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We've got more excellent things to discuss from "The Diary of a Country Priest." Years ago, I was acquainted with a woman who had stopped going to Mass. She was mad at God for taking her mother too soon. She loved her mother very much and I can understand this kind of anger. The pain of losing someone "too soon" can make us feel gipped. What I wanted to caution this woman about was the fact that she was in serious danger of not being able to see her mother in eternity. I didn't know her well enough to have that conversation and I had just overheard her saying that she had essentially turned her back on God. In the book, the priest goes to visit the mom of Mlle Chantal, the bratty girl I spoke of last week. She is a neglectful mother who has been mourning her son for 11 years. He died when he was 18 months old and since that time she has ignored her daughter and only caved in on herself. As the priest is talking to her, she makes it known that she really wants nothing to do with God, but she's sure that her love for her son will help her get to Heaven. She wants very little to do with God because of her anger and hatred towards Him, but she still expects Heaven. The priest warns her that she is in danger of Hell and in Hell, she won't even be able to love her son. He says, "Hell is not to love any more. As long as we remain in this life we can still deceive ourselves, think that we love by our own will, that we love independently of God. But, we're like madmen stretching our hands to clasp the moon reflected in water." There is always pain in this life: Loved ones gone before we are ready, tragedies happen. I once cut myself off from the Source of Love because of my anger. If we truly love someone, Catholic Pilgrims, we don't display our love by hurting ourselves and potentially severing a chance to love them in Heaven. They wouldn't want Hell for us; they would want us to do everything we can to hang on and stay close to the One that is Love. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
I was talking with my husband about the post I made on Monday about the lack of participation at Mass. He said, "Well, the best you can say is that they are there, at least, out of obligation. But, to truly live the spiritual life well you have to couple obligation with passion. Obligation by itself is just okay. Passion by itself is just okay." I said, "Okay, I know what obligation by itself looks like. It's showing up to Mass just to warm the seat, but not fully participating. What does passion by itself look like?" "Look at it this way. One's the rudder, the other's the engine. A rudder with no engine keeps you on the path but you don't really go anywhere. An engine with no rudder speeds off with zero direction. Obligation with no passion means you just show up. Passion with no obligation means you are driven purely by emotions and you only do things if you *feel* it. We need them coupled together. Sometimes, we just need to show up even if we don't feel like it. We can't always be guided by our emotions. But, doing things purely out of obligation with no heart it in, leaves you just puttering along down the path--a rudder with no engine." I responded, "That makes a lot of sense. I would say that in order to help with the passion at Mass, we need to prepare ourselves. Externally, we need to come looking like we care. We need to participate in the gestures. We need to speak and say the prayers and responses. Internally, we need to think about what is going on. Maybe read the readings ahead of time. Silence phones. Meditate on the why of each part of the Mass." In no other relationship, Catholic Pilgrims, do we want people to love us purely out of obligation. We want our spouses, relatives, and friends to love us because they desire to. Neither do we want to be loved only by purely emotional guidance, because that means the second someone doesn't "feel" it anymore, they drop us. Obligation and passion together makes us feel secure and wanted. If we want to be loved that way and, hopefully, we want to love others that way, our worship and love of God should be guided by obligation and passion, as well. Live the faith boldly and travel well.
When sports fans go to watch a game, they want to participate. They want to yell, cheer, soak in the atmosphere, and take it all in with their senses. If you really love the game, you want to be immersed in what is going on. If I saw a person in the stands just sitting there the entire time staring off into space or scrolling on their phone, I would think this person was brought there against their will, because why come if you aren't going to participate? When you go to a concert, you want to participate. You want to sing along to your favorite songs, watch the artist in real life, and be joined together with thousands of other fans. If I saw a person in the crowd just sitting there the entire time either half asleep or looking utterly bored, I would wonder why in the world they were there if they weren't going to participate? Why do anything you claim to love if you aren't going to participate? What is the point? To just be a warm body in the seat? To just get a picture to share to make others think your life is cool? If you go to Mass with no intention of actual participating, what is the point? There are no brownie points for warming the seat. Before someone says it, I'm not speaking about parents with young children who struggle to fully engage because little ones beg their attention. I'm talking about intent. If you come to Mass ill-prepared in body, mind, and soul to participate, you do yourself no favors and God is not honored by your mere presence void of any desire to worship. The Mass is always glorious, holy, and splendid simply because God has come to our altars. We have to act in such a way that shows this is a reality because it is. We need to say the prayers. We need to use our bodies to genuflect, cross ourselves, bow, kneel (if possible), and sing. I know you may not be a good singer, but when you shut your trap and refuse, others see it and then refuse, as well, and before we know it there are only five people singing. Participation is our job at the Mass; it's not just to be a crowd of bored faces for the priest to talk to. We participate, Catholic Pilgrims, just as we would at any other thing we claimed to love.
I've been slowing making my way through "The Diary of a Country Priest." If you remember, I encouraged you all to watch it a few weeks ago. I was having trouble understanding the book and I thought watching the movie would help me understand the characters better. Anyway, it is a rich, rich book and I have found that I need to read a little and then just sit with it for a while before moving on. The girl you see in this picture is Mademoiselle Chantal and she is a prideful, hate-filled brat. To be fair to her, her mother has been emotionally absent nearly her whole life and her father is having an affair with her governess. She hates everybody and she battles with the priest as if she is battling God. She hates her mother for being incapable of being a good mother because she is so wrapped up in the pain of losing a young son long ago. She hates her father for his betrayal and sin. She hates her governess. She even declares to the priest that she wants to kill them all. As the priest (we never know his name) and Mlle Chantal continue with this spiritual battle, the priest says to her, "You hate this woman and feel yourself so far removed from her, when your hate and her sin are as two branches of the same tree." Sometimes, people hurt us deeply. Mlle Chantal has every right to hate the sins that her parents and governess are engaged in--we should always hate evil actions. However, she has allowed her hatred of their sins to move into hatred of the people and that has wrapped a vice around her heart. Once that happens, her hatred and their sins mingle causing them to be linked together as a "communion of sinners," potentially "companions for all eternity." That eternity being in Hell. Once, long ago, I was deeply wounded and I allowed the sins others to take root as hatred of them in my soul. I felt justified in feeling that way. Yet, it was not helping me one bit, in fact, it made me a prideful, hate-filled brat in many ways. We cannot let another's sin lead us into sin, Catholic Pilgrims. We must fight to keep our souls free from darkness or we are no different than the ones that hurt us. Live the faith boldly and travel well.
It’s National Marriage Week, Catholic Pilgrims, so I thought I’d share a bit about mine. How many years married: 23 How we met: Air Force ROTC at Kansas State University. I was actually engaged to another guy when we met. 😳 How long after we met until we started dating: 6 months. Faith life when we married: I was the Catholic-hating Protestant, he was the cradle Catholic. Both of us were lukewarm. Degrees: He’s an engineer, I’m a criminologist. How many kids: 3 beautiful children here, 10 saints in Heaven. Where are we from: He’s a California boy, I’m a Kansas girl. How he won me over: The first day I saw him in ROTC, I knew he was the one. (Those uniforms will get ya!) But, we both had significant others. In the end, he won me over with relentless teasing.😅 He didn’t have to try that hard actually. Our strengths in our marriage: His—patience and leadership. Mine—spirit and loving support. The song we’ll always dance to: Harvest Moon by Neil Young. It’s my favorite love song. How our faith life is today: We went from being divided to united in Catholicism. We went from never going to church to never missing Mass. We went from leading very secular lives to seeing our home as our domestic church. The transformation in our marriage has been amazing all thanks to God. I’d love to hear about your marriages, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed day, and yes, he still goes after my neck after all these years to tease me.
My middle daughter recently was home for a visit and we were discussing how Christianity is often presented in a corny and unauthentic way. I started wondering, "How did we go from courageous disciples and intellectual heavyweights to happy-clappy Christianity?" Sure, there are courageous disciples out there, especially in places other than the West. And, yes, we have intellectual powerhouses out there doing good work. But, how did it happen that if you suggest any type of rigor, fortitude, discipline, depth, or seriousness to the faith, you will be shouted down by those that seek ease, timidity, comfort, surface-level approaches to the faith? Has this always been so? I think so. I think since the dawn of Christianity, there have been people that have sought to make Christianity more easy to accept. There's been the big heresies that have tried to mute aspects of Christ so that He's less than fully God and fully man. There's been splits because people can't handle authority and just want to be their own authority. There's been the hyper-focus on making sure nobody ever, for any reason, feels one bit of shame over any sin ever. "What if that makes people not feel welcome or included? We can't have that! Speakth no more of sin and repentance! Stop judging actions and accept everything and anything...uh...accept a Christianity that has principles and defined teachings." There is NOTHING inspiring about these attempts to make things easier. People may follow it for a bit because they lack discipline and strength of character. What will inevitably happen, though, is the faith will become like an old hobby that fades. Once that happens, they will get mad if anyone tries to call them to greatness in their faith. If anyone suggests a challenge or a figurative "call to arms," they will lash out and try to browbeat them into just being "nice, and tolerate, and nice." We must resist this at all costs. You will know it by its fruits. The modern, indifferent Christianity is on life-support because it's boring, bland, and wrong. The way of the Saints--the way of the Cross--changes the world. Live the Faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
I didn't grow up with the Sacraments. In fact, I didn't even know what a Sacrament was until after marrying my husband. The idea of a Sacrament and its purpose was beyond my severly limited theological understanding of things. See, for me growing up, there was no talk of sainthood or holiness. Jesus just lived in your heart in a very abstract way if you believed in Him. It was good to go to church and read the Bible and it was good to get baptized, but even that wasn't seen as a sacrament. Baptism was just a profession of faith. It was saying to the world that you now fully declared yourself a believer. So, when I started learning about the Sacraments, I was blown away with talk of "channels of grace" and "Divine life." What did all this mean? When I was a kid and would hear Bible stories, I was always a little envious of the people who got to see Jesus. Man, were they blessed. Then I would think about how hard it is to be a believer when Jesus is up in Heaven. There seemed to be this great distance between us on earth and God in Heaven. Sure, you could connect to God through prayer, worship, and Scripture reading, but I always wanted some way to touch God. Yesterday in my OCIA class, we were watching Bishop Barron speak on the Sacraments and he quoted Pope St. Leo the Great, who said, "What was visible in our Savior has passed over into His mysteries." He was referring to the Sacraments. As Bishop Barron stated, "The Sacraments are the most important things on earth. Yes, THE most important things, because they are the way that the Divine Life, which is grace, gets into us." To be sure, this is not in a symbolic or figurative sense. When we receive the Sacraments, God's life literally enters into us. It's as if we touched God, just like all the people in the Bible who reached out to touch Jesus. "And begged Him that they might touch only the tassel on His cloak; and as many as touched it were healed." The Sacraments are the supernatural, mysterious, very real way that God remains right here with us even after ascending nearly 2,000 years ago. Nothing could be more important, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Monday. *Mission St. Inez, CA
My husband was talking the other day about the selfishness of the age with me and two of our kids. “What many people try to do is turn inward for “me” time. They think that if they can just focus on themselves enough they will be happy. So, the only person they give to is themselves. They give themselves time and attention. They spend all their money on themselves. They focus on self-love instead of giving love. What people fail to understand is that when you give yourself away, you will get back more and that is when you find you are actually happy.” This is what Christ wants us to do—give ourselves away. He wants us to trust and listen to Him even when what He asks seems crazy or impossible. Just do what He says; cast yourself out into the deep. When we do this, we will receive back more than we ever thought possible, Catholic Pilgrims. Others will be loved and we will be, too. It’s a win-win. Have a blessed Sunday. *Lake of Gennesaret aka Sea of Galilee
On Christmas, my grandmother brought out a bunch of cards that had questions on them. She went around the room and picked one person at a time to ask a question to. At one point, she asked a member of my family, "Do you lean towards justice or mercy?" The person said, "Mercy." It was one of those questions that everyone kinda wanted to answer. As everyone was speaking at once, my husband said, "Hold up, hold up. I have a theory and I want to see if it's true." He then went around the room and asked each person which one--mercy or justice? All the men said, "Justice." All the women said, "Mercy," except two women. I was one of the two. Once everyone gave their answer, my husband said, "That's pretty much what my theory was: I thought the women would lean towards mercy and the men towards justice. This is good because we need both to keep each other in check. God is perfect justice and mercy and this balance of the sexes is an attempt to be more like Him." Later that night, my husband and I talked about it. He said, "Mercy without justice leads to false compassion. Justice without mercy leads to oppression. The thing with mercy is that the person receiving it has to have a contrite heart or the mercy is wasted and the person will go on to continue bad behavior. The thing with justice is that if you never acknowledge a truly contrite heart, you squash redemption and restoration." I asked, "Why am I justice focused? Why am I not like other women?" "Well, because you have seen the worst of the worst in your field. You know that to show mercy to people who aren't really sorry--and you've seen plenty of people that have no qualms over the evil they've done--would mean letting them off the hook to go hurt more people. That would be unjust to those that would be hurt." When we come to God seeking mercy, Catholic Pilgrims, He will always give it to us--even if justice demands punishment--as long as we are seeking repentance and we are contrite. We cannot go to God and ask for mercy while not being one bit sorry for the wrong that we have done and completely intending to do it again. Justice and mercy are both needed for a healthy society. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
One of the surest truths of life is that you will at some point be hurt by another human. No one escapes this. There are different responses to this hurt. One is to become bitter. Another is to guard your heart and not really let anyone in. And yet another is to close in on yourself. The bitter person turns right around and seeks to hurt others which is ironic. They desire revenge. The stone-hearted one attempts to love with just a portion of their heart. Their lack of trust leaves them and everyone around them starved for love. The closed-in one never flowers into who God created them to be. They cradle their victimhood like a security blanket. I read this in "The Diary of a Country Priest" yesterday: "I believe, in fact I am certain, that many men never give out the whole of themselves, their deepest truth. They live on the surface, and yet, so rich is the soil of humanity that even this thin outer layer is able to yield a kind of meagre (sic) harvest which gives the illusion of real living." If we live that way, we can never be Saints. To be a Saint, we must allow God to make us become fully alive. We have to love even when it hurts. We have to use our gifts and talents to the full extent. We have to give of ourselves knowing full well we won't always get a positive response in return. We might be able to fake the "illusion of real living" through busyness and mindless entertainment, but we will feel the weight of a meager life lived only on the surface. What I love about the Saints is that they gave their whole self, dug deep into the soil, and were fully alive. At the end of their pilgrimage through life, they could say my favorite verse: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7 So, live the faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday, Catholic Pilgrims.
My oldest daughter, who is a Focus missionary, recently came back from SEEK 2025. She remarked, "In my opinion, the most beautiful part of SEEK is always the Mass, especially seeing the hundreds of priests there ministering to the thousands and thousands of students, missionaries, and families." Each time she's been to SEEK, she brims with joy when she talks about seeing the long, long line of priests process in for Mass. The other day, I was reading St. Frances Cabrini's words for my podcast. She was writing after many days on a ship heading from France to NY. At one point she says, "When we arrive on land, we shall look for a priest at once." The reason? She wanted Holy Communion. That got me thinking about one particular Mass in Ohio that moved me to the point of tears. There surrounding the altar were several priests, a deacon, and eight altar boys. It was such a stunningly powerful image. I cannot spiritual live without priests. The power invested in them by Almighty God to change mere bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord is supernatural. I need priests and you do, too. Why does my daughter get overwhelmed at the sight of hundreds of priests at Mass? Because she recognizes the immense sacrifices they endure for us so that we can have Christ in the Eucharist. Why did Mother Cabrini need to find a priest immediately upon landing? Because no one else could give her Christ in the Eucharist. Why did I get choked up seeing men and boys on their knees around the altar while the priest elevated the consecrated Host? Because the gravity of what God is doing through the priest is just incredible. Thank a priest when you get the chance, Catholic Pilgrims, and pray for them. If you are a priest reading this, thank you for feeding your sheep with the Bread of Life.
My husband talks pretty frequently about how authentic love must necessarily involve sacrifice. “If it doesn’t, it’s nothing more than self-serving emotions, which is why you see so many people abandon those they claim to love. Once it stops feeling good, people jump ship because they don’t want to sacrifice.” It’s no different with Christ. If we cannot sacrifice one single thing for Christ, our claims of love are empty and meaningless. If we can’t sacrifice one hour on Sunday… If we can’t sacrifice giving up bad entertainment that we like… If we can’t sacrifice rooting out our favorite sin… If we can’t sacrifice our time to do God’s Will… then we like the idea of being a Christian and that’s about all. True love for Christ should make us radically change our lives. It should make us desire holiness, Catholic Pilgrims, and that takes sacrifice. So, live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday. *Church is Our Lady of Sorrows in Santa Barbara, CA
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