted the focus toward where I always hope it will be – a solemn, communal blessing for the speaker.

Back in those often doubt-filled teenage years, I remember being set straight when we learned about prayer in junior theology class. As we reviewed these rote prayers, our teacher called them “familiar prayers,” a nicer title that doesn’t connote such roboticism. By her estimation, these prayers were an essential ingredient to our prayer tradition. She explained that the familiarity of these prayers was a blessing in that they give us the words to pray when we may otherwise struggle to find them.

In the case of my young people serving as leaders, the familiar words of the Our Father were not so much an escape hatch from thoughtfulness but an inviting, warm place to go where the blessing they desired for their teammates could be conveyed with love. As they continue to grow and mature in their faith, they met God halfway, opening with some of their own words and then Christ’s words carry them the rest of the way. It’s a fine line between familiar prayer as a crutch and familiar prayer as an asset, but these kids embraced the words they knew by heart. They used familiar prayer as a way to orient their earnest desires for blessing toward the person for whom they prayed.

Five years ago, as my dad, brothers, and close family members encircled my dying mother, we were overcome with the emotions of saying goodbye to our most loved one. As she passed and we confronted the magnitude of grief in that moment, the only thing we knew for sure is that we wanted to pray. And as we babbled our way to a family blessing over our dear mother, my older brother found his way toward the Our Father and managed to get us praying together, “Our Father…”

There will always be moments when those familiar words come to mind out of convenience, lack of creativity, or even, God forbid, crowd control. But there are also times when the familiar words we know before thinking, or when we cannot even think, will draw us into prayer when we otherwise may not know how to get there. The Our Father comes to us as Jesus’ answer to his friends’ question about how we ought to pray. And this blessing from Jesus endures as a way for us to pray, especially when our own search for words may fall short and the words of Christ come when we may most need them.