Month of the Sacred Heart

As most Catholics universally know that June is dedicated to the special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I would like to reflect on that very subject.  Months ago, in a grocery store which had a 'latino' food aisle which was incidentally the main arterial passage to the back of the store, I was picking out tortillas when this teenager and her mother came to the section of religious candles for home altars.  Now, this store is in a town called Lynden, WA, where it is something of a world record for having more churches than people in a given measured area. (I can't remember the exact detail on it, but you can look it up.)  Now Lynden is a Dutch town - if you are born there, odds are 2:1 you are related to half of the town's residents.  It is (being Dutch) predominately Protestant, with the First Reformed Netherlands Congregational Church, also known as the First Reformed Church, close to the First Reformed CHRISTIAN Church, and a few blocks away the Third Reformed Church couples with Christ the King Evangelical Church, close to St. Joseph's Church, which is but a couple of miles from the Second Reformed Church which is now the Faith Community Church.  Then, there's the Baptist Church, and the Lutheran Church, and on and on and on!  So, I am in the 'latino' aisle deciding on tortillas when curiosity overcame the teenager and she went to look at the candles.  The first one she looked at just blew her away. "The Sacred Heart of Jesus !?!  What's that supposed to be?"  Before I could say anything within an earshot, her mother came back from the bread section (closer to the front of the aisle) to retrieve her daughter who was beginning to get stares of sad attention from those few shoppers around her.  She reminded me very much of a blond cheerleader, not just in the fact that she looked like one, but that she couldn't shut up long enough to process her thoughts to herself.  No, she had to have everyone's attention that there was this candle with a devotional picture of Jesus' Sacred Heart exposed that people worshipped.  I'm going, "Oiy."  Here in this over populated church town of 'pious' Dutch, the thought that Jesus gave us His Life so that we might live, WITH ALL HIS HEART, didn't even register to this teenage girl that it paralleled (poorly, I admit) with a high-school sweetheart offering her gifts and goodies and all his love to her WITH HIS OWN fallible, weak heart...  As they left I was partially berating myself for not going over to her to explain this concept to her, but mostly praying that God would hit her with a two by four to realize that the Sacred Heart of Jesus was the temple of His love for us...all of us!  No exceptions!

Pitiful a devotee as I am, I more practice devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. (If you want more info on that devotion, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.)  My mother is the one with more devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Mary and Jesus.  In fact, thanks to an Etsy shopkeeper, Alexandra C., mom will be getting a very special medal for her birthday which falls on the same day of Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist.  I can never forget the 24th of June.  But as we start this month of June, a major change is taking place in our parish, Sacred Heart.  Our priest of these past six years is leaving tomorrow to enter a Benedictine monastery.  I cannot put into words how and what I feel about this.  I only pray for his protection.  But he's in a much more experienced state and age than I was when I entered the convent.  He is an exceptional priest.  Of him it can be truly said that he was loved because he loved his flock as Christ did, and laid down his life for his friends (i.e. worldly desires, other vocations and occupations he could have pursued).  I wish I could have told him that - in spite of a sizable number at mass tonight, when he was explaining how he interpreted our love for him during his sermon, I wanted to stand up and clarify to him what I just wrote for you.  Stumbling through a sermon not only on the Holy Trinity but one on how we have changed his life and left an imprint on his heart over the past six years, I smiled and looked at the crucifix in my hands.  I would tell him later, when we would say goodbye for the last time.  But after mass, the whole congregation was lined up to give him their fondest wishes and personal goodbyes.  Since I had written to him several times since he announced that he was leaving, mom and I sort of squeezed out the crowded entry and left before the parking lot wars ensued. (That's an exaggeration - there are no wars, but there is a lot of stop and go traffic between people trying to get out asap and those who are overly polite and won't shift until those from different lot sections have a chance to make it to the driveway.)

Although I bought ex voto images of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary to display in my room, there's something just not eye-catching, I guess you'd call it.  This is only the second day of June; the first one already sent me into a flurry of activity and the ultimate emotional breakdown by 3 PM trying to make class arrangements to attend Bellingham Technical College.  Yes, Fridays are always rough for true Christians - in some way we all participate in the Passion of Jesus every Friday.  It is part of our spiritual lives.  I know the official feast of the Sacred Heart falls mid-June, and I think the minor feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary follows it, but it's been too long since I looked at a church calendar.  I don't do the Liturgy of the Hours anymore, since I left the convent.  Until today, I had many, many chaplets plus the rosary that I prayed.  But I have let myself, in moments of feeling fidgety, become distracted very much in prayer.  Any saint can be quoted: "It is better to say one Our Father with fervent devotion than to pray a thousand, lost in distraction."  The Bible quotes Our Lord saying "these people honor me with their lips, but not their hearts."  Yes, now I understand the old proverb that the best intentions pave the road to hell - mostly from experience in the convent and since.  So I did heartfelt prayers to each saint instead of the many chaplets contained in two different jewelry boxes as there are so many, and settled for that and the Divine Mercy chaplet and the rosary I still need to pray.  I feel peaceful.  I later went back and did 3 of the chaplets purely out of love for God.  I know they say to pray, especially when you don't feel like it, but in some cases that just doesn't work.  So, as I sign off to pray my rosary for the intentions of the Sacred Heart, I encourage you to reflect on the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a temple of His love for us, and there is nothing too big that with Him we can't handle.  If He brings you to it, He will bring you through it!

Reflection

I was preparing to pray my rosary last night, and happened upon my parish's website where our priest keeps a weekly (sometimes daily) spiritual reflection.  He was expounding upon 'embracing the cross' on layman's terms.  He didn't just say accept what God sends you, good and bad, but in studying Catherine of Siena he said "to be in love with suffering and chose it as your inheritance on earth."  And I sat there, pondering the "folly of the cross (1 Cor. 1 18-23)," and the anguish, suffering, and despondency I have gone through lately.  I didn't see my cross as a stumbling block or as sheer folly, but I was greatly perplexed by this 'hair-shirt philosophy."  I couldn't be more confused than any other heathen about why there was suffering and pain and we were to embrace it gladly.  I was trying to reconcile the theological fact that God wanted us to be happy and Lamentations 3:33: "It is no pleasure to God to afflict men. He takes no delight in our pain and misery."  But to continue that quote, God uses suffering to bring about the best good, hence the mystery of redemption: the Cross.  We should be happy because God wants us to be happy - happy in Him.  To endure trials and suffering willingly, we join in the mystery of Christ and the ministry of reconciliation (as our holy Father  Pope Benedict XVI said in a recent homily).  My confusion had stemmed from the fact that I was merely trying to survive my misery and not let myself be 'pulled under the water and drowned by deeper currents."  It occurred to me that I hadn't job searched since last Thursday or Friday (still not employed) and I felt very guilty about that; in fact, the devil was trying to use that to bring me to despair.  But I soon realized that I was not just suffering - I had been ill.  I had been too emotionally overwhelmed, trying to climb out of the pit of despair I was in, I hadn't been neglectful in my duties of not trying to job search because I was trying to make good with what I had.  I was trying to live as God willed.  Suffering will never be a palatable thing because it is averse to the flesh.  Therefore, to live and thrive, we must live in God.  I'm not even going to try and reconcile my past hurts to this fact - what is in the past must remain there for now, for I am not strong enough to contemplate why things happened the way they did.  I am going to focus on living the moment in God.  Every second, every breath.  Now I understand the Jesus prayer of the Orthodox monks.

God Is Gracious

Despite the rough year I've had so far, I must admit that God has been with me every step of the way.  Besides financial assistance, I've received some extraordinary help as well.  Over two months I suffered from intense pruritis, with an occasional rash, and saw 3 specialists who determined they could do nothing to help me.  Past being desperate, I began a novena to St. Jude and Our Lady, and the results were miraculous.  Six days into the novena, angel whispers in my ear advised me to stop taking the oil of oregano caps that I used to treat my sinus issues.  On the seventh day I stopped taking them, and became itch-free immediately!  I have had a few sensitivity issues linger, like itching on contact with wool, my face flushing when I have the slightest amount of alcohol - but nothing, NOTHING as severe as what I was suffering from a week earlier.  Of course the membranes of the sinuses and those of the uterus being of the same make-up, I will and do have flares once or twice a month, but I hope that is temporary until I can get the remaining chemicals flushed out of my system.  My doctor discovered at this time from all the blood work that I was pre-diabetic.  Major changes in exercise and nutrition coming my way tomorrow (if only I could keep my hands off the chocolate...).  But I am not fully diabetic, so that is a relief...of sorts.  Time to seriously buckle down on job hunting, even if I start college again in June.  Trish, it turns out after all that time, doesn't need me down at her house to help her with the new baby and two boys. 

Shrove Tuesday and the Forgotten Feast of Our Lord

I used to like the idea of Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday) when I was a kid because we always had to give up candy and sweets for Lent but also I liked the bright, deep metallic gem color tones I saw with the beads and masks.  It wasn't until I got much older that I realized what a depravity it was - Mardi Gras, I mean.  Think about it - people with lax morals partying in an atmosphere that is steeped in complete lack of moral fiber... To get the beads from the floats, some cities (not all I admit), women flash their bare breasts at beastilized costumed float attendants, and the float parade itself is interspersed with with scantily-clad women.  Drunken, gluttonous festivity has replaced one of the most honorable feasts of the Catholic Church: the Feast of the Holy Face.  For brief periods of time over our 2000+ year old history as Christians, we have recognized what Lent and Easter were really all about, especially in the nineteenth century with the establishment of the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus.  People don't want to 'do' Lent anymore because it causes them considerable moral trouble.  Well, it should - that's why it's there!  To bring us back in humility and obedience to the Faith, to God our Father who sent His Only Begotten Son to wipe away our sins, and at least once a year we could take the time to acknowledge that more fully than we do the rest of the time.  I only knew of devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus through St. Therese of Liseux's devotion, which began when the feast was solemnly approved by the Church in her lifetime.  It is only of late, with all of the suffering this year has brought, in my increased prayers for my lapsed Catholic brethren and conversion of those who are pro-choice, pro-death, and pro-abortion, that I had come to learn more intimately of this reverential day.  As I struggle with my health tonight as I write this, finding it difficult to even use the right words, and for lack on my part of full understanding, I encourage you to visit this link and at least read the one page if you truly love Jesus.
http://www.holyface.com/medals.htm

Ever Wonder?

Most people I know of take it for granted that God will answer our prayers positively, and are very disappointed with a "no" or "not yet."  It very much seemed to me that while I was in the convent, I received a positive answer for any prayer I made.  Having left the convent, spurning anything that reminded me of it, I find my prayers less frequently answered.  I had made a novena to St. Therese, requesting a pink rose as a sign that I was doing what God willed - well, what was right anyway.  Last day of the novena I had given up hope, having done several novenas since the convent and signs did not accompany them.  Then I noticed on the card a friend had sent me had two small pink roses...and I only asked for one.  How's the old adage go?  "It's not the size that counts...."  Making a novena to her is like pulling hen's teeth.  At least that's what it has become.  And St. Kateri - my patron saint, chosen for confirmation...  I always caught grief from the other religious sisters (though I had a special spiritual bond with her) that they couldn't understand the fit of choosing her name for mine as a religious sister.  I have very little Apache blood in me, though the traits are there - I was "very white" as the Hispanic sisters would say.  Coupled with that and the PTSD I came home with, I put her out of my mind and prayers for quite some time.  Same with St. Therese.  And with this latest miracle that has sealed Kateri's canonization by the healing of a Lummi boy (if ever a tribe needed spiritual help, it's the Lummi), I have begun to wonder if leaving the convent, distancing myself from 'traiditions' stuffed down my throat at the convent and anything that reminded me of the convent, that the saints weren't in a reciprocating mood because of my leaving and my distance. I don't know - they won't talk to me.  I don't think I'd care if it weren't for the fact that sometimes these saints seem the best to pray to in specific circumstances.  I've got St. Philomena, St. Dymphna, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Infant of Prague, St. Anthony of Padua, Bl. JPII, and the angels.  I guess all things change over time.  Friends come and go...the love of a woman waxes and wanes like the moon, but the friendship of a man is as steady and as solid as a mountain.  Jesus loves me, I know.  I wonder what it will be like to finally meet Sts. Therese and Kateri in heaven....

Fighting the Good Fight

...as St. Paul said.  Well, having a disagreement with two distantly related cousins about homosexual practice and the Catholic faith has made our relationship even more distant.  At least we don't have the same last name!  They were on the supporting side of the homosexual viewpoints, and I was on the Catholic side.  Then, last night one of my team mates on Mary's Graces (a team on Etsy) posted a prolife message in the team forum and was shot down by the captain for 'imposing her beliefs on others,' esp. since the captain it turns out is prochoice.  So I took up Joan of Arc's banner and went into a battle of morality in words with the captain.  My gut feeling last night was after I had said everything that supported my Catholic faith and being prolife was to quit the group because people like that do not change overnight.  Finding my inner strength in my faith and our Blessed Mother and Christ Jesus, I gave her (the captain) an ultimatum of change/reconsider your views or I leave.  Imagine my non-surprise when I found out she had kicked me out of the group this morning. 

I was having trouble picking a Lenten penance because I was struggling with all the suffering I was going through, but not anymore.  From now until Easter vigil I will pray one rosary for the conversion of my cousins, and one chaplet of Divine Mercy for the conversion of believers and practitioners of abortion (and an end to abortion!) each and every day. Especially since the birth control act was passed into law requiring Catholic healthcare providers to cover birth control in medical situations and insurance. This is most urgent that I will not wait for Ash Wednesday.  Starting earlier will be part of that penance.  And I am rejoicing to suffer for Christ!

Giving

Well, as broad as a subject that is, it is my New Year's resolution to give more of myself - time, effort, energy (money when I have it) to those around me.  Charity begins at home, and this year got off to a really rough start, so I have made it my ultimate goal to be more giving.  Not that I've been stingy in the past, no - my family often voiced their frustrations about me giving away things they had gotten me.  I never intended to offend anyone - it's just that once I've fully enjoyed and appreciated the gift given (like a teddy bear or jewelry or whatnot), I would like someone else to enjoy it too.  So I 'regift.'  Comes from being a nun for 5.5 years.  Sounds crass in writing, doesn't it?  I can't help it.  But there are somethings I will not give away.

Trish's baby is due on Easter Sunday, but we are expecting it will arrive a bit earlier - just not too early!  I have a couple of gifts I want to give, but Trish's in full pregnancy mode and overwhelmed at having 'more stuff' so I guess I'll keep those presents in reserve.  Like the teddy bear rosary I designed to be hung in the nursery.  I have been praying that it sells by Feb. 14th; if it hasn't by then, I intend to pull it out of the shop.  Then I guess I'll hang on to it until Ellie (the baby) makes her first communion. 

Well, I need to do a whip-round and gather all the stuffed animals I've collected that I've 'outgrown' and bag them up for Goodwill.  There are four bears in my room that I'm having trouble giving away.  On the one hand they sit there and are not hugged (and someone else could be enjoying them), but on the other they create a certain ambiance to the different areas in my room that I am hesitant to disturb.  Sounds silly, doesn't it?  I guess I'll pray about it and see what the good Lord wants me to do.