Rite of Election

Tomorrow evening, the candidates and catechumens are going to take part in the Rite of Election at the Cathedral Basilica. I am very excited for them, especially my sponsee, because I remember going last year when I myself was in RCIA, and it was a wonderful experience!

When I went to the Rite of Election last year, it was neat to meet the bishop and I was astounded by the size and glimmering beauty of the building, but the most amazing part was seeing the candidates and catechumens from other RCIA programs in the archdiocese. I hadn't ever realized that there were so many people in the process of becoming Catholic, and it was fascinating to see so many groups from all over St. Louis. There were RCIA programs of all sizes, from big groups like the CSC to small groups of 2 or 3 people from parishes. And yet we were all taking the same step towards Easter Vigil!

I wanted to lean over the pew and ask random strangers: how did you come to be doing this? who are the people that influenced and inspired you towards this decision? how do you understand the church we're entering into on Easter? are you at all scared to be heading towards confirmation?

It struck me as rather funny that I should feel in solidarity with so many random people in the pews of a Midwestern cathedral. After all, there were a million little contingencies that could have gone another way... what if I had stayed in California for college, what if Wash. U didn't have a CSC, what if Catholic people had been really rude or unwelcoming, what if my sponsor didn't write a letter of recommendation to the bishop, etc. But somehow life had taken this particular path and there I was, part of the elect. We met the bishop, our names were called, and we stood at the front of the basilica.

After the rite was finished that evening, my older sister happened to call me since we hadn't talked in a while. I wanted to tell her how happy I was, but I couldn't figure out a way to explain it without sounding crazy. Words like "rite"and "gold basilica" and "elect" sound very foreign and cultish without the proper context. So I just told my sister I'd had a really productive evening working on an English essay, which wasn't true but made my life a lot easier.

Now that I'm more settled in the Catholic church, however, I think I understand why going to the Rite of Election meant so much to me. I liked seeing the other candidates and catechumens because it felt like I was meeting future family members. Maybe step-siblings feel this mix of excitement, curiosity, hope and nervousness about each other when they meet for the first time: We may not have anything in common yet, but we will soon.

Sometimes I wonder about all those elect I saw introduced with me last year. What was their experience of Easter Vigil at their parishes last year? Where are they now? Are they glad they did what they did? Maybe one day I'll be talking to somebody in Timbuktu and by chance we'll happen to realize that we both became Catholic in 2008 in St. Louis and that we were at the same Rite of Election... and then I can find out what's been going on in one of my Catholic sibling's life!

In the meantime, though, I'm just really excited for the current candidates and catechumens all over the world who are discerning their faith and taking this step towards baptism or confirmation. God bless them!

Managing Faith: Lenten Sacrifices

Let's talk about Lent. I always struggle with what to do during Lent, what sacrifice to make. I think people assume that "sacrifice" means giving up something. But if you add an hour of community service to your week, that's a sacrifice too. It can be an addition or a subtraction.

The best thing I've ever done during Lent is adding flossing to my daily regimen back in my freshman year of college. It was something I had been meaning to do, but as you know, if you don't get in the habit of flossing, you don't ever do it on a regular basis. Lent provided set amount of time for me to get in that habit. And it worked. I've flossed every day since, and my gums are quite healthy.

Alas, that was perhaps my last truly successful Lent. Today's the day to decide what I'm doing this year, and I'm still struggling. I want something personally meaningful and possibly lasting after Lent, a permanent improvement, a permanent act of prayer. One thing I'd like to do is add 10 minutes of meditation to every day...that could be what I decide. My grandmother suggested that I say hi to everyone I see every day of Lent, another good idea. What are other people doing for Lent?

Gospel Question

If there were to be a great persecution of Christians following the next 40 days, what would you begin to do right now and during that period to get ready for it?

Surprise Affirmations

Last weekend I had the opportunity to help lead a grade school retreat at the parish where I grew up. My feelings about it beforehand were certainly mixed. On one hand, this particular retreat is a great model for getting soon-to-be high schoolers plugged in to opportunities with both youth group and developing their own faith. On the other hand, why do I have to be the one? Spending a weekend with 150 screaming teenagers (in addition to the 75 eighth graders, another 75 high schoolers helped lead the retreat) wasn't exactly the way I hoped to spend three-fourths of a four-day holiday weekend.

But here's what I learned last weekend:

1. For me, there is no such thing as a standard 9-5, 40 hour work week. It would be one thing if I worked as a librarian or a lawyer--being surrounded for a weekend by the excitement and pure joy of youth could be a pleasant change once in awhile. But as a retreat coordinator and campus minister at an all-boys' high school, the only thing different between this and how I spend my weeks was the sudden insertion of 100 XX chromosomes, and even a number of the XY'ers were students from school. Being involved in the life of teenagers isn't something I'm able to leave at the door Friday afternoon. I'm learning that can be both exhilarating and exhausting.

2. I have a long way to go on my own faith journey. I tend to complicate my faith too much. Maybe this is a product of my decision to make theology a large part of my own education, and as a result get lost in what I sometimes call the "head-rosphere," but this weekend helped remind me of the simplicity of our situation: God loves us, all of us, and just wants us to accept a relationship with him.

3. I was affirmed. Standing in a dark gymnasium, alone in the middle of a spontaneously formed, hand-linked circle of 150 people all praying a beautiful song about the unity of God's children, I had a powerful realization.

With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I had just finished my part of a talk on the subject of "God's Love." Now, I figure I've probably given nearly 40 talks at retreats over the past eight years, but never before had I attempted to place words on something so immense. Hours before, my stomach was in knots. I had to leave dinner, stepping outside into the cold night to ease my nerves.

But when it was my turn to speak, when the words I had labored over started to flow, I felt as if it was no longer me speaking. It felt natural. I truly felt a hand on my shoulder. In some way, what was coming out of my mouth was even new to my own ears. I've had this sensation of being surprised by what I was saying a few times before, but never before had I felt I was actually lifted above myself.

So as I stood alone in the middle of that circle, sweat falling down my forehead, I smiled and even laughed a little. The experience of talking about God's love had in some way brought exactly that closer to me. At that moment, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

Even though this retreat wasn't sponsored by my job, the parallels are both obvious and affirming. I constantly have opportunities to do similar things on retreats and prayer services at school. A week from now I'll spend four days, "on the clock," with 55 students and four faculty members at a Kairos retreat--a powerful getaway regarded a favorite hang-out of the Spirit.

My vocation as a teacher and campus minister wasn't the only thing affirmed last weekend. My vocation as a child of God, humbled and awed by His love, also got a little amplification, a little spiritual gasoline.

Managing Faith: Adopting Me

I have an article published today on the Christian website Crosswalk.com about my experience with adoption. Feel free to check it out here: http://www.crosswalk.com/parenting/11599051/page2/

Seduction of the Intellect

Today, Father Gary spoke about original sin as "the seduction of the intellect" - that arrogant part of us that thinks we are so smart, so clever, and so above-it-all. It was a challenging homily for me, and probably for all of us since we are in the student phase of our lives where knowledge often seems like the height of existence.

Strangely, Father Gary's homily reminded me of an incident in third grade when that original sin flared up and made an absolute and obvious fool of me. I'm embarrassed even now to remember it, but I suppose we can all recall a time when we rationalized ourselves into feeling exempt from any sort of rule that wasn't established by the egotistic self.

I was generally a pretty well-behaved elementary student, but I had a tendency to think up my own little plans and how I might pursue them. At Hawes Elementary, we were allowed to spend recesses indoors if we wanted, but we were supposed to stay outside for the lunch break. My best friend, a Pakistani girl named Maliah, and I loved staying in the library during the morning recess to read. It was wonderful; we'd look through travel books, gaze at pictures of far-off lands, and Maliah would tell me about life in Pakistan. But during lunch, we stayed outside and made daisy chains until class resumed.

One hot afternoon, I had the bright idea that Maliah and I should ask permission to go to the library - we were known as good girls, and it wasn't so much to ask to enrich our minds, was it? Besides, there weren't very many flowers on the field and we were bored that lunch period. So Maliah and I walked up to a Yard Duty Lady and asked if we could please go to the library. She kindly explained that we had better stay outside till lunch was over. Maliah and I nodded and slowly wandered away. But over across the field, there was another Yard Duty Lady, and so we approached her. Could we please go read books in the library? She also explained that we had better stay outside till lunch was over. Over by the swings, there was yet a third Yard Duty Lady. Maliah and I went to ask her, and the answer was the same: we should stay outside until the bell rang.

We turned back toward the field to resign ourselves to boredom, and suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with the first Yard Duty Lady. Her eyes were full of fire, and her massive shadow cast somberness over us.

"Do you know what I just saw?" she asked, her voice extremely cold.

I could only stare at her with shocked and shameful eyes.

"After I told you that you could not go inside, I watched you walk all the way around this yard," she jabbed her finger at the periphery of the field, "all the way around this yard, trying to get a different answer. That's what you were doing, wasn't it? You thought you'd just keep asking until you found somebody who would give you your way, didn't you?"

That was exactly what we had thought. Maliah and I stood there for a long dressing-down until we were finally excused, humbled and numb. I remember we spent the rest of the lunch-break sitting on the field in silence, decapitating old daisies and trying to hold back tears.

That memory is very clear because it was an experience of raw shame; there was no justifying what we had done, for our persistence had indeed been borne solely of ego. We had thought ourselves so bright and precocious that somehow we deserved to be exempt from lunch policy. We had thought ourselves somehow above the rules, and our library endeavors somehow above the more ordinary, run-of-the-mill playground activities. Needless to say, after that embarrassing day, Maliah and I were quite content to stay outside and do as we were told the first time.

I have no idea why I am sharing my shameful moments with you, except that I think Father Gary was right in equating original sin with a seduction of the intellect. It's so dangerously easy to give ourselves mental pats on the back for the things we think and the endeavors we undertake. The ego keeps us pushing the limits, making us imagine that we have the 'big picture' in mind... we know best, and we can figure it all out. But that's not true.

I recall a line from the Magnificat about God's reaction to the proud, which my old Anglican church translated as: "He hath cast down the proud in the imagination of their hearts." I still remember it because that turn of phrase is so poetic and so terrifying. It's not merely an overblown conceit, but a false "imagination" of our intellects that is our downfall. It's the cultivation of a totally undeserved, knowing pride that has no legitimate place anywhere within us and yet lodges itself in our inward hearts to be cultivated by our minds.

The "seduction of the intellect" seems persuasive and clever, but as I learned that day in third grade, it's extremely embarrassing and shameful thing when revealed to be the "imagination" that it really is.

~Stephanieeee

Managing Faith: Why the Catholic Student Center Exists

Why does the Catholic Student Center exist?

Because the recently deceased Msgr. Glynn believed it should.

Along with most of the CSC staff, I attended Msgr. Glynn's funeral today. While I was there in the Basilica pews, I couldn't help but think, "What does this man mean to me?"

You see, I never met Msgr. Glynn. Maybe I did and I just don't remember it. But my point is that I have no personal memory or experience of him.

So I sat there in the pews wondering what Msgr. Glynn meant to me. Did I have any feelings about this man?

Then the answers--two of them--hit me:

1. I have this job because of Msgr. Glynn
2. I have my faith because of Msgr. Glynn

It's quite possible that Washington University wouldn't have a Newman Center without Msgr. Glynn. Think about that for a minute, especially if you've been personally affected by the CSC. It's quite possible the CSC would not exist. Or if it did, it might be two miles away from campus or it might not have a chapel or Fr. Gary wouldn't be the priest. The CSC wouldn't exist in its current form were it not for Msgr. Glynn.

Like many students, I came to Wash U back in '99 fairly ambivalent about my faith. Growing up, being Catholic had never really been a choice, and now all of a sudden it was (along with what I ate, how late I went to bed, what I watched on TV, what I studied, etc.). Without a vibrant faith community, it's quite possible my faith would have sizzled and faded away.

Instead, thanks to Msgr. Glynn's efforts to procure a building right off campus and attach a beautiful chapel to it and be succeeded by a great homeliest and conversationalist, I had one of the top Newman Centers in the country available to me. My faith was ignited and challenged, and it grew. And now I work here as a result.

Msgr. Glynn, if you can read blogs in heaven, I want to thank you for founding the Newman Center. You created the foundation for the being in faith I am today. I am forever grateful for your work and ministry.

The Word of God

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

Wow, that has got to be the coolest bible verse I've come across in a long while!

It's very interesting that the Word of God does away with our usual perceptions of interior self and exterior world. Normally, we imagine that we are effected by things outside of ourselves: the sun shines on me, the wall is near me, the water feels cold on my skin. Our ordinary experiences take place on the exterior, through our senses. But Hebrews suggests that the Word of God works in a totally different way. It's still possible to interact with it as we might expect, by reading or hearing, but the Word also engages itself within us in a very deep and particular way.

It doesn't sound very comfortable, this business about the Word working itself under our skin like a sword slicing the joint and marrow of the bone apart... it's a deep and fundamental carving out of a person. But perhaps it's related to Father Gary's homily on the Conversion of St. Paul a few weeks ago. He talked about the way "conversion often feels a like a breakdown," and so perhaps when the Word works on us, it feels as though it's breaking us apart.

The Word burrows itself in, and suddenly we've got a bunch of exposed nerves: our souls are not synonymous with our spirits, the thoughts of our hearts are not the intentions of our hearts, and thus we become fully human and fully awake.

~Stephanie

Managing Faith: Walking with a Purpose

I have the bad habit of walking with a purpose. The "purpose" being to get where I am going. Perhaps you've seen me rush through the halls of the CSC like an automaton. Head down, neck straining forward, turning corners in quick, precise hip swivels...I acknowledge people, yes, but it's clear that I'm going somewhere, and I don't want to be stopped.

Is this hospitable? No, not at all. I became conscious of this the other day when I was reading a book about customer service. I came upon a passage in the book that made me stop and reconsider the way I walk at work.

"Always remember the 10-4 Rule: Make eye contact within 10 feet of a customer; greet him or her verbally within 4 feet."

It's a simple rule, but it's a brilliant reminder of way to make a person--not just a customer--feel welcomed and acknowledged.

It's a work in progress for me to actually live by the 10-4 Rule, as I'm a bit shy, and sometimes I forget why I'm walking from one place to another (ever end up in a room and wonder why you needed to be in that room?). But I'm working on it. So if you see me within 10 feet and I haven't made eye contact or I get even closer and I haven't greeted you, remind me of the 10-4 Rule.

Give it a try yourself. Even just for one day, try to make eye contact with people as you're walking back from class or walking from office to office. You'd be surprised at how many people don't look up from their feet as they walk or do everything humanely possible not to make eye contact. But the few that do will feel welcomed in your presence as you pass. You'll be walking in the footsteps of Jesus, as I'm sure that's how he walked.

Walk with a purpose. The purpose of welcoming.

Prayer as a Performative Speech Act

What is this thing called 'prayer' that we engage in? I'm very interested in the phenomenology of prayer because it can be so many things at once: a set of words, a state of being, a mental disposition, a connection, an action, a thinking, a listening.

Most of the time, however, we think of prayer in grammatical form - whether it is said aloud, written, or thought silently in the head. It has always seemed strange to me that we have to rely so much on the communicative aspect of prayer. Why is "talking to God" the most natural and usual way of experiencing God?

I was excited the other day, because I learned in my Linguistic Anthropology course that certain forms of speech function both as communication and as action - perhaps this is why we feel that the 'idea' has efficacy. These particular speech events are not merely descriptive, but actually constitute the subject at hand. For example, when we say "I promise" or "I testify" or "I pronounce" we are doing exactly those things! By saying something, we do something.

Perhaps prayer is a performative speech act, which would mean that we are part of the phenomenology. If
I pray for "comfort for all those who are sick," then I am not merely telling an external, third-person God to make nice things happen to all those sick people in the world, but actually dedicating myself to the God within me to comfort the sick.

And perhaps it is only the petition kind of prayer which needs to be newly understood in this context. Prayers of praise and thanksgiving are already obvious speech acts; after all, to say 'Glory to God!' is to really glorify God, and people generally use it in that way. But petition prayers are often perceived in solely communicative terms. It's all too easy to pray "for all the homeless who suffer from the cold that they may find shelter" but do nothing more than posit a set of instructions for some exterior God to fulfill. But if that prayer were made as a speech act, then it would involve wrapping one's heart around the Holy Spirit within: I promise, I proclaim, I declare, I dedicate, I vow, and I name myself to the comfort of the homeless. That is a prayer of unity and of efficacy.

So maybe 'talking to God' isn't so strange after all? It's less an externalization of God, and more a bringing forth of God? Less a description of the reigning kingdom, and more a manifestation of it?

My Super Bowl Hangover

I always try to stay a safe distance from the massive corn and cheese of the Super Bowl, but sitting around the lunch table at work today made me realize another layer of it that I'm just exhausted with.

The commercials.

And not just the extravagance that Super Bowl advertising represents, though that in itself is gag-worthy--100 grand for a one-second ad of a fat dude? C'mon, Miller.

But here's what's really remarkable to me.

People were going around and chiming in about how "disappointed" they were with a "sub-par" batch of Super Bowl ads. What did I think of the ads? I couldn't care less--I was too busy watching one of the most exciting games I've ever seen on the big stage. And even the outcome of the game is never something I lose any sleep over.

Now I'm all for a Super Bowl party with good friends and tasty food 'n' drink, but how much energy can we possibly appropriate to dissecting a 30-second advertising spot for Doritos or Pepsi like it is a short story by Faulkner? The only thing more ridiculous than AB-Inbev shelling out three million bucks for a 30-second ad is the amount of energy and attention it inevitably gets from a general population that, amazingly, seems to have nothing better to do or think about for a two-day stretch of their lives every year.

I hardly ever consider myself a moralizer, but this just seems at a whole other level of indulgent decadence that almost transcends my realm of understanding. Let's just enjoy the Super Bowl experience for what it is--a ritual where we get together with friends and enjoy a game and each other's company (and even get a chuckle at a few commercials)--but can't we just leave it on the field with the final whistle?

Note to anyone who reads this: I promise I'm not usually as curmudgeonly as this makes me sound.