Over at the Standard Today

I got swamped and didn't cross reference this piece, but it's not too late. 

Celebrating Holy Week at Home.

Over at the Register today

Hello and welcome to April.  I have a piece over at the National Catholic Register for anyone who felt like somehow, they missed something of what they were supposed to feel or do during Holy Week.   I've found in discussions with family and friends, the experience was almost universal, maybe we need to just relax and allow ourselves to be steeped in Holy Week, rather than thinking we have to somehow ascend into it.  Anyway, enjoy and please share with friends via facebook, twitter, etc:  When a rough Holy Week is the lesson.

Who is the Crucifixion For?

As a child, I believed, and even as an adult, I have said in jest, "The fireworks on the 4th of July?  They're for me."  Why?  Because as a child, I thought them wonderful and why wouldn't we do something wonderful for my birthday?  Why wouldn't my birthday go beyond one day?  As an adult, it's fun because it means I always know, my family will have off when it's time to celebrate.  

However, the joke is a joke because it's not true. 

The Crucifixion however, it is for me.  It is true.  It was always for me, and I always needed this, just to have a shot at something better beyond this life.  The same is true for each of us. The Crucifixion is a gift, an outrageous gift of over the top love from God to each of us, a sign, symbol and reality of the lengths to which, God will go to win us back. 

There are many excellent reflections and exercises one can use on this Good Friday to honor that gift.  The easiest one I know, is to hold a crucifix in your hands.

Consider His feet.  His feet which the woman washed with her tears, dried with her hair and anointed with perfume, are now pierced all the way through with a nail which someone physically drove into him. and someone else held down so it could be done. 

Next, consider his hands, which he used to make clay to place on a blind man's eyes, and to break the loaves and fishes, which he used to touch a man's ears and say, "Be opened."  They are pinned to a cross.  I don't know about you, but when I consider the nails, I tend to hold my hands, to pull back, because the idea of it is almost too much. 

At the idea of an idea being too much, I consider the crown of thorns, which pierces all over, which he cannot remove, which digs into his skull.  There are a thousand splinters, an untold number of lashes, and all the bruises from the walk and the falls with the cross. These are just the physical agonies we inflicted.

Now we add the cowardice, the grief he felt from being alone, from knowing those He did this for (us, or if I'm doing this examination alone, me), would shout "Crucify him!" The ones he did this for, would play clever, asking, "What is truth?"  The ones he did this for, would say they did not know him, would run away, would betray him, would scatter, and at best, they would watch. 

It was at this point, I hit the snag of "why did Mary, Mother of God say nothing?" 

However, Mary knew her heart would be pierced.  She knew this was the means of salvation. She'd heard his teaching. She'd heard his prediction of having to suffer and die, of having to take up the cross.  She must have pondered it in her heart, and resolved to do God's will.  Suffering her son to die, this must have been the hardest act of obedience of her life, to watch the spectacle, to not go and gather the apostles, yell at them and get them to go back and at least witness with Jesus, to stay with Him, and watch him surrender his spirit.  I cannot imagine a harder task for anyone.  Her prayer must have been a constant fiat at this point, "Let it be done according to Your will." just to hold to being a person without sin.

As I pondered her at the foot of the cross more, when you're faced with the total gift of self offered on the Cross by God for each and all of us, all you ultimately can feel, is silent awe.  So I'm guessing there was some of that in Mary's heart as well, because she would have held all those who fled, all those who shouted, all those who begged for Barabbas and all those who crucified Him, in her heart as well.  "Love God with all your heart, soul and body, and your neighbor as yourself."  Mary had to somehow, be loving those around her as she loved her Son to endure seeing Him on the cross and taking Him down. 

Who is the crucifixion for? It's for each of us, because we've been every role in this drama of the Easter story except for two, and those are the two we are to emulate.  We've been weak like Peter, we've sold out like Judas, we've been envious like the Pharisees, we've been fired up and eager like the crowd, equivocating like Pilate, desirous of having proof, of being able to command God, like Herod, cruel like those who scourged Him, violent like those who nailed him, and scared like the apostles who ran off in every direction.  The more we dig, the more we can find to prove we need God to show us, He will love us even through this, even in spite of this.  "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."  His words of forgiveness even from a cross, to each of us, for the reasons we put Him there.

Have a Great Good Friday, knowing He held onto the nails, not the hurt, and asking each of us in our lives, in our sufferings great and small, to do the same and repeat the words of Mary, "Let it be done to me, according to Your Will," and of Jesus, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."

Pray and Fast and Give Alms for Peace

The Syrian crisis is as complex as anything one might imagine.  Here are some of the key points from the past four years alone.  Suffice it to say, 250,000 individuals have died and 11 million have been displaced from their homes.  Every once in a while we get worked up over a picture, because a picture as the saying goes, is worth 1000 words.  Nikki Haley held up pictures asking how many children have to die before Russia cares? I'd change the word Russia to world.

Seeing people dying in a horrible quick fashion that is frightening, that makes us want to take action.

This sort of horror, like the picture of the boy washed up on the shore, like the picture of the boy in the back of the ambulance, somehow gets us more invested than say, this picture:

or this one: 

Which makes us want to change the channel because we can't wrap our heads around it and don't have a symbolic action we could do which would let us go back to not paying attention. 

So remember folks, you can kill with indifference, denial of humanitarian aid, bullets and bombs all you like, but if you do a chemical weapon drop, we'll send missles.  Please, go back to killing and oppressing your people in less emotionally gripping and disturbing ways.  To avoid further strikes, only oppress and kill in ways which are approved by other civilized nations.

I'm sorry if that sounds too sharp to some ears. I'll concede it might deter Assad from authorizing further flights from airbases he contols to drop chemicals on civilians who do not favor his regime, but it also might draw us into a high stakes conflict with Russia, since Russia suspended an agreement of military cooperation between the US and Russia, since Russia is an ally of the existing Syrian regime. Additionally, while surgical strikes provide symbolic relief, no one even pleased with the US response, believes this limited action will result in the regime having a change of heart.

While I hope the missles got the places that hold chemical weapons, no one should feel comfortable that the US sends drones or missles into countries where we have not declared war or been given sanction to act in a military fashion or that Russia has promised to bolster Syrian air defense systems and is sending a frigate to monitor Syria's port to the Mediteranean.  It has the feel of brinkmanship, and not "the art of the deal." Military action, like all other things we do, ought to be the result of reflective, deliberate policy and thoughtful examination.  This act, (in contrast with the talk up until last week), is reflexive and reactive.  I didn't like it with the past presidents, I still don't like it.  

So what do we do as we watch powers and principalities play out a game of live chess with real people?

If we remember, back when war with Syria seemed inevitable in 2013, Pope Francis asked the Church to pray and fast for peace.  Somehow, the U.S. need to go to war which seemed unavoidable, evaporated...overnight.

Perhaps it is time to make that request again, and this time, add alms giving in the form of each parish taking on a family. If the Pope asks our fellow Christians and Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters to each take on a family at each church, each mosque, each temple, we will be able to whittle that picture of endless despair down, and perhaps help prove there is another way to address "such relentless hate," by riding out to meet them.  Problems aren't intractable just because they're difficult to resolve. Problems remain intactable because people refuse to be moved or to move. What is required is embracing the cross.  Somehow, we have to know, if we are Catholic, everything always requires embracing the cross.   Somehow, we have to know, peace isn't the merely absence of conflict.  Anyone who ever had a silent fight knows how a house feels when two people aren't getting along.  On a global scale, we can't know peace when we wilfully ignore suffering so as to "get along."

What we keep forgetting, as individuals and whole peoples, is when we ignore a problem because it is hard, it gets bigger.  It's true with weight. It's true with debt.  It's true with education. It's true with politics.  It's true with everything that matters in life.  When we ignore problems because they are difficult, we eventually wind up ignoring people.    We need to take on this crisis we've ignored. 

How?

We can eliminate the humanitarian crisis by helping one family at a time, via one community at a time.  Risk is always involved when we reach out to a stranger, to an other, whenever we offer love but to do otherwise, is indifference (which is the simplest path and what we've done as a world whenever we thought we could).  We've tried indifference. It has lead to where we are now, with millions searching for room in the inn of the world, pictures of the dead and the dying and stories of suffering, waste and pain with no respite.

Here's some links to ways we can get involved.
Seven Ways to Help Syrian Refugees.

How to Get Congress to Act to provide relief to Syrian Refugees.

Here's one more, which has some of the same information but is still worth reading as I'm pleased it's from a secular source: How to Help.

Petition your bishop, your pastor, and your friends to encourage everyone to do the same.  As we prepare for Holy Week, we ought to ramp up our prayers, fasting and alms giving, storming Heaven, asking for the peace the world cannot give.   If we show we are not living as this world would have us, but as the next, perhaps we can have better pictures and better stories to tell.

So Pray the Rosary for peace.
Fast as penance for all the pain we've created via neglect, indifference and not being willing to act,
and give alms, so they will know who we are.

It may seem unreasonable to pray for peace in such a wartorn and conflicted country. How could it possibly happen? That's okay. God loves unreasonably.  We can be unreasonable with God in our prayers, and God wants peace for these people, for all of us, even more than we do. It may seem crazy to give alms when there are so many in need. How could our little be sufficient?  That's okay. Give what you can. God will do the multiplying. He's done it before.   It may even seem scary to take on caring for people of a different faith, people we don't know, and to invite them into our lives. Again, that's okay. 

Love is always unreasonable, generous and courageous.  So be unreasonable, generous and courageous.  This week, this about to be Holy Week, be love.  

God's laughing....

So you know how I wrote that post yesterday about blogging being light?  Well, yesterday's adventures merited not one but two blog posts.  Everyone knows the rule about making God laugh.  All you have to do is profess your plans.

The First Stations of the Cross

Part of being a stay at home mom is supposed to be those moments you get to see your kids doing things and they see you seeing them. I felt very excited I'd be able to go to the stations of the cross and see three of my children acting in them.

At one o'clock, I loaded my five year old and drove toward the school. I stopped at the gas station and there, I saw her. She looked older than I knew her to be. This woman holding a walker stood at the side of six lanes of traffic, fully intending to cross. I looked for an aide, a nurse, a daughter, someone who would escort her. There was no one.

Standing, waiting in an ill fitting pair of old jeans, so ill fitting, they did not cover all of her hips, and a too small for her jacket, her middle was completely exposed. I couldn't stand it. We'd be late. Grabbing a shirt from my husband's dry cleaning stack, I walked to her. "Do you want a shirt?" I asked.

"No!" she said. Okay, that was inartful. I rationalized, she was one turn from being naked on the side of the street, and tried again. "Do you need any help?"

"Yes! I'm lost." Lost! Yes. That made sense. "Come back with me toward the car, I have a smart phone. I'll help you find where you want to go." She followed.

"What's your name?" I asked.
"Renee." She gave me a smile. She followed, occasionally hitching her pants.

I googled her spot. It was in fact, across the street but a block away. She'd never get past the traffic coming over the bridge.
"Let me give you a ride." I offered.
"You'll have to take my walker." Renee said.

I loaded the walker in the trunk and looked again at the long sleeved shirt she'd refused.

One block, but it took two tries to get to the spot. It was a building set back from the street and the entrance was in the cellar.

During the drive she told me she'd received a Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee in Clinical Psychology and I had to wonder, was I being tested to see either how gullible I was, or was she pulling my leg to show she had a sense of humor, or was there a reality to this story, which revealed a far greater tragedy. I opted to simply believe. "That's impressive." She added, she'd received a second degree when she made a lateral move to specialize. "What is this place I'm taking you to?"

"It's a cable store."
"You mean like Comcast or Direct TV?"
"No. They sell cables."
"There's a store that just sells wire?"

"Thanks for doing this for me." she added.
"Hey. It isn't every day I get to give a ride to a person with two doctorates." She gave me a smile. I'd gotten the joke. We understood each other.

We parked. I got out her walker and thought, I'd try again. "May I give you a shirt?"
"Oh. I would love that."
I slid the rose button down long sleeved shirt over her arms and across her shoulders. It hid everything.
"Thank you."

She started to take the stairs with the walker. I didn't know if she was less disabled than she seemed or just lacked judgement but I couldn't leave. "That looks really steep. I don't want you to break your neck." I took the walker, and she gripped both railings all the way down, "Bye Renee."

I raced back the two blocks it took to get to my daughter's school. They were taking the photos for the year book. I'd missed it all. My oldest daughter gave me a hug anyway when she saw me.

When I told her the story, she told me, "Well, you can go tonight."  

Now is the Time to Start the Big Push

My dad would say that whenever I complained about how much I had to do.   Today, I woke up discouraged.  I have a list of things to do that is fifteen plus items long. It is full of hard to do tedious errands that will require thought, care and time.

Instead, I am writing.  

This is the last week of Lent.  It is time to take stock.   Even if you haven't done anything or have blown Lent, forgotten your resolutions, now is the time to start the big push.

You can make this Lent the beginning of a deeper faith life if you do  any of the following.  This week.  It's not a formula.  It's a call.  It's the means by which God acts.  You look at the list.  Something in it tugs.   Follow that tug.  Don't be afraid. It is the Holy Spirit, trying to bring you deeper and deeper in.  

1) Go to the stations of the cross.  Let your mind dwell on the why of it.

2) Go to confession.  Masstimes.org is a great place to find one nearby. Or call, make an appointment.

3) Go to Holy Thursday mass.  Yes. It's long.  It's worth it.

4) Fast on Good Friday.

5) Pray the rosary.

6) Go to adoration, spend an hour.  There is a church near you that holds 24-7 adoration.  Find it.

7) Read the scripture readings for the week or listen to them via podcast.  Laudate is a great app if you have a smart phone and want to listen in the car.

8) Perform one of the Corporal Acts of Mercy:
         a) Feed the hungry
         b) Give drink to the thirsty
         c) Shelter the Homeless
         d) Visit the sick
         e) Visit the Prisoners
         f) Bury the Dead.
Pope Francis is an exceptional example of someone trying with all he has to do the acts of mercy almost every day.

9) Perform one of the Spiritual Acts of Mercy:
         a) Counseling the Doubtful
         b) Instructing the Ignorant
         c) Admonishing the Sinner
         d) Comforting the Sorrowful
         e) Forgiving Injuries
         f) bearing wrongs patiently
         g) Praying for the deceased.

10) Invite someone who does not go to mass, to come with you.

11) Offer a mass for someone.

12) Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet..

13) Go to the Church at 3 o'clock on Friday.

14) Pray the Prayer of Abandonment every day this week.

15) Give alms.

    I finished writing the list and realized, I'd created a possible to do list of more than 15 things, all of which take time, but which are in no way tedious.   Oddly enough, adding that extra thing to the list, made it feel lighter.  

So pick one.  Then, tackle the rest of whatever you have to do.  As you might surmise, blogging will very likely be light this week, owing to Holy Week, but now is the time to start the big push.
 

Holy Week Thoughts

Palm Sunday, we get the reading of the Lord's last hours.  We get to see in painful detail all the ways we need Good Friday.

Because Jesus would not do things the way we wanted them, by being a King in the world as opposed to King of the world, we betray Him. 
We fall asleep even when things are dire.
We fall asleep even when He asks us not to.
We fall asleep in His presence.
Because we're too weak to speak out, we ask, "What is truth?"  
Because we're envious or chafe at His words, we plot to undermine Him, blaspheme Him, testify against Him, or watch as these things are done.
Because we're creative when we feel righteous, we weave crowns of thorns, and invent games, "Play the prophet." and demand Jesus answer, which of us struck you.
To fit in with the crowd, we say "Crucify him."
To not be declared like Him when someone says, "Surely you were with Him." we deny three times.

We give a heavy cross to Him.
We watch Him fall.  We watch Him fall again. We watch a third time.
We don't want Him to die just yet, so we get just enough help to prolong the pain.

We want to watch Him nailed.
We place a sign over His head. 

We pierce His side.

We dare Him, "Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe."

This week, hearing this read aloud, it occurred to me, that last request by the chief priests and scribes, He answered with a yes, giving them the opportunity to recognize the Messiah (and one hopes some of them did).   The idea gave me great comfort, the people asked for the unreasonable, and God answered with the lavish "Yes" that is Easter.

Have a blessed Holy Week, prepare for the day of the most lavish Yes.  

Holy Week's Small Successes

1) I took some of my kids to confession yesterday in preparation for Easter.

My daughter wanted to go to adoration.  I felt admittedly hesitant as she is only 9 but she was adamant.  "I want to go see Jesus."  So I explained that she could go in the room and sit in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament but that there was no talking, no wiggling and no getting silly. (All things she does often).  I also told her I would be right back but I had to return to the main church to claim my son who wouldn't know where we were.  She would have to leave when I came to collect her.  And with that explantion and a bit of trepidation, I left her in the room filled with many more people than I felt comfortable about for letting her sit for the first time.  

I mentally hoped she would not be bored or fidget or cause someone else to feel distracted as I hastened to collect her older brother.  Coming back into the room, she was at the front, praying fiercely, happily, enthusiastically and with great joyful reverence, the kind that only a pure of heart third grader can muster.  It was moving to see her so rapturously before Christ.  I felt very foolish by comparison even fresh with the grace of confession; my daughter understood perfectly well how to sit in adoration, you adore.  

2) The same daughter made me exercise two days this week.

3) Earlier this week, I finished reading a book.

4) wrote on Helen four days.

5) Got to sit at Holy Thursday mass (okay for half of it), and just hold Paul.  It was delightful to give him that cuddle time and I loved when the kids would sing.  When they'd finish, Paul would clap in appreciation. 

6) Made a promise to myself, not to impulse spend.  Immediately, I could think of fifteen great gifts/great ideas if only I would just spend a little.  The kids wanted just a little treat to start Spring Break.  But I held fast and offered homemade substitutes and lo, things worked out.  We are now on day two.

7) Had a free piece run in Family and Faith Live!

8) Did spring cleaning on my blog. It looks better than my house :) What do you think of the new look?  Leave a comment!