On my bookshelf, Holy Week 2020 and beyond

This is my long overdue post on what I’ve been reading and what I’ve got in the queue, some of it Lenten some of it not (except, of course, that everything is Lenten).

For my top picks of family-friendly Holy Week videos, look here.

Simcha’s Lenten Family Film Festival is here, and Julie Davis has a starter pack of Lenten viewing here, but her whole blog is a treasure trove of reading and viewing suggestions.

***

My Good Friday go-to is Thomas à Kempis’s On the Passion of Christ. I read a little bit more of it every year.

So no, I wasn’t kidding when I recommend partial-book reading as a Lenten strategy. It’s a thing. Sometimes a very spiritually fruitful thing. This is definitely a book for which a single meditation — even just a few paragraphs — can go a long, long ways.

Not recommended for those prone to scrupulosity. Ideal for those prone to laxity. Great example of using one’s imagination to immerse oneself in Scripture as a method of prayer, btw.

And hence: Not for the scrupulous. Just no. NO!

If you are prone to scruples, for goodness sakes do like my kid did today, unbidden, and grab a few of Pauline Media’s Encounter the Saints books. Good for kids, ideal for busy adults who need a quick inspiring read that will challenge your faith. Can’t have too many of these.

Just finished: All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Ballard — Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy by Phil Keith and Tom Clavin. I give it . . . I dunno. A lot of stars. Also, I demand a mini-series. Talk about non-stop fodder for period drama . . . the adventures just. never. quit.

Of Catholic interest: Somewhere along the way, Eugene Ballard managed to become a Catholic, often a lousy but also compulsively-heroic Catholic, and he died reconciled to the Church. The biography doesn’t treat his faith very extensively, which is probably just as well; when THEY MAKE THE MINI-SERIES, which I demand, they’d better not screw up the Catholic part.

Did I mention I demand a mini-series? This is a great story.

Currently reading:

When the Brain Can’t Hear: Unraveling the Mystery of Auditory Processing Disorder by Teri James Bellis: Helpful in parts, but more fluffy than I’d like. I skim the chatty bits. If you have one or more family members with an auditory processing disorder, it’s a good place to start.
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman (2nd edition): Pretty interesting, but I’m not very far in. Useful companion perspective to the Eugene Ballard biography.

I apologize if you thought I was reading Lentier-stuff. Well, these are Lenty each in their way. Everything is Lenty.

Okay but I have another one open that is properly Lent-themed:

Just Sayeth the Lord: A Fresh Take on the Prophets by Julie Davis.

I’m a few chapters in, and so far so good. Down-to-earth recaps, explanations, and meditations on the stories of various prophets. Based on the what I’ve read, I’d definitely consider this one as a choice for a parish book club or Bible study, ages teen and up.

Readable, does not assume a particular level of background knowledge, does provide spiritual insights useful to those who are already well-studied.

It is of course no secret I’m a Julie Davis fan. Her other two books are quite different and heartily recommended:

(Head’s up: At this writing I am not active on Goodreads, so please don’t try to message me there and then wonder why I’m ignoring you.)

Next Up:

Living Memento Mori: My Journey Through the Stations of the Cross by Emily DeArdo. I’ve actually kinda sorta already read this book? But not exactly.

Emily is one of my favorite internet writer-friends, and she let me take a look at the original manuscript for this book back when we were trying to figure out who would be the ideal publisher.

Ave Maria was the winner, and their request was that she organize her memoir around the Stations of the Cross — if you didn’t know this already, one of the things publishers do with book proposals and manuscript drafts is come back to the author with requests for how to modify the book to better serve their readers. It’s up to the author, of course, to decide which suggested changes fit with the goals of the book and when it’s time to stand firm (even at the cost of walking, if it comes to it); Emily obviously decided that the stations theme worked with her story, and I trust her instincts on that one.

I haven’t read the Stations of the Cross version, and no, I don’t feel, for a moment, that somehow that framework will become obsolete come Easter. I have a sneaking suspicion, sorry to say, that Momento Mori is going to remain a pertinent theme for many months to come.

In the future I am going to recommend that Emily write something like My Memoir of Everything Being Awesome and Life is a Cakewalk, and maybe world events will take a hint?

And finally, you knew it was coming, I’m eager to finally be able to crack open The Contagious Catholic: The Art of Practical Evangelization by Marcel LeJeune.

Call it Providence or coincidence, but I assure you Catholic publishers don’t get six months advance notice on upcoming world events and tailor their book titles accordingly.

In what is definitely Providence, here’s the story of how we ended up writing overlapping books coming out within just months of each other: I had a brief online conversation with Marcel about the same time I was pitching my book proposal to OSV. He mentioned in conversation that he had a book (he didn’t elaborate on the specific topic) in mind but had no idea when he’d get around to writing it or finding a publisher for it.

So I figure: Okay, he’s the guy to write about a book about this, but he’s not writing the book.

Makes sense. He’s a really busy guy running a major ministry teaching people how to evangelize, and his priority is to do the thing. So someone needs to write the book on how to do the thing. We get lots and lots of people who are excited about evangelization but are seriously wondering, “Okay, how do we do this?” because they’ve never been in a parish where evangelization and discipleship happen for serious.

I’m a writer. I’m not running a major ministry that is sucking up all my time. He can do the thing and I can write about the thing. I guess I’ll do that.

There is no way — let me repeat: NO WAY — I would have even proposed my book if I’d known Marcel was writing his. So it’s a good thing I did not know that he was going to end up finding time to get his manuscript together, because he has read my book now, and here’s his verdict in his email feedback to me:

You hit a lot of areas that I did not, and it seems the most important ones were covered in our own ways by both of us.

That sounds about right. You can check out the Catholic Missionary Disciples blog here to get a feel for Marcel’s writing style and the topics that interest him, how he and I overlap each other, and how is depth of experience is going to bring a different perspective than mine.

Anyway, now that I’m finally done with edits (other than a final look after the copy-editor has finished cleaning up the no-good, horrible, very-bad typos I’ve already identified from my “final” draft after pushing the send button), I’m free to read Marcel’s book with no risk of accidental plagiarizing, and so that’s what I am itching to do.*

For today’s photo penance, let’s do a fresh young face from the camera roll: A child of mine in attendance at a Family Honor parent workshop SuperHusband and I were giving last year. This is what happens when you let her borrow your laptop.

*If you’re wondering: I’m pretty strict with myself about not reading other people’s blog posts or books on a topic I’m actively writing on, except if I’m explicitly researching a response to that literature. So I spent many months not clicking through on Marcel’s blog links because I didn’t want his voice getting confused with my own while I was actively writing.

Could I recommend you read, memorize, and internalize every single thing he writes on his blog? Yes. I recommend that.

And then go do the thing. DO. THE. THING. Thank you.

7QT: Hoppy Lent

#1 It’s Friday, so double the penance. Over at the Blorg I’m writing about the economic fallout of quarantine and what that means for the ordinary Catholic. Includes a photo of me and my red dinosaur plush toy. I’m really getting into the penitential mood.

#2 It turns out I was wrong yesterday. A week and some ago I wrote “5 Ways to Stay Sane During Lent” now up the Register. Which includes the lines the Internet is not your spiritual director. But when I quoted it yesterday, I’d forgotten I’d written it, but remembered I saw it on Twitter spoken by someone else. So that’s interesting. Apparently I am not the only person getting tired of the annual scolding about how everybody’s doing Lent wrong.

#3 Advance praise for the book! From a reader who shall remain anonymous, but FYI this a person who was forced to read the book, did not choose to read the book, and who admits to being rather worn out on the whole topic of evangelization:

This left me going “Hey, that thing over there – I could maybe do that.” So, kudos. You got me to actually like a book on evangelization.

Didn’t see that coming. Woohoo! It really is a good book, and in very good news, I’m done with major edits, unless on my final read-through this weekend I find something I desperately want to change. So prayers, please, that if there is something that needs to be fixed I find it? Yes? Because this is a very broad-audience book, and y’all know just how ornery I can be, when I’m let loose with my words and things.

#4 I’ll just get ornery right now. Read today about an American bishop who’s mandated communion in the hand. He’d like people to maybe quit holding and shaking hands during Mass, but he’s not going to insist, so I guess its up to people in the pews to withstand the glares if they decline to shake hands right before, you know, eating with their hands. Yikes.

So anyway, here’s what happened to me this week: I popped into daily Mass Thursday, and the Mass I attended draws a fairly traditionalist crowd. Majority in attendance receive on the tongue habitually. Father announced that he was going to distribute the sacred host only, no chalice, on account of infection risk. No announcement about how one may or may not receive.

When I went up to receive, sure enough, Father’s perfectly capable of giving communion on the tongue without any contact between his hand and the recipient’s body.

It’s a skill, it’s a skill that can be learned, and sadly it’s not a skill I’ve ever observed practiced among people distributing hand-to-hand.

Thus for the moment, if you have significant reasons to be concerned about catching something, your only safe bet is to only visit ministers of the Eucharist who don’t touch people’s hands or mouths (or other body parts) when they distribute communion, and who also are particular about washing their hands thoroughly before Mass and not touching germy surfaces from there on out.

I’d like to see some parishes get serious about making that happen.

I’d very like to see some dioceses get serious about putting together a plan to protect our priests from highly contagious viruses that disproportionately kill older men and especially older men with various underlying health conditions that are extremely common in the USA, while still allowing those men to carry out their God-given vocations.

#5 Back to gratitude. Earlier this month I was one of the moderators for the Catholic Quiz Bowl of South Carolina. It was a ton of fun and I was thrilled to be able to do it, and considered the free lunch that came with to be all the more thanks required. Still, the organizers not only arranged to have a Mass said in honor of each individual volunteer moderator’s intentions, they also had gift bags for us!

Mine contained this beautiful rosary, one of many prizes donated by The Catholic Company:

Blue and silver rosary with Sacred Heart medal. Blue and silver rosary with mother-and-Child medal

Which was what I’ve needed, though I didn’t realize it until I got home.

#6 The reason I need it is because ever since the death of my previous prayer partner , Rosary Dog, I’ve been struggling with getting my rosary prayed, or too often and too consistently just neglecting to pray it. So a shiny new beautiful thing half-enticed and half-guilted me into getting my act together.

It’s sorta working?

So tonight the sun was getting low in the sky and I had a chance to get out for a quick walk after supper, and grabbed that rosary and hit the road, but I woke up with a bit of a cough today and was ready to give up halfway through the Crowning with Thorns. I know!

But then I got back to the yard and decided I’d just wander a little and maybe persevere. I picked at a few weeds coming up in the mint, and before I knew it I’d prayed all the things and also gotten a nice fistful of greens for a rabbit I know.

Me with Miffy, a white Jersey Woolie rabbit

Photo: Me and Miffy, my new prayer-assistant. Once you have a rabbit, your yard never looks the same again.

And that’s why I can write books on evangelization for people who hate evangelization, and I can write diatribes on shut up already and leave people alone to enjoy their Lent in peace, because I am a person whose prayer life depends largely on the presence of pets.

#7 All you holy men and women? Pray for us.

***

Guys, I’m thrilled to be back on Seven Quick Takes, however inconsistently, because joining in reminds me to go look, and when I go look I find all kinds of good reading. There are some super links posted this week. Check them out.

Lenten Metaphors for Non-Gardeners

So there’s this image circulating in my diocese, which I will not publish lest I propagate weeds, that shows a seedling and a Ven. Fulton Sheen quote. It’s not a bad quote. Here’s the latter part of it, which does not accompany the seedling:

A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event.

Absolutely true. And with that conclusion attached, the beginning makes perfect sense:

We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative.

The trouble is that if you have just the beginning portion, and also you garden, the incomplete quote is nonsense.

You have to weed. You have to prune. Sometimes you have to irrigate, sometimes you have to anti-irrigate. You have to mulch, and you have to rake away would-be mulch that harbors disease. You have to select the right plants for the right micro-climate, and sometimes that means moving a plant to a better location. Sometimes you need to thin out plants that have grown in too densely, and other times you allow a plant to fill in copiously so that it suppresses weeds.

Sometimes you want to have annuals growing in that enormous planter by the front door, but the cat keeps sleeping in the dirt and rolling on your flowers, so you have to find a little flower pot to put inside the big flower pot, so that you can have your cat and your flowers too. Definitely a metaphor for the spiritual life, because the cats aren’t going away any time soon.

Lent means spring, and in spring we do all these things, and also we worry about cold snaps getting the plum blossoms, so . . . probably that is the only applicable Lenten metaphor that stands on its own: Quit worrying about your plums, there’s nothing you can do and anyway they always get some nasty rot in June if you do get fruit, so why do you even bother? — Attributed to St. Francis, St. Augustine, and of course Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Ven. Fulton Sheen is absolutely right, the goal of weeding is so that your garden can flourish. The goal is not to create sterile ground, free of all life. So make sure your Lenten weeding, if that’s what your soul needs this year, is ordered towards cultivating your love of God.

The feel-good abridged version? Makes one sound like one of those ignorant types who imagines farming unskilled labor. It is not.

Obviously you need to plant the good seed of faith or else your weeding is to no purpose. Obviously you need to be careful in your weeding so you don’t uproot your fragile faith.

And here’s an advanced gardening tip: With enough years experience, you can start making educated decisions about what weeding to prioritize, because you understand better which weeds propagate when and how, which are most likely to cause serious problems, what times of year (or weather-week) each are easiest to root out, and which plants that seemed like weeds will actually help your garden flourish.

Thus we get to the moral of today’s rant: If you can tell a weed of vice from the seedling of faith you are trying to cultivate, feel free to root out the vice this Lent if you so discern.

Up to you. It’s your Lent. To quote ~~GK Chesterton~~ some smart person on Catholic Twitter (not me): The Internet is not your spiritual director.

Me holding a vase with mint rooting in it.

Photo: Continuing with our photo-penance at least one more day, here’s me holding a vase with mint in it. I was weeding the mint bed and accidentally pulled up this cutting, so I stuck it in water and let it root, and soon I’ll put it in the ground. “Soon.”

Meanwhile, here is your deep spiritual metaphor from the garden for today: If you root mint or basil or any other easily-rooted plant on your kitchen windowsill in the summer, every few days you need to dump the glass jar, rinse it out, and thoroughly rinse the roots of the plants as well. Otherwise you’ll have mosquitoes.*

You have to rinse even the plant roots because the mosquito larvae will stick to them. And that is a perfect metaphor for __[fill in the blank] __. I’m sure you can think of something. Probably related to Pentecost. Since it’s a summer** metaphor.

*Unless you live someplace without mosquitoes. If that’s you, kindly give up gloating for Lent. We don’t want to hear about your magical land. I bet your plums don’t rot either. Hush.

*By “summer” we mean “when the mosquitos are.”

In Which I Offer the Reader So, So Much Penance

#1 Melanie Bettinelli’s aiming for a blog post a day during Lent, and I think I’m in. Just as a goal, not as a penance. I’m happier if I’m blogging. So that’s like a good deed for my family? Or something? We’ll see.

#2 I’m stalking my spot at the Register waiting for my rant about Lenten penances to show up. Sooner or later it’s supposed to get there. Meanwhile, here’s bonus content: There’s a nasty bit of contagion going around today about how the USCCB’s guidance for fasting isn’t really fasting, get it together you wimps.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the shocking world of people who can’t gain weight. It’s a thing. It’s an annoying thing, if you happen to be a person who is perfectly capable of storing away all kinds of emergency fuel reserves, and you must grocery shop and cook for the people whose bodies don’t do that.

I don’t have any particular difficulty fasting. I dislike it. I’d rather be eating. But sure enough, unless I’m sick or pregnant or something, my body does a great job of saving up fat for future usage, and carefully doling out a ration of that stored energy if I happen to be not eating.

Not everyone’s body does that. I live with people who have to plan, for serious, in order to get through a day doing the two little meals and the one normal meal, and yes they totally depend on the part about being able to have a glass of milk in between times. It’s not about diet. It’s about having a body that is wonderfully adapted to our world of abundance (unlike mine, which keeps insisting there could be a famine any minute, better stock up!), and very poorly adapted to fluctuations in food supply.

And get this: We have a priest shortage. Thus the Church in her wisdom, rather than setting a bar ideal for the robust among us and directing those who need to do so to bother Father about a dispensation, has instead made it acheivable to do the minimum.

If you are able to do more than the minimum, I sure hope that’s what you’re doing today. I also hope you’ve contrived to make sure it’s not so obvious what you’re up to.

#3 I used to be bothered by today’s Gospel, in which Jesus tells us to keep our fasting and prayers a secret, and then there we go getting ashes on our heads two minutes after. I’m over that now.

Jen Fitz, Self Portrait with Ashes on Forehead

Photo: Me with a sample of Fr. Gonzo’s latest artwork.

There’s two reasons why. The first is that the warning is about prayer and fasting, and listen guys, just because my body is in Mass doesn’t mean I’m praying, so that’s a big fat secret, and anyway how do you know I’m not spending the day having two ice cream bars and a giant plate of lasagna? You don’t. So I’m good.

Meanwhile . . . the thing about the ashes is that they aren’t a sign of holiness. I’m sorry if someone got you all confused about that. The annual application of ashes is like putting on a blanket apology to the world. Yeah, I suck. I know it. Probably don’t know it enough, but I’m at least making a nod that direction?

So FYI, anyone at all can go get ashes. If you’re wretched and you know it, Catholic Church has you covered.

#4 I’m thinking maybe I should post a selfie a day for Lent. As penance for us all?

Ha. Can’t decide if I’m kidding or not.

#5 Since I am no St. Therese, allow me to complain about church music for a bit. There are two tunes that I have grown possessive about, in a case of sacredness-by-association. Picardy, the setting for “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” is the first. Once you’ve created a link between a catchy, soulful tune and a description of the absolutely most intimate moment between creature and Creator this side of Heaven, I just can’t bear to hear the tune co-opted for other, not-so-exalted topics. Even if the lyrics in question are otherwise unobjectionable (and sometimes they are not, but there are limits to how much I’m willing to make you suffer today), that’s a no.

The other one, and this is where we get all Lenten, is Passion Chorale. Please. People. I know that it’s not Good Friday yet. I know that you have composed many lovely meditations on Lenten spirituality that have the same meter. I get that you are trying to make a mental connection on this path to the cross or something. You are wrong. Wrong! Stop it! Give me “Oh Sacred Head Surrounded” or give me silence. Or a different tune, same meter, that’ll be fine. There’s nothing wrong with your little Lenty-chit-chat dog ear poetry. But hands off Passion Chorale. It’s taken.

#6 My husband wishes I would show up at church this evening to hear a rendition of this absolutely awesome music:

But here is the truth about me. This other little chant, which the cantor sung at Mass earlier today, was like getting a late Valentine:

One of my favorite songs. I only know the chorus, and every year I mean to fix that, and maybe one day I will. But it sure was easy to keep my Lenten smiley face up, just like Jesus says, with that for our ash-walk music.

Life is good.

5 Things That Won’t Hurt You to Prep for Corona Virus, and #6 Will Shock You

Whether or not COVID-19 will become a problem in the Americas remains to be seen. So far so good? But look, it’s almost Lent, and anyhow there is almost nothing you can personally do to prevent a pandemic or cause it to be more or less dangerous to yourself. But almost-nothing isn’t nothing-nothing. Here’s a short list of cheap, simple things that might make your life less bad in the face of a mortal threat, and will probably make your life better regardless.

# 1 Get Your Affairs in Order

It’s tax time anyway, right? It won’t hurt you to organize your papers, see if your will needs to be updated, hunt down your logins and stick the updated list in the fire safe, etc etc. Possibly throw out that stack of old catalogs and the wadded up paper towels you shoved in your purse just-in-case. In the event you get in a car crash next week and your kids need to transfer money to their bank account to pay for groceries while you are laying in the hospital arguing with the cell phone company over your phone that got smashed to bits in the accident, everyone will be glad.

#2 Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables

And lay off the soda. With the flu, colds, stomach viruses, and presidential primaries going around, you want to be as healthy as possible. In season in the northern hemisphere at the moment: Root vegetables, winter squashes, cabbages . . . maybe not your favorites, but they are comparatively affordable, nutritious, and the internet is available to help you learn how to cook them into something not-disgusting.

If you are gearing up for Orthodox Great Lent (as I am not, who are we kidding, but some of my friends will be), check out “How to Eat Well During Orthodox Lent” by Chris Masterjohn. Just because certain Girl Scout cookies are Great-Lent-Compliant doesn’t mean you should build your diet around them. As I might. This is why we lazy-Latins are so grateful for the other lung of the Church where the fasting and praying gets done for serious. Thank you.

#3 Taper Off the Drinking

Your liver thanks you.

#4 Get Your Blood Sugar Down

Hey, look, fasting! Coming Soon to a Church Near You! If you have Type 2 Diabetes, or a predisposition to it, fasting with appropriate medical supervision can get your metabolic health in order long before any significant weight loss occurs. Which in turn improves your ability to fight off all kinds of illnesses and generally makes your blood vessels much, much happier. You can give yourself the gift of healthier blood vessels any time of year, you don’t need to wait for a pandemic to come around.

#5 Exercise

Exercise will not solve all your problems. The amount you can do is limited by the reality of your life. But doing the amount that you can, in the way that you can, makes your life better. Ignore the haters. You can be fat, sick, exhausted, depressed, disorganized, unfashionable . . . and still benefit from exercising the amount that your life allows. Do that amount. If it’s too much, back off and try again.

And since you might end up in quarantine, and that might make you go absolutely bonkers, go ahead and figure out now what you can do for exercise and leisure in the confines of your home to maintain your mental health and your friendships with your housemates. Not a lot of things we can control about the spread of new viruses, but this we can prep just in case.

And finally but foremost, brought to you by a person who needs to hear this . . .

Go to confession! For goodness sake you shouldn’t need a deadly threat to clean up that crusty ol’ soul of yours. But some of us are regrettably slack in this area, and if we won’t listen to reason, then we’ll just have to panic our way into holiness. You could do worse.

Photo: Open confessional, by Jean-Paul Corlin, via Wikimedia, CC 4.0.

Instead of Mel Gibson’s Passion, Try These . . .

Simcha Fisher’s review of the The Passion of the Christ is up, and worth a look. For many years, my husband and I have watched The Passion on Good Friday evening (not every year, but often) and have found it edifying and spiritually helpful. It certainly takes the edge off your hunger. Also, it is extremely violent (as was the event it portrays), and if you aren’t the sort of person who can stomach depictions of violence, there are other more helpful options.

My go-to for our kids’ Holy Week viewing has been The Gospel of John movie. We’ve tended to watch it during the day sometime during Holy Week when the kids are lounging around. There are a few moments of artistic interpretation that I would stage differently were it my film to produce (it is not a Catholic film, FYI), but overall it’s quite good. The crucifixion is portrayed with a deft hand, providing the necessary impact but without extreme gore. It is suitable for children who are comfortable watching action-adventure films like The Lord of the Rings series, but obviously if your child is extremely sensitive to violence, movies about torture and execution are not a good choice — go pray the stations and leave it at that.

Taking it down a notch in intensity and adding Steve Ray’s legendary campy sense of humor, the The Footprints of God: Jesus would be a super choice for school-age kids (about 3rd grade and up, but for many kids younger) and people who want to dial back the experience, or just want to learn more. The whole series is fantastic for both kids and adults. I love these. The Jesus episode is perfect for Holy Week.

This year, though, I’ve got a new favorite. My weekly Bible study has been working through Edward Sri’s No Greater Love: A Biblical Walk Through Christ’s Passion from Ascension Press. The total study comes with access to five 30-minute videos, a book, and a workbook. The videos stream online with no difficulty, but head’s up: There are not subtitles. Yikes. Sorry. The three resources cover the same material but in different formats, and all of them are a good value. The Study Pack gets you online access to the videos, but check the details as you may need to find a partner and create a parish Bible study in order to go that route. There are no violent depictions so far (as of the end of session 4); the video is filmed in Jerusalem and for imagery there is the sacred art at the various holy sites. The book goes more explicitly into the nature of Roman torture than the videos do. It is truly a Bible study, and a solid one.

Here is why this Bible study comes to mind as an alternative to watching The Passion: At the start of the evening when everyone arrives and grabs drinks, we are the usual ladies’ Bible study, joking around, sharing news, then easing into a conversation about the reading and how the week’s lesson touched us spiritually and so forth. That’s all good. We’re getting some great discussion going as the group gets to know each other better. But here’s what happens next: We watch the evening’s video. Remember, this is a 30-minute video of a professor talking to a couple of pilgrims as they stand in front of sacred art and architecture. No blood splatters. Bible verses are read. Many mosaics are viewed. Lots of pictures of pilgrims kneeling in devotion at holy sites. Not. graphically. violent. Just not.

AND YET: When the video ends we are reduced to complete silence.

Week after week, I turn off the TV and shut down the PC, and we who were happily chatting 30 minutes earlier have nothing to say. We just want to walk over to the church (it’s locked, no dice) and kneel down in adoration.

***
I’d recommend No Greater Love for older kids and up. The target audience is an informed Christian in the pews who is generally familiar with the passion narrative (you’re at church on Palm Sunday every year, you maybe have prayed the Stations a few times) who is biblically literate at least at the beginner level. For children, the audience would be from the age when your child can read the real Bible (my 5th grade CCD classes always did) and is interested in adult non-fiction as found on PBS or at your local public library. Though it’s designed to be a weekly study throughout Lent, you could comfortably order the series now and watch two videos a week for the remainder of Lent or one a night during Holy Week.

Artwork courtesy of Ascension Press.

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].

How Fasting Works

Hey look, it’s time for Lent.

Amy Welborn has up a good post, with a sturdy dose of St. Francis de Sales to finish up, “What St. Francis de Sales Wants You to Know About Fasting.” She made the cool meme at the bottom of this post.

If you are looking for some seasonal viewing Wednesday to help you feel better about not eating, the French documentary The Science of Fasting is up on Amazon Prime. The Amazon version has English voice-over and captions, but below I put the trailer to the original French version, since who wouldn’t want to see that just for fun? Apparently about the time fasting was becoming the hot new non-diet in the US, it was already the hot new non-diet in France. I was hoping the documentary would be a little heavier on the details of the physiology of fasting, but it’s more of a (pro-fasting) look at using fasting to treat this, that, and the other thing.

Crazy People Pay Attention: Even the pro-fasting Soviet scientists who exhaustively studied the medical uses of fasting made a list of conditions for which fasting was contraindicated. It doesn’t cure all the things. It makes some of the things worse.

In the quest for an explanation of the physiology that hit the layman’s middle ground between Buzzfeed and Biochemist, I found this nice slide show on “The Phisiology of Fasting and Fatty Oxidation Defects.” I found it helpeful. Also, takeaway point: If you are unable to access stored fuel in your body, fasting is not for you.

Here are some things that were a bit over my head at points, but I liked looking at them anyway:

That last one is a case study on a monk who undertook a 40-day fast under medical supervision. Note that while extended, medically-supervised fasting was a going remedy for obesity in the second half of last century, it dropped out of popularity when people starting dropping dead (still fat at the time — the deaths were not from starvation). Here’s a reminder from a physician who is one of the major voices in favor of fasting: If you feel sick, you should eat.

Which brings us around to the Catholic thing.

One Meal and Two Smaller Meals . . .

. . . and all the drinks you can stand. That’s the USCCB’s instructions on observing your Ash Wednesday and Good Friday fasts. There are more useful links to follow from there, go take a look. The 1+2 rule is designed to make the fast manageable for the average working-age Catholic. Not everyone between 18-60 is obliged to fast, though:

Those that are excused from fast and abstinence outside the age limits include the physically or mentally ill including individuals suffering from chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Also excluded are pregnant or nursing women. In all cases, common sense should prevail, and ill persons should not further jeopardize their health by fasting.

If you need to eat, eat.

But let’s talk about the 3-eats-a-day approach to fasting. Because here’s what: Even though the rule is designed to make it possible for more people to be able to fast, some people may find it easier to fast by not eating all three sessions.

I know!

But back up to that physiology thing. When you stop eating, your body goes through three* major phases in its quest for fuel:

It works through the fuel from your last meal, if that hasn’t been depleted or stored away yet (instant).
It works through your stored glycogen (medium).
It starts accessing your fat for energy (longterm).

Each of those involves a biological switching of gears. Depending on how you time your meals, you may well be almost to the point of using fat for fuel by the time you go to eat in the morning. You may as a result find it easier, depending on what your body is like, to just go ahead and switch to using stored fat for the rest of the day (drink plenty of non-caloric fluids) and have supper in the evening.

That doesn’t work out as well for everybody. Some people do better with the 2+1 plan.

But I mention it because in my experience, eating a couple small meals just makes the hunger cycle more viciously unpleasant for me, because I happen to have a body that excels at quick packing away all calories from the current meal into longterm storage, and then loudly demanding another feeding. It’s easier to just have a cup of tea or something to stave off the relatively more mild hunger that comes with not eating at all, do something distracting during the day, then eat well at dinner, done.

If you worry that I have taught you a way to suffer less and now your Lent might not be Lent-y enough, keep in mind you can always go scourge yourself or something if you find your fast days too easy. Or give money to the poor. Not to get completely wild, but if you wanna suffer, that is an option.

*The fourth phase is where you’re out of fat and your body starts tearing itself apart in a last-ditch effort at survival. If you are already poorly provided-for in the fat-department, fasting is not for you.

***

Related: If you are one of those people who could happily be vegetarian all but two days of the year, or you could never ever happily be vegetarian, here’s my tutorial on thwarting the meat demon. Other past Lenten tutorials:

The main thing: Just do the thing. A good Lent is unlikely to be a perfect Lent. If all you can manage is a humble Lent, you’re ahead of the game.

Lent 2016

Image courtesy of Amy Welborn, used with permission. Click through to see the original post where it appeared.

Lent Day 43: Not Doing It

Wednesdays are traditionally the glorious mysteries. I finally got back to praying the Rosary today after a gaping hiatus caused by a succession illness (it is a physical act, and thus requires one or another physical abilities), chaos, and inertia.

What was on my mind as I prayed was my inability to accomplish certain tasks before me, and thus my reliance on God to take care of them. This is a good problem, because relying on me is not the wisest course, and in any case the tasks are God’s.

Here is a miracle, to give you an idea of the scope of the whole thing: I made a craft. Not just any craft; one that required both bright colors and straight lines. Also, I had to do it with supplies that I didn’t have spares of, which meant everything had to be done exactly right the first time. No sane person assigns me a job like this. Just never.

So anyway, I get around to the fourth glorious mystery, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Do you know what our Lady did during that mystery?

Nothing.

Just laid there. Didn’t lift a finger.

God did it.

This seems to be the way it works. Want me to conceive the Messiah? I can’t do that Lord, but however you want to handle this go ahead. Out of wine? Son, could you take care of this please? So you’re saying the plan is that you’re going to die on that cross–? I’m just gonna stand here, and you figure out what the system is.

It’s not that Mary does nothing. It’s that she does only the part she can do, and lets God worry about the rest.

***

Request: If you have a charism for bringing empty jars to the attention of our Lord, please consider joining the newly-formed Catholic Evangelization and Discipleship Intercessory Prayer Team group on Facebook. It’s a closed group, but any member can add new members. If you are in the work of discipleship or evangelization and would like people to pray for your mission, please join and post your requests. (Also: Introduce yourself and I’ll add you to the pinned post of who’s who at the top.) Thank you!

Artwork courtesy of Wikimedia [Public Domain].

Lent Days 31 – 42: Enough Already

There are a few spares in the “forty” days of Lent, which makes up for some of the ones you might have skipped. Most years Lent doesn’t begin on the first of the month, so it’s not as obvious.

I was aware already of the way that attempting a Lenten penance can show you your weakness when you keep slipping up. You try to carry out some small laudable act of prayer, fasting, or almsgiving, and even that is too much. You are smaller than you thought.

More stark: When you stick to the penance but flail miserably at ordinary life. Not because the penance sunk you — quite the contrary. Rather, because you just aren’t ever all that good at carrying out ordinary life.

***

Outside of Lent, little lapses hide more easily. Big lapses are robbed of their sting, clothed in busyness and festivities. When all your actions are played against the bare purple curtain, the holiness-failures are radically more obvious.

Things I’ve learned:

If I have to push, push, push through a bunch of logistical challenges — not problems, mind you, just the challenging side of carrying out some good and desired goal — it wears me down. I run out of willpower.
What I think of as my “ordinary prayer life” requires my ordinary life. It requires pockets of silence and privacy and extra energy that I normally schedule into a typical day. Even if the way I “schedule” is to shove a rosary in my pocket and pray it during the silent half of never-the-same kid-errands, the space is there. When the space isn’t there, I’m sunk.
Being more tired than usual means I can’t do as much as I could when I’m less-tired. You’d think by now I’d know this, but I’m a slow learner.

And the killer: My sins run in packs. Circumstance A leads to Pressure B which leads to Reaction C which transmorgifies into Capital Sin C which, don’t let the name fool you, engenders I-can’t-believe-I-did-that-and-I-don’t-want-to-quit-either sins D, E, and F.

One of the St. Joseph’s Baltimore Catechisms for children reminds us that “venial sin is worse than the measles.” Oh yeah. This is worse than the measles for sure, and the measles are bad.

It’s like I can’t save myself.

Icon of the Crucifixion courtesy of Wikimedia [Public Domain].

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Hidden Years in the Spiritual Life

The Things You’ll Miss If You Don’t Have Them

Lent-Lite

Share this:

One Meal and Two Smaller Meals . . .

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: