dream day: confirming the goodness already there

What a beautiful and powerful connection between yesterday's feast of St. Monica, patron of mothers, and today's feast of St. Augustine--the son for whom she prayed, cried, and no doubt, begged heaven. 

Even the liturgical readings for today follow immediately yesterday's verses, in both Paul's letter to the Thessalonians and the Gospel of Matthew. And once again, we repeat Psalm 139:

You have searched me and you know me, Lord.

Motherhood affects the very fabric of a person. Not only is a woman’s physical appearance modified forever by pregnancy and childbirth, but there is also an invisible yet undeniable mark left on her spirit by that experience. 

A human life, known by God even before the moment of conception, is born of her, through her, making her all at once and forever a mother. Much like Mother Mary's connection to Jesus, blessed Monica recognized Augustine's good heart as only a mother can know the child she carries within her womb.

It reminds me of something I read this morning:

Job is described at the outset as a good and just man. It seems fair to say that this saga does not create Job's faith; rather, it identifies and names it. His troubles don't make Job into a saint. They confirm the goodness already there. (Holiness = reunited to the whole = goodness = what is.)

~Richard Rohr, 

"Job and the Mystery of Suffering, Spiritual Reflections"

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[word cloud of Martin Luther King's full text, via wjla.com]

I have a dream today. 

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. 

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Read full text of Martin Luther King's  "I have a dream" speech here.

two and a half thoughts... on parenting

Saint Monica was born of a Christian family at Tagaste in Africa in 331. She poured forth many tears and prayers to God for [her son Augustine]’s conversion. A model of the virtuous mother, she nourished the faith by her prayers and witnessed to it by her deeds. She died at Ostia in 387.

[from today’s Magnificat, Memorial for Saint Monica]

It cannot be denied that God often takes away from us all exterior aid that he may possess all our trust. Oh, if we could but give him it to the uttermost nor share one white of it with whomsoever it be, how thoroughly compensated we should be for the absence of all help deriving from creatures! And what interior freedom we should know! Indeed there is nothing plainer: the grief and excessive anxiety to which your soul is exposed at perceiving itself deprived of exterior help can come only from an intemperate attachment to those human aids.

~Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J.

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More often than not, when parents hear that our four adult children are all active, practicing Catholics, they immediately want to know what I / we “did” to make this happen.  I’ve even had writer friends suggest that I should write a book about parenting to help younger parents—and to encourage those couples whose adult children are not practicing the Faith.

I truly understand their desire. What they don’t realize is how inept I would be at tackling this topic.

I’m not denying that I took parenting our children very seriously, making career and personal choices that were not normal or made “sense.” I don’t deny that that as a couple we tried to make major decisions—and sometimes huge sacrifices—based on our mutual and deepest desire to pass on to them the Catholic faith we know and love.

Yet as I look back at critical moments in our family’s history, moments that shaped and defined us, I am very aware that this Faith, these values, were often nurtured in my kids not because of, but in spite of me, in spite of us and our failings as parents.

In the most difficult, heart-wrenching moments in our marriage, there was nothing for me to hang on to but the knowledge in faith that God would take care of my children and their spiritual needs because I could not. On my knees, over and over, I entrusted Him with that which is my greatest treasure: my family.

So, yes, I have been blessed with an awesome foursome—and they constantly and continually blow me away with their grounded values and lived faith. My children have always been my Grace.

I am deeply blessed.

my awesome foursome, 1994

Note: 

On this feast of St Monica, remembering in my prayers all mothers--especially those who pray for their children to find and/or come home to the Faith.