Why We Don't Let the Neighbors Tell Us How to Raise The Kids

My dear fellow Catholics. My brothers and sisters.

We are, in fact, in a rather unique family, are we not?

Huge. Dysfunctional. Multitalented. Holy. Scandalous. Disappointing. Inspiring.

It's much like any other family, plus or minus about a billion members.

We have our quirks and our shortcomings, our saints and our sinners. We are imperfect and wonderfully weird and, first and foremost, we are universal.

That's unbelievably ambitious, by the way, for God to cobble something together from so many disparate and diverse members and call it holy and apostolic. If nothing else convinces you of the divinity behind the longevity of Catholicism, let it be this: that we haven't all killed each other yet.

And so now we have the internet. The 24/7 news cycle. The entire world up in each other's business in a way previously unfathomable to mankind. And there are pros and cons to this never-ending glut of information to process. I would offer as a giant con the seemingly global disability to process well, at least for 99% of the literate populace. We're very good at emoting and reacting. We're less adept at reasoning and reflecting.

Each era has its own challenges and triumphs. We live in the Information Age, for better or worse, and so we must learn what (and whether) to do with the information that is assaulting our eyeballs and our eardrums at literally every waking moment. Do we process it all? Filter it out? React to everything that moves us?

Social media complicates this further, because everyone has a platform and, therefore, the right to exercise it. It's the great equalizer, making would-be journalists and talking heads of us all.

But remember, not all sources of information are created equal. And not everyone with a loud microphone and a robust Twitter following has the capacity to speak thoughtfully and thoroughly on a given issue.

My biggest complaint with the Francis papacy, 2 years in, is the reaction of seemingly well-formed and practicing Catholics to the Things He Says Which Are Outrageous.

Let me back up and preface what is about to be said; it is true that this Holy Father of ours is not the most eloquent speaker. It is true that he speaks his heart readily, and that he uses culturally-hamstrung idioms and analogies. He is not an intellectual (and I don't think he would take offense at my saying so) and he is not a philosopher. His mind has not been sharpened by 40 years of rigorous theological study and debate, and his worldview was most decidedly not formed by the Western/European experience.

But he is the Pope. He is the Successor of Peter, chosen by his brother cardinals under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead the Church now, today, in the year 2015. Not in the year 2012 or 1987 or 1334. He's here for us, right now. Just as each of us were handpicked to live in such a time as this.

And if I don't agree with everything that comes out of his mouth (and I don't) and if some of what I read in his writings makes me squirm (and it does), there's one thing for certain: I'm sure as hell not going to let someone from outside the family tell me what I should think about it.

Now, there's nothing stopping my next door neighbor, my barista, or the lady at our local grocery store from commenting on how I'm raising my kids, how closely spaced they are, or what kinds of trash I'm serving up at the dinner table, but freedom of speech is not the same thing as rightful authority.

See what I'm saying?

Yes, the guy at Starbucks can comment on my mewling pack of toddlers and advise me to put a stranglehold on the flow of progeny issuing forth from our marital union, but I'm not about to invite him into our bedroom to pour over my NFP charts and help us decide if and when the time is right for another kid.

He can comment away all he likes, but I don't have to (and sure as hell shouldn't, in fact) listen.

Similarly, CNN, MSNBC, the AP, America magazine, your token crackpot SSPX blogger, and all the rest are very, very free to comment on every thing the Pope says and does, what it means, what it doesn't mean, and what you, as a Catholic, SIMPLY MUST DO ABOUT IT.

But you know better than to be getting your family business from the guy at the post office, don't you?

You're not really going to let someone outside the family - and as is often the case, utterly opposed to the very existence of the family - tell you your family business, are you?

Misquotable or not, Pope Francis is our Pope. He's our father. He's also a figure of contradiction and amusement and confusion and excitement and all the other adjectives for the rest of the world, looking on in wonder/disgust/mild curiosity. So yes, he will be in the news. And yes, all the things he says will be analyzed and dissected and translated and represented to you, the consumer, to ingest.

But it's your responsibility to monitor the quality.

I can't expect to have a well-formed opinion of or appreciation for the Pope if all I read about him comes through the secular media who simultaneously reviles the Catholic Church and desperately wants to see her fall into ruin. I can't seriously hope to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him on my little old heart if, instead of reading his encyclicals and his homilies, all I know of him is filtered through a Buzzfeed article or Rachel Maddow's stimulating commentary.

Come on.

Would you let someone talk about your biological father that way? Would you give them that same authority over your opinion of him?

I thought not.

It's an imperfect analogy, because yes, the Pope is a very public figure. But remember this: we have a responsibility before God to answer for the information we take in, be it in the form of entertainment or "news." We're not just open trash receptacles, and words and ideas have consequences. So don't let someone who doesn't have your - or your family's - best interests at heart be the one to tell you your family business.

Your mama raised you better than that.

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(Some resources I do heartily endorse for your Papal reading pleasure:)

Catholic News Agency

Vatican Information Service

Vatican Radio

Aci Prensa (Espanol)

Eye of the Tiber

Christmas is a BIG deal {and that's okay}

I know the days of being able to wow our kids with a couple of thoughtfully-curated, $20 something Christmas gifts are numbered. Or are they?

I want to keep our family's focus on the real meaning of Christmas: Him. But I also want to really party it up, you know? And to me, party = presents. Not a ton of presents, necessarily, but a decent handful of brightly colored packages strewn under the (absolutely must be real) Christmas tree.

When I was growing up I remember one of the most magical moments of the season being that predawn treck down the stairs to the sight of a figurative ocean of Christmas presents spilling out from under the tree and filling the entry way of my parent's home. My parents knew how to go big.

But not necessarily bank-breaking big. With 7 kids (did you guys know I'm the oldest of 7?) times 3-4 presents each, plus grandparent gifts, we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 packages under that tree.

And it.was.awesome.

There was something about the superabundance of gifts under the tree that communicated, to my childish heart, the significance of the event we were celebrating. And it didn't matter that some of them were from the dollar store, or that inevitably, grandma's gifts were going to be lame pajamas (that I would die of happiness to receive today. Go figure.)

It was the ridiculous too-much ness of Christmas morning that helped me realize that ... this is a pretty big deal.

Now this is not to say that you can't have a lovely, minimalist Christmas punctuated by handmade gifts and baked goods. This is simply my own alternative perspective on the whole "Christmas is too commercialized/we're not doing presents on principle!" line of reasoning that seeks, rightfully so, to reclaim the season for Christ.

I think it can be both/and, though.

I think you can have a meaningful, sacramental, beautiful Christmas filled with bright paper packages and hymns and carols.

And I think it's okay to want to fill the space under the tree with a couple - or more than a couple - thoughtfully chosen gifts for your kids and spouse, never forgetting for a moment that He is the gift par excellence.

Also, we believe wholeheartedly in Santa in this house. But that's another post for another time.

So, without further ado, I present to you our hundred-something dollar Christmas which I hope will wow the crowd appropriately. (And, in keeping to a 3 gift per child limit, I realize that the only way we can really up the number of packages under the tree is by upping the number of butts in the seats. Gulp.)

For Joey, age 4:

This camera, which I fully expect to blow his mind while at the same time preserving my ancient iPhone to live to snap another day.

This collection of Star Wars peeps. Because my little apple didn't fall far from the tree.

This watch. Because learning! And Lightening McQueen.

For John Paul, age 2.5:

This remote control car. He's going to sob with delight when he opens it. And it alleges to be easily controlled by fat little fingers.

This watch. Because Batman.

This liturgically significant catechetical toy. Which will be shared by the whole clan, and will be personally delivered by St. Nicholas himself on December 6th. (My kids write letters to St. Nicholas, aka Santa, and leave them in their shoes on the evening of December 5th. Little do they know they're getting more than gold coins this year.)

For Genevieve, age 11 months:

These sweet little shoes. She's still utterly uninterested in doing anything resembling standing, but I figured these might give her some motivation. Plus, John Paul had a pair of Pedipeds in Italy and I loved them so much.

These adorable knee socks, which I pray can summit her 3-inch long calves and secure themselves above her cankles, staying in the upright position like no sock has yet to do.

And finally, this cool looking thing, which will be her first official "new" toy, not counting a baby doll and a stuffed kitty cat (all my kids have been given a Jellycat stuffie from birth and they are the attachment object par excellence. Do yourself a favor and check them out.)

So that's it. And looking over it in a list like this, it looks like a lot! But it was less than $150 for everything, and it will make for a nice little pile of packages under the tree. 

We also adopt a family equal in size to our own each year at our church, and I have a sort of unwritten rule that whatever we spend on our kids, we spend on theirs. It helps temper my natural desire to BUY ALL THE THINGS, and will be, we hope, instructive to our kids as they grow up and see that whatever we do for them we will match in charitable giving. So they could technically get twice as many gifts, but then the other family would not get their Christmas. 

So that's it. An alternative perspective on the annual introspective about presents vs. Jesus. Maybe He's the big Present, and the smaller ones help little impressionable people connect with that on a heart-deep level. That's my hope, at least.

 Now, onward to Advent!

The link between contraception and homosexuality (and it's not what you'd think)

Sometimes God just throws you a big 'ol softball and you can't help but take a swing at it.

I had the unexpected privilege today to interview Fr. Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, for a forthcoming episode of Heroic Media (it's slated to air Nov. 1st on EWTN) and he said something profound. Actually he said about a dozen things that were profound, but one sentence stuck with me, because I've been reflecting on it for years. It was, loosely paraphrased,

"50 years ago as a culture, we severed the connection between sex and babies, and ever since, we've distanced ourselves further and further from the reality of sex."

Basically, with the advent of commercially available birth control, once it became permissible for some couples to engage in sterile sex, it was only a matter of time before other couples came clamoring for their own perceived "rights" in the sexual arena.

If you think about it it makes a lot of sense. If married couples can have sex without babies, and indeed, if sex has nothing to do with babies (until and unless we tell it to) then who's to say what constitutes "sex," anyway?

Maybe sex is just mutual masturbation. Maybe sex is any genital contact in any configuration, as determined by the participating parties. Maybe there can be more than 2 parties involved. Maybe there are no rules at all, because we've remade sex in our own image and to our own liking, forgetting that we were made in His image and likeness.

When society accepted contraception as commonplace and replaced the expectation that children might reasonably result from sexual activity with the promise that sex could be "freed" from any consequence, we got more than we bargained for.

What we've got, in short, is a civilization in sexual free fall, and a society that is struggling to piece together some kind of new normal. And meanwhile there are victims everywhere, the walking wounded who've bought the lie and who've been burned by the reality that sex is much, much more powerful than we give it credit for.

Homosexual couples, within this modern sexual construct, have every right to the same kind of sterile, self-centered sex that heterosexual couples are practicing. 

Because if sex doesn't lead to babies, and if marriage isn't ordered towards procreation and the mutual good of the spouses (laymen terms: getting each other to heaven), then we can pretty much reinterpret marriage through whatever lens suits our particular world view. And really, we ought to, from an egalitarian perspective. Fair's fair.

But it's not really possibly to separate sex from its life-giving potential.

Deny it, yes. Suppress it, sure. But the reality of sex is that it was meant to do this thing, to bond two people together in such a profound and lasting way that, in the words of my favorite professor, "9 months later you might have to give it a name."

Homosexual sex can never do that.

Even a surgically sterilized, contracepting, post-menopausal married couple was, at one point, fundamentally capable of bringing forth new life by the very nature of their creations as male and female.

We are intentionally designed, and in the design we see the potential for participation in the creative heart of God, in His own divine life. Life which begets love, from love.

This is in no way an attack on the dignity of the human person who struggles with same sex attraction. And it's not a judgement on people who engage in a homosexual relationships.

The Church has always taught, and will always teach, that although contraception and homosexual activity are immoral and gravely disordered activities, those persons practicing them are worthy of the same love and respect of every other person on this planet.

I hope you know that. The Church does not condemn you. She is mother. She is the place where you are unconditionally loved and accepted.

But like any good mother, the Church desires what is best for her children, and what will serve their ultimate happiness.

There is freedom here.

For further reading on what the Church teaches on homosexuality check out Courage's website.

And you know I'm going to end this post by telling you to read Humanae Vitae again.

Click here to read the rest of the series.

Why can't Catholics get married outside?

This one's kind of a softball compared with the past couple days, but I am exhausted from the pace of this thing. Like what the h was I thinking committing myself to 31 days of posting about not things like toddlers peeing under the coffee table (happened) or how to make frozen yogurt paleo (answer: eat it fast enough you can pretend it didn't happen. Ahem.)

Anyway, here's a softer, gentler post for today. Church weddings - what's the big deal?

I've heard all the arguments about the mountains being God's cathedrals and the ocean being His swimming pool, or something along those lines, and I'll heartily concur that nature powerfully reveals God to man, and that there is something awe-inspiring and reverent about being in the great outdoors.

But here's the deal. A Catholic wedding, the birth of a Christian marriage, is a Sacramental affair. And Sacraments, when at all possible, belong within the consecrated boundaries of a church.

A church building is not just a building to Catholics, you see. Like the Jews of the Old Testament we revere the place where God dwells in a tangible way, where He is truly present. He is of course present everywhere, as the author of all being, but He has chosen to dwell in a particular way (and a deeply humiliating way, when you think about it) in the physical form of bread. I'm talking, of course, about the Eucharist.

The Eucharist, Jesus Christ incarnate in the humble forms of bread and wine, is the heart of the Church. And the Eucharist hidden in the tabernacle (tiny gold box, center of the church, marked by a red, lit candle) is at the heart of a church building.

Since Catholics don't actually get married by a priest (he receives their vows as a witness. it's the couple themselves who administer the vows to one another) it's essential that they exchange their vows in the presence of the High Priest, the Eucharistic Jesus, present to them in a powerful and tangible way in the tabernacle. Yes, the priest (or deacon) is there to officiate the wedding ceremony, in one sense. But it is Jesus who receives our pledge our fidelity to our spouse. It is Jesus who extends the grace to make marriage a Sacrament. And it is in Jesus' house, aka a church, where we go to receive this Sacrament.

Could a couple be married outside (literally, like in a field) the Catholic church and still have a valid marriage? Yep. But it's not ideal. It would of course be a different matter under situations of duress, like during wartime or political unrest/religious persecution, or when it's not possible to get to a church, but the desire to have a unique seaside ceremony punctuated by a dolphin salute and fireworks is not sufficient reason to go outside.

Does that make sense?

So it's not a matter of being stuffy or backwards or old fashioned, at least not in the sense that we're just not yet hip to the all inclusive splendor of a Sandal's nuptial package...it's that we have a very sacramental understanding of the Sacrament of marriage. And certain Sacraments - Baptism, Reconciliation, First Communion, Marriage, Ordination...take place within the physical boundaries of a church, a consecrated space set aside for worship.

Whew. I'm over and out. See you tomorrow.

I'm contracepting because I'm being responsible

So you're going to have a baby. Congratulations! Now let's sit down and discuss how much that's going to cost you, exactly. I think the going rate is like 300K from birth through college, but I don't really have time to google it. So be my guest. Anyway it's a crapload of money, so I hope you've got a great job, a banging 401K, and an unlimited slush fund for plastic surgery, because also, your midsection is headed down the road to ruin.

I've heard over and over again from plenty of people all the reasons why having more kids is stupid/too expensive/too dangerous/not possible in their situation.

I don't want to make light of suffering and real, incredible hardships. Are there couples who absolutely cannot find another penny to afford another morsel of bread or drop of milk to sustain the lives of their children and should therefore be conscientiously choosing to postpone or avoid the conception of additional offspring. Absolutely. All over the world. In our county too. There are couples who are suffering and whose families are under incredible strain, both financial and otherwise.

And to these couples the Church champions the ONLY sane, compassionate and 100% failsafe approach, and that is abstinence during times of fertility.

To act otherwise, to do the thing with your body that says "I am open to life, I am doing the thing which has the potential to create new life" and then to be shocked or saddened or horrified when life finds a way (as it often does, Dr. Grant) is madness.

Here's the bottom line here: when there is a circumstance that would make having another baby absolutely positively bat shit out of control crazy ... you should not have sex, which is how babies are made.

Now let's talk about the less serious issues driving the "we just can't have any (more)" narrative. I get it, kids are expensive. The economy is crazy. Life is uncertain.

But that's just it. Life is uncertain. You never know what the next year or hell, even the next day is going to bring. There's just no way to entirely leverage your risk and manage your exposure in this life. And that includes the realm of family planning.

Now, the Church does not encourage wild, unfettered pop-em-till-you-drop copulation at the expense of the mother's (or father's, or family's) health or sanity. That's a tired old stereotype that was probably born out of some poor pastoral care and some truth. But we have such beautiful, life giving and profoundly freeing teachings on sex and love and marriage literally at our fingertips. It's breathtaking.

(Go ahead and google "Humanae Vitae" right now. I'll wait. Okay, now leave it open in your window and promise you'll read it next. It's like 5 pages long.)

Meanwhile, we are trying so desperately and so futilely to control and to manage and to arrange every single aspect of our lives - it's as though God is not present at all, or at best is some doddering deadbeat of a deity who grumps at us from the Old Testament and shouts "thou shalt not's" at us from his celestial perch.

The Church's teaching on contraception is not a restriction. It is not a "thou shalt not." It is an invitation to freedom. To wild trust and abandonment. To another way of living, to a fuller way of living. It is, quite simply, utterly counter cultural and completely unreasonable.

But whose standard of reason are we applying?

The world's?

How's that working out for us?

I'm extending an invitation to you to take a second look. To open your mind to the possibility that it might not be completely stupid to take the the Bride of Christ, the Catholic Church, at her word when she invites her children to not do the thing which will harm them. Jesus asks hard things of us when we take up our crosses and follow him. Sometimes the hard things are shaped like babies. And sometimes they're shaped like seasons of abstinence and self denial. And sometimes they're shaped like little pink pill cases nestled into the bottom of the bathroom trash can, opening up a new chapter and a new season of possibility.

Never say never.

Read the rest of the series here.

Why do Catholics have so many kids?

"Wow, you've sure got your hands full."

No matter how many times I hear this and no matter how well intentioned the speaker, it always rubs me the wrong way. One time in the grocery store I did actually lift my hands from the cart, bearing two blonde heads, and hold them up in the air whilst the baby dangled from the Ergo across my midsection and loudly announced "NOT RIGHT NOW I DON'T!" which sent the kindly fifty-something woman sharing the bread aisle with me scooting backward, nervously, laughing out of confusion and fear.

But yes, I suppose my hands are full. I just feel like I'm in some kind of bizarre, narrative-driven ABC family drama when complete strangers announce it to me over and over again. Can you imagine yelling to a man walking his dog down the street "wow, you must pick up crap all day long!" or maybe suggesting to a person in a wheelchair "Man, I bet your arms are always tired!" Not that I'm comparing my children to dog poop or a mobility impairment, but come on people, let's try to be a little more creative.

Moving on.

Catholics do, in fact, tend to have larger than average families, though that number is sadly diminishing, at least among the cafeteria variety who don't actually practice what the Church preaches.

(This is emphatically NOT a jab at smaller Catholic families who are for whatever reason unable to have child(ren). This piece is a must read for facilitating better understanding between families of all sizes in the pews.)

And why do we have more children than the average family? Ding ding ding, I'll take patriarchal oppression and denied access to contraception for a thousand, Alex. 

Oh, wait, nope, that's actually not the reason. Want to know the real reason Catholics have more kids?

Come closer.

Closer.

Okay, are you ready for this?

It's because we like them.

Like we actually full on appreciate small humans and think the world would be a better place with more of them around. Isn't that bizarre?

And it's also because we practice realistic sex: sex as it actually exists in reality, in nature, in all it's messy and impressive and inscrutable design.

And in reality, sex is where babies come from, when everything is in proper working order.

Did you get that? Catholics have more babies because babies are sometimes the result of having sex. And since we believe that sex is good, true, beautiful, and perfectly designed by a God who loves us and wants us to be happy, we accept it on His terms, embracing the mystery and honestly, sometimes, the suffering inherent in our fertility.

Now, just a little PSA because I'm kind of embarassed by this as a fellow female of the species but did you know that you can't actually get pregnant save for a small (or large, in my case) window each month during a woman's cycle? Apparently like 90% of adult women have no real idea how their bodies work and that's just sad to me. And a little bit the opposite of empowered and independent and free choice-y. But I digress. We'll get there later this week.

Back to the babies. Oh, those babies. See, the reason we keep having them isn't, contrary to popular belief, because we haven't figured out what causes them, or because we don't have a television. The reason they keep showing up is because, frankly, they're kind of the best thing about being human, and having them is an incredible privilege and it's hard as hell and yes, self denial and self obliteration on a daily basis but ... it's so worth it.

And since we're not supposed to be using contraception, we actually have to discuss the possibility during seasons of fertility (i.e. months where you get a regular cycle) whether or not it would be prudent to have another child at this juncture. And then, if the mutually discerned and prayed for answer is: do it, then we do it.

Ba dum ching.

But seriously, do you know what kind of freedom that can bring into a marriage? And how selfless you have to be to ask these kinds of questions over and over again? And how incredibly incapable you know you are to handle yet another little responsibility with your last name, but then they get here and you can't imagine having said "no," and slowly your grinchy little heart begins to grow and you actually become a better, more productive, and - please God - holier member of the human race.

It's a wild ride.

But seriously, we're just in it for the sweet retirement party. And for the moment when we can whip out our iPhone 27s in the grocery store and torture innocent bystanders with holograms of our 8 children and 34 grandchildren because finally, our freaking hands are empty and we can work the keypad.

Click here for the rest of the series.

Catholics Do What? (31 Days to Understanding the Catholic Church's Teachings on Sex and Marriage)

I've been toying with the idea of joining the Nester for her annual 31 day writing challenge and now that October 1 has arrived, I can think of at least 23 reasons why committing to a project of this magnitude is a horrible idea, but I keep circling back to the notion of 'resistance,' which I believe Jen Fulwiler first introduced me to, and I can't help but think the fact that my mother's helper is awol for half the month, both my sons fell (separately) down the basement stairs today and Evie has the diaper rash/ear infection/teething trifecta to end all baby ailments simultaneously might just be a little bit of satanic static trying to slow my roll.

So I'm saying yes. This is my gift to the Church for the occasion of the extraordinary synod on the family, convening in Rome one week from today and lasting for 14 remarkable days, where the bishops of the universal Church will discuss "The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization." They'll be covering everything from divorce and remarriage to annulments to reproductive technologies and infertility to homosexuality. And of course, everybody's favorite Catholic stepchild, contraception. 

Each day of October I'll be writing on a different topic within that larger theme, with the hope that someone out there needs to hear the clear, concise truth of what the Church teaches about: (insert stumbling block here.)

So stay tuned, you're going to be hearing from me a lot this month. And pray for my poor kids, because I'm not even joking, somebody fell backwards off the couch while I was typing these 4 paragraphs. So many toddler heads to bang on so many hard surfaces...

Day 1 

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 

Day 5

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Day 27

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.

Can Catholics get vasectomies?

Alternately titled: things that go 'snip snip'

There seems to be a lot of interest in Catholic s-e-x despite the sad reality that few practicing Catholics are actually, um, practicing what is preached (or what too frequently isn't preached in far too many parishes around the world.) So on the heels of this wildly popular instructable on how to 'do' birth control as a Catholic (hint: don't) I thought we could talk about something else really fun and totally appropriate to discuss on the internet with strangers: vasectomies.

Okay, maybe we'll talk about tubal ligations, too.

Fun fact: I was actually offered a tubal at the 'catholic' hospital we delivered John Paul Francis in (oh the irony) when he was about, oh, 4 hours old. It wasn't the first birth control option they threw out there for me to consider but the fact that it was even on the table when I, at age 29, had just popped out my second healthy child was, quite frankly, baffling. I mean sure, I bled a little more than was polite in the final stage of labor but come on, you want to spay me after two kids? I hadn't even 'gotten' my girl yet. Sheesh, people. 

Anyway, back to the riveting topic du jour: bodily mutilation. For that, gentle reader, is precisely what takes place when a section of woman's fallopian tubes or a man's vas deferens are either cauterized/removed/severed. First off I'd like to give a big old shout out to GROSS because hi, when I have parts of my body cauterized, it usually means something has gone very, very wrong.

Secondly, does anyone find it curious that in a culture where infertility is such a mysterious billion dollar industry where few medical professionals care to take the time to examine the root causes, we're more than happy to snip, clip, or remove those perfectly healthy, properly functioning parts once a couple/individual has decided "welp, we're all done using that. So long, bodily system."

I mean, can you imagine if any other piece of the complex puzzle of the human anatomy was simply removed for 'working too well'? I know, I know, spleens...and appendixes. But come on, those are always taken in times of disease or illness. Can anyone name one other instance in which we attack a healthy body part and dispose of it because we're tired of it functioning properly?

So I digress, because that's not the reason the Church opposes sterilization as a form of contraception. I mean sure, it's a part of it, the whole 'your body is a temple' concept and the human person being created in the image and likeness of God, but really, the practice of sterilization is condemned for the same reason any other means of contraception is: it fundamentally damages the relationship between the created human person and the Creator.

It's the same, tired, ages old attempt of man to try to "know better" than God. And in so doing, in trying to 'know,' he ends up self-harming.

Harming his body, harming his relationship to his spouse, and harming his relationship to his God.

Contraception is simply another effort in the long, tired litany of "I will not serves" that seeks to wrest control over life from God's hands into our own.

But another baby would kill me.

We can't afford to have any more kids.

I have a chronic, pregnancy-exacerbated disease.

My husband is cheating on me.

I'm not married.

I'm a college student.

And to all those valid, troubling, serious protestations, there is but one possible answer:

Don't have sex.

Seriously, that's the answer.

If there is some condition or circumstance so absolutely grave that to bring a child into it would be disastrous, then the only conceivable answer is to avoid the act which creates children. Because as with any other form of contraception, things can - and very often do - go wrong. Condoms break. Sperm get through. Pills fail to dispense enough estrogen. And sometimes, yes, even sometimes when surgical measures have been taken...life finds a way.

Life's like that, you know? Miraculous, sometimes. And utterly confounding. And the only realistic answer to the problem of "we definitely can't conceive right now" is "You definitely shouldn't be having sex right now." Because you know what must be available when people who 'definitely shouldn't get pregnant right now' get pregnant? Abortion. Abortion must be available to back up failed contraception. Maybe not for you personally, but for somebody. For a lot of somebodies.

50% of all abortions are performed on women who were using contraception when they conceived.

This is a hard teaching. Almost impossible, by our current culture's standards. Lots of Christianity is hard, though. The Eucharist. Immortality. A God made man, dwelling among us.

It's all had to swallow.

But what's the alternative?

Our culture would have us believe that sex is paramount to all other human experiences, that children are the ultimate inconvenience, that the body is the end all and be all of our existence, and that the only real path to happiness is paved with shiny toys.

And you know what? Our culture is effing miserable. Divorces. Broken marriages and broken families. Kids killing themselves, each other, their parents. Parents killing their kids. Spouses cheating on each other, sometimes with the explicit permission of the other spouse. And on and on.

Ain't none of what our culture's dishing making anybody truly happy. So why take sex advice from such a source?

Just because something is common doesn't make it normal. And just because something is popular doesn't make it right.

For more reading on this topic check out Humanae Vitae for yourself. Seriously. Even if you're not Catholic. Even if you've read it before. Read it again. Then look at the time stamp and let your jaw drop when you do the math.

Fifty years.

(A little post script: Some couples have pursued sterilization without full knowledge of the gravity of their actions -- maybe they weren't properly instructed in their faith, maybe their doctors gave them an ultimatum (sadly common) and maybe their own pastors urged them to take the step (even sadder), and, if this is the case, there is always room for reconciliation with God and with the Church. Even if the procedure is irreversible - which is not always the case! never hurts to ask - the human heart is, amazingly, always capable of true contrition and repentance. So please do not feel condemned by this information. Find a good confessor, make things right, and begin the path to rebuilding your relationship with your Father and with your spouse. It's NEVER too late to make things right.)

JPII Love Story Linkup

You guys…I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude and I'm so humbled by all the prayer requests and intentions you've shared - keep 'em coming! We're going to get a little notebook and write them all down so that we can physically carry them with us and pray with them when things get rough 8 hours into the second leg of our flight. You know, like really holy people who offer up specific contractions for people during labor? Yeah, like that, because with travel, there's no narcotic option. (But I think we all know I'd take it if there were.)

This way, you can be there, in a way, standing with us in the Square when he is declared "Santo" … or standing with us .75 miles away near the Tiber, as it were. We'll see how close we can get without fear of "crushing the bambino!" which I'm guessing is more of a real threat when the projected attendance is near 5 million souls and there are triple the number of babies in one's care.

If the past 24 hours have shown me anything, it's how very powerful the intercession of Bl. John Paul II is, and how many people love him. And I know there are stories behind that love, and I want to hear them! I went so far as to design a graphic and will now begin the painful process of learning how to create a link up (what kind of blogger am I? I know.) so that we can remember him together, and celebrate our friendship with him as we lead up to the big day next week. So let me have it, I want your stories of how he changed your life, how he led you to your vocation, how he saved your sorry ass from yourself (that would be my story)…and always keeping in mind (for any of my non-Catholic readers) that when we celebrate the life of a saint it's in the same fashion you might celebrate the life of a loved one at a wake or funeral service. Only happier, because yay, Eternal Life! And to further clarify, we pray with the saints, asking their intercession the same way you might call your mom and ask her to remember to pray for your big meeting/test/heartbreak. It's that familial relationship within the body of Christ that gives us the confidence to say, hey, St. Joseph, brother in Christ, will you ask the Lord on my behalf for such-and-such?

I hope that makes sense. Moving on.

I'll link up my own story here later this week, and I invite you to do the same. Because if there's anything I'm sure of, it's that a whole lotta people love JPII, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate!

An InLinkz Link-up

Let's be Done

I so want to throw my hands up and yell 'enough' to the beneficent creator of the universe who has seen fit to send three bouncing bundles of joy our way in a little over 4 years. Especially after days like today. Especially after bedtime pretty much every night. 

Even now, as I sit here convalescing in the family room, I can hear faint wailing coming from the back corner of the house as the boys resign themselves to the cyclical horror of pajamas and comfort objects in their black-out shade darkened bedroom. Evie is also starting to whimper, because 45 solid minutes of nursing wasn't sufficient to quench her raging bedtime thirst.

With no small amount of effort and resentment I heave my weary body off the couch and pad towards the kids' rooms. I hate this part of the day, and yet I am so very aware of how fleeting these frantic years of littleness really are.

It's also moments like these when I most closely empathize with our contraceptive culture. Because dammit, this is hard.

If that were the end game, keeping life relatively uncomplicated versus taking up one's cross and following…well then sign my doctor's name on the dotted Rx. I can completely understand why a couple would choose to limit the madness, to shut the door on the possibility of further complications, and to issue an indefinite 'no trespassing' mandate to the God of the universe, posted in plain sight on their bedroom door.

But that's not the endgame, is it? 

Our mortal toil here on earth is exactly that: work. A lot of it. No matter the circumstances or situation of one's life, nobody gets out without putting in some hard time. And children are a lot of work. In fact, they're kind of the perfect means by which those of us called to the married life can work out our salvation with fear and potty training. 

But they're more than just work, however ardently popular culture - and tired mommy bloggers like me - might try to convince you otherwise. They're also immortal souls. Little images of the Word made flesh, Who dwelt among us. And they deserve to be seen as more than accessories or add-ons to an otherwise 'perfect' and ordered life. 

Children are not something you 'do' in marriage once you've bought the house, landed the job, and signed the second lease agreement for the fancy SUV. They're actually the point of marriage, the other half of the twofold equation for 'the good of the spouses and the procreation of offspring.'

Surprised? Anyone in this culture would be. After all, how many times have we heard otherwise, been instructed otherwise, even heard preaching that insisted otherwise?

Children, our culture would have us believe, are optional upgrades at best, and life-ending impediments to happiness at worst. This is the fruit of contraception, and its evil twin sister, abortion. Children have become, in our minds, the enemy. The enemy of happiness. The enemy of productivity. The enemy of comfort, wealth, and leisure. And in making them so, we have aligned ourselves against God Himself.

"Whoever shall receive one of these children in my name, receives me: and whoever shall receive me, receives not me, but him that sent me."

We can easily forget, in all our planning and charting and discerning, that we're not ultimately in control. Even when science purports to tell us otherwise. Even when our hearts desperately wish we could be. Life, despite our best efforts to manipulate, frustrate, create, contort, and confine, is not entirely under our jurisdiction. To believe and to act otherwise is to live a lie, to mistake a charade for reality. 

Contraception has become one of the greatest charades in all of human history. It offers us the ultimate illusion of control: control of life itself.

Honestly, the Church doesn't condemn the practice of contraception because she wants more butts in the seats. She isn't trying to corner the market on future human beings, and she certainly isn't attempting to chain women to the cookstove with dozens of children, keeping her happily at home and tucked away from the public square. Couldn't be further from the truth.

She condemns the practice of contraception because of what it does to the person, to the marriage, to the potential children in question. It's all for love, and whether or not modern man can wrap his skeptical mind around this, it's the truth.

In his new pastoral letter, released today, Bishop Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska tells us the following: 

"God... created marriage to be unifying and procreative. To join husband and wife inseparably in the mission of love, and to bring forth from that love something new. Contraception robs the freedom for those possibilities."

Isn't that wild? It's the very opposite of what we've been sold by media and marketing and hollywood and…insert blame here. In many cases, it's the opposite of what we've heard at church. 

Contraception doesn't make us responsible adults; it renders us sterile adolescents, unable to grow in our faith or in our relationships. 

Bishop Conley goes on to quote soon-to-be-saint John Paul II:

In 1995, Blessed John Paul II wrote that our culture suffers from a “hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and… a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfillment."  Generous, life-giving spousal love is the antitode to hedonism and immaturity: parents gladly give up frivolous pursuits and selfishness for the intensely more meaningful work of loving and educating their children.

What the what? An obstacle to personal fulfillment? Hell, I feel like that every morning at 6:45. My children are deeply, endlessly opposed to my deepest means of personal fulfillment: sleep.

So you see, even my pew-warming butt needs to hear a message like this. Over and over again. And to re-read Humanae Vitae with a discerning heart and open eyes. 

Children are not some kind of marital accessory, a means of 'leveling up' to the next developmental stage of a romantic relationship. They're something new entirely. And at the end of the day, God forgive me for forgetting this over and over again. I am the foremost of sinners in the arena of marital love and charity. It's part of why I'm so deeply, painfully grateful for a Church who helps rehabilitate me daily. Hourly, some nights.

But perfect love casts out all fear. 

Fear of failure. Fear of bodily destruction (hellooooo stretch marks and extra 30 lbs). Fear of ridicule by a culture utterly opposed to what we are doing with our lives. Fear of loss, even…because the more you have to love, the more you have to lose.

Perfect love. It's the antidote to fear. And the antidote to a culture so utterly self absorbed that the very notion of delaying gratification or suffering for love of another is regarded as pathological.

Fear is at the root of our enormous distrust of life and our hopeless misunderstanding of love. We are a culture rich beyond belief, unprecedented in all of human history…and yet we live like anxious paupers, scrabbling around in the dirt for our daily bread when the One Who created us wants to lay a banquet of unfathomable riches.

I am the foremost of sinners. The most anxious pauper, scrabbling around for a scrap of security or worldly regard, worrying constantly about how things look or feel. Thank you, God, for illuminating my darkened intellect with the Truth of Your good plan for human life, for human love. Though I rail against it internally almost daily, my stubborn will consenting over and over again not my will, but yours, be done.

And that's why we never say never. We never declare, with any certainty or advanced knowledge that we're 'done.' Because who knows? We might overcome our deep-seated natural tendency toward selfishness again at some point in the future. And because we're not intentionally frustrating the procreative power of our married love, there might very well be a name to go along with that momentary lapse in selfishness, 9 months down the road.

Let's never be done living God's plan for our lives. Not until the final curtain call. 

(Read Bishop Conley's entire letter here. It's beyond good.)

The Case for Siblings

(Cross-posted at Catholic Exchange)

As I sit here with a few stolen minutes to give to my keyboard, my newborn daughter napping in my lap and my two young sons playing soccer in the backyard with the teenager I pay to entertain them twice a week, I can't help but worry that sometimes my children are being shortchanged by, well, each other.

When my husband and I got married in the Catholic Church, we vowed "to accept children lovingly from God" and thus far we've said yes 3 times in 4.5 years. That's a whole lot of yeses, and to be honest, some days I feel the weight of how many "no's" I must say to them each on a daily basis because of it.

No, I can't read with you right now, I'm doing the laundry…want to help me?

No, I can't play cars with you, I'm nursing your sister. 

No, you cannot watch me take a shower.

No, this isn't a good time to go ride bikes in the driveway. I'm giving your brother a bath.

And on and on.

I was thumbing through our city's rec center summer activity guide, and I sighed as I contemplated the cost and logistics of undertaking pre school swimming lessons for our 3 year old.

It's just too much right now. Maybe next summer. Heck, I was a lifeguard in high school, maybe we'll buy a family pass and I'll teach him myself…while trying to keep his brother and sister alive at the same time.

By our culture's standards for raising happy and well-adjusted kids, mine are being seriously shortchanged. They wear thrifted clothes and play with garage sale toys. They don't have iPads. They share a bedroom at night and they share mom three ways by day. Working from home allows me to be more physically present to them, but mentally and emotionally I'm often far away. Even when all the chores are done and the deadlines are met, there is sometimes little left of me by 5 pm other than a docile willingness to be led to the couch for a few mindless repetitions of the Grumpy Ladybug.

We don't do tons of activities because, quite frankly, taking all three of them somewhere more exciting than Costco is just hard. Right now it feels like it has always been hard, and I wonder whether things will change when they are a little older.

Then there are moments like this morning, when my oldest son looks lovingly at his 2-month old sister kicking her legs in the air on the family room carpet and asks me when she will be big enough to play with him, because "he can't wait!"

Those moments give me the strength to keep soldiering through these demanding, physically draining days of herding toddlers and nursing babies. We're in a rebuilding phase, and these are the investment years. I know it, because I've seen it with my own eyes.

This past weekend my younger sister got married to a wonderful man. She is the 3rd of seven kids, and all of us stood at the altar with them and witnessed their vows. We partied late into the evening afterwards, burning it up on the dance floor until we were quite literally the last people to exit the building. When I look at the seven of us together, spanning from middle school to early parenthood, it's mind blowing to see the beauty and the camaraderie that has emerged from the early years of chaos and sacrifice and never-enough-to-go-around.

There was more than enough, as it turned out. And when I think back on our childhood, all I see are the good things my parents were able to give us because of their "yeses" … all seven of them. I have friendships spanning decades that will last all my life long; in short, my parents made the ultimate estate planning decision, and our inheritance will be rich indeed.

So tonight at bedtime, frazzled and exhausted, I resolve to try to savor the sweet madness of two little boys jumping in and out of each other's cribs while a fussing baby demands her after-dinner snack. Yes, it's hard right now…but they're worth it. We're investing in generations, after all.

Lents do it

First off, thank you for the overwhelming outpouring of support in response to yesterday's post. I feel your prayers, and I'm so touched by and grateful for the braveness of other mamas admitting to this struggle. No shame! It's happening to you, not because of you.

So Carnivale. Here we be. I've never felt so ready for lent as I do this year. Maybe it's the combination of postpartum + chaotic schedule featuring 3 crazy babies + this half eaten (purchased yesterday) box of chocolate Joe-Joe's (Colorado finally got a TJ's last month. Amazing.), but I am ready and raring to go.

I was all set to launch into some kind of modern day sackcloth and ashes routine involving early rising, Scripture reading, mental prayer, junk food/social media/sugar fasting + 6 days per week of exercise but then I was like, wait a second Jenny…slow your roll. You're kind of in the throes of a mental health crisis here. And you have a 10 week old, a toddler, and a preschooler. And sleep is already a rare commodity.  So I've … lowered my expectations, shall we say. Plus, I have been guilty in the past (frequently guilty) of making Lent some kind of Catholic New Year's resolution opportunity, and I generally focus on self-improvement and discipline related penances instead of, oh, I don't know, stuff that actually causes me to grow spiritually. No more. Not this year, at least.

As much as I desperately wanted to hop on Steph or Susan's bandwagon and make the gym commitment, I knew it would be for me and also, all about me, so it wasn't the best fit for where my focus needs to be. I'll still try to get to the gym as often as possible, but it won't be for Lent's sake. (And don't get me wrong, these are fantastic ways to grow physically and spiritually and I love the ideas. But for me, right now, they would be distractions, not actual opportunities for growth in holiness.)

Then I read this earlier this morning and I knew I'd found my way. This is where I'm at: taking little opportunities throughout the day to take the focus off me and instead direct it toward Him. So where does that leave us? For starters, instead of my valiant resolution to get up before the kids and pray, I'm resolving to simply … pray. To take 15 minutes each day for mental prayer (not just a rosary, though I do love me some bead time) actual, focused, intentional connection with my Creator. And not necessarily at 5:45 am when I'm dead and useless (and guaranteed to continue being that way for the duration of the day) but during some stolen chunk of time during naps or preschool mornings or while my MH is here when I'm otherwise squandering my solitude on HGTV or pinterest. Ahem.

Which leads me to my next resolve: no social media. Blogging excepted. I don't need to be further distracted, and I should probably be reading actual books (spiritual or no) in lieu of chasing endless bunny trails down the rabbit holes of the internets. Guilty as charged.

I'm also going to commit to only fruits and vegetables as snacks between meals. I know as a nursing mom I'm off the fasting hook, but I'm super guilty of mindless handfuls of veggie straws (definitely not a veggie) and cookies or tortilla chips throughout the day. If I'm really hungry, carrots will do.

And finally, as a family we've committed to forgoing eating out/takeout for the month, and we're using the typically budgeted amount to spend at the store which we'll bring as a gift to our parish's food pantry. We figured it would be really fun for the boys to shop for food and then bring it to give away, or at least that it would make the concept of 'charity' more concrete in their wee minds.

Oh, and how cute is this? Joey's preschool will be fasting as a class from, get this… 5 minutes of recess per day, which they will spend in prayer instead. Whaaaaaaat? Have you ever heard of something so cute or so amazing? They've also been asked to bring in pennies and coins to drop in the classroom jar, which they will march across campus which during Holy Week to deposit in the St. Vincent de Paul box for the poor. I heart our parish, and Catholic schools 4 ever and ever.

So happy Carnivale to y'all. It's not quite Mardi Gras in Rome up in here this year, but it'll do.