Veiling and Testimony

I spoke before about how I planned to cover my head during Mass as a devotion during Advent. I listed a couple of reasons there for doing so, but it just occurred to me that those reasons that I gave seem a little shallow and that I'm once again guilty of not expressing my true heart in the matter because of my habit of always keeping things light. All I have to give in this vineyard is my testimony and I have held back!

Truly, the reason that I feel called to veil myself during Mass is that I feel so wonderfully grateful for God's mercy to me. I am humbled that he would appear before me in the image of the Blessed Sacrament. I am humbled that he would stoop so low to deal with me at all, preserving me from death and drawing me ever closer to the Truth. Imagine! Despite my sinfulness! All of this gratitude has poured out of me especially since focusing my devotion on Divine Mercy. I am astounded by the Lord's great mercy! That's what I meant when I said before that I want to veil as an act of humility. Let me tell you about God's mercy toward me.

As a teen I abandoned Christianity without too much thought. I didn't understand the faith. My understanding in middle school was about what you would expect a 4 year old to know. I assumed that the faith really was that simple and people only believed it because they were afraid of Hell. I was seeking something real, something that I could relate to and understand. That's how I tumbled into Paganism. Specifically Wicca, at least for awhile. I thought it made sense on a natural level. At its core modern Paganism relies on the underlying assumption that there is one Supreme Being who human beings are incapable of understanding. Different religions are simply different facets or ways of understanding this God. Pagans seek to understand God through observation and celebration of nature. The moon and its cycles, the sun, fertility, harvests, solstices, equinoxes, earth, air, fire and water. Femininity and masculinity. There was magic and spells, too, but for me the initial draw was the yearning to know and understand God.

I didn't think that anyone would accept me with my new beliefs so I hid them. I cloaked myself in cynicism, believing that Christians were hostile and bigoted. What I never realized was that in doing so I was bigoted. I was hateful. I was selfish. I assumed the worst of everyone to protect myself from being hurt. I think the cynicism was the most damaging effect of the Paganism. Even after I started calling myself a Deist (Paganism Lite) I still couldn't shake it. I was defensive. Christians would give me Bible tracts on campus and I would look at them, mock them and throw them away. I was right and there was nothing you could do to change my mind on that.

The first event that shook me out of my comfortable little cocoon was that I got into a car accident back in 2005 or 2006. I was driving down the highway at 70 mph and a vehicle in the lane to the right of me started merging into me. My reflex was to swerve out of the way. When I did that, my car hit the grass in the median and I lost control. The car was winding wildly like a snake left and right and eventually headed toward the oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway. There was no divider, just open grass. It seemed miraculous to me at the time that my car was stopped suddenly, hit on the empty passenger's side by a light pole. I was bruised, but not injured. I seriously felt like someone had controlled my car to hit at just the right spot. Everything my mom had ever told me about guardian angels as a child came back to me and I started to wonder whether God preserved my life. Such a thing would have been an act of real power by a God that actually cares. Not like the unconcerned god of Deism or the do-whatever-you-want gods of Paganism. A god who has a will. A personal God, like God the Father of Christianity.

God could have let me die in that sorry state. I would probably have been Hell bound! I am so grateful that He loved me too much to leave there at that moment. He saved me, and He didn't stop working on me, chiseling away my walls and defenses ever since then, leading me back to the rest of his flock. He really was gentle and meek to me, leading with kindness and of course, great mercy. I didn't deserve anything that He did for me.

I suppose that is ultimately what I meant when I named this blog Seeking Ewe. My name is Rachel, meaning ewe. I was seeking God, but He sought me first. All I can do is share this measly testimony and heartily rejoice with Mary in Scripture:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

The humility of veiling, for me, is an acknowledgement of my status as a simple "lowly servant" who relies utterly on his grace and who rejoices in his great mercy. It's something that I want to wear not because I am holy, but because I am a sinner. The reasons I mentioned before are true, as well, but above is the heart of the matter.

I will soon be participating in an veiling-for-Advent link-up with Tiffany @ Life of a Catholic Librarian and Cristina @ Filling My Prayer Closet which I providentially found out about after I had already decided to practice this devotion. Our God is good, is he not?! If anyone reads this, think about joining us!

Consolation and Desolation

I picked up a copy of Divine Mercy in My Soul last week. It was sitting longingly on the shelf at Half Price Books just waiting for my little grasping hand. The other hand held a baby and a 40% off coupon, so clearly I came out ahead on that one!

When I set myself the task of reading the Diary I thought I would have to force myself to read it. I was absolutely not prepared to looking forward to reading it every day! When I heard about St. Faustina in the past I never felt I could relate to her. I thought she was just too far above me, and there is so much I still don't understand about the Christian life. As I read her diary now, I can see that she is just like me. Probably like all of us.

Faustina rode the waves of consolation and desolation. I always thought the saint was so holy and sure, but between consolations she doubted her visions. She was unsure what to believe. She was afraid of what others thought of her. She was afraid to do the Lord's will because she knew others would question her sanity. She was so very human.

I struggle with the same thing. I don't receive visions. I don't receive locutions. During times of consolation and prayer I do receive feelings of peace in what I think is confirmation of the Lord's will. Then when the high of consolation ebbs away I doubt it all! I question my sanity! I have to ask myself whether I just imagined it all! On  top of that, sometimes I am afraid to act because I don't want to have to explain my reasoning to others and I sometimes think that God's will is crazy!

Right now I'm in a time of desolation. During consolation I felt like God was calling me to become a teacher. I started taking classes and steps to get my teacher's certification. If you know me, that is absolutely insane. I am introverted and shy. I can barely speak in front of groups of adults. I am not a great planner. I'm spontaneous. I've never been good at controlling kids (classroom management). I've never had the least bit of interest in teaching. I have a Master's in Library Science. What the heck am I doing, right? Exactly. Those are desolation thoughts! I keep questioning this decision. Did I just imagine it all?

I really couldn't say right now. But I learned about consolation and desolation in Fr. Mitch Pacwa's book How to Listen When God is Speaking and a rule during times of desolation is to stay the course that was set during consolation. So I move forward, and so did Faustina.

I thought more about this this morning as I prayed the rosary while pushing my stroller at the park. The park has a circular track all the way around. Today was exceptionally windy so as I walked one side of the track the wind was behind me, encouraging my forward progress. On the other side the wind was raging against me. The easy side reminded me of consolation and the difficult side desolation. On the desolation side of the track the wind could be seen as the force of discouragement from dryness in prayer, distractions or just all-out difficult situations which make it difficult to pray or proceed in God's will. As I walked along battling the wind, I could see consolation ahead and so I buckled down, put my shoulder into it, and made my way forward praying all along. It has to be the same way in the Christian life when you can't see the consolation coming. My guess is that it becomes even more crucial that we persevere in prayer during those times.

St. Faustina has reminded me that even holy saints have gone through the same ebb and flow, and that it's possible to remain faithful throughout. She gives me great hope! I just have to trust in Jesus to lead the way through!

As an aside, in a previous post I mentioned the way St. Faustina kept popping up in my life before I had any interest in her. I just discovered one more! St. Faustina was approached by Jesus in the image of Divine Mercy on February 22. My daughter "little Faustina" was born on February 22. I went into labor early that morning with my lit Divine Mercy candle by my side. I so love the sisterhood of the saints!

Knitting Berets

I started knitting a beret yesterday. I haven't knit a stitch in about two years, so you can imagine the weighty situation which called me out of hibernation. Hopefully the current beret won't turn out like this unfortunate creation that I fought with in 2009 and then never wore. Anyway...

I really hate this hat...

I've been thinking lately about covering my hair at Mass as a devotion during Advent (though I will likely start early). There are a number of reasons that want to practice this devotion, and all come back to Christ as the impetus in some roundabout way. The first is that I'm hoping this act of humility will help me be more reverent at Mass even when I'm fighting the distractions caused by my wiggly 8 month old. The second is that I'm hoping it will be a reminder (not necessarily at Mass) to be respectful of my husband as the head of our household. Also, the Bible and stuff. Even if St. Paul's directive for women to cover their heads was a cultural discipline, I still think it's a lovely thing to do.

The problem is I'm not sure that the veil or mantilla is the way I want to step into this devotion. The parish I go to isn't liberal, but it's not the most reverent. Example. Last Sunday during Mass our priest stopped the liturgy in the middle of the consecration, came down the aisle and ogled at a baby that was crying in the pew. After a few moments of distraction, Mass resumed. Now, I don't want to stop going to this parish. I go there because people are friendly and our priest is very welcoming and encouraging of children and babies at Mass. Not the kind of place where someone would give you and your crying baby the stink eye. It's a very life-affirming parish, but as an introverted convert it doesn't always have the reverence that I would like. I don't think any women wear veils except Hispanic grannies who don't speak much English. I think wearing beautiful lace would be a distraction to others and GREAT BIG attraction for my Lillian's grabby little hands. So I'm trying to think of some ways to cover my hair in a way that will not draw attention to myself.

Last Sunday I wore a scarf tied daintily around my head. This Sunday I think I may wear a slouchy tam that my aunt crocheted for me. But ultimately, my plan is to make a few different berets to wear with different outfits. That pink monstrosity above just doesn't cut it. I would really like to make a black beret, but I don't have black in my dusty yarn stash. So it's sage green for me!

Catholic Radio: a Conversion Story

I am a Guadalupe Radio Network convert. That statement is not that much of an oversimplification. I've listened and read lots of conversion stories and it seems that when God works in someone's life to bring them into his Church he uses so many avenues to do so. But my main avenue was Catholic radio.

So this is what happened.

The preface is that I was a Pagan, and then a Deist. I used to pray to the Goddess, but over time I began to sense emptiness there. I started praying to Almighty God, the Christian conception of God, even though I didn't really believe in the Bible and thought Christians were just stupid or brainwashed. When I prayed to God the Father I felt like there was someone on the other end of the line.

I could sense the emptiness in my life and needed answers. I thought I would be a Quaker. It would be an easy transition from Deism to Quakerism. Deists believe that God designed the universe and then stepped back to let it run on its own. God doesn't care about human affairs, he is not a personal God. I realized that wasn't true. Quakers, even liberal Quakers, believe in a single all-pervasive God who speaks in a still, small voice. Some Quakers on the conservative end believe in Scripture and Jesus. Liberal Quakers are more apt to pick and choose nuggets of wisdom between different religions or none at all. So I thought I'll just be a liberal Quaker. Easy peasy.

At some point during this time I got in the habit of listening to talk radio during the day. In my apartment I could not get any AM stations, so I would listen to NPR, 89.1 FM. Some days NPR came in really well, and other days I got mostly static. One day I was kneading bread by hand in the kitchen and my NPR suddenly landed on a Jesus station. I would have tried to re-adjust the channel, but my hands were doughy and I just kept listening to it. Eventually I realized that this was a Catholic channel, 89.7 FM.

The station challenged my assumptions.. I thought all Catholics were somewhat indifferent about their Faith, hadn't done any investigation into other possibilities, and just carried on practicing the religion they were raised in for fear of Hell. Catholic evangelization just seemed an oddity.

I heard a lady talking about a book she wrote about becoming Catholic after years of being raised as a Jehovah's Witness. That caught my curiosity because my husband was raised as a JW. She talked about how the Our Father was so important in her life. I had never heard of someone converting to be a Catholic before. I didn't know what to make of that. What I did know was that I liked hearing positive things on the radio, so I would listen often. I started off listening to mainly the counseling shows, the Popcaks and Dr. Ray. Then I would listen to whatever shows were on when I got into the car. I would take the long route when I traveled so that I could listen longer.

Mother Angelica especially had a great impact on me. She was feisty and humble. She made fun of herself. She spoke so gently at times that I couldn't help but lower my defenses and listen. I'm pretty sure I ended up listening to every episode of Mornings With Mother that the station offered.

My conversion took many steps. The progression started as far from Jesus as I could run, to inching closer and closer to him. He became irresistible. Quakerism couldn't satisfy my longing to know Christ, and soon I experimented with various Protestant churches. The problem with Protestantism I found was that I couldn't tell which pastor had the right interpretation of Scripture. In my Pagan days I was the ultimate judge between right and wrong, what was true and what was not. It occurred to me that when I interpreted Scripture myself I was stuck doing the same thing. I knew it was intellectually dishonest to ascribe to the view that something was true because I believed it. I yearned for a capital T Truth that did not rely on my own flimsy whims and selfish judgments. The fact that the Catholic Church did not change its doctrines based on wishy-washy public opinion was appealing because I knew that if I accepted that "truth" was based on the democracy of opinion then it was just as flimsy as it was when I decided it alone.

The importance of Catholic Radio for me relied on the fact that I could listen to it without becoming defensive. When I listened I may not have agreed with everything said, but I never felt like I had to wrack my brain and figure out a retort right away as I would have done if someone had said these things to my face. I could listen and consider the information, form a defense in my mind and then test my side against the other without the fear of being wrong. GRN radio hosts also furnished me with dozens of book recommendations and since I worked at a library it was an easy reach for many of them! As I learned and understood more about Catholicism I found that it had a Truth and depth that that was drawing me in. Many of the teachings were inconvenient (to say the least!), but they were true. I had to be a part of this church.

At the beginning of my GRN journey I was a pro-choice "feminist" with a toe dipped in New-Age practices and unsettled by patriarchal religion. I absorbed the Truth of the Catholic faith slowly. It was a gradual progression built on a lifetime of longing for God and a new hunger for his son, my Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately was glad to exchange my old unhappy notions in exchange for glowing and all-encompassing Truth! I was received into the Church on Easter Vigil of 2012, and my only regret is that I didn't become Catholic sooner!

Divine Mercy

I like to listen to the Texas Nuns on the radio on Wednesdays. They mentioned choosing a saint to inspire them through the year on All Saints Day. I have played with the random saint generator on the Conversion Diary blog. I even chose a saint for the year last January. I have to say, I was a little freaked out by who I got just because she was a patron saint of widows and I am married. I haven't been all that inspired by her this year, although I have kept St. Paula of Rome in mind. St. Paula never seemed very approachable to me. After the death of her husband she abandoned her children to be raised by some relatives so that she could be a desert hermit. Yeah, I'm confused too.

So when the nuns mentioned that they will be choosing a saint on All Saints Day, I was like, "sign me up." For the past couple of years I've been a huge fan of Father Michael Gaitley's books. I checked out Consoling the Heart of Jesus from the library I used to work at on a whim, and was blown away by his gentle writing style and the way he helped me understand Jesus. Now I'm reading The 'One Thing' is Three. I think it must have been Father Gaitley that introduced me to St. Faustina and the message of Divine Mercy, a message that I most sorely need to understand.

Coming from a Pagan background and not having a relationship with Jesus all my life, I know I have a really imperfect understanding of him at times. When I read the gospels, he sometimes seems a little harsh to me. I know the problem is with my understanding. That, and I'm so unforgiving of myself sometimes that it's hard for me to understand God's forgiveness and mercy. Anyway, I'm hoping that the year with St. Faustina and Divine Mercy will help me truly understand the love of Christ.

My sudden interest in this may be an act of divine providence. The name Faustina keeps coming up in my life. I used to help this single, solitary nun, Sister Faustina at the library. The hubs and I are really good friends with a Catholic couple and when we told them I was pregnant they dubbed the baby Little Faustina. Then I recently found out that Oliver's great grandmother's name was Faustina. My eye is also always drawn to St. Faustina's diary when I go to the Catholic bookstore. Plus when I used to go to St. Joseph's church here in my town the priest is Polish and has a giant picture of Divine Mercy and JPII in the adoration chapel. And all this time I refused to have any particular interest in Saint Faustina. All I saw when I spotted Divine Mercy in My Soul was that it's about 2 inches thick!

But now I hope St. Faustina will be my companion through the year and trust that I will learn to know and love Jesus more through Divine Mercy!

Plus it just might take me a whole year to read Divine Mercy in My Soul.

Zombies and the Thirst for Communion....

...was the name of a Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast that I listened to yesterday.

I've been thinking about participating in this link-up all week, and finally decided to just go ahead and try something new. It was a debate because I sporadically blog here for myself, more like a diary than anything else. It helps me organize my thoughts and think things through in more depth than I otherwise would. My husband is somewhat allergic to talk of religion, so I keep this blog as a little place jot down my little musings that I wouldn't otherwise be able to talk about. It's been just a little personal haven for me. 

The past several months, I have felt God calling me more toward communion with others. I keep receiving these little messages from him. I wrote about it before. So when I received the aforementioned podcast, I took it as one final stiff kick in the rear to go ahead and participate in something resembling communion. Plus the focus of the link-up is about the value of online Catholic community! Alright, God, I get it!

The online Catholic community is ESSENTIAL to me. I read blogs every day and I tell ya, Catholic blogs and twitter really help me feel less lonely in the faith. I go to Mass alone every week with my baby and half the time nobody says a word to me other than, "peace be with you." I don't have a faith connection with my husband. My parents never speak about matters of faith. Seriously, the Internet People are keeping me sane or at least plying me with company in my Catholic craziness and keeping the old brain from getting too dusty. 

Catholic blogs have played a major part in my conversion (looking at you, Mrs. Fulwiler). They have given me a glimpse into what lived Catholicism can look like. They have stretched my imagination and encouraged me to consider perspectives that I may not have encountered otherwise. I think one of the great things about blogs and Catholic radio is that they can both evangelize in a non-threatening way that allows a person to absorb knowledge without feeling defensive.  

Here are some tidbits about me: I'm married and have a little girl, 2 cats, a dog, 5 chickens and a gaggle of dying house plants that I just can't seem to maintain. I live in south Texas. I'm staying at home with the baby at the moment, but before that I worked at a library. I spent some time on the Appalachian Trail in 2008 but only made it 204.5 miles. I have too many crafty hobbies to get really good at any of them. Music-wise I'm super stuck on Sufjan Stevens (all you Christian types should listen to The Transfiguration by him!), River Empires and the Dear Hunter. 

I don't feel like a real blogger, but I have been a journal-keeper for a long time. I used to write on paper until it started to be tedious and too slow. I started out at Open Diary during college, then moseyed on over to Trail Journals at the appropriate time, hopped blogging about crafts and finally came over here for a new slate.

So that's me. Back to you, Catholic Librarian :)

Love and Respect

I finally realized that I have been such an idiot!

I have been praying for my marriage for months, years even. I was constantly upset. I felt unloved. I wanted it to change, but I didn't realize that what I needed to change was me!

After reading this post on Little Catholic Bubble I bought the book that Leila suggests. I read it. I was guilty. I started to change, but started backsliding. I felt unloved again. Dr. Laura was right on the money, but she presents the material in such an unloving, scathing way that the book is a little hard to read and re-read. I felt chastised enough the first time.

Then I stumbled across Peaceful Wife's blog. I love the way she presents the same ideas in such a peaceful (true to name!), loving way! I love the way she uses the Bible to lead women to the truth about marriage and respect. Through her blog, I stumbled across another book that helped me immeasurably: Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.

This book. This book. I never knew that I knew so little about men. I kept trying to gain Oliver's love by loving him more, but I never understood that my disrespect was undermining all my efforts and that when men do not feel respected they do not feel loved. I started dating this man when I was 16. I'm 29 now. And I didn't know!

I have started to understand what disrespect looks like to my husband, and boy am I guilty, guilty, guilty. I had to be in control. I saw my husband as a big kid that I had to take care of instead of the responsible, mature, loving man that he really is. I was completely blind to the good things that he does and his areas of expertise. It was all about me, how he wasn't treating me as I wanted to be treated. I have tried for the last month (if that) to give those feelings of being unloved to Jesus, and focusing on respecting my husband regardless.

Sometimes it feels almost painful to keep my mouth shut, but I'm really trying, with God's help, to be respectful to Oliver no matter whether his words or actions feel unloving to me. I have already failed at this many times. There have been moments when he said something to me, and I caught myself in the motion of rolling my eyes and had to abort that action right in the middle of it. I just pretended that I had the uncontrollable urge to look at something on the ceiling and then complied with what he asked me to do!

Things have already improved. I've felt more loved lately than I have in a long while, and my eyes are finally seeing the little ways that he tells me he loves me! I've been pouring myself out, trying to build him up. I'm letting him know that he is a wonderful father, and a wonderful husband. That I appreciate him so much for working for us so that I could spend a year being a stay at home mom to my Lillian. I thank him any time he does anything for me. Cooking dinner, watching the baby, mowing the lawn, burning wood from our tree trimmings.

I have started to view his actions with less suspicion, really striving to see the good in every little thing.

I am so thankful to God for opening my eyes to this. For pulling me away from the ignorance and darkness of New Age beliefs. He certainly has had mercy on me, a sinner!