Oh, the Irony!

I first realized I wanted children when we learned that our neighbors, who included a wonderful little boy and girl, were moving away. I felt an intense sense of loss and longing to have our own children, who would not be taken away.

It is now almost two decades later, and my oldest daughter is in high school, her siblings close on her heels. And guess what? even though they are still living at home, they have moved further and further away. They spend their time with friends, they don't seek me out to discuss anything, they definitely prefer to be left to their own devices. No matter what I say or how I say it, they think I am angry or upset and respond defensively. Dad is their preferred go-to parent and I am definitely an also-ran.

I don't know how to respond to this situation. I find myself doing and saying less all the time, and watching them adjust happily to my increasing reserve. I definitely feel invisible.

But the worst part is watching their heartaches. They are crashing into a world that doesn't know them and doesn't want to, and wouldn't care about them if it did. They are suffering, and it breaks my heart to sit helpless and watch.

I don't know how to make this transition smoothly, so I will just stumble on. Having no one to share all this with, I hold it out to God to see what happens. This morning I had a small epiphany:

God must feel the same way about us, His children. Here I sit suffering alone, with my back to Him, forgetting about him as I struggle through this wretched existence. And He's there next to me, invisible, aching to comfort me even if only by commiserating.

I'm sorry Lord for forgetting you, my Father. Please be with me now even if that's all that can be done right now.

Lenten Retreat - Mom-style

Retreats are a time away from your daily life, an opportunity to put down or away everything you normally do and spend that "free" time with the Lord.  That's more or less a Catholic view of the thing at least.  Lent is a popular time for retreats, as the Church walks with Jesus through the days leading up to His great sacrifice and our own redemption. He sets His face toward Jerusalem and makes his way up to Zion.  It sounds very spiritual, almost cozy.

At the moment, my opinion is warped by a bad head cold, which happened to strike me way back toward the beginning of Lent. Yes, I have suffered throbbing sinus, a wracking cough, muffled hearing and a general wish to sleep and never wake up, for the past 40 days.  Though I did start Ratzinger's "Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week" with the intention of a contemplative Lent, I haven't had the energy to get past the first half (though trust me even that is an enriching spiritual activity).

I have suffered constant misery this Lent. And tried to unite my unglamorous suffering with Our Lord's. Not at all the way I would wish to assist Him in His great mission! I would prefer to suffer great hunger or spend hours on my knees in prayer, or go out and do good works for many, perhaps work in a soup kitchen or something.

Instead I have had endure petty misery and a lack of energy, and a constant grumpiness at my family who have the nerve to be slightly less sick than I am. Definitely not the type of suffering I think of as redemptive.  Lord, how on earth does this help You in any way with Your work?

But I have faith, even against my own opinion, that in some way even this miserable miserableness can help Him, if I close my eyes and say along with Him, "not my will but Yours be done."

Monastery Rythms in a Mom's Life

Monasteries have ancient rhythms.  Daily fixed-hour prayer has been one of the most prominent features of monastic life since its beginning.  The "hours" noted in the Gospels, the first, third, and sixth, refer to specific times of prayer in ancient Judaism.  Further, St. Luke in the Acts of the Disciples refers to the disciples going to the Temple to pray at set times, showing the integration of this tradition into the beginning rituals of Christianity.


Although the current Roman Breviary contains only Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer (Lauds, Vespers, and Compline), I have set my phone alarm with a Church Bell ringtone to toll at the "little hours" of the day: 9:00am, noon, 3:00pm and 6:00pm.  At noon and six I recite the Angelus, the prayers commemorating the Annunciation.  Three is the Hour of Mercy, when Jesus died, and nine is a reminder to me to offer my workday to God.

Communal fixed-hour prayer "is the sanctification of time." In different words: we are told that we are the Church, one body, with Jesus as our head.  That means all of us, those who are alive now, those who lived before us, those who will live after us. When any two or more of us are praying together, saying the same prayers, in a mysterious way we who are inside Time connect the body with Him our head who is in Eternity, and we bring our "time" into that "sacred Now."

When our children were little we always recited certain family prayers together:  grace before sitting down to dinner; the "Our Father" followed by "God bless. . ." with a fixed litany of people starting with immediate family members and extending out to godparents, ending with "and God bless EVERYbody." But as the kids enter high school our schedules, including bedtimes, diverge and I found we very seldom prayed together.  So now I try to bring my whole family together at night to recite Compline, "bedtime prayers," before the first person goes off to bed, nowadays usually me!

Cloistered Mom

 For those of you who wonder about now-archaic words, "Cloistered (or claustral) life is also another name for the life of a monk or nun in the enclosed religious orders." Enclosed religious (another term for cloistered nun/monk) spend their days in prayer, mostly, and do not leave the enclosed place where they leave.  There are actually physical barriers such as walls and gates between them and the world outside.

Other words that may confuse in this particular vocabulary are "Convent" vrs. "Monastery."  Both have religious women who live in them, in "community" as we say.  The difference is that a convent is home to sisters who minister "in the world," in schools or hospitals or anywhere their particular order is engaged.  A monastery houses a religious community of men or women whose ministry is that of contemplation and prayer.

Across the street from where I work is a monastery of cloistered Dominican nuns.  The buildings are over 100 years old, and typical of traditional monastic architecture.  The chapel is divided in half, with a wall behind the alter that has openings which can be closed off with large wooden doors. Once a Sister takes her final monastic vows, she enters the monastery never to leave again.  Even after she dies, her body is displayed on the enclosed side of the chapel grill, and she is laid to rest in a crypt under the Monastery itself.