#compassion – Tattoos, Motorcycles, Beer, Bourbon and Faith

Judgment

I have been reading the gospel of Mark lately. Mark’s gospel begins with the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t begin with His genealogy and birth, like Matthew and Luke, but with His ministry. Much of the gospel of Mark talks about how Jesus was judged for his actions, for the people with whom is associated, or for not honoring the letter of the law.

Here is a man who is healing people. He starts with the man with the unclean spirit, then proceeds to heal Peter’s mother-in-law. So, what do they do, they bring other people to Jesus to be healed. What a sign of faith! And people began to seek out Jesus (that is something we should all be continuing to do today). “And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.” Mark 1:39.

Jesus then heals the leper and the paralytic. He continues to preach and teach. He is doing good work, and the judgment begins. How often do we judge people by their actions without knowing the entire story? How often do we judge people based on their circle of friends without even knowing anything about those individuals, only on what we’ve “heard” about them? How often do we adhere to the letter of law but fail to act in the spirit of the law? Everything is not always what it seems to be. Not everyone is who or what we have been told they are. Not everything is black and white, there are a million nuances of gray.

I am guilty of all of those things, and I am guilty of them daily. I am not proud of that statement, but it is entirely true. It is entirely too easy to make decisions about people, situations, or circumstances without having all the information. We see this in the news and on social media. Unfortunately, we are bombarded with lies, falsities, opinions, propaganda, etc. because of the availability of and access to technology. What we see and experience affects us, and we don’t always take time to find the facts before reacting. Of this, I am also guilty.

Maybe we need to step back and look at the bigger picture. Maybe we need to realize that there are other factors that are at play and that we don’t have the entire scenario or the complete story. Maybe we need to stop and think of ways that we can help rather than hinder and replace judgment with compassion.

Maybe today we can be just a little bit kinder, a little more empathetic, a little bit humbler, a little more respectful. Maybe today we can look for Jesus in one another, maybe we can be Jesus to one another, and maybe just be a little bit better than we were yesterday. And today, please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.

Wounds

I had some foot surgery just over two weeks ago. When I scheduled the surgery, I didn’t really think much of it. It was just routine surgery to correct a joint impingement, no big deal. Just a couple of days off my feet, no cast, no boot, just some rest and reduced activity. It was outpatient, scheduled at 8:30am, and I was home by 12:30pm.

My son drove me home and I propped my foot up. I was still a bit groggy from the anesthesia and I dozed on and off on the sofa until the painkiller wore off. Once it wore off, well let’s just say that I finally realized the impact of my surgery. My foot hurt. And it hurt pretty badly. So, I decided to take a look at said foot. It was wrapped in a bloody bandage that I was not allowed to remove for 5 days. And the really great news (this is sarcasm) was that I was not allowed to shower. Not allowed to shower?!?! Really? I shower daily, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. This was going to be rough.

I know you have to clean and dress your wounds in order for them to heal. But that bandage would be staying in place until I went back to the doctor for my post-op follow-up. But as I was pondering cleaning and dressing wounds in order for them to heal, I realized that everybody has wounds beyond the physical, into the mental, emotional, and spiritual.

At some point in life, everyone has experienced some deep injury that has caused heart-wrenching pain. Everybody has been wounded. But a lot of time we choose to deny that these wounds exist, or we ignore them in hopes that they will simply go away. Other times we throw salt on those wounds and exacerbate them to a point where they cause greater agony now than when first inflicted. And sometimes we just slowly pick at them until they become raw and unbearable, never able to properly heal.

The day the bandage came off…gross, I know

Everybody deals with wounds differently. Rarely do we care for those wounds properly. This could be caused by fear, pride, weakness, vanity, anxiety, arrogance, lack of confidence, and the list goes on.

What I learned today is that we need to care for those wounds, even if that means we have to ask for help in doing so. Healing of wounds requires compassion, honesty, trust and vulnerability, a willingness to open yourself up to others and connect. It also requires patience and understanding and the ability to forgive – to forgive others and to forgive yourself.

Today, be kind to yourself, be open to being vulnerable, be patient and practice forgiveness, and may any old wounds with which you may be struggling be healed. And today, please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.

Are You a Good Catholic?

The other day somebody asked me if I thought I was a good Catholic. I kind of laughed and replied, there are some days that I wonder if I am even a good person. I mean, let’s be honest, I am usually a mess of a human being.

I vacillate between selfishness and gratefulness. I am sure everybody does this, but I think I may do it more than most. There are days when I can be thoughtful, can put the needs of others before my own, go out of my way to be kind to others; I want them to feel cared for. Then there are days when I just can’t be bothered. I am completely self-centered, egocentric, and careless about the feelings of others. These are the days when I really don’t give a shit.

I really do want to be that kind, compassionate, caring, empathetic person; that person who embodies the love of Christ. But it is so very challenging. It is so difficult to be that person day in and day out. Maybe that makes me shallow, or fickle, or disingenuous, or unauthentic. I read a passage from Romans last week one day during prayer; “Let love be sincere, hate what is evil, hold on to what is good, love one another with mutual affection, anticipate one another showing mutual honor.” (Romans 12, 9-10).

St. Paul makes it sound so easy. Trying to live that out every day is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting, but at the same time, it is spiritually renewing. So I have been pondering what exactly this means for me. In fact, it has me contemplating what it means for every person. I am sure that everyone struggles with this in some form, even those who embody Christ in all they do.

We, as broken human beings, take so much in our lives for granted that we forget to thank God for the little things. Like the ability to work out, a run in the crisp air right before dawn, a walk on a nature trail, watching the sunrise, spending time with our spouse, our families, and our friends. But we also take our faith for granted. These are the things that we think will always be readily available to us. We need to thank God for those things because they may not always be available. We may not always be able to work out, run or walk. (I have recently learned that as I recover from foot surgery.) Someday, we may lose our eyesight or our hearing. (I lost my sense of taste and smell during a bout with COVID, trust me when I say that was unsettling.) Our spouse, our families, and our friends may not always be around. And our faith is just something that I think we tend to forget about or overlook. I often treat my faith as an afterthought.

I like to work out. It is one of the ways in which I can be selfish.

We fail to attend mass because we’re tired or don’t care for the priest, or don’t want to be bothered. Or maybe we don’t go because we are mad at the Catholic Church (this is when we need to pray the most). We don’t pray because we don’t have time or don’t think God really hears us. When we do this, when we make excuses; we take our faith for granted. We don’t feed it; we don’t give it an opportunity to grow. And that is really when we need prayer the most.

I, for one, do take all of those things for granted. I expect to come home every day and work out. I expect to be able to run on the treadmill whenever I feel so inspired or take the dogs for a walk at a whim. I expect to see the sunrise each morning. I expect that my husband will be there to go on adventures with me. I expect that my family will always be around and that my friends will be available when I most need them. And I expect God to be there always, even when I haven’t talked to him in a very long time. And even though I take my faith for granted, the really beautiful thing is that God will always be there. Especially when we think He isn’t.

Do these things make me a bad Catholic? No, they make me human. And humans are broken, sinful, and in need of God’s grace every single day. But guess what, God is always there just waiting for us to ask Him for help, to invite Him into our lives, even when we take Him for granted. Even when we forget about Him, even when our faith becomes an afterthought.

So today be grateful for everything in your life and don’t take anything for granted. Thank God for all of the gifts and blessings in your lives, for all of those things that you undervalue and overlook. And know that you are going to mess, up, you are going to make mistakes, some days you might not even feel like you’re a good person, but rest assured, God will always be there for you. And today please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.

What’s In It For Me?

What’s in it for me? Do you ever find yourself asking that very question, particularly when you are asked to do something? I never thought of myself as particularly selfish, but I find myself pondering this very question more and more often whenever I am asked, no whenever I have to do something, anything.

This really started with going to Sunday mass. You see, I typically go to daily morning mass, Monday through Friday and enjoy it immensely. I always take something away from the readings, the gospel, or the homily. Sometimes it is the psalms and the responses. Sometimes it’s a song (at the churches that have music during their weekday mass). Sometimes it is just the fellowship of the people who are also there each morning celebrating the mystery of the Holy Eucharist with me that make it meaningful.

Photo by David Eucaristu00eda on Pexels.com

Just last Friday when I attended morning mass, there were only three of us celebrating and that included the priest. I’ll be honest, at first, I thought, this is a little strange, so few people at morning mass. But it turned out to be extremely blessed and intimate. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them.” — Matthew 18:20. It was a profound experience.

While I have these wonderful weekly experiences, of being fed spiritually and even socially, during weekday mass, I don’t enjoy that same experience during the Sunday service. In fact, if I am being honest, I dread going. It is not the same experience or even the same atmosphere. It feels pretentious and fake to me. I cannot follow the homilies; they are so convoluted. The service itself is so drawn out, even ostentatious with the changes to the Gloria and the Holy, Holy. I find myself completely distracted during mass and become irritated and tense.

At first, I thought it was simply the parish where I was attending mass. And this is a parish that I absolutely love. But, you know, sometimes change is good. So, we tried a different parish. And while I connected more with the homily, I still found myself distracted and anxious. There is a lot that I just don’t understand, and I have been Catholic my entire life. Everything feels forced and attending makes me feel fake, because I’m not feeling it. Because I don’t want to be there. And that makes me feel guilty.

This is not a good feeling for me. Why do I love the experience, the interaction through the week but loathe it on the weekend? I love going to mass during the week because each day I feel my faith being nourished and restored. But when Sunday rolls around I find myself dreading the arrival of mass time, feeling anxious and frustrated and even angry. I’m not getting anything out of the Sunday service. So, I have found myself asking, “What’s in it for me?”, because I’m not feeling nourished and restored when I leave mass on the weekends.

Then I remembered a conversation that I had with a priest friend of mine, who very gently called me out about not going to Sunday mass, because I had been skipping out for quite a while. He pointed out that “Sunday masses are the ones that it is a sin to miss – even a mortal sin.” And this wasn’t mass shaming, it was telling me what I needed to hear. I was sinning, I knew I was sinning, but needed someone to hold me accountable. That’s when I got my act together, went to confession and got back to Sunday mass.

Then I got sick and had to miss mass because of my illness. And that’s when the backslide began. So, as I am trying to get myself back to church, I find myself asking again “what’s in it for me?”. And once again I am reminded of something profound Fr. Michael had said which was reiterated recently in a homily by Fr. Drake, and that is at we are there for Jesus, not for us. We are there to celebrate God’s great love for us, to worship, praise and honor Him. So, “what’s in it for me?”…God, God’s love, and a chance for me to thank God for the many blessings in my life. Looks like there is a whole lot in it for me.

Tux the Cat stayed with me while I convalesced

So today, remind yourself that its not always about what’s in it for you, but maybe about what you give back to others. And maybe when you give back to others, you’ll really find out what’s in it for you; love, gratitude, empathy, goodness, compassion, and God Himself. And today, please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.

The Monday-est Monday Of All

It’s Monday. I know Monday’s are typically a day of dread for most working people. The weekend is over and its back to the grind. Not only is today Monday, but it was also pouring down rain this morning when I got work. Today has been the Monday-est Monday I have experienced in a long time.

You see, I was out of the office at the end of last week for a business trip to Columbus, Ohio. So I only had three days in the office this past week. I am in the office today, but I am preparing for another trip, this time to New Orleans, Louisiana. Because I have been out of the office, I have a lot to do before I depart again tomorrow. So I came in early, in the rain, before 6:30am, with nobody else in the school, hoping to get some things done before the day really kicked into gear. The hallways were near complete darkness; I couldn’t find the light switches and tripped coming up the stairs. So far, I’m off to great start!

I needed to catch up on emails, update some files, and do some research. I also wanted to get some materials prepared for my trip and was missing some things that I needed to take with me. I was a little frustrated and little consumed with work issues. So consumed in fact that, unfortunately, I missed morning mass.

I missed mass. I know not everyone will understand this, but that is huge deal for me. Especially on a Monday. I go every day. I find it is a great way to start the day, and the best way to begin the week. With Mass, it just feels like I am beginning on the right foot. But today I missed mass.

When I realized what time it was, I raced down the hall to the chapel, but the priest was already proclaiming the gospel and my cell phone was vibrating. I said a quick prayer and apologized, then I went back to my office to respond to the text message I had just received and make another phone call. But as I dashed down the hallway I was angry or maybe it was disappointment. I missed mass and I felt like it was affecting how my week was beginning. So much for starting this week off on the right foot.

Now, it’s not like I have never missed mass. I have. I did last week. I didn’t make it to mass on Friday because I was out of town and had appointments that didn’t permit me to attend daily mass. I guess the difference was that I knew I was going to miss mass last week. I was prepared for it. But today, I hadn’t planned on missing mass, it just happened. And it was wholly and completely my fault. I let myself get caught up in something that I could have had better control over. I let my frustration get the best of me, and what did I gain from it? Nothing. No satisfaction, no peace of mind, and no accomplishment. Just disappointment.

So I walked back to my office and sat down at my desk. I said another prayer, read a couple of reflections, and took a moment to just breathe. In that brief moment, I realized that I while I had apologized for missing morning mass, I did not need to. God wasn’t angry with me, God wasn’t disappointed, God wasn’t frustrated. God didn’t expect an apology. If anything, God wanted peace for me, not this anger, frustration and disappointment that had been consuming me all morning.

Sometimes we are too hard on ourselves, and I suspect this often happened on Mondays. Mondays can be difficult; the weekend is over, we have a whole work week ahead of us filled with demands and expectations, things that we have to accomplish. And the next weekend seems so far away. How are we going to make it through?

Instead of looking at Monday with dread, focusing on all that we think we have to accomplish, and being hard on ourselves when we think we will never get all of it done, maybe we should look at Monday (and every day for that that matter) as an opportunity to start all over again. As another day to be our best, to do our best, to help others, to listen, to care, to be kind, to show love and compassion – not only to others but also to ourselves.

So today, be kind to yourself. Treat yourself (and others) with love and compassion. Look at Monday as an opportunity to begin again, to start fresh. And please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.

St. Lawrence

Saturday August 10^th was the feast day of St. Lawrence. I really don’t know a lot about the Saints, but I have learned quite a bit during this year. And Fr. Vince shared some wonderful information about St. Lawrence’s background at the beginning of mass.

St. Lawrence was a Deacon under Pope Sixtus II and was martyred 4 days after Pope Sixtus II was beheaded. Legend has it that after the arrest of Pope Sixtus II, Deacon Lawrence was responsible for the material goods of the church. The emperor was aware of this, and bargained with Lawrence, indicating that he would spare his life if he turned over all of the church’s treasures to him. Lawrence was shrewd and asked for three days to get the church’s affairs in order. He then sought out the destitute and distributed the church’s wealth to them. When the time came to turn the riches over, Lawrence gathered the blind and the lame, the leprous and the maimed, orphans, widows and the poor; and declared to the emperor, “These are the treasure of the Church.” This infuriated the emperor and thus sealed Lawrence’s fate.

Coincidentally, it is recorded that Pope Sixtus II told Lawrence on August 6^th (the day of his beheading) not to worry, he would see him again in 4 days. St. Lawrence was then condemned to die a horrendous death, being roasted alive. On August 10^th, – 4 days after the martyrdom of Pope Sixtus II – a gridiron was prepared with red hot coals placed beneath it, and Lawrence’s body placed upon it. The legend concludes, that Lawrence, during his agonizing death, cheerfully remarked, “I’m done on this side. Turn me over!”

Imagine that kind of joy for Christ! Even in his suffering and death, St. Lawrence was joyful. He chose humor and joy in the face of death. This serves as a wonderful example for us. When we find the humor and joy in hardships and disappointment, that helps others see the light of Christ in and through us. In fact, Pope Francis even called joy and a sense of humor as one of the signs of holiness most needed today in his apostolic exhortation Rejoice and Be Glad: On the Call to Holiness.

The story and history of St. Lawrence was especially impactful for me, because I haven’t had a whole lot of joy in my life lately. This is not caused by a particular person, occurrence, situation or event. This is primarily brought on by myself because of stress, anxiety, worry, fear, anger, disappointment, busyness, and just a general sense of feeling overwhelmed at times. These reactions are the “weeds” that I mentioned in my post on August 7^th. All of those negative feelings kill joy. And Lawrence, he justifiably had recourse to experience all of those emotions in light of his impending death, but he chose joy, he chose humor. Wow! Think about that the next time things seem bleak. This guy is being cooked alive and he is joking with his executioners. That’s real joy, zeal and love for God.

It is so easy to let change, circumstances, or situations negatively affect our lives and our outlook and our possibilities. But after learning about St. Lawrence, I realize there is nothing so negative in my life that I can’t choose joy, that I shouldn’t choose humor. And choosing joyfulness helps minimizes the negative aspects that I am facing.

Choosing joy, expressing gratitude, showing compassion, exemplifying kindness, embodying love; those are the things that the saints did in their everyday lives. They were called to holiness; we are called to holiness as well. And those are the kinds of things that we can do in our day to day living. So today choose joy, express gratitude, show compassion, exemplify kindness, embody love, be the light of Christ to all that you meet. Please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.