Man Proposes, God Disposes

Our Thanksgiving visit was going to be perfect. We had the whole thing planned. My daughters, Kara and Gaby, were coming to town. We’d spend four days on the Gulf Coast, three in New Orleans, and three at home in Mandeville. Beach, Zoo, Aquarium, streetcar rides, turkey, babies, fun. Topped off by a romantic dinner and well-deserved night away for Gaby and her husband, Grayson, in celebration of their sixth wedding anniversary. Yes, indeed. Perfect.

Then the bug bit. Ten people, including two babies in diapers, spent the week shuffling between vomit bowls, toilets, and endless mess. “My tummy hurts!” two-year-old Joseph cried as he sat at the kitchen counter. That was after he threw up all over my silk duvet cover.

We skipped Thanksgiving completely; then scrapped anniversary plans. Those of us feeling well enough by Saturday night enjoyed a celebratory meal of take-out Thai food with Gaby, while her spouse lay sick in bed.

“Man proposes, God disposes,” my husband, Mark, said as I lamented the train wreck of a week. “The best laid plans of mice and men,” I responded rolling my eyes.

As we sat at the dinner table with Gaby minus her groom, we discussed just how much she and Grayson had been through since their relationship began. “Four children, six moves, the death of your dad, the separation of Grayson’s parents, cancer, major surgery and MRSA,” I offered, recalling the last seven years, noting that the bulk of those events had happened during the past twelve months. But it was the MRSA—an antibiotic resistant surgery-related staff infection—that brought things to a screeching halt. When it became clear that the cancer wasn’t going to take Grayson’s life, and that MRSA might, all bets were off.

Photo Credit @jamesgraysonhicks Copyright 2015.

Grayson took the bold step of quitting his job to allow his body much needed time to heal. Then he and Gaby sold their house, bought a camper, and hit the road for a three-month pilgrimage across the country. Their family, which included children ages six, three, two and twelve weeks when they set out, drove six thousand miles through nineteen states, ending their odyssey in Philadelphia for Pope Francis’ visit. After seeing the Pope for the second time on Sunday, they returned to their hotel tired, happy, high, feeling blessed. It was then that they realized it had been exactly one year to the day since Grayson had his cancer surgery, the very event that set the pilgrimage in motion in the first place.

“Seeing the Pope and receiving his blessing was the perfect way to end an incredibly difficult year,” Gaby texted me that night to share her amazement at God’s timing.   All I could do was cry, because I could see just how much they’d grown in faith and love as they confronted such serious challenges together through the year; and just how much God had entered into their suffering to transform them and draw them to Himself.

As we talked about the year’s events, I concluded that this Thanksgiving was a great metaphor for the last year of their lives, and that we’d spent it just the right way to remember their anniversary. It was hard, and nothing went according to plan. But God was in the midst of it all.

So what if we hadn’t done everything we’d scheduled on the calendar, or celebrated according to our expectations? The stomach bug had given us the opportunity to spend the week playing tag-team taking care of each other, working together to keep some semblance of tranquility and love flowing through the house. It gave us more time to rest, more time to talk, and more time to rock babies. Indeed, it gave us time to be present to the immediate needs of the present, and time to just sit still. Just like the MRSA had done.

We ended the week by watching a twenty-minute video that Grayson compiled of their amazing cross-country adventure. I was struck not only by the sheer magnitude of magnificent things their family was able to see and experience during what will surely be remembered as the trip of a lifetime, but by the palpable joy on the faces of six people who, for an intentional three months, threw off the demands of the world to find healing and peace.

“Even with getting sick, it’s been really a great visit,” Gaby said as we shared a last cup of cappuccino before their drive back to South Carolina. I had to agree. It was a wonderful visit, with unexpected gifts popping up all over the place.

Losing Our Life To Find It

Joseph Landrieu, Six Months Old

“Bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” I prayed as I made the Sign of the Cross three times on Daddy’s forehead the night before last. He looked up at me wide-eyed from his bed, reminding me of my own children when they settled down for prayer and a good night kiss before they fell asleep.

“He’s like a little child,” my mother said moments later about my fragile, eighty-six-year-old Parkinson’s ridden father. “He’s reverted completely to a child,” she repeated with a mix of surprise and sadness.

We all knew this day was coming. Even so, it’s disarming to watch a man who was previously so strong, robust, and physically adept slip into helplessness.

My mind flashes to one of the sweetest times I ever spent with my Dad—the semester he took my “Healthcare Ethics” course at Our Lady of Holy Cross College almost a decade ago. Proud as a peacock that I was teaching college, he was delighted to audit my course and the students loved him. He read and highlighted the course textbook diligently, then kept it on the table right next to his easy chair in the living room so he could show it to everyone who came to the house. The Parkinson’s had just started to set in at the time, and, thankfully, the heavy shaking it caused was largely controlled by medication.

Early one Tuesday morning I picked Daddy up for class, as I’d been doing all semester. We drove across the Greater New Orleans Bridge to the Westbank, where the small, Catholic college sits near the Mississippi River. We pulled some ripe oranges from the full fruit tree next to the parking lot, then made our way through the back door of the school building. After riding the elevator up one floor, we began the long trek down the white tiled hallway toward the classroom where thirty students waited.

About halfway there Daddy’s legs simply froze, and he stood with a frightened look on his face internally commanding them to move forward. No dice. Within seconds he was doubled over weeping heavily, obviously grieving the loss of control over his body. “Come on, Dad,” I encouraged as I wrapped my elbow tightly through his to help propel him forward. “You can do it.”  We arrived late for class, and while he put on a brave face, I could tell he was shaken by the realization of his escalating condition. Those were the birth pangs of a disease that would eventually make it nearly impossible for him to walk or talk.

Staring down at Daddy’s limp, frail body, I pondered the mystery of losing our strength, our abilities, our life, as we knew it, to prepare for eternal life. There is apparently tremendous grace in ceasing to depend upon ourselves, and in learning to depend completely on God and others. The last season of a long life is generally one of deep vulnerability and stripping, a taking off of defenses, coping mechanisms, and masks. It is a sacred season wherein we return to being bathed, fed, diapered, and carried; offering us  the opportunity to recover—in spite of withered skin—babe flesh hearts.

It takes most of us a whole lifetime to arrive at the place which nature finally offers as a gift—to powerlessness—the thing we’ve often feared the most, fought hardest against, and tried to fend off unceasingly with an arsenal of our own personal strength.  In the end, powerlessness is a grace that invites us to surrender, training us to open our hands to simply receive from God and others. Powerlessness is heaven’s kiss, a kiss that beckons us to trust, a kiss that invites us home to the place where we will finally understand that we are infinitely loved by a God who sees us as we are truly meant to be—little children.

“Good night, Daddy. I love you.” I said softly as I bent down to kiss his child-like face. “All is well. Be at peace.”

Our Boils and Broken Bones

Photo Credit: WikimediaCommoms/ Public Domain

With two new books hot off the press about serious financial corruption in the Vatican, and a new movie opening today about the massive cover up of child sexual abuse by Church officials in Boston, I’ve been prayerfully reflecting on the issue of corruption in the Church. Okay, to be honest, I’ve been severely lamenting the reality of such widespread depravity, even as I’ve repeated the standard line to myself that all but one of Jesus’ handpicked band of apostles betrayed, denied or abandoned him during His Passion.

I remember the shock waves that went through the Church when the sexual abuse crisis exploded right after the turn of the millennium—while the world was freshly reeling from 911. Somehow—maybe because I was still riding the wave of excitement ushered in by the Jubilee Year 2000, the birth of our fifth child, and a brand new Masters Degree in Theology—I barely winced. “The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, is at once holy and always in need of purification," I would tell outraged friends, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. “The Church is a mess because sinners like you and me are in it,” I would offer with a sardonic smile. “Besides, have you met my family?” That would usually lighten things up considerably.

But these days, as scandal after scandal breaks, I’m doing a lot more than wincing. I’m weeping. I’ve cried hard tears not only over the new revelations of misconduct in the Vatican, but about the divisive and vitriolic attacks that seem to be coming from every direction in the Church: “conservatives” attacking “progressives,” “left” accusing “right," "traditionalists" suspecting the Pope—with one well respected Catholic blogger’s excommunication even being demanded because she insinuated we might rethink letting Catholics in irregular marriages receive Communion. Really? “Why so much iniquity and rancor, Lord?” I’ve asked repeatedly. “What is going on here?”

The Lord reminded me of a passage from my own book, Miracle Man, wherein I described my profuse discouragement over the tsunami that hit our lives after I began praying seriously for our family’s healing:

Though I thought it meant that God would wave a magic wand over my family and me, and with Mary’s motherly intercession make everything better instantaneously, I’m beginning to understand that real cleansing is more like a boil erupting than a magic bullet, and that it takes time both to extract the infection from the wound and to repair the damage that’s been done. Furthermore, it ain’t very pretty when it happens. But neither was the Crucifixion. Salvation has always been a messy business, and the scandal is that God’s right there in the midst of all of it.

The scandal of Christianity is not that there are sinners (even serious ones) in the Church. No. The scandal of Christianity is that an all-holy God dwells in the midst of such sinners, and that—as Christ’s Cross and Resurrection so eloquently communicate—He mysteriously calls forth good from even the most outrageous evil. The scandal of Christianity is that Christ makes Himself present in the world in and through a broken Body of believers—a Body whose bones snap loudly in our ears as they are reset that we may walk, and not limp, forward. The scandal of Christianity is that Christ’s once-for-all Crucifixion is made present constantly in history—through our individual and collective sins, through the sins of the whole world, for which we daily beg for mercy.

I, for one, would prefer the magic bullet. But that’s not the way God chose, or chooses, to redeem the world.

What is happening in the Catholic Church? God is allowing the infected areas within the Church to be exposed and lanced, in order that she might be healed. He is applying the medicine of the Cross to human sin, starting with His own household. He is resetting the broken bones of a battered Body—the same Body that He uses to effect redemption in the world.

This is grace. This is Christ’s healing, bloody grace at work in the Church, bringing her steadily to salvation.

“Right now, in the midst of the scandals, we have experienced what it means to be very stunned by how wretched the Church is, by how much her members fail to follow Christ. That is the one side, which we are forced to experience for our humiliation, for our real humility. The other side is that, in spite of everything, he does not release his grip on the Church. In spite of the weakness of the people to whom he shows himself, he keeps the Church in his grasp, he raises up saints in her, and makes himself present through them. I believe that these two feelings belong together: the deep shock over the wretchedness, the sinfulness of the Church—and the deep shock over the fact that he doesn’t drop this instrument, but that he works with it; that he never ceases to show himself through and in the Church.        Pope Benedict XVI*

*From Light of the World,A Conversation with Peter Seewald, page 173.

Living Mercy

“I was scandalized by the story of the prodigal son,” Fr. Maximo shared as he stood on the altar before hundreds of us who came together to celebrate Communita Cenacolo’s Festival of Life—all united because we have experienced first hand the ravages of addiction in our families. “I was the elder brother, I had done everything right, and I was outraged that the Father would show that kind of mercy to the son who squandered everything. It was a scandal to me.”

My husband, Mark, and I looked at each other knowingly, shaking our heads in acknowledgement. We’d been discussing this very topic for weeks; as we sadly observed the division, accusations, nail biting and downright panic increasingly explode in the Church over Pope Francis’ fervent call to mercy. As the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy approaches on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), Pope Francis has reminded us that “the Church’s first duty is not to hand down condemnations or anathemas, but to proclaim God’s mercy, to call to conversion, and to lead all men and women to salvation in the Lord”* (cf. Jn. 12:44-50).

What is this mercy of which Pope Francis constantly speaks? And why does it scandalize so many of us? As Pope St. John Paul II explained it in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich In Mercy”), God’s mercy “showed itself…as love that gives, love more powerful than betrayal, grace stronger than sin.”*

The families of Communita Cenacolo experience the mercy of God concretely when we show up at the Community’s doors, our lives in shambles from addiction and its beastly effects. Most of us are exceedingly happy to find such a place to bring our desperate children, hoping against hope that the Community will “fix” them and set their lives aright. We quickly learn that the focus of the Community is not to “fix” our children. It is instead to introduce them to a loving, merciful God, who like the prodigal son’s father, runs to meet them with open arms and a heartfelt kiss. It is to convey to them the inestimable gift of their very existence, and to communicate to them the truth that God loves them personally and passionately, no matter what they have done. The Community invites our children to open themselves to God’s mercy—the place where His infinite love meets their most wretched sins. And it extends the same invitation to us.

Many parents show up at the Community as elder brothers, shouldering a long list of grievances of what our addicted children have “done to us”—the ways they wronged us, betrayed us, squandered the family inheritance. We are soon challenged to acknowledge the reality that we have all sinned, all been prodigals, all fallen short of the love and glory of God. We are asked to honestly examine our own part in our family drama of addiction, and to admit our faults, failures and sins both to ourselves and to a loving God who takes pity on us and who yearns to greet us, also, in the embrace of His forgiveness and love.

Mercy is not a cheap pass for our wrongdoing. It is, instead, the very intersection where our transgressions meet Love; the place where a personal encounter with Love Himself impels us to change our minds, hearts and lives. This is what conversion is all about.

True conversion of heart—admitting that we are poor and weak, and surrendering completely to the love and mercy of God—eludes those who are convinced they’ve “got it right,” have “done it right,” and therefore “deserve” the feast. It eludes those, as well, who refuse to return to the Father’s house because they are convinced they are too tattered, torn, and tainted to be forgiven. Real heart conversion finds those who awaken to the glance of the Father—a tender, loving Father who has never ceased to long for us, look for us, and await our return.

The more the human conscience succumbs to secularization, loses its sense of the very meaning of the word "mercy," moves away from God and distances itself from the mystery of mercy, the more the Church has the right and the duty to appeal to the God of mercy "with loud cries.” These "loud cries" should be the mark of the Church of our times, cries uttered to God to implore His mercy, the certain manifestation of which she professes and proclaims as having already come in Jesus crucified and risen, that is, in the Paschal Mystery. It is this mystery which bears within itself the most complete revelation of mercy, that is, of that love which is more powerful than death, more powerful than sin and every evil, the love which lifts man up when he falls into the abyss and frees him from the greatest threats.

Pope St. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, paragraph 15

*From Pope Francis closing remarks to the Synod of Bishops on the Family, October 24, 2015.

*Pope St. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, footnote 52.

To Ponder: Has Pope Francis' call to mercy prompted me to reflect more deeply upon this attribute of God?

To Pray: Father in Heaven, may I receive the gift of your merciful heart with which to embrace myself and everyone you send into my life. Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine. Amen.

The Scandal of God's Love

I sat at the dinner table of a friend recently and asked: “Do you believe that God loves you? Have you had a personal encounter with the love of God?” Much to his obvious dismay, he answered no. But his eyes, heart and voice were full of hunger to know God’s love. I want that, he communicated with ardent longing.

I shared with him my own story of “waking up” to the love of God. Much like what St. Augustine described in his famous Confessions, God literally shattered my darkness and unbelief with His majestic presence and personal love. I was agnostic at the time, and in painful desperation, I begged God to show me if He was real.

You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.

St. Augustine, Confessions 

My life has never been the same. God’s love changed and transformed me, and I have hungered and thirsted for more of Him ever since. He has brought me along a continual path of conversion these past thirty years, wherein He has given me the grace to love Him and the desire to do His will.

This is precisely the Good News we are meant share with others when we evangelize: I have encountered the gracious love of God and so can you! God’s love will change your life! Yet so often, we communicate the opposite message, saying something that’s more like: Get your life straight! Then God will love you!

Sadly, it practically creates a scandal to suggest that God loves each and every one of us infinitely and unconditionally—and that nothing we think, say or do can make Him love us more or less. Do we really believe that deep down? Yet, this is the incredible truth of who God is: God is love, and we if we do love Him, it is only because He loved us first (1 John 4:19).

There is an urgent need in the Church today to proclaim the love, kindness and mercy of God, because it is the personal experience of God’s love and kindness that leads us to change. We see this over and over in the Gospels, where sinners meet Christ and change in response to His love. But tragically, it seems that so many people—even in the Church—have never encountered the tender love of God, hence the profoundly wounded condition of both the Church and the world.

I believe this is the message Pope Francis is trying to convey as He speaks constantly of God’s love and mercy, proclaiming love to a world bleeding to death from open wounds caused by an alienation from God that has led to numerous personal and social evils. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds... And you have to start from the ground up.”*

How do we heal the wounds of the world? With the same remedy that Jesus applied to the wounded of the world. With Love.  Love that goes out of itself to meet sinners right where they are. Love that eats with prostitutes and tax collectors and is not afraid to mix with the lost, the unrighteous, and the hurting. Love that is willing to proclaim liberty to captives and a recovery of sight to the blind.

This is only possible when we, ourselves, “have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16); when we, ourselves, have encountered the medicine of God’s love. When we do, we will want to share “the love of Jesus which we have received, the experience of salvation which urges us to an even greater love of him.” It is then that we will “feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known.”*

This is the new evangelization to which we are being called. For it is only a heartfelt witness of the experience of God’s love that will awaken us once more to the goodness this world so sorely needs.

*From “A Big Heart Open to God,” America magazine Sept. 19, 2013.

*From Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, Par. 264.

Becoming Like Children

Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.   Matthew 18:2

I have noted with some interest this week that several of the daily Mass readings—on the heels of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States—have been about becoming like children. A defining feature of children is that they trust their parents; trust that is also meant to be a delineating mark of Catholics in regard to the Pope. Yet, while many “faithful” Catholics spent the week picking apart Pope Francis’ messages—looking for a blunder, for something with which they disagreed—it seems that his messages managed to touch and transform the hearts of many who supposedly do “not follow us,” which God-incidentally, was the Gospel for Sunday’s Mass in Philadelphia (Mark 9:38-43).

I sat glued to the television watching the Pope make his way from the White House to Ground Zero, to the United Nations, and through the City of Brotherly Love. I was struck by the fact that the secular news media, typically known for their full frontal attack on the Catholic Church, gave non-stop coverage to a man who one mystified reporter laughingly stated was “not a rock star coming with pomp and pageantry,” but the Bishop of Rome, of all people. Furthermore, the personal reaction that secular news reporters had to the successor of St. Peter was nothing short of stunning.

“Here he comes! Here he comes!” a CNN reporter squealed gleefully as the Pope’s motorcade approached, unable to hide her excitement. “The crowd is electric as the shadow of Peter passes by!” she said breathlessly as the Pope’s motorcade passed the CNN platform. She then went on to share that she had left the Catholic Church in dismay over the sexual abuse scandals, but that the love she’s felt from Pope Francis has reignited her faith, bringing her back to the Church. “He passed right by our CNN platform out there and I can’t tell you what I felt. I didn’t expect it. It was the presence of holiness and goodness…Pope Francis is speaking a message that is hungrily received by a world that is desperate to hear good news.”

That message is the unconditional love and mercy of God for every single one of us; a communiqué that is a balm to the ears of so many who are beaten down and exhausted by the amount of hatred, rancor and division in this world.

My husband, Mark, and I watched the coverage in stunned silence, smiling broadly over the childlike exuberance repeatedly displayed by secular news reporters on both CNN and MSNBC. It was real. Their hearts were touched by Pope Francis’ love. So much so that New York Times reporter David Brooks said Sunday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press:

"the big effect of this week is not what (the Pope) says on global warming. It's that hundreds of thousands of people will have their hearts opened by his presence. And (for) some percentage, their life will be utterly altered by this week. Today in Philadelphia, there'll be tens of thousands of people whose souls are just exploding. And they will look back on this moment as the moment their life changed."

His words resonated with what broadcast journalist Maria Shriver wrote in her blog on Monday, the day after the Pope departed:

"Francis has had a dramatic impact on my life this past week. It’s almost hard to put into words…No, I didn’t get to interview him. I didn’t even get to meet him, but it didn’t actually matter because his words met my heart and ignited my spirit. I felt them deep in my soul. Every sermon, every speech moved me further, moved me deeper. Some I’ve read and reread 10 times."

She then proceeded to describe how, since Pope Francis arrived in the United States, she has taken “an internal inventory of everything in her life, reassessing power, success, joy, money…I’m going forward differently because of him.”

All of this has made me ask myself: have I been as open as those who don’t claim to adhere to everything the Church teaches, yet whose hearts were accessible enough to listen, to trust, and to learn from what Pope Francis had to say? Am I willing to turn, to change, to let the Pope’s visit make a difference in my life? Will I, like Pope Francis, approach others with love, mercy and kindness—which will surely win more souls for Christ than any good dose of scolding about the doctrines of the Catholic Church ever could?

I must admit that on day one of his visit, I wanted the Pope to read our President the riot act. Instead, he simply shared the beauty and joy of his faith in Jesus Christ, as he continued to do throughout his journey. By day five, I could see that Pope Francis was disarming the skeptics and unbelievers with humility and unconditional love, the hallmark of his childlike heart—signs that are meant to be a hallmark of every child’s heart.

Who Are We To Judge?

While I had planned to write a blog today on why I love Pope Francis, my daughter, Kara Klein, sent me the following blog this morning.   I think she is spot on.  We can all learn from Pope Francis' attitude of love and mercy, especially when we are tempted to fight (yes, I'm preaching to myself:)  Below is a picture of me kissing Pope Francis in Rome when our marriage was blessed--truly a highlight in the lives of my husband, Mark, and I.  He asked us to pray for him and we assured him we would.  God bless Pope Francis!

"Who am I to judge?"

These very words both moved and enraged countless hearts at the start of Pope Francis' pontificate. Since elected pope, Francis' words and actions have been unpredictable, including during his first days in America when he addressed the White House and the U.S. Congress, emphasizing issues like climate change and seemingly steering clear of anything controversial.

When I first read his speeches I, like many, felt anger. "Why would he stand before our government and not reprimand them for legalizing gay marriage and slaughtering millions of babies through abortion... key issues which the Catholic Church fights vigorously against?"

But then I thought: "Who am I to judge?"

Could it just be possible that the Holy Father knows a great deal more than I do about the world's problems, has a much broader and global perspective, sees political relationships from a completely different angle than I am capable of, and hears things from the Holy Spirit that I am not privy to?

Could it just be possible that there is wisdom in how the pope chooses to behave, and in the words he chooses to use? That if he met with Congress only to step in with the most controversial topics, that they would immediately shut down, and his speech would fall on deaf ears?

Instead, like Jesus often does in Scripture, he meets them where they are. And so very much like his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, he "speaks the truth always and uses words when necessary." He passes on dining with the rich and powerful in order to feed the homeless, which turns more heads and hearts in this country than any mere words ever could.

Could it just be possible that he is showing us the way of love? As Jesus said, "I have not come to condemn the world but to save it” (John 3:17). Could it be possible that through this way, abortionists, homosexuals, atheists, those who feel most bitter about the Church and have seen it as a great enemy just might be able to say:

"What is this Catholic Church? I have to know more! And who is this Jesus Christ that Pope Francis serves?" That their ears might be opened to actually hear the truth, and their eyes be opened to see: "Oh! Why doesn't the Catholic Church support abortion? Because it loves! Why doesn't the Church support gay marriage? Because it loves!"

Pope Francis is a pope of love. Interesting that he does not put himself above meeting with Obama and his friends, above feeding the homeless, and that he also refuses to judge another person. But all too many of us are all too quick to judge Francis.

I think many of the things Pope Francis says and does, like Jesus, are not for we "righteous" but for "sinners"--meeting and speaking to them where they are. “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do,” Jesus pointedly said to the Pharisees when they challenged Him on eating with tax collectors and sinners. “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13).  This is a pope of mercy, speaking to a world desperately in need of mercy. In the end, who are we to judge?

Harsh and divisive language does not befit the tongue of a pastor; it has no place in his heart; although it may momentarily seem to win the day, only the enduring allure of goodness and love remains truly convincing.

Pope Francis to the United States Bishops

Sowing Seeds of Faith

My good friend, Pat, was the first person I knew who returned to the Catholic Church. We struck up a deep friendship at a little evangelical church in New Orleans, and five years later the Blessed Mother brought us both back to the faith of our childhood. Pat who now lives in Asheville, N.C., recently launched a new ministry called “Theotokos Prayer.” The ministry evangelizes others and encourages them to pray through the vehicle of beautiful, handcrafted prayer strands. Each strand features personalized medals, crosses and colors which hold a special meaning for the recipient. My prayer strand, which Pat gave me as a wedding gift, has a medal of my patron, St. Jude, as well as a cross with the four major basilicas of Rome on it. I had it blessed by Pope Francis during our honeymoon in Rome and I absolutely love it!

It is my delight and honor to introduce to you “Theotokos Prayer” by sharing with you Pat’s first blog from their website. I encourage you to visit www.theotokosprayer.com to order a personalized prayer strand for yourself or someone you love.  I promise, you will not be disappointed! Blessings and grace! Judy

How Theotokos Began

“That man has learned to live well who has learned to pray well.”     St. Augustine

Theotokos began with a handmade gift of a St. Joseph’s chaplet. My dear friend, Betsy, had begun making chaplets and wanted to share this ministry with me. We then started to give them to the homeless, First Communion classes, family and friends. We discovered along the way that people of all denominations and walks of life were drawn to this form of prayer—using prayer strands on which to pray. Customizing the strands (which have the number of beads of a decade of the Rosary) by choosing specific beads and patron saints made the strands even more meaningful for the recipient.  I would write letters to the recipients affirming God’s love for them and their family often during times of great struggle, as in the loss of a loved one, or deep joy, such as the birth of a child.

As this journey unfolded, friends and family encouraged me to develop a way to reach more people. Thus, Theotokos was born. The purpose of Theotokos, which means “God bearer” or “Mother of God” in Greek, is threefold. Foremost is to have people draw closer to God and each other through prayer. Secondly, to reach people who would not ordinarily be drawn to the Rosary, Our Blessed Mother and the Saints.  Thirdly, to have the strands blessed, thereby fulfilling the request of the Blessed Mother for people to have blessed objects in their homes and on their person.

The Pope has called for creative ways to evangelize our culture and this endeavor seeks to do just that. There are moments in everyone’s life that are opportunities to reach out to our family and friends. These prayer strands are one simple way of reintroducing faith to the people in our circle of influence.

Currently there are five strands for specific occasions or needs: the Child Strand for the birth of a child, Baptism, or First Communion; the Family Strand to aid families in praying for one another; the Healing Strand for those suffering in all the forms our suffering may take; the Wedding Strand, and finally the New Orleans Saints strand (they need a lot of prayer). People are drawn to beauty and each of these strands is carefully crafted to be as beautiful and appealing as possible. I also have images enclosed with each prayer strand that evoke beauty, such as a picture of Mother Teresa or a bride with her new spouse. The one closest to my heart is of our eldest daughter, who died in 2001. This image of Ashley embracing her then two-year-old daughter so lovingly depicts the treasure of children.

Prayer is a gift that is meant to be shared with and for others.  I am humbled at being able to bring this endeavor to fruition with the aid of the Holy Spirit and the inestimable help of dear friends accompanying me along the way. Thank you!

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”     Philippians 4:6-7

The Holy Name of Mary

Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

For many years, I have tried to explain to my Protestant friends how and why Catholics love Mary. I came across this exquisite reflection by Thomas Merton this week in his book, "New Seeds of Contemplation."  He says it much better than I could ever hope to do, so I share this with you on this special feast of Our Lady.  May we all come to resemble Jesus by resembling Mary, whose poverty, hiddenness, and total abandonment to God made her a perfect instrument of His glory. 

Blessings and grace to you!  Judy  

Mary alone, of all the saints, is, in everything, incomparable. She has the sanctity of them all and yet resembles none of them. And still we can talk of being like her. This likeness to her is not only something to desire – it is one human quality most worthy of our desire: but the reason for that is that she, of all creatures, most perfectly recovered the likeness to God that God willed to find, in varying degrees, in us all.

It is necessary, no doubt, to talk about her privileges as if they were something that could be made comprehensible in human language and could be measured by some human standard. It is most fitting to talk about her as a Queen and to act as if you knew what it meant to say she has a throne above all the angels. But this should not make anyone forget that her highest privilege is her poverty and her greatest glory is that she is most hidden, and the source of all her power is that she is as nothing in the presence of Christ, of God.

This is often forgotten by Catholics themselves, and therefore it is not surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God. They imagine, and sometimes we can understand the reasons for doing so, that Catholics treat the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being in her own right, as if she had some glory, some power, some majesty of her own that placed her on a level with Christ himself. They regard the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a kind of apotheosis and her Queenship as a strict divinization. Hence her place in the Redemption would seem to be equal to that of her Son. But this is all completely contrary to the true mind of the Catholic Church. It forgets that Mary's chief glory is in her nothingness, in the fact of being “Handmaid of the Lord,” as one who in becoming the Mother of God acted simply in loving submission to His command, in the pure obedience of faith. She is blessed not because of some mythical pseudo-divine prerogative, but in all her human and womanly limitations as one who has believed. It is the faith and fidelity of this humble handmaid, “full of grace” that enables her to be the perfect instrument of God, and nothing else but His instrument. The work that was done in her was purely the work of God. “He that is mighty hath done great things in me.” The glory of Mary is purely and simply the glory of God in her, and she, like anyone else, can say that she has nothing that she has not received from Him through Christ.

As a matter of fact, this is precisely her greatest glory: that having nothing of her own, retaining nothing of a “self” that could glory in anything for her own sake, she placed no obstacle to the mercy of God and in no way resisted His love and His will. Hence she received more from Him than any other saint. He was able to accomplish His will perfectly in her, and His liberty was in no way hindered from its purpose by the presence of an egotistical self in Mary. She was and is in the highest sense a person precisely because, being “immaculate,” she was free from any taint of selfishness that might obscure God's light in her being. She was then a freedom that obeyed Him perfectly and in this obedience found the fulfillment of perfect love…

In all the great mystery of Mary, then, one thing remains most clear: that of herself she is nothing, and that God for our sakes delighted to manifest His glory and His love in her.

It is because she is, of all the saints,  the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possesses as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God. And we will most truly possess Him when we have emptied ourselves and become poor and hidden as she is, resembling Him by resembling her...

This absolute emptiness, this poverty, this obscurity holds within it the secret of all joy because it is full of God.  To seek this emptiness is true devotion to the Mother of God.  To find it is to find her. And to be hidden in its depths is to be full of God as she is full of Him, and to share her mission of bringing Him to all men.

Amazing Grace

Today's blog is dedicated to our precious parish angel, Anita, whose name means "Grace." She was hit by a car last Sunday while riding her beloved blue bike, and will be buried today.  Anita had a way of making everyone feel special, and her entire life was a prayer.  She spent her days moving between the Adoration Chapel, Our Lady of the Lake Church and the cemetery, praying for the living and the dead.  Heaven has won a holy saint.  We have lost a friend.  Rest in peace, sweet Anita.  You will remain in our hearts forever.

The first time Grace walked into the Adoration Chapel that sits beside Our Lady of the Lake Church, I was taken aback by her disheveled appearance and the dirt that was evident on her body and clothing. But what really got my attention was how Grace prayed, out loud and filter-free as she knelt before the stunning five-foot gold mosaic of Our Lady of Perpetual Help that adorns the front wall of the chapel.

“Mary, you are so beautiful and I’m so ugly,” she mumbled, seemingly unaware that I and the other adorers in the small chapel could hear her most intimate prayers. “I love you so much, Mary,” she continued. “I don’t have any friends, but you are my friend, Mary…I love you so much.”

My heart raced as I peered unintentionally into Grace’s soul, feeling like a voyeur, wanting to cover my ears. But she continued on, unfazed by those around her. “I’ll be back to visit you this afternoon, Mary. You are so beautiful. I love you so much.”

Off she went out the chapel door, making her way through the church’s large front entrance, then up the aisle to Our Lady’s altar to speak to Mary again, up close and personal.

I watched that same scene play itself out again and again over the last few years, as Grace became a fixture both in the Adoration Chapel and the church. Her daily prayers in adoration became a litany of sorts, always including the familiar refrains: “You’re so beautiful, Mary,” and “I love you so much.”

A while back, I noticed that Grace was staying in church for Mass, and I could see that she was feeling more at home among our little community of daily Mass-goers who befriended her. One day, I knew it was my turn to get to know Grace, and I walked up and introduced myself.   Standing outside the chapel beside her ever-present blue bike, we carried on a conversation for all of ten minutes, and we became fast friends.

I learned that she lived with her elderly father and that she had two grown children of her own—a son and a daughter. She beamed about the fact that they are good kids, that they both have good jobs and that they come to visit her on the weekends. She told me her life has not been easy, as most of it was spent in the now shuttered Southeast Hospital for the Mentally Ill. She moved there as a teen when she “started hearing voices,” and remained until the hospital closed its doors a couple of years ago.

I shared that I was a newlywed—that I had been widowed a few years earlier and had met my new husband, Mark, in the Adoration Chapel. I told her about my five children, and asked her to pray for their various struggles. We exchanged a few more of life’s particulars, then I watched her take off on her bike and ride the two blocks to the lakefront to drink her Coke beside Lake Pontchartrain’s murky waters.

Grace and I spoke almost daily after that, but never without her telling me “You look so beautiful today! I love your shirt!” before she asked, “How are your children?”

Recently, as I sat in the chapel praying, Grace came in. Kneeling in front of the mosaic of Our Lady she began to pray out loud in her customary style. But this time around, what came out of Grace’s mouth nearly knocked me over.

“Thank you Mary for my friends, Mark and Judy,” she began. “They are so cute together. I pray that you bless them and give them a happy life,” she went on. “I love you so much, Mary. Please bless my friends, Mark and Judy, and give them a happy life.”

As she prayed, my eyes watered full as I blinked back tears over the holy litanies of God’s beloved daughter, Grace. She considered me a friend; and I had grown to love her, too.  I could faintly hear the voice of the  Lord echoing right back to her: “You are beautiful, my beloved. There is no blemish in you” (Song of Songs 4:7).