I don’t know why it always surprises me when I open up the daily Scriptures and find a reading that speaks right to my heart, as though God placed it there just for me. And so it was that at a time when I was struggling with some of the more human elements of Church, the underbelly of faith, I came to today’s reading from Acts. “We must obey God rather than men,” the apostles remind us, even as they faced persecution for “the sake of the name.” While we may not have to deal with direct persecution in our daily lives, we often face revelations and realizations that can be as dangerous to our spiritual lives as the Sanhedrin’s threats were to the apostles’ physical lives. Despair and doubt, if allowed to fester, are destructive forces to be sure.

But, if we obey God rather than men, it changes the dynamic. God alone. That is what we must hang our hopes on. Anything or anyone else is bound to be flawed, bound to disappoint, and in the process, likely to shake our faith and scar our souls at some point. So how to obey God first and only when we live in a human world? Prayer. Always prayer. When we are so hurt that we can’t even say the prayers of our Church, we can say the prayers of our heart. Speak to God one-on-one, face-to-face, and let God heal your fractured soul.

Mary DeTurris Poust, “God Alone,” from the May 2019 issue of Give Us This Day www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019). Used with permission

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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I didn’t even want to write about this topic again this week. I wanted to write about my two oldest children going off to college — something joyful and light. But the truth is that this is all I can write about, this is all I can think about, and, based on what I’m hearing from my fellow Catholics, it’s all any of us can think about. It has been a rough few weeks to be a Catholic, our hearts broken by news we hoped and prayed could not possibly turn out to be true. And then we saw the victims, clutching one another, turning their faces from the camera during the press conference so we could not see their tears, and we knew. We knew what others have apparently known for a very long time. How they kept silent about it, how they lived with themselves, knowing what they did, is beyond me, but it is a reminder of the way power and privilege can corrupt, how evil can break into even the most sacred spaces, and how the silence of some can perpetuate the abuse by — and of — others. Guilt by omission, guilt by association, guilt every which way you look at it.

“Preach the truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.” That quote from St. Catherine of Siena, one of my patron saints and a powerful woman who had to roll up her sleeves to help clean up the Church of her own time, hangs in my office and lifts me up when I am sinking. We have arrived at this current precipice in large part because of the silence of those who could have done something to change the outcome and save the victims from the hell they endured but chose not to, for reasons none of us can fathom.

Now we laity must find our voices, if we are not already raising them for all to hear. In whatever way we can, whether it’s through writing letters, speaking to civil and Church authorities, talking to priests, pastors, bishops, lay ministers about any problems we know about, we must speak out. And we cannot stop until we are heard and our Church is purged of the evil that has had hold of it for too long. Yes, I know, people spoke out before and no one listened. That was then; this is now. We have reached the tipping point, and there is no going back to business as usual.

Us “regular” Catholics in the pews are battered and aghast by what we have heard. Our hearts ache for those who have suffered abuse. Our souls ache for the spiritual trust that has been crushed under another wave of scandal, this one so big it feels more like a tsunami that threatens to swallow us whole. Many of us have considered walking away. We still teeter on the brink. We want to stay, but we’re not sure we can. It’s a lot to ask of us. We need our priests and bishops to know that. We are hanging by a thread, many of us. This will not be easy to forgive, and it should not be easy to forget. We will do our very best to stay the course in the face of this crisis, but in order for that to happen, we need you to do your best. That has to start with real honesty and transparency — not just in policies and procedures but in the pews and among the people. Be the shepherds we need you to be.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

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Why do you remain a Catholic?” That was the challenge issued to me on Facebook a while back. Never one to refuse a good challenge, I pondered that question anew even though I had wrestled with it before in relation to various crises in the Church, particularly the sex abuse scandal. Why do I stay? I had originally thought the new answer to that old question would be easy. But, as I reflected on it more deeply, I realized that my truth is not that simple, because it would imply that the sex abuse scandal is the only thing that makes me wonder sometimes why I stay. And, quite frankly, abuse is just one thing among many that can make this faith a challenging matter.

Don’t get me wrong. My Catholic blood runs true blue and has for all of my 53 years. I love the Church deeply, but sometimes the Church makes me crazy. You know how your family can make you crazy? Yeah, like that. There are days when I want to run away, change my address and take up a new identity. Family can do that to you, and the Church is my family, the Church is my home, and since I’ve worked for the Church for 30-plus years in one form or another, the Church is also my business. When you spend that amount of time with anything or anyone, it can sometimes make you want to run screaming from the room. And yet I haven’t run. I haven’t changed my identity. I am here, not without some fairly regular whining, but here. Firmly planted, whether I am giddy with the joy of faith or grumbling in the pain of darkness. But why? Why not walk away and be done with even the most minor frustrations? Why not find an easier path or maybe even “create my own religion,” as some tell me they have done, where I crop out the hard stuff and fill the frame with only flowers and light?

Because life is never just flowers and light, because there will always be frustrations, there will always be something to whine about, something that doesn’t go according to my plan, and I cannot imagine getting through my daily dose of drama without God ever present in my corner, without Jesus always in front of me, without the Eucharist providing food for the often difficult journey.

When the crowds around Jesus start to have trouble with some of his difficult teachings and begin walking away, he asks his closest followers if they, too, will leave.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter answers. “You have the words of everlasting life.” That remains at the heart of my answer today. Always I identify with Peter, who never fails to screw up but somehow gets it on a deeper level. He doubts, he denies, he runs away, but Jesus sees through it to the faith that lives inside him. I pray Jesus can do the same with me, see through my mistakes and missteps and failures to the faith that is sometimes shaky, often lukewarm, but always present. For my entire life my faith has been the air I breathe. Like the beating heart we don’t question until it starts to fail, my faith has been beating inside me for 53 years, often without my taking the time to stop and admire its steadfast rhythm and life-giving power. Until someone asks me, “Why stay?”

Like Peter, I can only say, “To whom shall I go?” If not here, where? If not this, what? This is where Truth lives. This is the Way. This is the Word to which I cling. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega—with me, with all of us, until the end of time.

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When it comes to teenagers, you expect a certain amount of eye rolling and apathy, but put those same kids in a faith formation class for an hour and fifteen minutes at the end of a long school day and right at the dinner hour and you’ll see a level of teenage disinterest that could make you wither on the spot. That’s what my husband and I faced when we stood before the 21 high school sophomores we teach at our upstate New York parish.

The scene was nothing new and nothing unexpected. We taught most of the same kids last year since they’re in a two-year program that will culminate in confirmation this spring. However, I’m willing to wager that their apathy isn’t necessarily related to a surge of teenage surliness but rather to a lack of foundational catechesis, and I say that while having taught many of these kids in fourth and fifth grade. I have used every trick in the book—from group activities to stump-the-teacher sessions to outright bribery through baked ziti and brownies—to get these kids to hear me when I talk about the Mass, about the Gospel, about our beautiful Catholic teachings and traditions. Yet every year, when they reluctantly return to class, I find I’m grateful if even half of them remember the Our Father.

When I look out at these kids—regardless of age, regardless of whether they’ve gone to Catholic or public elementary school—I assume I am seeing 75 percent as future ex-Catholics.

Read more HERE.

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That post appeared on Not Strictly Spiritual on Jan. 21, 2014, in response to a sex abuse story that was circulating in the news at the time and making me ask myself that very question: Why do I stay? I originally planned to re-post that link on Elizabeth’s Facebook thread as my response to the new version of that old question and be done with it. Easy peasy. But then I thought, no, that’s not my truth because it would imply that the sex abuse scandal is the only thing that makes me wonder sometimes why I stay. And, quite frankly, abuse is just one thing among many that can make this faith a challenging matter.

Don’t get me wrong. My Catholic blood runs true blue and has for all of my almost 53 years. I love the Church deeply, but sometimes the Church makes me crazy. You know how your family can make you crazy? Yeah, like that. There are days when I want to run away, change my address, and take up a new identity. Family can do that to you, and the Church is my family, the Church is my home, and, since I’ve worked for the Church for 30-plus years in one form or another, the Church is also my business. When you spend that amount of time with anything or anyone, it can sometimes make you want to run screaming from the room. And yet I haven’t run. I haven’t changed my identity. I am here, not without some fairly regular whining, but here. Firmly planted, whether I am giddy with the joy of faith or grumbling in the pain of darkness. But why? Why not walk away and be done with even the most minor frustrations? Why not find an easier path or maybe even “create my own religion,” as some tell me they have done, where I crop out the hard stuff and fill the frame with only flowers and light?

Because life is never just flowers and light, because there will always be frustrations, there will always be something to whine about, something that doesn’t go according to my plan, and I cannot imagine getting through my daily dose of drama without God ever-present in my corner, without Jesus always in front of me, without the Eucharist providing food for the often-difficult journey.

When the crowds around Jesus start to have trouble with some of his difficult teachings and begin walking away, he asks his closest followers if they, too, will leave.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter answers. “You have the words of everlasting life.” That was the reason I gave in my original blog post on this topic, and it remains at the heart of my answer today. Always I identify with Peter, who never fails to screw up but somehow gets it on a deeper level. He doubts, he denies, he runs away, but Jesus sees through it to the faith that lives inside him. I pray Jesus can do the same with me, see through my mistakes and missteps and failures to the faith that is sometimes shaky, often lukewarm, but always present. For my entire life my faith has been the air I breathe. Like the beating heart we don’t question until it starts to fail, my faith has been beating inside of me for almost 53 years, often without my taking the time to stop and admire its steadfast rhythm and life-giving power. Until someone asks me, “Why stay?”

Like Peter I can only say, “To whom shall I go?” If not here, where? If not this, what? This is where Truth lives. This is the Way. This is the Word to which I cling. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega — with me, with all of us, until the end of time.

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Great interview. I was lucky enough to grab these shots as taping started to roll. Even if you don’t live in the Diocese of Albany, you’re sure to find some tidbit to inspire you. Thanks, Bishop Ed, for your leadership, your honesty, and your example of faith.

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And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.  – Luke 1:35-38

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

(Annunciation window in Lady Chapel of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Delmar.)

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For too many of us, Church becomes something belonging to someone else, a place we visit but don’t always choose to live. When we start to see Church not as a location but a state of heart and mind, that’s where transformation begins.

This past week Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany had a great column that tackled that very subject in such a beautiful way.

The link to the full column is at the bottom of this post, but here’s one of my favorite quotes:

…We might say that the Church is not so much a place that people come to as a way of being who we are. If we are truly the mystical Body of Christ — and that is what “Church” means, in its most fundamental way of being — then the Church is really a crystal cathedral, not a stone fortress, where the walls are transparent and our hearts go out to neighbors, since the Spirit of God cannot be locked in a chest or mummified in a museum.

Yes, the Church is all of the above — and more. Yet, it is none of the above completely or exclusively. No description or experience of it can completely exhaust the meaning of the mystery. We are always on the way of getting there and we are always more than what we seem to be at any point in time, for Jesus is always with us, within us and around us.

Isn’t that a great description? Very Thomas Merton-esque, and that’s always a good thing in my book. Click HERE to read the entire column. What does Church mean to you?

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It happened when Cardinal Timothy Dolan was presenting Bishop Scharfenberger with the symbols of his office. He placed the miter on his head and presented him with the book of the Gospels and his episcopal ring. Finally, he handed him his crosier, the pastoral staff he will carry with him at liturgical services, and as the cardinal reminded the new bishop of his main role as shepherd, I got all teary-eyed. I love that shepherd image — complete with shepherd’s crook — and, of course, it reminds me of Pope Francis and his challenge to priests and bishops to “smell like their sheep.”

From everything I seen of and heard from Bishop Scharfenberger so far, he seems like exactly that kind of shepherd — warm and welcoming, open and joyful. (You can see him in the photo on the right stopping during the recessional procession to talk to an older woman who reached up and patted his cheek.) We are so blessed in the Albany Diocese to have this man sent to lead us after the record-breaking tenure and compassionate leadership of Bishop Howard Hubbard, who looked equally joyful as we met him on the way to the reception after Mass.

Here are some highlights from Bishop Scharfenberger’s address at the end of his ordination Mass:

“That’s one of the things they do in heaven, they celebrate! And I think the joy that we feel in our hearts today as Cardinal (Timothy) Dolan said so well is it’s not about me, it’s not about a bishop, it’s not about any one of us, it’s about our Lord, Jesus Christ. Who gives us peace and happiness and joy and mercy and forgiveness and causes each and every one of us to bring that to the world.

“Each and every one of us has the power to change that world just by simply being true to who we are and as I said when I first came to the diocese, all I ask of you is that you bring the best out of me and I will bring the best out of you.

“…I am so grateful to all of the young people here, who show by your faith and your presence that the church is young and that we have a future. And that the future is in strong hands.

“Never be afraid of God’s call. Never be afraid of being holy. Jesus is the one who will lead you. Carry that message wherever you go. I am so thankful for the people in my life in Brooklyn. You know one of the wonderful things that has been written about me has really been about my neighborhood, of Ridgewood in Brooklyn where I grew up. But my parents were the first ones to say yes, just to having me, and I have to tell you that if you want to know how a vocation gets nourished, how a vocation gets started, it starts right there at home. My earliest memories of my family in Ridgewood, we went to church every Sunday, regardless of what the neighbors did, we just went. That was my recollection of what it meant to be Catholic, to go to church every Sunday, to say the rosary, maybe not every day, but almost every day, we were taught our prayers.

“My family always supported me throughout my life and when I said I was thinking about becoming a priest instead of becoming an airline pilot, didn’t say I should have gone the other way, but supported me all the way. You know, I think being a pilot and being a priest is about lifting people up, right? So it’s kind of connected, you know? But that’s what all of us are here for, to lift one another up in the Lord, to let the Lord be a part of our life and to let his joy just come out of us.”

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Let’s look at one single aspect of this case: Okay, a single woman becomes pregnant, tells her superiors at her Catholic school that she plans to keep her baby, and is subsequently fired by “higher ups” in the Diocese of Helena after officials receive an anonymous letter, according to news reports. What do you think happens the next time a single Catholic school teacher finds herself pregnant with no husband? Yeah, abortion might be the obvious choice if she thinks she might lose her job otherwise. So much for that pro-life thing.

I’ve heard about the “right way” this could have gone down — a kinder, gentler firing of sorts, but the bottom line is that there is no scenario where firing this woman is right. It would have been nice if, instead, the school, the local parish, maybe even the larger diocese  rallied around her and gave her the extra help she might need — babysitting, dinners cooked, some diapers, whatever — to make her life a little easier once her baby is born. And I’m guessing there are individual people from that school or parish who are doing just that anyway because people are kinder and more understanding than the rules allow. Because most of us recognize that there but for the grace of God…

I am dumbfounded that the local Church would fire a pregnant woman no matter what her at-home circumstances. I think back to my life as a student and, to be honest, I couldn’t even begin to tell you about the personal lives of my teachers. It never would have fazed me if my teacher had been pregnant. I didn’t know their husbands, or if they had husbands. I just loved my teachers, plain and simple, exactly as they were — married, single, pregnant, not, young, old, man, woman. Little kids don’t really get into morality, and older kids, well, again, what are we teaching them about choosing life over abortion? Not a lot if they’re seeing their teacher fired for being pregnant and unmarried. That will do more to sway their future actions, I’m sure, than anything else they might have taken from their teacher’s situation.

If we want people to have their babies rather than abort them, we’d better be able to walk the walk, and firing a single woman who has the courage to bring her baby to term on her own in spite of the trouble she had to know she’d face at her job, isn’t walking the walk. It’s walking in the opposite direction. I keep trying to look at this from all sides, but I can’t see any side of this that makes firing the best answer. Did she violate a contract that said she had to uphold Catholic teaching? Yeah. Then let’s go through the lives of every other teacher and see where they did or did not live up to Catholic standards. My guess is they’d be firing the entire staff. We are all sinners. Everyone violates Catholic teaching in one way or another. Why should only the obvious sinners pay the price?

I believe Jesus said it best, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

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