"Where love is, there is freedom..."

"Love exists only where there is freedom. To be forced to love is hell; to be free in love is heaven. Where love is, there is freedom.  Since the child is the flower of love, it is earth's sacrament of  freedom. As the cradles come back into the world, freedom will  come back. This freedom will consist not in throwing off restraint,  which is license, but in the increase of new centers of freedom. In  each child God whispers a new secret to the world; adds a new  dimension of immortality to creation; and makes the clinging  hearts of husband and wife feel a little freer, as they look into that  strange and mutual hope which has come to them from God."

+Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Three to Get Married

Fruit of praying St. Thomas' Prayer for Ordering a Life Wisely

So, I had this wonderful grace today. As I looked around seeing all that needs to be done, which usually overwhelms me, I realized something. Paradoxically, I think it's the fruit of praying St. Thomas Aquinas' prayer for ordering a life wisely. It's a paradox because my life feels very far from ordered right now. But God revealed to me that He loves me and is pouring out His grace on all of us right in the middle, and really through our messy life (in a physical and spiritual sense). When I looked around, suddenly all of this:

-legos built and unbuilt (not fun to step on)
-A pile of toy nerf guns confiscated yesterday on which I stubbed my toe really bad in the dark this morning (ouch!)
-dust (lots and lots of it)
-a hot wheels race car set at the bottom of the stairs (why there?)
-train set somewhere, or so I've heard
-dirty kleenex (I know! gross, it's not me)
-food on the floor (we don't have a dog, working on Chris in this matter)
-dirty (and also clean, unfolded) laundry taking over (literally overflowing)
-piles of papers with printed out prayers/articles I like
-prayer books
-piles of kids' school projects, homework, forms that need to be filled out
-childrens' books on the nightstands, on the floors, on the beds, on the counters, on the stairs (not fun to slip on), on the kitchen counters
-my books in all the same places as the childrens' books
-unsent Christmas cards that I didn't have an address for (I give up on this one)
-unsent school pictures (working on that one too!)
-dirty dishes
-coats, blankets, socks, shoes, mittens, etc...
-Christmas tree still up
-Nativity sets still out
-Superhero birthday decorations still hanging up
-Pink flower birthday decorations still hanging up
-wonderful school books laying around haphazardly in the living room that when used teach God's beauty in all parts of our life and studies
-a violin with music scattered around
-a very dusty piano that needs tuning
-unmade beds
-and much much more believe it or not

made me realize something beautiful. My messy life, and that of my family, is the evidence that there are 7 beautiful souls living in this house, learning to love God and each other, and that despite the fact that it feels and looks so "disordered", it is in fact ordered. Ordered to the love of God, the love He has for each one of us, and the love we have for Him.

Thank You Jesus! Amen.

Right from the Heart of God

Recently, I was visiting my grandfather in the hospital.  He has been very sick, so I would also ask for your prayers for him.  He is on the road to recovery, but a difficult recovery at 83 years old.  It was a last minute trip down to Texas to help my grandma while grandpa was in the hospital.  He took a turn for the worst the day Michael (our baby) and I arrived in Texas.  Originally, I had planned to come and help out in between times when my dad and aunts and uncles would be there, but when things took a turn for the worst, everyone came back, including many cousins I had not seen in many years, to be with grandpa.  Although this reunion was not under the best of circumstances, it was so good to see everyone again and to be a part of something bigger than my own day to day world. 

Grandma and I spent a lot of time together, and it was so good to be able to just be with her.  I was blessed to be the one to bring her to the hospital every day and take her home again at night.  Please keep her in prayer too as all of this has taken its toll on her health as well.  My grandparents have been like second parents to me.  I lived with them my last three years of high school, and they have always been there for me.  It is such a blessing to have a close relationship with my grandma and grandpa and extended family.  During all the ups and downs of life, which I touched on in my last post, my extended family, and especially my grandparents have been a true gift from God.  He has loved me through their fidelity and care for their family.  Grandma and  Grandpa came when our first two children were born, and Grandma loved me by making sure I got enough rest and did not have to cook one single item (she is the best cook in the world!!!!), and Grandpa made sure I had enough hugs, and when our 2nd was born, read the same books over and over and over to our daughter.  As their health has started to decline, they haven't been able to come make the visit up here any more, but we still love to go home to visit them.  To me, my childhood home is wherever they are.  When I lived with them, they were in Tennessee, but now they are back in Texas, which is where I was born.

During that time, it was so moving to see Grandma sitting by my Grandpa's side holding his hand and caring for him.  They will be married 64 years this month.  It was a gift to witness this after going to the women's conference the weekend before and hearing Father talk about the desire of children to be caught up in the love that created them in the first place, ultimately God's Love.  Watching and being a part of Grandma sitting by Grandpa's side in the hospital was a true gift from God, filling the hole in my heart.  The moment I saw them together, I knew that their love and faithfulness to each other comes right from the Heart of God and reaches out into the darkness of the world, bringing light and hope where it is desperately needed.  As we all have experienced in our own lives, Grandma and Grandpa have had their ups and downs in their married life, but through it all have remained faithful to their vows.  This is what a true sacramental marriage is, a husband and wife coming together and remaining together in the Love of God.  The children that come from their marriage are a both a natural and supernatural manifestation of the love that brings them together, eternal souls created to be light and love in the world.

After being away from the Church for a very long time, Grandpa came back into the Catholic Church about 15 years ago, and Grandma with him.  This was about the same time I converted to Catholicism.  God is good.  As grandpa was in the ICU and not really responsive, I held his hand with his rosary beads intertwined and prayed with him.  He moved his fingers over the beads while we prayed, just the way he does when he prays the rosary, which he had done every day since his return to the Church.  With grandma, we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet too.  Even though he had not been responding by talking, I stroked his hair and whispered in his ear, "I love you"  and he said back, "I love you too."  These were the first words he had spoken in days.  My aunt and I looked at eachother in shock and joy, and she also told him she loved him and he told her back that he loved her too.  When I had to say good bye to Grandpa several days later, I whispered to him again, "I love you."  He moved his mouth and tried so hard to get the words out, and finally, whispered, with much effort, "I love you." 

I did not know if it would be the last time to see him here on this earth, but he is now responding and was just moved to a rehabilitation center in the last few days.  Please pray for him, for my grandma, and for all of our family.  Pray for our family that God's love will penetrate our hearts, heal the hurts and sustain us all.



 

Enter into Life

I'll be honest with you.  Things are falling apart over here.  Big time.  And after staying up all night with my sick baby, it may not be the best time to make a big decision, or it may be the best time to make this decision.  In the early hours of the morning when I could do nothing but take care of Michael and think without a screen in front of my face, I spent some time pondering about how I spend my time during the day.  In some ways, it seems as though I'm really living out my vocation, but in reality, I am avoiding it every chance I get with needless distractions and a desire to "fit in".  But the problem is that I will never fit in anywhere but the Heart of God.  As St. Augustine says, "Our hearts are restless O Lord, until they rest in You."  He is out there in each one of you and I have had the privilege of meeting some wonderful people online.  For that I am so thankful and trust that God put certain people in my life for a reason.

Yesterday, I read a post at Vultus Christi, where Father Kirby wrote a letter to a novice Oblate (married with children) about how she, as a wife and mother, can enter into the their charism of Adoration and Reparation.  Here is how Father Kirby began his letter:

My dear daughter in Christ,


Praying at Home
Recently, you asked me how you, as wife and mother, with children to look after from morning 'til night seven days a week, can enter into our monastery's charism of adoration and reparation. It will be many years, I think, before you will have the freedom to spend any significant amount of time in adoration before the Tabernacle, or before the Most Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance.


Your Divine Office
Your duty now, and the expression of your love for God, is to be fully present to your family. Your "Divine Office" is to cook, and clean, and change dirty diapers, and run errands, and keep the littlest ones amused, and find time to listen to the older children, and to bandage cuts, and look after bruises, and welcome guests -- and every now and then -- to steal a moment or two alone with your husband. Is this incompatible with your desire as an Oblate of our monastery to offer yourself to Our Lord in adoration, in reparation, and in supplication for the holiness of priests?

... Read more here.

This letter makes me weep in both joy and sadness.  I know God is calling me to enter fully into the life He has given me, and I trust that the relationships which God wants me to nurture are right here around me in my own living room, those with my husband and my children.  God has blessed me with a few really close friends and many acquaintances to encourage me and hopefully in some small ways I can encourage them as well.

This morning in my email inbox was an article from Matthew Warner at Fallible Blogma, "What's Your Idle?"  Well, my idle has been checking email, checking in on social media, reading blogs, writing blog posts and reading political news.  My husband is very generous in giving me the time I need to go to weekly Adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, to attend daily Mass at least once or twice a week, and to go out with friends just for some down time.  But it is the daily idle time that has me falling apart.  And, like Matthew, I am going to change what I do with that idle time.  Here is a 40 second prayer that Father Kirby included in his letter to his daughter in Christ:

A 40 Second Prayer
Here is a prayer that I wrote for this purpose. It takes exactly 40 seconds to say. Over time, it can be memorized. Use it to mark the beginning of your hour of adoration and reparation and, then, go about your business, trusting that Our Lord has heard your prayer and received it into His Heart.

Lord Jesus Christ, although I cannot, during this hour, approach Thee physically in the Sacrament of Thy Love, I would approach Thee by desire and by faith.

Transport me, I beseech Thee, by the lifting up of my mind and heart, to that tabernacle in the world where Thou art, at this hour, most forsaken, utterly forgotten, and without human company.

Let the radiance of Thy Eucharistic Face so penetrate my soul that by offering Thee adoration and reparation, even as I am busy doing ordinary things in an ordinary way, I may obtain from Thy Sacred Heart the return of at least one priest to the Tabernacle where Thou waitest for him today. Amen.

I offer all of this to Your Sacred Heart, my Lord and my Love, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my Mother.

A Pearl of Great Price - Pay it Forward Tuesday

Pay it Forward is hosted by Holly at A Life-Size Catholic Blog. Thanks Holly!

One of my favorite priest bloggers (or rather, a priest who happens to blog), Fr. Andrew, has a great post from his homily this past Sunday at his website Catholic-Vision in which he challenges us to live the wisdom of Scripture:

The wisdom of Scripture says to sell everything for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Like a great pearl there is no price too great. Like treasure in the field we must sell all to acquire that field. The wisdom of the world says to hold something back for yourselves and don’t trust the Kingdom of Heaven to provide for you—which is the wisdom of our enemy, the master of this world, Satan.

He reminds us of the 43rd Anniversary of Humanae Vitae and the consequences of choices our culture has made regarding the use of artificial contraception. His post is not about what is right and what is wrong, but about our trust in God. Fr. Andrew speaks to us with love and with challenge, as a good father does. Thanks Fr. Andrew! Read his post here.

A Noble Purpose

What a wonderful and joyous occasion to witness the beginning of a sacramental marriage! While on vacation, we went to a cousin's wedding at St. Patrick Cathedral in Ft. Worth, Texas. It was a true blessing to witness the bride and groom offer their sacramental vows to one another in such a holy and beautiful cathedral. Everything about their wedding drew my heart to worshiping God through His Son, our Lord, in the Eucharist. It was such a joy to be in the presence of Christ in such a beautiful and holy place.

As the father of the bride offered his daughter to be given in marriage, I could sense the presence of the bride's mother who had died nearly five years ago due to early onset Alzheimer's disease. The bride's mother, my husband's aunt, was a devout Catholic woman who dedicated her life to her Lord and to her family. The bride's mother and my husband's mother are the oldest two girls of thirteen children. They grew up in a small village in Wisconsin with several houses, a bar, and a beautiful old Catholic Church! Oh, how wonderful to grow up so close to Jesus in the tabernacle.

The Old Testament reading was from the book of Tobit. In Tobit is the beautiful account of the Archangel St. Raphael sent to aid in the healing of Tobit's blindness and to heal Sarah's grief on losing seven husbands, each dying before consummation of their marriage. Unbeknownst to each other, both Tobit and Sarah had cried out in anguish to God at the same time, and in God's great Mercy He answered their prayers of grief and sorrow with blessing.

In the prayers of Tobit and Sarah, they praised God and cried out with faith in His Mercy despite being deeply grieved in spirit. The Archangel St. Raphael led Tobiah, Tobit's son, to Sarah and they became husband and wife. Then they returned to Tobit and God healed his blindness.

Before consummating their marriage, Tobiah and Sarah prayed together, begging for God's mercy and deliverance. I have always loved this prayer since the first time I heard it. What a humble and wise way to begin a marriage:

Blessed are you, O God of our fathers,
praised be your name forever and ever.
Let the heavens and all your creation
praise you forever.
You made Adam and You gave him his
wife Eve
to be his help and support;
and from these two the human race
descended.
You said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone;
let us make him a partner like himself.'
Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine
not because of lust,
but for a noble purpose.
Call down your mercy on me and on her,
and allow us to live together to a
happy old age.

They said together, "Amen, amen," and
went to bed for the night.

~Tobit 8:5-8

Last year, a friend gave me a book about St. Raphael by Angela Carol. In the book, it is mentioned that St. Raphael is, among other things, the patron of happy and holy marriages. May St. Raphael guide us along in our journey, encourage us in our faith and in our marriage, and aid us in opening our hearts to God's healing power. St. Raphael, pray for us!