Antidote to Chaos

Does anybody think that the same people who advanced Covid theater are now promoting war? Have we learned nothing from the bloodiest century? I'm retreating more into prayer. Beauty will indeed save the world. On Valentine's Day, this copper spire went up on St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church on Daniel Island. Watch: 

Spire Lift Video - YouTube

The church will be finished next year and I have a feeling there will be many conversions because it's so beautiful to worship in a space set apart for worship. It's one of the things I love about the traditional Latin Mass. It's set apart from the ordinary. It has a way instantly orienting my thoughts to the Almighty. The antidote to chaos. Yesterday at choir practice, the pastor was meeting with cadets from the Citadel who are in RCIA and I was flooded with memories of our time in RCIA. I still can't believe it sometimes, how I've grown in love. But when you're drinking from the very Source of all Love, how can it not? I pray this Lent will be the best ever, bearing much fruit for the Kingdom of God.

When we first moved here and I saw the lacrosse field across Bishop England High School, I knew it'd be the perfect place to have a church. And it is. Deo gratias!

 

A Love Story

Several years ago, I wrote a short piece for Catholic Digest on our conversion. I've always wanted to say more because I'm a woman in love and I can't stop thinking about my first Love: Jesus Christ.

Baptism: I'm like the paralytic brought to Jesus

There's only one baby picture of me, I suspect because I was the fourth and last child of my parents, born in Khandwa, India. Although my mother was raised in the Anglican Church (her father was a priest who went on to become a Bishop) she brought me to Jesus at a Methodist Church, probably because the pastor there, Rev. Sham Rao, was a family friend. He baptized me when I was 2 months old, on the Feast of St. Patrick, March 17. My soul was marked as belonging to Jesus. I will always be grateful to my parents for my life, but especially for baptism.

And so began my life in Christ. I do not have a memory of not being in conversation with Him as a small child. He was ever present in my mind and I remember falling off chairs and tables because I was making space for him on those chairs and tables. I was already in love, thanks to all the Bible stories my mother shared. I was also aware of my guardian angel and had complete confidence of his protection. I lived without any sort of fear. My mother suffered greatly because of this. She tried to tell me cautionary tales but to no avail. I also had no fear of death because I knew that then I'd get to be with Jesus forever, just like my older brother, Arun.  

And so I grew. We moved to Bhopal when I was still an infant and there I went to St. Joseph's Convent School when I turned four years old. I loved the sisters and was sure I'd be a nun some day, a doctor-nun.

My father went to Germany to study and it was a shock to realize I'd forgotten him upon his return. I was five when he left again, to the US, and it was a very difficult time for my mother, managing everything on her own and not having any money after my other brother had a case of rheumatoid arthritis as well as several abdominal operations. I wrote about this in A Feast for Christmas. One thing that amazed me was my mother's faith in God's providence. And He did provide.

We moved to the US shortly thereafter, but returned to India a year later with my sister and mother when my parents' marriage began to fail. My brother stayed behind with my father in the US. And although I didn't know it at the time, this would be disastrous for my faith. I only knew that after we returned to India, I'd not only lost half my family, I'd also lost my best friend, Jesus. I no longer enjoyed the same closeness as I once did.

Eroding Faith: the Necessity of a Father

I was ten years old when I read the Diary of Anne Frank. I wept over what I learned was the holocaust. I couldn't believe that God would allow such carnage, and to His chosen people! This problem of suffering was one that my mother couldn't answer. She told me to have faith, but I was losing it. By that time, I was also aware of the suffering around me--the poor, the sick, the destitute. It seemed God didn't care for His creation at all, that only people like Mother Teresa, Damien of Molokai, and Albert Schweitzer did anything to alleviate suffering. They became my role models. By the time I turned twelve, I made a conscious decision not to pray because it seemed useless. I wanted to be a doer, not realizing that the great works of the saints had a foundation of prayer. But the day I made my decision, I cried buckets because I had truly lost my best Friend.

The absence of my father loomed large and I decided to rely upon myself, become self-sufficient. I enjoyed my studies and dreamed big dreams, of ministering to the sick, and in my old age, writing about the many adventures I would have. And as I grew and matured, I was puffed up with myself and missed Jesus less and less, until I didn't think of Him at all. I filled my time with studies and work and music. I think perhaps music and science are the two subjects of my curiosity and delight that still made me think, Oh how beautiful! There must be a God.

Where Sin Abounds so does Grace

I broke my poor mother's heart by being utterly willful and unrepentant of anything. She, of great faith, couldn't understand how she could've raised a child who actively chose not to have faith. I went to church, only to sing in the choir and make us both happy. I met the love of my life (now my husband) and reveled in the lust. We joked about how eager I was to be corrupted.  

When my mother died, there was no longer a reason to go to church and I didn't after the funeral. I was finishing up my studies in microbiology and was thinking about getting a job. Dreams of medical school vaporized; I was utterly alone and desolate. For the first time I felt fear. Fear of debt. Fear of failure. Fear of myself. When the acceptance letter finally came, I declined.

I spent more than a decade of my life in decadence. I didn't give a thought to the poor or suffering. I lived for myself and for pleasures. I thank my guardian angel for protecting me because surely had I died in my 20s I'd be in hell. I would've rejected God's mercy because frankly, I didn't think I needed it. I'd lost all sense of sin.

A Softening of the Heart

Michael and I finally married after ten years of pursuing our own dreams separately. That was the first step in living not just for myself, but for him too. I thought I'd given my all to him but it wasn't so. I withheld my fertility. Only five years later did we decide to grow our family. Max and Dagny taught me (still teaching :) even more about how to love, but just as quickly we closed that door, and this time permanently, with a vasectomy (we joked it was his 40th birthday present--and I write about those regrets in Contraception, Infertility and a Faith Journey).    

I quit working as a research scientist and embraced the life of being a homemaker. That old buried dream of writing surfaced. While still pregnant with Dagny, I looked into taking a writing class at the community college and as luck would have it, Peggy King Anderson was offering a class weeknights on children's writing and best of all it was offered at the local high school, just 10 min away. I didn't know the first thing about children's literature but I loved it, especially since I was discovering a wealth of it with Max, who adored being read to.

Some of the women in this writing class and the next one I took a couple of years later became my critique partners. I grew with them thanks to their many secret prayers. Molly and I would stay late talking books and faith and it was she who told me I was the world's worst atheist. She could see the little flame of God inside me, even if I was unaware.

My journey of faith is tied to Michael's. He had grown up with no faith at all and sometimes I think my loss of faith was necessary for us to be together. Tragedy struck American soil on 9/11 and it shook Michael to the core. He started examining his values and reading more conservative literature. We often talked about the things he was reading and I was writing. Our hearts were softening. 

The kids started school and with it came several bad influences, though the good far outweighed the bad. We didn't know how to counter the permissive culture, the complete insanity of rejecting natural law. I thought about my own childhood and the wonderful assurance that Jesus gave me but I couldn't be a hypocrite and send the kids to Sunday school when we did not believe. So we tried our best to love and raise the children with an emphasis on having a sense of right and wrong that is indeed written upon our hearts.

But one Christmas I was compelled to buy a children's Bible (You gotta love Amazon. I just checked on the link and it was Dec. 5, 2006 :) and Michael was so enamored by it, he offered to read the stories to the children. So began a love affair night after night as we read stories.

Church: Which One? 

But how we resisted going to church. I liked the Jesus and me theology. It was simple and uncomplicated. Also, every church we looked into didn't seem right. A group of people met to worship at the elementary school, but it felt too casual. I know that when two or three gather in His Name, He's there, but I wanted a sense of the sacred. Then there was a big church at the bottom of our hill that advertised "No Weird Stuff." What were they implying? That there's weird stuff in other churches? I went online to investigate the Anglican church, the one where I had some roots. But it was no longer the same church even. There were women priests and even homosexual priests. How could it be? It's as if people made the church in their own image. Whatever they liked in the Bible, they kept, and whatever they didn't (like the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, remember Henry VIII?), they just threw out. Finally, after much grumbling, it made sense to go to the first church that Jesus established, which was the Catholic Church.

It was Fall 2008. Max and Dagny were already in school and had begun playing organized sports. Michael thought it might be good to wait until after football season ended but that didn't make any sense to me because faith shouldn't depend upon any season. So we went one Sunday in October to St. Jude Parish, just 10 min away, near the high school.

I cried and cried because I was home. My kids had never seen me cry like this so I had to assure them it was because I was happy. Later Michael told me it all seemed very strange because the only thing he knew about the Catholic Mass came from movies like The Godfather :) 

After Mass, I tried to enroll the kids in Sunday school but Mary, the very nice lady in-charge asked about the childrens' ages and when they were baptized and I said, "never," she told me I needed to speak to Deacon Karl about RCIA. What in the heck, I thought. She said it was a Rite of Christian Initiation. Boy, I thought, why can't you just join a Catholic Church; why all the fuss? Any other church would welcome us with open arms, but not Catholics; they made it hard with all their rules. But I am glad they do.

RCIA: Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults

So I took my complaints and questions to Deacon Karl and he was wonderful about explaining everything. We enrolled in RCIA, which had already begun. We all went to morning Mass on Sunday but Michael and I and the others who were inquiring about the Catholic faith were dismissed after the homily so that we could more deeply ponder the Gospel. The kids stayed in church with our sponsors. I will always be grateful to the donut ministry that kept my kids sugared up and Knights of Columbus for keeping an eye on our kids while our sponsors joined us for RCIA. We'd go home for a few hours, then returned for the children's RCIA, led by Mary. Then it was time for Mass and this time, the children were dismissed for lectio divina. Deacon Karl worried about us burning out and suggested we do this over a couple of years, first the parents, then the children or vice versa, but I am so glad we made this journey of faith together. I now hear that it's very rare for entire families to enter the Church so but God granted us all the graces. Our Sundays automatically became reserved for Church, given we only had a few hours in the afternoon. And our conversations often revolved around the Catholic faith. But it wasn't smooth sailing at all. My health took a dive. Migraines became more frequent and vicious. I had to reverse every single position I held that went against the faith. It definitely bruised my pride but I'd rather live with Truth. It is both good and beautiful, though not always easy.


RCIA helped me to fall in love again. At any point in the journey, any of us could've dropped out. In fact, in our adult class, two Protestant women left before the Rite of Acceptance. During Lent, there were scrutinies and minor exorcisms. I almost lost it all on Palm Sunday. After reading the Passion during Mass, I felt unworthy. I knew I deserved death, not life. But Jesus drew me to Himself and showered all His tender mercies upon me. I wanted nothing more than to be in the shelter of His Cross, to be washed clean in His Blood. Our entire family was received into the Holy Roman Catholic Church at Easter Vigil--April 11, 2009, the feast of St. Gemma Galgani. I know all heaven was rejoicing, and especially my mother and brother and all our beloved dead. Many friends here on earth were also praying for us and I am eternally grateful to each and every one of them.

A New Creation

We are no longer the same. We are new creations in Christ. We might look the same, keep the same job, have the same hobbies, but we are no longer the same people and we could no longer keep on living the way we used to. Michael and I opened our marriage again to new life. We made sacrifices for the children to be able to attend Catholic schools. And thanks to The Godfather, Michael searched out the Mass of the Ages and we happily attend the Latin Mass. We prayed for more faith and God opened doors that we simply had to walk through. Our move to SC was that of fleeing Egypt, says Michael. I find myself writing about the saints or other treasures of the Church--her wealth inexhaustible. For the first time, I will attend a Catholic writing conference. I find myself returning to the childhood state of being in conversation with Jesus throughout the day. And the fire that was ignited at baptism burns so hot, I want to light the whole world on fire. This is my love story. It has no ending because it will continue through all eternity.

Catholic Catalogue: A Field Guide

The Catholic Catalogue: A Field Guide to the Daily Acts that Make Up a Catholic Life by Melissa Musick and Anna Keating is exactly what it says, a field guide. For many cradle Catholics, this might not be necessary but given that only 30% of professed Catholics go to Sunday Mass, I am not sure. A brief conversation with some Catholic friends made me realize that many are Sunday Catholics who are missing out on the riches of the Church, the daily rituals and prayers that lift our hearts heavenward. As a convert, I am constantly learning about various traditions from devout Catholic families but this book is a wonderful primer for a neophyte on what it is to live a Catholic life. I suggest giving this beautiful and accessible book as a gift to the neophytes who are received into the Catholic Church at Easter.

The book is organized in such a way that it’s easy for a neophyte to begin anywhere, whatever piques his or her interest. It begins with what I think is a difficult subject: relics! So many people are appalled by the idea of keeping the mortal remains of a person, let alone venerate them. But the authors do a wonderful job of explaining how it can be a “doorway into the divine.” Just as you might keep a photograph of your grandparents to remember them by, so Catholics keep pictures of favorite saints to remember their lives, or go on pilgrimages to visit their tomb or touch a favorite rosary to the relics. “What we choose to keep tells us what matters to us.”

This section of the book is “Smells and Bells” and covers the sacraments and sacramentals, like holy water, oils, candles, clothes, medals, daily prayers, etc.

The bulk of the book is on the “Seasons of the Church Year” and is especially helpful for neophytes in learning the different ways of celebrating the various feast days in the life of Jesus, Mary and the saints. I do wish the authors had mentioned some of the older traditions before the changes made in Vatican II so that neophytes get a better sense of history but that is just a quibble. The very end of the book is devoted to seasons of a person’s life – childhood, adolescence and adulthood – and how to navigate them, including such things as finding a parish or making a spiritual retreat. It ends fittingly with the funeral liturgy. This book is a great resource for anybody who is interested in living a more vibrant and liturgical life, as well as a person who is simply interested in what it means to be Catholic. I highly recommend the Catholic Catalogue and thank Blogging for Books for providing me with a review copy.

Note: This book came about after a highly successful blog. Check it out.