concerning hobbits

JMJ
AMDG

He shows up at your door one day, and he knows you, though you don't recognize him at first. You remember him from your childhood--remember all the glittering light that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

But he is different now--or maybe it is you who is different. Nowadays, you aren't so sure that you like the sound of "adventure" in your ears.
He makes you flustered, and that makes you guilty, because once upon a time, you would have liked the sound of an adventure, but there are letters to read and you don't want to be late to dinner, so sorry, but you don't want any adventures, thank you.

But you, flustered, let him come to tea; you write it down in your engagement book: Adoration, Wednesday @ 6 sorry, Gandalf Tea Wednesday.

And then things start to happen; people start popping up into your life, and you find your patience being stretched very thin and what is happening? they're singing, and something in it moves you, but it's all rather silly and you go to bed---

---but the next morning, you're running down the lane and to the end of your days you will not remember how you found yourself outside, without a hat, a walking stick or any money, or anything you usually take when you go out. You're leaving your keys with someone else and running as fast as you can, pocket-handkerchiefs be damned.

Don't be precise, and don't worry, someone tells you.

(source)

This journey you go on is not an easy one. There are trolls and goblins and spiders and a dragon. There are people who glare at you and people who will hurt your friends. There will be riddles and fear and strange things. There will be death and blood and pain before it is over.

Someone will tell you that you do not belong, and you will feel that deep in your bones--you do not belong; you are too small, too weak; too inexperienced--but you are chosen and you are too far to turn back now.

Besides, there will be milk and honey in great houses; there will be elves singing in the trees and there will be the greatness of the mountains. There will be friendships and sacrifices; there will be the wonderment of the wind in your hair. There will be good days and bad ones, and you will not be the same when it is over.

At the end, when it is over, you will have lost the respect of the most respectable of your neighbors.

You will find you don't mind so much.

You remain very happy to the end of your days, which are extraordinarily long.

*

Tolkien did not intend for his writing to be allegorical, but I think it fits so well with vocation, with the universal call to holiness, with my own personal decision to serve with NET.

Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.--St. John Paul II

Here's to forgetting pocket handkerchiefs.

deserts & manure

JMJ
AMDG
There are two passages I've come across lately in my Bible reading that have really stuck out.

So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. (Hosea 2:16)

A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he came out looking for fruit on it but did not find any. He said to the vinedresser, "Look here! For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree and found none. Cut it down. Why should it clutter up the ground?" In answer, the man said, "Sir, leave it another year, while I hoe around it and manure it; then perhaps it will bear fruit. If not, it shall be cut down." (Luke 13:6-9)

I think what this means is that it is sometimes necessary for life to suck.
I think what this means is that sometimes actual crap is what is necessary for our conversion and for us to turn to God.

It is an uncomfortable truth, to be sure, and rather a strange one.
He says, So I will allure her, and we think of pleasant times, of romance and sunsets and hours in Adoration where everything *feels good*--but then He continues, I will lead her into the desert and we aren't so sure anymore and WHAT IS THIS I WANT OFF.
But then He speaks to my heart. And to your heart. And that makes it worth it.

Because the desert is not the end game. The desert is not the point of life. The desert is a part of growing up. The desert is the spiritual equivalent of your awkward fashion phase in middle school. It will pass. It may take a while. It will pass.

The point of the desert is not to make you miserable. The point of the desert is to quiet your mind so that you can hear His voice again.

When He says I will hoe around it and manure it we get nervous. We want to hold onto the weeds in our lives, the little sins that are slowly choking us to death. We want thin soil, because it is safe; because it doesn't smell or feel uncomfortable.

But He knows best, and so sometimes it is necessary for stuff to stink. Sometimes we need hardship to develop the skills that lie inside us.

But remember: the point of the manure is not for it to be awful and painful and lead you to self-loathing. The point of manure is to help you grow. The point of the manure is for you to bear fruit.

And let's also remember that a good gardener does not wildly fling animal dung at his garden like WHOA YEAH LET'S MAKE A MESS IN HERE I BET I CAN COMPLETELY COVER THESE PLANTS WITH THIS MANURE. A good gardener analyzes the situation and gives a plant what it needs to grow. Sometimes that's manure. Sometimes it's more sun or more shade or maybe it needs to be watered.

And besides, this will not last forever. The last lines of Hosea chapter 2 are as follows:

From there I will give her the vineyard she had,

 and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. 

She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, 

when she came up from the land of Egypt. 

On that day, says the Lord, 

she shall call me "My husband" 

and never again, "My baal"*

Then I shall remove from her mouth all the names of the Baals, 

so that they shall no longer be invoked.

I will make a covenant for them on that day, 

with the beasts of the field, 

with the birds of the air, 

and with the things that crawl on the ground. 

Bow and sword and war 

I will destroy from the land, and 

I will let them take their rest in security. 

I will espouse you to me forever; 

I will espouse you in right and in justice, 

in love and in mercy; 

I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord. 

On that day I will respond, says the Lord;

 I will respond to the heavens,and they shall respond to the earth; 

The earth shall respond to the grain, and wine, and oil, 

and these shall respond to Jezreel. 

I will sow him for myself in the land, 

and will have pity on Lo-ruhama. 

I will say to Lo-ammi, "You are my people," 

and he shall say, "My God." 

(Hosea 2:17-25)

God bless. I'm praying for you.

*baal: lord/master

when we talk about Mary

JMJ
AMDG

There's a lot of talk bouncing around the world and in particular, the Internet, about how "Catholics hate women!" to which Catholics fling back "no we don't! look at these fifty million paintings of Mary in which she acts like an impossible woman who never broke a fingernail, much less a sweat!"

I'm paraphrasing, of course, but can we stop that?

Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

Instead, when we talk about Catholic women, can we talk about Chiara Luce Badano? who was born in 1971 and who liked dancing and swimming and pop music but who lived completely for Jesus and who died of osteoporosis at nineteen, after refusing morphine because she wanted to be lucid and offer her suffering to God?

Can we talk about Pulcheria, who was an empress? And scholar? Who was so brilliant that the church fathers asked her advice in fighting against the Nestorian heresy?

Can we talk about Mary Magdalene, who is my homegirl cause she was rather a trainwreck of a saint, and it's right in the Gospels that she was crying too much to notice Jesus and tbh that's me and I need women who were messy and real but still holy; still beloved.

Can we talk about Catherine(of Siena) who told the pope to go back and live in Rome and lead the church? who did this in a time when women weren't supposed to have opinions?

Can we talk about Catherine(of Alexandria) who not only was put on trial for her faith, but she converted all the philosophers/judges who were supposed to be convicting her? Who died because she loved Jesus? Oh, and she was eighteen when all this went down.

When we talk about Catholic women, can we stop pinning Therese(of Lisieux) into a nice, neat little box of being a sweetheart and remember that she's a doctor of the Church? That despite being told to be quiet she up and talked to Pope Leo XIII during an audience and asked if she could enter Carmel?

Can we talk about Joan (of Arc) who led an army? Who refused to be afraid because she knew God was with her? Who called her soldiers out on using foul language and humor and missing Mass?

Can we talk about Hildegard(of Bingen) who was an abbess, theologian, musician, visionary, artist? Who stood for truth in a time of great heresy? Who is a doctor of the Church?

Saint Edith Stein/Teresa Benedicta

Can we talk about Helen(a), who raised Constantine? Who was largely responsible for the acceptance of Christianity? Who decided in her eighties to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to find the true Cross?

When we talk about Catholic women, can we talk about Edith Stein(aka Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) who was raised in a Jewish family, became atheist as a teenager, and eventually converted to Catholicism after a long, drawn out conversion and lots of study? Whose writings on women are cuttingly relevant today, decades later? Who had lots of sharp edges that were only tamed by the love of God?


Can we talk about all the women saints who weren't supposed to have opinions and weren't supposed to speak up and who weren't supposed to be good at things and be noticed and who weren't supposed to do that, whatever that was? gosh, can't you just get married and follow expectations? can't you do things according to cultural and familial traditions and forget this "universal call to holiness?"

Can we talk about these women who lived the Gospel, in whatever life they lived?

Can we talk about the sheer badassery of women and of saints? (pardon my French)

And then can we stop pretending that Mary was any different? Can we realize that she was the example for all these women?

this is the sort of thing i don't like.

We have this tendency to assume that Mary was this quiet, peaceful girl who never did anything wrong and always was clean and never got acne or even a suntan, despite the fact that she lived in Palestine.

And while she was without sin, that doesn't mean that she never overcooked dinner or dropped things that weren't meant to be dropped or was Milk-White Princess Mary™.

Personally, I hate the Good Catholic version of Mary, doormat Mary; Pinterest Mary, mostly because she's made up.

After all, all these women of God, these brave, daring, amazing women had Mary as their example, and they were human. For goodness' sake, Therese was afraid of spiders.

So being like Mary doesn't--can't--mean being a pushover. It doesn't mean smiling sweetly in a sort of daydreamy haze all the time. It does however, mean being tough as nails, because when we talk about Mary, let's remember that she was still an unmarried teen mother who took a road trip on the back of a donkey while nine months pregnant. She wasn't exactly everyone in Nazareth's idea of a perfect woman.

Really, being like Mary means following God's will. It means running headfirst into whatever He calls you to, whether you understand or not. It means giving everything to Jesus--every minute of every day.

And that is absolutely worth emulating.

God bless.

**********
NEWS
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I changed my blog theme. Call it spring cleaning. Also, now it is sparkly. Anyway.

Also, if anyone ever has any post topic suggestions/comments they don't feel comfortable sharing with the entire Internet/prayer requests/whatever you can email me at michaelmasandroses{at}gmail{dot}com.  

Oh, and check out the blog on Facebook. If you like my page, then posts will show up in your newsfeed! How fun!

things i've learned

JMJ
AMDG

This is more a letter to my preteen/young teenage self than anything.

1. You are more beautiful than you know. You are more of a mess than you know. You are loved more than you could ever comprehend.
2. Being "not like other girls" isn't any way to try to go through life. Girls can like Anne of Green Gables and girls can like superheroes and girls can like makeup and girls can like music and art and math and writing and none of these things are what defines you and you can like more than one thing at once.
3. Also, have friends who are girls. They may be harder to get to know than the guys, but it is worth it. Find girls who will love you as you are, but who will also push you to be kinder, realer, holier.
4. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. It if is important, go for it, even if you might kinda suck at whatever it is at first.
5. People probably aren't thinking about what you're wearing as much as you are. That being said, wear clothes that fit you and flatter you and find a style that suits your body and personality. You'll feel better about the way you look, even if no one else notices.
6. Sharing your faith isn't actually that terrifying. Go for it.
7. Good music can change your mood. So can a shower. So can chocolate. So can a talk with a good friend. Don't be afraid to be happy. Don't make yourself miserable.
8. Read things that make you laugh; make you cry; make you think. Make time for beauty.
9. You can't do anything that will diminish your intrinsic worth as a human being; nor can you ever make God stop loving you.
10. Your dream, your path in life, the plan God has for you may not look like everyone else's, and that's okay. Or it might look surprisingly normal, and that's just as okay.
11. Go to confession. It's okay if you cry. It's okay if it's been a few months, or years, or decades.
12. Sing loudly in Mass/church services/bonfire singalongs/car dance parties. You have nothing to lose and your voice is not as awful as you're convinced it is. A joyful voice is better than an operatic one.
13. Changing your sheets always feels really nice. So does walking into a tidy bedroom. this is lowkey directed at my sisters who read my blog, but really, it's a great way to end your day.
14. Actually talk to God about stuff--your fears, hopes, dreams, what you did that day, how much you like nachos, whatever. Writing it down helps me focus, so maybe also get a journal.
15. If that guy doesn't like you back, you will live through it. Really. Really, I swear.
16. Sometimes the kindest people are the ones who look the messiest on the outside.
17. There is such a thing as oversharing, but it's healthy and good to be vulnerable and open up about what you're dealing with at any given time instead of keeping it all inside.
18. Find what makes you happy. Do it. Love things. Love people. Fall wildly, messily in love with things and care about things and take an interest in the world around you. God didn't create the world as a massive temptation waiting to trip you up at every step; He made it as a gift to us. It's only natural to accept it.
19. Dancing with guys isn't that big a deal. and if the guys won't dance, dance with your girlfriends. There's no reason someone else's lack of participation should mean you can't have fun.
20. Smile at people. Be kind. Learn to look at them the way Jesus would.
21. You'll fail. you are not a failure.
22. You might not be conventionally pretty. You might hate the way you look, or other people might ridicule you for it. Ignore them. Ignore your own negative thoughts. You may not be pretty, but as a daughter of God, you will always be beautiful.
23. Live bravely. Live beautifully. Laugh a lot, even if no one else is. God bless.

arise.

JMJ
AMDG

my lover speaks, he says to me, arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! for see the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. --songs 2:10

When Lent ends and it's Easter; when the weather grows warmer and we sing Alleluia, I have a hard time adjusting to being joyful. I overload on chocolate and sing Alleluia, but if feels wrong--for some reason, it's hard or me to remember that being joyful--being happy, even-- is a good thing.

It's somehow hard to believe that it's actually spring again--that the leaves on the trees are real, actually real, that it will continue to get warm again.

i took this picture!

I struggle to accept the fact that God isn't trying to make me miserable all the time. I hear suffering is a gift, and my anxious mind translates that to, despair is inevitable and if I am happy it means I am doing something wrong.

But my God says to me--arise. Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one. Arise from the darkness of sin and brokenness, arise from the things that keep you from sleeping at night, arise and leave it all behind because the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.

There is darkness in this world. There's a lot of it. There's people starving and dying on roadsides, and there is war and homelessness and malnutrition. There is pornography and abortion and children whose bruises match their parents' hands. There is rape and self-harm and suicide. There are girls who stare in the mirror and don't know that they are beautiful. There are people falling and falling over again because they don't know any other way to live.

But arise. The winter is past, the rains are over and gone. There is a lot of darkness, but He's taken care of it. He died so that you wouldn't have to bear it alone.

And so I think it's okay for me to be happy.

There's a lot that I struggle to let go of--past hurt and pain and the memories of people who have genuinely wronged me, whether it was intentional or not.

But my lover speaks, He says to me, arise. 

And it still hurts, but maybe not quite as much.


arise.

***
also arise has stopped looking like a real word after writing this, but that's whatever. God bless.

the strength to do what is right

JMJ

AMDG

This is more or less the short talk I gave at my parish's Confirmation retreat last week. Except neater and better thought out because I'm not holding a microphone and standing in front of a bunch of people.

***

I was confirmed five years ago, and I was a little bit of a disaster. As I walked up the steps to the altar, all I could think was "please God, don't make me speak in tongues or do anything crazy."

Since the point of Confirmation is to bring us to God and allow us to do His will more clearly, this fear and reluctance was not the best attitude to have.

So I was confirmed, and life went on.

I've always been Catholic, always knew about Jesus, but it took me a long time to start letting God into my life. I was afraid that He'd ask me to do something too big for me, something that would crush me and make me miserable.

Eventually, I realized that I was miserable; that I do need God, and so I started letting Him love me and accepting His gifts for what they are.

The thing about gifts is that you don't have to like them. We probably all have the weird sweater from our grandmother, or its equivalent, and it sits balled up in the back of a closet or drawer. We also have received things we love, things we take delight in.

The thing about gifts is you get a choice whether or not to use them.

It's the same with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At your confirmation, you are given all these gifts. 

And basically what I did was toss them all in a corner like "nope, maybe later." I was afraid. I was afraid of what God might want of me if I handed everything over to Him. I was afraid I wouldn't be strong enough.

That is absolutely not true. 

At confirmation, you are given seven gifts. One of these is fortitude, which is the strength to live out the Faith. It's the strength to stand up for what is right even when no one else is, and it's also the strength to trust God even when nothing seems like it will work and everything looks pointless. It's the guts to do whatever God may be calling you to and the heart to carry that out.

At confirmation, you get superpowers. Now, Captain America--he's got superpowers. He's got super-strength, sort of like fortitude. Now, he could choose not to be heroic. He could choose to just be a super-buff guy who lives in somebody's basement and plays video games and eats Cheetos all day, but he doesn't, and it would be stupid if he did. He has the strength to save people, and so he does.

And you--at confirmation, you are given the strength to live for God, to bring Him glory in a way no one else has done before. 

He will give you the fortitude to face whatever it is you end up facing on this earth. 

All you have to do is let Him help you.

free-range evangelization

JMJ
AMDG

Recently, I skinned my knee. My family and I were leaving church, and I was carrying my youngest brother pick-a-back, and he said "run" and the parking lot was empty, so I started running and got about ten feet before I tripped over my shoes and went sprawling with sixty pounds of brother driving me into the ground. I ripped up my awesome blue tights and my knee and wound up with a nasty scab that was yellow in some places and red in others and sometimes oozed stuff and eventually cracked off/was picked off while watching Downton Abbey. Now it's a patch of weird looking pinkish-purple skin and doesn't hurt any more but it's still weird.

(my brother, by the way, used me as a cushion and didn't get a mark on him.)

I work as a lifeguard and wear shorts when I guard, so my knee is on display for whomever comes in. Several of the regulars asked what happened to me, especially because I had it all wound up in an ace bandage. Band-aids and joints go together about the same as open wounds and gross pool decks. So, I told them each the story about how I tripped over my own feet in a parking lot. One guy, a man I hadn't seen before, asked if it was at the Y that I'd done it, and I said no, it was at church. And he asked me where I go to church and I told him. And then he talked about how it was good to see that I went to church, because it's really just awful how many people don't believe in God and I said yeah, it's really sad, and then he asked if I would pray for him, and I said sure. And then he said he'd pray for me, and asked my name, and as he started to paddle down the length of the pool he called out that he was praying for me right then.

And I don't know if he'll ever set foot in a Catholic church. I don't know if he will remember me talking about being Catholic. I don't know if he will ever wonder more about the church I call home and ask questions.

I know that it was an encounter that touched my heart. I don't know if it touched his, but I'd like to think so.

Because the point of evangelization, the point of the gospel, the very heart of it all, isn't winning debates. It's loving, and it's proclaiming the good news. It's having the guts to say "yeah, I go to church,", and it's not laughing at that joke and it's making the sign of the Cross in public and yeah, sometimes arguments and counter-arguments are necessary.

But you are not the point. When we die, there will be no scorecard of how many theological smackdowns you smote that co-worker with. There will be no awards due to how many people you fricking schooled on the Real Presence or the Virgin Birth or the papacy.

Even thought that's easier, isn't it?

It's easier to get angry and it's easier to set it up as a legal debate and it's easier to make it all a head game, but human beings have hearts and before any of that, we have to love and we have to be presented with things in a natural, human way if we are to really learn them and care about them.

And I think a lot of us think that you need to go to a far off place to evangelize, or have a theology degree. We think you need to be a confrontational person, or a really nice person.

Nope.

There is evangelization by means of the soap-box, by means of scholarly papers, but more important, I think, is the kind that comes slowly and naturally.

There is the messy kind, the human kind, the kind that comes in answering questions about that funny brown necklace you wear; the kind that comes in mentioning Mass when someone asks what you did over the weekend, The kind that comes of saying "I'm sorry to hear that," and then saying "I'll pray for you," and then actually praying. The kind that comes when you live life the way Jesus did and let the consequences of that come as they may.

And it's hard. It's very hard, but maybe it shouldn't be. Because it's like telling someone you got accepted to that school, or you're getting married, or you got that promotion, or he asked you out, or that meeting went way better than you expected, or you were able to get free ice cream; except it's so much better than that, because ice cream and acceptance letters won't last forever, but He will, and His love for you will.

Ask Him to let you see Him in the ordinary. Live like He is your best friend, the sort of person whose name comes up in casual conversation. Because even skinned knees can be an evangelization.