I step inside and kneel—

The Monstrance before me,

The outside world behind—

And gradually my Fortress builds around me.

Brick by brick, stone by stone, it rises,

As deceptions, hardships, regrets, and worry

All begin to lose their power.

 

An hour passes, and I find that now

The walls are solid and high.

 

My focus and my center are Christ,

Who governs everything that passes on this earth.

Distractions and fears bounce off like so many arrows.

 

The second hour, and now

There are turrets at the corners.

 

My strength and my security are Christ,

Who pours out every rich treasure on those who seek Him.

He speaks peace to my heart, and at His word,

I’m no longer afraid of anything outside the walls.

 

The bells ring—three hours, and all the grace in them,

And now I find that

all that matters

Is safely sheltered within His Presence.

 

Copyright 2023 KitchenTableCatholic.com

 

I have a million roses.

It’s true, in a way.

Because, every day, I am given a million moments.

And each moment is a gift—beautiful, precious, and unrepeatable—

A rose.

 

If I’m faithful to grace, I can turn each one into an Ave,

Or a kind deed,

Or a prayer in Christ’s presence for someone who can’t be there,

Or a home that’s more strengthening for others,

Or encouragement for a friend.

In each moment, I can do something to help God,

and in that way give Him back, in thanksgiving, the precious rose He chose for me.

 

But I don’t have to.

If I want, I can give my roses to

my fears and worries,

the Internet,

my hair and makeup, clothes and shoes,

chatter about others’ lives,

or my need for those same others’ approval.

But none of those roses can ever really be anyone’s to keep.

 

And the best days in all my life have been the ones in which

I’ve done my best to give all the roses God has given me

right back to Him, without holding onto anything for myself.

 

So, for today, I’ll do my best

to offer Our Lady all her Aves,

to do every little kindness,

to spend time in Christ’s real presence,

to make my home the very best I can,

and speak blessing and encouragement with every word.

 

I’ll give my roses right back to God, each and every one,

to thank Him

for giving them to me.

 

You and I–every one of us, in every day we’re given–

we each have a million roses.

 

There’s no shouting,

Drumming, dancing

In the stillness.

There’s no waving high

Or crying out, “Amen!

 

As we kneel, immersed

In silent Adoration

Of the One who forms and shapes

The hearts of men

 

In the stillness.

 

Here, you won’t find people “movin’ in the spirit”;

We just haven’t got the energy to spare.

Everything we have is pouring out in silence

As we turn to meet our God and King in prayer

 

In the stillness.

 

My grandma said

these waters run the deepest,

And now, I’ve seen enough

To know it’s true

We sense the slightest movements,

Gentle breezes;

It’s not a storm—

It’s daybreak, evening dew

 

In the places where He longs

For hearts to join Him,

In the places where He waits

For us to meet,

In the places where we silently

Adore Him,

Hardly moving, for His presence is so sweet

 

In the quiet,

In the hush,

In the silence,

In the deep,

 

In the holiness that wakes

The human soul from soundest sleep,

 

In the calm

And in the dark,

In the tranquil, resting heart

 

In the stillness.

 

Copyright  2017, KitchenTableCatholic.com

Stations of the Cross always get me. I start out thinking I should probably go home and do the pile of work that’s waiting there. Then, very hesitantly and without being quite sure I’m doing the right thing, I decide to just pray Stations “real quick” before leaving the chapel, and, undoubtedly, am reduced to a blubbering, tear-drenched pile of slush with eyeliner dripping down to my chin by the fifth station. God is so good, and He touches our hearts when we least expect it–even when we’re trying to rush away and avoid fully experiencing Him.

It can be hard to turn toward the Cross. I think this is one of the reasons so few pray Stations—and one of the reasons I sometimes avoid them, too. The Crucifixion is so painful that just contemplating it is enough to reduce us to weeping, and we don’t want to go there. On your knees and weeping is a pretty unappealing place to be, right?

It is. But there’s something that happens in that place that I think the whole world should know about. Catholics already do—anyone who has an ear open to Padre Pio’s or St. Teresa of Calcutta’s wisdom understands this—but it’s something the rest of the world tends to discount. And that’s a shame, because there’s a great richness there.

When you’re suffering and approach it in a Catholic way, asking Jesus to join your sufferings with His, something really special happens that I never experienced before coming Home to the Faith. Under your cross, you’re walking alongside Christ. The heavier your cross is, the more of the weight of it Jesus carries and takes off your shoulders, and the more deeply He ministers to you while you’re carrying it with Him. He walks right beside you and lifts it. And then you’re there, and you’re walking next to Him, His shoulders pushing forward alongside yours, and all the while, He’s taking your burdens on Himself so you don’t have to bear their full weight.

And, while He’s doing that—lifting the burden of the Cross from your shoulders so that it’s not too much for you, He pours the richest treasures into your heart and soul, and it’s so easy to receive them, because you’ve drawn close to Him. Sometimes, it even carries over into material blessings or other gifts we can actually see, and He works real, visible, undeniable miracles there, too, just to strengthen our faith and remind us (again) that He is God and can do whatever He wants.

In this way, the Cross is a place of strength–not our own, but God’s. It’s an especially beautiful place–a sweet place. It’s beautiful, and it’s sweet, because Jesus is right alongside us when we’re there.

 

Originally published November 30, 2017

Why are so many women up-in-arms over defunding Planned Parenthood? The message all the hullaballoo sends is anti-woman, not pro-.

If there were any truth in the cultural line that abortion gives women power, then maybe I could understand. But the opposite is true–abortion spoils a woman’s highest gift and robs her of the greatest opportunity she’ll ever have to change the world. Planned Parenthood, the world’s primary destroyer of motherhood, is the largest obstacle to women’s advancement today.

The radical feminist movement would have us all believe that a life lived outside the public eye downgrades women—that if we aren’t continually climbing the corporate ladder and tacking title upon title onto the ends of our names, we’re not living up to our potential. I ask, though: who has more influence on the world–a top-ranking female CEO, or the mother of someone like Dietrich von Hildebrand? A powerful attorney, or the mother of a saint? A brilliant female scientist who forgoes motherhood for the sake of her career, or the brilliant mother who raises four incredible scientists and makes sure they have good hearts?

Some of the most powerful and influential women in the world have not been those who went out and made great names for themselves, but those who formed and shaped others–and then sent them out to affect the world for good. These women didn’t give up their callings. Instead, they lived their lives according to St. Catherine of Siena’s wisdom: they became everything they were meant to be, and in doing that, they set the world on fire. Sometimes, they did it without the world ever even knowing their names, which I think is quite a remarkable feat indeed.

I’m not saying women shouldn’t be out in the world; I believe many were created for that. But sacrificing motherhood so that women can chase lower rewards is some extreme jungle-gym kind of upside-down and backwards—and taxpayer funding of an organization that kills baby boys and girls so that their moms and dads won’t have the blessing of parenthood is robbing millions of people, both male and female, born and unborn, of the lives they were created for. Each time a baby is aborted, at least three lives are robbed.

Our obsession with being able to control everything and be, do, and have all that men can has led us to a terrible point: women now believe that giving up their highest gift is the key to their success. Planned Parenthood promotes this; it is the enemy of motherhood itself. If we really want to empower women, defunding Planned Parenthood is a great place to start.

I love music. It’s always been one of my favorite joys, and long before I came back to the Faith, songs were the primary means God used to draw me to Him. I must not have made it easy when I was blasting Def Leppard and Boston 24/7, but somehow He still managed to sneak a good verse in here or there and touch my heart through it.

Nowadays, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist Pandora station is my favorite. There’s just something different about listening to the radio, though, and we all really enjoy it, so we often switch back and forth between Pandora and that.

We live in the Most-of-the-Books-of-the-Bible Belt. We don’t get any Catholic music stations here, so, when we listen to the radio, it’s often tuned to a praise music station. I don’t think of most of the songs on the airwaves as worship music (because to me, worship is about the ways God is “above us”), but they’re clean and seek to draw us closer to Him, so that’s what our radio is usually tuned to.

The other day, one of these songs reminded me of something very Catholic that I had nearly forgotten–and I hope it will encourage you, too…so I wanted to tell you a little about what happened.

The song was “Thy Will”, by Hillary Scott. Now, this lady has been through the wringer, and God brought great beauty out of it. She suffered a miscarriage, and the lyrics, about accepting God’s will even when it’s hardest, were fruit of the pain. It’s very honest, and people have received it well; as of this writing, the Vevo video had been up about a month, and it had 722,148 views, even though the album hadn’t been released yet.

As I heard the opening lines of this song for the first time a few weeks ago, they really hit home. Our family has been “through the wringer”, too, for the better part of two decades now, and we live each day with the knowledge that the pain and crises could resurface at any moment. As Mrs. Scott sang about accepting God’s will, using Christ’s well-known phrase from the Agony in the Garden that we, as Catholics, often repeat when we’re hurting (“Thy will be done”), I said a prayer of thanks to God that a very faithful view of suffering had helped this songwriter through her pain.

Then, a few bars later, came words to help me through mine. In the bridge of the song, she tied the line “Thy will be done” to the lines from Jeremiah 29 that tell us that God hears us when we pray and that His plans for us are good.

Those few lines reminded me of something really important that I had begun to lose sight of over the past few years—that we don’t just accept suffering out of resignation, because we’re willing to endure the pain (although that is definitely a crucial part of our ministry). We accept the suffering because we trust God—we trust in His total goodness and His love—yes, towards those we are suffering for—but also for us. For each of us. The message of our faith is clear: God’s will is nothing to be afraid of, and we are very, very dear to Him.

We accept trials, knowing that however much it hurts now, He really is going to make “all things work together for the good of those who love Him”. He really is going to bring something more beautiful out of it than we could ever imagine. (I know, I know: DUH!!! Right? :-))

I don’t mean this in an “If you do right, your life will be easy” kind of way. We may never see the fruit this side of Heaven, and trying to please God doesn’t guarantee a pain-free life. Sirach 2, the Crucifixion, and the saints all make it very clear: “When you come to serve the LORD, prepare yourself for trials.” The Christian life requires suffering. As Padre Pio said, “There is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.”

But God is all-good, and He loves us. When we know this—really know it at a cellular level in our hearts— we can say, “Thy will be done” not just with a fearful resignation, but with gladness, with trust, and even with joy–because we’re not only accepting the trials, but hoping in the abundant fruit God will bring out of them, too.

Originally published August 17, 2016

I planted tomatoes this year, which was a big step for me. You see, every year, I joyfully buy heirloom tomato plants as soon as winter gives way, before the dogwoods even bloom. I’m full of great intentions. Then, I let those beautiful heirloom plants sit there on my front porch until someone who actually knows what they’re doing passes by and says, “Ya’ know, it’s too late to plant those now. It’s too hot, and you’ll never get any tomatoes.” But this year, for the first time ever, I haven’t left a single tomato vine sitting there waiting to be planted until it was too late. For me, that’s something.

Now, the thing about tomatoes is–ya’ gotta’ plant ’em deep. In fact, one supplier recommends planting tomatoes so deep that a full 2/3 of the plant is underground, with only the top third exposed. The deeper you plant a tomato vine, the more roots it grows, which, of course, gives you a better crop.

This got me to thinking about the spiritual life and how, actually, we’re a lot like that, too.

It especially reminded me of mercy and service. There seems to be a push today to get us “out of the churches and into the world”. A sentiment is building that says our faith “isn’t about sitting in the church; it’s about going out and serving, ministering to the broken.”

Now, of course, a deep faith should well up in us and drive us out into the world to minister to those who are hurting. How do we get that deep faith, though? If we’re not “sitting in the church”, where is all this mercy supposed to come from?

How can we pour out God’s mercy onto others if we’re not spending plenty of time with the One who is mercy itself? What better way is there to tap into the Fount of Mercy–to receive His love so fully that it naturally pours out onto those around us–than by spending time with Him in the Eucharist?

Mother Teresa of Calcutta might have said it best: “We cannot separate our lives from the Eucharist; the moment we do, something breaks. People ask, ‘Where do the sisters get the joy and energy to do what they are doing?’ The Eucharist involves more than just receiving; it also involves satisfying the hunger of Christ. He says, ‘Come to Me.’ He is hungry for souls. Nowhere does the gospel say: ‘Go away,’ but always, ‘Come to Me.’”

Mother Teresa’s sisters spent one hour–sometimes two–in adoration daily, even with everything they had to do to in their ministry. No–because of everything they had to do to in their ministry! In fact, another quote attributed to her is “Each day we should spend one hour in adoration, except on days we are busy. Then we should spend two.”

Would anyone say Mother Teresa and her Missionary Sisters of Charity haven’t been fruitful? Good night–no! Yet, her sisters spend long stretches in quiet time with Christ each day, away from the world they are charged with serving. This piece of their lives, hidden in time alone with the presence of the Lord, makes the portion spent out in the world bear more fruit.

It’s the same with us. We need deep roots, tapped into the One who can give us the grace and mercy it takes to serve with selfless, open, peaceful, trusting hearts. So let’s get back into the churches. Let’s spend a little more time before that tabernacle or monstrance where He waits for us. Drawing our nourishment from Him, we’ll produce a more bountiful crop…because we’re kinda’ like tomatoes.

Originally published May 7, 2016

Originally published April 3, 2016

Okay–the Avoiding the Almighty Smackdown post was sorta’ intense. There was a reason for that, though. Even though it’s terrifying to think of our sins and the punishment (ummmmm…death) they merit, it’s critical that we do this. If we don’t, we can never fully appreciate God’s mercy, either.

The good news is that the LORD doesn’t want to wipe us off the face of the earth. (Whew!) As a wise friend put it, “God wants to forgive. He’s just waiting for us to give Him any excuse to forgive us!”

Sometimes, when we face the ways our sins have hurt others, we question God’s ability to absolve us. When we doubt His mercy, though—when we think, “God can’t forgive me, because I’ve [insert the worst thing you’ve ever done here],” that’s not Him speaking to our hearts. I think what we’re really saying is, “If I were God, and someone had done this same thing to me, I couldn’t forgive.” On the farm, we called that “weighing somebody else’s corn in your own bushel basket”. We don’t understand how God could forgive us, because we couldn’t offer the same forgiveness.

Isaiah 55 tells us, though, that God loves to do things that seem impossible to us:

“Seek the LORD while he may be found,

Call him while he is near.

Let the scoundrel forsake his way,

And the wicked man his thoughts;

Let him turn to the LORD for mercy,

To our God, who is generous in forgiving.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

So high are my ways above your ways

And my thoughts above your thoughts…”

With these lines, God lovingly reminds us that we can never fully understand His ways. When it comes to mercy, His greatest attribute, He pours out His gifts so abundantly that we can’t even fathom the bounty.

A Mother Angelica quote came through my Facebook feed yesterday, and I thought it was perfect. This spunky, “all in for God” nun, who was known for having just a little trouble holding her Italian tongue (and temper), said, “God always forgives when you are totally repentant and you desire to change. He forgives…and He never gets tired of forgiving. Never. You may get tired of asking. I hope not. He never, never tires of forgiving you. Never.”

Now, we don’t exactly know whether Mother is a saint or not yet, but she sure did try. The stories of the saints tell us that many of them were just people who had a great sense of their own sinfulness, ran to God with repentant hearts when they fell, and gratefully accepted the mercy He offered them. That builds a close relationship with God, which is even more evidence of His mercy. He has a way of taking our sorrow over our biggest sins and using it as a seed for gratitude, which fosters deep friendship with Him.

Scripture teaches us that the LORD wants all of us, not just those who wear habits or are ordained, to receive this kind of mercy—with this kind of heart. In Luke 7, Jesus comes to dine at the home of one of the Pharisees. A sinful woman, having learned where Christ was eating dinner that night, brought an alabaster flask filled with ointment. She wept, bathing the Lord’s feet with her tears. Then she dried them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee thought to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of a woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner,” Jesus told a story:

“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty. Since both were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?”

Simon [the Pharisee] said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.”

He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love….”

I just can’t get over this story. I like to think the use of the word “hence” here might signify that she had been forgiven before she came to wash Christ’s feet with her tears.  In other words, when the sinful woman experienced Christ’s forgiveness, she felt such intense gratitude that she wanted to find Him–to go to wherever He was and show her thankfulness to Him with a heartfelt gesture–and Jesus, the King of Kings, allowed her to express her gratitude to Him in this very personal way. This scene reminds us that, no matter who we are and no matter which sins we’ve fallen prey to, God wants to forgive us—and that His forgiveness helps our gratitude to grow. It’s the seed for our relationship with Him.

Repentance is the turning point that starts a person on the road from darkness to light. It gives God the chance to flood us with the gift he loves to share the most—mercy. And that mercy can help anyone, no matter what his or her sins are, to draw very close to Christ. No one is beyond God’s redemption. That is the beauty of the Divine Mercy–it’s for all of us.

Mercy has touched my own life, and I’ll always be grateful. A long time ago, I was away from the Church, a thousand miles from the family and friends I had grown up with, and living in a very painful domestic situation. The darkness was so thick that I didn’t know if I’d ever see a day of hope again. Sometimes I didn’t want to see another day, period. Thank goodness I had one nearby friend–a lady who had yearned for nothing more in her younger years than to be a cloistered nun. She knew that practicing my faith would have protected me from the pit I was in, and she sent me straight to Confession. In that little room, God reached down, gave me hope, and began to heal my heart. I owe Him (and my friend-who-was-almost-a-nun) a debt I can never repay.

Even if we’ve fallen far, we can still know joy; God’s mercy takes our sorrow for sins and returns love and peace for it. In this way, the Lord really does change our darkness into light. Yes, His thoughts are far above our thoughts, and His ways are far above our ways–so far, in fact, that when we beg His mercy, He draws us into His close friendship.

Originally published March 26, 2016

Note: When I write “we” and “us” in this post, I mean it.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all wondered, at some point, whether we have made God angry. Then maybe we passed a billboard or saw a commercial that proclaimed, “God’s not mad at you, no matter what.”

That’s a relief, right? Well, maybe it could be—except for one problem: it’s a lie.

It’s not just a lie; it’s an incredibly dangerous one, because it minimizes the reality of Our LORD’s awesome power. This is the God who wiped an entire city off the map because of its immorality—and then turned a woman into a pillar of salt because she disobeyed Him and looked back at the destruction she was fleeing. This is the God who ended a man’s life because he used contraception…once. This is the God who slew the first born of every Egyptian home, all in one night, because Egypt’s ruler was persecuting people who loved God. We’re going to say He can’t be mad? Where the heck did that come from?

It comes from us—from our desire to be able to do anything we wish without being judged for it. We want to continue in whatever lifestyle we choose, and we don’t want to be criticized for it by anyone—even God. We are a culture of four-year-olds who want that third slab of double-fudge cake, eat it even though our dad tells us not to (when the only reason he says no is because more cake’s not good for us, anyway), and then expect him not to be mad when he finds us in the bathroom throwing up and realizes what we did.

The idea that God can’t be mad at us is wrong for another reason, too: it implies that a God who gets mad can’t at the same time be good. I’m pretty sure the Texan term for that is “bull-honkey“. God’s power and the fearsomeness of His fury—those are some of the best things about Him! They are a critical part of His goodness! They’re key to our knowledge of Him as Protector. They help us to remember that if someone threatens His children, He WILL rout the attacker.

In Psalm 29, we read

“The voice of the LORD is over the waters;

the God of glory thunders,

the LORD, over the mighty waters.

The voice of the LORD is power;

the voice of the LORD is splendor.

The voice of the LORD cracks the cedars;

the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon,

Makes Lebanon leap like a calf,

and Sirion like a young bull.

The voice of the LORD strikes with fiery flame;

the voice of the LORD rocks the desert;

the LORD rocks the desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the LORD twists the oaks

and strips the forest bare.

All in his palace say, “Glory!”

Whom do you want protecting you when you are in danger—a God who can’t get mad?…or a God whose voice alone is enough to start fires, split cedars, twist oaks, strip forests, and rock the desert? I sure know which one I’d pick.

God’s anger is a good thing; one of His attributes is that He is all good. But being good doesn’t mean He can’t get mad.

His anger isn’t the biggest thing about Him, though; even greater is His desire to protect and shelter us. We can’t deny this when we read Psalm 91:

“You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,

who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

Say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and fortress,

my God in whom I trust.’

God will rescue you from the fowler’s snare,

from the destroying plague,

Will shelter you with pinions,

spread wings that you may take refuge;

God’s faithfulness is a protecting shield….”

See? God wants to shelter us. He wants to protect us so much, in fact, that He gives us a very easy way to run to His safety, even after we have offended Him.

In Nineveh and for King David, it involved things such as sackcloth and ashes, but we have an easier route. All we have to do to find it is to turn to Psalm 32:

“As long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away;

I groaned all the day.

For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength withered as in dry summer heat.

Then I declared my sin to you;

my guilt I did not hide.

I said, “I confess my faults to the LORD,”

and you took away the guilt of my sin.

Thus should all your faithful pray

in time of distress.

Though flood waters threaten,

they will never reach them.

You are my shelter; from distress you keep me;

with safety you ring me round.” (italics mine)

Aren’t these verses beautiful? Here is a simple key to God’s mercy. It’s repentance and Confession. All we have to do is run to Him and confess with sincere hearts. Real repentance, though, requires the humility it takes to give Him our lives—to commit to obey Him (even if we don’t understand His reasons). This is the way we can find shelter under His wings.

When we do confess and put our lives under His direction, He always forgives. Mercy is His greatest attribute, and one of the nicest qualities of His mercy is that when we try to follow Him, He knows it’s hard, and He gives us the strength to do it. As written in Divine Mercy in My Soul: The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, Jesus told this little Polish nun, over and over, that His mercy was like an ocean, and that if you put all of humanity’s sins together (yes, even that one) and tossed them into that ocean, they would be like one tiny drop in the unfathomable abyss of His mercy.

But, today, we don’t even want to try. We can’t admit we’ve done anything wrong. We make our decisions, push forward, and expect HIM to honor US.

No. No. No.

That’s not His way. He knows our hearts. He knows that we are easily tempted to things that are beneath our dignity as His children. So He gives us Scripture and teachings that date back to Him to draw us to a life that will heal us and keep us close.

All He asks is that we abide by those teachings,…but instead, we tell ourselves that God couldn’t possibly be mad at us, no matter what we’ve done.

Of course He can be mad. He’s God.

It’s time for us all to acknowledge His power, His might, and His ability to wipe every single one of us off the face of the map. It’s also time for us to confess to Him that, if He did wipe us off the map, it wouldn’t be at all unfair.

Onan contracepted…once. How many times have we?

Sodom and Gomorrah, the towns He obliterated, were crude, selfish, sexually immoral, and had no regard for God’s commands. How much have those characteristics overtaken our culture now?

God slew all the firstborn of an entire nation because their head, Pharaoh, was persecuting people who loved God. How many in our society have made it harder for us to let our faith guide every decision?…and how many of us have “caved” to that pressure and given in—or fueled this fire with our own sins?

Wouldn’t we rather be under the shelter of His wings than in that desert He finally decides we’ve left Him no choice but to rock?

Wouldn’t we rather be shielded in the shadow of His loving hand than standing under that cedar we’ve been daring His voice to split?

The key to being nestled safely in His protection, and not sitting atop that oak when His voice finally twists it, is accessible to each of us—no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, and no matter what our lives look like. That key is repentance, and the time for it is now.