He moved me

10 years ago on a cold spring evening in early April an old man died in his bed a half a world away, and a selfish, frequently drunken 22-year old college student fell to her knees in her dingy living room.

Eyes glued to the tv screen, I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing on the television screen and the corresponding ache in my chest for a man I’d never met and for a religion I barely practiced.

I was never the same again.

I spent most of April 2nd in a daze, missing all my classes and breaking into real tears periodically. Eventually the news coverage coming out of Rome lost its pull on me and I ventured from the couch to the front door, destination unknown.

Within a half a dozen blocks I found myself in front of the Catholic church I sometimes attended on weekends, still drawn to participation in the Mass even when the vigil had been spent blacked out drunk with 20,000 of my closest friends on Pearl Street.

I pushed on the heavy bronzed door and was surprised when it yielded to me. It was around noon, and the church was unlocked and completely empty save for an elderly woman sitting near the altar and a younger guy with camera equipment standing off to one side of the sanctuary.

At the end of the aisle someone had erected a makeshift shrine; a single votive candle burned beneath an easel holding the papal portrait of John Paul II. There were a few potted flowers, leftover Easter decor still dotted the stairway surrounding the altar.

Propelled almost unconsciously, I found myself at the front of the church and dropping to my knees in front of his picture. I noticed the red light burning in a lantern hung in my periphery, and I looked past the image in front of me to the tabernacle behind the altar. I knew He was there, too.

I dropped my head into my hand and wept. I had absolutely no explanation for the intensity of my reaction, given the attention I’d given to my Catholic faith for the past 4 years. College had effectively paganized me, at least in practice, and I was Catholic in name only. I knew this, of course, but that morning for the first time it caused me both deep, reflective sorrow and inspired the hope that maybe I could turn things around.

I looked up at the sound of a camera clicking away and the young guy with the equipment shrugged his shoulders and asked sheepishly if I’d consent to having the images used in the paper. The next morning I saw myself under the fold on the front page of the Denver Post. Not many people have a picture of themselves on the day their conversion began in earnest, and even though it’s grainy, black and white, and not terribly flattering, it’s something I treasure. It’s proof that I was there, and now I’m here.

More than that, it captures the essence of my relationship with JPII: penitent prodigal meets spiritual father. Fireworks ensue. Lifelong friendship is cemented.

Later that same month I withdrew from all my college courses and stopped going out to bars every night. As my phone stopped ringing and my friends drifted away, I spent long weekend nights listening to CDs of famous Catholic speakers (Scott Hahn, anyone?) and gradually began to come alive to the mysteries and depth of the Faith.

By early May I had an acceptance letter in my hands from Franciscan University of Steubenville. I would transfer there at the summer’s end and spend the next 3 years in a kind of spiritual, emotional and physical rehab, piecing back together the real Jenny.

Through it all, St. John Paul II (who I never doubted was directly interceding for little old me) became one of my closest friends.

I couldn’t have dreamt it on April 2nd, 2005, but on Divine Mercy Sunday in the year 2011, I stood in St. Peter’s Square with a million other pilgrims, my 7-month-old son pressed uncomfortably close to my chest in a baby carrier, squeezed by Italians on every side, and listened as Pope Benedict gave him to the Universal Church as a “Blessed.”

If that wasn’t sufficiently awesome, three years later I returned to that same square, this time with two more sweet babies in tow and my husband by my side, and we distractedly wrestled toddlers through the long ceremony and misting Roman rain while Pope St. John Paul II was elevated to the altar and proclaimed “Sanctus.”

I smiled because I’d known for years that this day would come, and I cried because I never dreamt I would be there to witness it.

St. John Paul II, I love you. And I owe, quite simply, everything to your intercession. Please never stop praying for me.

“Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.” Pope St. John Paul II

A Glorious Case of the Mondays

It's 5 minutes to noon here in the Rocky Mountain Empire, and I can honestly say it feels like 5 pm.

So far today we've had blown out diapers, barfed up breakfasts, and suffered the emotional and physical consequences of our little gluten-sensitive bread addict scoring a 'fix' in the form of a stolen baguette last Friday night. Let's just say diapers and tantrums from the underworld, and leave it at that.

Also, I just found a fist-sized chunk of sparkling clean asphalt in my dryer. All morning I'd been wondering 'is that the sound of rocks in my dryer?'

Close. Oh so close.

So glad I catered to his highness' sweet tooth and whipped up a batch of these bad boys for elevensies. Little ingrate.

The good news is, tonight is the last Presidential debate! And yes, I'll be live-blogging it on Facebook per usual, though I have to admit, I'm so ready to hang up the social network towel again once this whole sh*tstorm has settled and Team Mitt can begin mentally rearranging furniture at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And making plans for re-installments of English busts and whatnot. Seriously sick of politics this go-round. And since I thrive on the stuff, I can only imagine how the average, temperate media-consumer feels. And it ain't good.

Today, while filled with bodily fluids, tantrums and poor culinary decisions, is nonetheless the feast day of my favorite not-quite-a-saint-yet of all time: Bl. John Paul II.

We were privileged to make the pilgrimage to Rome in 2011 as a family and stood in St. Peter's square while Pope Benedict declared him 'blessed.' It was one of the highlights of my life, and certainly remains one of the coolest things we've done with Joey. Which I will no doubt hold over his head for the rest of his life.

Incredibly, we were able to go back to Rome this past summer, this time with our little John Paul in tow, and early one Sunday morning as Mass came to an end in the Basilica, one very naughty mommy snuck her little chunker up to the altar and touched his little fist to his namesake's tomb. Way cool.

On a more serious note, our sweet John Paul has a medical condition he was born with necessitating a relatively simple, out-patient surgery that is scheduled for this coming Monday, a week from today. His doctors have assured us it isn't complicated or especially dangerous, but he does have to go under general anesthesia, and I can't come into the OR with him. So, that's really hard.

We've been praying under the patronage of Bl. John Paul II since we discovered his condition when he was just 1 day old, and we have confidence that he can be healed without the surgery, if God wills it. Will you join us in prayer this final week? We would have loved to have received an immediate healing for our little man, but how cool would it be if they get him onto the operating table and discover there's no longer a reason to operate?!

Way cool.

So Bl. John Paul II, patron of the unborn and of the youth (among other awesome and numerous things), pray for us on this, your feast day.

And please excuse the mess.

Viva il Papa

We made it, we're here!

Actually we got in Thursday morning, Rome time, and it has been an incredible trip so far, and by incredible I mean that John Paul bit his father in public, and nobody freaked out on the flights.

The Borgo neighborhood where we're staying, just blocks from St. Peter's, is filling up with pilgrims from all over the world - mostly Polish, but from everywhere, really. Last night at dinner with our Archbishop, a priest at a neighboring table took a phone call and then burst into happy tears upon hanging up. He eventually came over to our table bearing a faded image of a young man in vestments being anointed by the Pope.

It was himself, he explained, being ordained a priest by (soon to be) Pope St. John the 23rd, and that phone call he just received was the Vatican inviting him to concelebrate the mass of Canonization on Sunday morning.

That's just the kind of stuff that happens in Rome, and on pilgrimage. So we're cautiously optimistic about tomorrow morning. We're not camping out tonight; we're sleeping snugly in our beds with plans to leave our apartment by 7 am and flash our press passes to as many guards as it takes to get into the Square - or at least onto Via della Concilliazione. Our fingers are crossed and our hearts are full as we prepare to enter into the great feast of Divine Mercy and to give thanks for the Giver of Divine Mercy for His faithful servant, John Paul II.

Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII, pray for us!

(Oh, and Pope Emeritus Benedict is going to be concelebrating! - 4 popes in one day, how craaaaaazy is that?!)

The Sunday of Four Popes

(That's what the Italian press were calling it, anyway)

We're well into our fifth day in Italy (and our nightly bottle of chianti) and I cannot even fathom the amount of things we've done and seen in such a short span of days. I can hardly feel my toes (or see them, thanks pasta) but we've accomplished more than I'd dreamed possible with three bambini in tow.

Before I go any further I have to thank you for your prayers - they were felt! And they have been so effective. The flights over here were absolutely flawless: kind seat-mates, sleeping children, and earlier-than-stated arrivals. And then the big day itself... Pure grace, plenty of Divine Mercy, and a couple of legit guardian angels waiting for us in the Square. After being ushered in through a side gate (along with a stray bishop and a handful of religious) we came down a ramp and entered a cordoned-off area that seemed very like a VIP entrance to St. Peter's Square. The only person who even looked twice at our press passes and three children in tow was a solitary Swiss Guard, but a Vatican police officer convinced him that we weren't worth bothering with.

Once in, we made our way to the obelisk in the center of the piazza, choosing a vantage point just slightly behind and to the left (facing the basilica) and settled in to wait. We arrived around 7:30 am, and the Mass didn't begin until close to 10.

The weather began to turn liquid about 15 minutes into the Divine Mercy chaplet, and we were waved over to a pair of women waving French flags and perched on folding stools. They gestured to a soft pile of sleeping bags and jackets around their feet, indicating that we should lay the kids down there. And then one of them opened her umbrella and insisted on holding over me and Evie, closing it intermittently between showers. She eventually insisted that I take her seat, as well, and thus was I found breastfeeding by a reporter for La Repubblica, Italy's largest newspaper.

Oh yeah, but first this happened:

I don't know, I guess it was a slow news day. Or we were the only family crazy enough to enter the square toting three stroller-sized pilgrims. I'm fairly confidant that might have been it...

We were treated to a lovely and poetically-timed break in the clouds when John Paul II and John XXIII were declared "Santo" and we were delighted almost to tears when Pope Emeritus Benedict appeared with the rest of the cardinali.

Oh, and we got pretty close to this guy, too:

It was a pretty amazing day. There were some rough spots, to be sure, like when Joey broke the reverent silence during the Consecration with a very audible scream of "pee is in my shoe!" as a visible dark stain spread down the leg of his jeans. But other than that, it was a peak lifetime experience for sure.

Even with the screaming children, the aching backs, and the seeming inability to concentrate on almost any of the Mass or really even reflect on the enormity of the moment, and our being there for it. Lucky for us we have a lifetime to unpack it, and a few more days in Italy to drink away the memory of John Paul putting his mouth on the cobblestones of a piazza only partially and recently vacated by of hundreds of thousands of fragrant pilgrims because he just couldn't take another minute of it. And so he licked the ground. And scratched between the cobblestones with his fingernails, looking for God only knows what.

Rome, you never fail to disappoint. And St. John Paul II, my love for you grows and grows. Thank you for this trip, and thank you for loving our family so well.

(This book is so good. A must read for the JPII generation, and all others, for that matter.)

How (not) to suffer

Been curled up in a ball of self-pity and eye twitches most of today, due to nothing more serious than a broken laptop, a country that refuses to grant me resident alien status or internet access, and a baby who screams mercilessly, whether he is actually in pain or not.

I looked up from my wallowing groove on the couch to realize, quite suddenly, that today was April 2nd. The eighth anniversary of the death of my beloved hero, Bl. John Paul II, and the day which marked the dramatic beginning to my reversion to Catholicism. How I had failed to anticipate this day's arrival, I cannot fathom, so maybe I'll point to months of sleeplessness, adjustment issues, insane working hours and plain old stress. But nevertheless, here it is, and here I am, in Rome, balancing a shrieking almost one-year-old named John Paul on my hip while trying to hit pause on Jillian Michaels for the 30th time this workout...and I realize what a strange thing it is, to be here like this. In Rome.

Living half a mile from his mortal remains, enshrined under the alter of St. Sebastian, and sitting around suffering and feeling like my life is going to end because of how very hard everything is and how much God is asking of me right now and can somebody just come and hold my hand and give me like a 20 minute break and a tropical drink?

I texted Dave a sort of 'happy conversion anniversary to me' text while he was at work, taking care to pepper it with details about how fantastically well-behaved his children weren't being. Later in the day, during a phone call update on the ongoing status of our internet-seeking saga, (I'm working from his office right now) I was moaning about how difficult Rome was and could he believe that JPII died here,  and he had the sweet audacity to point out how maybe we could emulate his heroic example of suffering.

Yes, because my friendless, baby-saturated wandering in the internet desert is akin to a lifetime of self-denial and sacrifice, capped off by the painful degenerative humiliation of Parkinson's.

Obviously it isn't. And my sweet husband wasn't being facetious, if you can believe it. There really isn't room for any more of that in our marriage, and I'll let you figure out on your own whose fault that is.

JPII's suffering, though, was particularly meaningful in its example because he didn't choose the circumstances...only the response. He didn't want the papacy, and he certainly didn't ask to be crippled and nearly silenced in his old age by a hideous disease which robbed him of his elegant speech and his capable athletic physique. But he said yes. And he kept saying yes, kept submitting 'thy will be done's,' to his boss, kept acting 'as if,' even when it most assuredly felt like running the opposite direction would have better sufficed.

So what can I say? I'll keep on keeping on. And I will dance for joy when the internet gets turned back on. But I'm prepared to at least attempt to act joyfully now, while things are still hard, even if I'm crying in the shower while my kids are pretending to nap in their room next door. I don't know, it feels like what he would have done. Not the crying in the shower part, but the joyfully picking up your cross and maybe even smiling about it part.

Bl. John Paul II, pray for us...and pray for me, in particular, won't you?

I love you, old friend.

John Paul II, We Love You!

Thanks to Simcha I didn't miss my second born's namesake feast day, and we even cued her handy playlist for their lunchtime enjoyment/homeschooling lesson for the day week. Joey solemnly proclaimed that he 'loved this song, Mommy' while listening to Bl. JPII intone the Pater Noster in Basilica San Pietro during a papal mass all those years ago. He did not, however, recognize the church in question as St. Peter's, a sorrow that is breaking his pregnant mama's heart. Rome is fading fast from his 3-year-old mind, and the days that he asks me to teach him Italian words are fewer and farther between. I wonder if he'll remember much of anything from our time there...

I'm thinking about getting crazy and making JPII's favorite dessert for us to feast upon tonight, except for the tiny detail that I don't like baking and Dave will be at work until 10 pm. Perhaps I'll just spread butter and honey on something and call it Polish.

Taking a page out of Colleen's blog, please enjoy these gratuitous pictures of my John Paul dressed as JPII, and of both my boys 'meeting' our hero in Rome.

Maximilian Kolbe and John Paul, rocking (but somehow, losing) last year's All Saints Day costume contest.

Joey and Bl. JPII arriving at Fiumincino before the beatification. 

Nothing creepy about this ...

Joey is escorted by some San Pietrini ushers to touch the (newly installed) tomb of Bl. JPII the day after his beatification.

And John Paul touching the same tomb one year later. God is good.

Blessed JPII, pray for us!

(Thank you for all your prayers for the family I wrote about yesterday. Please keep them coming as they lay their little one to rest tomorrow.)

Naming Rights

I read Bonnie's name stories for her babies today and I just knew I had to play along. That and I didn't have anything much in mind for today's requisite post, so…c'est la baby names.

Starting out our line up of all star Catholic names we have:

Joseph Kolbe

Joey, as he is more frequently called, was named to honor the patron saint of our courtship and engagement and the foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph, and a favorite saint of Dave's - and now one of mine - St. Maximilian Kolbe. Also known as the priest of Auschwitz. Aka prisoner 16670. He died in the camp after offering himself in place of a father who called out for mercy for his children's sakes when he was randomly selected for exaction by Nazi guards looking to make an example for the general population. Fr. Kolbe was sentenced to death by starvation, but after weeks without food, he was still alive and still offering encouragement to his fellow prisoners. The Nazis finally killed him. Cool fact: the family of the man whose place he took was present in St. Peter's Square years later when JPII beatified him (the precursor to canonization, or recognized sainthood.)

Another cool story: while traveling in Italy (the first time) we chatted up a capuchin Franciscan from Poland in a restaurant in Assisi of all places, and as he bounced 7-month-old Joey on his knee, we proudly told him that his middle name was Kolbe "for Father Max." The happy friar shot us a look of horror and asked in disbelief You took his family name?! So I guess the American trend of assuming surnames is not kosher the world over.

Next up:

John Paul Francis

So after the aforementioned trip to Italy, where we attended the beatification of Bl. John Paul II (soon to be St. JPII!) and profoundly encountered the spirit of St. Francis in Assisi, we returned home and found out we were expecting this little dude a couple months later. We tossed around a couple other names but when he arrived, we both looked at each other and said, oh, this is John Paul, right? Fun fact: to complete the papal trifecta, John Paul Francis was named almost a year before Pope Francis was elected, but not before Pope Benedict took him in his arms and laid one on him. If this kid isn't destined for the seminary, I don't know who is…

Bringing us finally to:

Genevieve Therese

This little sweetie was the only baby whose sex we discovered in utero, but we still hemmed and hawed over her name pretty much until she was placed on my chest. Genevieve is a nod to a sometimes nickname from childhood when my dad would substitute the french version of Jennifer, and she is also the patron saint of Paris. Therese is my favorite female saint, and it just seemed right and beautiful to pair two such lovely names together. So she's our little flower. And she has 8 e's in her full name. So you're welcome, sweetheart. Good luck with roll call. Fun fact: we thought we were being a tiny bit unusual without being actually, you know, unusual with this name, and in secular circles we for sure get that reaction, but no sooner had the ink dried on her birth certificate than we discovered not one but two fellow FUS alums with Genevieve's of their own. And not just Genevieve, but Genevieve Therese. Both of them. One born less than 3 weeks after ours. Go figure.

So there you have it. The moniker medley for family Uebbing. Thanks to Kathryn for giving me something to post about for day 3.

Happy Anniversary!

To my sweet Joey who braved the crowds with me this day last year (and helped me slip past an Italian police barricade) to witness the beatification of our hero, Bl. John Paul II, in St. Peter's Square on Divine Mercy Sunday.

Snapshots/highlights:

"No no you will CRUSH the bambino!" (police scare tactic/Italian dramatics. I was undeterred)

Being sheltered from the beating sun by an umbrella held by an adoring German couple, who were also quite intent on feeding my 7 month old an apple.

Nursing a sweaty, sweaty Ergo-riding Joey in a paramedic tent after the Mass while perched on the edge of a stretcher...I was such a novel sight that VIP treatment was afforded at every turn.

Being shoved against the crown barricade when in came time for Communion and having an Indian priest reach through the crown and physically lift me up over other people in order to receive Jesus, before bustling me (and Joey) back from the crush of humanity - the only moment of the day when I was a teeny bit scared and perhaps regretting my decision to take a baby into a very emotional crowd numbering more than 1 million.

Scanning the horizon looking for Dave, who was perched up on the south Colonnade with the rest of the media, taking pictures and video.

The overwhelming smell of roses that flooded the otherwise highly aromatic crowd of unwashed humanity baking in the sun during the moment JPII was proclaimed 'blessed' by Pope Benedict - unreal. Friends who were outside the Square blocks away reported smelling roses in the streets...Our Lady was most definitely present that morning.

Such a magnificent memory for our family --- how I would love to sweeten it by marking this first anniversary with a new birth day (hint, hint interior baby)

Bl. John Paul II, pray for us!

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.)

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.)

La Dolce Vita

So I spent the last week in Rome, (rough, I know) and having now sufficiently recovered from post partum jet lag (which sounds exactly as terrible as it is), I thought I'd share a little of the wonders of our surprise pilgrimage with you.

It was kind of like this: 'surprise, you thought you were going on vacay, but you're on a pilgrimage.'

And we were all, 'oh, um...cool. Thanks, God.'

But in reality it was more like, 'whhhhhhhhhhhy is this soooooo hard?' whine whine wine wine whine...and the baby cried, too.

I know, I know... I'm a terrible ingrate for saying so, but I have to be honest...it was probably one of the most difficult weeks of my life. And it's probably not a great stretch to say it was one of Dave's, too, thanks in large part to my utter emotional instability and both my and the baby's severe aversion to heat and humidity (Which, in a 2,000+ year old city of 5 million people with little to no AC and endless journeys via public transportation, is a gawdawful exercise in sweat and tears.)

I debated whether or not to fess up about how difficult this trip was for me, because A. I realize how insanely blessed and fortunate we are to be able to go not once but twice in two years to the most spectacularly beautiful and religiously significant city on earth with each of our babies, to hang out very near the Holy Father and pray with some of our most beloved and admired saints. Admittedly: awesome. and B. nobody likes a whiny blogger.

But I would be lying if I said it wasn't very, very hard. And that the hardness blindsided me. And it made me realize some hard, hard things about myself and about this time of life. And it scared me.

I don't regret going, not for a second. We had some truly amazing opportunities, thanks largely to Dave's job and our very cool boss, and we did everything from a cocktail party at the villa of the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See to a black tie dinner honoring all of the newly-installed American bishops, including our beloved former Archbishop Chaput and our newly-beloved Archbishop Aquila. And I changed JP's diaper on the floor of St. Paul outside the wall, which will surely factor significantly into his future vocation.

Oh, and this.

Hands-down the highlight. And worth every moment of suffering and inconvenience to get there.

Having just concluded Sunday mass over the tomb of Bl. John Paul II in St. Peter's basilica (and celebrated in polish by a priest from Warsaw, no less) I hustled my arrogant American self up into restricted territory and my boy met his namesake. Touched his tomb with a tiny fist. All before the Vatican guards could shoo us away. (And that ain't no photo retouching you're seeing there. I suspect it's the blinding glare of the Holy Spirit, personally.)

But still...it was so hard.

And here's the thing; it would have been hard under the best of circumstances, I think, because of me. Or more specifically, because of something that afflicts me -- Dave is so good at correcting me when I misspeak, reminding me that I am 'not my illness.'

The embarrassing, inconvenient and inescapable truth is, I suffer from clinical depression. And while it's usually pretty well controlled by drugs and gritting of teeth and tugging of bootstraps, this pregnancy and post-partum period had been hell.on.earth.

It's hard to admit this to a room full of my closest friends, let alone to put it out there on the internets, but I figured if any other mamas out there are going through it, I owed it to them to be honest. Because there's depression, which I've had all of my adult life...and then there's post partum depression.

And honestly, it's harder than hell.

I really thought that a week away in a gorgeous foreign city with my husband and sweet newborn would be just what the doctor ordered, but it turned out I couldn't outrun it. Which makes sense, complete and total sense, because it isn't a matter of 'shaking it off' or 'snapping out of it;' it's real, and it's bigger than I can handle by myself and, quite frankly, it's terrifying.

It's scary to be exactly where I always wanted to be, vocationally speaking, and to still feel so bad.

That has been the greatest suffering of these past few months I think, knowing that finally I have everything I've ever wanted and am living the life of my dreams...and it's still not 'enough' in the sense that it hasn't cured me of depression.

If anything, it has heightened the emotional aches and pains by adding physical sufferings like sleeplessness, short tempers, and a saggy, floppy mommy body to the mix.

There's something very raw and real and frightening about being 'at the top,' so to speak, and coming to the sickening realization that it's still here, this shadow from hell, and no amount of brilliant sunlight has managed to dispel it.

I love being a mom. I love being married. Most days I love what I do for work...but despite it all, I still feel so terrible right now, and it's so, so scary to think that this might just be how life is going to feel from here on out.

I hesitate to hit 'publish' on this one for a couple reasons, primarily my own pride which is screaming at me not to do this, not to publicly air this bit of soiled laundry, to keep pretending that everything is fine and good and, while difficult, nonetheless manageable.

But it isn't fine. And it isn't even manageable any longer. Rome showed me that I have, indeed, a breaking point of my very own and I have reached it. Looked it in the eye while running past it, in fact.

So here I sit on the other side of 'it,' broken down but still functioning. I know there is grace here in this time, and I know in a dry, intellectual sense that this isn't forever...I have hope that the right combination of consecutive hours of sleep and evened-out hormones and perhaps a different medication can and will bring me back into some semblance of normal.

But for now, it's all hard. Everything is hard, and everything feels much bigger and scarier than it really is.

Bl. John Paul II, pray for us.

That Time JPII Saved Me From Myself

Let's rewind about a decade or so. It's the spring semester of my 'first' senior year (I'll explain later) in college, and I'm living the dream. Sort of. I'm 22 years old, living in a crappy 2-storey victorian house off Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado with 2 roommates (one of whom is a guy) and a collection of pets and beer bottles. Both my roommates are ROTC cadets and all three of us work part time at restaurants and bars. We party often, and we party hard. Like black out every single weekend night, hard.

Looking back, it still boggles my mind that I somehow skated through most of my undergraduate life without suffering any real violence (I did get tear gassed after a football game descended into rioting once) and without having been sexually assaulted. Truly. I was in such a dark place in my faith and in my life, and I made so.many.bad.decisions. There is no reason I should have been spared the fate which so many of my girlfriends suffered. Date rape. Abortions. Physically abusive relationships. It was a mess of a town, and we were living in the thick of it, happily drinking ourselves into a kind of perpetual numbness that made that sort of life tolerable.

A few weeks before the new semester had started, my little sister was home for a visit from the uptight, conservative Catholic college where she was a freshman, and she thought it proper to have a little "come to Jesus" conversation with me at our parent's house after Christmas. She challenged me to stop drinking for a month, betting that I wouldn't be able to quit the party train, and basically broke down in tears telling me she didn't know me any more, didn't recognize the sister she had always looked up to, and knew I could be doing something so much greater with my life.

I.was.pissed.

Here was this 18-year old freshman who had chosen to attend a private school and who had very little experience with working or with the real world telling me that my life choices were disappointing to her…what did she know? She knew nothing about reality, nothing about the world outside her fairytale campus where she was protected from all the things I saw on a daily basis, and she certainly didn't understand anything about my life. So basically I was really receptive.

She did know me well, though, and was right to irritate my competitive response by throwing down a gauntlet. "I bet you can't…"

Oh hell yes, I could. And I would, just to prove her wrong.

So the spring semester began. And I took a 30-day hiatus from partying. And … it was eye opening. After the first week the novelty of what I was attempting began to wear off, and my roommates started begging me to come out with them again. They reluctantly headed out to the bars when Friday rolled around, convinced that I would join them the following night. Or the night after that.

But I didn't.

2 weeks went by and my phone stopped ringing. I mean really stopped ringing. Nobody called. One friend met me at a coffee shop for what I thought was going to be a nice catch up (and a reprieve from my temporarily leperous social status) and instead proceeded to "dump" me. "I have to focus on school, my internship, work, and my social life right now. I don't have time for lunch dates or other bullshit; if you won't come out with us, we're done."

I was shocked. And most of all, really confused. This was my best friend. And we were done, because I was done partying.

As the one-month mark approached, I found myself staring down the barrel of Lent, a season which I still knew existed, but whose passage I had certainly neglected to mark for several years. (An aside: I never physically left the Catholic Church during my troubled college years, though I ache at the thought of how many times I unworthily received the Eucharist. I somehow couldn't quit the Sunday Mass habit, hangover or not. Thanks, Mom.)

So Lent. Feeling pretty convicted that I was on the right track from a personal growth perspective, I decided to continue my little social experiment as a form of fasting. I gave up alcohol for Lent, and I let the party-less weekends keep piling up. Bored and lonely in the evenings, I found myself on a website I'd heard my mom talk about and ordered a couple of cassette tapes (I am seriously aging myself here, but they were like $1.00 and the CDs were $3.00) and then forgot all about it. Imagine my surprise when a manila envelope from Catholicity.com arrived on my doorstep a week later. Feeling like I was smuggling drugs, I hustled it up to my room where I locked myself in with my roommates' ghetto blaster and put in the first tape I laid my hands on: "Scott Hahn: A Protestant Minister Converts."

I must have listened to that tape 3 times that first night. I just kept hitting 'rewind' and starting it over. My roommates eventually stumbled home from the bar with a group of revelers and people were pounding down my door at 1 am, screaming for me to come out and take shots with them, and I'm lying in my bed pretending to be asleep, tears streaming down my face, listing to this Scott Hahn guy talk about becoming Catholic. And it was just too much.

Holy Week came and went that year and I'm sure I went to Easter Mass, but I don't really remember. I was coming to the end of my little experiment and still debating whether I wanted to reenter 'normal' college life or not. The past 12 weeks had certainly been more peaceful, but I was still in a lot of pain that I was no longer medicating with alcohol, and I was really lonely.

Suddenly the media started cranking out tons of stories about the Pope. John Paul II had been sick for most of my teenage years and young adulthood; I hardly remembered a time when he had been healthy. Fascinated, I watched the coverage coming out of Rome in between classes and before work. I found myself wondering about him and his suffering and racing home to check the news. On the day he died, the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, I sat rooted to my couch, tears streaming down my face and in shock. He was really gone, and the pain I felt was so inappropriately disproportionate for the relationship I had with him (I mean he was some random church leader half a world away) but so raw. I literally felt like I'd lost my own father. Blinded by tears, I left the house and started walking towards downtown. I didn't know where I was going, but it was mid afternoon and I'd been glued to the television for hours. I found myself walking towards the Catholic church north of downtown, maybe a 15 block distance from our house.

When I reached the church I hesitated outside the front door, wondering what I was doing there. I'd never been to church outside of Sunday Mass, at least not for many years, and I wondered if they even kept churches unlocked during the week. I tried the handle and it yielded.

As I made my way into the darkened sanctuary I noticed only 2 other people on the premises: an older woman wearing a headscarf, sitting near the front with her head bowed, and a guy holding camera equipment, lurking off to the side. I made my way down the center aisle and noticed an easel surrounded by candles in front of the altar. As I got closer I could see that it was an image of John Paul II, and I burst into tears. Without even realizing what I was doing, I covered the remaining distance to the altar and found myself on my knees in front of his picture, crying embarrassing, public tears. The camera guy must have smelled them, because suddenly he was right there at my side, clicking away as I knelt there before the altar, sobbing and embarrassed and so overwhelmed by a grief I couldn't understand.

When my torrent of tears had slowed to a sniffle, he gently asked whether he might ask me a few questions, holding out press credentials and identifying himself as a reporter for the local paper. Sniffling, I nodded and stammered out an explanation of JPII being like my father, my grandfather, the only pope I'd ever known…and then gave him my name and occupation. The next day my mom called crying and telling me I was in the Denver Post, and I still have a yellowing copy of the piece filed away somewhere.

After that day I knew with certainty that I couldn't go back to my old life.

Without telling any of my friends or co-workers, I applied for a transfer to Franciscan University of Steubenville, the school I'd mocked my sister for attending months earlier. 2 weeks later I was holding a  letter of acceptance in my shaking hands. The rest of the school year and that summer in between were  hard. I felt like I was living in two worlds, and I was seriously doubting my hasty, sober decision. Nevertheless, when summer came to an end, I packed up my white Kia Sephia and headed east, to a decrepit little town on the banks of the Ohio River, reeking of industrial waste and blue collar pride. And life has never been the same.

JPII, I credit you.

See you next week in Rome.

His Laughter, Our Plans

When I was 24 years old, I was a wreck.

I mean a serious wreck. Working as a cocktail waitress, fresh from an extremely unhealthy relationship, and oh, by the way Mom and Dad, no longer enrolled in college so I could take some time to 'find myself.' What that looked like on a practical level was lots and lots of partying and nights of memoryless alcohol-fueled recreation that left my spirit (and my bank account) very, very empty.

I thought I was being prudent by discontinuing my already expensive education at this point, since I had no idea what I wanted to 'be' when I grew up. In practice, all I was actually doing was prolonging my own eternal adolescence. And earning beer money.

The Spring semester of my senior year rolled around and I found myself in a kind of limbo. A heated exchange with my younger sister over Christmas break had resulted in my defiant acceptance of a 30-day challenge to refrain from drinking, and as the days of that long month slipped away, so did all of my so-called friends, one by one, until I finally found myself alone one Tuesday night, quite without any social opportunities of any sort.

Now, there is only so much time one can spend alone on an elliptical machine, especially when one is not in game day shape. So eventually, I had to broaden my non-partying horizons. Enter an embarrassingly titled little website that may or may not still exist (okay it does, I just checked) called Catholicity, which was patronized almost exclusively by little old ladies and parish priests, I believe. And my mom. And me, one boring Tuesday evening, when I impulsively clicked 'purchase' on a cassette tape (I swear this was only in 2005) copy of "A Protestant Minister Converts" for the reasonable price of $2.99 for shipping and handling.

I had all but forgotten about my impulsive foray into scary church lady land until about a week later, when a manilla envelope arrived on the doorstep of my cute Boulder party house. Having yet another open night on the 'ol calendar, I waited until my roommates had finished pre-gaming and had departed for Pearl Street before sequestering myself in my attic room with somebody's ghetto blaster and pushing 'play.'

My world was rocked.

I've mentioned before on the blog that John Paul II was instrumental in my reversion to Catholicism. There was another guy who played a pretty big part in the story too, and that night as I listened to his story for the first time, I had no way of knowing how very different my life was about to become.

After the tape clicked to the end, I reached down and hit 'rewind' and immediately listened again. By this time my roommates were back from the bars and were jokingly and drunkenly pounding on my door, begging me to come out and join the after party. I wouldn't. I listened to that stupid cassette tape 3 times in one night, and the following weekend during a visit home, I snuck a copy of "Rome Sweet Home" off my parent's shelf and read it cover to cover in a single evening.

If JPII was the patron saint of my conversion, than Dr. Scott Hahn was my personal trainer. Less than a year after I'd heard his story for the first time coming through my roommate's boom box speakers, I would be sitting in class listening to him teach in a crappy little town called Steubenville, Ohio.

Fast forward another year and I'd end up working for his apostolate, the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, where I eventually managed the office staff and had my very first taste of getting paid to write things. He was my favorite professor, and he become my favorite boss. At the goodbye party the SPC staff threw for me,  I finally told him the dumb story about the cassette tape, and his eyes moistened as he enfolded me in a fatherly hug.

Last night I slipped out of the house after the boys went down for the night and drove to a parish not too far from our new house. I sat with a thousand or so other adoring fans and listened to him speak about his latest book, 'Consuming the Word,' and on the New Evangelization and our role as laypersons and families. It was completely awesome.

I slipped in to say a quick hello as he was taking off his mic and was rewarded with a guffaw and a bear hug. "You're pregnant, what a joy!" and then "I saw the picture of your son getting kissed by the Holy Father, I had tears in my eyes."

Me too Dr. Hahn, me too.

Chalking another happy day in Denver up to Divine Providence and God's good, good plan for us. For each of us.

Something he said last night stuck with me, and it was this: "Family life will save the culture." I truly believe that, and I thank God for my own little slice of Heaven here at home with Dave and our boys, and for my larger, worldwide family, the Catholic Church.