"Wherever The Catholic Sun Doth Shine, There's Always Laughter And Good Red Wine"

I know there are a lot of great poets out there, both dead and alive, who have written great sonnets and painted works of art with their words. But personally, my favorite poem of all time is one which was written by a developmentally disabled woman named Shirley Nelson. It appeared in a collection of poetry titled Shout, Applaud. The women featured, who all lived together in residence, never learned English syntax and so there is a stripped-down freshness to painting this particular scene that for me is haunting, vivid, and beautiful at the same time:

Everybody

by Shirley Nelson

I was wearing a blue

coat. It was cabbage and wieners.

They were big cooked wieners,

the smell was cabbage

ah delicious smell

of cabbage out not summer noise was

running water in the kitchen somewhere

Poetry is concentrated language. It compresses a maximum of thought into a minimum of words. William Carlos Williams wrote, "No ideas, but in things." What I like about this poem is that it doesn't play with pretension, writing oh-so-loftily about the Big Things (Love, Truth, Beauty) as concepts from a textbook in a stiff and haughty and unlived way. "Everybody" is terse and hungry. There is no doubt in the universe that Shirley likes cabbage and wieners, big cooked wieners, so much so that she wears them as a blue coat, probably her favorite coat. I am outside the window, leaning on the dusty sill and leaning in. The smell was cabbage (ah delicious smell!), the season was summer, the house is Everybody's, and in the kitchen, somewhere, water was running.

You may not like the poem, you may love it, you may be indifferent, you may not get it. You may be a syntax guy, a sonnet gal. All fine! It's personal for me, for it may not be for you. When I worked as a caseworker with people with Downs syndrome and developmental disabilities, it was a real joy (the people, not the bureaucratic system). They see life through different eyes, unpretentious eyes. They are a true gift to the world, and my four years working with them, being their friend, taking them to Mass with me when I was able, was a privilege. 

While cabbage and weiners and coats and sinks may be the stuff of this world that have feet firmly planted in it, there is another kind of poetry that I love that reaches to the heavens while here on earth, and that is the Hebrew poetry of the Psalms. 

There is a rhythm to the Psalms that one enters into when they are prayed in plainsong every day; they are meant to be sung. I got to experience this at a Benedictine monastery where I spent the summer chanting and singing the Psalms. Though the translation is different, to this day, I chant my favorite verses from memory because they got in my bones through song:

When I call, answer me O God of justice!

From anguish you release me, have mercy and hear me.

How long, o men will your hearts be closed,

will you love what is futile and seek what is false?

The Lord works wonders for me

the Lord hears me whenever I call him

Fear Him, do not sin. Ponder on your bed and be still.

Make justice your sacrifice and trust in the Lord.

When will we see better days many say?

Lift up the light of your face on us o Lord!

You have put into my heart a greater joy

then they have from abundance of corn and new wine

I will lie down and peace comes at once

for you alone Lord make me dwell in safety. 

(Ps 4)

I am not an expert by any means on ancient Hebrew poetry, but the parallelism (both synonymous and antithetical) employed by the Psalmist moves the words down so that they settle into your bones. Even if you don't know the poetic method by name, you know it by sound. The form is important to the message and imagery.

But the Psalms are not stiff and formal dead words on a page, but very much alive, because they cover the range of human emotions and experiences in totality. The poetic form may constrain the words, but there is a limitlessness and timelessness to the experience of the words that is transcendent. It is human, through and through, and stretches to Heaven with urgency with feet firmly planted in the miry pit, the raging battle, the banks of the stream.

Good poetry is human. It doesn't waste words, but concentrates language. It slaps you awake, takes you abroad without having to leave your chair, borrows your nose and steals your eyes. Good poetry makes a nest in your consciousness. It rents out life and takes notes on the back of diner napkins. It will use syntax and form if it serves its purpose, or it will give you a pass for the show anyway if you can't pay the cost of admission.

Poetry of this sort isn't purely etherial and angelic, but has flesh and bones, a heart and blood. It comes into the world but is not of the world. It picks grain and heals on Sundays, eats the showbread when hungry, dances naked before the ark, drinks barrels of wine in good company, eschews lukwarmness, flips over tables in righteous anger, sees to the heart.

For goodness' sake, THIS IS OUR FAITH! This is not stodgy puritanical Christianity or pharisaical legalism, but fully human Catholicism! It lives in poetry, it lives in song, it lives in LIFE itself! And life is meant to be sung, to be celebrated, and like good poetry...it is meant to be fully lived.

"Everybody Has A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Mouth"

A few months ago I was following a thread about how people of faith would respond if faced with martyrdom. It generated some good discussion, but I couldn't help remembering the words of Peter to Jesus, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You." All the disciples said the same thing too." (Mt 26:35)

And what does Peter do? Well, he does die for Christ, eventually. But not before denying him, not once, but three times. The disciples scatter when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus. One guy even leaves his underwear behind (Mk 14:52). Who was with Jesus in his last hour? Mary, his mother, the other Marys, and the disciple whom he loved--the strong and silent types.

Peter eats his words in a bitter shame, weeping over having said them with such bravado. But we should not overlook that while Peter does not die with Christ at his hour, he does go to his death for him at Peter's appointed time. This is, of course, after Pentecost, when Peter and the other disciples are given the grace and courage by the Holy Spirit to suffer and die, and to do it well. But their high-minded words prior to that are just that--words.

I appreciate quotes from the saints who have walked the walk and have the street cred to give credence to their words. I don't have much use for nicely crafted words from inspirational speakers making the daily memes for their social media postings. But every now and then I come across a blunt little nugget from someone having no intention of being a JV philosopher, and are not necessarily religious, but are just speaking from life experience. Life carries weight.

Mike Tyson was that guy this morning when I read his words, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." He spoke about the origins of that quote here:

"People were asking me [before a fight], 'What’s going to happen?,' " Tyson said. "They were talking about his style. 'He's going to give you a lot of lateral movement. He's going to move, he's going to dance. He's going to do this, do that.' I said, "Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.' "

Like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze. Can anybody relate to that? It's easy to talk a good game about dying for Christ and being a martyr, and we should in fact desire that. But I dread that day. A person wrote me the other day crediting me with some religious points for my interview on "The Journey Home" and asked if I agreed, and all I could tell him was that I can only identify with Peter who said to the Lord after sinking in the sea, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man" (Lk 5:8). Grace is the only thing I have. My faith is smaller than a mustard seed, by a lot. Grace keeps me from drowning. It's all I have.

I'm not used to being in the public eye, so to speak. It's a little disorienting. After the airing of the show I spent a good amount of time in prayer, arms extended like Moses to feel the burn, because I felt like I deserved a good smarting, a sharp thorn, like Paul, to keep my face close to the dirt. I was scared of it, and still am. I've seen big names fall. I've seen the devils shooting arrows at the saints on the ladder of divine ascent, and pride brings every one of them crashing through the rungs.

If you want to die for Christ, suffer for Christ, save your words. Sacrifice, but do it in private. Pray, and pray some more, with tears. Peter would tell you the same, I suspect. God will give you what you want when you are focused on Him. Just make sure it's what you really want. Converts are made my witness, not pastoral letters. Live your life as a witness. But go easy on the words and sable rattling, because you never know what that day is going to look like when it comes. Faith and character is proved by fire, as gold through the furnace.

"If you’re good and your plan is working," Tyson said, "somewhere during the duration of that, the outcome of that event you're involved in, you're going to get the wrath, the bad end of the stick. Let's see how you deal with it. Normally people don’t deal with it that well."

There's truth there. Sanctity doesn't come cheap, and nothing really goes according to plan. Stay focused, do the work in front of you, and roll with the punches so you can persevere to the end. Don't make an oath, just let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Anything else is from the evil one (Mt 5:37). No one plans to get punched in the mouth, after all. How you respond when you do will be the mark that matters in the end.

Please pray for me.

This Son Of Yours

I remember one afternoon in college sitting on a bench with a friend. He was a lifelong Catholic, I had been Catholic for a year or so. "You know," he said to me, "guys like you get to have all the fun. You get to sleep around and party and have it all forgiven." He didn't say it in a mean or accusatory way, just that he "always wondered what it would be like," that is, the life of a prodigal, since he had pretty much been a good, rule-following Catholic most of his life. He feels like he missed out.

I didn't know any other way. Though I could sympathize with my friend, the life of the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son was foreign to me. I was a prodigal through and through, and it was how I came to God: finding Christ through heartache and brokenness, looking up from the pigsty, far from home. Not that I would necessarily advocate going this route--pursuing sin is a quixotic exercise in futility, since peace and joy are always kept at bay as you chase after illusionary windmills. The "fun" my friend refers to is really just rotten consolation fruit, and in reality, I was the one who missed out. Though I was washed clean and forgiven by the blood of Christ, I spend most of my adult life just getting back to zero in terms of the passions.

We like to think of justice and mercy as two separate things, and we may gravitate towards one of the other depending on our individual proclivities: the righteous and upright long for justice, and call on the God of vengeance to render recompense to the proud (Ps 94:1-2), while the poor in spirit cry out for mercy (Ps 86:16).

But God does not regard justice and mercy the way we humans do, in a dichotomous manner. Msgr. Pope has an excellent post here, and writes: "When we discuss the relationship between justice and mercy in the Church and in God, we must avoid distinctions that merely see them in opposition. We must seek to see them as rooted in God, simply, and in a way that harmonizes them."

I have always had to learn the hard way, doing things myself and finding out for myself. So part of me was jealous of my friend, in the same way he was jealous of me, for his ability to follow the rules. We were both brothers in faith, loved the same by the Father. And yet our struggles were different--I did not struggle with resentment of feeling like I missed opportunities, but needed mercy more than anything; my friend did not struggle as much with the damage done by sin and its fallout, but may have struggled more like the workers who went out into the vineyard at daybreak who were paid the same as those who came in the late day (Mt 20:1-16).

I can't go back and do it again, but knowing what I know now about the wasteland apart from God, I would advocate for my children--for their own good!--to keep the statutes of the Lord and to walk in His ways and not stray. Yes, where sin abounds grace abounds more (Rom 5:20), but should we go on sinning so grace may increase? Of course not, says the same Paul (Rom 6:1).

We should consider it a great gift and mercy to receive punishment for our sins and chastisement in this life so that we might be spared from it in the next. Sin always comes with consequences--nobody has all the fun without the cost, and if they do they are in for a rude awakening come Judgement Day. Msgr Pope again:

"Punishment is, therefore, an aspect of mercy. The purpose of punishment is to help us to experience the lesser consequences of our sin so that we do not experience the fuller, more dire consequences. Punishment also imparts a greater a greater understanding of God’s justice and vision for us, as opposed to the false promises offered to us by this world.  

For many of us today, it is difficult to see punishment as an aspect of mercy, because we tend to equate love and mercy with mere kindness or approval. It is an immature notion of love that says, “If you love me you will always be nice and kind, and you’ll let me do and be whatever I please.” God loves us too much to yield to that notion of love and mercy."

Justice and mercy are not opposed, but unified in God's economy, emanating from the same source. My friend from college feels like he missed out on all the "fun" of sin, while I feel like I spent most of my adult life trying to overcome the effects of it just to get back to square one. In many ways, the parable of the prodigal son (which is just as much a parable of the older son as well) is a picture of the Father holding justice and mercy together in the equilibrium of His love, which overflows from His very being and spills out, soaking the feet of both brothers.

If I could go back and do it again, I would hope to never choose sin, nor would I advise anyone else to. We save ourselves a lot of heartache and damage when we listen to the Lord's commands and follow His statues, for they are for our own good. And yet it was sin that brought me to the feet of Mercy, and grace surely did abound. So whether we are are a good rule following lifelong Catholic or a wayward son or daughter that learns the hard way, may we always trust in God's mercy and respect his justice, bathing in the font of His love from which both flow.

"I Was A Lefty Catholic" And Other Tales

We were at dinner a few months ago with some friends. My son's godmother introduced me to one of the guests at the table who attend the Traditional Latin Mass. "This is Rob," she said good naturedly, "he used to be a lefty-Catholic!"

I couldn't argue. But when I joined the Catholic Worker after graduating college (and three years after joining the Church), I wouldn't have known what you meant if you called me a "leftist Catholic." Sure, I read books by John Dear and the Berrigan brothers, and like any good twenty-something was attracted to the revolutionary spirit of those working for justice on behalf of the poor. My friends would protest at the School of the Americas in Georgia, we had a community garden, we hung bedsheets from the windows in a spirit of solidarity and liberation. When I moved to Philly, I went to St. Vincent de Paul in Germantown where we joined hands around the altar when the priest would break leavened honey-wheat bread; the liturgical abuses, in hindsight, were legion.

It's all easy to see now. But at the time, I was totally ignorant of the factions in the Church, just happy to have been saved, forgiven, and redeemed, and feeding, clothing, and sheltering the poor as Jesus called us to do.

But now I see the hold-overs form the Ploughshares movement and other social justice initiatives, and they just look...weary, and a little passed-by. I'm not sure if their children practice the Faith, but my guess--since the "praxis" of liberation and the here-and-now was often given more importance than stodgy old doctrine--is that many do not, since the spirit of the revolution is harder to pass on than formative teaching by way of the catechism.

Our age is the age of social experimentation. We have experimented with marriage, with conception and human life, with the foundations of society--the family--with political ideology, with what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. In the Church, the years of experimentation in throwing off the shackles of dogma for primacy of conscience and religious communities traded habits for secular garb.

Since I've been laid up in bed sick for the past couple days, I've been watching some movies and things. One recommended by a priest I know was an obscure 1973 made-for-TV film on Youtube called "The Conflict," starring a young Martin Sheen who plays Fr. Kinsella, a young liberationist priest sent from Rome to his religious order in Ireland to straighten them out and to work on banning the TLM.

A telling exchange occurs about halfway through the film between Fr. Kinsella and one of the monks:


Monk: You're one of those new priests, aren't you, the revolutionaries? 

Fr. Kinsella: Are you interested in that? 

M: Tell me: is it true, in South America, some priests are overthrowing the government? 

FK: Yes they are. 

M: How can they be doing the likes of that? 

FK: Well why not? The early Christians were revolutionaries, remember? 

M: What does that got to do with saving souls for God? 

FK: Everything! Do you know in places like South America young priests our age are dying for the causes of social justice? 

M: What are they doing being priests? You know, if i wanted to join the IRA, I'd have joined the IRA. But I joined the Church. 

FK: So the Church can be a powerful instrument of change! It can lead a revolution that people will follow. You have enormous influence! 

M: You know, that's trite! Look at the people over there on the mainland. They don't want your social justice. They want the old Mass. They want to believe in something, something more than this world can offer them. And what do you offer, Father?  

FK: Well perhaps a better life, Father, not pie in the sky. 

M: Ah, but you're a priest. That's not your job. They want you to forgive them their sins, to baptize them, marry them, bury them. Show them there's a God above them, a God who cares about them. Now the old parish priests knew that. You don't.


The exchange was meaningful for me not as much for what it had to do with the Mass (though that is a primary focus of the film), but because, in this particular exchange at least, it got to the heart of the role of the priest and the desires of those who cling to the Faith:

They want you to forgive them their sins

to baptize them

marry them

bury them

Show them there's a God above them

a God who cares about them

Liberation Theology was wedded and adapted to a godless Marxism and concerned itself more with the immediate here-and-now than the eternal, the social more than the timeless. As a praxis-based experiment, it's motives may have had some merit (alleviation of the suffering of the poor, economic justice, etc), but it failed to bear the fruit to sustain itself. Personal prayer and sanctity, at least in my experience in the movement, was never emphasized very much. I know enough to know that any life without the sustenance of prayer doesn't have much of a future. 

Here's the thing: Anti-foundationalism, post-modernism, and 21st century liberalism are not homes of peace. Because the work of justice is never fully accomplished, and the revolution is always just around the corner, and the fuel tank of agitation and outrage is always needing a refilling to keep the vehicle of change from stalling out. That does NOT mean we can ignore the plight of the poor or become like the rich man dining sumptuously at his table while Lazarus licks his sores. It does NOT mean we cannot see and admire the laudable work of justice and models of civil disobedience, as could be seen in, for example, the fight for civil rights in our country. 

But as a whole, if I had to put money down, I would not place my chips at the table of the National Catholic Reporter types to save the Church in a post-modern wasteland. The force of the culture is too strong, and we need a rope braided strong with centuries of tradition and clear teaching to keep us from washing out to sea. We need a 'movement' that lauds the timeless and encourages (and gives the tool for) the development of personal holiness, for the culture is converted a saint at a time. We need a movement that steeps itself in deep and devoted personal prayer, develops a practice of piety sharpened by mortification, and draws its strength from Christ in the Eucharist. A movement that encourages frequent confession, and does not see sacramentals as nice little charms, but recognizes them as the armor necessary to protect its followers spiritually. A movement that thousands of canonized saints have themselves been a part of, leading the way and leaving their footsteps in the dirt for us to follow, for the themselves follow the crucified Christ. 

Judge a tree by its fruits, but make sure you see the fruit through eyes that can distinguish the temporal from the eternal, the 'here and now' from the place where souls exist until the end of time. Gear everything you have, everything you own, everything you can will, towards the Eternal. Follow closely in the footsteps of the saints who have gone before you, read about their lives and follow their examples, and don't stray from the path. Pass the Faith to your children so that they might be saved. Form your conscience in obedience. And never cease in prayer.

I can't afford to put my hope of eternal salvation in a social experiment like liberal Catholicism. Maybe I'm just getting older and (hopefully) a little wiser--or, at least, am wising up a little, but I'm happy to have left liberal Catholicism behind. Only took twenty years to "get woke" to tradition, obedience, and the hard road to sanctification. 

But better late than never.

In Too Deep

I just got back from the Courage International conference. Not having SSA, I have no idea why I was there, but the Lord said go, so I went. Bishop Seitz of El Paso and Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix celebrated Mass, I got to meet Fr. Bochanski and see my friend Joseph Sciambra and got to spend some time with Paul Darrow. Missed both talks because I just ended up talking with people at the conference.

Paul said something in our conversation about Courage being "the last domino" holding him in the Faith amidst a sea of gay-affirming ministries. At the conference, I got the impression that for many with SSA remaining Catholic, it was a lift raft amidst a world of damage that so easily draws people back. As he testifies to in the video he appeared in for Courage, he had everything and was deep in the gay world, both personally and professionally. He knew when he made the decision to appear in the film and give his testimony, he would lose it all, and there was no going back.

We reach a point in our lives when we get serious about the Faith where the Lord asks us if we are willing to be "marked" for His glory. The "hedging" we do when we are between two lives--the world/the flesh and the life of discipleship--is an uncomfortable one, and it should be, because it is not a place one can stay in for long. For Paul, initially he would drive to a church far from his home so no one he knew would see him, and was ashamed and would hide his watching of Mother Angelica on EWTN "the way you would hide a blowup doll."

It's an interesting conundrum--when you are living between two worlds (as I did for so long) you have no peace, but you can at least retain old friends, old habits, the privileges of life in the world. But when you become "marked" you can't claim those things anymore. As St. Augustine describes in Confessions about crossing over to the other side to Lady Continence, one foot must leave the shore and plant itself firmly on the other side, where Truth resides, in a horrifying moment of loss:

"The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my ancient mistresses, still held me; they plucked my fleshy garment, and whispered softly, "Dost thou cast us off? and from that moment shall we no more be with thee for ever? and from that moment shall not this or that be lawful for thee for ever?" And what was it which they suggested in that I said, "this or that," what did they suggest, O my God? Let Thy mercy turn it away from the soul of Thy servant. What defilements did they suggest! what shame! And now I much less than half heard them, and not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, but muttering as it were behind my back, and privily plucking me, as I was departing, but to look back on them. Yet they did retard me, so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to spring over whither I was called; a violent habit saying to me, "Thinkest thou, thou canst live without them?"" (Confessions, VIII)

When you cross over, there is no going back. And suddenly there is peace, there is some rest, but there is also loss, though they are no losses worth mourning for too long. But once you've lost, there's no way back...no way at all. You are a man without a map, because you now walk by faith, led by the Savior's hand, only able to see one foot in front of you at a time. You're in too deep. There's no way back...no way at all.

But we have all had our Peter moments, haven't we? When we are marked by association, recognized, and thrice deny:

"Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly." (Lk 22:54-62)

In many ways, we are pre-Pentecost people. We say, with Peter in those days, "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you!" (Mk 14:31) and yet we do, every time we sin. We prefer the allures of comfort to suffering, our own way to the narrow way, retaining our goods and going away sad.

But this was not Peter's defining moment. Human, yes; but legacy-worthy, no. For Peter's legacy came the day he stood up after Pentecost--fearless, confident, and fully committed. He was marked by the Spirit, and went to his death never to deny Christ again.

I always joke with friends who are thinking of having kids, "there's a no-return policy with kids. You can't push them back in once they come out." For my wife and I, turning our fertility over to the Lord has been an exercise in dying to self and acting in trust and obedience, and our children become reminders, "marks" of the fact that we do not belong to ourselves anymore, the fruit of obedience, that they exist because we trusted. I write publicly, I will be on EWTN next week, and I have enough evidence to convict me in a court of law if ever brought before a tribunal who accuse me of saying, "you are a Christian, you are one of his disciples!"

Should I apostatize and deny it all, I have no recourse. My back is against the wall; I'm in too deep. But the temptation to lose faith is a landmine of the Enemy's, the grenades he lobs into the cave where you are praying to drive you out of it, the trip-lines he sets up along the path.

You cannot let go of the Lord's hand in these states. It is too dangerous. The casualties of apostasy litter the ground everywhere around us today--fallen away Catholics, blasphemers, atheists and agnostics. Churchy people talk about prayer as a nice and pleasant thing to do, but the reality for me at this point is I cling to prayer in desperation just to survive. If I don't pray, I die, and I do not survive the fall from the cliffs. I pray for humility, I pray for perseverance, I pray for purity of heart like a desperate, embarrassing man. I simply cannot afford to lose sight of the Lord for a moment, because when I do I am so off-kilter that I know a fall is coming.

So, prayer is not a nice and pleasant thing for me to do. I pray to survive. I pray to persevere to the bitter end, for the grace to endure what is coming to me, my due for being marked, for my conviction in court, for the day I appear before Him praying that I am not a stranger He does not recognize; praying for forgiveness for my faults, praying to forgive myself and the people who make it impossible to forgive, praying for miracles and big big things, praying for strength and steadfastness, to continue to be open to life, for my children to make it out alive, to see my wife in Heaven, to please, please God don't let me fall.

Prayer is not a nice hobby when you're back is against the wall, when you've taken the step to the other side and the bridge has fallen into the ravine behind you, when you're backed into an alley with no way back; prayer in these instances is dirty grit, and pure survival to endure to the end.

Time Is Money, and Money Is Time

My wife and I are coming up on eight years of marriage this week. That's not a long time, but it sure has been an eventful eight years.

When we met in 2009, my wife was working as a research nurse in the Emergency Department at the hospital. I was working part time at Starbucks and part time at a community college evaluating transcripts. We got engaged after five months of dating, and married a year later.

I moved into her rowhouse in the city after the wedding. It only took one trip--everything I owned fit in my Honda Civic. I don't know what we did with all the time we had back then--we went to the movies, had coffee and breakfast on the back porch, took bike rides. By then I had gotten a job in admissions at a small local college, and was making $30,000 a year, and Debbie was promoted to supervisor and eventually manager of the research department. We were DINKs (dual income-no kids) for about a year before our first child was born, and then we were, I guess, DIOKs.

We were happy in our little house. We had great neighbors, but the surrounding area was getting a little rough with the violence and drugs. When Deb's maternity leave was up, our boy went to daycare at the local Catholic community center in Little Italy. Then number two came, and we continued to do the "daycare shuffle," with every intention to stay in our house and send the kids to the local Catholic schools for elementary through high school. This was what people did, and we just thought it was what we would do too.

After a couple years we crunched some numbers and figured it might make more sense to move to the next state over. My wife had gone to Catholic school her whole life, and I had gone to public school. The cost of private Catholic school in the state we were in did not seem to offset what we would spend in higher property taxes in the next state over, and I felt the kids would get a better education in the public school system. We put our house on the market in January of 2015 when the kids were three and two years old, respectively.  By the grace of God (and a good relator), we said goodbye to our old house and moved into a new house that Spring. We had more bedrooms, half an acre of land and room for a garden, could leave our cars unlocked in our driveway, and were situated between our two places of employment. The schools were good in the area, so the plan was to start our son in Kindergarten the following year, and our daughter the year after that.

My income had bumped up a little, and my wife was moving up as well. But the daycare shuffle was starting to wear on her. She hated being away from the kids during the day, was bringing work and stress home with her regularly, and it was hard to keep up with the pace of things. In an attempt to alleviate the constant driving and daycare expenses, we had a live-in au pair from Italy to take care of the kids while we worked, since it wasn't much more than daycare for the two. It was nice not having to shuttle constantly, but as relatively private people having a live-in childcare worker was an adjustment.

We eventually found out we were pregnant with our third in May of 2017. It was around this time we experienced a conversion thanks to finding a Miraculous Medal down at the beach and wearing it. The Blessed Mother was reorienting our hearts to life, and we began to trust God's will for us in a way we hadn't before. We turned everything over, consecrating ourselves to the Immaculate Heart in October of that year.

Our son had started Kindergarden that fall at the local elementary school. He rode the bus, and made some little friends, and had a great teacher. But as my wife and I moved closer and closer to an orthodox expression of our faith, we began to wonder whether this was what God wanted for our lives, for our children, and for our family. We had friends who homeschooled, and we were always impressed by their children--their manners, morals, and how they learned. I think my wife in her heart of hearts wanted to be home and homeschool, but knew I had to be on board as the spiritual leader of the household, and at that point I wasn't. I didn't know how we would make it work financially. In many ways, I still don't.

After our third was born, though, my wife was dreading the thought of going back to her management position. We prayed, and decided it might be better to go back to bedside nursing despite the sizable paycut. This might also allow us to pursue homeschooling, should we go that route. My wife was happiest when she was home on maternity leave with the three kids. She made dinner, cleaned, and just relished being a wife and mom with undivided time and attention. It aligned with her nature. I, for my part, was adjusting to the loss of the salary we had been bringing in. We never had an issue writing big checks for repairs and charities; it gave us a comfortable cushion in which we could handle just about anything.

But even at twenty hours a week, my wife was struggling. We considered ourselves fortunate to have options for her to work part time and still make a good hourly rate as nurse. But it was hard to find time to sleep, and the house was always a mess and hard to keep up with the attention the kids needed, especially with the beginning of our commitment to homeschooling approaching this Fall. So we decided to double down and trust, turning everything over to God to make a way where I didn't see one.

The Lord has never let us down. My wife's favorite psalm is Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." We reached out to stay at home moms and learned about budgeting and a more traditional approach to marriage and family life, about men and women's roles and the natural order God established. I began to pray about having the courage to accept and embrace more my role as provider, and my wife began to realize her role in stewarding and caring for the home. God truly did make a way in making the numbers somehow balance, and providing opportunities for me to make some more income, and for my wife to work a minimal amount of hours to move us closer to that ideal.

We have never really had to budget before, but now we are doing so. We are learning to trust the Lord with our finances, with His provision to provide for our needs, and to appreciate the little things. Our income has dropped by more than half of what we were bringing in previously. but that salary did come with a cost, and the cost was, for my wife, time. My dad used to have a picture of a mountain stream in Colorado above his dresser when I was growing up with the words underneath: "Nothing is ours, but time."

But ultimately, our time is what the Lord lends us. No one knows the amount of days he will live. We have to be stewards of our finances, what the Lord has entrusted us with to live. But we also deal in the currency of the day, which is really time, which we trade for money. We never trusted God with our fertility, until the past year, and He was returned what we trusted Him with a hundred fold. We are now embarking on that same journey with regards to our finances, entrusting them to His management. We are at the beginning stages of that journey, but we look back to all He has done for us, all He has provided, and we don't doubt He can multiply those loves and fishes again.

God is so good. All He wants is for us to trust Him, not just with this or that, but with everything. It is exciting, and we have peace, which is itself worth its weight in gold. We don't have nearly as much disposable income, but we have learned to appreciate everything that comes our way, whether it's ice cream cones or just time together with books from the library. We don't judge anyone for how they structure their families, but for us we have found a contentment and peace with trying to bring that structure in alignment with how He intends it, and it has been a true blessing.

You Can't Defend What You Don't Know

This afternoon my dad texted me. He was upset over an encounter with a neighbor who made a disparaging remark about non-Catholics not being able to receive the Eucharist at Mass. My dad got a little defensive (understandably, given the tone of the neighbor's complaint) and felt he had made things worse and strained the relationship. I suspect he was offended, wanted to defend the Faith, but was on shaky ground with how to go about doing it. His getting upset was compounded by not feeling confident in being able to explain why the Church teaches against intercommunion, getting flustered, and going away feeling that things were made worse after the encounter.

This isn't an uncommon scenario. We need both heart and head when it comes to apologetics. In my experience, the less knowledge about the faith one possesses, the more fervently they tend to argue, assuming they care and have the heart. When you know you're on a firm foundation in terms of apologetics, you don't get your blood pressure up, but let sound argument carry their own weight as you serve it up calmly and politely.

I know enough about the basics of my faith to enter into reasonable discussion without feeling like I'm on an episode of American Gladiators. And I have evangelized enough to know when to fight and when not to take things personally (which is most of the time). But I've also spent twenty years living, breathing, and learning the Faith, so I feel relatively confident there (though there's always more to learn!). It's not enough to be right. How you deliver the message, as well as its content, is just as important.

We need both head and heart. Wisdom and understanding (the head) comes to us by grace and study; thankfully, the Catholic faith is a reasonable faith, one which we can understand with our reason and intellect, while retaining the refreshment of mystery. Zeal and humility (the heart) also is a gift of grace. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6), and faith is strengthened in prayer, which is also essential to "heart knowledge."

I did end up telling my dad not to let this encounter steal his peace of mind and not to dwell on it too much, but use it as an opportunity to learn more about his faith so that the next encounter might be different. Catholic Answers is a great and invaluable resource that is easily accessible online to learn the Faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is another, which is also available online on the Vatican's website. It doesn't cost anything to learn, and it's accessible from any computer. And many parishes also offer adult faith formation classes which can be valuable as well. The hardest part, sometimes, is not the learning, but coming to a place in which one desires to learn. Once you have that, the learning takes care of itself.

But we also need to be people of regular prayer. Prayer roots us, gives us a firm foundation on which to stand, and a place of peace from which to instruct and inform. We don't eat once a week, why should we pray just once a week? Angry apologetics, like a disgruntled combox, doesn't do anyone any good and just leaves everyone feeling downcast and offended. All the head knowledge in the world is worthless without prayer.

You can't defend what you don't know. And the way we know is by taking the time and making the effort to learn. There will always be people ignorant of the Truth, but we should see it more as opportunities to instruct when given the invitation to do so; always with charity, always with love. As Ven. Fulton Sheed wisely noted, "Win an argument, lose a soul." Don't lose a soul.

Whoever Is Not Against You Is For You

My latest article at Catholic Stand:

http://www.catholicstand.com/whoever-is-not-against-you-is-for-you/

The Necessity of Religion

Whenever I come across someone who is spiritual but not religious, I think of a body without a skeleton. We have a heart that pumps blood and delivers oxygen to essential organs. We have a brain which is the seat of cognition and the intellect. We have muscles which allow us to move. We have skin to hold it all in and keep bacteria and the elements out. And, of course, we have a soul, which is ethereal and immortal.

However, without bones, we have nothing to give our bodies form; without a skeleton, we would be nothing but sacks of organs and sheets of skin on the floor. The skull protects the brain; the ribcage protects the heart and lungs. (Nothing really protects our private parts, though, so we have to be careful there!)

Religious faith, dogma, doctrine...all those "undesirable" words in modern society serve a vital function--to give structure to our lives, form to our personhood, and protection for our vital organs. Bone is a dense composite that can withstand force, weather the elements, and remains long after the rest of the body returns to dust. Skulls, femurs, vertebrae...they all work together to form a whole--an intricate skeletal system underneath it all.

Of course, if we are simply Pharisaical in our practice of religion, we are indeed nothing but a collection of "dead men's bones" (Mt 23:27). And skeletons on their own are kind of creepy!

We are more than just sacks of skin or bones knit together, brains in a jar or hearts pumping on their own. People like to talk about religion as if it is an extracurricular activity, a peripheral endeavor. No. Doctrine is as vital as the bones which give limbs their structure, dogma as necessary as the ligaments which join them together, and the Church as timeless and enduring as the skeletal system which holds us up, protects our heart and mind, and gives form to our human bodies, even after they pass away.

"The glory of God is the human person full ALIVE." --St. Irenaeus