I’ve been reading the book and will have a lot more to say about it on Tuesday, but I can tell you this much… Catholic or not, mom or not, if you have an interest in, or curiosity about the saints, get this book. And it is a unique gift to Catholic moms, catechists, small faith sharing groups and others who will be able to read and use this book with joy and gratitude.
I’m still here… I just spent a bit longer than I planned on writing a post for one of my other two blogs; it will publish early Monday morning over at Pastoral Postings. Now this… and all the other homework I have, plus a presentation that I have to give on Thursday. Oh well, this first.
Busy with what you ask? Well, busy with blogger meet ups galore – which I love. I have lost count of how many blogger/Facebook meet-ups I have been richly blessed to have.
Earlier in October I got to have an amazingly fun and all-too-short lunch with Rambling Follower – aka, Allison, her husband and her two wonderful sons, Gabe, when they were in the area for a wedding.
This past Friday I had multiple meet ups/re-meet-ups! I was invited to the Sapientia et Doctrina awards dinner at Fordham University by my beloved friend Mike Hayes. Mike has done many things, such as co-found Busted Halo, the first web magazine for young Catholics, which still stands mighty in that arena. In fact – this was the reason that Mike was being honored,for all his work in online ministry! He has both undergrad and graduate degrees from Fordham. Mike is also well known for his book, Googling God and the blog of the same name.
Before I headed off to that event however, I did meet a Facebook friend, who blogs at Daily Exegesis, Janine Economides. If I love to follow a thread, it is when I see mutual friends of other friends of mine on Facebook, who have no other visible connection. In this case Janine was friends with Beth Cioffoletti, whom I first “met” in the comments at America magazine. (Beth blogs at multiple places, here is Louie, Louie.I hope to have a meet up with her one day too!) Janine was also friends with Paul Strid, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian. (whom I have met!)
In any event, Janine and I started to interact online and I began to read her Daily Exegesis blog. Her writing and insights are particularly moving to me and I highly recommend her work. In any case, it was a time of pure delight to meet her, even eating, literally – ok, almost literally, in the shadow of my old workplace near NYU. We had a lovely lunch and I even got to meet her husband Nick.
Then it was off to meet Rosemary Azzaro, (that’s Rosemary with Mike Hayes and with me in that photo above), a Facebook friend that I met via the aforementioned Mike Hayes and Paul Snatchko. Now we stayed at Rosemary’s sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s apartment, which they are not currently living in. As it turns out in the tiny-cute-6-degrees-world-of-Fran, I know her brother-in-law, who was my client at Nielsen for many years. Go figure! Anyway, Ro and I had the most amazing time. I am grateful for her hospitality and her friendship!
Ro and I headed up to Fordham and got to meet all kinds of amazing people. First of all, we were welcomed like we were long lost and beloved alums, reminding me of the greatness of Catholic community at its very best.
It was great to see Mike and to finally meet his wonderful wife, Marion. Mike’s dad, an amazing human being, was also there and what a delight to meet him too! Both Mike’s dad, who seems to have a heart as big as the world and his wife Marion, touched me. Marion is clearly a deep, funny, wise and tender person and immediatey I knew that I had made a fine new friend.
Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, of Homeboy Industries, who was being awarded the Gaudium et Spes award and he would be the keynote speaker. I had met Fr. Greg in LA last year and read his remarkable book, Tattoos on the Heart soon thereafter. It was such a treat to say hello to him in person again.
By the way – his keynote… not a dry eye in the house. He is brilliant, simply brilliant and his message of hope built on love in action should be shouted from every pulpit.
I also had the pleasure of meeting someone that I have admired for so many, many years, Kathleen Deignan. Kathleen, a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame is an accomplished theologian, musician, educator and someone passionate about the ecology of the world and all its peoples. Kathleen is a professor at Iona College, but she is most well known for her work with (note: music plays when you open this link!) Scola Ministries.
I first became familiar with Kathleen through her music, when I used to attend liturgies at The Benedictine Grange, in Redding, CT, in the 90′s. What liturgy was like there is probably a topic worth returning to in another post. In any case, I have long loved her work and I did become FB friends with her at some point.
It was truly a gift to meet her, especially when I introduced myself, feeling a bit like a liturgy-geek-stalker, which is not completely off the mark, and Kathleen knew who I was from Facebook! She could not have been warmer or kinder and I can’t believe that after all this time, we have met.
Another person that I was thrilled to meet was Zeni Fox. Zeni is a theologian and a professor at Seton Hall. She is well known for her work in lay ministry. (As you can imagine, this is a favorite topic of mine!) Once more, I encountered someone friendly and warm, and like every other person that I met, completely unassuming and so wonderfully kind.
There were lots of other people I met, like Lu Doyle, Ann Heekin and others. What a night!
The next day was best of all, when I had lunch with a treasured friend who I have known since college. She is “teh awesome,” and our two hours together flew by as if in a minute. Then it was back on the train, Albany bound.
My life is so richly blessed with so many people. Everyone that I met and encountered on Friday and Saturday were filled with the spirit of gathering us as one. It is a beautiful thing and I am so deeply grateful.
Here is some lovely music from Kathleen Deignan to close out the post…
(Please note that I meant to publish this the other day, before Simchat Torah began, not today as it draws to a close! Better late than never!) This post came from an experience that I had in June of 2008, over three years ago. I fished the old story out because I was reminded recently that Simchat Torah is coming. Simchat Torah is the Jewish holiday celebrated at the point in the year when the reading of Torah portions is completed. It is a very joyous time.
Before I get to that, I must add that my own first serious awareness of Simchat Torah came on a warmish October night in 1993. I was at an appointment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in a street level office in a residential building. There was a Hasidic shul down the street.
As we were talking I suddenly heard noise, commotion, singing! What was that, I wondered. My host must have seen a look on my face because she asked me if I knew what the noise was and I said that I did not.
In 2008 I attended my friend’s son’s bar mitzvah and heard an amazing story about how and why torah and scripture come to life. It is about absolute participation and not about observation!
At the temple where the bar mitzvah happened, they have an old miniature Torah at the temple. It came into their possession almost by accident. This Torah is about 300 years old and is from Poland. It was copied by a Kabbalist scribe.
Miniature means not pocket sized, but much smaller than what one would find in the ark in the temple. These “smaller” Torah were carried by itinerant rabbis that crossed the countryside stopping to teach in villages too small and too poor to have their own shul.
When this particular scroll came to its present home it was moldy and had many stains on the pages. Apparently it also had a terrible smell! It had been wrapped in plastic and was in a closet – discarded and forgotten.
This Torah had survived the Holocaust however.
Anyway, once it came to the community that now owns it, they began to use it… Smells, stains and all. Torah is Torah, right? However, this is what is so remarkable… the more that this community used it, the stains began to diminish and the smell dissipated.
I do not bring this up to illustrate some magical mystery hocus pocus. Not at all.
Simply to say, that for those of us who believe, the Word is the Word. And the Word is alive.
Like we are.
If I were to shove you at the back of a closet and ignore you for many years, you too would be damaged. However like the Torah scroll that I saw, opening this, using this, loving this back into being can transform it.
What a beautiful thing and such a comment on community and how we care for one another. And for those of us who are Christian, we need to remember that Jesus would have celebrated Simchat Torah and that not only did he love the law, but he is the Word itself. Thanks be to God.
If you have not read or heard about Fr. Robert Barron’s new (note – this link opens with live audio and video, be aware of sound if you are in a quiet place) Catholicism project, I urge you to read and hear and hear all about it. This major undertaking by Fr. Barron, best known for his Word on Fire ministry, appears pretty remarkable on all fronts.
Recently I was invited to be part of a reading roundtable about this book at the Take and Read page found on the Patheos Catholic portal, and I submitted a review. My review begins…
I have started this book review so many times, I can’t even begin to count them. I write and write and write and yet I can’t seem to find the right words to adequately express my thoughts about Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism.
Put simply: Barron’s book may be one of the best things that I have ever read about our faith. (Continue reading a this link…)
There are no comments over there, but if you would like to add something, come on back and leave a comment here at the blog.
Random Acts of Momness is a blog hosted by Catholic author Ginny Kubitz Moyer. If Ginny’s name is familiar to you it could be from her book, Mary and Me or from her work at Busted Halo,Catholic Mom, or US Catholic, just to name a few! (Here is a nice summary of Ginny’s work.) I have really come to love reading Ginny’s blog, a place that I find filled with wisdom, insight, humor and more. While Ginny’s name was certainly familiar to me from all sources listed above and from Mike Hayes’ blog, Googling God, it was ultimately and more recently through Mike Leach’s Why Stay Catholic blog that I got to know Ginny a bit better. (BTW, Mike has convinced many people to stay Catholic, how can we convince Mike to stay blogging?)
In any case, Ginny has a regular feature where Catholics share their experiences about the best gift that their mother gave to them. As I read these posts I would think about how much I would love to write such a piece, even if it did not end up on Ginny’s page. So I began to tinker with a post about my mother and the lessons that she taught me about death. Of all the gifts that my mama gave to me, this gift has been one of the best of all. After all – how do we live without death?
In any event, imagine my shock and surprise when Ginny asked me to submit an essay. I was knocked over and then I got up and edited what I had begun. Thank you Ginny for prompting me to say something that has been on my heart for a long time. What a reminder that our Catholic Christian faith is never about God and us alone, but about how we are transformed by others in Christ’s name. What that I point you to the result of Ginny’s invitation and my efforts. This was published over at her place today and if you are so inclined, head on over there. It begins like this…
It was August 1966 and I was almost 9. We were temporarily living in an apartment in a Victorian house, which also happened to be a funeral home.
The apartment had its own entrance, segregating the living and the dead. One day my mother decided it was time for us to have “the talk.” Being Irish-Catholic, “the talk” was not about sex! No, “the talk” was about death, a favorite topic of many Irish Catholics, my mama chief among them. (continue reading…)
I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a pine…. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me.
Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song…. At times my heart cries out with longing to see these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight.
Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted…. It is a great pity that, in the world of light, the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life. – Helen Keller
If you are reading this blog, you, like me, have the gift of vision. My eyes are not what they used to be; I used to have super-sharp vision and did not need glasses of any sort until I was about 45 and even then, I could get away with a lot if I could not find any of my supply of drug store readers. Now I must have my glasses on if I am to read anything other than the largest print.
We have eyes but what do we see? This is a good question for us to ponder perhaps.
The world is filled with wonder, the world is filled with need, the world is filled… but what do we see?
I know if I ask “Do you see what I see?” that the answers will vary, even when we are looking at the exact same thing!
What is really on my heart though is all that we do not see, by choice or circumstance. There is wonder and beauty everywhere, it makes me feel as if I should be falling on my knees in gratitude instead of all of my endless complaining.
(This is a rosary made for me and given to me by my Episcopalian friend Maria, known to some of you by her brilliant and wise blog, Kirkepiscatoid.)
It happened like this… it was February 1989 and I was truly miserable. When I say miserable, I mean deeply so – to the core of my being. My soul was pretty shriveled, but not dead yet.
The reasons for my misery are not to be chronicled here. Some of them were circumstantial and some were chosen; more the latter actually. At the time if you had told me that I would have screamed at you to shut up, to get away, it was not my fault! Looking back, I was doing what I learned and that was yet to be undone.
Doing the only thing I knew to relieve myself of my pain, I got on a plane and flew to Paris. My life was so unhappy that I felt like there was no way to get any peace unless I literally left the country! And alone, thank you very much. This was isolating brought to high art.
Paris in February of 1989 was cold, gray and dank. All the better, I thought! This all suited my tragically hip loner vision that I was trying to uphold, wandering Paris, drinking coffee, reading books in cafes for hours at a time and generally brooding.
However, this time I really was deeply broken, and I found it hard to keep up my international woman of mystery vision for myself.
As I would always do when I got to Paris, (OK, this was just my third trip, but hey – three’s a charm, right?), I would almost immediately make my way to Montmartre and go to The Basilica of Sacre Coeur. This was one of the very first places I saw during my first visit to Paris and it made such an impression upon me.Now I may have been far from the Roman Catholic Church at that time, but I loved seeking out Catholic churches in my travels. My loner-self was deeply into my own little spiritual-but-not-religious (no offense to my beloved SBNR friends, but sorry, this is how my story goes and it does not judge you) self-styled Jesus-Mary-’n-Me thing. (Which turned out – for me anyway – to be a big FAIL.)
In any case, I jumped on the Paris metro at the St. Michel stop and find myself at the Basilica a short time later, feeling overwhelmed and sad. When I get inside on this cold, wet, winter weekday, the church is practically empty, so I wander around, lighting candles and spitting out prayers. I stop at a side chapel that holds an image of Mary and I sit. Suddenly, my attention is redirected. No- this isn’t some Happy-Jesus-Magic story, but rather something caught in me, instead of just being another piece of debris in the river of my mind.
There I stay for some time, and in my heart I am telling Mary everything and I do mean everything. Jesus seemed a bit inaccessible to me at that time, as did God. However, Mary was right there with me and I was ready to spill the beans to her, and spill I did.
After a long period of time and feeling greatly relieved, I was ready to go, but I decided to stop by the little gift shop first. A blue-beaded rosary caught my eye and something made me buy those beads.
For a time during the trip and as I returned home, I would just clutch them. Then I decided that I should re-learn the prayer I had long forgotten. Oh yes – I knew that it was “OneOurFatherTenHailMarys” but what about the mysteries? So I asked my sister in law how to pray the rosary and she sent me a brochure from the Marian Helpers and I was on my way.
What a clunky way that was – brochure in one hand, beads in the other! However, slowly I relearned what I had forgotten. I had no idea how this would change my life! In fact, that very clunky-ness came as a benefit… I was not focused on where any of this would lead me, but rather just determined to “learn” to pray this way. It kept me – counter-intuitively – in the present moment.
That Mother Mary, she knows what she is doing and so does her Son.
In any case, I will end this chapter of my unlikely life story here for today and simply urge you to consider the Rosary. Catholic or not Catholic, interested or not interested – maybe the beads will help you find a focus and some peace. Either way, I wish all peace and good to everyone on this Feast of the Holy Rosary!
And from Father James Martin, SJ – some words of wisdom about this form of prayer. As he says quotes his spiritual director in the video, “I look at God and God looks at me!”
On Tuesday we will have a special day here at the blog. Tuesday is All Saints Day and it is also the day when we host the blog tour for Lisa Hendey, from CatholicMom.com, who is out in her virtual VW bus, promoting her latest release, A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms, from Ave Maria Press.
I’ve been reading the book and will have a lot more to say about it on Tuesday, but I can tell you this much… Catholic or not, mom or not, if you have an interest in, or curiosity about the saints, get this book. And it is a unique gift to Catholic moms, catechists, small faith sharing groups and others who will be able to read and use this book with joy and gratitude.
