Life is the most precious gift - a ramble caused by grief.

How precious is life?  If it were not the most precious thing then the Redeemer's sacrifice would not have been so important.  This is why destroying life is so wrong, no matter how you destroy it.  The funny thing is that this is the same reason why being a martyr is such a great thing.  We can give our life away as a great gift but we can't destroy it as if it means nothing.

It is so hard then when someone we love dies.  It is their life that is gone and not them.  They still are and we hope to see them again when we die.  We will see them forever and they won't be in pain, but still death causes grief.  Why is that?  Is it the loss of what they could have become if they were still alive?  Is it only their company we miss?  Is it really just that we miss them?  If no one misses someone who dies is their life somehow less precious?  I don't know other than to say life is so precious that everyone's life is precious.  

With life we have the hope of repentance.  I often think this is why the death penalty is so wrong.  I often wonder why atheists don't value life more than those who have a hope of the afterlife.  If you believe that this all there is shouldn't life have the highest value?  This maybe why we grieve when someone dies to some extent.  We know that they are either destined for heaven or hell at that point.  When a great saint dies we often feel that they have gone to their reward and that helps us in our grief.  

Life is so precious in fact that even the partial death of causing pain and suffering is wrong.  Driving someone to despair is like causing a partial death, and not helping someone in need is like not helping someone who is hurt.  ProLife has to mean more than being antiabortion or it is not ProLife.  If ProLife means shaming pregnant women or blowing up doctors are we any better than those who kill innocent children?  We might actually be worse because we should know better.  ProLife means a life of love.  Love all,even or especially our enemies.  I heard it once said that an enemy is simply someone you need to pray for.  

Waiting in the void - Reflection on Holy Saturday

Imagine what it was like today for disciples.  We are lucky, we know what tomorrow brings.  We know that He is here with us in the tabernacle, but they didn't know that.  To us Easter is great.  We have a beautiful Mass, dinner with our families, and chocolate Easter bunnies.  But imagine what Easter was for the Apostles.  The two days before had been a nightmare culminating with the horrific death their Messiah and friend.  We know how much Jesus loved them and when a loved one like that dies and leaves us it creates such a hole in our souls.  Imagine then what it's like if you have been walking, talking, and learning the God who is love itself, the hole would be a chasm.  Imagine the fear and doubt, what will happen next?  And then you remember Lazarus and some of the other things Christ said.  Didn't he say something about dying,  and whatHe said about the Temple.  Peter remembers what Christ told him during the Last Supper and gathers them all to wait.  

How sad and frightened they must be.  They have Mary with them and that is a comfort to them.  They wait on her and hold her hand, but is calm.  She has an inner peace that comforts them as they comfort her.  Some can't stay, two have to set out for Emmaus.  What will tomorrow bring for them?  Imagine you simply had to sit there and wait.  You believe still in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God, you have seen Him have power over death, but what happens tomorrow has never happened before.  How could you imagine what is about to happen?  The fathers of our faith had to wait in faith.  They had to believe that Christ wasn't simply a prophet, so they waited to see what would happen.

We know what happened and yet we doubt what God can and is doing in our lives.  We don't know what God will ask of us so we too have to sit and wait in faith.  But we must be convinced in our hearts that the God who died for us and rose again will lead us home, if we only follow Him.

Good Friday Reflection - Be with Him on His Journey

This morning is always a magical time for me.  The calm before the emotional storm.  I have time this morning to sit so close to The Beloved.  Here in the dark church in front of the tempory tabernacle.  So close toHim whom I love.

Today is a hard day.  The One who loves us all is to die for us all.  The person in front of me right now, suffered and died for me.  He was beaten, scourged, ridiculed, and crucified for me.  We're I the only sinner in need of redemption He still would have done what He did.  He is my Beloved, and I am a poor sinner.

But today I can sit with Him.  Like I would a friend in the hospital or in jail.  I can think about Him and keep Him company.  Can't you take some time today and just sit with Him?  Walk with Him today down the Via Dolorosa?  It will make Easter Sunday that much sweeter if you go on the whole journey with Him.

Holy Thursday Reflection - Do This in Memory of Me

And so it starts.  The three holiest days of our year.  Tonight, we remember the institution of the Eucharist during which our Savior says to us all, "Do this in memory of me".  Of course He means the Eucharist, but doesn't He also mean the rest of it?

The first thing He did was wash the feet of the Twelve.  He does so much in that one act.  He the Teacher and Master becomes the servant.  We are all called to be servants, especially when we are called to lead, we are called to be servants.  He also purifies the Twelve and so are we called to work for the salvation of those around us.  He shows us that we can best do this in humility and through service.  He also washes the feet of Judas, the betrayer.  We are called to love not only those who are our friends but especially those who hate us and who hurt us.

He then gives us the gift of being eternally with us.  By that gift He pledges to stay by us and strengthen us.  He gives us His life.  We then have to be willing to give Him ours.  We are to feed the world with our lives.  Feed them spiritually and bodily.  The life lived to the other is the only true life.  It is a life of Love.  God is Love.  He gives us a new commandment, Love one another as I have loved you.  How did he love us?  He died for us, He gave His very body for us, He suffered for us.  We are called to do the same.  We may not be called to die for anyone or for God, but we still have to die to ourselves.  We can't just do it once, we have to do it day by day, minute by minute.

What is it that I need to die to?  It changes all the time.  But like many people I have my struggles.  Facing my demons is one way I can die to myself.  It's will be painful.  It is already.  But I am strengthened by Him who died for me.  I only have to die to myself and for that I get everything.  Everything that matters because I get love, the Beloved.

This night He gave us all we ever needed.  He shows us how to live a righteous life full of all He has to give us.

Help me Oh Lord to remember this night everytime I receive You.  Remind me Oh Lord that to live with You, I have to die with You.  Grant me Oh Lord the grace I will need to deny myself and walk with You.

Reflections on Passion Sunday

Today we start Holy Week with Passion Sunday.  We triumphantly and publicly herald the entrance of Our Savior into Jerusalem.  We herald His coming as the Great Warrior and leader who will saves from our enemies, then within minutes we are crying Crucify Him! Crucify Him!  How often do we do this in our lives?  We praise God on those days when we wake up and everything is going great.  But then when He asked me to do something, to change, to witness to my faith and risk myself.  How often do I turn away like Peter did, and have I asked His forgiveness for the times I cried Crucify Him?

Today I was lucky enough to be Alter Serving.  As we read the Passion I became aware of the fact that I was standing next to the tabernacle so the Beloved was there.  The one who had been beaten, betrayed, and Crucified was there.  Our Passion is so clean so unemotional, but I could remember the same scenes from the Passion of the Christ.  I especially remember the scene where Peter hears the cock crow and Jesus looks at Him.  The One who dies for us is there.  How can we not weep for what He went through and I am thinking, one more week and I can have back what I gave up for Lent. And He is there, waiting to die for us.  He freely chooses out of love for us to die that death for us.  What am I willing to do for Him? Am I willing to die for Him?  Am I willing to die to myself for Him?  Am I at least willing to give some of my time for Him?

The hardest day this week for me is Friday afternoon until Saturday evening.  To think of the time when Christ wasn't here.  Now He is here always in a tabernacle somewhere.  But there was a time 2000 years ago when we were without Him.  It makes me so sad.  I hate to see the empty open tabernacle, so like a tomb.  The alter is stripped, the world is broken.  But at the sametime I can still sit with Him.  Like a wake or a deathbed.  Just sit with Him and keep Him company.

The comes Easter......but I am getting a head of myself.  We have to wait, and wait makes it all that much sweeter.

The Cross and true freedom

I have been watching Fr Robert Barrons Catholicism series and the most recent thing from that wonderful documentary that struck me the the idea that the picture of true freedom is the Crucifixtion.  Christ on the cross is perfect picture of detachment.  He freely chose to sacrifice Himself.  He freely chose to be powerless, naked, and without esteem.  Yet, he had all he wanted.

We often think of children as free, yet I look at the high school students I trach and I see them as probably the least free people I know.  They are so worried about their clothes and what people are saying about them.  They are not free.

How free am I then?  How much do I worry about what the people I know think of me?  Too much I am afraid.  St Francis was as free as anyone I've read about.  Maybe that is something the Holy Father is trying to show us.  That we need to detach our selves from the world, be poor in spirit and be free.  Joy comes with that freedom, and love.  Francis showed us that.  How can I be more free?  What can I detach myself from?  I'll have to think about that and pray.

The Place of Women in the Catholic Church or why I don't need you to save me from my faith

If I hear on more commentator say that The Church ignores 50% of the population I am going to scream!  And then I will pray for the person, I will pray that they will someday learn how wrong they are by being truly part of that church.

First of all, we are all built into the Church, the Body of Christ.  We are living stones in that Church.  As part of the body we are essential but different and each have our function.  The eye can not live without the mouth or the hand.  In the same way the eye can not decide to be the foot.  We all have a job to do in the Church and when we fail to do our job the Church is not as successful,  just because I am not a priest doesn't mean that I don't have an important part to play.

Frankly by telling me that half of the population is ingnored by the Catholic Church you demean the work I do and make me out to be an idiot who needs to be somehow saved from my faith.  I am obviously not smart enough to know that the ministry work I do is unimportant.  For all you women out there working on parish or liturgical councils, teaching CCD, visiting the sick, running food pantries, youth groups, etc you really aren't important to the Church.  All the Sisters who run hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and even the ones who question the clergy, they are saying you have no place either.

I know that even those without a formal title in the church who pray in the church and pass along the faith to their children are important.  Maybe even the most important, without  you the Church wouldnt need priests.  Those outside the faith don't understand.  Priests are important, without them we have no Mass, no Eucharist, the heart is gone, but they are not everything in the Church.  Those in the pews are not passive ,or shouldn't be.  Our faith is not something the Priests do to us, we participate in it.  So do me a favor, assume that as a woman I am smart enough to know what I am doing and that I don't need you to save me from my faith.  Learn about the Church before you talk about it and don't really on poorly catechised former Catholics.  I am not blind I know my Chuch has its faults, it's populated by very fallible human beings, but it is also amazingly beautiful.