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benedict option, Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Evangelization, feast days

Saints alive: In the world, but not of the world

November 1, 2017

It’s the Feast of All Saints, which means everyone has a raging sugar hangover and we’re on our second round of costumes in 24 hours – which, I admit, sounds miserable but which I manage by encouraging, nay, insisting, that would-be Halloween costume contenders transition almost effortlessly into saint costumes. So, for example, this year we have Darth Vader/St. Ignatius of Loyola, Luke Skywalker/St. Francis of Assisi, a crazy cat lady/St. Therese of Lisieux on her First Communion day (okay, that one did not transition well AT ALL), and the Chic-fil-A cow/the holy cow of Bethlehem (what? I’m tired).

Jedi look an awful lot like Franciscans, don’t you think?

The point is, if I’m going to be a fun mom and let them trick or treat the night before, it sort of behoves me to bust my butt making sure All Saints Day isn’t a big ‘ol womp womp compared with the glories of trick or treating. Which, happily, in the Catholic mega-community we’ve worked at creating here in Denver, with some help from our friends and a huge helping of grace, is not difficult to do.

I have to admit to not loving the rush of hustling bodies into costumes for the second day in a row and skidding out the door for 8 am Mass at school (costumes optional. But not really, unless you want to be the weirdo without a halo), but I do it because it’s important – it’s essential to us – that our kids know the entire point of Halloween is to point us to this great feast of all the members of the Church Triumphant. In a supremely teachable moment last night, the stuff Twitter wars are made of, truly, 5 year old John Paul asked “mom, why do we celebrate something evil right before we celebrate something holy?” and I all but shouted to STOP THE TRAIN BECAUSE HONEY, we are not celebrating evil, we’re looking it in the eye and saying, “nuh uh, we know who defeated death. And the victory is His.)

But it was a good reminder of how hard we need to work to present an attractive, compelling, and profoundly true narrative to counter the culture’s obsession with death, gore, and all things temporal.

And probably I’m not going to get the neighbors to dismantle their sadistic graveyard for the entire month of October, but I can surely make certain that our family parties hard come November 1st, drilling it home to our kids that Halloween is the low-key dress rehearsal for the big dance. So we trick or treat and have fun with the neighbors, but the real party is the next day, starting with Mass, a huge feast with all our little saint icons and peg dolls gathered around the huge dining room table, and culminating with a massive party with 100 of our closest friends at the home of our favorite religious order, the Servants of Christ Jesus.

Could we skip trick or treating all together and pretend Halloween doesn’t exist? Sure, we could. And that would be fine. But it wouldn’t be super realistic. Our kids see the entire city decked out in ghoulish decor come late September, and they know something is going on, and so we ride the wave of momentum driving their excitement right on into November 1st, kind of the way we take the premature hype and hustle of retail Christmas during Advent and use it to point out to them how insanely excited the whole world is about Jesus’ birthday, “they can’t even wait till Christmas to start celebrating!” And then we have to follow up by keeping Christmas alive for 12 days, which is 11 days longer than even K-Love is willing to go.

But being Christian means being countercultural. And for our crew, we’ve determined that our counter-culturalism will take the form of willingly embracing what is good in the wider culture, and using it as a springboard into what is even greater: the truth of the Gospel.

We see these widely-celebrated secular holiday seasons as a kind of protoevangelium of what is good and true and beautiful, but which falls just short of the entire reason for joy: Jesus Christ.

So yes, Halloween, but only because it’s the eve of the festival of all the great saints of heaven, triumphant in eternity because of Christ’s trampling over death. And yes, Christmas cookies in early December, but only because we’re sharing in our neighbor’s joy that something so wonderful happened to the human race 2,000 years ago that we haven’t stopped celebrating since, even if many have largely forgotten the cause for celebration.

In entering into what is good and lovely in the culture and using it to reinforce the truths we’re installing in our children’s hearts, our prayer is that we’re forming not only good disciples for Christ, but good missionary disciples. Able to engage and participate in the culture of which they are very much apart, never forgetting for a moment they are very much set apart.

So today, we feast. We get up early for Mass as a family. We eat too much candy. I make dessert even though it’s comically superfluous in light of 4 overflowing pumpkins atop the fridge. We attend a raucous party on a school night that is wildly inconvenient and unwise in terms of sugar consumption. And tonight during bedtime prayers, we’ll light every candle in the house and crank Matt Maher’s “Litany of the Saints,” invoking the prayers and memories of all our heavenly friends. And did I mention we eat candy?

My kids know plenty about alllllll the Marvel superheroes. They have the Star Wars universe all but memorized without even trying. It’s not realistic for me to expect them to fall in love with the real superheroes of this world unless I put in the effort and the energy to make sure they are known, loved, and emulated. Challenge accepted.

(And sure, we could skip Halloween altogether. And if your family does, that’s totally cool.) Me? I like a little bit of a challenge. I like trying to out-cool the culture in terms of which party is bigger, badder, and lasts later into the night. I like letting our kids have a taste of what’s good from an earthly perspective and allowing it to whet their appetite for what’s good from a heavenly perspective.

And I love teaching them about the saints, our real-life friends in heaven, alive in the presence of Jesus and cheering us on as we run so as to win the race.

(Don’t have a favorite saint? Click here to discover a new heavenly bff of your very own.)

(Want to learn more about a specific saint? Check CNA’s saint archives here.)

 

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Evangelization, Family Life, feast days, liturgical living, saint days

Liturgical living for the lazy mom

October 26, 2017

Hey, do you have a kid or several and are trying to raise them Catholic and sort of had no idea, when you were growing up, that there were liturgical seasons, let alone an entire liturgical calendar cranking along in tandem with the secular year?

Yeah, me neither. I mean Advent and Lent, sure, but between public school and a decidedly lackluster parish, I credit my parents immensely that we ended up Catholic at all. Never mind that I didn’t know the Memorare till I was 23. They nailed the basics.

Lucky for you, for the past 7 delightful years, thanks to a combination of maternal hormones and the internet, I’ve been working to enthusiastically integrate feast days, baptismal day celebrations, and an holistic (I hope) recognition of the liturgical year in my own family. And I’ve got you covered for ideas.

Here’s why you should listen to me over some domestic goddess with finer attention to detail and legitimate retail-level crafting skills: because I am going to tell you how to do it in the absolute laziest, most basic way possible. On the off chance that there are other women out there who, like me, would actually prefer to do laundry or write up budget reports than craft elaborate saint-themed art projects, I figured it might be worth a write up.

(I happen to think those aforementioned domestic goddesses are pretty extraordinary, and I love catching a glimpse of their domestic liturgies through instagram or Facebook. But don’t ever show my kids what’s going on in their backyards, lest I have to devise something more profound than “here’s a marshmallow in your lunchbox: happy baptismal day, son!”)

Let’s make a little list, shall we? It seems to me we have a few categories at hand: major feasts and seasons of the liturgical year, family/personal devotions to particular saints, and baptismal days.

We’ll start with the major feasts/seasons, since Advent is very nearly upon us.

I’ve written a bit about how we’ve celebrated Advent in our family, and you’re welcome to check out some of these older posts for ideas. Since adding more kids and chaos to the mix (sweet chaos, but, nonetheless…) we’ve simplified further. First, an awareness that it *is* a different season for the Church. We point out the swapping of missals at Mass towards the end of November, telling our crew we’re entering into a season of preparation for baby Jesus as an entire Church. We point out the changing music, and we try to listen to a little bit of it at home. I try to keep the Christmas music to a minimum before the blessed event, but we’re not militant about that. If it’s a Sunday in Advent or a big feast day in our family (Juan Diego, St. Nicholas) we’ll crank dat Bing, never mind that we’re still weeks out from Christmas. But I try to steer clear of the 24-hour stations in the car, and impress upon the small people that while it’s exciting to prepare for Jesus, He’s not here yet, and so we’re going to make a tiny little sacrifice and not listen to Christmas music for a couple more weeks. (Full disclosure: this year, being uber pregnant and needing the serotonin boost, I may be much more lenient with this practice. And I may have listened to the James Taylor holiday station on Pandora for an hour yesterday.)

Some other Advent ideas include a little box of straw and a small wooden manger for the kids to fill with their good deeds and sacrifices. The better behaved the kid, the softer Baby Jesus’ bed. (And the more generous Santa will be). They totally get it.

Lent is a little tricker since they’re younger, but we take similar care to point out the changes happening at Mass, everything from the colors of the vestments to the changing liturgical decor of the building. We emphasize not saying “Alleluia” and they enjoy cackling gleefully when they catch each other slipping up. We also reserve desserts or special treats to big feast days only (St. Joseph, St. Patrick) and do our best to have a family penance of some sort. Last year it was no DVDs in the car and guess who that ended up being the most penitential for? Yeah…

The takeaway? It doesn’t have to be elaborate, artistic, or even particularly exciting. Just bringing a child’s awareness to bear on the rhythm of the Church’s year has a profound impact on them and helps universalize the experience of Catholicism for them. Isn’t it cool, I’ll ask, that kids in Africa are also lighting the 3rd Advent candle this Sunday? Isn’t it crazy to think that Easter is already going on in Australia right now, while it’s still Holy Saturday here?

Next up we have our favorite saint days. (A saint day = generally the day he or she died, but not in every case.) This is my favorite way to celebrate, and I love that the Church gets how often we human beings need to party. Lent is crammed full of feast days (and so is Advent, for that matter) which naturally break up the otherwise solemn nature of the seasons. And? It’s been a really handy tool to deploy in order to determine whether or not dessert is an option that day. My big boys have become trained to ask “is it a feast day?” with hopeful, gleaming eyes about 30 seconds into dinner, and if it is, and if it’s a saint one or all of us are devoted to or someone is named after, you can bet there’ll be sugar for the second course.

I am not much of a baker, so most of the time we’re talking a box of gf pumpkin bread from Trader Joe’s, a handful of tootsie rolls from the back of the pantry or, yes, a big marshmallow. Popsicles if it’s summer. A trip to 7-11 for Slurpees if it’s a major cause for celebration. (7 year old boys are deeply cultured.) I love this tradition we’ve settled into because a. it self regulates our sugar intake and b. it (hopefully) indelibly links the feast days of the Church to celebration and sweetness in the minds of my children.

Don’t have a favorite/patron saint? Why not peruse the CNA saint archives and see if anyone jumps out at you. Look up the saints for the days of each family member’s birthday, for your wedding anniversary, the day you finished your medical degree, the date of your engagement, etc. You might be pleasantly shocked by what – and who – you find. If your kids are named after saints, that’s an easy one. Find the corresponding day to their name and make it a point to learn a little about the heavenly friend they share a name with. Don’t have a saintly name? Maybe there’s a variant or previously unexplored wordplay connection, like choosing a Marian feast day for a little girl named Grace (full of grace) or commemorating St. Isidore the farmer for a little boy named Hayden (too much of a stretch?).

Finally, we have baptismal days. I’ve tried to get better about, ah, actually knowing which days each of us were baptized (any idea when mine is, mom?) and making it a point to mark that momentous occasion of our entrance into the communion of saints.

I don’t dig out their baptismal candle and light it or even show them pictures of the day, though both are good ideas! I literally just identify the lucky target and we give a round of high fives or applause for the day he or she became a Christian, and I stuff a marshmallow into their lunchbox (are you sensing a high-brow culinary theme here? Good.)

Sometimes we also take a minute or two for a brief catechesis on what baptism is (entrance into the divine life of Christ), what it requires of us (fidelity to our baptismal promises), and what it entitles us to (membership in the family of God.) I’ll remind them that just as they were born into our family and did nothing to earn that belonging, so also they were born into the family of God through no merit of their own, and that it’s up to them to decide whether they want to stay there. Boom, free will in a nutshell.

The biggest reason I try to emphasize these little domestic celebrations and the larger liturgical events of the Christian year?

It’s because I know that I am competing for the hearts and minds of my children, and that the very best bet I can hedge is to attempt to inebriate them with joy. The world is a flashy, exciting, delightful place, and if I want my kids to be as excited about St. Therese as they are about the new Star Wars movie being released, I have to bring my A-game. And that needn’t mean elaborate crafts or themed meals (though it sure could!); but an intentional awareness and joyful celebration of the liturgical feasts (and fasts) of the Church year.

Will it guarantee little grown-up Catholics 30 years from now? Nope. But it sure can’t hurt. And I like to think that for little hearts and minds that do stray, free will being what it is, a sweet memory from childhood of a candlelit dinner table and mom’s lackluster dessert could go far in reigniting a weakly-flickering flame in a soul that might be struggling.

It’s not just smells and bells for the sake of keeping our bodies and minds occupied, after all, but about communicating a deeper reality to our souls that sometimes finds greater efficacy in going directly through the senses.

Plus, it’s fun to party. And Catholics really should be anxious to defend the title of throwing the very best parties, culminating, of course, in eternity.

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, coffee clicks

Coffee Clicks, {October 13th aka the Fatima Edition}

October 13, 2017

Today marks 100 years since one of the most widely-witnessed (and reported) miracles in recent human history. On October 13th, 100 years ago in field outside a small village in Portugal, 3 shepherd children to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary had been appearing (along with a crowd that journalists in attendance estimated at 70,000 witnesses) waited in expectant hope for what was to be her final appearance.

“This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, appeared to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her requests for the recitation of the rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.”

The basic message of Fatima, for all the mystique and intrigue that tends to surround it in some corners of the internet, is childishly simple: personal conversion of heart, repentance and reparation for one’s sins and the sins of others, and frequent recitation of the Rosary. By those small efforts towards personal holiness and mortification, Mary promised, the world could be saved.

A century has passed since her last visit to the muddy field that miraculously dried to dust as the sun whirled and dipped in the sky, inspiring awe and terror in the observing crowds. The argument might be made that it was the bloodiest century on record in human history, when one accounts for all the genocides, epidemics, wars, and abortions which have ravaged civilization. So the question persists: have we done what she asked, and has it been done satisfactorily?

Good question, right?

I don’t have the answer, but I do have 5 must-read pieces about Fatima and it’s continued relevance to our lives today:

-1-

Cardinal Bertone talks about the third secret: 

“The “third secret of Fatima” refers to a message during the apparitions predicting suffering and persecution of the Pope and the Church. Unlike the first two secrets – a vision of hell and a prediction of World War II – the third secret was not initially revealed by Sr. Lucia. At first, she said that Mary had not yet permitted her to reveal it to the world. Later, the Vatican chose to keep it secret until 2000, when it was finally revealed.”

-2-

Everything you need to know about Fatima: {part 1}

“…Every local bishop since has approved the apparitions and deemed them worthy of belief, the highest recognition a Marian apparition can receive from the Church.”

-3-

… And {part 2}

-4-

3 ways to obtain an indulgence for the 100th anniversary of Fatima: 

“For the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, Pope Francis has decided to grant a plenary indulgence opportunity throughout the entire anniversary year, which began Nov. 27, 2016, and will end Nov. 26, 2017.”

-5-

The times are urgent and we must heed the warnings of Our Lady:

“In 1981, Our Lady of Fatima warned through Lucia that the final battle will be against marriage and the family and that anyone who tries to defend them will experience persecution and tribulation. And here we are. Even at the highest levels of the Church, certain priests and bishops mislead God’s people. Meanwhile, clergy and faithful who seek to uphold marriage are dismissed as pharisaical, rigid and unpastoral. This was also confirmed by Our Lady of Akita in Japan:”

Tonight our Archdiocese will be formally consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary through the hands of our good and holy Archbishop Samuel Aquila. There are hundreds of priests and bishops around the world doing the same thing for their parishes and dioceses today, which is pretty amazing. Make it a point today to pray a Rosary, to share the story of Fatima with your kids or roommates around the dinner table, and to make a little act of sacrifice for the conversion of hearts – first and foremost, our own.

Skip a meal, ditch the cream in your coffee, go to bed an hour earlier than you’d like, pass on that glass of wine. (Or, you could like, always chug a half liter of glucose solution and then get your blood drawn 😉

Our Lady of Fatima, Sts. Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco – pray for us!

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, deliverance, Evangelization, prayer, spiritual warfare

I must confess: building a habit of the Sacrament of Reconciliation

September 21, 2017

When I was a Catholic kid growing up, like most Catholic kids I’ve ever known, I hated going to confession. I hated the sinking feeling in my stomach as I stood in line, palms sweating and heart speeding up as each penitent in line ahead of me disappeared behind the door with the red light overhead. I hated coming up with a list of things I was ashamed of and having to whisper them aloud to another human being, and I hated most of all knowing that Fr. Bob could probably tell just by my voice exactly who I was.

In short, I had a very human (and very typical) understanding of confession. That it was a painful, inescapable, and necessary (but why?) part of being Catholic, and I just had to soldier through it.

I think a lot of people stay in that place of understanding their whole lives. I think that’s why in a recently-released CARA study, data indicated that only around 2% of actively practicing Catholics go to confession at least once a month.

(An aside: the Church only requires us by canon law to confess our grave sins at least once a year. But, like dental hygiene and aerobic exercise, this is definitely one of those “more is more” situations).

When I was a senior in college, freshly transferred to Franciscan University of Steubenville, one of the most striking realizations I had during my first few weeks on campus was how into the sacrament of reconciliation everyone was. Daily Mass was one thing, but to see lines of college students 30, 40, 50 deep, wrapping around the back of the church not only on Saturday afternoons but during every single Mass on campus, seven days a week…that was something else. What was the deal with these kids? Were they struggling that intensely with some habitual sin that merited returning over and over and over again for fresh absolution and more grace?

As it turns out, yes.

But also, no.

Yes, they were in need of more grace, of more frequent absolution, and of greater accountability from their spiritual directors and priests. But it was precisely because they were growing in holiness that the hunger – and the need – for this beautiful sacrament of healing was that much more acute.

To borrow an analogy from the sporting world, as Michael Phelps or Philip Rivers or any other pro athlete increases in ability and performance, so too does awareness of the need arise to log more hours in the pool, to spend more hours watching film.

As God increases His activity in a soul, the sensitivity level rises, so to speak. St. John Paul II made a habit of weekly confessions during his papacy. I remember reading that sometime in my twenties and being like, um, what? WHAT? What could he possibly be getting into that necessitated 4 trips a month while I was getting by with Advent and Lent?

Holiness, it turns out.

Intimacy with the Father, bred through familiarity and a desire to conform oneself more and more closely to the heart of Jesus.

As I began to study about the sacraments on an intellectual level during my classes, (thanks, Dr. Hahn) the reality of the gift I was in possession of by nature of my baptism began to unveil itself to me on a heart level. I found myself wanting to go to Mass more than only on Sundays, not because I had to, but because I felt drawn to the Eucharist by familiarizing myself more and more with Jesus’ presence there. I was attracted to late-night Holy Hours and trips to the Port, not out of guilt or shame but because I was falling in love.

And while I’m no longer in a state of life where I can keep a weekly 2 am Eucharistic rendezvous in a shady adoration chapel downtown (Holla at me St. Pete’s) I can still avail myself frequently of the powerful, healing Sacrament of Reconciliation just by hopping in line on any given Sunday at my parish. (5 priests on staff and confessions before and after every Mass, 7 days a week. I know – we’re insanely fortunate.)

I’ve come to understand that confession is actually less about what I’m doing wrong and more about what God wants to make right in my heart. That bringing my sins into the light of His mercy and refusing to hide behind my own pride – masked as shame, but pride nonetheless – is the bravest thing I can do.

And oh, yeah, while it’s not for everyone, I stopped worrying about whether Father was going to figure me out from behind the screen and started plopping down in the chair right across from him. Half the time I have a squirming baby or toddler on hand, anyway, so what’s the point of keeping up the pretense? He’s heard it all, I’ve confessed the same sins so many times as to be, frankly, bored by them myself, and it’s a good dose of humility for me, to boot. Face-to-face might not be everybody’s jam, but it’s definitely my cup of tea now.

Father isn’t there to judge my heart or my actions on a human level, anyway. In the same way his hands elevate the consecrated host during the Eucharistic prayer, becoming the hands of alter Christus “another Christ,” he embodies the priestly person of Jesus once again in the sacrament of reconciliation.

It’s not magic, but it is mystical. And it’s just another part of our faith that defies explanation. Confess your sins to a priest? How absurd. 

Yep, kinda like resurrecting from the dead. A virgin birth. Tongues of fire descending from heaven. Seas parting. Dead men sitting up and hopping out of bed.

Turns out there are plenty of things to choose from if we’re going to chat aspects of Christianity that beggar belief. We moderns just have some we more readily assent to than others.

A final thought and some practical notes on confession: sometimes it doesn’t feel good. Sometimes it feels really mechanized and routine and not at all mystical or transformative. Most of the time, I’d say. It feels about like it feels to fulfill your Sunday obligation and make it through Mass with a writhing lap-octopus whining a sustained C-minor into your ear for 60 minutes straight.

And that’s okay. I’m sure Michael Phelps has plenty of bad workouts and disappointing races. They, too, are necessary components of a larger training program and necessary building blocks in the larger puzzle of his elite-level success, same as the gold medals.

We should do hard things, even if they don’t feel good. We should humble ourselves before the Lord, allowing Him to show us mercy even when we least merit it, and take the chance of being surprised by joy when we least expect it.

I find it helpful to jot down some habitual sins or present struggles in my daily planner/journal/scraps of Target receipts I find in my purse. There’s no shame in bringing a list to the grocery store or into the confessional. And if you think it feels good to cross “cleaning toilets” off your to-do list, imagine how good it feels to drill a fat, black line through “gossiped about mom” or “swore angrily 4 times at that jackrabbit who cut me off on the freeway”.

Real good, I’m telling you.

Let’s make it to confession twice before the year is out. It’s late September, but that seems a reasonable target to hit in the next 14 weeks or so.

Sometimes it’s what God wants to do for us that matters far more than what we are asking for ourselves.

St. Padre Pio, St. John Paul II, St. Faustina, St. John Vianney, and all you other saints who made frequent recourse to the great Sacrament of Healing, pray for us!

*Updated to add: Dear Fathers, pastors of souls, if you are reading this, please accept my deepest gratitude for your sacramental ministry. Thank you for bringing us Jesus. I have heard stories of many of you who sit week after week in an empty confessional on Saturday with nary a penitent in sight. I have also heard from countless parishioners the world over how logistically difficult it is to get to confession, how little they’ve heard it preached about, how inaccessible their current parish model is. Would you consider in your insanely busy, sacrificial schedules, carving out an additional hour or two a week, perhaps on a Wednesday or Thursday night, and letting your flock know the light will be on? Would you consider sloughing off some lesser but organizationally pressing need to an admin or business manager, in order to make this logistically feasible for *you*?

I know it’s a lot to ask and our priests are so busy, but we need the graces of this sacrament so desperately. And I’ve seen it happen in my own parish in real time: if you build it, they will come.

So, if I may be so bold as to implore you: pick a night, open the box, preach it on Sunday from the pulpit, and invoke St. John Vianney as your patron of this new effort towards the holiness of your parish and your parishioners. 

Abortion, Bioethics, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, euthanasia, Parenting, Pro Life

Eradicating people, not disease

August 16, 2017

Perhaps you’ve seen the headlines that Iceland is on track to “virtually eliminate Down Syndrome,” having achieved a close to 98% success rate in preventing DS fetuses from coming to term.

The energy and enthusiasm with which this is being reported belongs to a cancer-research breakthrough, not to what essentially amounts to a successfully-executed eugenics campaign. Make no mistake, advancements have not been made in ameliorating the negative effects of Trisomy 21 on human beings suffering from said condition, but rather, in the field of prenatal diagnosis and the dissemination of information to expectant women on the likelihood of their fetuses being “defective:”

“Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test.”

Maybe Icelanders are just particularly harsh? I mean, they do have some long, dark winters up there. But wait, there’s more:

“Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it’s 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity — and Down syndrome is included in this category.”

Let’s explore an analogy here. Suppose we are able to craft foolproof, super-effective predictive prenatal testing that determines with near 100% accuracy whether or not your child will get cancer and whether that cancer will be a fatal, particularly virulent form that will end in certain death.

Perhaps they’ll survive infancy but succumb to leukemia  in toddlerhood. Perhaps a sarcoma will claim them in the tween years. Maybe they’ll  make it to their early 20s, but then carcinoma takes them down. Imagine, for a moment, the medical community rejoicing in this innovative predictive technique, exclaiming that now at last we have defeated the big C. Cancer-free fetuses can be virtually guaranteed, provided the little tykes still make good lifestyle choices and don’t smoke.

Do we rejoice? Has a disease truly been defeated, in this scenario? Are kids who are genetically doomed to cancer better off being aborted before their parents have a chance to bond with “defective” babies who will only end up breaking their hearts by dying young? Is the greater community served by not having to bear the brunt of their medical costs and the resource-draining care they will require?

It’s a little more shocking put in those terms, isn’t it?

We ought to be shocked. We ought to be mortally offended, in fact, by the suggestion that a nation claims to have nearly “eradicated Down Syndrome” when in fact they’ve just gotten really, really good at pushing prenatal testing and recommending  selective termination of “undesirable” outcomes of conception.

Look, no parent gets any real choice in terms of how their kid turns out, health wise or otherwise.

Little Johnny may grow up to be a serial killer through no fault of his mother or father. Sarah might drop out of college and burn out on weed and work in an auto parts shop and get divorced at 29 and never buy a home. Isaac might win a Nobel Prize and negotiate lasting peace in the Middle East. Any given child might be a human being, in other words: wildly unpredictable and beyond the grasp of foolproof human manipulation.

And guess what? That’s the way it was designed.

Look how profoundly God’s first two children screwed things up. There is surely no clearer precedent for not being fully in control of one’s offspring’s destiny, from time immemorial.

And speaking of destiny and screwing up, who are we to say what “quality of life” really means?

Would a child destined for death by leukemia at age 7 be better off dead rather than being born only to suffer and die? Does a kid with DS have less inherent value than a typically-developing kid, or experience an impoverished version of reality simply because he has 3 chromosomes in a location where most of us have only two?

This is a dangerous path we’re treading down. Dangerous for what it signifies in terms of worth, value, and human rights, and dangerous for what it says about a society willing to blithely accept the lie that only certain “kinds” of human persons are valuable, are acceptable, are worth having around.

Look where that kind of thinking is getting us in our political and cultural landscape here at home in the US.

But, but, that’s totally different! Racism is a whole different disgusting animal apart from prenatal screening and selective termination. You can’t compare the two.

Can’t I? Isn’t there a common thread running through both philosophies, that certain people are less suited to live with the rest of us, that certain people are worth more or less than other types?

If we think that we can live in a civilized, post-racial society and at the same time celebrate the willful eradication of a certain “kind” of people, we are fooling ourselves.

Until we embrace the value of every human life: frail, fallible, weak, unwanted, unreliable and ultimately straight up mortal, same as the rest of us….we will continue to reap the whirlwind of violence and social unrest.

Catholics Do What?, Contraception, infertility, Marriage, motherhood, NFP, Parenting, PPD, Sex

NFP in real life: hard, but worth it {an interview with the Denver Catholic}

July 24, 2017

Jenny Uebbing, who writes at Mama Needs Coffee, recently asked her readership, “What do you want/need from the Church in order to live NFP?” and the resulting comments were numerous … and eye-opening.

Many people are seriously struggling with living it out.

The difficulties are as varied as the people themselves: Crosses in all shapes and sizes, including infertility on one end of the spectrum and super-abundant fertility on the other, making it hard to space children apart. Long periods of abstinence, medical problems, feeling isolated from instructors, finding trained doctors or other like-minded people are just some of the other common hardships.

“People are so hungry for support from the Church, who they’re trying to be faithful to,” Uebbing said. “And a lot of people are feeling that the Church doesn’t see them in this particular struggle, or have anything to offer past marriage prep short of an emergency intervention when they’re on the brink of divorce. There’s no middle ground.”

….

(Read the rest over at the Denver Catholic)

Abortion, Bioethics, Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, euthanasia, guest post, Parenting, Pro Life, Suffering

On Charlie Gard

July 7, 2017

(I’m honored to introduce today’s guest author: JD Flynn. He is a husband, a father, a canon lawyer, and a great friend.)

In the middle of the night, when she was just six days old, our daughter Pia went into cardiac arrest.  Twice.  Pia was in the hospital already, and so doctors and nurses rushed into the room and saved her life.  Twice.  It was terrifying, and we were powerless.  Pia is alive because of the Providence of God, and the medical care she received.

There are, doubtlessly, some people who might have asked if saving Pia’s life was the right thing to do.  Pia has trisomy-21, the chromosomal defect known as Down syndrome. And the day before her heart stopped pumping blood, Pia had been diagnosed with a rare and untreatable kind of cancer.  We didn’t know whether it would run its course, develop into something worse, or end her life.  We accepted this prognosis, and we knew that her diagnosis would lead to suffering.

There are, I’m sure, some people who might have thought that a disabled girl facing a battle with cancer would have no meaningful, worthwhile, or comfortable life.  People with Down syndrome are aborted at staggeringly high rates, in part because of a false compassion that believes their sometimes-difficult lives are not worth living.  Three years ago, some ethicists began suggesting that aborting children with Down syndrome is a morally virtuous—and ethically normative—thing to do.  And the euthanasia of sick and suffering children—children facing battles like cancer—is also becoming acceptable in many parts of the world.

I shudder to think it, but there are doubtlessly people who thought that a sick and disabled little girl, like our daughter, would have been better off dying that night.  That her suffering wasn’t worth it.

But doctors saved Pia’s life anyway, because saving lives is what medicine is all about.  Pia has Medicaid: the government paid for her treatment because supporting families in need is what government is supposed to be about.

Today she’s four.  She has endured a lot of suffering.  But she is also the most joyful person I’ve ever met.  And we, Pia’s parents, don’t see “Down syndrome” when we look at her.  We don’t see “cancer.”  We see our daughter.  We see a person, not a calculation.  We can’t help that: we’re her parents.  We would have done anything possible to make sure she lived through that terrible night.

Charlie Gard’s situation is not the same as Pia’s.  Charlie Gard will almost certainly die, and soon.  But I can imagine what his parents might be feeling right now.  They don’t see Charlie as a media sensation, the center of an international debate over human and family rights.  They don’t see him as a tragic medical phenomenon.  They don’t see him as the sum of a dispassionate calculation of suffering, usefulness, and “quality of life.”

Charlie Gard’s parents see their little boy.  They see his mother’s nose, and his father’s eyes.  They see a baby they just love to be with.  They see, maybe, a gift from God.  And they’re hoping that someone—some doctor or scientist– will rush into the room, and save Charlie’s life.  They’re willing to do anything—to go the ends of the earth—to try to help their little boy.

The treatment Charlie’s parents hoped to try had very little chance of success.  But they wanted to try.  Not to become culture-warriors or advocates for parental rights.  Just to save their little boy.

The court did not support Charlie’s parents because, in the words of Charlie Camosy, they “do not think Charlie’s life is a benefit to him. They think it is in his best interest to die.”

Charlie Gard’s parents are not allowed to try, because powerful people think that the life of a seriously disabled boy is not worth living.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote that the culture of death is “a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of ‘conspiracy against life.’ is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.”

Charlie Gard is the victim of a “conspiracy against life.”

Doctors, governments, and courts which can look at parents like Charlie’s, and judge that they must give up the fight—that dying is in the best interests of their suffering little boy—have lost their humanity.  They’ve forgotten, or rejected, that even difficult lives are gifts worth protecting, supporting, and saving.  A case like Charlie’s reveals the inhumanity, the callousness, and the dictatorship of the culture of death.

Charlie Gard will likely die soon, and we’ll move on to some other media sensation.  Some other tragedy will show up in our Facebook and Twitter feeds.  We’ll read think pieces about something else.  But Charlie’s parents won’t move on.  They’ll mourn their son, whom they know in a way that no one else does, and whom they love in a way that all of us should understand. And they’ll wonder why, as their son lay dying, no one rushed in to help them try to save his life.

(Find more of JD Flynn’s writing here.)

Charlie Gard. Photo: Facebook, Charlie Gard’s Fight.

 

Catholics Do What?, Marriage, NFP, Sex

What I learned from the NFP survey

June 9, 2017

A lot of people are hurting, and a lot of people feel alone. That was easily – overwhelmingly – the takeaway from all the discussion we’ve been having around here about NFP. About the failure to learn NFP adequately. About the failure to talk about NFP realistically. About the lack of community, of resources, of support, of success…

And it doesn’t surprise me. We live in this world, all of us, and we are all to some degree impacted and informed and undone by the ravages of the sexual revolution. Even if you’ve never used contraception, even if you live in the most amazing and supportive and life-affirming Christian community on the planet, since you’re still a citizen of planet earth in 2017, chances are you’re still deeply impacted by what the world believes about sex, and to a certain degree, how that has shaped your own beliefs.

I expect NFP to work a lot like (wink, wink) Church sanctioned contraception sometimes. And so it’s shocking sometimes, more shocking than I care to admit to you here, when a pregnancy test turns positive. “But I did the math. We used the right days. I knew exactly where I was in my cycle.”

And yet. Sometimes God overrides the system. So that’s hard. But it’s hardest when I’m fixated on the (false) notion that I am in complete control of my fertility. When I forget that in our marriage vows I gave that over, too, along with my freedom to walk out the door when things get tough, my options to look elsewhere when the road gets rocky.

NFP is not natural contraception. It’s dangerous for us to equate it as such, touting that “97 percent effective when used perfectly” stat, and I think that’s what can get us so frantic over the “failures.” Because while we’ve been trying to make it attractive enough to convince people to use it, maybe we’ve lost sight a little bit of the reality that it’s hard. That it will always be hard. That it will always be less convenient than popping a pill or putting in a diaphragm. That it will always require a degree of sacrifice. That it, in fact, means something entirely different from contraception. Instead of self indulgence, self denial. Instead of self gratification, self mastery. Instead of wild spontaneity, meticulous discernment. (This while a couple is hoping to avoid a pregnancy. If a baby is what you’re hoping for, then by all means, get spontaneous).

What I’m trying to say is that I think by selling NFP as an easy! natural! beautiful! alternative to the sexual stupidity of the culture at large, we’ve done a disservice to the couples who are actually brave enough to use it. I know I’m not alone in having my “divine vending machine” concept shattered by being blindsided by surprise pregnancies, the utter failure of the notion of “child spacing by breastfeeding,” and the particularly cutting blow of post partum depression.

But, God, I’ve wanted to say. Have said. I’m playing by your rules. I’m trying to follow your will. Why is it so hard? So painful? So lonely?

And He points me to Calvary.

He points to the Cross, that gentle yoke if I shoulder it alongside Him, and whispers I know you better than you know yourself. I know what will make you whole. I know what will make you holy.

And it doesn’t feel good.

It doesn’t look so good to the outside world, either. It looks like a mess. It looks life failure. Like struggle. Like all hope is lost and all was foolishness.

But then. The Resurrection. That impossible reclamation of all that was lost. The undoing of reality. The rejection of what was sensible and practical and possible.

God’s ways are not our ways. And if this is a difficult thing we wrestle with in our marriages, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing it wrong.

I am happy to have sent along all our frustrations, suggestions, pleadings and prayers to the USCCB convocation, and I do hope the working group finds a lot of gold in what I mined from your comments. But l am also praying for all of our hearts to be transformed – clergy and laity alike – by Jesus. By His plans for our marriages, and perhaps in ways that diverge radically from our own.

Unrelated photo of my center console: the champagne of mom beverages.
benedict option, Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, prayer, spiritual warfare

Make America *good* again (with Mary)

June 6, 2017

Lately (as in the past 6 months or so) I’ve been feeling nudged?shoved?pushed? to start praying a daily rosary as a family. I have a whole laundry list of reasons why this is a terrible idea, but then again, most days I have an hour long Netflix or PBS kids playlist I can refer to and see that yes, my children do possess an attention span capable of sustained engagement – albeit perhaps formal spoken prayer being less fascinating to the toddler brain than Curious George.

But. We have to try. I look around at the increasing violence in the world, whether on the news or just on Netflix, at the seemingly endless human appetite for cruelty and vice, and I look at four small faces turned up at me, asking “why are you sad, Mommy?” when I gasp out loud at a text from a sister announcing (another) terror attack somewhere not so far away in the world.

I’m sad because I won’t always be there, baby. I’m sad because no matter the sweat and effort and grace and plain old fashioned hard work I put into forming your little minds and souls, I can’t guarantee a good outcome. I’m sad because free will, and sin, and hatred, and racism, and abortion, and honor killing, and suicide bombings, and fanatical gender ideologies.

I’m sad because I’m handing you over to a broken world, and that I can’t protect you from what’s out there. The clock is ticking down to the moment you’ll walk out the door and the shot will cut to your dad and me and the golden retriever on the front steps, heartbroken and hoping for the best like a good Subaru commercial. (But we are never getting a dog.)

I worry a lot about the future. It’s part of the reason I’m in the line of work I’m in, because it’s important to tell the truth to a world that would pretend it is only a construct, and because it’s worth the time it takes (even sometimes time away from my kids) to proclaim the Gospel, whether on the digital page or up on a stage, or just in a restaurant over cocktails with a friend.

But all the worry in the world can’t save this weary world. And all my efforts and all my good works are nothing in the face of that fantastic and mysterious force that is human free will. We make the best choices we can with our kids and work to lay a foundation of truth, goodness, and beauty…and they are free to walk away. They are free to turn around one day and look us dead in the eye and say “I hate you. I don’t believe any of this. I’m leaving.”

As we are free to do the same to God.

So, as a mother prone to natural anxiety to begin with, the only rational thing for me seems to be to entrust these little people who are en route to adulthood to the maternal care of a mother who will always be there. I picked up this book, “The Rosary: Your weapon for spiritual warfare,” more than a month ago and flipped through the introduction. Then, a couple weeks ago, I picked it up again and actually got down to the business of reading it. And all those little nudges in my heart to pray it more often and more faithfully coalesced in an upwelling of desire, strengthening my resolve to actually just start doing it.

I won’t always be there for my kids. But Mary will.

I can’t always be able to come when they call me. But she can.

I’m not able to soothe away some of the pain that this world will inflict on them. But Her Son will.

The further our culture – and the rest of the West with it – veers off the rails of the crazy train, the more convicted I become that the only thing I can actually do is change my own heart. Is beg God to change it for me.

It is our own personal holiness that matters. Not the way we vote, or the boycotts we participate in, or the arguments we win. Those things have a place, but in the grand scheme of things, it is conversion that matters, that makes real progress in this sin wearied world. Conversion leading to compassion. To conviction. To a desire to suffer out of love for the other. Even the stranger. Even the enemy.

And I can think of no greater aid to the process of conversion than spending time in conversation with the Mother of God.

Our school had a motto this past year, a quote from Mary to St. Dominic: “One day, through the Rosary and the scapular, I will save the world.”

When I saw it on the little prayer cards at the beginning of the academic term I thought it was cool. I also thought maybe a bit of an overstatement? But then again, if Mary wants to use these small, tangible acts of faith and humility to bring us to her Son, who am I to question her methodology? Surely we’ve proven ourselves (repeatedly) to be fairly incompetent in larger matters.

After reading about the Battle of Lepanto in the opening chapter of this book, I think that just maybe, Mary wasn’t messing around when she said those words. And when I think back to my lost college years – the few leading up to my reversion in particular – and the improbability that I would ever come to my senses and return to myself, I can’t help but think of the hundreds of rosaries my mom prayed for me, the nights she must have spent worrying over my soul, crying over my terrible choices, wondering why God was seemingly deaf to her prayers.

And I am grateful.

So we will pray the rosary. We will arm ourselves for battle and engage in the tedious, inglorious, and often strenuously resisted practice of tithing a small portion of our day to God. Praying not as we’d always prefer personally, perhaps, but as His mother has asked. Repeatedly. In this 100th anniversary year of the apparitions of Fatima, it seems only right that we take up our weapons and engage in battle.

However much wearied and however many whining toddlers we must persevere in the face of.

The rosary isn’t magical, but it is powerful. And it’s a bet I’m willing to make, staking my own selfish heart and my personal preferences on the hope that this faithfulness in small matters will transform our hearts and plant seeds in the hearts of our children that will blossom in eternity.

Let’s make America good again. How about the whole world, while we’re at it?

Let’s pray the rosary.

Catholics Do What?, Contraception, Culture of Death, Evangelization, JPII, Marriage, NFP

NFP survey headed to the USCCB (more or less)

May 30, 2017

Sometimes you just need to crack the door and God kicks it the rest of the way open.

It is my distinct pleasure to tell you, dear readers, that your enthusiastic and heart wrenching and cheering and inspiring and sometimes totally depressing responses (in the neighborhood of 500+ emails, comments, Facebook comments) to last week’s NFP survey are being curated into a helpful guideline for discussion for a panel discussion at the upcoming USCCB’s Convocation of Catholic Leaders on the challenges of living the Catholic vision of sex and marriage.

Which is exactly what we’ve been talking about these past few weeks around these parts.

Catholic author and psychologist Dr. Greg Popcak reached out to me last week asking if he could take a selection of these beautiful, difficult, and numerous responses with him to Orlando where he and his wife Lisa will be leading a panel discussion on the very challenges and scenarios we’ve been delving into in the comments section. Best part is, the convocation will be attended by representatives from every diocese in the United States.

So it was for sure the Holy Spirit who nudged this conversation out into the public square, as it is. I felt a little ridiculous asking “what do you need from the Church?” because, ah, I’m not the Church. But clearly, God had something in mind.

I have so many other ideas for what to do with this tidal wave of interest, with this tremendous wealth of feedback and some of the incredible ideas and suggestions. One thing that really crystallized for me in reading so many of your responses is that in so many areas, my very own parish is already implementing a lot of what is being asked for. And so I need look no further for best practices and implementation strategies than next Sunday. The real question is one of scale, of resources, and of how to light fires that burn brightly in parishes all across the US and the globe.

I want to especially thank the couples whose stories were particularly difficult to tell: the children who have left the faith, the failed marriages, the heartbreaking experiences of being denied by the very Church you are valiantly struggling to love.

I am nobody, just a mom with a blog, but on behalf of every Catholic, please accept my sincere and sorrowful apology that you were not seen. That your family was cast aside. That you went searching for the truth and were given rocks or a snake instead of the bread you desperately needed and deserved.

I’m sorry.

I know it’s nothing coming from me, except that I’m a fellow Christian and I wish I’d have been able to cook you a meal or take your kids for the afternoon or read through an Endow study with you in a small group. I wish that the sexual revolution hadn’t decimated an entire two generations, leaving behind a growing body count of ruined marriages and families and the landscape of utter “go it alone-ness” for so many couples.

We have so much work to do. The past couple weeks as I’ve been reading and responding and conducting interviews with many of you, George Weigel’s words have been ringing in my ears, his sweeping prediction on the importance of the Theology of the Body, and the growing realization that he maybe wasn’t being dramatic enough:“{Theology of the Body} is one of the boldest reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuries…a kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the church.”

Y’all, he said this in 1999. It’s been close to 20 years, and we’re now ankle deep into the third millennium, and I’m like, “let’s make sometime NOW.”

So stay tuned. We’ve got a lot of work to do. And I thank you for your honesty, your transparency, and your faithfulness.