In an Instagram instant, my Lenten story . . .

Worst penance ever, DONE. Happy Easter! #mmmcoffee #catholic

A photo posted by Rhonda Ortiz (@rhondaortiz) on Mar 27, 2016 at 3:46am PDT

. . . to which everyone on Facebook said . . .

. . . YOU ARE A SAINT.

Not true. I'm not a saint. The problem was that after my third was born, I went from one to three cups of coffee a day, which was too much for me. This Lent I knew that God wanted me to let go of my reliance on coffee and try relying on him.

So I switched to tea. Ain't no way I was giving up caffeine.

I was telling my priest all about my no good, horrible penance on Easter Sunday, making him laugh with my exaggerated anecdotal account of my forty weeks in the desert without Cafe Bustelo. Father, evil man that he is, then gave me an evil directive in an evil tone of voice:

"Keep it to one cup from now on, huh?"

ONE CUP?!?!? My husband says it's priestly prejudice against coffee. One cup. Hmmmph.

In all seriousness, Father's my regular confessor and when one's regular confessor gives a clear and not-objectionable directive, there's not much to be said except, Yes, Father. Our priest isn't the type to bark orders. If he says it - even during light banter, as was the case here - he probably means it.

One cup. Keeping it to one cup a day is healthier, and holy obedience is better than coffee. Le sigh.

Warning: The following story is thoroughly and strangely Catholic. Skeptics forewarned.

By Manfredo Ferrari - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.

My husband and I hoped for children as soon as we were married. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I have endometriosis and despite a surgery a few years into our marriage, it soon seemed that we might never have children.

I was praying one summer morning in our mint green wing chair Jared found on the side of the road before our wedding. As usual, I was spaced out, thinking on I don't know what. That's when I heard her voice:

"Take care of my children."

To which I immediately replied:

"My own, first."

It was Mother Teresa. I knew the moment I heard her.

I could not respond to her heavenly request with fiat. Her request frightened me. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I was afraid of having an adopted child who didn't measure up to my standards of beauty. To be blunt, I was afraid of having an ugly child.

Is that horribly shallow or what?

Mother Teresa didn't say anything else (and I don't blame her). The following December we found we were expecting our oldest son, thanks to the prayers of four different people who didn't know each other, all of whom felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to pray for us on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Mother Teresa honored my request, despite my no.

Interestingly, our son is autistic, whose special needs have challenged me to be more accepting of others. My fears had to be confronted. My shallowness needed to be corrected. I needed to learn how to love.

If Mother Teresa were to ask me today, I think I would accept. At some level I might still be afraid, but being a mother has taught me that beauty is so much more than I thought back then.

Happy Solemnity of St. Joseph! St. Joseph is perhaps my favorite saint. I loved this from today's Office of Readings and thought I'd share. 

There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand. 

This general rule is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord . . .

Although the joy of eternal happiness enters into the soul of a man, the Lord preferred to say to Joseph: Enter into joy. His intention was that the words should have a hidden spiritual meaning for us. They convey not only that this holy man possesses an inward joy, but also that it surrounds him and engulfs him like an infinite abyss.

From a sermon by Saint Bernadine of Siena, priest
(Sermo 2, de S. Joseph: Opera 7, 16. 27-30)

The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sigrid Undset was a Catholic convert, Third Order Dominican, and a Norwegian. As a fellow convert, lay Dominican in formation, and Scandinavian, and as a huge fan of her novel Kristin Lavransdatter, I feel as though Undset and I might have been friends - or, at least, I would have been her adoring fan girl and she'd have tolerated my enthusiastic adoration in a spirit of Christian charity.

My husband gave me Undset's biography of St. Catherine of Siena for Christmas, and finally, for Lent, I've been able to read it. Catherine of Siena does not disappoint. Undset's knowledge and love of medieval culture and her novelist's eye gives a richness to Catherine and her story that I suspect few other storytellers have achieved.

Catherine was graced very early in her life with mystical visions and heroic holiness, and as is the case with lifelong saints, some hagiographers have difficulty finding and showing the inner conflict that makes a character (I'm speaking in a literary sense now) interesting to the reader. But Undset finds both the inner and exterior conflict of Catherine's life and crafts her story as only a gifted novelist can.

One interesting connection Undset makes is between Catherine and St. Birgitta (Bridget) of Sweden. These two women never met, and yet Undset devotes half a chapter to the role Birgitta plays in Catherine's drama. Birgitta was noblewoman and a visionary, and bringing both her spiritual understanding and her political acumen to the fore, she fearlessly worked to convince the Avignon popes to return to Rome. Unfortunately, Birgitta did not achieve success in her lifetime; instead, she paved the way for Catherine, who inherited her mission:

. . . before Birgitta had closed her eyes in death the Sienese virgin had taken her work upon herself, and it was Catherine's destiny to carry it out. She was to be the master tool in the hand of God to bring St. Peter's successor back to his home besides the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul. (pg. 139)

This is the novelist's bird's-eye view, seeing connections between the pieces of the story where the characters themselves can not. This ability allows Undset to see the spiritual connection between the two. It's a saintly connection, and I think it's just awesome.

I've enjoyed Catherine of Siena so much that I've decided to give a copy away. If you're interested, let me know either in the comments box (if I don't know you personally, leave some sort of contact info, like your Twitter handle) or via email (the link is at the top right corner of the website). I'll draw a name this coming Monday, 3/21, and send it out right away. Thanks to Amazon Prime, it should arrive on your doorstep just in time for the Triduum.

St. Catherine, pray for us!

Update 3/21/16: And the winner is... Heidi K.! Congratulations!

What is theosis? I've subtitled my blog "Theosis In Progress" with full understanding that theosis is a strange, obscure little word that I picked up from my theologian husband.

(It's cool being married to a theologian. Makes me sound way smarter than I actually am.) 

Definition: Theosis is a Greek word that the Western Church translates as deification.

Deification? 

Like, becoming a god?

You're right to be scandalized. I know I was when I first heard it. So let's back this soul train up.

When it comes to our salvation in Jesus Christ, most of us, consciously or not, fixate on what we are saved from—sin—without asking ourselves the question, What are we saved for?

The answer is heaven, of course. But let’s dig deeper.

Who is this Jesus Christ who claims to save us? Our faith tells us that He is the Word Made Flesh, God becoming human. But logically, how is this possible at all? Wouldn’t God annihilate his own nature in condescending to become his creation? Wouldn’t human nature be annihilated in being joined to God? Wouldn't God cease to be God, and the creature cease to be the creature?

The answer is no. Because God transcends his creation—He is not the highest thing within creation, but stands outside it as being itself—he can enter into his creation without violating it. Bishop Robert Barron states in his book Catholicism:

The Incarnation tells central truths concerning both God and us. If God became human without ceasing to be God and without compromising the integrity of the creature that he became, God must not be a competitor with his creation . . . The Word does indeed become human, but nothing of the human is destroyed in the process; God does indeed enter his creation, but the world is thereby enhanced and elevated.

God is not in competition with his creation, nor is he in competition with us. He does not violate the integrity of his creation, nor does he violate our integrity. Instead, as Bishop Barron states, by entering into it, God raises it up. Bishop Barron continues:

And the Incarnation tells us the most important truth about ourselves: we are destined for divinization. The church fathers never tired of repeating this phrase as a sort of summary of Christian belief: Deus fit homo ut homo fieret Deus (God became human so that humans might become God). God condescended to enter into flesh so that our flesh might partake of the divine life, that we might participate in the love that holds the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in communion.

This is a radical claim. Our salvation is nothing less than God’s transforming us into Himself. This claim is so radical that at first we might balk. It sounds heretical. And yet it is the consistent teaching of the Church, starting with St. Peter (cf. 2 Peter 1:4) and St. Paul (cf. Galatians 4:4-7) and repeated in our day in the very first paragraph of the Catechism.

Salvation is not simply about escaping hell. It is about God’s gratuitous gift of love and desire for complete union with us. Complete union.

Still scandalized? Good. It's God's scandal—a wonderful scandal.

Despite my bumbling and sin, God is drawing me—us—to himself. Theosis is in progress, because that's just the way God loves.