Another moment of Grace!

You would think after three prior Confirmations of my daughters, the fact that my son is getting Confirmed today would be routine for me. It is not. Each one of my children has traveled their own spiritual journey and as their Mom I am aware of how important my own faith experience has been and will continue to be on them. Today is a reminder to me that everything a parent professes and lives out has an influence on their children.

This process of preparing my child for this day has taken a special priority in our family the last few months and it has made this day very special to me. I have gotten to know my son a bit better and it has given us an excuse to pray together more often than normal.
Often I hear people say "I will let my child choose for themselves what they want to believe" by not advocating any particular form of spirituality or religion. I agree with that sentiment. The child must be allowed to choose for themselves. However, I am not so naive as to think that I don't have any influence on what they end up choosing. What I believe affects what I say and how I live. My spirituality or religiosity or lack of has an impact on how my child sees their world and their unique place in it.
My own walk in my Catholic faith has had its complexities and its nuances.  There was a time when I walked away from the foundation my parents had laid out for me. They were wise enough to give me the freedom to wander, although they never stopped praying or loving me. In the course of many years I found that the promises of the world, the goals I had set out and achieved, and the dreams that had "come true" never measured up. I always felt a longing for more.
Our Christian faith has a word that describes what happened to me over the course of those years. That word is "Grace" with a capital "G". I encountered Grace and my life started anew. This occurred at a time when my children were still very young.
As I look back I realize how radically different I had approached life before.  Upon discovering God's love and mercy, I realized that anyting good and true causes me to want the best for others, including my children. I was compelled to share this discovery with my family. This new vision of Grace led me back to my Catholic roots. Returning to my "home" I uncovered what it meant to be a follower and lover of Grace (Chirst). The treasures of my Catholic faith awaited me and I was elated and also ashamed that I had not understood what I had left behind. This was a maturning point in my spiritual life.
What it means to be Catholic is that we are to love life and to know that we were created for abundant joy! The Church points to that vision of who God is and what he wants for us and helped me to tap into the reality that God is alive within me and He is in our midst. The Church's mission is to tell and show everyone who God is!
How I was lead astray is the reality of most most people (even my own children) because we as human beings are so easily distracted. As well, the Church as the body of Christ, although divine is also human. At times the Church cause us great hurt. However, that does not mean that Grace is not present in God's people.  I found that out when I walked back in through the church doors at Incarnation in 1996 with a whole new understanding of who God is and who I am because of him. He is Grace in spite of everything!
Today my son will stand up on his own and affirm that he desires to be a part of our Catholic faith community. I pray that he will experience the beauty and truth to be found in God's people and his Church despite the wounded souls he may come across at times. I realize that his path is his own. He will choose daily which way he wants to go, as I do so as well.
My child has a purpose in this life, each one of us does. As his mother I can help him as he matures in his faith, to always be open to an encounter with Grace. I rest assured in the fact that Grace is within him already. In the meantime, I will continue to pray for each one of my children and live my life aware of who Grace is and what He has done for me. He is Abba, He is God. A God who became man, died cruelly on a cross for our sins. He resurrected for us. We are a people that continues to remember him in our Eucharist and we partake of this mystery each time we come together at Mass. It all matters. He lives within each one of us. This is Grace, with a capital G. I can confirm that and I am thankful my son will too.

Who is this boy? A birthday reflection for my Son.

This morning I ventured into my almost 13 year old boy’s room and realized that if I squinted my eyes, tilted my head, held my tongue, and looked really carefully, beyond the chaos I would see who my son truly is.

His bed unmade and blanket lying on the floor, tells me how anxious he was to go out into the world this morning, ready to confront the struggles of the day; obviously no time for bed making! This boy is an advernturer!

Five empty of Gatorade lay on the floor, like grenades, half hiding, waiting to be stepped on. They challenged me to walk over them, snickering at me as I pass.  What a strange kid he is I think to myself, so in  need of constant hydration and yet not enough sense to toss these silent mom-bombs into his trash basket only 3 feet away from his bed.   Surely, this must be a secret military experiment; he is waiting to see who explodes first, the room full of empty bottles or his mom who will blow her top seeing all this on the floor?  Such a silly military scientist in training.

Colorful plastic clothes hangers wrestle on the bottom of his closet.  As I stare at this structural feat, I was amazed at how high this sculpture rises from the floor and obviously I think, in this room sleeps an engineer or an artist!  Perhaps this is how Monsieur Eiffel got started before he designed the famous Parisian tower or his Statue of Liberty. Why, it is like a modern work that rivals the likes of Klee or Picasso.  This boy is so creative!

The dresser top is in competition with the bedroom floor; strewn with not empty drink bottles, but empty cologne bottles.  He goes through these fragrant sprays as quickly as he sucks down his hydration.  A Clearasil tube is evidence of his transition into puberty. His collection of used toiletries makes me realize there may be moments when he realizes that being a slob may not be so “cool”. Like his father, my boy likes to look good and smell good too! This gives me some hope!

Around his bed, almost outlining his silhouette from the night before, are rejected study papers, quizzes, stacks of lessons.  Here sat an intelligent boy, doing his homework last night, catching up on old work. What boy has time to pick up his own papers when he has so much more scholastic work to do? I realize I must not disturb his algebraic formulas, as he will return to them this weekend I am sure!!!! He is obviously a studious boy!

Who knew that 13 years ago I would be walking into a boy’s room that makes my 50+ year old hairs stand on end; that I would have given birth to a son who just doesn’t understand why bed sheets need to be changed often? A boy who can’t conceive why his dog should not be daily rummaging for snacks in his trash can or sleeping on his  stack of clean laundry?  Who would have convinced me that my son would be perfectly fine wearing stinky khakis to every occasion on earth, or that opened bedroom doors are better left closed and closed closet doors are best left open (because the hanger sculpture make it impossible to close) and that washing up means getting water all over the place except where it is meant to clean or that clean clothes means that they were actually laundered not just that they never made it to  the hamper?

No one could have convinced me how much I could love my 13 year old son so much despite his messy room and his magnetism for dirt and his obsession for Gatorade and dirty shorts!  I love this boy so much and I can’t imagine how I could have ever lived without walking by his artistic/scientist/homework lab  every morning, a place we like to call his bedroom.

Happy 13^th birthday Zachary Andrew!!!  I am as much in love with you today as I was when I first held you in my arms.

 

A Christmas point of view

There’s an old story that goes something like this: Many years ago there lived a young disciple and his elder. 

The disciple asked the elder, “Holy One, I have a great spiritual question I need to ask you. Is there life after death?” 

The Holy One thought and said, “That is a great question, but it is not the greatest of spiritual questions. The greatest spiritual question would be, “is there life before death”?

In my studies, the more I learn about Jesus the more I realize that he was devoted to teaching us to live life to the fullest.  He desired to show us how to live fully before our death.

I also know from my readings that Jesus knew and studied the Psalms.  One thing about the Psalms is that when we pray them we will realize that they call us to a way of life that is not heavily  steeped in legalism and rigidity.  Psalms teaches me that God loves all his people and he always listens to his people. As I read Psalms I get to know a personal God who wants good and gives good to everyone. No one is left out of his love for creation. There is no need to fear. This is a wonderful Advent message.

This mornings Psalms touched me deeply, a portion read at Mass said,

Good and upright is the LORD; thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice, he teaches the humble his way.

This time of year is a joyful time.  We gather with family, we read the story of Jesus’ birth, we exchange gifts with loved ones, we give to the needy, we visit family,  and we sit down to a special meal surrounded by those whom we care for.  Our blessings for one another include messages of hope, peace, love, and faith.  All things that remind us of our blessings and that we are called to share them with everyone.

This particular Christmas I have caught myself repeating these two words in my daily reflections: humility and trust. I realize how important it is for me to trust completely in  God, especially whenever I am  experiencing  personal challenges. I contemplate the Nativity in the Manger and I see how much trust Joseph and Mary had and I am challenged to ask for that kind of trust in my personal prayer time with God.  I ask myself, how can I be so trusting that I allow God’s will be done to me?  It is then I realize, I must pray more and immerse myself more in his word.

I am aware that praying doesn’t change the world, but it does change me.  I ask for a life that is full, that is renewed each day, one that overflows so that others see God through my  decisions and actions. Often I fail. Often I point fingers and blame others for my failures.  Slowly I am learning that God is more than I can ever imagine. I am so limited by my human imagination: I see how I put God in “a box”, how I often ask him to choose sides.  What matters is not focusing on who is on God’s side and who is not. The better thing is to reflect; am I on God’s side? This is a matter of humility.

So this Christmas I resolve to be joyful and to love those around me, even when I struggle to do so.  
I will trust that the infant king that came into our world so many years ago did so for a divine purpose.  I pray God shows me the way and that I be open to listening and seeing him in everyone and in every circumstance, no matter how difficult.  I will pray that like Mary and Joseph,  I too am on the side of his divine purpose.

 

Prayer leads to compassion

Our catechism teaches us that God loved us first.  Although we often lose our focus on Jesus, he never tires of calling us and asks us to encounter him in prayer. Prayer is our natural response to God’s love. In the unfolding history of our salvation we can see how this drama of God calling us has played out. If we pay close attention, we can also see it playing out in our very own lives: we turn away from God, or as we explained yesterday to our catechumens, we “miss the mark”, yet God never stops loving us. 

Last night someone very special  who just returned from a weekend Catholic retreat called me.  She was able to take time away from her busy week to spend intimate time in prayer. She exclaimed to me how she was able to possess once again that sense of hope she had not felt in a long time. She also said something that moved me: she said she realized it was not God who had abandoned her; it was that she had lost her way and she knew she had to return to Him.  This conversion experience made her realize that she needed to pray more and to do things differently. She returned with a new attitude of compassion. 

How easy that is to happen to all of us; we get too caught up in what we are doing and how little time we spend in praying and in reflecting on who we are “becoming” each day.  I too get distracted by “doing all the right things”, and easily lose my mark.  Prayer is the narrow road- the way back to God.

In yesterdays Gospel we heard Jesus speak of a parable about having faith and having persistence in prayer. (Lk 18: 1-8) Often we look upon this story to remind us to be persistent in our prayer life and there is truth to that. But if we look at this parable closely, maybe Jesus is telling us to put ourselves in the position of the one being able to help the woman pleading to God for justice.  Often times we are the ones who can be the  voice, the hands and feet of Jesus to the weak and vulnerable in our world. 

Jesus concludes his story by asking, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Our prayer is that we transform our prayerful attitude into a disposition of bold faith, hope, and love. 
Let us always take time to be prayerful and learn to live with an attitude of compassion.

Incarnation Parish-celebrating 50 years as a privileged place.

“The parish is a privileged place where the faithful concretely experience Church.” John Paul II (The Church in America, Post-Synodal  Apostolic Exhortation, 1999)

A “privileged place

I came to Incarnation to worship 23 years ago having been gone away from parish life for a while. Although at that time I was not yet a convicted follower of Christ, it was here where I felt God‘s call to know him more.  God was good and merciful to me and revealed himself in the Eucharist and in his Word and in the sacrament of Reconciliation. This personal encounter of being welcomed and loved led me to see with new eyes. I became aware that my Incarnation parish was a special place that God had prepared for me and my family. It became a place where he could strengthen, nurture and sustain me so that I could take it back to my home and work place. The peace I felt here when I received of Jesus at Communion or when I would go to Confession allowed me to have that peace within me more deeply. Yes, our parish is a privileged place!

Over the years I baptized two additional children at Incarnation, all four children received their First Communion here and three have celebrated Confirmation.  Our oldest daughter was married here by our Pastor, we have celebrated many funeral Masses and Remembrance Masses for dear departed family members and friends. At Incarnation I have wept together with my community, fed the needy and clothed the poor, prayed for one another, welcomed new members, said good bye to others, studied God’s Word , shared faith, and come to know each other’s stories. I learned what a diverse community we are. Yes, we are privileged community!

The people I have met throughout the years in my parish have marked my spiritual journey in profound ways.  I think of Yolanta, an adult Polish American woman who I became great friends with before she died from cancer when my son was only 1 year old.  Although we had only about six years together, our friendship was solid and strong.  When I met her, she used to sit in front of us at Church. She had suffered car accident years earlier and was left disabled. She needed a cane to walk.  It was obvious that she was a bunch of energy and determination. Her spirit was fierce and Catholic, in the purest and best sense of the word! One day after Mass she turned around, shook my hand and said, “my name is Yolanta, with a ‘t’”.  She and her family became very special to us.  I learned their story.  I was inspired by their faith and how it had sustained her parents through World War II, the Holocaust, forced to work as farm laborers when they immigrated to this country and prospered so that their children (Yolanta was one of two) could live peacefully and worship God in their Catholic faith. We ate with them in their home, prayed with them, learned to love Polish food, and share in their Polish traditions.

 If I ever missed Mass, Yolanta would leave a phone message that went something like: “Where the bloody h_ll were you? Call me!”  Yolanta loved standing by the front doors of our church each Sunday and personally welcome each person that walked in.  This was not an official duty, this was just Yolanta being herself.  This was truly someone who was Catholic. The last memory I have of her is at my son’s birthday party, when she and her family shared this special day with me and my family.  She was there for a short bit, very sick fighting Cancer, but she did not want to miss this special day in our son’s life. She was not going to “bloody miss his birthday!”  She passed on not too many weeks later.  Yolanta was sharing with me what she had received from God: love in huge, generous amounts. She is a very powerful reminder for me of how our parish is a privileged place.

The Church is a privileged place because it is where we celebrate the miracle of all miracles and gift of all gifts: the Paschal mystery. Jesus suffered, died and resurrected for us, sinners. In our parish, Body and Blood of Christ has been shared and celebrated every single day for 50 years.  What a blessing!

Indeed, Incarnation is a privileged place as the Holy Father reminded us. We celebrate Mass together and we become Christ-like to one another. We are united to his Body, each of us having a part to play, through our baptism. (1 Cor. 12:27) Together we are Jesus’ caring hands, we are his loving glance, and we are his soothing words. We celebrate 50 years as a Eucharistic community, as a parish, as our spiritual home.  

A “concretely experience Church.”

We are not perfect because we are human, but there is a divine dimension to our community. As a parish we can be sacrament. The definition of sacrament according to our catechism is a special symbol (efficacious symbol) that points to another reality and brings about the very reality that it points to. Jesus, for example, points to God’s love. He IS truly what he represents. Our parish points to God’s true presence among His people. Our parish points to that reality!

Today is a great opportunity to think about how we as active members of our parish have an incredible responsibility to be sacrament to one another! Being parish means to take seriously the social dimension of our encounter with the Risen Lord. “He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 Jn 4:20)  In our parish I have experienced members sacrifice for others; share their time, their talents and their treasures with the community.  I have seen men and women dedicated to their work in our parish, doing most of their serving away from the lime light. I have experienced it personally, as the times my parish prayed for my sick son during  his surgery, visited my loved one at their death bed, sent me cards, held me up in very difficult moments and celebrated with me when God blessed us.  Many of these parishioners did not know me personally, and yet, I felt united with them in a special way in those moments. Through them I felt God’s hand in my life.

Incarnation Parish has been blessed by God. We have seen our community change, we have grown, and at times the changes were not easy. Today we gather and we give thanks for those who came before us to make Incarnation the parish it is today.  Now, we must be mindful that we too must carry on the work of Christ, to be concrete examples of God’s love for everyone who comes through our doors and take it to others who may never enter our doors, always remembering how privileged this place continues to be.

Let us continue to work as a parish in solidarity with our Pastor Michael Suszynski, our Bishop Robert Lynch and with our Pope Francis I. Together lets all be reminded of St. Luke’s words “From those who have received much, much will be required.”

Has RCIA started yet?

Throughout the week I get calls to my office inquiring if RCIA has started in our parish.  The truth is that RCIA never stops in our parish, thankfully. Anyone interested in learning about what it means to follow Jesus and share in the sacraments of the Catholic Church are welcome to join our gathering called “Inquiry” throughout the year and not wait until “RCIA begins”.  These types of calls and others remind me how important RCIA is to our parish and how much education our  community needs on the RCIA process.

When I sit down with a family who inquires about the requirements to become Catholic, I like to begin explaining that it requires a process of conversion and a commitment to apprentice what it means to be active in our Catholic community. The Church looks at this process with an end goal that does not stop at the Easter Vigil, which is when potentially they can receive their sacraments. Instead our focus is that phase which “empowers us for the mission” of the Church; a phase we refer to as “Mystagogy”. 

Mystagogy is that time in our lives after having been fully initiated into the life of the Church, where we attempt to live the mysteries of Jesus’ suffering, dying and rising in our own lives.  We are called to be in a continual conversion experience as Catholics, and this is what the Mystagological experience is about. All initiated Catholics are to be living their own unique mystagogy phase: being in constant state of prayer, examination of conscience, of sharing their gifts with the Catholic community and most importantly in participating in the Catholic Mass each Sunday.

If we are aware that this is where we are headed with the individual or family,  it seems logical that as RCIA catechists our mission to preparing the person has much to do with “demonstrating” how to live out our faith and not just “instructing” about our Catholic faith. 

Hence, the RCIA is not a “program”, which suggests a beginning and an end point, filled with learning and memorizing all kinds of  important Catholic doctrine spread out in the middle.  Instead it is a process, which involves a more holistic and gradual approach to catechesis. The goal and measure as we move along our faith journey with our RCIA group is  to be discerning what God's will is for us  and sharing with the individual how to discern for “changed hearts and changed lives”.  A person is not deemed "ready" based solely upon age or grade or how many lessons they have attained or how much knowledge they have accumulated….the person is ready to become a fully intitiated Catholic when they have experienced a change of attitude and a change of heart towards how they intend to live in God’s Grace.
 

The powerful aspect of the RCIA is that when the process is celebrated along the way with  grace filled rites at the Sunday Mass, planned out thoughtfully, and entered into with open hearts, it reminds the entire community of its important role as witness and our Catholic call to be evangelizing at all times not just in word, but by action too. The individuals who are in the RCIA process remind us each time we are all present at Mass celebrating a rite that we are all to be active in our apostolic mission, to daily examine our own hunger for God’s word and for the Eucharist.  The RCIA process provides the parish an ideal opportunity for transformation of the entire community.

In its essence, RCIA is a ongoing conversion experience that is to be seen as a segment of the larger journey of faith. It says that our spiritual journey will never end in our lifetime, we are called to continual spiritual examination and repentance and healing.  It also makes us all aware that we are all part of the journey, as Church we are a pilgrim people and we must journey together!  The journey begins long before the person seeking baptism reaches our parish and it continues long after the person takes root into the Christian Catholic community at baptism.

Thanks be to God that RCIA is always starting in our parish! Come and see!

 

Jesus is the Bread of Life!

Conversations with families where I work are opportunities for me to find out how the Church can help their family in their journey of faith and of deepening their relationship with our Lord.  One of the questions I usually ask is if they participate in the Mass? More times than I like to admit the answer is “Honestly, we don’t come to Mass regularly” or “I used to go to Mass with my family when I was young, but I don’t really go anymore”.

In these moments my heart is pained as I am reminded of that time in my life when I too was indifferent to my faith. It was a time that I thought my faith in God was enough. Thankfully, the Church continued to love me and welcome me each time (though sporadically) I arrived at Mass. Those years of being indifferent to my faith caused me to have a deep thirst for something I couldn’t put my finger on.  God never stopped reaching out to me. I realized eventually that my indifference was affected by the fact that I had stopped listening to God’s word. My focus had turned to “me” and not on God.  Once I was back at Mass, slowly and gently, God allowed me to flourish as I focused on a friendship with his Son, Jesus Christ. It became a meaningful relationship that I immediately realized I couldn’t live without. This was pure Grace, nothing I deserved or that I could have done on my own. God is so good and merciful.

The most important revelation for me about why Mass was so important was coming to understand that the Eucharist is not a what, but a who.  The Eucharist is Jesus himself. God offered himself as the sacrificial lamb and at Mass we give thanks for his mercy on us.  I was able to accept the mystery of true Love through God’s grace. The Word became flesh so that God could leave us with himself as Eucharist in order to sustain us until the end of time.

Pope Frances celebrates the Mass

 

Jesus gathered and formed a Church. He personally asked people to follow him.  His early group of followers  (men and women) became “fishers of men”. Jesus showed them how to enter into a true conversion of heart experience.  Faith is not based on obedience to God’s law alone; faith is about having and nurturing a personal relationship with our loving God. This is what God desires.

The Church formed in such a way that she feeds us with Word and with Eucharist. Jesus IS the Bread of Life (Gospel of John). What the Church did in those beginning years is essentially very similar to what we still do today in our Mass. We hear God’s Word and we share in Holy Eucharist. At Mass we enter into the mystery of God’s plan of salvation in a uniquely intimate way. This is why Mass not just an ordinary praise and worship experience or just an ordinary communal gathering.

I learned to see the logic of the Eucharist is dependent on a literal understanding of what Jesus is telling us. He is true food.  In his life Jesus did many things, he fed people physically, he healed them of physical ailments, many were witnesses to his miraculous healings and he constantly reminded everyone that the Kingdom of God was at hand. Some of these things were hard for some people to hear, but the most difficulty they had was when Jesus stated that he was also feeding them spiritually because he is the Bread of Life, that he himself was the source of eternal life.

             “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.”(Jn 47-48) 

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn 6: 51)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you!” (Jn 6: 53)

St. John recorded what Jesus said. In his writings we see that what Jesus said created huge problems for those hearing him in his time; still today this is where many of us struggle.  Jesus asks people to trust him when he says he is the Bread of life-the source of eternal life. Yes, this is a difficult thing for many of us to believe. As I continue to work with Catholic families, I believe that God is humbly reminding me of who I was many years ago. I pray that I can share with each family that God withholds nothing from us. God is pure gift. God has already has chosen us, we just need to say “I want to believe in you Lord, for you alone have the words of eternal life!”

I pray that we as Catholics may faithfully come to Mass each Sunday to deepen our friendship with Him WHO is the Eucharist.