And the Word became a clump of cells

And dwelt among us.

As I sit here halfway cooked with this latest addition to our little family, feeling the effects of pregnancy with every fiber of my being, I'm also thinking about Mary.

I'm thinking about how her life changed radically with a message from an angel, a shocking invitation  into something so far beyond her own plans that all she could manage was calm and reasonable "Yes, but how can this be?" - going straight for the logical inquiry over the more obvious "why is there a terrifying angel appearing in my room," or the more nuanced "God wants to have a baby with me?!" route.

One thing that didn't seem to have occurred to her?

To question whether or not there was, in fact, a baby involved.

God's proposal to humanity, sealed in the flesh through Mary's fiat, was - and is - a Person.

Not a potential person. Not an eventual person.

A real person. From the moment of His conception, miraculous (note: NOT immaculate. Wrong feast day) thought it was, He was both fully divine and fully human, and Mary became fully a mother that day when she gave her consent and conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Which is why the argument against the personhood of the unborn has always struck me as so profoundly stupid in light of the Incarnation.

He was there, from the beginning. His little cousin John the Baptist knew as much, and he leapt in recognition at 12-week-old embryonic Jesus from his own uterine perspective.

Any woman who has ever been pregnant can attest to the incredible other-ness of being with child. From the very earliest days following conception, that baby is there, growing and changing and developing as humans continue to do over their entire lifespan, but undeniably and irreversibly there. You can kill the baby at any point, of course, but you can't undo what has already been done: the creation of an entirely new human person.

And that's what makes today so special. That's why if you count forward in time 9 months from today in the Church calendar you land on the embodiment of the Incarnation: Christmas. He arrives today in a  real sense, tucked safely in the womb of His Mother and ours, and while He remains hidden for another 9 months of growth and development, history is forever altered because He now exists in human flesh.

So happy feast day, Mama Mary, from one gestating mother to another. Thanks for changing the course of salvation history and loosing the bonds of Eve's disobedience by your generous and unreserved "yes."

We owe you - quite simply - everything.

Sometimes it looks like this

Today was one of the best days we've had at home in a while, for me and the kids. The long-awaited pajama day at preschool was trumped by a snow day, and all three little people spiked fevers sometime after breakfast. No fewer than 7 (seven. SE-VEN) hours of cartoons were consumed by a certain someone with a 103 temperature and an abiding love for the Octonauts, and I was only dressed in real clothes for about an hour, during a brief foray to the doctor's office and the grocery store.

And it was, truly, one of the best days in recent memory.

I didn't yell, I didn't cry, and I didn't stress over what I was or wasn't getting done. The kids were so needy, and I, for once, was so acutely aware of their littleness and their neediness that I just threw up my hands and settled onto the floor in my yoga pants to soothe, cuddle, and read aloud.

Sure, a few loads of laundry got washed, but nothing notable was checked off my endless to-do list. For once I could clearly see their needs, and somehow, there was the grace to meet them.

I wonder if it's always there?

I suspect it is.

I read a piece on a better blog than this one a while back, and one bit of wisdom in particular stuck with me: when your kids are sick, stop what you're doing and take care of them. Don't ask me why that's rocket science to me (seriously, please don't), but it hit me right in the gut.

I do so much in spite of my kids, stepping around them and over them and looking past them - or at least looking past whatever trying developmental stage we might be stagnating in currently - that I've lost countless opportunities to train flabby mommy muscles and hone parental prowess by meeting reality head on. I grit my teeth and get through it, whatever "it" happens to be: pink eye, potty training disasters, sleeplessness, etc.

And I drag them with me.

Today felt different, though. Today, maybe because it's Lent, or because I prayed first thing like I always should but never actually do, or because school was cancelled and my agenda was derailed, I just met them where they needed me, extending my arms and letting them climb all over my slowly shrinking lap and reading Little House on the Prairie until my voice got scratchy. (And yes, hours and hours of Netflix, too.)

I didn't try to escape it, not in the virtual sense or the literal sense. I didn't load them up and force the planned Costco run. And, miracle of miracles, I didn't send a single electronic smoke signal to my homebound husband on the evening commute. I just accepted the day as it unfolded, and for once I played the role of competent, caring adult for a solid 10 hours.

Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit, but it certainly didn't feel very familiar. I think I spend more time than is polite to admit attempting to escape from this particular season in life, whether it be through exercise or constant, low-grade panic-cleaning or the endless busyness of saying yes to yet another little project or another small commitment, giving away little pieces of myself bit by bit until there's nothing but scraps left for the children.

For my children.

This isn't some kind of self castigating tell all about the terrible state of my motherhood. I'm not a bad mom, and I know that. But I am a highly distracted mom, most of the time. And an overworked mom, exhausted by my own free will more often than not.

My choices and my standards are what keep me there, though. It's not really the kids, most of the time. It's me. My expectations, my plans, my agenda...and my failure to put first things first, vocationally speaking.

I'm not saying mom shouldn't make it to the gym every other night. God knows I need that precious time on the Stairmaster with HGTV blasting through my earbuds. And there's nothing wrong with keeping a clean, clutter-free house that brings peace and life to your family. But there is something wrong, something out of place, when the kids and the marriage and the vocation you chose, of your own free will, become not the means to your sanctification but the burden that tugs at the edges of your sanity.

I am there too often, and I can see where a long string of days and months and years in such a place could lead.

Thank God, then, for little graces wrapped in feverish bunches of damp pajama bottoms and snot-streaked faces. For the bloodless surrender to a day spent reading stories and filling juice cups and vacuuming around clumps of kleenex. He knew just what I needed today - what we all needed.

For mommy to be around, in the fullest sense.

The gift of not knowing

Our youngest child, our sweet daughter, has been a bit of an enigma wrapped in a mystery since she first graced us with her presence.

Even in utero, her short little legs were confounding ultrasound techs and raising eyebrows about the accuracy of my charts (NFP: 1 Radiology: 0, BTW). Then she arrived and all was well, if not petite.

And that's pretty much been her story for the past 13 months. She's darling, and not just in an every baby sort of way, but in a stunner-who-stops-traffic kinda way. I can say that because I'm her mom, and because I have 2 other kids who, while good looking, never got us the kind of attention this girl has.

She's teeny tiny. Doll-like. The proportions of a wee American Girl doll, clad in 9 month clothing still at month 13, but perfectly balanced in terms of length vs. weight. And, every month or so since last Fall, we dutifully truck her down to our local children's hospital for another round of testing, bumping from one department to another. First nutrition, than orthopedics, now endocrinology.

She's had more people poke and prod her in her first year of life than most people do in a lifetime, I'd wager. But to no avail. At least, to no apparent avail.

She's teeny, she's stubbornly "alternatively mobile" (translation: no walking, standing or crawling, but  girlfriend has a mean scoot), and she's utterly charming in her willingness to allow complete strangers to pick her up.

And we don't have any idea of why she is the way she is.

It's been confounding and enlightening, at turns, as a parent to have no idea what is wrong, or even whether something is, in fact, "wrong" with her.

And it's been a humbling exercise in "what ifs" in terms of the much bigger and much scarier situations that other parents really are facing.

There's a delicate balance in motherhood between anxiety and surrender. Sometimes it really is on us to keep worrying when everyone else says to relax.

But other times, maybe more times than not, relaxing and releasing is the right way to go.

I'm naturally high strung and extremely anxious. I have grand delusions about what and whether I can manage, and I have a ludicrously inflated sense of control.

The antidote to all this, for me, has been motherhood.

No other experience thus far has come close to the gut wrenching, soul-shaking reality of recognizing my true impotence and insignificance. And I don't mean that in a self deprecating way, but in a reality-recognizing way.

Motherhood has unveiled reality to me: I'm not in control, I never was in control, and even with ready access to arguably the best medical care on the planet...there's still no guarantee of control.

Now, I can put truckloads of faith into modern medicine and research journals (and I do) while simultaneously barking up alternative trees for innovative ideas (woof, woof), but I still can't summon a diagnosis for my daughter by the force of my will.

And that has been incredibly freeing for me. To be able to truly exercise the old adage to work as if everything depended on me, and to pray as if everything depends on God. It's at once taking responsibility for what one can control while simultaneously releasing my inflated and, honestly, egomaniacal sense of control.

So efficient, Lord. I see what you did there.

And even if this latest round of blood work turns up with a big fat question mark like all the rest has, we'll be able to sleep at night knowing that we asked the questions and made the appointments, and that, if nothing else, she'll be a champion blood donor some day with nary a needle phobia to be found.

And if God sees fit to send us a label to know Evie a little better? We'll take that into consideration, too. But it won't define her, not in any real sense. Sure, it'll simplify my Google searches. But it won't change the way I have to love her, nurture her, and let God fill in for the ever-growing list of all the things about motherhood that are far above my pay grade.

Why can't non-Catholics receive Holy Communion?

Happiest second day of Christmas to you and yours. Ours was salvaged by an 11th hour recovery from the flu of death and a sprinkling of magical, legitimate Christmas snow.

We spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family, as we often do, attending 4:30 Mass in my hometown. And by attending Mass I mean perching in the window sill of an overflowing school gymnasium balancing still-ill babies on hips and shushing angry toddlers in increasingly uncharitable stage whispers amidst the dulcet tones of the pitchy children's choir. (All honesty though, lead female soloist KILLED it on the Ave Maria. Solid gold.)

I wonder if anyone has had a similar experience attending Mass at Christmas time or Easter, when the (not)church/auditorium/parish hall is stuffed to the gills with worshipers in varying arrays of holiday finery, kneeling or not kneeling at all the wrong moments and just bringing a general sense of chaotic merriment and outside-the-normness to the moment, marking this day as something altogether different from any given Sunday?

When I was younger and even more selfish than I am now, I resented the crowded pews and the, um, let's go with "eclectic" dress code. I was a brat, and I wanted a seat, darn it, and don't I deserve a seat for coming every single Sunday and not just twice a year?

(Prodigal son's older brother, anyone?)

Now that old age, motherhood, and sleep deprivation have mellowed me somewhat, and probably due to an enriched understanding of the meaning and nature of evangelization, I actually really look forward to the C & E crowd. I love the overstuffed church, the chaotic parking lot (okay that part might be a stretch) and the haphazard feel to a liturgy filled with participants who may not quite be all the way there, so to speak.

"The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature" (Ad Gentes, Vatican II)

There's never more of a missionary feel to my parish church than during our major holy days, when the doors are flung wide and everyone from agnostic Uncle Tom to gay Cousin Jeff gather with family to attend and to worship (or to stare in confusion/wonder/boredom) as a family, as a body of Christ.

Yes, it's inconvenient. Christianity is inconvenient through, and I make the too-frequent mistake of forgetting that I exist for it and not it for me.

The Church does not owe me anything. Jesus didn't die for my sins in order that I may vaguely acknowledge Him in some kind of moral therapeutic deistic fashion. So what if I have to stand in a drafty gym for 90 minutes on Christmas Eve, so that the visitors who have swollen our attendance by 400% can have a seat for their biannual pilgrimage -- isn't it worth it?

Because what if somebody does come back because of Christmas? What if this year is "the year" that something clicks in their heart and head and the blinding light from the manger cracks open a channel  of grace into their soul and...oh, holy night.

Wouldn't that be something?

And then, oh what joy, if that revert or convert-to-be were to formally approach the Church via RCIA and ask to be received into full communion, to become one with the Bride of Christ and to be welcomed into the mystery of the Sacraments.

That's what it's all about.

I'm wandering far from my title here, but that backstory is important because it lays a foundation for understanding the difficult beauty of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Eucharist.

It is He.

When we approach the altar to receive Communion, we truly believe we are receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. We don't celebrate a symbol, but a Sacrament.

We don't merely recreate a reenactment from a story in the Bible, rather, we are ushered in a mysterious, time-bending way into the one, eternal sacrifice He made of Himself.

And because He is truly there, dwelling among us, present in the Eucharist, humble and unexpected (kind of like a peasant child lying in an animal's feeding trough), we only dare to receive Communion if we are properly disposed to do so, which looks like this:

1. Am I a practicing, baptized Catholic,

2. In a state of grace (i.e. recently confessed, no mortal sins on my soul)

3. living in accordance with the Church's teachings (i.e. I believe in and consent to her dogmas?)

If the answer to those conditions is affirmative, than one may worthily receive the Eucharist.

Or at least, as close to worthily as any of us poor sinners may hope to be.

This is emphatically not a condemnation of anyone who doesn't meet the conditions. On the contrary, the teaching of worthy reception of Communion is a great mercy intended to save a person from committing the grave offense of receiving unworthily.

St. Paul warns us "whoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord."

There's also the small matter of Communion being an act of, well, communion among members of the body of Christ. 

And just like you (hopefully) wouldn't throw back the covers and invite just anyone into your marriage bed, the Church joyfully opens the doors to her sanctuary for any and all who wish to enter, but reserves the ultimate expression of intimacy, Communion, for practicing Catholics, aka fellow members of the body of Christ.

So that awkward paragraph on the back page of the missal? That imperfectly phrased blurb in the bulletin that made Grandma squirm? That moment when you try not to fall into your cousin's lap while extricating yourself from the crowded pew to join the communion line? All evidence that there's work to do yet, and that we all share in the call for a new evangelization.

The beauty of the Gospel is that it is for everybody. 

The Church is for everybody. And even if you can't yet receive the Eucharist, please know how very welcome you are, and that we're looking forward to the day when you are able to.

(And if you could maybe find it in your hearts, could you please forgive my children for that noise they made during the entire homily. You know the one, that sustained whine in f minor, punctuated by increasingly threatening motherly whispers? I promise, it's not like this every Sunday.) 

;)

An Advent to Remember

This year has been...whew. I mean for us, personally, it's been filled with ups and downs, suffering and joy, but nothing major as far as hard things go. But for this weary world of ours, I just feel such a heaviness. It seems like every time I open Facebook it's a constant stream of tragedy, and each news cycle brings with it fresh anxiety and mounting dread.

For the past four years my job as editor of on online news aggregator meant that I spent hours each day coming the www for stories touching on life issues and bioethics. It was, I'd estimate, 90% negative. Taking in that kind of horror daily wears on a person. And while I'm thrilled to share with you guys that I'm stepping into an exciting new role (details to come soon. Promise.) I'm definitely still feeling the weight of all the awfulness I've waded through, especially this last year.

And I realized something else today, too; I've gotten pretty good (scary good, really) at forgetting something terrible 14.5 seconds after I've clicked the link/read the story/sent the donation. It's almost a sort of disassociation that I've developed, probably to protect my finite human brain (and heart) from the infinite stream of tragedy and horror that filters in every second of every day via the airwaves. And this without even having cable.

I skimmed past a link on somebody else's page yesterday and saw a thread of discussion still active from late October - October! - about Britanny Maynard and suddenly my mind and my heart were freshly jolted back to the horror of waking up on the feast of All Saints to discover that she had, in fact, taken her own life.

I was so shaken by that story. And then...I moved on. Ebola, Ferguson, Bill Cosby, Syria, Ukraine, babies in sewer pipes and young fathers murdered in cold blood didn't leave me with the mental or emotional stamina to keep processing her death. Or even to remember it 5 days after it happened.

I don't want my use of technology to strip me of my humanity.

And I don't want to overload my brain with so much horror that I lose the capacity to feel, deeply, the sting of loss, an ache at acts of evil, or real sympathy in the face of suffering.

I was thinking that in addition to the mild smattering of efforts we're making as a family to consecrate Advent as a time of waiting in joyful hope, I could also bring my heart to bear on those stories from this past year that will give our weary world the most cause to rejoice when He comes.

For the next 3 weeks, I'm going to try to recollect one story each day from the past year that broke my heart, and offer the little sufferings and inconveniences of that day for those still hurting in connection with those stories, if that makes sense. So for Robin Williams' family. For the young wife and mother whose husband is gone. For a city burning and roiling in turmoil. For a mama whose girl's days on earth are numbered.

Surely I can do this small thing in an effort to bring some meaning to all the suffering we've witnessed this past year, and to hold these families and individuals up in prayer as we prepare for the Baby who will save us from ourselves.

If you want to join me, my plan is to simply scroll through my Facebook page and my browser history each morning and select a story, a situation, a loss...and then to make that the focus of the day. I'm confidant - sadly - that I'll have no trouble filling up the next 21 days or so.

This isn't meant to be depressing, but redeeming. I really feel like I've lost something in my rabid consumption of news and media, and I'm hoping it isn't an irrevocable loss.

May your Advent season be filled with joy, anticipation, and deep empathy for those who are most in need of Bethlehem this year.

Unspoken Faith: When Couples Don't Share Beliefs

Today I have the real privilege of hosting a guest writer I think you guys will really enjoy.

During the month of October when I was running my 31 days series on Catholic teaching on sex and marriage, I got a ton of questions about mixed faith or faith/no faith couples, and what it might look like for marriages where one spouse doesn't practice the Faith, or maybe any faith at all.

Here's one answer to that question.

Sarah* has been generous and vulnerable enough to offer a reflection on what life looks like with 3 young kids and a husband who is supportive of - but not actively practicing - her Catholic faith.

I hope you enjoy.

A couple of months ago, my four-year-old son and I were having a conversation about the Mass. I was trying to explain the Eucharist to him when he cut in: “Oh, but dat’s just for girls.”

“No, Communion isn’t just for girls!” I protested. “Your daddy doesn’t take Communion, but lots of other daddies do. You’ll see – I’ll show you next time we go to church.”

I protested, I assured, I tried to tell myself that his was nothing but a silly little remark, but my heart sank. “Oh no,” I couldn’t help but think: “He’s already noticed.”

In my personal experience, believing is left to the women.

My father is not Catholic. Nor is he a religious person of any persuasion. I’ve only ever seen him go to church for the sake of someone he loves: He accompanies my mother to Mass on Christmas, Easter, and some random Sundays when it seems to matter to her; he attends family baptisms, first communions, and confirmations; he goes with my grandmother to her Methodist church on Mothers’ Day. He does it for our sake, not his own.

Of my mother’s large, Catholic family, few devoutly practice the faith. None of her (many) siblings are married to Catholics. Most have raised their children in the Church, but they’ve done so without the help of their husbands. My cousins (and many of my friends) attended Mass like I did – sitting in the pew every Sunday without our fathers.

As normal as this felt, it always bothered me.

It’s lonely to sit at Mass week in and week out with part of your family missing. It’s especially lonely on days when family blessings are given or on Father’s Day, when dads stand up for a blessing of their own. It’s hard to sit there, looking around at the men scattered throughout the congregation, biting your tongue to keep from shouting out, “I have a daddy too!”

So I resolved that when I grew up and had a family of my own, my children would have their father at Mass with them. I wanted to spare them that loneliness. And I wanted them (particularly any sons) to have the example of a father who attends church.

I did not, however, resolve to consider only devout Catholics for a husband – or indeed only Catholics at all. Because – my father. Ruling out non-Catholics felt too much like ruling out my own father. My wonderful, supportive, loving father – who is in almost every way, a beautiful example of what it means to be a husband.

Without a doubt, my parents have the best marriage I’ve ever witnessed. Growing up, I was just about the only child I knew who never, ever doubted that her parents loved each other and who never, ever feared that her parents might someday divorce.

My parents’ relationship just has that one, gaping hole: they don’t share a faith.

When I met my own husband after years of hoping and praying for “the one,” everything fell into place easily. So easily that I couldn’t help but see Providence’s hand in it. My husband is kind and gentle, hard-working, responsible, smart – all sorts of good things. Our values align. We work well together. We hold the same views on how to raise a family.

I was beyond relieved to learn that he was Catholic. But I was made a little nervous by how he said it: “I was raised Catholic.” Not I am Catholic. I was raised Catholic. Past tense.

Still, he harbored no ill will toward the Church (as too many, sadly, do) and he seemed to think it was valuable for children to be raised in a Faith. He attended Mass with me occasionally. He understood that I was serious about my Catholic Faith.

As our relationship progressed and we discussed marriage, he agreed that we would raise our children as Catholics and that he would attend Mass with us. He was happy to be married in the Church. He was fine with the prospect of not using contraception. And he never, ever pressured me to have pre-marital sex. (As far as ‘devout-Catholic-marrying-someone-who’s-not’ goes, I realize that my husband made it pretty easy on me. Many are not so fortunate.)

But though my husband was raised Catholic and though he (now) attends Mass regularly, I wouldn’t say that he and I share a Faith. That hole in our relationship may not gape as far as my parents’ does, but it’s still there.

I don’t know that he believes.

I don’t know that he doesn’t, either. We don’t talk about it. 

Because to be honest, I’m afraid to hear his answer. Actually afraid: I’m afraid of the sadness it might bring me.

So, we go to Mass. We say Grace before meals. We give to the Church. We do a family prayer whenever I can make it seem as seasonally-required as possible (say, over an Advent wreath). We carry on with the motions of the Faith, me hoping that in the doing, my husband will one day come to believe.

I also pray for him. I’m afraid to say, however, that I don’t do an awfully good job of it. I don’t have an awfully good prayer life, period. I pray in fits and spurts through the day, tossing prayers heavenward as I drive or do dishes or lie in bed. It’s one of the many parts of my life that I continuously try, and fail, to improve upon.

It’s easy to blame any number of things for my failure to pray as I should, but the hardest to swallow is the thought that if I had a devout, prayerful husband, he might encourage me in that effort. I hear (or read) from Catholic friends and bloggers this idea that a husband and wife’s primary goal in life should be to help each other get to heaven. And I’m … left short.

What an idea.

I’m sad to admit how foreign it is to me. In my mind, I visualize this space – say, a square – which represents all that a marriage is supposed to contain: things like love, patience, kindness, hard work, compromise, consideration, generosity, appreciation, etc. And I think, “We’re doing pretty well. We check those boxes. We must have a pretty decent marriage.”

But then I read one of my favorite Catholic blogs, where I learn of spouses praying together as they work to come to an important decision, or a husband engaged in a ministry at church, or a father praying over his children – and I start to see a space beyond that square. I see that there can – and should – be so much more to a marriage, to a family.

I see freedom.

I see the freedom to own one of the most elemental parts of who I am – a believer. I see the freedom to be open about my beliefs, my questions, my doubts – and to know that my husband will reciprocate. I see the freedom to accept our weaknesses, to say them out loud and to – together – ask for God’s help in overcoming them. I see the freedom to lean on my husband, to trust him in this part of my life, just as I do in others.

I also see grace.

What grace must come to a husband and wife who pray together. What grace must come to their marriage, their family, even their friends and the community to which they belong.

I wish I had that.

But I don’t. At least for now, I don’t. So I’m left to work on this (very important) part of life by myself. And I wonder: How can I be more open about my faith, so as to expose my family to it and help them to see it as normal and important? How can I provide them with examples of men who believe? How can I encourage my boys to consider a priestly vocation? How can I attract my husband to the Faith without hitting him over the head with my evangelism?

How can I help to open my husband’s heart and mind to God?

A couple of weeks ago at Mass, I found myself standing in the vestibule, looking through the glass at my husband. He was sitting in a pew a few rows from the back, mostly by himself. The baby sat quietly on his lap; there were no squirming, climbing boys to distract him from the Liturgy of the Word. (Our older boys were attending the Children’s Liturgy of the Word – big mistake – and I was standing at the ready in case they caused a ruckus.)

As I watched my husband, I prayed for him. I prayed that those quiet moments, those sacred words, might have some effect on him. I prayed that he would – bit by bit, Sunday by Sunday – someday come to believe. And that he would someday express that belief to our boys.

While I stood there, our three-year-old ran up to me. “I haffa tell you somedin’!” he said with some urgency. “I find Jesus up dayer!” He was pointing at the large crucifix above the altar. My boy was breathless; his eyes were wide. He saw Jesus.

I knelt down next to him, followed his pointing finger to the crucifix, and expressed some of the excitement he was giving off. I smiled and hugged him and said a few words about Jesus.

But the short, sweet moment was soon tempered by worries I’m only now starting to recognize:

“How long will this last? How long do I have before he grows tired of church, of thinking on Jesus? 

How can I help this all sink into his little mind before he chooses others’ influence over my own?” And the most worrisome question of all: “When they’re grown, will my boys believe?”

I have to admit, when I think on the situation much, I’m left feeling quite anxious. But one thought soothes me no matter how grim things seem: 

“Every time I go to Mass, I love my husband more.”

I realized this when we were first married and it’s held true ever since. Whether we go together or I’m alone, whether we’re happy or in the middle of a disagreement, I leave every single Mass loving my husband more than I did when I walked in. I can only attribute this to God and the graces he bestows on us through the sacraments.

 Though my husband may not believe (or if he believes, may not care much), he and I both received the sacrament of Marriage. Though he hasn’t received the Eucharist since our wedding day, I have received it countless times.

These sacraments matter. They matter, and I believe we continue to receive blessings because of them. 

So I hope. 

I hope that after witnessing the Consecration for the 942^nd time, my husband will feel moved to receive the Eucharist himself. I hope that my boys will notice the good, believing men of our parish as they line up every Sunday to receive Communion. I hope that I will receive the graces I need to nurture my own belief and to be a convincing witness to my family. 

I hope that someday, we will all feel the freedom and experience the graces that come from sharing a Faith.

*Not her real name.

How 'A Mother's Rule of Life' is changing mine

I've been getting up before the kids do for the last week or so. And it is good. So, so good.

It all started back in late October when, in a blinded rage, I sat straight up in bed in the predawn light, my sheets dripping with the secretions of multiple preschoolers, and ordered our bedroom intruders out, out OUT.

No more could they come busting through our doorway at 6:40 am, 6:24 am, and finally (damn you, daylight savings) 5:45 am, yelling out breakfast orders and flinging themselves bodily upon our defenseless sleeping forms, bulging Pull Ups oozing overnight urine from regrettable 8pm sippy cup refills.

No more.

Marching the offenders back to their room, I pulled the door shut and slid to a sitting position in the hallway as the prisoners rained punches and kicks down upon it. Their shrieking protests soon woke the baby in the adjoining room, and so at 6:04 am, all three progeny were roused and ready to wreak havoc on the day, and I was ready to give up before sun up.

It feels crazy to write this, but this is basically how the last 4 years of life have been, give or take a few children.

And I didn't know I could change anything about that.

It's stupid, but it was a stupidity born of inexperience and, I think, a lack of discipline on my part. Both in dealing with the kids and, maybe more importantly, in structuring and scheduling my day.

But I honestly didn't know how to fix that.

Every single day I fell onto the couch or our bed after the bedtime antics finally wound down, exhausted to the core of my introverted soul and craving alone time, decompression, and distraction. And soon enough 11:35 pm would roll around and I'd still be up. And from that point on it was just an anxiety-riddled countdown until the first kid woke me for the day, only to repeat the cycle again. And again.

I needed more sleep, and I needed more structured, scheduled time in my day to recharge before I found myself drained and dead to the world.

Enter A Mother's Rule of Life.

I know it's cliche to say a self help book changed your life, but I'm going to say it, nonetheless. It could be a matter of timing and circumstance, but this book got me, and it got me good. I'm about to flip back to page one and start re-reading it from cover to cover, because I need it all to sink way, way in. But it's already starting to effect positive, tangible changes into my life and my motherhood. And in case any of you out there are drowning the way I was, I wanted to highlight some of the best takeaways I've gleaned from my first reading:

1. Order your day to reflect your priorities in life. So it should really look something like this: prayer, care for self, care for spouse and children, care for home and work, and finally, leisure.

My days formerly looked something like this: screaming/shower maybe? probably not/sweeping/frantic scrubbing/yelling/drive somewhere - probably Target/trip to park/zone out on internet/write/work/make dinner/yelling/snuggling/fighting/bedtime/tears/wine/internet/bed. And maybe a rosary somewhere.

2. Make a schedule. A schedule is not restrictive, it is liberating. 

Liberating because you are now free to walk past that full dishwasher and that pile of stuff on the floor because you have scheduled time to address those specific areas of concern, freeing you to hit the gym, the classroom, or your knees for whatever task is presently at hand.

I have resisted a schedule my entire life because I loathe the idea of being trapped in a routine. What I had somehow failed to realize all along was that a routine of my own creation was immensely freeing - it was completely mine to design. I'm having fewer and fewer moments of that panicky feeling when you think you should be doing w, x,y, or z and end up doing NONE OF THE ABOVE because you can't do them all at once, and you have no sense of the urgency of any of them because EVERYTHING FEELS URGENT. And so the opportunity slips away, unrealized.

3. You, as mother, are the CEO, the COO, and the CFO. So you'd better act like it.

And you'd better be spending good chunks of time with your advisory board (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) during the workday, because things do not go well otherwise.

I was fitting prayer into my life rather than the other way around, and wouldn't you know it, it was usually the one thing I could somehow never find time for. Funny how that works...

Now rather than rattling off a 3 minute Divine Mercy Chaplet on the treadmill when I remembered to, I'm spending the first part of my day with Scripture and some spiritual reading (and some coffee) before the kids are even allowed out of their rooms. And it is so life giving. I can say that even now, after only one week. It is giving me new life.

4. You're the boss. Nobody else is going to boss these kids for you. So you'd better learn how to do it.

I'm a little unclear on the origin of this particular heresy, but I somehow got it into my head that somebody was going to come and whip these small hellions into shape for me at some point along the journey of motherhood. I keep looking around and waiting, but so far nobody has come knocking offering solid advice on character formation, training in virtue, and schooling in laundry-folding. So, ahem, I guess that leaves...well, me.

Me. I'm the one. I have to figure out what it is that will get through to each of these small creatures, and then to approach them with my message of peace, love, and unwavering obedience. Because if I do not have the latter from them, our household cannot dwell in the former.

Now, I'm not claiming to have had any big breakthroughs in behavior here, except that we've been trying mightily to do the thing where we say what we mean and mean what we say...and then follow up on it. Every time.

Do you know how exhausting it is to follow up with preschoolers and toddlers? All I can say is, I hope it pays off. I've heard it does. I'm taking it on faith at this point, and so far, all I can show for it is the hopeful trend that for 5 straight days, the man cubs have stayed in their room until their alarm clock went off at 7 am, at which point the 7 on the clock matched the giant 7 drawn on the poster on their wall.

I really cannot say enough good things about this book, and about the effect that not living every day with my hair on fire (if wet hair, unstyled hair could catch fire) and feeling singularly persecuted by my delightful children has had on me. And on us.

Anyone else have experiences like this with A Mother's Rule? Or another life-changing read or piece of advice?

Now I've got to run, because laundry and bathroom scrubbing are actually next up on my schedule. But don't worry, the day ends with some quality wine time on the couch penciled in. Win/wine situation.

Catholics, sex, and marriage: the elevator pitch

Man, has it been a month or what? 

I told you guys when I started writing this series that I had some serious resistance going on, but I had no way to prepare for the all out spiritual warfare that this venture would trigger. I'm not actually even being facetious. 

It.has.been.real.

Which has me even more convinced that these conversations, virtual though they may be, are so deeply necessary. 

And the point is not that they remain virtual, you know? I'm fully aware of the limitations of the internet as means for evangelization. I get it. Things don't always translate, and layers of complexity and nuance are all too often lost amidst the keystrokes and the fiery rage of the combox.

But the internet is a great place for sharing information. Which, in turn, is good for facilitating communication. It's up to us to do the actual communicating on a one-to-one level though, got it?

So, to wrap things up, here's a tidy 2 minute overview of what Catholics believe about sex and marriage, and why.

Sex is good. It isn't dirty or naughty or some kind of half-hearted concession to our fallen animalistic nature...it is good, just as it was good in the beginning. Be fruitful and multiply, He said. And so we are, and we do. 

And we absolutely have to teach our kids that. Early and often. There's no such thing as "the talk" in good Christian parenting; rather, it must be a series of talks, spanning childhood into early adulthood, continually drawing children into the beauty and the truth of human sexuality. If you're waiting until your little snowflake starts middle school to say anything positive or informative about sex and the human person, well, I'm sorry to say it, but you're about 3 years too late.

We live in a sexually saturated culture, and our children's eyes and brains are bathed in provocative, violent, and sadistic images of a sexual nature at every turn. It's our job to combat that with beauty, and goodness, and above all, the truth of who and why they were "created, male and female." 

Marriage is also good. For the majority of people, it's not only good, but it's the means of our salvation. If you are called to the Sacrament of Marriage, it is through those graces (and crosses) that you'll make your way to heaven, leading and alternately being led by the spouse you choose. 

Marriage and sex go together. You might even say that attempting to separate them is at the root of almost every problem facing our society. We reserve sex for marriage not out of prudishness or repression, but for the same reason you wouldn't build a nuclear bomb in the garage: that kind of power demands respect. Mishandle plutonium and you're going to have a disaster, because you are violating the stuff's nature. You can't change nature. You can ignore it, or deny it, or repackage it as something of your own creation, but the stuff is still radioactive.

That's the reason the Church will never change her position on marriage: she doesn't have the power to. Marriage is the union between one man and one woman, designed by the Creator of plutonium, etc. to produce brand spanking new humans. We can tinker with the definition and broaden and rewrite all we want...but we can't alter nature. Even if the State does. Even if every country on earth proclaims marriage to be "an open ended living arrangement featuring a rotating cast of 4 or more adults featuring occasional collaborations with domesticated animals." Or something. Even then, the Church will not alter her stance on what marriage is, because it isn't hers to alter.

The Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage are profoundly freeing, which is a shocking claim to make on a libertine, pleasure-worshiping culture. But it's true! There is such freedom in chastity and fidelity and wild abandonment and trust. And while there's never a guarantee for happiness, it sure makes sense to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to matters of the heart.

If you think you know what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage, make sure you've actually read and learned what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage.

Humanae Vitae

Evangelium Vitae

Letter to Women

Theology of the Body

Sex is good. Marriage is good. Life is very, very good. Now let's go live it like we believe it.

As a guy I really like was fond of saying,

"Be not afraid."

Click to read the rest of the month-long series on the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage.

JPII, we still need you

A couple of decades ago the world was introduced to a new kind of pope when Cardinal Karol Wojtyla stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s, arms held high in greeting to a massive crowd who could not pronounce his name.

Cardinal who?

It was a tumultuous season in the life of the Church, and in the world. Communism held eastern Europe and Russia in a death grip. The West was in the throes of the fallout from the sexual revolution. War was everywhere. The family was under siege, both in the media and in the news. The Church was struggling to communicate the fullness and freshness of the Gospel to a world grown cold and indifferent to the message of Christ.

In short, it wasn’t a whole lot different from where we stand today.

Pope John Paul II was exactly the man for the job. Born into a loving Polish family, Karol would lose everyone who mattered most to him by his 21st birthday. With each subsequent heartache, each desolating loss, young Karol found himself drawn further and further into the mystery of the heart of the Father. Rather than running from God in his grief, he allowed his suffering to transform him, and his heart was enkindled with an unquenchable love for human love.

This man who lost mother, father, brother, and friend to all manner of hideous diseases and atrocities at the hands of the Nazis was transformed, by God’s grace, into one of the greatest lovers the world has ever known.

Maybe it’s strange to think of a celibate man as a great lover. Or maybe it’s just an unfamiliar application of the word. Our modern concept of sexual love is very narrow, and it’s very limiting. Sexuality has been reduced to mere animal lust, its scope and grandeur stunted by the pornographic times we live in.

But it’s true, JPII was a great lover. He was able to see into the depths of the human heart and, through his work with countless hundreds of young people and married couples, he had a unique perspective on human love. You might say he was an expert on matters of the human heart.

He saw the divinity in our humanity, and he stretched our minds to the breaking point trying to communicate it through his years-long series of Wednesday addresses, which we know today by another name: Theology of the Body.

George Weigel, the late pope’s official biographer, made a sort of prophesy about Theology of the Body more than 20 years ago, calling it:

“A theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences sometime in the third millennium of the Church… It has barely begun to shape the way the Church understands herself and thinks about herself, barely begun to shape the Church’s preaching and education, but when it does it will compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the creed.”

A theological time bomb? Sounds like we could use one of those right about now.

Set to change the way the Church thinks about herself and virtually every major theme in the Creed?

Sounds kind of like a big deal.

Now, you could say that Weigel was overstating his case or that his prediction was mere conjecture, but you cannot deny the dire need for the Church to re-propose the Gospel and the meaning of life and love to a world such as ours, in a time such as this.

We are at war. We have always been at war in this fallen world, it is true. But today we are warring in a particular way for the very soul of human love.

Everything that we know to be true is open for debate: Marriage. The dignity of the human person. The meaning and purpose of sexuality. The fundamental right to life itself. Every bit of it is being reexamined and reconfigured by a world in crisis.

And we have all the answers. Literally at our fingertips. Because the internet. Because massive literacy levels across broad sections of society in many cultures. Never before has information been so easy to disseminate in all of human history.

And yet we sit idly by as our civilization self-destructs, one marriage and one family at a time.

Listen, fellow Christians…this is on us.

We were each of us hand-selected for a time such as this, and we’ve been entrusted with a powerful message from the Creator to the rest of creation in this Theology of the Body.

This stuff is visionary. It’s powerful. And it isn’t going to transform a single heart or convert a single soul so long as it remains untaught, unread, and inaccessible to the average person in the pew or on the street.

St. John Paul II, we need you. More today than when you were here with us on earth.

Pray that we may find the same kind of courage that faced down communism, defied tyrants and dictators, and saw in the face of every person an unrepeatable icon of Jesus Christ.

(cross posted at Catholic Exchange.)

Why does the Catholic Church care about what I do in my bedroom?

This is a valid question, and it's one that gets asked frequently, especially in our sexually schizophrenic culture. On the one hand, we're super freaked out by the idea of anybody, for any reason, asking anything about our sex lives...let alone having opinions or making judgements on what goes on behind closed doors.

Then again, reality tv. And pornography. And sexual deviance the likes of which the world has probably not seen since the days of ancient Rome.

So we're both consumed by the idea of sex as something private all while simultaneously flaunting our sexuality in an intensely public manner, making sure the whole world, starting with the stranger on the subway or the unsuspecting fellow parent on the playground, knows precisely how things are going in that department.

Then we've got this Church. This 2,000 year old, preposterously behind-the times, headed-up-by-a-celibate-male-hierarchy Church, trying to tell people who are having sex all the ways they shouldn't be having it.

What?

First off, the whole "celibate male hierarchy argument." Let's just put that one to rest, shall we?

Catholic priests are called to a life of celibacy and chastity in imitation of the life of Christ. They give up the great good of sexual expression within the context of a human marriage for the greater good of a spiritual union with Christ, and a fruitful life given in service to the larger Church. So sex is good, and priests surrender this very good thing as a gift to the rest of the Church. A life devoted entirely to Christ, to His Church, and to the proclamation of the gospel.

Some of my closest friends are priests. One of my girlfriends left her job, her friends and family, and her life this past summer to enter a religious order. Their lives are beautiful, fruitful, and deeply meaningful. And they're never, ever going to have sex! In the year 2014...can you even fathom it?

It's no small sacrifice, but it yields some beautiful fruit, and as Catholics, we believe that it offers a glimpse of eternal life as "in heaven people are neither married nor given in marriage." Not because marriage isn't incredibly good, but because marriage itself is just a preview of eternal life with God who is love.

So, just to recap, sex and marriage = good.

Good enough to have a few rules around it for its - and our - protection.

Catholics are expected to behave a certain way in the bedroom. Namely, to practice faithful, chaste, sacrificial love for our spouse within the exclusive and permanent commitment of marriage.

We're also expected to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to refrain from committing murder, along with a handful of other commandments.

In other words, there are rules for everything. Not because God hates us, or because sex is shameful, or because we're hysterically guilty about everything...but because we live in a fallen world that has been redeemed by a loving God.

All relationships have rules. Otherwise they're just hook ups. And God doesn't want to hook up with us. He wants to wed Himself to us for eternity.

So the next time someone questions you about the Church's stance on sex, be sure you're prepared to explain that actually, there's no other place on earth where human love is held in such high esteem.

Click here to read the rest of the series.

I've made a mistake. Now what?

One thing I'm realizing in writing my way through the month of October, unpacking the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage, is how many people out there have found themselves in the oh-so-familiar position of begin on the wrong side of those teachings.

In other words, having sinned.

First off the good news: YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE WHO EVER INHABITED THE PLANET, the Blessed Mother excluded.

Including me.

Oh, how very much I belong in this camp. The camp of regret and heartache and anger and remorse and resentment toward God and a Church that would ask me to not do the thing which I had just done, because it would hurt me. And then it did hurt me. And so I was doubly mad.

So where does that leave someone who has sinned?

Well, hopefully, in line for confession.

Honestly, it's that simple. And it's that difficult.

The practice of reconciliation is essential for the health and wellbeing of any successful relationship. How much more essential is it to our relationship with God? And how much more effective?

Catholics go to confession to repair the relationship between the Creator and the creature. We go to admit (and this takes humility) "I screwed up. I did the thing you warned me against. And I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again. But You have to help me."

And you know what God says, every time?

I forgive you.

Read the account of the prodigal son in Luke's gospel and you'll get a perfect, simple and profound explanation of the Sacrament of Confession.

But, but, you might be thinking...my sin is too great. God can't handle the magnitude of my screw up.

Yes, He can. The same way He's handled it for every other sinner and saint (often one and the same) who've roamed this earth. There's nothing He can't handle.

God can handle abortion.

God can handle a sexual homosexual relationship.

God can handle an extramarital affair.

God can handle prostitution.

God can handle vasectomies and tubal ligations.

God can handle an IUD.

God can handle the Morning After pill.

God can handle sex trafficking.

God can handle a pornography addiction.

God can handle abuse.

God can handle divorce.

God can handle murder.

And God can handle you.

There's nothing you've done He can't (and won't) forgive, if you are willing to come to Him and ask for it. And that's the entire premise of the Gospel right there, isn't it.

He died for you. And He rose again for you. And He founded His Church to help carry you to Him. And He entrusted the Church with His laws, with His best plan for your life. And every time you stray from that plan, He's ready to welcome you back.

Every time.

So if you've had an abortion, do not despair.

If you've cheated on your spouse, do not give up and walk away.

If you're addicted to pornography and want so badly to believe the cultural lie that it's harmless and healthy and completely normal...listen to the small, still voice in the back of your mind that's telling you differently. And come to Jesus. He longs to rescue us from our sins.

The reason the Church teaches anything about anything at all is out of love. That includes in a particularly powerful way Her teachings about sex and marriage.

The "rules" and the "restrictions" are all there to protect us, and to call us back into relationship with God when we fall short.

And we all do. All.of.us.

That doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Pornography reaching epidemic proportions doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Birth control being practiced both in the pews and by the culture at large doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Abortion on demand available in most places and for any reason doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Homosexual relationships being recognized as marriages in 31 out of 50 states in the US doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

And the idea that you did x or y or z or even all three together and you might as well just accept yourself as "that kind of person" and walk away from Jesus because He doesn't want you and He doesn't accept you and His Church sure as hell doesn't want you around...

That's dead wrong.

The Church is your home. Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is your savior.

And if you've screwed up a hundred times, He is all the more your savior.

Sometimes the more a soul has suffered, the more a soul is capable of loving. And the more profound the conversion to holiness. Think of St. Paul. Think of St. Augustine.

It's never too late.

I hope you'll read everything I've written so far this month with that in mind, and everything else I'm going to write for the remainder of the month.

"Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground." -G.K. Chesterton

Click here to read the rest of the series.

Why No Gay Marriage?

(Mea culpa, I'm one day behind in my commitment to post daily in October, but I promise I've got plenty of excuses. Moving on...)

The issue de jour (well, one of the big ones, anyway): why won't the Catholic Church relax about gay marriage? And how can we claim to be purveyors of mercy and love while simultaneously denying a subset of the population their shot at happily every after?

This is not an easy teaching in our present cultural climate, but it is a simple one, I promise. The bottom line is thus: the Catholic Church will never recognize gay marriage because there is no such thing as a gay marriage.

Are there same sex couples who love each other and are attracted to each other and who desire to build a shared life together? Absolutely. But what they have cannot be called marriage, because it does not meet the necessary criteria: marriage is a life long, covenanted commitment between two persons of the opposite sex ordered toward the mutual good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. 

I know the arguments and I'm sure you do too, but I'll just go ahead and highlight the usual suspects: what about couples who get divorced? What about couples who are biologically incapable of having children? What about couples who cheat/beat/lie/steal/hurt one another? How can those marriages be called such while loving, committed same-sex couples are denied the dignity of the title?

Simply put, because even though human beings are inevitably going to fall short of the glory to which each of us are called, God and His Church are never going to lower the standards in order to wallow with us in our misery. He will, however, lower His arms in order to lift us up to the life He desires for us.

Marriage is a higher calling, a natural attempt to live out a supernatural reality. We're all incapable of answering that call without the sacramental graces God provides. And even then, we still screw it up. Over and over again. But that's not an argument for altering the terms on the designer's part, is it?

Marriage, the big-M sacramental kind, is not primarily ordered toward personal fulfillment or entertainment or even happiness. All those things are (hopefully) wrapped up in the larger experience of the marriage relationship, but they're not guaranteed, and they're actually not the point. The twofold end of marriage is the mutual good of the spouses (and sometimes what's good for you isn't necessarily pleasant) and the procreation and education of children. So a marriage can never be, from the outset, intentionally damaging to one or both spouses or closed to life. That's actually not "marriage" at all.

Gay marriage is a misnomer because homosexual relationships are not ordered toward the good of the other, and because they are fundamentally sterile. So right off the bat, neither of the twofold "goods" of marriage are present. Basically put, the raw material is missing from the start. Think of it like baking a cake without sugar, flour, or eggs. You can certainly attempt something cake-shaped and perhaps even vaguely reminiscent of cake in flavor (and I speak from sad, paleo experience here) but you're not really eating cake. The ingredients are wrong.

Human beings are more complex than baked goods, and the issue of who should be allowed to marry is a touchy one, but keep this in mind going forward: every adult human person has, by nature of their inalienable dignity, the right to pursue marriage if they are so called. But nobody has the right to redefine or reconstruct marriage in order to suit their own tastes or preferences. So while we are all extended the invitation to enter into the Sacrament of marriage, we are not permitted to alter its essence.

More the point, we're not actually capable of altering its essence. Marriage "is" something deeper than human eyes can see: it's a re-imaging of the love of the Trinity, and a participation in God's own nature of self-giving and life-producing love. And in His design we're welcome to participate, but we're not able to change the terms.

This is a tough sell to a culture largely incapable of philosophical or metaphysical reasoning, but the truth of it isn't diminished by our inability to grasp it.

In a culture such as ours which has embraced contraception, abortion, divorce and a whole host of other evils, this is a particularly difficult concept. Because how high and mighty do you have to be to say that I can do all kinds of crazy sh*t in the name of freedom and autonomy but that poor slob over there can't marry his boyfriend, because sin.

Yeah, it's a tough sell for sure. But it's all a piece. Those other touchy issues we'll surely touch upon this month? The Church will never alter her position on those, either, and for the same reason: She only has our best interests at heart. And She will never sell us short, even when we fail to recognize our own dignity. Especially when we fail to recognize our own dignity.

Here's your takeaway lesson from today's post: the Church will never recognize gay marriage because there is no such thing as gay marriage. There's also no such thing as consecrated Oreos standing in for the Eucharist. Right form, wrong matter.

Is this going to facilitate amicable water cooler discussions between coworkers or pleasant Thanksgiving dinners? Probably not. But in a culture fixated on the physical world to the ignorance of the spiritual, it's a good starting point for reawakening the eyes of the soul.

The Power of the Little Flower

I have something super fun to share with you guys later today, but for now I'm running out the door with children hanging off my literal person and late for everything.

To tide you over, here's a piece I wrote in honor of my #1 lady saint today, whose feast we will most definitely be commemorating with good French wine tonight: St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us!

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

St. Maximilian Kolbe and Living in the Present Tense

{In honor of Thursday's feast day, a little something I whipped up in honor of one of our family's patron saints -- Joseph Kolbe is named for the angel of Auschwitz. Let's beg the intercession of a man who died a heroic death at the hands of the Nazis in a particular way for our brothers and sisters who are suffering terribly right now in Iraq, Syria, and around the globe. New conflicts, same old evil.}

On August 14th the Catholic Church celebrates the life of a man who died wearing the notorious stripes of Auschwitz. He lived a life of professed celibacy, poverty, and obedience, and he met his martyrdom not at the end of a sword on a battlefield, but in a dimly lit bunker filled with the stench of human waste and decaying flesh. His death was meant to make him feel powerless. It was his humiliating death, however, which would engrave his name in the annals of human history, and in the trophy room of heaven.

St. Maximilian, born Raymund Kolbe in the kingdom of Poland, joined the conventional Franciscans with his brother, Francis, at the age of 13. He enrolled in minor seminary after illegally crossing the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and was accepted into the novitiate when he turned 16. He took the name Maximilian Maria to honor Mary, whose cause he would champion all his life.

During St. Maximilian's doctoral studies in Rome, he become convicted of the need to fight the growing influence of Freemasons and other demonic forces warring against the Catholic Church, and so he founded the Militia Immaculata, a movement dedicated to the spread of devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart. At the peak of the MI's influence, their magazine circulated to one million monthly subscribers, thanks to Kolbe's media savvy and use of cutting edge techniques in radio and publishing. 

His health was not great. He'd suffered a bout of tuberculosis in his youth which left him frail, and he routinely pushed himself beyond reasonable human limits even for a person in good health. This was not a man who lived in the future; his concern was solely for the good he could do in the present moment.

St. Maximilian's efforts in the MI took him around the globe to Japan, India, and finally home to Poland where, at the outbreak of WWII, he was able to shelter more than 2,000 Polish Jews from Nazi aggression. When the Gestapo discovered his efforts, he was taken into custody and imprisoned at Auschwitz. It was May of 1941.

A few months later, toward the end of July, there was a break out in the camp. To give an example to their captives, the Nazis randomly selected 10 men to be executed in retaliation for the escape. They were to be starved to death in an underground bunker. One of the men selected to die cried out in anguish at his sentencing: "my wife, my children!" 

Fr. Maximilian stepped forward.

"I am a Catholic priest," he stated simply, "I wish to die for that man."

Living in the moment. Embracing his present cross as simply the next right thing to do, St. Maximilian willingly entered the underground bunker that would become his tomb.

Reports from the prison guards tell the rest of the story. Each morning when they checked on the condemned men, Fr. Kolbe would be found kneeling or standing cheerfully in the center of the group. As hunger and thirst drove the prisoners to madness, forcing them to drink their own urine and lick the walls of the bunker for moisture, Fr. Kolbe was there, accompanying them. He was one of them and yet somehow calm in the midst of the horror. He encouraged them, he prayed with them, he heard their confessions if they so desired, and then, at the end, he alone remained conscious, watching over them and walking with them into the valley of the shadow of death.

His heroism didn't display itself in the face of a firing squad. When he stepped forward to save the life of Franciszek Gajowniczek, he was simply doing the next right thing. He lived in the moment, accepting the challenges of his situation as they presented themselves. He didn't think about 2 weeks without food or water trapped in a small room filled with panic and death. He simply saw a need, recognized his capacity to do something about it, and stepped out in faith.

When at last, on August 14th, 1941 the Nazis decided they needed the starvation bunker for new victims, Fr. Kolbe was given a lethal intravenous dose of carbolic acid to stop his lion's heart. He held out his left arm as the doctor approached him, offering himself up, until the very end, as a willing victim. His body was cremated without ceremony or reverence, like so many other millions. But his heroism echoed throughout the camp, a beacon of hope in a dark hell of suffering and human misery.

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was canonized in 1981 by Pope St. John Paul II, who declared him “a martyr of charity.”

And Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose life St. Maximilian Kolbe ransomed? He made it home to Poland, where he lived to be 95 years old. But every year on August 14th he returned to Auschwitz to pay his respects to the saint whose life consisted of a series of choices for the present good, culminating in a sacrifice of the highest order.