via WikiCommons (CC).

This past fall I was blessed to begin formation with my local Lay Dominican chapter, happily coinciding with the opening of the 800th Jubilee of the Order of Preachers. My husband and I count a few Dominican friars among our friends, but it wasn’t until I met sisters that I recognized my attraction to all things Dominican. As it turns out, I’d been living many aspects of the Dominican charism already.

Every charism within the Church has something to teach us about holiness and Christian living, and the Dominican charism is no exception. (Not to brag too loudly, but we have a lot of saints and blesseds. Something must be working.)

With this in mind, and in anticipation of Monday’s (August 8) feast of St. Dominic, I’d like to indulge in a little bit of Dominican rah! rah! and give a brief overview of the Four Pillars of Dominican life. My hope is that everyone might find a nugget of practical wisdom or spiritual takeaway. There’s something for everyone here, even the most Franciscan or Carmelite or Benedictine or Jesuit people among us!

Read the rest at Integrated Catholic Life.

I’m okay, you’re okay, God just wants us to be happy, all good people go to heaven…

“Moralistic therapeutic deism” was a term coined by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers to describe the “I’m okay, you’re okay” departure from historic Christianity and its message of sin and redemption. For moralistic therapeutic deists, the authors explain, God is

“something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he’s always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process” (pg. 165).

When the term is bandied about in Catholic circles, it’s usually in derision, and rightly so: coming into the Beatific Vision and union with God Himself requires a bit more than self-congratulatory religious and moral relativism. It’s why many Catholics are frustrated by milquetoast “God Loves You!” preaching: they see “feel-good” homilies as a reduction of Jesus’ message and promising people an easy way out.

Our faith is one of constant conversion, and it’s good to remind others of it. But before you do: make sure you know who you’re talking to. When some people hear another complain,

“Man, I wish Father would stop harping on how awesome we are and how God loves us and start talking about sin,”

they internalize it as,

“Meditating on the love of God is for lazy Catholics. I don’t want to be lazy. I’ll focus on the hard stuff.”

Read the rest at Aleteia.

A must read. Author Michael Rose and his wife recently lost their teenage son to a brain aneurysm; the link is to the funeral homily, given by a Dominican priest friend of ours.

Reading the homily, I was struck by the power of the priesthood. As a woman, I can bear children into natural life, which is no small miracle. But even more amazing, priests bear their children - us - into supernatural life, that is, into union with the Holy Trinity.

The priesthood is a beautiful gift to the world.

Giotto, The Visitation, via WikiCommons, public domain.

From Seeing Beyond Depression by Jean Vanier:

Loving someone does not simply mean doing things for them; it is much more profound. To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth, and their importance; it is to understand them, understand their cries and their body language; it is to rejoice in their presence, spend time in their company and communicate with them. To love is to live a heart-to-heart relationship with another, giving to and receiving from each other (19).

This is how Mary loved Elizabeth. It's also how she continues to love each of us.

As a convert, it took me a long time to understand my relationship to Mary and the saints as just that - a human relationship. Human relationships take time; they're also reciprocal.

Because they are in heaven, the saints for their part are more present to us than if they had been our contemporaries here on earth. It's hard to believe, of course, because we can't see them. But they see us, and their friendship with us has a depth that only the Beatific Vision can give; they love because they see Love Himself.

On our part, however, these friendships take time. My friendship with Mary has been a slow, uphill battle. After all, we were estranged until I was 24 years old. After my conversion I placed high expectations on myself to love Mary as I "ought," which resulted in what you might expect: scruples. Had I been patient with myself as Mary had been patient with me, I may have spared myself a good deal of stress.

Now, she and I sit down over a cup of coffee and chat. Affection is there, and I know that the more I spend time with her, the greater my love will grow. After all, like Vanier says, Mary loves by showing me my beauty, my worth, and my importance; she rejoices in my presence because I'm her friend and daughter, slowly being transformed into the likeness of her Son.

Today is the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena!

Courtesy WikiCommons, CC0.

If you're unfamiliar with this marvelous saint, I highly suggest you become un-unfamiliar. Once again I recommend this biography by Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset.

Quick facts to whet your palette:

1. Catherine had a naturally cheerful disposition. We also surmise that she was her mother's favorite child.

2. Speaking of, Catherine's mother was loving but overbearing. Monna Lapa did not understand her daughter or her daughter's vocation and her tears and interference often tested Catherine's patience.

3. Catherine's father was more understanding of her strange vocation; he made provision for her to live as a hermit for a time in a 3-by-9 foot room at the back of their house - a luxury for a medieval middle-class family.

4. Catherine was a mystic early in her life.

5. Though Catherine was a Dominican, she was not a nun. Instead, Catherine was part of a Sienese Dominican tertiary group known as the Mantellate. Until Catherine joined, the Mantellate only included widows among their ranks; Catherine's desire to take vows of virginity as a Mantellate caused quite a stir.

6. She also caused quite a stir by traipsing unladylike around Siena, and then the world, doing works of mercy: feeding the poor, tending the sick, and admonishing Popes.

7. Consequently, a lot of people distrusted her. She didn't let it stop her.

8. Catherine is commonly credited with convincing Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and return to Rome.

9. Catherine had the stigmata, though hidden.

10. Though she could not read, Catherine wanted to pray the Divine Office so badly that God gave her the grace of doing so.

11. Catherine thought her inability to eat anything other than the Eucharist was a trial, not a super-cool miracle.

12. Catherine wrote to everyone. Thanks to the ready assistance of several secretaries, she kept up a lively correspondence with hundreds of people, from world leaders to friends back home.

13. Pope Paul VI named Catherine a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

Bonus: in honor of the 800th anniversary of the Order, all members of the Dominican family who participate in a Jubilee celebration or make a pilgrimage to the churches and chapels of the Dominican family can receive a Plenary Indulgence. And the feast of St. Catherine is a good day to do so! We don't have anything Dominican-y around here, but my husband rearranged his work schedule today so that I can at least get to Mass. Good man.

St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!