Catholic

Rebranding “Churchy”

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I think it’s time we Catholics take back the vocabulary surrounding our faith. When we hear the term “churchy” it’s tempting to wrinkle our noses as if encountering some smelly mystery substance stuck to the bottom of our shoe. That’s how society treats it. Even during our Catholic marriage prep, the couples running the two day discussion showered us with promises that they wouldn’t let the weekend get too “churchy.” It’s Catholic marriage prep. One of its chief purposes is to be churchy.

We are constantly watering down our beautiful, glorious faith in order to make it more palatable to non-believers but this is backwards. We are called to bring souls to the Church, not the other way around. As Catholics everything we do should possess an element of churchiness because our faith is more than Sunday worship. It’s a way of life and informs every decision we make. I refuse to stifle my love of Christ to accommodate the feelings and comfort of someone else. I may not be everyone’s best friend. I may say and do things that some people find upsetting. Many years from now I may not be famous or loved by all but I hope that the people who do know me remember how churchy I was.

A Lesson in Humility

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Our first year of marriage has come and gone but we continue to fall in love with each other every day. Despite new challenges like my husband’s shifting work schedule and the discovery of a leaky basement, this year has been full to the brim with blessings, not least of which came with my husband’s move from a tedious sales job to a position in our local law enforcement. His days were spent in physically and mentally rigorous training, his evenings were occupied with study of Indiana state law and his weekends occasionally took him away to southern Indiana for yet more training. 

Amid all this, regular house upkeep generally fell to me and it could not have been better timing. In our first year of life together I had the privilege of a crash course on living for someone else. I was often tasked with cooking dinner, doing the dishes, tidying the house and generally maintaining a warm and inviting place for my husband to come home to every day in addition to my own day job. I discovered that, excluding a few exceptionally frustrating days here and there, I was happy to do it. The work that I did in my off hours away from the mill hardly ever felt like work. 

That’s not to say that I always succeeded in carrying out my wifely home duties to perfection. As stated earlier, this was a crash course in marriage immediately following several years of living by myself for myself and I am still learning how to be a good wife. I still catch myself falling into lazy habits on occasion and craving a little ‘me time’ with a good book. However, as a general rule, it’s so much easier to motivate to put a nice meal on the table and keep the house tidy when there’s someone else around to enjoy it too. Cooking and cleaning for myself before I was married always felt like a chore despite my love of good home cooking. Now it’s something I get to do for us. 

Even on those bad days when I just don’t feel like doing anything, I’ve learned to turn to God for help. “Lord, help me to be a good wife” is my constant prayer. My husband is living proof that God hears and answers all prayers even if not in the way we expect. With His help I can do anything. Perhaps that’s why He packed our first year of marriage with so many minor hurdles (house repair and scheduling difficulties) to overcome together. After years of living and succeeding on our own, we now get to do so as a team. This first year of married life was a beautiful lesson in humility which I am grateful to be constantly relearning. 

Baptized on Holy Ground

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I am officially a godmother! We recently returned from a weekend trip to Colorado where we gathered with friends and family to witness the baptism of our beautiful baby niece in an incredibly reverent and holy Catholic mass. Since the minute she was born, this little girl has been surrounded by grace. Her mother was very recently confessed at the time of her birth, ensuring that this baby was born from the womb of a woman in friendship with God. One of their very first outings as a family was to mass, a weekly ritual in which this sweet infant has been in regular attendance ever since. When we all met in Colorado for her celebration, it was clear that her entrance into the Catholic Church was also especially blessed. 

The baptism was held at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Christ the King Chapel in Denver, CO. This is one of two seminaries in the state of Colorado and complete with all the beauty one would expect to find on such holy ground. Entering this sacred space, my thoughts turned to all the holy men who had prayed here. In fact, it is said that the architect who designed the seminary was not a Catholic when he began, but after doing the research to ensure it was a liturgically-correct design, he was converted to the Church founded by Jesus Christ upon its completion. 

Saints rendered in exquisite stained glass silently watched the proceedings from beneath graceful stone arches and vaulted ceilings. Our niece was baptized in holy water before a stunning gold and marble altar. Here, in this sacred space where priests are made, one baby girl was welcomed into the Lord’s protection in a full baptism mass. This singular ceremony was a tremendous gift from the presiding priest, a formator at the seminary. He is also  the man who had walked my sister and her husband through RCIA and welcomed them into the Church and joined them together in holy matrimony just two years  ago. Now, all three of them met again to celebrate the fruit of that conversion and union. 

For her part, our sweet little niece dozed soundly in her mother’s arms throughout the entire mass, perfectly at ease in the Lord’s house. She didn’t even make a peep when the cool holy water of baptism was poured over her tiny head, as if somehow conscious of the Lord’s perfect love and mercy washing over her. Her tiny angelic face was untroubled as she received her passport to Heaven before an assembly of smiling grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends, and of course the cloud of witnesses celebrating the inauguration of a new member to the faith of Christ.

The Best Laid Plans

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I’m in that strange stage of life where all the people I grew up with are settling into jobs and families and lives of their own. All of the beloved traditions that lit up our childhood and always magically came around every year now require thought, time and planning. I can still recall a time, not so long ago, when I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing Christmas in Colorado with my big sister and my parents and yet, for two years in a row now, that Colorado Christmas has been reduced to phone calls. 

Of course, there was always a very good reason. With marriage and adulthood comes an ever more complicated schedule and life happens. Jobs change, people move, other family members need help, there are bills to contend with and increasingly expensive plane tickets. There are always extenuating circumstances for not following through with even the best laid plans. And adulthood certainly isn’t all scheduling difficulties. There are weddings and baby showers to attend and the joy of welcoming new members into the family. I’m thrilled to have a new niece and nephew to love and spoil. I am godmother to one of them and I can’t wait. 

I can see all sorts of different futures, all wonderful and perfect and yet horribly imperfect at the same time. Each and every one of them is full of love and possibilities but none of them look quite like the glorious childhood that I had. I’m still young enough to remember with total clarity all of the reasons why I loved growing up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and why, back then, I passionately promised to raise my own kids in a similar fashion. However, I’m also now old enough to realize that probably won’t happen, at least not quite like I would have pictured it. 

I suppose everyone finds themselves caught in a similar struggle at some point. We can’t know the future after all and so it’s impossible to truly know what will ultimately be best for the ones we love. But as every seasoned parent in my life assures me, you figure it out. With God’s help all things are possible and life has a funny way of working out in the end. Of course there will be difficult decisions and hard times but so long as we do our best with what He gave us and are always turning toward Him in all things life will go on and bring with it unnumbered blessings.

The Only One That Matters

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There is a popular belief today that more experience, even failed experience is better. People like to reference Thomas Edison’s discoveries with the lightbulb to prove this point. While taking failure in stride is a necessary practice in any career, I no longer believe the argument holds water when it comes to dating.

Taking a job for the experience will likely land you many more career prospects in the future. Taking a relationship for the experience is a cruel and manipulative exercise in futility which will not ultimately bring you any closer to finding your forever person. The only acceptable reason to enter into a relationship is because you genuinely believe that it may be your last relationship. Any other goal is a death sentence to the romance. You are dooming yourself and your partner to failure before you’ve even begun.

Some like to argue that this kind of casual companionship is acceptable so long as the goal is just to have fun and both parties agree to it. I disagree. Desensitizing yourself to failure in romance will only deaden your ability to recognize success when it does come. A lifetime of settling for mediocre, seasonal flings will never impart the skills necessary for attracting your future spouse. Learning how to manipulate a person’s feelings is in complete opposition to learning how to love them. If you really do want to find your future spouse you should be loving them as if you’ve already met them by maintaining a virtuous, properly ordered lifestyle. That person is out there in the world somewhere right now, making mistakes of their own and in need of your prayers.

Finding the love of your life is far more difficult than the movies make it out to be. It will likely be one of the greatest tests of your patience. You may have to go on a lot of first dates in order to find your one and only but you never will if you settle into a habit of companionship with the wrong people. It doesn’t matter how pleasant or convenient that companionship may be. If you can’t see yourself marrying that person someday you shouldn’t agree to a second date. 

People like to boast about the quality or quantity of the frogs they’ve kissed as if these make them an expert dater but the only love experts I care about aren’t dating anymore. In the end it doesn’t matter how many almosts, puppy loves or catastrophic mistakes you’ve had. The only one that matters is the one that wasn’t a frog at all. When it comes to romance, getting it wrong is easy. Getting it right is something you’ll only ever do once.

Only In Colorado

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While trying to find a photo for today’s Friday post I stumbled across this gem that my mom sent me a couple of years ago and couldn’t keep from smiling. Only in Colorado can you go hiking with your local priest to some remote, snow melt, mountain lake and be a witness as he celebrates mass there. Although this is an experience that I’ve yet to be blessed with, I’m praying for the day that the hubby and I make it back to Colorado and get to do some wilderness trekking with the Father.

A State of Grace

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Photo by Photo by Arina Krasnikova

Our family is currently celebrating the arrival of a new member. We welcomed a new niece into the world recently and are over the moon to soon meet this beautiful baby girl. In the days leading up to her birth my sister was on a mission, hunting for parishes all over town in search of priests available to administer confession. She was determined to be in a state of grace when bringing her daughter into the world.

What a beautiful gift to their family to know that this new momma was in friendship with God when she gave our parents their first grandchild! On one hand, being recently confessed was a safeguard for my sister, should anything go wrong during the birth. Thankfully, it didn’t and both mother and baby girl are healthy and happy. By ensuring she was in communion with God as much as possible my sister also enabled her daughter to be born surrounded by grace and love. What better way to begin a holy and blessed life? It was the very best running start my sister could give. 

This got me thinking about how often we all run to confession when embarking on a journey or undergoing an important medical procedure. Life is full of risks and of course it’s not feasible to receive absolution from a priest every time we cross the street but it’s certainly something that should always be forefront in our minds as we proceed through life. The Catholic Church requires that its members receive the sacrament of Reconciliation at least once a year but how often on any given day do we turn away from God, even in small, seemingly mundane ways. We need sincere and regular Reconciliation to maintain a state of grace to receive Holy Communion and to be in friendship with Christ. 

My husband and I generally try to make it to confession every couple of weeks and emergency, short notice Reconciliation is rare for us at this point but as Catholics we all ought to leap at the opportunity to renew our relationship with the Lord. We should all run to confession as often as possible even if it means hunting all over town for available priests.

This is Amazing!

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Walking with Jesus in Glenwood Springs

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, in my childhood home no less! It’s such a blessing to encounter stories like this, especially ones involving the vibrant, gorgeous Colorado town where I grew up. This was a welcome read and I’m sending prayers to the community of St. Stephen Catholic Church that they can continue to walk with Jesus in all things.

I Need My Man

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In a world full of girl bosses intent on shattering that (imagined) glass ceiling the “I don’t need no man” attitude is nearly inescapable. It’s everywhere and often accompanied by some amount of condescending head bobbing and finger snapping. I’ve certainly fallen prey to it in the past. It’s so pervasive in society that it’s even seeped into the hearts of practicing Catholics.

We heard it in our very own Catholic marriage prep while in discussion with current married couples. One woman boasted this logic even as her husband sat beside her. How can you imply that you don’t need a man when the man you vowed to give your life to sits quietly by? What can possibly be his purpose in this arrangement if you’re so perfectly invincible on your own? If this is true, why on earth did you get married in the first place?

Ignoring the implied and overt rudeness which comes with this statement, it’s not a sentiment I share. Of course everyone, regardless of gender, is capable of great worldly success by their own merit. You can do anything you set your mind to if properly driven. As Fr. Mike Schmitz highlighted in his Catechism in a Year series, no human on Earth is half-made. God created us to be complete beings in His image, each a union of the body and soul. But without each other, we are unable to carry out God’s ultimate will for us to “be fruitful and multiply.” Men and women are complements to each other, both equally necessary to share in God’s work of creation.  

Can you honestly say that there is any undertaking in life that would not be improved and made easier by the assistance of a supportive and loving spouse? Are you really so flawlessly competent that you’re better equipped to take on the world on your own than beside a man who has promised to cherish and protect you? We are a society so utterly incapable of admitting our own deficiencies that we would rather spend our lives alone and hurt our loved ones in the process than confess the reality that we might actually need them, that we are in fact better together. 

Yes, I need my man. I’m human, fallen and in need of God’s saving grace. I’m error prone and could have easily been distracted on many occasions from the path to holiness if not for the man walking beside me, and we’ve barely been married a year. I was successful, independent and financially stable before I ever met my husband and my life has become infinitely better since then. It brings me unending relief and joy to follow him as we both journey toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

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Photo by MART PRODUCTION

Every now and then, the reality of my Catholic infancy is driven home in a moment of ignorance as was the case last week when I almost missed a very important day on the liturgical calendar. On June 16th Catholics everywhere celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This was the Friday following the Corpus Christi octave and, much like Divine Mercy Sunday, this Catholic feast calls to mind God’s unconditional love for us. Out of this love He sent His only Son to live among us and with a human heart, thereby enabling our salvation brought forth through Christ’s death and resurrection.

“We love because He first loved us.” (John 4:19) Although the feast has come and gone, the entire month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the perfect time to begin or renew this particular devotion to our Lord.