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Happy Friday, Catholic Pilgrims. Tis the season for executive orders and so, what would be the executive orders I would sign IMMEDIATELY if I were President? 1. All vats of hard-boiled eggs soaking in their egg juice at hotel breakfasts would be banned. No more sulfur bombs allowed. 2. Any Christmas song by a former Beatles member would be stripped from the catalog of available Christmas songs and sent to the vault where all bad music goes to die. 3. Turkey as a national Thanksgiving meat would cease. 4. Any man who wants to grow a mustache must submit documentation explaining why they want a mustache and provide their wife/girlfriend with an example photo of what he would look like with one. She will review it and decide if it is allowed. She has full veto power. 5. All college football conferences will have numbers in their names that reflect the actual number of teams in the conference. However, as the numbers seem to change each year, I strongly recommend picking a conference name with no number or geographical location. 6. Dressing rooms across the land must remove all bad lighting and all fun-house mirrors. Nobody wants to look like death-warmed over when trying to buy new clothes. We need to look alive and the mirrors should reflect actual size. Any businesses found not in compliance will be run out of town by a pitch-fork mob. 7. Any object that requires placement in a bag (tent, sleeping bad, outdoor chairs, cots, etc) must have a bag that doesn't require people to wrestle with it on the ground to get said object back in the bag. It is time to add more fabric to the bag and I will see to it that Americans everywhere are free from this plight. 8. Kansas City barbecue will be recognized as the Nation's best barbecue and I will hear no more from those on the east coast. 9. Federal agents will be sent to all homes to confiscate the box-o-cords that every man has stashed somewhere. The 1994 Compaq desktop monitor cord is not longer needed. 10. Any person found to be a Bills' fan just for this upcoming weekend will be sent to federal prison for fraud. My goal, Catholic Pilgrims, will be to make life better for all Americans!
I became Catholic eight years into my marriage, seven years into the military life. I became Catholic just as we were leaving Tyndall AFB in Panama City, Florida. Since that time, it has been fascinating to see what each place teaches me and how I grow in my faith. After Tyndall, our next duty station happened to be where I am now, Edwards AFB. Back then, I was fresh into the Catholic Faith and I had so much to learn. I jumped into teaching CCD and really started to explore all things Catholic. Then, we moved to Virginia. We went to church on the campus of UVA and that church is led by Dominicans. Their homilies were the stuff of intellectual giants. I had never experienced understanding God and theological things at such a high level of intelligence. This is where I began to dive deep into studying the faith. From there, it was on to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. That was a hard move. I'm not a Vegas fan, but my family had to learn to bloom where we are planted and, in time, we did. This was where I put all that knowledge from Virginia to good use by teaching Confirmation classes. In Ohio, I learned to really integrate my faith into all aspects of my life. This is, also, when I went to the Holy Land. Turkey was like an immersion in the Acts of the Apostles and my time there growing in my faith was so rich and rewarding. Washington DC brought the joy of exploring many of the Catholic roots of our country, at least on the eastern side. Montgomery, AL was where I learned to give as much of myself to volunteering at the church and Daily Mass became a love. Now, I'm back at Edwards and since I've been here before, I've been doubtful that I can learn anything new. How can I grow in a place I've already been? But, I've kinda become the unofficial altar decorator and, yesterday, my kids and I went to clean the small Blessed Sacrament Room on base. As I vacuumed, dusted, organized, decluttered all in the presence of Jesus, I felt so good making things as beautiful as I can for Him. What I learned yesterday is that even in a desert, I can bring beauty. That is a good reminder for us all. Have a blessed Thursday, Catholic Pilgrims.
We are a week and a half out from my podcast "Journeying with the Saints" starting back up for Season Five on February 1st, 2025 I've put a lot of work into this season already. We've got new music courtesy of my dad, I've added some new touches, and I've got a new approach to this season. I really think you are going to like it. For Season Five, we will be reading "Letters From the Voyages of St. Francis Cabrini." You can find the book at Catholic Treehouse and Amazon. I highly recommend getting it so that you can follow along. This is the first missionary that I've featured here on the podcast and, I'm telling you, there is much to learn from a missionary saint. St. Frances has so much to teach us and some of the biggest lessons are in how to live out the virtues of perseverance and courage. I wanted to give you all this heads up, so you can prepare to join me. This picture is my new logo for the season. Other than that, please share with friends. If they've seen the movie "Cabrini" and like it, they are going to want to hear her actual words and if they saw the movie and didn't like it, well...they are still going to want to hear her actual words. HA! So, let's get ready to learn from the first canonized American saint, Catholic Pilgrims. St. Frances Cabrini, pray for us!
Someone wrote me the other day and asked me to write about how to be loving and kind to a family member that is annoying and selfish. Here are my thoughts... Right before Christmas, I was sitting in LAX waiting to get on a flight back home to Kansas. I'm a people watcher, so I never sit with my head buried in my phone. At first, I started picking apart each person. There were so many annoying things and if you would have taken a picture of me, I probably would have had a scowl on my face. Then, I looked across from me. This young guy and I locked eyes for just a second and he smiled. I smiled back. It was clear that he was most likely cognitively disabled. I then watched him look out at all the people. As I watched, I noticed how he just continued to smile at each person. Rather than being critical of each person and mentally creating a litany of annoyances about everyone, he was just watching people with an expression of joy. I thought in that moment: What if someone is doing what I'm doing and their eyes landed on me? They could deem me the annoying-scowly faced woman who is clearly silently wishing that she could fix everyone so that they wouldn't annoy her anymore. Then I would be annoying to that person. So, I decided to change my attitude and I started looking around at everyone with the eyes of the guy across from me. I noticed a mom and her teenage son laughing together. I noticed a soldier talking to a loved one on their phone. I noticed exhausted parents trying to sneak a quick lunch while their baby napped in his stroller. Suddenly, nobody annoyed me and I was filled with a deep love for all these flawed people. For just a brief moment, I saw them not as people that needed to fix themselves so that I could like them. Instead, I saw them as people that needed to be loved. We all struggle with being loving to people that get on our nerves. I know I do. Selfish people are hard to deal with. What we must remember, Catholic Pilgrims, myself included, is that it is selfish of us to want people to be just so in order for us to love them.
Last week, during our evening Bible reading with our son, my husband read the part where Jacob wrestles with God. After this wrestling, Jacob's name is changed to Israel which means, "wrestled with God." Now, I'm not here to go over the theology of whether this was an angel or God, that's for the theologians to hash out. Either way, Jacob was wrestling with a spiritual being. So, we asked our son, "Why do you think Jacob had this wrestling match?" He thought for a long moment and then said, "I think he was maybe mad about something." "What was he mad about?" "I think he knew he had't been that good and now he wanted to go home, but he knew he couldn't go home the same way. Something like that. Maybe he was mad that things hadn't turned out all that great for him, because he wasn't always honest." My husband asked, "So, who all had Jacob wronged?" "His brother. He lied to his dad. And he wasn't totally honest with Laban either." So, I said, "When we've allowed ourselves to become less than who God created us to be, we hate facing ourselves. But, if we ever are going to be better, we must face who we've become and, in that process, we will wrestle with God. When we finally break down to see ourselves for what we truly are, there will be a battle within us. Ultimately, that battle is with God." The battle is never fun, Catholic Pilgrims, and oftentimes, we will leave with a wound, just like Jacob did in his hip. However, once we have this battle and we face ourselves and truly desire change, growth and transformation will happen. We will be better. Jacob got a new name because he was no longer the same old Jacob. The wound is there to remind us of the battle and that we don't want to go back to who we were any more. If we are too afraid to have this battle, especially if we've really been down the wrong path, we will stay stagnant the rest of our lives. Best to wrestle it out with God so that we can be changed for the better. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday. *Painting by Alexander Louis Leloir (1865)
I often like to look at the Gospels through the lens of my military life. It's the life I lead, and so, it helps to see parallels. I grew up believing that I would find a Kansas man to marry and settle down with him in my home state. That was not what God had in mind. Saying "yes" to my military man started me out on a path on which I had no idea what to expect. I had no inkling as a newly-minted 2nd Lt.'s wife what I was getting ready to face. There's no one who could have really told me all the ins and outs. I just needed to trust the path. I didn't at first. I was so homesick, so lost, so lonely at our first duty station that I told my husband that he needed to do his four years and get out. But then, after some time, I came to see that this life is a mission--a mission for good. It should be viewed as a life of sacrifice and serving. I soon realized that it was wrong to dissuade my husband from the mission. What I needed to do was join along and support him and the mission in the best way I knew how. I had to be more like Mary. Her son was on the biggest mission the world has ever known. She didn't know all the ends and outs of what would happen, but she supported His mission no matter what until the very end. She still supports it by supporting us--the soldiers for Christ. My military life, as an Air Force wife, pales in comparison to what Mary and Jesus went through, but I still like to look for the parallels. Mary was the support to her Son, just as I am to be the support to my husband. In today's Gospel, she supports the mission at the wedding feast of Cana in her loving way by interceding for the needs of others. When I look to her, she gives me strength to carry on. I find when I look to her example and try to emulate it, I am given many graces. All of us, Catholic Pilgrims, are to support the mission of the Church to bring souls to Christ. Have a blessed Sunday.
In preparation for Season Five of my podcast "Journeying with the Saints," I reached out to the different shrines in the US associated with St. Frances Cabrini. I got to chat on the phone with the executive director of the St. Francis Cabrini Shrine in NY. I loved hearing from Julia about Mother Cabrini. During our conversation, she said something that really struck me. "Mother Cabrini saw difficulty at the start of a mission as a good sign, because it meant the work had been sealed with the Cross." You wanna hear Saint talk? That's it for you, right there. That mentality of hers sliced through me like a knife. All around us--ALL AROUND US--we are told that if something is difficult or hard, if barriers are put up in your way, abandon ship because God obviously doesn't want you to do it. If He did, it would be an easy path. This is a lie. I've been whining about having to be stationed in the desert again and how hard that is and how it isn't super, big fun for me. Yet, Saints welcome challenges and sufferings. If you are experiencing hardship and difficulties in your mission or vocation, it's been sealed with the Cross. I mean, what kind of talk is that? It's utterly stunning to me and so very inspiring. We have this notion in our heads that Christianity is supposed to be this comfortable, easy path just because we believe in Christ. But, when at any point was Christ's life easy? It wasn't. It just wasn't. Yet, He carried on because the mission was too great to not see it through. The suffering was redemptive for us all and He loved us that much to not give up even though it was hard. We've been talking about living out virtue and how our culture has twisted virtue into self-serving, dressed-up vices. All of what is served up to us is meant to be easy, comfortable, and shallow. Yet, we have Saints that are saying, "Bring on the sacrifices and suffering because that means this mission has been sealed with the Cross of Christ." That is love, my fellow Pilgrims. That is an attitude I aspire to and hope to emulate, because anything else is just self-serving rubbish. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
So, yesterday, I talked about how the little thing I read in a very old book caused my husband and I to engage in some deep conversations. I wrote about one aspect of the quote that we discovered in those conversations yesterday, which was...lively, shall we say. Today, I want to talk about the other thing we discovered and alluded to at the end of my post yesterday. We discovered that what has happened is that the culture has selected a virtue, twisted it, and then slapped modern framing on it to make it not sound so bad. For example: Original Virtue: Temperance The Vice: Self-indulgence, neglect of responsibilities Modern Framing--Self-Care, "Take care of number one." Original Virtue: Dignity--seeing yourself as a child of God The Vice: Narcissism, selfishness Modern Framing--Self-Love, Justifies prioritizing one's desire over community, but this is fine because 'you do you." Original Virtue: Prudence with regards time and effort The Vice: Selfishness, isolation, lack of generosity Modern Framing: "Protecting my peace." I could go on and on, but you get the point. The thing that struck me and my husband was how these all boiled down to focus on the self and as we know in our society, the more that we have focused on ourselves, the more unhappy, more depressed, and more anxious we have become. The culture tries to pass off the modern framing so that it looks like a virtue, but my husband said, "If the virtue doesn't have a sacrifice attached to it or a focus on others, it's not a real virtue. It's self-serving and virtues are never self-serving." Like the quote said yesterday, dressing things up in "beautiful false names" will only make us prisoners. We must always strive to look outside of ourselves and seek to bring light and love to others by living out the virtues. Only then, Catholic Pilgrims, can we find true joy and the peace that only Christ can give. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
I was reading through a very old book that I was recently gifted that has just one or two sentences on a page. I read: "Nineteenth century man became all the more irrevocably the prisoner of his own life-sorrows through the beautiful false names with which he labeled them." I sat with this a very long time. Later that night, I asked my husband what he thought and could he think of any life-sorrows that have been given "beautiful names" in order to make them seem good. It became a bit of a thought experiment for us. I could think of one right off the top of my head: Selfishness has become self-care. Now, this isn't to say that taking care of yourself is wrong. We should take care of ourselves because our bodies are good and neglecting them can cause us to not be able to do God's will. However, our culture has taken vices that cause sorrow, dressed them up in a new name that is hard to argue with, and then encouraged people to engage in them. What happens then? You become a prisoner. My husband said, "Anytime you take something bad and try to make it sound virtuous, it always is a move towards self-centeredness. The focus becomes entirely on you and ultimately that makes us miserable. That's why you become a prisoner. Together, we thought of a few more things that have been dressed up with "beautiful names." Abortion--health care. Abortion already is a euphemism, but it is now being referred to as the double euphemism of "health care." Laziness--"protection from burnout" "work-life balance" Narcissism--self-love Isolation--"protecting my peace" Lies--"your truth, my truth" On the surface, all these phrases or "beautiful names" seem good. Initially, it's hard to argue with them. But, when you scratch just beneath the surface you'll see that they all come back to the self. There is something else that my husband and I discovered while thinking through the original quote. I'll talk about that tomorrow. Until then, live the faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
Yesterday, my husband and I finished our 33-day reading of this book and prayed the consecration prayer at the end together. If you would have told me when Dustin and I were dating that one day we would consecrate ourselves to Jesus in the Eucharist in a small Blessed Sacrament Room on base, I would have looked at you with utter confusion. For one, I wasn't Catholic. For two, I had no idea what the Eucharist was so why would I be consecrating myself to it? For three, I didn't see the importance of faith in the married life at that time. I thought our romantic love for each other would be enough. I would have thought you were saying I'd turn into some hokey-pokey weirdo. However, God's ways are not our ways. Now, I have been Catholic for 13 years. Now, I know that the Eucharist is everything and that I will never exhaust my ability to be in awe and wonder at the miracle of Christ in the Eucharist. Now, I have seen Dustin and I realize that a marriage needs God at the center. The Eucharist is the food for our married life together. At the beginning of this book, Matthew Kelly says, "What is the difference between the people who have left the Catholic Church over the past thirty years and those who have stayed?" The answer: "Those who believe don't leave." Those who believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist don't leave. And I'd add, those outside the Church who come to believe, can't become Catholic quick enough. That was me. The second the Eucharist clicked in my brain, I needed to be Catholic that instant. It was a desire like I've never known. To loosely quote Flannery, O'Conner: To Hell with all this symbolic nonsense. No army of demons could keep me away from becoming Catholic, because it is in the fullness of the Catholic Church that I can receive the Eucharist and there is nothing more important that Jesus truly present on our altars and offered to us in Holy Communion. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Monday, Catholic Pilgrims.
Many of you have reached out to check on me and my family to see if we are out of danger from the terrible fires in LA. Thankfully, we are not in danger, but I do appreciate the concern for us. Yesterday, you could smell the fire in the air, so it does feel a bit too close for comfort. Already here at the start of 2025, we’ve had lots of chaos and disasters. We’d like to believe that a new year would start off fresh with no mistakes in it, but that’s just wishful thinking and, sadly, not how a fallen world works. Please pray for rain. Please pray for those displaced who have lost all their worldly goods and have to find some way to start all over. Please pray for firefighters who have so little to work with. I’m sure they feel helpless. Please pray that other cities continue to send help. I know Las Vegas has sent firefighters to LA, which is good. I don’t want this to become a political fight here. I’d ask that you please refrain from making any political statement in the comments and just focus instead on the suffering and the helpers. We need rain here very badly and there’s not an ounce in sight. To my fellow Catholics P
Yesterday, I was listening to an episode from Trent Horn’s podcast. He was critiquing an impromptu debate between Michael Knowles (Catholic) and Charlie Kirk (evangelical Protestant). I respect both men a lot. At one point, Kirk says, “Your goal should be to bring people to Jesus not Catholicism.” This shows Kirk’s severe lack of understanding of the Eucharist. Why do I want people to be Catholic? Because of Christ fully present in the Eucharist. Even if Kirk doesn’t believe in the Eucharist, he knows devout Catholics do. If we do, he should be able to reason that we want people to be Catholic so that they can experience Divine Communion with Christ and fully receive His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We aren’t looking for people to have a symbolic communion but a real one. This is not an either/or situation. I want people to be Catholic so that they can receive Christ in the Eucharist. There is nothing on earth greater than this and I can’t get the Eucharist in a Protestant church. Christ in the Eucharist changed my life, He continues to change my life. We are abundantly blessed to have this most precious holy gift, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
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