Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 25

Talking everyday prayer, grief, friendship and more

I had a great time on today’s episode of A Seeking Heart with Allison Gingras of Reconciled to You. We covered a lot of bases, including three of my seven books: Everyday Divine, Parenting a Grieving Child, and Walking Together. It was a smorgasbord of my writing with a lot of fun and serious conversation mixed in. Thank you, Allison, for being such a wonderful supporter of Catholic writers and of this Catholic writer in particular.

If you missed the show, you can catch up here. And if you go to Allison’s website, you can catch an entire week of shows devoted to my books — Everyday Divine on Tuesday, Parenting a Grieving Child on Wednesday, and Walking Together on Thursday. Here’s the show:

 

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You are enough. No resolutions required.

It’s not about making a resolution or losing 10 pounds or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about finding out who you really are and coming to terms with your true self. Instead of buying a diet book, why not try on my book Cravings for size?

Here’s what some others have said about it in their Amazon reviews:

“A few months ago, I spied a book I knew I just had to read. Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-image and God by Mary DeTurris Poust. The word WRESTLES leaped from the cover and spoke to my heart. Yes, wrestle, struggle, and sometimes even get pinned. For years, I have been held to the mat by my cravings, and more specifically the emotions that were tied so closely to them. I requested the the book from  Ave Maria Press (*review of books received from publishers always welcomed never expected and never influenced). After I finished the introduction, I decided to blog my journey, when I reached chapter 3, and read that I should be consider keeping a journal, I know I was on the right track with Cravings! More importantly, I knew I was on the right path to finding a new peace and place with food, my own self-image and yes, even God.



“It has not been the a fast tracked trip to weight loss that I had hoped, maybe that is because Cravings IS not a book about losing weight or even gaining weight, it is about shifting our thoughts from mindless to mindful consumption of food. I CANNOT recommend this book enough- TRULY LIFE changing!”

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“Cravings will leave you satisfied.” This book addresses issues with food, low self-esteem, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Shows you ways to improve your life with food and God. Prayer, mindfulness, and meditation are essential for all of us as we walk this path.”

________________

“Outstanding journey as to why we crave food and what we are really looking for.”

________________

“A meditative and contemplative approach to eating. I enjoyed this book very much, especially the monastic elements and information. It inspires me to slow down and cook real food despite being a busy working mom.”

Here’s a helpful graphic to get you started while you wait for your copy of Cravings to arrive. You can print it out in copies of two or five to share with friends and family:

Cravings set of two bookmarks

Cravings set of five bookmarks

Happy New Year!

 

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To Jesus through Mary, our star, our gate, our guide

My prayer reflection from the December issue of Give Us This Day:

Alma Redemptoris Mater – Sweet Mother of the Redeemer

Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel’s joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.

The vastness of God’s love can be hard to grasp on human terms. Yes, we know God’s love is boundless and eternal, but how can we possibly enter into that space and accept what is ours when it is so far beyond our comprehension? Where do we begin? To Jesus through Mary. We’ve heard those words again and again over the course of our spiritual lives. We’ve seen it marked in ink on letters and prayer cards, but have we made it our own? Do we look to our Blessed Mother as the point of entry into the endless and unconditional love that God pours out for us?

In Alma Redemptoris Mater, we call out to Mary, Star of the Sea, Gate of Heaven. Think of the imagery for a moment. Mary is the steady point of light that guides us across rough waters to a place of interior calm where God waits for us. Mary is the gate swung open wide, allowing us to pass from darkness as deep as a starless night sky to a place of endless sunrise that was won for us by her Son. In true motherly fashion, Mary draws us to her and pushes us along, even when we’re not sure where to go or whether we want to go at all.

Our Blessed Mother understands better than anyone what it means to look out into the unknown and accept a destiny beyond human comprehension. She must have felt trepidation and doubt when the angel came to her, even as she said yes to the Lord’s call. With her fiat, she refused to let fear win and went forward in trust. We can do the same with Mary as our model and guide. We can turn to her today, every day, when worries swirl like a raging sea and the heavens threaten with storm.

To Jesus through Mary—it is a path that breaks through the human constraints we put on our Creator and leads us into the vast and ineffable heart of God.

To subscribe to Give Us This Day, click HERE.

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3 steps to a more grateful life

My story on gratitude and how it can change your life, running in the Nov. 24 issue of OSV Newsweekly: 

German mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you said your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Gratitude has that kind of power, not just in prayer, but in the most ordinary moments of our lives. When we are thankful, grateful and appreciative of what we have — even the things that don’t necessarily warrant a special thank-you prayer — we tend to be more generous, loving, patient and kind toward others. 

Gratitude shifts our focus away from our own complaints and problems. If we are busy noticing the blessings in our lives — even something as simple as a beautiful sunrise coming up over the highway as we drive to work, or our family gathered around the dinner table after a long day — we are less likely to wallow in self-pity.

But that doesn’t mean developing an attitude of gratitude is easy. It requires action and determination to look for those moments of grace, even when they are hidden among the thorns of disappointment.

“To be grateful is a characteristic of humility, and that in itself opens the heart to grace, opens the heart to others, and allows you not to put yourself at the center of the conversation but others,” said Father Francis Hoffman, JCD, executive director of Relevant Radio, who is known as Father Rocky. “Gratitude naturally takes us away from ourselves and opens us to others and to God, and that always brings joy with it.”

Be intentional

Those who count their blessings in concrete ways — written in gratitude journals or on slips of paper collected in a gratitude jar or box, even on Facebook for all the world to see — do seem to give off a sense of joy, one that ripples outward, as if every blessing they name is a pebble tossed into our collective consciousness.

“I like that idea, writing down a list of things that you should be grateful for. I encourage people to begin with the things that you take for granted,” Father Rocky told Our Sunday Visitor, suggesting people start with simple blessings, such as being able to walk and talk, or having a warm home and running water, because too often we’re “out of touch” with the reality that many people in our world don’t have the most basic things.

A gratitude practice can be as simple as opening up a cheap spiral notebook and jotting down, on a daily basis, the things that bring a smile to your face, from the ridiculous (your cat batting a crumpled piece of paper around the house) to the sublime (a good diagnosis from the doctor).

Even the smallest nods toward gratitude remind us that the goodness we experience comes from somewhere outside ourselves, from “a benevolent source of life,” said Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of the Diocese of Albany, New York.

“It stimulates the hope that we are not alone, isolated or abandoned,” Bishop Scharfenberger told OSV. “At the same time, gratitude is a response that makes a demand on our own creativity. It challenges us to become more than what we are and, therefore, to grow out of any vicious cycle or stagnant state — such as worry, fear, helplessness or even victimization. It is both a gift and a call.”

Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis, conducted a scientific study that demonstrated how actively being grateful can positively affect both physical and emotional health.

According to his study results, participants who kept weekly gratitude journals “exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming weeks compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events.” He also found that those who kept gratitude journals were more likely to accomplish personal goals and to help others in need of support or assistance.

Elizabeth Figueroa, a clinical social worker based in Georgia, told OSV that humans are wired for connection, and gratitude is “a lens through which we can notice ordinary places of connection in our day-to-day lives.”

By practicing gratitude, we train ourselves to pay attention to small moments of grace found amid the mundane moments of life.

Figueroa said that gratitude is appealing because it’s universal.

“The practice of cultivating awareness is central to spiritual and psychological worldviews alike,” she said. “Over the past few decades, the field of psychology has become more open to spirituality, and popular spirituality has drawn upon the gifts of psychology.

“Gratitude, it seems, is a practice in which spirituality and psychology have found common ground,” Figueroa added. “Science is finally confirming a truth that spiritual people have known for centuries: cultivating gratitude makes us happier, less isolated and more connected to ourselves, to others and to God.”

Be prayerful

Father Rocky recommends people use vocal prayers, such as the Angelus, grace before meals and prayers of thanksgiving after Communion, as well as mental prayer to focus their gratitude, expressing thanks for everything from grace and mercy to the Blessed Mother and the Holy Spirit to music and sports.

When it comes to gratitude, nothing is out of bounds.

Father Rocky says people who manage to maintain an attitude of gratitude even during deep sorrows and struggles do so from a place of God-given grace.

“That takes faith, doesn’t it?” he said. “And faith itself is a gift. Every priest has come across people who are objectively in painful and difficult situations and discover that they have this marvelous peace and serenity and joy in the midst of the cross, and it’s not a natural experience; it’s a supernatural experience because they have this deep faith in God that is at work in all of this. The expression of gratitude in those circumstances is almost like a barometer of the faith we have.”

That’s not to say that if we get angry and upset we don’t have faith, because it is only natural to get angry and upset with God sometimes. In those cases, both Father Rocky and Bishop Scharfenberger recommend adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary and confession.

“You can really feel the grace working within you to change, to say, ‘I’m sorry, please forgive me, and I’d like to begin again.’ We can get caught in that downward spiral, and we break the spiral by God’s grace, which comes from contrition but also through the sacraments. They’re very helpful,” Father Rocky said. “Grace really affects us, really improves us.”

According to Figueroa, true gratitude doesn’t ignore life’s difficulties but, instead, locates God “precisely in the midst of the messy places.”

“Gratitude does not pretend that challenges do not exist; instead, the practice of gratitude can help us find God in these challenges. Not only does gratitude push us to discover places of abundance over scarcity, it also teaches us that God is present even amidst the scarcity,” Figueroa said, adding that it’s something she has to continually practice in her own life.

Once you begin to develop that attitude of gratitude, it grows and spreads.

“Then you can recognize God in people around you, and in nature, and in the seasons, and in everything,” Father Rocky said. “It allows in the presence of God and opens you to a situation of joy.”

Be humble

Bishop Scharfenberger stressed that frustration over the struggles we may encounter in daily life — and even the most grateful among us feels frustrated now and then — can be a sign that our growth and potential are being blocked.

So for those of us who often find ourselves stuck in a moment of sadness, anger or despair, there’s no reason to lose hope or think that we, too, can’t move ourselves back toward gratitude and joy. The key, however, is realizing that we can’t do it alone; rather, we need God’s help.

“Gratitude becomes a recognition and a confession that ‘I need a savior,’ that ‘I cannot save myself. The source of any hope lies outside myself,’” Bishop Scharfenberger said. “Gratitude is more than an attitude or a habit or a tendency; it is a relationship with my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. It goes beyond being grateful for the gift of life and all the good things of the world, even the gift of family and friendship.

“It is gratitude for being rescued from the pit of darkness by the Lord, who chose to save me even before I realized I needed to be saved,” he added. “It is in such darker moments that what gratitude really means becomes clearest and most real: gratitude is a relationship with that person who loves me with an unconditional love. The only just response to the call of that gift is gratitude.”

Of course, not everyone is inclined to see even dark moments as a gift, and that is why we need to nurture the practice of gratitude when times are good. If we lay a strong foundation of faith focused on our blessings, we will have something to shore us up when those storm clouds inevitably come rolling in.

“I’ve found that a gratitude practice helps us to notice what is already taking place in our ordinary, daily lives,” Figueroa said. “Gratitude opens up a new world to us, when we start to notice the gifts that are always available to us, always surrounding us, waiting to be seen. Gratitude can give us new eyes to see what has been there the whole time.”

It’s critical, too, to remember that God is always present.

“Even in the most desolate of circumstances, we are oftentimes surprised by the abundance of gifts that somehow, impossibly, seem to show up — a kind look from a stranger, a nurturing friend, a new insight or glimpse of hope,” she added. “God provides us with enough, and a practice of gratitude can help us notice this.”

Click HERE for my related feature on three people who are living examples of these gratitude practices.

 

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Desert island books: What would you want with you?

Either they saved the best for last or buried me. You decide. Seriously, I’m honored to be among the 20 Catholic writers sharing Desert Island Books in this piece by Elizabeth Scalia on Aleteia:

There are times in life when the world presents so many hard headlines, and so many complex issues, that it feels good to ask an easy question, and get an easy answer. Sometimes, though, even the easy questions become a little knotty, because multi-faceted human beings like to play with simple things. We asked an age-old question of a number of Catholic writers (and one monastic “jack-of-all-trades” who sometimes writes): Read more here.

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I look at my students and see our future ex-Catholics

My post over at Aleteia today:

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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What are you planning for the Year of Mercy? Pope Francis suggests a pilgrimage. I’ve got just the ticket

My October Life Lines column running in the current issue of Catholic New York:

Before Pope Francis ever announced the Holy Year of Mercy, before he set foot on American soil and spoke to us directly about this very topic, mercy seemed to be the hallmark of his papacy. From the first Holy Thursday foot-washing in the juvenile detention center to the embrace of the disfigured man in St. Peter’s Square to the movement —if not in dogma at least in tone—toward a more compassionate approach to everything controversial and complicated, from abortion to annulment to refugees, mercy was at the heart of it.

And yet for many of us, the Year of Mercy remains a mystery. What is it supposed to mean for each one of us? How are we to celebrate the Year of Mercy that officially begins on Dec. 8, but seems to be already under way as far as Pope Francis is concerned? I think a lot of that depends on how we view mercy in our own lives—the mercy we may or may not believe we deserve for wrongs committed and the mercy we may or may not be willing to pour out for others.

To help us along, Pope Francis has asked all Catholics to journey with him during this Year of Mercy, by making an actual pilgrimage, if possible, or at the very least a spiritual pilgrimage regardless of the geographical destination.

“This (Holy Year) is the opportune moment to change our lives!” the pope has said. “This is the time to allow our hearts to be touched!…May pilgrimage be an impetus to conversion.”

Pilgrimage, both exterior and interior, changes us. I’ve seen it up close every time I go on a spiritually focused journey, whether it’s to a shrine in my own diocese or to a basilica in Rome or Assisi. This May I will lead a Year of Mercy food and faith pilgrimage to Italy, beginning in Rome. My priest chaplain and I, along with our beloved Italian tour guide from last year’s trip, will lead pilgrims to the four major basilicas in Rome and through the Holy Doors that are open only during special jubilee years. From there, we will travel to the cities of some of our greatest saints: Francis and Clare in Assisi, Catherine in Siena, Dominic in Bologna, Anthony in Padua, with visits to many other lesser-known but much-beloved saints in between.

In bustling cities and throughout the Italian countryside, we will look for the mercy that Pope Francis beckons us to seek for ourselves and to offer to others. I am not sure what to expect when I walk through the Holy Doors with my fellow pilgrims in May. I know it won’t be some sort of magical moment, and yet I hope for a kind of mystical transformation, not because a door to a church has been opened, but because the door to my heart is no longer closed.

Pilgrimage does that to you. It pries open closed doors and lays bare our deepest longings as we face God in the unfamiliar terrain of a foreign country or perhaps in the darkest recesses of our own souls.

If you can’t join me on pilgrimage in May, I hope you’ll map out a Year of Mercy journey that will lead you through doors of mercy and down pathways of hope that will transform you one step at a time, even if you never leave the comfort of home. Travel light but go deep, whether you are with me on a flight bound for Italy or making an armchair pilgrimage that can take you just as far.

For more information on my Food & Faith Year of Mercy pilgrimage to Italy May 15-26, 2016, visit my website: www.YearofMercyPilgrimage.com.

 

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Seething Anger or Boundless Love

My reflection in today’s Give Us This Day:

Jonah’s anger and attitude sound all too familiar. He is beside himself with frustration over what God has not done for him, his rage so intense he says he’d be better off dead. Even if we’ve never said it out loud, there’s a good chance we’ve felt that kind of desperation at some point in our lives.

Maybe our rage was warranted to a degree—a loved one claimed by cancer, a job claimed by downsizing, a home claimed by flood. For far too many people, anger and rage, even against God, seem reasonable in light of the hand they’ve been dealt. And yet the people who’ve been put to the greatest test are often the ones least likely to make a fuss. Faced with monumental loss or suffering, they cling to God, knowing the only way out is through.

For many of us, however, desperation grows out of far less dramatic life events, maybe even minor daily annoyances. We shake our fist at God’s unfairness, like Jonah railing over the withered gourd plant. But do we have reason to be angry?

We cannot reap what we do not sow. Until we recognize God as “gracious and merciful” during both the joys and sorrows of our lives, we are likely to be beaten down by the burning winds of our daily struggles. The choice is ours: arid desert or life-giving waters, seething anger or boundless love, living death or life without end.

Give Us This Day is a wonderful monthly Scripture subscription filled with daily readings, reflections, saints of the day, and more. If you don’t yet receive it, click HERE to check it out or place an order.

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Holding my breath and letting go

My latest Life Lines column, running in the current issue of Catholic New York:

Fourteen years ago this month, I wrote my very first Life Lines column. It focused on my then-4-year-old son, Noah, and a summer nature program we had attended together and how in his own little way Noah was forcing me out of my comfort zone and teaching me new things about myself and the world around me.

This is what I wrote back then:

“Fish net in hand, Noah waded into the water without hesitation and caught a frog within seconds. After gently placing it in the appointed green bucket, he bounded off toward a small waterfall, slipping and sliding the whole way, wet up to his armpits—although the water was only ankle deep.

“I, on the other hand, was doing my best impersonation of a nature lover. I tentatively stepped from one wobbly stone to another, hoping to make it though the morning without putting my foot down into the murky unknown. Then Noah called out to me, in awe of some minnows that had just flashed by his leg. ‘Let’s turn over a rock,’ he said. I held my breath and stepped off my dry perch. As I bent down to help Noah move a rock aside, a bright green frog darted out and Noah squealed with delight. Before I knew it, we were both racing down the stream, water splashing around us and mud sticking to our legs.

“It’s amazing to me how my kids always seem to give me the mental shove I need when I’ve been standing in the same place for too long.”

I dug that column out of a storage bin under my bed when it came time to write this month’s column because I knew in some odd way the two were tied together. Noah, now 18, is still pushing me out of my comfort zone in all the best ways. Not that my girls don’t do the same, but Noah, my first-born, has a special knack for making me face new unknowns before I think I’m ready.

When I wrote that first column, the unknowns were wrapped up in new-mom worries about whether I was doing everything I should be doing to keep him healthy and hitting all the appropriate milestones along the way. Organic snacks and limited screen time, daily crafts and constant reading. And I remember moms of older children telling me that, despite how it felt at the time, I was in the easy years of parenthood. The teenage years would be much harder, they warned. And now, with the first of three children on the brink of young adulthood, I know what they mean.

As Noah headed off to Le Moyne College in Syracuse, I fought back tears, not because I don’t want him to be out on his own and away from home but because for the first time in my life as a parent I am no longer the one at the controls. (I realize I’m never really the one at the controls, but that’s a column for another day.)

Talk about taking a step off my safe little island into the murky unknown. Even as I sit here writing this column, I can feel the tears starting to well up as I begin to run through a mental list of all the possible “What ifs…” Noah might encounter without me around to grab onto him—literally and figuratively—and pull him back to safety.

And yet I know there are so many rocks for him to turn over, so many wonderful surprises waiting for him just out of sight, only this time I won’t get to splash through the stream alongside him. I’ll be watching from afar, wistful and a little nervous but proud and excited, knowing that every small step we took together throughout his childhood has led to the giant leap he takes into young adulthood today.

 

 

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9/11: Remembering like it was yesterday

Here’s the Life Lines column I wrote 14 years ago, in the days following 9/11. So much has changed since that time. Our world has changed. My family has changed. And yet, for me, this column still resonates with things that feel very much in tune with our world right now. Here’s wishing all of you, all of us a future of peace — peace in our hearts, peace in our homes, peace on our planet.

By Mary DeTurris Poust

Noah plopped down on the floor next to me the other day and asked me to read one of his favorite books, “There’s an Alligator Under My Bed,” by Mercer Mayer. As we turned the pages and followed the little boy on his quest to capture the elusive alligator that kept him up at night, I had an eerie feeling that the story was an allegory for what I’d been feeling since that terrible morning a few days before.

The night after the World Trade Center attack, I lay awake in my bed staring at the ceiling, filled with a sense of dread that I could not quite put my finger on. I was scared, but not by the images of horror that had flashed before my eyes for hours that day. Instead my fears seemed frivolous, not at all unlike the little boy’s alligator: Had I left the dryer on in the basement? Was the window over the kitchen sink still open? Were the kids’ pajamas warm enough? I felt a childlike fear of the dark, of things no one else can see, things we parents usually try to hush with a goodnight kiss and a night-light.

When morning finally arrived, I realized that my sleeplessness wasn’t really about what might go wrong within my four walls. It was about what had gone wrong in our world. Long after I had wiped away the tears of sadness that fell as I watched the World Trade Center collapse over and over again on television’s seemingly endless loop of horror, I fought back tears of a different kind — as I rocked Olivia to sleep for her nap, as I kissed Noah good-bye at preschool, as I hugged my husband, Dennis, at the end of a long day. Those were tears borne of fear, tears for tomorrow, tears for a world we don’t yet know. And I didn’t like how they felt.

Despite the fact that I have spent almost two years writing a book on how to help children deal with grief, the events of the past weeks left me in the unusual position of struggling for words. On the day of the attack, when Noah, asked if “bad people” might knock down our house, I reassured him that they would not. When he made a logical leap – at least for a 4-year-old – and worried that they might knock down his grandmother’s apartment building in New York City, I told him he was safe, that no one was going to hurt him or the people he loved. All the while I found myself wondering if I was telling him a lie.

But that kind of thinking leads to hopelessness, and when we lose hope, we leave a void just waiting to be filled by fear and despair and alligators of every kind. Through stories on television and in newspapers, I had seen unbelievable hopefulness in the face of utter destruction. How could I not believe in the power of the human spirit and the ultimate goodness of humanity and a better world for our children?

That night, as a soft rain fell, our house seemed wrapped in a comforting quiet that was interrupted only by the reassuring hum of the dishwasher. With Noah and Olivia asleep in their rooms, I lay down and looked up. For the first time in days I didn’t notice the enveloping darkness but saw instead the tiny glowing stars that dot our bedroom ceiling, a “gift” left behind by the previous owners. As I finally closed my eyes to sleep, I whispered a prayer of hope, a prayer for a world where the only thing our children have to fear are the imaginary monsters hiding under their beds.

Copyright 2001, Mary DeTurris Poust

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