Drinking Mary's Cool Aid

In honor of May, the month of Mary, and in conjunction with my live interview on Dina Marie on KBVM 88.3 in Portland this morning from 10-11 a.m. Central, I am re-posting this blog on Our Lady.  I'll be discussing Mary and Motherhood, so please join us at http://tunein.com/radio/Catholic-Radio-883-s31902/.  God bless!

Susan thought her Catholic friends had drunk the proverbial “Kool-Aid.” A staunch evangelical Christian, she was offended and angry after attending my sister-in-law Hedy’s Medjugorje Rosary group and witnessing what she considered to be “blasphemous” prayers being said to Mary. As Hedy continued to host Rosary groups, Susan felt obliged by conscience to end their friendship, convinced that Hedy was not only in idolatry, but was leading others astray through her devotion to Mary.

Susan and Hedy had become friends several years earlier through their children, as each had several kids attending the same school in the small Gulf Coast town of Pass Christian, Mississippi. The two families had grown very close—even taking family vacations together. But their friendship hit a breaking point when Susan and Hedy both became more fervent in their respective faiths, causing Susan to take a stand against Hedy’s perceived “idolatry”—a stand that left the friends and their families estranged for five years.

Eventually, Susan hit a personal faith crisis wherein she recognized that she could “talk the talk” of Christianity, but was unable to “walk the walk” toward the personal holiness she desired. After seriously reflecting upon the people that she knew who truly “walked the walk” as Christians, Susan came to the humbling conclusion that it was the Catholic women she had encountered along the way who had unequivocally treated her with kindness, patience, love and mercy. Though she still questioned their theology, she simply could not deny the fruit their lives bore.

“How could their lives be so full of the fruits of the Holy Spirit,” she asked herself, “when their faith is so theologically compromised?”   That question led her to a massive interior dilemma about the authenticity of the Catholic faith, which she felt simultaneously drawn to and terrified by. After much prayer and wrestling with God, Susan made a decision not to be led by fear. She returned to the Catholic Church, through which she had made a brief foray a few years earlier when she was confirmed Catholic upon her marriage into a large, Catholic family. (Susan was baptized Episcopal and raised as “nothing,” and her husband had ultimately followed her into Protestantism.)

Susan began to attend Mass and pray the Rosary, while going to the people she had accused of “idolatry” to apologize to them. Surprising even herself, she developed a great love for the Catholic faith, spending the next few years making beautiful handmade Rosaries “in reparation for my blasphemies against the Blessed Mother,” as she tells it.

Fast forward to 2014, when Susan called to ask me where she could buy copies of my book, Miracle Man (which happens to be very Marian, by the way. I, too, had wrestled with Hedy about her devotion to Mary at the same time as Susan—a story I tell in detail in the book. Let’s just say Hedy and the Blessed Mother won.) After meeting me on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans to buy six copies of Miracle Man, Susan gave the book to her anti-Catholic sister Elizabeth. None of us could have guessed what would happen next.

Elizabeth’s first reaction was severe annoyance at the book’s Catholic overtones and references to Mary, which she found offensive and irritating. But she pressed on to the finish, wanting to know how the story ends. By the time she closed the book, Elizabeth was weeping profusely, and she couldn’t stop crying. She went to bed perplexed, wondering why she had been so profoundly affected by the story.

During the night, she dreamt about “the most beautiful Lady” she had ever seen, who was surrounded by light and filled with a depth of love that Elizabeth had never before encountered. Elizabeth began to follow her, recognizing the Lady as the Blessed Mother. When she awoke, it was clear to her for the first time in her life why Catholics love Our Lady so much, and why she is placed in such high esteem. That story to be continued.

I can happily say that I have indeed drunk deeply of Mary, and oh, how sweet it’s been. She has led me into the heart of the fruit of her womb, Jesus. And He has led me into the heart of the fruit of His sacrifice on the Cross, the Eucharist. Food and drink like I’ve never tasted; the Bread of Angels, the Cup of Eternal Life. I’ll drink that cool, sweet aid any day.

Do Catholics Believe In Near Death Experiences?

With the immense popularity of “Heaven Is For Real” and other books about experiences in the afterlife,  the topic of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has taken front and center stage. Though the Catholic Church has no formal teaching on NDEs, plenty of people claim to have had one, including my late husband Bernie. The descriptions of these experiences often take on a tone of either Protestant Fundamentalism or the New Age. But Bernie’s experience was--would I dare to say--amazingly, authentically Catholic!

As a Catholic theologian who has taught the faith for fifteen years, I have never publicly addressed the topic of NDEs before. Those experiences fall into the category of what the Church calls “private” revelation—a topic I tend to stay away from when teaching Catholic doctrine. * However, Bernie’s life-changing NDE, chronicled in detail in my book Miracle Man, compelled me to share his incredible story with others. Why? Because Bernie’s “come to Jesus,” which he shared with me after miraculously waking up from a six week coma that was induced by a massive heart attack and multiple organ failure, highlighted some important truths of the Catholic faith that could use re-stating today. These include:

• We don’t get a “free pass” to heaven because we’re convinced we’re “a good person.”
• We are judged by God on the good or evil we have done in this life (Rom. 2:5-10).
• God, who loves each of us personally and infinitely, has gone and will go to great lengths to save us and bring us home to heaven.
• In the end, life and eternal life are about LOVE--and life on this earth is meant to teach us to love and be loved.

Bernie learned all of those lessons first hand during his NDE after suffering “the widow maker” in December 2008, which he inexplicably survived. Within a week of his heart attack, Bernie’s heart, liver, kidneys and lungs failed, leaving him comatose and on life support as doctors tried to save him—uncertain if he had any brain function left. Astoundingly, Bernie did an about face and began to recover, surprising his doctors and earning him the name “Miracle Man” among the hospital’s medical staff. He eventually woke up, was weaned off the ventilator and regained his ability to speak. Though still in the Intensive Care Unit, Bernie asked me one day if I wanted to hear about his Near-Death Experience.

I responded, of course, with a resounding “Yes!” Given the fact that I had prayed for his conversion for 24 long years and that I was at his bedside the night a nurse shocked his heart three times to keep him alive, I had a hunch he may have met God. But I never expected to hear what he said next.

“I died and I clearly remember it,” Bernie began.   “I saw my soul leave my body and was looking down on my body from above.” After describing in detail how he saw the condition of his soul, as well as the things he had done in his life that were pleasing and unpleasing to God, Bernie shared this zinger: “Judy, I followed the light all of the way to heaven. And when I got there, I wasn’t permitted to enter.” That from a man who steadfastly maintained that he was sure he was going to heaven because he was a “good person.”

Bernie was then sent back by God to make amends for his life, but not before meeting terrifying creatures that beat him brutally as they screamed in his ears repeatedly, “We’re here to help you!!!”  You’ll have to read the book to find out how the story ends (it’s nothing short of amazing), but suffice it for now to say that Bernie was a changed man after his NDE. So much so that he spent the last six weeks of his life telling me, “You have no idea how much God loves you…You have absolutely no idea how much God loves you!”

Because in spite of seeing his own inner darkness and his need for conversion and purification, Bernie’s overarching experience of his encounter with God was one of unfathomable love. Love that died on the Cross for his sins. Love that chased him down to beckon him into a relationship with Himself. And Love that waited to embrace him and welcome him home with the words, “You are my beloved son. In you I am well pleased.”

In the end, what matters most about “private” revelations like NDEs is the fruit they produce. In other words, they can be considered authentic insofar as they help us to “live more fully” by “Christ’s definitive revelation” (CCC par. 67). Christ revealed that God is love, and that Love holds us accountable for our lives and for our actions. Though those two statements seem contradictory in today’s world, they nonetheless contain the age-old truth of Christianity. That’s the truth Bernie discovered when he met God. And it’s the truth that would ultimately transform him and lead him to eternal life.

*(See the Catechism of the Catholic Church,  Par. 67 for the Church’s teaching on “private” revelation.)

Catching the Faith

Please enjoy this re-post of my last Easter blog.  This Easter, I was busy welcoming my new granddaughter, Rose Grayson, to our family.   She is blessed to have three big brothers and her parents, Gaby and Grayson, to pass the faith to her. Happy Easter!

“Christos Anesti ek nekron, thanato thanaton patisas, kai tis en tis mnimasi zoin harisamenos,” my little grandsons chanted in unison as I watched happily in surprised silence. “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs, granting life,” the boys rang out in Greek, singing the ancient paschal troparion taught to them by my son-in-law, Grayson. Five-year-old James looked entranced, while two-year-old John-Henry danced around the room, slapping his hips and throwing his hands into the air to provide dramatic effect at just the right moments. Even baby Joseph, who just turned one, chimed in.

“Catholicism is caught, not taught,” I thought as I observed the children singing, remembering the familiar adage from Catholic theology that I’ve quoted numerous times to my students. “We don’t sit a one-week-old infant down and tell him everything he’ll ever need to know about the Catholic faith,” I’ve explained repeatedly when teaching how the truths of our faith are passed down in tact from one generation to the next.   Instead, we start with songs, pictures and simple blessings. We take the kids to Mass, point out statues and stained glass windows, and maybe light a candle for those we love. We read Bible stories, whisper prayers in the dark when bad dreams invade the night, and sing—in Greek if we so desire—the deep mysteries of our faith, learned on an I-phone while riding in the van. That’s how our children catch the faith, and it’s how we, in turn, catch it back from them.

Catholicism has been “caught” for two thousand years the very same way; that is, through the habits of a living Church that hands on its living faith via time-honored practices that grow organically and culturally throughout history. We call these practices “traditions,” and they are meant to embody and express Sacred Tradition--which is the Truth that Jesus deposited into the Church through His life, death and resurrection, and through the relationships and institutions He established.

The concept of living faith comes down to us from our Jewish ancestors, and was embraced by the Christian Church:

“Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

In other words, we are to let our faith in God permeate everything we think and say and do. Which doesn’t mean that we’re on our knees 24/7, or that we escape our broken human condition. It does mean, however, that we invite God into all things, and that we remember that He is with us at all times.

Part of the crisis we are facing in our Christian culture is the direct result of the dichotomy that exists between faith and life, due in large part to a modern world that compartmentalizes and hyper-specializes every aspect of life. Our lives have become neatly divided into measurable functions and categories, reducing the expression of Christian faith to a perfunctory Sunday visit. But it is not meant to be so. Our fathers in faith reminded us that the “split between the faith which many profess and (our) daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”* Further,  they teach us that harmony should exist between our faith in Christ and all of our earthly activities.

I heard that harmony Monday night in the voices of little children, as they chanted, “Christ is risen from the dead” during a family vacation. Yes indeed, they are catching the faith. And they’re throwing it back to me.

*Par. 43, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican Council

A Tomb With A View

Don't forget to join my "Miracle Man" virtual book tour! Sign up on my Home Page. God bless!

I know, it’s Lent. And I’m out of sync with the liturgical calendar. But I’ve been meditating on the Resurrection in my Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, and something really struck me recently. It involved Peter, John and the tomb of Jesus, which Mary Magdalene had just reported she’d found empty. The two apostles ran like lightening to see it for themselves, and John, being faster, arrived first.

When he got there, the beloved disciple merely bent down apprehensively and peered into the dark grave. But then he stepped into the tomb, and he truly came to believe. Suddenly, John saw things from a completely new perspective, and he understood what it meant to rise from the dead (John 20:8-9).

How often have we peered into the tomb of our lives, standing on the edge of real or imagined “death,” looking in and fearing the worst? How many times have we gazed into the black hole of our dreads, afraid that we might fall into the darkness? I’ve done it a thousand times, and I’ve learned firsthand, it’s deadly.

Truth is, we cannot know the power of God to raise us from a thousand deaths until we step into the tomb and experience the power of the Resurrection. That shift in perspective is precisely what constitutes hope.

I’m watching hope unfold in living color in the life of my son, Christian, and, oh, how it makes my heart smile. I remember five short months ago when Christian came home from Communita Cenacolo, the place he had called home for four years. Leaving the safe confines of the cloistered community that saved his life and delivered him from addiction was a frightening prospect. He was anxious about how he would take care of himself, and had no idea where he was going or what the future held.

“How am I supposed to do this?” he asked, understandably scared about how he was going to make it on the outside. I had agreed to follow Community’s wise counsel of letting him find his own way, and of not rescuing him from his own life.

“You do it by doing it, Christian,” I assured him. “And with God’s help, you will learn that you can do it.”

God quickly opened a door for him to go to Wyoming—back to the youth ranch where he had lived for a year as a fourteen year-old boy. He was offered a job there earning minimal pay and working long hours running a house full of troubled teens; boys that I knew would provide a mirror image of him at that age. He took the job and packed his bags, leaving my house with a sack full of qualms and “what ifs” on his back. My heart ached as I watched him peer into the tomb of his life, and all I could do was pray and trust that God would take care of him.

Christian’s legs were wobbly when he first stepped in, just like when he learned to walk. But he moved into his fears with faith, and his legs grew stronger. With each step forward, his faith and strength grew, and the hope in his voice increased.

“I’m doing it, Mama,” he shared yesterday, as I told him how proud I am of him. “And it’s not as bad as I thought.”

Peering into the darkness can be terrifying, and we tend to imagine the worst. But stepping into the empty tomb and experiencing the power of the Resurrection convinces us that Jesus has, in fact, overcome death—both His own and every death we face. We may know this theoretically, and even believe it in good faith. But it is only in experiencing this reality personally that we can come to know the force of the Resurrection, a force that moves stones away and blows boulders out of our lives.

Can What Kills Us Make Us Stronger?

Lent is a time for unlocking. Unlocking the doors of hope. And unlocking the doors of our hearts that keep us stuck in fear and trembling, imagining what might befall us.

Jesus stands in our midst, saying: “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)

But we wonder: How can we possibly have peace in a world that is fraught with dangers and threats on every side? In a world that’s bombarded with news of ISIS, infidels and insurrections? We worry incessantly about our families and our futures—and about how this world’s collective insanity will ultimately play itself out.

“Peace be with you…When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced.” (John 20:20)

The same men who had cowered in fear behind locked doors minutes earlier now rejoiced. And not in spite of Christ’s open wounds, but because of them. Suddenly, they could see clearly that death had not “killed Jesus,” but that it had made Him stronger, freer—and glorious.

The atheistic German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, infamously said, “God is dead, and we have killed him.” Nietzsche also said: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” We hear that phrase quoted constantly in our culture. Our idols even sing award-winning songs about it. And there is some truth in the saying.

Yet a deeper Christian truth lies in the mystery that, paradoxically, what kills us can indeed make us stronger.   Jesus said it this way: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Luke 9:22) Jesus had just made His triumphant entry in Jerusalem, after predicting that He would be rejected and killed. Then came His searing invitation: Follow me.

Twenty-one Christians followed Jesus down a beach in Libya, where their blood ran together with water, just like His did on the Cross. The men shrouded in black sent forth videos of the massacre as “a message signed with blood to the nation of the cross.” What they fail to understand is that Jesus already sent a message signed in His blood to the entire world. And the message is this: Take courage, I have conquered the world.

Wherever blood spills in His name, life springs up, renewing and re-creating the Church in the power of the blood of the Cross. Death loses its sting, and the very violence that attempts to kill the Cross fertilizes parched humanity with an offering of love, sewing seeds of faith that can only be sewn through blood and through water. For, indeed, these are the signs of God’s death on the Cross—and they alone can give true life.

We begin Lent under the banner of the Cross—wearing it publicly on our foreheads—proclaiming that we, too, are terminal. But we also declare that with Christ and in Christ, death becomes the door to life, the passageway through which we enter victoriously into eternity. Twenty-one Christian martyrs who died on a beach in Libya know this now.

Let us begin Lent by unlocking the doors of our hearts and allowing Christ to enter them with the full force His love and  His peace. And let us stand together in solidarity with those who have died under the sign and power of the Cross. We remember their sacrifice, and we pray that it makes us stronger.

Lent: You're Invited!

“What are you giving up for Lent?” my son, Christian, asked me today. “Meat,” I said (among other things, but I’ll save that for next week’s blog).  Being a huge carnivore like me, Christian responded, “Wow, that will be a really good sacrifice.”

But more than giving something up for Lent, I believe the Lord calls us to do something more for Lent. And by more I mean that we are called to take an honest look at ourselves during Lent—at our doubts, our poverties, our attachments and at what gets in the way of our relationship with the Lord.

Lent is not a time for superhuman feats, where we strive to be “spiritually” faster, higher and stronger, as they say in the Olympics. It is, instead, a time for supernatural exposure, where we quiet ourselves before God and ask Him to help us become slower, lower and weaker. When we get slower, lower and weaker, God can move in our lives with His strength, perfecting His power in us in and through our weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9). That description of God’s movement sums up the story I tell in my book, Miracle Man, where God miraculously and repeatedly demonstrated His power at a moment in our lives where my late husband Bernie and I were at our lowest and weakest.

With this in mind, I am offering a free Lenten Reflection Guide that is meant to prompt honest prayer, reflection and spiritual growth during this holy season. The Reflection Guide, which provides thirty-three short Lenten meditations (one to go along with each chapter of Miracle Man) is available as a free download on my website at http://memorareministries.com/chaos-free. By reading one short chapter of Miracle Man each day in Lent and pondering the corresponding reflection question, I hope that you will realize the happy reward of attaining a better understanding of yourself and a deeper relationship with God.

I wrote Miracle Man to remember the miraculous ways God worked in our lives, and to encourage others to trust in what God can do for them, too. It is my hope that in praying through Miracle Man and the Reflection Guide this Lent, God will unveil your eyes to see His power working in your life. And that He will help you make room for more.

Get a copy of Miracle Man here.

Get a FREE download of the Lenten Reflection Guide here.

Lenten Virtual Book Tour

I also want to let you know that I will be launching a virtual book tour this Lent. Many thanks to the wonderful folks who will be interviewing me and reviewing Miracle Man! I really hope to connect with you all during this tour and hear how God is working in your lives.

Please join me at memorareministries.com/virtualbooktour to see where I’ll be visiting and how you can participate.

With prayers for grace and growth for all of us this holy season.

The Woman Of My Dreams

by Kara Klein

What a joy and delight to hear the amazing testimony of my daughter, Kara Klein,  at the Magnificat Breakfast this week.  Truly, the Lord has done great things for her, and holy is His name. Enjoy her guest blog!  

Recently at the national Focus conference I heard gifted speaker Sara Swafford tell a group of single young women: “Become the woman of your dreams and you’ll attract the man of your dreams.” This struck a deep chord in me.

As we enter into a new year, and resolutions fill conversations and various forms of media, I’ve been asking myself:

“What do I want for this new year? Not merely, what do I want to do, but who do I want to become? Who is the woman of my dreams?”

Initially, what comes to my mind is: perfection. I want to be perfect, of course. Virtuous and valiant, strong yet sweet, to always do the right thing, say the right thing, know the right thing, to be successful in all I attempt, to love without faltering.

Yet I once heard the very wise Fr. Jacques Philippe say: “More than God wants our perfection, more than he wants our success, He just wants our trust.”

What kind of woman would I be if I didn’t so much grasp after being perfect as much as I trusted in God with my whole heart? If my whole presence exuded the reality: “All is well. We have a Father. He is real, and He is good. We can trust Him with our entire being, abandon ourselves to Him without reserve. And no matter what happens—though the mountains crumble around us and the earth melt like wax before us—we are in His loving hands, and He is working all things for our good.”

Probably I would be less like Eve, and more like Mary. Less like the one who took matters into her own hands out of fear that her Maker was holding out on her, and more like the one who said, “the Lord has done great things for me and holy is His name!”

I think we Christians complicate our lives more than we realize. We think we have to do so much, be so much, achieve so much, discover so much; when all we really have to do is say “yes.” A simple “Let it be done unto me according to your will. Today.

Yes to loving the person that is right in front of us; yes to accepting with peace life as it unfolds before us; yes to trusting radically like a little child. Simple, but not easy.

To be a woman whose trust and joy are not based upon the ever-changing circumstances around her, but solely in a God who loves her. That is a woman of faith. And that is the woman of my dreams.

The Secret to Scaling the Summit

Today's blog is dedicated to my precious daughter, Alexandra, with love and thanksgiving for your tender beauty, grace and strength.  Happy birthday, DeeDee Bop A Loula!  I love you!!!!

The summer my late husband Bernie died, I figured that the best way to survive what I knew would be a long, hot, lonely summer at home was to get out of town for a while. My daughter, Alex, who was twenty-one at the time, agreed to accompany her nine-year-old brother, Benjamin, and me as we set out on our first “vacation” after Bernie’s death—an event which any widow can tell you is emotionally daunting. Providentially, we visited three beautiful mountain towns that summer: Jackson Hole, WY, Crested Butte, CO and Caesar’s Head, SC. And as God is wont to do, He used both the sweet company of my daughter and the stunning mountain landscapes not only to provide consolation, but to remind my still fragile heart of some of life’s most precious secrets.

When we arrived in Jackson Hole, I told Alex that I wanted to take a hike. I had in mind a nice, leisurely walk beside a clear, running stream. She took me instead for trek straight up a mountain trail, a trudge that is more than a bit challenging for someone like me, given that I’m not athletic, am scared of heights and am unaccustomed to high altitudes.

Alex, who a year later would run a half-marathon on those very same mountains, insisted that we push our way up the peaks anyway. She knew from experience that the reward of climbing the mountain—the breathtaking, invigorating vistas—could only be seen from on high.

“Come on, Mom, you can do it. Drink lots of water,” she said repeatedly as I panted for breath. Because as any experienced climber can tell you, the number one trick for making it up the mountain is drinking plenty of water.

As I stopped repeatedly to quench my thirst and catch my breath, I thought about how important water is to both our natural and spiritual lives—especially in times of drought. Living water, water that will never run dry, comes to us through a relationship Jesus, who is the fountain of life (John 4:14). He slakes our thirst continually as we give ourselves over to Him and drench ourselves in His love. His love sustains us in times of sorrow and suffering, especially if we have let it soak deep into our souls over time.

My mountain trek also reminded me of how indispensable food is for the journey. “Stop and eat a snack,” Alex insisted after an arduous period of climbing when I was feeling weak and disoriented, convinced that I couldn’t go on. I remember the long, painful days in the ICU, when the only thing that kept me going was the Holy Eucharist—the superabundant Bread of Life—mercifully delivered to the hospital by a Eucharistic minister. I do not believe I’d have survived the suffering we endured that year without the Eucharist. Just as I know that I would have been unable to continue climbing upward with Alex without natural sustenance.

With Alex by my side, I also learned that if you’re going to climb a mountain, don’t try to do it alone. If you get injured, lost or can’t go forward, you need someone there to help. In fact, you may even need someone who loves you to carry you to safety.

One day in Crested Butte, we hiked a mile up a mountain to see an exquisite waterfall at the top. Young Benjamin started out with a bang, running ahead of us for the first half-mile. Twenty minutes later, his little legs collapsed and he couldn’t go any further. Though he weighed sixty some-odd pounds at the time, he simply needed to be carried. Strong, loving Alex carried him on her back most of the way to the top, reminding me of how she had demonstrated the same strength for her dad and me as Bernie’s life came to a close. She bravely sat beside us, holding our hands. Her faithful presence was a tremendous gift as we scaled a painful, frightening summit, and she stood steady with us to the very end.

God and the mountains teach their lessons, and so do those whom we love. It’s not necessarily what they say out loud that communicates who and what they are, but their strong, abiding presence that tells us everything.

What the World Needs Now

In honor of the nearly sixty million babies who have been aborted  in America since Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, I feel compelled to repost this blog.  Mary, Mother of Life and Mother of the Unborn, pray for us.

“I didn’t know it would be so hard!” That was the second time in a week I’d heard those words from a mother’s lips, this time before morning Mass from a teary-eyed mother asking for prayers for her teenage son. As I saw the searing pain in this beautiful mother’s eyes, I thought of the sword that pierced Our Lady’s heart, and of all of the varied swords that have pierced the hearts of mothers throughout the ages.

After spending a week recently with my daughter Gaby and her three young sons, ages 6, 3 and 19 months (with a fourth baby due in April), I am reminded of just how sacrificial and self-giving motherhood calls a woman to be. Motherhood continually demands the pouring of oneself out in love for the good of others.

“There’s no rest for the weary,” I joked with Gaby amid the whirlwind of non-stop activity with three very busy little boys. But she pressed forward, stretching herself to be patient, to speak kindly, and to use the last bit of the day’s energy to sing lullabies and pray with her boys before they went to sleep.

“Women will be saved through motherhood, provided they persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Timothy 2:15). This is God’s promise; but it is a promise with a provision: faith, love, holiness and self-control are required for “saving” motherhood. I dare say those virtues are what the world needs most right now.

One of my favorite feast days is the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, under which title I have a great devotion to Our Lady. Mt. Carmel is the location in northern Israel where hermits dedicated to Our Lady gathered to live and pray in the 12th century. It was on this same mountain that the prophet Elijah won a showdown with the infamous queen Jezebel, who had led Israel into idolatry through perverse pagan practices, including offering human sacrifices and sexual rituals to the fertility gods. Jezebel’s legacy is one of grasping for power, using manipulation, domination and control to get her way. Her life eventually went to the dogs, by which she was eaten. She is the antithesis of Our Lady, whose legacy is one of total self-surrender to God in faith, love and holiness. She is the woman who birthed the God-man, and whose life ended by being received bodily into heaven to be crowned as Queen of the Universe.

Jezebel or Mary? Each generation of women faces the perennial question of which way we will go. It is an ever-present temptation to take matters into our own hands, and to reject the demands of love that press in from every side—especially the ones that engage our hearts and bodies in a posture of expansive, self-giving love. The choice of which way to go seems to play out most poignantly on the sacred ground of our fertility and in how we welcome new human life into the world.

The Catholic Church’s age-old teaching concerning human life is profoundly counter-cultural, and it is becoming more so daily. At this moment in history, it takes heroic virtue to practice the teaching of the Church, that is, to be open to life and to receive each child as a gift from God. This entails rejecting the notion of “controlling” one’s fertility through contraception and abortion, along with surrendering one’s body to God in “faith, love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:15). Such an act of faith can be daunting when one has embraced a contraceptive or abortive mentality for many years. I know it was for me.

Thankfully, I am encountering more than a few young women today who are going the way of the Church. They are going the way of Mary by saying “yes” to life, even in the face of great cultural odds. “Yes” when they don’t have the whole thing figured out. “Yes” when they may be subject to persecution. And “yes” when it means that they will have to truly stretch themselves to be conduits of love in a cultural climate that frowns upon more than 1.8 children per family. Their stance takes bravery and selflessness, along with radical trust in God.

What the world needs now are many more women like them who incarnate faith, love, and holiness for us. And above all, self-control. These young women bear the piercing sword of this age—the rejection of life as a gift from God, meant to be received in His way, on His terms, in His time. They are a sign of contradiction for a world longing for real love and longing for the way of Christ, who is the way of Mary.

As we sadly remember the legalization of abortion in America, may we entrust ourselves to Mary, the Mother of God, the archetype of maternity and the willing bearer of True Life.

The Lord Sings Joyfully Because of ME?

I had an epiphany in the Adoration Chapel on Tuesday morning, on the real Feast of the Epiphany.

After the past few weeks of Christmas craziness and sporadic, half-baked prayer time, my husband Mark and I happily settled back on Monday into our morning routine of “wasting” lavish time with the Lord in the chapel before Mass. Yay! But I showed up at the chapel that day agitated and distracted, unable to concentrate or pray. I was preoccupied with my sins and myself, and proceeded to present my list of leftover holiday “junk” to the Lord.

“Ok, Lord,” I started. “I did it again this Christmas. I prayed too little, spent too much, ate too much, drank too much and gossiped too much…So much for my intention of having a holy, prayerful Christmas.”

I was disconcerted throughout the hour, certain that God was as disgusted with me as I was with myself. After heading home, I spent the rest of the day wasting lavish time on Facebook and other Internet excursions, ending the day with a stiff neck, more irritated with myself than when the day began.

Back in the chapel Tuesday morning, on the real Feast of the Epiphany, I opened to the morning readings:

The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior. He will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you.   Zephaniah 3:17

Those words rang at me. “You will sing joyfully because of me, Lord?” I asked. “You rejoice over me?”

I sat there with my eyes shut tight in our sunny little chapel, trying to picture God singing joyfully over me. It was pretty hard to imagine. I then tried to recall the times in my own life when I had sung joyfully over others, and two vivid images came to mind.

First, I remembered the many times I had nursed my children at my breast while singing to them, along with the surge of joy I had experienced as I beheld a beautiful baby in my arms. I remembered the happy surprise of falling madly in love with each child, experiencing a depth of love I'd never even dreamed was possible. I had sung over my children and rejoiced.

He will sing joyfully because of you.

As I further pondered those words, a second, more recent memory came to mind, which occurred when I married my husband, Mark. For months, I walked around the house constantly singing a song I’d made up to the tune of “Emmanuel.” My silly song went like this: “Markisimo...Gelisimo...your name is called...Markisimo.” (No, Kara did not get her songwriting skills from me:)

“I’ve never had anyone sing my name before,” Mark responded to my singing, delighted that I sang joyfully out of love for him.

“Judy, that’s just an inkling of the way that I love you,” I heard the Lord gently whisper as I smiled. “There is nothing you or anyone else can do to make me love you more or less. I love you infinitely. I am love.” With that, my heart filled with joy.

Moments later, I opened the book I had brought to the chapel to read, and amazingly, found my apparently all-too-common dilemma on the page before my eyes:

"The sadness of not being perfect is a feeling that is much too human, it can even border on idolatry,” I read St. Francis of Assisi's words to his friend, Brother Leo, who was depressed and defeated by his sins. “Focus your vision outside of yourself, on the beauty, graciousness and compassion of Jesus Christ,” St. Francis advised. “Accept being shipwrecked. See only the compassion, the infinite patience and the tender love of Christ. Jesus is Lord. That suffices.”

I am learning that God does not relish in my getting it right, doing it right, or being right. Instead, He delights when I let go of my futile attempts at performance and let Him love me. Our God is a merciful Father who sings over His children, a Father who tenderly picks us up when we fall and who rejoices over us with gladness simply because He loves us. May this epiphany hold me fast throughout the coming year.