What the Oaks Teach Us

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope in the Lord.  He will be like a tree planted beside the waters that streches its roots to the stream.             Jeremiah 17:7-8

One of my favorite places in the entire world is Pass Christian, Mississippi, where I spent last week with my extended family and three young grandsons.  The “Pass” has been a playground for our family for more than a quarter century, ever since my sister JoJo began dating her now-husband John, who owned a condo on the beach there years ago.  JoJo and John own a beach house today that welcomes the next generation of children—a new batch of kids who chase minnows in the shallow salt water, catch hermit crabs along the water’s edge and explore the exposed Gulf bottom as the tide recedes on a summer evening.

One of the things I love best about the place is its majestic oak trees, which line the brilliant white beach that runs adjacent to the Old Highway 90 for miles on end.  The oaks create an air of beauty, grandeur and serenity that is part and parcel of the atmosphere of the Coast.  I never tire of gazing at them as I walk or ride alongside the beach.

I remember seeing the oaks the day my family and I took our first ride to the Gulf Coast shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit. I will never forget our collective shock as all seven of us rode in stunned silence surveying the damage.  Mile upon mile of mansions, beach cottages, businesses, casinos and condominium complexes had simply disappeared from the face of the earth–sucked out into the Gulf of Mexico by the massive storm surge that ferociously slammed its shores.   Practically all that remained standing on the barren land were the oak trees, which had somehow survived the storm.  They were badly battered and beaten, but they were still standing.

What had held them in place?  Deep roots.  Much like the roots that held me in place not long after Katrina when a Category 5 storm hit my life.  Through Baptism I had been grafted onto Christ, and my roots had been deepened over the years through a personal  and intimate relationship with Him.  Those roots held me tight in the midst of a colossal personal storm—a storm that would bring to light the need for some divine soul remedies, including the need for my trust in God to be healed.

Walking beside the beach last week brought all of this to mind.  Looking at the oaks, I could hardly guess what a beating they took a just few short years ago, other than a telltale sign that repeated itself all along the way:  branches that were slashed off after the hurricane in order to save the trees.

As I walked along, it became increasingly obvious that cutting off the bad branches was necessary for the trees to thrive again.  I thought about the times when I’ve experienced this reality in my own spiritual life—the times when I’ve received the hard medicine of bad branches being stripped.  Especially the broken limb of not trusting that God would take care of me and my family if my worst fears came true—a belief that was amputated when God demonstrated His faithfulness in outrageous ways during a worst case scenario year in my life.  That year included burying a brother and his wife to murder-suicide, almost losing a child to serious addiction, and losing my spouse to a massive heart attack—all within twelve short months.

People ask how I survived that difficult time, and the secret is the same as with the oaks.  God held me steady through deep roots, even as He cut off branches of unbelief in my own heart.  Both things can happen at once, and sometimes both things are necessary for faith to continue to grow and flourish.

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus said to his disciples. “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).  The flip side of that truth is that with Him and in Him, we can do everything.  Even the things we dread the most, like coming up against personal life hurricanes that threaten to uproot us and pull us asunder.   

*****

“The true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us.”         Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 755.

What the World Needs Now

“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.

Having spent the last two weeks with my daughter Gaby and her three young sons, ages 5, 2 ½ and 14 months, I am reminded of just how sacrificial and self-giving motherhood calls a woman to be, and how demanding it is to continually pour oneself out in love for the good of others.  “There’s no rest for the weary,” I kept joking 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 go to sleep.

“(Women) will be saved through motherhood, provided women 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.

Yesterday was the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel; Mt. Carmel being the location innorthern 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 sexual rituals offered to the fertility gods.  Jezebel’s legacy is one of grasping for power, using 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—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, 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 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, my daughter included.  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 having 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.

*****

“Called to give life, married couples share in the creative power and fatherhood of God…they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are in a certain sense, its interpreters.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2367

Back to the Garden

Two days ago I received an envelope full of pictures from my son, Christian, who lives in Communita Cenacolo in St. Augustine, Florida.  This was the first time since Christian entered Community four years ago that he sent pictures home!  It took me a moment to grasp what I was seeing, but then I remembered.  He is in charge of the garden.  The pictures he sent captured the fruit of his work.

Christian had told me about the garden during the Spring Retreat in March, when he shared his excitement about how abundantly the crops were already growing.  Tomatoes, watermelons, green beans and lettuce—just a sampling of the fruits and vegetables that provide delicious, nutritious meals for men and women in three Community houses.

I remember well Christian’s entrance to the Community, when the first assignment he was given was to work in the garden.  After the high-adrenaline lifestyle he’d lived for several years, gardening was tedious and boring business, seemingly more of a penance than a task with a precise purpose. But as Christian has returned to work the garden over the past four years, I have watched his cultivation of it express the movement of his soul; the intentional labor of tilling the soil and pruning it of unwanted debris, allowing new seeds of life to take deep root within.  All the while the boy has been digging into his own soul, uprooting lies and plowing new trenches, making way for Christ’s healing power to flow into the deep recesses of his being.  At long last, the fruit has appeared from Christian’s purposeful, diligent toil--the hard fought fruit on display in his pictures of a summer garden and his accompanying letter that says it all: “I am growing a lot right now...I feel a lot of peace.”

I can think of no better way for my son to have spent the last four years of his life than living in Community.  I’m convinced that no college education nor work experience could have been as beneficial or taught him as much as learning to cultivate both the gardens of Community and his own soul.

I personally love to garden, and I’ve learned much over the years about what it takes to produce a beautiful crop of flowers. The sweat of my brow, and considerable trial and error, have brought forth plants that have bloomed splendidly, as well as plants that have died from scorching sun, poor irrigation, and diseases that sprung up, seemingly overnight.  The garden has taught me many lessons, such as the fact that steadfast care and consistent effort are necessary if the blooms are ever going to come--just like with prayer. I’ve also learned that while a hard freeze destroys some plants, it actually does others good, as many of the trees and plants in our garden testify to this year, coming back with new vibrancy after a harsh, bitter winter—just like a beautiful soul after an intense period of suffering.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from the garden is that its silence provides a profound opportunity to be present God and to oneself.  I am watching gratefully as that wisdom is imparted to my son as the seasons pass and he tills the soil perseveringly, transforming what used to be a penance into a labor of love—and what used to be a wasteland into fertile, holy ground, ready, willing and able to bear fruit.

“The ruins shall be rebuilt; the desolate land shall be tilled...This desolate land has been made into a garden” (Ez. 37:34,35).  Such is God’s promise when we turn to Him and trust Him to rebuild us from the ground up.  After all, it is He who is the true master gardener, the tiller of the soul.

*****

"The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden." Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 378

He Chose to Stay

“Father, I’ve buried two brothers, my stepson and my husband,” I wept openly that Friday night in 2010 when I showed up for services at Blessed Seelos Church in New Orleans. “I can’t bury my son.  I just can’t do it,” I cried, distraught with worry that my son Christian might die of a drug overdose. “Stop!” Fr. Benson ordered gently but forcefully in his Irish brogue. “Give the boy to me and I will take him to the Lord,” he continued.  “You go home and grieve your husband’s death.”

The moment the gifted priest and healer spoke those words to me, I felt my burden lift, instantly, completely.  It was nothing less than a miraculous shift, and I was transformed in one second from a worried-sick mother to a confident daughter of God, suddenly experiencing “the peace that surpasses all understanding” standing guard over my heart and mind (Phil. 4:6).   I walked out of the church with light shoulders and an inexplicable anticipation that something was about to change.

Five days later, I got a call from Christian.  “Mom, guess who I just hung up with!” he started in excitedly.

“Who?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer.  My phone conversations with Christian had been dismal and alarming for months.  The last few calls had come at three in the morning, with Christian on the other end telling me he feared he would die if he continued down the path he was on.

“I just spoke to Albino from Communita Cenacolo!” my son said with the first glimmer of hope I’d heard in his voice for a long time.  “I called and made an appointment to go to orientation at the Community next week.  Will you take me, Mom?”

Stunned by what I was hearing, I muttered, “Of course I’ll take you!”  I had been asking Christian to enter Cenacolo—a Catholic community for recovering drug addicts—for several years.  I had even called two years earlier and added his name to the waiting list, hoping and praying that God would work a miracle that would make him willing to go.  “I’m not going to some Jesus camp, Mom, so you can forget it!” had been his insistent reply. As time passed, my fear grew that his addiction would win.  I never imagined that Christian would call Cenacolo himself to inquire about entering.  But miracles do happen.

A week after that phone call, Christian, my friend Mary Lou and I were on the road to Cenacolo.  We were headed to Our Lady of Hope in St. Augustine, Florida; one of 65 houses that have sprung up around the world in the thirty years since a nun named Mother Elvira founded the Community in Italy.  Mary Lou’s son John had entered the same house a year earlier, and my daughter Kara had followed shortly thereafter to do “an experience” at the St. Maria Goretti girls house.  Though Kara had no idea what had transpired on our end, she and the entire house of girls had been praying a novena to St. Rita of Cascia--the patron saint of impossible causes--for Christian to enter the Community.

We drove a miserable ten hours through pouring rain with a kid in the back seat having major second thoughts about going to “Jesus camp.”  But by the grace of God we got him there for what Community calls his “working days.”  On the third day, Christian decided to stay.  That was four years ago this month, and I am still amazed that he stayed. And stayed and stayed and stayed.

Community is no easy place to live, and everyone who comes through those doors will tell you that point blank.  First of all, you live dormitory-style in a house full of addicts, many of whom have come to Community as a last resort after multiple rehab failures and brushes with the law.  But that’s just the beginning of the story.  Community life is rigorous, with six a.m. wake up calls, hard physical work and many hours of prayer down on the knees every single day.  There are no TVs, radios, computers or cell phones, and there is very little contact with the outside world.  Yet Christian and thousands of others who have entered the doors of Cenacolo over the years have chosen to stay.  Why?

They stay because of what they find in the Community, not because of what they don’t have there.  What they find is the of love God and their own personal dignity, communicated daily through their “brothers” who walk beside them through the healing process, loving them, speaking the truth to them and encouraging them to look honestly at their “poverties” and brokenness.  They stay because they hear the ever-present message of God’s unconditional love and mercy—and they experience it concretely through the love of the Community, through the Sacraments and through numerous hours spent in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  They stay because they find the value and dignity of hard work, and they learn that they can do many things well, including gardening, construction, cooking and woodworking, along with befriending and helping others.  They stay because they learn to sing, to dance, and to worship God, and to celebrate life as a gift to which they are called to be present.  They can leave whenever they want to; and yet they stay.

I believe that Communita Cenacolo is a cenacle of God’s presence on this earth; a cell of the new evangelization in a dark world that is increasingly lost, numb and addicted.  It is a place that calls forth new life, a beacon of light that speaks of the power of God to heal and transform what have been called “the poorest of the poor” in the Western world—drug addicts and their families.

My son was six feet under, and the Lord raised him up.  His sickness was not unto death, but unto life for him and for all of us who have been privileged to walk with him on his journey through Community.  Our sojourn has led us from darkness to light, from death to life.  I thank God he chose to stay.

Where Are You Going?

May 29, 2014 Feast of the Ascension

I am rarely at a loss for words, but today is different.  It’s hard to find the words to write about a topic that none of us like to think about or talk about: death.

I went to bed with a heavy heart on Memorial Day after learning that a New Orleans family I’m remotely acquainted with had lost their nine year old son Joseph in a boating accident earlier that day.  A family outing of tubing on the Wolf River turned deadly when a tube being pulled behind a boat hit a tree, injuring the child fatally from head and neck trauma.  A sibling riding beside his brother on the tube; their father driving the boat.  One can hardly imagine a more tragic set of circumstances.

“Lord, please have mercy on Joseph’s family and give them comfort and strength,” my husband Mark and I prayed as we grieved with a family we have never met over their heartrending loss.  Our prayers echoed the prayers we said a year ago last Memorial Day, when we got the news that a friend had lost his 21 year old son Jacques to a drowning accident while tubing on the Amite River.  For months we offered prayers for Jacques’ family, imagining their searing pain over the loss of their beloved son.

When I woke up to pray on Tuesday morning, the first words my eyes fell upon in the day’s prayers were: “Christ lives as ruler over life and death; come, let us adore, alleluia!”  I continued on to the Gospel, which read:  “Jesus said to his disciples: Now I am going to the one who sent me…grief has filled your hearts”  (John 16:5-7).

All of us have known the grief of death at some time in our lives.  If we have not, it’s a certainty that we will.  I have personally known the grief of death intimately, having watched my spouse, my parents and a best friend bury children to untimely, heartbreaking deaths.  I then walked through the valley of death with my husband, losing him after 24 years of marriage to a massive heart attack.  That event led me to a widows group, where I sat with “weeping widows” for three years, hearing shocking new stories of tragedy regularly.  Sadly, our little group grew and grew, and my heart and tears continually expanded as I entered into the agony of other sorrowful women.

I know the anguish of death; and I know, too, the truth of Jesus’ words—the ones sandwiched between “I am going” and “grief.”  “Not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” Jesus said to His disciples, summing up in four little words the Christian virtue of hope (John 16:5, italics added).

Hope is the theological virtue infused into our souls at Baptism that enables us to believe that “heaven is for real,” that it’s our true home, and that we will meet God and our loved ones there some day.  Hope convinces us that we are aliens on planet Earth, that we’re destined for something more, and that there will come a time where there will be no more death or sorrow, weeping or funerals—or accidents that pull the ground right out from under our feet.   Hope enables us to place our trust in Christ's promises—“relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit”  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1817).

In and of ourselves, we would never have the strength to bury a loved one, most especially, a child.  But with God’s grace, we can and must have hope in the face of such loss, trusting that death does not have the final word, and resting assured that God’s presence and power will carry us until we can stand upright again. And indeed, it does.  I have seen it happen time and time again these past few years, where I’ve encountered too much grief to measure.  Hope has carried us through, individually and corporately.  It has kept us from discouragement; it has sustained us during times of abandonment; it has opened our hearts in expectation of eternal beatitude (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1818).  Without such hope, we would simply crumble under the weight of the reality of death, and death itself would be an absurd cruelty.

Today is the Feast of the Ascension, the day young Joseph will be buried.  We remember that Our Lord’s tomb is empty and that He has gone home to the one who sent Him.  To heaven, where He--and Joseph--await our arrival.  That’s why we can heartily pray:  “Christ lives as ruler over life and death; come, let us adore, alleluia!”

Judy Landrieu Klein holds a Masters Degree in Theological Studies from the University of Dallas and carried out post-graduate doctoral studies at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum in Rome.  She writes from Mandeville LA and can be reached at memorareministries@gmail.com.