Ten Years Later

Everyone has their 9/11 story -- where they were, how they felt. Here, in brief, is mine.

My uncle worked for the NY Port Authority in the North Tower. An engineer, he was the sort that was always punctual -- never, ever late for work.

So that day, not yet 12 years old, I watched his tower fall on TV in class as it happened. That same minute, the bell rang to switch classes ... I ran straight to guidance and stayed there for the rest of the day. I was sure he had died. It was too devastating for me to even consider survivors.

What I didn't learn until about 2 in the afternoon was that, for the first time ever, my uncle was late to work. He was helping my cousin move into her new classroom -- it was her first day as a teacher in Newark. When the planes hit, he was on the train into New York ... watched it all happen right out his window. He also survived the attacks in 1993, and got caught in that huge power outage a few years ago. Bribed one of the ferry workers to take him and some coworkers over to the Jersey side.

Why he got so lucky is still a mystery to us, but in the last ten years he's seen his daughters marry, become a grandfather 4 times over, and settled into retirement far away from the City.

For a few hours that day, I got a taste of the grief the victims' families still carry. One day was plenty for me.

What Do I Owe You?

Over and over again in the past six(!) years I've been a Christian, I've heard the same thing: salvation is a free gift. It's by grace we're saved. Without that grace, we'd have nothing. Nothing we do can earn heaven. And so on.

Now, coming from a Catholic understanding, I believe that our salvation is an ongoing process that's made authentic through works. If our faith doesn't bear fruit, and if we don't work to keep up our relationship with God, then it's basically a moot point. (That doesn't mean that doing a bunch of pious things can save us -- it can't, not without faith.)

I have to confess, though, that I think sometimes we all struggle with a sense of entitlement. We might think, "I'm a good Christian. I go to church. I pray a lot and read the Bible."

For Catholics: "Well, I go to Mass every day. I pray the rosary. I have a regular holy hour."

For myself: "I didn't have sex in college. I don't get drunk. I try to be a positive influence at home and work."

All of it boils down to the same thing: we act like good people, and so God owes us. We deserve to go to heaven. We deserve to have good things happen to us, and to have our prayers answered.

And that sense of justice leads to frustration when things don't quite pan out. It leads to pride in ourselves, and judgment over others.

But guess what? The Pharisees did the same thing.

I see this streak in myself more than I'd like to admit...and realizing it is embarrassing.

Once again, He calls me to lay down in humility and accept that, despite all the good I do, it's never good enough for Him. He owes me nothing. It's me that owes Him -- and I owe Him everything.

Turning In

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I'm changing again. Every now and then, God sneaks up on me like a whirlwind, and I learn something new. Whether I like it or not, life isn't spent in stasis.

The thing is, this time, I don't know if I like what I'm learning.

I wonder ... do I love God? Or do I just love all the nice things I've heard?

Do I know Him? Or do I just know a lot of stuff about Him?

The answers have humbled me, and in the case of my blog, stunned me into silence. I want to articulate it, but for the first time probably ever, words fail me.

I've been getting nowhere up until very recently. Lots of cool people have challenged me to dig a little deeper into what I'm feeling, so we're going to take some baby steps in that direction. Or that's the plan, at least.

Stay tuned.

By Degrees

Today was a busy mail day.

I got an invitation to the first profession of a dear friend, and the first newsletter of the Newman House where I spent the past two years. Included in that newsletter was a mention that I'd been awarded the highest honor a graduating journalism student can receive. (I'm blessed.)

Tucked into the envelope was a note from my chaplain, asking me to critique this new endeavor for him, and assuring me of his prayers that my new job is going well, etc.

And just a few days ago, the director at Newman sent me a couple of devotionals that she had been stocking me with while I was still a student, along with a post-it: "Hi! Miss you. Thought you'd want these -- see you soon."

All of this acted as a warm, sweet embrace from the community and people I have grown to call family. With that, though, came a pang of longing. When I don't think about my college days, everything is fine. But at times like these, when I get news of younger friends or a note like that, I miss it all so much.

It's been two months now since I graduated, and scrolling down just a few posts only proves how chaotic it's all been. On the upside, I can say now that things have thankfully calmed down at the homestead. The various family medical crises have resolved -- unfortunately, not all of them happily -- and I no longer need supplements for my anxiety.

Over the past few weeks, I've finally started to settle into the new rhythm of work life, and with that, everything is feeling much more normal. "Welcome back," my best friend said last weekend. She's noticing that I'm acting like my old self again, too.

Of course, there's probably always going to be that sense of holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I don't worry about that. Though I lose my footing so often, with God's help I always seem to claw myself back to the present moment.

At little at a time, by degrees, I'm settling in. It may not be happening as fast or as smoothly as I hoped, but hey, I'll get there. Patience and persistence.

Anything You Can Do

It's the feast of Maria Goretti. My feast day. In her honor, I had a root beer float. I often imagine that she were around today, we'd have a great deal in common. Poor as her family was, I bet gelato was a rare treat now and then.

As similar as she and I are, though, there is one thing that puts us depressingly at odds: where she succeeded, choosing to sacrifice her life rather than surrender her purity, I have failed and fail still.

Granted, things could be a lot worse, and I believe that there have been many situations where God has sheltered me from the consequences of recklessness. Now, looking back, I'm so grateful.

In my patron, I also find courage to look toward the future. While she was only 12 when she died, chastity was comfortable for her. If God had asked it of her, I have no doubt she would have lived her life that way. To me, not knowing yet where my vocation rests, it makes the thought of extended chastity a little less terrifying.

Today, I was thinking on seeing all those that have died when we reach heaven. I'm not especially devoted to any saint, except maybe Maria. "It would be so awesome to meet her," I thought.

And in that moment, I was totally humbled. At 12, she was able to do perfectly and without hesitation what I imagine I'll be fighting to do my whole life. Talk about being put to shame by a kid!

On the bright side, that's exactly why we have the communion of saints to draw on. They're not lofty people with unreachable legacies. They were ordinary people who, by grace, had the strength to do incredible things.

And if they can do it, well, why can't we?

Dependent Freedom

My Independence Day was a quiet one, spent with my family at home. I'm grateful that I live in a place where I have that luxury. So many others aren't as lucky.

At the same time, over the last couple of weeks I've had a lot of time to reflect on my own personal independence. It hit me last weekend that now that I'm out of college, the rest of my life is entirely what I make it. I have complete freedom over the shape and direction it takes. That's an awesome, humbling realization.

Yet despite all that, I see a certain irony in it. Everything my country stands for -- personal success, wealth, possessions, pride, glory -- are the complete opposite of what life with Christ should look like.

We are called to selflessness, surrender, and as the Gospel reminded us this weekend, to be meek and humble of heart. It's a tall order, and admittedly, not a very American one.

But at the same time, in that same Gospel we hear that His yoke is easy and His burden light. It brings us freedom. So often, people are fixed on having to do everything alone, and that to ask for help is a sign of weakness. I have been victim of this myself over and over again, usually willing myself beyond my means before burning out and landing back in the confessional.

Slowly, by baby steps, I'm understanding what St. Paul meant when he said power is made perfect in weakness. In depending on God that we can learn to be truly free.

Putting the "real" in Real Presence

Corpus Christi is my favorite solemnity in the entire Church year, minus the three big ones (Palm Sunday, Easter Vigil, Christmas). You won't find it anywhere else in Christianity, though some traditions might try to do as we do. It's full of the sounds and smells and devotion that make us truly Catholic.

Well, at least it should be full of those things. Not everyone is lucky enough to go to "that sort of parish."

Sometimes, people in the pews don't know what the Real Presence is. They don't know what transubstantiation means. And very few of that demographic seems to care enough to ask someone.

Most of that is just bad catechesis. No one ever taught them the Faith, and if they were taught, it was done wrongly or not reinforced at home.

But then there's bad liturgy, and bored -- or worse, heretical -- priests. And there are the people that will rant, nitpick and mourn, yearning for the 1950s when clergy actually followed the rubrics, everything was perfect and no one sneezed at Mass.

I contend that looking for the ideal parish is like looking for the ideal spouse. Perfection doesn't exist in this world. In fact, sometimes we fall depressingly short of the mark.

But here's the beautiful thing about Christ and His Church: it subsists in the middle of all that mess. For the Eucharist to be valid, all we need are the right words, the right stuff, and the intention to do what Jesus did: give the people His true body and blood.

And even if the place is a disaster area, He'll come to dwell in the midst of it, uncaring priests and bad music included. He is just as present as He would be at St. Peter's Basilica.

Does that mean we should be content with mediocre worship? No, absolutely not. If anything, it's for that same Real Presence we should be working hard to ensure what we give is our best. It's just reassuring to know that in those moments we fail, He is still with us.

The way I see it, we can allow ourselves to be distracted and judge everything/one around us, or we can thank God for His reliability. He loves us a lot more than we do, for sure.

Simcha Fisher over at the National Catholic Register wrote one of the best blog posts on this topic I've ever read. You can check it out here. While you're at it, read her entire blog. She's a genius.

Corapi, accused priests get the short straw

Today is a very sad one for the Church in America. We've lost one of our most prominent, influential and hard-hitting priests, Fr. John Corapi, SOLT.

After an allegation of sexual misconduct was made against him several months ago, Corapi announced he has been indefinitely suspended from ministry.

The announcement was made via his YouTube channel earlier today. Corapi said that his superiors with the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity were strong-armed into removing him following pressure from certain bishops. You can watch the entire thing here.

I'm not going to make any comments as to his guilt or innocence. We can't know for sure what exactly led to the allegations, and from the sounds of things we probably never will. As much as I love my Church, we're not exactly fans of transparency.

And there, I think, lies the problem.

The abuse scandal has been going on for decades with varying degrees of publicity, and people both in and outside the Church demand answers. For the most part, I feel like we've gotten little more than canned, empty PR.

Of course, as a Catholic I can understand the need to protect our reputation. That's important. But in today's society, we can't expect to "keep things in the family" and have that be acceptable to everyone else. Corapi deserved at the very least a fair hearing. The faithful also deserve to have all of the details laid out in the open. Yet in this case, as with so many others like it, all of us will be left guessing.

Beyond that, the way we treat our accused priests in reprehensible. As Corapi said, in civil law we are innocent until proven guilty. Yet in the Church, if you sneeze the wrong way while wearing clerics, you can generally expect to have your ministry irreparably soiled.

We've done a lot of work to remove guilty priests of late. That's laudable. At the same time, I believe we should be a hell of a lot more aggressive ... but this is not the way to go about that. Not even close. Too often, we are throwing out our good men just as often as the bad. In doing that, the Church is only hurting more.

What we're left with is good men who are forced to live their priesthood in fear, both in their personal lives and in what they say at the pulpit. And, heaven help us, the true criminals.

Now if we could only be so merciless in dealing with bad doctrine.

St. John Vianney, pray for our priests.

Time to Sleep

Well, today didn't go exactly the way I planned...

Over the past ten days or so, my cat has been gimping around on three legs, favoring her back paw. After waiting to see if it would correct itself, we decided to take her to the vet today.

What we learned was that at 14 years old and a whopping four pounds thanks to a thyroid condition, she had irreversible nerve damage in that leg. Soon, the vet said, it would spread to her other back leg, leaving her unable to walk.

We didn't want to put her through that. Instead, we said goodbye and let her go.

I wasn't there to watch it happen, but we spent her last hour together before her appointment asleep in my bed. She was curled up against my chest, my arms draped over her, both of our faces buried in my pillow.

Now, she rests tucked between two trees in my backyard, with her bed and favorite toys. As much as I'll miss her, I won't mourn for long. She was suffering, and it was time. The best part of making the decision today was that the huge personality and peace never failed.

She died as she lived -- with peace and beauty and joy. And from her I learned what perfect Christian love really is -- selfless, total, and loyal.

Animals really are amazing.

Rest well, my Missy girl. See you someday.

I Believe

A week or so ago, I stumbled upon an article that eulogized a Canadian man who blogged his battle with cancer. He was unflinching and candid throughout the journey, and even had a postmortem post ready for when his time came.

Of course, that last post drew comments in droves, and one in particular stuck out to me: "I am not a religious man," the commenter wrote, "but in times like these, it would be so nice to believe that this is not the end."

I found myself in that moment full of pity for that man, and for so many others who contend all that waits for us is, well...nothing.

Are they wrong? I don't know. Is my faith correct? I hope. Many say we can have full assurance of the truth. But let's face it -- not one of us will know the capital-t-Truth until we get there.

Until that day, I choose to believe.

I believe because a world without faith is inconceivably grim in my eyes. What is there to hope for in the future if there is nothing but death after this? Why would my actions, my words, matter at all? Why do we live, and why in the world would anyone care?

It's a sad mindset for me, one that I'll never be able to fully wrap my mind around. I've been mocked, ridiculed and challenged for what I believe, but in my eyes, it's better to hope and rejoice than spend my life waiting for oblivion. That's not what I'm about.

I believe because I have seen the power of faith at work. I have seen relationships and wounds healed, and lives changed.

Maybe those other guys are right. Maybe it is a fantasy. But that "fantasy" is my hope and strength as this world hurricanes around me. It's what gets me through those irritating moments at work, and the crippling nights in bed wondering what the future holds for me and those I hold dear.

I am strong in my weakness because of Him, and able to have joy in the midst of terrible grief and uncertainty thanks to His promises. And you know, the one thing I've learned in the last five years is that He always keeps His promises.

That's why I believe. If I'm wrong, then I've lived my life with optimism and integrity, and have made a difference in the world for it.

If they're wrong, well ... let's just say I'm not going to hedge my bets!