The only life worth living is a life worth dying for.
Author: Meg
I'm a Catholic, madly in love with the Lord, His Word, His Bride the Church, and especially His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. I'm committed to the Church not because I was raised this way but because the Lord has drawn my heart and convicted my reason. After 2 degrees in theology and 5 years in the classroom, I quit my 9-5 to follow Christ more literally. Since May of 2012, I've been a hobo for Christ; I live out of my car and travel the country speaking to youth and adults, giving retreats, blogging, and trying to rock the world for Jesus.
O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of Heaven: Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.
If Christ’s coming were merely an event in history, even with the ramifications it has on our collective salvation, we would celebrate it with relatively little fanfare. It might get an octave,1 but it wouldn’t merit an entire season of preparation and then a season of celebration.
Now, it was an event in history–God was made man out of love of us. This is no myth. But our celebration of the Nativity is so much more than a celebration of a historical event. It’s also a celebration of Christ’s advent into the life of each believer. When we pray for the walls of death to be broken down, it’s not some fanciful reflection on something that happened 2000 years ago, it’s a real and serious plea for freedom for you and me and everyone right now.
Hence Advent, a season of darkness that reminds us that we dwell in the shadow of death. We traipse through Ordinary Time blithely unaware of our sin, but this season that places before us a filthy stable awaiting the immaculate king makes us pause. “For me,” we think. “That I might have life.”
The Prisoner, by Mykola Yaroshen
Because we’ve forgotten that we’re dead. We’ve painted the walls of our prison cell and turned up our ipods and gorged ourselves on the good food provided to placate our rebellious desire for virtue and we’ve forgotten that we were made for sunshine and joy and freedom and so much more than the prison we’ve made for ourselves by our sin. “I’m a good person,” I tell myself and ignore my temper or my laziness or my refusal to give God even ten minutes a day in prayer. And we might be good people by the world’s standards but Christ says, “Be perfect.”
It starts with a feeling. Unchecked, the feeling becomes an attitude. The attitude becomes an action and the action becomes a habit and the habit becomes a way of life and that innocuous little feeling has suddenly become a wall of vice and I didn’t even notice it! It might not be mortal sin but even venial sin, washed away by communion or contrition or even holy water, leaves a residue that only confession can remove. That residue builds and builds until we don’t recognize who we’ve become. And we who were freed from the prison of Original Sin by the blood of the spotless Lamb have built a new one of envy and lust and sloth.
So here we are, this fallen world bound by sin and walled in to a prison we entered freely. But Christ has come. He has taken on our flesh that he might bear our punishment and has won our freedom. He stands now and knocks at the door of your prison cell, keys in hand, longing to enter and break down those walls. He comes to wake you up to the misery of your captivity to sin and to lead you into the freedom of life in him.
God is a gentleman, though, and will not enter, will not save and heal and sanctify without permission. He stands and knocks and waits for you to invite him in, waits for you simply to speak the word so that he can set you free. This is his advent in your life right now: the restoration of a broken heart to a state of grace. The key to heaven rests in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God’s gift to the fallen.
In this Sacrament, terrible sinners are justified, yes. But we who try so hard and generally do so well–we too are given grace to persevere. We too are bound by sin and freed by his mercy. We too are transformed and drawn from darkness into light. Don’t think that because you’re a “good person” that you aren’t imprisoned. The Key of David has come to set you free. You have only to ask.
If you haven’t been to confession yet this Advent season,2do it. Whether it’s been a month or 30 years, the time is now. Prepare your heart for the pure infant Jesus and receive the gift of new life.
Oh, come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.
In this prayer, we begin with the right words, the words of adoration that seem to fit the occasion. We speak lovely, fitting, shallow, empty words when we approach the Lord. “Heavenly Father,” we say to a God who is our dictator or our servant, but never our Father. “Thank you, Lord,” we say, however bitter we may be at what the Lord has withheld. We’ve become so accustomed to lying to God–“Thy will be done”? Who really means that?
But then we stumble. It’s as though we are praying as we “ought” when our desperation breaks through with something real. We catch our breaths and repeat in earnest, “let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.”
There’s a longing in that stutter that expresses so perfectly what Advent is intended to be. We are overwhelmed by God’s majesty and goodness at condescending to be with us. We know all the right words about his glory and all that–but, oh! We just want him–we need him!
As Christmas draws near, the Church invites us to ache for Christ. She reminds us of the darkness of life before the Savior came near and asks us to allow all our brokenness and emptiness and need to well up in our hearts and to cry out, “Come, Lord. Oh, please, please come!”
I’m not sure I can make sense of the longing and tenderness and desperation and awe and sorrow that I feel except to say that it’s quite the same way I feel about Aslan. When I read the Chronicles of Narnia,1 I need him. And when he comes I’m thrilled and I want to run to him and bury my hands in his mane but I know I have to hold back, because while he is entrancing, he’s also terrifying. And his voice thrills and comforts and challenges. I’m afraid to look into his eyes because I know I’ll see myself as I truly am, not as I pretend to be; but I know that while I’ll see myself I’ll also see how deeply he loves me and I’ll be able to bear it. Truly, I love Jesus so much the more because I loved Aslan first.
When I think of the coming Christ this way, I begin to believe that, like Hwin, I’d suffer anything for him.2 Like Eustace, I’d submit to any pain at his hands. Like Reepicheep, I’d go to the ends of the earth for the glory of his name. It’s just that–when I’m in Narnia–oh, I ache for him!
This is what Advent is supposed to do–just exactly what Lewis does when he tells us “Aslan’s on the move.” When you read that line–if you love these books as I do–you almost feel for your sword before you remember that you haven’t got one and you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you did. You’re thrilled and terrified and ready and the only thing that matters is his coming.
I suppose it comes down to this–I would give everything to be breathed on by Aslan, to have him whisper in my ear and call me “Dear heart” as he does Lucy. Do I give everything to come near to Christ? When I let myself long for Aslan and then direct that longing to Christ, suddenly it’s all so real. Suddenly I’m past the nonsense of fancy ideas and just filled with a longing to be his. Suddenly I cry out, “Come–let nothing keep you from coming to my aid!”
You know what? Never mind. Just go read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and try to feel about Jesus the way you feel about Aslan. That’s the idea, after all.
Oh, come O Rod of Jesse’s stem,
From ev’ry foe deliver them
That trust your mighty pow’r to save;
And give them vict’ry o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
(This verse seems particularly irrelevant to my ode to Aslan, but I’ve got a pattern going, so we’ll all just have to deal with it. Now go read some Lewis!)
I gave away my copies–the ones I’d marked up. Writing this post as it deserved to be written without them (and on a time crunch) was impossible. So you get no quotations, just feelings. Add the quotations in the comments if you’re so inclined. [↩]
“Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.” [↩]
O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.
These last days before Christmas, I’m just ready to hold sweet baby Jesus in my arms. I’ve longed and ached for him all of Advent and I want to hold his tiny baby body and kiss his soft baby head. And just as the baby-lover in me threatens to take over, leaving me with images of snuggling a baby that have little to do with the majesty of the Incarnation, this antiphon drops by to remind me that he is so much more than just a sweet baby, that this is so much more than just a birth.
There is in Christmas the somber promise of Good Friday. There is in the joy of the Nativity the suffering foretold by the myrrh of the Magi, the anguish of the Innocents slaughtered as the Christ child is spirited away. The wood of the manger is the wood of the Cross, and this child raised by a carpenter will hear daily the echo of the nails that will bind him to his death. The freedom we are promised by the Lord of Israel is given us by the blood of the Lamb.
There’s a reason Christ was born in the dead of night, a reason we celebrate his birth in a time of barren coldness.1 Certainly, we see that his coming brings us into greater light. But I think we also need his coming to be surrounded by quiet and darkness and just a little bit of fear. It would feel wrong to celebrate in July, remembering with cookouts and fireworks our king born to die. In winter, our joy is tempered by the chill. We sing “Joy to the World,” indeed, but also weep for the day, coming too soon, when the world will mourn. The best Christmas carols remind us of the purpose of the Christ child:
Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce him through,
The Cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word Made Flesh,
The babe, the son of Mary!
Today’s appeal to the God of Exodus carries the weight of wonder, the awe and fear that surrounded any encounter with this Lord of plagues and sacrifices and walls of water. It is this Christ whom we worship, sweet and silent in his mother’s arms. The God made man to save us is the God before whom Moses cowered in fear. The freedom he wins for us is bought at a terrible price.
Do we greet this child with smiles and stockings and move on, pleased to have celebrated family and love? Or do we fall on our knees before the God born to die? Advent calls us not only to prepare for the joy of the incarnation but to repent, to recognize the gravity, the horror of a God who offers himself as a sacrifice in our stead.
In his infancy, he was given myrrh to anoint his beaten body when at last his life came to fruition. Offer him, friends, the myrrh of repentance. Anoint his tiny body, formed so perfectly to suffer so terribly, with the balm of your prayers, your acts of charity, but most especially your sins offered at the foot of his cradle, the foot of his cross. If you haven’t yet been to confession this Advent, humble yourself before the God of Israel who merits all honor yet stoops to kiss your feet. Give him the gift of your wretched, sinful heart and let him return it to you whole and new.
Oh, come, oh, come, great Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Unless you’re south of the Equator, in which case, hello!! [↩]
I have all kinds of big ideas when it comes to this blog: posts half-written in adoration that never see the light of the internet, mp3s recorded on my phone of ideas that come to me on the road, series that I know will never come to fruition. I generally hold these things in my heart so that if they don’t come to pass, nobody knows but me. This time, I’m cluing y’all in first so that when I miss a post, you can all smirk knowingly.
Also, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to start posting on the O antiphons every day without telling you what I’m doing. So here’s the skinny:
From December 17-23, Christians are in a time of eager anticipation. The intentional expectancy becomes intense as we enter the octave before the birth of our Lord. We throw aside the normal prayers for particular prayers that show our hope, our trust, our longing for the Christ child. Each evening, the antiphon preceding the Magnificat in Evening Prayer proclaims one of the ancient titles of the Messiah, giving us the text of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and excellent fodder for meditation.
So my hope this week is to share with you my daily meditations on these antiphons. With all the hours I’m putting in with the babies, I can’t promise polished prose or pictures, but I’ll give you what’s in my heart and hope that’s enough.
O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.
The God who is coming into our midst is the God of all creation, the wisdom of the Father by whom and through whom and for whom all things were made. And yet, with all his power, he chooses weakness for love of us. The God who could announce his presence with thunder and trumpets and booming words from heaven speaks instead in shepherds’ voices. This God who could force us to love him invites instead. He speaks tenderly to our hearts, beckoning, begging, but never compelling.
This is wisdom: the God of power and might becomes an infant. Because he couldn’t forbid suffering without impairing our freedom, he chose to suffer with us. St. Augustine reminds us, “God had one son on earth without sin but never one without suffering.” Too strong to be defeated by death, he was yet tender enough to die. Too strong to abandon us in our sin, he was yet tender enough to allow us to reject him. God in his wisdom is everything we need–just enough and never too much. He woos us as far as we will come and then mourns as we choose ourselves over him. In his wisdom he leaves us free, though we might prefer to be enslaved but happy rather than free in the misery of sin.
And when he shows us the way to salvation, he doesn’t call from afar or point the way through peril and misery. He walks with us, shoring us up by his strength and tenderly wiping away our weary tears. He asks of us nothing that he hasn’t himself done or suffered or been subjected to. When we are hurt, we find his pierced hands lifting us up. When we are rejected, his pierced brow speaks of his betrayal. When we are lonely, we hear the echo of “My God, my God.”
This is the wisdom of the incarnation: the foolishness of the Cross. This is what we long for in Advent: not merely the coming of the Christ child in the liturgy but the coming into our hearts of him who breaks down the walls we’ve built and gently smooths our rough edges.
What tender strength. What wisdom. Come, Lord Jesus.
O, come, O Wisdom from on high,
Who orders all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
For those shaken by yesterday’s shooting–another in a long line of acts of senseless violence against children–tomorrow’s celebration might seem callous. Gaudete Sunday? Rejoice? When children are killed in their desks, ripped apart in their mothers’ wombs, beaten by their parents, forced to slaughter each other as child soldiers, sold into slavery, how can we rejoice? When Friday, as horrifying as it was, is not out of the ordinary in a world where children are killed by the thousands in “ethnic cleansing” crusades? When children themselves become murderers on the streets or in their nice suburban homes? When thousands of children die of hunger each day while you and I shell out 20 bucks for dinner without batting an eye? Now, you tell me, rejoice?
When Israel had been destroyed and Babylon was knocking down the door of Judah, how could they then rejoice? When even priests and Levites worshiped idols? When the best you could hope for was to live in peace and die in peace and then…who knew? When all the world was trapped in the darkness of sin with only the barest hint of a promise of the Light to come, how could they then rejoice? But Zephaniah calls from the darkness:
Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you
he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.
Zephaniah has no reason to hope, in a world of sin and slavery and suffering. But he knows the One who is hope, the One who turns mourning to gladness, the One whose mercies are renewed each morning. And despite the wisdom of the world, he looked to God and found joy in the midst of sorrow.
When Christ had died and his disciples were following him in ignominy and death by the hundreds and the thousands, how could they then rejoice? When Paul had been beaten and shipwrecked and imprisoned, how could he rejoice from the darkness of his prison cell? When Jesus had promised to return again and yet…nothing–how could they rejoice? But Paul writes from his cell:
Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Rejoice, he says. Have no anxiety, he says. Seek the Lord and you will find peace, he says.
But still hunger and violence and torture and rape and how oh HOW can we rejoice?
When the Savior of the world was born amid noise and filth, how could Mary rejoice? When armed men were sent to slaughter him, when he was saved at the cost of dozens of other young lives, how? How could she flee into Egypt and lose her son for three days and remain a woman of joy? How could she watch him rejected and ridiculed and beaten and tortured and killed and stabbed and laid in a tomb and still trust in God?
And yet she did. In all things, her spirit rejoiced in God her savior. Facing life as an unwed mother, she trusted. At the foot of the Cross, she trusted. When he left her again to continue in a world that had slaughtered her only son, she trusted.
Scripture is so clear on this, my friends. Joy is not contingent on the circumstances of this world but on God who is so much bigger than our circumstances.
Sing out, oh heavens, and rejoice oh earth. Break forth into song, you mountains, for the Lord comforts his people and has mercy on his afflicted. But Zion says, “The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forsake her infant? Be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forsake you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name. Your walls are ever before me.-Isaiah 49:13-16
Though he slay me, still will I trust in him. -Job 13:15
God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Therefore we fear not though the earth be shaken and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea, though its waters rage and foam and the mountains quake at its surging the Lord of hosts is with us, our stronghold is the God of Jacob. -Psalm 46:2-4
We hold these treasures in earthen vessels that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not constrained, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about int he body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. -2 Corinthians 4:7-11
Though the fig tree blossom not nor fruit be on the vine, though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment, though the flock disappear form the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God. God my Lord is my strength, he makes my feet swift as those of hinds, and enables me to go upon the heights. -Habakkuk 3:17-19
But I will call this to mind as my reason to have hope: the favors of the Lord are not exhausted. His mercies are not spent. They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness. My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore will I hope in God. -Lamentations 3:21-24
When cares abound within me, your comfort gladdens my heart. -Psalm 94:19
At times like this, it’s easy to respond with discouragement and despair.1 Without Christ, I can’t see how I would respond any other way. But my God saw how miserable this world was and couldn’t stay away. He sent his only Son to enter into our mess, to suffer with us and for us. My God ached for love of us and so he changed everything. And he longs to do it still. He longs to turn our mourning into dancing. He longs to bring peace to our troubled hearts.
This is terrible. There is so much evil and so much suffering and misery and desperation in this world. But we were not made for this world. If you are suffering today–and I think we all are–I’m so sorry. But I know a God who is bigger than your pain. Let us turn to him and–in everything, despite everything, because of everything–let us rejoice. At the end of the day, God is still so, so good.
And of course, and always, we pray. We pray for the deceased and their loved ones. We pray especially for the young souls who witnessed such violence and will spend the rest of their lives trying to recover. God help them.
Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. -Romans 12:12
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In case the assurance of God’s sovereignty isn’t enough for you, here are some reminders of the goodness he’s put in men’s hearts.
In case you’re feeling a bit defeated by the evil that surrounds and infects us, here are some reminders of the goodness of this world, despite everything the enemy does to pervert it.
At an eighth grade retreat, the kids are standing around awkwardly during free time when a girl with Down Syndrome walks gleefully up to a classmate and asks him to dance. Not a cool kid who can do what he wants without fear of ridicule; not a nerdy kid who’s got nothing to lose. She picks a hanger-on, one of those kids whose social stock could plummet with a single misstep. He takes a deep breath, then takes her hands as she spins and twirls and dips herself. And nobody laughs or whispers or smirks. They hold their breath as they watch. They envy her abandon, they honor his goodness. Middle schoolers, friends. And nobody laughs.
A three-year-old at a children’s holy hour1 runs to the foot of the altar and reaches for the monstrance, shouting in the same voice he uses to demand cookies, “OOOHHHHH! I want JESUS!!”
A twelve-year-old girl comes up to me after a talk at her youth group. She hugs me and slips three dollars into my hand “to help.” A widow’s mite.
Catherine sits with me at Mass every day so that I can take care of one of the twins while she watches John Paul and Cecilia. She carries Cecilia to communion and holds her hand as we walk to the car. Catherine is ten and has no connection to the family except that she sits on the same side of the church as us. But every day she comes and minds the toddlers so I can mind the baby. I could not do it without her.
And finally:
Newborn twins holding hands.
And if that doesn’t make your heart smile a little bit, I don’t know what will.
Second century Christians would have given their eye teeth for my Bible’s table of Contents.
Today1 is the feast of Pope St. Damasus I, the pope who many believe to have issued the first authoritative list of the books of the Bible in 382–the Decree of Damasus.2 Up until that point, there was no official canon of Scripture. Nobody knew with any certainty how many books belonged in the Old Testament, much less the New. And because Scripture doesn’t and can’t testify to its own inspiration, we would have been in a great deal of trouble if it were our only authority.
But God is good and bestowed authority on the Church. The Church, inspired by God, then pronounced by the power of the Holy Spirit which books were also inspired by God. The whole question merits a far longer discussion than I’ve got time for at the moment, but I’ll give you the crux of the whole Catholic-Protestant debate in a nutshell, as seen by Karl Keating in Catholicism and Fundamentalism.
The Gospels are fairly reliable historical texts. While historians don’t consider them Gospel truth,3 they’re generally considered to be accurate as regards the major events and themes of the life of Christ.
The Gospels tell us Jesus claimed to be God. While he doesn’t say outright, “I am God,” statements like, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58) and “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30) leave little room for any other interpretation.
The Resurrection proves this claim. If you really want to hear me prove the divinity of Christ, watch this video. If you don’t have 40 minutes, suffice it to say that if he claimed to be God and then rose form the dead, he’s God.
Jesus, who was divine, founded an inspired Church. Matthew 16:18-19. He gave Peter the keys and promised to protect his Church against error.
The inspired Church gives us an inspired Bible. If you’re not convinced by the Decree of Damasus, we could find plenty of other authoritative lists. The date doesn’t matter so much for this discussion, just the fact of Scripture being canonized by the Church. Otherwise, how can we know which books belong? Augustine himself said, “I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.”
Note that this isn’t a circular argument; it starts with the Bible as a historical text and ends with the Bible as an inspired text–two distinct and largely unrelated claims. What’s key here is that the inspiration of Scripture rests on the inspiration of the Church. Without an inspired Church, the argument falls apart.
In fact, I’ve never heard a reasonable argument for the canon of Scripture that didn’t rely on Christ’s power at work in the Church. Sure, people have had personal experiences of the Spirit at work in various individual books, but to know for sure that God inspired each book? That requires some kind of outside authority–an authority nobody outside of Rome4 even claims. You might feel that you know for sure that John is inspired or Isaiah or Deuteronomy. But unless you have a Church, the best you’re going to get is a “fallible collection of infallible books.”5 I’m not willing to stake my life on a fallible collection.
What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail-foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult, carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high head-dresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, “This is all hocus-pocus”; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, “Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh.” But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statues, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statues as the scrolls, by the tenets of that particular creed? To say to the priests, “Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense,” is sensible. To say, “Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest,” is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man in the street.
Reject the whole of the Church if you like. Reject Saints and Mary and the Eucharist and the Pope AND Scripture. But to use the Scripture given to you by the pope to reject the pope? To take the Bible, which was far less certain to the early Church than was the virginity of Mary, and use it to reject Mary? Chesterton doesn’t think it makes any sense at all. I’m inclined to agree.
Public service announcement for the Catholics among us: the Immaculate Conception (December 8) is a holy day of obligation. Every year. Even if it’s on Saturday or Monday. So get to Mass tonight or tomorrow morning because by the afternoon it’ll be Sunday and you will have missed Mass.
Yes, that’s two days in a row. Or twice in three days if you go to a vigil tonight. Keep in mind that you’re only required to go to Mass 57 times in a year. If Mass is about an hour long, that’s 57 hours a year. There are 8,760 hours in a year.1 That’s less than one percent of your life.
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I once had a student look at me stubbornly and declare, “I think it’s kind of ridiculous that y’all think Mary was only pregnant for, like, 3 weeks.”
I blinked rapidly a few times, absolutely baffled, before I realized what was going on.
“You know that Immaculate Conception is about Mary’s conception, right? Like, little embryonic Mary in her momma’s womb? Nobody thinks Jesus was conceived on December 8 and born on December 25. That would be ridiculous.”
This is the Annunciation, not the Immaculate Conception. Well, it’s the Annunciation to the Immaculate Conception, but you know what I mean. Hopefully. (Henry Ossawa Tanner)
This kid’s assumption wasn’t an unusual one, more’s the pity, so before we get started, let’s clarify our terms right quick. The Immaculate Conception is Mary’s conception in her mother’s womb. It tells us that Mary was conceived without sin. It’s not talking about Jesus’ conception.2 It’s also not telling us that Mary was conceived in a supernatural manner; when Mary was conceived, her parents were decidedly not virgins. Her conception took place in the ordinary way; the miracle was that in the moment of her natural conception she was supernaturally preserved from Original Sin.
This dogma3 is a very difficult one for Protestants to understand, let alone accept. There’s an undercurrent in Protestantism that finds its roots in John Calvin’s theology: the idea of total depravity. Calvin (and Luther) believed that people were inherently sinful, defined by their sin. Luther is famous for having declared that he was “a lump of dung covered in snow.”4 Luther was so overwhelmed by his own sinfulness and God’s grace that he believe that he was worthless and sinful but was covered by God’s grace so as to make him pleasing to God. To the minds of the reformers, to be human was to be sinful.5 Because of this, the Catholic claim that Mary was without sin sounds like a claim of divinity. It’s important to clarify first of all that being immaculate is not the same as being divine. As Christians, we know that God made us very good.6 Sin mars us, but not having sin doesn’t make us superhuman, it makes us fully human. Adam and Eve were immaculate before the Fall, after all; they, like Mary, were created immaculate but merely human.
A common objection to the teaching that Mary was without sin is Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” While Paul says “all” here, I think it’s clear that doesn’t mean that every single human person ever has committed a sin. Obviously Jesus didn’t. Neither do infants who die or the mentally handicapped who don’t have sufficient reason to commit sin. Clearly there are exceptions to this rhetorical “all.” So why not Mary?
Obviously, though, it’s not enough just to argue against those who oppose this doctrine. Let’s look instead at the affirmative. Clearly, the angel Gabriel’s approach to Mary indicates that she’s something special.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:26-30)
Angels don’t typically go around calling sinful humans “full of grace,” a term that could be better translated “you who have been completely grace-ized” if grace-ized were a word. Which it’s not. Hence the usual “full of grace.” Think about this: grace is God’s life within us. Sin separates us from God. So if Mary is sinful, a regular old village girl chock full of Original Sin, how can she be full of grace?
The New Eve reconciled with the first Eve. (Eve and Mary by Sr. Grace Remington, O.C.S.O)
And then there’s the fact that she has found favor with God. If she was lost in her sin, as we all were before Christ, how did she find favor with God? There’s something about the way she’s addressed that indicates that she’s different, something special.7
Naturally, Scripture isn’t entirely clear on this–if it were, there’d be no disagreement. But as Catholics, we recognize the Word of God as coming through Scripture and Tradition.8 So check out some super old stuff about Mary Immaculate.9
Hippolytus: He [Jesus] was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle [Mary] was exempt from defilement and corruption.—235 AD
Origen: This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one.—244 AD
St. Ambrose: Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin.—387 AD
St. Augustine, in response to Rom 3:23: All have sinned, except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are treating of sins. After all, how do we know what greater degree of Grace for a complete victory over sin was conferred on her who merited to conceive and bring forth Him Who all admit was without sin.–415 AD
Now, that’s not to say that anything some dude said forever ago has to be doctrine, but it’s certainly not a theological innovation if it was old news by the beginning of the third century.
Really, though, Mary’s sinlessness is just reasonable. People like to argue this by saying that a sinless person can’t come from a sinful one, which is a good instinct, I suppose. Of course, then Mary’s mom had to be sinless, and her mom, and hers, and eventually we have to trace it back to a sinless Eve, and that’s absurd.
Part of this idea is right, though–that Mary’s sinless nature was necessary for Jesus’ conception. Let’s try looking at it this way instead:
Before the Fall, we were in relationship with God.
Sin breaks this relationship.
According to moral law, babies must be created through a loving, committed relationship between their parents.10
This relationship would have been impossible if Mary had had Original Sin.11
God doesn’t break moral laws, so he had to be in relationship with the mother of Christ.
Mary had to be preserved from Original Sin.
Now this is just my reasoning here, not doctrine, so reject it if you like but it makes a lot of sense to me. There’s also the Ark of the Covenant connection: if the Ark was created so intentionally, formed out of perfect and pure materials in order to bear the symbolic presence of God, how much more would the tabernacle of the living God (the Blessed Virgin Mary) be pure and undefiled?
By the brilliant Peggy Aplseeds–go check out everything she’s ever done.
But–and this is the key to this question–Mary did NOTsave herself. Yup, that was a bold, italicized, capital not. Her immaculate nature is not due to her merit. You see, the rest of us had to be redeemed–saved after we fell. Mary was preserved instead–saved preemptively–by the power of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. God who is outside of time used future graces to save her in order to make those graces possible.12 Pius IX made it very clear that Mary’s holiness comes entirely from God when he declared this dogma ex cathedra in 1854:
“The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.”
So let’s make sure we’re clear on this. Mary did not save herself. Like you and me (God willing), she was saved by the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection. In order to make her the perfect vessel for the incarnation of his Son, the Father applied those graces to her in the moment of her conception to preserve her inviolate, untainted either by Original Sin or by its consequences. The Church reminds us of this in the prayers of the Mass and the Office for the Solemnity:
“O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son, grant, we pray, that, as you preserved her from every stain by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw, so, through her intercession, we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”
As always with the Blessed Mother, it’s essential that we remember that all doctrines about Mary are doctrines about God. All honor given to Mary is honor given to God. All love of Mary is love of God. When we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, we celebrate God’s incredible goodness in preparing the way for the Messiah. We celebrate his power to work miracles. We celebrate his ability to set things in motion that will only bear fruit years down the road. We recognize his providence and his desire to save us, whatever it takes. And with Mary we recognize our unworthiness and God’s unceasing clemency. With Mary, we proclaim the greatness of the Lord and rejoice in God our Savior.
This Advent season, let’s join our Mother in saying yes to God and allowing him to flood us with grace.
Want more on Mary? Here are all my posts tagged Mary. Enjoy!
Jesus was immaculately conceived as well, of course, but that’s not what this term is referring to. [↩]
And yes, it’s dogma. Proclaimed ex cathedra by Pius IX in 1854. [↩]
Which, by the way, is an extraordinarily unpleasant surprise to discover in the midst of a snowball fight. [↩]
While this line of thought is dominant in many Protestant traditions today, there are others that focus far less on sin. The idea that sinfulness is integral to the human condition maintains at least a subtle influence, though, on even the most “accepting” of communities. [↩]
It probably doesn’t help with the Annunciation-Immaculate Conception confusion that this reading describing the Annunciation is read on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception…. [↩]
When God made it clear to me that he was calling me to belong exclusively to him, I was miserable. I knew with every fiber of my being that this is what I had to do, but I wanted marriage and motherhood so badly that there was no joy in it. I consented because I knew it was God’s will. I sobbed and said, “Oh, fine.” It was basically the most unpleasant consent to a marriage proposal in the history of ever.
And I’m so glad that it happened that way. If I had been responding to a desire for consecrated life, I don’t know that I ever would have felt fully convicted. I would have worried that my motives were impure or that my discernment was clouded by my desires. Since he drew my intellect first and my affections only gradually, though, I feel confident that I’m following his will and not my own.
A few months after my snotty betrothal, I was beginning to feel some joy in my vocation but only in the tremendous shadow of my perceived sacrifice. And then I was given this book by a vocation director. I think no book has affected me more profoundly (barring the Bible, of course) than Fr. Thomas Dubay’s And You Are Christ’s. Suddenly, I began to realize that I was really terribly in love with Christ. I began to see how my vocation fit the longings of my heart. I began to let myself rejoice in being his.
I love this book so much that I give it to pretty much any woman who I think might maybe possibly ever in a million years have a vocation to consecrated life. But for those of you who can’t bring yourself to order a copy, here are all my favorite lines from the book. After you read it, I bet you’ll want to buy it in bulk for your single female friends, too.1
Excerpts from “And You are Christ’s:” The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life
by Thomas Dubay, S.M.
Gospel virginity is a love affair of the most enthralling type. It is a focusing on God that fulfills as nothing else fulfills.
[A religious vocation is] to be head over heels in love as a divine invitation.
From our mother’s womb, indeed, before we were conceived, each of us has been personally called to the universal and most basic destiny of an eternal enthralling embrace with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You and I are to be head over heels in love with God. All of us in every state of life are to love him as we can love no other: with wholeness of mind, heart, soul, strength (Lk 10:27). We are to be in such deep love that the eye of our mind is on him always (Ps 25:15), that we pray to him continually (Lk 18:1), that we sing to him in our hearts always and everywhere (Eph 5:19-20). This is the language of lovers. Admittedly. But the Christian virgin is to be a lover before anything else. This is why one does what he does. Only one who is in love gives up everything for the beloved.
The virgin anticipates the final age in which there is no earthly marriage (Mt 22:30), the final enthralling fulfillment of all human life. Even in this world, she gives undivided attention to the Lord as her very way of life.
The virgin who fully lives her vocation is vibrantly alive, much more alive than she could be with an earthly husband, for her Beloved is infinitely more alive than any mere man could be: her heart and her flesh sing for joy to the living God (Ps 84:2).
She can now give herself up to continual prayer “day and night” (1 Tim 5:5)—devotion to prayer and more freedom for this is always the primary New Testament rationale for continence.
The celibate man and woman are thus to be consumed by nothing but doing the Father’s will (Jn 4:54). They have no other desire, no other ambition. They are utterly free for the kingdom, completely available to their sole love.
The Benedictines of Mary on profession day–check out the groom on the cake topper.
Actually, there is no more apt and normal image of an intimate, total self-gift between two in love than the spousal one. Biblical writers inspired by the Spirit knew this, and they liberally used the symbolism to describe the everlasting and unfailing love of the Lord for his people. Isaiah speaks of Yahweh rejoicing in his chosen ones as a bridegroom rejoices in his radiantly beautiful bride (Is 62:2-5). Hosea writes of this God wooing his wife in the wilderness that he may speak to her heart and win her back from her infidelity (Hos 2:16). The Corinthian church is for Saint Paul a virgin bride wedded to one husband, Christ (2 Cor 11:2; cf Eph 5:25f). Each member of the ekklesia is to cling so intimately to the Bridegroom as to become one spirit with him (1 Cor 6:17), and their love is to be absolutely total—to love with their whole mind, their whole soul, their whole heart, and all their strength (Mt 22:37). It is a love so profoundly intimate that it brings about a profound inter-indwelling, each living within the other (1 Jn 4:16).
The individual virgin embraces a way of life in which she so exclusively focuses on her one beloved that she declines a marital relationship with any other man.
A communion of love, deep prayer, and absorption in the Beloved must be the primary purpose of the virginal life.
The young woman could reject the charism and marry, but she can not reject it without doing some violence to her being. God has captured her as only he can capture. If she rejects his divine desire to possess her in an exclusive manner (God forces himself on no one), she hurts herself in that she turns her back on something that has been done to her. She refuses an interpersonal gift.
The virginal charism so focuses the young woman on God that she cannot give marital attention to another person. She has her fullness in the Lord.
Just as a faithful married woman may be attracted to another man, and yet focuses on no other than her husband, so also a virgin may be attracted to marriage and motherhood, but she knows that she can really give full attention only to the Lord Jesus.
[On John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest considering marriage] He could not, he said, give the attention to the world that marriage requires. God had already captured his heart with the celibate charism, and he experienced the gift whereby he could not be concerned with the things of the world. His heart was too wide and deep, too centered on the divine.
Signs of a healthy religious vocation
The first sign is a joyous non-reluctance regarding the sacrifices implied in the renunciation of all things for the sake of the kingdom. …The virgin has given up earthly marriage and motherhood, yes, but she has entered upon a still greater marriage and motherhood.
The inability to give to the world the attention that marriage requires. Even if the celibate is at a considerable distance from heroic holiness, he should feel at least something of being captured totally by the Lord for the concerns of the Lord.
An ability to see through the superficiality of superficial things.
A love for prayer: the priest (or nun) who is drawn to long (even if difficult and dry) prayer well understands his way of life.
The virginal heart is a large heart, too large to be satisfied in focusing on one man or woman.
God is her first choice. He is more than first (for any person God must be first)—he is the only center of her being.
The Christian virgin is a woman in love. I do not say simply a woman of love. That, yes; but more. Because her heart has been captured by her Beloved, in at least a beginning manner, she is absorbed in him. As Paul puts it, she is not concerned with the world and its business, but with the affairs of the Lord. As anyone really in love does, she gives her undivided attention to him (1 Cor 7:34-35).
Virginity aims at living the being-in-love Scripture everywhere supposes: “My eyes are always on the Lord…my soul yearns for you in the night…ah, you are beautiful, my beloved…with my whole heart I seek you…sing to the Lord in your hearts always and everywhere…” (Ps 25:25, Is 26:9, Sgs 4:1, Ps 119:10, Eph 5:20). This is why the virgin puts prayer first in her life. She is in love with God and with his people.
God calls all men and women of whatever vocation to a deep communion with himself. He invites everyone to a prayer so profound that one becomes radiant with joy; the person tastes and sees for himself how good he is (Ps 34:5, 8). He wants everyone to hunger and thirst for him (Ps 63:1), to pant after his word (Ps 119:131), to meditate on his message day and night (Ps 1:1-2), to rejoice in him always (Phil 4:4), to experience a joy in him so amazing that it cannot be described (1 Pt 1:8), to pray continually, all day long (Lk 18:1, Ps 84:4).
Because she is literally in love, the consecrated woman is before all else a woman of prayer. Like Jesus himself, she is drawn irresistibly to long, frequent times of solitude with the Father. Anyone in love desires to commune long and lovingly with the beloved. No one has to urge her to it.
“The contemplation of divine things and an assiduous union with God in prayer is to be the first and principal duty of all religious” (Canon 663, §1).
What did the mystics write about? A breathlessly beautiful love affair with God, a prayerful enthrallment in him, a being lost in love, immersed in it.
“Too late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you…. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace” (St. Augustine).
The virgin is one who wishes a lifestyle tailor-made so that she may more readily attain that life of prayer to which Augustine refers, so that she may be “already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described” (1 Pt 1:8).
“Virgo est quae Deo nubit” (A virgin is a woman who has married God—St. Ambrose). This formulation well expresses what is implied in the life of complete chastity: exclusive, total love, intimacy of intercommunion, unreserved self-gift, unending fidelity, service to the beloved, mutual delight.
All men and women are called to this utter fullness of God and the primary purpose of virginity is a readier path to it.
Signs of the Vocation
Can a young man or woman know with a reasonably well-founded assurance that God is calling him or her to consecrated chastity? Given that the Lord does beckon “in a special way, through an interior illumination” (an expression of Pope Paul VI), we now ask just what this inner enlightenment may be and what signs may accompany it.
Ordinarily, the indications of a vocation to celibacy are neither flashy nor extraordinary. The interior illumination is not a vision, not a tap on the shoulder, not a voice spoken in audible sounds waves. Not everyone is assailed, as was Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, by a light and voice from heaven (Acts 9:3-6). Yet we may still ask whether there is some perception of the call, some psychological awareness of the divine invitation.
The answer is yes, even though the awareness may not be what the recipient might expect. We may, therefore, profitably reflect on it. The young person called to consecrated chastity will have a greater than usual bent toward God, an attraction to him. This young person will often readily see that a mere earthly existence is insufficient, fundamentally unsatisfying, basically empty. He may indeed enjoy parties, dances, and dating, but they invariably leave him with a sense on incompleteness. Young women attract him but he senses that none of them, no matter how beautiful, will ever fill his heart. He wants more, much more.
During her consecration, a consecrated virgin wears a wedding dress and prostrates herself in surrender to the Lord.
We must return to what we spoke of earlier, virginity as fullness. The young person with this gift has been given by God, at least in an incipient degree, a love-gift, a focusing on God that excludes a similar centering on anyone else. This love-gift may be weak and dim at the beginning, but it is there.
This first sign will be accompanied by a second: an attraction to a particular celibate lifestyle (private dedication, secular institute, active or enclosed religious life), and/or a persuasion that God wants him in that form of dedication. Some youth feel a clear, strong attraction to the active or cloistered life and together with it, a strong persuasion that God wants them there. With these people, there is little or no doubt about the matter. Others feel only the persuasion, more or less insistent, that God is inviting them. Their mind is that if he wants it, they are willing, even if a felt attraction is absent. The inner illumination of which Pope Paul speaks seems in this second group to be mostly an intellectual matter, whereas with the first group it is accompanied by a perceived drawing toward the life.
Sound motivation is the third sign of the virginal charism. Desiring celibacy for the reasons described here is a strong indication that one possesses this love-gift from God. The virgin does not have a negative view of sexuality, nor is she fleeing the sacrifices of marriage or the responsibilities of life in the world—these motives are inadequate. She is a woman in love and she is pursuing her Beloved with a greater freedom. She also wishes to do something to help her brothers and sisters reach God—either by a life of prayer, solitude, and penance or by a life of prayer and apostolic involvement.
The final sign is capability. When God gives the celibate gift, he also gives the physical, mental, and moral health necessary to actualize it in a specific lifestyle. Necessary health need not mean absolute perfection, but it does mean a basic sufficiency. Each institute determines the minimal capabilities required for its life and work.
Preparation in Prayer
The young woman and man called to celibacy are inclined by the beckoning Spirit to a more than minimal interest in prayer. If they are fully open to God’s gifts, this inclination will be strong and persistent, and it will be actualized in practice. There is no better preparation for an eventual embracing of this vocation than a fervent, growing communion with him who is the whole purpose of the life. This private prayer will be fed and furthered by a vibrant liturgical life, by devotion to the first Virgin, by regular, well-chosen spiritual reading, and, when it is available, by competent spiritual direction.
Here is a woman so taken with God that he is the top priority in her life. She lays down her entire being in loving adoration of him.
When a Passionist nun takes vows, she wears a crown of thorns and carries a cross to show her union with her Beloved Crucified.
She declares by her life that no one has here a permanent abode, that we are pilgrims and should live like pilgrims (Heb 11:13-16). She is also therefore a sign of the Cross and asceticism, of the hard road and the narrow gate that lead to life (Mt 7:13-14). Her life tells us that the kingdom does not consist in food and drink but in the joy, peace, and holiness given by the Spirit (Rom 14:17).
The virgin is likewise a symbol of joy. All disciples in every vocation are called to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4), or as Saint Augustine brilliantly put it, to be an “alleluia from head to toe.” Anyone full of love will be full of joy. The joy Jesus gives is not partial; it is full (Jn 15:11). Surely that woman or man who gives undivided attention to him, the very source of delight, can be nothing other than an incarnated alleluia.
The celibate woman and man are persons whose whole attention is focused on Beauty, ever ancient, ever new, persons whose raison d’être is none other than a profound love covenant and communion with the Word and his Father through their Holy Spirit.
Amazing, right? Now, quick! Go buy it, read it, and tell me your favorite lines!
It’s really geared towards women. Sorry, guys! [↩]
Novels are great1 and apologetics is helpful, but what most of us really need is some good spiritual reading, some books that teach us to pray and love Christ. Here are my favorites. Maybe you should give yourself a St. Nick’s present and buy one for your Advent spiritual reading?
With obvious exceptions,2 these should all be good for Catholics and Protestants alike. Asterisks once again for the non-Catholic authors. As an aside, if you’re blessed with the kind of friendship where you can get a friend a devotional for a Christmas present, stop and thank God for a second.
Carryll Houselander writes in simple language with very short paragraphs which makes her great for quick devotions for lay people. I read The Reed of God for Advent last year and it was beautiful.3 Every bit of her writing that I’ve stumbled across has been so simple but so profound–definitely check her out if you’re looking for some quiet beauty this Advent.
St. Francis de Sales was famous for his powerful pen and his unprecedented attention to the holiness of the laity. He’d be best friends with Vatican II. If ecumenical councils had best friends…. Anyway, he wrote The Introduction to the Devout Life as an instruction manual to Christianity lived in the world, although it’s applicable to all states in life. Francis is very practical but also poetic. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s serious about their faith. While you’re at it, pick up Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christand Br. Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. They’re both spiritual classics and much easier to read than you’d expect given their medieval copyright dates.
Thomas Merton’s Praying the Psalms is a short little text that breaks open the Psalms in ways you never thought possible. We think of the Psalms as repetitive readings that are droned at Mass, but they’re incredible. They’re poetry written from the depths of the heart. As Merton points out, they contain every human emotion. Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this book to help you live the Word of God.
Speaking of God’s Word, I ran across the coolest Bible this summer. The Saints Devotional Editionof the New Jerusalem Bible has more than 200 passages from great Saints interspersed with the text of the Bible. They’re matched up, obviously, with the passage that the Saint is referencing or commenting on to give you some added depth to your daily Bible reading.4 For all you Bible purists out there: don’t worry–the text itself is intact. The Saints’ passages are set apart so you know what’s God’s Word and what’s not.
Your God Is Too Safe, by Mark Buchanan*, kicked my butt. I read it years ago and still get a thrill when I even think about this book. Buchanan points out how we’ve made God in our image and challenges us to return to the reality of a God who isn’t safe. He demands that we leave the borderlands of in-between, lukewarm Christianity and embark on the wild journey of following Christ. If you feel complacent and settled and need a fire lit in your bones, Buchanan’s your guy.
Or maybe it’s worse than complacency. Maybe you’re spiritually dead. You’ve been to confession, you pray every day, you’re trying as hard as you can but…nothing. Come Be My Lighttells the story of Mother Teresa’s decades in the darkness. It’s encouraging to know that even the Saints walk without divine consolation. More than that, though, this book convicted me. I realized that I was checking off my God boxes but not allowing my life to be converted–not where it was difficult anyway. I’d written off real growth for years, assuming that if God wanted more from me, he’d draw my heart in that direction. This book challenged me to give him everything even when I was getting “nothing” in return.
Women’s Spirituality
And You Are Christ’scould be the most important book a young woman ever reads.5 It’s so important, I’m giving it its own post.
Alice von Hildebrand is beautiful and holy and brilliant and was married to a strong, holy, brilliant man. In By Love Refined, she writes letters to a young bride with advice on making marriage sacred and joyful. I’d imagine it would be helpful to any married woman, but particularly newlyweds. I read it when I was 20 and actually found it very helpful despite my single state–there are some universal truths in here that could be a blessing to any woman.
Cynthia Heald* doesn’t really write books so much as Bible studies. Her books work best, I think, when you read them on your own in preparation for a group Bible study. I generally find study questions to be shallow and trite but Heald connects passages that draw out the meaning of Scripture as it relates to your life. Her books are interactive, forcing you as a reader to engage–particularly good for those who are easily distracted.
Christian Living
Holiness isn’t just about our relationship with God, though. Sometimes the first step to good prayer isn’t reading a book about prayer but learning how to live in love. Try some of these on for size.
I spent the first half of my life believing that men and women were exactly the same, excepting one minor accident of biology. Once I began to see the complementarity of the sexes, I was hungry to learn more about how men and women think and choose and love differently. Captivatingwas just the book I needed. In this book John and Stasi Eldredge* explain the particular strength and beauty of womanhood as rooted in our desire to be captivating. We long to be beauty in the world.Wild at Heart gives the men’s perspective: the desire to be the hero of a great adventure. In a description this short, these just sound like sexist stereotypes but John and Stasi breathe new air into them, making you wonder if there wasn’t truth at the heart of the caricature all along. Definitely read the book about your gender. If you know any members of the opposite sex, you’ll want to read the other one, too.
Wendy Shalit* writes brilliantly about modesty–in dress, in talk, in behavior–not least because she’s not a Christian at all but a Jew. In A Return to Modesty, Shalit takes on the sexual revolution with impressive reason and rhetoric. She does have to get a bit scandalous at times in order to demonstrate what’s going on in our world–be warned–but it doesn’t take a Christian to be convinced at the end of this one.
I’m sure you’ve heard aboutThe Five Love Languages*by now, but if you haven’t, at least check out the website. Apparently, people are different! So when you think doing the dishes shows how much you love your wife, she might be bitter because you never tell her she looks nice. Or maybe you buy your son gifts to show him how proud you are but he really needs a physical pat on the back. These books help you to see how you–and those you love–give and receive love. It’s up to you to change how you act and perceive people in response.
When I told you about the temperaments, I hadn’t yet read The Temperament God Gave You. To be honest, it didn’t much help me. My understanding was so different that this book really confused me in places. But if you’re coming in tabula rasa, I think it can be great. That’s certainly what I’ve heard from the dozens of people I know who swear by it. So if my post intrigued you, pick up a copy of this book and see if it doesn’t help.
I want to give a quick shout out to two books I haven’t read but should. These have both gotten rave reviews in the Catholic world so I think I’m safe in recommending them. Unplanned is the memoir of Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic who quit her job to become a pro-life advocate. She now runs a ministry that reaches out in love to abortion workers. Adam and Eve After the Pill seems to be an extremely broad look at the effects the sexual revolution has had on our culture. Mary Eberstadt claims that sexual liberation and women’s liberation have only served to decrease sexual satisfaction and further enslave women, particularly through widespread use of contraception. Maybe not the right book for your white elephant gift exchange, but a fascinating read nonetheless.
While I’m making blind recommendations, Kisses from Katie* is the book written by that incredible girl I keep telling you about who moved to Africa and had adopted 14 little girls by the time she was 21. It’s another book I lent out before I could read it, but the woman I lent it to loved it, so I’ll vouch for it.
If this series of books and books and books has been driving you nuts, you’ll be happy to hear that this is it! For now, anyway–a bibliophile like me can’t avoid writing about books for long. Are any of you buying a Christian book as a Christmas present? I’d love to hear your plans (or other recommendations) in the comments.
Speaking of God’s Word, I ran across the coolest Bible this summer. 
I spent the first half of my life believing that men and women were exactly the same, excepting one minor accident of biology. Once I began to see the complementarity of the sexes, I was hungry to learn more about how men and women think and choose and love differently. 
