the Lent we never asked for

Much like an unwelcome diagnosis, or a sudden accident or unexpected death, who could have predicted how Lent of 2020 burst in and suddenly transformed our lives forever.

In truth, we have all experienced personal moments like this before. Events that stop us in our tracks and almost always force us to our knees. With one phone call, or medical diagnosis, or accident, or the birth of a baby— life as we know it is changed forever.

But seldom do we experience those moments together, as a community. Here in Oklahoma, the bombing of the Murrah building — 25 years ago this April 19 — was such an event. Everyone was affected, changed, transformed. It is not an exaggeration to say that the fabric of our identity as a city and a state was shaped and changed forever that morning. 

And now here we are, facing an unthinkable and unimaginable crisis as a global community. It is truly beyond my ability to ingest, let alone comprehend. 

And yes, it is Lent. 

Last year at this time, my Lent was a struggle to accept the newly revealed diagnosis of being a heart patient. I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. And it was not the Lenten journey I would have chosen.

So forgive me for sounding — and being — selfish when I say, I am truly grateful to have company in this year’s challenging Lenten and Holy Week journey! 

Let me explain. I am not saying that I wish suffering or hardship or darkness upon anyone. But I am genuinely thankful to be reminded that we walk together on this earthly journey, with all the bumps and unforeseen things that we are and will encounter.

The devil wants to tell us that our suffering and our pain is unique, that no one else feels what we feel, and that no one can understand what we are going through, how difficult life can be.

Don’t believe him. 

We are all uncomfortable. We are all in unfamiliar and uncharted territory. We are all struggling, experiencing dis-ease, out of our comfort zone. We are all, in our very specific, personal situations, on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. 

It is a pilgrimage we didn’t choose. True! May it be a good reminder that God is here and in control.

From my porch in Oklahoma City, I will be praying for you and your Holy Week! ❤️

I confess... I miss anxiety

It’s just one word. 

But I still notice it, almost every time. 

I miss “anxiety.”

It's been eight years now since the new English translation of the Roman Missal was implemented in Catholic parishes across the country on the first Sunday of Advent--back in 2011.

At our own parish, we were well prepared for the changes by our pastor, who arranged very helpful homilies, over several weeks, and even started using the new language two months early! It was his way of helping us to focus on Advent-- and not on whether we were getting the words “right.”

At the time, as we worked on the transition as a community, I found it very helpful to keep in mind the responses we say at Mass in Spanish.  The 2011 English translation parallels those Spanish responses much better than the previous one ever did.

Yet there is one point at Mass that still stalls me.

Right after we say the Our Father, the celebrant’s prayer that leads to the Sign of Peace, currently says:

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

But prior to Advent 2011, the prayer was:

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,
and grant us peace in our day.
In your mercy keep us free from sin
and protect us from all anxiety
as we wait in joyful hope
for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Protect us from ALL ANXIETY.

There is nothing wrong with distress. But I genuinely miss begging God, as a community, to protect us from anxiety, all anxiety.

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NOTE:

I have two free Advent Apps from MAGNIFICAT to give away!! 

Please leave a blog message or private message me if you’d like one!! 

First come first serve.

Happy first day of Advent! 

April 19, 1995: why we must never forget

When I first arrived at the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, to report on the Oklahoma City bombing for Catholic News Service, police lines and makeshift shelters had already been drawn.

Budding spring gardens had instantly succumbed to military tents, hastily erected to serve as temporary morgue, as ATF/FBI evidence gathering sites, and as a canteen for rescue workers. Law enforcement and fully armed military personnel lined the streets. Breathing masks, bloodied bandages, and much broken glass testified to the human carnage that had taken place there hours before. Thick grey dust covered everything.

Northwest of the building, a block-long square area had instantaneously become an international media center, camera crews mixing with fallen debris, van food vendors, and cars demolished by the blast. Overhead, helicopters circled the downtown radius accusingly pointing flood lights at the empty streets. The sounds of sirens, voices, and motors blended effectively with the humming of drilling equipment at the site, where workers used lighted cranes to continue rescue operations around the clock.

On that fateful spring morning, 168 people died (171 counting theunborn) and hundreds of survivors were maimed and injured, forever scarred. The hundreds of rescuers from all over the world that came those first few weeks will be eternally haunted by what they saw at the site: debris, twisted metal, and shards of broken glass mingled with the smell of death and reminders of those who worked there-purses, pieces of clothing, toys, shoes, and grisly body parts.

"It's worse than the most horrible Friday the 13^th movie you can imagine-you can't walk out of this theatre," told me 25-year-old Steve Mavros from the Oklahoma Canine Search and Rescue out of Tulsa. Mavros and his specially trained dog, Bucephalos, were one of the first deployed to the site to identify the location of humans and human remains. "We would have a hit-a human find-but only find a piece of a body."

I have no doubt in my heart that in those moments of such massive death and suffering, the veil between heaven and earth becomes so thin that we can, literally, recognize God’s Presence in our midst.

So it is important that we remember... that we never forget days like April 19, 1995.

Remember the lives of those who died, not only where they died. Remember the victims' families. Remember those who survived and are still struggling to heal. Remember the stories of tireless rescue workers (many who traveled here from states all over the country!) who risked their lives in the still-trembling building to find survivors, and eventually, to bring the dead home.

Remember how there was no looting in that wrecked downtown, and how crime was virtually non-existent for several days in this city of half a million people. Remember the thousands of devoted community volunteers. Remember how the money turned in after the blast from the Federal Employees Credit Union vault housed in the Murrah building exceeded the money originally held in that vault.

We will always remember that the stories of human goodness, generosity, and compassion overwhelmed and conquered one despicable act of evil.  

Note: I have written before about April 19, 1995. The above is an edited version of various posts, in this blog and others.  And the photos here are mine, © María Ruiz Scaperlanda. 

For more stories of hope, check out my first book, "Their Faith Has Touched Us: The Legacies of Three Young Oklahoma City Bombing Victims." 

writing and authentic surrender

The process of writing has always been a deeply spiritual experience for me.

And book projects like the one I just finished on Oklahoma martyr and Servant of God Father Stanley Rother have a powerful intensity that is hard to describe. 

One of the lessons and constant reminders of this book -- at this point in my life -- was learning to receive the graces that come with surrender. 

I've had this print for a while, but I brought it out and set it right in front of me during the past couple of months of intense writing. 

As in writing, may it be so in my life... Amen! 

"you can't fake authentic surrender

for it is the moment you

unclinch your hands...

accept what is and finally let go...

that the fertile space is provided

for divine intervention

and unimaginable possibilities"

PLEASE VOTE

As a Cuban-American, I take the right to vote very seriously. Just ask my children... that would be Speech #I-left-Cuba-number 752! 

But more importantly, as a Catholic Christian, I take prayer very seriously... And I encourage each of you to take special time to pray on this Election Day. Go to Mass. Say a rosary. Pray or our country. Pray for the voters. Pray for the elected officials. 

Ultimately remember that, whatever happens this election -- our hope is in the Living God, not on any human candidate. God is our strength. God is our rock. God is our fortress, our deliverer. God is our rock of refuge, our shield. God is our stronghold. The Lord lives... blessed be our rock. [Psalm 18].

As the  Scribe in Sunday's Gospel reminded us, 

"He is One and there is no other than he" [Mark 12: 32].

Hope begins in the dark

“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, 

and he remained in the desert for forty days, 

tempted by Satan.” [Mark 1: 12]

Qumran, Israel, 2012

I was a 19-year-old college student at the University of Texas the first time I really “got” the reality that Jesus was fully human, like me—that He experienced the full range of emotions, desires, even temptations that I do.  I was blown away by the Truth of that statement!

God so loved the world, so loved ME, that He sent His Son to become one of us in all ways but sin.  As author and poet Kathleen Norris points out, the incarnation is, indeed, a scandalous affair! There’s so much to ponder about this generous and extravagant Love.

Today I find myself finding hope in this awareness, in this Jesus Christ. When I am tempted to give in to negativity, I am encouraged to know that Jesus knows how it feels. When I am tempted to stop believing in the purpose of my life, I remember Jesus gets it. On the days when I’m tempted to stay in bed and give up altogether, I turn to Jesus with my ache and my sorrow. When I start listening to the voices of despair and I am tempted to doubt myself, I find hope in remembering that my Lord has experienced this darkness, too.

Whatever I am feeling, even the darkness of temptation, I can humbly bring to Jesus with confidence that he truly understands. Not in some heady, theological way, but with His full experience of humanity. And I can follow Jesus’ example at a time of temptation, turning to God, His Father and MY Father, and trusting Him without reservation for all of my needs.

the nature of hope... hope in nature

On the banks of the Río Frío, Leakey, TX

“Our life finds tongues in trees,
books in running brooks,
sermons in stone and
good in everything.”

            ~William Shakespeare in “As You Like It,” Act II, Scene 1

From the spectacular Caribbean ocean waters of my childhood, to the serene Oklahoma wheat fields of my adult life, a love of nature has been a constant in my life.

Yes, I am an island girl, a beach lover. And, undeniably, it is standing at the edge of an ocean looking out into infinity that I most clearly and intimately catch a peek into God’s eternal nature.

Walking North Padre Island, TX

I love the shifting personality of the beach—from season to season, day to day, hour to hour.  Because, as Tom Hank’s character Chuck noted in the movie “Castaway,” “Who knows what the tide could bring?”

Yet rather than confine my ability and desire to experience God, my intense experience of God at the water’s edge simply magnifies my sense of God’s presence all around me. Like a toddler, I find myself shrieking, “More, more!” with every new encounter of God’s grandeur in creation.

Sunrise on plane, between Milwaukee & Denver

This weekend as I flew home from Milwaukee via Denver, I experienced yet another stunning sunrise, although this time without my Elena to enjoy it with!  As our plane neared Denver, I was surprised and awed as the land beneath me began to turn white.

But the best part of the landscape experience that morning came two hours later, as I flew out again, this time on my way to Oklahoma. What had previously looked like a solid white blanket of snow interrupted only by rivers and roads, had now become alive with brown and green ridges noting the landscape’s topographical differences.

Previously hidden by snow, the curves on the fields – like roots – now formed an outline resembling a bouquet of circles and rectangles.

Nature, like life, is continually changing. Is there a greater source of hope?

my backyard, 2012