The Power of the Little Flower

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

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

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

There's Jesus

When we’re wrestling our small child army into the pew at mass on Sunday mornings, I usually try to pick an outside spot on the center aisle – best for quick getaways and great for allowing a distractible 3-year-old a front row view of the entrance and recessional processions. Sometimes we sit further up front than might seem wise, but lately we’ve been stuck closer to the back as we creep in, moments after father has already ascended the steps to the altar, late enough to be irritating but not so late that we miss any readings. But that’s life with 3 babies 3 and under, at least for now.

Our boys, ages 2 and 3.5, are prone to the same bad mass behavior in babies the world over: begging for snacks, drawing on collection envelopes with the omnipresent ballpoint pens that seem to always end up on freshly laundered church pants and little hands, smacking heads on pews, dropping kneelers on the feet of unsuspecting adults, etc. Evie, at 4 months, is generally content to simply fire concussive rounds of diaper bombs, carefully timed to correlate with silent, reverent pauses in the liturgy.

In short: we’re in Purgatory for 70 minutes. And the kids? They know it.

I’ve seen a direct correlation between how recollected and peaceful I am at mass and how well-behaved my children are. Unfortunately for all parties involved, while I might enter the sanctuary at a 3 on the stress o meter, I’m generally around an 11 by the kiss of peace. Because naughtiness! And bathroom trips. And near-concussive altercations with the bottom of the pew. And audible expressions of outrage involving lighting candles (no, you may not) and eating donuts afterwards (that’d be a hell no).

So. Mommy’s not usually peace-filled during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And therefore, all too often, my little charges are reduced to little more than squirming bundles of angst and woe, completely undone by the cruel hour of torture we subject them to on a weekly basis.

We’ve tried religious children’s books. We’ve tried bribery. We’ve tried talking up the spiritual highlight of our week as, well, the spiritual highlight of our week. But I’m beginning to think they knew we’re faking it. Or at least, I am.

You see, I don’t actually look forward to mass, particularly mass with our family, the way I really ought to if I truly believed we were going to see the God of the Universe up there on that altar come Sunday morning. I am mostly preoccupied with the logistics of feeding, bathing, dressing, transporting and unloading 3 precious bundles of baptized joy into an open pew at 9:33 am, and quite frankly, by the time we get there, I’m about as far from a recollected state of worship and reverence as could possibly be.

Sure, it’s understandable. We’ve got 3 little kids, after all. And on any given night, chances are the somebody isn’t sleeping through it. But the more I contemplate giving our children a real appreciation for the Sacraments and for their faith, the less convinced I am that I’m setting a good example for them.

I don’t long for the Sacraments the way I want my sons and daughter to; I halfheartedly drag myself out of bed to fulfill my Sunday obligation, and I Confess frequently because I know I need it. But it’s all very businesslike at this particular moment in my spiritual life, very habitual. And I know that’s part of faith and part of living the adult Christian life. It isn’t all feelings. But for the very small people in my care, feelings are a huge part of what motivates them to do, well, anything…and if I can’t instill positive feelings about practicing our Faith in them from a young age, I worry about what kind of roots will put down in their souls.

When we kneel for the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I try to take one of the two male rascals into my arms and focus their attention on the altar. Steeling myself against the rhythmic slamming of a tiny blonde head backwards into my nose, I wrestle them in silence, sweat dripping down the back of my Sunday best. When the big moment comes I lean in close, whispering in their ears:

“There’s Jesus. He loves you so much.”Yesterday as I whispered into not-quite-two-year-old John Paul’s ear, it occurred to me for the first time how much I needed to hear what I was telling my son. There’s Jesus. Up there, on the altar. In the flesh. He loves you so much.

“He’s really up there,” I found myself thinking. How often do I really reflect on that? Really consider what it is we’re trying to teach our children.

He’s really up there. And He loves us, so much.

That’s why we wrestle them through Mass week after week…and that’s what we hope they take away from all the faith-forming and catechizing we subject them to; His love. His mercy. His presence in their lives.

Because there, up on that altar, in the unassuming form of bread and wine, held aloft in the very human hands of our parish priest who sat around our dinner table only last week…is Jesus.

Heaven help us as we help our children to navigate this sacred mystery: the reality of eternity mingled with the daily mundane. It’s easy enough to forget, grounded as we are in the earthly realities of work and diapers and tears, but it’s no less true.

There’s Jesus. He loves you so much.

(cross posted at Catholic Exchange)

Babies and Bonding

I've always prided myself on extreme self-reliance. An almost pathological self-reliance, truth be told. Chalk it up to a mixture of firstborn-child-meets-choleric temperament with a heaping dose of introversion and you have a lone wolf-ette who doesn't like to ask for help or work as part of a team. Ever. Even in high school the sports I chose were laughably individualistic: swimming, diving, cross country running, discus and shot put (not even joking) and…wait for it…pole vaulting. So yeah, I put the "I" in team.

Then I got married. 

More specifically, then I got married, got pregnant, and gave birth to our sleep-averse firstborn child. Fast forward 4 years and three babies and while this one sleeps a whooooole lot better (knock knock KNOCKING on heaven's big wooden door here) than her older brothers did/do, she is still up for portions of the night/morning I'd just as soon leave to the imagination. And then the sun comes up and the party really gets going because there are three of them. And they all want all of me, pretty much all day long. 

I try to divide and conquer the house/my work/their needs/my wants, but 4:56 pm on any given evening will find me frantically texting one hard-working hubby for minute-by-minute updates on his commute conditions. God help him if he texts back while still sitting at his desk. 

It's not just that I miss him during the work day, (and I do! Though perhaps not to the same level of creepy g-chatting intensity seen during our courtship. Ahem.) I desperately need him to tag team this burgeoning child army we're creating, for better or worse. Today, like so many other Mondays of recent memory, it was mostly worse. I think I let both boys out the front door, barefoot, to tear down the driveway to his still running (but parked) car in hot pursuit of the fun parent. I just sort of stood in the doorway, cradling a fussy newborn in one arm and vacantly patting my unwashed top knot while I wondered what the neighbors thought about barefoot children in 40-degree weather. Probably they love it. But I digress.

If this husband in question were to offer me, in fact, the choice between a shopping spree at Tiffany's or  a solid month of evenings during which he would be home one hour earlier than usual every day, I'd pick him over diamonds. Truly I would.

I need him in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way that I could never have envisioned 4 years ago, standing up on the altar all skinny and mascara-clad, full of good intentions and heartfelt vows. I'm still getting back into the mascara habit, thanks to the fraternal (sororital?) correction of my little sister, but I'm definitely not skinny any more. And I probably won't be for quite some time if things keep going the way they've been going (courtesy disclaimer: not currently pregnant). And that's fine. It's not what awesome, but it's fine, because this is what babies do to women's bodies: they change them. For better and for worse. Mostly worse, but honestly, I don't mind all that much any more.

So babies change our bodies. And they also change our bonds. I remember naively listening to Dr. Janet Smith's famous treatise "Contraception, Why Not?" as a college student and nodding along sagely as she spun her anecdotal wisdom about marriages involving children being fundamentally more difficult to walk away from, because you're not just a pair anymore, but a family. There's more at stake if the thing blows up. I get that, now. I'd never dream of leaving Dave for any reason, but the thought of walking out the door on our children makes me physically ill to contemplate. There is a bond we've literally co-created that physically, psychically, spiritually links us for all eternity. Actually, we've got three of them. We're in real deep. 

Real, real deep.

And I love that. I love how deeply I depend upon him to come walking through the door at night to rescue  me from the scrabbling, sticky paws of tiny monsters who can't stop touching me for two seconds and who absolutely won't sit still for a perfectly lovely episode of "House Hunters" at 4:30 pm because mama's trick bag is not only empty, but there's a gaping hole in the bottom, but who will beg mercilessly for Curious George the whole time I'm trying patiently to explain the superiority of coffered ceilings and crown moldings. I mean really.

Then comes prince charming, zooming up the street in his noble Toyota Camery and suddenly I am rescued, I am not alone, I am not doing this by myself…and even though I look like a lukewarm mess and 100% of my outfit involves some percentage of spandex, I know he'll come through the door, kiss me, take a baby off my hands and tell me to go pour myself a glass of wine. Or water, as Genevieve would have it. 

Am I enslaved to this man whose life is pledged to me and mine to his? I guess that's one possible interpretation. But it is a sweet, sweet bondage, forged in the crucible of the delivery room, the late-night runs to Super Target for diapers, the monthly roller coaster of charting and calculating and discerning, and in the endlessly-needy love and adoration of three tiny people who have his blue eyes and my strong will.  I've yet to come across a form of contraception that can offer those kind of benefits.

(Cross posting at Catholic Exchange today)

Pelican Mother

Yesterday I was absolutely fried by 5 pm. When Dave got home from work I flung the kids and the keys at him and begged that he take them to the gym – and the waiting kid’s club. He was more than obliging and as he loaded them into the minivan I wondered why oh why they are always (okay, usually) so very agreeable for him when they’ve been testing and trying and sometimes tormenting me all day long. Maybe his enthusiasm levels are sufficiently high to mask his weakness from them, and maybe, like hungry jungle predators, they’re less interested in pursuing a healthy, challenging piece of prey?

Maybe I’m over thinking this analogy.

At any rate, I threw some stir fry together, texted my beloved that dinner was waiting on the stove, and fled the house in search of some much-needed solitude. I ended up at Panera, seated across from a table filled with video game design students. Which, from an ambient noise level perspective is somewhere on the list in between Dungeons and Dragons aficionados and frat boys. I ordered a turkey sandwich, which was assembled sans turkey, a reality which escaped my notice for at least 4 bites. From a first world perspective, this night off was going downhill, and fast.

Hastily tucking my impulse-purchased holiday edition of “Real Simple” under my flappy upper arm, I dumped my sad sandwich and made for the door. As I drove aimlessly through the streets of suburban Denver, I found myself turning into the parking lot of a nearby parish.

“Alright, Lord. I’ll stop for Adoration. But like, 5 minutes. Because I’m sooooo tired. And also, Hobby Lobby is still open. You know, arts and crafts.” (I have a mystical union with Christ. Don’t hate.)

I parked in the pleasantly packed lot and lumbered my way to the chapel, picking a pew toward the front right and collapsing into a mass of exhausted mama. I’m sure the lady behind me thought I’d either just gotten dumped or lost my best friend, but the heavy breathing was 100% pregnancy induced, and the pathetic slump forward onto the kneeler was purely a function of my back giving out.

I raised my weary eyes to the monstrance and waited for … something. Mystical union aside, I’m not super adept at mental prayer, and I’m certainly not in the habit of receiving discernible messages from the Lord. But last night, He showed up. Surprisingly quickly.

As I contemplated Him, there physically present before me in a tidy circle of bread, my eyes wandered to the image embossed on the marble beneath the altar: a mother pelican with three baby birds in her nest, tearing at the flesh surrounding her heart to feed them. (This sounds more gruesome than it is, but trust me, in white marble, it’s tasteful.) I bounced my eyes from the scene of avian carnage to the clean, gleaming monstrance and back again.

That’s You. I thought in wonder. That’s you and that’s also…me? 

As I sat in quiet contemplation, a warm sense of camaraderie and comprehension filled my aching brain. The correlation between the early Church’s imagery of Christ’s love for His children and a mother physically suffering – even to the point of self destruction – for her chicks was not lost on me. Indeed, for the first time I found myself profoundly moved by this imagery which so aptly summed up the hours of my day.

See, He seemed to whisper, this is how I love you. This is how I designed you to love, too. You are more than capable of this, but not apart from Me. And days like today? The hard days? That’s you trying to go it alone, without Me.

I squinted at pelican-mommy’s tattered flesh, wincing at the analogy. They’ll kill her, I mentally grumbled.

Yes. That’s the point. She’ll give and give until there’s nothing left to sustain her but Me. But if she asks, I will provide the grace. I will not allow her to be overcome. But she has to ask.

This back and forth continued for the better part of half an hour, (and lest anyone get the wrong impression, I’m not legit hearing voices from Heaven or anything of that nature, it’s just sort of … impressions, an interior knowledge that God is speaking my way.) He is kind of frank with me, truth be told, so I’m not sure a differing temperament from my own would be terribly comforted by our conversations. He knows what I need though, and that looks more like drill sergeant-meets-father than guidance-counselor-meets-life-coach for this stubborn choleric. But I digress. The point is, I showed up last night, somewhat begrudgingly, and He more than met me there.

As I contemplated mama bird and her carnivorous offspring, I realized how much I’ve been trying to do on my own. How little I’ve asked for His grace. How quickly I’ve arrived at the daily conclusion: I’ve got this only to meet Dave at the door 9 hours later, a quivering mess of nerves and anger and exhaustion, informing him that I most definitely do not got this, or much of anything else I’m attempting to accomplish at this moment in my life. I’m a mess. This life? This life is a mess. And that mother bird tearing at her own flesh, literally emptying her heart to feed her children? That’s a hot mess. A hot, bloody, brutal mess…and yet, this is His model to us. This kind of love. That level of sacrifice. Those needy, searching, desperate little mouths.

How can I love like that? The short answer is simply, I can’t.

But He can. And through Him, I can, too. But not without asking for it. Not without inviting Him in to step over the messiness and the disaster of my own failed attempts and to make a grand, clean, pride-shattering sweep of the whole thing.

Come in, Lord. I begged him, my not-turkey sandwich still resting heavily in my ribcage. I can’t do this. Feed my babies. Show me how to love them like You do.

I believe that He will. As I swept breakfast from under the table this morning I pictured their neediness literally tearing my flesh apart, exposing the selfishness, the pride, the inability to love … and I was glad. I am still disturbed by the prevalence of gluten free waffle crumbs on my kitchen chairs, and I will still wince when I get poop underneath my fingernails at some point today, but I am still glad. They’re my living, breathing invitations to love like Him. It’s up to me to RSVP.

(cross posted at Catholic Exchange)

Toddlers and (Papal) Tiaras

We had lived in Rome all of 3 weeks when Pope Benedict announced his intention to abdicate the papacy, setting in motion a frenzy of events and news coverage the likes of which the world hadn’t seen in 6 centuries. Naturally, my two darling children took it all in stride, one going so far as to volunteer to be kissed in front of an audience of about a billion by the outgoing Holy Father. Yeah, we’re living the high life…but we’re also rolling dirty, toddler style...
Head on over to Catholic Exchange to read the rest of this post.