What makes a story Catholic or Christian?

Beneath the surface answers (the positive portrayal of faith, the assertion of a moral universe), we find another one:

Hope.

Against a world-weary culture, Christians dare to hope. This hope changes the tenor of a story. Christians still write redemption arcs. (How naïf!) And when Christians write a tragedy, the story is told against the backdrop of God—overtly or subtly, He’s there, whether or not the characters embrace Him.

Matters of content, genre, form, artistry, and audience aside—and we can debate these points until we’re blue in the face—a novel is Catholic or Christian insofar as our crazy, childlike hope in a Redeemer makes its way into the fabric of the story.

Hope.

Wonder.

Credo.

This flies in the face of contemporary fiction and Western culture. Consider these words of Cardinal Sarah:

Saint Thomas Aquinas says that the major remedy for acedia is not in us but in God. It is the Incarnation, the coming of God in our flesh. Indeed, since heaven seems so far away and we can grow tired in our search for God, he himself came to meet us so as to facilitate our desire to love him, so as to make tangible the good that he offers us. In this sense, I think that the feast of Christmas is the moment when it is easiest to fight against acedia. In contemplating the manger and the Infant Jesus, who makes himself so close, our hearts cannot remain indifferent, sad, or disgusted. Our hearts open and warm up. The Christmas carols and the customs that surround this feast are imbued with the simply joy of being saved…

The West sometimes resembles an embittered old man. It lacks the candor of a child. Spiritually, the continents that came to know the Good News more recently are still astonished and enchanted by the beauties of God, the marvels of his action in us. The West is perhaps too accustomed to it. It no longer shivers with joy before the manger scene; it no longer weeps with gratitude before the Cross; it no longer trembles in amazement before the Blessed Sacrament. I think that men need to be astonished in order to adore, to praise, to thank this God who is so good and so great. Wisdom begins with wonder, Socrates said. The inability to wonder is the sign of a civilization that is dying.

— Robert Cardinal Sarah, "Acedia and the Identity Crisis,” The Day is Now Far Spent, pp. 126-7

The world is drowning in acedia. This is why Hallmark Christmas movies are so dang popular—people are trying to recapture the wonder. This is why most literary fiction remains unread, outside of a chosen few—people do not have the stomach for any more darkness. Or, at least, they do not have the stomach for darkness without redemption.

The Denial of St. Peter, Caravaggio

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”

Matthew 18:21-22 (RSVCE)

And what if the person who needs forgiveness is yourself?

I’m doing it again: thinking and acting out of anxiety, with all its annoying, tear-inducing subsequent behaviors. The context does not matter. What does is that, for a few days, I lost track of my Advent resolution to follow my own advice and widen my scope:

Push back. Open your eyes. Reach out. Look to God. Look to your neighbor. Ground yourself in natural and supernatural reality. See those fearsome phantoms in your head for what they are: mere shadows.

For my Scripture for the Scrupulous subscribers: does it help to know that the struggle is ongoing? That we can make progress, but perfection belongs to the Lord? God has His ways of keeping me humble, and this is one.

Repent. Turn to God. Recall His love.

Examine my conscience. Ask forgiveness. Make amends.

Focus on my family and my work.

Seventy times seven.

“Lord, who will save me from this body of death?”

Jesus, I trust in Thee.

Mary, Lady, Queen, and Mother, I trust in your prayers and the prayers of all the saints.

Guardian Angel, fight for me.

“You have five young children at home. How on God’s green earth are you finding time to write novels? In 2020, no less!”

People often ask me this question. Those of you who have visited Casa Ortiz understand exactly why. We have a loud and rambunctious crew and some challenging family dynamics, owing to children with special needs. And now they are home. All the time.

Actual footage.

“How are you finding time to work?” is a fair question.

I can rattle off the usual responses: supportive spouse, outside help, limited hobbies, coffee, Disney/Pixar, low housekeeping expectations, proper psychiatric care, and stubborn determination. How does anyone find time to do anything? Like most writers, I work around the edges.

But my real secret to getting work done?

Answer: Two stanzas from a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Grant that I may
never crave to do things impulsively,
nor disdain to do what is burdensome,

Lest I begin things before I should
or abandon them before finishing.

(St. Thomas Aquinas, “To Acquire the Virtues,” from The Aquinas Prayer Book.)

Writing is both a natural fit and a vocation. I’m intuitive, sensitive, idealistic, artistic, and analytical—all good traits for a storyteller to have. The hours I spend writing, alone and in silence, feel like mere minutes. But I’m also impulsive. I often overcommit myself. I hyperfocus on fun tasks but cannot stay focused on boring ones. Sometimes I’m so lost in thought, I forget to type. (Can you tell I have ADHD?) I overthink things, I panic, I procrastinate, I wallow in discouragement, and sometimes I fail to finish what I’ve set out to do.

In order to write, I have to do battle with myself.

Some days I win. Some days I lose.

I pray St. Thomas’ words often.

God answers.

All is grace. That’s my secret.

Today, the Solemnity of All Saints, is one of my favorite days on the liturgical calendar. I love the saints. And while we celebrate individual saints throughout the year, today we recognize everyone who did their utmost to walk in Christ’s footsteps, even the unknown ones.

Heaven is close; they hear our prayers. With the angels, they lift those prayers up before the throne of God. The prayers of holy men and women are powerful. How much more powerful are the prayers of those in heaven! They see their Maker and have been brought into union with the Holy Trinity. Their holiness has been made complete. They want what God wants, and therefore their prayers are even more effective.

My best days of writing are the ones in which I invoke the help of my guardian angel and the prayers of the saints. Most writers, religious and secular, understand that (a) there’s something otherworldly about the practice of writing, and (b) there are forces that work to sabotage our efforts— Resistance, as Steven Pressfield puts it. And because writers live in their heads, the struggle against Resistance is often an interior one—a war against our own worst selves. Writing, and bringing that writing to completion, requires virtue, grace, and the help of others. In short, God is at work, whether the storyteller acknowledges Him or not. And Christians believe that intercessory prayer—that is, when we pray for each other—is how God involves us in the working out of His will.

I am grateful for the saints. I am especially grateful to my writing posse:

Holy Mary, Mother of God
St. Joseph
Holy Father Dominic (founder of the Order of Preachers, of which I am a lay member)
St. Catherine of Siena
St. Thomas Aquinas (who is particularly close to my current project)
St. Albert the Great
St. Mary of Egypt (my confirmation saint)
St. Francis de Sales (patron of writers)
St. John the Evangelist (another patron of writers)
St. Therese of Lisieux
St. John Paul II (who loved artists and was a writer himself)
St. Gianna Molla
St. Joan of Arc
Blessed Franz Jagerstatter
and the angelic help of St. Gabriel the Archangel and my guardian angel, who is fond of the four o’clock hour and often wakes me up, regardless of my alarm (I’m dead serious.)

This is my crew. In putting this out here, I’m aware that many of you will think I’m certifiably nuts. (And they would be right! Competent but crazy—my Scripture for the Scrupulous meditations provide ample evidence.) Perhaps saintly intercession is something only Catholic and Orthodox Christians understand. So be it. Point is, the saints accompany me in my writing, and they are cheering all of us on.

All Saints, pray for us.

I would like to be able to strongly reprimand you for having so little confidence in our Lord. You should not fear Him, this greatly offends Him Who is so good, so sweet, so kind and so full of tenderness and mercy toward us. You may stand before Him in complete embarrassment because of your poverty and abjectness, but this embarrassment should be that of the prodigal son, after his return—confident and full of tenderness. This is the way you should appear before Jesus, our good Father and Lord. You are still in fear of not loving Him. It is more likely, in these moments, my dearest, that you love Him the most and that He is closer to you than ever. Don’t measure your love of our Lord by the depth of your feelings; this is truly a small measure. Abandon yourself into His hands with confidence; your love will increase more and more, but you will not notice it, and that does not matter.

Ven. François-Marie-Jacob Libermann, quoted in Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe