Preparing for the Preparing...
Conversion, walking weakly, marching orders, a pumpkin roll
I took a photo of one last stubborn rose in a local parish rose garden. Even in late November it stands up tall with its bold color as if to declare that there is no such thing as winter. No death. I pulled my coat tighter around me and fumbled with frozen fingers to find my phone camera…
It’s true, little rose. And He’s coming. He’s coming.
Perhaps the snow storm this morning wiped out the sweet bud, but the statement was already made and some of us saw it. It’s time to return once again to a hibernation of preparation. Winter is where we hide with Him, preparing to declare once again the glory of God through our lives. Our hands. Our voices. Our everything.
While we shop and bake, we must somehow recall that all of life is a time of conversion…
Conversion is a perpetual movement that doesn’t end in this life, yet there are moments of such tremendous shifting that we remember the date. Though I’ve had many conversions, I identify two as being so pivotal that I cannot exclude either from my testimony. My initial conversion/reversion to Christ and his Church was as a young adult. My second conversion came (after almost 25 years of marriage and motherhood) during the lockdown of 2020.
It was a crushing time. For Catholics, that sorrow was increased at being cut off from the sacraments by a Church obligated to provide them. Fortunately for me, this injustice inflicted by the institutional Church was overshadowed by the healing I experienced at the same time; a healing assisted by the brief respite of not having to engage with that same difficult institution.
In other words, the break was helpful.
I don’t mean that being away was an objective good or that it should have been done or that there weren’t ill effects. I simply mean, on the most human level, that it allowed me a little space to breathe. And God used it.
On the one hand, I felt the effect of the loss of sacraments and how easy it would be to simply slip away. Such a strong impulse to just stop moving with the Church. Many did. On the other hand, I was forced to go to the depths with Christ alone. My little domestic church was a place of prayer and renewal. The lockdowns hurt us as they hurt everyone, but also stripped away the banality of any religious veneer lacking authentic conversion.
What happens when structure is taken away? When the schedule is yours to fill and there is no bulletin to read, boxes to check, and no place to just show up when it’s time? That’s what we all found out during quarantine. What will we do when we are forced to face the fact that we are the spiritual leaders of our homes? We all found out, didn’t we?
Our Paschal fire was in the backyard. I painted a little candle with Paschal imagery and we lighted it by the larger fire… and then touched our own beeswax tapers to it. We had our own liturgy of the Word. We worshiped and sang together…
And that is not easy to do in the context of family, where we know each other so well that every public prayer we utter is also an exposure of hypocrisy.
It was raw.
I had been struggling with a painful darkness of faith for a few years. My faith was tested by the grave scandals of the demonic hydra clinging to the bowels of the institution. It is a many tentacled thing which seems to have reached every rite, every order, every diocese, with its little imposters wearing the robes of Christ while lounging in luxury. They mock, scandalize, and abuse the little ones of God. I clung to the Barque of Peter with a stubborn fierce faith through the hurricane of the progressive left. I was prepared for McCarrick, but is a soul ever really prepared for such things? Fingers trembled but I clung fast.
What I was not at all prepared for—what stomped my desperate fingers and sent me spiraling off into the sea—were the betrayals of the right. More like a kick to the chest. To the very heart.
Every day I woke up and took my faith down to the nuts and bolts and laid them all out before me to try to find Christ. Every night I did the same. I always found Him among the pieces and so I pressed on, but I prayed desperately for healing, which finally came unexpectedly and quietly just before 2020.
What hadn’t happened yet though was a healing of my relationship with the Church. I was like a woman coming out of a long illness, healing but still weak and exhausted; resting in the heart of Christ but still shaking with each step. How ironic that the terrible horrible year of 2020 was the moment when I discovered how to walk boldly again in faith.
I have not been the same since. Thanks be to God.
HOW SHALL WE WALK IN WEAKNESS?
A few Sundays ago in the Gospel, we heard the parable of the ten bridesmaids, five foolish and five wise. Those who were ready found the door open. But while the others went to buy their depleted oil “the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut.”
“The door is open.” This is the phrase that came into my mind repeatedly in 2021 during the fallout of the lockdowns. Prior to that, I had been sitting heavily in the awareness that “The door is closing.”
It’s really the same truth from different angles.
The times are shifting and many are falling away from Christ. We feel the quickening of events and the labor pains of a world about to be shaken—sifted—as we choose our paths, our teachers, our gods… and it will be difficult to change direction once the storm intensifies.
The door is closing. But it is yet open.
Around that time, I gave the middle kids (ages 12 and 9 at the time) an assignment. They were to read Colossians 3:12-17 and also Ephesians 5:1-15 and then make a list of all that St. Paul says is required of Christians. The “do nots” are important but, for the purpose of this list, I told them to make the negatives into positive statements to find our Christian marching orders.
So they made their lists and were excited by the concreteness of identity. And I felt my own shift…
The door is open.
Here is their combined list, shortened to fit this space. It is solid. It is specific. It is only the tip of the iceberg, but is sufficient for the day.
The door is open. This is our Christian identity. Enter in…
•Be holy
•Be blameless and pure
•Imitate God as beloved children
•Praise Him
•Walk in love, a fragrant offering to God
•Have faith
•Have a spirit of wisdom
•Have a spirit of thanksgiving
•Do fruitful works of light
•Expose the darkness
•Be filled with the spirit
•Be moral
•Be pure
•Be clean of speech
•Be obedient to God
•Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true
•Learn what pleases the Lord
•Take part in fruitful things
•Greet one another in psalms and hymns
•Sing to the Lord with all your heart
•Be beloved
•Be compassionate
•Be kind
•Be patient
•Forgive
•Let the word of Christ dwell in you
•Look carefully how you walk because the days are evil
•Worship
•Hold fast to truth
•Press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God
•Be mature minded
•Always and for everything give thanks in the name of Jesus Christ
In this time of great shaking, may we find hope and strength in the fullness of true identity.
SPEAKING OF A GREAT SHAKING….
“There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up. Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, we need to know this, too, and endure it.” - Fr. Alfred Delp
My favorite Advent spiritual reading has remained the same for three years:
Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings by Fr. Alfred Delp, Priest and Martyr. (Links are affiliate)
Since 2020, I’ve been blessed by the life and writings of Fr. Delp, and my copy of this compilation has taken on the flavor of my daily life… it’s spine strained, pages loved. I had 26 bookmarks in it last year but my kids teased me into moderation. My husband told me I was a mistreater of books. It’s true, but this is not a shelf book. It is a leave-around-the-house-stuff-in-the-bag-take-everywhere book. When it wears out (because it clearly will), I’ll invest in another one.
Father’s words walked me through the grief and darkness of 2020 and the two years which followed. Those years, as I’ve already disclosed, were a stripping down, a shaking, a cracking of a comfortable veneer from which God was calling me forth.
With gentleness and power He provided me with companions along the way so that I wouldn’t fall into unholy fear or confusion. Father Delp was one of those companions.
LINKS FOR THE PREPARING…
I’m always blessed by the recommendations of friends and readers so I’ll share a few here that might bless you. Some from the archives and some new discoveries:
Stay Hungry. Stay Silent. Serving the Anxious Soul During Advent and Christmas
Eustace Scrubb, the Occult, and Advent (Podcast)
DIY St. Lucy crown for the feast day (December 13)
Gluten free pumpkin roll. We are a celiac household and experiment with GF bakery lot, searching for beautiful wholesome (not fake food) options. We’ve made four of these delicious pumpkin rolls so far this season. Tip: The canned pumpkin is a little wetter than usual this year and moisture effects baking. Consider blotting some of the water out before measuring. Also, I use more cream filling than the recipe creator. Hers are prettier but I’m fine with overstuffed :)
Camping Hammocks. Easy gift idea that kids, adults, males and females all appreciate. Every kid here has one. Easy to put up and take down in the yard, city park, woods, anywhere there are trees.
Send her on retreat for Christmas! I’ll be speaking at a woman’s weekend retreat in May. Arise is an opportunity to rediscover the peace that awaits in Jesus Christ. Our desire is to induce healing, hope, and a greater intimacy with Our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist.
With the news that my living room floor might have to be dug up to fix plumbing issues, the upcoming surgery of an injured family member, and the general busyness of family life, I’m (theoretically) letting go of a well-oiled Advent and just shooting for Christ-rooted.
The easy news today is that I am almost finished with my Christmas shopping. I’m sure that’s never happened before and I don’t quite trust it. Surely there will be some forgotten check mark that will require a Christmas Eve trip to the corner store? In the meantime, God bless your preparations, friends.
May the peace of Christ reign in your hearts and homes.
Melody
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Beautiful, astounding words! Thank you so much.