via WikiCommons, CC0

This is an important point for those of us who experience scruples and anxiety in our spiritual lives. From A Thousand Frightening Fantasies: Understanding and Healing Scrupulosity and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by William Van Ornum, Ph.D.:

Scrup/OCD embarrasses them. It has taken sufferers of OCD longer to "come out of the closet" than people with other disorders. For example, most of us understand depression. Alcoholism is an extreme of normal drinking. Because of the strange and peculiar nature of many OCD symptoms, sufferers hesitate to acknowledge them. I have even heard of cases of people in therapy for several years who never mentioned their OCD to their therapist. Instead, they talked about the many problems of their life. People with OCD or Scrup/OCD frequently think others will judge them as weird or crazy. Because of this, they guard their secret emotional life.

We live in an age that deemphasizes or disrespects traditional religious beliefs. As a group, mental health professionals lack openness to religious experience. Some brand even normal religious practices as sick. Because people with Scrup/OCD know this, is it any wonder that they remain secretive? (34)

No, it's not a wonder. Catholics already get a bad rap for their Catholic Guilt; many of us would rather not confirm the stereotype by sharing about our scruples.

The people we're supposed to look to - priests and medical professionals - are ill-equipped. Many priests lack training in helping the scrupulous, and the therapist who could help a Catholic faithfully (faithfully!) navigate Catholic waters is a rarity. 

And no, we don't want to be ridiculed or poo-poohed.

Yet, this is no excuse for not seeking help. The very act of discussing our scrupulosity with our priest or medical professionals raises awareness. So talk about it. If they are unable or unwilling to help, find someone who will. But be brave and seek help!

From Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder:

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America's king.

She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of liberty—" The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.

Laura had no time to think any further. Carrie was wondering why she stood so still, and Pa was saying, "This way, girls! There's the free lemonade!"

Little Town on the Prairie, Ch. 8, pp. 76-77.

Little House on the Prairie was released November 20, 1941, a few weeks before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. The state of the world must have been weighing heavy on Wilder's shoulders.

In the wake of The Donald, I've been thinking about kingship—what it is, what it is in us that desires it, what it is in us that desire to be a king.

Nothing in today's current political situation should come as a surprise. My husband said some years ago after all the Obama-as-Messiah hullabaloo that the next Messiah figure would probably come from the Republican side. Quod erat demonstrandum, etc.

Kingship is written into our persons. As Christians, we are declared priest, prophet, and king in our baptism. But God calls some people to a lifelong, vocational expression of these as well, whose purpose in life is to be a priest, a prophet, or a king. These people are incarnational stand-ins for and/or reminders of God Himself. Some medieval theologians argued that the coronation of kings and queens was a Sacrament. Even today the Oil of Catechumens is used for coronations.

However, America is a democratic republic. We elect our political leaders. We don't have kings who inherit their nation.  Therefore we lack a clear notion of what a king is.

Yet there's something in us—in our human nature—that wants one. I'm reminded of The Lord of the Rings and its appeal among Americans (if the box office sales were any indication). Peter Kreeft points out that the three main characters fit the three roles: Frodo as priest, Gandalf as prophet, and Aragon as king. All three must play their part in order to achieve the defeat of Mordor.

What's interesting to me is that we readers and movie watchers so easily rally around Aragorn, who claims a right to the throne of Gondor not by democratic election, but by some other rule that's written deeply into the culture of Middle Earth and also our own. We Americans don't have this; we're a nation of revolutionaries and immigrants who've said good riddance to our various kings and queens. And yet we love good, courageous Aragorn and want him to be king. It's part of the story's resolution, and it satisfies.

So, are we missing something? George III was no fictional Aragorn, but still, his kingly vocation at least pointed to God's kingship. In cutting us off from the king, did the Founding Fathers misunderstand or overlook this deep human desire? Like the prophet Samuel, did they overestimate people's ability to trust in God as King? Are we, in a sense, adrift?

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies."

John Adams, Letter to Zabdiel Adams, 21 June 1776.

Image Credits---for some reason the captions keep disappearing:
First image: John Trumull, General Washington Resigns His Commission, via WikiCommons, CC0. Second image: Pinched from Facebook. I thought it was funny.

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!

The Transfiguration, Rubens. Via WikiCommons, CC0.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

From Kanon for the Fifth Day of Great Week, Ninth Ode, by St. Cosmas of Maiuma:

The Father begot me, creative Wisdom, before the ages;
He established me as the beginning of his ways
For the works now mystically accomplished
For though I am the uncreated Word by nature,
I make my own the voice
Of the nature I have now assumed.

As I am a man
In reality, not a mirage,
So divinized is the nature which,
By the manner of the exchange,
Is united to me.
Wherefore know that I am one Christ
Who saves that of which and in which I am.

From Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, NT Vol. IVa, ed. Joel C. Elowsky, 5.

Update: A friend gave me some congenial pushback on my theosis claim - he suggested that this passage is specifically about the hypostatic union (that Christ is one person with two natures) and not about theosis, per se. I initially read this as, "So divinized is the nature (human nature in general) which, / By the manner of the exchange, / Is united to me." But he may be right.

via WikiCommons, CC0.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Mt. 5:13-16).

I am a coward.

No, really. I am. I fear and hate confrontation with a passion that, if instead was directed toward evil, would move mountains and save the world. As opinionated and outspoken as I can be, I usually only voice those opinions with trusted friends. I talk a good game, but can I play ball? Eh... heh.

I write this because I'm seeing our collective cultural insanity coupled with politics-as-usual coming home to our quiet West Michigan town, sending my old devil, anxiety, through the roof. It's hard not to fret.

At some point I may be called to stand up and say, no, that's not right, to be salt and light. And that terrifies me. To quote St. Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, "This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made."

But God is gentle with the brokenhearted. When he asks of us more than we can give, he will give us what we lack. He is our source of peace.

I know this. But why is it so hard to believe sometimes?

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10).