Costly Grace

"John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'" (Jn 1:29)

I was inspired during the homily this morning.

Inspired because as Father preached on the the feast of St John the Baptist, preached on this saint's humility and poverty, a humility and poverty akin to the humility and poverty of St Francis and of the Franciscan way of life, the words of the homily and the words of Sacred Scripture pierced my every day thinking, my holiday mode.

Behold the Lamb of God, he who takes away the sin of the world.

As Father said, this should be our call to the world, we should raise up our voices, even in a seeming wilderness, and cry out...here, here is Jesus, the Lamb of God. Here is why we come to mass. Not for warm fuzzy feelings or out of a sense of duty or to socialize, but for love.

And this is what our lives should proclaim to the world. That Jesus is the Lamb of God, that He died for love of us.

Father's challenge is this, the challenge if the Gospel, the challenge of the Christian way of life.

Relationship with Our Lord, He who died for us, should mean a transformation. Of self, of family, of culture.

There is no gap between Catholicism and evangelism . To be Catholic, to be a Christian, is to live a life showing the Lamb of God to others.

Simply to confess a belief in a Catholic view of Christ is to take a counter-cultural position which demands apologetics and explanation. Demands love and forgiveness.

And fidelity.

Now, is this always easy?

No.

But did St John the Baptist count the cost?

Again, to quote the homily heard this morning, ...no, no counting of cost but a heroic call to cry the Gosepl by word and deed , even at cost of life.

That dying to self, if not necessarily a physical death.

This is the challenge. The cost. For I want to be me. To not give up those parts of me that I hold dear.

God's grace can sometimes come with a cost.A joy, a grace a love, yes. But.. He loves, He gives, He calls.

(The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace."

Costly grace. So that my life, and yours, echoes the cry of St John the Baptist...look, look, here is Jesus, the Lamb of God, come let us adore, come let us follow, let us live.

Liturgical... What?

Two different masses.

Both outside my parish.

One evening last week I attended a mass with older girl altar servers in attendance. Maybe girls aged eighteen to twenty.

The head or senior server wore a fancy hair do with frangipani flowers in her hair, lots of eye makeup, dangling earrings to match the liturgical year. Very distracting!

Why was I looking and allowing myself to be distracted? I was up the front in one of those altar-in-the-middle churches so no choice but to be distracted when I looked up from my missal and from prayer, to adore Jesus.

Mass the next day was a different affair. A more traditional chapel. Mass, again, in the Ordinary Form. Celebrated with reverence. Altar servers in soutanes and surplices, serving unobtrusively and with dignity.

Sometimes I feel like I live with liturgical schizophrenia!

Unschooling Resource Post # Two

What else is it that helps our family unschool?

For me it is prayer.

I cannot see how one can unschool, can live one's life as an open book for one's children, can share every day, highs and lows, sorrows and joys, busyness and minutiae, without prayer.

Without prayer, my unschooling life would be a hive of activity, needing bolstering with reading and affirmations and subject to individualism.

With prayer underpinning my efforts as an unschooling mum, our busyness can be mindful, our interest driven education and lifestyle can be part of a bigger picture of life as a Christian, in the Church, with service for others.

"All the basic themes are the one you have noted: Do not become utterly absorbed in activism! There would be so much to do that one could be working on it constantly. And that is precisely the wrong thing. Not becoming totally absorbed in activism means maintaining considerario, discretion, deeper examination, contemplation, time for interior pondering, vision, and dealing with things, remaining with God and meditating about God. " Pope Benedict XVI, Light of the World.

Would I be able to unschool without prayer, without this meditation about God? Well, as often as family life provides comfort and satisfaction, as often as I may enjoy the juggling act of work and family, there are many times when things fall...the juggle becomes a heap, a mess. It is prayer that lifts me up from the sometimes messiness of an unschooling life to the experience of Our Lord, His Love...and the purpose of it all.

Prayer snatches me from the everydayness and pushes me towards God, reminding me to be faithful in my vocation, to live with purpose, to share my life unceasingly. To unschool.

That sursum corda in the mass, when my heart and mind is lifted up to the Lord so that I receive the grace to continue in my vocation.

The Holy Father wrote, of liturgy, of public prayer "...the decisive thing is that we enter into something that is much greater. That we can get out of ourselves, as it were, and into the wide open spaces....liturgy, in truth, is an event by means of which we let ourselves be introduced into the expansive faith and prayer of the Church." (Light of the World)

Talking about unschooling resources? Don't forget prayer.

Hermione Granger on retreat?

So what does will your retreat schedule look like? ..asked my non Catholic friend.

Here is a day.

7.30 am Divine Office of Matins and Lauds
8.00.     Breakfast
9.15.     Conference then Offices of Prime and Terce
10.45.    Mass in the Extraordinary Form
12.30 pm Lunch
4.30.      Confession
5.00.      Sermon and Divine Offices of Sext and None then the Angelus
6.00.      Dinner
7.15.      Vespers, Holy Hour, private prayer, confession, Benediction
8.45.      Compline

And we observe the rule of silence. 

"Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification . It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others," St John of the Cross

Time to pray, rest, walk, read, think, reflect, connect and write. Because it is in writing that I think and reflect.

And we are praying through and working through some of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola.

Yes, even me, the  "late" retreatant.

"Each one must probe the depths of his heart to feel what it is that prevents him from finding God in peace - that is from going straight to Him and cleaving wholly to Him." The spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius...The Three Classes of Man.

And I am resisting the urge to bring my To Do List Mentality to this retreat. Because  it is so easy for me to plan my time and my prayer and my walk/exercise and my spiritual journaling and my good resolutions, and write them in my book, and cross off what I have "achieved"... When what I really want to do is listen to Our Lord. That interior mortification.

High achiever, list oriented, organized Hermione Granger twin meets God. On His terms. Not hers.

My year with the saints

Over time now, I find a rhythm in my year. A liturgical rhythm. I think in terms of feast days...oh, you will be here on December 12? Our Lady of Guadalupe!
This living with the saints has developed gradually...I started by reading about the saints with my kids, then celebrating their feast days, then delving further for my own interest...Was St Therese really as sickly sweet as she seemed? The only way to find out was to read her own words...and. boy, I certainly found out why she is a Doctor of the Church! Strong. Loving. Not sickly sweet.
Living with the saints doesn't mean that I am a saint..no, way too tarnished for that.
It does mean, however, that just as I used to peruse self help books and popular psychology ( Thirty Days to A Better Life; Three Steps to a Super Marriage, Ten Ways Not To Fail As A Mum...) so now I perusue the writings of the saints.
As a booky person, reading and writing are givens for me when faced with life and its dilemmas.
Yet now it is reading of the saints and words by the saints. Asking the saints for prayers.
Living wiih the saints.
So my year with the saints becomes my life with the saints as friends to whom I turn.
Tonight I turned to Mother Teresa.
She was good at dying to self. I am not. I am good at building barriers around myself.
No matter. The saints words give me solace. Give me advice. My own twelve step programme.
My year with the saints is exemplified in my reading with Mother Teresa tonight.
How did she make it through?
With God's grace. And with her own determination and strength of character. Mother Teresa lived the joy that she did not always feel.
"You know how much Jesus loves you...Be good, be holy - Pull yourself up. Don't let the devil have the best from you - You know what Jesus and Mother expect from you - Just be cheerful - Radiate Christ..."
Radiate Christ. Thank you, Mother.

And this is why I live with the saints, remembering them, celebrating their feast days, asking for their intercession.
To learn. To love. To be better.
God knows how much I need it.

Mmm...Niceness

I am a bit over niceness.

Well, I am over exhortations to be nice..as if this is all the Gospel teaches us..be nice to your neighbour, to your family, smile, never rock the boat.

Did Jesus come to save us just so we can be nice?

Yes, I try to be a nice person. But that is not the whole story of salvation is it? I am here to know, love and serve God on earth so I can be happy with Him in heaven.

So, yes serving God can mean being nice. But it also means a lot more than that.

Sometimes it even means to speak out , with love, but to risk not being nice for the sake of Truth.

And let's be honest...niceness can lead to blandness, to complacency, to thinking I'm alright...to being lukewarm (...He vomits out the lukewarm, isn't there that snippet?..).

As C.S. Lewis said, people who are nice may even be hard to save...their niceness leading to self sufficiency and a complacency of soul...I don't need salvation, I don't need church, I don't need religion, I'm not a sinner, I'm nice.

So if I go to church and hear continual exhortations to be nice, and I am already pretty nice, then I am less likely to look towards Our Lord, to worship Him, to research Church teaching, to challenge myself...I am more likely to think, I am doing okay as I am, aren't I? Well, according to the exhortations in Mass to smile at my neighbour and to phone my mum, I am.

I may be using contraception, I may sleep in and miss Mass many Sundays, I may not understand the sacrament of reconciliation, I may support gay marriages, I may think abortion is fine for others in case of great need...but I am nice because I am friendly, I put money in the collection when I do go to to mass, I bake my cousin cookies, I ask after your health, I like Father and his jokes and the cuppa..when I do go to Mass.

Now, I know I will be criticised for judging here. For not being nice. But you know what? If we are going to talk about being nice, wouldn't it be nice to hear Church teaching explained, encouraged, exhorted? So I know what the Church teaches and why. So I know what I profess to believe, as a Catholic, and why. So my faith permeates every aspect of my life. For the salvation of my soul, and the salvation of others.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Personal devotion or public liturgy

The liturgy of the Church is her public act of worship, her prayers, Holy Mass, the sacraments, the Divine Office.

The liturgy of the Church is something in which the whole Christ participates ( to paraphrase the CCC). The whole Christ...Christ, the Head, with His Body, the Church in heaven and earth.

So, we pray at mass , in the liturgy of the Church, as a whole, together. Yet we also have our personal prayer, our devotional life within and outside the public liturgy,

We concentrate on God and praying with our neighbour; conversely we contemplate Our Lord, personally, with private devotion.

Is there tension between the two? Can we become so entwined in personal devotion that we forget our active participation in the public liturgy of the Church? Or can we be so caught up with community and praying with each other...that we neglect our interior preparation?

Our personal devotions should lead us to the liturgy...and vice verse. No tension. But we are not that lone sinner in the pew..we are part of the Church, gathered to pray. And that knowledge has to affect our participation in Holy Mass, for example. Without making Mass itself all about social interaction.

My participation in Holy Mass, tonight, was not a personal devotion. I was an active participant in the Holy Sacrifice. And my private devotions, preparation, reflection, help my active participation in the prayers , with others, in the mass and St Anthony novena.

No tension. But something good on which to reflect..the role of and relationship between personal devotion and liturgy.

You wore a mantilla to mass?

Well, yes, tonight I did. A veil. Head covering.

I used to wear a mantilla to mass more often than not.

And then I stopped. For a variety of reasons.

I wear a mantilla nowadays every now and then.

Tonight was a then.

Candlemas. Mass in the Extraordinary Form. And as I climbed out of the car, late, rushed from work, sweating unladylike in the heat, wearing a short skirt and pink pigtails...well, in that one second something nudged me and I reached into the glovebox of the car and grabbed my black mantilla.

Wearing the mantilla in mass reminded me of why I used to enjoy the wearing of the mantilla....I felt like my eyes were forced to concentrate on Our Lord, on Holy Mass...and not on shoes ( my far too often mass preoccupation) ..

Another case of those externals helping the internal..the internal disposition to prayer.

Of course, who knows when I will wear a mantilla again. God forbid that I become a mantilla policeman, making rules for myself, sticks with which to beat myself.

But the mantilla was a reminder, an encouragement tonight.

Sometimes, I deal with sour expressions, usually on other women, when they see me with my veil. I have a method for dealing with this: smile, nod and acknowledge them quietly "hello". The smile you wear underneath the veil goes a long way towards placating those who think the veil is a throwback to some legendary era when women were slaves. Why veil

How do you know I am who I am?

That almost sounds like a line from a Dr Seuss book. How do you know I am who I am?

Today I bought a classic Little Golden Book. Nurse Nancy. Retro story and illustrations, from 1952.

I was buying books for Kumon and I just couldn't reisist buying this picture book for me.

How do we readers, especially younger readers, of this Little Golden book , know that Nancy is a Nurse?

Because she wears a nurse's uniform. The uniform makes it clear to others that Nancy is a nurse, one to call on for a particular duty, one wth a special vocation or calling from God.

We know who she is, we know of her vocation.

My wedding ring serves a similar role in my life. When I travel for work, it is not unknown for me to go to the bar with other workers, for drinks after conference sessions . We talk. I meet others. We laugh. We have a good time. And I am free to be friendly with members of the opposite sex, and they are free to be friendly with me, to drink and laugh and talk, without misunderstanding, because my wedding ring says it all. Tells of my vocation to marriage and to motherhood.And thus we avoid any ( far fetched, but possible) misunderstanding.

The ring is a visible sign of who I am, of my vocation.

And so today I met a nun. A nun who, unlike Nurse Nancy , unlike this married homeschooling mother, gave no visible indication of her vocation, of being a nun, a religious sister, of being consecrated, of being set apart and living a chaste life for Our Lord.

In fact, Sister wore more makeup, more hair product, more colour than I.

And , frankly, this is misleading. For a nun is espoused to Our Lord, and the wearing of the habit reminds both religious and lay people alike that there is a Heaven, that we are striving for Heaven, that this person has made a commitment, a commitment to Our Lord, to the Church, to a way of life.

A habit is a reminder of who the religious Sister is...first and foremost a nun. A Sister.

And those of you who have seen Elivs Presley's A Change of Habit, that fun sixties movie with Mary Tyler Moore, are aware of the dangers of nuns foregoing the wearing of the habit. No visible

reminder of consecration can build familiarity and forgetfulness of one's role and of one's vocation.

Dr Seuss was right. Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

If you are you, if I am I, the we should not be afraid to let the world know our vocation.

In the words of Pope John Paul II... The Church must always seek to make her presence visible in everyday life, especially in contemporary culture, which is often very secularized and yet sensitive to the language of signs. In this regard the Church has a right to expect a significant contribution from consecrated persons, called as they are in every situation to bear clear witness that they belong to Christ.

Since the habit is a sign of consecration, poverty and membership in a particular Religious family, I join the Fathers of the Synod in strongly recommending to men and women religious that they wear their proper habit, suitably adapted to the conditions of time and place.(Vita Consecrata )

Revisiting Words. Revisiting C.S Lewis

Revisiting words. Words or mottoes or themes for the year.

I've been doing this since the late 1990s. Choosing a word, a phrase, a motto, for the year. In place of New Year's resolutions. To guide. To make me think. To set the tone. For the year. For me. For my life.

Sometimes, the word just comes to me. Like last year's word. Coping.

Sometimes the word(s) need a lot of thought and prayer. Like the year I had People First....I can be task oriented, you know! Or ~ Like A Sunflower.

Explain that one!

Sometimes, too, the word has a special meaning for me at that time, reflecting a current interest or current reading or current experience. Like the year I took one of Billy Blank's ( Taebo workout guy) maxims and made it my own - Every Day Above Ground Is A Blessed Day. And ~Never Give Up. Or a verse from Scripture - "I will walk within my house with a perfect heart."

Before New Years, I went out for coffee with three other homeschool mums. One mum has known me a long time, over the years, through newsletter exchanges and then the internet. We finally met in real life when I moved to Sydney in 2005.

And she asked - "What is your word for the coming year? Do you still do those words?"

The others looked at me quizzically and thus I explained these words. The importance of words in our lives, especially for a booky, writing sort of person like me. The power of words. The influence of words.

And how words can shape our thoughts and thus our lives.

So, yes, I still do those words.

Do they make my life better? Do they make me better? Do they make me a better Christian, wife, mother, worker, homeschooler, friend, person?

I don't know. And, no, not on their own. I can, however, only think of how, perhaps, who I am may be worse, may be the real, yucky inside me, if I didn't have these words to guide me...in prayer...in my life.

I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, where he writes of "Nice People or New Man." We do not know the state of others' souls; we do not know what we are without God so, even if we are not-always-so-nice when we know God, it does not mean that we should give up. That Christianity fails. That we shouldn't strive to be nice. We should. With His Grace. Using tools like my Words. And offering it all in prayer.

"But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world - and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of a man. "

So, those words, chosen in prayer each year, written into my diary each year, offered in prayer each year, help make me nicer. Heaven as a goal, not niceness. But a little bit of niceness goes a long way! That new kind of man, with the grace of God and the help of the sacraments and that word.

That word, the one I see when I open my diary each day and each week and check what-I-have-to-do. What things the family has to do. All under the banner of the word(s) for the year.

So, you ask, what is the word for this year.

I mentioned it in another post.

A name. A phrase. Influenced by my pre-Christmas reading.

Mother Teresa. In other words, dying to self. And serving with a smile. Regardless.

From Mere Christianity again..." But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away blindly so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self...will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."

This thought tempers our words, our resolutions, doesn't it? And thus my word for this year is a reminder that it is not really about the words or about me. It is about Him.

Mother Teresa.

And the inspiring words for the year that my homeschooling friends have chosen and shared, over that coffee, also remind me that it is not about us.

Quite liberating.

Getting to Know the Saints

Going for a walk. A fitness walk. I reach the beginning-to-get-tired-and-breathless stage. I look at my watch. I think of how much further I have to go...distance-wise, time-wise.

I look ahead. Ah, at the top of the hill is a tree. Keep your eyes on that tree, Leonie. Move ahead, you can do it, you can make it up that oh so steep hill. Think only about the tree, the point in front.

This helps. This point of focus becomes my encourager. I keep going, focused on what is ahead, that shining beacon if you like. And the steep hill does not seem quite so steep after all.

My life is a little bit like that. Sometimes, a focus on what is ahead helps make the here and now easier, more pleasant, more do-able.

For me, some of those beacons of light are the saints.

Just like that tree, that point of hope, the stories of the lives of the saints, the writings of the saints, give me hope.

Just like that walker or runner a little ahead of me, he who is keeping faithful to the walk, who is not quitting and who, by his example, encourages me, urges me on, urges me to pace myself, who gives me inspiration to know I can do it, if he can I can, no quitting..so, too, the saints, in their lives, and their intercession, give me help, encouragement, inspiration.

The saints are models of a Christ-like life. They are models of what our lives could be...yes, models for me, that busy working and homeschooling mum, for my friend who works nights to support his family, for the lady from work who has worries about the care of her elderly mother, for that child who leads a full life, for that teen with his questions...

But even more than that, the saints can be friends.

Okay, right now, you are thinking...That's weird. Dead people as friends?

Well, yes. Just like when I read an excellent novel or series of novels (Laura and the statements of Ma from Little House on the Prairie will always stay with me) , watch a haunting spell binding movie ( I can never forget Meryl Streep as that nun in Doubt) , get enthralled by the television series Battlestar Galactica ( is there a bit of that troubled, female flyer Starbuck within me?)..just as I get involved in these characters, their language, their thoughts, so too I can get to know the saints, their writings, their thoughts, their struggles, their admonishments, their friendship.

Someone says something, and I think "Oh, like St Bonaventure." I feel like I know the saint, just a little, but a knowing nonetheless, from his writings.

So, I feel the friendship of the saints. They do not just serve a function in my life (St Jude , pray for me, St Anthony help me find that book)...they are people I come to know. The more one gets to know the saints, the more one feels that these men and women who are enjoying life with God are there for us, praying for us, wanting us to be sanctified, to live out our vocations.

However, as with any friend, one does not view the a saint from purely utilitarian viewpoint. In other words, we shouldn't see the saints just as intercessors, only as models and examples, just as someone who exists solely to encourage us as Christians.

By reading about the saints, by reading what the saints wrote and said, by praying to the saints, we can come to celebrate their lives. Celebrate their stories of their life on earth, their gift to God and to the Church. We can celebrate their diversity and the variety of gifts and lives they reveal in the kingdom of God.

That cloud of witnesses described by St Paul in Hebrews.

This has come to me gradually, this realization of the friendship of the saints, of the celebration of their lives, of how the saints were people like me, striving for holiness and being who they were.

Families, be who you are. Pope John Paul II.

I tend to think that I have to be someone else, that sainthood means being a certain kind of person. Well, it does...but it is a certain kind of person loving God and thus others and living this out in my own life and where God has put me in this world. Today. And tomorrow.

Holiness is not the luxury of a few. It is everyone's duty: yours and mine. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa.

When the alarm on my mobile phone goes off in the early morning (beep..beep, shut up!), I often start the day weary. I love my life (am I addicted to doing too much?) but I am sometimes just weary. Weary of the to do list, of trying to be a better wife and mother and friend and always failing miserably, weary of me.

I have two choices. I can continue to be weary and discouraged and realize that I will never be Mother Teresa. Or I can turn to Our Lord, in the Morning Prayer, in Mass, in my every day life. I can experience the presence of God in the Holy Eucharist, and in my life... Sometimes this might mean doing those big things in my life with love.... raising teenagers, serving my husband however bad at that I may be, being patient at home, in my vocation, for example. Sometimes, this might mean doing little things with love....biting my tongue, doing my jobs with a smile.

I am called to emulate those friends of mine, the saints. I am called to emulate Our Lord . I can discover paths to holiness, with the sacraments and on my journey to sanctity. But I have to do these things within my own unique vocation (Ouch!).

That is what the lives of the saints have taught me.

How gloriously different are the saints! C. S. Lewis.

How gloriously different. And, in my case, how weak. But it is in my weakness (do I have to finish that hill walk today?) that, with the power of Christ, I can be strong. I can look at the saints and their weaknesses, too, and like St Paul say that I am content, for whenever I am weak on my own, in human terms, then with Christ I am strong.

During this Christmas season, I have been doing fun workouts...dance, hi-low aerobics, singing my heart out while

working out ( Rio, Like A Virgin, Pump It). The music is like a grace that helps me to keep on working out, makes working out fun.

During Christmas, too, I have pondered the lives of the saints and particularly of Mary, Our Blessed Mother. A perfect example for a Catholic unschooling mother. She has become a friend, if you like, a mother. Knowing she is there, having a relationship with Our Mother, does make the daily life, well , I hesitate to say fun as in workout fun but more grace-filled. I see how Our Lady responded to God's invitation. I see how she lived in faith, how she persevered, how she loved.

How she loves.

How she helps us on our paths to sanctity, in our vocations.

Life with the saints. Never quitting.

A vocation to holiness

The priest, according to the magnificent definition given by St. Paul is indeed a man Ex hominibus assumptus, "taken from amongst men," yet pro hominibus constituitur in his quae sunt ad Deum, "ordained for men in the things that appertain to God": his office is not for human things, and things that pass away, however lofty and valuable these may seem; but for things divine and enduring. Ad Catholici Sacerdotii , Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Catholic Priesthood

Everyone in the Church, precisely because they are members, receive and thereby share in the common vocation to holiness. In the fullness of this title and on equal par with all other members of the Church, the lay faithful are called to holiness: "All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity". "All of Christ's followers are invited and bound to pursue holiness and the perfect fulfillment of their own state of life." Christifideles Laici , Pope John Paul II on the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World.

And so I read these statements, back to back. Compare and contrast, in my English teacher terms.

Ultimately, we are all called to holiness, aren't we? Lay people, even those of us very busy with temporal concerns. Priests, with their service, with the many demands made of each one, with their giving, with their humility, with their office for things divine and enduring.

But, as Hamlet would say, there's the rub.

For all of us, priests and laity alike, can be so taken up with the temporal society that we forget the spiritual realm. That we forget the call to holiness.

Parish life, family life, these are each a microcosm of the greater society. We bring ourselves to our parishes, to our families, don't we?

But the call for holiness means that though we may bring ourselves, we don't remain ourselves. We pray, we listen to Gods call, we use our hearts and our minds to reach out, to follow Mary and her fiat..and thus leave ourselves and our problems behind, as we serve Our Lord with love and humility.

This is especially important for we lay people, in our parish work and in our family life. Do we serve out of love or for personal gratification...or worse, for a sense of power?

Over biscuits and coffee this morning, I listened to a generous hearted woman. She shared her thoughts, her concerns, about parish life.

She serves. She serves well. She serves with love. And she does not seek public acknowledgement.

The same could not be said of some others in her parish.

And how much worse is it when a priest serves his parish, not with humility and not with a servant's heart but with a sense of his own assumed power, of jealousy, of almost political career advancement.

Harsh words indeed. Yet, if we are all called to holiness, we as lay people have a responsibility to pray and to work out our salvation, to paraphrase St Paul. But we also have a right to be assisted in this by our priests.

Now, each and every priest needs our prayers, needs our help. Each priest, too, is on a path to holiness.

But with this comes their responsibility to the faithful. For the parish is not the priest's own, he has not the right to follow his own inclinations. He has, instead, a responsibility to follow Church teaching, to administer his duties with love and concern and as a father with correction of the faithful as needed, to not create cliques and inner circles, to not run things for his own good and his own tastes.

For temporal things are temporal, are here today and gone tomorrow. Parish priests, really, are often here today and gone tomorrow..to another parish, another obligation. The faithful remain in the parish, praying, striving for holiness, praying for priests...hopefully,with the assistance and not the hindrance of the priest.

We priests have been consecrated in the Church for this specific ministry. We are called in various ways, to contribute, wherever Providence puts us, to the formation of the community of God's People. Our task ...is to tend the flock God entrusted to us, not by constraint but willingly, not as domineering over those in our charge, but by setting them an example (cf. 1 Pt 5: 2-3). (...) This is our way of holiness, which leads us to our ultimate meeting with the "supreme shepherd" in whose hands is the "crown of glory" (1 Pt 5: 4). This is our mission at the service of the Christian people. The Priest, Pastor and Leader of the Parish Community, Congregation for the Clergy, 2002. To serve. In a vocation of holiness. Not by domineering. And lay people, not by seeking to take on the substance of the ordained priesthood.

A Recalcitrant Mother's Prayer

Have you been indifferent to a choice?

I don't mean this in a negative way ( a who could care less way) but say it with a positive tone.

In praying about some recent events in our lives, I came to feel an indifference towards the result. Indifferent as in experiencing the inner, well, freedom I guess you would call it, to be open to God's will and wherever that may lead. To not put all my cares and wishes and hopes in one option. To say... Okay, God, I am happy with either choice, whatever is your will.

In Ignatian spirituality, to be indifferent means to choose the will of God rather than my own. To choose what will bring me closer to God.

Now, this indifference over a few recent situations doesn't mean that I am perfect spiritually. Or that I feel this indifference over everything. Far from it.

It shows, instead, the power and graces of prayer.

And of devotion to our Blessed Mother.

We are taught to love and say the Rosary with great devotion; let us be faithful to this our first love - for it will bring us closer to our Heavenly Mother.....Cling to the Rosary as the creeper clings to the tree... Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, her private writings.

I am finding that persistence in prayer slowly, gradually, changes me ...and my natural inclinations to be not-so-nice.

Well, I am sure that is obvious to most people but I have had to learn it the long way. To persevere in prayer regardless of feeling. To pray, even if prayer seems a penance, even if I would rather just get up and chat and talk. Or cry.

Prayer with perseverance means that I learn self control. Our Lady brings me to Her Son, but it comes with a cost. A little bit of dying to self. Of doing what I don't want. Of being nice when I don't want to be. Of being uncomfortable. Of praying through pain.

I want to smile at Jesus and so hide if possible the pain and darkness of my soul even to Him. Mother Teresa again.

Praying the Rosary, clinging to the Rosary, takes the focus off me and off what I want in a situation. Takes the focus off even my own prayer intentions. Gives me a vehicle to forget about me ( Deo Gratias) and to just be, with Our Lord and His Mother, in prayer. To offer this prayer, and the other Morning and Evening Prayers of the Divine Office, for others. And not for me.

It is not all about me. A real revelation.

The Divine Office, that and praying the Rosary, reminds me of this fact. These prayers unite my prayers with the community of believers. They are a discipline and a grace.

The Divine Office (or the Liturgy of the Hours) is the public, daily prayer of the Church. Jesus said to "Pray continually and never lose heart." ( Luke 18:1)

So, the Divine Office is the Church’s response of praying unceasingly throughout the day.

When I pray the Divine Office, I join with the Church in prayer. I participate in the prayer of Christ, in His prayer for the salvation of souls. I am not praying for myself and for my day but for the needs of others, of the family, of the world.

There are days when the psalms I pray might be expressing an emotion different from that which I am experiencing. But the prayers of the Divine Office, the intention of praying this, and of praying the Rosary, keep in my mind the thought that I, that we, are praying as a Church. As I pray, in communion with others praying these prayers throughout the world, the exact same prayers, not me-centred petitions or a shopping list of wishes, I am given the grace of truly praying in communion, of offering up the prayer of someone else who might be in great pain and sorrow, or of someone who might be giving praise to God.

Wow.

So, perseverance in prayer has helped me, is helping me. And helps my family, for a mother and wife's prayer life is closely interwoven with the life and heart of the family.

I heard one writer, a mother, refer to praying the Divine Office as a "safety net" - the prayers catch you when you feel you are sinking, are falling, when things in the family are going right, when things in the family are less than right. Praying the Divine Office lets you fall, safely, in prayer, into the arms of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. With the rhythm of the prayers and of the liturgical seasons. With the familiarity of the Psalms. With perseverance and imperfection and with love.

I don 't always pray perfectly. I don't usually reach that point of (Jesuit described) indifference. I am often self centred. I have not reached spiritual perfection.

But prayer is teaching me many things. Is giving God's grace to my family. Is showing me Christ. Is uniting me with the Church, her liturgy, her prayers. Me, an often too busy, too sarcastic wife and mother. Who fails to think before she speaks and acts and then regrets her choice. Who is brought to her knees in prayer.

If prayer and perseverance in prayer can teach the recalcitrant me oh so many things, imagine how it helps my family, my friends, those other, more gentle mothering souls.

I am ready to accept whatever He gives and to give whatever He takes with a big smile. Mother Teresa.

I

Praying

When your mind is full of Many Things, it helps to do cardio. And pray.

Cardio?

Yes, simple, mindless jogging and walking, so that as you move, as you develop a rhythm, you get an endorphin high ( that woo hoo feeling....would that all of life was lived on that high)....and you have time to pray.

I prayed my rosary each day this week while doing walking and jogging workouts.

Prayer without ceasing.

At the RCIA group , we talked about the Catholic Church, the faithful, the role of the laity. And thus of prayer.

The New Testament leaves us in no doubt that we should pray regularly. Our Lord taught, by word and example, that we should pray continually and never lose heart ( Luke 18:1). St Paul and other writers of the New Testament re-echo Our Lord's teaching that we must "pray constantly" (Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:16)

For this reason, the public and communal prayer of the faithful has always been considered among the first duties of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that from the very beginning the baptised " remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers." ( Acts 2:42)

One thing I have learned is that prayer throughout the day sanctifies my day, makes me aware of God and helps me to worship Him throughout the day.

And so I pray the Divine Office, in the morning and in the evening. I pray at Mass. We pray the Angelus, and grace before meals as a family.

But more than this, I find that I can pray throughout my day, while involved in otherwise mindless tasks. That jogging and walking or junk mail delivery walking, for example.

We shared at the RCIA programme how to make a simple prayer part of our day, part of our activity.

A morning offering perhaps.

Joy..

Yes, joy for me in spending that time in a fitness walk or jog, with Our Lord. Sometimes, I am passionate. I pour my thoughts and concerns for others into my rosary and into my walk/jog. Sometimes, I am dry and dusty. I meditate on the rosary in an almost mechanical rhythm , attuned to my feet jogging and or pattering in sequenced unison.

Regardless of feeling, I pray.

I join in with the centuries of Christians who have prayed the rosary and meditated on the mysteries of Christ's life. I pray because Our Lord, and the Church, has asked us to pray. I pray for others; I pray for joy, to be almost surprised by joy, as C. S. Lewis described. A sometimes uncetain joy, a joy not always felt, a joy that comes, sometimes, in the midst of pain or discomfort or sacrifice for others ( pain and sorrow in life, discomfort and sacrifice in the discipline of making myself get up early and workout and walk and jog and not think of Other Things, physical pain in that sometimes aching heel).

Joy and pain and prayer.

"If you are joyful, it will shine in your eyes and in your look, in your conversation and in your countenance. You will not be able to hide it because joy overflows.

Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like a sun in a community.” ~ Mother Teresa

What is a Catholic priest?

What is a Catholic priest?

And what do I, a laywoman and a convert, know of the priesthood?

Not a lot. But I am learning - through reading Church teaching, through books like In Good Company, The Priest Is Not His Own, Many Are Called. Through the encyclical Mediator Dei. Through St Paul's letter to the Hebrews. Through my dealings with priests - during Mass, before and after Mass, in parish life, as friends.

Why learn about the priesthood?

Because , "What is a priest! A man who holds the place of God -- a man who is invested with all the powers of God' ....St John Vianney .

Or, as Fr Hardon has said, "What is the Catholic Priesthood? The Catholic priesthood is that institution which is absolutely necessary for Christianity. That's a large statement that the Catholic priesthood is absolutely necessary for the Church. So that without the priesthood there would be no Christianity left on earth. Remove the priesthood and you remove the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrifice of the Mass from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove Holy Communion from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrament of reconciliation from a very sinful world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the sacrament of anointing from the world. Remove the priesthood and you remove the divinely assured teaching of God's revealed truth from the world. In a word without the priesthood Christianity would be a memory but no longer a reality. It would cease to exist on earth in this admittedly, difficult valley of tears".

I think there can be a tendency to see priests as administrators, as those who head a business (the parish) and administer the sacraments and pastoral life in a corporate fashion.

There can be a tendency to see the Church, the parish, as a numbers game - people in pews, money given in the collection.

Pope Benedict XVI, in this week's letter to seminarians, has warned against this style of thinking. The Holy Father has encouraged seminarians to put their relationship with Christ first; to do what is right, first

"It follows that the most important thing in our path towards priesthood and during the whole of our priestly lives is our personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The priest is not the leader of a sort of association whose membership he tries to maintain and expand."

And what can I, as a layperson, do to support priests? For, if there is no Church without our priests and sacraments, there lies a responsibility for all. For priests, to maintain their relationship with Christ, properly ordered, and then to serve. For laypeople, to pray and sacrifice for our priests, so they will be encouraged and supported in their vocations.

To pray and sacrifice for all priests and religious but most especially for those whom we know, for those in our parishes, for those from whom we have received the sacraments. For those whom we love, those orthodox self sacrificing, compassionate priests... and also for those priests who are, perhaps, misguided and who may be less of an example than they should.

And to pray and sacrifice for vocations to the priesthood and to religious life, so we may build up the Church as a shining star, an example, a beacon to our often secular world.

Silence

"It therefore becomes clear that care must be taken in the choice and execution of music if the sacred liturgy is indeed to reflect its innate splendour. It makes one wonder why we so often settle for second best: insipid tunes with lyrics of questionable theology, lifeless pre-recorded hymns, and secular songs that hardly raise one's heart and mind to God. In these instances, a sacred silence would surely be preferable to such banal distractions. "

And so concludes an article I read the other day, an article in a Catholic magazine. One I receive periodically.

You know, we don't often hear a lot about sacred silence, in our busy lives, and in our often busy Masses.

What is sacred silence?

Psalm 46:10: Be still, and know that I am God

In praying the mass, in praying with the priest, in being silent with Jesus as we receive Holy Communion, we can be stiil.....not a self-centred stillness.....not navel gazing stillness.....but the stillness of intimacy with God, the stillness of contemplation, of worship.

This is sacred silence.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal,says ( number 45) .

"Sacred silence also, as part of the celebration, is to be observed at the designated times. Its purpose, however, depends on the time it occurs in each part of the celebration. Thus within the Act of Penitence and again after the invitation to pray, all recollect themselves; but at the conclusion of a reading or the homily, all meditate briefly on what they have heard; then after Communion, they praise and pray to God in their hearts. Even before the celebration itself, it is commendable that silence be observed in the church, in the sacristy, in the vesting room, and in adjacent areas, so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred action in a devout and fitting manner."

Sacred means to be set apart for a holy purpose.

Silence becomes holy during Mass because silence at Mass is particularly set apart for God and worship.

Sacred silence during Mass, then, is a gift.

We should practice this sacred silence in our Masses. Practice becoming closer to God.

Hopefully, we will be encouraged in this by our priests in their celebration of Holy Mass. Hopefully we will not have to experience those "banal distractions"; the ones mentioned by the writer above and other distractions in the form of large or small extras; extra phrases and actions added to the Mass.

There is a time for silence, then,sacred silence, in our worship and liturgy.

There is a time for silence in our life, too. So we are not always at the beck and call of our phones, our texts, our Facebook notifications..So that we do not always have a lot of talk and a lot of music..but also some quiet times, in our lives, in our families.

We acknowledge this need for silence.

However, there is a time, there are times, when we should not practice silence.

Sacred silence is needed in our liturgy. Some quiet, set apart time is needed in our lives. But, sometimes, to be silent is the wrong thing.

Sometimes, instead of silence, we need to speak out. Speak out, in small ways, in big ways, as we are called, against things that are not right.

Against euthanasia, for example. Against abortion.

For chastity.

And, as lay people in our Church, in our parishes, sometimes we should not be silent about false teachings and practices.

We should speak out against these things; in Christian charity; perhaps simply by example. (Receving Holy Communion reverently so that others may know our belief that this is the Eucharist is Jesus).

Perhaps we should speak out by sharing books. Books about liturgy. About the teachings of the Church.

Perhaps we can make our comments, in a friendly ,casual manner as topics come up in conversation. With our smiles, with our hellos, our goodbyes, our social niceties.("Wasn't it lovely to see those little ones do that dance after Communion?" "Was it really?").

A simple statement. yet better than silence ( Silence is assent, says Paul Scofield as St Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons). Better than facile agreement. better than a full blown argument.

Perhaps, too, we can speak out by blogging. Sharing the teachings of the Church, sharing the liturgical legislation, sharing experiences with others.

For to be silent about these issues is not to be sacred or set apart. It is to be remiss.

It is when people who know better are silent, or worse, move from parishes to other more orthodox parishes,. that less than stellar practices are allowed to continue. in our liturgies and in our Church.

The role of the laity is to pray, to live the Good News, to take the Good News to others. We are not to be arrogant. We are to be pious in our worship. ( The Holy Father has said that, fulfilling the lay vocation involves working to "give expression in real life - also through political commitment - to the Christian view of anthropology and the social doctrine of the Church..").

But we are to be educated. And, once having been educated in what the Church teaches and why, especially with regard to the public liturgy of the Church ( for how we pray affects what we believe..lex orandi lex credendi..), then we must not remain silent. We must share our faith and knowledge and practice of prayer with others. In love. In big or little ways.

Each to his own.

What I desiderate in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is — I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity.

So wrote Cardinal Newman, Blessed John Henry Newman, in 1851. He went on to say...

I have no apprehension you will be the worse Catholics for familiarity with these subjects, provided you cherish a vivid sense of

God above and keep in mind that you have souls to be judged and saved. In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit; they saved the Irish Church three centuries ago and they betrayed the Church in England. You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean, as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents; to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the satisfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense, of whatever cast of opinion.

So, let us practice sacred silence in our liturgy. Let us savour some modicum of silence in our lives.

But also let us speak out in love when the situation demands it.

In our parishes. In our lives. In our example. In our discussions.

And, as the Holy Father has encouraged, via the new communication, the new media, the communication of our times - the Internet, be it in a public forum or on Facebook or a on a personal blog.

"Without fear we must set sail on the digital sea facing into the deep with the same passion that has governed the ship of the Church for two thousand years. Rather than for, albeit necessary, technical resources, we want to qualify ourselves by living in the digital world with a believer’s heart, helping to give a soul to the Internet’s incessant flow of communication" .Pope Asks Bloggers To Give Internet A Soul