Sowing Seeds of Faith

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

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

How Theotokos Began

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letting Go

Why is it so darn hard to let go?

My baby boy, Benjamin, who turns sixteen this September, got his first job last week at a nearby restaurant. Bedraggled and exhausted after eight straight hours on his feet bussing tables, he told me he’d barely had time to scarf down food or take a break. His feet hurt. My heart hurt. Am I crazy to cry a bucket of tears because my baby’s growing up?

He’s the child we call “well loved;” the one who was treasured and coddled endlessly by his dad and me, and all of his older siblings. He was the apple of a whole family’s eye, and we relished his happy disposition and the white, curly locks that set him apart among the rest of our children, whose looks are predominantly Latin.

I’d had it in my head we would get this one “right.” We were mature parents (for the most part) by the time Ben was born, and Bernie and I felt sure we could spare him the mistakes we’d inflicted inadvertently on our first four. We just wouldn’t do the same stupid things we'd done in the past. Besides, we were too tired to offer anything but smiles and kisses. Forget discipline. Thanks be to God Ben rarely needed it. It was all going to be love, happiness and blessings for him. Right?

Then came the big bump in the road—the unforeseen tragedy, when life, as we knew it, turned on a dime. Bernie died, and our household changed in one fell swoop from a bustling center of activity for seven busy people, to the dreadfully quiet dwelling of a single mother and frightened, fatherless nine-year-old child. Kara, Alex, Gaby and Christian left one by one—goodbye after goodbye came. Everything was different, even as I tried my best to provide some sense of safety and normalcy in our home. It didn’t always go so well.

I vividly recall the night Ben and I sat at our large, family table to have dinner alone for the first time. He had begged me to cook pork chops, a family favorite, and I had happily complied. By the time the pork chops were served, the silence in the house was pounding in my ears, proving to be more than I could take. I escaped the table to have a major fall apart in the bedroom closet, leaving the television as Ben’s only supper company—a first, since I had always been a stickler about keeping the T.V. off while we ate.

I couldn’t shield my child from the trauma and sadness of life, and it literally broke my heart. I want to shelter him now as he goes off to work, knowing he has sore feet, tired legs and a belly full of butterflies. He’s nervous about doing a good job at the restaurant; he’d rather be riding his bike and swimming with friends, caught in the painful transition between boyhood and manhood—held, too, in the crossfire of a mother’s heart that wants to keep him tucked in.

Yet I know I can’t.

The moment has arrived to let go a little, offer him up to God, nudge him toward the edge of the nest so he can learn to fly. These are the birth pangs of the push forward, and birth pangs, like delivery, hurt.

The question every mother must face is upon me: will I let go, let God and trust? Do I trust that Ben will find his own ground, and the ground of God’s heart, even if his feet hurt now? I do trust. Even in the midst of labor pains, even in the midst of knowing that manhood is coming all too fast, even as I am aware that before I blink, thirty-three years of caring for kids at home will come to a close. Breathe. Push. Just like giving birth.

Standing In Mama's Shoes

I'm proud to dedicate this blog to my beautiful Mama, Phyllis Landrieu.  I hope to have a fraction of your grace and courage some day.  Happy Mother's Day!  I love you!!!

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother. John 19:25

“My Mama’s given me big shoes to stand in,” I have frequently been heard to say. And it’s true. My mother is one of the smartest, most gifted, hard-working and energetic women I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing and loving. And did I mention that she’s beautiful? At eighty-one, she’s lovely, elegant and graceful. See for yourself.

But the thing I appreciate most about my Mama is that she’s taught me to stand strong in the face of suffering. She’s demonstrated in living color how to let love make suffering pregnant with life, and how to permit intense pain to bear great fruit. She’s shown me how to stand—yes, stand at the foot of the Cross—offering bitter tears and the sacrifice of a sword-pierced heart for the good of other souls. Reflecting on my Mama, I can’t help but think of the Blessed Mother, who gave us the first big shoes to stand in. And like my earthly mother, stand she did, even as her heart was breaking.

When my mother faced the shattering suicide of my thirty-five year old brother, Scott, sixteen years ago, she had a choice to make. She could turn in on her grief—focus on her sorrow and let it consume her—or she could let her suffering become a conduit of blessing for others. She chose to found a task force in Scott’s name, training school teachers to recognize and respond to the signs of sexual abuse in children. It was not until my late husband, Bernie, died that Mama shared with me a private letter she’d written to him upon the death of his own son, Marshall. Her powerful words encouraged Bernie not to let his grief defeat him, but to use it instead as an impetus to help others. She wrote:

 At first after Scott’s death, I wanted to remove myself from all of my activities, pull down into the lonely darkness...just sit and hold my pain. But the abused children kept calling me and I found an opportunity out of the darkness by working to open the Children’s Advocacy Center. I did it in Scott’s name and there is a picture of Scott on the wall…If I could relieve some child’s suffering, I could relieve some of Scott’s suffering, and mine…There are so many suffering, just as I am, with pain and disappointment. In helping them, I am helping myself...They dim my pain, and I am rejoicing that Scott is in some way helping them also.

Nine years after Scott’s death, Mama faced the unimaginable. She faced the loss of another child to suicide; this time it was her second born son, Stephen.  If anyone ever had a right to close the blinds, turn off the lights and call it quits, it was my Mama. Instead, she chose to found an educational center in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of New Orleans designed not only to educate poor children, but also to provide comprehensive healthcare for them, as many poor children have never been to a doctor or a dentist in their lives. Though Mama has faced numerous personal and health challenges in recent years, including recuperating from a brain injury caused by a fall and caring for my Parkinson’s stricken Dad, she passionately presses on to help “the children,” for whom she fervently believes we all bear a responsibility.

Yes, my Mama has given me big shoes to stand in, but mostly, she’s taught me to stand. To stand upright when life goes face down, to stand steady when the rug is pulled out from under your feet, to stand, and keep standing, when all you really want to do is crumble to the ground in a heap. She’s shown all of us, with incredible courage and grace, how to walk forward in the face of inconceivable adversity. She walks forward with her face set like flint, carrying in her heart the sacrifice of her grief—a sacrifice that may just give a poor, needy kid a chance at life.

Now those are some shoes worth wearing.

Birthing Grace

I wish I could have captured that moment in time. Forever. It was silent, sacred, sacramental.

I stood at the bedside of my daughter, Gaby, on Holy Saturday morning as she prepared to give birth. The room was cool and dimly lit, filled to the brim with the anticipation of new life. As I closed my eyes to pray for a safe delivery between Gaby’s instructed pushes, I entered into the sacrosanct silence of the room; the quiet hush of awe and reverence that comes in waiting for a child to be born.

Only one sound pierced the stillness—the steady beat of the baby’s heartbeat registering on the monitor rhythmically: thump, thump, thump.

Standing with my eyes shut tight, listening attentively to the baby’s heartbeat, I sensed the heart of Jesus pulsating with love for the world. Thump, thump, thump, I heard the God-man’s heart ringing out. I thought about the meaning of Holy Saturday—a day of anticipation, a time of looming rebirth, a period of waiting for the full bloom of love to burst forth from God’s heart, the same heart that had been silenced on Good Friday. It was a fitting day for Rose Grayson to be born.

Rose’s annunciation came the week before her father learned he had cancer, ushering in what would become a “Triduum” kind of year. A young family discovering they were pregnant and facing the reality of human mortality in one sweeping breath, moving from happy excitement to fear and grief, embracing the mysteries of life and death all at once. The hopeful expectation of a new baby, made present alongside the agony of not knowing the outcome of a cancer diagnosis. Baby readying, and the accompanying labor of cancer testing, surgeries, and waiting for results. The paradox of the cross, presented with penetrating clarity.

Then came the final prognosis: cancer free! And the ultrasound news: a girl, the first to join three brothers! I watched the little family move out of Good Friday as healing rays came and life resumed its course with renewed vigor and purpose. And now it was Holy Saturday, the day of Rose Grayson’s birth.

The womb is not unlike Jesus’ tomb, I pondered, waiting to see Rose’s tiny face. In a place of dark silence, an enclosed border establishes a clear boundary with the world, and life secretly does its bidding until the darkness is overcome with a burst of brilliant light. Suffering offered and labor pains become cries of joy: He is Risen! It’s a girl!

In the silent enclosure of a birthing room, I gave thanks to God. Grace has ushered in a resurrection. God has given us “Rosie Grace.”

Your death, Lord Jesus, is our life . Your grave the womb of radiant light.

Hymn for Holy Saturday Evening, The Vigil of The Resurrection

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

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.

Poverty Is My Greatest Gift

As we continue to rejoice in Christmas, I am delighted to offer this beautiful guest post by my Christmas Eve-born daughter, Kara.  She has some wonderful insights into the gift of poverty.  May the Lord bless you and yours this Christmas and coming year, and may your New Year be holy and filled with the love and awe of God.

Last Christmas Eve, on my 28^th birthday, in a little chapel in New Orleans, Louisiana, I sat before Jesus in the Eucharist and wept. Having been on a journey with the Lord for so many years I felt exceedingly frustrated that I still struggled with so many of the same issues, poverties, faults, and that I wasn’t where I wanted to be in my life.

I wanted to be strong and have it all together. I wanted to be valiant, virtuous, beautiful and saintly. And there I was, weak, dependent, fragile and in a nutshell, poor.

Crying out to the Lord, I asked Him bitterly, “Why did you make me like this? Why did you make so frail and needy, with so much brokenness? Why did you make me so dependent on you for every breath that I breathe? Why didn’t you make me strong and capable and beautiful in the ways I want to be? Why?”

Immediately with such tenderness and love I heard the voice of God the Father say to me in reply:

“Kara, I made you a Christmas child, and the gift of Christmas is poverty. And poverty is your greatest gift.”

Jesus was born into a dark, cold, empty cave. Into the barren blackness of the night. A King born for the poor, of the poor, as the poor. And how easy it is for we followers of Christ to hate poverty.

By poverty I don’t just mean the hungry in the soup kitchens, the homeless in the shelters, or the beggar on the street—I mean the beggar within our very own families, and most of all, the beggar within ourselves. We want to escape our emptiness, deny our addictions, shun our weaknesses and mask our faults. But as my mother always told me, “Kara, if you were perfect, why would you need a Savior?”

I think St. Therese was made a Doctor of the Church specifically in this time of history because in a society where we truly believe it is our job to be perfect, independent, need no one, and save ourselves, she reminds us that the way to the Lord is not a growing up but a growing down; that the way to freedom is not a figuring out but a letting go.

“What pleases God is to see me love my littleness and my poverty. It is the blind hope I have in His mercy. There is my only treasure,” she tells us.

All of our weakness and frailty, all of our poverty—yes, even our sin if we lay it at the foot of the manger—become that empty cave into which the Christ child may be born. To ransom the captive chained within our souls. To free us from the bondage of ourselves. To die and rise for us, and make us truly rich, that we might rejoice! All because we are poor.

Hope Answered: The Way of the Child

Unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.                                  Matthew 18:3 

“God the Father is so pleased with you,” the old priest said with a broad smile on his face after praying over my husband, Bernie, just hours before his death. “Well done, Bernie. Well done!”

“It’s hard to miss the echo of God the Father’s thundering voice at Jesus’ Transfiguration saying: ‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,’” I wrote about the experience in my book, Miracle Man. “It suddenly dawns on me that this is what Bernie Klein has been waiting for to die, and that this is precisely the gift that Our Heavenly Father wanted to give him so he can finally rest in peace,” I concluded.

The assurance of being God’s beloved son. A child of the Father. Isn’t that the identity that all human beings are called to discover?

Jesus enters this world as a little child precisely to teach us to say “Father,” says Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his book of collected sermons entitled The God of Jesus Christ. His vulnerability as an infant and a child make it clear that humans are not meant to be self-sufficient, but that we are by our very nature relational, in need of others and in need of God.

He became a child. What does it mean to be a child? To begin with it means dependence, needing support and help from others...Being a child…means learning to say “Father.”*

Sounds simple enough. But human experience tells us that it is often very difficult to say “Father” from our hearts. It can be painfully hard to perceive God as a loving, merciful Father, as Abba, Papa, Daddy. We suffer from what could be called a collective father-wound in our culture, and the wound bleeds openly, even in the Church. We are facing a crisis in fatherhood itself, where the meaning and importance of fatherhood are called into question, and where more than half of the children in our country are growing up in homes that are absent a father’s presence.

Each Advent, we are invited to reconsider the infancy of Jesus, which points us to the truth that we, like Jesus, are God’s little children. And like Jesus, we are called to address God personally, intimately, familiarly—as our Father. The profundity of creatures assuming such a stance before Almighty God can hardly be overstated.

I recently noted with interest that the Church’s Advent readings contain a recurring theme. The Old Testament ends with a prophecy of the Messiah’s forerunner, John the Baptist, who will “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” (Malachi 3:24)

The Gospel of Luke begins Christ’s Infancy Narrative with a repetition of the same promise. There, the angel Gabriel declares to John the Baptist’s father that his son will go before the Savior to “turn the hearts of the fathers toward their children…to prepare a people fit for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17)

It seems that a major theme of Advent is the turning of heavenly and earthly hearts one to the other, anticipating the spiritual healing that God desires for each of us: becoming a child, becoming His child, becoming like the Christ-child. Healing of this sort makes us fit for a relationship with the Father, and retrofitted for membership in His family.

The babe in the manger is completely vulnerable and dependent, much the way the sick, the elderly and the dying are at the end of their lives. Just the way that my husband Bernie was when his earthly life came to a close. Such vulnerability is good and necessary if we are to shed our world-acquired illusions of autonomy and enter God’s kingdom—which admits of only one path—the way of the child.

*Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, The God of Jesus Christ, Meditations on the Triune God