The Feast of St. Martha

While there is some debate as to whether Mary Magdalene is the same as Mary-the-sister-of-Martha-and-Lazarus, I don't think there is any debate in the minds of women struggling to walk with Christ that Magdalene and Martha are two of the great examples of womanly virtue in the Gospels and in all of Christianity.

Since today is here feast, I wanted to share a quick meditation on St. Martha by one of my favorite Catholic bloggers, Julie Davis of Happy Catholic, from her bi-weekly column on Patheos:

We see again how familiar and friendly Martha is with Jesus. As before, she goes to him with a forthright complaint. She shows great confidence and trust in saying that she is disappointed that he didn't save her brother.

Martha also shows that she possesses great faith and understanding in unmistakable terms: "I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." What an incredible moment that must have been between Jesus and Martha. Martha has come a long way, never losing her focus on Christ even in her grief.

Yet, after such a moment, she also doesn't forget her sister, Mary, who is still at home mourning.

Martha is both loving and practical to the bone. We have an unmistakable example of that practicality when Jesus is getting ready to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Read more. St. Martha, pray for us!

A Hermit in Maryland?

Who could resist wanting to know someone with such a joyful face? That's Sr. Mary Veronica of the Holy Face--one of two canonical hermits in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Margaret Canabiss of Inside Catholic recently interviewed Sr. Mary Veronica:

t's a very contemplative lifestyle. It's not an easy life -- you give up the world. We're still in the world but not of the world. There's a lot of self-discipline involved: Other religious are in community, so they'd go to prayer together, while I go to prayer by myself. You have to touch base with someone to make sure you're staying on target and not going off the deep end in the woods by yourself -- a spiritual director, a confessor. I touch base with my pastor occasionally. So you're a loner, although you're not really a lone ranger.

The funny thing is, you don't realize that there are hermits out there until you become one, and then this whole world opens up. You find out that there are hermits everywhere, all over the world. They're not all canonical, they're not all Roman Catholic, but they're out there.

...

My husband John used to say, "If anything happens to me, Mary's probably going in the convent," so I think some people were expecting it more than I was. But it's still been hard for them. My son and his wife have been very supportive from the very beginning, but they just had a baby, and they live five minutes away. . . It would be so easy if I packed my bag and went to the train station and kissed everybody goodbye, but that didn't happen -- I'm still in the neighborhood. I can see them occasionally, if they come for a visit, but they can't stay for the whole day.

I gave up all of that to pray -- to live in silence and solitude and simplicity. However, I can be in contact with people: I have an e-mail address and I'm in contact with other hermits and with my son. I have a phone, but after my family and friends came to my profession Mass, it stopped ringing. I think then people really understood a lot more.

What a remarkable witness. Read the whole interview.

Lessons from Mother Teresa

Day after day, hour after hour, He asks the same question: "Will thou refuse to do this for Me?" -- Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light

My spiritual book of the month is the now-famous book of the letters of Mother Teresa which were published in 2007. Though I bought it when it was first made available, I am not really getting around to it until now. I like to think that the Holy Spirit directs me to read certain books that I have on my shelf when I need them the most. (Maybe I'm just justifying the fact that I buy too many to read right away.) For some reason, I picked this off the shelf and am making my way through it and hopefully finishing before the new year begins. So far, three things have stood out to me:

1) I am so struck by the difficulty Mother Teresa faced in starting the Missionaries of Charity. It is incredible how many letters she wrote to get it off the ground with Rome. She was completely faithful to the process and to her superiors, but she refused to quit her pleading. I can see her digging her heels into the ground in Loreto, foregoing despair and holding onto her conviction. It's a beautiful image I have in my mind, and an example to us all. She had every confidence that Jesus would work through the process of obeying authority (a good reminder for me at work!).

2) She describes the imperative from Jesus to start the Missionaries of Charity as a "call within a call." I think this is perhaps the most important contribution to the theology of vocations that we've had in a long time. It's easy to break down the vocations into single, religious, or married, and to leave them at that. But every vocation, whether single, married, or religious, or the vocation to work or to serve...all have little "calls within the larger call." How many times does God shatter the image of our own vocation by introducing something new into it and calling us to something unexpected?

3) Mother Teresa's discussion of cheerfulness is one of the most beautiful that I've read. In fact, when asked why type of woman would be recruited for the M.C., she answered, "Girls from the age of16 and upwards. -- Strong in body and mind with splenty of common sense. -- They must be able to put their hands to any kind of work however repugnant to human nature. They must be of bright, cheerful disposition."

Earlier in the book, she describes what she means by cheerfulness. I think it's written for me!

"When I see someone sad," she would say, "I always think, she is refusing something to Jesus." It was in giving Jesus whatever He asked that she found her deepest and lasting joy; in giving Him joy she found her own joy. "Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice, continual union with God, fervor and generosity. A person who has this gift of cheerfulness very often reaches a great height of perfection. For God loves a cheerful giver and He takes close to His heart the religious He loves.

Woman Warrior of the Month: St. Monica Part 3

She was trained 'in your fear' by the discipline of your Christ, by the government of your only Son in a believing household through a good member of your Church.

In his Confessions, St. Augustine gives some of the most beautiful portrayals of his mother, St. Monica -- this month's woman warrior. Augustine describes his mother as woman who was able to win people over because of her gentleness and patience, and her reputation as a peacemaker. We know that she endured an unfaithful, pagan husband -- who could be gentle or violent. She prayed for his conversion, and she gently shared the Word with him. On his deathbed, he was baptized. She endured the wayward life of her son, Augustine -- about whom St. Ambrose famously told her "A child of this many tears will never be lost."

One of the most beautiful passages of Monica is the account of her death in Ostia - the port city just outside of Rome (which the picture above depicts). While Monica was on her deathbed, she and her son had a conversation fit for these saintly souls. Their conversation about the after-life led them to "the conclusion that the pleasure of the bodily senses, however delightful in the radiant light of the physical world, is seen by comparison with the life of eternity to be not even worth considering." They contemplated together that eternal wisdom that is the Word itself. And when Augustine writes that he 'closed her eyes,' we know that that the Lord took her soul directly to His bosom.

Thank you, Lord for this wonderful woman. May you teach us how to emulate her virtues of perseverance in prayer, patience, gentleness, and the ability to endure the crosses we are given in this life. St. Monica, pray for us!

Woman Warrior of the Month: St. Monica, Part 2

(I wanted to title the post "Locksmiths are expensive, or: My goodness, I wish I had St. Monica's Patience." but I went with the more prosaic title above. It's probably for the best. Anyway...)

Continuing our Women Warrior of the Month series, in Septmeber we are honoring St. Monica. And I certainly was glad for her advocacy last night.

You see...I've been borrowing a friend's car while she's home taking care of her family. And I had to pop out to the store to get some munchies for a dinner party Julian and I are going to tonight. I was lazy. I drove. And then I locked myself out of the car.

3 hours, 15 calls to the locksmith, and $179.00 later, I was heading home. Instead of checking off all the things on my to-do list (including writing an eloquent and delightful post about St. Monica) I had sat on the street for so long the ants and crickets thought I was part of the scenery (and welcomed me heartily to the neighborhood).

But as I sat there, remarkably, I didn't fret. $179 (that I could have used for the furniture that my bed room so badly needs!) wasted--but what could I do; it's only money. 3 hours flying by, but what could I do; it's only time. I said a prayer for St. Monica--ever patient--and sat and waited.

I know. Waiting for a locksmith is nothing compared to waiting for your son to quit galavanting around, stealing pears, courting women, and picking new philosophies every few years. But who could possibly endure that trial without the grace to endure every little matter that comes in front of you in day to day life. St. Monica had both a difficult marriage, and a difficult motherhood, but she endured it all with patience, and her time of waiting bore great fruit.

St. Monica: thanks for helping me to be patient last night. Give me the courage to face each new obstacle with patience and prudence, and to both look for God's will,a nd hope for the time when I shall know why each trial has been given to me.


St. Monica, pray for us!

Woman Warrior of the Month: St. Monica Part 1

Today we are each writing a post in honor of September's Woman Warrior: St. Monica, whose feast day was August 27th. This woman and sister in Christ is so incredible that she really could be every month's nominee. I could go on and on about her, but I will just tell you a little of why she is so important of a model to me.

We are taught by our Church that the pinnacle of femininity is reached in motherhood, that the "crown of a marriage" lies in children, or the visible fruits of the love between a man and a woman. I tend to stay in the shallow end of the teaching and focus on the procreative part of the feminine vocation and the married vocation...stopping at the conception and birth of children as if that is the fullness the Church is speaking of.

St. Monica's fruit was St. Augustine, but not Augustine as an infant. The fruit of her femininity was the same fruit of her labors of prayer, fasting, and modeling the faith - it was Augustine the man, the scholar, the preacher, the convert, and the saint. St. Monica is the exemplar of receiving the task that God has given you and laboring until you have made it worthy enough to glorify Him. How often do I do a mediocre job on things that are in front of me? How often do I fail to really work at my vocation of singleness? Will I accept a satisfactory job this school year as I prepare to teach young high school women, or will I pray, study, and fast so that their souls are opened to the Lord?

Thank you St. Monica, for your beautiful example.

And as a sidenote, thanks for teaching me that it's okay to love wine...just in moderation.

(Picture found here)

A True Woman Warrior

Here's to Eunice Shriver, who served life in all of its stages and in all of its unique packages. Thanks for teaching us women how to serve our country, our culture, and our Church. Resquiat in pacem.

Humble Hope

“To God who has so abundantly blessed the church through the Dominican Order; may the Order of Preachers, under the mantle of the Mother of God, continue to flourish in fraternal love purified in obedience to the truth.”
--Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P.


(HT: Whispers)

Courage in Art

Yesterday was the feast of St. Maria Goretti, and you should check out Julian's thoughts about this amazing saint, posted yesterday. Meanwhile I wanted to share with you a quick thought and a link.

When I realized it was her feast day yesterday morning, I went immediately to do a Google Image Search of her name to find an icon that we could put up on the blog. Aside from a grainy image of her incoroupt body, the only images I could find were in the sappy wide-eyed innocent holy card style. I grew up with those images, and I love them in a way, but they never do her, or any saint justice.

Of course I also grew up hearing the story of St. Maria Goretti repeated, as it is often done to catholic school girls, to me and my friends. But it wasn't until college, when a feisty Dominican professor told us on the verge of tears the story of her martyrdom that I really was moved by her life and death. He told a story of bold, almost rash, courage which defied the world and its false promises, and then, when victorious, turned gentle and gracious. I didn't look around when he finished the story, but I was certain there wasn't a dry eye.

So when I look at those sickly/innocent drawings of a little girl, I see none of her strength. St. Maria Goretti is all the more remarkable for having been a young girl when she died. But she was no child--she was more adult, and yet more innocent, than I will ever be, and to think of her as a sweet little school girl is to miss the point.

Then, stumbling through Google Images, I came across this stunning painting, by Noah Buchanan for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Maria Goretti stands, facing us, engaging our eyes, in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But most striking of all is Allessandro Serenelli, her murderer, bound on the floor, reaching up to the lily Maria is giving him. This painting, to me, tells the whole story, with its pain, its grace, its strength, and its love.

On the Virtue of Courage

I just read a great news article on the Bishop of Scranton, PA, who has threatened to close down St. Patrick's day celebrations if any pro-abortion 'Catholic' political officials are honored at the celebrations. Awesome. Be sure to check out the story. How we need such courageous bishops, who are not moved by concern for human respect but instead unwaveringly stand up for the truth.

Anyway, it inspired me to reflect on the virtue of courage. Courage is typically considered a manly virtue, not one that we women should readily exhibit. But we know that's wrong. To that effect, if you get the chance -- I must recommend the recent German film Sophie Scholl: Die Letzen Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Last Days). Sophie Scholl was a student in Nazi Germany who, along with her brother Hans and several other students began the resistance movement the White Rose Society. They were murdered by guillotine by the Nazis on February 22, 1943. Tomorrow is the anniversary of their death... Wow, the film was so powerful and was based upon recently discovered interviews Sophie had with her Nazi interrogators. She was so brave, and I hope that she will inspire me with some of her courage to take up the fight for human dignity that she begun under the Nazis.

Anyway, on the virtue of courage. As you know, it is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit conferred upon us at the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines courage as "the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life." It is the virtue that enables us to conquer all fears, even the fear of death. Courage gives us the strength to heed our Lord's words and "pick up our Cross and follow Him."

Our church is full of some of the most fantastic women of courage! St. Edith Stein, St. Agatha, St. Cecelia, St. Agnes, Bl. Mother Teresa, and the list goes on and on. In some ways, I think feminine courage is even more beautiful than the masculine display of this virtue. Courageous women reveal Christ in a unique way to the world. It takes courage to trust in the Lord in all that we do. We must be brave, we must be willing to face so many obstacles when we seek to do God's will. But we do practice courage, we seek to do God's will because we love Him. And as St. Edith Stein, one of the most courageous women I know of, says, "No spiritual work comes into the world without great suffering. It always challenges the whole person".

Put a Ring on It

Sorry for not posting recently. I've been proctoring midterm exams, grading 200 essays, and lesson planning for next week. Thank goodness for a five-day weekend!

I don't particularly have an "intelligent" topic for the post, but I just wanted to provide a few thoughts. Yesterday I went to the first of two book clubs I'm in (to exercise my brain in other subjects besides theology), and I was so excited to think, banter, and work through things with my colleagues. We read Plato's Meno, which is a Socratic dialogue about the definition of virtue. It was fascinating to see how the characters worked through particular virtues in order to arrive at the essence of virtue across the board. In the end, Socrates says that virtue can neither be taught nor learned, but rather is given by "divine dispensation." I took this to mean (in the Christian tradition), how ultimately perfecting a life of virtue (for him, completely overcoming vice) is aided by divine grace. True enough, but I am still wondering if trial and error through experience might be a better, more natural, temporal, and human way of living the happy life. Anyway, my friend and I went to see Bride Wars afterwards in order to do something mindless. The script was very bad, but the dresses were stunning!

I also must admit that I am a really big fan of Beyonce's new album (not it's cover), not only because the beats are good for working out, but because many of her songs are actually empowering for women (and believe it or not she has a really great version of Ave Maria with modern lyrics about Mary throughout!). Anyway, I recommend checking it out. Though I'm a fan of the beats in hip hop and R&B, I find that the lyrics usually degrade women. Anyway, I'm ready to workout again today and feel positive about myself, my feminity, and my body. Hope you feel the same. :)

Elizabeth

Edith, great post.  I'm mulling over the Carrie Bradshaw thoughts (and thinking about styles of shoes), but I wanted to make sure that I commented on the final quote from Edith Stein, who is always so in tune with human nature.  I think that Elizabeth, cousin of the Blessed Virgin, embodies this desire for perfection in others.  So often we think of Mary at Christmas when we celebrate her "yes" to the Lord (as we rightfully should since all of salvation hangs in the balance!).  But I think that Elizabeth also teaches us what it means to be a woman and a follower of Christ.  She recognizes Mary no longer as a younger relative, but as the mother of her Redeemer.  She knows that she herself will give birth to the one who will announce the Good News.  She has the responsibility of rearing John who will proclaim the Incarnation and the Good News.  Elizabeth is a model of humility, foregoing jealousy, and the practice of domesticity.  We, like Elizabeth, should welcome the Virgin into our hearts as we welcome her Son under our own roof (in the Christmas Eucharist).  We, like Elizabeth, should prepare ourselves and those around us for the continual Incarnation of Christ.  We are daughters of God, adopted daughters of Mary, and sisters to Elizabeth.  Here is a basis of our womanhood, even if it still remains a mystery.