A Man for All Seasons - An Inquiry

If you're feeling remotely discouraged about this attack on our Mother Church, please watch "A Man of All Seasons" this weekend. It's on instant Netflicks and also on You Tube. St. Thomas Moore is the saint for this hour. He chose his Catholic Faith over his friendship with Henry the 8th and joked on his way to be executed. It's unbelievable that he and Archbishop John Fischer-were IT for supporters of the Pope in medieval England. Everyone else (including the clergy) approved of a sham marriage for the higher good of "avoiding an English Civil War." Hope you feel inspired and encouraged after this Oscar winning movie.

Steven Curtis Chapman - Do Everything

A song to help you bring more joy to your little, hidden day!

Bring It, Pres. Obama. Bring it!

I've read many excellent and heartfelt op eds on the recent assault on religious liberty by President Obama. But I've got a bone to pick with all of you loyal, faithful Catholic bloggers out there. I haven't heard anything about responding to these attacks on our Mother Church with "joy"!

Our Lord said specifically "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you and defame you on the account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven." (Luke 6: 22).

I don't pretend to know how to do this myself. I'm the blushing girl trying to hide my huge pregnant belly behind a soccer bleacher every time someone comments on my large family of six. (I actually have a family of seven).

But I know that joy works. Because Mother Teresa said "joy is the net which catches souls." I've been caught in that net. I don't know if you've ever been blessed to run into one of the Sister of the Virgin of Matara, but there laughter is infectious! Or if you even heard a priest say the Mass with his eyes shining with joy at the Eucharist and suddenly felt "Wow, this is totally real!"

Joy!

Joy is something the other side doesn't have.

They think they have sex (which they don't), and have more money to buy lots of shiny things from Target (which is worthless on your deathbed), and happiness from sharing cocktails late at night with members of the opposite sex (which isn't really love or happiness).

But the Devil can not counterfeit JOY!

Joy a direct gift from the Holy Spirit.

I absolutely think we need to pray hard about this assault on our Faith, follow all the directions of our dear Bishops, write letters to our congressmen, protest in every possible and embark on civil disobedience.
But we can't be solemn or discouraged or hateful when we do this.

And the best thing to sock it to the Devil's face over this messy HHS issue is to go about our humble daily duties with JOY in our hearts.

Thank you God for trusting us to stand fast during this time of persecution. We pray with Queen Ester and with Judith and with Susanna. We pray with St. Thomas Moore and ask all the martyrs in heaven to loan us their strength and their joy.

Starting With The Girl in the Mirror

Somehow Whitney Houston's recent death makes me miss Michael Jackson even more. This song always makes me cry. I loved it as an elementary school student. I didn't know at the time that this strong affection for the lyrics "if you want to make the world a better place, better start with yourself and make the change!" meant that I was already marked as a Carmelite.

I didn't really internalize this truth as a young adult. As a "do gooder" Democrat, I spend so much of my life running around, trying to make the world a better place with social programs. I spent so much of my twenties feeling frustrated, burned out and unhappy.

Now it's such a profound realization to know that peace in the larger world always starts with peace in my own heart, my peace with God.

He's Good!

Four years ago I posted this sign on my prayer alter.

"Jesus, if you want me, I cost $108,208.53."*

I knew in my heart that Jesus wanted me to be a stay at home mother. I knew he wanted me to be prepared to home-school a future nun (my oldest daughter) up to the 12th grade. I knew he wanted me to be a hidden Carmelite devoted to prayer. And I knew, that as an adult convert, Jesus wanted my full attention to be on  reestablishing a strong family culture of Catholicism in my home.

But......

I had these massive, massive student loans. The vast majority ($104,000) of my loans were from a Federal Program called Sallie Mae. These were my "nice loans." There are a lot of deferments and protections available in this program. Then I had my private loans. They were horrible! I'd already used up my "forebarance time". If I was sixty seconds late in a payment, they would call my house twice a day until I caught up. (Once they went so far as to scare me with "default" over a mistaken underpayment of $10!)

There were so many times as a young stay-at-home mother that I truly thought I was going to have to get a part time job at Target just to come up with the extra $250 a month to pay off my private student loans.

God bless my husband who kept trying to reason with me that taking a late night or weekend shift at Target while being pregnant and/or breastfeeding 3 new babies in four years was not a good idea.

Being of stubborn heart, I didn't listen to him!

I had to pay these loans back, right? It was my duty!

So then my husband tried another tactic. (My love is filled with wisdom of the Holy Spirit!) He kept telling me "We're okay this month. We might run into trouble next month and you might have to get a part-time job in the future. But as for right now, we're okay! We can pay your loan." And I'd reluctantly agree to drop the "help wanted" section of newspaper and go back to cooking meatloaf.

I wasn't sure how in heaven we were going to keep being okay with my lovely contribution of "giant debt/zero income". So I turned it over to prayer. Every time I got scared of our poor financial outlook, I'd kneel by my homemade sign and say "If you want me Jesus, you're going to have to pay it off. I cost  $108,208.53!"

It's so amazing. I never, ever saw a "grand plan", but step-by-step Jesus handed me the financial ability to pay off my student loans. Thanks to a new government plan the reduces your student loan payment based on income and family size, my gigantic $104,000 Sallie Mae loan will cost my family $40 a month for the next 20 years.  Afterwards, all the remaining debt is forgiven. What a blessing!

Today, without any tricks or special favors, I paid American Education Services $213.08. With that payment, I'm finished paying off the last of my "nasty" private student loans forever!

He's good that Jesus! He's good!

Loving Jesus, you want our hearts to rest in you. Help us smooth out whatever wrinkles keep us from embracing our vocation, including those evil student loans.Please give special peace to those future nuns, monks, and priests who worry about paying off their student loan debt before entering into your service.


* I wanted to add that the whole time I was in "panic debt mode" I wanted Jesus to just hand me $108,000 in ready cash so that I could pay off my student loans before committing to being a full-time, unpaid, stay-at-home mother. He didn't do that. Now I see some of that wisdom. I had to depend on my husband to come up with the money out of his, I mean, our paycheck. That inter-dependence was so healing for my marriage.
The extra burden that we had from our student loans (my hubby's is almost as awful as mine) forced us to be Carmelites that are poor in fact, as well as poor in spirit. If you haven't tried voluntary poverty for the Lord--it is super cool! There are so many countless spiritual benefits.
Finally, it's good to through the whole Suze Ormond over-planning thing out the window if you want to go on this Catholic adventure with our Lord. We're called to be prudent. Yet we're also called to step out in faith. I found that this balance often means, "I'm in the black for this month, but I have no idea how we're going to stay there one, three, or six months from now." But the Lord always provides! Either some unexpected money comes in or some threatened bill goes away.

Happy St Valentine's Day

My husband went to Mass today* and the priest said "instead of buying your valentine candy or flowers today, say a prayer to St. Valentine for them!"

Done, honey!

Last night Jon brought home flowers and chocolate for me. He also had Valentine's heart pez dispensers for our oldest three kids. He passed out the treats. Then Miss Tess got up next to him with the saddest eyes. He hadn't realized at 17 months old that she would be totally conscious about being left out of his treat exchange. He knelt down, gave her a huge hug and said "Tess, I will never forget you again!"

I teased him that he right now had four women to please on Valentine's Day. Next year, (God willing) he'll have five! What a sweet job to be a loving husband and a father.

St. Valentine, patron of happy marriages, pray for us!



* Yes, I know this saint's day no longer technically on the Mass Calendar.

I Am Wonderfully and Fearfully Made

Everyone has a cross that is perfectly fitted to her back. Mine is multiple c-sections. I've got Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which means that common worries such as breaking down on D.C's Outer-Loop or over-drawing my checking account can sometimes cause me to experience panic attacks. But nothing, nothing causes the blood to freeze in my veins like surgery.

So what does our great God do, He hands me a body that can only eject my pretty, happy babies through C-sections. Multiple, multiple c-sections.

Oh, and for good measure, He throws me into an intense anti-life time in America where most secular MDs are completely freaked out by multiple child-birth, much less multiple c-sections, and casually throw out helpful comments like "don't you know the maternal death statistics for women with your c-section history?" without bothering to review my medical chart.

Those type of random, shot from the hip, comments from visiting obs who have no formal connection to my life are just guaranteed to set off all the panic buttons in my mind. And I always seem to run into these "helpful" second guessing doctors at the weakest times of my psyche.

This time (at number 5!) I was determined to be strong. Thanks to Baby Tessy's dramatic experience in the NICU, I found out how surgeons really talk when "death is one the line." The talk about my newborn's risk of death during her necessary, life-saving surgery was calm, and smooth, and intense, and sweet. Nothing like the "Girl, you are so STUPID for using your uterus again" rant that I got from the "I've got fake concern for your health" obs that I sometimes run into on the multiple c-section question.

All the same, when my OB referred me to a specialist to take an extra hard look my unborn Baby Clare's placenta, I found myself getting some butterflies. The referral talk had some scary parts to it. I got a little scared. I prayed. I asked my husband to come to the appointment with me. I tried to steel myself to experience the worse.

Instead, this amazing doctor walked into our sonogram appointment.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time today," he said right away as he shook my husband's hand and then my own. Wasting our time?

Together the three of us marveled over these beautiful images. We could see Baby Clare's big head and a dark expanse of empty space above her. The was no sign of the worrisome placenta. Instead, the doctor flipped to another image. At the very top of my uterus, as far as possible away from my c-section scar, was the placenta. It looked clean and well-divided, as firm as a line in the sand. There was no sign that it was dangerously creeping past the uterine wall into trouble inside my body.

Then this amazingly kind, competent doctor showed me my c-section scar. It didn't looked hacked up or mutilated. It didn't look like there had been four previous surgeries on that same site. It was a tiny, single line--as thin as a small crack in a robin's egg.

It was as if God knew when he kick-started my little girl's life that her placenta needed to be planted as far as possible from my c-section scar. And when He created my uterus, back when I was as small as a pin in my own Mama's womb, He'd given that organ an extra measure of His healing grace.

I'm used to cooing over God's wonderful creative powers as reflected in each of my newborn's amazing bodies. This was the first time, however, I could see firsthand His healing grace reflected in my own.