In Memoriam: Grandpa Hylton

Memorial Day will be one of many days for my family to remember the man who was my grandfather, C. Lee Hylton, in the years to come. He was a veteran of WWII who joined the Navy near the end of the war when he was just 16. In my grandfather's own words, he was a "hillbilly boy" who had "no whiskers yet, just a wild ambition with a lack of wisdom".

He passed away recently just after Memorial Day on May 30, 2017.

One of his many grandchildren and great grandchildren, I am the granddaughter he called "Tank" when she was an infant because of her chubbiness, and dubbed "Hildy Bee" in her teenage and adult years. I can still hear the way he used to say, "Well, Hildy Bee..." in his gentle, joking way. I can hear his joyful, subtle laugh, a laugh I heard often when I took my own children to visit him. It is my great pleasure and privilege to write about the man who was my Grandfather Hylton.

Grandpa traveled the Pacific with the Navy, but most of his life was spent in Idaho's small towns and wilderness areas.

He was working as a shepherd on West Mountain when he met my grandmother, Alverna, a book keeper in a small store in nearby Council, Idaho where his older sister was a clerk. They married in 1948. Little did Grandma know then that her husband would soon become a different sort of shepherd and that his life's work was to have a far greater impact even than service to his country.

His vocation came to him quite unexpectedly, and it began with a conviction that struck his heart like lightning.

Papa, as many in our family called him, labored in an auto body shop repairing the damaged steel frames of wrecked cars after he and Nana married. He was a drinker in those first years of marriage and child rearing -  not a habitual one, but a man who drank to excess when, as my Grandma put it, "the wrong friend came around".

One of those errant friends worked with my grandfather. As they were leaving the shop one day, he turned to Papa and said out of the blue, "You know, if we don't change our ways, we're both going to hell."

That very next Sunday, Grandpa took his family to church. When the altar call came for people to confess their sins and offer their hearts to Christ, my grandmother handed their baby son to Papa and hurried to the altar to kneel. He was mad that Nana beat him to the punch. The following Sunday it was Grandpa's turn to give his heart to the Lord. That was the year 1952.

Reverend C. Lee Hylton

Two years later they were headed to Los Angeles Bible School. Grandpa and Grandma had saved their money, so that Papa could train to become a pastor.

Upon their return to Idaho, they were given several small churches one after another, called "missionary churches", as their little ones grew up. Preaching and extravagant living rarely go together; it always seems incongruous when they do. Papa did not make much from doing the work of God, so he painted houses during the week, no doubt mulling over the Word of God and his sermons for the coming Sunday with each rhythmic brushstroke.

Though my grandfather dedicated years of his life to shepherding churches in Idaho, what really ignited him was traveling as an evangelist, going to other congregations to preach each night of the week in order to revive the faith of communities. One of his revivals lasted five weeks! Papa even brought his family here to the towns around Phoenix in his evangelical mission.

A favorite sermon to deliver, one that he preached several times over the years according to my dad, was born of his experiences as a shepherd on West Mountain. My grandfather encountered many a mountain stream while herding sheep. Those tributaries in Idaho are beautiful, pouring forth cold, clear water from the heights. But they sometimes become clogged with the debris of nature, mud and stones and fallen pine branches. When Papa saw such diminished watercourses, he knelt to scoop out the detritus from their chilly, trickling water until they rushed again through the lush mountain meadows as they were meant to do. This was an allegory for what we must routinely do in our relationship with our Maker, Papa asserted: we must remove the litter to receive the rush of grace and love that God so freely and mercifully gives each day.

I didn't get to spend much of my childhood with my grandparents. They were in Idaho, and we were in Tennessee. But I knew my grandpa as a man short of stature but full of fire when he delivered a sermon, a man who always wore weathered cowboy boots - something I loved about him. And he was a man who had a strong voice for hymns as well as preaching, one who was never ashamed to sing praises to the Lord as his wife skillfully played the organ. One of his favorite hymns was "Down From His Glory".



When my Aunt Cheryl told me how Grandpa used to love to sing that song, and I looked it up, I could hear my Grandpa's fine voice and see his face tilted just so as he sang it in the small New Plymouth, Idaho church where I heard him preach as a teenager.

What is Grandpa's legacy? Every one of his three sons has served as a pastor and each of his two daughters married one. They hold fast to their faith, regularly work to share it with others using their unique talents and have passed it on to their own children. His grandchildren know how their Papa praised and loved the One who came down from His glory to win all our souls, the One Who once spoke to and changed Grandpa's heart through the blunt words of a friend.

That man's name is Jesus, and He has now another stalwart servant in His loving arms for all eternity.

Moon River, dream maker

Sometimes I'm thoroughly entertained by the subject matter of my dreams, their landscape or the amazing detail and vivid color conjured up while I sleep. There are rare times when I truly appreciate how cohesive is the story told by my unconscious mind. I'm impressed!

I fall into dreaming very quickly, even when I nap. I remember quite a few of them when I awake in the morning. If he's very lucky, my husband will escape a retelling.

This morning I couldn't resist.

Last night I found myself in the large room of a university or public building erected in dreamland. The rich blue of its walls was such that I remember thinking I would love to see it in my dining room. On those deeply hued walls were sophisticated paintings in ornate frames. I had just been listening to a lecture on art or historical artifacts (a little vague, I know, but isn't the memory of all lectures so?) given by a lean older gentleman in dress shirt, tie and slacks. Getting up from a long, heavy table lined with wooden chairs, a group of us approached the doors to leave. It was then that I heard the music for "Moon River" playing over the speaker system. As I often do with beloved tunes, I began to boldly sing the lyrics aloud to match the melody.

It wasn't but a line or two before I heard a man's voice harmonizing with my own, and I turned and saw the gentleman lecturer behind his desk at the end of the room, singing and staring back at me behind wire-rimmed spectacles. He came around his desk and held out his arms in such a way, one extended high with flat palm and one making a lower curve, that I understood an invitation to dance with him. In a serendipitous move worthy of the silver screen, we met in the middle of the room and sang our duet as we danced to the haunting music. Smiling, he guided me around the large space.

Abruptly, as we glided about, his teeth began to fall out, and he quickly pushed them back in. At first I was startled, but I decided I didn't mind the awkwardness, not really; he was such a smooth dancer and so debonair, even gray-haired and careful in his movements as he was.

*************

I think my mind was making a connection of a strange sort in that charming little dream.

A couple of days ago, on Veteran's Day, I read a story of mine to my kids, one based on something that happened to my family at Christmas decades ago. It's a work my dad has encouraged me to look at again for years, but I've long been afraid to reexamine it, convinced it needed to be thoroughly retold, become more sophisticated than the simple tale it was.

The manuscript I read with my kids was one of my earliest ones, written before my marriage more than fifteen years ago. It was missing 50 pages, including the conclusion, but it surprised me. I had been a more capable writer than I remembered. I joked with my kids that I was a better writer then than I am now! How does that happen?

What gratified me the most, however, was how raptly my children, two of them already gifted writers, listened to this little book I began writing at 17 years old. My eldest son hushed his little brother repeatedly so that he could hear and give feedback periodically, and my older daughter went and retrieved a favorite pillow to hug as she snuggled with me and the tale progressed.

I had to contend with a few tears - my own. Reading details based on the struggles my family experienced during our lives in Tennessee overwhelmed me, more so because I had not really thought about those hardships in years and the great love and faith that carried us through them.

*********************

What was the connection to my little dream? Who was the old gentleman with whom I danced?

He represents my story, the one my husband read before we were even engaged, the ending of which he loved and perhaps made him more willing to fall for me.

It has come around to waltz with me after these many years, pulling me into the romance of following a dream whose strength and charm I had forgotten. It's got some loose teeth, yes, but I believe once more that wherever this story is going, I'm going its way.

It's where my heart has always has been.

Praying

I used to hear about people who spent their whole lives in one small community, on one tiny parcel of the earth, working and praying, praying, their days away in mostly silence.

And I thought, What good is that?

How on earth can you help this world if you are cloistered with like-minded people? How is that working for the common good to hide yourself and your talents away?

I'm a little wiser now, and though I do not at all believe this is the only way to serve the way of truth, hope, love and life, I now believe it is one excellent way.

I don't think for one moment that I am the only one who has underestimated the power of prayer. Of silence. Of contemplation. But because I am naturally a restless person who detests sitting for too long, perhaps I have been more prone to underestimate it. My prayer reminds me of my son Berto"s gesture when the priest asks us to lift up our hearts, and we pronounce at Mass, "We lift them up to the Lord," and we all raise our hands palm up. For a while it was like Berto was tossing God a football with how quickly he threw up his hands and then dropped them: "Here! Catch my heart, God!" It made me smile. So, too, my prayer. I toss God footballs several times a day, prayers for that homeless man or my sick relative or of my desperate need for some spiritual buttresses to be erected posthaste. And I believe with all my heart that God catches those erratic balls, because my words are fervent. Well, most of the time.

I cannot imagine, however, really getting down deep with God in prayer. For an hour or more, for hours each day in and out of Mass. And, yet, I think how marvelous would be the results of such efforts, because prayer is, as my parish priest said recently, our act of being in the presence of God. Even if we nod off while doing it, it is our endeavor to walk and sit in his presence, to hold his hand, and to accept some real nourishment. What might we learn about ourselves if we made that decision more often, if we were very still and knew that he was God?

So I no longer think shallowly about contemplative lives. If I am honest with you, I think a community of nuns or monks praying for this world is doing a great deal more for us than all the words of politicians could ever do. I even think now - and this is shocking to me - that a community in God's presence by the exertion of their own free will on a routine basis, asking for his grace and love and guidance to be poured out upon us, can move more mountains than many actions.

But then we see the connectivity, don't we? For some of us life in a small community praying is our service to mankind, and for some of us the work in this fractured world to be God's physical instruments of peace is ours. The two ignite each other in faith, and God weaves us together, helping us bear good fruit.

photo by Daniel Hylton

Today I said a rosary for France. It is a very Catholic thing to do, I know, but something I rarely do. I only meditate in this way when I am rocked by some great tragedy and realize that I need to really pray deeply, to do something more than usual to let my Heavenly Father know that I care and want to help and that we all need a heaping helping of faith, hope and love from His table.

I say rosaries when I am aching for others.

So I am praying. I know many of you are praying. And we know prayer is more than general good vibes. Prayer is standing in the presence of our loving Father with all our might.


"I want to be only a poor friar who prays...Pray, hope and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer...Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God's heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart." - Padre Pio

"Everyone of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy - then we need an hour." - St. Frances de Sales

"For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy..." - St. Therese of Lisieux


Then he told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.' For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.' " The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see that justice is done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Luke 18:1-8

Mesothelioma and incredible stories of cancer survival

A dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. She is a very private person and didn't tell our moms' group right away. When she did tell me some months after she knew, I was in shock. I called our fellow moms and friends and even my own family, quickly begging for their prayers. I should have asked my friend first if it was okay to share her diagnosis, but in my dismay and anxiety for her health, all I could think about was building up a community of support in her need.

My friend had recently adopted a daughter. To hear the words "You have cancer" when you have little ones so dependent on you must add to the fear, but it must also give you a fierce fighting spirit.

My friend is back to healthy now. I am certain that if I asked her what helped pull her through that time of treatment and exhaustion and uncertainty, one of the things she would say would be, "my faith". Yes, her family came to her and took care of her household, and her friends surrounded her and offered support, but faith walks arm and arm with hope and does for the spirit what no words, meals or treatments could do. I know this from personal experience. Faith is a great mystery and an astounding buoy in life's turbulent currents.

One of the best things our moms' group did for my friend was to join her for a St. Peregrine Mass of Anointing - standing, seating, kneeling and praying beside her in solidarity, in love, and in gratitude for all the gifts we saw in her that inspired us to walk closer with God.

Recently, a fellow writer named Heather Von St. James contacted me to share her story of battling and conquering a lesser known cancer called Mesothelioma, Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma, a cancer she likely contracted because of her dad's construction work.

The doctor's original prognosis was that she had 15 months to live, 15 months left when her baby girl was only three months old.

As a mom just reading Heather's account of that moment made my heart constrict. We would do anything for our babies. We live for our babies. Heather then writes:

"He then said chemo and radiation could give me five years and I thought of Lily going into kindergarten without a mom."

That is a heart-wrenching thing to read as a fellow mother. My youngest, my baby boy, just entered kindergarten, and those words forced me to imagine vividly Heather's devastation at that idea.

When Heather writes of standing by her baby daughter's crib in the middle of the night many times to watch her daughter sleep, crying out to God in the silence for the great and beautiful opportunity to watch her daughter grow, to raise her and be there for her, I felt a connection with Heather as I pondered what must be the peculiar weight and immense strain of such a diagnosis. Cancer is something we all fear to some degree if we have read much of it or know anyone who has struggled against its debilitating power. But we can understand, too, where Heather's strength comes from:

"It was during those long sleepless nights that something replaced the fear: Determination. I wasn't going to let the cancer win."

The cancer didn't win. Leaving her precious daughter with her parents, Heather went to Boston for an experimental procedure. In the hospital she faced severe challenges with her kidneys not functioning properly, and after she and her husband implored the prayers of many others, she believes she experienced a miraculous healing that kept her from going on dialysis. 

But the battle was still raging. There was time spent away from her little girl and then her husband Cameron as she had surgeries and recovered. There were hours of chemo treatments, "inevitable chemo comas", a blood transfusion, and then the draining radiation treatments that she didn't think she had the strength to finish. When she was finally through with all the treatments, she experienced a profound loneliness plagued by uncertainty. In the face of all of these enormous hurdles Heather's husband, extended family and friends were there to support her and help take care of Lily, her daughter. 

Cameron, Lily and Heather

It has now been 10 years since Heather's diagnosis. After confronting so many challenges and changes and feeling overwhelmed by the process of healing, she found a new purpose in her journey of overcoming cancer: awareness. She began writing and sharing her story. That is the gift God gives to us and to others, to bring good out of our tragedy by talking about it, sharing our struggles and our hope, and by reaching out to and lifting up others who feel desperate, unsure or alone. We then build on hope and raise up a community. That is what Heather is doing with all that she learned in battling Mesothelioma:

"People needed to know about this disease and I started on my blogging journey. I met more and more patients and their families and saw the devastation caused by this disease. I wanted more than ever to give people hope and to inspire them. As my health returned, so did the fire."

You can follow her blog series 10 years in 10 months, beautiful in all its prose, its heart and its photography. You can find more resources on this disease at Mesothelioma.com.

Although Heather still battles fear about her own health and the health of those she loves most in the world, she also says that "fear is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real" as it "builds up to eclipse every rational thought". As a person who struggles routinely with my own fears, I know what she means.

But Heather's story is at its very core one of hope, with gratitude for the support of her husband and all her family and wonderfully rich with the presence of that great companion of hope: faith.

May God continue to bless and guide Heather on her journey, and I ask that you please check out her blog series and, especially if you know someone who is struggling with Mesothelioma, some other cancer or any serious illness, that you generously share it with those you know and love.

Beautiful survivor Heather and her husband, Cameron

Happily Published Elsewhere

On this blog I have not done a very good job of sharing when my pieces are published elsewhere. I need to get better about that and start supporting more fully those who publish my work, because I appreciate their support.

So a huge shout out goes to Teri Rizvi who founded a website in honor of the late, great Erma Bombeck at the University of Dayton: Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. Teri has accepted many of my posts for publication, and I am very grateful to have my work appear on such a wonderful, humorous, Erma-honoring site where many accomplished writers appear regularly. Sometimes I feel intimidated, because, really, I am being published alongside these talented people in a place dedicated to one of the greatest humor writers of all time, but I am supremely grateful for the opportunity to be in their company.

My latest post to be featured there actually explains how I got the title for this blog from something my dad uttered nearly every day to his kids for years while we were growing up. You can read all about it HERE. Please share!

The latest post of mine to be published is quite the opposite of a humor post. It is an exceptionally personal faith post. In fact it is so personal that sometimes I groan to think that people I don't know or barely know are reading it. Goodness, people I love madly who may have trouble understanding it, because it is from a decidedly Catholic perspective, are reading it. Nevertheless, it was such a profound experience that I needed to write about it, and my husband suggested I submit it for publication. In it I confess wholeheartedly that I am a sinner, one who often battles discouragement, and that it is by the grace of God that I stand. That post appears at CatholicMom.com and is called Jesus Always Has Our Back.

Thank you, readers and friends, for supporting my endeavors to become a better writer. I am always grateful for your readership and comments. God bless!

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Children of God

The altar and crucifix of St. Augustine By The Sea Church, Waikiki, Hawaii 

 

A while ago I read an article from someone who was debating the Catholic belief in the Eucharist. He essentially asked, Why on earth would the King of the Universe lower himself to become something we eat and digest?

The questions that must follow such a query are: Why would the King of the Universe die on a tree for us? Or be born as one of us, a dependent infant, in a stable?

The cross was considered a very humiliating death, and yet God suffered it for us as only God could. And the manger itself speaks volumes about how much our God values humility, honesty and simplicity, not the transient wealth, station, or power the world esteems.

Why is God present with us? Why was he born among animals and crucified with criminals?

Read More.....

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Preparation and Celebration, Old and New

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (NAB)

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert:
"Prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight his paths."
John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. (Mark 1:2-5)
And this is what he proclaimed: One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."(Mark 1:7-8)

The huge, beautiful wreath is on the altar steps at my parish. Two Sundays have come in with that Advent wreath. Two of its purple candles have been lit; a pink and purple one remain.

How I love Advent, that time of reflection and preparation for the second coming of Christ and for the celebration of His first, His birth. I am grateful for Advent. Instead of hustle and bustle through malls, guided by lists, it is about contemplation and watchfulness in our lives, guided by Scripture.
Church is the place, the most serene place, where I can go to prepare my heart and soul for Christmas, though I do a very imperfect job of it. But without that spiritual haven I fear I would be a very stressed-out Scrooge, lost in a sea of consumerism.

My parents always made sure that Jesus was foremost in our home, but for most of my life Christmas was a day out of the year. It showed up on the 25th of December, and what came before was mostly a bunch of wishing and hoping and scrambling. If there was a season leading to it, it was a season of worrying about gifts, cleaning house, decorating, preparing food, and listening to holiday tunes. After December 25th passed I did not know the Christmas season continued through the celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany, that feast commemorating the Three Kings, representative of all gentiles, bringing gifts to our Lord: Prophet, Priest and King. I didn't know that for many the Christmas season only ended after the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus on a Sunday in January. I didn't know, because I wasn't Catholic.

I never grasped the joy and depth and spiritual variety there was to be found in a year - not even the joy to be found in Christmas and especially Easter - until I understood the times of preparation in the Catholic liturgical calendar. Then something strange occurred; as I contemplated that calendar, I began to make a deeper connection between the Old and the New Testament. Before - undoubtedly through my own fault - there was a big disconnect.

As Christians we know that God told the Israelites to observe certain fasts and feasts every year. Passover was to be ...a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution. (Exodus 12) God also commanded, Three times a year you shall celebrate a pilgrim feast to me. (Exodus 23:14) Many times the Israelites were to abstain from leavened bread and make designated offerings to God. Now, because we have received the spirit of adoption, all our feasts and fasts - Pentecost and the Mass of the Lord's Supper, for example - revolve around Christ, and we believe that those Old Testament observances were a prefigurement of the New Covenant Jesus established. He was the fulfillment.

So when we fast and give alms for the forty days of Lent before Easter - in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are truly suffering in this world - we are imitating Christ's fast in the desert (and the wondering of the Israelites before entering the Promised Land) and thus preparing ourselves to celebrate Easter in a more profound way. For we believe Easter, like Christmas, is not just a day that shows up out of the blue. Before we welcome it, our hope is to deepen our relationship with God by truly examining ourselves and our sins and picking up our cross and following Jesus. A week before Easter we attend Palm Sunday Mass, carrying palm branches and singing, "Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" and reading Jesus' Passion aloud. During the Triduum we celebrate the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper when we read the account of the First Passover and the Last Supper, and the priest washes the feet of twelve people - men, women and children - in imitation of Christ. The next night we attend Good Friday Mass, and parishioners carry in a wooden cross, pausing three times, in imitation of the one our Savior carried. Then comes Holy Saturday Night when we trace salvation history through multiple Scripture readings from Genesis to the Gospel, and finally dawns Easter morning, and again we rejoice and sing at Mass, Alleluia!

Advent and Lent are our spiritual journeys - following Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, walking and fasting with Christ in the desert - to the holiest days of the year: Christmas and Easter. The purpose is always the same in these seasons of our year of faith: to remind us of important events in our salvation history and to prepare us to welcome more fully the bountiful blessings and grace we receive from our Maker.

Our liturgical year began anew the first Sunday of Advent, and again we will try, yes - try - to prepare ourselves for Christ. Not by making lists and checking them twice, not by cooking mounds of cookies, not by worrying about whether we're spending enough or too much on gifts, and not by sending Christmas cards will we ready ourselves. Instead, we will prepare ourselves by coming to Mass and lighting the wreath to remind us of the Light of the World. We will hopefully ponder how we can reflect more of that Light as we kneel and pray and receive communion and, along with thousands of our brothers and sisters in Christian churches around the world, sing:

O come, O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

 

That mourns in lonely exile here

 

Until the Son of God appear

 

Rejoice! Rejoice!

 

Emmanuel

 

Shall come to you, 

O Israel

And Jesus will be our Lord of the Dance throughout the liturgical year.

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Marriage

I found it a little ridiculous that the media made such a huge deal about the couples Pope Francis married more than a month ago. They pointed out that some of the couples had been cohabitating; one already had a child. They declared that Pope Francis is so much more open, and this is an additional sign of change (for the better, they would argue). They hinted that similar couples might have been booted out before, shunned, and denied the power and fulfillment of marriage.

Marriage to them is merely a choice, I suspect, to enter into a visible contract. What they don't understand about marriage made all the difference in their interpretation.

....Read More

Sunlight On the Forest Floor: Hope

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world; but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at it colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it?

_From Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

A modern-day parable:

The Devil takes a man on a tour of hell and proudly shows off all his storehouses brimming with sin. There is lust and jealousy, anger and envy, and so on - a large storehouse for each big sin. But the man points out another storehouse larger by far than all the rest. "What do you keep in there?" he asks. "Oh, that," responds the Devil, "that holds the smallest but most effective seed of all. That is overflowing with discouragement."

_ From the Second Edition of the Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth

In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.

_Jesus Christ


I am one of those people who consistently struggles against dicouragement in looking up at the colossal evil in this world. It's difficult to retain hope in the face of a daily onslaught of news stories about the rampant injustice and malice. For this reason I long ago gave up watching nightly news, but I can't quite convince myself that avoiding the news section of the newspaper is a good idea -  despite the fact that every time I read about something happening here, in India, the Middle East, Africa, Central America or Ukraine, I court the idea that evil is winning.

And that is a crying sin.

If I ever truly accepted that notion, I would be guilty of despair. So my work is to hope and pray. And then I must ask myself the really hard and telling question: What can I do? Obviously, I must love my human family enough to think the world worth changing, and how? By showing great love and making the personal sacrifices of a fellow sinner.

Yesterday I read two amazing stories of people who hoped while standing face to face with evil. One was Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who hid with a group of women in a tiny bathroom for three months. Another was the tale of a priest, a missionary to the Native American population in Canada, who told the good news to and then baptized an Iroquois that was being slowly tortured to death by the Huron tribe. This French missionary, Brebeuf, was later tortured to death along with a fellow priest by the Iroquois that attacked the Huron village in which they were staying. Brebeuf preached to his torturers until they gagged him. His story and countless more from human history - yes, even ancient times - prove that the problem of evil has always been.

And yet people like Immaculee spread hope, love, and forgiveness after the most desperate and seemingly hopeless situations. She wrote that the Devil many times told her to give up, to call out so her persecutors could find her and kill her like hundreds of thousands of others, but she clung to the rosary her father had passed on to her shortly before he was murdered and kept praying and clinging to hope.

It's important for sheltered me not to isolate myself in blissful ignorance, true, but it's important for me to also regularly expose myself to healthy doses of courage, great love and every day human kindness testimonies, too. Hope is there. It's there in the groups of young men patrolling the streets of Cairo to keep other men from harassing or assaulting women. It's there at Dartmouth College where a professor is fighting to change the rape culture that exists on that campus. It's there in Christian-sponsored preschools in Central America where there are high gates with razor-wire to keep out the drug gangs and loving teachers within to keep up the hope and laughter.

It's there in the simplest things: in the smile you give to a grumpy neighbor, when you stop to ask a person involved in an accident if they're okay, in the compliment you pay to a friend on a rough day. The love of God is in all these things.

And, yes, it's even there in that funny (but clean!) story you read on the Internet today.

That was not much of a segue, I know, but I also came across this yesterday: Cheer Up or Dry Up: Proverbs 17: 22. from the humor writer at Whoa! Susannah. I think the project is an excellent idea; we all need to lift our spirits on a regular basis, and, I confess, it is also affirming for a sometimes-humor writer like me. Maybe I'll lighten things up here tomorrow.

I also really loved this post on The Optimism of Jesus by a A Lady In France. It moved me, because I do believe he is the ultimate optimist, our Redeemer, and I need to take more than a few lessons from him.

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Mass and Liturgy

My husband Matthew, recently confirmed, invited me to Mass one Sunday when we were dating. With the decision to join him, I embarked on a sort of odyssey, but it would be years before I reached any kind of shore.

I had this notion that Catholic Mass was very rigid, probably boring, and I had heard many people say that it left no room for the movement of the Holy Spirit; it was too scripted.

Mass is indeed scripted according to the words of the most awesome Author; it follows Scripture. That was what struck me that first Sunday.

I heard the most basic, scriptural teaching of our faith in the Nicene Creed, and the line that struck me most forcibly that first time was, He will come again to judge the living and the dead/ And his kingdom will have no end (Acts 10:42-43, Isaiah 9:6-7). I held hands with others as we prayed the Lord's Prayer just as Christ had taught when the apostles asked of Him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." (Luke 11:1-4). Then came the exchange of, "Peace be with you," in imitation of Jesus' greeting to his disciples after the resurrection, followed by the response, "And with your spirit." (John 20:19, John 14:27, 2 Corinthians 13:13, Ephesians 6:23) And we proclaimed with those in Jerusalem who watched Jesus pass on a humble colt as the Lord entered the city before his passion, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." (Mark 11:7-9, Psalm 118:26)

All that still may not have been enough to make me fall in love with this strange Mass. Then....I heard the words of Christ at the Last Supper pronounced by the priest at the consecration, and I fell. I was in awe. The priest used the exact words of Christ Himself; he cannot add or omit anything. Nor did he begin or conclude, as I have so often heard elsewhere, "Now, this is merely symbolic..." I had never seen communion treated with such reverence anywhere. I have been in a few churches where tiny plastic containers holding wafers and grape juice were passed out. To me that was not communion. Who could put Christ, or something they believe is symbolic of Him, in a plastic tube with a peel-off wrapper?

So with the consecration I began to get somewhere through the grace of God, but more amazing is that it continues these nearly twelve years later. The more I attend and listen at Mass the deeper I delve into the mystery of Scripture. For instance, I have never been a lover of the Psalms, despite the fact that I have listened to them sung at every Mass for years. Recently, however, I have found myself paying far greater attention to them, because it was pointed out to me that these songs were prayed by Jesus, too, in the Jewish synagogue. Through studying them more openly, I have learned that these songs of David are wonderful inspiration for prayer at diverse moments in our life. In Psalm 51:11-14 we find a poignant plea for mercy to guide all repentant hearts and in 118:19-25 a joyous prayer of thanksgiving and praise.

But I have not only discovered the Psalms. Just a mere two years or so ago on this journey, I also began to truly listen to and appreciate the words we pray right before receiving the Eucharist:

Lord I am not worthy
that you should enter under my roof
but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed

Here we echo Matthew 8:5-8 in the words of the centurion, the man of whom Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith." We do this every Mass. Every Mass we declare Jesus Christ is Lord and join in faith with that faith-filled centurion who professed that he was not worthy for Christ to enter his home but believed Jesus could heal his paralyzed servant simply by saying the words. And He did. And so we believe he can heal our souls in the same way. That is beautiful.

I leave here now with this thought:

Is it even possible that this liturgy, overflowing as it is with the Word, could fail to invite the Holy Spirit to move among the hearts of the faithful? Yes, I have been in a Protestant church and felt the exhilarating presence of God's Spirit, because God was there - that does not surprise me. But I have also felt Him surrounding me as I listened to the communion hymn sung by the Christian family in my parish, my head bowed over a kneeler in silent Thanksgiving.

One Bread, one body, one Lord of all

One cup of blessing which we bless

And we, though many, throughout the earth

We are one body in this one Lord

 

From One Bread, One Body, music composed by John Foley and words based on 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, Galatians3:28, Ephesians 4:4-6

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: my journey toward God, trying to see the forest for the trees

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said, "There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive the Catholic Church to be."

I used to be one of those people, though hate is perhaps too strong a word. I had a very strong, very foggy dislike of the Catholic "institution", and for the life of me, I cannot tell you from where or what it stemmed. Perhaps it is hereditary among Protestants. I believe I heard from various people I respected that Catholics were destined for hell, a passage from Revelations entering in here, and I think it's likely that I heard some blunt opinions about Catholicism growing up in the Bible Belt. But I could not have told you why I distrusted the Catholic Church or what exactly they believed about Jesus Christ that was so very different from my faith in Him. I only know my perceptions were called into question when I first learned that the man I would someday marry was Catholic.

I freaked out.

Now, of course, I can look back and laugh at my little tantrum. I can remember fondly my dad saying matter-of-factly, "Hillary, that's the oldest Christian church there is!", and how I felt comforted by that. I can remember the night I first truly received Communion, after attending Mass for 10 years with my husband, and how I was overpowered by God's love and mercy and spent my time in that front pew before the altar, kneeling and sobbing.

Since that night I have learned so very much, much of which I could not have remotely grasped without God's grace and guidance. I have learned just how ignorant I was of everything save the Gospel (and I have my dad to thank with my whole heart that I was not equally ignorant of the Word). Not only did I not read the Old Testament and the Epistles or appreciate their relation to Jesus, I did not understand fully, or even reasonably well, the hallmarks of Protestantism, and I presumed to know Catholic theology based on a legacy of several-hundred-year-old prejudices.

That last statement is definitely not the case for some, but I suspect it is for many Protestants.

I have many relatives and dear friends in many different Protestant denominations, and I have been in many different churches - Methodist, Baptist, Assembly of God, Church of Christ, and Jehovah's Witness (with a dear childhood friend). My favorite Gospel singer, Keith Green, was Protestant. These posts I intend to write regularly are not to disprove the validity of any denomination. I mean to dispel prejudice, misunderstanding and ignorance about the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church in order to foster greater unity.

Wow, good luck! you might say, but I will try.

And never fear: I will continue to write humor (One of the greatest humorists, Erma Bombeck, was Catholic!) when the mood strikes, and I will write about my little rascals often. Yet I must be able to write what I wish, and often I wish to talk about God. It is something my family did quite a lot of while I was growing up, and it's not healthy, as many of us know, to suppress the Good News.

Happy Easter

The week before Easter is a busy one for Catholics. Palm Sunday finds us singing Hosanna! as we enter the church with palms behind the priest, remembering Christ's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on the back of a humble donkey. There is Holy Thursday Mass when we commemorate Jesus washing the feet of his 12 disciples. On Good Friday we read the Passion, as on Palm Sunday, and there is a procession with a wooden cross up the center aisle of the church. Then, at last, comes Holy Saturday night and Easter morning.

My son Berto had his feet washed, with 11 other members of various parish ministries, on Holy Thursday. He was very nervous about it, but Matthew and I told him to imagine Christ washing his feet and to reflect on something in his life with which he would like Jesus' help, or to think of someone he believes could use Jesus' help (can't we all?). Before he and I left for church, we read in John what Jesus told his disciples after cleansing their feet, "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

I smiled at Berto as he sat on the altar steps in bare feet, one of just two children seated in the twelve chairs there with their white basins, pitchers and towels beneath.

"Mom," he said afterward. "Looking around, I realized that I have young feet." Then he chuckled.

It's not what I hoped he would get out of it, but oh well.

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On Good Friday I prayed a lot and took deep breaths every few minutes as I studied. I would be narrating the Lord's Passion that night at Mass, and it was my turn to be nervous to the point of feeling faint. And so I prayed for courage and understanding and for God's blessing so that I could glorify his name. I asked for Mother Mary to be with me. I asked Jesus to hold my hand.

Dear friends have told me I have a childlike faith. Perhaps that is my gift. I don't have stellar understanding. I do not write brilliant faith posts. I talk far too much when I should really be silent most of the time. But I have a childlike faith in and immense love for Christ Jesus, and so I asked him to hold my hand as I read of his Passion and crucifixion. When there were moments of silence during the narration, I pleaded, Don't leave me now. Keep holding my hand.

He did, though he suffered through it all for us, and I was merely reading about it. I was amazed; I always am. I am anxious and restless, praying to the Holy Spirit for courage, until I stand behind that ambo to read. My legs might tremble still, but I can speak clearly and, by the grace of God, help to impart understanding of His Word.

Ana served that night, and on the way home we were both feeling joyful, though perhaps we should have kept it for Easter. We were simply grateful to serve. I asked her how it felt to go to the back of the church with the deacons to bring Holy Communion and to be one of the first to venerate the cross and told her she did a wonderful job. She told me that when I read it was as if Jesus was speaking.

I didn't respond to that right away. It seemed impossible since I am a woman, but it choked me up nonetheless. And all I could think of was how I felt exactly the same way when I listened to my dad reading the Bible during my childhood.


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Throughout this year numerous people have come up to Matthew and me at church and told us how much they enjoy watching our kids altar serve, particularly Ana. She always has a broad smile on her face when she is up in the sanctuary or on the altar steps, and her joy is contagious judging from the many comments made to her parents. Berto is much more stoic and dignified, and that is his special way of serving.

On Holy Saturday one mother in the parish said, "What has made my year is your daughter. That's where it's at: singing altar servers!"

She was speaking of the way in which our Ana girl had belted out the hymn, Table of Plenty, while waiting with Berto and the deacon on the steps for the gifts to be brought forward.

Matthew and I had noticed it, too. Our little girl had her mouth wide open in praise and was moving her head about with gusto as she sang the chorus:

Come to the feast of heaven and earth

Come to the table of plenty!

God will provide for all that we need

Here at the table of plenty!

She was so in the moment that Matthew and I had to laugh, though silently of course, and we glanced over at our friend Adolfo next to us, and he was also grinning. She was certainly doing her part to spread the joy of Easter!

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Every year I'll try to share a song of Keith Green's. I was raised on his music, and he is still my favorite gospel singer and a very talented pianist/songwriter as well. He wrote several songs based on Jesus' parables, such as the Prodigal Song Suite, and they are all beautiful, so enjoy.


There is a Redeemer by Keith and Melody Green


Happy Easter, readers and friends!

Quick Takes: Daniel is Four, Faith and Giving

"He's not ready for that!"

Daniel just turned four a couple of weeks ago, and as I watched my husband take the training wheels off his bike, my gut reaction was to blurt out those words.

I shouldn't have said them, because I was wrong. Matthew placed our littlest guy on his small bike and gave him a push, and Danny Sam pedaled forward with a smile and no inhibition. I may not have been ready, but he was. He may still have some trouble negotiating the turns and getting started on his own, but the boy is indeed learning to ride a big boy bike. And he just began Sunday!

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Beware of saying the words, "I have to go to the bathroom," in this house. Danny will start singing to you:

When you have to go
Stop!
And go right away
Flush and wash
And be on your way!

He learned it from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on PBS. I don't mind, really, because I love PBS. (I joke that I've raised my kids on PBS - hours and hours of it.) He also loves the Special song and the one that encourages, "Keep trying - you'll get be-et-ter!" I miss Mr. Rogers; I'm glad they found a way to bring him back to us.

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I've discovered a lot of great blogs lately, this one just this morning. The writer is a Catholic mother from the Newtown community. Her life, the lives of everyone in that community, was changed by the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary, and she decided to write more openly about her faith. I love her post today: Living by Faith. I am often a fearful person, and I do not have the reason to be fearful that so many do. I find that whenever I feel hampered by my fears, I am able to move outside their influence primarily because of my faith.

Speaking of faith, Jennie from A Lady in France regularly writes faith posts on her blog. I don't always agree with her completely, but I like her courage and appreciate her knowledge of scripture. Today on her post, On Being Good, she is helping to raise awareness of a non-profit that sprang from a beautiful collection of stories by grieving mothers, to which she contributed, who have lost a child: Sunshine After the Storm, Inc. They are working toward donating 100 copies of the book to hospitals and bereavement groups on Mother's Day and are accepting donations now. Please consider giving. I think it is a beautiful idea brimming with love for our fellow mothers. To find out more about this campaign, please visit Jennie's blog through the above link.

Spirit

This post is dedicated to the mother of my close friend who recently suffered a heart attack and is recovering. I pray that you get well quickly.

Have you ever been around someone who is a mystery? They attract other people, and you yourself wish to be near them. Not because of their appearance or their confidence or their personality, but because they seem to be in possession of something very valuable but intangible - something which brought comfort and perhaps joy with it.

Not to say these people are perfect specimens of the human race. They may struggle financially, battle recurring depression, have health troubles, challenges within their family, but regardless, they have something that pulls them through all this with the extraordinary ability to uplift others as well.

I recall how my dad stood at the grill during my graduation party, and a group of young men who had never met him before surrounded him, asking him questions and seeking his advice. I knew why, but they probably didn't understand. And they certainly weren't the only ones to do this during my time at home. I had friends and cousins and saw near strangers hang on my dad's words, trying to glean something permanently strengthening from them.

And my mother to this day often finds herself in long conversations with people she has just met. They spill their troubles, and she mops up the messiness, doling out compassion and love.

You meet people with this sort of quiet power, but you're most likely to recognize its impact if they are not your friends and are not related to you. I know many of my friends possess it - I can feel it while in certain conversations with them - but it is not startling to me. Yet I have recognized it in something so pedestrian as an email, and it did surprise me; a gentleman I scarcely know sent me a message telling me not to be discouraged concerning my writing, but how he said it held that same power that gives strength if one avails oneself of it.

Sometimes it pervades the home where people dwell. There's more than enough of it to go around, and it's like permanent sunshine indoors. While on a trip this fall to visit family and friends, I recognized my Uncle Kipper and Aunt Cheryl's house had it - love and nourishment for all who lived, visited or rested there.

Sometimes people bring it with them into a home where there is conflict and struggle, and it suddenly, inexplicably dispels the shadows and balances everything, at least while they linger.

One of my closest friends moved to be nearer her family, a long way from friends who love her, but I understood what good there was for her in that decision when I met her parents again on our trip, the day of her daughter's baptismal. When they came to church for the wonderful occasion, they brought that sunshine, that strength with them. And, yes, it was already in that spiritual refuge; it was already present with their daughter, but they made it more abundant. For me, being around and talking with them and my friend at her home after the baptismal was like homecoming, a spiritual homecoming. I recognize what they carry with them. It gladdens me, and I garner what wisdom I can from it.

My friend told me that at her parents' 50th wedding anniversary, her dad said that he was proud all 10 of their children had gone to college, a great thing. Then he stated that the reason their family had made it through difficulties and thrived was because they always had God.

How many times have I heard my dad say the same thing? And many others.

That quiet power, that sunshine, that strength, that thing that makes some people state after a devastating tragedy that their faith helped them through the pain - that thing that confounds so many people - it comes from God.

The more you cultivate it by seeking Him, the more likely you are to feel it when your life is troubled and the more it will give strength to others without you fully realizing it.


The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit - John 3:8