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Years and years ago, I was having an issue with my eye and it was bothersome enough that I made an eye appointment.
To make a very long story short, the doctor checked me out and then very casually said, “Well, it could be an aneurism.”
I panicked and asked if we could have that checked out and, again, he very casually said, “Nah, we’ll just see how it goes.”
In my head I was like, “Dude, you can’t just drop the A word and tell me that we’ll see how it goes!”
I held it together until I got outside and then I started sobbing. (I’m very dramatic with anything medical.) I immediately called my husband, who of course wasn’t at his desk, because he never is.
I got some poor airman and sobbing into the phone, I said, “Can you please go find Captain Thomas?”
Once my husband got on the phone, he took care of everything. He got me an appointment and all was checked out. It was an ocular migraine.
Last week, my husband had a huge brief he had to give at work and nearly all of it he had to memorize. Because he had a million other things to do, he was struggling to find time to memorize it and a few hours before the brief, he called me. “Am, I’m struggling to memorize anything.”
I talked to him, reassured him of his abilities, made him laugh, told him to pray to his patron saint and guardian angel and everything would be fine. It all turned out great.
Then, a few days ago, I was struggling with something and was feeling overly emotional and I started praying a very honest prayer to God. I needed help and so I called on God. He delivered in amazing ways.
The point of all this is to say, reach out to those who love you. You don’t need to shoulder everything on your own, Catholic Pilgrims. Those who love you want to help you and be there for you. That includes God, our Blessed Mother, and all the angels and saints.
Have a blessed Tuesday.
A couple of days ago late in the afternoon, I made a really simple quick video to put up on a couple of my social media pages. It was a video of my family's "Indiana Jones" day in Turkey. We had a friend there, a fellow Catholic, that took us around to see old lost churches. You can see my son standing in some of the ruins here in this picture. Anyway, the coolest one he took us to was a hidden church IN THE GROUND out in a field. The steps down into it were covered in weeds and we had to clear all that out to be able to walk down the steps. That day was one of my favorite days ever. So, I made this quick video, posted it, and went about my day. When I woke up the next morning, I found that thousands and thousands of people on Instagram had interacted with it. Usually on Instagram, my videos are all duds, so I was shocked. But, ohhhhhhh, let me tell you, the interactions were, for the most part, awful. Basically, the Greeks, Turks, and Armenians went to war in the video's comments. I mean, just saying the most vile things. Protestants came after me and called me a pagan and a cult member. Orthodox people came after me. One man called me a liar and told me that it was nothing but a cistern. When I explained the reality to him, he demanded coordinates so that he could go see it. Um....no. Another guy asked me why I don't hate Turkey, the country. There were a few sane people who could just enjoy the coolness of the video and leave it at that, but the wide majority of people were just insanely awful. It just broke my heart to see such retched ugliness all from a video that was from one of my most memorable days. But, it was getting me lots of followers, which I never get on Instagram, so for half a second, I was like, "Hey, this is good!" Quickly, though, that thought left my head. I knew I had to shut the comments and the ability to share off, so that such vileness wasn't found on my page. Hatred is a bitter, bitter poison, Catholic Pilgrims. Live in the light and love of Christ. PS. I am well versed on why the countries over there don't like each other. I had to learn all about it when I was there. I don't want to hear about here, so please don't start another word war on this page.
Continue ReadingAs I was preparing to teach OCIA this past Sunday, I had a list of things I wanted to go over. It had dawned on me a few weeks ago that most people outside the Catholic Church believe that everything we do as Catholics is taught dogmatically. This leads to a ton of grave errors in how people think about Catholicism. So, I decided to talk to the class about four D's: Dogma, Doctrine, Disciplines, and Devotions. Dogmas are a very narrow subset of doctrine. They are the beliefs that are divinely revealed and cannot be changed. Everything stated in the Apostles' Creed is a dogma and to be a Christian, you need to believe in those things. They aren't optional. Doctrine is all the Church's teachings on faith and morals. Doctrines do not change, but our understanding of the teachings can grow and become more detailed. Belief in The Blessed Trinity is a Dogma. The Church's teaching on the Blessed Trinity is doctrine. The doctrine--teaching--doesn't change, meaning, it doesn't flip-flop. But over time, the Church's understanding of it has grown and become more full. Discipline is defined as an "instruction, system of teaching or of law, given under the authority of the Church [which] can be changed with the approval of proper authority, as opposed to doctrine, which is unchangeable” (334). Priests not marrying is a discipline, not a dogma. Devotions are those practices allowed by the Church that are more personal to the individual. Praying the Rosary is a devotion. Wearing a veil at Mass is a devotion. Praying evening Vespers is a devotion. As long as the Church has approved a devotion or allows for it, it is okay to practice. Devotions are not dogmatic and people are free to practice them or not. I've had people say to me, "The Catholic Church teaches that to be saved you have to pray the Rosary." No, that is not true. "To be saved you must pray the Rosary" is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. It is a devotion--a very strongly encouraged devotion and a fruitful one at that, but there is no dogmatic belief that praying the Rosary is how you are saved. I hope this is helpful and clear, Catholic Pilgrims. I found it helpful for myself to get a better understanding of it, so I can speak intelligently about our beautiful Catholic Faith. Have a blessed Wednesday.
Continue ReadingFor Lent, I'm doing the Pray40 challenge on the Hallow app. The whole theme is all about "The Return." We are following the story of "The Brothers Karamazov" and its relation to the parable of The Prodigal Son. On Sundays, we listen to Father Mike Schmitz' homily. This past Sunday, Fr. Mike said something that I'd like to highlight. Talking about how Prince Harry named his book "Spare," Fr. Mike said, "He wrote an autobiography, and the title of this autobiography is named after his wound." That wound being that he is nothing but the spare in the family. "He's just the back-up plan to the one that matters." For so many of us, it is our wound that becomes our identity. It is the story of our life. We are the wound, the wound defines us, the wound is why we are the way we are. Whenever your wound is your entire identity, resentment spreads its tentacles around your heart and you slowly start to die. Maybe not a literally death, but life, joy, energy, gratitude, and peace are all snuffed out. Today in my audio listening, Sister Miriam said, "We believe that our brokenness is somehow our fate or our identity. The enemy whispers to us, this is just who you are." This is why--and I know from experience--that so many people can't let go of their wound and let God heal it. It has become our identity. "I'm an abused person. I'm an addict. I'm unloved. I'm a failure. I'm awkward and weird and nobody likes me." We believe that if we lose this identity, we will be nothing. We will lose the label. We will lose the pity. We will lose the excuse for why our life has turned out like it has. It's just not true that we are our wound. And the minute that we decide that we don't want to be our wound anymore and hand that brokenness over to God, we will not be left with a bottomless pit. God can rush in and begin to fill us with His life and love. When He does that, we will begin to see that our identity is found in Him--we are a child of God and He loves us with an intensity that we fully don't understand. Lent is the perfect time to stop identifying yourself by your wound(s). You are God's beloved, Catholic Pilgrims.
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