A Mary Moment Monday post

I’ve struggled this winter. I’ve tried to stay quiet about it, because it’s intensely personal and maybe a percentage of it is my imagination (or so I’d like to think).

I originally blamed it on Christmas, but it didn’t really stop when Christmas was over.

Then my husband said something so gently and yet so firmly, and I was unable to ignore it any longer.

There are plenty of Low Self-Esteem Days in my life. I’m not the only one who has them, because I stole this phrase from a colleague of mine many years ago.

What’s been going on lately is beyond low self-esteem. It’s the D-word rearing its ugly head. The battle is not so easily over.

It is, yet again, a reminder of how much, how often, how deeply I need to turn to Mary. There is a danger in isolation, and I find, when I’m slipping down the slope past low self-esteem into something darker, that I start to detach myself (and not in any kind of good way). I put distance between myself and everything I can.

Yet as I feel the gap between me and others grows, I feel the contradictory longing for an embrace. Even as I shrug others off and curl up against them, I want them to know, to be with me, to support me.

That’s where Mary comes in. She doesn’t push herself on me and she always seems to know what to say. Somehow, she is just there, without words, without judging, without weight.

And in her presence, I always find myself leaning toward her Son, reaching for the Light and knowing that the cross I bear (however unwillingly) is not borne alone.

*

Over at Suscipio, a post from my early archives is reprinted with my enthusiastic support. Go on over and read about Low Self-Esteem Days, and then poke around at the other good stuff that’s there. Jenny’s doing a great job building a site that’s meant to support and encourage Catholic women.

image credit: Jenny at Suscipio

A Mary Moment Monday post

Did Mary yell at Jesus? I ask myself that question a lot sometimes.

Like the day I started the draft of this post.

I was trying to remain patient. I was doing my best to keep my voice calm.

I failed. I failed big.

If ever you think I am a model of motherhood or a mentor to emulate, let me set things straight right now. If you look at me and think, “I want to be like Sarah Reinhard when I grow up,” let me correct you loudly. If you smile when you read this and think I’m exaggerating, don’t tell me, because I will want to smack you.

I fail all. the. time. It’s part and parcel of who I am, how I’m made, what I struggle with.

Yelling: an ongoing struggle, a bad habit I fall back upon when I feel pushed, stressed, or otherwise cornered, and something I feel called, of late, to address.

It isn’t going to be easy to address.

Ask my fifth-grade PSR class: I’m not soft-spoken. Ask my husband: I’m not quiet. Ask my friends: I’m not calm.

So yelling fits right in, in many ways, with who I am.

Or so I used to think.

But that question keeps coming up in my mind when I think about yelling. Did Mary yell at Jesus?

Well, maybe she did: ”Jeeeeeeesuuuuus! Time for dinner! Come in, wash up!”

I can’t help but think, with some amusement, that she was one of the only people who could yell his name and not be guilty of breaking the Second Commandment.

On the other hand, I can’t help but continue to feel called to silence in different ways. And in that, my tendency to yell seems to clash.

My husband doesn’t yell a lot. For one thing, he doesn’t need to. When it comes to the kids, he can “growl” with great effectiveness. (Sudden insight: I need to learn to growl!) For another thing, he has presence. I can’t explain it more than that, but I get the feeling that it’s ingrained, not something I can learn.

Did Mary yell at Jesus, the way I slip and yell when I’m frustrated or overwhelmed? Did she give in to the emotion and let it out through her voice?

Is my yelling indicative of a lack of self-control? Does it point to a need for greater trust in others, in myself, in God?

As I consider my own question and Mary’s response in other areas, I think I stand a lot to learn, as usual, from Jesus’ mom. Maybe she did yell, but it wouldn’t have been in a way that would have been sinful. She certainly felt frustration, but did she give in and act on it?

Once again, I find myself turning to Mary and leaning back into her arms. I’m going to do my best, this week, to ask for her help when I’m on the brink of yelling in ways that aren’t positive.

image credit

A Mary Moment Monday post

Today’s the feast of the espousal of Mary, which means we celebrate the fact that she was married. (More about the espousal of Mary here.)

It’s easy to forget that Mary was a married woman. It’s also easy to imagine that marriage, for Mary and Joseph, was something easy.

Mary and Joseph’s marriage didn’t exactly get off to an easy start.  They were engaged and Joseph had promised not to “defile” Mary, because she was a consecrated virgin.  He was really marrying her because, in that day and age, there was no security in being a single woman.

And then she turned up pregnant.  This was the girl who was supposed to have promised to remain pure.

It was a dilemma for Joseph.  It’s a dilemma for us.

Mary didn’t struggle with NFP, because she was a virgin and she remained a virgin.  She didn’t worry about whether it was the right time to have a baby or whether she would be able to handle the next swaddled blessing.

That makes Mary’s marriage a little…different than mine.  It makes me wonder just what I can learn from her when it comes to marriage.

But maybe it also points us to some of the truths of marriage and to some lessons that we sometimes forget.

Mary gave birth to the Savior, and then she raised him.  She did it with the help and support of a man, a man chosen by God.  Joseph was the head of the family, and that’s no small thing.  Angels appeared to him, and he was the earthly male role model — the man Jesus knew as Daddy in the flesh.  How do I support my husband in his role as head of our family?  How do I encourage him — with a hot meal, a smile in the evening, my undivided attention?

Life in Nazareth wasn’t easy, but it was as normal as it could get.  Mary didn’t have a slew of servants at her disposal.  She and Joseph had to work — really, truly work — in their life together.  There were laundry piles and dirty dishes and meals to prepare.

It’s there, in the boring, ordinary, common life…it’s there that I see Mary and Joseph.  They’re holding hands and smiling at some shared joke.  Maybe it’s a toddler mispronunciation they’re remembering together.  Could they be thinking of Jesus’ first steps, of the journey to Egypt, of the trip to Jerusalem searching for Jesus?

Marriage is a commitment of the highest order, and Mary stands before us, not as an inaccessible perfect wife (though she undoubtedly was), but as an achievable sister-in-arms.  She taps us on the shoulder and urges us to put the computer away, to bake a pan of brownies, to write a little unexpected love note.  She shows us Who should be at the center of our marriage, reminds us where it is we’re trying to reach, prompts us to reach, together, for the many graces wrapped up in the sacrament of marriage.

She knows how hard it is in this day and age — it was hard then, too, though the standard was to stay married.  She sees the obstacles in front of us and she leads us, once again, back to her Son.

Originally published in a modified form at Faith & Family Live.

image credit 

A Mary Moment Monday post

We were driving from the airport in Albuquerque, New Mexico, up through the mountains to Los Alamos. My husband (who was then just a really committed boyfriend) looked at me and said, a bit shocked, “You never told me it was beautiful.”

To an Ohio girl (or guy, for that matter), the mountains of northern New Mexico, with their soaring height and expanse of flatness, are quite a sight. The New Mexico color palette is quite a bit different, too, and in mid-July, it’s more brown than green.

My aunt says she’s always shocked by the brightness when she comes back to Ohio.

That first visit to New Mexico was something. I first went out west following my college graduation, and I think, looking back, that I found God there.

As I hiked with my uncle and talked philosophy with my aunt, I found myself cheerfully small. I looked around at the great monolithic stone structures, felt the burn of the different altitude, experienced the dryness in the air, and it was more than I could explain.

It’s still more than I can explain.

When my husband was finally able to join me in a visit out west, he saw at once the many factors that contributed to my crush on New Mexico. The sky! The mountains! The atmosphere!

All that…and more.

I think of the feeling of driving up the road up the side of a mesa when I see pictures of the shrine to Mary in Montserrat, Spain. The rock is pale and reaching up, up, up. The shrine seems to be almost carved from it.

And then there’s the statue.

She’s black from all the candles that have burned before her. That black represents the people coming to her, pleading for her help, asking for her to look on them and remember them to her Son.

They go to this place of beauty, to the Woman of Beauty. Mothers always have a beauty that their children appreciate more than anyone else, and Mary’s no different.

This statue may not look like much, and the miracles attributed to it may be legends. But I’m inspired by the color, by the faith of centuries of people before me.

I love the quote of one historian about this image:

“In all ages the sinful, the suffering, the sorrowful, have laid their woes at the feet of Our Lady of Montserrat, and none have ever gone away unheard or unaided.” [source]

Our Lady of Montserrat will surely be on my mind the next time we travel out west. I have no idea when that will be (though I always hope it will be soon), but there’s no hurry. The beautiful vistas aren’t going anywhere and my experience will be sweeter for having waited to savor it.

She’s also a reminder that nothing is too small, nothing too mundane, nothing too inconsequential, to take to Mary. When I feel like I’m climbing mountains to get through my day or to deal with a particular challenge, I’ll turn to Our Lady of Montserrat. That’s Jesus on her lap, after all, and if she can hold him, I can at least sit down for a chat.

Further reading:

• Montserrat Shrine (with great pictures)
• CatholicTradition.org
• University of Dayton Mary Pages

statue image credit: University of Dayton

A Mary Moment Monday post

He bet me, a few weeks ago, that I couldn’t spend a week offline.

How did he know that I was considering that very thing?

Well…here goes!

I’m scheduling this post ahead of time and will be offline all week.

All. Week. Long.

No blogging. No blog reading. No status updating or tweeting. Probably no emailing either.

It won’t kill me. In fact, I have this scheduled as a Mary Moment Monday post because I can’t help but think that there’s a hint of Mary’s touch in this.

Knowing your limits. Taking time to notice and be and pause. Enjoying hands-on activities and maybe even cleaning up the house (though let’s not hold our breath on that).

Mary must have known how to pace herself, how to savor the moment, how to stop and sit.

Much of my work is done thanks to my computer and the internet. It’s through this miracle of technology that I can work from home and stay connected to a position that used to have me going to an office. It’s thanks to this that I can write from home.

But it’s also thanks to all of this that I never seem able to be offline. Ever.

This week between Christmas and New Year, when our parish office is closed anyway and not much is going on anywhere else seems the perfect time to carve out an internet fast.

I’ll still be around. And with my rather ambitious reading goals for 2012, it doesn’t hurt to get started now. :) And hey, you can always call me if you have my number…

See you next week!

image credit 

A Mary Moment Monday post

I can’t pretend that I’ve been really easy to be around lately. I’m pretty impressed that my husband still smiles at me, my mother-in-law will still speak with me, and that my children still seem okay with my presence. Then again, all of that assumes that they are as grinchy and selfish as I am, and they are not.

I’ve been whiny. I’ve been grumpy. I’ve been impossible.

Why has this Advent seemed so much harder than any other? Why has Christmas seemed like a looming impossibility to me? Why, why, WHY?

I have nothing to complain about: NOTHING. Not. A. Thing.

I have suspected, in fact, that the decrease in the twelve-month-old’s nursing and my past experience with depression might be kicking me into some weird thing.

As we dive into the last week of Advent–an Advent where I’ve been blessed by other people’s stories of how my work has blessed them, an Advent where I have found myself to be very blessed (though unable to feel so)–I find myself turning where I always turn when I don’t know where else to turn.

I’m struggling and teary and confused.

She knows.

And she points me, yet again, to the one place I can turn for comfort. She reminds me that the candles I’m lighting lead to the birth of her Son. She smiles gently at me and I feel like maybe peace is possible within my inner turmoil.

Those candles can burn within me, if I let them. They can burn away the doubts I have, the fears I harbor, the unexplained anxiety I hate. In those candles is the symbole of hope that awaits each of us on Christmas Day: God became man. It’s so unlikely, really. He didn’t just use words; he touched us and became one of us.

And maybe all I can hope for for Christmas is the continued pull of my heart closer to his through the guidance of his mother.

credit for grumpy old guy

credit for Advent wreath 

A Mary Moment Monday post

Yesterday was Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, the one with the pink candle. And today is the feast of my homegirl, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Rejoice!

By the third week of Advent, I’m usually ready to decorate: I’m either resigned to the fact that Christmas is coming or, as in the case of this year, slightly encouraged by my children’s excitement and anticipation.

The fact that the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls so close to Gaudete Sunday this year–and, now that I think about it, just about every year–speaks to the reticence I feel about this season in general.

What is it that appeals to me so much about Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe? Is it that she’s pregnant, that she’s looking down, that she strikes me as pretty in a very human and approachable way? Could it be the influence of the huge image, one of eight that’s been touched to the actual tilma and blessed, hanging in our parish church?

I think, though, that it has as much to do with what I learn about Mary from this image of her.

She appeared to Juan Diego, who was–just like the disciples themselves–the most unlikely of people. He was simple and humble and a convert. He had a difficult life, but he embraced his faith.

And he believed her. He loved her.

Her words to him resonate with me, and when they came up as part of the December image on a Marian calendar I have, I felt them, once more, in my heart:

“Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.”

God is always choosing “badly,” isn’t he? I mean, when you stop to think about it, that phrase about how he doesn’t call the qualified (though I think he does), he qualifies the called is basically pointing this out.

God has his own way of choosing, and it goes agains the wisdom of the world. What seems obvious to us as logical isn’t at all how God operates, at least not in my experience.

In Our Lady of Guadalupe, I see a mom looking down at me who can live up to everything I need. She holds me gently and never fails to point me to her son.

Whether I need a shoulder or a boost, comfort or cheering, she’s there.

In Mary, and especially in Our Lady of Guadalupe in mid-December, I’m reminded that I don’t need to do it all and I certainly don’t even need to try to do it alone. In Our Lady of Guadalupe, I’m given the opportunity to embrace and follow, to practice and fail, to smile and continue.

As I light the third candle this week with my family, I’m going to be mindful of walking with Mary through this last part of Advent. I’m going to look at her when I’m feeling the blackness swoop in. I’m going to lean into her when I feel overwhelmed. I’m going to remember that it’s about a Baby, that it’s a celebration, and that the stress can be largely dismissed with the right mindset.

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Speaking of Advent wreaths, have you sent me yours?

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My past Our Lady of Guadalupe columns:

• “Juan’s Mom” at Faith & Family Live
• “To the Poor and Lowly at Advent” at CatholicMom.com
• Tomatoes and Guadalupe here at SnoringScholar.com

Advent wreath from Whispers in the Loggia

Our Lady of Guadalupe image from our parish church

A Mary Moment Monday post

What was Mary doing 2000 years ago?

What was her Advent like?

I came across a quote by Papa the other day, and it made me reflect on Advent and Mary in a whole new way.

Let us turn our gaze and our heart to him, in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Advent. Let us place our hand in hers and enter joyfully into this new time of grace that God gives as a gift to his Church for the good of all humanity. Like Mary and with her maternal help, let us make ourselves docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, so that the God of peace may sanctify us totally, and the Church become a sign and instrument of hope for all men.

Benedict XVI, November 29, 2008, via BenedictEverday.com

The image of holding Mary’s hand is one that I turn to often. It speaks to me of the intimacy that comes when you’re comfortable with someone. It gives me comfort at the “I’m still a little girl” level.

My four-year-old has a way of slipping her hand in mine when she’s scared and when she’s delighted. She will sometimes sidle up beside me and I’ll just find her hand in mine with no awareness of her having put it there.

I like to think that I can do that with Mary, that when I’m most lonely and lost, I can just slip my hand in hers, feel the callused warmth of her presence beside me.

I like to imagine that when things are top-of-the-world, when I get news that makes me smile and jump up and down and nearly pee my pants, I can grab her hand and see her smiling just as broadly as she can.

How different can Advent be for me if I place my hand in Mary’s and walk with her? How can docility–willingness to cooperate with Someone Else’s will–open me to a whole new experience?

Might I find myself in a place other than where I planned to be? Could I embrace the discomfort of a cold cave, the inconvenience of unexpected (and possibly smelly) guests, the joy of a host of angels?

If I’m open, if I hold on to Mary’s hand this Advent, I can walk with her and maybe, just maybe, experience a small sliver of the peace, hope, and joy that the Christ Child brings on Christmas Day.

Mary & Joseph image credit
hands image credit

A Mary Moment Monday post

It’s Thanksgiving week, which means, for a number of people in the United States, that there is A LOT to get done. Not only does Advent start on Sunday (no panic here, nope, not me), but there’s a meal of some sort or other to plan for Thursday. Or, if you’re not planning a meal, then you’re probably attending one. Or maybe it just means that your workflow is different than normal (by “different,” I mean “heavier as a result of a holiday weekend looming ahead of you”).

So, as gratitude is at the forefront of our mind this week (and last week, for some of us), I couldn’t help but think of Mary as a model of gratitude.

Her presumably predictable life was interrupted by an angel asking her if she wanted to be an unwed mother. Not only did she say yes graciously, but she thanks God.

And then, a huge trip while in the throes of morning sickness to see an elderly relative who’s unexpectedly pregnant. This whole trip smacks of pain-in-the-hiney to me, but we hear not a word about that aspect of things from her (and in fact have to do some research to find out the extent of the trip between Nazareth and Judea). She calls herself blessed, offers herself in service and support, and gives Christians everywhere a model of service as thankfulness.

Before her baby was even born, she found herself on the back of a donkey, headed to the middle of nowhere, where there would be no room and where she would give birth in the equivalent of a barn. We don’t have a record of a litany of complaints or criticisms. In fact, she welcomed a host of scraggly shepherds and probably the half of the town they brought with them while they were rejoicing through the streets after the light show in the fields. She was a gracious hostess when she was only a few hours post-partum and not even in a proper bed!

She does her duty and takes her new infant to the Temple and is told her heart will be pierced. Nothing like a dire prophecy to dampen your day, but Mary seems to just take it all in with, I imagine, a smile.

And then there’s Jesus, the twelve-year-old scholar, hanging out with the teachers and doctors at the Temple while his parents look high and low for him. Does she scold him? Not so much–it’s more like she reminds him of where he belongs even as he reminds her that he’s not really hers.

How often do I approach the interruptions and inconveniences in my life by thanking God? Am I cheerful and giving even when I’m in pain or sorrow? Do I look beyond my own expectations and joyfully accept the blessings God sends me through other people, even when they’re unexpected or different than what I might want? Am I open to God’s graces from every area of my life? Do I look for Jesus everywhere and involve him in all of my life?

As I enter the School of Mary most mornings, I can’t help but see, in every mystery of the rosary–and beyond–how Mary thanked God in her very being, in everything she did and said and was. She’s an example of being a human being and giving glory to God even while doing all the things that life demands.

So this week, I’m going to try to consciously look to Mary as I consider how very much I have to be thankful for. Can I be thankful even for those things that seem to be the opposite of what I want or need? Will I allow God’s grace to work through me, in me, around me?

image credit: Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva

A Mary Moment Monday post

Advent’s on my mind, which is good. And bad.

I love to say that I hate Christmas (though no, I guess I don’t, not really), and Advent means Christmas is getting closer.

I’ve been preparing for an Advent talk I’m giving tonight, and there’s the matter of that Advent book I wrote. If I’m not careful, I’m going to start thinking of myself as an expert.

I’m no expert, not by a long shot. One of the reasons Welcome Baby Jesus is so short is that I don’t think I could look people in the eyes and tell them that yes, they can do this complicated thing with their families when I know I couldn’t do it with my family.

On the other hand, there’s the temptation to skimp, to take it easier on myself than I really should. (I can’t win!)

So where’s the sweet spot?

This is when it’s good to look to Mary. In fact, November 14 marks the feast of Mary as Mother of Divine Providence, and it’s a good reminder for me as the season of the year threatens to overwhelm me. She’s the ultimate reminder to trust in God.

Trusting God doesn’t always make sense. In fact, we are often asked to trust Him when it makes the least sense.

Mary is a model for me of trust in God. At the wedding at Cana, when they ran out of wine, she could have just shrugged. What did it matter to her, after all? There was no need to get involved.

Yet she did. She went to her Son and asked, and then she trusted that He would listen.

How often do I approach Jesus with that level of love?

In Mary’s title Mother of Divine Providence, I’m reminded that she’s my mother too and that Divine Providence is the best route for achievement. It’s not the kind of achievement that will win me worldly renown, but it will give me peace.

One image of the Mother of Divine Providence is shown with a sleeping toddler on her lap. He has that trusting look that small children so often have when they just pass out on their mother’s laps. She’s gazing down at Him, holding one of His hands within both of hers.

Her loving look must have been the first thing He saw when he awoke. It’s no wonder, then, that when she asked the small favor at Cana that He cooperated. He had grown up waking up to her loving gaze, hearing her soft voice, being reprimanded and taught by her.

There are different ways to read the passage in the Gospel of John that recounts the wedding feast at Cana. The lesson I’ve taken from it, in light of the story of the Mother of Divine Providence, is trust that God is, in fact, interested in even the things that seem to be inconsequential.

Did wine, after all, really matter? It did on the day of the wedding, in that day and time, but in the larger picture, did it really make a difference? I imagine that in a few years, the family would have laughed about it, perhaps even turned it into a sort of shorthand for poking fun at someone’s failure to plan. Maybe the teasing would have been directed at not being able to imagine how people would have drank all that wine that quickly.

Mary, though, took an opportunity to witness. Jesus took her cue and obeyed her, while pointing out that He didn’t have to. He chose obedience. He chose to make it a day memorable not for failure, but for something miraculous.

He chooses to help us in our own time and place too, at His mother’s request. She’s called Our Lady of Divine Providence because of her intercession on behalf of the Barnabites, an order of monks. In 1611, they were building a church in Rome dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, but found themselves in such a financial bind that they had to halt construction.

The pastor, Father Blaise Palma, traveled to Loreto to beg Mary for help. He must have been picturing her, holding her Son so tenderly, as he traveled, probably on foot. Through the long nights, I picture him praying for her protection and I wonder if she smiled at the sacrifices he was making, knowing that it would result in success.

When Father Palma returned from his Loreto pilgrimage, the monks received the money they needed to complete their church. They finished it in 1650, and Father Palma, not wanting the monks to forget this intervention of Mary, wrote a long account of the facts. He put his report in the parish archives, where it was discovered years later by Father Januarius Maffetti.

Reading Father Palma’s account, Father Maffetti was moved by the confidence and devotion that resulted in his church being built. He was so touched that he began spreading devotion to Mary as Mother of Divine Providence. The image that was first associated with this title was painted bgy Scipion Pulzone, also known as Gaetan, one of Raphael’s disciple.

The Infant is looking up at His mother. There’s no drool on His chin, but I imagine there would have been soon, because He looks like He’s just about to break into a big toothless smile. Mary’s looking down at Him, a hint of a smile on her face. His chubby fingers are gripping her first two fingers, and, recognizing the hold she has on Him, I have to wonder if what follows is a wiggle and a giggle. Though they both have haloes, and we don’t hear about them laughing, I think they must have laughed a lot. How could they not?

Their joy in each other must have surfaced again and again, and it surfaces today, when I find myself, yet again, asking for their help. My problems are often no big deal in the larger scheme of life, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s not about the size of my request, but the habit of trust and hope. Maybe the lesson I need to learn from Mary, Mother of Divine Providence, is that no appeal is too small.

Mary, my Mother of Divine Providence, teach me the trust that you knew so well, the trust that gave you the courage to ask Jesus for His help, again and again. Help me to keep hope in God’s will and to accept it, though I may not understand it. Amen.

image credits: Church of the Masses and Marian Servants of Divine Providence