Happy Feast of the Inimitable St. Teresa of Avila

Some words from St. Teresa of Avila that I've returned to often:

"Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life ... If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing."

And, of course:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

And, of course, of course, I love the story of Teresa questioning God's wisdom during a supremely annoying trial and reportedly receiving the reply, "You are my friend. This is how I treat all of my friends." To which Teresa replied, "If this is how you treat your friends, it is not surprising that you have so few of them!"

5 Things You Can Do to Model Joy and Optimism For Your Kids

It's an ugly world out there. I don't even have to sum up headlines for you -- you can just pick the one that depresses you the most and we'll go from there.

When all the news everywhere seems bad and the future seems precarious, what do we do? And what do we tell our children?

My instinct is to look for the good (which is kind of funny, since by nature I'm a melancholic INFJ, or, in Inside Out Speak, the character of Sadness.)

Things have always been dire. From the time Moses despaired over the ingratitude of the Israelites ("Please do me the favor of killing me at once!") to the first-pope-elect who denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times, to the Church Militant (which has regularly fallen down on fighting the good fight), to each of us sinners in our fallen state ... the history of humanity is the history of a mess.

But kids are basically optimistic by nature and they're always looking forward to the Next Great Thing, so I like to try to help mine find it. Hope, after all, is one of the theological virtues:

"The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1818)

With that in mind, here are five steps on the road to Joy and Optimism, aka Hope:

1. Remind Yourself and Your Kids What True Joy Is 

And it's not the stuff of this earth -- it's not about jobs, cars, money, success. (There is joy to be found here on earth -- witness coffee and books -- but it's not the main event.)

There will always be pain, challenges, and difficulties in this earthly life. Despite the struggles, the constant disappointments, the inevitable suffering, there is the joy that is my faith. It's something bigger than and different from happiness. It's the firm belief and the reason-defying knowledge that there's something more out there -- that He is out there -- and that everything He allows for me is meant for my good.

He is here with me. There's nothing more joy-inspiring than that sure knowledge.

2. Remind Yourself and Your Kids That Jesus Started the Church and the Holy Spirit Is Guiding It -- i.e., He's Got Things Covered

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. Matt. 16:18

Free will, by its nature, allows the existence of evil and evil choices. That has been true since Adam and Eve, and it will be true as long as time exists. There will be many crosses to bear in this life, but we can't lose sight of eternal life, our final, and ultimately our only, goal.

"Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit." (CCC 1817)

The gates of hell will not prevail.

What am I doing to help build up the Church, this incredible gift, that Christ gave me?

3. Remind Yourself and Your Kids That Prayer is the Best Reminder 

"Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire." (CCC 1820)

When facing a trial, when listening to the news, when pondering evil, when healing from pain, when wondering what to do ... pray. Remind your kids to pray. Stop what you're doing and pray. Pray alone, pray with them. Remind them to pray for a strengthening of their own faith, for your family's faith and unity, for all sinners (including ourselves), for the church, for the pope, for the world.

Remind them that prayer drives away hate and strengthens love.


4. Remind Yourself and Your Kids To Be Grateful (Especially When Things Are Going Wrong.) 

It's so easy to complain, and so easy to let our kids see us do it. I fail at this a lot, but when I'm being mindful, I actively search for things to be grateful for. When life is chaotic and I'm exasperated, it's helpful to seek out one tiny part of the situation that I can count as something good (or at least as something that could have been worse.)

For every time I ask Jesus, "Why do You allow ....?" He replies, "This is why, and here's why you can thank Me in the moment."  Or, if He isn't making the "why" of it clear, I can still say "Thank you" anyway. He always has His reasons.

Say all of this stuff out loud to your kids.


5. Look to the Gospel 

The Good News is simply, as St. Augustine said, this:

"Wake up, O man! For your sake God became man!"

When we remember that earth-shattering and humbling fact, then we can stop wringing our hands  and just get to work. Do corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Love our families. Give to the poor. Learn and live our faith.

As Pope Francis said, “Everyone is invited to enter this door, to go through the door of faith, to enter into His life, and to allow Jesus into their lives, so that he may transform them, renew them, and give them full and lasting joy."

~~~~~

Recently, something was going wrong around here (I can't even remember what it was -- nothing horrible, but just something really frustrating) and Betsy said, "Well, there's a bright side! At least we can be grateful for--"

I cut her off and said, "Why are you so chipper about this? I'm so annoyed."

"Hey," she said, "You raised me. I get this from you."

Model and embrace the joy and hope and your kids -- I'm guessing from experience? -- will have no choice but to do the same.

Quote for the First Tuesday in Advent

"We always want this thing or that thing, and even when we have Jesus Himself in our breast we are not satisfied. Yet He is all that we could possibly desire..." 

~~ St. Francis de Sales 

A quote from St. Jane Frances de Chantal on her feast day

"If we patiently accept through love all that God allows to happen, then we will begin to taste even here on earth something of the delights the saints experience in heaven. But for this we must serve God willingly and lovingly, seeking to obey the Divine Will rather than to follow our own inclinations and desires. For the perfection of love demands that we desire for ourselves only whatever God wills. Let us implore the good God unceasingly to grant us this grace!"

~~ St. Jane Frances de Chantal

And one from her spiritual director, St. Francis de Sales:

"It is far better to do a few things well than undertake many good works and leave them half-done."

Book Review: My Sisters the Saints

The cover looks a little dreamy. Muted and golden, the image hints at cozy chats, secrets shared in hushed tones, feminine confiding, and a tidy faith. In the distance, the light beckons. Ah ... all is well.

Not so fast.

All was not well, and Colleen Carroll Campbell knew it as early as her junior year in college. While nursing a hangover one autumn morning, she realized that a vague unease had settled over her, pricking at long-held assumptions, picking at a skin that had grown over unidentifiable feelings. Why did she feel such melancholy? Why was her freedom -- freedom from commitment, freedom in her career -- not forging the way to happiness?

As a young woman who grew up with feminism in her bones, in "the air she breathed," Campbell was puzzled. She was embarking on the kind of life she'd always assumed she would have, and yet something was missing. What was it?

In My Sisters the Saints, Campbell chronicles a years-long spiritual journey. Much more than a pious treatise on saints as role models, the book is a portrait of a living, breathing community that is all the more interesting because much of the community is dead. That's the ironic wonder of the communion of saints, and Campbell does a fine job of showing us how it works without pounding us over the head with its inner theological gears.

As she struggled through genuinely painful and challenging events in her life (I don't want to give them away, as they are at the core of the narrative), six saints -- Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa, and Mary, mother of Jesus -- found her, or she found them. And in them, she unearthed strength, ideas, and inspiration that helped her piece together the puzzle that was her circumstance and worldview.

These are some of the very saints I was drawn to early in my conversion -- they helped me in strikingly similar ways. I was a feminist looking into the Catholic Church, and initially, those two things seemed incompatible: feminist freedom? And Catholicism? Please. I struggled to figure out how to be fully Catholic, fully a woman, fully a human being, in the context of marriage, work, children, life, and faith. Campbell did, too. Her journey unfolded in the high-power world of Washington, D.C., but the questions and conflicts are the same, whether you're an East Coast player or a midwestern middle manager: work or family? His job or mine? Children or not, and when? How do we do all this?

I especially loved the honest little details that made me laugh; I could relate. When Campbell accepted a friend's offer to speak at a women's luncheon, she was hesitant. She had attended the same luncheon the previous year, and felt painfully out of place:

The keynote had focused on faith and fashion - not a gripping topic for someone who still wears shirts she bought in high school and typically jumps on trend bandwagons just as everyone else is jumping off. I cringed when the speaker began by congratulating her audience on choosing the season's hottest new pastel-colored flouncy skirts and pumps over dark hues and pants, a sure sign that they cherished their femininity. There I was at the head table, sporting a five-year-old black pantsuit with dowdy flats and feeling like Bella Abzug trapped at a Tupperware party. Things went downhill from there. 

I think I've been at that Tupperware party. In the same flats.

I read My Sisters the Saints in one Sunday. It was surprising, touching, and edifying. In the end, the muted, golden cover fits after all. All is well, and the journey to golden is worth braving.

~~~~~

My Sisters the Saints is on a virtual book tour. If you'd like to follow along, you can find the full schedule, including previous stops,  here, at Image Books. Upcoming stops include:

March 9: Prints of Grace

March 10: Feminism the Catholic “F” Word

March 11: Catholic Vote

March 12: Snoring Scholar

March 13: Maria Shriver

March 14: This Cross I Embrace

March 15: Catholic Mom 

From Today's Office of Readings

"Therefore, we ask that we may know what we love, 

since we ask nothing other than that you give us yourself. 

For you are our all: our life, our light, our salvation, 

our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, 

with that breath of your Spirit; wound our souls with your love, 

so that the soul of each and every one of us may say in truth: 

Show me my soul’s desire, for I am wounded by your love."

~~ St. Columban 

Our Coats of Many Colors

Awhile back, I did a post about Our Coats of Many Colors, a small costume business run by a mom (and amazing seamstress) in Kansas.

With All Saints' Day and Halloween approaching, I thought I'd throw out another mention. A longtime pal of mine, Maria Rioux, helps out with the design and sewing, and when I think of Maria, the words strength and integrity come to mind. And these costumes are things of strength and integrity. They are expensive, yes --  and you should know that when I first reviewed them (as I mentioned in that original post), I received two "review copies" so that I could offer my opinion. My opinion was, and still is, that these are gorgeous saint/religious costumes, they are beautifully made, and they will not fall apart, even during bilocation (although I must confess we haven't actually experienced that here, though on many a day I wish for the gift of being two places at once.)

They certainly seem pricey, I know, but for large families who will see them passed from child to child, I imagine they would become something of a dress-up investment. The two dresses we received three years ago are still in terrific shape and Ramona foresees getting many more years out of them. Here they are:

(Please note: I have no stake in the Our Coats of Many Colors business. I'm simply grateful for the dresses we received for review, and I'm happy to help friends spread the word.)

Quotes on the Feast of St. John Bosco

"Every education teaches a philosophy; if not by dogma then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. Every part of that education has a connection with every other part. If it does not all combine to convey some general view of life, it is not education at all." 

~~ G.K. Chesterton, 

The Common Man (thanks to Saint of the Day)

"There are plenty of ways to practice mortification! Just patiently endure cold, heat, sickness, troubles, people, happenings, and so forth."

~~ St. John Bosco

"Enjoy yourself as much as you like --  if only you keep from sin."
~~ St. John Bosco

Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux

"I force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I don't succeed in fixing my mind on them. For a long time I was desolate about this lack of devotion which astonished me, for I love the Blessed Virgin so much that it should be easy for me to recite in her honor prayers which are so pleasing to her. Now I am less desolate; I think that the Queen of heaven, since she is my Mother, must see my good will and she is satisfied with it."
 ~~ St. Therese of Lisieux

Memorial of St. Monica

"The child of those tears shall never perish." 

~~ a bishop, to St. Monica


"Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?"

~~ St. Monica

More links about St. Monica can be found in this post. 

St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Some calendars show August 18th as the feast day of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, while others celebrate her day on August 12th.

Whatever the feast day, can you imagine what it must have been like to have St. Francis de Sales as your spiritual director?

I've long felt a special attachment to St. Jane and I'm not sure I can articulate why. I can't say we share a great deal in common. I didn't marry a baron, didn't lose my husband after only seven years of marriage. I've not become a nun or founded a religious community.

But, St. Jane strikes me as so real, sturdily grounded in her faith. She lived through dark nights and spiritual dryness, but she grasped that her faith was not rooted in her feelings about faith. Her faith was rooted in Him. The reality of hanging on, even when we don't feel like hanging on, always resonates with me. ("Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted," said Clive Staples Lewis.) 

I love this:

When she was 32, she met St. Francis de Sales (October 24), who became her spiritual director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director. She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.

After three years Francis told her of his plan to found an institute of women which would be a haven for those whose health, age or other considerations barred them from entering the already established communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation (hence their name, the Visitation nuns): humility and meekness.

-- Saint of the Day.

The emphasis above is mine. I love that even though she wanted to become a nun, she listened to her spiritual director's counsel and put off following that dream. Three years later, he proposed the thing that would become the rest of her life.  

"If we patiently accept through love all that God allows to happen, then we will begin to taste even here on earth something of the delights the saints experience in heaven. But for this we must serve God willingly and lovingly, seeking to obey the Divine Will rather than to follow our own inclinations and desires. For the perfection of love demands that we desire for ourselves only whatever God wills. Let us implore the good God unceasingly to grant us this grace!"

~~ St. Jane Frances de Chantal

(Find more quotes from St. Jane at the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.)

Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

"My longing for truth was a single prayer." 

~~ St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross 

(Edith Stein)

I love her. 

Read more about her here and here.

Feast of St. Mary Magdelene

Today is the feast of my Confirmation saint, the penitent,  Mary Magdelene.

More about her here and here.

I've been shockingly busy, otherwise I would ramble on here a bit this morning. Shocking busy-ness will continue over the next week or two, but then I hope to get back to more regular blogging!

Happy feast of my beloved St. Mary Magdelene!

(Painting: The Magdelen Reading, Rogier van der Weyden, from the National Gallery)

Smitten with de Sales

Always have been (well, for as long as I've been a Catholic.) Always will be.

Quotes for the week (from Daily with de Sales):

Sometimes the Lord desires that our souls be nourished by a firm and unfailing resolution to persevere in serving Him in the spiritual life amid hardships, dryness, repugnances and delusions, deprived of every consolation. Our souls indeed experience no spiritual enjoyment, but believe that they are not worthy of anything except to remain close to their Savior by a courageous spiritual effort, without any support except the Divine Will. This is Your will; how ardently I desire it! -- (Spiritual Treatises II; O. VI, p. 27)

Why should I worry whether God prefers that I say the rosary or the office of Our Lady? There are not such great differences between the two as to require a long inquiry. The same applies to questions such as: Should I go to the hospital to visit the sick rather than attend Vespers? Should I go to hear a sermon rather than visit an indulgenced church? Ordinarily, there is no greater importance in one than the other, nor need for lengthy deliberation. We must proceed in good faith and without making subtle distinctions in such affairs. Do freely what seems good at the moment, and do not worry your mind or waste your time! -- (T.L.G. Book 8, Ch. 14; O. V, p 106)

St. Francis de Sales, How I Love You

"The reason why we never receive the grace of sanctification (one single Holy Communion would be enough to make us saints) is that we do not allow the Lord to reign in us as He, in His goodness, desires. The Divine Savior comes into our heart and finds it full of desires, affections and vain aspirations. This is not what He wants; He wants to find our heart empty so He can become its one and only Master. Therefore He says to the holy lover that she should put a seal on her heart [cf. Sg 8:6], so that no one can enter without permission."  ~~ (Spiritual Treatises XVIII; O. VI, pp. 340-341)

"The best kinds of abjection, those most profitable for our soul and most acceptable to God, are those which come accidentally. This is because we have not selected them for ourselves but have received them as sent to us by God. To say it once and for all, our own choice and selection spoil or lessen almost all our virtues."  ~~ (INT. Part III, Ch. 6; O. III, p. 156)

"Be careful and attentive to all the matters God has committed to your care, but if possible do not be solicitous or worried; that is, do not burden yourself over them with uneasiness or anxiety. This worry only disturbs reason and good judgment and prevents you from doing well the very things you are worried about...A job done anxiously and hurriedly is never done well; we must do things with coolness and calm."  ~~ (INT. Part III, Ch. 10; O. III, pp. 169-170)

Find him every day at the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.

Openness to Life: St. Catherine of Siena

St. Catherine of Siena was, depending on which source you read, the 23rd or 25th child in her family.

The best time to serve the Lord

from Daily de Sales:

March 22
 
So you want to know the best time to serve the Lord? It is the present time, which is in your possession here and now. The past is no longer yours; the future has not come yet and is uncertain. The best time is really the present, which you should spend in serving God. If you want to recover lost time, do your best, with fervor and diligence, in the time that still remains to you.

 (Sermons 16; O. IX, p. 132)

The Solemnity of St. Joseph!

It's an oasis in the desert, a Solemnity (read: "It's as big as a Sunday!") Today we're celebrating the earthly foster father of Jesus.

My beloved St. Joseph is the model husband and father ... giving of himself completely, pouring himself out in body and spirit, offering a total self-donation for his wife and foster-son. May he hear our prayers and cries for intercession, and may he intercede before the throne of God for our family, for all fathers, and for all who call on him with love and faith in the Savior whom he raised.

~~~~~

I find nothing sweeter to my imagination than to see the celestial little Jesus in the arms of this great saint, calling him father a thousand and a thousand times in his childlike language, and with a heart all full of childlike love.

~~ St. Francis de Sales,
from The Mystical Flora of St. Francis de Sales

Our St. Joseph statue, bundled up by Ramona and Betsy, a couple of winters ago.


(Image above is Georges de La Tour's "Christ in the Carpenter's Shop", 1645)

And from me ...

A rerun of last year's St. Patrick's Day post, but it's definitely worth the rerun. Be sure to listen to the clip if you have time.

~~~~~

After you've prayed this beautiful prayer today, be sure to listen to "The Deer's Cry" (St. Patrick's Breastplate set to music, hauntingly sung by Rita Connolly) here. Rita Connolly is the wife of Shaun Davey, who composed the piece.

St. Patrick's Breastplate

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the deck,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

Quote for the 40 Days

"I will attempt, day by day, to break my will into pieces.
 

I want to do God's Holy Will, not my own!"

– St. Gabriel Possenti