I've been reading some of the early Church fathers, and it has struck me how they seemed to view persecution, even to the point of death, as something to rejoice in. It makes me think of persecution as a symptom of being a true follower of Jesus...something you would be glad to endure because it would prove you were a Christian. Here are the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, 3rd bishop of Antioch, in his Letter to the Romans:
"I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg of you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ." (The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, The Liturgical Press 1970)
Now there is a man with some conviction! I've been wondering how I would respond in such a situation, and it has made me realize how much I flee from 'persecution', which, for me today means shying away from being vocal about my beliefs because I want to be liked. Be liked, or follow Jesus--the choice should be a no-brainer! Maybe you think I have been vocal about my beliefs on this blog, but it's hard for me when I am face to face with someone that I know needs Jesus, but has rejected him.
I came across this amazing prayer, the Litany of Humility, that I have started praying as an antidote to my desire to be likable to everyone. It is very hard to pray, it is very unnatural to pray, but I love the ideas in it and I want to share it:
Litany of Humility
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred to others,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the fear of being humiliated,
deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected,
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
That in the opinion of the world,
others may increase, and I may decrease,
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I,
provided that I may become as holy as I should.
-Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Prayer in the Church
I've taken these comments to 'On Mary' and posted my response here because it was so long...
comment:
As to why I think Catholics devalue the prayers of earthly people I have two thoughts. First, it seems that if you thought YOUR prayers were of value why would you spend all that time asking Mary or another saint in heaven to pray for you? Why don't you just approach God yourself instead of asking the saint to do it?
Second, in my admittedly limited experience, I've only heard Catholics pray from a book. Maybe I've forgotten something but what I remember of any Mass I've been to is that all the prayers were read as opposed to what I would call "prayers of the heart". That would seem to give the hearers the impression that the only prayers worthy of God's attention were those with perfect grammar, beautiful phrases and quotes from a Saint. How would the average person be able to match that?
This isn't meant to be critical, but an honest question. Are Catholics taught how to pray from their heart, or do they always have to get out a book and read someone else's prayer or say a memorized prayer? In other words, do the priests, or whoever prays in public, ever NOT use a book, do they model prayers from the heart?
my response:
“It is as natural to pray others’ prayers as to sing others’ songs. For when we do, 1we make them our own. We should not merely recite these prayers; we pray them. We do not “say our prayers”; we pray. We need others’ prayers for the same reason we needed the help of walking when we were infants learning to walk. We are only spiritual infants. “Religion is a crutch” indeed, and we need it because we are cripples. Others’ beautiful prayers are beautiful crutches to help us walk.” (Catholic Christianity, 2001 Ignatius Press, p384)
comment:
As to why I think Catholics devalue the prayers of earthly people I have two thoughts. First, it seems that if you thought YOUR prayers were of value why would you spend all that time asking Mary or another saint in heaven to pray for you? Why don't you just approach God yourself instead of asking the saint to do it?
Second, in my admittedly limited experience, I've only heard Catholics pray from a book. Maybe I've forgotten something but what I remember of any Mass I've been to is that all the prayers were read as opposed to what I would call "prayers of the heart". That would seem to give the hearers the impression that the only prayers worthy of God's attention were those with perfect grammar, beautiful phrases and quotes from a Saint. How would the average person be able to match that?
This isn't meant to be critical, but an honest question. Are Catholics taught how to pray from their heart, or do they always have to get out a book and read someone else's prayer or say a memorized prayer? In other words, do the priests, or whoever prays in public, ever NOT use a book, do they model prayers from the heart?
my response:
Why would I ‘spend all that time asking Mary of another saint in heaven to pray’ for me? Because I’d like to have as many people praying for me as possible, and because it’s extremely easy to ask a saint to pray for me, whereas to ask you to pray for me I have to get a hold of you by phone or email. Why do we ask anyone to pray for us when we can just pray to God ourselves? Imagine this: what if you were in a bad situation where no one knew where you were-say your car had gone off a cliff and you were trapped in it. Of course you would pray to God, but would it not also feel good to ask a saint to pray for you as well, and to know that a (former) human being was praying for you at that very moment and knew exactly what had happened? Or think of a martyr in prison, alone and staring death in the face. I think it would be extremely comforting to invoke the names of the saints, especially the ones who had also been martyred. It would make me feel far from alone, I would be far from alone. And this is not an either/or situation – I don’t ask a saint to pray for me OR pray to God myself, I can do both.
I don’t think you really mean to say that written prayers are not ‘prayers from the heart’, but I know what you mean – the first time I went to Mass in high school it seemed wooden and fake because it all came from a book. But this is not how it is- I was wrong. Think of how personally prayerful reading an ancient prayer in Psalms can be – how someone says something that is so stunning and true about God, and you realize it is your own prayer as well. ‘Beautiful phrases’ should be included in our collective worship times.
And on book prayers: As far as hearing goes, weekend Mass prayers said out loud are all from a book. During the week, priests usually invite unscripted prayer from the parishioners during one portion of the Mass. I’m not sure why prayer is mostly written. Perhaps it is because the Church is wrapped up in beauty, and written prayers are beautiful, perhaps it is because there was no gap of hundreds or thousands of years b/t Judaism and Catholic Christianity (I’m guessing Jews read a lot of prayers at temple). Most likely, Mass is a collective experience, and praying the same prayers emphasizes the unity of the Church – 1 billion Catholics the world over are united by praying the same prayers. But as far as praying on the whole, Mass is full of both kinds of prayer,- ‘prayer from the heart’ as you call it and ‘book prayers’. Mass is intensely prayerful. I could tell this immediately the second time I went to Mass. I’m confident I have never prayed as many ‘from the heart’ prayers during any Protestant church service as I regularly do during Mass. Visualize what you would see before Mass begins – people kneeling in personal prayer. Visualize what you would see while the Eucharist is being distributed, and after – the same. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist requires much self-reflection, and inspires much adoration before, during, and after. While a priest does not neccesarily model unscripted prayer, you cannot help but say your own words to God at Mass.
You speak of the imbalance of Catholics preferring written prayers, this may be true, and may need correcting (apart from Mass). But we need both types of prayers, and I could easily criticize Protestants for not praying enough written prayers. If you never pray written prayers, you are missing out. Reading prayers is not just ‘reading’ them – it’s praying them! Written prayers are hands down the best antidotes to two common problems when it comes to personal prayer; mind wandering and spiritual dryness. What if you are bored with prayer? What if you feel you have nothing to say to God? Praying a written prayer will give you something to say, and will remind you that there is always something to say to God. I like what Peter Kreeft has to say about formal prayer:
I don’t think you really mean to say that written prayers are not ‘prayers from the heart’, but I know what you mean – the first time I went to Mass in high school it seemed wooden and fake because it all came from a book. But this is not how it is- I was wrong. Think of how personally prayerful reading an ancient prayer in Psalms can be – how someone says something that is so stunning and true about God, and you realize it is your own prayer as well. ‘Beautiful phrases’ should be included in our collective worship times.
And on book prayers: As far as hearing goes, weekend Mass prayers said out loud are all from a book. During the week, priests usually invite unscripted prayer from the parishioners during one portion of the Mass. I’m not sure why prayer is mostly written. Perhaps it is because the Church is wrapped up in beauty, and written prayers are beautiful, perhaps it is because there was no gap of hundreds or thousands of years b/t Judaism and Catholic Christianity (I’m guessing Jews read a lot of prayers at temple). Most likely, Mass is a collective experience, and praying the same prayers emphasizes the unity of the Church – 1 billion Catholics the world over are united by praying the same prayers. But as far as praying on the whole, Mass is full of both kinds of prayer,- ‘prayer from the heart’ as you call it and ‘book prayers’. Mass is intensely prayerful. I could tell this immediately the second time I went to Mass. I’m confident I have never prayed as many ‘from the heart’ prayers during any Protestant church service as I regularly do during Mass. Visualize what you would see before Mass begins – people kneeling in personal prayer. Visualize what you would see while the Eucharist is being distributed, and after – the same. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist requires much self-reflection, and inspires much adoration before, during, and after. While a priest does not neccesarily model unscripted prayer, you cannot help but say your own words to God at Mass.
You speak of the imbalance of Catholics preferring written prayers, this may be true, and may need correcting (apart from Mass). But we need both types of prayers, and I could easily criticize Protestants for not praying enough written prayers. If you never pray written prayers, you are missing out. Reading prayers is not just ‘reading’ them – it’s praying them! Written prayers are hands down the best antidotes to two common problems when it comes to personal prayer; mind wandering and spiritual dryness. What if you are bored with prayer? What if you feel you have nothing to say to God? Praying a written prayer will give you something to say, and will remind you that there is always something to say to God. I like what Peter Kreeft has to say about formal prayer:
“It is as natural to pray others’ prayers as to sing others’ songs. For when we do, 1we make them our own. We should not merely recite these prayers; we pray them. We do not “say our prayers”; we pray. We need others’ prayers for the same reason we needed the help of walking when we were infants learning to walk. We are only spiritual infants. “Religion is a crutch” indeed, and we need it because we are cripples. Others’ beautiful prayers are beautiful crutches to help us walk.” (Catholic Christianity, 2001 Ignatius Press, p384)
Monday, December 3, 2007
Quotable Monday
I'm dubbing Mondays 'quotable Mondays' because wouldn't you like to read something inspiring now and then...instead of well, what I write? So here we go:
"Morality is always terribly complicated-to a man who has lost all his principles."
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936, English writer, eventual Catholic)
"Morality is always terribly complicated-to a man who has lost all his principles."
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936, English writer, eventual Catholic)
Saturday, December 1, 2007
It's Advent
I've been wondering lately how to impress upon booga bear a sense of excitement over Christmas apart from presents and cookies. I want him to understand that Christmas is primarily a celebration of God coming to earth in the form of baby Jesus. I want him to understand that the good things we celebrate at Christmas - family, peace, abundance- are not honored on a whim, but would not be so apart from God.
I have a few basic ideas, but nothing spectacular on how to impart wonder over the miracle of Jesus' birth; celebrating Advent at home, reading the Christmas story from the Bible, giving just a few gifts, etc. I hope that by trying to be intentional each year, the message will be sent. Kids are sponges, imitating what they see being done around them, so I guess a big part of it will just be making sure my own attitudes about Christmas are ones I would be proud to see in my child. I need to make sure that I'm excited about gift-giving over gift-getting, that I treat Advent as a time to spiritually prepare for Christmas, and that I myself am behaving in a way that honors Jesus' birth.
Having kids is certainly a good reality check.
I have a few basic ideas, but nothing spectacular on how to impart wonder over the miracle of Jesus' birth; celebrating Advent at home, reading the Christmas story from the Bible, giving just a few gifts, etc. I hope that by trying to be intentional each year, the message will be sent. Kids are sponges, imitating what they see being done around them, so I guess a big part of it will just be making sure my own attitudes about Christmas are ones I would be proud to see in my child. I need to make sure that I'm excited about gift-giving over gift-getting, that I treat Advent as a time to spiritually prepare for Christmas, and that I myself am behaving in a way that honors Jesus' birth.
Having kids is certainly a good reality check.
Monday, November 26, 2007
8 silly & endearing habits of Booga-bear:
1. He Lines up sippy cups on the microwave cart. I once found an entire row of who knows how old juice cups hidden behind the cereal boxes.
2. He goes to sleep in his crib hugging a book--he arranges a book next to his head and puts his hand on it before falling asleep.
3. He takes almost any snack I give him to either the front or back door, where he sits down on the doormat and eats the snack.
4. One of his new favorite things to do is to drag the broom and carry the dustpan around the house.
5. He brings me a box of cereal whenever he is hungry.
6. He always runs around the house laughing after his bath, wearing nothing except his hooded towel.
7. When I turn on the microwave, he tries to get behind the microwave cart to see the light that comes through the slits on the back of the microwave.
8. He likes to sleep with the bus schedule (it has a picture of a bus on it).
2. He goes to sleep in his crib hugging a book--he arranges a book next to his head and puts his hand on it before falling asleep.
3. He takes almost any snack I give him to either the front or back door, where he sits down on the doormat and eats the snack.
4. One of his new favorite things to do is to drag the broom and carry the dustpan around the house.
5. He brings me a box of cereal whenever he is hungry.
6. He always runs around the house laughing after his bath, wearing nothing except his hooded towel.
7. When I turn on the microwave, he tries to get behind the microwave cart to see the light that comes through the slits on the back of the microwave.
8. He likes to sleep with the bus schedule (it has a picture of a bus on it).
Friday, November 23, 2007
At home mom
It's starting to not bother me when I tell people I'm a stay-at-home mom. Becoming a mom is a big transition, and watching my identity become wrapped up in being an at-home mom has been interesting. Sometimes I tell people off-handed that I'd work part time if I could find a job that would be worth while when factoring in the cost of childcare, as if that dignifies my decision to stay at home. But I'm not actually looking for work- I just assume that it would be almost impossible to find such a situation.
Honestly, I have a nagging feeling that I'm doing something wrong by not working. That I'm wasting my college education, or going unfulfilled, or that I'm disappointing people who probably barely remember me - professors, old college friends, coworkers. I'm not sure exactly what it is that bothers me so, but it's something! Maybe it's just that I don't feel normal - normal seems to be 'working moms'.
I've been wondering for a while why I feel, well, sort of worthless being 'just a mom', but I read an article in a student newspaper today that shed some light. The author of the article spoke about how women need to triumph over sexist, outdated and limiting gender roles. From the rest of the article, I think it's safe to assume 'home-maker' is one of the things she would hope women would be able to overcome and not be limited by. The presumption behind the article is that women deserve MORE than just being wives and mothers. This attitude by now is just normal-I think most people would agree. But, if you tell a woman that she will be severely limited in life by being an at-home mom (or just a mom, period), or that no person should expect a mother to want to stay home with her children, then how valuable is choosing to be an at-home mom? Not very.
To be fair, I haven't only received negative messages about being a stay-at home mom. A lot of people recognize it for what it is: a really good thing. People who had children themselves responded positively when I told them I was planning on quiting my job for the long-term. But this is not the message I feel I have been fed by society at large, nor what I had accepted.
There are two things that will never change in this debate on what is ideal. Children will always need caretakers, and women will always be the ones that bear children. So prattling on about how women should not be expected to be nurturers seems to be an exercise in futility. Of course there is the option of more stay-at home dads, but if full-time motherhood is perceived as such an unfulfilling gig in the first place, good luck with that.
Honestly, I have a nagging feeling that I'm doing something wrong by not working. That I'm wasting my college education, or going unfulfilled, or that I'm disappointing people who probably barely remember me - professors, old college friends, coworkers. I'm not sure exactly what it is that bothers me so, but it's something! Maybe it's just that I don't feel normal - normal seems to be 'working moms'.
I've been wondering for a while why I feel, well, sort of worthless being 'just a mom', but I read an article in a student newspaper today that shed some light. The author of the article spoke about how women need to triumph over sexist, outdated and limiting gender roles. From the rest of the article, I think it's safe to assume 'home-maker' is one of the things she would hope women would be able to overcome and not be limited by. The presumption behind the article is that women deserve MORE than just being wives and mothers. This attitude by now is just normal-I think most people would agree. But, if you tell a woman that she will be severely limited in life by being an at-home mom (or just a mom, period), or that no person should expect a mother to want to stay home with her children, then how valuable is choosing to be an at-home mom? Not very.
Perhaps the true mission of the feminist movement has been to only give women the opportunity to choose a career OR to choose raising children full-time, and not to insult motherhood as a calling. But the message I've received is that as a stay-at-home mom, I'm not worth as much as I could be. I first learned in any seriousness about feminism in my college sociology 101 class. The encouragement for women to be successful wasn't blatantly negative towards women choosing to stay home, but subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, it is. Anyone remember Hillary Clinton saying "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life." ? This is a very familiar attitude. (Now, girls, what do you want to do--stay home and have a life that culminates in baking cookies, or do you want to have an exciting profession and do something important?!) Or did anyone read some of the brouhaha over Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's move to start offering home economics courses to women? The world seemed pretty peeved that a college would stoop to the level of re-enforcing traditional gender roles by offering practical tips on raising children, etc. for women to use later in life. I understand that this doesn't seem very scholarly, but I took badminton, a math-for-middle-schoolers equivalent course, and sailing as part of my required courses in college in the name of being well-rounded.
Actually, that reminds me-I feel kind of cheated by my college education. Academia seems to mostly ignore the fact that most women sitting in the classroom will eventually become mothers, and will have to decide how they will balance work with children. Perhaps it would be labeled sexist to discuss this (there they go again, touting those traditional roles), but frankly, I think it would be prudent for women with vague ideas of getting married and having kids someday to at least consider pursuing careers that tend to offer flexible or part time positions.
To be fair, I haven't only received negative messages about being a stay-at home mom. A lot of people recognize it for what it is: a really good thing. People who had children themselves responded positively when I told them I was planning on quiting my job for the long-term. But this is not the message I feel I have been fed by society at large, nor what I had accepted.
There are two things that will never change in this debate on what is ideal. Children will always need caretakers, and women will always be the ones that bear children. So prattling on about how women should not be expected to be nurturers seems to be an exercise in futility. Of course there is the option of more stay-at home dads, but if full-time motherhood is perceived as such an unfulfilling gig in the first place, good luck with that.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The best baby carrier
I'm pretty excited about this baby carrier I just got, the ERGO. Normally, I would not take the time to write about baby gear--that's BORING--but this carrier merits some attention.
I've been wanting a 'system' that would allow us to go on hikes, or to the zoo, without a stroller. I tried out several models of Kelty baby carriers (the kind with the metal frame), and even though they were up to double the price of the ERGO, I could barely stand to walk around the store with Booga bear on my back. All I could think about was my poor spine, and how darn heavy a 25 lb. boy is! Not so with the ERGO! I also think it would be far superior to baby bjorn-type carriers, which I found to be fine up to about 15 pounds, but too uncomfortable to use after that.
(I got free shipping on the ERGO here)
I've been wanting a 'system' that would allow us to go on hikes, or to the zoo, without a stroller. I tried out several models of Kelty baby carriers (the kind with the metal frame), and even though they were up to double the price of the ERGO, I could barely stand to walk around the store with Booga bear on my back. All I could think about was my poor spine, and how darn heavy a 25 lb. boy is! Not so with the ERGO! I also think it would be far superior to baby bjorn-type carriers, which I found to be fine up to about 15 pounds, but too uncomfortable to use after that.
(I got free shipping on the ERGO here)
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