There are moments in life, especially as we move into middle age, that are bright lines between what was and what will be. My journey to my mother’s small Minnesota hometown, alone, to settle her sister’s affairs was one of those bright line experiences for me.
My aunt Lucy was born and died in the same house my grandfather built for his new bride in the early 20’s. When she moved back home after my grandmother died, Lucy inherited all the furnishings and she lived in it, virtually unchanged, for 25 years. So I wasn’t so much closing up my aunt’s house, as my grandparents’. The same pieces of furniture, still in the same places. The same dishes—even the same sink and stove I remember. So many memories, but beyond photographs and such, so little that I could, or cared, to bring home. But it was hard to let it all go, knowing I was the last relative who would ever enter the home again.
I was feeling wistful the afternoon I was to close up the house and fly home. I wandered the yard, remembering my grandmother’s beautiful flower garden that took up a wide swath of the center of the lawn. Autumn has already arrived in the north country, and leaves littered the garden bed, stuck among the dead stalks of faded perennials. And then it struck me. My memories weren’t held in the furniture or the china or even the house, they were held in the land, the lawn I turned cartwheels on and the garden I remember my grandmother tending with love. I found a shovel and divided decades-old peonies and iris, plants that were surely older than me, stuffed them in a plastic bag and brought them home.
Sunday afternoon, I transplanted those living links to my heritage into my own garden. Perhaps one day my own grandchild will divide them again, remembering me tending to them, and telling stories of the small town up north where those luscious blooms originated. (This photo is of my mother, c. 1935 in front of my grandmother’s peonies.)
#catholiclife #legacy #peonies #elyminnesota #ironrange #family
We get on planes for so many reasons. Work, fun, visiting those we love. But tonight I’m flying into the unknown. My aunt passed away in Minnesota and it falls to me to go to the house and to put her affairs in order. In an earlier age she would have been called a spinster, and a bit “eccentric”. Now we’d say she was an independent woman but her oddities would still put her outside the mainstream. She was almost pathologically independent, guarding her privacy even against her only sister, my mother. No one has been allowed in her house (the one in which she and my mother grew up) in many years and we suspect she may have added hoarding to her list of mental conditions. It’s likely that she hid any important papers from perceived prying eyes and she didn’t have a will—interacting with an attorney about her financial life would be well beyond her comfort zone.
Did I mention she was found several days after her death?
So tonight I fly to the Iron Range of Minnesota, two hours north of Duluth, to bring closure to my aunt’s life. I’m traveling with the accessories of a CSI (or maybe a serial killer)—latex gloves, a respirator mask, garbage bags and a large duffel bag for any items I want to bring home to my mother. I’m prepared for the worst, not just the physical condition of the neglected, 100-year-old house in which she died, but to feel like I am violating the privacy of a woman who guarded that above all.
But I’m also hoping for a long-delayed connection with my aunt. We share a deep faith, and I know I will find prayer cards and rosaries amid the chaos. (This is the woman who urged me to pray the chaplet of Divine Mercy for my dying, non-religious father.) Whatever I find (or smell) that might make me shudder, I pray that I can focus on her faith over her frailties, her love of family despite her discomfort with actually interacting with us. I pray that the Holy Spirit gives me the strength, wisdom and patience to deal with whatever I find, up in the far north of Minnesota. To be continued . . . #ironrange #catholiclife #catholicwomen #whatwedoforfamily #maidenaunt
This is the final resting spot of St. Monica, patron saint of mothers (especially of wayward children) whose feast we celebrate today. It is natural that we mothers want the best for our children, want them to know true happiness and fulfill their purpose in this world. We Catholic moms know the surest path to happiness, freedom and self-fulfillment is through our faith, so our lost sheep bring us pain, despite (or because of) our love for them. Just last night I was chatting with a group of friends who kids range from 4 to 30-something, in various states of religious observance, but generally affiliating with the “nones” that define the younger generations. (The 4 year old is still standing firm, could teach the millennials something!) As we shared our own sometimes-winding faith journeys, and shared our hearts’ pain for our kids, St. Monica was there, a model for prayer and patience and perseverance. St. Monica prayed for her son’s conversation for decades, a hard idea for us in our Next-Day-Amazon-Prime-Delivery culture. But pray we must and we can rely on Monica to understand the pain in our hearts.
This summer, on pilgrimage in Rome with some of these dear friends, we passed this church and our leader mentioned St. Monica was buried there. He had planned to just point it out and keep moving to another church on our itinerary. Three of us, who have been sharing our prodigal-mother’s hearts with each other for a few years, staged a mom-style mutiny. Not looking back, we said we had to go in and say a brief prayer—wait for us or not, we were going in. So I had my chance to visit with Monica, mother-to-mother. I can’t change the path my children choose, I can only set my own. But I will continue to ask St Monica to intercede for them, and also for me. Because I need her comfort on my weary mind as much as I need her prayers for them. St. Monica, pray for us! #catholiclife #stmonica #rome #catholictravel
Today’s gospel reading is the story of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, unable to recognize the risen Jesus in the form of a gardener. (That always makes me feel good—Mary mistakes the Lord for the help and still makes it to heaven. Maybe I have a shot.) Much has been made of why Jesus chose to appear first to Mary Magdalene, with theories ranging from the lurid to the feminist to the practical. I wonder if Jesus was so touched by Mary’s devotion through his awful passion and death that he wanted her to be the first to have her grief assuaged. Or maybe Jesus sought to head off another “which one of us is the greatest?” headache like on the evening of the Last Supper and so avoided getting the boys involved. But I latch onto that detail of the gardener and think maybe His appearing to a woman in that way is beautiful symmetry.
In the first garden, God is the gardener who plants the seeds of life and in that garden, a woman chooses her own will and separates mankind from God through original sin. It is only fitting, then, that Jesus appears as a gardener again, this time to a woman whose selfless devotion kept her by His side as he died to redeem that first act of defiance.
So this feast of Mary Magdalene brings us back to the core of the mystery, to the foot of the cross and to the open tomb. To the redemption of us all, witnessed by a woman. May Mary’s devotion and love be a model and a reminder that Jesus is with us, even when we don’t recognize it.
#feastofmarymagdalene #marymagdalene #catholiclife #saint #resurrection
What could possibly be better than being Catholic? Why, being an American Catholic, of course! In the spirit of Independence Day, I offer you some, ahem, "important" moments in Catholic American history.
1649: The Maryland Toleration Act is passed. Contrary to popular belief, this act mandated religious freedom for Catholics in the colony, not that big, bad Virginia stop teasing its runty neighbor.
1769-1782: Junipero Serra completes his mission trail, from San Diego to present day Ventura, California. The now-saint is rumored to have said, “I would have finished earlier, but my mules were exceeding California emissions standards and they found an endangered toad living on one of my sites.” 1793: Diocese of New Orleans, the second diocese in the new country, is created. Soon thereafter, the Vatican cracks down on the practice of throwing beads after a particularly good homily.
1855: Chicago Lager Riots. Years of nativist hatred and violence, including job discrimination, destruction of Catholic property, and even calling the Church the Whore of Babylon, is not enough to cause Catholic immigrants to take a stand. But when Mayor Boone enacts an ordinance outlawing the sale of beer on Sundays, full-scale riots break out, eventually repealing the prohibition and ousting Boone from office.
1883: American Standard begins enameling cast-iron tubs, giving them a smooth, paintable interior. Bathtub Mary is born.
1918: Knute Rockne becomes the Notre Dame football coach, creating confusion for generations of Catholics who didn’t realize Saturday Vigil actually meant going to church instead of a tailgate party.
1920: Nearly 1,500 Catholic high schools operate in the United States. “Leave room for the Holy Spirit” enters the American vernacular.
1967: The Flying Nun premiers. Because America didn’t think Catholics were weird enough.
2015: Pope Francis visits the United States. Americans embrace the pope that reminds them of themselves—open, a little quirky, but warm and generous, with a New World exuberance.
Happy Birthday, America! God truly shed his grace on thee. #catholic #catholichistory #america #americancatholic #fourthofjuly #4thofjuly #bathtubmary
My great-aunt’s husband Luther died in the invasion of Normandy, 75 years ago today.
Luther was also, to quote my aunt, “a mean son-of-a-gun” and a fairly poor excuse for a husband.
Do his personal failings take away from his sacrifice? Do they make his actions on the beach that day less heroic?
We know God uses flawed vessels to do His work—just look at the murderous acts of David and Saul, but whose works for the Kingdom of God are immeasurable. Maybe God used the fear Luther felt that June morning to break his anger and pride. Maybe his weaknesses as a man served some purpose in the fight that day. All I know for sure is that Luther was an ordinary man, in an extraordinary time, and whatever his flaws, Luther was part of a tremendous force for good in the world.
We look at those black and white photos from 70-some years ago and see heroes, and they certainly were. But seeing only an idealized heroism loses the humanity of those men. Look at their faces. They are our husbands, our sons, our fathers. They are strong and brave and decent but also weak and scared and flawed.
It is their very ordinary-ness that makes their heroism so profound. To sacrifice your very life for the welfare of another, to move forward when every fiber of your being says to run—it’s an unimaginable reality for all of us save first responders and military. And most of those men were neither. They were farmhands and teachers and factory workers. They were ordinary. But God used their ordinary heroism to break the back of evil.
So Luther might not have been a good husband or even a good man. But his sacrifice for justice and peace was for good—and that’s extraordinary. #dday #dday75 #greatestgeneration #heroes
