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The Sinner and The Hypocrite are Not Twins

https://atheisttochristian.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/the-prodigal-son-reflections-on-teaching/

The Struggle Is Real

William Gurnall once stated, “While the Christian commits a sin he hates it; whereas the hypocrite loves it while he forbears it.” We have all felt the frustration of falling into sin the same day as attending Mass or praying. The truth is that we all play many positive and not so positive roles in our daily spiritual lives. If you are anything like I am, you unwittingly focus more on the negative roles than the positive ones. You may tend to beat yourself up more for the slips than celebrating the wins.

That is not what Christ is all about. Surely, he wants us to see our faults. However, Jesus also wants us to be uplifted by our accomplishments as well. In fact, one of those accomplishments can often be gaining clarity amidst our stumbles. Such was the case when I called myself a hypocrite during confession. The priest gently corrected me, pointing out that hypocrites pretend to be something they are not while sinners merely fall. Hypocrites are liars and sinners, whereas sinners are usually not liars and hypocrites. Sinners fall a lot in a feeble effort to pursue his example of love and service.

Falling Is Not Hypocrisy

Do not consider yourself a hypocrite because you are a sinner. Rather, consider yourself the beneficiary of such a loving God that your sins can be washed away by your sincere desire to improve out of love. Do not scrupulously obsess over your falls. Rather, embrace the gift of hope and immerse yourself in the sea of love and mercy which Christ offers to all of us who fall on a daily basis. The devil wants you to wallow in shame, frustration, doubt, despair, and hopelessness.

Shed yourself of these negative and self-destructive lies. Christ chose you to glorify God despite your imperfection because he knew that there was greatness beneath your falls. Remember that Saul lost an S and gained a P in his name precisely through his greatest fall and proceeded to change the world. Remember that Paul fell because God loved him and wanted his greatness to emerge from that fall. We all have greatness just waiting to be discovered through our falls.

Hypocrisy Is Conscious Pretense

The person who pretends to be impartial while secretly favoring one side over another is a hypocrite. Individuals who pretend to love animals while secretly abusing them are hypocrites. People who pretend to follow Christ while promoting everything he spoke against act hypocritically. However, a common misconception in our society, especially among those who bash Catholics and Christians in general, is to call anyone who preaches following in the example of Christ while falling far from that example a hypocrite. It is not hypocrisy to promote and aspire to a standard and conduct one fails to obtain for oneself.

One’s imperfection (which we all possess) does not, therefore, tarnish, diminish, or destroy the virtue and value of one’s message of virtue. It is hypocrisy, however, to consistently promote a message which one consciously and purposefully rejects or ignores. The sin is not in failing to live up to one’s own message or supposed standards but, rather, in consciously rejecting that message and standard for oneself while applying it to others.

Many today turn this issue into a political one, conveniently bashing opponents and defending their own side regarding hypocrisy claims. Some of these even argue that this is all about a failure to self-reflect. I suggest that we begin by separating the validity and virtue of the message from its imperfect messengers. I also suggest that we distinguish between consciously pretending to that which one is not versus merely promoting a message one often fails to uphold through one’s own imperfection.

Scriptural Perspective

Many cite the Bible which speaks on the evil of judging others and pointing imperfect fingers (Mt 7:1-5) and of seeing oneself as better than another (Lk 18:11-12). Another point is judging over small matters while ignoring much more important issues (Mt 23:23). Ultimately, hypocrisy is found where one holds different standards for oneself than others (Rm 2:21-22), boasts outwardly or does things merely for show (Mt 6:2), holds others’ imperfections as proof of their supposed inferiority, or says one thing for outward appearance while internally believing something else (Ps 12:2). Hypocrisy exists where one has no sincere intention to change and even a desire to define one’s own standards apart from God’s (Rm 10:3).

A common thread in the Bible’s views on hypocrisy is that it is insincere and self-righteous. The sinner who sincerely aspires to and promotes that which he falls short of but never stops struggling to reach is not a hypocrite. The key issues are sincere intent and attempt as well as humble reflection and admission of imperfection. Hypocrites possess outward superficiality with no intent or attempt to change.

In the course of my teaching, I am often called upon to teach students the principles of logic and reasoning. One of the most common errors in this area is thinking that a good message is faulty or useless simply because the messenger is imperfect or even contradicts the very message he or she is conveying. Smoking causes cancer whether or not the one telling us so actually smokes. If imperfection disqualified us from bringing Christ to others, all of us including all saints would have to find another purpose in life. Our Lord knew all too well that he was gathering from imperfect ranks.

The Best Teachers Are Those Who Have Fallen

One of my many hats is tutoring people on how to pass the Bar Exam. Most students are shocked when I inform them that I failed the Bar Exam three times before finally passing it! After all, they reason, why would anyone admit to failing that which they now propose to help another pass? I proceed to inform them that my stumbles are the logs from which I burn the fuel of experience. By failing, I learned what not to do as much as what is simply a waste of time.

By failing, I learned how our own warped sense of perfection actually distorts our perception of humanity, practicality, compassion, mercy, and hope. Ultimately, those who have fallen are the best teachers on how to avoid some falls. More importantly, they teach us how to fall gracefully and rise masterfully. God knows that our falls can shape our greatness if we allow them to do so.

Falling is an Opportunity, Not a Failure

It is with all of the above experiences and revelations honed through setbacks and stumbles that I slowly realized that the ultimate sin is not in falling or often failing to practice what one preaches. Rather, the worst sin of all is failing to rise after one’s falls out of a combination of despair, lack of faith, pride, shame, or simply not loving enough. Yes, you must love to get up from your falls. You must love yourself enough to believe that you can rise and aspire. You must love others enough to realize that your rises can inspire them. Above all, you must love God enough to throw all pride and shame aside.

The hypocrite and the sinner are not always one and the same. Hypocrites lie while sinners simply fall. Our world obsesses over results. Our Lord, however, favors sincere effort to overcome falls. When the world sees a fall, God sees a potential for greatness. What becomes of our falls is up to each of us. Your sin is not hypocrisy unless you stop trying to change, start judging others harshly, or start lying to yourself. The best methods to fight hypocrisy include humble acceptance of your faults and sincerity to amend your life.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

How Laughter Can Help When You’re Grieving

By Jeannie Ewing

Laughter might be the last thing on your mind when you’ve lost a loved one, a job, a home, or are experiencing financial difficulty. Even if you’re a good-natured person inherently, it’s hard to see beyond the struggle when you’re in the midst of it.

Despite this reality, engaging in a hearty belly laugh now and then is surprisingly very healing, both physiologically and emotionally. Laughter accesses the limbic system, the part of our brains that houses emotional processing and responses. When you laugh so hard you cry, you’re actually reaping double benefits, too: Research shows evidence that tears shed during times of extreme stress have a different chemical makeup than those shed when you’re temporarily sad.

Here are some ways laughter can help you when you’re grieving:

Find a funny friend and suggest a night out. If you can’t get out, invite him/her over. Let loose and allow yourself to double over with puns, slapstick, dry, or whatever type of humor triggers your funny bone.
Watch your favorite comedy. Or try a stand-up comedian. Ben and I really love the “clean comics” Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan. They never fail to make us wheeze with laughter.
Do something fun. “Fun” is almost always the last thing on everyone’s list when they are grieving. Even if you can’t imagine going out, do it anyway. Your mind, body, and soul need a break.
Read a funny book. If you don’t know of any, ask around.
Look for humorous memes online. There are plenty. All you have to do is Google!

Though it might seem frivolous or trite, it’s important to take time out to relax, regroup, and find something refreshing to help you refocus on the joys in life. Even if you burst into guffaws at the oddest moments or for the strangest reasons, go with it. I can’t explain the times when Ben and I have shared a good belly laugh over something like an inside joke or a ridiculous story or comment. There’s something very healing and cathartic that occurs.

When you laugh, you clear your mind. Your body’s tension will loosen, and you will feel the visceral response of stress leaving your body, and you will feel stronger and more capable of tackling all the burdens you are facing.

Paraphrased from my book, From Grief to Grace: The Journey from Tragedy to Triumph.

The Freedom to……………….Shoes: Reject The Comfort of Sin

By Gabe Garnica

St. Teresa of Avila once stated, “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.”

Shoes, Comfort, Sin, and Appearances

I recently saw a woman wobbling down the street and having great difficulty walking. The other woman she was with kept pointing to this woman’s shoes and shaking her head. Ultimately, the stumbling woman simply took off her shoes and began to walk barefoot. From what I could decipher from a distance, it appears that the woman had been sacrificing comfort for appearances. While the shoes looked great and clearly fit the rest of her outfit, they did not fit her feet and proved more trouble than they were worth.

This recent Lent provided me with many opportunities to think about comfort, sin, and appearances.

Comfort is a Relative Thing

According to St. Paul, “For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.” (2 Tim 4:1-4)

Our world tells us that we can never have too much comfort. After all, what rational person would ever reject a more comfortable chair in favor of an uncomfortable one? Comfort is often equated in this world with money, such that most see having a lot of money as the way to find greater comfort. In the sense, many of us would question the sanity of someone like St. Francis of Assisi, who turned his back on a great fortune to live a life of poverty and want. Having too much money or too much comfort will not get anyone in this society any sympathy.

However, comfort is a relative thing. We probably all need at least some of it to function on a long-term basis. On the other hand, too much comfort may do us as much, if not more, harm than good. Comfort tends to slip us into the mentality of forgetting God and His blessings. Comfort tends to make us complacent and lukewarm in our faith. Comfort even fools us into believing that our happiness is wholly our own doing.

Comfort is a vicious cycle into self-obsession. The more comfortable we feel, the more selfish and self-absorbed we tend to become. Content in our own convenient abundance, we tend to forget the need and suffering of others.

We need only look at Christ to remember that comfort and Christianity are often polar opposites in this world. Our Lord was born into and regularly faced poverty, rejection, and inconvenience. If we aspire to follow Christ, we must likewise aspire to, and even embrace, discomfort as the price.

Tolerance for Sin as Compromise for Comfort

Fulton Sheen said, “Tolerance applies only to persons, never to truth…or principles. About these things, we must be intolerant.”

Psychologists tell us that people tend to seek stability and consistency in their lives while instinctively pulling away from discomfort and chaos. It would be wonderful if this all meant that everyone lined up in neat lines marching toward heaven and salvation and away from the chaos of sin. However, human nature is an arrogant fool. Sadly, we find that this world increasingly views sin as sanity and rejection of sin as chaos. Charity and mercy call on us to be tolerant of the sinner, but intolerant of the sin—most especially our own.

Increasingly surrounded and enticed by sin, we often find it much more comfortable to accept, rationalize, and even embrace sin as the path of least upheaval and greater acceptance by this world. We wear the distorted shoes of sin so often that we soon see our limp as the accepted way to walk.

Reject the Appearances and Moral Fashions of this World

This society immerses itself in the notion of tolerance as a universal good without accepting the reality that not all tolerance is a good thing. What would happen if we tolerated murder, rape, and other violent crimes? Is it even rational to be a Catholic who supports abortion? Obsessed with appearances and superficial morality, we too often stumble along in shoes of sin we got in the habit of wearing.

We cannot be tolerant of sin in our lives. We must foster a personality and nature that rejects the sin that will surely come across our way with each passing day. Being weak and inconsistent human beings, we will often fall in some way during this year. Rather than spend all of our time and efforts avoiding the falls, we must dedicate a good portion of our preparation and fortitude to constructively dealing with the falls that will surely come.

Conclusion

As members of this society and world, we can all fall for the lure of acceptance, popularity, and group pressure. If we get too used to wearing the warped shoes of sin, we will eventually become so accustomed to their fit that all confession, contrition, or remorse will seem useless and unnecessary.

Lukewarm compromise and those who sold out their morals become increasingly tepid in our faith. The greatest evil and lie is feeling hopeless under the weight of our sins. Divine Mercy reminds us that Christ will always reach out to us if we reach out to him. We reach out to Our Lord by frequent confession and Communion, prayer, and good works for others.

Stop stumbling along in the distorted shoes of sin just for acceptance or the sake of appearances. Do not seek the comfort and convenience of this world over the struggles of following Christ. Embrace the discomfort of your sin as the sign that you have not compromised your faith and values. Likewise, embrace Divine Mercy as Our Lord’s promise to reach out to you as long as you find sin uncomfortable in your life. Above all, love God so much that you will always see sin as an intolerable and uncomfortable pair of shoes you simply refuse to wear.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

Lent Should Be a Moving Experience

By Gabe Garnica

I find it powerful and transcendent that Lent is a moving journey toward the Cross and beyond. This “moving” however, comes in three distinct contexts. Each context has its place in the Lenten message.

Powerful Emotion

The first context of moving evoked by Lent may certainly be the strong, somber emotion of following a friend through great suffering. The closer that friend, of course, the more intimate and proximate to ourselves that suffering should be. While we may be moved by attending the funeral of a friend’s relative we never met, we would expect to be even more moved in attending the actual friend’s funeral. In the first instance, our love for our friend moves us to feel compassion and sympathy for that friend’s suffering. In the second instance, that same love moves us to suffer at the loss of a loved one. The more something touches us, the more it moves our emotions.

As followers of Christ, therefore, we should be moved by Our Lord’s great suffering leading up to and through his ultimate loving sacrifice for us. We should be moved by being so loved while falling so short loving in return. We should be moved by the way we have contributed and continue to contribute to the suffering of a such a loving Lord every time we offend him.

The Crucifix as the Proactive Cross

Our image of the cross is as static and fixed as to be a mirage. We barely discern a difference between a cross and a crucifix. The cross is love promised and the crucifix is love proven. Christ accepted his cross out of love for us and proved his love by turning that cross into the ultimate sacrificial altar. As Catholics, we should see the cross as the setting for love and the crucifix as that love actualized.

The cross sets the table and the crucifix provides us with the meal of Our Lord’s body and blood. Without the corpus on the crucifix, the cross remains a passive symbol. It may evoke our reaction in some way, but that reaction pales in the face of what happens when we add the corpus of Christ.

The crucifix, on the other hand, turns the passivity of the cross into the action of loving sacrifice opening our path to salvation. Through the cross, our reactive passivity is transformed into proactive love. The symbol becomes the signpost. Our Savior on the cross redefines love from simply emotion or reaction into action. It is fine and good to love, but true love demands we act on that love. If we truly love Christ, then we will want to authentically follow him in actions and not merely words.

In this second context, then, Lent implies moving out of our comfort zones and acting on the love we have for Christ and others. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are made of dust but Lent calls on us to turn that dust into a windstorm of love and sacrifice.

Calendar Dates

A friend recently lamented that this year Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day fall on the same day, as do Easter and April Fool’s Day. His concern was that people might forget to receive ashes in their haste to buy flowers and candy. In fact, his teenage daughter who usually proudly wears her ashes to school was going to get them after school because she did not want to “mess up” her Valentine’s celebration in school !

Likewise, many may fear that Easter will receive a greater dose of secular mockery since it falls on the day when fools are celebrated. The irony is that Lent truly should begin with love and call us to be fools for Christ in the eyes of this world. In a way, this year’s odd coincidences merely parallel how we should view Lent when confronting this world’s values and priorities.

It is fitting that Lent varies from year to year because following Christ is not about comfortable and predictable routines. The true follower of Christ is like a bride or groom promising love in the face of an uncertain path to a treasured goal. While Christ should be our fixed target, the world around us often provides a moving context which we must overcome. The ultimate message is that Christ is our fixed GPS through the changing contexts of this world.

As we move through Lent this year, let us be moved to move out of our comfort zones and help move others toward Christ.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

Our Family Read Alouds from 2017: an Annotated List

By Amanda Woodiel

We make time most school days to read loud. A friend recommended the blog Read Aloud Revival (completely worth your time), and after listening to even one podcast, I was hooked on the idea of reading aloud as a way to create bonds within families, to increase literacy among children, and to teach moral values in an organic manner.

Because we read aloud, we have stockpiled literary characters we all know and love. Our literary adventures have given birth to inside jokes and one-liners. Even the five-year-old references lessons from books we read long ago that are stored in the recesses of my mind but that are still very much alive in his.

When we read aloud together, it is almost as though we have gone on an adventure together as a family. It’s time spent together in about the most convenient, comfortable, economical and pleasurable way I can imagine!

Here is the list of what we read aloud in 2017. Given the fact that we rarely read aloud on weekends (for no good reason; we are just out of our routine) and allowing for sick days, laziness in summer, and days we simply didn’t fit it in, I would estimate that we operated at 35% of our full read-aloud potential. That being said, look at how much we plowed through!

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received was along the lines of “If you want to be a mom who takes her kids outside, put down whatever you are doing and take your kids outside. You are now a mom who takes her kids outside.” The same is true of exercise, crafts, or read alouds. If reading aloud is something you want to start doing, go pick up a children’s book off of the floor–picture book or otherwise–and start reading aloud. Trust me, if you read it out loud, they will come. Even when it’s a picture book, the 8- and 9-year olds gather around. There is something magically enticing about hearing a story read aloud.

Chapter Books

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Caddie is a feisty Civil-war-era girl who lives in the wilds of Wisconsin with her family. We had tried Little House on the Prairie a year ago as a read aloud, and no one got into it (an experiment I hope to retry soon). This book is heavy on action with endearing (and enduring!) characters. A great, great read. My kids aged 9 to 4 (at the time) would name it the best book of the year!

Caddie Woodlawn’s Family by Carol Ryrie Brink and Marguerite Davis

As soon as Caddie Woodlawn was finished, my kids begged for another one. Looking around, I discovered this sequel. It isn’t quite as good as the first, but it was still a good read and filled our hearts that were begging for more time with Caddie Woodlawn and her family.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond

These are adorable stories about the talking bear from “Darkest Peru.” My children found the first Paddington movie to be too frightening. In these stories, unlike the movie, there is no villain–just a lot of mischief and unintended consequences. This book is a lot of fun.

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

This is a lovely, spare book about life on the prairie, the loss of a mother, and a new family in the making. Heart-wrenching without being sentimental, the storyline of this book will stay with you–and it comes out all right in the end, too.

The Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo

At first the illustrations to this series and the premise of a doted-upon pig living in a house were jarring to me. Once I began to appreciate the retro style, however, I find both the illustrations and the books to be hilarious. My 3, 5, and 7 year olds can’t get enough of them!

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

I remember reading this book as a child and really enjoying it. This book, like so many books I read in my childhood that had been penned in the ’70s, failed to live up to memory. Perhaps some parts of it went over my head back then. It’s a decent read, but nothing that I would particularly recommend. I had to edit some parts of it as I was reading aloud.

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

This book is about school cliques and bullying. Told from the perspective of one of the less mean-spirited girls in the clique rather than the girl who was ostracized, it touches on the pain of bullying without being overwhelming for a sensitive child. It has worthy reflections on “what I should have done” and the hidden person beyond appearances. A deep book, really, without being pedantic.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

We read this book as part of my son’s book club. It is a fantastic book–but not one that is particularly well-suited to reading aloud to young children. Much of the book is wordplay so that the spelling needs to be seen–or at least read aloud to someone who will get the joke. However, put it on your booklist for older children because it is not only a great adventure story, but it is also a delightful, whimsical, and thought-provoking book that not only forces you to think about how we use language but also about how we live our lives. A fellow mom and I both agreed that it changed our perspectives! 4th grade and up.

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

This book was remarkable in its day as the first that featured magical realism–that is, magic that happens in every day life as opposed to magic that is embedded in another world unlike our own. Four children (the fifth is a baby) come across a wish-giving sand fairy and find that asking for wishes that work out as anticipated is a difficult thing indeed. A classic book for a reason and beloved by our family.

The Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish

Does it get any better than the literal Amelia Bedelia? This is one series from my childhood that absolutely lives up to its memory. All of the children from 3 to 9 love these books, and we have a blast following one another’s instructions in Amelia-Bedelia style (such as “Time to hit the road, kids!” “All right, mom, I’ll get the stick”). Do not get the newer books that feature Amelia Bedelia as a child; stick with the original Peggy Parish books.

The Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik

What lovely books for the young child or the emerging reader! Even I can’t get enough of Little Bear. Simple stories told well.

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

This is a perfectly charming book about the friendship of three animals, the value of place, and music. You won’t regret reading it, and you might even shed a tear at the end like I did.

Stuart Little by E.B. White

We love E.B. White–but we didn’t love this book. Despite a couple of amusing chapters, the book’s ambiguous ending, the main character’s utter disregard for his parents, and its tired ’70s trope of “finding yourself” wore thin even with the children. Stuart Little was not particularly likeable, and the book seemed to have no point. A flop with us.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White

Here’s an E.B. White book that we DID enjoy. While there is a small amount of the old “irrelevant parent” trope, the themes of overcoming obstacles, the value of all life, and the eloquent descriptions of nature trump it. The talkative and vain Old Cob, while rather annoying at first, ended up being our favorite character, and we now love to talk in Old Cob style. We found the resolution at the end to be less than satisfactory, but it afforded good discussion.

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

This is another title I dredged up from my childhood library. The premise is so engaging–run-away children make their home in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art–but their disregard for their parents is dismaying. It read better when I envisioned myself in the place of the child than it does now when I picture myself as the adult. Even so, it gave good fodder for discussion and has a little mystery thrown in.

The Bravest Dog Ever: the True Story of Balto by Natalie Standiford

The true story of a dog who led his sled team through a blizzard to get medicine to sick children in a remote part of Alaska. It is suspenseful without being scary. Good for emerging readers to read alone, but we all enjoyed the story read aloud as well.

The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh

This book, says the epilogue, is based on the true story of a young girl who stayed with Native Americans while her father left to get the rest of the family. It is a memorable book and showcases the deep wells of courage found in children while at the same time not villianizing the adults. Highly recommended. “Keep up your courage” is now a tag-line at our house.

Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

This book was a step into more mature material for my children. The mother in the book has willingly abandoned her husband and her daughter. Until this book, my children had never fathomed that such a thing could occur. The writing, as is always the case with DiCamillo, is so spectacular, though, and she handles the subject so sensitively that I would highly recommend this book for all but the most sensitive of children (and my children are quite sensitive!). Great characters and a satisfying reconciliation between the hurting daughter and father. Ages 6+.

The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series by Betty Macdonald

The original Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books can’t be beat. Her creative ways to deal with the typical misbehaviors of children are not only wise but rollicking. While the first books generally utilize natural consequences (though the reader must suspend disbelief), later books often use “magic powder” to solve the situation. While my children still love those, I personally prefer the earliest books of the series and never tire of reading them! Children 3 and up love them.

All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

This is a simple book about a large Jewish family and their everyday life. It is so innocent that there is even a chapter on mother finding a way to teach her daughters to dust the house better via hiding buttons around the room–and my kids ate it up. It has a somewhat unbelievable, though satisfying conclusion. My children (3 to 9 years old) would rank this as one of the best of the year.

Half Magic by Edward Eager

The author wrote this book in the manner of E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It and even references that book in the text! Four children find a magic coin and discover that their wishes come true only by half as much. It’s fun, has a great ending, and relatable characters.

Frindle by Andrew Clements

What a hilarious book about the power of words! This book features an intelligent and somewhat mischievous protagonist who renames a pen a “frindle.” The character, however, is not malicious and is respectful both of his parents and toward school authorities–a welcome reprieve from the usual theme of “adults are stupid.” It was thoroughly entertaining and had the kids (5 and up) begging for more.

Picture books

We read aloud many, many more picture books than are listed here. The ones below are especially worth highlighting, though! They brought us joy (or brought us to tears) and are all now beloved friends.

Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming

Get your Kleenex ready before you sit down! This is a picture book that is memorable. It can be understood by children at least 5 and older, but the emotional impact will hit the older children (7 and up). It is the story of two little girls, one of whom is in post-war Europe, and their connection across the sea.

It Could Always be Worse: A Yiddish folk tale by Margot Zemach

This is one of those books that we quote all of the time: “It could always be worse!” my kids will chortle no matter our circumstance. It’s an entertaining book about being grateful for how good you really have it.

The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman

This book, about seven children with strong culinary preferences and a mother who caters to them, gently shows children the absurdity of both the children and the mom. I love that the family has more than 2.5 kids, and in the end, a solution is found that is reasonable. It’s just a lot of fun and has great rhymes!

The Mary Celeste: an Unsolved Mystery from History by Jane Yolen

This is a picture book for older children, about 7 and up. It is the true story of a missing ship. My children enjoyed reading the facts and coming up with their own theories as to what happened. For one of my children in particular, the fact that we don’t “know” for sure what happened was a little unsettling, but I think it is a good introduction to being comfortable with mystery.

Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day

This book is nearly wordless, but it makes a big impact. We continue to fabricate situations that star the inimitable Carl the Dog. The illustrations are gorgeous to boot.

Perfect Christmas: a Carol of Calm in the Midst of a Mess by Gary Bower

Each year I think about which new Christmas book I would like to add to our collection. After checking out about 20 from our local library, this one is the winner. It is a universal story about the preparations for Christmas going wrong–and remembering that even so, it is a perfect Christmas. Maybe it’s because I read it when I was knee-deep in Christmas preparations, but it brought me to tears. It also has beautiful, painterly illustrations!

Corduroy by Don Freeman

Corduroy is beloved by all of my children, but was a particular favorite of my 3 year old daughter this year. “Cordur-bear,” as she calls him, is now a sleepmate with her in the form of a stuffed animal. I remember loving this book as a child, and I’m pleased my daughter does too!

For Grown-ups

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen

This book was a life-changer for me. I recommended it to a friend, and she concurs: this is a book we will want to read year after year. It is written in satire, as if we really want to destroy the imagination of our children, and it is a scathing cultural commentary on everything from our educational system to our predilection toward cutting down heroes by focusing on their faults. It’s convicting, enlightening, and inspiring–and it will change the way you parent!

(This post first appeared at www.inaplaceofgrace.com. Text (c) by Amanda Woodiel [2018]. Photo by Mystic Art Design [2015] via Pixabay, CCO Public Domain.)

Failure vs Success: Lessons from the Cross

By Amanda Woodiel

Do you know about St Bridget of Sweden? If you don’t and you are a mom, you want to get to know her. Here is an excerpt of her biography from catholic.com:

“In fact, nothing [St Bridget of Sweden] set out to do was ever realised. She never had a pope return to Rome permanently, she never managed to make peace between France and England, she never saw any nun in the habit that Christ had shown her, and she never returned to Sweden but died, [a] worn out old lady far from home in July 1373” (read the full biography here).

Don’t you love her already? I do. How much of motherhood feels like failing at everything–only to die a worn out old lady! The dishes are piled up (again), the house is a mess (again), I yelled at the kids (again), I didn’t pay a bill on time (again), I forgot even to ask my husband about his day (again)…the list goes on. I’m not the only one, I know, who occasionally feels this way: the phrase “mom fail” has become commonplace in our culture. You know, how you sum up the story to your friends about the time when you earnestly praised your oldest for his generosity of spirit, sunny attitude, and helpful nature–only to end by calling him the full name of the wrong child. Mom fail.

Today I was sitting in the church mulling over the “both and”-ness of Catholic theology. (This is a topic for another post, but you will get the drift in a minute.)

I am nothing (who am I that the Lord knows my name) and yet I am Everything (to the one who loves me so completely that He died for me).

I am nobody (one of billions) and yet I am Somebody (an adopted daughter of the God who created all things).

I am insufficient (brimming with faults and inadequacies) and yet I am Enough (willingness to cooperate with His grace being the only requirement).

So much of what I have tried has looked like failure: various groups I have started, certain friendships, even the little blog off in the corner of the internet. Motherhood can feel like a failure at times; motherhood, which for me has had a way of exposing the depths of my temperamental deficiencies. I feel often–not always, because there are those occasional Supermom days–like a failure. Most days I am so quick to become angry, so preoccupied with my own thoughts as to brush aside an eager child’s slo-mo replay of a football move, so lazy as to ignore distasteful household chores, and yet so busy as to forget to read a book to my little kids.

There I sat in the church talking with God about this topic, and when I raised my eyes, I saw Him on the cross–a cross which, it struck me suddenly, sure looks a lot like failure. What about the cross looks successful? Without the eyes of faith, nothing. There were those three days before the resurrection when the cross, far from looking like part of a divine plan for success, looked like the very depiction of defeat.

Motherhood can feel like living in those three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. In other words, I have the hope of the resurrection. I have the hope that these things I do daily–cleaning, feeding, loving, hugging, teaching, listening, holding, tending, training–will end in victory. But for now I live in the moment when they often look like failure; it’s precisely this interim wherein resides Hope.

I hope in the Lord, not in myself. If I were to hope in myself, my family would be on the Titanic. Instead, I hope in His mercy and in His grace, and I entrust everything–even what presently looks like failure–to the One who can and does redeem all things and who transforms what looks like failure into an eternal victory.

So I love St Bridget of Sweden because she reminds me that the world’s vision of success–implementing something productive, known, used, or profitable–is not God’s definition of success. Someone who failed by every worldly metric is, in fact, a saint. So what is success in God’s economy? We learn from Our Lord that obedience to God’s will is the very definition of success–even if the results look to all the world like failure. We have a saint to remind us of that, and should we forget her, we need only look at the cross.

Playing the Ordered Toward Game

By Amanda Woodiel

God bless the woman from our parish who comes to my house weekly to help out with the children. Not only does she give me a half day out of the house, but she, who also happens to be incredibly well-read and steeped in the Catholic faith, enriches my home with a wisdom culled from years of mothering and reading Catholic philosophy.

So when my six year old son asked her if he could stack a doll stroller on top of a mini folding chair on top of a dining room chair and so on to see if he could eventually get his Tower of Babel to touch the ceiling, she was armed with a much better answer than I would have given when he asked, “Why not?”

“Because,” said the sage. “That is not what those things are ordered toward.”

When I came home, she told me the anecdote, laughing that she had given my budding six-year-old philosopher something to chew on.

But she gave me something to chew on as well. While I outwardly nodded and smiled, my inward self was as happy as a child treated to a new flavor of candy. I quickly saw how brilliant this tack is, calculating how very often I can use this line of reasoning to forestall disaster and reasonably answer questions.

Why can’t I swing this metal pole around like a baseball bat? Because that’s not what it is ordered toward.

Why can’t I climb the door frame like an American ninja warrior? Because, my dear, that’s not what the door frame is ordered toward.

Why can’t I step on the baby’s sippy cup? Because. That. Is. Not. What. It. Is. Ordered. Toward.

****

I’ve been reading the book The Benedict Option, in which the author traces the historical shift in the metaphysical understanding of matter from something that possesses inherent meaning and structure to something that has no meaning at all until a person assigns meaning to it. We see this shift dramatically demonstrated in our current culture’s (dis)regard of the sex of a human body.

Before recent times, a person’s body informed the person’s identity. The body itself had inherent meaning and structure. My body has female parts; therefore, I am a woman. Compare this with the present-day “understanding” of the body as something that has no inherent meaning whatsoever. The fact that I have female sexual organs, runs this way of thinking, in no way determines my sex. Instead, I assign meaning to my body based upon whatever I want for that day.

How extraordinarily confusing is this way of thinking! To live in a world in which everything has no inherent structure, no inherent meaning, no inherent order is to be lost at sea in a cosmological ocean–and lost at sea alone. For if nothing has inherent meaning, then what common ground is there for two people to stand on?

So as a way to bulwark against the prevailing cultural view, we play the Ordered Toward game at my house. It is a simple game, born of that day when my wise friend introduced the concept to us.

Everyone from the 8 year old to the 2 year old loves this game. We simply name things around us and talk about what they are ordered toward. Sometimes I name the object (what is a car ordered toward? To get us from one place to another), sometimes I play the game silly (is spaghetti ordered toward decorating your head? Noooo!), and sometimes I name the purpose and the children name the object (This is ordered toward giving us shade and oxygen. A tree!).

It’s a fun game to play in the car or in a waiting room to pass the time. The children giggle because children instinctively know that objects do have inherent meaning.

Start this little exercise at your house and you will be amazed by how useful it is. When someone throws a toy: “that toy was made to spin; it’s not ordered toward throwing.” When someone sticks his feet in another child’s face: “is that what your feet are ordered toward?” When a child tries to put his sister’s underwear on his head: “that’s not what it is ordered toward!” [Are you getting a picture of life at our house?]

At the same time, I’m laying groundwork for Theology of the Body before I get anywhere close to teaching about the mechanics of sex. The point is that our bodies are ordered toward something. We already talk about what our stomachs are ordered toward (to digest food) and what our eyes are ordered toward (to see), so when we get to the point of talking about our reproductive organs, for example, we will have a solid foundation upon which to lay the Catholic theology of the body, which is to say, that the reproductive organs are ordered toward creating and nourishing life.

Of course, as the children grow older and enter into the rhetoric stage of life, I’m sure we will have conversations about secondary uses and innovative uses of existing things, at which point we will discuss ethics and morality. The first place to start when one encounters something, though, is in discovering what its primary purpose is–and this is a fun way to begin.

Turn Your Crosses into Ladders

By Gabe Garnica

If Christ came to earth to teach us the way to Heaven, then we may rightly accept that his words and actions are sanctified lessons in that path. His examples of love, service, sacrifice, mercy, compassion, dedication, and obedience to the Will of God are found throughout his life and ministry. Beyond the more obvious lessons, however, lie transcendent yet pervasive examples of how to fall. Typically, we see falls as dreaded, embarrassing stumbles to be avoided at all costs. Many times, we see them as windows to our weakness we would much rather stuff under the bed and forget or deny. Such terror in the face of falls dissolves in the face of trusting God. In that context, let me offer the following gentle suggestions.

God Fell for Us

We know that God is perfect and cannot fall but, in a sense, He fell for us from the moment He created us. We know that God loved us before He created us ( Jer 31:3) and that this love has been present in everything He has done for us ( Ps 139: 13-16). We also know that Christ fell for us because he became one of us, while still divine as well, to defeat sin and permit our salvation.

Fall for God

There are mainly two reasons why we may fall. We may fall due to our human weakness and sin. While we should certainly do our best to avoid such falls, the fact is that we will fall despite those struggles because we are human. The devil wants us to give up when we fall due to sin, to feel hopeless and helpless. Reconciliation offers us the way back from such falls precisely because God’s love always defeats the devil’s lies.

The second reason we may fall will be due to things beyond our control. These innocent falls are part of life. Since he was perfect and sinless, Christ never fell to sin, but he certainly fell into struggles and frustrations because he was human. St Alphonsus Liguori often tells us to offer our falls to the goodness of God’s Will regardless of our distaste for them. People often allow injustice or misfortune to sow bitterness and resentment. Again, that is precisely what the devil wants, so we must look beyond our human agenda and have enough trust and love of God to embrace such falls as His Will. Since God is all good, then it follows that his Will is all good. If we offer our falls as products of God’s Will, then we will come to accept them as serving some good purpose despite our distaste for them.

The Pauses That are Not

It is easy to see falls as mistakes to be avoided and embarrassing signs of our weakness. However, such feelings stem from worrying too much about what this world thinks of us or thinking too much about our ego. Others see falls as breaks in the actions, pauses in the proceedings, intermissions or bathroom or food breaks during the play or big game. Such views help us to ignore or brush falls aside and fail to learn and grow from them.

The truth is, falls are a part of the big game and the play of life. They are very much part of the action and players in our plot if we allow them to contribute to who we are and become. Imagine that every play or movie was all success and smiles. Such efforts would teach very little and pretend a lot. They would not be real.

The more we come to see our falls as active parts of our lives and not aberrations, the more we will learn from and, yes, even embrace them as lessons and opportunities to grow toward God. Falls are not silent pauses; rather, they can speak volumes if we are willing to listen and act on them.

Let Your Crosses Become Ladders

St. Rose of Lima is quoted as saying that “Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.” If we truly fancy ourselves followers of Christ, we must start seeing our crosses as ladders rather than burdens. The key to that view is trying to see falls as opportunities to learn how to grow toward God instead of feverishly trying to avoid them like misfortunes, mistakes, or failures. By doing this, we too may sanctify the falls in our lives rather than spend our efforts cursing them.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

The “Truth” About the War on Christmas

By Lisa Mladinich

A dear family member sent me the following video and asked, “What do you think?”

https://mic.com/articles/186563/a-jesuit-priest-reveals-the-big-problem-with-the-so-called-war-on-christmas#.dXpO3ld3t

In the video, posted at a progressive, liberal website called Mic, Rev. Kevin O’Brien, dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, expresses the opinion that Jesus would not care if we wished each other a Merry Christmas, at all. He claims that Jesus would prefer we lived out the message of the Gospel.

Interesting topic. Here’s my take:

Father O’Brien conflates our concern for the commercialization of Christmas with what he claims is a generally-accepted rule of thumb: that the greeting, “Merry Christmas,” is considered a litmus test for whether we are authentically Christian. It’s a fallacy, right out of the gate. There are two completely separate issues going on, here.

First, no reasonable person thinks that if we say “Merry Christmas” it proves our Christianity. In recent generations here in the United States, those happy words have been casually and good-naturedly appropriated and used as a seasonal greeting by people across all faith boundaries. This claim that Christians pat themselves on the back for saying it and then sit back, satisfied that they have proved their authenticity, is not credible.

Second, there is something quite concerning about today’s intense cultural pressure to bury the real meaning of this holy season. That’s what this is really all about.

At this point in our history as a nation, corporations now routinely prohibit their sales staffs from saying Merry Christmas to customers. The idea, ostensibly, is to avoid offending people of other faith traditions; yet, the whole reason for the huge upswing in sales for these same companies is this particular Christian tradition, which is sacred to billions of people around the world. The fact that people of other traditions join in the fun is beside the point. If this were a Muslim tradition and wealthy corporate barons tried to erase the real meaning by prohibiting certain words from being said in public, the cries of tyranny would be deafening.

This suppression of two harmless words that have long expressed kind wishes to all–while reaping profits that keep many of these businesses afloat the rest of the year–is “cultural appropriation” at its worst, something progressives claim to despise.

Those who attempt to bully employees out of acknowledging the meaning of the season are not acting in a true spirit of tolerance and acceptance–quite the opposite. They are trying to erase it.

Why? I believe it’s because Christianity has always been a thorn in the side of those in power. Christians historically are willing to suffer rather than succumb to indoctrination, and our society is full of indoctrination on all sorts of issues: social, moral, and political. The school system sees to the indoctrination of the young, joined by the media, higher academia, and other powerful social influencers.

So my response to those who would forbid anyone from saying something as kind and heartfelt as “Merry Christmas” is this: Stop appropriating our traditions, which are sacred, purely for your own profit, and posturing and pretending that to acknowledge what is sacred to Christians is inherently offensive. Even if only a tiny remnant is celebrating Christmas out of love for Jesus, it is still our sacred tradition, a tradition that shines a unifying, healing, and eternal light into the darkness of our fallen world.

Regarding wishing people a Merry Christmas and the possible risk of offending our Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, or other brothers and sisters, here’s what I do, everywhere I go:

I pay for my items, thank the store employee with a smile, and then ask, “Do you celebrate Christmas?” If they say, “Yes,” I wish them a merry Christmas. If they say (as the girl at the bakery counter said, this morning), “I celebrate Hanukkah,” I say, “Well have a very happy Hanukkah!”

This accomplishes two things (at least): It tells my fellow traveler that I am Christian and take the season seriously, but it also says that I respect the other faith traditions and the sacredness of those celebrations, beliefs, and customs. This moment of human warmth and connection can be that “encounter” that Pope Francis wants for us, in a very small way. Yet, those small encounters can be used by God to sow His holy peace among us, and that is huge.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, devoted to the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux, reminded her followers to do “little things with great love.” The little things matter. God can work miracles of grace through every tiny act of love.

Of course our faith is about living the message of the Gospel, not just saying something Christian (as some sort of phony proof of our authenticity). That is just beyond obvious. But the phenomenon of censorship and denial that has been called, in recent years, “the war on Christmas,” is something we should all be concerned about, whatever our beliefs. Nobody’s faith tradition should be stripped of its identity for any reason, least of all politics or profit. So we actually do defend the rights of other faith traditions when we stand up for our own, in a spirit of mutual love and respect.

If Christmas is in your heart, share it kindly.

May God bless you with his holy peace, providing all that you need to fully become the person you are meant to be, whatever your traditions, beliefs, and customs. Amen.

Is Finger Yoga Safe?

By Lisa Mladinich

Israeli Stop Sign (Wikipedia Commons)

Today, a reader asks whether it is safe to use something called “Finger Yoga,” so I did a quick search and found an informative article by Susan Brinkmann, at one of my go-to resources, Women of Grace. You can read it here.

In its essence, Finger Yoga is the practice of using specific chants and finger positions, ostensibly to generate energy and spiritual awareness. In what seems like trendy PR, some also claim it helps with healing and weight loss. Unfortunately, like all yoga, the aim is to enter an altered mental state that leaves its users vulnerable to dangerous spiritual entities.

While its practitioners are very likely good folks with only the best intentions, the spiritual dangers cannot be overstated. With exorcisms on the rise all over the world, we need to be savvy about avoiding any practice that places our souls in jeopardy. I know from experience that this statement alone will elicit a firestorm of condemnation from certain quarters, but the facts remain: yoga is not just exercise or a practice of self-awareness, no matter how Christianised or modern it may seem; it is a pagan spiritual practice with the potential to invite unknown entities to enter our souls.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, by Pompeo Batoni Photo Credit: Lisa Mladinich

This EWTN video features brain researcher, Adam Blai, on the topic of Exorcism: How to Keep the Doors to the Demon Closed.

For Catholics interested in reading further, the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue produced JESUS CHRIST, THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE: A Christian reflection on the “New Age”, which can be read free at this link, online.

On this lovely autumn Friday, my prayer is that all people will turn away from pagan and New Age practices to embrace with great faithfulness the Heart of the One through Whom we are made, in Whom we have life, and Who loves us more than we can fully comprehend: Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

(See also: Yoga: It Stretches the Bounds of Belief, by columnist, Mary Ellen Barrett)