This photo is a bit late but I can never keep from smiling when the hubby comes home with flowers. He went all out for a beautiful bouquet of roses on Valentine’s Day this year although these instances aren’t limited to holidays. Thank you God for sending me a man who brings me flowers!
This is the question facing modern women. I know many people on both sides who say it’s hardly a question at all and that the answer is obvious. I know how I’d answer it. Our society likes to tell women that their greatest worth will come from high powered careers, that they can have families if they want to but that they should have careers. Frankly, I have to agree with Jordan Peterson’s perspective on this one. Only a very select few ever actually achieve careers. The rest of us go to jobs everyday. Some jobs are undoubtedly more enjoyable than others but they’re all generally performed for the same purpose of paying the bills and not work that someone would do for free.
There are the dreamers of the world, those high flying individuals who become masters and leaders in their fields and of course there are women among them. However, to treat those women as the rule rather than the exception is to dismiss the ultimate feminine superpower, the ability to give birth. We alone have the capacity and natural inclination for motherhood. Some people say that a woman’s worth should be measured by more than her ability to push out babies and they’re absolutely right. Being an effective mother is about raising those babies to be good, virtuous people.
Success and ambition are incredibly enticing. I myself can attest to that. It feels good to be financially independent, to stand on your own two feet, to not worry about how to pay your bills and to be able to afford the things you enjoy. The deal is only sweetened as a career trajectory does begin to take shape. A technical degree in a STEM field paired with a job in a fairly stable industry that’s currently hemorrhaging retirees has upward mobility written all over it. It’s not difficult to imagine a future.
But all the money and success in the world doesn’t hold a torch to how badly I want to be a good wife and mother. There are certainly women out there who learn to split the difference and excel in motherhood and their careers but even in this there are sacrifices. Even the most well organized and motivated people have their limits. There’s only so much of you to go around. Choosing how to spend it is a necessary evil of our empowered and fast-paced world.
Financial independence can be a huge step toward maturity and adulthood as it was for me. It was a key motivator but it was never the goal, nor do I think it should be. I don’t think anyone should ever become so proud of their workplace accomplishments that they forget who and what they’re working for. There’s nothing wrong with being an empowered lady boss. Whatever you do should be done with excellence but people are often quick to forget that concept extends to the home as well.
After many tedious weeks of grey Midwest winter drizzle I was itching for sunshine and fresh air and the hubby has happy to oblige. On this particular weekend in late February, the sun finally peeked its yellow face out from behind the clouds for more than five minutes so we headed to the Indiana Dunes for a morning of hiking and wonderful views, yet another instance of God’s beautiful creation.
Today I find myself recalling a homily from one of our priest friends on Ash Wednesday. He touched on the three main tenets of Lent; prayer, fasting and almsgiving but he went further to instruct on how these should orient our lives beyond Lent. After all, God created us for labor, love and leisure. I think that first one gets forgotten sometimes or at least pushed a little lower on the priority list. God clearly does not want us to neglect ourselves but love and leisure are often byproducts of labor.
This was the point that our friend was making when he spoke to the assembly. We are happiest and most fulfilled when we are working for the service of others. Money and success can better enable us to help our neighbors but they themselves cannot be the goal. It’s easy to fall into the habit of defining new challenges in life by what we can get out of them. I’m certainly guilty of this. But this thinking is precisely backwards.
We should not be the center of our own lives. The Sun around which our worlds must revolve is the Son of God. We can only ensure this proper orientation toward Christ through genuine service. Only when we give ourselves to other people can we experience the bliss of doing God’s work.
Although not originally native to Ireland, Saint Patrick’s work there spanned nearly all his life. He was born in Roman Britain but was captured by Irish pirates when he was young and was sent to Ireland to work as a slave. He never lost his faith and years later he escaped and returned to Britain. Despite his former captivity, Saint Patrick felt called back to Ireland to bring the Gospel to the pagan country. Thus he set out to become a priest and later a bishop before traveling to Ireland a second time. Saint Patrick is still celebrated and Ireland, nicknamed the Isle of Saints and Scholars, was home to many more saints throughout history thanks to his work.
I came home grumpy the other day and despite knowing that most of my frustration was largely out of my control, I immediately began complaining to my husband when I walked in the door. It had been a less than stellar day in the office. The friends and family that I’d tried calling on the drive home had all been busy and although I had no major update to give them, I missed them very much. I’ve also been consumed lately with thoughts of the future and trying to figure out how my husband and I might go about starting a family amid two full time careers.
I know that God will provide for us so long as we continue to turn to Him in our struggles. I’m also well aware that these are small change compared to the trials of others. I understand that prayer is often the best medicine and we need only bear our crosses and give them up to God. However, as I sat next to my husband while we prayed our daily rosary I was struck by how un-catholic my behavior had been that day. I had not done any of the prayerful things I just mentioned. This was also in dramatic contrast with my husband’s actions as he spent the entire evening going out of his way to cheer me up.
Being catholic is not always easy. It’s far easier to whine and gripe about every little thing that’s going wrong. In the moment, God can slip our minds entirely as was my case. It didn’t even occur to me that day to relinquish my frustrations to Him. But while we keep faith in God, we are never alone and it’s times like these that I feel unbelievably blessed that He sent my husband to me to be an example and a friend on the bad days. As members of God’s universal church we have the privilege of seeing Christ everyday if we keep our eyes open, whether it be in the kindness of a random stranger on the street, in the devout worship of our fellow parishioners during Sunday mass, or in the love and care we receive from spouses, family and friends.
Soon it will be warm enough for all sorts of outdoor fun and games, even a chess match in the park. I couldn’t resist snapping this photo while visiting my sister in Little Italy once. I felt as if two elderly tweed clad gentlemen had just stood up from this very table to stroll down the street in search of some refreshing gelato after an intense game. I pray everyone is soon able to enjoy similar quiet, warm afternoons.
I first started attending mass at a time in my life when I felt that modern society had utterly failed me. By all accounts, I had lived an extremely successful life up to that point, making all the widely accepted ‘responsible’ decisions and striking out on my own. I was a well educated, fiercely independent young woman embarking on a lucrative career in a STEM field. However, in addition to graduating with a fancy engineering degree and a job in the steel industry I also tasted real regret for the first time over decisions which society continued to assure me were perfectly smart and reasonable.
We’re all only human, ignorant and error prone and I’m no exception. But having been raised by two intelligent and amazingly supportive parents, there were some lessons I was convinced I’d never have to learn the hard way. I thought I was smart enough not to make certain mistakes, particularly when it came to dating. I did everything right by cultural standards and had a good life but was still very far from the person I wanted to be.
After months of genuine scrutiny of my core beliefs, I began to reorient my life in accordance with Catholic teachings although that was hardly my goal at the time. It was the beauty of the church’s stance on marriage which first struck my fancy. In a world of ‘good enough for now’ and ‘let’s see how it goes’ I was completely enamored by the idea that two people could love and trust each other enough to wait for each other and the sacramental bond of marriage. People are so impatient these days and chastity is such an unpopular virtue on a college campus.
That isn’t to say that I didn’t have solid role models in my life when it came to marriage. My parents are two of the most in love people I’ve ever met. But finding that one person to spend the rest of your life with is a tricky business, especially when the dating pool is full of people who are convinced that marriage is just a piece of paper. I once heard a newly engaged coworker say “you wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it first,” referencing her relationship with her fiance. At the time I had no intelligent argument to offer except that people are not cars. They are not objects to be used and abused for your pleasure even if they’re willing to consent to such treatment on the grounds that it’s mutual.
As previously stated, Catholic marriage is a sacrament, one in which you vow to each other and to God to die to yourself everyday for the good of your spouse. The ultimate goal is to ensure that your husband or wife enters the Kingdom of Heaven. The sexual embrace is a renewing of those vows and thus ought to be reserved only for marriage. Obviously you should be choosy when selecting your spouse and you both need to be generally compatible but you don’t have to sleep together to figure that out. There are many far more telling judges of a person’s character than their ability to please in the bedroom. Their ability to keep their hands to themself as they wait in anticipation for marriage is a perfect example.
Having recently been married, I can happily attest that there is no greater feeling than knowing with absolute and total certainty that my husband and I are madly in love for all the right reasons. He doesn’t just attend to my everyday physical and emotional needs as a loving, doting husband. He cares about my soul. It was a very happy day in my life when I discovered that it’s possible to love and be loved that much.
Often in life, much like in hiking, we can’t see our destination until we’ve arrived. We hear words of encouragement from folks traveling the other direction that “you’re almost there” and “it’s just around the next bend.” Sometimes in our fatigue we forget to look around and enjoy the views along the way. Even if this week feels like it’s been an uphill slog, I pray everyone can experience happy hiking in their lives today.
Blessed in the Midwest 