Franciscan at Home

When I had been a mother for about 20 years and was leading a women’s Bible study at church, I asked a group of mothers with young children to give me one word that would complete this sentence: Motherhood is a time of . . . “exhilaration,” “chaos,” “frustration” and “creativity” were some of the answers they called out to me. Then I shared with them a conclusion about motherhood that I had been coming to in those years. It was an idea I wish I had known when I first began having children, so I wanted to see if perhaps it could make a difference for them. I suggested that, above everything else, motherhood is preeminently a time of conversion. Why?

We looked at a passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel to understand what conversion means, why it is necessary, and why motherhood offers women deep and abiding opportunities to experience it. In that passage, the disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (18:1). In reply, he made it clear that the more important question is: Who will get in? He said that those who seek to enter heaven must “turn [be converted] and become like children” (18:3). Even the disciples needed to understand that it was not enough to be an admirer of Jesus. They needed to consciously turn away from a life of self-reliance and become like children, with simple trust in and obedience to Jesus. Thus, he established the necessity of conversion. He illustrated the point when he called a child out of the crowd to come to him. The child obeyed, putting himself (literally) in Jesus’ hands, who then set the boy in their midst. Jesus told the disciples, “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:4). So, what does all this have to do with motherhood? Jesus said it best: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (18:5). What did he mean?

To receive a child in the name of Jesus is what we do when we have our children baptized. A child who has been baptized into Jesus and his Church has been made part of his Mystical Body. In a very real way, Jesus himself has taken up residence in our homes through our children. He is there to save them—and us. Throughout our lives with them, we will hear Jesus call to us, always beckoning us to turn from the small, cramped, ill-fitting life of the self and become what we truly are: children of God. In other words, he will use our lives with our children to turn us from self-love to self-donation, making us ready for union with God. How will we, as mothers of children from infancy to adult life, hear his voice?

When you think of what it means to “pray like the saints,” what image comes to mind? In our Catholic faith, we have been blessed with a rich heritage of spiritual practices and prayer techniques to help us grow closer to our Lord. In this article, we’ll be looking at a specific prayer method that many might consider odd or morbid at first. It is, however, a meditative method that is filled with many graces and engages both the mind as well as the heart. I am speaking of the practice of meditating upon death, or memento mori.

It may surprise us to learn that this practice is one that has found strong advocates in some of the greatest spiritual masters of Catholic spirituality. In his Rule, St. Benedict of Nursia urged his monks to remind themselves daily of the fact that they would one day die.[1] St. Francis of Assisi referred to death in familial terms in his famous “Canticle of the Sun,” giving her the title “Sister Death.” And in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius recommended using reflection upon death as a method for discernment.[2]

Recently in one of my religion classes, my ninth graders and I were thinking about how important the virtue of faith is in the Gospels. Faith usually seems to be a free-will assent that Jesus waits for in order to act in and through a person. But there is also the woman with the hemorrhage, whose faith draws healing power out of Jesus on its own (see Mk 5:30). Then there is the healing of the paralytic, which expanded our discussion to the Communion of Saints and the power of intercessory prayer: “when he saw their faith” (Lk 5:20), Jesus proceeded to heal the paralytic. One student pointed out that we don’t actually know whether the paralytic believed Jesus could do this. The man’s cure was provoked by the faith of his friends. What is this mystery? How are we united in Christ and with one another?

The ordinary means of this identification with Jesus is the Sacrament of Baptism. The sanctifying grace we receive is the very life of God in us; through baptism, we “come to share in the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4). United to Christ, we are by that very fact united to God and so to one another. Jesus said, “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17:20–21). This is the reality of the Communion of Saints. Our personal sanctity is not the exclusive goal of our union with Christ; its ultimate purpose is the building up of the Body of Christ, the Church, the whole Christ. As CCC 1267 states: “Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: ‘Therefore . . . we are members one of another’ [Eph 4:25]. Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: ‘For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body’ [1 Cor 12:13].”

Bl. Fr. Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, OCD, emphasizes that this union is the work of the Holy Spirit in and through each one of us: “We know that it is the Spirit of Love who carries out the eternal design of God. He placed the foundations for it by bringing to pass the mystery of the Incarnation in the womb of Mary. Since then, He continues His work by pouring into our souls a filial charity that identifies us with the Incarnate Word, Christ Jesus. This grace makes us one with Christ, that we may form with Him the whole Christ.”[1] In The Reed Of God, Caryll Houselander points out that this identification takes place slowly and, as its fruit, gives us God’s power to live his life here and now: “What we are asked to do is to be made one with Christ, to allow Him to abide in us, to make His home in us, and gradually, through the oneness that results from living one life, and through the miracles of His love, consummated again and again in Communion with Him, to become Christs, to live in Him as Our Lady did. When we are changed into Him as the bread into the Host, then with His power we can follow His example.”[2]

This past semester, I had the joy of bringing my family to Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian campus, where I taught for the spring.

This past semester, I had the joy of bringing my family to Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian campus, where I taught for the spring. One of the most compelling facets of this experience was our immersion in the lives of many saints as they may be met in various places around the European continent. That, of course, is the extraordinary thing about the saints—they may be encountered in the most tangible of ways by visiting their cities, their graves, and even (in the case of Pope St. John Paul II) their favorite ice cream shops. Their homes are sometimes preserved, as are occasionally their actual bodies in a miraculous way. Over the course of this semester in Austria, I was deeply stirred in my own encounters with the Church Triumphant in these holy places. Allow me to offer three examples.

First, I had quite an astonishing run-in with divine providence in Rome. I had recently read about a remarkable recently beatified woman: Bl. Elisabetta Canori Mora. Born in the 18th century, Elisabetta had fallen in love with a young lawyer and joyfully married him. Then, almost immediately, her husband chose to be serially unfaithful to her. He soon gambled away the young family’s living in a life of self-absorbed debauchery. Hoping for a beautiful marriage and family life, Elisabetta instead found herself unloved and disrespected and very much alone. Her reaction to this terrible situation was profound. The book I had been reading described her response in this way:

Drawing strength from intense prayer and from the conviction that the sacrament of matrimony had truly bound them together in a precious and indissoluble way, Elisabetta resolved on total fidelity to her husband and their two daughters, whom she supported laboriously by her own work. She honored the sacrament she had received, although she was forced to do so alone, venturing onto a “mystical” terrain made of inexhaustible charity, aid for other families in difficulty, the attentive upbringing of her own daughters, and getting to know Jesus her Bridegroom, who assisted her with miracles of love.[1]

When I was walking the streets of Rome, I suddenly remembered her, wondering where in Italy she had lived. A moment’s research relayed to me the astonishing fact that she had actually lived in Rome and her body was buried not a mile away from where I stood. She was here! In amazement, I walked to her church and knelt at her grave, asking her intercession for my own marriage and those of my loved ones. Being in that church was a way to draw close to her. It was an experience both consoling and inspiring.

I’ll never forget my first day on the job as a parish youth minister. The parish business manager kindly escorted me to my office, opened the door, and then simply said: “Welcome! Now go and do youth ministry!” When she left, I felt like the kids in Jurassic Park when the adult in their Jeep abandons them to hide from a T-Rex: “He left us!” Sitting in silence, the weight of my new job overwhelmed me as a crushing confusion set in: How does one simply “go and do” youth ministry? What does that even mean? Where do I start?

Even though I studied and prepared in college for youth ministry, I had a lot to learn. I still do, even after 10 years of full-time parish youth ministry. Over the years, I’ve accumulated some valuable insight about how to help teens grow as disciples that I’d love to share with you.

One mistake I made early on as a youth minister was rushing teens into peer leadership roles. I learned this lesson the hard way after taking a group of teens from my parish to a weeklong Catholic summer camp. That week of camp was awesome; people were encountering Jesus left and right and truly connecting with each other. I was witnessing something beautiful. Young people were sharing, asking meaningful questions, praying with one another, worshiping Jesus with their whole heart, and showing real signs of deeper conversion. When we got back home, the first thing I did was assign many of those teens to help lead small groups during our Sunday youth nights. I thought it was time for them to “go, therefore”! (Mt 28:19). I was excited to see them on mission.

The mistake here is that I was prioritizing their influence over their interior formation. It didn’t take long before this group started to drift apart. Not only did I separate them from each other by assigning them to lead separate groups, I neglected to provide them with deeper formation while “their hearts were burning” (cf. Lk 24:32). Furthermore, I did not offer them more opportunities to continue growing together in community.

I took my first steps as a catechist at 17, when I met the Missionaries of Charity on a service camp trip sponsored by my youth group. The sisters needed help with their summer camp for inner-city children, and I needed service hours for graduation. That summer changed my life. I discovered the joy of catechesis and ended up serving and teaching alongside the sisters for seven years until I entered my community, the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word.

These Missionary of Charity sisters, inspired by Mother Teresa’s witness and charism, mentored me in the art of Christocentric catechesis. The Missionaries of Charity incorporate evangelization and catechesis into everything they do, particularly in their work with children. The children’s time of catechesis was not called religion class; it was “Getting to Know Jesus.” In its striking simplicity, this title captures the essence of catechesis: “to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ.”[1]

The sisters didn’t have textbooks, slideshows, or videos; the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the Church’s teaching were their only sources. They taught from their own experience of intimacy with Jesus, lived in the daily rhythm of their communal prayer life as religious sisters. This prayer life permeated their entire catechetical process, beginning with a time of prayer in chapel asking God to bless our work and open the hearts of the children. For the sisters, catechesis was not just about communicating truths of the faith—it was about sharing the joy of a life lived in union with Jesus and inviting the children to experience this same joy. This catechesis was effective, too. Several children converted to the Catholic faith over the years and continue to live committed Christian lives to this day.

My community’s sisters often witness similar transformations in those we encounter in our apostolate of evangelization through catechesis and retreats. Following our patrons, Sts. Francis and Dominic, we teach spiritual things spiritually (see 1 Cor 2:13), inviting our students and retreatants to experience the riches of a Catholic life. Although we are an active community, we spend about five hours a day in prayer so that the Church’s liturgical life shapes both our communal and apostolic undertakings.

In these short reflections, we will consider how various elements of the spiritual life lived by a religious community might also inspire a life of prayer in any person—priest, religious, or lay person—who is called to the sacred work of forming others in the Catholic life.

I believe I shall see the LORD’S goodness
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD, take courage;
be stouthearted, wait for the LORD!

—Psalm 27:13–14

Nothing has gone out of vogue like waiting.

“Buy Now.” Instacart. DoorDash. Prime. No wait: press button and skip line. Our hypertechnical society seems to have finally pushed through what has been a problem for human beings from the beginning. After all, Eve’s doubt in God’s providence, a deep suspicion sown by the cunning serpent, led her to reach out and take matters into her own hands as Adam stood by silently affirming the sinful act. Why wait for the Lord when she could make it happen instantly? We are no different today. Human beings have always hated waiting and have tried to do something about it.

If the Church’s doctrine of purgatory was ever fashionable, it is passé now. Our culture has dismissed hell as an antiquarian, fear-mongering tactic used by religious officials to control people. Meanwhile, humanitarian efforts and good -people-ism have neutralized its threat. And why wait for heaven? We can build our own tech-utopia here! With hell removed from the scene and heavenly decadence on earth, purgatory has no place. We don’t have time for it.

But maybe we should.

Revisiting Purgatory

Death initiates one into an eternal either/or: either heaven or hell. Upon dying, everyone will face a particular judgment and will receive, as the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “entrance into the happiness of heaven, immediately or after an appropriate purification, or entry into the eternal damnation of hell.”[1] Hell or heaven. And, indeed, nothing unclean or impure will enter heaven (see Rv 21:27). So, those words from the Compendium—“after an appropriate purification”—cannot be overlooked. Purgatory is that appropriate time, place, and state of purification. “Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.”[2]

Purgatory is an expression of God’s merciful love. If nothing unclean can enter heaven, then someone who dies with a venial sin is “toast.” If nothing unclean can enter heaven, then the slightest attachment to sin spells tragedy. Unless there is a purgatory. Purgatory is God’s mercy, as time is a mercy. The doctrine of purgatory says the ultimate outcome has already been determined (i.e., heaven), yes, but purgatory is a kind of “overtime” to allow God’s love to continue to transform, purify, and prepare one for heaven. The primary direction and fundamental destiny of one’s life has been determined by the grace of faith, but the ultimate attainment of this destiny requires further purification. As Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, explains, “Even if one’s fundamental life-decision is finally decided and fixed in death, one’s definitive destiny need not necessarily be reached straight away. It may be that the basic decision of a human being is covered over by layers of secondary decisions and needs to be dug free.”[3]

The word “purgatory” comes from the Latin word purgare, meaning to make clean, to purify. To purify from what? In short, any attachment to sin. Purgatory purifies one of any venial sin and satisfies temporal punishment. Venial sins are those less serious sins that weaken but do not destroy relationship with God as mortal sin does. Temporal punishment has to do with the temporal consequences due to our sins, the damage that is left behind. Take, for example, my son, who cares for our chickens. If he refuses to wear his boots out to the coop and walks into our house with mud and chicken litter on his shoes, I can forgive him and no longer see him as a disobedient son—but he will still need to clean up the mess on the floor. Another example: I may forgive my four-year-old for slapping his sister with lunch meat (she may forgive him, too), but he still needs to sit in timeout to think about his actions, feel remorse, and amend his ways. Purgatory is a bit like a spiritual timeout.

As tears filled his eyes and his voice broke, the 16-year-old sophomore told me, “I just can’t see her the way she deserves to be seen.” He meant his girlfriend, about whom he cared deeply. His compulsion to consume pornography was sabotaging his ability to love her.

Once hidden and socially condemned, porn is now ubiquitous and normalized. The mainstream tolerance of porn began gradually increasing in the 1960s, though you usually had to go looking for it. With the explosion of smart devices and artificial intelligence, porn now comes looking for you.

But rather than ushering in liberation, normalized porn has wrought enslaving devastation across our humanity. Porn dehumanizes those who produce it, those who consume it, those who are victimized and trafficked into it, and those whose relationships are fractured in the collateral damage. Porn inverts the meaning of human sexuality—designed to be a joyous, life-giving gift of self—into a reductive experience of pleasure and dominance. In all its terrible forms, porn reduces relationships to transactions. For so many like the young sophomore who recognized his own distorted vision, porn is a ruthless enemy of the love we yearn to give and receive.

Young people are experiencing porn’s harm in their lives regularly and distinctly. The average age of first exposure to porn fluctuates between 11 and 12. By age 13, more than half of teens have seen porn. They often report they feel ashamed and guilty after consuming porn. They often acknowledge its compulsive dynamic and destructiveness in their relationships. They wrestle to escape it.[1]

When I asked a group of about 150 teenage girls what normalized distortions they thought were causing harm to their own lives, almost all of them named pornography. They wrote: “You can’t get away from porn.” “Everyone cheats because people have extremely high and unrealistic expectations caused by porn.” “People lose interest so easily in you because they’re used to porn, which shows girls in a fictional way.” “Porn creates selfish fantasies for people, causing them to forget the meaning of love.”

Shame and secrecy only magnify and compound the problem. How can we help, and why does it matter so much that we do? With ideas about sexuality so commonly distorted, young people need clear vision.

Christian writings between the apostolic age and the third century are extremely rare. At the turn of the first century AD, both Pope Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch underscore the jurisdiction possessed by bishops over the forgiveness of sins. For most in those early years of Christianity, sin and repentance were simply accepted as a normal part of the average life of every Christian and needed no formulas or procedures to deal with it.

However, in the third and fourth centuries, the rise of certain heresies provoked a greater development and precision on doctrinal matters and practice. This certainly was the case in relation to sin and forgiveness. Approaching Confession became a definitively rigorous and public act. Led by the bishop, the entire Christian community would be involved as all prayed for the penitent.[1]

In the early Middle Ages, Irish missionary monks who came to the mainland brought with them a different form of the sacrament: private confession—that is, confession strictly between the penitent and God’s representative, the priest. Although the monks were certainly not lenient in the handing out of severe penances, they did effectively mollify the more terrifying features connected with public confessions.[2] In short, confessions were beginning to be practiced in generally the same way as they are today. However, though they had undergone significant changes in attitude and procedure, in essence the official canonical features of Confession remained: the honest recounting of one’s sins, the Church sitting in judgment in the person of the priest, the penalty administered, and final reconciliation.

This is not to be marveled at since the Church is as living and dynamic as is Christ himself. She is, after all, the extension of the risen, glorified Christ in space and time. Consequently, the Church has always been able to adapt herself to the special needs of the people of God at a particular time and circumstance. She has therefore periodically changed her approach to Confession—and can possibly change it again in the future.

In the contemporary age, when utilitarian aims of education rule alongside individual choice, electives, and test prep, it may come as a surprise that a Catholic school might require each student to participate in a choral music program. A choral program, moreover, that is more than a so-called specials class, more than a diversion in the middle of the school day, more than an easy A. Situated on the campus of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas, Cathedral High School was founded in 2022. Here, music occupies such a central place in the curriculum that it forms one of the four foundational pillars of the school. And it is not the only school of its kind. Across the United States, a movement is taking place to return to the riches of an authentic liberal education.

Catholic schools are once again placing value on the study of the visual and performing arts. The training up of the young person in the art of singing and the study of music is an ancient and highly valued discipline of education. Music, in the great tradition of liberal education, is one of the four mathematical disciplines known together as the quadrivium—on equal footing with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. These, alongside the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, form what is known as the seven liberal arts. “Liberal” here comes from the word “free.” Young minds are freed to truly think, question, and learn in the search for truth.

As Catholics, we know that truth is not a disembodied idea; Truth has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. The immense task of the Catholic school music teacher is to help form young people to listen, which, when done properly, leads them to hear the Word of God, to know Christ, and to attune their lives to him. Sacred music, as the language of the liturgy, rightly deserves a central place in the life of the Catholic school.