You're not crazy

Sometimes all we really need to hear is, "You're not crazy."

I had a student come in and talk to me after school.  She described a few things and seemed worried about my response.  I told her a couple times that I didn't think she was crazy.  The visible relief in her face and whole person was incredible.

Fear likes to keep us locked inside, convinced that speaking or revealing the truth would make us appear inferior.  We worry about what others would think and we worry about appearing vulnerable.  Trapped inside, fear can quickly become the ruler.

Satan seeks to destroy true peace and make us fearful, anxious, and worried.  Speaking truth into that darkness can begin to set us free from our self-made or at least self-perpetuated prison.

You're not crazy.  Now tell Jesus about your fear and go in peace.

Rise and Take Up Your Mat

"Do you want to be healed?"

Of all the questions Jesus asks in the Gospels, this is one of the ones that I find most provoking.  The setting is Jerusalem and He is speaking to a man who has been paralyzed and lying on his mat for 38 years.  My sarcastic nature wants to respond to Jesus with raised eyebrows and a retort of, "Of course he does!  He has been lying there for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS!"  The answer seems obvious to me.  This provoking question is why this is one of my favorite passages to discuss with my sophomores.  (I have many favorite passages...I'm not certain how many, but a lot.  Favorite depends on the day.)

Why would Jesus waste the time to ask this poor man if he wanted to be healed?  From outside the situation, we assume that healing is what is desired.  In this situation, the man desires healing and he finds it in Jesus Christ.  However, Scripture is the living Word of God, which means that there is something in this passage for me in 2015.  Jesus is presenting the same question to me today: Do you want to be healed?

One of the highlights of teaching is when you can, as an entire class, deeply enter into the passage.  Their fidgeting ceases and the room feels still.  This is where the encounter happens, I believe.  The class is led through a lecture/conversation that is like the following.  We are quick to realize the necessity of physical healing---few would have a broken leg and drag themselves around on it, insisting that it will get better or that it is no big deal.  Yet we do this with our internal wounds all the time.  Jesus pinpoints our wound and asks as the gentle God that He is, "Can I heal this?"  He asks if we want it.

As a class we discussed possible reasons why the paralytic might be scared of being healed.  Perhaps he wonders if the healing will last, maybe he doesn't want to get his hopes up that it could happen, and perhaps he will walk oddly or trip when he walks.  I asked them in what was his identity rooted.  After being a paralytic for 38 years, it would make sense if that was how he primarily thought of himself--as someone who couldn't walk, someone who felt abandoned by God.  Yet to be healed would mean that his identity must change--he would no longer have the characteristic he used to define himself.  That change could be frightening.  We began to see how the man is brave to seek healing from Jesus.  In seeing the importance of the paralytic accepting Jesus' healing, we saw how we also needed to embrace the healing that Christ offers.  Ours may not be a visible, physical healing, but rather an internal one.  Yet if the Healer desires to heal, shouldn't we embrace that?

We live in a wounded culture.  I hate that we are so wounded, yet I love that sometimes I am able to point to this woundedness and proclaim, "In the beginning, it was not so!"  We are longing for wholeness and perfection because we were made to desire that.  But first we need to see ourselves where we are---we are the paralyzed man, lying vulnerably before the Giver of all good gifts, being asked if we want to be made whole.  May we have the courage to say 'Yes' and to embrace all that will come of being healed, particularly if it means coming to a deeper understanding of our identity as a child of God.

"Rise, take up your pallet, and walk." Jn. 5:8

Duc in Altum: Classroom Missionary

I've spent the last two months deciding if I would continue teaching next year.  There were pros and cons on both sides and I couldn't tell which side was weightier.  Even though my mother insisted, repeatedly, that I should sit down and make a pros and cons list, doing so didn't seem to really help.  The benefits and drawbacks of either decision seemed incapable of being captured in words to jot on one side of a t-chart.  I couldn't go with my gut because it, too, was conflicted.  In the end, I chose to stay and while I'm still uncertain if that was the correct decision, it was a decision and I finally made it.  A part of me felt sadness to pass up a great service opportunity and another part feels concern that next year I will be climbing the walls of my classroom, wondering what momentary weakness caused me to sign another year of my life away.  Despite these concerns, I am beginning to make plans about what this next year of life will look like.  As a teacher, life stills comes about on a yearly schedule, broken neatly into semesters with lovely summer and winter breaks.

Last semester I was growing more and more convinced that I would love to not teach next year.  It wasn't one thing in particular, but it was a bunch of things all wrapped up together.  Yet after applying for and being offered (even if only temporarily) another job, the joys of teaching became clearer to me.  The things that I would miss stood out in my mind and I didn't even want to think of telling my department head that I would be leaving or cleaning out my classroom.  Yet I didn't want to stay just because I didn't want to do those things.

As frustrating and foolish as students can be at times, they can also be hilarious, witty, deep, encouraging, and beautiful souls.  Yes, they complain, test my patience, seem incapable of following simple directions, make me question my own sanity, and relentlessly insist on moving the far row of desks next to the wall so they have a backrest.  Yet at times we laugh together, we can reach a beautiful depth at times, we develop a relationship that is unlike any other relationship I have formed before--one of student and teacher.  Over the past three years I've grown more comfortable with my students.  Today I gave a test to my seniors and after they were finished, I couldn't help but look at them and feel pleased.  We aren't best friends, but it is my class and we do have a unique dynamic.

I don't know how long I will teach for and how long I want to teach for depends on the day.  In the midst of my crisis (the I-have-only-two-days-to-know-if-I-am-going-to-sign-my-contract-and-I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing crisis), I called my sister.  She asked me questions that I didn't know how to answer about my personal desires and feeling peace.

"Answer this as quickly as you think of an answer," my sister told me.  "If you could do anything, what would you do or be?"
Pause.
"A missionary."

Then she read me something.  At first, I wasn't quite certain what she was reading me.  After a little while, I realized she was reading me one of my very first blog entries.  "Young," first-year teacher Trish was writing about how she was a missionary of the classroom and how even as she longed for greater missions, she was called to be a teacher and minister in the seeming mundane aspects of life.  And that young teacher inspired me.  As my sister read my writing, I felt inspired to truly take up the mission of being a teacher and to live it with a radical zeal that I had forgotten.  At some point I had begun to resign myself to having a job rather than being a missionary.

So even in the midst of uncertainty, I am starting to look forward to another school year (of course, after my (I believe) well-deserved summer break) to be a missionary in a high school classroom.  Because Christ instructed us to put out into the deep and I intend to cast my nets into the high school ocean.  Because the harvest is abundant and the laborers are few.  Because the Church needs the youth.  Because Jesus says there is a millstone with my name on it if I fail to bring the little ones to Him.  Because, for some unknown reason in God's inscrutable Will, I am called to teach.

The Triduum

The Triduum is an experience for all of the senses.  While I've never been anything but Catholic, I cannot imagine another church matching the beauty of the Triduum and the way the liturgies invite us into the Pascal Mystery.

Holy Thursday begins with joy and beckoning us to the table of Our Lord's Last Supper.  I can imagine Christ bending low to wash my feet as the priest in persona Christi stoops to wash the feet of the young men called forward.  After the Eucharistic prayer, I approach the priest to receive from him my Lord, the Word made flesh and remaining in the appearance of bread and wine.  Tonight, I am an apostle from another century, experiencing the Last Supper and encountering Christ in a tangible way.  My senses are alive as the Eucharistic procession weaves its way around the church.  An incense thurible fills my nose with the sweet, rich odor I link only to the Eucharist.  The priest is embracing Jesus as we sing Pange Lingua Gloriosi.  Our Lord is carried to an altar and the faithful are invited to come and wait with Him.

I fulfill my role of a disciple well.  In the intimately dim chapel, I wait with Jesus and I drift off to sleep at times.  Can I not wait one hour?  Apparently not.  It is beautiful to see the others in adoration, praying with Jesus before He is hidden from us, when the stark reality of the Pascal Mystery will become more obvious.  Then the time of waiting in the Garden is over and we depart in silence.  Talking seems inappropriate.  Nearly anything seems inappropriate on such an evening.

Good Friday is spent anticipating and remembering the Passion of Jesus.  The simplicity of the Good Friday service is unnerving and striking.  I can always feel an ache in my heart.  The tabernacle is left open and I am continually reminded that He is gone.  Approaching the cross so as to venerate it, I am questioning where to kiss Jesus.  My stomach feels the hunger of fasting and I kiss the crucifix with the kiss of Judas, with the kiss of John the beloved.  Good Friday fills me with a longing and with a sorrow.  The rest of the world seems to be continuing at its typical pace but I cannot carry on as normal.

The waiting of Holy Saturday is difficult.  Christ has been crucified and laid in the tomb.  He has yet to rise, though.  Fasting is not obligatory yet the feasting of Easter is still premature.  We wait.  Waiting is perhaps the focal point of Holy Saturday and it makes it all the more difficult.

Yet the Easter Vigil will arrive with its dark and quiet entrance.  A fire lit and from it, a flame passed to light all the candles in the darkened church.  There is a stillness of expectation.  We know the story, we know Christ will rise, and yet we are waiting for it to be lived out, to be fulfilled in this sacrifice.  Darkness turns into light.  As a church we are led through salvation history, to hear how God remains ever-faithful and is responding to the longings and yearnings of His people in an unforeseen way.  We are reminded that we are a part of something far larger than ourselves or our parish.  We are united to a Church that is truly universal and timeless.  Joy mounts in my soul as we continue through the Mass. As the beautiful music announces a living reality in my life: Christ has risen.  He rose 2,000 years ago and He rises today in my heart.  The highest feast of the Church is celebrated with all the pomp owed to a King who mounts a cross as a throne and gives Himself as the food for the wedding banquet.


Easter Sunday is bright and joyful, a renewal of the joy felt the night before.  While Easter Vigil tends to hold a heavy joy for me, Easter Sunday is a light, uplifting joy.  The sun must shine on such a day and if it does not, the joy of the feast becomes a light of its own right.  The lilies decorate the Church and we sing words that we have refrained from saying for weeks.  It adds a depth to the joy that would not be found if one simply arrived at Easter without the Lent.  The Easter Sunday celebration continues for the Easter Octave, each day the Church repeating the joy of the resurrection.  Liturgically, we celebrate the Easter Mass repeatedly.  We cannot move on, we must make it known that this is the highest of all celebrations.

The Triduum and Easter season are for all of the senses.  Breathing in the incense from the Eucharistic procession, waiting with Jesus in the Garden, saying the words of the angry crowd as Jesus is condemned to death, kissing the cross of Our Lord, waiting as Jesus is held in the tomb, lighting our candle from the Easter candle representing the light of Christ Himself, and singing with exultation the joy central to the Catholic faith: we worship a God made man who rose from the dead.  The Triduum calls us to live out the final days of Christ and to enter into the mystery by which we are saved.  In a beautiful combination of music, art, sights, and sounds, the Church transports us to the time of Jesus Christ.  Or, perhaps, she causes us to acknowledge that the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus are truly timeless events that we experience now through the beauty of the Body of Christ, the Church in her tri-fold magnificence.

What is your withered hand?

"How are we each like the man with the withered hand?"

It was seventh period and my students were, as usual, talkative and eager to laugh with their fellow students.  We are in the midst of learning about the Gospel of Mark and today found us reviewing the story of the man with the withered hand.

One of the goals I have for my Scripture classes is to convince them that this is the Living Word of God and that it should be impacting their lives now.  I tell them that Jesus desires to speak to each of us, today, in this very moment, through events that happened and were written about a couple thousand years ago.

"How are we each like the man with the withered hand?"

It was a rhetorical question and I continued on with one of my little preaching sessions.  The man had a disfigured hand and yet Jesus asked the man to come before the crowd of people and stretch out his hand.  This requires a deep trust that Jesus will be gentle and that He can heal.  The part that the man most wanted to hide from other people, Jesus was asking the man to openly show to Him.

The words seemed to flow naturally from my mouth as I asked them to consider what part of them Jesus desires to heal.

"Perhaps you don't have physical disabilities.  Jesus wants to provide emotional, spiritual, mental healing.  What if Jesus called you in front of the crowd and asked you, "How is your relationship with your mom?"  Or if He asked you, "How did you feel when your friend betrayed you?"  Jesus wants to come to you in the midst of your brokenness and heal you.  Christ desires complete wholeness for us."

As I said these words, I was looking at them and their solemn little faces spoke of hurts that I will never know or understand.  Faces that a few minutes before were laughing, now would quickly drop their eyes when mine would rest on their face.  I told them that Jesus desires to heal them.  That whatever part of them they most want to hide from Jesus, is the place He most wants to come.

It was, I believe, a moment of the Holy Spirit working through me.  The room had a stillness to it that revealed an attentiveness that went beyond the typical atmosphere for notes or theological discussions.  I could feel the weight of the room and the weight of the Holy Spirit.  In the momentary pause before I continued on with notes, I thought briefly, "I love talking about healing."  It was never something I had thought before, but I knew it to be true.  There is a certain life that fills me when I am able to speak about the transforming effect that Christ desires to have on us.

How does Jesus desire to heal your withered hand today?  Let's let Him do it.  Amen. Amen.

Peace Begins With a Smile

"How do you do it?"
"What?"
"How do you not respond to all of our comments?  You just smile."
Unconsciously, I smile as I consider my response.
"See.  Like that!" she says to me.
"Sometimes," I say, "that is the best response."
"Really?  You are supposed to just smile?"
"Well, sometimes smiling is the best response for me.  I'm not always certain what I would say would be good.  You guys definitely make me grow in patience."

That is entirely true.  Teaching forces me to grown in patience in a way I never really considered.  My first year of teaching found me horrified at myself as I realized that I had picked up a behavior from my students I didn't want: rolling my eyes.  I guess I had seen so many eye rolls that I just began to mirror their behavior back to them.

My students probably view me as quiet, gentle, and "nice."  They have experienced little of my sarcasm and sharp tongue.  Perhaps they would be surprised if they had a glimpse into my mind, a taste of the quick retorts my mind can come up with when faced with their behavior.  I like to think of myself as "long-suffering" and attempt to wade through their comments, ignoring many and responding to a few.  My goal is to have the best response for the given situation.  Sometimes it is acting like I never heard their groans.  Other times I confront the student and then send them to the office when their behavior becomes too much.  I probably get it wrong 80% of the time.

Patience.  I'm slow to learn it.  Driving across town I'll get cut off in traffic and I am amazed how quickly my temper can flare.  It is as though the greatest injustice has been done to me.  On good days, I will quickly remind myself that it isn't that big of a deal and will try to regain my peace.  In a similar way, by 8th period my patience can wear thin and what wouldn't have bothered me earlier in the day is nearly unbearable at that moment.  I'm weary and ready for the day to end and instead I find myself justifying a ten minute assignment to an eighteen year old child who thinks they are an adult.  Perhaps the Lord placed me here to acquire this virtue and my deficiency in patience will be overcome by teaching.

However, until my stubborn little heart learns to respond with tact and grace to complaints and criticisms, my best response may be a smile.

"Peace begins with a smile."  -Bl. Teresa of Calcutta

The Love of a Father

“To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak.  I have become all things to all, to save at least some.  All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”  
1 Corinthians 9:22-23

Be all things to all people.  That is a tall order.  An impossible order, I suppose.  There will always be a way that you fall short or don’t live the way someone expects or wants you to live.  Yet I saw this “all things to all” being lived out in a beautiful way.

We celebrated a large Mass with all of the Catholic students of our diocese.  In the thirty minutes following Mass, I watched the eager crowds of children gradually disperse.  While they waited, I watched my parish priest as he made his rounds.  He stopped by the section where students from his previous parish were seated.  A large group of them began to wave excitedly.  To them, he was a star and they were excited to see him again after his absence.  After a few minutes of talking to students and teachers, he migrated to his current parish and greeted the children.  I kept waiting for him to walk away, but he didn't.  One-by-one as the students left their rows to go to the bus, he greeted them.  Some wanted a high-five, others wanted a hug, and some simply waved.

It was beautiful to watch them each pass under his fatherly gaze, often accompanied by a pat on the head or shoulder and always a smile.  This is not the first time I have been amazed by his fatherly care.  During his homilies at Mass, it is easy to get that sense that he is our spiritual father.  Yet the way he lives it out does not remain simply spiritual.  It is not just in prayers and sacrifices that he seeks to be our father.  Rather, he greets the people of his parish and goes to their homes.  His heart is filled with a tender fatherly love for his children, some of them biologically older then him.

My experience with priests has led to me to harbor a deep love for them.  While I would not relate to all of them in a fatherly way, I have found many who are living out the call to encounter people where they are “for the sake of the gospel” in order to “have a share in it” also.  The priest who instructed my summers of Totus Tuus also lived out the role of a father.  We were primarily young college students and he laughed with us, taught us, and loved us.  At the end of the first summer, he thanked us for “calling out the fatherhood” in him. 

For all of the things that the secular media says about the institution of the priesthood and all the ways it seeks to change it, I am inspired to continually meet young, holy priests (or not-young, holy priests) who have sacrificed having their own families so as to welcome an entire parish as a family.  Regardless of your upbringing and family background, in the beauty of the Catholic Church, everyone has a father who reveals to us, in part, the person of God the Father.