Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 54

Still learning what it means to be a motherless child

I’ve been crying a lot this week, completely out of the blue and right on schedule. Friday marks the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death, which is a milestone for more than the obvious quarter-century reason. You see grief gives you typical milestones – anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, big round-number years like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 – but grief also gives you weirdly special milestones that I think you understand only if you’ve been there.

My personal grief milestones have included turning 48 – that was a really important one — and knowing that I had outlived my mother, who died at age 47, and this year’s unusual milestone — reaching a point where I have now lived as long without my mother as I lived with her. Every year after this tips the balance farther and farther away from her, an especially sorrowful thought, I think.

After 25 years, I’m not surprised at the way grief resurfaces and throws me back to that April week when my young adult life began to unravel, although I will admit that my grief came on with a vengeance yesterday, not long after the Mad Men season premier ended, the one where we saw Roger mourning the loss of his mother – and his shoeshine man – and Don reminding us that something terrible has to happen in order for us to reach heaven. So that’s a new and sort of hip twist in the annual show of grief here.

Mostly I am in awe of this now all-too-familiar grief, the way my body and heart recognize this time of year even before my mind does, although I think my mind is always keeping its little countdown toward this date without me wanting to let it in too very much. And suddenly, as we close in on those last few days before the April 12 anniversary, it hits me full force, and I begin to remember the last time my mother went somewhere with me (to the oncologist to end a particularly vicious round of full-time chemo via port and pump), the last time my mother ate something (coffee and eggs, not very successfully), the last time my mother talked to me alone (a hug and a whisper and a promise as I begged her not the go), the last time my mother was cognizant of what was going on (about two days before her death in our family room), the last time she looked into my eyes (after being in a coma-like state broken abruptly by struggled breathing and tears running down her face as she silently said goodbye with a look that has never left me), the last time she took a breath (the most powerful thing I have ever witnessed in my life).

It doesn’t matter how many years have passed, when this week rolls around each year, it is as if it happened yesterday, which may sound morbid but is, in fact, a gift, a gift because every year – just when I think that maybe I don’t really feel that connection to her anymore – it is there, as powerful as ever, reminding me that no one can break the bond between a mother and child.

Over the years, people have tried to fill her shoes. They have offered to help me through rough times when I needed some mothering. And I’ve offered the same thing to my younger brother and sister. And we all mean it – they mean it, I mean it. But the truth is that no one can ever be that person because no one can love like a mother loves. Other people have lives of their own, children of their own, worries of their own, grief of their own, and, let’s face it, unless they’ve given birth to you or have raised you since you were too little to remember, you are not their own and so they cannot fill that space no matter how much they want to give you what you crave.

Only a mother can do that. And I am motherless. After 25 years, I’m still really learning what it means to be motherless because every year brings new reasons to wish for my mother’s presence. Like now, as I head toward menopause, something she didn’t live long enough to experience, or as I look down and see my mother’s hands and realize that from here on out these hands will look older than my mother’s because she is eternally young in my mind’s eye, or as my children prepare for Confirmation and First Communion, and I think – once again – about how lousy it is that she never got to see any of this, and that we never got to see her see it, or as I make an everyday meal she once made so well and feel cheated that I don’t have a mother to come up for a visit, hang out in my kitchen, and share a cup of coffee.

And so I’m crying a lot this week. Because in order to get to heaven something terrible has to happen.

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A beautiful Confirmation guide, gift, and keepsake

My son, Noah, will be making his Confirmation next weekend, and all through his preparation I was wishing I had something that would focus specifically on this sacrament in a way that would be informative and engaging without being overwhelming. Lo and behold, in my mailbox one afternoon I found exactly what I ‘d been searching for.

My Confirmation Book ($16.99, Paraclete Press) by Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle is a beautiful book that not only guides young Catholics (and their parents) as they move toward Confirmation but also serves as a hardcover keepsake. This small but well-packed book includes prayers, reflection questions, and brief explanations of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with real-life examples to make them more accessible.

I can attest to the fact that you just can’t find anything else like this out there. Trust me, I’ve looked. So if you know someone who will be making his or her Confirmation any time soon, pick this book up today. Click HERE to go directly to Donna-Marie’s site and order an autographed copy.

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Is Jesus getting crowded out by complaints?

If you frequent this blog, you know I complain. A lot. Here I mostly complain about the fact that my spiritual life is dry and God won’t send me a sign and where is Jesus and why, oh, why don’t my prayers feel like they’re doing anything. And on and on and on.

It’s no better in my “real” life. If you could eavesdrop while I’m in my office or in my car or in my kitchen, you’d hear more complaining – about the messy house, about the lack of time to do what needs to be done, about deadlines, about kids who don’t listen, about the weather, about slow Internet service, about not knowing how to work the TV remote. You name it, and I’ll complain about it.

The funny thing is, I’m actually quite aware of my blessings. I even have a gratitude journal, although I haven’t visited those pages in a while. I know full well that my life is, well, full. Full of good things, and shouldn’t that be enough? I live in fear, to be honest, of when it will be my turn to face some really hard times. I’ve faced them before, to be sure (my mother’s death 25 years ago is the star player there, but my divorce comes in as a close second), so I am not immune to the reality that bad things happen to moderately good people. But my glass half-empty attitude leans toward seeing the dark side of things most of the time, a perpetual state of always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Well, Pope Francis called me on it this week. Not me personally, but all of us who lean toward complaint rather than thanksgiving, half-empty rather than half-full, and what he said was profound (as usual). Here’s a bit from a CNS story by Cindy Wooden:

Celebrating morning Mass earlier this week with staff members from the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis, a nearby residence and guesthouse for clergy, Pope Francis preached about the Gospel story from St. Luke about the two disappointed disciples on the road to Emmaus after the death of Jesus.

“They were afraid. All of the disciples were afraid,” he said. As they walked toward Emmaus and discussed everything that had happened, they were sad and complaining. “And the more they complained, the more they were closed in on themselves: They did not have a horizon before them, only a wall,” the Pope explained, according to Vatican Radio.

The disciples had had such high hopes that Jesus would be the one who would redeem Israel, but they thought their hopes were destroyed, he said on Wednesday.

“And they stewed, so to speak, their lives in the juice of their complaints and kept going on and on and on with the complaining,” the Pope said. “I think that many times when difficult things happen, including when we are visited by the cross, we run the risk of closing ourselves off in complaints.”

When all people can think of is how wrong things are going, Pope Francis said, the Lord is close, “but we don’t recognize him. He walks with us, but we don’t recognize him.”

Like the disciples joined by the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus, people can hear beautiful things, but deep down, they continue to be afraid, the Pope told the congregation.

“Complaining seems safer. It’s something certain. This is my truth: failure,” he said before adding that the Gospel story shows how very patient Jesus is with the disciples, first listening to them and then explaining things step by step, until they see him.

Complaining and griping, about others and about things in one’s own life, is harmful “because it dashes hope. Don’t get into this game of a life of complaints.”

Um….stewing our lives in the juice of our complaining. Wow, there’s an image that hits hard because it’s so dang true. Sounds about right. How often do I stew my daily life in the juice of complaining rather than in the flavorful broth of gratitude and blessings? Too often. How likely am I to close in on myself in a world focused on things not going exactly according to plan rather than open up to a world of possibility? Too likely.

It’s like exercise and eating right. I know what I should do, but often choose just the opposite. I know I should live in the light. I know I’d get more with honey than vinegar. I know keeping a list of blessings rather than a list of heartbreaks would go a long way toward shifting my overall perspective, but it’s difficult and it means changing and sometimes it’s easier to just skip the exercise, skip the healthy dinner, and skip the list of blessings and simply stew over all the minor injustices in my life.

I recently told a good friend, a spiritual friend that I feel a disconnect from Jesus and just don’t know why. Maybe Pope Francis has the answer, maybe, just maybe, if I stop complaining long enough to hear myself think I’ll realize – like the disciples on the road to Emmaus – that Jesus has been there all along trying to get a word in edgewise and waiting for me to recognize him.

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Foodie Friday: Last Chance Vegetable Soup

It’s been pretty chilly around here these days, and so I hunkered down and made what I hope is the last big batch of wintry veggie soup before we set our sights on grilling and other spring and summer fare. This is sort of a kitchen-sink soup. Use what you’ve got. It will be slightly different every time, but that’s what keeps this soup interesting.

Start with a good broth, if you can. I prefer to make my own veggie broth from a big bag of vegetable scraps I keep in my freezer for just such occasions. I store carrot peels, onion and garlic skins, celery tops and bottoms, potato peels, anything that’s not going to give the soup a strong or “off” taste (skip pepper scraps, eggplant scraps, tomato scraps, things like that). But, if you don’t have the time or supplies on hand for a fresh broth, just purchase veggie broth, or go with water and increase the veggies you’re including in the soup.

Ingredients 

6 to 8 cups good vegetable broth

2 or 3 tablespoons of EVOO

1 onion, diced

3 carrots, cut in half moons

3 celery stalks, with frilly leaves on top, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 large potato, peeled and cubed

1 red pepper, diced

2 handfuls of string beans, fresh or frozen

1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 15 oz can of dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 small handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Soy sauce

Red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups small but “meaty” pasta — ditalini, small shells, small farfalle,

Romano cheese, for the table

Preparation

Saute onion, celery, carrot, peppers, and garlic in EVOO in a large soup pot for a few minutes until softened. Add warm or room temperature vegetable broth to the veggies. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Add potatoes, green beans, and red beans, then add a few shakes of soy sauce (about 1 or 2 tablespoons) and a dash of red wine (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on taste). Let simmer for 40 minutes or so. Add salt and pepper to taste. About 8 minutes before you’re ready to serve, add the pasta and cook until just al dente. Add the parsley and stir.

Serve with a sprinkling of Romano cheese, a slice of crusty bread, and a side salad, and you’ve got an awesome dinner. This pot will serve a family of five with lots left over for lunch the next day. And the next.

Don’t forget that you can change up this soup depending on what you have on hand — add kale or spinach in the final stages, use chick peas instead of kidney beans, or give it a southwestern flare by adding fire-roasted tomatoes or fire-roasted corn and black beans instead of kidney beans and regular tomatoes. Top that version with crushed tortilla chips. Yum, I might have to make one more pot after all! The possibilities are endless.

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He is risen. Allelluia!

“Why do you look for the living among the dead. He is not here; he is risen.” Luke 24:5-6

Indeed, he is risen. Alleluia, Alleluia!

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Holy Saturday: Waiting in the shadows

Peter never really used to be one of my favorites from Scripture, but the older I get, the more beloved he becomes. He gives me comfort because I identify with him, especially lately. At this point in our faith story, Peter is locked away — afraid, ashamed, alone. He doubted, he denied, he ran away. Even before the crucifixion, he often seemed to get it wrong. Imagine for a moment that Jesus says to you, “Get behind me, Satan.” Yeah, that’s pretty bad. And yet Jesus saw fit to call him the “rock,” the one who would go on to lead his church, or, at that point, his band of disciples. Maybe, just maybe then, Jesus sees some shred of worth beneath my many failings, behind my own doubts and fears.

My Lenten plans went woefully awry this year. Again. I’m not sure I even got out of the starting gate. Weeks and weeks of dryness and disappointment. At one point I wasn’t even sure if I should bother going to Holy Thursday Mass this week, that’s how dark my heart felt. You know what changed my mind? My son. On Holy Thursday, when I suggested we might skip the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, he looked at me with stunned disbelief. Then he changed his Facebook profile picture to an image of the consecration and his “cover photo” to Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. Okay, we’ll go. Yesterday, when the darkness was just as deep, maybe deeper, my son was in the living room reading the Bible. Maybe we did something right after all. Maybe somehow the spiritual messages are getting through despite my own issues. And, again, Peter came to mind.

On this Holy Saturday, I am waiting in shadows of my own making, like Peter, longing to be set free. Whether I choose to face the light that is just around the corner really depends on me. Can I forgive myself for my own failings? Can I admit to my own weaknesses? Can I accept God’s mercy? Can I prostrate myself before my God and admit finally that I am not in control, that I never was, and that as long as I continue to try to be in control, I’m going to be in the shadows?

Next to the cross in our family and also in my sacred space downstairs are roosters, reminders of Peter, reminders that doubt and denial do not block us from salvation but push us deeper down the spiritual path, if we are willing to be embraced by Love, by the One who was willing to die so we might live.

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We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you…

Because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Just back from Stations of the Cross at the beautiful Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany. (Click on the photo at the bottom of this post to enlarge. The Stations are spectacular, if you ever have a chance to visit the cathedral.)

The Scripture verse below is the one that jumped out at me from all the others as we were praying this afternoon:

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,

and give thanks to his holy name.

For his anger is but for a moment;

his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may linger for the night,

but joy comes with the dawn. — Psalm 30: 4-6

 

 

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Where are the shepherds who are willing to live with the ‘smell of the sheep’?

I’d like to backtrack for a minute and make sure you all had a chance to read what I think is a critical and spot-on portion of Pope Francis’ homily — directed toward priests — at the Chrism Mass yesterday. When I read this, I was moved by the beauty of both the content and the language, and by the truth that this pope speaks.

I know what it’s like NOT to have this kind of experience of church, of liturgy, of priesthood, and it has affected my spiritual life mightily. This pope gets what people want and need. Now we have to pray that his priests and bishops are listening and take his message to heart.

From Pope Francis:

“A good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed. This is a clear test. When our people are anointed with the oil of gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they have heard good news. Our people like to hear the Gospel preached with “unction”, they like it when the Gospel we preach touches their daily lives, when it runs down like the oil of Aaron to the edges of reality, when it brings light to moments of extreme darkness, to the “outskirts” where people of faith are most exposed to the onslaught of those who want to tear down their faith.”

I cannot tell you the last time I felt “anointed,” the last time I felt the Gospel running down into my darkness like oil of gladness. How I long for that experience. My heart is crying out for healing oil to quench the parched earth of my soul, but it’s nowhere to be found. At least not anywhere I’ve been lately. And based on what I hear from lots and lots of people who have given up on faith completely, it’s not anywhere that they have found either. And so the pews are more empty than full, and those are that are full are often occupied in body only.

More from Pope Francis:

“A priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little – I won’t say ‘not at all’ because, thank God, our people take our oil from us anyway – misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, ‘has already received his reward,’ and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with ‘the smell of the sheep,’ shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men.”

I know there are priests out there who fit this description, and thank God for them. I see it even on my Facebook feed and feel a pang of jealousy as various friends talk about the powerful beauty of a liturgy or homily that brought them to tears. Unfortunately the only tears I’ve shed over a homily or liturgy in recent years have been tears of disappointment, tears of confusion, and tears of rage. No wonder I’ve spent so much time in spiritual darkness of late. No on is minding the flock. No one is guiding us home. No one is willing to live with the “smell of the sheep.”

At Mass last night, as I listened to the subtle ways a priest can strip the Eucharist of its beauty — like by telling us that back in his day there was all this emphasis on the Real Presence and how today, instead, we shouldn’t worry so much about whether Jesus is really present and ask ourselves if we are really present — I kept thinking back to when I was a teenager and I did cry through the Good Friday liturgy because of a homily so powerful it shook me to my core. I thought back to parish missions that filled me with joy and fervor. I thought back to just a few years ago when I would sit at Mass and feel as though every Sunday homily had been written just for me and spoke directly to my heart. But those days are gone, or they’ve been gone, and I don’t see a return anywhere in sight.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for reminding your priests — for reminding us — what we need and what we should expect from those whose life work is to guide us closer to Jesus. We deserve shepherds willing to live with the smell of their sheep.

Read the full homily HERE.

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The gift of bread, broken and shared among friends

Earlier this week, we sat around our kitchen table as a family and broke the unleavened bread made by Chiara’s faith formation teacher as a Holy Week exercise and gift. As we passed the bread around, we talked about Passover and Jesus and the Last Supper and Eucharist, all the while thinking about how fitting it was that we were doing this as our Jewish neighbors were celebrating their own Passover meal in the house next door.

The Last Supper started out like any other Passover meal. Bread was broken and shared, wine was poured, but on that particular night the meal became something more, something miraculous, mysterious, mystical, monumental. And it happened not in a great temple or grand cathedral but around a simple table among friends.

Tonight, as Catholics gather for the Mass of the Last Supper, we focus on basic, everyday things taken to transcendent, extraordinary levels. The washing of feet, the blessing before a meal, the sharing of food and drink. It all sounds so average, so “normal” – things we might do in our own homes each night — but we know it’s anything but.

If we stripped away all the external trappings of church — the stained glass and statues, the choirs and cantors, the ornate altar clothes and chalices — and gathered around a table, any table, the Mass would still maintain its power. Because the Mass, using the words Jesus said during his final Passover meal, is not about pomp and circumstance but about faith and mystery.

I’ve been to Masses celebrated in beautiful cathedrals, and I’ve been to Masses celebrated in backyards and in my own living room. No doubt about it, the more powerful experiences were the ones that were personal, simple, communal in the best sense of the word. I think we’re getting a glimpse of that kind of celebration applied on a larger scale thanks to Pope Francis, who is attempting – as much as he can – to strip away some of the superfluous trappings of Vatican liturgies, tonight being a perfect example. No basilica, no robed choir, just the pope and some young prison inmates. I think the scene in that Italian jail tonight will be much closer to the scene of the Last Supper than anything that’s going to happen in a grand cathedral.

Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in what I guess we could call, for lack of a better description, the “entertainment factor” of church. We sit in our pews and hope to be wowed by the music, inspired by the homily and awed by the architecture, forgetting that all the inspiration and awe we need is right there on a table in the appearance of bread and wine.

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Are you brave enough to give without conditions?

This  morning I came across a post over at Momastery that really stopped me cold. I mean, I do my little charitable stuff here and there, but I have never done anything anywhere close to as generous as what you’ll read about in the post below. I hope someday maybe I’ll have the courage, the trust, the faith to take that leap and giving without counting the cost — not on a calculator, not in my head, not in my heart. Because a lot of times I think we’re still counting the cost even when we’re trying our hardest to be generous. It’s hard to break that hold, to give and not register it somewhere.

Anyway, nothing I can say here will make the point better than the story — “A Woman’s Place” — you’re about to read from the awesome Momastery blog. It’s one of those “Wow!” moments, at least it was for me.

Dear G:

Today is Nicholas’ birthday. I went grocery shopping deliberately in a low income part of town, and bought the person’s groceries behind me as a birthday present to me and my big boy (inspired by Monkee See – Monkee Do). I left before the woman behind me in line knew I had paid for her things. A few minutes later I saw her climb into the driver’s seat of her car, put her head in her hands, and weep.

I was so nervous trying to explain to the cashier what I wanted to do that I left my phone in the store. When I went back to get it, that same cashier told me that the woman behind me had been buying all of that food for a domestic violence shelter.

Our Sisters Warriors. Amazing and Full of Grace

Love, Meghan

************************

I’ve read this story twenty times now. I’ve got the movie in my head.

I can SEE that woman finding out her groceries were paid in full. I can see her eyes and heart try to understand.

Continue reading HERE.

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