Month: January 2017

The Best Gift a Parent Can Give Their Child

My parents have often said,

The best gift we can give to you is your faith with all our love.” 

And they have given it, devoutly.  

They taught more by example than by word.  They worked hard; they prayed harder.  They celebrated the victories, great and small; and they laughed a lot.  And if I’ve learned one thing from them, it’s that there is GENIUS in the guidance of our Church.

We often refer to the Church in the feminine, as bride or as mother.  The term ‘Mother Church,’ or Ecclesia Mater, was introduced early in salvation history.  

St. Paul revealed a great mystery when he told the early Christians that a man must love his wife in the same way that Christ loves His Bride, the Church. He made her holy “by washing her in cleansing water with a form of words, so that when he took the Church to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless” (Eph 5:25-27).

 

Truly, the Church is a Mother, there to guide those who will listen to her many, many years of lived wisdom and inspired counsel. 

Growing up, I strived to follow the rules my parents set and the teachings of our Church, though sometimes blindly and many times with a luke-warm and wondering heart–is this really what will make me happy?  Sometimes I wandered, sometimes I strayed, but the voice of faith and reason alive in our Church always called me back.  

I remember many lonely days in high school as I strove against the current of my peers who were living a different life than the one I knew my parents wanted for me and the one our Church taught was right.  Out of OBEDIENCE, I trusted and I acted, having faith that the guidance was rooted in love and wisdom.  This was a grace.

 

Looking back today I can see how the direction of my parents and our Mother Church has saved me from a lot of brokenness. 

And it’s brought me to a most beautiful, new, and affirming chapter in life.  One with many amazing relationships–relationships with mothers, with fathers, with brothers, with sisters, with friends.

What I can say about my journey is that I would not be where I am without the wisdom and counsel of my mothers–both the mother who bore me into this world and the Mother who we call Church.  

 

What mother does not want her child’s joy above all else?  

In the Catechism we read that it is “in the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation” and it is “from the Church that he learns the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all-holy Virgin Mary” (CCC 2030).  We look to tradition, to years of experience, to find where we are called to serve.

For a time, I struggled to know my vocation–what kind of “motherhood” I was called to–whether it be biological or spiritual.  I discerned consecrated life and saw the beauty of it.  I witnessed married life and saw the goodness of it.  

When Pope Benedict XVI gave his final Wednesday Address, he told us that “one receives one’s life precisely when one offers it as a gift.”  And so, eager as I was to know what that ‘life’ would be, with faith, I gave it back to God and asked Him to show me how He wanted me to offer it as a gift.  

Not long later, I met my husband.  He is amazing.  

 

The joy I feel in marriage is like nothing I’ve experienced before.

What God showed me through my process of discernment is that vocation is ALWAYS fulfilled in a PERSON.  Whether it be the Person of Jesus Christ–lived through a celibate and consecrated vocation–or the person one is called to marry–lived through a free, total, faithful, and fruitful self-donation between a man and a woman.

I am overwhelmed by the beauty of what our Church teaches and the Good News she proclaims of her bridegroom, Christ, our Lord.  It is His example that we are called to follow above all else.  St. Paul beckons us to do the following:

“Follow Christ by loving as he loved you,

giving himself up for us as an offering

and a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God”

(Eph 25:2)

This is big.  This is beautiful.  And this is the best way we can live our lives, receiving the gift of faith and, in turn, offering ourselves as a gift, first and foremost to God, with all our love.  

 

Mary Jean Jones is a wife and mother to her son Shepherd and daughter Reagan. She graduated from Ave Maria University in 2011 with her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Theology. 

Why Pray to Mary?

I’m sure most of you, like me, remember the annual first day of school picture. You know the one, where you stand in front of the door with your backpack and new school clothes (I went to a private elementary school, so the clothes were the same for 9 years, but still). You try and force a smile even though you’re sad because it’s so early and you know homework is imminent. At the time it was unpleasant, but now the pictures are fun to have because we can look back and see the different years, remembering the excitement and the nerves about what each year had to bring.

What I want to focus on more than pictures, though, is the person who gets you dressed (well, for a few years at least), packs your lunch, and takes the picture of you. Yes, you guessed it, I want to talk about mothers. More specifically, I want to talk about our Lord’s mother, Mary, and the way praying to her points us to her Son.

There are many surface level perceptions of our Blessed Mother. To some she’s just the woman from the paintings and statues that are all over Catholic churches.   To others, she is the woman we hear about around Christmas time in the nativity story. Still others, I am sure, don’t really know what to think about Mary.

 

Regardless of where you stand, what we want to reflect on today is who this woman is, and why she is so important.

Personally, I never really thought much about Mary growing up. I had heard about the rosary in school, and saw my mom praying it, but actually praying a rosary myself was far from my mind. As I got older and began to have the desire to deepen my faith in the Lord, I never thought of making Mary a part of that process. I seem to have overlooked just how crucial Mary is for our spiritual journeys.

My “wow” moment with the Blessed mother came during college, when I joined a group of men in reciting a Marian prayer called the “Memorare” on a regular basis. As I began to pray this prayer consistently I would hear these words and be struck by the confidence of this plea:

 

 “Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary,

that never was it known

that anyone who fled to thy protection

or sought thy intercession

was left unaided,”

 

Through praying the Memorare, I began to see the power of Mary’s intercession, and understand more clearly the necessity of calling upon Mary in my time of trouble.

By Mary saying “yes,” what we refer to as her Fiat, she brought a Son into the world. Her Son, Jesus Christ, our God incarnate, was unlike any other son born of a mother. However she, like every other mother, wants us to see just how special her Son is. Just like our mothers here on earth, Mary wants to show everyone pictures of her Son, speak of what He has done and will do for so many, and proclaim His greatness.

Picture, for a deeper example of this, Mary and Jesus at the Wedding at Cana. They run out of wine, and Mary hears about this. Knowing her Son as she did, and always desiring to point people to Him, she brings the problem to Jesus and lets Him do the work. In the same way, she does this with our prayers. Mary, the Immaculately conceived Mother of God, only desires to point us to her Son and allow His will to be fulfilled in our lives.

That, my friends, is why we pray to Mary-or at least it’s why I do.

 

It’s not about worship or some superstitious practice.

It’s not just reciting mindless words while flipping through our rosary beads. We pray to Mary because, just like any mother, she wants to reveal her Son to us in every possible way. If we want to know her Son, there is no better way to do so than to ask His mother to introduce us. Praying to Mary never keeps our focus on her, but always points us to the One she is focused on, her Son Jesus.

And so, whatever our relationship with Mary currently is, it might be time for us step it up a notch.

 

Here are some suggestions:

Pray the Rosary 

If you never pray the Rosary, make the effort to start, whether it’s once a week or once a day, Mary will shower us with grace.

Reflect on the Scriptures

Read Mary’s words and hear her story in the scriptures. Reflecting on her life in this way will draw us closer to her.

Read a book on Mary

A good book on Mary might be exactly the way the Lord wants to help us grow. There are plenty of them out there, pick one up! In some of our cases, an increased devotion to Mary might just look like a couple of Hail Mary’s throughout the day whenever we need help.

For me, devotion to Mary started with the Memorare. If you don’t know this prayer, I strongly encourage you to learn it and pray it when you feel you need some heavenly aid. Through this prayer, I have gained a love for praying the daily rosary, a desire to reflect more on Mary and Jesus in Scripture, and a passion for learning more about Mary’s role in my faith life.

Praying to Mary will lead us to Jesus; today is the perfect time to look at our relationship with her and challenge ourselves to deepen it, so as to deepen our relationship with her Son.

 

Mary, Mother of the Church and hope for all of mankind…Pray for us!

 

Jason Theobald is the Director of Youth Ministry at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Huntley, IL. He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife Sarah and one-month old son, Noah Michael. He graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2012, and lived in the Pittsburgh, PA area for a couple of years before moving home to his beloved Chicago.”

Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin: An Interview with Arleen Spenceley

Arleen Spenceley is a Roman Catholic Christian and author. Ave Maria Press released her book, Chastity is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, in the Fall of 2014.

She worked as a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times for nine years and now writes freelance full-time, mostly for the Virginian-Pilot. She has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and a Master’s degree in counseling, both from the University of South Florida. She lives in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Here are some of her insights on family, prayer, living faith in the teens, marriage and dating.

 

 

 

What advice would you give to young Teens in the beginning stages of their faith journey?

Don’t forget that Christ is our friend. It is very helpful for me to look at Him in that light. I know how to be a friend; I have been a friend for a long-time to people. Framing it in that way has made prayer a little bit easier for me.

Prayer is challenging, but I think if we can look at Him as a friend, then we can find that desire to spend more time with Him. I mean, for example, if we stop talking to a friend, after a while we aren’t really friends anymore, right?

So with Christ, prayer is a big part of building and maintaining our friendship with Him. I have been thinking lately, what are the ways I can be a better friend to Jesus? Well, where can I find Him? I find Him at Mass, in adoration, at confession, in the Gospel, I find Him in all of these places. Meeting Him there is something we can all be doing to get closer to Christ.

 

What is the greatest struggle in living the Catholic Faith?

To me, one of the biggest pitfalls in our life of faith is sloth. I didn’t really even know what sloth was until I read Love and Responsibility by Saint John Paul II a couple of summers ago. He writes in the book, according to St. Thomas, “sloth is a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult.”

I think that is a young person’s greatest pitfall today. There are a lot of things that we are supposed to do as Catholics that are very difficult, like practicing chastity, not using contraceptives, etc; Deep down inside, many of us know what is good for us and we know what the right thing to do is, but we live in a culture that does not like to do hard things.

We live in a culture that doesn’t understand that hard doesn’t necessarily negate good. Hard is often very good for us. I think we can fall into these patterns of sloth where I know what the right thing to do is but it is so hard.

I relate it to the parable of the sower: he sows the seed among the thorns and the thorns choke the seed until can no longer bear fruit. So I often feel like sloth is like being among those thorns where you know at the start what is good and you have a desire for it but you are surrounded by so many things that are telling you it’s not good that you kind of forget. We often hear things like, “everyone is doing it;” that is a very modern form of sloth which is incredibly detrimental to our faith.

 

On Marriage and Dating

Marriage along with any other vocation, is designed for self-gift. In our culture, people are motivated to marry for selfish reasons and not to give of themselves, but marriage naturally destroys self-absorption and promotes self-gift. That is never going to work! I think if people believed marriage is what the Catholic Church teaches it is, fewer people would get married (and I think that isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

I think part of the problem is that Catholics don’t ask really big questions when they are dating. I feel like a lot of people think you meet a guy or a girl, there is some level of interest and attraction, you start to get to know one another, and immediately there is a feeling of an obligation to make this relationship work. The problem is, that isn’t the point of dating! The point isn’t to make a relationship work, it’s to discern marriage.

We have to ask questions people in our culture don’t ask. We can’t simply ask, is this person good-looking, do I feel warm and fuzzy when I am with them? Questions like that are superficial and they are not going to help you determine whether or not this is the person I should marry.

We have to ask questions like, does this person’s work ethic align with what it takes to be in a marriage? Would I be okay if I had kid who one day grew up and turned into this person? Ultimately what we do is meant to glorify God and we are not obligated to try and make a relationship work that isn’t supposed to work.

I think at the root of the problems we face in dating or marriage, and at the root of most, if not all, the biggest social problems in our culture, is the fact that people aren’t practicing chastity.

I think if people practiced chastity there wouldn’t be divorce, abortion, infidelity—none of these things would happen if people practiced chastity. The goal of chastity is love. If we were really loving, then these things wouldn’t happen.

 

On the Importance of Community

If you feel alone, find people who believe what you believe. We become like the people we surround ourselves with, whether we like it or not. We need to surround ourselves with people who understand whatever struggle we have and who are overcoming them everyday. It is very hard to live Christianity in this culture because we are going against the grain and it’s a lot easier to do that when you are not alone.

Secondly, when you’re seeking advice or need to vent, pick people based on their credentials. If you are struggling in a dating relationship, go to the people who have been happily married for twenty years. They know what they are doing! If we are really trying to get better at something, we need to go to people who are better at it than we are.

 

How did your family influence your faith?

“When my parents got married, my mom was Catholic and my dad was Jewish. When I was a kid, even though he was Jewish, my dad would always come to Mass with my mom, my brother and myself. When I was in fifth grade he decided to become Catholic, because, I mean, you can only go to Church every Sunday for so long before you realize that this is THE truth (Laughs). So he decided that he would go through RCIA at our church. As he was going through RCIA, my parents pulled me out of public school and put me into a private, Protestant school.

Up to that point, I didn’t know what a Protestant was; I just thought everyone was either Catholic or Jewish because that was my family. So I get to this Protestant school and within a couple of weeks, Catholicism came up. It turned out that my teacher was an ex-Catholic who had, let’s say, strong opinions about Catholicism.

I remember she was standing at the front of the room one day talking about how to get to heaven. She said it was a lot easier for Protestants to get to heaven than it is for a Catholic. For a fifth grader who didn’t really know what a Protestant was, I thought there was something really wrong about that statement.

I went home and asked my parents about what my teacher said and because my dad was going through RCIA, they had resources on hand like tapes from Scott Hahn and different books by various people popular in Catholic Apologetics at the time. Because of that, my parents were always available and able to discuss the faith with me. As my dad was going through RCIA and learning more about the Church, I was able to learn more through them.

 

What was your favorite family prayer?

I think the most important family prayer was going to Mass. I remember this one time when I was a kid, I was really young, and I said something to my mom like: “Summer is a vacation from school. Why isn’t it a vacation from church?” (Laughs) My mom wouldn’t have it! She said “Oh no…” and explained why we need to go to Church every Sunday. That got me into pattern of finding Mass to be a very important, necessary part of my life.

 

arleen-spenceleyTo learn more about Arleen you can visit her website at http://arleenspenceley.com/ follow her on Twitter @ArleenSpenceley or click here to like her on Facebook.