"Like New"

We are usually suspicious when things are described as "like new." What do you mean, like new? What's keeping it from being new?

In our case, it's a total of 8 entries over the course of almost two years. Go on and laugh if you want, but several things have happened in this little Catholic's life over that time. I've been a newlywed; I've taken classes toward my master's in theology; I've gotten pregnant and been si-ick; I've had a beautiful baby boy, Kolbe David; I've been a new mom. And now, I'm looking for a job.

So no promises can be made as to the frequency of blogs from here on out, but I will certainly try to do better than in the past (really, not that hard to beat, is it?). Does that make this the re-birth of a blog? I believe it was Nicodemus who was troubled by this type of chatter.

May this blog somehow help you and me to grow closer to Christ as part of His Body, the Church, by putting into words our troubles and thoughts and growing closer as a community.

At least, that's the idea. Here's hoping the Lord gives us the grace to actually, you know, keep up with it.

Mommy!

You see how Monica is contemplating with her son just at the top of the left column there?

Now I get to do that! Yep, I'm pregnant! And as long as the child is within me, I get to rub my tummy area and think about the greatness of the Lord and his gifts to us. Nothing is more apparent to me than that a pregnancy is in God's active will. I mean, either He gives the child its own soul (which mom and dad cannot give) or He doesn't, in which case you aren't pregnant. God wanted this for my husband and I, and we're both so grateful to Him for giving such a wonderful gift!

I long to hold my child in my arms, but I long even more for this child's salvation. So one thing that has hit me pretty hard is that I need to be a whole bunch holier than I am right now. Such a blessing that this comes during Lent!

More to come later. In the meantime, please rejoice with me over this wonderful little one, and pray that he develops healthily into a beautiful child of God... the son of a holier set of parents than we are right now!

God bless,
Christie

Not the Best...

I'm admittedly not in a place to be writing to you about faith or how to live a good Christian life. I am in dire need of Lent, a time of preparation for Easter.

O Lord, please inspire any who might read this to humility, increased faith, and trust in your loving mercy. Grant that I might join in this inspiration for a fruitful Lenten season.

I pray that the Lord will push me to post more frequently during this special time of year.

Christie

Celtic Woman - Ave Maria

This version of the Ave Maria was my introduction to the group Celtic Woman. I love the Schubert version, but this one, written by Gounod over a Bach prelude, is also beautiful. Chloe sings it so well - can you imagine that she is now only 18?

Note: at the end, she says 'nostare' instead of 'nostrae.' But it's beautiful anyway.

Text:
Ave Maria (Hail Mary), gratia plena (full of grace), Dominus tecum (The Lord [is] with you), benedicta tu (blessed are you) in mulieribus (among women), et benedictus fructus (and blessed is the fruit) ventris tui, Jesus (of your womb, Jesus).
Sancta Maria (Holy Mary), Mater Dei (Mother of God), ora pro nobis (pray for us) peccatoribus (sinners) nunc et in hora (now and at the hour) mortis nostrae (of our death). Amen.

Not Just Trite Phrases

So I realize that I ought perhaps to give more information on the title of this blog, why I chose what I did and what the description means beneath it. Here is the fruit of that revelation:

Know Him, Love Him. Using this blog, I seek to understand a little more with each experience, each book read, each truth learned, each prayer uttered. What do I try to understand?

What is. What is true.

So often we stop with science, broadly defined as getting to know better what things are (what the poem is about, what the human body is doing, what the culture does) - do we stop to see if things are true? St. Thomas Aquinas sees the importance of both steps of the understanding, and I think we also can see this today. (If you want to know where he says this, post a comment.) For example, why aren't Catholics 'tolerant' as the world describes that word? (I don't advocate defining it this way, but I know we have all encountered someone who has struggled with the idea that we Catholics are close-minded, or perhaps we have struggled with it ourselves.) Why? Because they admit that there is truth and untruth. The truth is good and untruth is bad, because it is not true and good. Hence, we as Catholics believe that homosexual acts are bad. What is bad ought not to be done. But in the eyes of the world, we cannot deem that what someone struggling with homosexual tendencies is doing is wrong - who are we to know what is right or wrong? This opinion, on the contrary, asserts that we say this only out of our own socio-cultural perspective, and since we have observed that not everyone lives the same way everywhere, but differ by culture, we cannot say that one is better than the other - who are we to know?

On the other hand, Catholics do have the Church. We do have the Truth. We do know. We don't claim that we know because we are super-smart or even because we are worthy of knowing. No, indeed! We are simply the blessed people that the Lord has chosen as His new Israel, chosen to reveal the Truth about Himself. God, the Truth Himself, has given us the truth by His Word - and, after all, Truth Himself speaks truly, or there's nothing true (line of the hymn Adore Te Devote in English, 'Godhead Here in Hiding' -the second link has notes).

But here's the catch. The Church knows. Do you? I don't. I mean, I'd like to think I have the sense of faith, since I know that God has called me to His Church, but there is so much about the Church and Her Bridegroom Christ the Lord that I do not understand. But if I could, if I could grow to know Him a bit more, to know more fully that He is God (perhaps by trusting Him in a situation or learning something new about Him), and know that He is truly God, "true God from true God"... then I will love Him better. The link between knowing Him and loving Him has been explored by some of the greatest saints in the Church, but I think that even if we 'normal' American Catholics cannot justify it, we still understand that there is a link between getting to know God better and being able to love Him better. Perhaps we'll explore this in later posts. But we know that we cannot love someone we don't know, and we know that we love our friends more as we get to know them more.

Hence, I seek to know God better. Why? Because I want to love Him better, and He has called me to know Him quite intimately. How do I know He's called me - is this something special for me? No, it's something common to all men and women. We have been given the ability to reason, to know God in a way that other creatures cannot. Which is where you all come in. See, I don't want this to just be me writing what's on my mind - I was never much for diaries. I would like to post something that you find thought-provoking (God-willing), something that makes you want to pray and respond. So please - leave a comment!

One last thing: On the quotes I mention in my subtitle/description...
"To know Him is to love Him" is a quote from St. Augustine, and, one might add, a major theme in his works that St. Thomas Aquinas, among others, picks up again many centuries later and develops in his work Summa Theologica (not what you'd call light or easy reading).
"Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" is a particularly cutting quote by St. Jerome, who translated most of the Bible into the Latin version that we know as the Vulgate. I will hopefully get the chance to talk more about this quote later.

Perseverance

You know, one of my favorite saints is St. Monica. I have the habit of entrusting those people who I think need the most prayer to her. It's not that they're hopeless cases - otherwise, I'd choose St. Jude - but they try my patience. I really want the Lord to hear my prayer for them now, and I want their lives to get better, or their faith to grow, now.

But this isn't good. I mean, God hears my prayers. And He will answer them, just as a father gives his child fish when asked, and not a snake (cf. Lk 11:11-13). It may not be as I want, but it will be on His time.

But I'm so impatient. So I ask St. Monica to pray for these intentions, and for me. St. Monica was the mother of the great theologian, bishop, saint, and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine. This is amazing enough, but even better (cf. St. Augustine's Confessions) is how St. Augustine was converted. He was a wayward child, to put it lightly, and his mother mourned and prayed for him for years before he converted. It is said that she prayed this long, and then got discouraged. An angel appeared to her, telling her to be patient and keep praying. So after praying again for years, her son was indeed converted to the True Faith, and she was able, prior to her death, to spend an entire night talking with her son about heavenly things. This is what is depicted in the picture for this blog. I imagine that they are both longing for heaven with great intensity, just as we ought to.

A little boy, who was canonized after his death at age 15, was a follower of St. John Bosco. He came to Don Bosco and said, 'Don Bosco, help me to become a saint now - I don't know how long I have to live.' There was nothing wrong with the little boy of 13 that would indicate an immanent death, and yet his eagerness for holiness and perseverance ensured that he was in heaven upon his death two years later.

So there is something proper to being eager, to longing with such great intensity. But this is different from impatience. A tree is known by its fruit (Lk 6:44); think about it. Impatience brings out in me a whiny little child who wants what she wants even though she cannot seem to get it; eagerness and longing for God bring peace and the will to persevere.

So my impatience in prayer is actually something bad; rather, I should, with St. Monica, cry and pray so intensely and eagerly that my dress is worn through at the knees, as hers all were. Then perhaps the Lord would hear my prayer and reassure me with an angel. There's only one way to find out...perseverance.

Peace in Annoyance

You know, I heard something in a homily the other day (I'm blessed to be at a school where I hear about saints, canon law, theology, sacraments, and God's love and forgiveness on different occasions):

"lots of people try, but saints persevere."

But sometimes I don't know where they get their strength. Take tonight: my husband, for the millionth time in the two months we've been married, annoys me with the same mistake he's made before. He didn't mean to do it ("I do that which I do not want to do..."), but that doesn't really make it better for me. How do I persevere in virtue here? I was reading St. Paul, founder of the Passionists, on this his feast day (pray for us!), and in his diary he spoke about depressions and numerous sufferings, and yet none of these robbed him of his peace. After all, a saint who's sad is a sad saint (thank you Butler, author of the English Lives of the Saints). But how do I keep this peace? Here's an excerpt:

"It seems to me it is similar to a baby at the breast of its mother. With its mouth it sucks the milk even though hands and feet are gyrating about. Head can twist, bow, and move, but always it takes its milk because it never takes its mouth from the breast of its mother. It would certainly do better if it remained quiet instead of behaving as I said. Nevertheless, milk continues to flow down its throat because it never takes its mouth from the mother’s breast. So it is with the soul. Our will is the mouth and never ceases to imbibe the milk of holy love, even though the powers of intellect and memory go astray. It is true that the will is more invigorated when all powers remain together and quiet. Since the Lord does not wish me to understand it otherwise, I cannot better explain myself." St. Paul of the Cross, Diary of Friday, Nov. 29th.

He was only 26. St. Therese, one of my favorite saints, was only 24 when she died. If these can have profound experiences of the True God at such young ages, surely I am capable of just praying better and more often in humility. Maybe if I prayed 'all the time,' then I could have His peace in my heart constantly, as St. Paul did. I remember (too lazy to look this up at present - that's irony for you, folks) in Introduction to the Devout Life, that St. Francis de Sales would encourage the reader, the lover of God (Philothea), to try to hold the attitude gained in morning prayer in himself with the delicacy one would use with a cup filled to the brim. If I prayed more often, increasing this habitus until I might pray continuously, then perhaps the little annoyances would truly seem little and would not tip over the cup of peace in my heart.

It is in the everyday choices that we become saints.

There is so much more to talk about here, but I must go: in closing, here's a quote from St. Therese that somehow comforts me, to know that having little annoyed moments is normal and can be occasions of holy acts:

"If ... the devil tries to show me the faults of a sister, I hasten to think of all her virtues and of how good her intentions are. I tell myself that though I have seen her commit a sin, she may very well have won many spiritual victories of which I know nothing because of her humility. What seems a fault to me may very well be an act of virtue because of the intention behind it." - St. Therese

Well, I suppose that "all that remains for us then is to fight. When we have not the strength, it is then that Jesus fights for us." (St. Therese).

Little Red Ball, Little Red Ball...

... Just try to be a little red ball!

I found this quote on a fellow blogger's site (doxology):

"We are at Jesus' disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that's all right, everything is all right. We must say, 'I belong to you. You can do whatever you like.' And this is our strength, and this is the joy of the Lord." – Bl. Teresa of Calcutta

It reminds me that Blessed Theresa was under the patronage of (and was the namesake of) one of my favorite saints, Therese of the Child Jesus (the Little Flower). She has a great image to express the above:

“He has not allowed His creatures to do what they will but only what He wills. … I had offered myself to the Child Jesus to be His little plaything. I told Him not to treat me like one of those precious toys which children only look at and dare not touch, but to treat me like a little ball of no value, that could be thrown on the ground, kicked about, pierced, left in a corner, or pressed to His Heart just as it might please Him. In a word I wished to amuse the Holy child and to let Him play with me as He fancied. Here indeed He was answering my prayer. In Rome Jesus pierced His little plaything. He wanted to see what was inside… and when satisfied, He let it drop and went to sleep. … Dear Mother, you can imagine the sadness of the little ball lying neglected on the ground! And yet it continued to hope against hope.” – St. Therese

This is not to say with Narnia's Tashbaans that 'Aslan is not a tame lion' and therefore unpredictable (akin to the Islamic conception of God as so completely beyond us that even analogy fails; God is not good as we think of good, and could actually command something evil in our eyes because He is God). No - and unfortunately, we don't even have to look further than your average university's philosophy department to find the similar disappearance of analogy.

Instead, these blessed women realize that the Lord is good, good as we know it and, by analogy, greater than any good we know. Not beyond good as outside of it (so that it could also be evil as we see it), but to our good and beyond (echoes of Toy Story in my head...). God is good, good, good, ad infinitem. And since He is so good, and all-powerful, and takes care of even the lilies in the valley and birds of the air (echoes of Scriptures and a recent news story in my head...), how much more will He care for us? We ought to trust Him like these saintly women.
Even when we're 'neglected' or thrown around.

Just be a little red ball.... (echoes)

NB: St. Therese's autobio can be found here.

Birth of a Blog

This blog will be a long time in building, since I'm new to this. And I'm in grad school.