conversion – it is making me

the church phalanx

Where I attend Mass, there is a foyer separating the sanctuary with stain-glass windows. When I am back there with my toddler– which is often– I can still see the church within, but it’s muddled and distorted through the geometric multi-colored glass. It’s a familiar sight line. It reminds me of my life before baptism when I was intrigued by the Catholic church but peering in as an outsider. I could make out some details, but much was unclear to me, almost incomprehensible. But it also reminds me of how I have felt at times as a Catholic, even of late. Sometimes I want to run, but where else can I go, Lord– you have the words of eternal life. Sometimes, I feel like a weary beggar reaching out along the road. Another hit of that spit and mud poultice, please Jesus– my vision is clouding.

But the good thing about being in that place spiritually is that it brings to mind the many who must feel like that all the time. There are so many Catholics who feel like outsiders. Whether neuro-divergent, or trauma survivors, or mentally ill, they don’t feel like they fit whatever mold a church community is selling. Our human desire for community sometimes means that we get so excited to find like-minded people, that we close in too tightly around one another and move through life like a phalanx. We think we’re keeping out the spears and arrows of our enemies, but who do we lose along the way? Or whom do we fail to see as we close in on ourselves?

Christ in the Gospels is a Healer. We should be a healing Church. We can’t even hide our wounds; one scandal after another proves that. And thank God we can’t hide from the rot. I think the secret sauce to rebuilding our Church is through healing. And that means seeking out the lost, the wounded, and beaten-down even within our own parishes. The outsiders who are looking in through muddled glass need to feel like it’s okay to be wrong, to not fit the mold, to be a bit messy when they step inside the sacred space. They don’t have to be bombarded with the mold and all its rightness. Love them. Be the truth, live the moral high ground instead of preaching it, extend compassion and mercy, and God will do His work. How long will they wait, peering in and wondering if their mess will be welcome? How long before they turn their backs and seek a warm, welcoming people with only half-truths to offer them?

Break the phalanx formation and look around. Attend to the wounded.

here, you have a tissue…

… and I’ll just be over here having an epiphany during Mass

One of the purposes of penitential seasons is to simplify, gain clarity, grow closer to Christ. And here is my confession, borne from clarity, that materialized this past Advent season: I am having a crisis of identity. Not my own identity, but of God’s identity. And maybe struggling to see God clearly would naturally muddle my own identity, or vice versa, since I was created in His image. There’s a thought.

January 1 of this past year, 2022, opened with a surgical Confession, the kind that cuts open the chest, takes your heart out, flips it over, sews it back in the right way and you come out a different person. But I didn’t walk out of the church waltzing with Christ into a sunset. I left struck dumb, paralyzed yet free, wondering what was next.

There was a whole lot of “next”.

While in the confessional, the priest had me speak to Christ (like at him, towards the monstrance, inches away from my face) and tell him how my heart had been broken. I said things I didn’t even know were inside of me. It was like I was watching myself, gaping, she just said WHAT? You don’t tell God you’re angry at Him. At yourself, sure, because you deserve every tear you shed. But to cry at God, to ask Him why He wasn’t there, didn’t stop things, etc., was… life-changing, yes… but so f-ing terrifying. The priest, in persona Christi, gently listened, offered wisdom, and assured me how much God loved me.

A few years ago, during the consecration to Jesus through Mary, was the first time I realized that I had a messed-up image of God. I had distinctly separated out the persons of the Trinity in my head, and I didn’t really like talking to God. Jesus, yes. Holy Spirit, yes. But Father-God was terrifying. This awareness had been present, but dormant in my mind until that confession when the damn was broken. I was swimming in it now, the full consciousness of my distorted perception of Father-God.

But what to do with that?

The rest of the year is a longer story, but fast-forward to this past Advent of 2022. I was sleep-walking through it in many ways, but maybe that was a grace: I think I was able to receive what God wanted me to hear.

It was Gaudete Sunday, when you can expect the readings to be hopeful and comforting certainly, but I wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t paying as much attention this year. The church was packed, and our family of nine was sandwiched in a pew between a smaller family of four, and a young woman. We were only a few minutes into Mass when I realized the young woman beside me was weeping. I felt an overwhelming, maternal/sisterly love for this stranger and I wanted to give her comfort. We heard the words of the prophet Isaiah:

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.

Such hope for this suffering young woman! I wanted to proclaim to her, with Isaiah:

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God…
he comes to save you.

The readings continued, and into the Gospel we went where Jesus tells John’s disciples to report to him in prison about what is actually happening: the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised. Yes, yes, yes, Christ offers not just promises, but actual healing! I was singing this with my heart as I offered her the only comfort appropriate in the middle of Mass towards a weeping stranger– a tissue.

But this sobering thought hit me soon after: with what enthusiasm I wanted to offer Christ’s tender mercy, comfort, and miraculous healing through the passing of a tissue to a complete stranger, someone I was certain God loved. Why couldn’t I believe that for myself? I believed that God was a healer, a good Father– that’s what I’ve been taught in my twenty years as a Catholic, that’s what I’ve read, that’s what I’ve told others.

My mind wandered back to Isaiah 35:

Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return
and enter Zion singing,
crowned with everlasting joy;
they will meet with joy and gladness,
sorrow and mourning will flee.

Those whom the Lord has ransomed. That’s me.

{Allow me this brief tangent that will connect, I promise: in marriage, you say your vows, you say “I love you” and you mean it. But then something happens, difficulties arise, you quarrel or whatever, and you say “I love you” but it means something even deeper than before in a way you couldn’t have foreseen the first time you said it. And this keeps happening, again and again, until you realize you love your spouse more deeply than ever before, even though you loved them as much as you were able fifteen years before.}

That’s the best way I can think to describe what’s happening to me, only in media res, stuck in the hard part. I said, “I believe, amen”. And I really did believe in God and salvation and Divine Love. But when the damn broke in that confession, all the mucky soil from underneath rose to the top and now I’m swimming in refuse and it’s harder to imagine that I will “bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song”. I believe, but it’s a tired “amen”.

This weeping stranger in Mass was a reminder of myself. Offering her one tissue just made her weep more. I persuaded her to take the whole pack. A small gesture of tenderness broke her a little more open. And just as I had wanted to draw her close, comfort her, assure her of God’s love for her, so I must remember that God feels that way towards me. Even when I come to Mass or present myself to Him in prayer weeping, parched, enraged, weary, He wants it all. He takes it all.

the God of Grit

O great mystery,

and wonderful sacrament,

that animals should see the Lord born,

lying in a crib;

The medieval hymn, O Magnum Mysterium, expresses awe at the humility of Christ’s birth. That the birth of the King of Kings should be first witnessed to by beasts of burden, and that the spouse of the Holy Spirit lies on hard ground amidst scratchy hay to labor– this is a magnum mysterium, a great mystery.

During different stages of my life, I have pondered different aspects of Christ’s birth during the Advent and Christmas seasons. As a young adult, the wonder and majesty struck me; as a young mother, the discomfort and peril struck me; at other times, the historical and cultural circumstances have struck me. But this Christmas, it has been poignantly sensory. I am there experiencing the stench of animal urine and dung, the smell and scratch of hay, the frigid night air, the veil of darkness, the base life-sounds of bleating and newborn cries.

This past year I have tried to be honest and receptive in my relationship with God, which has revealed a lot of repressed anger and hurt towards God. I had to work through the shame of feeling angry before I could actually confront the origins of this anger. Interiorly, I wearied, stopped wrestling the darkness, and I’m now just sitting with it. While that’s necessary, it’s dark and cold here at times. But I know this is part of deliverance and healing.

It’s been liberating to stop forcing emotions, like pulling cellophane over a bucket of muck. Right now, Mass is an act of obedience; Communion is a still, quiet moment at the cross. But this is an improvement from running out of Church during the consecration, which is where I was a year ago. Part of that healing has been peeling away the angelic, gilded depictions of Christ and the Church, and discovering the grit. Only then do I see myself and the life God has walked with me through. Only then do I remember that God indeed has been Emmanuel, God with me– not just in consolation and revelation, but He has been faithful in all things, all places, even under the cold veil of night. I don’t know if I believe that yet, but at least I can imagine that I will get there.

What does it mean that God chose to be born in a dank, stench-filled cave, surrounded by dumb animals? If Mary was the beloved of His heart, why would he allow her to give birth in cold, pungent darkness? Magnum Mysterium opens with, “O great mystery”. This, like so much of Christ’s life, is a mystery which theologians debate and mystics contemplate. But what we can know with the same senses that Christ incarnated, is that His birth, while miraculous and mysterious, was also one of stench and grit.

This simple reality makes me feel loved. As John of the Cross wrote, “this delight within your Bride / Would great be increased, / If the flesh she is endowed with / She saw you also shared”. The stench and grit that I am working through is there with baby Jesus and the Holy Family. I will sit with them in the dark, chilly cave, in the great mystery, and trust that salvation is here.

O Blessed Virgin, whose womb

was deemed worthy to bear

the Lord Jesus Christ.

Alleluia!

2022 ~ Word of the Year

Ok, Pee-Wee Herman, get your giant underwear ready, I have picked a word of the year. Wait for it, drumroll…

RECEPTIVITY

No, wait that’s not it… The word of the year is:

FORGIVENESS

Ach, that’s not quite right… Yes, I know:

MERCY

Can it be all three? Are there rules about the word-of-the-year? I’ve had a hard time settling on just one, as you can see, and I think that’s because I am going into this year with more of a concept-of-the-year.

Nearly the very first thing I did this year (besides waking up, eating breakfast, etc) was go to Confession. This wasn’t an ordinary Confession, but a healing general Confession with a priest who offers deliverance prayers and blessings. By the fall of last year, the piercing, revelatory light of God’s love uncovered dark cobwebbed corners of my soul. A better image would be wounds that had been scabbed seven times over with grotesque scars. (I have written about that elsewhere, and more about the general confession elsewhere.)

But January 1, I marched up the church steps, slid into the narrow confessional, and encountered Christ the Healer in a way I never have before. It pulled back the scars from those wounds and laid them bare. But the powerful prayers called off any evil that had laid claim to those dark memories, leaving them exposed and raw, though protected by grace. Just as my baptism didn’t end a conversion, but began a new life and deeper conversion, so this sacrament of Reconciliation blew the lid of some dark shit and led me into a deeper stage of conversion.

That’s what I’m focusing on this year: inviting God to heal what has festered for so long. That will require receptivity, right? I need to have a spirit of surrender with Christ the wounded Healer. I need to be vulnerable with Him. This vulnerability can lead so quickly to shame that I need mercy, both to claim it and accept it. The Divine Mercy was one of the first images that pricked my heart all those years ago at the beginning of my conversion to the Catholic Church. Now I have to live it, open my heart to it, bathe in its light. And in receiving it, I need to reflect it, to pour it out on those who have wronged me, both intentionally and unintentionally. Thus, forgiveness.

You can see how I have to have three words this year. So if there’s a life coach out there who’s like, No, you only get ONE ya loser, to them I bite my thumb and cry, Fie! Leave me my three, the world depends upon it. I truly believe this is a new phase in the Church, a time of healing and wholeness. We need to heal so we can heal the Church, which can then heal the world.

Barf, sentimental hogwash, you say. Trust me, healing is afoot.

Word of the Year

{aaaahhhhhhhh!!!}

In January of last year—2021—my lady-friends at church and I got together for a friend’s birthday. The birthday girl requested we come to the gathering with “a word”. A word-of-the-year: apparently, it’s a thing. I immediately went to sarcasm and thought of every children’s television show with their words of the day: would Word Girl greet me mentally every morning, her cape flowing behind her, with a reminder of my word-of-the-year? It was hard not to imagine Pee-Wee Herman screaming in hysterics with giant underwear on his head every time this word-of-the-year would be uttered. That’s where my brain goes, what can I say.

aaahhhhhhhh!!!

But the pop-up image of Pee-Wee Herman wearing giant underwear on his head wasn’t the only turn-off to this exercise. I admittedly have a knee-jerk repulsion to female groupings of any kinds—prayer groups, Bible studies, book clubs—which is objectively unjust and something I’m in the process of examining and hopefully rectifying. That being said, my first reaction to my friend’s request was panic and repulsion. But I simmered-the-hell-down and realized the more appropriate and reasonable response between avoiding the get-together and making up a saccharine and dishonest response, was to politely decline word-choosing and be a good listener.

This lady-friend group continually challenges my repulsion towards lady-groups with their sincerity and generosity of spirit. And this was no exception: as I sat and listened to their honest, and non-saccharine responses, my heart softened. I understood more the purpose of the exercise, and in that moment of emotional receptivity, a word floated into my head: healing.

I was pregnant, due that May, and I had approached and begun this pregnancy with the intention of learning to trust God more fully. There were a lot of knowns and unknowns to fear with this pregnancy. I had been praying for complete and total healing, but also that God would help me trust Him more, whatever the outcome. St. Gianna Molla’s mantra of whatever God wants was purposely on my lips, even though there was fear in my heart.

I swallowed my pride and suspicion and told my friend later that week what my word-of-the-year was. She was a physician, a mother of four, and a recent convert to Catholicism. She explained that she wanted to know her friends’ words so she would know how to pray for each of us. And later that year, she would—unbeknownst to me—begin a novena to St. Gianna Molla towards the end of my pregnancy when things got scary. It would be Gianna’s feast day when I was finally released from the hospital. Only then did my friend let me know about her novena, and it had been the first time she had ever entrusted a prayer to the intercession of a saint.

It is experiences like these when I feel God lighting a loving flame to melt one more hardened, sarcastic piece of my soul. My friend requested vulnerability, which I systemically responded to with suspicion. But through the vulnerability of my friends, my own heart was softened so that I could hear the Holy Spirit whisper, “Healing.” That year—2021—really was a year of healing, but in more ways than I could have anticipated. God needed to prepare me, needed me to have my eyes wide open and my heart attentive. Even though the prayer for healing was already on my lips, I needed to entrust that to the body of Christ, these lady-friends with open hearts.

mystery scar

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.
Save me and I shall be saved.
For you are my praise.
Jeremiah 17:14

I have a long, gnarly scar on my shoulder. It even has a couple crossbars like a jacked-up railroad. The fun thing about scars is the stories behind them. I have an especially grotesque one on my left arm that’s a weird conversation starter. (“Wow, what happened there?” “Oh this? I had a huge-ass mole removed when I was 16.” “Was it cancerous?” “Nope. Purely cosmetic. Vanity, vanity, vanity.”) But I have no idea how I got this new one. Even stranger, I didn’t notice it until just a few months ago, this long, gnarly scar that deserves a better story than, “Yeah I don’t know what happened.”

This is what I want to say if someone asked me about it: You know it’s funny, this scar is a manifestation of the hidden scars that have just recently started surfacing, forcing my prayer and attention, making me an emotional, crumbling mess, and inconveniencing the hell out of my life. But that would probably make for a dismal conversation starter.

The thing is, part of me wonders if it’s true.

With this mysterious scar, I feel more like a character created within magical realism whose spiritual wounds begin to manifest themselves outwardly, etched in her skin, deforming her body, where she can no longer hide them or—worse—lie to herself about their existence.

Something happened to me when my last baby was born. The torrent of afterbirth—which was especially grotesque this time around— was followed by a metaphysical torrent. A few months later, I wondered if I was in some kind of bizarre post-partum depression, when I reconnected with a friend who told me a harrowing story of a car accident that had unleashed past trauma during her rehabilitation. I learned that it was neurologically possible and even common that present trauma could indeed activate memories of past trauma. These weren’t memories or feelings that I had forgotten; it was more like I had separated and parsed the traumatic events out and stored them in different parts of my brain. I can pinpoint moments in the past twenty years when a memory or two has been jostled into my consciousness, usually because of a trigger (damn, I hate that word right now because of how over-used it is, but I mean it in its true, psychological sense).

Since then, I’ve been on this speed train of healing. The timing was right, I guess. The funny thing—GET THIS—is that when I found out I was pregnant this last time, I was justifiably terrified, but really wanted to practice total trust, and prayed for complete healing through my body. This was, hilariously, the most traumatic birth yet. My body is shot, folks. No more babies for this super-uterus. But God was most certainly healing me, yet in a more whole way, a way I didn’t see coming and didn’t know I needed. He was preparing me for mercy. Labor ripped me open, and with that came a torrent of healing grace.

So this scar… It’s a reminder to be honest, to resist wanting to quickly patch this all up and move on. It’s also a reminder that the past is a part of my story, and I’m beginning to see how it’s not a source of shame, but a sign of grace.

memento mori

For years, I was disturbed by my brother’s obsession with skulls. He put skull stickers on his drums, incorporated skulls into his tattoos and clothing, even decorated with skulls. From my perspective at the time, he was flirting with a dark, dangerous part of life; maybe even glorifying evil.

A few years ago, I jumped on the Lenten bandwagon of the memento mori movement, which was an ancient monastic practice reframed and repopularized by Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP. Memento mori, Latin for “remember your death”, is an ancient practice of prayer — the reality of death ever before us illuminates our everyday actions in the context of eternity. One day we shall die—that is an inevitability. What do we do with this time? With our daily actions? The thought is sobering. But, rightly presented and understood, it is surprisingly not morbid.

It suddenly occurred to me that my brother might not be crazy. In fact, considering all he’s been through in his life, it made a whole lot of sense. My brother was a drug addict for years and I know came very close to death more than once; he also lost friends along the way to drugs. He now lives as though his life is a miraculous gift—because it is. I wonder if skulls are a reminder to him of his own mortality, something he’s probably been more aware of than I have of my own.

I bought a ceramic skull for our altar. During Lent, it sits below our icons. It weirded my kids out the first year, which made me even more glad it was there. Death is unsettling. Having been created in the image of God, death was not what we were intended to endure. But now, because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we look forward to the Resurrection: death is a passage.

For school, my daughter and I have been reading aloud together Everyman, a short play from the 16th century written by an unknown cleric about a man journeying towards death. He is abandoned first by Fellowship and Kinsmen, and gradually by everyone and everything he depended upon in life; towards the end he is abandoned even by Beauty and Wits. The man begs to be accompanied, but is repeatedly reminded he will ultimately meet death alone—save for Angel, who meets him with this greeting: “Come excellent elect spouse to Jesu: Hereabove thou shalt go/…/Now shalt thou into the heavenly sphere,/ Unto the which all ye shall come / That liveth well before the day of doom.”

Sometimes in our society today with so many distractions it’s hard to practice memento mori. But this year, with the threat of the coronavirus touching every part of life, it’s very real. People respond to this fear in different ways (some people hoard toilet paper, for example). In Oregon right now, we’re in a mandated lockdown; we’re only allowed to leave our homes for necessary outings. The fear of death has trickled into every corner of life. Yet, death is always here with us, even in times without pandemics. Maybe a hidden blessing in times like this is that we see for ourselves that the chasm that separates us from death is paper-thin. Life is a beautiful gift: yes, fight to live, protect life, celebrate and nurture it. But death, though ugly and terrible, need not be feared; it’s already been defeated. Through death, our life is illuminated. To see it before us is a more true way of living.

my sister

Today is my sister’s birthday; she’s 48 years old. I can’t send her a birthday card because she doesn’t have an address. I can’t call her because she doesn’t have a phone. I can’t visit her because I don’t know where she is. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen her. She’s not dead, she’s just gone. It’s an existence stranger than death, a ghost-like existence. There have been sightings from family and friends, people who think they’ve seen her, or who have actually spoken with her. My dad drives a school bus, and on a few occasions he thinks he sees her on the street during one of his routes; he’ll drive back to that spot after work only to find she’s not there. Maybe she wasn’t ever there in the first place. Maybe he just thinks he sees her out of that steadfast spark of hope in the back of his mind.

I saw my dad today, but I didn’t mention it. I kind of hope his terrible birth-date memory for all of us four kids might be a grace on this occasion. When I saw my mom she said, “Do you know what today is?” I know this is her awkward way of talking about my sister without talking about my sister. Of course I remember my sister’s birthday. Growing up, we often celebrated our birthdays together because it’s just a few days after mine. We’re ten years apart, but she was always game for fun and didn’t mind having a CareBear cake one year, or a MyLittlePony cake another year. She was vivacious and loved with a generous heart. (I write more about her here.)

My sister is selectively homeless. She might not look at it that way, but there were many open doors to her—all with the condition of going through recovery and staying clean. She wanted her independence, or her independence as she saw it. She reached out to my parents a couple times, asked for a warm sleeping bag, things like that, but eventually she cut off all contact.

This year I’m feeling pretty sad. I think the first few years—maybe like the grieving process—I didn’t feel too sad. At first it was like she’d slammed a door in everyone’s faces and I just yelled back a petulant fine-be-that-way. Then I tried joking about it. Then I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. All the while I’ve also been telling myself I shouldn’t feel this strongly about it. She’s only my half-sister, or I can’t possibly feel as badly as my dad or her son, or I haven’t been close to her in a long time. All those things are true, but they don’t change my love and concern for her, nor do they change the pain of separation.

Today is my sister’s birthday and I wish I could see her. Even if it would be awkward and uncomfortable. I wish I could send her an inappropriately funny birthday card, the kind she would love. A birthday celebrates someone’s life, and I want her to know she’s loved and her life is important. In the struggle and confusion of dealing with addiction, I don’t know that I always showed her that. I cling to the mystery of God’s timing, the power of healing at work that I can’t see, the mystical body of Christ praying for her and others like her. God’s mercy is endless– both for me in the ways I have fallen short in loving her, and for all that weighs on her heart.

the advent of Advent

Advent is a heart that is awake and ready.
Fr. Alfred Delp

Advent is a season of preparation, but in these last few days preceding Advent, I am in a period of preparing for the preparation by uncovering boxes in the garage that house the Advent wreath, candles, Jesse Tree and ornaments, books, etc. It’s much like that excitement I felt as a child in preparing for Christmas Eve after winter break had begun and Christmas seemed palpably near. The whole season is different for me now as an adult, and as a Catholic, but that stirring of the heart in anticipation of something mysterious and beautiful is familiar and comforting. Advent is my favorite season, even more so than Christmas.

I remember somewhere in adolescence when the magic of Christmas had waned. It was depressing. I tried to drum up the feelings of Christmas, whatever that means, the kind of sentimental nonsense I absorbed from department stores and Christmas movies, or something. But after entrenching myself in the liturgical year as a Catholic, the magical quality of Christmas was restored, but not just as a sense of wonder, but as reverence, a holy awe at the prophecies of Christ’s coming and the mystery of the Incarnation. Suddenly, life comes to a point; the purpose of everything is narrowed down to an incomprehensible moment when God becomes man. Yet, it’s not just about a sweet little God-man baby, but about the final coming of Christ. We see that our whole existence is one great Advent, a brief preparation for uniting with God.

Over the years, we’ve developed family traditions during Advent. We’ve added on, stolen ideas from other families, altered them, and every year is a little bit different. But our kids have come to depend on these little feasts and practices to make the waiting bearable:

the Advent wreath- candle lighting, reading, and/or hymns
the Jesse tree, its ornaments and stories
the Créche
feast of St. Nicholas
feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
feast of St. Lucia
feast of St. John of the Cross
feast of St. Hildegard of Bingen
books!!! so. many. books… for Children and Adults
{There are a great many worthwhile books to read during Advent, several of which are on my List of Books I Will Read Someday In A House By The Sea When My Kids Are Grown, but follow the links to my personal favorites}

My aim in describing what we do as a family is to demonstrate that it doesn’t need to be perfect. It really can be thrown together. I’ve been surprised that scrambling for a little celebration one year is expected the following year as an established tradition. These little traditions provide a drumbeat on the march toward Bethlehem.

the Saints

At a garage sale sometime around the age of 16, I bought a little green book called Wisdom of the Saints. I can’t say why I bought it at the time, because at the same garage sale I bought a print of a painting of Venice that wasn’t particularly good, and the book Coffee, Tea, or Me. But Catholicism had recently entered into my consciousness. I had a Catholic boyfriend who was in the process of re-discovering his Faith; I had just toured the Iberian Peninsula with my grandparents and fresh memories of cathedrals and Fátima were percolating quietly in the recesses of my heart. So for some pocket change, I bought this little book. It was like a saint appetizer plate, including brief bios and writing samples of some of the greats. I read a little here and there—my James Dean bookmark still holds my place.

At the time, the whole “saints” thing was one of those medieval Catholic inventions I had heard people talk about, things I knew we were supposed to snuff at as post-Reformation, American Christian people. We were smarter now, and knew it was all poppycock. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Though, I did believe in an after-life, that souls went to either Heaven or Hell, which meant our souls kept on living in some kind of way. But Heaven was like a distant place, the “better place” which God lit up with his light and love. I think I pictured it like a drug-less Woodstock where everyone was blissfully happy and hugging each other. People I loved who had died had gone there and we would see them someday, but were for now off the radar, sealed away.

For me growing up, the only guarantee in the invisible, spiritual world was God and the angels, as well as the devil and demons. It made logical sense to me that if I really believed in the eternal-ness of our souls, just as I asked people to pray for me in the here and now, then I could ask the living souls to pray for me— those who had died, but whom death had not conquered through Christ’s salvific work on the Cross. Intellectually, I understood this. But the actual practice of it would take some time (and a little gumption). I could pick up a book like Wisdom of the Saints and appreciate the wisdom. But anything beyond that bordered the crazy.

The funny thing is, it seemed like certain saints started choosing me. I heard this from other people through the years, how it is true for them. Now that I’ve had children, I absolutely believe this to be true. For me, St. Faustina Kowalska and St. Thérèse of Lisieux were the two spiritual power-houses who caught my attention at first. I write more about that [here] and [here].

The communion of the saints changed the way I understood Heaven, and in so doing, how I related to the eternal on a daily basis. Heaven became a part of my life in the present, something not just to long for but also to experience here on earth. The communion of the saints is tied into the Mass: with the angels and saints we proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy!” While they kneel at the throne of God, we kneel to our humble Lord and Savior come to us in the form of bread.

When I started having children, I was at a loss as to how to teach them a number of Catholic things, but the Saints was something I was really eager to share with them. I’m so thankful they posses an awareness of this greater Christian family. Though we haven’t always been consistent, we try to celebrate all of their feast days (or name days). As they get older and are confirmed, they can choose their own feast. My eldest took Francis of Assisi as her special patron at her Confirmation, so now she considers October 4 her feast day. My second-eldest has a few namesakes, but has chosen St. Faustina’s feast most recently. Celebrating their feast day can be as simple as an acknowledgement, or they might get the day off from school (we home-school), sometimes we’ll have a special treat or something like that.

Through the years, at times during night prayer, each of the kids could pick a saint from whom to ask for prayers as part of a family-wide litany. As each of them gets older, I’m surprised sometimes by the saints they call on. Sometimes I know why that particular saint is on their mind, whether they just read about them in school, or they had a recent feast day, but there are times when it’s out of the blue to me, which is a lovely reminder that they’re on their own journey of faith. Last year I wrote up a family Litany of Saints to pray on All Saint’s day, November 1. It was alarmingly long, and really powerful to pray together.

As more people close to me have died, Heaven begins to feel nearer. Through childbirth, Heaven feels nearer. And the reality is, the veil that separates us from the eternal is thin. I could go through life without knowing about the saints, but I don’t know why I would. There is strength in numbers. And I need encouragement and guidance from my brothers and sisters here with me in this life, as well as those who have joyfully finished the race.