Cooperating with God through Redemptive Suffering

As a pregnant mother approaching the arrival of our newborn baby, I know, as any mother does, that I am going to face the suffering of labor and childbirth. There is great anticipation as we await meeting our newborn daughter face-to-face, but I know that to get there, there is going to be some pain. Love and life, as it turns out, go hand-in-hand with suffering.

Something that has been particularly helpful as I approach the birth of our baby is the Church’s understanding of suffering with Christ and joining with Him in redemptive suffering. When we suffer—whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually—we get to join our suffering with the suffering of Christ and offer it up for the conversion of sinners. We get to cooperate with the grace God gives us in suffering that He may offer His grace into the life of another—even the grace of conversion. As Christians, we are not to shy away from suffering, but to take whatever suffering He places upon us and give it back to Him to use as He sees fit. The gift of suffering was emphasized in a class I took from the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation. We do not get to choose what crosses we will bear, but we do get to choose what we will do with the crosses placed upon us. We must change our understanding of suffering—in whatever form it may take—and thank God for the gift of suffering, as suffering truly joins us to Christ and conforms us to Him. We become Christ when we suffer willingly and offer our life with His, as part of His Body, for the redemption of the world. 

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (1:24). Jesus’ sacrifice is no doubt the perfect sacrifice, but what Paul refers to here is that we join in Christ’s sufferings for the good of the Church. God offers us a chance to participate in redemptive suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads:

The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “one mediator between God and men.” But because in his incarnate divine person He has in some way united Himself to every man, “the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” is offered to all men… In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering. (618)

As ones who are joined to Christ in His Body, we actually get to suffer in and with Christ. Our suffering matters not only because it joins us to Jesus, but because, with Jesus and with Mary, we suffer for the life of the world. If we let pain come willingly as from the hand of God, we can ask God to use that pain for the redemption of another. We can ask Him for the grace to suffer well, and with that suffering we experience, for Him to bring new life to another.

All too often, my response to suffering of any kind is to complain. It is an instant response, like a reflex. Trying to change my response is quite difficult, because I can be so reactionary. But with prayer and time and lots of grace, I hope I can change my response to suffering to be one of gratitude. I pray that with every pang, I remember that it is for life that I suffer, and out of love offer it to God to do what he wills. I pray He will purify my suffering and bring new life into the kingdom with the grace of conversion. 

Suffering is not unknown to God. He knows what to do with our suffering; we simply need to offer it all to Him. 

St. Monica’s Prayerful Tears: The Cause of Conversion

I first encountered St. Monica when I read St. Augustine’s Confessions my freshman year in college. Sadly, I do not think I reflected on her as much as I should have, and only more recently have I thought about what an incredible and faithful woman she is. For although she is not present in much of the book, only showing up here and there, we cannot underestimate the critical role she played in St. Augustine’s life—a role that fueled Augustine’s road to the Catholic Church and his path to sainthood. Her prayers lie behind her son’s conversion.

For years, this woman prayed unceasingly for the salvation of her son, Augustine, now one of the most widely known and influential saints in the Church. St. Monica’s prayers brought Augustine from death to Life. Augustine writes in his Confessions:

And You sent Your hand from above, and raised my soul out of that depth of darkness, because my mother, Your faithful one, wept to You for me more bitterly than mothers weep for the bodily deaths of their children. For by the faith and the spirit which she had from You, she saw me as dead; and You heard her, Lord. You heard her and did not despise her tears when they flowed down and watered the earth against which she pressed her face wherever she prayed. You heard her. (III.xi.19)

What I find so inspiring about this saint is she never gave up praying. She prayed knowing that the effects of prayer are real, and that God offers His mercy and grace through our prayers. She knew deep in her heart that prayer makes a difference in our lives and the lives of others, and her life reflected the reality of prayer and of hope for salvation. Even a bishop told her, “as sure as you live, it is impossible that the son of these tears should perish” (III.xii.21). 

It is all too easy for prayer to fall to the background of our lives amidst the business and noise of the world, but if we know what is at stake—the salvation of souls—and what is conveyed through prayer and sacrifice—grace—then how could we ever cease praying for the salvation of souls? And yet, I am guilty of this, time and time again, losing the sense of urgency I ought to have in the desire to see more saved by the grace of God. And this is why St. Monica is so pertinent to every one of our lives. If we ask, this champion of prayer will pray for us—for our own change of heart and for us to become steadfast in prayer—and for the conversion of those we so love. 

For all her tears and her prayers, God gave St. Monica hope that she would see her son in the Church before she died. Augustine writes, “she bewailed me as one dead certainly, but certainly to be raised again by You, offering me in her mind as one stretched out dead, that You might say to the widow’s son: Young man, I say to thee, arise:and he should sit up and begin to speak and You should give him to his mother” (VI.i.1). Even as she was sure he would become Catholic, she never ceased praying. Augustine writes, “But to You, O Fount of mercy, she multiplied her prayers and her tears that You should hasten Your help and enlighten my darkness” (VI.i.1). She never stops praying. Even as she is given incredible hope and consolation that she will see him filled with the grace of God, she prays with great urgency that he would be brought into the Church so he would not be in bondage to false teachers any longer.

St. Monica lived for prayer, and she prayed knowing the life of her son depended on it. At the end of her life, after God granted her the desire of her heart to see her son faithful to the Church and growing in holiness, she no longer knows what is left for her to do on earth. She says to Augustine:

Son, for my own part I no longer find joy in anything in this world. What I am still to do here and why I am here I know not, now that I no longer hope for anything from this world. One thing there was, for which I desired to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This God has granted me in superabundance, in that I now see you His servant to the contempt of all worldly happiness. What then am I doing here? (IX.x.26).

Her life’s mission was to pray. In no earthly thing did she find satisfaction. The request of her prayers was brought to fruition, and after that, all that was left for her was to see the face of Christ, to bask in the presence of God. 

God saw Monica’s tears, He heard her prayers, and He granted her pleas with abundant grace. If only we all prayed like she did, how many more would be saved? But similarly, if we begin to pray and continue steadfast in our prayers, how many will be saved? It makes me think of what Our Lady of Fatima said in the fourth apparition: “Pray, pray much, and sacrifice for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to sacrifice and pray for them.” Her words are both convicting and motivating. Prayer makes a difference, and we must pray like it does, because it does make a difference. In God there is hope, and we pray because we hope.

St. Monica, pray for us! 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! 

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and save us!

Windows into Heaven

The Eastern Church in the 8^th century experienced the “iconoclastic controversy.” The main controversy was over the veneration of icons (holy images of Jesus, Mary, the Saints &c.). Those who thought icons ought not be used destroyed icons (hence the name “icon-smasher”). Saint John of Damascus responds to this controversy in On the Divine Images. He says, “I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. I do not depict the invisible divinity, but I depict God made visible in the flesh” (I.4). We do not have to be wary of images of God, for God is our Savior, Jesus Christ. When we see an image of Jesus, we simply see God as a man, as he really is. Thus, it is through Jesus who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) that icons become a testament to the truth about our Savior.

Christ is the Image of God, so in Him, we see the Image of the Creator. St. John of Damascus states, “now that God has been seen in the flesh and has associated with human kind, I depict what I have seen of God. I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation” (I.16). Through icons, we see reality—the reality that God is with us in the flesh. As it is written in Colossians, “For in him the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20 RSV-CE). God became incarnate and suffered as a human being so we may be united to him through participation in His Divine life. To reject icons is to reject that God became true man and thus can be depicted in an image.

A further defense that our Lord became matter—and thus can be seen in an icon—is that we receive Him in the Eucharist. As St. John of Damascus rightly points out, “is not the body and blood of my Lord matter?” (I.16). We do not only see that God came to us in the flesh through icons; God comes to us substantially in the Eucharist through which we experience His physical presence in the matter through which we receive our salvation. It is in this union with God that we are made truly human. Christ as the Image of the living God is the same Christ who restores the distorted Image of God in fallen humanity.

For several years now, icons have been a beautiful reminder to me that God is a human being, that the Son took on flesh and blood to be with me, to be united to me, for me to be brought into His life. While He is the Image of God the Father, He is also the Image of the Human Being; he is the new Adam, “the first-born of all creation” (Col. 1:15). In Christ, I see my humanity restored.

Icons are beautiful pieces of art that remind me that Jesus walked the earth and performed miracles and showed mercy and forgiveness to so many. They are reminders of salvation history and of the divine dwelling with humankind. But it is not until fairly recently that I have realized the great help that icons offer the faithful in prayer to focus our attention on the person of Christ, and specifically, to realize His real, human relationship with each of us.

There is something about gazing on the face of Christ in an icon that truly brings me close to Him. St. John of Damascus says, “For what the word of a story makes present through hearing, the very same is shown silently in a picture through imitation” (III.47). I cannot help but remember that Jesus is true man and true God, and someday, I will gaze on His face. Icons have been called windows into heaven, and they truly are. Looking into the eyes of Christ in an icon is a window into the mystery of what it means to look into the eyes of God. I know He sees me. And I know He bids me to see Him face to face. Looking on Him, I see my Hope, my Love, my Life. I am overwhelmed both by His perfect holiness and the perfect love of He who sees all things, of He who sees me.

As human beings, we are physical creatures. Physical objects mean something to us, as they often symbolize for us something greater or remind us of someone we love. As St. John of Damascus writes, “We therefore venerate the images, not by offering veneration to matter, but through them to those who are depicted in them” (III. 41). As physical manifestations of our love, we hug and we kiss one another. Because God is a human being in Jesus Christ, we can hang pictures of Him in our home. We can kneel before an icon of Jesus and talk to Him, even kiss the icon, as we would talk to a loved one we long to see and to hold. We are human beings, and God is, too. Let us gaze on the Image of God, who is also the Image of Man, and rest in the gaze of our Lord and our Lover.

His Friends are Ours, Too

Before I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, I never anticipated how comforting I would find the intercession of the saints. For me at the time, it was nice to know that the saints do pray for us and intercede on behalf of the Church. But when times become trying and you need a lot of trust in God, the saints can become integral in the peace that one knows in the midst of the craziness. My husband and I are grateful to have families and church family who help us and offer us advice. When we do not know what to do or get stuck in some situation, we all naturally turn to people we can trust. It is this way with God, and it can be this way with the saints in heaven, too. 

There are many decisions my husband and I have had to make recently, and more decisions to be made in the future, along with some unexpected things that have come up in the midst of this discerning. Through all of this, it is easy to become overwhelmed and anxious. Often, this is my response. But by the grace of God, He has granted me peace and help to not worry quite so much (though I know I still have a long way to go). Again and again, my husband and I have been in situations not knowing what will happen, but always, God has taken care of us and provided us with what we need, and I am confident He will do it again and is doing it this very moment. And part of the way He provides us with what we need is through the intercession of the saints.

We are people created for community. As such, He gave us the Church. He gave us the church on earth—the church militant—and the church in heaven—the church triumphant. Both are integral to strengthening our faith on earth, increasing our hope, and enflaming our love. We are not meant to live in isolation. We are meant to live in community with the Church in our time and the Church throughout time, and that includes the saints in heaven. In his memoir, An Immovable Feast, Tyler Blanski writes of coming to understand the communion of saints:

Jesus loves the Father with all his heart and he loves his neighbor as himself. And if the baptized faithful who have passed through death are alivein Christ, wouldn’t they do what Christ does? Wouldn’t they join the Son in bringing glory to the Father and interceding for man? In Revelation, John saw the saints in heaven offering to God the prayers of the saints on earth (5:8; cf. 6:9-10). The righteous in heaven can and do intercede for us, and “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (Jas 5:16). (192)

Even after death, those who love Christ and are joined to Him are invested in the lives of others who are trying to make it home to heaven. They do not cease to love their fellow human beings; rather, loving their neighbors and looking to Christ for His help, they continue to work in the lives of those on earth according to the gifts God has given them.

Mary has been a huge help to me, and I have written about her increasing role in my life which has coincided (not coincidentally) with the great growth in my relationship with her Son, Jesus. Now, I can say that I have additionally found great comfort in the intercession of St. Joseph. Looking at this foster father, I see a man of great character who provides everything his family needs in very trying and desperate times. I see a man who offers protection in quite dangerous situations. This man is a provider and a protector. Our Father in heaven ordained that this man would be the father of His Son on earth, and He offered him supernatural grace to accomplish a most difficult task—to become the husband of a virgin mother and the father of a son wanted dead from the time he was born. And in the midst of poverty he made a way to provide for his family’s needs. Furthermore, St. Joseph actually taught Jesus, the very Son of God. He directed and guided him, even was an authority to Jesus as his earthly guardian.

“I know by experience that this glorious saint helps in all. For His Majesty wishes to teach us that, as He was Himself subject to him on earth – for having the title of father, though only his guardian, St Joseph could command him – so in heaven the Lord does what he asks” (47-8).

Saint teresa of ávila

So what does any of this about St. Joseph’s relationship to his family—the Virgin Mother and the Son of God—have to do with us? St. Teresa of Avila wrote of him in her autobiography, “I know by experience that this glorious saint helps in all. For His Majesty wishes to teach us that, as He was Himself subject to him on earth – for having the title of father, though only his guardian, St Joseph could command him – so in heaven the Lord does what he asks” (47-8). When I first read this statement by St. Teresa, I was struck by it and still this understanding of St. Joseph has stuck with me. Our Lord asks us to humble ourselves before God and our neighbors. We often think of Jesus humbling Himself by becoming a human being, but He even went so far as to humble himself in obedience to a human father, and continues in heaven to offer him such respect and love as to do the same in heaven. 

None of this is to say that we cannot ask our Father in heaven to provide what we need. Of course we ought to do this. We ask Him to do this often when we pray “give us this day our daily bread” as Jesus taught us. But even as we pray this, we tell our family and friends our needs, even asking for help. And God wills that we are provided for by the hands of our neighbors. So too, God ordains that we are provided for through the prayers and intercessions of Jesus’ own foster father who cares for us as he cared for his wife and son on earth. St. Joseph was a guardian, a provider, and a protector when he lived on earth, and so he remains today in heaven as he intercedes for us, going to his son asking in love that He grant us what we need. 

Such love God offers us! Not only does He provide us a superabundance of His own unending love, but he grants us a whole community of brothers and sisters in the saints in heaven—friends in the Church triumphant who love us and desire our good. He grants us so much more than we could ever imagine. Just when we think Jesus could not offer any more to us, still he offers us ever more by giving us His friends to be ours.

The Incarnation and Choosing to be Thankful

Maybe it is that Thanksgiving came and Advent is coming, but I have been realizing just how ungrateful I have been and, in light of that, how much more I must remember Christ’s incarnation.

I often want to perfectly curate my situation and my daily schedule to what I think I need in this season of my life, but in fact it is only me trying to get what I want from my life right now. God has given me the life I have in this moment and I must submit to all of it–its particular work and people, and when these things do not change, I must be obedient and faithful to what God has given me to do. Not everything I do will feel rewarding or particularly invigorating, but the fact of the matter is I have been given certain things in my life to do that God actually wants me to do–joyfully and with thanksgiving and love–because they join me to Christ and more fully enable me to love.

God gives us the grace to live holy lives in each moment, and to reject certain moments or to live those moments with contempt is to reject His will and to hate what He has given me to strengthen and to teach me. He reveals Himself to us in every moment, in every season, and when I am ungrateful, I reject the ways in which He reveals Himself to me in my life in this moment.

Every time I complain, I forget Christ. I forget that He suffered in the flesh, and that He, too, participated in the work of the day and the keeping and running of a home. He grew up in a home and He worked as a carpenter. He participated in daily life and He loved perfectly. For only three years at the end of his life on earth did he begin his public ministry. For three years Jesus taught us what it is to love God and one another and He demonstrated it in His life and His love towards others. He taught and He loved–we see it in His public ministry, but He was already doing this perfectly in his quiet, hidden life at home and in His work.

Jesus lived a life of obedience to the will of the Father in every situation, in every season of His life. He was obedient and showed great humility in becoming even a child in the womb of a poor young woman. He grew and He loved and He worked and He lived the life of a faithful Jew in a faithful Jewish family. He taught the people and He fed the hungry and He healed the sick, and when it was time He faced death, though He asked for another way if it be the Father’s will, yet was obedient to death on a cross and the great suffering that led up to that death. He rose again and told Thomas to put his hand in His wound, in His very risen body.

In dwelling on what I want to happen now in my life, I forget all I have already been given, and I forget the incarnation of Christ who, humbling Himself, became a baby in the womb of His mother and grew and became a man. God is not unfamiliar with life and death on earth; he is not unfamiliar with humanity. He knows what it means to have a body and a soul, and to labor to sustain life–both His own and those in His care. In each season of His life, Jesus was faithful and obedient to His Father. He was not rushing for what was not yet to come, and He did not hesitate or hide from what was to come in an effort to have what was gone. Jesus embraced what was given Him and loved in the midst of every moment, even and especially in the midst of His sufferings.

Let us embrace what God has given us to do, no matter what the task, for in being given these things, God grants us humility and grace–the humility to know our weakness and to confess our sin, and the grace to, by his power, overcome sin and be strengthened by our weakness. We can offer our suffering, no matter how small or how seemingly petty, to God, and ask Him to use our suffering to join us to His Son. I am really trying to get better at this, and whenever I am tempted to complain about something, I must remember Jesus and offer myself and all I do for love of Him, remembering that what I do joins me to Him in His incarnation. My life partakes in the Life of God.

Oh my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the immaculate heart of Mary.

A Time for St. Teresa of Jesus, with St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

On this feast day of St. Teresa of Jesus (St. Teresa of Avila), I returned to the writings of my own patron saint, Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), who first introduced me to St. Teresa of Jesus, her own patron saint, in her essay, “Love for Love: The Life and Works of St. Teresa of Jesus“. Here, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross passed on to me a great love of and appreciation for this beautiful saint. The treasures to be mined from this saint are great, but I will only touch on the work she began, which Edith Stein saw as critical in keeping the spirit of St. Teresa of Jesus alive.

In the foreword to her essay, Edith Stein offers us a glimpse of her own experience as a Carmelite nun of the reformed order that St. Teresa of Avila established. The image St. Edith offers us is particularly helpful for us to see the importance of religious life and the work of monasteries in our modern time today, as she saw it in her own time during the Second World War. In the end of her foreward, she points us to St. Teresa of Jesus in Spain who lived during the time of the Inquisition and much division within the Church, that we might be moved by her life and her work and learn from this great saint.

“Yesterday in our monastery church we had perpetual adoration [forty hours devotion]. On such days, the faithful who are associated with our Carmel gather around the altar singing and praying from about six o’clock in the morning until about ten o’clock at night. Then the church is closed and during the night the sisters take turns keeping watch in the choir before the Blessed Sacrament. While outside in carnival’s frantic tumult people get drunk and delirious, while political battles separate them, and great need depresses them so much that many forget to look to heaven, at such still places of prayer hearts are opened to the Lord. In place of the cold, the contempt, that he receives out there, they offer him their warm love. They want to atone for the insults that the divine heart must endure daily and hourly. By their steadfast supplications, they draw down God’s grace and mercy on a humanity submerged in sin and need. In our time, when the powerlessness of all natural means for battling the overwhelming misery everywhere has been demonstrated so obviously, an entirely new understanding of the power of prayer, of expiation, and of vicarious atonement has again awakened. This is why people of faith crowd the places of prayer, also why, everywhere, there is a blazing demand for contemplative monasteries whose entire life is devoted to prayer and expiation… One almost feels transported into the time when our Holy Mother Teresa, the foundress of the reformed Carmel, traveled all over Spain from north to south and from west to east to plant new vineyards of the Lord. One would like to bring into our times also something of the spirit of this great woman who built amazingly during a century of battles and disturbances.” (29)

St. Edith portrays beautifully the work of the monastery, the beacons of light that they are as places of peace and conversion of heart. This is the work St. Teresa of Avila sought to increase and strengthen. In a time of great anger and polarization, and especially of great noise and distraction in the modern world, monasteries and churches are havens of rest for the weary. They are places of quiet contemplation of the face of Jesus, places where the lost might flock and find peace and love in the midst of violence and hatred. And they are places where a battle is fiercely being fought for the winning of souls and the strengthening of the Church militant, the Church here on earth.

St. Teresa of Jesus knew the kind of lives to which contemplative religious were called and she saw where they were lacking. Thus, she brought new life and enkindled love in what had become lukewarm in religious life, and she carried out the work God began in her for love of her Lord, Jesus Christ, and in the stead of the Church and the lost and suffering in the world. She could not bear the thought of Jesus being cast aside or of so many souls being lost, as she knew she could have been one of them, saved only by God’s mercy. She resolved to bring other devoted brothers and sisters around her to be in constant prayer for those in the work of saving souls and to fast for the sins of the world. As a result, she established many convents devoted to Our Lord all over Spain, and the fruit of her labors continues to this day.

I praise God that He calls people to dedicate their whole lives to praying and fasting for the Church. We can only imagine the mountains God has moved through the prayers of these saints, and the hearts that have been turned as a result of their unceasing prayers. I thank God that He offers us sacred places where He is present in the sacrament of the eucharist and in the prayers of the people. May we be inspired by the love of Christ to pray and fast also for the strengthening of the Church and the saving of souls, and may we flock to Him in the Blessed Sacrament where He feeds us, His sheep.

In the spirit of St. Teresa of Avila, let us pray and fast as we are able for those whom God has called to religious life, for the flourishing of monasteries and of the Church, and for the opening of hearts to Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

St. Teresa of Jesus, pray for us!

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I highly recommend reading more about St. Teresa of Avila from The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, or for a more brief account of her life (though still quite comprehensive), see St. Edith Stein’s piece on St. Teresa of Avila in “Love for Love: The Life and Works of St. Teresa of Jesus“.

*Please note: this post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using a link from this page, I will make commission from your purchase and you help me continue doing this work. Thank you!

Stuck in the Road… (Conversion Part II)

“Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone.” – G. K. Chesterton on Lutheranism, St. Thomas Aquinas

Continuing from Part One…

As an evangelical Christian, I developed a deep love and longing for Christ. Then as a confessional Lutheran, I had great desire for Christ who is truly present in the two sacraments—baptism and the eucharist. I fell in love with Christ in the world around me, and with new eyes, I was able to see the sacraments in Scripture. I even cultivated a new appreciation for the faith handed down in the Church throughout history. This was a step in my journey to the Catholic Church; however, the distance present between the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Catholic Church is great, far greater than I ever realized.

Lutherans insist that faith alone saves. Our sin is covered by Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and we receive his merits by his promise. When God sees us, He sees His Son who stands in for us. We may be able to do good works for our neighbors, but before God, our good works mean nothing. Anything and everything we do is tainted by sin; therefore, our personal efforts to grow in holiness are futile. Our will to be holy only shows us how terribly unholy we are. Therefore, our desire to be truly holy is sinful, for we try to accomplish something only Christ can do, and something He has already accomplished for us.

This is what Lutherans believe. Entering Lutheranism, I was quite attracted by the humility I saw in the so-called “theology of the cross,” as it seemed it did not sugarcoat the state of humanity or the world. Instead, I believed Lutheran theology saw us in our true state, enabling us to recognize just how profoundly we need Christ.

The effects, however, are not so profound. My understanding of sanctification became confused, because there was no room left for true progress in the spiritual life. The fruits were supposed to come naturally, because now that we were free of the need to please God, we could love Him and our neighbors freely. We did not bear the weight of responsibility to do good, but only took responsibility for the sin we committed. But without expectation of growth in holiness, the striving for holiness ceased. I grew comfortable in my state in life as a student, a wife, and a soon-to-be mother.

I was told every Sunday that what Jesus tells us to do is actually Him showing us we cannot do what He says; He is the only one who fulfills what He asks of us, so it is foolish and sinful of us to think we can fulfill what He says. With this in mind, I thought a lot about my faith, God’s mercy and forgiveness. When I sinned, I prayed and asked for God’s mercy, and thanked Him for his forgiveness. However, I was not in the watchful for areas in which I might grow in holiness; if something came to my attention, I half-heartedly tried to get better, but I knew I would sin again anyway. How could I ask for God to offer me grace to not sin again when I was taught I could not do anything without sinning before God? It was arrogant to seek perfection in Christ, so having grown accustomed to the Lutheran air I breathed, I settled—largely without my knowledge.

As a Lutheran, I really wanted to grow, but I did not know how to grow or what to pray. As a Lutheran, I wanted to read spiritual classics, but Lutheran spiritual classics are mostly nonexistent. I desired some practice or devotion to enrich my spiritual life, but it seemed Lutherans only boasted of praying the small catechism, which for me, seemed to be an intellectual exercise. What did, in fact, help me grow during my time as a Lutheran were prayers and teachings that were not, in fact, Lutheran. The Jesus prayer of the Eastern Church—“Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—was (and still is) incredibly transforming for me. Taking seriously Jesus’ words to pray without ceasing, making this prayer one with my very breath, has immense depth. I could bring this prayer into my daily life, seeking Christ to transform my entire being into His. It captured my imagination and was beautiful to me.

And when I finally read parts of Theology of the Body from Pope Saint John Paul II, I was absolutely captured by its beauty and convinced of its truth. My husband and I embraced the teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage, sex, and family life. Though we had been exposed to this teaching earlier when we were engaged to be married, we were left to figure out what was right for ourselves, so we settled for what the world told us was “responsible.” No one gave us a definitive teaching about God’s will for sex and marriage when we most needed it.

I must say I am grateful to my Lutheran pastor and community for cultivating in me a love and desire for Christ in the sacraments and for fostering a love of the liturgy, helping me to understand the meaning of different elements of the liturgy, and for helping me to see that the liturgy is beautiful and demands reverence. Here, I developed a love of Christian art, such as icons, statues, and crucifixes, which all contributed to my reflection on Christ, on the Christian life, and on the cross. Even with all of that, though, my desire for life in Christ continued to point me elsewhere before Lutheranism’s time.

Check back for Part Three!

Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

Although there are countless other things I could write about for one of my first blog posts, it seems as though it would be dishonest in some way to write of anything without saying a word about the horrible things that have been going on in the Church for the past many years—the egregious acts committed by trusted priests, bishops, and even cardinals against young innocent victims, and the silencing of the victims and the cover given to those offenders by those in authority. These are the things that continue to be on every Catholic person’s mind every day since The Grand Jury Report came out just over one month ago.

As one who only just came into full communion with the Catholic Church at Pentecost this year, the horrors of the acts revealed in the Grand Jury Report and the deliberate defense and cover given to these offenders by clergy brought me quite quickly back to the brutal reality that many clergy in the Church care nothing for its members, that many in the clergy, including high-ranking members, create a culture of abuse and of power against their own flocks and against their Lord, the reality that many do not even believe Our Lord is indeed Lord, having no fear of him. The feelings of anger and betrayal are raw, for the things that were done to these young children and young men and women were not simply crimes—they were disgusting, twisted crimes committed by the very men people ought to be able to trust. These were offenses committed by the ones whose vocations it is to offer true life to the Body of Christ in the sacraments and to offer spiritual counsel. Instead, though, they have committed sacrilege against Jesus himself in the ways they hurt His Body, all with the support of high-ranking clergy. This is devastating, absolutely sickening, and it must be addressed.

With all that said, I have been so moved by the responses of so many of my Catholic brothers and sisters. Outraged and hurting, Christians are demanding actions be taken to get rid of the rot and stink that has been forming in the Church. Moreover, people have been calling their brothers and sisters to pray and to fast in reparation for the sins that have been committed against the Church—that is, the whole Body of Christ, which is the lay people and the clergy alike—and against the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Making reparation through prayer and fasting simply means that we offer up our prayer and fasting to God that He would repair what is broken, hear our prayers and console those who are hurting. We make reparation to Jesus for the increasing pain and sorrow He feels as a consequence of these sins against His Body, as a consequence of the ways He has been abused alongside the victims of the scandal—especially in the particular ways His Name and His Body were abused and used by the priests to abuse the victims. And we make reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the ways His Body has been mocked and abused in the Sacrament of the Eucharist because of these priests. I have found this adoration prayer from Fatima (called The Angel’s Prayer) to be particularly appropriate and worth remembering for this time:

Most Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

We can go to God in adoration, ourselves broken, and offer to God Himself, who gave up His only Son for love of us, knowing His Son would be mocked, His Body broken, His Blood poured out, and ask that God would mend what is broken in the Church, that He would take the sins that have offended Jesus and all their effects and blot them out, that He would purify His Bride, the Church and make her holy.

People are falling away because of bad priests, but Jesus asks us as He asked the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” But we must answer with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6: 67-69 RSV-2CE). I do not know what will happen as a result of this scandal, but I know that we must not abandon Jesus, whatever happens.. We must instead cling to him ever more closely, for He bears this burden with us. We are not alone. He bears these sins and wounds with the Church and still turns it all into Life.

Here is a homily in response to the scandal that I found particularly moving from a priest, Fr. Nick Monco, to his parish.