What I Mean When I Say, “Jesus, I Trust in You.”

This evening, I finished my Divine Mercy novena before Mass and began my meditation. I was, as usual, rather spacey, without any particular focus to my prayer, but I kept internally murmuring, “Jesus, I trust in you.”

It’s a good prayer–Jesus himself taught it to St. Faustina. And it’s a powerful thing to pray even when you don’t totally mean it, in the hopes that the Spirit will make it true. But I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, just staring blankly in the direction of a Divine Mercy image and occasionally tossing it out there: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

And then I felt him ask, “Do you trust me with your fertility?”

Oof.

Friends, I am 34 and very single. I spent all week rejoicing over the Easter pictures of your beautiful families on social media (and, if I’m being honest, having some less delightful feelings, too). I am supremely aware that the odds of my ever having a family of my own get slimmer with every passing year. I know 34 isn’t old. I get that. But it’s Catholic old. And when most of your friends have at least 5 kids and none of the men your age are single, it’s hard not to see your biological clock as more of a time bomb.

I don’t share about this kind of thing often because it makes me feel rather pathetic. Also because when I do, some people seem inclined to try to make me feel worse. Or write entire blog posts excoriating me. You know, because that’s helpful.

And I’m not trying to start a pity party, I’m just trying to give you a sense of what his question to me meant. “Do you trust me with your fertility?”

Because the answer to that is absolutely yes, spoken in a soft and shuddering voice. I trust him with my (waning) fertility. I trust him with my lonely heart. I trust him with my homelessness and aimlessness.

I do not trust him to give me a family.

I do not trust him to give me a home.

He never promised me those things.

When I say, “Jesus, I trust in you,” I’m telling him I trust him to be God. I trust him to make the calls. I trust that whatever he gives me–or doesn’t give me–is best. I’m saying, “Your will be done.”

I do not trust him to give me what I want. At some level, I don’t even want him to give me what I want. A God who exists merely to satisfy my whims is no God at all.

I trust him to tell me no. I trust him when he tells me nothing at all for years and years and years. I trust him when he feels incredibly distant at the time I think I need him most. I trust him to be God.

During the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday, I was struck by Mark 15:32, when the bystanders taunted him, “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” It wasn’t really a prayer, but still: they called to God with a request and he said no.

Thank God he said no. Where would we be if he had consented? Thank God for his mercy poured out in unanswered prayers, whether we understand it in this life or not.

Jesus, I trust in you.

Advent Boot Camp 2023

I put out an Advent Boot Camp three years ago and the response was great, so it’s become an annual thing. Just a little tweaking since Christmas isn’t always the same day of the week. Read the intro here or just dive right in and prepare for the Spirit to pump you up.1

This “Advent Boot Camp” is a guideline, not a foolproof plan. Feel free to substitute anything. What’s essential is that you’re spending time in silent prayer–not just prayer but silent prayer–and that you’re easing into it.

Each day’s prayer starts with a 5 minute warmup. It’s hard just to snap from all the noise of the world into prayer, so take some time to slow down, talk to the Lord about what’s weighing on you, and get quiet. Then see what God has to say to you through his Word, his Saints, and the prayers of his Church. Finally, spend some good time in silence, either processing what you’ve read, talking to God, or trying to be still in his presence. If your prayer life has consisted solely of grace before meals and Mass on Sunday, this might be tough. But it will get easier. And what better time to seek silence than in the mad bustle leading up to Christmas?

Advent boot campWeek 1: Begin each day with 5 minutes of prayer, make one chapel visit

  • Day 1: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 40; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 2: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 9:1-6; one decade of the rosary, 5 minutes silence
  • Day 3: 5 minute warmup; Luke 1:26-38; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 4: 5 minute warmup; Catechism 522-526; one decade of the rosary; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 5: 15 minutes of prayer: your choice
  • Day 6: 5 minute warmup; the Office of Readings2; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 7:5 minute warmup; “In the Bleak Midwinter”; 1 John 4; 5 minutes silence

Week 2: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer, attend one extra Mass

  • Day 8: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 11; two decades of the rosary; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 9: 5 minute warmup; Luke 2:1-21; one decade of the rosary; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 10: 20 minutes of prayer: your choice
  • Day 11:5 minute warmup; reading from St. Bernard of Clairvaux; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 12: 5 minute warmup; 15 minutes journaling on why you need the incarnation; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 13: 5 minute warmup; Stations of the Cross
  • Day 14: 5 minute warmup; make a good examination of conscience, asking God to cast light into all the areas of sin in your life and to make you truly repentant and grateful for his love and mercy; go to confession; 15 minutes silence

Week 3: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer, attend two extra Masses

  • Day 15: 5 minute warmup; John 1:1-18; reading from St. Gregory Nazianzen; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 16: 25 minutes of prayer: your choice
  • Day 17: 5 minute warmup; “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 18: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 61-62; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 19: 5 minute warmup; full rosary (joyful mysteries); 5 minutes silence
  • Day 20: 5 minute warmup; memorize Isaiah 9:5 (“A child is born to us…”); 10 minutes silence
  • Day 21: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 35; reading from St. Augustine; 20 minutes silence

Week 4: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer

I’ve compiled the non-Biblical readings here if you want to print them in advance: Advent Boot Camp readings

This is going to max you out at 30-35 minutes of prayer at one time. If you feel like you can do more than that, go for it. If you’re a beginner when it comes to non-liturgical prayer, though, this might be a good way to get started. Whether you’re interested in this approach or not, do spend some time praying about how you’re going to try to grow closer to the Lord this Advent. But don’t stress about it–it’s supposed to be a time of preparation and peace, not frantic anxiety, despite what the mall might do to you this time of year. You might consider starting to read the Bible through in a year using this schedule. Or read Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God. Just be sure you do something more than bake and shop to prepare for Christmas this year. The Christ Child is coming, after all. Offer him your heart.

  1. Ten points if you read that in your Hans and Franz voice. []
  2. Click “Office of Readings” on the left side of the page []

An Advent Devotional You Need to Check Out

A few weeks ago, my sister sent me a Facebook message asking me if I wanted to take a look at a new Advent devotional that some of her friends had put together. Now, I’m not usually one for women’s devotionals (or devotionals of any sort, for that matter). But my sister knows this, so when she suggested Rooted in Hope, I thought it was worth a look.

Ladies, this Scripture study is an actual Scripture study! It trains the reader in lectio divina, an ancient practice of prayerfully reading Scripture, then leads you through that practice with different Scripture passages each day of Advent. But more than that, it gives you background and context for each Scriptural passage, followed by a reflection on each passage. The reflections deal with all different kinds of life experiences, with different women reflecting on the different ways they’ve learned to love God.

But the heart of the devotional is God’s Word–both excerpts in the book and additional passages that the authors point you to. It’s impossible to use this devotional well without having your Bible open alongside it, which is exactly how devotionals ought to work. Reading through Rooted in Hope, I found myself flipping to different passages, wanting to chew through the Word of God and enter more deeply into it. And on days when you might not want to take time to ruminate on the Scriptures, the text holds you accountable by inviting you to take notes on your lectio each day. It’s a gentle invitation (the editor explicitly tells you to be gentle with yourself, not to make this yet another task to accomplish, another reason to become discouraged when we fail), but one that beckons, if for no other reason than that it’s supremely unsatisfying to leave these pages blank.

Each week of the study has a different memory verse, urging us to make the Scripture a part of our daily lives. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see Catholics being encouraged to memorize Scripture–as you know, this is something I find incredibly important. Each memory verse is written out in part in a beautiful font and the editor invites you to continue meditating on this verse throughout the week, even as you’re praying with different Scriptures each day.

I have to tell you, though, the thing that most struck me was how this devotional is written for every Catholic woman–not every married Catholic mom of little ones, as often seems the case, but every Catholic woman, whatever her vocation or stage of life. Different days focus on different issues, but the authors are so deliberate about including childless women that they even use the phrase “if there is a child in your life” rather than assuming that their readers all have children. The first time I read that, I gasped–it was such a gentle affirmation of my existence, something that often seems missing in ministries directed to Catholic women. But Take Up & Read (the ministry behind this devotional) seems particularly aware of the many ways women are told they aren’t enough, and the gentle tone that pervades this devotional is so encouraging that I would expect nothing less.

For the many Catholic women who do have children, there’s also a children’s study to go along with the adult study. There are questions for children to ponder, children’s lectio sheets, reflections to help them prepare for Mass, and even puzzles to keep them interested. And all that for free!

The study starts November 30 to help you prepare for Advent, then kicks into gear on the first Sunday of Advent. It’s got monthly and weekly planning calendars to help you plan around the liturgical celebrations. Honestly, it’s just a lovely book that I think will really help you enter into Advent and prepare for the coming of Christ–and with how short Advent is this year, we need all the help we can get!

I’m so convinced that this devotional will be a blessing to you that I’m going to give away a copy–it’s my first ever giveaway!1 So comment and share and all that and one lucky winner will get a free copy of this beautiful devotional. Enter by midnight Eastern this Sunday night and see if you win! For those who don’t, you can buy your copy here. Good luck!

Enter here to win!

(I got a free copy of the book to review, but believe me, the opinions are all mine.)

  1. Wish me luck–I don’t at all know how these things work. []

Calling All Women Discerning Religious Life (Men, Too)

A few months ago, a friend from high school reached out to me wanting to hear about my discernment process from when I entered religious life. I was happy to discuss but surprised that she was asking, as she’s not a Christian. Discernment–particularly vocational discernment–is something that we usually talk about only with other Catholics. But I’m generally happy to discuss anything about Jesus, so I was game. It turns out that Eve is working on a piece for The Huffington Post investigating the way young Millennials discern. She’s a brilliant writer and a beautiful soul and I think her contribution to this conversation (especially when it’s published on a site like The Huffington Post) will be a gift to the Church. Here’s what Eve has to say:

I’m a Jewish-American writer based in Johannesburg, South Africa, who’s profoundly interested in the spiritual experience throughout history and how it occurs in an age many people think of as thoroughly secular, science-minded, data-driven, and beyond the reach of the mystical or necessitating the presence of faith. For a long essay I’m writing for The Huffington Post, I’m looking to talk with American women under the age of 25 in the process of discernment to enter the religious life. I’m interested in how you experienced your call, the tangible ways that changed how you interacted with the world (for instance, did you come to use Facebook differently? The push to have a good “career” differently? Did it change how you related to the uncertainty of the contemporary economy and the loneliness often present in contemporary friendships?). I’m deeply interested in the kinds of experiences of the modern world, and of God, that led a young woman to pursue a vocation. If you’d be willing to chat with me by phone, FaceTime, or Skype about your journey, please get in touch with me on Facebook. I’d ideally love to speak with women from a range of backgrounds, including families that were not religious or professed a different religion, and different parts of the country or economic backgrounds. We can speak casually first and then discuss if you’d like to be quoted by name in the story. While my interest is primarily in young women, I’d also REALLY love to talk to some young men discerning about the priesthood, too.

Here’s a brief example of my work. Among others, this piece, from an experiential point of view, argues hard against the modern conception that we are the best, or real, architects of our own lives.

If you’re interested in speaking to Eve, leave a comment here (anonymous or not) or send me a message and I’ll put you two in touch. Please DON’T tag a friend or share it to her Facebook wall–her discernment might not be something she’s ready to be public about. Send it in a private message and she can contact me herself. I know that Eve is particularly interested in speaking with a diverse group of young people discerning with traditional communities, especially people from non-religious families, people of color, immigrants, and the very poor and very wealthy. She’s come to the right Church, hasn’t she? You’ve never met a body more diverse than the Catholic Church, and I’d love to help her write a piece that shows how the love of Christ breaks down all the divisions we erect between ourselves to call hearts to deep holiness and deep joy. Plus she’s offered to let me look it over before publication to make sure the theology’s on point, so you don’t have to worry about the Church being misrepresented. What a great opportunity to witness to the Love of Christ that invites us to be completely his! Who’s in?

Duplicity

How cute were we?

I wrote this song a decade ago (with my brilliant sister‘s help on instrumentation and harmonies) but it came back into my head with a vengeance last week and I haven’t been able to get it out. All I could think is that one of you needed it, so here’s my very honest depiction of what my fancy words in prayer are often masking.

Feels like these days every time that I pray I seem to lie to you.
I say I want and I need and I love you completely, but it’s not true.
Cause when I raise my hands and close my eyes,
My lips can speak what my heart denies:

I want you!
        Or at least what you give me.
I need you!
        But just if it’s easy.

I’ll follow you!
        If you take me where I want to go.

I love you!
       Just don’t tell me no.

Looking for feelings or just understanding, it’s me I seek.
And if I want and I need and I love me completely, it’s not complete.
And if I raise my hands and close my eyes,
My lips can speak what my heart denies:

I want you!
        Or at least what you give me.
I need you!
        But just if it’s easy.

I’ll follow you!
        If you take me where I want to go.

I love you!
       Just don’t tell me no.

Cause if it’s all about me then I can’t even see your face.
And if I’m trying to prove you how can I be moved by your grace?
This is not what you planned when you held out your hand
And said, “Give your life up to be free.”
And I’m not the one with the work to be done.
All I can do is surrender to you and let your will be done to me.

Till I say, kneeling before you, I’m here to adore you. You’re all I need.
And to want you and need you and be yours completely, I’ve gotta let you lead.
I’ve gotta raise my hands and close my eyes,
Let my lips speak what my heart cries:

Shake me! Tear me from all my weakness.
And break me till I’m torn into pieces.
Then take my heart, make me what I’m meant to be.
I love you–this can’t be about me.

It’s a very rough recording, but there’s something about that line in the bridge, that image of Jesus gently reaching out his hand and saying, “Give your life up to be free,” that’s been speaking to me lately, or at least trying to. I go through phases in prayer, often just trying to sound good or to excite emotions or to *discern discern discern*1 and usually all he’s asking is for me to let him be God. Pray for me, will you?

  1. Goodness but I’m sick of discerning; when you have no constants in your life, though, there’s really no way around it []

Advent Boot Camp 2016

I put out an Advent Boot Camp three years ago and the response was great, so it’s become an annual thing. Just a little tweaking since Christmas isn’t always the same day of the week. Read the intro here or just dive right in and prepare for the Spirit to pump you up.1

This “Advent Boot Camp” is a guideline, not a foolproof plan. Feel free to substitute anything. What’s essential is that you’re spending time in silent prayer–not just prayer but silent prayer–and that you’re easing into it.

Each day’s prayer starts with a 5 minute warmup. It’s hard just to snap from all the noise of the world into prayer, so take some time to slow down, talk to the Lord about what’s weighing on you, and get quiet. Then see what God has to say to you through his Word, his Saints, and the prayers of his Church. Finally, spend some good time in silence, either processing what you’ve read, talking to God, or trying to be still in his presence. If your prayer life has consisted solely of grace before meals and Mass on Sunday, this might be tough. But it will get easier. And what better time to seek silence than in the mad bustle leading up to Christmas?

Advent boot campWeek 1: Begin each day with 5 minutes of prayer, make one chapel visit

  • Day 1: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 40; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 2: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 9:1-6; one decade of the rosary, 5 minutes silence
  • Day 3: 5 minute warmup;Luke 1:26-38; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 4: 5 minute warmup; Catechism 522-526; one decade of the rosary; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 5: 5 minute warmup; Chaplet of Divine Mercy; 5 minutes silence
  • Day 6: 15 minutes of prayer: your choice
  • Day 7:5 minute warmup; the Office of Readings ((Click “Office of Readings” on the left side of the page)); 5 minutes silence

Week 2: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer, attend one extra Mass

Week 3: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer, attend two extra Masses

  • Day 15: 5 minute warmup; John 1:1-18; reading from St. Gregory Nazianzen; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 16: 25 minutes of prayer: your choice
  • Day 17: 5 minute warmup; “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 18: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 61-62; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 19: 5 minute warmup; full rosary (joyful mysteries); 5 minutes silence
  • Day 20: 5 minute warmup; memorize Isaiah 9:5 (“A child is born to us…”); 10 minutes silence
  • Day 21: 5 minute warmup; make a good examination of conscience, asking God to cast light into all the areas of sin in your life and to make you truly repentant and grateful for his love and mercy; go to confession; 15 minutes silence

Week 4: Begin and end each day with 5 minutes of prayer, make two chapel visits

  • Day 22: 5 minute warmup;the Office of Readings; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 23: 5 minute warmup; Jeremiah 31; 15 minutes silence
  • Day 24: 5 minute warmup; 15 minutes journaling on why you need the incarnation; 10 minutes silence
  • Day 25: 5 minute warmup; Isaiah 35; reading from St. Augustine; 20 minutes silence
  • Day 26: 5 minute warmup; Matthew 1:18-2:23; G.K.Chesterton “The House of Christmas”; 20 minutes silence
  • Day 27: 5 minute warmup; full rosary (joyful mysteries); 10 minutes silence
  • Day 28: Half an hour of prayer: your choice

I’ve compiled the non-Biblical readings here if you want to print them in advance: Advent Boot Camp readings

This is going to max you out at 30-35 minutes of prayer at one time. If you feel like you can do more than that, go for it. If you’re a beginner when it comes to non-liturgical prayer, though, this might be a good way to get started. Whether you’re interested in this approach or not, do spend some time praying about how you’re going to try to grow closer to the Lord this Advent. But don’t stress about it–it’s supposed to be a time of preparation and peace, not frantic anxiety, despite what the mall might do to you this time of year. You might consider starting to read the Bible through in a year using this schedule. Or read Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God. Just be sure you do something more than bake and shop to prepare for Christmas this year. The Christ Child is coming, after all. Offer him your heart.

  1. Ten points if you read that in your Hans and Franz voice. []

Being Our Lady of Sorrows

Simon helps Jesus carry his Cross
Simon helps Jesus carry his Cross

I love St. Simon of Cyrene. I love that he was plucked out of nowhere, forced into a task he despised, and found eternity in the process. I love that he kept Jesus company on the road to Calvary. I love the image of walking beside my friends as they suffer and spelling them for a bit.

I love St. Veronica. I love that she stepped out of the crowd to wipe the blood and sweat from Jesus’ eyes. I love the risk she took to offer an act of human kindness in a sea of inhumanity. I love the image of serving my friends as they suffer, bringing some peace and beauty into their painful lives.

I love being Simon. I love being Veronica.

But lately I’m neither. Lately I’m Mary.

Normally, identifying with the Blessed Mother is a good thing, a sign that you’re doing something right. You’re trusting God or pointing people to him or interceding. But when the people you love are being tortured, being Mary just means you’re standing there doing nothing.

I don’t want to do nothing. I want to fix it. I want to love them out of their pain or take it over for them. I at least want to do something, say something to make it better, even just a little, even just wiping the sweat out of their eyes.

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

But I’m not Simon. I don’t get to carry their crosses with them or for them. And I’m not Veronica. I don’t get to give them a moment’s peace. I’m Mary. I only get to be there with them, loving them in utter futility as a sword pierces my heart.

I hate being Our Lady of Sorrows. I hate standing there doing nothing, watching the people I love suffer. I hate waiting for a diagnosis, hearing about infidelity, watching depression. I hate going to prayer and begging, begging, begging to take their crosses from them and being told no. I hate being useless in the face of catastrophic pain.

And yet.

And yet, with all that he could have asked of his Mother in that moment of his greatest need, this is what he asked: just be with me. Just stand there and watch me suffer. Just love me in my pain.

And somehow, that nothing that she did was everything that he needed. Somehow, it bore fruit down through the ages for every one of us. Somehow, it is in her silent suffering with that Mary fulfills God’s plan for her. I’m sure she also wanted to be Simon or Veronica or Peter whipping out a sword or anyone doing anything. But she knew that being there and “useless” was good and right and beautiful.

img_20151208_154307
Weinende (weeping) Madonna by Hermann von Kaulbach

Our Lady wasn’t Our Lady of Sorrows only on Good Friday. She suffered the day after the Annunciation and when Simeon told her the sword would pierce her and when they fled into Egypt and when Jesus was lost and when he left home and when he foretold his death and when she stood at his tomb on Holy Saturday and a thousand other times in between. Because her suffering with him, somehow, accomplished something.

I can’t say I get it. I don’t know what it does to suffer with someone, especially when that person can’t feel you there. But I know that it works for good because God gave that job to his Mother. The most powerful woman in history was left powerless because her helpless inaction was necessary and good and powerful. I don’t have to know how. It’s enough to know that when I am Our Lady of Sorrows, standing uselessly by as the ones I love suffer unimaginable pain, I am not useless. It is good to love them, even when that love seems impotent. It is good to suffer with.

If you are where I am right now, watching helplessly as those you love suffer, know this: it is not to no effect. You are not alone. Our Lady of Sorrows stands uselessly with you, holding you up as you weep and rage and faint from exhaustion. And somehow none of it is useless. Somehow, it is just what you need, just what your beloved needs, just what the world needs. And sometimes that’s enough.

img_20160502_134609

Candles in the Rain: On Community

A few months ago, in the midst of my whirlwind pilgrimage around France, I had the opportunity to visit Lourdes for the first time. We arrived in the early evening, settled into our hotel, and sat down for dinner. As soon as the dishes were cleared away, we were off again, headed to the main square for a candlelit procession. It had been raining off and on all day but my phone wouldn’t connect to the hotel’s wifi to tell me the forecast and the patch of sky I could see from the door was blue, so I decided to chance it, heading down to the outdoor ceremony with only a denim jacket to protect me from the elements.

Wrong choice.

I’m not usually one for extra ceremony in the best of circumstances, preferring silent time to pray as I like over litanies and processions, so I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit for this rosary parade. But I’m always ready to try to have the full experience (and I wanted to set a good example to the young people) so I bought my 50-cent candle with its very flammable paper bobeche1 and off I went.

The procession started out as expected, with a chanted Latin credo I only knew one word in twenty of2 and hundreds of people walking slowly around the square behind a large statue of the Blessed Mother. Not long into the second decade (led in various different languages) it started to rain. I took a deep breath, offered it up, and kept going, shielding the flame on my taper candle more carefully. The rain got heavier, and my candle was out. So I lit it again off a friend. And once more off a stranger. I shared the light with various people around me, all the while wishing I’d brought my umbrella.

After 3 or 4 times relighting my candle, I gave up. If I’d been there alone, I would long since have gone back to the hotel, but I wasn’t going to leave my friends, so on I trudged, sopping paper dangling from my dripping candle, rain running down my face.

IMG_3902Eventually, someone with an extra umbrella offered it to me, as people around us did for any number of strangers. I invited a friend to share my umbrella, and we kept walking, finally arriving at the front of the square to finish the rosary in lashing rain. The pilgrims around me were cold and bedraggled, each holding an unlit candle.

Then out came the sun, as though she hadn’t abandoned us for nearly the whole ceremony. Tentatively we put away our umbrellas, but the sky promised to remain closed and the whole party seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as we prepared to dry out.

As soon as my umbrella was down, Jared, for whom I’d been holding the umbrella, was gone. I was ticked, thinking only (of course) of myself, of the sacrifices I’d made to hold the umbrella for him and he didn’t even have the courtesy to stand by me when he didn’t need me any more.3

And suddenly he was back, holding out a lit candle to relight mine.

I’d forgotten about candles. It had been impossible to keep mine lit, but evidently somebody, somewhere had managed it. And Jared had remembered why we were there when I’d forgotten anything but self-pity. He handed on the flame and I was off, lighting candles for friends and strangers.

Some sputtered out immediately. “Don’t worry about it,” one young woman said after the third failed attempt. “My wick’s too wet.”

“Then we’ll dry it out,” I said, holding my candle to hers for 2 or 3 minutes until the flame finally burned clean and strong.

“My wick broke off,” another friend said. “It can’t light. But it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. I’ll melt the wax down until you have a wick again.” Another few minutes, holding my flame to her useless wax stick until it became a candle again.

I held my hand to block the wind for some and fished candles out of backpacks. On and on, the flame spreading, until once again we were a candlelit crowd. And the whole time, all I could think was what a parable it all was.

We’re given this light of faith at baptism, and maybe you cherish it. Maybe you protect it, turning to the community to rekindle it when the difficulties of the world extinguish it.

But it gets too hard. Again and again you light the candle. Again and again the flame is snuffed out until you can’t see anyone around you with a flame and it just seems futile. So you put away the candle and keep trudging through the dim light. Eventually you forget that there ever was a candle and you get used to the darkness.

Until someone walks up beside you and offers you a light. You remember again what this is about. Maybe you’re like me, forcing that flame on everyone around you. But maybe you’re too discouraged. “Don’t worry about it, it won’t work.”

Fortunately, you’ve got a friend who won’t settle for that. “You can’t carry this flame right now, but I can carry it for you. I can stand with you and love you and hold my faith up until God burns away the brokenness and rekindles the light of faith in you.”

This is why we need Christian community. Every one of us4 needs people to remind us of the faith that once drove us. We need people to fight our battles for us, people to stand with us to protect our faith, and people who we can encourage and support.

IMG_3910

I tell you what, I felt like a hero that evening. I was saving the day left, right, and center with that flame. But I never would have had it if Jared hadn’t remembered what I’d forgotten. I’m blessed to spend a lot of my life lighting people’s candles, but it’s only possible because of the community that supports me, praying for me, holding an umbrella, offering me a light.

We need each other, you and I. We need friends and strangers to keep these flames lit. We need real community, not just handshakes before Mass starts. We need to know each other and love each other if we’re going to hold each other up.

I hope you’ve got people walking with you, helping you keep your candle lit. If you don’t, don’t settle for that. God wants you to live in community and community is possible. So pray for it and then go out and find it. Start a Bible study, join the Altar guild, meet your evangelical neighbors.

Community might not look like a whole bunch of people the same age, race, and marital status talking about things they already agree on—all the better! Get coffee with the little old ladies who pray the rosary every day before Mass. Offer to babysit for that mom your daughter’s age. Invite Father over for dinner. Serve the Church. Because, with rare exception, real Christian community doesn’t just happen. It’s sought and built and fought for. But it’s worth it.

  1. Apparently that’s the word for the cup thing that they put around candles at church to keep the wax from going everywhere. Who knew? []
  2. Don’t worry, I sang the few passages I knew triumphantly. Et ascendit in caelo!! []
  3. I get double cranky when I’m cold and wet. []
  4. Unless God has called you to be a hermit, which he almost certainly hasn’t. []

Hiding in the Sacred Heart

If you’ve been keeping up on social media, you know that I spent the last two weeks on an insane pilgrimage around France, Spain, and Portugal. I went with an amazing group of young people who have no patience for shopping and leisurely sight-seeing. They wanted to visit Saints and a lot of them. So we did. (You can stalk our pilgrimage here if you want.)

Pilgrimage

Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Catherine Labouré, Thérèse, Louis and Zélie Martin, Louis de Montfort, Marie-Louise Trichet, Josefa Menendez, Bernadette, Margaret Mary Alacoque, Claude de la Colombière, John Vianney, Francis de Sales, Jane Frances de Chantal, John Francis Regis, Thomas Aquinas, Saturninus, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Elizabeth of Portugal, Lourdes, Fatima, Mont-St-Michel, and the Normandy Beaches. In 10 days.

I was really excited about this pilgrimage. I’d seen Thérèse before, but that was about it. And a lot of these are in really inaccessible places, so doing it on a tour bus is much easier than trying to go it alone. But it was day 5 that I really couldn’t wait for. Bernadette—the incorruptiest of the incorruptibles—and John Vianney, the only diocesan priest ever canonized. What a day!

Bernadette
Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

And they really were amazing. Bernadette was incredible to see—as though she were just sleeping. Honestly, though, it was the sign near her body that struck me the most. Here lies a miracle of shocking proportions, a body dead 150 years that hasn’t decayed in the least, and the caretakers of the shrine seem almost blasé about it. “Yeah, yeah, she’s cool and all. But God himself is in the next chapel over. And that’s really the point of all this.”

John Vianney’s shrine was marvelous as well, not least because our incredible priest got to say Mass on the altar where John Vianney celebrated Mass, using his very chalice. What a grace!

But it was the afterthought of the day that got me: Margaret Mary and Claude de la Colombière.

You’d think that I’d already have been a Margaret Mary fan. After all, my name is Margaret.1 But I’d always thought of her as some nun Jesus appeared to. Like that’s not a big enough deal to warrant some attention??

"Come to me, all of you."
“Come to me, all of you.”

And you’d think that I’d already have been a Sacred Heart fan. The statue of the Sacred Heart is my favorite spot on Notre Dame’s campus. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent sitting outside staring at it. Matthew 11:28-30 (a passage often connected with the Sacred Heart) was my favorite for years. And then there’s the fact that the whole point of the devotion to the Sacred Heart is the burning, passionate, desperate love of God, which is kind of my thing.

But most images of the Sacred Heart don’t really do it for me. There’s something wrong about Jesus’ face. So that’s never been a big devotion of mine.

Until Paray-le-Monial.

2016-05-20 12.15.53 copyAnd yeah, Margaret Mary’s real body was there, which was cool. And the art was much better than usual. Charles de Foucauld was unexpectedly represented in the apse of the chapel, which was exciting. But I don’t think it was any of that. I think that the Sacred Heart just wanted me to love him.

Here is the Heart of Christ, ripped from his chest for me. It’s marked by the cross, burning with love, and surrounded by the thorns of suffering. It’s rent open, broken for love of me. How can I not love him?

Underneath the relics was the charge Jesus gave to St Margaret Mary: I want you to serve as an instrument to draw hearts to my love.

If there’s any better description of the mission God’s given me, I don’t know what it is.

2016-05-20 12.10.56

So I spent the next few days just soaking in the love of God. I sat and said to him, over and over, “I love you I love you I love you.” I sang him silly love songs–Michael Buble’s “Everything” for one–and basked in some marvelous consolations.

But mostly I did something odd: I crawled into the pierced heart of Jesus.

I often want to be held by the Lord, but I’m too visual. I can imagine dancing with Jesus, but being held is more intimate, and then I’m wondering if I can sit on Jesus’ lap or if that’s too forward. Same thing with the image of being held by the Father: it’s nice for a moment and then suddenly I’m overthinking it.

This one, somehow, I couldn’t overthink because it was just too weird. All I could do was crawl inside the heart of Jesus and know that I was absolutely surrounded, that everything that impacted me came through him first, that I was protected and cherished and held.

2016-05-20 12.49.27
Check out that throne of flames! This is no sallow-faced, pink-cheeked, shrinking-violet Jesus.

I put other people in there, too. I’ve spent years holding people up at the foot of the Cross or handing them to Mary so she can offer them to the Lord. This time around, I was done with middle men. So when I got ugly news from beautiful friends, I walked right up to the pierced heart of Christ and put my friends inside. When I couldn’t hold them or help them or even handle their pain, I put them in his heart and let him hold them.

Off and on, this is where I’ve been since. I’ve been praying the Novena to the Sacred Heart and the Litany to the Sacred Heart, learning what it means to burn with the love of God and be marked by the Cross. But above all, I’ve been hiding in his heart. I hope I stay there.

Sacre-Coeur

God has loved us with an everlasting love; therefore, when he was lifted up from the earth, in his mercy he drew us to his heart.

PS If you’ve got any favorite books on the Sacred Heart, hook me up!

  1. Yes, really. No, it’s really not Megan. At all. In any way. Please stop calling me that. []

Heavy Blessings

Elizabeth spent her life barren in a society inclined to value women solely based on their childbearing abilities. Those of you who struggle with infertility can identify with the longing and the despair and the irrational guilt that must have plagued Elizabeth. More than the internal suffering, Elizabeth would also have been subjected to open scorn and derision from her neighbors and friends, seen as one cursed.1 So when, at long last, the angel appeared to Zechariah, when her belly began to swell, when she felt the quickening of life within her, Elizabeth must have been transfigured by joy. What an incredible gift: not only motherhood, but such motherhood. To bear the prophet of the most high—it was more than she could ever have dreamed.

Visitation 2But Elizabeth was old. Old enough that this conception was more than just providential but miraculous. So when God worked this miracle and John the Baptist was conceived, there was great rejoicing and also great pain.

Elizabeth’s joints were already stiff and sore; they must not have taken 40 extra pounds well.

Elizabeth’s ligaments didn’t stretch as well as they once had; her body must have screamed in pain.

I wonder how sick she got.

I wonder how early in her pregnancy she was no longer able to get out of bed at all.

I wonder just how awful it was, this incredible blessing.

Because Elizabeth’s pregnancy was a blessing, but it was a heavy blessing. She rejoiced, she gave thanks, she loved her baby. But it was really, really, really hard.

I wonder what your heavy blessing is right now. The situation you’re in that you’re able to thank God for but that still weighs on you as a cross. The unexpected pregnancy or the much-needed promotion that requires far more hours. The roommate you adore who sucks you dry emotionally. The child with special needs. The big old house in need of a thousand repairs. The summer break with your kids that might drive you crazy. The amazing community that leaves you little time for sleep. The mentally ill spouse. Some things in your life might be purely awful, but many are good things that are really, really hard.

The temptation is to get caught up in the difficulty of it, to focus on the aches and exhaustion and fear of what happens when an old body gives birth. But the more we focus on all that’s ugly the more we forget the shattering beauty of what’s weighing us down. We start to define our blessings by the ways they inconvenience us instead of seeing them as gifts. We need the clarity of Elizabeth, stepping back from all the heaviness to rejoice in the goodness.

VisitationWe also need to be real and to acknowledge the struggle that it takes to accept God’s gifts. It seems so ungrateful to look at something beautiful God’s given us and complain about the attendant pain or worry or sleeplessness. But for all Elizabeth may have rejoiced in her suffering, I bet you anything she acknowledged it. I bet she asked for help. I bet she wept tears of relief when Mary showed up to help. There’s nothing unvirtuous in being honest about your struggles. And I think that when we’re honest, we open the pressure valve a little and the resentment dissipates.

When you spend your life trying to be okay with a difficult situation, eventually it becomes too much. “It’s good, it’s a blessing, everything’s fine, I should be grateful” explodes into anger and self-pity. But looking at your marriage or job or friend or child or health and calling it a heavy blessing gives glory to God while acknowledging your weakness and that is exactly what Christians are called to do.

My friend, you’re not a superhero. Neither was Elizabeth. Just like her, you’re an ordinary person with some awfully heavy blessings. It’s okay to be really grateful and really tired. And if you need a patron saint of those heavy blessings, Mary’s got a cousin who might be willing to help you out.

  1. Lk 1:24 []