I Love My Vocation

I have been a Certified Spiritual Director since 2010.  Early on I had a Pastor at my parish who was very amenable to my advertising in the parish bulletin, and extremely supportive of my vocation as a Spiritual Director. I built an office for meeting with directees in my home and had sometimes three and four directees at a time.  I loved doing one on one direction.

In the last few years, that has not been the case.  I no longer have the same relationship with my current pastor.   I am not good at self-promotion and struggle to find one directee at a time.  For years I was depressed at not having an outlet for a vocation that I felt really called to so strongly.

It wasn’t until I had a spiritual awakening in Italy a year ago that I realized that it should not matter to me if I had one or fifty directees,  I should find a way to use my gifts for spiritual direction no matter where I am.  God has gifted me with so much and I was using none of those gifts because they were not being used the way I thought they should be used.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?   Thomas Green SJ calls that being willing to work for God, so long as it is in an advisory capacity.

I came back from Itlay reenergized, and willing to go where God sent me to do what God wanted me to do.  I went to work at a small Classical Catholic School. teaching middle school religion.  Often, there are ways for me to share my gifts there with the students and teachers.  It is a very organic way of sharing spiritual direction,  being open to moments when people need a listening ear or a moment of encouragement and being willing to step out in faith and offer it.

Also, I have found many ways to share my gifts with others through Social Media.  I have had a Spiritual Direction Facebook page for a few years.  I am exploring new ways to use it to reach people.  I also remain open to being the listening ear wherever the Holy Spirit allows me to share it.

Just last week I was in a meeting with my financial advisor who is a new grandfather.  We had a discussion about how profound the birth of his granddaughter was in his life and how much he wants to savor it but because of the type of work he does he struggles with staying “in the moment”.   I was able to share with him some techniques that we use in spiritual direction to practice the present moment: to savor that moment we are in, and to be able to recapture that moment again when we have moved on from it.  He was very appreciative of my help.

So while I may not be meeting with directees in my home office anymore, I am using my spiritual direction training in God’s service.  My vocation is alive and well, it has simply morphed into a new and exciting direction.

 

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A New Letter Is Here! A New Letter Is Here!

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has published a New Letter to the Bishops and Priests Called Placuit Deo On Certain Aspects of Christian Salvation.

My excitement over this is two-fold: it hasn’t happened in a while; and I really love reading them. In fact I encourage everyone to read documents from the Vatican.

This particular document discusses some modern heresies that we are dealing with in the church. The interesting thing is these heresies are actually identical to heresies that were around in the time of the early church. People are falling into these heresies everyday. Everything old is new again. As Fr. Denis used to tell us when we were studying heresies in Gradual School: “Heretics still exist in the church, these days we call them the Wilsons.”

Don’t be afraid to read these Vatican Documents even though they were written for Cardinals, Bishops and Priests. They may have an advanced degree, but that doesn’t mean that these documents are written in language that is inaccessible to anyone in the Church. This letter is quite short, and easy to read, with plenty of footnotes.

So, click the link above and happy reading.

Pax

Lenten Penances are Nobodies Business Except Yours and God’s

For the past four months I have had the distinct pleasure to be affiliated with a small but growing St, Benedict Classical Catholic School. The education is both solidly framed on the foundations of the Catholic Faith and the Principals of the Classical Method of teaching. The students wear traditional Uniforms: the older boys wear dress pants and dress shirts and ties every day and the girl’s skirts must be knee length if not slightly longer. Latin is part of their Mass to the point that even the kindergarten is quickly learning the Our Father (aka Pater Noster) in Latin, besides all the normal Mass Responses.

I love this school, and love the reverence that it is engendering in these children as they attend Mass, and pray each day at school. It has made me think about my prayer life, and whether or not I am showing enough reverence when I am praying.

Anyway, as I was meditating on how I could effectively spend my Lent it occurred to me that I could begin to wear the antique chapel veil that I have always worn when I am in the Adoration Chapel (all by myself, or with just a few other people around) to Mass to show the kids that reverence and humility can be as simple as choosing to wear a simple veil over your hair. When I am in Adoration the veil has always helped me to focus on why I am there. When my mind starts to wander I see the edges of the veil and it refocuses my thinking back to the purpose of my task. So, to that end, I began wearing my chapel veil at Friday morning school Mass.

it occurred to me as I was driving to Church on Sunday, that even though I attend a different and slightly more progressive parish than where my school is located there are children from my school who attend my parish. If I want to show them true reverence I have to be authentically true both at weekday Masses at School and at Sunday Mass as well. When I got to church I put my veil in my pocket and just before Mass started I slipped it on. I didn’t make a huge production of it, I just did it. Sure enough, two boys, brothers who attend the school were serving at Mass that day and their sister was right in the front row.

I am not sure, and I don’t really care what the more progressive people in my parish thought, because I was not making some kind of show for them, I was doing an act of Lenten Penance for myself, to remind me that this place where I am is not about me.

So, the point I am trying to make is don’t be afraid to take on a Lenten Penance that is visible for others to see, even if you think no one will understand why you are doing it. Only God has to understand why you are doing it, and if the Penance is truly bringing you closer to God, I am pretty sure God will understand perfectly.

If you see me next Sunday at Mass, you will see my beautiful antique chapel veil, as will the kids from St. Benedict Classical Catholic School, and most importantly, God will see it too.

Pax

A View From The Pews

One of the coolest things about traveling is experiencing Liturgy in a Parish other than your own.  While there is the tiny discomfort of having things done differently, there is great comfort in knowing that wherever you go Mass will essentially be the same.

of course, there may be a style of music not to your liking, or an odd local tradition based upon the configuration or history of the specific church community where you are gathered for worship, but when it comes right down to it, in all things that really matter, the Mass does not change.

There is comfort in knowing that the parts of the Mass flow in the same way, no matter where you are.  It brings us a sense of belonging.

For the past two Sunday’s I have worshipped at my Sister and Brother in Love’s parish in Phoenix AZ.  Each of the two Sunday’s I had the pleasure of a different presider; the parish Priest this Sunday, and a retired priest in residence, last Sunday.  Both were really great in different ways.

Fr. Joe, the retired Priest is from Ireland. He has spent most of his Priesthood in the United States.  His homily was for Trinity Sunday. He began by saying that any Homily on the Trinity that lasted longer than five minutes had the chance of lapsing into heresy, so he would be brief.  He then proceeded to give the most eloquent lesson on Trinitarian Theology I have heard since my Class with Fr. Denis Robinson OSB at St. Meinrad.  Simple, elegant and in less than five minutes he explained the relational quality of our triune God in a way that even the youngest children could at least begin to touch the mystery.

We are limited persons. God does not see our limits or defects, God only sees the creative force of the Trinity within us. You are loved exactly as you are at this moment. Prodigal love is recklessly extravagant.  We need mercy, and God’s mercy is never exhausted. The Spiritual Life is about being invited to ask questions, and then being made comfortable enough to live into the answers (living in The Spirit as the answers are revealed.)

Oh God please help me to believe the truth about myself, not matter how beautiful that truth may be.

The next Sunday (Corpus Christi) Fr. Bob, the Pastor, a naturalized American Citizen who was born in Uganda Africa said a special blessing at the end of Mass for all those who gave their lives in service to our freedom in this country.  He also announced a special Mass for Memorial Day (the next morning) to again pray for special blessings of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.  Someone at a previous Mass took exception to a Mass commemorating murderers (her words).  Fr. Bob would not back down.  We celebrate those who chose to stand in harm’s way so that we can enjoy the freedom to live in the greatest democracy in the world.

It never occurred to me that someone would object to a Mass for fallen heroes.

Next Sunday it will be Mass at a new Church in a new town.

If you are traveling, don’t forget to attend Mass. If you aren’t sure where the closes Catholic Church is, try  Mass Times.   They even have an app, for the constant traveler.

 

 

 

 

 

Now is the Time for Good Discernment

Tags

Church doctrine, discernment

The Synod on the Family continues to garner banner headlines in the media, especially the mainstream media.  Sadly, we are getting mixed messages about what the Bishops are discussing on a daily basis. It might be a good time to talk about how we as pew sitting Catholics should react to and how we can learn from and discern for ourselves what the church is teaching. 

St. Ignatius of Loyola came up with a simple five step process of rules for discernment that I have used over the years.  I will use these steps to show how to come to understanding with Church teaching. 

Just this week the Synod made a statement affirming that children deserve to grow up in a family which has both a mother and a father.   To some this seems to exclude single parents, and those in so-called same sex unions raising children.  How do we as pew sitting Catholics come to understand this statement?

Step 1). Assume that the Church Knows what It is Talking About

The Bishops aren’t just participating in  wild mass guessing at a Synod.  They have information and testimony from many experts such as psychologists, medical professionals, social workers, and child development/family systems experts.  They also have the tradition of over two thousand years of experience looking back on how changes in family systems have affected child development throughout history.  They might just know a little bit more than you or I do right out of the gate.  

It makes sense for us to start from a place of assuming that they know what they are talking about.  It might be a good idea for us to read the documents of the Synod as they are released, so we can see how they come to their opinions.  These documents are all available through the Vatican website, in English and easily readable, to say anything about what the Bishop’s say without having read their actual written statement makes no sense. 

2) Do Your Own Research to Aide in Your Understanding of the Topic

Read the citations in the document if you have them available to you. Read other information on child development and family systems ( not what you see on Facebook, but from reputable sources).  Make sure that you have a thorough understanding of the subject as you can.  This article is one example of what is available on the Internet. 

3) Talk to Someone Who Knows More Than You Do On The Subject

It might be a good idea to talk to someone within the Church, such as a priest, if you have questions about how a Synod works.  If you have questions about Church teachings your parish priest or another priest you know will be able to help you understand doctrine and dogma, and how to find resources to help you learn more. 

4) Take it to Prayer

Spend time in prayer asking God for guidance of you still have questions about the topic.  Allow God a chance to assist in your understanding. 

5) If You Still Have Disagreement with the Church, Hold it in Silent Tension to Your Faith

If after all of the above work you have done you still disagree with the Synod’s statement you should, for the sake of not leading any others into scandal, keep your disagreement in silent tension with your faith.  You have done everything you can do to understand the Church’s position. You have done what you can to  learn about the topic.  You have offered yourself to God in prayer for understanding.  You cannot make a statement saying the Church is wrong for anyone else.  

But, we  owe it to ourselves to continue the process of discernment using these steps repeatedly on a subject we hold in silent tension, because sometimes we are slow learners. I know that where I have had silent tension with the church on one topic or another in my youth, as I have grown in faith and wisdom, and used this process over and over, my understanding and opinion  has matured and come in line with the Church’s position.

“This is My Body” Or Who’s Right is it Anyway

I saw a meme the other day that juxtaposed the words Christ used at the Institution of the Eucharist over a protest for safe, legal abortions, without apology:  “This is my body.”  To be honest as a lifelong Catholic it had never occurred to me that women in the pro-abortion camp have co-opted the words of our Savior when he gave us the ultimate self emptying sacrificial gift of Himself for our salvation as their rallying cry to justify the totally selfish act of sacrificing the life of their unborn child for their own needs.  I was floored.  

Right on the heels of that meme comes two videos from The Center for Medical Progress showing top Administrators in the largest purveyor of so called “safe, legal abortions in this country; Planned Parenthood at lunch haggling over the reimbursement, or fee, or whatever term they are using for the procurement of intact human organs from abortions performed after twelve weeks.  They even discussed in graphic detail the methods used to assure procurement of satisfactory specimens for the transaction. All of this was done while these women were eating lunch and sipping wine.  It was gruesome to watch, but I did, watching the unedited tapes, to assure myself that I wasn’t making a snap judgement.  In one case Dr. Nucatolla (in the first video released) does say that they don’t want to appear to be profiting from the transaction.  I listened to that part three times to make sure I heard her correctly.  

The other thing that is mentioned is that the women who come in to have abortions are asked if they wish to donate the “products of conception” to research.  Since I have no idea what this process looks like, and have never personally seen the form, or know anyone I can ask, I cannot comment on how thorough the paperwork is on the release of consent.  

There is one huge disconnect here though.  The baby growing inside the mother is not, in fact part of her body.  It may be attached to her in a symbiotic relationship for a time, but genetically it is a completely autonomous person.  For the mother to say, I can do what I want with my body is a lie, because an abortion includes someone else’s body as well. 

  Selling fetal organs procured from abortion for research is against the law.  Abortions in the last trimesters are against the law in most states now.  To obtain some organs and tissues the body must be alive within five minutes of the actual procurement, so how many of these abortions are done as partial birth or born alive both of which are illegal or just plain immoral, to get proper specimens?  Does the procedure really warrant between $30 and $150 compensation per specimen for the work they do when they are already being paid for the original abortion procedure?  It sounds to me like they are double dipping.  It is grotesque to even be debating this, but I want to try to flesh out their argument a bit.  

Planned Parenthood’s response to this has been to first not to deny any of it but to apologize for the tone that Dr. Nucatolla used when speaking about what they do.  Next they went after the people from The Center for Medical Progress in a big way saying that their people were entrapped into saying the things they said.  ( if you can stomach watching the entire three hours of unedited video in each case, no entrapment occurred.) Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Whip has even asked the Attorney General to investigate CMP, seriously, while at least 18 other Congresmen and three Governors  from both parties are asking for a full investigation of Planned Parenthood.

If there is grace that can come from this horrific situation, perhaps it will be that more people will view the unborn as human and autonomous persons in their own right.  After all, if someone can sell their organs, they must be human, right?

Pray for the babies who have been sacrificed at the altar of profit and research, and please continue to pray fir an end to abortion in our lifetime. 

Feelings Vs Reality

 It has become all the rage to self identify with how one feels.  In fact, our liberal leaning society is embracing this tendency more and more.  Someone who was born female feels more comfortable identifying with males so therefore she must be in fact a member of the male gender.  A man decides that he can only be happy if he is surrounded by multiple wives, and somehow he convinces four or five women to agree to share his marriage bed, and people watch the reality television show about their life.

Now we have a man who says he has always felt like a woman and has decided to begin to live as a woman and everyone calls him courageous for living the fiction of who he wants to be rather than who God made him to be.  And lastly a woman who chose to live the “creative nonfiction” of adopting a race into which she wasn’t born and has no genetic connection.  Liberals are falling all over themselves trying to find ways to allow for this type of fluidity of race which to some seems to be traitorous and self serving instead of anything like a courageous act. 

When did our feelings outpace reality as a measure of the morality of how we should choose to live our lives?  Feelings are not always the most reliable source of information upon which we should be basing our decisions.  For instance, you might decide that you felt like only ever eating ice cream, and only ice cream for the rest of your life.  It might make you very happy, but it wouldn’t make you very healthy, and in a short time you would be in ill health.  You would be “feeling” a different way about eating all that ice cream in the long run.    

I realize that example is very simplistic, but it doesn’t limp as much as one might think as examples go:  feelings aren’t always the best way to decide how to order our lives because there is a reality that cannot be denied no matter how strong our feelings are.  No matter how much someone feels like a woman,  if he was born male, then at a genetic level he will always be a man, and there will be a certain amount of pretense to his life as a woman. 

If a person chooses to live their life as a member of another group to which he or she has no link there will always be pretense, and “creative nonfiction” which can also be translated to mean lying involved in living that type of life.  The other issue is you begin to tell one story, and then you have to tell another story to help hold up that story, and it become a web of “creative non-fictions” to keep the entire thing from falling apart. 

The singer/songwriter, Glenn Frye wrote a song called “All Those Lies” about the problem with living a life that included daily lies to maintain the artifice of feelings.  In the liner notes of the album he has one of my favorite pieces of wisdom:  The greatest thing about the truth is it is the only story you have to remember.  

The ultimate morality of reality is you don’t have to participate in “creative nonfiction” in order to prop up the artifice of your feelings.  You can live in the truth and the truth will make you free. 

Happiness, Joy or Peace

the Priest at my Parrish is a good steward for those of us in his flock.  He leads us faithfully and cares about our spiritual lives.  He often preaches about following God I our every day lives, and how to discern that we are in fact on the path God has chosen for us.  He says that when we follow the path God has chosen we will know because we will feel joy and happiness.  I wonder if this is true, or perhaps because of my dealing with depression where happiness is not something I feel on a regular basis, even when I believe I am following God. 

I would contend that when you follow God you are not promised happiness, or even joy.  Those who follow God are not immune from sadness and suffering in their lives.  What people who follow God do have amid the sadness and suffering though is a peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7).   Even though there is darkness and pain and you feel no happiness, you feel a deep sense of peace that God is there with you in the darkness.   

There is a definition of faith that says it is having belief that things will work out when all evidence is to the contrary.  That kind of belief comes with a great sense of peace.  As the healing happens, the peace is enough.  The joy will come, perhaps, but I have learned not to depend on feelings of joy.  

Each day I do my best to do God’s will, and each day I do my best to live in this world as it is and not as I wish it were.  I can live with feeling a sense of peace in my life.  

And So The Dance Begins Again

I’m not sure if I have spoken openly about this topic, but now is the time.  

I, like millions of other Americans, suffer from a mental illness.  Mine is specifically Chronic Depression.  I won’t go into the long history of my mis-diagnoses and finally diagnosis over the years, but suffice it to say that for the last twenty-five years I have been in treatment of one form or another — some medically prescribed, some self administered, to try to keep the darkness from surrounding me and choking out what little joy, peace and safety I felt in my world.  

Previously, depression, really any mental illness was the quiet shame that we who live with it bore.  Fear of judgement, or misunderstanding kept us from letting even our closest friends, even some of our family members in on our diagnosis.  If you were one of the people we told, you were a very trusted ally.   

So, instead, we put on a false smile and went out into a world we  could barely cope with and did what needed to be done no matter how difficult or exhausting it was for us to do.  We held ourselves together, so tightly wound that when we finally reached the safe haven of our homes we would tearfully collapse, incapable of doing the simplest tasks because all of our energy had been spent presenting an outward camolage of normalcy.  

Some people look at the face we show the world and say things like: ” but you’re always so happy, or cheerful” or ” you are always looking out for the needs of other people,  you can’t possibly be dealing with depression.”   That person the world sees, is not the person we see when we look in the mirror.  Robin Williams is a great example of this phenomenon.  Blessed Mother Teresa is another.  She was so totally other centered, and yet she lived for years with crushing self doubt, and probably undiagnosed depression.  

There are treatments available to us, and thanks to research, more and better medications to help us cope, but even now, it is a dance. A regimen that worked for years will suddenly begin to lose its efficacy.  We have to be vigilant about taking medication, and getting enough sleep, avoiding undue stress, and getting proper nutrition, oh and lest I not forget, we have to remembers that exercise is the best antidepressant.  Tell that to someone who finds it difficult to get dressed. Finding the motivation to get exercise is the most difficult piece of the puzzle for some, and finding an exercise that you actually enjoy enough to do on a regular basis, that is another stumbling block.

I realize I am rambling a bit, but the reason I am writing about this today is that I am about to begin a new treatment protocol.  My previous medication, which served me well for over a year has not been as effective lately, so I have been weening off of it so that today I can begin taking a new medication. The new medication is one I have never tried.  I have read all the literature (possible side effects, drug interactions with other medications I am on, etc) and today I start my first dose.  

Today. I also am going to try a new exercise plan.  Instead of trying to do a bunch of exercise at one time, I am going to try to set aside ten minutes three times a day to do high energy bursts of exercise like dance or fast walking or yoga/Pilates.  If I can do 10 minutes three times a day every day, that will mean an accumulated total of 210 minutes of exercise a week.  Well above the standard for my age.

And while I am at it, today I am going to cut out refined sugar and unnecessary starch.  I am going to eat more fruits and vegetables and give my body the fuel it needs.  

Treating mental illness is a dance, and like all dances the steps change when the music changes.  Today the music is changing and my particular dance begins again. St Rita, St. Dymphna, and Blessed Mother Teresa pray with me as I learn these new steps.

When God Puts You Right Where You Need to Be

For the first time in my life I am attending a Conference where I know no one.  I, the extreme introvert am in a city I don’t know, with no one to help me navigate it.  While parts of the conference have been interesting, –(shamrock crisps from Ireland with real essence of Shamrock in them); inspiring, (hearing Colin Powell talk about how he went from a lackluster student at George Washington University to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then Secretary of State, and how he transitioned out of those jobs when they quickly ended);  to unexpected ( a lesson on Bourbon tasting and my first ever but not my last taste of bourbon).

I have learned quite a bit about the new work I will be doing with the Company that has taken me on and accepted me as a member of their team and part of their family.  I can’t wait to share what I have learned with them when I get back and to apply it to my work for them.  But for all of that, there is a loneliness to being here that I can’t shake.  I still have yet to actually meet anyone in a “Hi, my name is Maggie, blah blah blah.” Kind of way.

I was despairing of that tonight when I was walking back from eating dinner on my own at a local restaurant.  I was standing at a crosswalk.  Just before The light changed I decided not to cross the street but rather to continue down the sidewalk instead.  In the process, I bumped into a woman who was out getting her nightly exercise. (I am withholding her name because I failed to ask her permission to use identifying information in this post).

We apologized to each other for the jostling, and since we were headed in the same direction, struck up a conversation about the weather, and walking vs running for exercise.  She assumed I was from Lexington, but I told her I was just visiting. I then asked her for directions to the local branch of my bank where I was headed to deposit a check.  I thought I was heading in the right direction but wanted to be sure. 

Since she was out for exercise anyway she volunteered to walk with me. In the space of the nine or ten blocks we had a deeply spiritual conversation.  We, both of us, filled a need for the other.  God had ordered our steps so very carefully to place us on the exact corner at the exact moment so that we would meet, because we each had a spiritual need to be filled.  

For that nice bit of time, I didn’t feel so all alone in this city where I know no one at all, and she got some spiritual insight into a situation she had been dealing with that she hadn’t been able to talk with anyone about.  I am often amazed, but never surprised at how God’s plans for us all fit together so perfectly.

I may never see her again in the time I am here, or I may see her tomorrow night when I eat dinner at the restaurant where she works, but either way, I will never forget her.  

God is good, all the time.