Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Beautiful Christmas

A beautiful Christmas has just begun. That's right--begun. Today is only the beginning of the Christmas season, so don't take down the tree and lights just yet. Keep enjoying time with family. Spend quiet time reflecting on the miracle that is the birth of Jesus--God made man for the sake of our salvation. Of all the blessings I am counting, this one tops them all.

May you be so blessed this Christmas and in the coming year.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Beware the Dog House

You Did It To Me














People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world your best anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.


- Mother Teresa of Calcutta


Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Allowing the Author of Life to do the Writing...What a Beautiful Concept

Another beautiful homily by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., on the gift of children, the dignity of the human person, and leaving the creative act in the hands of the Creator.

(excerpt from "Dignitas Personae")

It is part of the dignity of the human person to be begotten, not made. Allowing God to arrange our genetics in the marital act of our parents is a way of giving God what is God’s. Our soul is created directly by God in the moment of conception. That is what makes that moment so special and sexual acts sacred. It is the place where the dignity of the human person emerges...

Certainly, there are some couples who cannot conceive in the normal way. But more recently many ways have been developed in which they can be helped with legitimate medical procedures and their number is therefore actually fairly low. If nothing helps, there will certainly be a painful cross; but we also should not forget about the possibilities of adoption, especially in a time where there are so many unwanted babies...

Children can be received only as a gift, not a right; we are living in a time where, paradoxically, this gift is rejected by many, while others want to receive it not as a gift, but as a right and as something of their own making.

Monday, December 8, 2008

A Mother Never Forgets Her Child


Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary: a day when we Catholics celebrate our belief that, from the moment of her conception, God created the Blessed Virgin Mary free from all stain of original sin.

This day is, of course, significant in and of itself. But for me, what makes this day particularly significant is that I am keenly aware of it.

You see, until recently, I have felt little to no connection to Mary whatsoever, and have reached out to her only in times of desperation. But since becoming a mother, my relationship with Our Heavenly Mother has begun to blossom. In my new state of life, she has finally become real, tangible, understandable--a role model. I now reach out to her for strength, guidance, and protection, not only for myself but for my daughter and our family. And she has not left me wanting.

I may have forgotten Mary all these years, but she has not forgotten me. And I understand why--she is a mother, MY mother, and a mother never forgets her own child. I have wandered far away from her, but she has always awaited my return with open arms.

Now I find great consolation, for the first time, in her loving arms. The rosary gives me strength, comfort, and guidance when I am frustrated, tired, or troubled. A simple, "Mary, what should I do?", provides me with almost instant peace and direction. And when I remember to start my day by giving myself to the care of her Immaculate Heart, she never fails to keep me close to Jesus throughout the day. Ultimately, I have found that the more I reach out to Mary, the closer she binds me to her son.

On this great feast day, I am grateful for my Heavenly Mother, and for her incredible patience and love towards me.

From one mother to another, Mary, thank you.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

When I Grow Up I Wanna Be an Old Woman

I'm not the biggest fan of Kaiser Permanente, (or any HMO for that matter), but I have to say that they've got a great new ad campaign.



Our culture is obsessed with youth, to the point where aging is considered something to be avoided like the plague. But lets face it ladies--there's only one alternative to getting old...

I say rather than fight this process of getting wrinkles and watching certain parts of our body go south, we embrace it as the badge of honor it is.

So, OK...admittedly, I'm only in my 20's. Who am I, you ask, to talk about "aging"? But I, (along with many of my friends in their 20's and 30's,) have plenty of temptations to hate the parts of my body that don't look as they used to. Those of us in our so-called-youth still fight body image problems. If we don't re-adjust our attitude now, what's going to happen to us when the signs of our age become even more readily apparent?

Next time I have the urge to be critical of my body, I'm going to marvel at it instead--yes, even the stretch marks, the sun spots, the lines forming on my face, the scars, and especially that flabby ponch that so stubbornly hangs at my mid-section. Why, you ask? Because these are God-given signs of a life well-lived. Every stretch mark, every wrinkle, every scar tells a story of my life, and to wish any of them gone would be to wish a piece of my history removed.

Those stretch marks and that ponch are blessed reminders that my body has nurtured a little human being into existance. Those scars, reminders of clumsy moments of fun in my childhood. And what of the lines forming on my face, slowly but surely? They are visible signs of having experienced life to its fullest--both in moments of great joy and of great sadness.

A body free of blemishes in my old age would mean a life free of experience--so I'll take whatever blemishes I'm dealt, although I may do a few sit-ups along the way.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The "Seamless Garment" of Faith

A dear friend once asked me, "can you believe in God and simultaneously deny him?" After much thought, the answer I gave her literally changed the course of my life, as I realized in that moment how hypocritically I had been living. And as I read this homily, written by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., I was taken back to that moment when I knew that I could no longer believe in God in bits and pieces--I had to accept Him as a whole, or not at all:

(excerpts from "
Faith is Necessary for Salvation")

...Faith [in God] is necessary for our healing as well, for our salvation. Without faith, nobody can be saved...


This is described wonderfully [in] the letter to the Hebrews, in the 11th chapter. There it [says]: without faith it is impossible to please him [God], for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So what we need is at least an implicit faith in God as our redeemer, and the readiness to accept everything he is going to reveal to us...


Faith is an attitude of trust, a trust that is ready to embrace all and everything that the heavenly Father is going to reveal. The patriarchs of the Old Testament had this trust. In our age, however, we sadly see that even those, to whom all of this has now been revealed, are not ready to embrace God’s revelation. Even those who claim to be Christians often claim the right to pick and choose among those things that God has revealed...


I think we need to be very clear that this is not a path that leads us to heaven. Without faith nobody can be saved. But a faith that willfully excludes something that God puts before us to be believed cannot be called faith...


We [know] and yet we do not accept. But that cannot be supernatural faith; it is at the most human credulity. Faith is a grace that cannot be had on our own terms, but only on God’s terms, and that is: as a whole or not at all. Everything else is not faith, but mere human opinion, our own subjective choice, picking and choosing according to our taste...


God’s revelation and all that is taught by the Church in matters of faith and morals, is one seamless garment. Everything hangs together, and you cannot have one without the other...


We can be at peace in knowing that God entrusted this faith to the Church as a whole. She in the meanwhile guards it, keeping it in her profession of faith, even where we do not grasp the whole...


We believe because of God’s authority who witnesses to the truth. He is the one in whom we believe, as well as the one whom we believe. We believe in a God whose witness is truthful, because he reveals to us nothing else but what he himself knows to be true.

Monday, December 1, 2008

A God Who Understands Our Suffering From Experience

A few nights ago on our local Catholic radio station, I tuned in to hear Fr. John Corapi leading the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. Something he said in his reflection on the 4th Mystery, The Carrying of the Cross, really caught my attention.

He talked about Jesus' journey to the cross--a long, painful one. So often when I think of Christ's suffering and death on the cross, I forget the immense suffering He endured before He was crucified: first he was scourged, a torture that tore the flesh from His body with each lash of the whip. Then, while His sores were fresh, they covered him with a cloak and dug a crown of thorns into his head. It was at that point, weak, beaten and bleeding, that they forced Him to carry a heavy cross to His own crucifixion.

Fr. Corapi drew this beautiful parallel: like Jesus, it is often when we've had about all we can take that we are faced with an even greater obstacle--when we are confronted with the cross.

I find this to be so true in my own life, especially lately. The cross rarely comes when I am strong and feeling capable of carrying it. Rather, it comes when I am weakest and most prone to dropping it. The cross can come in many forms: great temptations, character flaws, physical or emotional suffering, or spiritual dryness.

Rather than follow my usual instinct, which is to either run from the cross or to try and carry it by myself, I need to follow the example of Jesus and allow someone to help me carry it. And that "someone" must be Him--He knows my pain even more intimately than I do, and He knows how to help me get through it. The suffering of Jesus shows me that God is not one who is distant from our pain, but one who understands it from experience.