mercy Archives - Held By His Pierced Hands

Love Never Says ‘How Typical’

This Christmas, a lot of us are struggling. You may be grieving or lonely or overwhelmed. You may have too many people to buy for or not enough, your hands full or far too empty. But there’s one thing that unites us all: the aggravation and drama of spending time with family.

Okay, maybe there are some who honestly never have any trouble at all with their friends and relatives and relatives’ friends. But most of us who have anyone to spend Christmas with are going to find our last nerve fraying sooner rather than later. Whether it’s your uncle’s morose muttering about whatever he’s currently lamenting, your spouse’s inability to pass plates clockwise, or your Grandmother’s incessant comments about what a good woman priest you’d make,¹ there’s probably some button of yours that’s going to be pushed again and again and again this weekend.

Don’t add it to the list.

The reason these things infuriate us is that we view them as part of a pattern, as the defining characteristic of this person, as yet another instance of selfishness or sullenness or unreasonable anger. And they may be, but it doesn’t help us to love well when every transgression gets added to a heap of previous transgressions. “This is just like that time in 1986 when he didn’t let me borrow his trike. How typical.”

But love never says “how typical.”

Think about it. People crazy in love, even those who aren’t blind to their partners’ faults, don’t define the beloved by her flaws. That’s where the breakdown of love begins. “It’s so like her,” we mutter when she’s late again, and begin to view her tardiness as a deliberate offense. Should she be late? Probably not. But when we choose to see people as a catalog of faults we cease to be lovers.

I read this years ago in an anthology of C.S. Lewis’ favorite authors. The way to love difficult people is to refuse to see their annoying or hurtful or offensive behaviors as typical of them. Now, obviously if a relationship is abusive we need to leave or somehow distance ourselves. And in some relationships we’re able and even obligated to help the other to see his hurtful behavior and try to change. But often the flaw is too ingrained, the relationship too tenuous, or the issue more a matter of your sensitivity than anything else. Your cousin’s eye rolling, for example, or your grandfather’s sudden fits of temper. When we’re not being called to speak out in fraternal correction, it’s easy just to build a list of grievances with no Festivus celebration at which to air them. But that’s not love and it’s not Christian.

So instead, do this: when your sister-in-law doesn’t say thank you–again–and you find yourself internally seething–“How typical!”–stop. Choose to think instead, “Huh,” as though this were entirely unlike her. Instead of remembering every single other time ever and cementing your image of your sister-in-law as ingrate, imagine this was the first time she’d ever acted this way. Would it bother you then? Certainly not as much.

The Year of Mercy is over, but this is still a Church of mercy seeking to build a culture of mercy. When it comes to family, we need that mercy all the more. This Christmas we celebrate the mercy of God who refuses to define us by our sin. Let’s extend that same mercy by throwing out our decades-old heap of baggage and seeing people instead as the sum of their good qualities, “the sum of the Father’s love for us,” as JPII said. When you find yourself tempted to mutter, “How typical,” remind yourself: love never says “how typical.” Love chooses to see what is beautiful and look past the flaws. This Christmas, let’s choose love.

Just me? [↩]

Not Babies Throwing Tantrums: Respecting People’s Fear

The trouble with being a Catholic is that we don’t generally do extremes. We tend to try to walk right down the center, holding seeming opposites in tension in what’s called the “both-and” of Catholicism. This is particularly complicated in our polarized American culture and many of us have been struggling this week to figure out how to rejoice over some hope of pro-life legislation being passed while mourning the pain and fear of so many marginalized groups in this country.

I’ve made no secret of my deep concerns about the rhetoric and character of our president-elect; at the same time, being a believing Catholic means that many of the issues that matter most to me align with his current party. So this week has been a tough one, trying to challenge the victors and console their opponents while also reminding both sides not to vilify one another. I’ve already written to liberals encouraging them to consider that most who voted for Trump did so not because of the racist and misogynistic and otherwise hateful things he’s said but in spite of them.¹

Now, my conservative friends, I need to talk to you. Or rather, to the handful of you who are complaining so loudly about “crybabies” throwing ”temper tantrums.” To those who are raging that people just need to accept the results of the election and “get over it.” To those who laugh at trigger warnings and safe spaces, and feel the need to ridicule people’s pain and fear.

This is not mercy.

This is not love.

This will not heal.

And those of you who are so loudly asserting your tolerance are refusing to hear the suffering of people of color, abuse victims, Muslims, the disabled, women, GLBTQ folks, and every other community denigrated in recent months by our president-elect and his supporters. But perhaps you will listen to me, a white, pro-life Christian who’s never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.

Your brothers and sisters are terrified.

It doesn’t actually matter if you think their fears are legitimate. When a kind and merciful person encounters someone paralyzed by fear, the proper response is never to ridicule him for being illogical or reactionary.

If your sister came to your house hyperventilating because her ex was trying to kill her, you wouldn’t tell her to shut up and quit whining, even if her ex was an amazing man. You would hold her and love her and tell her you’d protect her and then try to figure out why she was so afraid. Only then would you talk her down and point out why her fears are—perhaps—unfounded.

Now let’s say your sister had a past history of abuse. You’d be even more empathetic, wouldn’t you? You’d listen and love and ask her how you could help her to feel safe.

And if she’d been abused and her abuser had just been acquitted and her restraining order canceled, you’d do something tangible to protect her.

At least I hope you would.

Because when people are afraid, good people don’t ridicule them.

This is where we are right now. Millions of people who have been abused and see the face of their abuser on the most powerful man in the world are begging desperately for help. Mockery is an inhuman response.

When people are afraid, it’s because there’s something wrong. Maybe there’s a real danger and maybe they’ve been told there’s one and maybe they’re having a mental breakdown. But none of those things is solved by telling them to suck it up.

You don’t have to believe that there is a real danger to your friends and neighbors and strangers in order to listen with compassion. You don’t have to accept the assertions that this presidency will pose a danger to their livelihoods and very lives. Even if you don’t believe them, you can still listen and love and ask how to help.

But it might be easier knowing that these people are not crybabies. Perhaps they will be fine, but they have legitimate reason to fear.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to this country as children and here legally now under DACA are afraid of being deported. You may disagree that they should be here. They are still afraid.

Seriously ill people who had been unable to obtain affordable health insurance because of pre-existing conditions are afraid that they won’t be able to pay for life-saving treatments. You may have had a negative experience with the Affordable Care Act. They are still afraid.

Gay and lesbian couples who are legally married and have children together are afraid that their families will be split up, that they will no longer be able to share legal guardianship of their children or receive their partner’s health benefits or appear in public together without risk of harassment or assault. You may not believe that their union is truly a marriage. They are still afraid.

Survivors of sexual assault are afraid that a country that elects as president man who brags about assaulting women will refuse to believe them when they share their stories of assault. You may believe that Mr. Trump was all talk on that tape. They are still afraid.

Muslims are afraid that they will be forced to register as Muslims and then will be systematically discriminated against as a result of this registry. You may not see the link between this and Nazi Germany. They are still afraid.

Transgender individuals who obtain hormones through insurance (hormones that keep them from committing suicide) are afraid that insurance will no longer cover these medications. You may disagree that they need them. They are still afraid.

Black Americans are afraid that in a country that elected a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, they are not safe in their communities or even their homes. You may know a thousand people who voted for Trump and would never use the N-word. They are still afraid.

Marginalized people of all sorts have heard report after report of hate speech and hate crimes and are afraid that they will also be targeted. You may believe many of these events to be fabricated; you may have similar concerns over accounts of attacks on Trump supporters. They are still afraid.

Tell that to the March for Life. We lost that battle 40 years ago and we're still out marching. Maybe we should just get over it. #sarcasm — A good example of rhetoric that is not helpful.

People are protesting in the streets. I suppose some might just be pitching a fit because they don’t like losing. Others feel a deep fear for themselves or those they love. Many believe—and God help us, I pray that they’re wrong—that President Elect Trump is as dangerous a man as Adolf Hitler was. If you learned of Germans in 1933 who took to the streets to protest Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, you would applaud them. You don’t have to agree with the protestors to respect the fact that many of them believe they are acting to prevent grievous human rights abuses.²

You may argue that true mercy wouldn’t allow people to rest in an unfounded fear, and I agree. But consider this: the fact that you haven’t experienced violence and discrimination and other threats simply because of who you are might make you the wrong person to determine what fears are unfounded. And even if you are the right person, you must do it gently and compassionately. Listen. Empathize. Seriously consider the suffering of the other. Only then can you very gently begin to explain certain areas in which a person is safer than she may feel.

But please don’t sit behind your computer complaining about entitled millennials throwing tantrums. Other people’s pain and fear deserve your respect, even if you don’t understand them. And when you listen with respect, you may find that you come to understand.

Edit: This post is about people who are afraid, not people who are enraged or violent. That’s why I spoke only about fear and specifically expressed my rejection of violence.

We’ve been having some trouble in the comments section since I started talking about controversial topics. Maybe before you post something, take a look at this post on how to be kind online.

Somehow, the only negative responses I got on that post were from those I was trying to defend. Can’t win for losing, I suppose. [↩]
Should people be looting and getting violent and burning things? Obviously not. That doesn’t make everyone a violent entitled child. [↩]

Merciful Like the Father: Sts. Timothy and Maura

I suppose it’s rather ridiculous that my favorite married Saints were only married for 30 days but, with apologies to Louis and Zelie, Luigi and Maria, etc, in my mind the witness of Timothy and Maura takes the cake.

St. Timothy¹ was a third century Egyptian lector, an office which entailed far more than simply proclaiming the readings. He spent his evenings reading to the people of his village and preaching the Gospel. He married a pious young woman named Maura and was arrested for being a Christian only 20 days later. His captors, on the authority of Diocletian himself, demanded that Timothy surrender the books of Scripture to them. Timothy refused, saying he’d just as soon surrender one of his own children, and was horrifically tortured. When being blinded and hung upside down with a stone tied to his neck did nothing to weaken him, they chose to attack his heart instead of his flesh and brought in his blushing bride.

The governor, Arian,² appealed to Maura’s hopes and dreams. After all, she’d only been married for 3 weeks. Didn’t she want to live the life she’d been promised? Didn’t she want to raise a family with her husband, to grow old with him? All he had to do was hand over the Scriptures and he’d be set free to live in peace to a happy old age. Maura listened intently and asked to speak to her husband.

Saints Timothy and Maura – Henryk Siemiradzki

When Maura was brought in to Timothy, she explained the governor’s offer. “But I, for my part, will never speak to you again if you deny Christ.” Timothy likewise encourage Maura to withstand the tortures she was facing and Maura walked out to Arius to declare her own faith and suggest that he give her the punishment that her crimes warranted. She too was tortured but refused to deny Christ.

Finally, Timothy and Maura were crucified facing each other and for 10 days they prayed together, sang hymns, and encouraged each other as they suffered for Christ. When one was weak, the other would be strong, reminding the beloved of what Christ suffered and the promise of future life. Ultimately, both found themselves welcomed into the arms of Christ, glorious martyrs. The witness of their courage and joy so inspired the governor that he, too, became a Christian and was eventually martyred himself. His feast day is on December 14 in the Eastern calendar.

Though they were married for only a month, Sts Timothy and Maura understood the purpose of marriage: to suffer together, encouraging one another in virtue as you seek to follow Christ. Like all martyrs, they gave up their lives; these two also gave up the beauty of a holy marriage. They gave up each other. May God bless all Christian marriages with the same spirit, that spouses may rejoice in suffering together, encouraging each other daily to live more fully for Christ!

But what does any of this have to do with mercy? Well, we’ve talked about people who experienced God’s mercy and who offered it to sinners. Here I think we have a couple who showed God’s mercy by refusing to allow each other to settle. It would have been entirely reasonable for a woman in love to ask her husband to apostatize for her. It would have been expected for Timothy to suggest that his wife run and hide, even if he wouldn’t do it himself. But God’s mercy doesn’t mean saying sin is okay or holding people to a low standard. In his mercy, God demands everything of us. And I think Timothy and Maura show the mercy of God because they loved each other too much to be content with mediocrity. God’s mercy is sometimes severe and here we see the mercy of a God who is too good to be nice, who loved these Saints too well to allow them to cave to the desires of their flesh.

You see, everything God does is mercy. I’ve been seeing this more and more this year. God’s mercy isn’t opposed to his justice, as though his mercy excuses sin while his justice delights in punishing. God’s mercy is simply his love in action. Which means that the consequences of our sin are a result of God’s mercy and the fear we feel is a result of God’s mercy and our desire to be more than we are right now and our hunger for greatness and our nagging guilt. Mercy takes addicts to rehab. Mercy sometimes issues an ultimatum. Timothy and Maura show us God’s generous mercy in allowing them to be martyrs and his severe mercy in demanding it.

Perhaps this week there’s somebody in your life who needs not the world’s mercy (“It’s cool, no big deal.”) but God’s mercy. This week, let’s pray not to be nice but to be merciful, to demand greatness from those we love and to suffer along with them as they seek to be transformed in Christ.

Not that St. Timothy. [↩]
Not that Arian. [↩]

Merciful like the Father: Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste

I wonder if there’s anything more compelling as a witness of God’s mercy than Christians who love those the world has deemed unloveable. Much like St. Vitalis, Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste had a ministry to women the world had written off. His work and witness continue to impact the life of the Church (and the lives of those far from the Church) to this day.

Born Alcide Lataste in 1832, he was raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father and though he struggled with the faith in his youth, his devotion to Christ was cemented through the experience of serving the poor through the Vincent de Paul Society. When his parents opposed his engagement to a woman he loved very deeply, Alcide was unsure whether to wait for them to change their minds or to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a priest. When his beloved died suddenly, Alcide knew just what to do. He entered the Dominican order two years later, developing a strong devotion to St. Mary Magdalene and taking the name Jean-Joseph.

Soon after being ordained, Fr. Lataste was asked to go preach a retreat at a women’s prison. He went, but with strong reservations. After all, what hope could there be for these inveterate criminals? But the Holy Spirit was more powerful than his prejudice and as he was preaching the retreat, he found himself struck by how similar these women were to his beloved Mary Magdalene. He spoke tenderly to these women society had written off, pointing out how dearly God must love them. After all, he might have left them in their sin, but instead he had them sent to prison that they might be saved. Imagine seeing incarceration as a sign of God’s merciful love!

Nor did their past lives change how much God loved them, he insisted. “When Jesus looks at souls he does not look at what they were, but at what they are–not at their faults, but at how much they love. He judges them as they are, by the strength of their love.” This would become a hallmark of Fr. Lataste’s preaching.

When he had convinced them that they were loved, he went on to tell them that their life had meaning, that even in prison they could serve the Lord. Just as nuns lock themselves up as a gift to the Lord, these prisoners could offer their monotonous lives to God, consecrating their very punishment. The eyes that had been dead only an hour before were now filled with new hope!

As the retreat continued, Fr. Lataste began to worry. These women had been transformed by God’s mercy, but what would become of them when they re-entered a world that despised them? What, especially, could be done for those women who felt that God was calling them now to religious life? No religious community would overlook the stigma of prison and accept a convict, yet to leave them to fend for themselves was unthinkable. “Dishonored in the past but long ago rehabilitated before God, they must now be rehabilitated before humanity. They must be saved, not only from the past dishonor, but from that inevitable return to crime; they must be saved, not only for this life, but for eternity; they must be saved out of love for him who said: ‘The Son of man has come to seek and to save what was lost.’”

And so Fr. Lataste began a new community, a community that would welcome women with unsavory pasts, indeed that existed for their sake. The Dominican Sisters of Bethany, he called them, “because the Gospel tells us that at Bethany lived Martha, of inviolable virtue, and Magdalene, the sinner. And Jesus loved to come and rest in their home. When Jesus looks at souls, he does not look at what they were but at what they are–not at their faults but at how much they love. He judges them as they are, by the strength of their love.”

This order offered a home to modern Magdalenes, a contemplative house of prayer that sent a few Sisters to women’s prisons to console and encourage the inmates. Though he lived only long enough to see the order established, Fr. Lataste’s community has lasted 150 years and today has houses at least in France, Switzerland, Italy, Latvia, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

In today’s world, I think we need a reminder that God’s love isn’t just for the immaculate but also for those who’ve been made pure. To be merciful like the Father is to look at each human soul and see not what she’s done or how she’s fallen but who she can be in the love of Christ. Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste is a powerful witness of overcoming prejudices and seeing with eyes of mercy.

I honestly find the existence of this kind of community (as well as the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb, a French community that exists so that women with Down Syndrome can become religious) thrilling. There is nobody who is unloved, regardless of your past or your circumstances or your disability. The Dominicans of Bethany continue to draw women of all backgrounds. In their choir stalls, class presidents stand beside prostitutes, girls-next-door beside murderers; what a perfect foreshadowing of heaven, where the greatest sinners may wear the most beautiful crowns while petty sinners rejoice to call them friends. Mercy, indeed. To both.

Nobody’s really been linking up, but I don’t quit things, so….

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Merciful like the Father: St. Serapion of Algiers

In keeping with last week’s Irish theme, this week’s Saint is St. Serapion of Algiers. He spent his 12^th century youth a crusader, fighting under Richard the Lion-Heart and Leopold VI to liberate the Holy Land, but a life lived by the sword didn’t satisfy him. When he met St. Peter Nolasco, founder of the Order of Mercy, he knew that his heart for liberating captive Christians was calling him out of the army and into religious life. Serapion asked to be received into the Order of Mercy, a religious order whose charism was the redemption of captives. In addition to preaching the mercy of God who redeems us from sin, Mercedarians proved that mercy by redeeming slaves from their Moorish captors.

Serapion took part in several of these missions of mercy before being sent to England to recruit new members to the order. On his way there, his ship was captured by pirates and Serapion was left for dead. Surviving, he continued on his mission, but his powerful preaching against the theft of church property in London got him in trouble. Ordered to leave the city, he spent some time wandering the British Isles as an evangelist¹ before he resumed his work of ransoming captives.

In 1240, Serapion had brought a ransom to Algiers to release 87 Christians when their captors demanded more money. When he discovered that some of the captives were considering renouncing Christ, he volunteered to stay in their place. Better to be a slave than to allow souls washed by the blood of Christ to turn from him. Serapion watched his brothers and sisters released and turned to his captors, ready to preach the love of God.

The witness of his life, handed over without a thought for strangers, combined with the powerful message of a God who did the same was incredibly compelling to the Muslim people Serapion encountered and he began to make powerful enemies when several Muslims came to him to be baptized. Though his brother Mercedarian raced home and horses were sent throughout Europe begging for funds to ransom Serapion, the money didn’t arrive in time. He was nailed to an X-shaped cross and dismembered, a martyr of Christ and a martyr of mercy.

Serapion is certainly not the only Saint to have been involved in the ransom of Christians but I find his particular circumstances compelling. His entire life was animated by the love of God’s mercy and the desire to bring it to others. Initially this was through war, but eventually he realized that the most powerful witness to the love of God was offering his life in peace. As one who was rather bellicose as a young Christian, I’m inspired by his ability to put away his sword and witness to the Gospel in such a profoundly counter-cultural way. More than just saving lives, Serapion was saving souls, laying down his life for those at risk of losing Christ.

This week, keep your eyes peeled for those in your life whose faith might be hanging by a thread. How can you love them back into the arms of Christ?

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A perfect friend for me! [↩]

Merciful like the Father: St. Columba

It seems to me that the majority of hagiographies (Saint stories) fall into one of two categories: 1) he was so perfect his whole life that he practically walked on water, or 2) he bathed in a sea of his enemies’ blood until he met Jesus and became perfect. This can be discouraging for those of us who are just consistently jerks. We’re not holy enough or terrible enough to become saints, it seems, so we go on with our mediocrity.

But there are some–increasingly more, it seems, though perhaps I’m just meeting more Saints in general these days–who clearly struggled with sin and brokenness even after their conversion. Ven. Matt Talbot was an alcoholic, Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity was angry, and St. Mark Ji Tianxiang was an opium addict. Really.

Moderns, mostly, but leave it to the Irish to understand sinning Saints before the rest of us. St. Columba (or Columcille, but not, it seems, Columban or Columbanus, as that’s somebody else) is a dear friend of mine, a powerful witness to our ability to fall even when surrounded by grace–and then to be raised up again.

Descended from an Irish high king, Columba (who lived in the 6th century) was educated by monks before deciding to join them himself. He studied under St. Finnian of Moville and then under the great St. Finnian of Clonard, one of the fathers of Irish monasticism and the “tutor of Erin’s saints.” After his ordination, Columba wandered the country preaching and founding monasteries.

So there he was, all educated and inspiring and fancy with his preaching. Everyone was amazed by him, but he was still very human. His former teacher, St. Finnian of Moville (not Clonard–try to keep up) had recently acquired a copy of St. Jerome’s translation of the Psalms and Columba was drooling over it. A very skilled copyist, he asked Finnian if he could make a copy. Finnian, an abbot and a Saint, said no. Evidently he was also something of a greedy jerk, refusing to allow others access to God’s word. But he did allow Columba to read it, so he did–by day. By night, he snuck into the room where the Psalter was kept and made a secret copy. Another monk saw him doing it and reported it to Finnian, who allowed it to happen. After all, Columba was a very skilled copyist.

When Columba had finished his copy, he got ready to return to his monastery. As he was leaving, Finnian approached. “I believe you have something that belongs to me,” he declared, and demanded the copy Columba had so carefully made. He argued that a copy made without permission belongs to the owner of the original.

This became a nasty quarrel and eventually the two “men of God” appealed to the king. He sided with the miser over the thief and told Columba to leave the Psalter with Finnian. Ever obedient (ish), Columba did. And then went back to his clan and incited a revolution. The ensuing battle left 3,000 men dead and the holy abbot with blood on his hands.

Overcome with remorse at what he had done, Columba submitted himself to the judgment of the bishops of Ireland. Though they considered excommunication, they ended by exiling him instead. (Many Irish people would be hard pressed to tell you which is worse.) Columba sailed with 12 companions for Scotland, where he established a community at Iona and proceeded to evangelize nearly the whole of Scotland.

Bridgeman; (c) David Brangwyn; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

You would expect Columba to have spent the rest of his life doing penance for his terrible, murderous sin, but he didn’t. No more than anybody else, anyway. He fasted and prayed and lived a terribly austere life, but he didn’t spend the next 30 years begging God for mercy. He had already received it. He had been forgiven and received his penance and there was no more need to lament his youthful misdeeds. They had been washed away by the blood of Christ and he was made new. Even though he had known better, even though he’d been given every advantage, even though he’d had no excuse for what he did–getting men killed because he wanted his own copy of the Psalms!–he refused to allow that sin to define him. He knew he was fallen and he knew God was merciful and he let the mercy transform the sin.

Would that we could do the same! So many of us live in the shadow of our pasts, forgetting that God sees only who we are, not who we were. We wallow in our shame and refuse to let God transform us. But St. Paul–himself a murderer–will have none of it. “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”¹ Columba is a powerful witness to me of the fact that Saints sin–sometimes dramatically, even after their conversions. I will sin, sometimes dramatically, even after my conversion. That doesn’t mean I’m SOL and I might as well resign myself to sliding into purgatory by the skin of my teeth. My sin will have consequences but by God’s grace I can start again and let him mold me into the image of his Son.

God’s mercy is bigger than your sin. I hope your past isn’t as ugly as St. Columba’s but I know your future can be as beautiful. Lord, have mercy. Let’s go be saints.

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Philippians 3:13-14 [↩]

Merciful like the Father: Ven. Cornelia Connelly

Cornelia Connelly is a woman who knew suffering and yet managed to live with joy. Born into a wealthy Philadelphia family in 1809, Cornelia Peacock married Pierce Connelly, an Episcopalian clergyman, when she was 22. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to frontier country: Natchez, Mississippi. Pierce was very unhappy at what seemed to be a dead end position and began to question his Episcopalian faith. Before long, he had decided to renounce his priesthood and enter the Catholic Church. But Pierce, always very focused on success and worldly recognition, felt convinced that he needed to become a priest, even though to do so would have required him to separate from his wife and small children forever. Despite his wife’s devotion (and misgivings), the family sold their home and belongings so that they could travel to Rome to pursue this dream of Pierce’s.

On their way to Rome, the Connellys spent some time in New Orleans, where Cornelia’s attraction to Catholicism was confirmed. She was received into the Church, despite the opposition she knew she would experience, just before the family sailed for Rome. Pierce himself became Catholic in the Eternal City before the family returned to America a few years later, Pierce still a layman but desperate to do whatever it took to be ordained.

Deeply in love with her husband, Cornelia was distraught: “Is it necessary that Pierce sacrifice himself and me too? I love my husband and my darling children. Why must I give them up?” Nor would this be her only suffering during this time. Shortly after they moved to Louisiana, their fourth child, Mary Magdalene, died in infancy. Not long after, their third child, John Henry, was knocked into a vat of boiling sugar. Cornelia held him as he slowly died, 43 hours of agony. But her suffering had only begun.

Pierce had resolved to become a priest and asked Cornelia to agree to a separation and a life of perpetual celibacy. Mourning the loss of her marriage, Cornelia agreed to give all to God. Though she several times asked him to reconsider for the sake of their family, Pierce was blind in his insistence that he could not be happy if he weren’t ordained. So Cornelia moved to England, at the prompting of the Holy Father, to found the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. In order to do so, her bishop required that she put her two younger children, ages 10 and 5, in boarding school.¹ In anguish, she obeyed, and made vows as a religious sister within the year, finding peace amid all her troubles.

Mother Cornelia, wearing her inexplicable (but constant) smile.

But Pierce was not at peace. He was becoming more and more unstable, eventually demanding to see Cornelia despite restrictions against it. Cornelia refused to see him. When he couldn’t influence her with persuasion, he chose to punish her by abducting her children and poisoning them against her and the Catholic Church.

Enraged by her resistance, Pierce brought a lawsuit against his wife demanding his conjugal rights, despite having relinquished them years before. He renounced his Catholic priesthood and his faith and declared that he was attempting to rescue her from the Church. The English press naturally had a field day with this court case, particularly when Pierce won. Mercifully, Cornelia was granted an appeal and never made to return to the husband who had forced her to leave him and then attempted to force her to break her vows as a religious. Her reputation ruined by allegations of improprieties with the bishop, her heart broken, her children stolen from her, Cornelia returned to life as a Sister.

Pierce ended his life an Episcopalian priest in Florence, bitter and cruel to his death in his attacks on the Catholic Church. Merty, their oldest, died at age 20; Ady returned to the faith after the death of her father; Frank died as angry and anti-Catholic as his father.

And what of Cornelia? Despite constant attacks from within her order² and without,³ Cornelia was a woman of radiant joy. Asked once why she wasn’t miserable, with all she had suffered, Cornelia replied with a smile, “Ah, my child, the tears are always running down the back of my nose.” Cornelia grieved her suffering deeply but chose still to live in the joy of Christ risen.

From what I can tell, Cornelia wrote very little of the sufferings of her life except to offer them to the Lord and to remind her daughters in religion of the good suffering can do to the soul. “We have all a large share of suffering, and if we had not, we should never become Christlike as we ought,” she said, speaking volumes about her ability to forgive. Indeed, the joy Cornelia exhibited could only have been possible if she was a woman of great mercy.

I can’t think how I would react to the constant attacks Cornelia underwent, but I’m quite sure those who knew me wouldn’t describe me as radiant with the love of God. Most of us, I’m sure, would become terribly bitter in such circumstances. But Mother Cornelia was always a beacon of peace and full of smiles. She even viewed smiling as an offering to the Spirit: “Give to the Holy Ghost many smiles and offer each smile as an invocation–a fidelity–a cooperation with grace.” All this amid more suffering than most of us will ever experience.

Cornelia Connelly has become a dear friend of mine in recent months as I offer her witness of interior peace in a difficult marriage to friends who are suffering from difficult marriages themselves. Her ability to cling to the Lord and continue to trust him, even when trusting him seemed to have destroyed her happy life, is a witness to us all. More than anything, perhaps, I’m struck by her willingness to accept the circumstances of her life as a gift from God when I would have called them a curse.

Certainly Cornelia spent her life offering mercy to her husband, but I see in her also a desire, if it’s possible, to be merciful to God. Rather than curse, abandon, or resent him, Cornelia chose love. It seems silly to suggest that we ought to be merciful toward the Father as well as being merciful like the Father. And of course he’s done nothing wrong, nothing that could warrant our forgiveness. But many of us still harbor resentment against the Lord for suffering we see as his fault. Perhaps this week we can walk with Venerable Cornelia Connelly and ask her prayers that we might accept God’s will–even when it’s awful–and love him all the more for it.

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The oldest had been in boarding school for some time. [↩]
She was several times betrayed by a one of her sisters in religion; other sisters wrote to Rome to have her investigated. [↩]
Her husband, younger son, a bishop who distrusted her, and most of Protestant England, among others. [↩]

Merciful Like the Father: St. Vitalis of Gaza

St Vitalis of Gaza is one of my very favorites. He was a 7th century Egyptian hermit, so I imagine most of us expect to have nothing in common with him. And perhaps we don’t, but lots to learn.

When Vitalis was about 60 years old, after many years in the desert, he gave up the hermit thing and went to Alexandria. There he became a day laborer. He would work all day at back-breaking tasks to earn a wage and then proceed to the local brothel to spend it.

Every night, this former hermit found himself with a different prostitute. You can imagine what the local Christians thought! Vitalis was ridiculed and harassed. People even approached the Patriarch to try to have him excommunicated, but the Patriarch refused to act on hearsay. Vitalis’ life became rather miserable until one day he was attacked in the street and killed. When he was found, he was clutching a paper with 1 Corinthians 4:5 written on it: “Therefore, do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts.”

But the Christians of Alexandria had already judged. “Good riddance,” they thought, until his funeral. Dozens (if not hundreds) or former prostitutes attended his funeral, and each testified that she owed her soul to Vitalis.

As it turns out, Vitalis’ life wasn’t quite as debauched as people thought. Each night, after Vitalis had paid for a woman’s services, he would tell her he had bought her one night without sin. She was free to sleep. He, meanwhile, would hold vigil over her and pray for her. Naturally, some were curious. They asked Vitalis what he was about and he told them: God loved them and wanted them to be saved. He told them of God’s mercy, of his death on the cross, of the way he delighted in them. And when they were ready to accept this, he found them a way out. He worked to arrange marriages, provide dowries, even find monasteries willing to accept them. The only thing he asked was that they keep quiet about what he had done. If his good deeds had been known, after all, he would have been barred entry to the women he wanted to serve.

So he submitted to ignominy, willingly offering his reputation for the sake of their souls. Whether he was killed by someone who was angry at his success with a favorite prostitute or by a self-righteous Christian, we don’t know. Certainly he was a martyr, one who offered his life for the salvation of souls, and with great success.

There’s something so compelling to me about St. Vitalis’ story. Here was a man so concerned with the salvation of others that he offered not only his life but his good name. What humility, to be willing to be condemned as a lecher in order to save souls! It makes me wonder how willing I am to be shamed for the sake of the Gospel.

Then there’s the fact of his ability to see the dignity of these women who were considered scum. Long before people understood that victims of human trafficking are just that–victims–Vitalis was looking at them and seeing not fallen women but chosen daughters of the King. He wasn’t just trying to stop them from sinning, he was trying, whatever the cost, to show them what they were worth and how deeply they were loved. What if we took it as our life’s mission to convince people around us of the same thing? Even if they weren’t converted, their lives would be the more joyful because we chose to live like Christ.

When I tell people about great evangelists, Vitalis always ranks up there with Paul and Francis Xavier. His entire life was given over to preaching the Gospel and he chose to do it in ways that weren’t flashy. It’s all well and good to be a hobo missionary (like Paul! And Francis Xavier! And me!!) but the world needs people who are subtle, gentle missionaries as well. Vitalis went without sleep or food for the sake of telling broken, suffering women that they were loved and for his troubles he got a rock to the head. And a heavenly crown.

This week, I’m going to ask the Lord to give me his eyes so that I can see the suffering heart instead of the sinner. And in every encounter I have, I’m going to try to treat the other person with the gentle compassion that makes preaching the Gospel possible. St. Vitalis, pray for us!

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Merciful Like the Father: A Lenten Linkup

It seems every talk I give this year the requested topic is mercy. Which is great–it’s one of my favorite things to talk about. But if I just say the same thing over and over, it’s going to get stale. Besides, the love of God reaching out to a sinner is never dull and never looks the same. So since my two current obsessions are Scripture and the Saints–and since we’re already hitting the Scripture thing pretty hard–I thought it would be helpful to spend Lent sharing how different Saints expressed or received God’s mercy. And I’d love it if you’d join me!

Each Monday this Lent, I’m going to be sharing the story of a Saint whose life reveals more about God’s mercy to me. For those of you who are bloggers and want to share your own Saint stories, I’m going to make it a linkup. You just write your post, then come back here for the post of the day and add your post to the list. Then–if you don’t mind–link back to my post in yours so that people can click over here to find more stories of new Saint friends.

Ideally, I’d love some more obscure Saints. St. Francis and St. Thérèse are great but we’ve got thousands of Saints you’ve never heard of, so let’s get to know them. Also, anyone whose cause for canonization is open is fair game. So I’m looking at St. Vitalis, Ven. Cornelia Connolly, St. Josephine Bakhita,¹ and St. Columban to start. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to share your Saints of mercy in the comments!

Is she too mainstream? [↩]

Nothing to Offer

Once upon a time there was a village that was just like every other village, but not in every way. Like everywhere else, there were wonderful people and also people who weren’t always wonderful. Like everywhere else, there were hard-working people and not-so-hard-working people. Like everywhere else there were school days and holidays and everyone wished there were fewer of the one and more of the other.

But unlike everywhere else, this little village had a great big king, king over all the other villages and towns and even cities, who came and walked in its streets. He wasn’t a usual sort of king, fancy and important on his faraway throne. No, this king knew his people. He could tell when Agata had let her bread rise longer than usual and when Polly’s tooth was hurting. He brought Frankie scraps to feed to his dog and always seemed to have a new color of paint for Angelo to try. Hardly a day went by that he couldn’t be seen playing dice with Matt or reading with Catherine.

And of course, the villagers loved their king—when they weren’t too busy for him, that is. Because even a king can become commonplace if he’s always around. So while most of the children could be seen running to him every time he strolled down the lane, many of the adults kept about their business, glancing up when he greeted them and murmuring a few words in appreciation of the gifts he’d brought them and their children. Most of them, it seems, took their king for granted.

But not all the time. Every year, as the ground began to freeze and the skies seemed to be gray more often than they were blue, the villagers’ thoughts would turn to their king. His birthday fell in the deep of winter and it was the custom in that place for each of the villagers to take him a gift, given straight into his own hands at the feast that celebrated his birth. It was a very solemn occasion, a time for best clothes and best manners with best gifts on display.

And there amid all the good and better and best was Cora. Cora lived in a small house at the edge of town, one of those homes that never had quite enough wood for the fire or potatoes for the pot. There was more yelling than was quite pleasant and it wouldn’t be fair to blame it all on the adults who lived there. Certainly they would have done well to speak more sweetly, but little Cora did quite a lot of yelling herself. Often she could be seen with her face, smudged with day-old dirt, screwed up in a scowl, walking down the lane kicking at stones and small children. Cora had a temper, and even her gentle king had felt her wrath when he’d crossed her path at the wrong time.

But Cora wasn’t all bad. And as the air turned chill and the first flakes began to fall from the heavy sky, Cora’s mind turned to the king’s birthday just like everyone else’s. The trouble was, she had nothing to give.

“Why don’t you write him a song?” asked little David, trying out a few notes on the flute the king had given him that spring.

“I don’t know how,” muttered Cora, wishing she could sing like David.

“I’m making him a painting,” Angelo said. “Why don’t you do something with the colored pencils he gave you?”

“I broke them when I couldn’t get my pictures to look right.”

When Cora walked past the well, Teresa was practicing her pirouettes. “I do think the king is going to love my dance. Probably best of all his gifts. Are you going to dance for him?”

But Cora had worn her dancing shoes to jump in mud puddles and they were quite ruined.

John was going to juggle, but whenever Cora tried she ended up throwing his balls into a ditch in frustration. Tom was writing a list of his favorite things about the king but Cora was sure her writing was too ugly. Clara was hard at work embroidering for the king but Cora’s just turned into a knotted mess.

“Just tell him how much you love him,” Cora’s grandmother suggested.

“That won’t be enough! I have nothing I can give him. Nothing at all! And everyone else will do something lovely and I’ll just stand there looking stupid. I hate this.”

As the days got shorter, the villagers spent more and more time perfecting their gifts. Bread was baked, wood whittled, and heads held high as projects turned out just as planned, until finally the day arrived. Children’s faces were scrubbed to shining before they were marched in their Sunday best to the palace. And when everyone was gathered, the ceremony began. One by one, the villagers walked forward to present their gifts to the king. Seated on his throne with his mother beside him, the king smiled with real pleasure as he saw the handiwork of his friends.

The village children stood tall and proud as they waited their turn—all but Cora, who shrank down in the crowd, hoping to be passed over. Finally, the king’s steward called out, “Are there any more gifts to be offered?” Silence, as Cora crossed all of her fingers and stared at the ground. Then:

“Cora. Dear heart, I don’t think you’ve had a chance yet.” It was the king’s mother, looking down at her with gentle, hopeful eyes. Cora couldn’t hide any more, so she dragged herself up to the front and pulled out a worn cardboard box.

“Here,” she muttered, and put it in the king’s hands before turning to walk away as quickly as she could.

“Well, wait a moment!” he laughed. “I want to see what’s inside.”

A sick feeling crept into Cora’s stomach as she turned to wait for what would surely be the worst moment of her life. The queen mother’s sudden gasp was all Cora needed to start her tears rolling, and the murmurs and snickers of the crowd only made it worse.

“Muddy dancing slippers? Whyever would he want those?”

“What is that charred mess? Is it a half-burned book?”

“Oh, dear, the stupid thing has given him an old dead flower. What was she thinking?”

Cora stood there alone, feeling as ugly and foolish as ever a child has felt, until she heard her king silence his people.

“Hush,” he said, as soft as it was stern. “Cora, love, come here.”

Slowly, sullenly, Cora stepped from the disdainful crowd, ready to be ridiculed by the king, too.

“Look at me, dearest.” Pulling her eyes away from their safe spot on her feet, she looked at her king and saw no anger in his eyes, not even amusement. There were tears there, though Cora couldn’t think why. “What is all this?”

“It’s everything. It’s the pieces of the bowl I broke and the book I threw in the fire when I couldn’t read all the words. I knew you wanted me to learn to dance but I couldn’t dance for you because I ruined my shoes playing in the mud, so I put those in, too. I would have given you back the ring you gave me but I traded it to Colette so she’d do my chores for me for a week.”

“And the rose?”

“I stole it.” Cora’s voice was so soft only the king and his mother could hear. “I stole it from your garden and I wanted to give it back.”

“Oh, Cora. Cora, it’s beautiful.”

“What? The rose?” Cora felt sure she must have heard wrong.

“All of it. It’s the most beautiful gift of them all. You see, everyone else gave me something lovely, and I was very pleased by the cakes and books and poems and such. But you gave me your heart. You had nothing to give and so you gave me your nothingness. I love it.”

Cora’s heart thrilled to hear the king’s words, but she couldn’t understand them. How could he like her gift of ugly brokenness? No, he was just being kind. Cora managed half a smile before disappearing back into the crowd. She pushed past her curious neighbors, all asking what the king had said and why she hadn’t found something better, until she found a door that led her outside. Cora pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders, sat against the wall, and wondered. “You gave me your heart,” he had said. What did he mean?

She was still thinking some time later, her teeth chattering and her fingers blue with cold, when she heard a familiar voice call her name. Looking up, she saw the king and wondered how he’d managed to sneak away from the crowds.

“Cora, come with me. I have something to show you.” He took her hand and led her through a gate she hadn’t noticed, down passageway after passageway, until they found themselves in a long hall.

“Look,” the king said, and led her to the far wall.

There, Cora saw her village, not as it was but as it should be, without ruts in the lanes or broken fence posts. The flowers were in bloom, the creek glistening, and the faces radiant. As Cora approached, she saw that the image was made of a thousand little things—scraps of fabric, bits of paper, stones, even—

“My bowl!” Cora cried. “Those pieces in the creek—the shiny blue bits. Those are from my broken bowl!”

“They are,” the king agreed.

“And there, that book lying open on the bench. That has pages from my burnt book!”

“It does.”

“But…why?”

“I make ugly things new. I make broken things beautiful. Everything you offer me, even the ugly and broken—especially the ugly and broken—can become something beautiful.”

“But everyone laughed. They said it was stupid!”

“They don’t know, Cora. They don’t know that my power is made perfect in weakness. They don’t understand that the most beautiful thing they can offer me is their hearts, even when it seems there’s nothing there to give.”

“But you haven’t used it all, have you? Where’s my rose?”

“I haven’t used that yet. Maybe one day I’ll show you where I put it. But you don’t need to know how I use it, do you? Isn’t it enough to know that I will?”

“I guess so. And my muddy shoes?”

“Ah, those are in the palace treasury.”

Cora’s heart sank again. She knew not everything could be made right. “The palace trash heap? I guess that’s only fair.”

“No, dearest, not the trash heap. The treasury! Those I will not use. I want to keep them. They are very dear to me because I know how much it cost you to give them. You will have new dancing shoes again—some day—but those shoes will stay here. And every time I see them I will be grateful once again that you gave them to me.”

“Even though they’re dirty and ugly?”

“Because they’re dirty and ugly. I am, you know, in the business of making things new.”

After that day, Cora’s life was different. Except when it wasn’t. Some years she had a lovely gift to offer the king. Other years she brought a box of brokenness. And either way, the king smiled. Because, as it turned out, he didn’t want Cora’s gift. He wanted her heart. And Cora was glad to give it to him.