Another Weary Day in the Battlefield...

It has been a rough day and a long week.  One of those weeks where I look at how many months it is until summer break and I realize that I have only just begun.  My thoughts should still be turned to those of excitement and eager anticipation of the events yet to come.  Maybe I feel so worn down because I've been lacking in prayer.  Perhaps I'm simply tired.

At times I feel this weariness deep down in my bones that shouldn't be found within the person of only 23 years.  I long for Heaven.  At times, I seem to ache for it.  I'm weary of life.  Already this year I've had my fill of teenagers and they are the source of my job.  I'm tired of rolling eyes, softly muttered comments, overly talkative classes, looks of pure boredom, and the list continues.

Last week I asked my students if they would rather work a job where they make lots of money but hate it or a job where they make more than enough to survive but have to forgo fancy extras but love their job.  In one class the majority chose to work a job they hate so that they could have all the things they want, take nice vacations, and retire early.  I always figured I would rather work a job I love but this week confirmed it.  Sitting at the dinner table, exhausted and wanting nothing more than to sleep for a week, I thought of what a horrible existence it would be to spend 8 hours at a job I hate, spend the rest of the day tired and dreaming of sleep, only to wake up and do it all over again.  Not for nine months but for the entire year.  Where is life in that?  Where is the time to actually live and be with people?

I do not hate my job.  On some days, I love it.  On days like today, I go to the chapel, beg the Lord for help, and return to the street/battlefield/classroom.  And this idea begins to grow in the back of my mind--what if the Lord desires something else from me?  Maybe He doesn't want me to teach next year but rather to......  And I draw a blank because there isn't exactly an application for "wife and mother".  [And I would cringe at the thought of answering that kind of help wanted ad. "Help wanted: woman to marry and rear children.  Will be paid in a decent house, being woken up in the middle of the night to feed/change/rock child(ren), and beautiful drooling smiles.  Mail application and sample of chocolate chip cookies to....."]

Lord, I pray, I'm lonely.  I want a "kindred spirit" or a "bosom friend" with whom I may pass through this world.  What a feeling it is to be surrounded by people all day long and yet desire to be alone, but not truly alone, just away from the maddening crowd.  Sometimes I blame God because I feel that He should have made me more adaptable to this world.  My heart shouldn't get hurt so easily by a few rude looks or a handful of subtle attacks.  I shouldn't long for solitude so much if I was to have a profession that deals with so many people.  I know God didn't make me for this world but it seems I could have been made with slightly more skills suited to life on Earth.

Convents sound like beautiful places at this point.  Not because I believe they are easy but because in many ways my heart feels very much aligned with it.  I like to be quiet and by myself.  I enjoy work and prayer.  I would love a community of sisters.  My two older sisters in religious life have made me quite aware that there is more to monastic life than that.  Nevertheless, I desire it.  Yet not the vocation itself.  I desire marriage.  I am a contemplative thrown into the world who seems to not find time to pray.  I am a fish thrown out of the water and I refuse to admit that the water is my source of life.

I'm unsure if any of this makes sense.  All I know is that today I nearly cried during a class and I've thought several times over the past couple days, "What if I didn't come back next year?"  My spiritual director has been helping me find areas of hurt and bring healing to them.  We are trying to make my heart whole again.  Today I began to believe that teaching was simply destroying the whole process.

Maybe I love far too many ideals and not enough realities.  I love my students--as they should be.  Yet when faced with a teenage girl who is subtly mocking me in front of the class, I have to keep myself from crying tears of rage.  I love teaching--on the days when things goes perfectly and my students radiate with kindness and sincerity.

Heaven help me.  So if you are reading this, stop right now and say a prayer for me and my students.  We can definitely use it.  For all of those out there facing far more difficult battles in the streets, know that my little sufferings and prayers are with you.  And let's all get to Heaven so this can all just look like one inconvenient night in a hotel (thanks St. Teresa of Avila).

Rule #1: Be Controversial

Sometimes when I really think about the "controversial" issues of today, I am completely baffled by the fact that they are controversial.  Society has made these issues into emotional issues and situations that prevent one from really looking at the truth objectively.  I find it interesting that my high school students have been almost more instrumental in my grasping the extent of society's depravity than the past eight years of college and high school.  My students are not depraved but they give me a window into the mind of society.  And I find it to be quite frightening.  I am realizing, as I told a friend a week ago, that I wasn't the typical high schooler.  As I speak to my students I waver between feeling as though we are in the same generation and then thinking that we are in completely different generations.  But, to be honest, I often feel that I am in the wrong era altogether and that I would have fit rather nicely into the 1800s. 

My viewpoint into the culture made me slightly frantic this week.  If my students, who attend a Catholic high school in a rather conservative state with typically traditional values, seem this affected by the culture, I was quick to bemoan the fate of the entire world.  Especially after listening to their defense of their opinions, I was convinced that we, as a society, do not understand truth.  My students aren't stupid and they don't seem to hold beliefs that they think are radical.  There is also an interesting mixture within most of them, they don't exactly buy the Church's teaching on human sexuality (for example) but they appear open to know more about it.  This doesn't mean they come off as accepting of it, rather they appear to be skeptical of anything the Church says that doesn't mesh with society.  Yet many of them are hesitant to say they flat out disagree with the Church's teaching.  These opinions provide an interesting blend of hope and despair for me.  I have come again and again to the realization that I do not know how to accurately convey my beliefs or the Church's teaching to them.  I accept what the Church teaches but I cannot properly show them how this should impact their beliefs.  Multiple times this past week I have felt acutely the limitations of my abilities and knowledge.

What do you do with a society that makes truth seem bigoted and intolerant?  How do you present a truth that is immediately labeled as hate speech or offensive?  The truth is remarkably offensive.  Don't believe me?  Take a quick look at the videos below. 

The original TV clip

His defense of "hate speech"

The Media Portrayal

Why does this continue to surprise me?  Perhaps because our culture is very good at pinning "radical" and "extreme" to things that are simply not in line with the secular media.  If you say things often enough and loud enough, people will begin to think that they are true.  So when you begin to speak the Truth, be it ever so softly and charitably, it comes off as cruel and unjust. 

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!  Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate." --Mt. 23: 37-38

It lead me to wonder how one could possibly win.  Not because I am making the transformation of a culture into a competition, but because it seems that the odds are so against the truth.  Even the fact that when the Church teaches the truth it doesn't make any head-way in many modern minds, points to a culture so "open-minded" that it is closed off to truth.  Modern progress seems to be running full speed away from everything good, true, and beautiful.  And the issues that seem to be the most fundamental--marriage, families, life, and the human person--are the most attacked now. 

"It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile." -G.K. Chesterton

Perhaps I should have been more encouraging when one of my students asked what we should do when the whole of society seems to be opposed to what the Church is teaching.  I told him that we need to be prepared to be martyrs for the truth.  That we will be at least verbally mocked and crucified is seeming to be a closer and closer reality.  It is not something that will take place when I am old and gray but is gradually sweeping society right now.  The hope in this is that Our Lord knows all of this.  And the times of greatest persecution and evil are the very times when He raises up the greatest of saints.  They give hope and inspiration that standing with the truth is something that is only fully rewarded in Heaven.  As for now, we are the Church militant, battling anything contrary to that which is true.  Not just "true" by our standards, but is actually and objectively Truth.

"Strive even to death for truth and the Lord God will fight for you." --Sirach 4:28

This causes me to think of the book of Daniel with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Like them, we should refuse to serve the gods that society worships and refuse to conform our lives to the tune that is being played.  Instead, even in the midst of the flames of persecution we should bless the Lord.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures for ever."

Entering the Mission Field

I never realized how controversial the simple truth could be until I stepped foot into my classroom.  Prior to this I knew in theory that some truths people didn't like but I was awakened to a whole new realm of this in one of my classes.  The truth is offensive.  I told my students that the Catholic Church had the fullness of the Truth and I didn't expect the firestorm that would follow.  It wasn't always a verbal defense that they provided but I could tell that they were mad at me or mad at the Church.  And I'm not certain if I ever really solved the problem.  Because I am realizing more fully that I cannot make anyone believe.  If only I could pray them into accepting the truth.  Yet all I can do is pray for them and strive to present the Truth in the best possible way.  I find myself desiring to protect the Church against any assaults they might hurl at Her.  In the midst of the moment I forget that the Church can defend Herself adequately and I need have no concerns about Her being found lacking.  I look at their lack of love for the Church and I am bewildered.  It takes a while for me to remind myself that I did not always harbor this love for the Church that I do now. 

I desired a mission and the Lord has placed me in the missionary field of a classroom in a Catholic high school.  My idealistic view of teaching is not completely gone, although the past couple months has tempered it.  How do I give the love I have to them?  How do I take their skepticism and help it become belief?  It is not because of me that any of their hearts will be converted.  I am convinced of this.  My beautiful lessons seem to be less than impressive to them.  The very things that fill me with joy can put them to sleep.  Despite the resistance that some of them put up to the Church, to the Truth, to me, I know that these hours that they spend in my classroom will impact them in some way unforseen to anyone.  Initially, I was glad to see them write the correct answers on the paper, knowing that even if they didn't believe the answer they had to memorize it for the test.  Now, I want much more from them.  I find myself desiring rebuttal rather than the perfectly formulated answer that they could care less about.  I want them to care deeply one way or the other.  In some ways it is hard to rouse this generation to action or to convince them to be totally committed to something even though in their core that is what they desire.  But then again my own heart is so slow to be awakened and called to action.

How the heart of Our Lord must ache for us, His beloved ones!  My desire for them to accept the truth is not as firmly rooted as is the Lord's desire for them to become what they are called to be.  My love for them wavers and changes based on the day.  But the Lord's love remains firm and unyielding.  I pray to have His heart for them so that I may love them as I ought.  How far I have to go.  Where I see battle lines to be drawn, Our Lord sees lost sheep to find and craddle in His arms.  Where I see rebellion, Our Lord sees the pain and hurt that they have experienced.  Teaching one of my classes about David I was struck again by the call to be a woman after God's own heart.  I am called to become more and more like God and by doing so to become the saint that He desires me to be, that He needs me to be.  Because only a saint can fulfill the call that the Lord has placed upon my heart, upon the heart of each person.

While my title may be "teacher" I am striving to embrace more fully the title of "missionary" so that I may remember that every place needs to be evangelized and that this is not my home.  For now, my mission field is the classroom and my students are the ones who need to hear the Gospel proclaimed to them.  Regardless of how small or large the task appears to me, I must remember that because the Lord wills this of me in this present moment, this task is the most important thing for me.  This is my mission, this is my street, this is my life.

"Do not be afraid to go out onto the streets and into public places like the first apostles who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in the squares of cities, towns, and villages." 

Bl. Pope John Paul II (WYD 1993)