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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.
Continue ReadingThis 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.
Continue ReadingIn my younger years, when I was limping along in my faith life, I thought that however I wanted to live out my belief in God was perfectly fine. In fact, my attitude was such that I felt God needed to come to me. He needed to do all the “heavy lifting.” Basically, I was like Herod. Herod obviously was jealous of Jesus and wanted to get rid of Him, but he feigned a desire to adore the Christ Child which was no different than myself. I simply couldn’t be bothered with going to church to be with God or do anything else, for that matter. The Magi were different. They did whatever was needed to be close to Christ. They traveled, they asked about Him, they looked for Him, they brought Him gifts, they brought their praise and they worshiped Him. Then they went home by a different way. Venerable Fulton Sheen once said, “No one who ever meets Christ with a good will returns the same way as he came.” When I was like Herod, apathetic and fake in my desire to know Christ, I continued on the same self-serving path that offered no growth or true joy. Once I became more like the Magi, my pilgrimage through life became different and that has made all the difference, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Sunday where we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord. *Picture is from San Fernando Mission in LA
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