Christine Johnson

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: IS

April 24, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A reflection on the word “IS”

By Christine Johnson

What a daunting task, to contemplate the word “is.” How do you discuss the meaning of the verb “to be?” Have you tried defining it for a child? (Trust me, I’ve been homeschooling my girls for nearly nine years now, and defining this verb is no easy task.)

But here, in the middle of the Hail Mary, is this verb: is. To be. Conjugating the verb brings me up short, makes me stop in my tracks and realize something huge.

I am…

This is God. “I am Who I am.” The Great I Am. God, as Father Robert Barron puts it in his Catholicism series, has a nature of existence. His very nature is to be.

God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal. Alpha and Omega. These are things we hear and say, but to contemplate it is mind-numbing. I remember trying to understand this when I was a child. We were on a long trip from the Jersey Shore to Long Island to visit family, and I sat in the back seat of the car thinking about the eternal nature of God.

I gave myself my very first headache.

via Google Maps

But to contemplate it here in the Hail Mary gives us new things to think about.

First, the Eternal God, Creator of all things visible and invisible, became a Human Being. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who has no beginning, had a beginning to His human life, and it was the moment the Archangel Gabriel approached the Blessed Virgin Mary and heard her fiat.

But this portion of the Hail Mary comes not from Gabriel. This part is from St. Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who has been confined to home as she awaits the birth of her first child, who will become the Baptizer. Elizabeth greets Mary with joy, proclaiming, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!” (Luke 1:41-45)

And here is what sticks out to me: Elizabeth’s verb tense.

Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!

Elizabeth doesn’t say, “Blessed will be the Fruit of thy womb.” She doesn’t use past tense, either, saying, “Blessed has been the Fruit of thy womb.” She uses the present tense: blessed is.

Jesus, new in Mary’s womb and yet Ancient of Days, is blessed. Blessed be the Name of God! Blessed be His Holy Name! We should be in continual praise of God, blessing His Name at all times. Every breath we have – every thought, word, and deed of our lives – should be given over to praise of our Creator! Elizabeth does just this here. She blesses God, gives Him praise and thanksgiving.

From http://www.baby2see.com/development/week8.html

The second thing that is brought to my mind as I look at this verb is that Jesus is present at that moment. Again, he is newly formed. When Mary receives word of Elizabeth being pregnant, it is already her sixth month. Mary would be traveling around 115 miles to get there. That’s a day trip for us, but on an ass there and back, it’s hardly an easy journey. But even if it took a month, Mary would only be about 6 weeks pregnant by the time she arrived in Hebron. This is a time when no one would be able to tell that Mary was pregnant just by looking at her. Jesus would be so tiny – less than an inch in length – that some people today would even question whether He was really a Baby yet.

Elizabeth uses the present tense verb to refer to Mary’s hidden Child. Jesus is present there – Emmanuel, God with us.

And this brings us to a final point: very often, we cannot see God with us. We look and find nothing. Our sorrows overwhelm us, and we fear drowning in our fears and anxieties.

But Jesus is with us. He might be hidden from obvious sight, as He was when Mary went to visit her cousin, but He is near. He is with us in a friend who calls just when you need someone to talk to. He is with us in the article you come across that speaks perfectly to your situation. He is with us in that tweet that makes you laugh in spite of your sadness. He is even with us in the smile of a stranger you pass in the store.

We only need to seek Him, and He will reveal Himself to us, often in very surprising ways.

It’s such a small word, but like the whispering wind in 1Kings (1Kings 19:11-13) that contained God, it’s not to be overlooked. After all, it’s Who God says He Is.

–

Christine Johnson blogs at Domestic Vocation and is active on Twitter as @catholicmomva. She’s one of those moms who I wish I was neighbors with so that we could have tea together in person. Because you know, she seems completely normal, despite the fact that she is so very amazing.

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, prayer, Virgin Mary

Life in More than 140 Characters

March 26, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 9 Comments

A guest post by Christine Johnson, who’s the woman behind Domestic Vocation and can also be found on Twitter (though not during Lent!).

I discovered something almost three years ago: Facebook is not just for high school and college kids. It’s a really neat tool to keep in touch with your family and friends of old. It’s a convenient way to share pictures of your family – whether growing in numbers or simply in size – with far-flung cousins stationed with the Marines in Texas, Florida, Afghanistan, with aunts and uncles living thousands of miles away, with dear friends you’ve known more than 1/3 of your life but who live too far to have coffee with.

I also learned that there are games! And, oh, how those games suck your time. If you have even a smidgen of competitiveness combined with a touch of addictive nature, you can discover that your “quick couple of games” at Bejeweled Blitz have turned into an hour. Seriously! I mean, how can I let Rachel continually beat me at this game? I can beat her this time. Just one more …

So last year, I gave up Facebook for Lent. I had also been playing some other stupid game that was fun for a while but had become way too addictive. When I returned after Easter, I had no idea how to play because they’d updated and changed it. And so I stopped.

Time was gained back! I did slip back into Bejeweled occasionally. Okay, a bunch by the time Lent rolled around again this year.

Which is part of why I did the same thing as last Lent: I gave up Facebook. My family can reach me still via email, and I changed my avatar to let people know I would be off Facebook until Easter. (The only exception is that my blogs auto-post to Facebook, but I do nothing to make that happen, nor do I go and check if it’s actually posted.)

But I discovered something else in the last year: Twitter. I’d tried it before, but was quite limited in my uses. I didn’t “get” it. Until I tried again, being a little more open and following some bloggers and writers I like a lot. (Hello, Sarah!) I figured out that Twitter can be a very interesting way to find news, to learn about things happening as they happen, to find interesting articles on topics I really like. I even learned how to use a hashtag – both seriously (#Catholic #prolife #40DaysForLife) and jokingly (#whyaremykidssobig #whendidIgetsoold #doespeerybinglemissmeontwitteroramijustbeingegotistical). It was FUN!

(ahem)

A bit too much fun at times.

I suddenly realized that I was checking it WAY too often, wondering if I had re-tweets (which is, for the uninitiated, when someone likes what you say enough to pass it on – it’s basically an electronic “ditto!” that reposts your comments). I wondered if I had more followers, if I had less followers, if I could say something witty that someone famous would respond to … for the introvert that I am, it was a way to socialize.

Now, I have actual and real socialization on Twitter. I have made some friends there who I’d love to meet in person. People I pray for, who (I hope) pray for me. But I also know that there is some very fake socialization that I’d love to pass off as real, but isn’t. Things that amount to shouting into a crowd of people who do not know me at all, thinking that someone might be paying attention to me.

And being addicted to that is not a good thing. (Really, what addiction is good, save the addiction to God I ought to have but fail to nurture enough?)

And so, due to my own slightly addictive nature, I pulled the plug on Twitter as well as Facebook. Again, my blog is auto-posting on Twitter, but I do nothing to make it happen. I don’t go to check the news. I did leave the Twitter extension at the top of my Safari browser, but mostly I don’t even see it. I’m definitely not clicking on it!

I do sort of miss the back-and-forth that I occasionally shared with friends, but overall, I’m trying to use the time I was spending on these social networks to socialize with Someone more important. I’m trying to read the Bible each morning, or at least the Mass readings for the day, and to focus more on my vocation and less on myself. (My vocation requires me to focus on others first.)

I’m basically trying to live in the real world a bit more. Which, left to my own devices, I was tending not to do as much as I ought to.

One of the other things I’ve noticed is that constantly writing things in 140 characters can change the way my mind works. There are some benefits: I have to express myself more succinctly, I learn to be more direct about what I’m saying.

But there are pitfalls, too. I tended to feel more frenetic, less calm. The speed at which things can move on Twitter and Facebook can really make you jumpy. It’s as though I’m expecting everything to be in short soundbites. I was having troubles really reading anything deep for long periods of time; for someone who loves reading as much as I do, that is a serious problem.

I wanted to break that a bit. I wanted to force calm back into my life and sooth my mind so it’s able to contemplate, to be at peace, to meditate on the great mysteries of this life.

One thing I’ve discovered is that I’m a bit more able to concentrate lately, and to write longer things. I’m doing so with more clarity and with (I hope) less rambling. But I think this break from the short, punctuated writing that takes place on Facebook and Twitter is helping me think more clearly.

The biggest benefactors of this break are my children, who get my undivided attention far more than when I’m busy joking with someone on Twitter. And I’m a better mother for that.

So that’s why I gave it up. It’s why, despite others who have said they couldn’t give up Facebook for Lent because it’s their biggest connection with others, I think it’s a good thing for me.

For some people, logging into Facebook and Twitter is a fifteen-minute activity. It’s not usually that for me, or at least it eventually grows to be much more. When I go back to it, I’ll try to limit my time better, but if it gets too hectic – if I’m finding that it’s too “important” to me, I’ll break from it again.

And maybe I don’t need Lent for that, either.

What are your thoughts?

Do you use Lent as a way to eliminate bad habits or to lessen activities that seem to take over your life? Do you take breaks from those things at other times of year?

Filed Under: guest post, Motherhood Tagged With: Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post, Lent, Motherhood, new media, parenting, writing

The Jesse Tree, by Christine Johnson

November 23, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

I’m happy to once again welcome Christine Johnson, who blogs at Domestic Vocation and can also be found on Twitter, for a fabulous guest post about that most imposing (to me) of all Advent craftiness, the Jesse Tree. Here, Christine makes it approachable. If you’re like me and this looks like the world’s most imposing project, why not print this post and save it for a summertime craft activity that you can pull out next Advent? Thanks, Christine, for sharing your wisdom and experience with us!

–
A few years ago, I’d heard about a tradition called the Jesse Tree. It seemed like a neat idea: each night during December, you read a bit about our salvation history, working your way through the Old Testament, and see how God worked throughout history from Creation through the Fall and up until Christ came into the world. And each day, after reading your Scripture, a child could hang an ornament on the tree.

Really, it’s a beautiful thing. And it really reinforces the idea that at no time was God absent from our lives. At no time did He forget His promise to Adam and Eve: that one day, Someone would come to set the world to rights again and redeem mankind.

It’s something that can get lost in the whole Christmas preparation. Goodness knows it’s tough to even focus on the true meaning of Advent when we have Christmas trees up in stores on November 1 and Thanksgiving decorations on clearance before November 10. Really, Advent has been completely lost to the greater part of our culture. We move from Thanksgiving to Christmas season.

But Catholics ought to know better. And, if we’re paying attention to our readings – daily or Sunday-only – we’ll be reminded of the fact that we are about to enter Advent, the time we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. Not just as a Babe in the manger, but at the end of time. Thus, our readings focus on the Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.

Doesn’t quite jive with “Jimgle Bells,” does it?

But Advent is important. Advent is the time when we take stock of ourselves and try to make ourselves presentable to the King. We ought to be paring back, focusing on what’s important: Christ’s coming. Because we don’t know when He’s coming back, but we need to be ready. We’re going to hear Jesus tell us that in Noah’s day, there was eating, drinking, and merry-making among the people who were about to be wiped out. We’re going to hear John the Baptist warn us to repent, to avoid imitating the brood of vipers who rest easy, thinking their salvation is secure without any more effort than calling themselves children of Abraham. Then we’ll hear Jesus praise John the Baptist, and call us to look to the Old Testament prophecies to see the foretelling of His coming. And, finally, we’ll hear of Joseph’s obedience to the Lord – and of his trust in God’s providence.

Funny, but until this moment, I hadn’t thought to look at all of Advent’s readings at once that way. But look at that message!

Prepare, for Christ is coming. Judgment will be upon you when you least expect it. Do not think that just because you sit in that pew every Sunday you’re safe. Examine your life and repent! None of this is new information: the Scriptures clearly tell us of God’s plans for us all. And imitate Joseph, humble and obedient to God, even when he didn’t understand the entire plan. Take Jesus into your heart as your own, just as St. Joseph did.

This is a great reminder for adults. But for children, how do we help them focus on the real meaning of Advent? How do we help them prepare properly for Christmas?

The Jesse Tree has been our answer to this dilemma.

There are plenty of different sites for Jesse Tree activities, and the readings can vary from place to place. The important thing is that they all do focus on the preparations God made for His people for the coming of the Savior. Symbols, too, can vary. Each ornament tends to be a symbol of the reading for that day. Our family uses this site’s information for our readings, and the girls chose a symbol for each reading from the list given there. We made bake-able play-dough so they could create their own ornaments, as well. (Originally, we used a branch and paper ornaments, but I could see that they wouldn’t last very long.)

For the tree, I set up our Christmas tree, which is pre-lit, and put absolutely nothing on it. Each evening, one of the girls reads the verse and the other hangs an ornament up. And, slowly, the tree starts to fill up. (We add no other decorations until Gaudete Sunday, which is when the whole house gets the Christmas treatment.)

Because of these readings each night, the girls have begun to see the connection between the Old and New Testaments. And they stop and contemplate God’s mercy each evening. It’s like an antidote to the rest of the world, who all seem to be rushing at Christmas at breakneck speed and who will throw the whole thing out on December 26.

Which, incidentally, is only the second day of Christmas. But that’s a whole other post for you.

If you’re looking to really get your family honed in on the true meaning of Christmas, then the Jesse Tree is for you. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, either. You could make paper ornaments and a paper tree to hang on a wall or on your refrigerator and tape the symbols up. You can find pre-made ornaments online to print, color, and cut out. Some even come with reflections ready to print!

Or, if you want to visit Domestic Vocation each day in December, you can find links to the readings we use, as well as a picture of the ornament my girls made for our tree. Posts will come up automatically throughout December.

Also, I recently found the readings for each day (available here); you can print these out and put them in a binder or folder and then make a decorative cover.

Filed Under: Faith, guest post Tagged With: Advent, Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post

The Wisdom of a Rabbit, by Christine Johnson

August 3, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 6 Comments

I’ve gotten to know Christine Johnson, who blogs at Domestic Vocation and can also be found on Twitter, over the years, but I don’t remember when we first “met;” I think it had to do with the Catholic Carnivals of days gone by.

As a youngish wife, I really appreciate Christine’s thoughts today and hope you find them to be as edifying and encouraging as I do!

–

Early in my marriage, I heard some advice that I scoffed at (a bit) initially. “Never, EVER say a negative thing about your husband in front of another person!”

“Never?” I thought. “Seriously?”

At the time, we were in network marketing, and some of the women I admired had decided to take this advice to heart. So I decided to try it, too.

It turned out to be easier than I thought. My husband and I heard a similar message over our years in the organization: speak well of your spouse – and only well – when in the company of others.

Since then, this piece of advice has become so much a part of our mindset that if I am about so say something non-edifying about my husband – something I will only do with family and a few of our closet friends – I start with the qualifying, “Nathan is so fantastic as a husband/father, but sometimes …”

How it affects us

This attitude affects how I see my husband. Because I speak well of him so consistently, it means I am always looking for the positive in him and his actions. I stop seeing the negative things. Does this mean that I don’t notice *any* of the things that might bug me? Heck, no. I’m human. But I don’t see it first, that’s for sure.

When I do see something that bugs me, I tend to follow the advice of that great sage, Thumper’s father: “If you can’t say nuthin’ nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.” When talking to my friends, I keep those little peevish things to myself. I practice charity in my speech and attitude towards him.

And, because I’ve been bragging on him to my friends, those very same things come out at home – as compliments I pass on to him. What really is wonderful about this in our relationship is that I discovered that we have particular “love languages.” His turned out to be words of praise; he thrives on being told he’s doing a good job, especially from me. Keeping this attitude of edification towards my husband has the added benefit of making sure he knows how much I love him.

How it affects our family

Since I’m already in the habit of speaking well of my husband to others, it’s only natural that I do so with my children, as well. My girls think their father hangs the moon. He is their image of the Father, and their image … well, it rocks! And as they get older, they’ll be on the lookout for someone like him. That would be fantastic, as far as I’m concerned. I tell them all the time that if they marry someone who’s half the man their father is, they’ll be doing great. (But why settle? Find someone just as good – if you can!)

Because I’m not complaining, I see my husband in this positive light, too. If all I did was dwell on his shortcomings, eventually it would be all I see. Pretty soon, there could be some other man (whose shortcomings I’m not privy to) who is “so much better.” But to me, because I’m focused on my husband’s positives, I’ve got little room to even think about someone else’s! And because this all serves to make our relationship stronger, it makes our home more stable and secure for our children.

How others see us

My friends think he’s a great guy. I think so, too, but I can tell you that there have been times when I wonder about some of my friends’ husbands. You see, I don’t see the husbands frequently in our homeschool environment, so each wife’s depiction of her spouse is all I have to go on. If the only thing someone hears about your husband is negative complaints, how will people see him? What will they think of him?

Because he does the same for me, the people in his office think I can do no wrong, either. For someone with insecurity issues (…ahem…), this is great. It’s like a head start in the “Looking Like a Dork” Olympics. I look good *way* longer than I would on my own because he’s given me such a build-up in front of his friends and coworkers. It takes much longer for my inner dork to completely blot out all awesomeness Nathan has told everyone I have. And by that time, I think they might know me well enough that they’ll like me anyway.

People know we’re happy! Some of the people I know are probably happy, but I’m never sure. I wonder what (aside from their knowledge of the Sacrament of Matrimony and their adherence to the Faith) keeps them together. I’ve been acquainted with some families where I hear absolutely nothing nice at all about the husband from the wife. Nothing. It’s so very difficult to form an opinion on someone you don’t see frequently when the connection you have (their spouse) seems only able to complain about him. It’s quite discouraging, to be honest.

My recommendation for YOU

I am sure that some people reading this have been married a while. If I’d heard this advice for the first time now (nearly 17 years into our marriage) instead of as we were starting our marriage, it probably would be a different story. I was blessed to hear this at such a young age.

If you’ve been married a while and know you’re in the habit of complaining about your spouse, go back to the sage advice of the Wise Rabbit. Think carefully about how your discussions about and descriptions of your spouse make him look to others. Don’t save the Golden Rule just for the people outside your family – put it in practice for them first! Start searching for what’s good about your spouse – you know it’s there; you *did* get married, after all! – and then do two things with that information:

1. Tell him!
2. Brag about him to others!

That’s really all there is to it. Look, you got married for a reason. You saw something that you liked. Think about what that was. Think about the good things that are keeping you together. Start small, if necessary. Thank him for something small he did, even if it’s as small as working hard all week or filling the car with gas. Thank him!

Then remember this:

If you love your spouse, everyone should know it. Don’t keep it a secret!