Over at the Register Today

I've been busy (as I'm sure you are) with Christmas preparations and Christmas itself, but here's my latest at the Register.  I hope to get back in earnest with writing today...

Five Ways the Devil Tries to Rob You of Christmas Joy. (Or, Sherry took her kids out to look at lights and overheard how organized everyone else was for Christmas a week before, so what did she do? Write about it). 

The Unspoken Battle

There is a great war within the general population of the Catholic church over the nature of what it means to be faithful.  It stems from a sincere desire to be "right with God."  (Proof even our loftiest desires, those we think most holy, can be the means of our failure to be faithful disciples).

With the sending of the Filial Appeal, signed by the people here, I remember Pope Benedict's prediction that the Church would grow smaller.  I suspect it is so, for the same reason many after hearing Jesus say to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him, many went away sad.  The first words of the Filial Appeal are, "It is with profound grief..." 

" Jesus even asked his apostles, "Will you go away too?"  And I wonder, where will these people go?  Will they realize they are leaving?  Will they realize, they should come back?  Do they know what they're walking away from?  Do they know what they are risking losing?  I believe they fear it, or they would not be grieved.   I suspect many are people who want the truth, but like all of us, see through a glass darkly, but think they see better than others.   How do we square God hating sin and loving us who sin?  How do we reconcile the very real reality that we want to sin, with we want to be in Heaven?   We cannot. Herein is where we get to the apex of our declaration of faith.  Do we Trust the Trinity who is God and his servant the Church, or do we trust ourselves and our judgment.  I know how poor my own judgment is...If I forget, my children can give me a litany of reminders on demand. 

However, God in His infinite mercy and love, offers us the impossible.  That is the crux of our faith and it is not secret, rather it is explosive.  God pouring ever expansive grace and mercy over the world, and seeking to gather all who would allow themselves to love God back and pulling every bit of beauty and love out into the open He can to pierce our hearts and be invited in. 

This past two weeks, I've embarked on a great experiment which tests everything. I'm teaching CCD.  Understanding and loving and reading, and learning about the faith is one thing.  Attempting to convey it in a systemic meaningful manner that doesn't get either too technical or too airy, is another. So if in my little kingdom of a classroom, it is a challenge, how much moreso for the Pope, who must deal with not merely those who do not know, and those who do not care, but those who think they know, and those who think they care more.  Whatever we present, it is inadequate, and we have to trust that grace will make up for what is lacking, but work like anything, to make sure we don't deliberately omit what is necessary. 

The experience concentrates my own understanding of Catholicism, of reducing the excess as one would refine a sauce on a stove.   Where I love the narrative Gospels, I find myself drawn to the Gospel of John when attempting to get deeper into explaining not merely our faith, but the function of our faith.  (To draw ever nearer to Christ). 

So when I reflect upon what the Catechism teaches, what our faith asks of us, it does not seem rules, it is a relationship.  In any relationship of love, be it fraternal, romantic, or intellectual, the desire is for a deeper and greater, truer and more self revealing connection.  We want to be at ease with whoseover it is with whom we seek this relationship. We want that other to know us and know us well enough to read our moods, and to know when to give us what we need, and when it should challenge us on what we want. We want it to be like breathing, where we can stay in each other's presence and not be doing anything in particular, and the time itself becomes precious for the presence. 

God is love. 
Our job, to reflect God's presence to everyone else. 
How?  By loving them as well as possible. 
How?  By seeking to be always a source of spiritual and corporeal mercy to others, by learning how to be less selfish, angry, petty, small, irked, irritated, anxious, indulgent, and demanding ourselves while at the same time, seeking to help others learn how to love and thus serve. 

It's a tall order for anyone...almost impossible...except we are talking about God being in the equation, and thus it is not only possible, it is necessary.  However, as a good friend said to me during a recent crisis, the goal is not to be "right" by God, that is to have proven your merit and value by words and deeds (see Older Brother if you need a perfect example), but to "Be" with God and delight in His presence.  (See Saint Mary at the feet of Jesus, Saint Mary Magdalene seeking to be even simply at his tomb Easter Morning, see Saint John the Baptist's first response to Jesus from the womb).   These examples were not of people doing their duty or obligations or following rules, these were people displaying without any pretense, love for Christ.  If we sit with Christ, if we sit at His feet, we will find our place, and others will as well.  It is when we will our own path that we get lost.  It is the constant unspoken battle inside of every soul, whether we know it or not. It is a battle already won, if only we surrender.

Bringing the Stable to the Mother

"Why do we have to go to mass tonight?" one kid complained. "Yeah, why didn't the Church move the feast to Sunday?" The teen sensed a mutiny and fanned the flames. I would have a full scale kid riot for a Holy Day of Obligation if I didn't act.

"We're going to the vigil mass because tomorrow is too full of things for us to make it. The 6:30 will be fine." I soothed. They'd already eaten. They were still dressed.

"I haven't done my homework." one said.
"Me neither." another volunteered.
"You have fourty-five minutes right now." I said and set the timer.

To minimize stress, I lay the coats in a pile, put my purse on top of it with my keys and lined up their shoes. I knew why the eleven year old didn't want to go. She'd had a fight with her two best friends, and the wounds were still fresh. I handed her my phone. "Call them. Say you're sorry. Don't demand anything. Just say what you are sorry for, and that you're also sorry there was a fight at all." She ran off to phone.

I wondered if we'd be spiritually wrecked before we even got to mass, as a shouting match broke out between two over the computer, and the girl with the phone came back, that problem cured, but a new one in tow. She'd been singing a Christmas carol and her brother didn't like it. When her brother didn't like something, he made sure everyone knew it.

I knew why the teen was mad. He wanted to eat. Mind you, he'd had two dinners already, but third dinner promised to be a better one, and so waiting seemed a major injustice. When he's mad, his favorite tactic is to set off as many other people with their own personal mads so that the whole world burns with madness.

I'd hit my limit. I admit, when I start a lecture, it gets a cadence all it's own and it keeps going. "We are going to celebrate and honor the Blessed Mother, and her state of perpetual sinlessness." I put on the first daughter's shoes. "We are going to celebrate a mass as a community and as a family." and handed her a coat. "We're going to sacrifice one hour of our lives to the woman who surrendered her son and didn't scream at the people who killed him." I knocked on the teen's door. "We're going as a family because this is what our faith teaches, it is important, and we're not going to become closer or kinder or better by arguing something none of us have the power to change, only to ignore or accept." I opened the door and they lined up. "Since I accept it and I'm the adult, knock it off and get in the car!"

We drove the three blocks down the road to the church. No one was in the parking lot. The announcement at the end of mass said 6:30, but the mass schedule on the door said 7:30. We went back home. "At least I know, all homework will be done." I said, "And we'll be back, hopefully in a more grateful and celebratory state in an hour."

P.S. They finished their homework and we made it.  The teen took his youngest brother to the back when he needed help quieting down, and when a daughter remarked during one of the songs, "Mary had it easy."  I said, "Nope, she had greater grace, but greater things were asked of her than of you and remember, she had to choose, all her life, to be obedient, even when she didn't feel like it."  Just to prove the point of how difficult obedience is, my son had a slight accident on my jeans.  I sat with him on my lap the rest of mass, draping my coat over the spot.  Mary understood.

I considered Mary's lfe and grace once again.  Mary had and has it hard; she had all of us to deal with, and we're all these messy squirly quarlesome children with different agendas. The mass ended and there was an opportunity to go and venerate a relic from the Blessed Mother.  A piece of her mantle was presented.   After I kissed the relic, I felt a deep sense of knowing, the obedience of grace, is the obedience born of love, that bears all things, hopes all things, and doesn't fail in patience or kindness, even when it seems like it would be so much easier to say, "Knock it off." because I said so.   Walking up, children in tow, smelly, still struggling with the trials of the day and the very real issue of my own wardrobe problem, I felt very much like the stable coming to her, in all its dirty dingey undignified way, coming to be somehow made better by love.  And it did.  Mary's kiss made everything better, even if nothing physically changed, how we treated each other, how we saw each other, did.  

Faith Under Fire: Dramatic Stories of Christian Courage --A Review

When Matt Archbold announced he'd written a book called Faith Under Fire: Dramatic Stories of Christian Courage, I pre-ordered a copy.  
When the book arrived, I started it and wept after the first chapter.

These days, when the news gives us a near constant stream of how humanity fails to live out the beauty of God's plan for each of us, this profile of eighteen heroic men and women of all walks of life, is like a tall deeply iced glass of your favorite beverage on a summer evening. They are reminders that even in the midst of suffering, sin and death, God wants to reveal His mercy, His healing, His love, His generosity, His goodness through our lives.

All it took from them, was their fiat, their "yes" to God's will.

Owing to life, I put the book down and when I went back to my dresser, I couldn't find it.  After cleaning up my own room (and yes, my kids enjoyed me having to be more organized, they got in their digs), I found it and thought I would reward myself by reading the next chapter.  I'd thought I'd read some of it each night for a few days, but found myself racing through the chapters, enjoying each story like a chocolate truffle.  For me, good books, like good chocolates, can't be paced. That plan never happens (for chocolates or books).  I found I stayed up late and got up early to enjoy more of the stories.

I took it in the car and read while I waited for my daughter to come out from work, and read it all day in between tasks.  Finally, after dinner, I declared it was reading time and didn't stop until I ran through the final story.  I would recommend using these stories to buttress discussions in a catechism or prayer group, as the stories reveal courage, attentiveness to God's voice, obedience, forbearance, mercy and forgiveness.  

There are still six more weeks of summer, and this is a nice way to give yourself a little taste of luminous lives.  Matt's style of writing makes for an easy read without being simple in terms of content.  Every once in a while, Matthew gives you one of those gem moments in the telling of the story: "How could someone who calls themselves a Christian be more afraid of what other people think than what God thinks?" or "I've known  the Lord for thirty years," "I cannot deny the Lord." As a reader, you find yourself taking a deep breath, drawing back in awe as God's grace becomes tangible in the actions and words of these eighteen people. 

These men and women didn't set out to be steel, or to be heroes or to become martyrs or to become mothers. This is a book of luminous mysteries, lives made miraculous by the individuals recognizing, God called them to act, and their acting. These tangible examples from our own century, from our own lifetime refresh the spirit even as they reveal what Matthew said in his introduction, "The way of the cross is unavoidably uphill."  They also remind us, when we cooperate with God's will, we will become like gold, tested in fire.   All anyone will be able to see, is God's face.

Order, read and leave a review. These stories should be shared.    P.S. Thank you Matt.   Nice work!

A Tale of Two Stories

Simcha Fisher wrote a great piece yesterday about expecting their youngest, Corrie.  The article triggered a lot of memories of our own experience of Paul, which turned into my post over at Aleteia today, Down Syndrome and God's Delivery System.  Please go read, share, like and leave a comment.

Thank you!

7 Quick Takes Saint Peter Version

1.  The Year of Saint Peter, plus  history

For the past three years, I've used Jennifer Fulwiler's Saint generator to pick a patron.  The first year I drew Saint Valentine, significant as my daughter suffered eye issues and he happens to be the patron saint for curing blindness.  I kept him in mind whenever my daughter wore her glasses to correct a bizarre form of double vision she experienced that year. It has since, as mysteriously as it came on, disappeared.

The second year, I received a doctor of the church, Saint Alphonsus Ligouri. I started with the best of intentions, read a bit about him, tried to learn how to say his full name, but life got cluttered and I dropped the ball.  I did start to read the Catechism a bit more, so I credit his influence on getting me to read more and think more about willfully applying my faith to everyday, but I'm not sure he appreciates the shout out given that I keep doing a spectacularly bad job with application.  

So this year, I thought, if I'm going to do this, perhaps I should take it more seriously.  I drew Saint Peter. Ha! I thought.  Straight to the top, I must need serious help.   I thought of how I had one in college, one about to leave, one in high school, one about to start, one in middle school, three in elementary, one at special needs and one too young to start.  I had to manage a large flock, it fit.  And yes I did need the help, as high up the ladder as I could get.

2. Growing a friendship with a saint.

How to grow this relationship with a Saint? I've done it before, though I feel as if Saint Anthony sometimes feels ours is a bit one sided.  Me asking for him to please help me find...insert anything here, and thanking him when it immediately shows up after I ask.  Today, I suspect he's a tad miffed at me.

I forgot to ask when Peter could not find his coat.  I looked for it, but I was more interested in telling my Peter he should have hung it up.  It got late and I had to take other people where they needed to go.   He eventually found it and called me for a ride, he chided me for not looking.  I told him I had, but inside, I remembered, I hadn't looked in one way, I hadn't asked.    But the result was I took Peter by himself to school.  You grow a friendship with a saint the same way you do any other relationship, by spending time, by talking and listening.  Today, I would be listening.

3.  Riding to School.

We got to hear Fr. Ricardo's talk on what it was like when Christ appeared after the crucifixion.  I'm attaching a link to his program page, but the talk for today isn't listed yet.  That being said, there isn't a bad talk he's given that I've heard.  Today however, this talk he gave which took place the week Pope Francis was tapped to be the successor of Peter, focused on Peter.  So my son Peter (who is preparing for confirmation and considering who should be his sponsor and who should be his patron saint), heard about how things always had to be a bit different for Saint Peter.  I thought the same for my son, and I know, so did he.  We did not talk the whole ride, we just listened as Fr. John told the story of Peter waiting for Jesus to drive him away, to point out how cowardly he'd been, to ask where he went when the trial and scourging and crown of thorns and carrying of the cross and crucifixion took place.   Jesus didn't do that, he offered peace.  He offered forgiveness, and the recommission of Peter, to begin again, to feed the sheep.

4.  I went back home.  It's not enough to just know his name. I've started reading Peter's writings.  A rock upon which the church is built, is not seen, it merely allows everything else to be placed on top.  A rock is a foundation, a parent is a foundation.  Good parenting, like discipleship is invisible, it is the foundation upon which everything else rests.  He also shepherds all those he is commissioning to continue the work.  This is also what a parent does.

5.  Listening to the news, shoot, turning on the television or the radio, let alone the internet, it's hard not to have one's sensibilities assaulted.  The messages in the music, never mind the commercials, constantly sings a chorus of absolute appetite, zero consequence, from puberty unto death.  It hurts because I like music, I like dancing, I like letting my children sing along, but I have to play the DJ censor not because I'm a prude but because I don't want my children singing things I would not want them saying much less doing.  I don't want them to become dulled to the beauty of sex by having it too soon, nor by being taught things they should not do nor know about.   The overexposure of our children to sex and sexuality via entertainment is like giving children fine wines with happy meals, it is a waste of all that is being offered, in favor of providing something that the children are not ready to appreciate let alone consume.  There is no upside.

But I want to have more than a classical music/disney show tunes bubble around my children.  I know some moms who close off the outside, no tv, no cable, no wi-fi, no kindle, no cell phones, no radio, nyet.  I get it. There is a temptation today to close off into a small room of like minded people, it's certainly safer than having to deal with all the tangled messages and snarls of moral kudzu that clutter our culture.   But it isn't what a follower of Christ is supposed to do.  We're supposed to engage the world, and to teach our children how to be lights in it.    How?  Locking one's self in a Catholic conclave certainly seems easier than going out and proclaiming anything not politically correct. Smarter, safer, more reasonable.  But it's not discipleship.

Saint Peter understood this fear too.  Did you see what they did to HIM?  What will they do to us?  The rational reasonable part of my brain understands the reality we live in, is not a tolerant age, and lukewarm keeps you safe and appearing reasonable, and ultimately, leaves you lost.  How does one come to know and speak truth in charity, reveal the beauty of the church to a world who only sees all limits on everything as repression and intolerance? Personally, I became acutely aware of 1) how sheepish I am and 2) how stupid, and 3) how very lost.

6.  The Wrong Alternative

The alternative absent a faith fully grounded in Christ and driven by the Holy Spirit, is the sword.  I see it on the internet, the desire to fight all these powers and principalities that demand we denounce all our values in favor of more socially acceptable norms that allow everyone to just go along. Cry Havoc!  This is the purist approach that tries to create simply a bigger bubble by bullying those who run counter to the faith.  It is the danger the Pharisees succumbed to when presented with Jesus' teachings, and the subsequent teachings of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.    

Saint Peter understands that desire too, he cut off the ear of a slave of the ones who came for Jesus.  But when you meet the enemy with a sword, you will only always meet the slaves of the enemy, and when you cut them with your sword to defend Christ, you will injure the slave's capacity to hear Christ's message and mar your own capacity to represent it.  Being a light to the world compels people to come toward you, to see better, or to carry you with them, to see where they are going.

7.  The only proper response, is the response Peter has when he first encounters Christ, and when we see him last with Christ, to drop the nets and follow. To feed the lambs, to tend the sheep, to focus on them rather than the I that also seems insatiable in its time consuming desires.  Feed the hungry, and you will be less driven by hunger.  Offer simply what you know to be true, when the opportunity presents itself.  A shepherd doesn't leave the sheep to go to find the wolves, she simply keeps her eyes vigilant for their coming.    As a final note on today's reflections on our first pope, I wasn't going to post this 7 Quick Takes.  I'd written everything up until "As" already, but I had not pushed Publish.  I didn't know if I should.  I didn't know if I wanted to, I wasn't sure if my musings added or took away, if they were light or a sword, and I didn't want to be preachy, and a bit of me felt scared to be so frank.  A silly thing really, this is a blog, it's mine, it reveals my faith, so why should I be afraid?  But I was, so I hadn't posted.

Then I turned on the radio.   Granted I'd left it on 1160 AM, the Catholic radio station that started this whole talk, but there it was again, a nun discussing Peter's response to Jesus, to drop what held him there, and follow.  So I came back to the computer, knowing I had to finish the post.   And just to make sure I didn't chicken out, a fellow blogger wrote, it's all too much, where's my retreat?  and so I thought, three minute retreat coming right up.   Well, here's the retreat offered.   Click here!  How do I find Jesus's glory, grace and truth?  To be honest, he whacks me upside the head with it daily whenever I give the least request for a sign.  Why?  Because like Saint Peter, I'm notoriously hard headed and stubborn, unyielding and hard to move.  Rocks are like that.   Have a great weekend and I hope to hear from you about whatever Saint becomes your patron for the year. I also hope Saint Peter helps me to go fishing soon. That would be fun.

Small Success Thursday Grace Abounds, Grace Accepted

You knew this would happen right?  I'd get to my intended blog post a day later?

So, what am I grateful for today.  I'm grateful for grace, which pours in every day whether we will it or not, but in greater abundance when we do, and for the amazing power of prayer, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who orchestrates everything toward our good if we let Him.

Yesterday, I read a story by a writer friend. In it, she bared her soul, sins and all, revealing the deep scars of grave evil done against her during her lifetime.  It took tremendous courage to write, and even more so, to share with a friend she knows only on the Internet.  I wept.  I wept for her and for all those broken lives that intersected, all of that pain that seemed so unnecessary.  But her story helped me recognize how I needed to help one child in particular.

That evening, my son was struggling with what I call setting emotional fires. He goes from sibling to sibling, in sort of a hit and run fashion, upsetting them in whatever they are doing, and then bounding out to another and being exceptionally nice so as to pretend what he did before means nothing.  I went into his room to settle him.  He was reading a piece, "How to Know What is Right and What is Wrong?" for class.  I pointed this irony out to him.  "It's just homework." he said.  I decided since he had taken me from my work and destroyed peace, he should do some of my work while I restored it.  "Go vacuum the floor in the kitchen since I'm not doing that right now." I said.  He refused.  I explained, "This is your consequence for upsetting everyone.  You have damaged the family and taken away time, so you have to give some."  "After my homework."  "Now." "After I read this."  "No. You're going to go live this." and I pointed to the paper.  To his credit, within five minutes, he went down and used the shop vac and the kitchen floor was clean.   But it took a lot of energy to manage.

Today, once again, he was angry.  Today is a mass day at school and everyone has to wear button down shirts. I'd laid out shirts for all of my children, all the clothing they needed to get ready because mass days are harder with the ties and the vests and the like.  He saw that his brother had a short sleeved button down shirt.  He felt outraged.  "That's my shirt!" he screamed.  It used to be.  He started to demand his brother take it off, but I stepped in.  "We don't have time for him to hunt for a new shirt. We need to get ready for school. He's dressed. Let it be."

Well, that was too much. He promised to wreck his brother's room.  He said words that hurt, words that destroy, and it is my great temptation when this sort of thing happens, to fight back word for word.  His hot headedness comes from somewhere, I see it, me.

We've been working on respect.  We've been working on learning that respect matters.  Somehow, the grace came to not explode.  I told him to go upstairs and he could not ride with us to school if he did not apologize.  He tried ratcheting up the ugliness.  He tried going into his brother's room but I got in there and so he went to his own room.  Mercifully, we got everyone else to the car.  He was lurking behind a bush in the front, looking shocked and lost.  My poor lost sheep.  My poor angry son who sometimes acts like a wolf and then finds, he doesn't like where he's driven himself or anyone else.  I go inside to get a diet coke and impulsively left a note on his backpack.  "Dear son, There is no reason to rage.  I love you.  Love, Mom"  Outside, I see him still over staring at the van.

 "Do you want to come?" I asked.  He went inside to get his things.

Mentally I sit there wondering as he wordlessly gets in the car and sits in the far back row, should I have left him? I know he would have raged again at abandonment. We say prayers every day in the car.  Normally, I lead and each kid says one on their own. Today, I'm praying them all.  I don't even ask him to pray it, I just say his prayer, the prayer of Saint Francis as slowly and as deliberately as I can.  We finish with asking our patron saints to pray for us, and I do every one's saints plus a few more and put on classical music afterwards.  The rest of the car is happily chatting.  I am trembling and praying and begging God for my son, for softness, for something.   We get to the school.  "I'm sorry John for calling you ...." and "I'm sorry Mom for..." It's very quiet. It's very soft.  Honestly, joy broke over me like water.  I'd been saying good bye to each of them.   Then I noticed, he forgot his lunch.

So I drive away stunned by the miracle of his apology. Stunned and grateful, but the ego trips in, "I can't believe that worked!" and then I realize, I did nothing. "You're right. You're right. You're right.  I said to God, you did that. It was all you. It was all you. It was all you." and laughed all the way home to pick up his lunch.  Grace abounds.  Cooperating with grace leads to more grace.  Cooperating with grace leads to more grace leads to miracles.   You'd think I'd have learned this by now, but I'm usually running a bit behind on the messages God whispers in every action.

Lawn Chair Catechism

It can be hard to settle our minds on the idea of “cooperating with grace”.  How would you explain the Catholic doctrine on salvation to others?

It is easier to see in my life where I have in the past "cooperated with grace" than to explain how I might be doing it in the present.  At present, I am keenly aware of all the moments when I am NOT cooperating with grace, by omission, or by poor stewardship of time, or by refusing to do the more because I fear the labor will be more than I can bear.  I can know I cooperated with God's grace for example in Paul's existence, in the days leading up to Faith's birth, in all of my pregnancies. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with even a scintilla of the gentleness of Mary, but I came haltingly, grumbling, grousing, shuffling like a sulky child eventually to do God's will.  Grace is God's work in me to which I respond.  The kid who does what the father asks, even if initially he says no, is doing the Father's will.  I am that kid.  

What struck me in this chapter of Sherry Wendell's Forming Intentional Disciples, is that to be a disciple is to will to follow Christ, to put your hand to the plow and not look back.  You have to will to do the work. It is no longer an organic process you fall into, it is a deliberative choice to be set apart, and to act.  I am immediately struck with "How?" and "Where" and "What?" I don't know what God wants. He hasn't briefed me.  Then I am struck again.  Have I asked?  Am I listening to His answer?  I know I will know if I ask.  Am I afraid to ask? 

Yes.  To ask to be a disciple is to be asked again, "Do you know of the cup that I will drink? Can you drink of it?" and to say "Yes." again.   It is a timorous thing.  And yet, who should not want to ask for that drink? 

So I say yes again and hope God will show me quickly and push me on my way so I don't lose my nerve or look back or try to slip back into hoping the sacraments will complete the work in me that God has planned.  The sacraments can complete the work in me, but only if I will to be the work and the word to others.   I'm reminded of Flannery O'Connor's, "She thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quickly."  Cooperating with grace if one looks at today's readings, often requires the very urgent pulling of angels to prevent the sluggish soul from lingering in complacency or sin. 

So how do you cooperate with Grace? What does that entail? What does it mean and how do you know?  You read/study God's word. You look to integrate what God says in your life and your heart, and you stay close to the sacraments and trust.  You trust in He whom the wind and sea obey, that He will calm the storms in our hearts and even in our lives, that to be a disciple of Jesus, is to trust His friendship, to trust his judgment, to follow obediently even when the waters are rough and the temptation is to say, "Lord save us, we are perishing." 

I joked to my husband that to be a disciple is to be a Flying Walinda of faith.  He pointed out that they sometimes use a safety cable, this is harder and more incredible than walking across Niagara falls or the Grand Canyon, this is walking on water and moving mountains.   One has to follow Jesus to get in the boat to go into deep waters, and one has to really Trust Jesus beyond human comprehension, (grace) to get out of the boat.  

...and I didn't even get to the second question, how would I explain the Catholic doctrine of salvation to others...except I would say...Thank God for His Justice, Thank God for His Mercy.  Whatever He wills, is right even if I cannot see the why.