A Mary Moment Monday post

I take a lot of comfort from this insight from the pope:

Mary truly believed that ‘nothing is impossible to God’ and, strong in this confidence she let herself be guided by the Holy Spirit in daily obedience to his plan. How can we not desire that same trusting abandon in our lives? How can we not yearn for that beatitude that is born of a profound and intimate familiarity with Jesus? That is why, addressing the one who is ‘full of grace’, we can today ask that she intercede with Divine Providence for us too, so that we might each day proclaim our ‘yes’ to God’s plan with the same humble and sincere faith that the Virgin said her yes”.

Pope Benedict XVI, Rosary Procession, May 31, 2011

As we approach Pentecost, this link between Mary and the Holy Spirit, this way they have of working together, helps me glimpse how I can better lean back into the trust I need to have.

I haven’t thought much about how I need to “desire that same trusting abandon” in my life. In fact, I’ve come to realize, after reflecting on this, how very hard it is for me to trust.

On some levels, I trust way too easily and quickly. On many other levels, though, the ones that matter and are closer to my vest, I don’t trust.

Turning to Mary is not a remote effort. It’s not reaching out to a distant deity.

Mary is right next to me. She’s holding me, as a matter of fact, as I struggle with whatever challenges today presents.

And right next to her, without fail, is her Son, who’s never far from her.

image credit: MorgueFile

A Mary Moment Monday post

Four letters, two syllables.

Mama.

Sometimes, the soothing balm to my days. Other times, pronounced in certain way, I find myself cringing, knowing what’s coming next.

Mama.

I don’t remember using this term for my own mother-figures. I don’t recall ever saying this as a child, but maybe I’ve just forgotten.

Mama.

It’s a word I don’t hear the teenagers in my life using with their mothers. Has my own seven-and-a-half-year-old started trending away from using it?

Mama.

It’s such a simple word, isn’t it?

Mama.

Though I do call Mary “Mother,” it’s to this word that I come when I think of her.

Mama.

She can be formal, poised on a statue in the front of the church with perfect hair and a well-behaved toddler boy. She can have great make-up and an unreal complexion and unrumpled clothes.

Mama.

To me, she’s more approachable with an apron and gardening gloves, a coming-lose-at-the-temples ponytail and the start of a sunburn. She’s someone I can talk to when I think of her as human (even though I know she was also sinless) and as a mom-friend (though I know she is the Queen of Heaven).

Mama.

Turning to Mary has become natural, but I sometimes forget its importance. I overlook the difference I can make, I will make, when I trust with my whole self.

Mama.

She must touch our temples, she must hold us tight. She must carry us when the tears flow so hard they blind us. She must pray for us when we don’t know what to ask. Even when we aren’t sure anyone else is there. Even when we wonder if it’s worth it to continue. Even when the bright sun can’t fight the dark night.

Mama.

A whole month for Mama. I’m glad I get a day, but even gladder that she gets a month.

image credit: Karen’s Whimsy

A Mary Moment Monday post

In all the years I have been enjoying the month of May, it’s been its designation as Mary’s Month that is my favorite.

There are a lot of reasons May is a great time to remember Our Blessed Mother Mary. There are lots of flowers blooming, and what kid doesn’t want to pick flowers to take to their mother? The weather’s better, and as we trounce around outdoors, it’s hard not to thank God, which is something Mary certainly approves of.

And, of course, there’s the chaos and craziness that comes with May this time of year. Back in my days of working in agriculture, it was planting time, which meant long working hours and high stress. Now that I have school-aged children in my life and my house, it means a different kind of stress.

There are school projects and fair projects, field trips and recitals, games and graduations. There are deadlines galore and the grass is practically leaping out of the earth, demanding to be mowed five minutes after you finish.

I’ve started to suspect that the real reason May is Mary’s month because every mom I know needs some divine help!

Who better than the Virgin Mary? She surely has an idea what “busy” is all about, and she’s going to lead me where I need to go and accompany with the juggling I have to do.

If I hold out my hand, I can almost feel hers grabbing mine. If I look a little closer, I think I see a smile. She chased a small boy once, after all. She tried to keep up with a group of people who didn’t stay put very often. She comforted the broken-hearted and rejoiced in the triumphs.

She still does. This month, hard as it will be, I hope you’ll join me in slowing down and smelling the flowers and maybe even enjoying a Hail Mary while you do.

This “Finding Faith in Everyday Life” column originally appeared in The Catholic Times. 

A Mary Moment Monday post

A year ago, we were still living in the old farmhouse.

Now we’re in a palace.

A year ago, the boy was just starting to roll over.

You can see what he’s doing NOW…

A year ago, I didn’t have any books published. And now…

On the last day of April, as the weather warms and the breeze beckons, I can’t help but reflect on the season of life I’m in, right now, right here.

The change of seasons seems to do that to me.

Especially when the kids are changing so fast. Especially when there’s so much going on around me. Especially when things can change at any moment.

The present moment is so often lost on me.

I’m planning. I’m thinking. I’m juggling.

I have a lot going on, even if only in my own mind.

When I see Mary–by my sink,

on the walls,

in a nook–

she reminds me that the Yes I most need to say is the one I say right now.

I’m going to be learning THAT lesson until I die, I think. 

A Mary Moment Monday post

Ah, Lent is over. We leave the desert for the feast.

And I find myself wondering, yet again, what the point of it all really is.

Chocolate bunnies and shreds of colored grass? Fancy new shoes and curled hair? Egg hunts and bouquets?

It’s all too easy to get jaded and cynical about Easter, just as it is with Christmas. It’s oh-so-tempting to roll my eyes and declare that it’s getting too secularized.

I’m reminded, though, of an evening recently when I caught myself looking up from my book repeatedly with curiosity and disgust.

“WHAT are you watching?” I finally asked him.

He replied, but I don’t remember exactly what he said. I think we were watching an episode of Doomsday Preppers.

I couldn’t quite put my book all the way down: I wasn’t going to admit defeat to this dumb show.

And yet…and yet there was this grain of truth in what was underneath these people’s crazy obsession with preparation. There was this nugget within their craziness that appealed to me. There was something strangely appealing to the idea of being self-sufficient.

It took me a few hours to put my finger on what had me outraged, though.

“They don’t have hope,” I said at last, feeling triumphant. “These people are acting as though there is no hope.”

I don’t think any of those preppers would have called it a lack of hope. In fact, they would probably call their vast reserves of food and equipment and medical supplies the only hope they have in the face of certain disaster.

Except disaster isn’t certain.

That brings me back to Easter, to the Resurrection.

It’s the very embodiment of hope. God died in a savage, ugly, unthinkable way. He was buried. And then…THEN he rose from the dead.

Do I believe it? Do I live it?

Maybe what the Resurrection means for me is that hope must never die. Maybe what the Resurrection holds for me is a beacon that blinks “hope, hope, hope” in the face of despair and discouragement. Maybe what the Resurrection reminds me of is that before I give up, I need to give in.

Did Mary wonder? Did she doubt? Was it hard to say Yes to the uncertainty of the Passion?

Her reward was the empty tomb. Let it be mine, too.

–

The title to this post has been on my heart for a couple of weeks, and, in a fit of “What will I write?!?” I did some online searching.

I thought you would find this as interesting as I did.

John Paul II maintained, in his general audience of May 21, 1997, that Jesus appeared first to the Virgin Mary. Worth reading. Also worth contemplating at length.

image credit: MorgueFile

A Mary Moment Monday post

It’s Mary’s fault that I write.

Yes, I blame her. Writing was a dream of mine years ago, when I was a wee girl living in the country and filling notebooks with terrible tales, but I never thought I’d actually do it as work.

The reality of writing, though, is such that I can only shake my head and surmise that, surely, only God’s MOTHER could be responsible for this.

I was going to be so! much! more! The image of me frantically pecking at a keyboard while kids are bouncing off the walls or while racing the nap times and potty breaks and snack times is so far from what I had planned for myself that I can’t help but laugh…still…all these years later.

It all started when Father was out of town and I was holding down the parish office by myself. During that week, I had what felt like a whole series of weird “Mary signs.” I don’t know what else to call them. They were significant to me at the time, but if I shared them with you now, you’d laugh (and I wouldn’t blame you).

I was so moved by them that I started a list and bombarded Father with them when he returned.

“Well,” he said. As I rambled on and on and ON, he sat there and probably tried not to smile.

It was later that year that I started blogging, which was intended to be a daily writing exercise. The feeling that I was supposed to write was…uncomfortable. It’s not that I didn’t think I could do it, it was that I really had no training for the craft, for the networks, for all the ins and outs.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my big “break” into writing came as a result of a column about Mary’s various titles over at Catholic Exchange. And then there was the opportunity to join the Catholic Moments show with a “Mary Moment” (which has since moved over to iPadre).

Opportunities kept growing and expanding. In fact, my Marian writing is what seems to always attract people, to get the leads, to keep my writing alive.

So I guess the least I can do is keep plugging along, relying on her (and her Son!) for help and strength on the journey.

image credit goes here

A version of this post originally appeared at the Catholic Writers Guild blog, where I write weekly about blogging or whatever strikes my fancy.

A Mary Moment Monday post

His little hand is so often wiggling out of mine as he screeches. He has places to go.

His little knees are getting a steady diet of bruises and his nose is covered in scabs from a meeting he had recently with some concrete. He has things to do.

His activity level is constant and both of us collapse at the end of the day. He doesn’t stop.

But that smile! It’s irresistible!

I can’t help it: I show my little man to everyone I can. He’s so different from my girls, and yet he is so very much like them.

What mom doesn’t think there’s something special about her child, at whatever age? What mom doesn’t love a chance to show off her kids? What mom doesn’t savor the chance to snuggle, one last time, with that downy baby head?

Mary must have felt the same way about her boy, times ten and scrubbed for human failings.

It’s why we still turn to her now, why asking for her help doesn’t ever, in any way, go against turning to Jesus directly.

She can’t help it: she takes us right to him.

Getting closer to Mary means getting closer to Jesus. So why have I found that surprising and, somehow, even delightfully scrumptious?

A guy who has a mom is different than the eternal Lord and Savior of the World, who can’t do anything wrong and never had dirt under his fingernails. Though both are true of Jesus, one is more approachable and real (at least for me).

A man whose mom must have shaken her head at his antics (sinless though they were) is different than the perfect person who seems to have been so perfect as to be inaccessible.

A guy with deep brown eyes and an ornery way of smiling is, well, huggable in a way that the statue in the front of church just, well, isn’t.

As my devotion to Mary has grown, so has my devotion to Jesus. I continue to marvel at this. I was the poster child for “I don’t need that stupid God man in my life” not so very long ago, and yet here I am, not just worshiping him, but picturing him with scraps of food stuck in his neck and a fistful of rocks clutched close to his belly as he scurried away to play after dinner.

Mary makes Jesus real. She makes it possible for me to know Jesus, to even like him.

Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to love him anyway. But how do you love someone you don’t know, someone you can’t relate with, someone who seems to be just a figurehead?

I’m understanding better, now that I’m a boy mom, how it is that I can love Jesus. I’m seeing how it’s not only possible, but overflowing from my heart. I’m aware of the goodness that isn’t restricted just to boringness, the laughter that’s not at anyone’s expense, and the ridiculous differences God created within each of us.

* * *

Now, let’s break from the serious stuff. Have you entered to win a Snoring Scholar SurPrize Pack yet?

A Mary Moment Monday post

The toughest critic many of us face as wives, mothers, and women in general are fellow females. We are our own worst enemies.

Even so, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather call on a dreary morning than the older mom-friend I have who always insists I come over. When I get good news, my best friend gets at least one excited text, and often a phone call, too. And if I need a shoulder, I have a short list of ladies who are on-call.

I’ve come to realize, especially since becoming a mother, that the challenges of womanhood are bigger than my ability to deal with them alone. I love my husband, and he is truly my best friend, but he’s not a girlfriend.

After a weekend at the Behold Conference, I can’t help but think of Mary as Our Lady of Girlfriends. I feel this way after I spend any amount of time with groups of God-fearing, humor-loving, faith-sharing women.

Surely Mary felt the sting of her fellow women. She was an unmarried mother in a time and place when that was not accepted.

She said yes, not only to the glory, but to the pain and sorrow that she might not have even suspected. She said yes to the joy of holding a bundle of boy joy, and she said yes to the horror of watching him scorned throughout his life. She said yes to the wonder of motherhood, and she said yes to the trials of motherhood.

I can’t help but think, though I have no proof, that Mary must have had at least one good girlfriend. She must have had someone who encouraged her in prayer, who she could be “real” around, who appreciated the lady beyond the pedestal (because surely there was such a person).

There are many times when I find myself inspired by the women around me, and they inevitably make me think of Mary. She was probably the kind of friend you could always count on, the one who would sit up with you at night, would always pick up the phone (or lean over the fence, as the time period called for), would pray for you even when you hadn’t asked for it.

I picture Mary as the perfect girlfriend for a cup of tea or a glass of wine or even a mug of beer. I see her equally as well in jeans and a comfy sweatshirt, cigarette in hand, as I do in a lovely evening gown with sparkly earrings.

She’s one of us, after all, in all the best ways. And to top it off, she leads us closer to Christ!

image credit: MorgueFile

A Mary Moment Monday post

I have a fascination with words. I can’t help it: not only am I an avid reader and a prolific writer, I’m a word nerd.

We can say, especially on the playground of childhood, that “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” but we’re wrong.

Words do hurt.

Pictures may take a thousand and actions may speak louder, but words say something.

Sometimes, it’s not what we mean.

I’ve been guilty recently of taking words the wrong way. I’ve been hurt by others misinterpreting my words.

It seems inevitable that words will bring pain.

Oh, they bring joy and happiness, too. Who doesn’t cherish the sweet murmurings of a child or a lover’s whisper? Who hasn’t been humbled by unexpected praise and unsolicited encouragement?

How tempting, though, to hold those hurtful words close, to replay them, to delve into them and their many possible meanings. By the time I’m done with them, sometimes–even when they were unintentionally hurtful–I have a gaping wound inside.

I’ve come to appreciate the Catholic practice of regular confession and discernment in my battle against and with words. When I’m in frequent communication with God–which involves a lot of slowing down, silencing myself, and listening–I find that I’m able to step back from the words and their allure.

In that space, I can sometimes cooperate with the clarity and the grace God sends my way. With that divine help, I can forgive myself, over and over.

Because until I’ve forgiven myself, the forgiving I do of others doesn’t seem to “stick” in my soul.

When I repeat others’ words, am I harboring resentment, growing bitterness, fostering unforgiveness? Am I thinking and rethinking about old hurts and words that have no real meaning now, though they did then? How can I give these words, important as they are to me now, to God, to let him bear the burden?

As with so many other struggles in my life, I turn to Mary. In Scripture, I see, more than anything else, that she was silent. She pondered. She waited. She held on to God’s promises and believed them with her entire being.

When she appears to us now, whether at Guadalupe or Lourdes or in any number of other sites, she doesn’t preach. She usually says a few things, not long paragraphs of theology.

She speaks simply, sincerely. I could learn a lot from Mary in my use of words, whether professionally or personally. I would do well to turn to her example and let it lead me always closer to my true center, her Son.

image credit: MorgueFile

Read my review of The Way and enter to win by Friday, March 2!

I don’t do a lot of movie reviews here. It’s easier for me to read a book than watch a movie. I don’t tend to like watching, well, much of anything. I’d rather read.

The reason I agreed to watch The Way, starring Emilio Estevez and his dad, Martin Sheen, was three-fold:

1. I read a great interview in Faith & Family  (now Catholic Digest) a few months ago,
2. a friend of mine insisted I would love it and told me, frankly, to buy it (because I had twisted his arm into purchasing one of our family’s favorites), and
3. I wanted an easy date night.

I’ve heard and read a lot of great reviews about The Way, but I’ll be honest: I wasn’t sure. I looked at my husband with a bit of trepidation: would this movie be a bomb, a wasted night, a shove-religion-down-your-throat experience?

Let’s get to the bottom line, before you wander away: It was fabulous. Great. Wonderful. I lent it to my mother-in-law immediately, and have been asking her daily (and sometimes more than once a day) if she’s watched it yet. I understand why my friend compared it with a movie we love so much we know all the lines and insisted I purchase it.

The story, in a nutshell: son dies on the Camino de Santiago (“The Way of St. James”), dad goes to identify the body and, much to his own surprise, ends up walking the Camino.

The story itself is moving, but I thought it could get too sentimental. I’ve had brushes with death and experiences with mourning, and I wasn’t keen on crying a lot or feeling all mopey.

No fear: I wasn’t crying during this movie; I was, instead, inspired by The Way. The message it proposes is one of hope.

It’s a story of conversion, without a doubt, and we can all learn lessons from this movie, even as we enjoy it completely. It is beautifully shot, tightly written, and masterfully done.

I’m not a movie reviewer, so I can only speak as someone who can usually read through anything. Not this, though. I didn’t want to miss anything: I was enthralled.

I’ve heard about the Camino on some different SQPN shows (there’s even a podcast devoted to that sort of thing, iPilgrim), so I was familiar with the idea of it. After this movie, maybe I will even add it to that list of things I may just do someday.

I’ll be re-watching this movie for sure. And I’d like to share it with you, too. (Now for the fun part!)

I have three copies of The Way to give away! Here’s what to do to enter by Friday, March 2 (you can enter more than once!):

1. Spread the word about the movie and/or this contest. Each time you tweet, post it on Facebook, blog about it, or hey, tell a friend or colleague about it, you can enter in the comments.

2. Pray a rosary. That’s right: you can enter every time you pray a rosary! (You might wonder what this has to do with the movie. Well, it’s one of my favorite set of scenes, and you’ll just have to watch the movie to find out.)

Can’t wait? The Way is now available in a variety of formats, so purchase away.