As per usual, tonight begins the annual Unplugging for the Triduum (Except for Good Reasons Which Often Come Up But Blogging and Facebook Rarely Make the Cut). Have a great one!
Month: March 2018
Holy Week & Easter Indulgences – Do Something Useful for a Change!
Up the Register is a list of indulgences available to you this Holy Week & Easter. You were probably going to do some of these things anyway. Now with just a tiny bit of tweaking, your sorry self can get someone out of purgatory.
If the idea of indulgences makes you want to nail something to a door, Catholic Answers has all kinds of info here on why you don’t need to panic.
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In other news, the Babylon Bee wins the Easter Myth-a-thon with “Confirmed: Resurrection Was Complex April Fool’s Day Joke That Got Disciples Tortured, Killed.” Everyone’s just upside-down with laughter over that crazy where’s-the-body prank the disciples pulled.
Image by Caravaggio, Public Domain.
The Patron Saint of Fat-Shaming Victims
The man you want on your side Blessed Isnardo of Chiampo, feast day March 22nd. From Butler’s Lives:
Isnardo, we are told, in spite of the fact that he led an extremely ascetic life, was very stout, and physical exertion of any kind was a matter of much difficulty for him. . . . On one occasion a scoffer ridiculing the speaker’s corpulence shouted out, “I could no more believe in the holiness of an old porpoise like Brother Isnardo than I could believe that that barrel there would jump of itself and break my leg.” Whereupon, we are told, the barrel did fall upon his leg and crush it.
He wrought other miracles as well, but that’s the one that everyone remembers.
When You’re Failing at Lent
Here’s an actual thing I prayed Sunday morning at Mass: “Jesus, please help me stop failing at Lent.”
I wouldn’t say I’m a pro at Lent any year, but this year is hitting new lows in the spectacular failure department. One of the particularly depressing features is that things I used to be good at in previous years — this prayer routine, that bit of self-denial, those important tasks — I’m not hitting them like the imaginary composite “perfect Jennifer” does in my head. Pick the best Jennifer features selected over 30 years of Lents, feasts, and ordinary times, mash her together into a collage called “You Should Be Able To Do This No Sweat,” and then stand back and despair.
That’s not the point of Lent.
For those of us on the Lent Failure Track, this is the point: Discover again how much you need God.
Hidden Years in the Spiritual Life
Over the last week I’ve been proofing the paperback version of the new book. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the book walks you through an examination of your life with respect to the four ways of loving God — heart, soul, mind, and strength. (There’s a review here — thanks Patrice!) So here it is Lent and I’ve written this great retreat that is ideal for use during Lent, and I’m thinking to myself: If there is one thing Jennifer does not need to be doing right now, it is this retreat.
I have been thinking because my life is already very full, and I don’t need to think up new things.
But I’ve been proofreading the paperback version, and as a result I sort of ended up doing an abridged version of the retreat in my brain. The abridged version consisted of me noticing select passages that scream JENNIFER LISTEN TO THIS!!!! and then me getting an extremely clear idea, after reading all the words in the book, of exactly what it is I need to be working on in my relationship with God right now.
What I need to be working on is not glamorous. God asks us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and some corners of those four parts of ourselves are not impressive. I don’t think, “Wow, I would be SO HOLY if only I worked on _[thing that needs attention]_.” Foundational issues don’t amaze. It’s like a building. The bulk of the technical genius is hidden from sight.
The Things You’ll Miss If You Don’t Have Them
Yesterday was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon around here, perfect for getting out for a bike ride or a walk in the woods or doing something fun with the kids. Instead, the Superhusband spent his few hours of time off work replacing the toilet in the kids’ bathroom.
He could have gone out and done some Dad-activity that was easy for everyone to appreciate. If you’re the dad playing soccer at the park or pitching balls, everyone’s like, “Wow! What a great dad!” Replacing the toilet is like, “Wow! Look where the toilet used to be! It’s another toilet!” You do all that work and there isn’t much to show, because that work is an investment in nothing happening in the future. You’ll know the new toilet was worth it because: Nothing. There’ll be a lack of toilet-related drama and that’s it.
Lent-Lite
That’s what it’s like in Remedial Lent. Lent is falling apart because you need to make some adjustments. A good penance will bore and annoy you, but it works. You suffer a little, but mostly you just suck it up and do fine. When you’re failing at Lent, something needs to change. Probably something you don’t really feel like working on, because if you felt like working on it, you would have dealt with it from the outset.
So God is good, and He lets you try your thing. And then you start failing at Lent, and when you finally break down and beg for help, God reminds you of the other thing. The more important thing. You can’t believe it’s the more important thing, because surely something as small as that, or as ugly as that, or as intrusive as that, isn’t what Lent is all about, right? But you were failing at Lent. It’s because God needs you to work on loving Him in this other area you’d rather not.
When you decide to give your whole self to God, you have to give the not-so-shiny parts too.
Artwork: Christ in the Garden, Jeremias de Decker, 1656. Via Wikimedia [Public Domain].
The Disconnect After You Realize Abuse is Happening
There are two extra torments after you realize you’ve been party to an abusive relationship:
- You wonder why it took you so long to realize what was happening.
- You wonder why other people can’t see what is now so obvious to you.
When you realize that you’d been duped for so long, you can end up blaming yourself. Surely you should have seen the warning signs. Surely you should have been smarter than to get pulled along with all this.
When you experience the frustration of seeing so clearly what others are still denying, all sorts of other, complicated dynamics ensue.
You might second guess yourself: Are you the crazy one? Are you blowing this out of proportion? You’ll no doubt hear from others that yes, you’re just “being dramatic” or “making a mountain out of a molehill.”
You might feel betrayed by friends or family members who should be supporting you, but instead are loyal to the abuser and are denying anything significantly wrong has happened.
Unless your friends on the other side of the divide are truly magnanimous, you will probably lose friendships. Even if you are still civil to each other, it won’t be the same as before.
It is quite likely that you who have called out the abuse, or who have merely refused to cooperate with it, are suddenly under attack.
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All these things are the fallout of the nature of abusive relationships.
By definition, the abuser has sought to normalize his or her behavior. The only way abuse gets perpetrated in the first place is by the abuser somehow convincing people the behavior is acceptable. One of the reasons we don’t recognize abuse when it happens is that the abuser has done his or her best to make sure we don’t recognize it.
Another reason is that abusive behavior falls on a continuum. Just how far over the line someone has strayed is not always easy to discern. It can be hard to judge where on the continuum you’re sitting. We all sin. We all have our weaknesses. We have to live with one another, and it’s normal to show mercy and give the benefit of the doubt.
And finally, false accusations do happen. We who are honest rightly want to avoid jumping to conclusions and criminalizing imperfect but not predatory behavior. Those who are dishonest will in turn exploit every weak spot to cultivate doubt about the seriousness of the abusive behavior, and to cast the critics in the worst possible light.
Oh and then there’s the fact that those who have recognized the abusive behavior are themselves flawed persons who don’t necessarily know the best way to handle the situation.
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So all this stuff happens.
It is horrible.
But it’s not something you can blame yourself for. It’s just part of wrestling with the beast.
Artwork via Wikimedia, Public Domain