Currently Listening

to Audrey Assad.

I heard her live this past weekend at FOCUS Conference in Baltimore. She is fantastic. I'm almost positive she has no breaking point in her voice. She can hit any note with perfect pitch and clarity. And she has a fabulous story about being a convert to the Church.

Think: Catholic Ingrid Michaelson

My favorite song to play over and over: Ought to Be

Happy listening!

In Loving Memory of a Beautiful Woman

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

On Being a Cradle Catholic

I am sitting at home, in my lovely beach city, watching the last of the snow melt away. There is something about the combination of snow and being at home that makes me want to act like an 8 year old again. How wonderful it was to be 8! I distinctly remember blowing out the candles on my 9th birthday cake, with a thoughtful and almost sad expression on my face, and saying out loud to everyone, "Being 8 was the greatest year of my life". Melodramatic? Perhaps. Honest? Absolutely.

Since then, every year has brought wonderful things, making it hard to believe that life could get any sweeter. Having recently turned 22, I am feeling the twinge of nostalgia and have therefore been reflecting on my life thus far. This year for Christmas I received a complete set of the Liturgy of the Hours. It was my most expensive, and heaviest present. For my birthday only a few weeks ago I was given the loveliest rosary I have ever owned.

Anyone could appreciate a new set of shiny books with their lovely new book smell and colorful ribbons. Anyone could enjoy a homemade gift, especially one that catches the eye with bright colors and textured floral details that you can feel when you hold the beads between your fingers. But it takes a cradle Catholic to love them like I do.

I love seeing converts to the Church, and I truly admire them, so please don't get me wrong as I talk about how wonderful it is to be a cradle Catholic. I speak about being Catholic as someone that has been raised in the faith, and can only look and wonder admiringly at those whose path in life is so perfectly different from mine.

With this twinge of nostalgia, and the joy I have gotten from my fun and Catholic presents this Christmas, I began a conversation with a dear friend and fellow cradle Catholic about all the fun and silly things we did as children, that only little Papists would do. I thought I would share a few here.

I remember, at lunch time in the cafeteria, sitting in my cute but slightly awful plaid jumper and knee high socks. If someone had potato chips, and they happened to find one chip that was perfectly round, it was a grand opportunity to "play Mass". Maybe that could sound blasphemous to someone, but I can't help but love how our Mass celebrations were such an integrated part of our childhood lives that it permeated even into our play time.

I remember looking through the Ignatius Press magazine/catalog to read the book summaries in the preteen section. I remember needing to drink copious amounts of water after being the stamp-licker on the assembly line of my father's pro-life literature mass mailing (later, my older brother wised up and got a sponge for us). I remember my first confession. I think it consisted of me being sorry for not doing my chores and hitting my older brother when I didn't get my way. I remember thinking how I was so lucky because I got to receive my First Holy Communion of Saturday, so I could go to Sunday Mass the next day and receive Jesus twice in one weekend.

Still today, we have an angel on top of our tree instead of a star. We still say blessing before meals and rosaries every car trip.

Oh what a life. And I am only 22. God has been so sweet to me over the years, and I can't wait to be wowed in the years to come. I can't wait for every birthday, because I know every set of candles I blow out, I will be thinking the same thing I said when I turned 9, this was the greatest year of my life.

Beauty vs Cuteness

The Church is full of beauty. I don't say this lightly. There is nothing more beautiful than Christ in the Eucharist, and from that monumental beauty has flowed paintings that takes your breath away, sculptures and figures that bring you to your knees, and music that can make you sob until you have no energy or tears left. Yes my friends, God is the most beautiful thing in the world, and I cannot forget it.

But my soul mate (who was married and died about 80 years ago), G.K. Chesterton, had some lovely things to say about a more child like view of all things fancy and nice. I don't know if I could ever speak too much about God's beauty, so this is certainly not a competition to see which gets spoken of more, but I think Chesterton made a good point in his book Orthodoxy, about God's delight in precious and cute things. Here is a small bit from the book:

"All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. this is a fallacy in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but my death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or because he is tired of sitting still. But is his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstacy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put that matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again repeatedly until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike, it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinner and grown old, and our Father in younger that we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore."

I have not read the rest of this book yet. In fact, it would be imprudent of me to do so, seeing as how this is my exam week, and I have already taken time out of my precious and limited study hours to share. Please pray for me, and for all students who are taking exams right now. Help them carry their cross of student-life with joy, and to make sure prayer is always a priority. I don't know if I will be able to re-read my notes over and over again with the same delight as a child, or with someone with an "eternal appetite of infancy", but I will try.

The Immaculate Conception

I have so much to say about why I believe in the truth of this feast, but Father Dwight Longenecker has such a beautiful story that I would rather share his words on the matter. Here are some of the highlights:

"During a visit to Greenville, SC I debated the matter with a Catholic priest named Fr. Paul...He was very kind and listened to me carefully. I explained how Thomas Aquinas didn't believe it and how it wasn't necessary because then St Anne would also have had to be immaculate and how it was a late dogma...blah, blah, blah. Finally he just chuckled and said, "We believe in the Immaculate Conception because the Pope tells us to. Pass the fried chicken."

"I no longer simply understood the dogma and the logic of it, but I saw the beauty of it and the wonder of the simple girl of Nazareth becoming the second Eve. As I realized I believed in the Immaculate Conception I also suddenly became more aware, in a deeper way--a way very difficult to articulate--of the reality and historical concreteness of the incarnation itself. Suddenly Jesus Christ--Son of God and Son of Mary--was more real than he ever was before and I also grasped why the church requires this belief and does not allow it to remain a pious option."

"I was finally ordained as a Catholic priest back in Greenville, about eighteen years after the conversation with Fr.Paul"


Full story here.

Quick Post: Shopping in the name of God

Ok, so maybe there isn't quite such a thing as "shopping in the name of God", as one of my dear roommates calls it, but this little website is a great place to start some Christmas shopping and support religious life and community at the same time!

Advent is here!

Today at mass, before the celebration started, a family of parishioners went to the microphone to read a short prayer and light the first candle on our church's Advent wreath. I sat and watched, with a gleam in my eye, because my mother signed our family up to light the Advent wreath on the last Sunday of Advent. She knows all too well how, since childhood, my brothers and I would fight over who got to light the pink candle. Dearest mother, in her infinite wisdom, picked the Sunday with the most candles to light, and the longest prayer to read, so her children could live in harmony. Far be it from us to let being in our twenties stop us from acting with the heart, soul and maturity of children.

Once I got over myself, and how much cooler our Advent wreath lighting slot is than all the other families who sieged the sign up sheet in the lobby of the church as soon as the elderly secretary made it available, I was able to concentrate on the mass. The homily today was particularly inspiring for me. I wasn't exactly ready for Advent to start. Certainly I welcome it, because it includes fabulous things like purple and pink candles, and my birthday, but I have been so busy being busy that I never took time in my daily prayer to prepare myself.

Thankfully, God puts people in your life to kick you in the butt, and today Father Cristiano did just that. His homily centered on how Advent is a season of self-examination. So here I sit, thinking about how I am going to examine myself, and prepare for advent. Here is what I have come up with so far:

1. Figure out what Advent is
2. Write a blog post about it
3. Pray, pray, pray
4. Keep praying, it's good for you.

I am still working on refining steps 3 and 4. I might add a fifth step, which I think is going to be something along the lines of gloat about getting to light the pink candle because it's on my birthday, but hopefully praying and examining my conscience will refine that step as well.

Offering it Up

I sustained a minor sprained ankle the other night, nothing to be alarmed about. The most painful part of the injury was in my upper body after having to use crutches.

I have to say, I was overwhelmed by the kindness of friends and strangers. I'm not sure if it was my forlorn look of desperation and embarrassment as I awkwardly crutched my way around campus, or if it was my heavy breathing and frequent breaks that had people asking how it happened and if I needed any help.

God has a funny way of bringing delights in little sorrows, like the kindness of strangers. Sometimes those delights are so wonderful you question whether you have ever truly experienced hardship.

I have wonderful friends who kept reminding me that I had the opportunity to offer up my not-really-an-injury injury, and I kept reminding them that I had already complained away any graces I could have gotten from the whole ordeal. It wasn't until the end of the day when someone approached me and asked if I could say a little prayer for someone in their life on my walk/crutch back to campus.

It reminded me that "offering it up" is more than just dealing with pain because you know complaining is annoying and your parents told you to stop every time you asked if we were there yet. I was reminded that offering it up is a purposeful and conscious prayer that unites you to the suffering on the cross. It brings joy amidst suffering, maybe even to the point that suffering is transformed into only a joy.

The swelling is finally going down, and the whining has almost stopped. Now I just need to remember that suffering is more than just physical pain, but in whatever way I am given the opportunity to suffer, I should thank God that I get to live my life a little closer to Him if I can only have the grace to just offer it up.