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Someone wrote me the other day and asked me to write about how to be loving and kind to a family member that is annoying and selfish. Here are my thoughts... Right before Christmas, I was sitting in LAX waiting to get on a flight back home to Kansas. I'm a people watcher, so I never sit with my head buried in my phone. At first, I started picking apart each person. There were so many annoying things and if you would have taken a picture of me, I probably would have had a scowl on my face. Then, I looked across from me. This young guy and I locked eyes for just a second and he smiled. I smiled back. It was clear that he was most likely cognitively disabled. I then watched him look out at all the people. As I watched, I noticed how he just continued to smile at each person. Rather than being critical of each person and mentally creating a litany of annoyances about everyone, he was just watching people with an expression of joy. I thought in that moment: What if someone is doing what I'm doing and their eyes landed on me? They could deem me the annoying-scowly faced woman who is clearly silently wishing that she could fix everyone so that they wouldn't annoy her anymore. Then I would be annoying to that person. So, I decided to change my attitude and I started looking around at everyone with the eyes of the guy across from me. I noticed a mom and her teenage son laughing together. I noticed a soldier talking to a loved one on their phone. I noticed exhausted parents trying to sneak a quick lunch while their baby napped in his stroller. Suddenly, nobody annoyed me and I was filled with a deep love for all these flawed people. For just a brief moment, I saw them not as people that needed to fix themselves so that I could like them. Instead, I saw them as people that needed to be loved. We all struggle with being loving to people that get on our nerves. I know I do. Selfish people are hard to deal with. What we must remember, Catholic Pilgrims, myself included, is that it is selfish of us to want people to be just so in order for us to love them.
Last week, during our evening Bible reading with our son, my husband read the part where Jacob wrestles with God. After this wrestling, Jacob's name is changed to Israel which means, "wrestled with God." Now, I'm not here to go over the theology of whether this was an angel or God, that's for the theologians to hash out. Either way, Jacob was wrestling with a spiritual being. So, we asked our son, "Why do you think Jacob had this wrestling match?" He thought for a long moment and then said, "I think he was maybe mad about something." "What was he mad about?" "I think he knew he had't been that good and now he wanted to go home, but he knew he couldn't go home the same way. Something like that. Maybe he was mad that things hadn't turned out all that great for him, because he wasn't always honest." My husband asked, "So, who all had Jacob wronged?" "His brother. He lied to his dad. And he wasn't totally honest with Laban either." So, I said, "When we've allowed ourselves to become less than who God created us to be, we hate facing ourselves. But, if we ever are going to be better, we must face who we've become and, in that process, we will wrestle with God. When we finally break down to see ourselves for what we truly are, there will be a battle within us. Ultimately, that battle is with God." The battle is never fun, Catholic Pilgrims, and oftentimes, we will leave with a wound, just like Jacob did in his hip. However, once we have this battle and we face ourselves and truly desire change, growth and transformation will happen. We will be better. Jacob got a new name because he was no longer the same old Jacob. The wound is there to remind us of the battle and that we don't want to go back to who we were any more. If we are too afraid to have this battle, especially if we've really been down the wrong path, we will stay stagnant the rest of our lives. Best to wrestle it out with God so that we can be changed for the better. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday. *Painting by Alexander Louis Leloir (1865)
I often like to look at the Gospels through the lens of my military life. It's the life I lead, and so, it helps to see parallels. I grew up believing that I would find a Kansas man to marry and settle down with him in my home state. That was not what God had in mind. Saying "yes" to my military man started me out on a path on which I had no idea what to expect. I had no inkling as a newly-minted 2nd Lt.'s wife what I was getting ready to face. There's no one who could have really told me all the ins and outs. I just needed to trust the path. I didn't at first. I was so homesick, so lost, so lonely at our first duty station that I told my husband that he needed to do his four years and get out. But then, after some time, I came to see that this life is a mission--a mission for good. It should be viewed as a life of sacrifice and serving. I soon realized that it was wrong to dissuade my husband from the mission. What I needed to do was join along and support him and the mission in the best way I knew how. I had to be more like Mary. Her son was on the biggest mission the world has ever known. She didn't know all the ends and outs of what would happen, but she supported His mission no matter what until the very end. She still supports it by supporting us--the soldiers for Christ. My military life, as an Air Force wife, pales in comparison to what Mary and Jesus went through, but I still like to look for the parallels. Mary was the support to her Son, just as I am to be the support to my husband. In today's Gospel, she supports the mission at the wedding feast of Cana in her loving way by interceding for the needs of others. When I look to her, she gives me strength to carry on. I find when I look to her example and try to emulate it, I am given many graces. All of us, Catholic Pilgrims, are to support the mission of the Church to bring souls to Christ. Have a blessed Sunday.
In preparation for Season Five of my podcast "Journeying with the Saints," I reached out to the different shrines in the US associated with St. Frances Cabrini. I got to chat on the phone with the executive director of the St. Francis Cabrini Shrine in NY. I loved hearing from Julia about Mother Cabrini. During our conversation, she said something that really struck me. "Mother Cabrini saw difficulty at the start of a mission as a good sign, because it meant the work had been sealed with the Cross." You wanna hear Saint talk? That's it for you, right there. That mentality of hers sliced through me like a knife. All around us--ALL AROUND US--we are told that if something is difficult or hard, if barriers are put up in your way, abandon ship because God obviously doesn't want you to do it. If He did, it would be an easy path. This is a lie. I've been whining about having to be stationed in the desert again and how hard that is and how it isn't super, big fun for me. Yet, Saints welcome challenges and sufferings. If you are experiencing hardship and difficulties in your mission or vocation, it's been sealed with the Cross. I mean, what kind of talk is that? It's utterly stunning to me and so very inspiring. We have this notion in our heads that Christianity is supposed to be this comfortable, easy path just because we believe in Christ. But, when at any point was Christ's life easy? It wasn't. It just wasn't. Yet, He carried on because the mission was too great to not see it through. The suffering was redemptive for us all and He loved us that much to not give up even though it was hard. We've been talking about living out virtue and how our culture has twisted virtue into self-serving, dressed-up vices. All of what is served up to us is meant to be easy, comfortable, and shallow. Yet, we have Saints that are saying, "Bring on the sacrifices and suffering because that means this mission has been sealed with the Cross of Christ." That is love, my fellow Pilgrims. That is an attitude I aspire to and hope to emulate, because anything else is just self-serving rubbish. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
So, yesterday, I talked about how the little thing I read in a very old book caused my husband and I to engage in some deep conversations. I wrote about one aspect of the quote that we discovered in those conversations yesterday, which was...lively, shall we say. Today, I want to talk about the other thing we discovered and alluded to at the end of my post yesterday. We discovered that what has happened is that the culture has selected a virtue, twisted it, and then slapped modern framing on it to make it not sound so bad. For example: Original Virtue: Temperance The Vice: Self-indulgence, neglect of responsibilities Modern Framing--Self-Care, "Take care of number one." Original Virtue: Dignity--seeing yourself as a child of God The Vice: Narcissism, selfishness Modern Framing--Self-Love, Justifies prioritizing one's desire over community, but this is fine because 'you do you." Original Virtue: Prudence with regards time and effort The Vice: Selfishness, isolation, lack of generosity Modern Framing: "Protecting my peace." I could go on and on, but you get the point. The thing that struck me and my husband was how these all boiled down to focus on the self and as we know in our society, the more that we have focused on ourselves, the more unhappy, more depressed, and more anxious we have become. The culture tries to pass off the modern framing so that it looks like a virtue, but my husband said, "If the virtue doesn't have a sacrifice attached to it or a focus on others, it's not a real virtue. It's self-serving and virtues are never self-serving." Like the quote said yesterday, dressing things up in "beautiful false names" will only make us prisoners. We must always strive to look outside of ourselves and seek to bring light and love to others by living out the virtues. Only then, Catholic Pilgrims, can we find true joy and the peace that only Christ can give. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
I was reading through a very old book that I was recently gifted that has just one or two sentences on a page. I read: "Nineteenth century man became all the more irrevocably the prisoner of his own life-sorrows through the beautiful false names with which he labeled them." I sat with this a very long time. Later that night, I asked my husband what he thought and could he think of any life-sorrows that have been given "beautiful names" in order to make them seem good. It became a bit of a thought experiment for us. I could think of one right off the top of my head: Selfishness has become self-care. Now, this isn't to say that taking care of yourself is wrong. We should take care of ourselves because our bodies are good and neglecting them can cause us to not be able to do God's will. However, our culture has taken vices that cause sorrow, dressed them up in a new name that is hard to argue with, and then encouraged people to engage in them. What happens then? You become a prisoner. My husband said, "Anytime you take something bad and try to make it sound virtuous, it always is a move towards self-centeredness. The focus becomes entirely on you and ultimately that makes us miserable. That's why you become a prisoner. Together, we thought of a few more things that have been dressed up with "beautiful names." Abortion--health care. Abortion already is a euphemism, but it is now being referred to as the double euphemism of "health care." Laziness--"protection from burnout" "work-life balance" Narcissism--self-love Isolation--"protecting my peace" Lies--"your truth, my truth" On the surface, all these phrases or "beautiful names" seem good. Initially, it's hard to argue with them. But, when you scratch just beneath the surface you'll see that they all come back to the self. There is something else that my husband and I discovered while thinking through the original quote. I'll talk about that tomorrow. Until then, live the faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
Yesterday, my husband and I finished our 33-day reading of this book and prayed the consecration prayer at the end together. If you would have told me when Dustin and I were dating that one day we would consecrate ourselves to Jesus in the Eucharist in a small Blessed Sacrament Room on base, I would have looked at you with utter confusion. For one, I wasn't Catholic. For two, I had no idea what the Eucharist was so why would I be consecrating myself to it? For three, I didn't see the importance of faith in the married life at that time. I thought our romantic love for each other would be enough. I would have thought you were saying I'd turn into some hokey-pokey weirdo. However, God's ways are not our ways. Now, I have been Catholic for 13 years. Now, I know that the Eucharist is everything and that I will never exhaust my ability to be in awe and wonder at the miracle of Christ in the Eucharist. Now, I have seen Dustin and I realize that a marriage needs God at the center. The Eucharist is the food for our married life together. At the beginning of this book, Matthew Kelly says, "What is the difference between the people who have left the Catholic Church over the past thirty years and those who have stayed?" The answer: "Those who believe don't leave." Those who believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist don't leave. And I'd add, those outside the Church who come to believe, can't become Catholic quick enough. That was me. The second the Eucharist clicked in my brain, I needed to be Catholic that instant. It was a desire like I've never known. To loosely quote Flannery, O'Conner: To Hell with all this symbolic nonsense. No army of demons could keep me away from becoming Catholic, because it is in the fullness of the Catholic Church that I can receive the Eucharist and there is nothing more important that Jesus truly present on our altars and offered to us in Holy Communion. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday, Catholic Pilgrims.
Many of you have reached out to check on me and my family to see if we are out of danger from the terrible fires in LA. Thankfully, we are not in danger, but I do appreciate the concern for us. Yesterday, you could smell the fire in the air, so it does feel a bit too close for comfort. Already here at the start of 2025, we’ve had lots of chaos and disasters. We’d like to believe that a new year would start off fresh with no mistakes in it, but that’s just wishful thinking and, sadly, not how a fallen world works. Please pray for rain. Please pray for those displaced who have lost all their worldly goods and have to find some way to start all over. Please pray for firefighters who have so little to work with. I’m sure they feel helpless. Please pray that other cities continue to send help. I know Las Vegas has sent firefighters to LA, which is good. I don’t want this to become a political fight here. I’d ask that you please refrain from making any political statement in the comments and just focus instead on the suffering and the helpers. We need rain here very badly and there’s not an ounce in sight. To my fellow Catholics P
Yesterday, I was listening to an episode from Trent Horn’s podcast. He was critiquing an impromptu debate between Michael Knowles (Catholic) and Charlie Kirk (evangelical Protestant). I respect both men a lot. At one point, Kirk says, “Your goal should be to bring people to Jesus not Catholicism.” This shows Kirk’s severe lack of understanding of the Eucharist. Why do I want people to be Catholic? Because of Christ fully present in the Eucharist. Even if Kirk doesn’t believe in the Eucharist, he knows devout Catholics do. If we do, he should be able to reason that we want people to be Catholic so that they can experience Divine Communion with Christ and fully receive His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We aren’t looking for people to have a symbolic communion but a real one. This is not an either/or situation. I want people to be Catholic so that they can receive Christ in the Eucharist. There is nothing on earth greater than this and I can’t get the Eucharist in a Protestant church. Christ in the Eucharist changed my life, He continues to change my life. We are abundantly blessed to have this most precious holy gift, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
When my husband deployed, I went home to Kansas so that I could be near family. Oh, that was a long six months. Four days before his scheduled return, my girls and I loaded up our car and drove east. As my dad said goodbye, right before he shut my car door, he smiled and said, "Go get your man." Oh, I was on my way. Nothing can try your patience like a deployment, but those days leading up to them coming home is pure torture. The day of his arrival, he was scheduled to get in at 9:00pm. I dressed up as cute as possible. But, then, I got a message that it would be 10:00pm. Then 12:00am. I about died. The pain of that wait was excruciating. The final time was 2:00am. I don't know what the plane was doing. Making laps around the North Pole, I guess, but that wait about did me in. Finally, I got to the Baltimore Airport, found my way to the military area, and hurried myself and my daughters inside. There was a crowd of people waiting for their loved ones. After what seemed like eons, each airman made their way through the automatic sliding doors. They came through ONE. AT. A. TIME. With each opening of the door, you could feel the anticipation build as each family waited to see if it was their loved one. The second--the nano second--I caught a glimpse of Dustin at the door, I ran. I jumped into his arms right in the door opening and he had to drag me to the side so others could come through. Oh my heart, it was complete joy to hug him again. That deployment purged me of a lot--selfishness and ingratitude are top of the list. When I think of the Catholic teaching of purgatory, I always think back to Dustin's deployment. Purgatory is a time of cleansing of stains of sin. It purges us of those sins that we struggled to let go of in this life. It makes us ready for Heaven. It's painful, yes, but the souls in purgatory know that Heaven awaits. I imagine that they wait like I did at that airport door with anticipated joy for a chance to run to Christ. Deployment made me a better wife. Purgatory makes us ready to be Saints in Heaven. The beautiful thing is that the pain is worth the joy that awaits. Have a blessed Wednesday, Catholic Pilgrims.
Last year, while living in Alabama, I got to attend daily Mass. Initially, this was all my son’s idea. We lived super close to the church, we homeschool, and it just made sense to go. I mean, why not? So, each morning, my son and I would go to Mass and I cannot accurately describe how much this came to mean to me. Receiving Christ nearly everyday was incredible. I loved watching my son serve, also, and I enjoyed talking with the daily Mass goers. The priests became great friends. I was thriving in this community. Then, we got stationed in the middle of nowhere in the desert and that all went away. There’s no more daily Mass on base. It’s been a true spiritual desert. In Alabama, I was riding on a spiritual high. Then, ever so quickly, that was stripped from me. I’ve asked God a thousand times why back to the desert? Why? What I receive back in my heart is: Can you stay devoted in the lows? When the good feelings are all stripped away, how will you still come after Me? That’s the thing, the longing is ever present and I must offer this suffering up without becoming bitter or angry. I, also, must trust, Catholic Pilgrims, that even though I’m in a “deserted place,” Jesus will multiple the graces and blessings if I bring Him all I have, even if it’s just my longing. He’ll do it just like He did the fishes and the loaves. Have a blessed Tuesday. *Mission San Fernando
This is a story about the curious cases of Mr. Nitpick and Mrs. Nitpick. Not long after Christmas, I posted a picture of the church I went to the Sunday after Christmas. Southwest Missouri doesn't have Catholic Churches that rival the beautiful ones up north in KC and St. Louis, so it wasn’t the grandest church of all time. Anyway, I put together a heart-felt post and someone completely breezed past the message and said to me, "Shouldn't there be flowers around the tabernacle?" What you couldn't tell from the picture was that the tabernacle was in an enclosure. I'd never seen anything like it before and it was kinda cool. The doors of the enclosure stuck out making it hard to have flowers. I responded back, "It's in an enclosure, it wouldn't make sense to put flowers in there." And it wouldn't. They'd look stuffed. But...my explanation mattered not at all. It didn't matter that there were loads of poinsettias all around the altar, near the tabernacle and up front. Nope. According to the commenter, if there weren't flowers stuffed inside the enclosure, people weren't acknowledging the Real Presence of Jesus in the tabernacle. I struggled to have patience with Mr. Nitpick. The reason I struggled is because I've been that person, too. I have a deep disdain for 60s styling and architecture--it's bland, it's typically ugly, and apparently nobody understood symmetry. I know every church can't look like Notre Dame, but come on. Then one day, I went to a First Communion Mass. It was at one of those 60s styled churches and everything was hideous to me. My attitude about the whole thing spilled over into my attitude at the Mass. I caught myself scowling the ENTIRE time. Instead of listening to the liturgy of the Mass, I was nitpicking everything--the altar, the music, the carpet, the cross. Everything. When I walked out of Mass, I realized with sorrow that I had not paid attention one iota to the Consecration or receiving the Eucharist. I had lacked zero gratitude because I had chosen to nitpick to death everything in the church. One of the most memorable Masses for me was in a dirty prison classroom while doing prison ministry. The "altar" was a brown table and the room lacked any depth of beauty whatsoever, yet I was moved to tears at the Consecration. I didn't nitpick because my focus was on Christ. It's easy to nitpick things to death, Catholic Pilgrims. "This isn't the right music. The flowers aren't right. The altar isn't perfect. The art is ugly." I wish all our churches could be stunningly beautiful, but what is more important is that our soul is open with gratitude to the Lord. Our soul needs to be beautiful and it simply can't be when we have become Mr. or Mrs. Nitpick. Something to keep in mind, and most especially for myself. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday.
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