A request for prayers

It is such a long time since I have written any posts but I wondered if I might ask for your prayers for me.  I have been diagnosed with an illness and your prayers would be so much appreciated.  I am in the hands of the good Lord and to Him I offer all my sorrows and joys but please pray that I may receive the graces I need for the journey ahead.  I think I may need some help to embrace my cross.  I am very fortunate to be supported by people of faith who I love and love me.  There has been so many generous and gracious gifts to me in my 28 years.  Please do, if you can and if you are willing, pray that will of the Lord will work through my treatment.  His will be done.

The star and the discerning heart (Happy Christmas!)

I know that my blogging has gone beyond sporadic to rare. For much of this year I shut down my blog. I feel I still haven't given the explanation you deserve as to why this was. Suffice to say I have been experiencing the most considerable period of discernment of my life. I do want to share more but I feel I need more time to reflect upon how to share it. Equally, I am not at the end of this period at the moment. Perhaps I never will be.

Christmas is a good time to consider the journey one is making in life and faith. It is the rhythm of returning to the crib and looking back on the path one has taken there. In looking at Mary and Joseph one cannot help but feel humbled in faith. How great was the journey they made in faith and grace on all levels? How much they must have both wandered and wondered amidst the will of God. Yet we gaze upon them in a static scene, just a snapshot of a real life of movement, of fleeing of sorrow and protection on the road of life. How great their journey and how great its capacity to keep me on mine. We cannot always see the road ahead but in trying to hold onto the goodness of faith, even in our weakness and doubt, the way ahead will always be lit; illuminated before us. We cannot know the shape ahead of us but we can know that there is light.

I wish you all a peaceful and holy Christmas. I assure you of my prayers and my thanks for all that fellow bloggers write.

In the love of Christ.

On being a young Catholic woman

So, over the summer I was at a party with a mix of Catholic and non Catholic friends. As the night drew to a close my closest friend and I found ourselves sat at a table with a young couple. The young man mentioned some close friends of mine and commented on the fact they were very religious, he raised his eyebrows and pondered something for a moment.

"No. It is much worse than that." He concluded "They aren't just religious, they are Catholic."

My friend and I exchanged a look and then professed our own allegiance to the faith. It seemed much fairer to tell the young chap then to let him go on. He looked even more perplexed than he had before and asked

"How can any young, educated woman be part of an institution which scorns women?"

This is a question which I have been asked, more often far more indirectly than this, many times in my life and it is one which saddens me greatly. Of course my friend and I tried to answer this question with as much clarity as we could but it is not easy to answer when the world has developed an idea of equality which is flawed on many levels.

At times in my own life I have lacked the humility sometimes necessary to understand what the Church reveals about the dignity of women. At times I still lack it. However, I do understand that the Church is the greatest defender of the dignity of the human person in the full understanding of what it is to be a human person. It is therefore the case that the Church is the greatest defender of women.

Paul VI stated that "Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects...; it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear"

What a powerfully open statement about the role of women. I am not aware of an other institution, secular or otherwise that has made placed such importance on what it is to be a woman.

Of course the reality of living that truth is often challenging. Sometimes in the past I have looked at the altar full of priests and, if I was utterly honest, I felt that it was a little unjust that such a form of life could be barred to me. Equally, in my late teens I sometimes found confession difficult as I felt it was hard to speak with a man, even one who represents Christ, about the pressures upon girls of that age. We are all human and sometimes mystery is hard to grasp, particularly when we want to fold it neatly into our twentieth century view of the world. These were my misunderstandings of something much greater than myself.

Nevertheless, in the Church I have found myself to be recognised as a person of value in all my relationships, these include those with family, friends and those I made while discerning religious life. This recognition of value in body and soul is something that supposedly "liberated" friends of mine are still seeking. I have watched over the years as friends of mine have entered particular kinds of personal relationships, taken the pill and lived the life which our society claims can make you fulfilled. However, what I have seen most of all is their yearning to be really loved, for stability and often for the person they are in a relationship with to marry them. Yet this is often not the plan for the "liberated" and often I have seen them rejected and hurt. I have also seen the reverse of this where close male friends have been devastated by such rejection.

I am certainly not claiming that all Catholic relationships are perfect or that people are not hurt, abused and rejected within them. We are all human and equal in our state. However, the Church always argues that love cannot come without responsibility and recognition of the full dignity of the other person. This means that when we try to use or objectify another and reject emotional or physical responsibility for the actions that we take, we must recognise ourselves NOT as liberated but as imprisoned by our own selfishness, desire and projection. Therein lies the difference.

The Church does not want to see women (or men) used by others, to cause harm to others through processes like abortion which damage the innocent and often damage the physical and psychological state of the mother. The Church wants to truly liberate women to be as God made them and to ask them to allow themselves to revel in the beauty of being woman. To be loved, with responsibility and to love with responsibility. Throughout the centuries, at a time when many religions forced women into marriage the Church also offered women who felt called to a different way of life the safety of religious communities in which they often became highly educated and truly liberated individuals. It respected their desire to remain chaste and, more than this, it praised and commended this choice. The Church wants to see the bodies of women protected and held as a remarkable creation of God, not objectified, over sexualised, starved, used, and then discarded in age when they are no longer deemed pleasurable to look at. The Church wants to see women recognised in their full dignity as mothers, not scarred and harmed by a supposed "choice" which often does not reveal to its victims what the long term damage may be to them.

I have not hidden away from the modern world, I have not shut my eyes to it. I have many friends who I love very much who live the supposedly "liberated" life of the secular woman. I am an educated woman, a modern, working woman. Yet I truly believe that no institution loves and respects woman in her fullness as the Catholic Church does.

I close with words from John Paul II (Muilieris Dignitatem):

The Church gives thanks for all the manifestations of the feminine "genius" which have appeared in the course of human history, in the midst of all peoples and nations; she gives thanks for all the charisms which the Holy Spirit distributes to women in the history of the People of God, for all the victories which she owes to their faith, hope and charity: she gives thanks for all the fruits of feminine holiness

BEHOLDING AND LOOKING BACK

Sometimes you can carry something with you for a long time without really understanding it. I suppose that has been my experience in the long break I have had from writing on this blog. I have been entering a different phase of life. Perhaps if anybody is still reading this then I might, in time, talk about this journey in more detail.

In some ways it has been a retreat into examining a more interior life of the spirit in which I felt there was little room for me to comment on anything. I just needed to be still and listen. I just needed to be led. Of course I still need these things in hope and prayer but perhaps I feel that it is possible for me to return to the keyboard again. To come down from the mountain.

A word has been with me all summer. BEHOLD. I don't know why or whether it relates to anything specific. Yet I felt it, held it, in Lourdes and Madrid, when in the presence of those I love. In many ways perhaps that is all we need to do sometimes. We can search so hard for things that we forget to behold what is on front of us. Sometimes that will be obviously profound and extraordinary like the grotto at Lourdes or Pope Benedict. Sometimes it will simply be the face of another person, someone who you are so glad that God loved into existence. At the centre of it all is the host, as it rises from the altar because all of this life is contained within this moment. Equally all vocation is contained within that body. BEHOLD. The bridegroom. Just seek to look at the Lord who is always looking back at you and in doing so the heart of your relationship grows stronger and you can begin to respond.

Peace be with you.

WORLD YOUTH DAY

The spirit and life in Madrid remains with me. Our Church is alive and its heartbeat is joy. No matter what the press may report, it is not possible to deny the love that flowed through the streets for those few days. I hold a deep sense of gratitude for the city of Madrid for allowing the love of Christ, love of Benedict and love for one another to be so present.

Opening Up

Dear All,

It has been a very long time since I have written anything on my faithful blog. I felt I needed a break during a particular period of discernment in my life and I hope you will forgive the silence. Much has happened but I have kept you in my prayers. I think I have lost a few followers along the way but perhaps they might pop back in to say hello now I have reopened for business. I don't think I will be posting as frequently I used to but I hope to at least open former posts for viewing.

I am due to return to Lourdes in a week and a half and anyone who was used to following this blog will know that this is the favourite place of my thirsting soul and longing heart. Perhaps I can let you know how it goes. Be assured of prayers in the month of the sacred heart.

I'M JUST TAKING A SHORT BREAK FROM BLOG WRITING

BEAR WITH ME. I'M JUST ON A BREAK. GOD BLESS. SQUELLY

Hanging out with Keats

I have always had a soft spot for the poetry of John Keats and some of his letters. His life was a short one and certainly not one in which he came to a definite decision about a belief in God. However, some wisdom did certainly filter through his sensitive soul. I was just reading andI liked it and wanted to share:

"Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and troubles is to school the intelligence and make it a soul?"

In a way I think this is true. Any suffering is certainly an evil but, in our case, through the hope offered by the ultimate suffering we find ourselves coming closer to truth and the truth of love. Dearest St. Bernadette and so many countless others knew this better than anybody.

Getting excited about the Pope in Britain!

I found out today that I have got one of the allotted tickets to see the Pope (I was on the reserve list before). Even though I've been off the blogging circuit (largely for reasons beyond my control) for a while now I know that word will have got round about the hostility of some of my fellow countrymen towards Benedict. However, of course what is not reported in the press is the swathes of people and indeed young people (Catholic and non-Catholic) who are curious, interested, excited and enthused about his visit. This is an important historical event for the country, something that goes someway to forging some healing of rifts that have existed in this country since the Reformation. Obviously, there are always those few who do not want rifts to be healed and because they are often deemed more interesting to listen to, they are often the few that get heard.

Over these last few months I have attended various events for twentysomethings in which nothing but delight was expressed about Benedict's visit. Some people have been afraid that showing support for Benedict may be looked at in such a negative light that they were worried about how to approach the topic at work. Vincent Nichols has been very good at buoyingspirits at events I have been to recently. The truth is, with all the controversy and the desire to cause controversy, at the end of the day peace is stronger and Benedict is full of peace. Perhaps all that those who look to cause rifts will cause, is a sense of a renewed strength and solidarity in those who want to show that peace is stronger.

Heart to heart.

A great witness to life

H/T APOSTOLATE OF THE LAITY