why la Inmaculada and the Eucharist will always be connected for me

"‘Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

 ~Flannery O’Connor, on the Eucharist

"Our Creator gave us life, and the Eucharist to sustain our life... [W]e cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.  We know him in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.” 

 ~ Dorothy Day on living out the Eucharistic communion

Today marks a great, lovely feast.

Yes, it’s the beautiful feast honoring the Immaculate Conception of our Mother Mary.

And on a personal note, it’s also the anniversary of my First Communion at Colegio de la Inmaculada, an all-girls Catholic school in Santurce, Puerto Rico, named after today’s feast.

Unlike most girls’ white First Communion dresses, thanks to the Spanish nuns that ran our school, we dressed like mini-nuns, veil and all. Each of us wore light grey “habits,” with a white cord belt securing the cloak around the waist. 

At the time I didn’t know any better. But decades later, my girls certainly found my photos hilarious.

When asked about my experience with the Eucharist today, I find myself filled with awe and humility. Receiving the Body of Christ is what makes me and keeps me Catholic, and it’s the reason I get myself as often as I can to daily Mass.

The older I get, the more I "get" that the nuns at La Inmaculada were not simply celebrating the school's feast day with our First Communion. In a very genuine way, they were connecting the dots for us--knowing it would take us a life-time to embrace the Mystery... Mary, the Immaculate vessel that brought brought the Son of God into this world... and opening up myself to receive Him who is Mercy-made-flesh. 

The Eucharist connects me and commits me to the Body of Christ, local and universal. It heals me, restores me, and reminds me daily of Christ’s great love for me. And at times when my husband and I have found ourselves divided, broken, and suffering—it was the Eucharist we received that kept us together, one in Christ.

Over at the Catholic Education Resource Center, author Jim Forest tells a beautiful, touching story about Dorothy Day that describes perfectly how I feel about the Eucharist--and how grateful I am to the generous Hijas de la Caridad de San Vicente de Paúl who introduced me to it:

"Pleased as [Dorothy Day] was when home Masses were allowed and the Liturgy translated into English, she didn’t take kindly to smudging the border between the sacred and mundane. When a priest close to the community used a coffee cup for a chalice at a Mass celebrated in the soup kitchen on First Street, she afterward took the cup, kissed it, and buried it in the back yard. It was no longer suited for coffee — it had held the Blood of Christ. I learned more about the Eucharist that day than I had from any book or sermon. It was a learning experience for the priest as well — thereafter he used a chalice."

[an edited version of this blog post first appeared here on 12/7/12]

the Immaculate Conception + the Eucharist

"‘Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

 ~Flannery O’Connor, on the Eucharist

"Our Creator gave us life, and the Eucharist to sustain our life... [W]e cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.  We know him in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.” 

 ~ Dorothy Day on living out the Eucharistic communion

Today marks a great, lovely feast.

Yes, it’s the beautiful feast honoring the Immaculate Conception of our Mother Mary.

And on a personal note, it’s also the anniversary of my First Communion at Colegio de la Inmaculada, an all-girls Catholic school in Santurce, Puerto Rico, named after today’s feast.

Unlike most girls’ white First Communion dresses, thanks to the Spanish nuns that ran our school, we dressed like mini-nuns, veil and all. Each of us wore light grey “habits,” with a white cord belt securing the cloak around the waist. 

At the time I didn’t know any better. But decades later, my girls certainly found my photos hilarious.

When asked about my experience with the Eucharist today, I find myself filled with awe and humility. Receiving the Body of Christ is what makes me and keeps me Catholic, and it’s the reason I get myself as often as I can to daily Mass.

The older I get, the more I "get" that the nuns at La Inmaculada were not simply celebrating the school's feast day with our First Communion. In a very genuine way, they were connecting the dots for us--knowing it would take us a life-time to embrace the Mystery... Mary, the Immaculate vessel that brought brought the Son of God into this world... and opening up myself to receive Him who is Mercy-made-flesh. 

The Eucharist connects me and commits me to the Body of Christ, local and universal. It heals me, restores me, and reminds me daily of Christ’s great love for me. And at times when my husband and I have found ourselves divided, broken, and suffering—it was the Eucharist we received that kept us together, one in Christ.

Over at the Catholic Education Resource Center, author Jim Forest tells a beautiful, touching story about Dorothy Day that describes perfectly how I feel about the Eucharist--and how grateful I am to the generous Hijas de la Caridad de San Vicente de Paúl who introduced me to it:

"Pleased as [Dorothy Day] was when home Masses were allowed and the Liturgy translated into English, she didn’t take kindly to smudging the border between the sacred and mundane. When a priest close to the community used a coffee cup for a chalice at a Mass celebrated in the soup kitchen on First Street, she afterward took the cup, kissed it, and buried it in the back yard. It was no longer suited for coffee — it had held the Blood of Christ. I learned more about the Eucharist that day than I had from any book or sermon. It was a learning experience for the priest as well — thereafter he used a chalice."

[an edited version of this blog post first appeared here on 12/7/12]

holy music video, Batman!

Why is it that I annoyingly forget the most simple, important things, and yet hearing one word or a phrase will remind me of a song—and immediately, without hesitation, I am able to recall all of its lyrics?

It can be a little embarrassing when it happens during Mass.

Today our pastor read a very stern passage from the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus rebukes his listeners with severe, glaring words,

Jesus said,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.

But what my memory heard, and I pictured, was the Jesus in the musical Godspell yelling, "Alas, alas for you, hypocrites!" and it made me smile—just as Father continued reading,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You build the tombs of the prophets
and adorn the memorials of the righteous,
and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,
we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’
Thus you bear witness against yourselves
that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets;
now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”

Here’s a video of what I envisioned:

At the risk of being judged for my distractions during Mass, here are two more “Scripture-related music videos” that I think you'll enjoy. Yes, I wanted to sing it like the nuns in Sister Act:

Hail Holy Queen, from Sister Act

Thankfulness Song, Veggie Tales

holy Mary, Mother of God...

Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers, France

Pondering today's feast, Mary's assumption into heaven:

I like thinking of Mary as a Warrior. I propose that all of you consider what your image of this Virgin might be – so that again she might excite our imaginations and provide us with an example of what a woman can do. She has done so in the past. Her weapons are always prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. Time and time again these weapons have overcome the mighty and pulled them down from their thrones. I wonder how it is that the evil of an oppressive Communist empire finally collapsed on itself almost without one shot being fired by men. Could it not possibly be that countless prayers in her name were stronger than bombs and sabers, warheads and tanks? Behind all that fluffy lace and golden pillows, their hides the strength of mother, the strength of prayer, and the promise of victory from a loud voice in heaven that says: “Now have salvation and power come, the reign of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.”

  

This is what we celebrate today: God’s affirmation of a woman, God’s affirmation that there is power in a mother’s love to defeat every evil and right every wrong, to pull down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. The Assumption is not just God’s exaltation of faithfulness and discipleship, but our own as well.

~Fr. Tom Boyer,

2012 homily at St. Mark's, Norman

St Pierre Church, Caen, France 

By praying both with our voices and our thoughts, we shall experience in ourselves how the Immaculate gradually takes possession of our souls, how we shall belong to her every day more in every aspect of our lives, how our sins shall disappear and our faults weaken, how smoothly and powerfully we shall be drawn always closer to God.

~Maximilian Kolbe

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.
 For today the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of your Church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people;
right you would not allow her
to see the corruption of the tomb
since from her own body she marvelously brought forth your incarnate Son, the Author of all life.

~Communion Preface, Mass for Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Guido Reni

[A]t first I had no idea where the lovely Magnificat we sang every night was from: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior’ [Luke 1:46]. When I eventually found it in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, I was startled but glad to see that it was one pregnant woman’s response to a blessing from another… 

 The song is praise of the God who has blessed two insignificant women in an insignificant region of ancient Judea, and in so doing ‘has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly: [who] has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty’ [Luke 1:52-53]. . They are a poetic rendering of a theme that pervades the entire biblical narrative—when God comes into our midst, it is to upset the status quo.The Magnificat’s message is so subversive that for a period during the 1980s the government of Guatemala banned its public recitation (a sanction that I’m sure the monasteries of that country violated daily)…  

I treasure Mary as a biblical interpreter, one who heard and believed what God told her, and who pondered God’s promise in her heart, even when, as the Gospel of Luke describes it, it pierced her soul like a sword.

~Kathleen Norris [Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith]

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Note: 

Tried to find a video for you, but alas, it was not to be found... 

click here for a special treat: a song by Austin blues singer Margo Valiante titled, "I shall Not Walk Alone"

seeing the invisible, and two notes

The Little Prince and the fox

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
 "What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “The Little Prince”

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“It is what is invisible that God sees and that the Christian must look for” 

~Flannery O’Connor

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I miss my friend Pat daily, especially at Mass.

Every time that Pat received the Eucharist in her hand at Mass, her communion “Amen!” could be heard loudly amidst the usual whispered voices of others. I can hear in my heart’s memory her resounding, strong consent, leaving no doubt about her certainty!

Pat’s “Amen!” was a genuine affirmation of what she believed.

I thought of her today when I read this,

“The phrase ‘I believe’ could be literally translated by ‘I hand myself over to,’ ‘I assent to’… [W}hat is invisible is greater and much more valuable than anything visible. But in order to have a living awareness of this, we need conversion, we need to turn around inside, as it were, to overcome the illusion of what is visible, and to develop the feeling, the ears, and the eyes, for what is invisible.” 

~Pope Benedict XVI

 of Note #1: I am thrilled to be going back to Cedarbrake Renewal Center in the Diocese of Austin, Texas--this time to lead a writing retreat. If you're anywhere near, please consider joining me!

Feel free to write me for more information? Here's the official blurp, or click here: 

Writing as Prayer: Sept 13-15

Join us for a weekend exploring writing as a tool for fostering intimate prayer. We will use guided writing exercises, visual and musical props to invite participants into spiritual conversations with the sacred. Anne Klock, flutist, will provide the sacred music for this retreat. NO writing skills are required, only a willingness to ponder and listen—with pen in hand!

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of Note #2:  I am taking some time off to practice deep breathing in front of the ocean. You may not hear from me for a few days... Be well!

connecting the dots: 5th week of Lent

Connecting the dots on the Fifth week of Lent:

+   Following our family’s life-changing, momentous events of 2012 (a Master’s graduation, two daughters’ weddings six week apart, the announcement and birth of twin grandchildren) –Michael and I acknowledge that we’ve been operating on survival/recovery mode for months.  But our life is shifting again, and as Lent progresses, we’ve been preparing our home and ourselves—physically, mentally and emotionally—to welcome back to Oklahoma our son Christopher and his wife Mary, parents of Elenita and the Twinkies, Cecilia and Ignacio.

We spent much of this weekend physically moving things around our house, making space, and discussing with one another the wondrous things God continues to bring about in our lives!  God’s attention to detail to the needs of our hearts never ceases to amaze me. So be on the lookout for it today, and let me know what details you see God doing in your life? We gift one another in the sharing.

+   At Mass yesterday, our remarkable pastor shared with us an unusual and, to me, very provoking response to this Sunday’s Gospel, the adulterous woman whom Jesus saves from being stoned to death:

"I have always disliked this Gospel story. I don’t like the thought of that woman standing there in her shame in front of a bunch of haughty accusers pointing at her, threatening her, and challenging Jesus. It is just an ugly scene, an ugly thought, a sad moment that really only resolves kindly for that woman. The rest of us are left standing there looking down.

I don’t like the fact that she is being used. This is not about her, and it is not about adultery. It is about those scribes and pharisees with all their self-righteous moral superiority using that woman to trap Jesus and prove themselves so law abiding and innocent. I just don’t like it when people get used by other people to make themselves look good. It happens all the time, because people who want to look good are not good, or at least do not feel good about themselves, so they have to use someone else or tear them down with their accusations, gossip, or whispered stories that may or may not be true.

I don’t like the fact that she is there alone. It takes two to commit that sin. Where is that guy? Did he slip away in the confusion of being caught? In that culture, according to the Book of Deuteronomy (22,22) which those scribes and pharisees knew very well, both were to be killed. They are not enforcing the law. Maybe the husband set the trap knowing that she would be killed. Perhaps some enemies of his set the trap in order to shame him. It is impossible to decide but the embarrassment of the situation is surpassed only by the malice of setting the trap to catch the partners in the act. There is ugly malice here, and it isn’t adultery."

Fr. Tom Boyer and his insightful homilies frequently bless me. Check out the rest of this one by clicking on “homilies” under “liturgy” at our parish’s website.

+   I continue to be touched by the genuine simplicity and candid tales of our new Holy Father, el Papa Francisco, who loves to speak without a prepared text. After celebrating Mass at St. Anne’s, the parish church of Vatican City, and greeting parishioners at the church door like any other parish priest!—here’s what he had to say about mercy and this Gospel at his first Angelus yesterday:

"[This story] captures Jesus' attitude: we do not hear words of contempt, we do not hear words of condemnation, but only words of love, of mercy, that invite us to conversion. 'Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more!' Well, brothers and sisters! God's face is that of a merciful father who is always patient. 

Have you thought about God's patience, the patience that He has with each of us? That is His mercy. He always has patience, is always patient with us, understanding us, awaiting us, never tiring of forgiving us if we know how to return to him with a contrite heart.”