What We Catholics Can Learn From Our Protestant Brethren

I have written a lot about my Catholic faith and why I love it so much. I will continue to write on this subject in the future. But, just for today, and with a little nod to my non-Catholic husband, I just want to jot down a few things that I have to hand it to my Protestant brothers and sisters for. Don't misunderstand me; all of these things actually are a part of the Catholic Faith, a part of our rich heritage, but I must say that I am seeing many of them thriving more (at least in a more overtly apparent way) in contemporary Protestant communities, in general, than I do in many modern Catholic parishes.

1. Scripture. Protestants, as a whole, don't go in much for sacrament, but they sure do love them some Scripture! Catholics love Scripture, too. In fact, our entire service is chock full of it from beginning to end, not to mention all the Scripture you read, recite, and sing if you practice the Liturgy of the Hours. Where Protestants catch us up is in their knowledge and handling of Scripture. You toss out any theological topic, and nine Protestants out of ten can rattle off a "proof text" on it quicker than you can say "sola Scriptura."
   
   I'm not advocating sola Scriptura by any means, but I do think we Catholics could learn a thing or two in regards to Scripture study and memorization. St. John tells us in the first chapter of his gospel that in the very beginning, "the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (emphasis my own). By encountering Holy Scripture, we are coming into contact with the Living Lord! As Catholics, we have other ways of encountering God. The Eucharist, in particular, is the most intimate and fantastic communion with Jesus we can have this side of Heaven. But, let's not overlook Scripture because we have the Eucharist. He is there, too, and we should be intimately familiar with our Bibles. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (133).
   
2. Small Groups. For millenia, there was no need for such things as small groups or bible studies in the Catholic Church. People did these things in the privacy of their own homes, in the community of their own flesh-and-blood relatives who were among the faithful. If you were a convert or came from a family that was lax in their practice of the Faith or had fallen away, you at least had your close-knit parish community to pick up the slack. Decades of lax (at best) and non-existant (at worst) catechesis, the epic rise of the F.A.R.C. (Fallen Away Roman Catholic), and an uprooting of many people from their home parishes has seen an end of this centuries-long era. A great many of us are not born into communities with a strong knowledge and orthodox practice of the Faith. We need to find and nurture these communities all on our own. We need small groups.
   
   Protestants have a big leg up on this. Small groups and bible studies have become something of a specialty with in many Protestant denominations, and almost any Protestant church, regardless of denomination, will have at least a few to choose from. I'm personally not as huge a fan of the sort of set-up where you dial the church secretary and have her put you in touch with a group of like-minded, like-aged folk who happen to host a small group in the vacinity of your home. And, I loathe most pre-fabricated bible studies with their pedantic rhetoric, over-cerebralization, and leading questions. I much prefer the organic small-group. In this model, you fellowship with others in your parish, and as deeper bonds of fellowship begin to form between several couples, individuals, or families, you might choose to start meeting purposefully together to study a book of the bible or a theological issue, to pray for each other, and especially to give each other encouragement on the joyful but often extremely difficult road that is the Christian life.
   
   So, I'm not saying every local Catholic parish needs to set up a directory of small groups hosted by parishoners. What I am saying is that we Catholics need to start thinking in terms of small, intimate, faith-centered communities. We need to realize that there are lots of Catholics out there who are desperate to find such a community, and who are floundering--maybe even drowning--without one. We need to start opening our eyes and preparing our hearts to find these brothers and sisters and welcome them into our homes, into our families, into our intimate lives. We need to cultivate generosity and hospitality in this area--someone's very faith may depend on it.
   
3. Spontaneity. I am rather something of a traditionalist, so this one may sound strange coming from me. I don't like the modern "ad lib" creativity that's running rampant through the Novus Ordo any more than the next conservative Catholic, but I will say that we could learn a thing or two--at least outside of Mass--about spontaneity.
   
   When someone's having a rough day and you can tell they could really use prayer, don't clam up because you don't have the perfect rote prayer at hand or can't think of exactly which saint to address for intercession. Pray for the person, for Heaven's sake! Get down on your knees; take their hands, and pray! You're at Adoration, and you feel the splendid urge to lift your hands in the air or bow down on the floor, but you're worried that the old ladies sitting demurely behind you will be offended? Well, Who exactly are you there to Adore, anyway?
   
   We Catholics are big on the Holy Spirit--bigger than many Protestant sects. But, I think that sometimes with all of our beautifully rich tapestry of prayers and rites, we lose our sensitivity to be swayed by the Spirit in the immediacy of a moment. We need to cultivate that sensitivity and be ready to heed His Voice when we hear it--even if we might feel a little foolish.
   
4. Sincerity. I hesitate to even address this one (or at least to phrase it that way), but I'm going to hazard a go. First, let me say that there are vast scores of sincere Catholics out there. Second, let me say that there are plenty of insincere Protestants. All in all, I'd say the ratio of sincere to unsincere in either camp is about equal. But, Protestants, on the whole, seem to have their eyes peeled for insincerity more than we Catholics do. Moreover, since it is easier to find the insincere Protestants out, it seems that fewer of them keep up the show for any length of time; they just bow out and head back to the secular world. Catholics, on the otherhand, can keep up the charade indefinitely--they might even fool themselves.
   
   For one thing, it's easier to spot insincerity among Protestants. They don't have all the lovely trimmings and trappings to hide behind. Sure, you can still lift up your hands and give a hearty, "Amen!" in a Baptist church with nothing behind it. But, most of the folks throwing themselves whole hog into an evangelical service really do mean--at least in the heat of the moment--what they're doing and saying. And, that's about all they've got to front for them if they don't mean it. Go out into the ordinary day, and it's going to be pretty easy to see if they mean those "Amens" on a Sunday morning.
   
   Now Catholics during Mass are going to be a lot more sedate. We should be. We're there to celebrate Christ's Passion at Calvary, not to drum up an altar call. Our services are oriented and arranged completely differently than a Protestant service. You wouldn't know if a Catholic was having a "Jesus high" moment during Mass because they're not going to throw their hands in the air and shout, "Alleluia!" They're not going to strain a vocal cord belting out the next worship song. They're going to look and sound pretty much just like the person next to them--joyfully somber--because that's how the Mass works. The wide world over, Catholics from here to Timbuktu are doing and saying the same things, week in week out--day in day out, if you go to daily Mass. That's right and proper, but it's also a handy shield for those who would use it as such. Then, you take us out of Mass and we still have rosaries and breviaries and saint's days and a myriad of other rituals to mask what could be an empty faith.
   But, repetition and ritual do not imply insincerity. Can I say that again? Repetition and ritual do not imply insincerity. What they do is make it easy to fall into insincerity without anyone noticing. Think about the things you do most often: sharing a meal with your family, telling your children you love them, making love to your spouse. Would you say that the more you do these things, the less meaning they hold? Certainly not. But, if you regularly share meals with your family, tell your kids you love them, and are intimate with your husband or wife, you could keep up a good show of sincerity when there is really nothing behind it.
   Because of this, and because of the very nature of the Catholic faith, we Catholics need to keep a careful watch on our own hearts so that we don't fall into empty ritual. Holding to the traditions of our Faith is the greatest way to grow in that Faith. But, traditions can also be easy ruts to fall into if we don't keep "our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2, emphasis added).

So, there you have it. My little "shout out" to my Protestant brothers and sisters. Take it or leave it, as you will. I have said my piece, and now I'm signing off.

What Is Youth?

©"L'Osservatore Romano" photos from the book John Paul II: A Light for the World

“What is youth? It is not only a period of life that corresponds to a certain number of years, it is also a time given by Providence to every person and given to him as a responsibility. During that time he searches, like the young man in the Gospel, for answers to basic questions; he searches not only for the meaning of life but also for a concrete way to go about living his life. This is the most fundamental characteristic of youth. Every mentor, beginning with parents….must be aware of this characteristic and must know how to identify it in every boy and girl. I will say more: He must love this fundamental aspect of youth.”

– John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope

What Are Cabinet Meals?

Last week, I asked you all to write in with some of your favorite "cabinet meals." Thanks to everyone who rose to the occassion and gave me such great food for thought. (Badda bing.) It was fun to see what sorts of things you all like to whip up out of your pantries. I realized, though, that a few people didn't seem to understand quite what I meant by cabinet meals, so I will seek to define the term here, and then give you a few examples of my favorites.

Cabinet meals are pretty self-explanatory.

1. They are made from staple items in your kitchen. This means staples from the pantry, such as pasta or flour, as well as those staples that you always keep stocked in your fridge, such as milk and eggs. You might also include things that you keep in the freezer and which thaw in the microwave quickly, but not items that you would need to thaw overnight. The idea of a cabinet meal is one that you can throw together on the spur of the moment. Overnight defrosting takes forethought, and any meal that includes such ingredients is just a regular meal.
   Exactly what staples you keep will vary depending on culture and preference. In this way, cabinet meals prove to be very unique and often end up being signature dishes. They are typically economical, since you can stock up on these staples in bulk or when they go on sale. They are handy, since you can whip something together after a trip out of town, when unexpected guests drop in, or when another dish goes ten shades of wrong and you either can't or don't want to make an emergency trip to the grocery store. They can also save your skin if you hit the end of the month and suddenly realize you've spent your entire grocery budget but still need to cook for one or two more nights!
2. They are meals. There are also such things as "cabinet dishes," which can include things like desserts, snacks, and sides that you can toss together from things you might have on hand. These cabinet dishes are wonderful in and of themselves, but they are not, strictly speaking cabinet meals. At the risk of seeming patronizing, a full meal will consist of one "protein" food, one "starchy" food, and one or more fruits or vegetables, depending on the meal (fruit for breakfast and vegetables for lunch and dinner). I point this out only because I have in recent years become aware that these elements that I took for granted as the bare bones necessities of a meal are not universally known. Sometimes what people call "cabinet meals" are really "cabinet sides," comprised of starchy and protein foods but lacking the necessary element of fruits or veggies. But, the most important aspect of any meal is proper nourishment, and starch + protein does not a complete meal make. It's better than an empty belly, of course, but the whole point of cabinet meals is to enable you to assemble a rounded meal out of your pantry.

Dabo: Ethiopian Honey Bread for the Feast of St. Monica

Dabo is the name of the staple breakfast bread in Ethiopia. It is a European-style yeast loaf made with rosemary and honey. St. Monica was not Ethiopian but Algerian. This is sort of like saying, "Well, he wasn't Spanish, but he was German"--the countries are on opposite sides of the African continent! But, St. Monica was well-travelled in her journey to locate her wayward son, St. Augustine, and the recipe is still North African, and so uses similar ingredients. I also think that, being a Roman citizen, St. Monica would have appreciated this European-style yeast loaf, rather unique in African cooking, which tends to feature flatbreads.

The recipe is my own creation, though it is based off of a traditional one. Fresh rosemary is wonderful, if you have it, but I decided to use what I had on hand, which was dried.

Dabo for St. Monica

3 c. white flour
2 c. fine ground whole wheat flour
1 c. wheat germ
1 T. salt
1/4 c. canola oil
2 1/2 c. water
1 1/2 T active-dry yeast
3/4 c. honey
1 T chopped fresh rosemary or 2 t. dried

Combine the flours, wheat germ, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Combie the oil, water, and yeast in a separate bowl and allow five minutes to proof. Pour yeast mixture into flour mixture and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Mixture will be dry. Add honey and mix with the dough hook of the machine. Now, your mixture will be quite sticky. Add the rosemary and mix in thoroughly. At this point, you can either turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead in enough flour to make a firm but malleable dough. You will never get the dough to be completely "unsticky" due to the honey, but it should stay together and not get stuck to the counter or your hands. You can also add flour by the 1/4 c. to the stand mixer while the dough hook does the work. Just make sure the dough doesn't creep up above the hook--there's a lot of dough for a standard mixer. In either case, you'll knead for about 5-6 minutes.

Put dough in a lightly greased (I use Pam spray) bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour. Puch dough down, and knead again (I do this one by hand) for 5 minutes. Then, form loaves, grease 2 9''x4'' loaf pans, and place the loaves into the pans. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in the refrigerator overnight. This will allow you to enjoy the dabo at breakfast, the traditional time of day to serve it.

In the morning, take the dough out of the oven, and set on the counter while you preheat the oven to 400F. Bake on middle rack for 25-35 minutes. Place pans on wire rack and cool for 5 minutes. Turn out and allow to cool for at least 10 more minutes, then either slice and serve warm, or serve it later when fully cooled.

Dabo is traditionally served with shibo, a chickpea spread, but my husband thought that was a little unorthodox for his taste, so we ate ours with some butter and homemade apricot jam. I personally think that apricot and rosemary are a delicious combination.

Happiness and Harmony and Holiness

"Love" by Marc Chagall

In the 1971 film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, there is a scene toward the beginning featuring Veruca Salt and her parents. Veruca is raving at Mr. Salt that he is a "rotten, mean father" because he hasn't yet gotten her one of the the golden tickets, her current heart's desire. Her father pleads desperately with her, but is at his wits' end as to what to do. Suddenly, one of the girls in Mr. Salt's factory finds the ticket and brings it to Veruca. Mrs. Salt turns to her husband and says, "Happiness is what counts with children. Happiness and harmony."

I wanted to share this scene as a prelude to something I'd like to discuss that came up in the comments section of my post on no-fault divorce. What on earth does this story about a spoiled brat child have to do with marriage or divorce? Quite a lot, I think. Please bear in mind that I am not trying to compare anyone to the abysmally greedy and childish Veruca Salt or her foolish parents, but I do think that many people tend to have a Salt-ish attitude toward marriage in our culture. I will explain what I mean.

The question that was put to me several times in response to my no-fault divorce post, was, "Why would you want to stay married to someone who doesn't love you?"

In general, I try not to say too much about things that I have had no personal experience with. This is not because I believe that morality is relative to circumstance but because I don't wish to be presumptuous. Moreover, I find that people who give advice on subjects with which they have no personal experience are often immediately disregarded in our culture (for example, a priest speaking about sexual morality). This reaction dumbfounds me. Some of the best advice I've ever gotten during hard times in my life has come from those who have had no personal experience with my situation. Sometimes being on the outside helps you to keep a clear head and to consider things rationally and in regard to a larger picture. So, with the expectation that some people will criticize me for sounding presumptuous or simply disregard what I have to say because I have not found myself in a loveless marriage, I am going to take my best shot at responding to the above question.

Why would you want to stay married to someone who doesn't love you? Frankly, you wouldn't. But, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't. In fact, excepting cases where the lack of love leads to abuse, you should. Let's go back to the Salts for a moment. Happiness and harmony are what counts with children. In our day and age, happiness and harmony are what counts with marriage--at least that's what our culture tells us.

Just yesterday, I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a violinist and has played at a number of weddings this summer. She was telling me about the different marriage ceremonies she has encountered in the past few months and sharing with me how disconcerted she was by what she observed. At one marriage, she told me the couple's vows consisted of a promise to be "friends and lovers." Never once was the word "husband" or "wife" used in that ceremony. At another wedding, the couple vowed simply to "hold your love in my heart." That isn't even a vow! That's like saying, "I promise I'll hold onto what you give me." That isn't a commitment to anything except basic courtesy. The most recent wedding my friend attended was, she said, absolutely stunningly gorgeous...until you listened to the message that was carried throughout the ceremony: "Basically," she told me, "you walked away from that wedding with the knowledge that the couple was high on love." No solemn commitment. No sober consideration of choosing to face the hardships and challenges to come together as husband and wife. Just high on love.

This is what our culture says about marriage: It's about being high on love. It's about happiness and harmony, and if your happiness or harmony is in any way diminished or threatened, it's time to get out of the marriage. Well, if that's the case, then we'd best abolish the institution of marriage right now. Marriage is a lifelong covenant relationship between a man and a woman--two sinners who are going to give each other happiness and try to live in harmony and end up time and again making each other unhappy and creating discord in their lives. And, if marriage was about being high on love, forget it! No matter how in love you are, you cannot promise someone an emotion. Emotions are volatile and can turn a 180 at the slightest provocation. Building a lifelong relationship on an emotion is about as foolish as building a house on a foundation of Jell-O.

But, we (at least we who use traditional marriage vows) do vow to love, honor, and cherish one another until death, among other things. Didn't I just say you can't build a marriage on a feeling? That's true. But, the love spoken of here is not the noun "love," which refers to an emotion or a state of being; it is a verb. In this context, vowing to love someone until death means that you are vowing to exhibit love toward him or her. This is something that we are all capable of--and which we are all guilty of failing to do from time to time. You cannot vow to be in love with someone for ever. But, you can vow to love them.

This still doesn't answer the question, though. Nobody wants to be in a marriage where their spouse doesn't love them--whether we're referring to the noun or the verb. It is a horrible thing to exhibit love to someone who doesn't reciprocate that vulnerable self-giving. It hurts. It's exhausting. It is agonizing. And, it's exactly what Jesus did for us.

Christian marriage can and is fully intended to survive when one or both spouses falls out of love. In all cases I have witnessed where the marriage was not dissolved, this stage of being "out of love" was only for a time. It was a hard and excruciatingly painful time for both partners, and in some instances it lasted for a number of years, but it was only a time. And, at the end of it, in every case, I have found the couples who stuck it out to be exceedingly grateful that they did.

I'm not talking about marriages that were in a bit of a blue funk here, either. I'm talking about affairs and separations and sleeping in separate rooms and sleeping in separate residences and husbands who said, "I don't love you anymore" and wives who said, "I never loved you." I'm talking about the real down-and-dirty pain of failing marriage. And yes, marriages like these were able, through time and perseverance--sometimes on the part of only one spouse--these marriages were resurrected. Today, they are thriving. Simply because the couple did not divorce. In some cases, because one spouse refused to give their spouse a divorce.

Marriage is not supposed to be terrible. It's not meant to be painful. There is meant to be love. Even if we "fall out of love" for a season, we are intended to choose to love our spouse. And the truth is that couples do fall out of love. And, some of those spouses who cease loving in the emotional sense will stop loving in the verbal sense. And, that is a tragedy. Without Christ, such a relationship could not survive. But, with God all things are possible! You may not want to stick around to see what He can do, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. In fact, if you are a Christian, you must! Because marriage is not about happiness and harmony. Ideally, marriage should reflect and evoke and nurture happiness and harmony. But, Christian marriage is not, ultimately based upon these things. Christian marriage is about holiness.

Does that sound unromantic? Well, it is. Whoever said romance was the most important thing in life? If that were true, woe betide the single folk out there! Do you think God didn't have a plan for their lives, or wanted them to suffer the "unimaginable agony" of not "being in love"? I'm being facetious here, but seriously. Our culture idolizes romantic love. It's the big, glaring Asherah pole of our age--blaring at us in all its extorted and distorted glory from every television screen and billboard from sea to shining sea.

Don't get me wrong: Romantic love is an amazing gift--one that I am eternally grateful to have, that I am blessed to have the responsibility of nurturing. But, it is not the only thing! It is not even the only thing that constitutes a marriage. When I married my husband, I vowed to love, honor, and cherish him for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, through good times and bad, forsaking all others until death. Those vows stand even if he breaks his. You see, it's not only about keeping your vows during the bad times or the lean years or if your spouse becomes ill. When you marry somone, you are meant to keep your vows even if they fail to love, honor, and cherish you back.

I would never wish such circumstances on anyone, and I pray often for marriages all over the world, even the marriages of people I don't know, that they would be spared this by fully living into the vision of conjugal love that God intends for His children. I myself have never experienced the rejection and brokenness and heart-wrenching agony of being in a marriage where my spouse did not reciprocate my love, though many people close to me have. I pray that I never will. But, when I made my vows to Brian in a little church in Los Angeles over three years ago, I did so having seriously considered whether I could keep them if such circumstances were to come to pass.

Would I be able to if that day of reckoning were to come? I don't know. I'm sure that, in many ways, I would fail. But, whether or not I would want to, I know that I should keep my vows and remain married to this man whom I swore myself to in the sight of God, until we are parted by death. And, no matter how hard that would be, no matter how unhappy it would make me, I trust that God would see me through it and that, through it, He would make me holy. And that, after all, is what life is all about: becoming more like God.

Sharing the Love: "Cookie Book"

For her bedtime story tonight, Sophia requested one of her favorite books, Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Jane Dyer. Sophia calls it the "cookie book." Reading it to her, I was thinking how much I love this charming book, and I thought I should share it at the Apple Cider Mill with all of you parents and grandparents of young children--and those who are kids at heart!

Cookies is a lovely book with beautiful, whimsical illustrations that teaches important values like "compassion," "modesty," "honesty," "cooperation," and "patience" in a truly unique way: with cookies! For example, "Cooperation means: You add the chips, while I stir." You get the idea. I love that it gets kids familiar with these important words without being preachy and in the context of a truly well-written story with heart-warming illustrations. Technically, the book is written for the first through fourth grade audience, but my little Sophia has loved it since she was one, and it still has appeal for me at twenty-five--and my mother at...well, she wouldn't like it very much if I announced her age on the internet, I suppose. ;-)

Cookies is probably available at your local bookstore or public library. You can also order it by clicking on this link to Amazon. I also recently found out that there is a companion book: Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons, and Sugar Cookies: Sweet Little Lessons on Love will be released on October 27th. I look forward to reading the other two stories. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Cookies as much as our family does!

Celebrating St. Monica's Feastday: August 27th

"St. Monica" with Luis Tristan

St. Monica is one of my all time favorite saints. She is the patron of patience, married women, homemakers and housewives, mothers, wives, widows, alcoholics, difficult marriages, difficult children, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, and victims of verbal abuse.

Born in a town called Tagaste, Algeria in 322 to Christian parents, Monica was married at a young age to an abusive, hot-tempered Roman official, Patritius, who was a pagan. Monica's life of prayer and her habits of almsgiving were irksome to her husband. However, though their marriage was not a happy one, Patritius held her in a sort of reverence and never outright forbad her outward expression of her faith. It seems that there were many unhappy wives in old Tagaste, and Monica, through her compassion, sweetness, and generosity, eventually formed a vibrant apostolate of encouragement and support to women in similar circumstances to her own.

Monica and Patritius had three children, Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Patritius refused to allow the children to be Baptized. When Augustine fell gravely ill, Monica begged her husband desperately to let him be baptized. Patritius gave his consent, but recanted when Augustine miraculously recovered. In time, Augustine became a wayward son, and Monica prayed fiercely for the salvation of her eldest son. Still, Augustine wandered farther and farther into sloth and debauchery. Yet, during this dark time for the devoted mother, God granted Monica another deep wish of her heart: Patritius became a Christian!

Sadly, Patritius died shortly after his conversion, and Augustine became more and more corrupt. He became a Manichean, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism, which considered all material nature to be evil. Upon his return home from his studies in Carthage, the zealous son started spouting of quite a number of heretical positions at his mother's table, and she, heartbroken, drove him from the house.

Around this time, she went to see a holy bishop who took pity on her. "The child of those tears shall never perish," he told the weeping mother. After this, Monica pursued Augustine all the way to Rome, but when she got there, she discovered he had already left for Milan. So, she went to Milan. Here, she met St. Ambrose, and here, Augustine, who was to become St. Augstine, experienced his famous conversion. For six months, mother and son lived blissfully together, and after this period, Augstine was baptized a Christian--at last!--by St. Ambrose. Augustine had resisted conversion for seventeen years, but his mother never relented in her prayers on his behalf.

After Augustine's reception into the Church, mother and son returned to Africa, but they stopped at Ostia, and here Monica died. She is buried in Ostia, though her body was removed during the sixth century to a hidden crypt in the church of St. Aureus. In 1430, Pope Martin V ordered her relics to be brought to Rome. Many miracles occurred during their transport. Later, when a church was built in Rome in honor of St. Augustine, St. Monica's relics were placed in a chapel to the left of the altar. I think Monica would have been very happy to rest in her son's church.

In 1850, an Association of Christian mothers was established in Paris under the patronage of St. Monica for the purpose of mutual prayer for sons and husbands who had gone astray. In 1856, the Association was made an archconfraternity and spread rapidly all over the world.

Truly, Christian wives and mothers have great recourse to turn to St. Monica for her example and to beseech her intercession on their behalf, for her prayers were most efficacious not only during her lifetime but even still in death! Her heart is filled with compassion for all those who fall under her patronage, and this devoted woman of prayer can be a dear, dear friend in our struggles of married life and motherhood.

Here are some ideas for how to celebrate the feastday of this remarkable saint:

• Pray for your children and husband!--especially those that do not know God or have fallen away from the Faith. This should be done everyday, but I would particularly recommend praying for them on St. Monica's feastday and to seek her intercession on their behalf.
• Thank your mother for her prayers on your behalf, if you know her to have prayed for your salvation.
• Enjoy some North African cuisine. There are many delicious recipes out there. Here are links to some great options from Epicurious and All Recipes, for a start.
• Read St. Augustine's gorgeous tribute to his mother in his Confessions, written at the time of her death. It can be found in Book IX, Chapters XII and XIII, though he also writes of St. Monica's life beginning in Chapter VIII of that same Book.
• Over dinner, discuss with your family the power of prayer and the importance of diligence and fortitude in our prayer lives. Share with each other stories about how God has answered prayer in your own lives, and pray for each other's current prayer requests.
• Have a prayer ceremony where you bless your children and pray for their salvation in their presence. If your children have already accepted God into their hearts and are following Him, then give thanks for this gift of their salvation and pray that they will never wander from the fold.

"Prayer to St. Monica"
Dear St. Monica,
troubled wife and mother,
many sorrows pierced your heart during your lifetime.
Yet, you never despaired or lost faith.
With confidence, persistence, and profound faith,
you prayed daily for the conversion
of your beloved husband, Patricius,
and your beloved son, Augustine;
your prayers were answered.
Grant me that same fortitude, patience,
and trust in the Lord.
Intercede for me, dear St. Monica,
that God may favorably hear my plea for[State your intention here]
and grant me the grace to accept His
Will in all things,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

She Is Where We Are: A Tribute

My grandmother, Betty, passed away peacefully in her sleep early this morning at the age of 83.

My grandmother has passed on, but she is not gone. I don't say this in some sort of New Age-y sense. I am orthodox in my beliefs about death. I will pray often for the repose of my grandmother's soul. I know she is not some winged-and-haloed angel looking down on me. I believe in angels, but I know that they are different from the souls of the dead. I know she's not sitting right beside me like a ghost. Nonetheless, I know that she is here. She is where I am. Because she is a part of me.

She is here in the fastidious way I keep house--something I teased her for when I was in high school and part of a familial rotation that cleaned her house almost daily after her first stoke. I have inherited from her the way I dust, my near-obsession with order and cleanliness, the meals I make (at least some of them; I must say I never shared her penchants for liver and onions or creamed fish), my preference for keeping my bedroom windows open at night--even in the middle of winter.

When my family attends the occasional fish fry on Friday evening, she is here. She loved these fish fries so much, that when I was a little girl, I used to call her Grandma Big Fish, because of a restaurant we frequented on Friday nights that had a large fish attached to the wall.

She is here in the way I make my coveted pie crust recipe--one that she never had a written recipe for because she made it from memory but I have since devised. I will never forget the Christmas following her second stroke. As always, she cooked from memory, and as always, she made her famous "purpleberry" (marionberry) pie. Only, this time, she forgot to put in the sugar! Oh, it was the most awful pie we had ever tasted. But, in a desperate attempt to make sure that she didn't realize her mistake, every family member took a huge slice--or seconds--so that we could polish off that entire pie before she was able to sit down and have a piece herself. My grandmother, who loved nothing so much as to see her cooking (usually excellent) eagerly and gratefully devoured, beamed. She figured it must have been the best pie she ever made. We never told her. I think we all felt a little sick afterwards, but it was worth it for that proud smile on my grandma's face.

She is here in my daughter's bright blue eyes. My infant son's nose. I confess I don't think I ever much looked like my grandma. Though I passed on her blue eyes to my Sophia, I don't have them; mine are brownish-green, inheritted from my Mom and her father. I am short in stature, like both my grandmothers, but unlike my Grandma Big Fish, who was rather stocky, I took after my petite paternal grandmother. I hope that someday I will inherit Grandma's gorgeous white hair. Some older women have that stiff, steel-grey hair, but my grandmother had the most beautiful, soft, white crown of hair.

Most of all, I hope that I inherit her hands. Not their actual structure. It's too late for that. Mine are short-fingered where hers were not, fine-boned, where hers were not. But, I loved the way her hands, even when I was a child, were worn by age and hard work. Her hands bear the marks of her life: pin pricks from all the handmade clothing she dressed her large family in; strength from the bread she kneaded, the thousands of cookies she baked, the hundreds of delicious pies for which she was famous and without which no holiday was every complete; they were worn with long years of service on behalf of those she loved and the long hours of employment to ensure her family stayed above water; I'm sure they swelled during the pregnancies that saw her six wonderful children--my mother and aunts and uncle--into this world.

In recent years, weak from multiple strokes and old age, her hands were not so active. She dusted and did her laundry but no longer sewed. She may not have cooked much for herself, but my uncle had a meatloaf waiting for him every Wednesday, and she would still bake from memory my aunts’ favorite cookies. The other chores were done by her children and grandchildren as a testament to her giving so much to them over the years. Her hands were now freed for holding ours and for resting while she who gave so much could enjoy the fruits of her labor and rest in care finally lavished on her.

I hope that my hands, though small and delicate, may come to be like my grandmother's. That they will become worn, as hers were, with uncountable hours of service. And someday, when I am quite old, I hope that I will have the legacy of a loving, capable family who will be able to care for me while my hands are free to hold theirs.

My grandmother is gone, but her legacy lives on. In the next few months, our family is due to welcome three more great-grandbabies. I wonder if they will have her eyes, her nose, maybe even her hands.

Cabinet Meals: Share Yours!

A well-stocked, orderly pantry is one of the marks of an efficiently run, comfortable household. You can easily tell when you are running low on oft-used staples and stock up when there are sales on frequently used items. One of the greatest benefits of an well-kept pantry is the ability to make "cabinet meals." These are meals that you can throw together at the last minute from staples kept on stock in your pantry and refrigerator without needing anything additional from the market. Not only are they life-savers when the unexpected guest--or two or five--drops by or that new recipe you were trying out burns to a crisp, they are often very economical.

I have always made such meals, but until recently, I never thought of actually cataloging them so as to be able to pull from my repertoire when need arises. I'm a devoted list-maker, especially now that I have two children to chase after and my often over-worked brain can only hold and recall so much information at one time! Lately, whenever I've needed one of these cabinet meals or just wanted one so I didn't have to run to the store with toddler and newborn in tow after a day of housework, it's taken me awhile to think of one. Moreover, because I don't have cabinet meals on the brain, I find that I am not always keeping a good store of those goods that I need to toss our favorites together. This is partially because it's summer, and I tend to become addicted to making dishes with fresh, in-season produce during this time of year. But, it's also because I don't have that nice list drawn up.

So, needless to say, drawing up a cabinet meals list is on my to-do list for this coming week. My name is Bethany Hudson and I am a list-acholic. In the meantime, I would love to hear from y'all: What are your favorite cabinet meals? Please, inspire me! Especially you long-time homemakers out there. You know who you are. Help a rookie out; share your wisdom.

Courtship, Part III: But, What About...?

"Song of Songs" by Marc Chagall

Now, on to Paige's second "juicy" question. For the first one, see Thursday's post.

Some people are perfect on paper, but there's no romantic spark. Some people
have what may seem to be egregious flaws on paper, but those "flaws" don't
matter when balanced with other qualities that didn't even make the initial
list.

If you base your decisions upon a list, might you not find these things out
until it's too late? Could the girl's father turn away a suitor because he's not
college educated (something high on her/her father's list), not knowing that
everything else about him makes him his daughter's soulmate?

The "list" Paige is referring to here is the list of a young lady's requirements in a marriage partner which she presents to her father when she comes of age to begin courting. Her father can, then, refer to this list when interviewing any potential suitors for her.

In fact, let's start off by talking about "the list," which I maintain is an ingenious tool for marriage preparation, irrespective of the courtship model. Not only does it convey to the father what the young lady is looking for in a mate, it helps her to discern what she is looking for. All too often, young women who play the dating game find out only after being disappointed in relationships what they want from a young man. Sadly, many only find out after a rocky first marriage what traits are actually desirable in a husband. They are drawn to the man (or boy) with no rational forethought and, once their heart has been captured, it is too late for disinterested assessment.

We're not talking about a list that says, "I want him to have green eyes and be a football quarterback and score 1600 on his SATs." If a young lady hands that to her father, his first reaction should be that she is in no way ready for marriage and to postpone any possibility of courtship for the next few years while he helps her to pursue wisdom rather than a mate. But, a "suitor requirements" list will have say things like, "He must be a strong Christian, growing in his walk with the Lord. He must be employed in a position that would provide at least a modest home for me and any children God might grant us. He must be able and eager to lead his family with compassion, wisdom, and understanding."

The list may include something along the lines of a college education, as Paige mentioned. A good father would speak with his daughter about all her requirements to discern why she chose them. In doing so, he might discover that it is the stimulating intellectual conversation that she associates with college graduates that prompted that choice. If a young man were to approach him for permission to court his daughter who was well-spoken, well-read, and intellectually curious but held no degree, then the father might still accept the young man's proposal, considering that he has met the "heart" of his daughter's requirements. Likewise, the young woman may have put down "college education" because she admires perseverance and fortitude in a mate and associates that with the accomplishment of having received a university degree. If a college-educated young man comes knocking at her door and the young lady's father finds that this man does not have the necessary qualities of perseverance and fortitude, though he is college-educated, that father would probably turn down this potential mate; even though he "fits the bill," he doesn't "make the grade."

Considering what some may deem mercenary or unromantic requirements in a mate is no unfounded. A young lady may wish only to be pursued by a young man who would be content to remain within a short driving distance of her home town, so that she would not be separated from her family. She may say that she would not wish to be pursued by a young man who is a missionary, if her health is poorly and she does not think she would thrive in areas with more limitted healthcare options or hightened risks of infectious disease. She may truly love the country and wish to be pursued only by young men who would share in that with her, either through their chosen professions, where they wish to live, or a desire to spend time in out-of-doors activities like camping and hiking.

These are good and important things to consider, and in considering them, the young woman will discern whether they are indeed requirements or merely preferences. Better to have figured it out before falling for someone who, through no fault of his own, would make her deeply unhappy because of lifestyle differences. A country girl who truly is a country girl is not going to be happy married to a city boy no matter how perfect he is in other respects. A country girl who recognizes that she could be happy elsewhere will be pleased to know she has already wrestled with that potentiality before falling for a city boy.

But enough of the list. Let's return to the question. I agree with Paige in parts. Certainly, there is no way to completely know what a person will be like simply by reading their C.V., and one can never underestimate the power of "the spark." These concerns are precisely why the period of courtship exists, otherwise, you would be venturing into the realm of arranged marriages, which I'm not going to speak of either way in this post, since this is about courtship, not arranged marriage. Suffice it to say that, during the courtship period, no matter how brief, you would be able to discern whether or not the man or woman "on paper" is still as appealing in person.

Beyond this, there are some thoughts to keep in mind. First, that the prospective couple has met in real life--hence the young man's approach of the girl's father to ask permission to court her. No, they have not "dated," they are not on intimate terms, but they are likely to be acquaintances. In any case, they have almost assuredly seen each other and had a conversation or two. So, by the time the young man goes to speak to the young lady's father, he knows if he is attracted to this girl (likely he is, or he wouldn't be pursuing her) and whether or not she is suitable as a potential bride. When the father presents the young man's proposal to his daughter, she likewise already knows whether she might be attracted to this particular young man, though she may not have thought of it in those terms until the courtship is proposed, and whether she might wish to be pursued by him as a suitor for marriage.

The second thing to keep in mind--and really, it is the First Thing--is God. Courtship is a man-made institution, and all man-made institutions, naturally, possess the potentiality for mistakes and failure. But, courtship is not just a man-made institution. It is also biblical and, therefore, like all other biblical concepts, those who pursue it in faith and with prayer may be confident that God's Will may be accomplished through it. If courtship were merely the process of a young man showing up at a young lady's house, being interviewed by her father, and then her father arbitrating the whole affair, list in hand, there would certainly be a lot of mismatches made at the altar. But, a true biblical courtship is conducted with ultimate trust in and reliance on God.

It is God who reveals the young lady to the young man in His timing and stirs his heart to pursue her as his bride. It is God who grants the young lady's father wisdom and authority to examine the young man. It is God who prepares the young woman's mind and heart to receive the proposal of courtship. It is according to God's Will and not their own desires alone that the young people determine what they are seeking in a future mate. It is for God's glory that they are wed, if the courtship is successful, and it is to His glory and by His aid that they thrive in matrimony together, giving themselves completely to one another in love, until death. With man alone, none of these things are possible. But, with God, all things are possible, and it is with this hope that a Christian approaches courtship and marriage.

It has also been my experience that even dating couples tend to give a resume of sorts, just not a written one. We all, as human beings, tend to show what we want to show, and dates are like interviews. I cannot tell you the number of couples I have known who have dated for five years or more who ended up calling off their relationship--or engagement--or getting divorced shortly after marriage who said, "I guess I just didn't know him/her that well. We were so happy in the beginning, but then everything changed. I suppose he/she was always that way, but I just didn't realize it until later."

Courtship helps guard against this. A wise father will likely investigate how a prospective suitor for his daughter behaves towards other--the young man's parents and siblings, especially his mother; the waitress at a restaurant; even himself (how does this prospective suitor respond under pressure). The father will ask hard and often uncomfortably probing questions of the young man. He will not be swayed or deceived by starry-eyed attraction or a crush. Moreover, he has the life experience behind him to see if what he is being presented with is genuine. This is not to say that a young lady lacks discernment or wisdom, but it would be foolish not to admit that a woman charmed is less likely to be justly critical of her suitor than her wary father is.

Moreover, people change. When you marry, you marry a dynamic, vital human being, not a static waxwork. Yes, you want to know what you're looking for. Yes, it is glorious when you meet that person who fulfills all your hopes and dreams and more. Yes, it is natural to want to get to know every little detail about your spouse before committing to a lifelong covenant of life and love. But, ultimately, the person you marry at twenty is not the same person who will share your bed at sixty. Time and experience will alter you both. Marriage--true, total self-giving conjugal love centered in a relationship with God--is what is going to keep you growing together.

From the outside, "what if"s abound when it comes to courtship. For that matter, similar questions abound when it comes to marriage, too. How do you know he won't cheat on you? How can you know if she's good in bed? How can you know if he can handle a financially difficult time? What if she gets cancer? What if he has a midlife crisis? What if you're just not compatible? What if she changes and he stays the same? What if you meet someone else in years to come who suits you better? What if you 'fall out of love?' How can you know for sure that this is 'the one'?

My very wise husband shattered some deeply cherished romantic notions of mine when we were eighteen. "I don't believe there is 'the one,'" he told me. "I think that there are probably plenty of women out there who could make me happy. I think there are lots of women who would be happy having me for a husband. But, there will be just one--not because there's only one for me, but because I choose one out of all the others."

After I went home and nursed my wounded pride and my broken dreams, I found that I agreed with him. Not only did I agree, I found the new concept liberating and wonderful! Who wants to be "the one" simply because of some twist of fate? Who wants to worry whether they missed finding the only person who can complete them? Who wants to worry, after marriage, whether they picked the wrong one? Who wants to be a "star-crossed" lover when they can be chosen?

If you want to spend your life hunting for "the one," then by all means, date. If you want to choose your one and only, for better or worse, richer or poorer, forsaking all others until death, then start praying, start making your list of requirements, and wait for God to grant the deepest desires of your heart. He is always faithful. His ways are not our ways, but they are always the best ways, and we can trust that, if we follow Him, we will find joy and peace and love.

Show & Tell Friday: Homemade Lavender Wreath

About a month ago, a friend and neighbor of mine asked me if I'd like some lavender from her garden, as she ended up harvesting far more than she needed. I wasn't sure what I would do with it, but eagerly agreed. I debated between sachets, baking or cooking with it, making some homemade herbes de provence, or making a lavender wreath, something I had actually been longing to purchase for a long time but couldn't justify the cost of. In the end, the wreath won out. So, for the rock bottom price of $2.76 (what it cost me to get a small twig wreath base and some floral wire at our local Michael's), I now have my very own lavender wreath.


To make the wreath, you work with a small frame. Then, separate the fresh lavender into small bunches and lay them against the wreath. Tie them down tightly using the floral wire. Continue all the way around the wreath, then touch up any barer spots with more lavender sprigs, binding with floral wire as before. Finish the wreath off with a coordinating ribbon, hang, and enjoy!

Some credit must go to my husband. He was watching me put it together and said, "That looks like fun...Could I do some, too?" So, I did the basic wreath construction, and then Brian added in all the filler to make it look more lush. After assembly, we hung it up to dry in our bedroom, and now it hangs on the wall in our closet area, next to our bathroom. Unfortunately, that area of the house is entirely internal, so I wasn't able to get very good lighting while taking the picture. But, you get the idea.

* The Bookworm's Library has been updated: A Book of Feasts and Seasons by Joanna Bogle

Courtship, Part II: Does Dating Damage Your Heart?

 

Paige, a friend of mine from real life who also happens to frequent the Apple Cider Mill, had some great questions about courtship following my post of yesterday. They are so good and juicy, that I think I will tackle each one in an individual post. This should allow me to give an equally thoughtful answer to each without cutting into my very full home and family time. (Sometimes it's a challenge to keep my priorities straight when there's a topic I really enjoy writing about!) So, here goes.

Paige wrote her comment in three parts, so I will give the first section here:

The idea that your heart is not whole if you enter into a conventional
relationship and then break up with that person does not sit well with me. Yes,
when you break up with someone, no matter if you're the person initiating the
break up or the person being dumped, it hurts. It does feel as if your heart is
breaking. But it mends, and I think stronger than before. I feel as if I'm able
to give love better and more now than I did when I ended that relationship. That
doesn't mean I'm playing fast and loose with my heart, just that I feel more
able to give love in an abstract sense.

I think Paige touches on a really important criticism here, one that I, in parts agree with: the idea that when you become intimately involved with someone you are "losing" part of your heart. Presumably, so the logic goes, you then are unable to get it back and so have only a quasiformed heart to offer your future spouse.

I find this concept to be flawed and unfounded. I love lots of people very deeply. I love my mother, my best friend Meghan, her sister Caitlin; I loved them before I ever met my husband. Does that mean I don't have my whole heart to offer him? In offering him my whole heart, does that diminish the love I have for my mother and friends? Certainly not. When I gave birth to two beautiful children whom I love with my whole heart, does that mean I had to detract some of the love I bear my husband in order to have something to offer them? No.

I have found the heart to be marvelously elastic. It truly does stretch and grow to accomodate more love than we ever thought we could possess. I find that I can love several people with my whole heart--moreover, I can do so while loving God with my whole being! If I were to lose one of these dear, dear people, I cannot even imagine the hurt I would feel. I would, truly, feel that I had lost a part of myself. But, that does not mean I would not heal in time or that I would have only a broken heart to offer to those who remained or to new people who entered my life. Similarly, to say that we cannot heal after a broken romantic relationship or that we will no longer be able to love someone with our whole hearts is erroneous. The experience of many lives testifies otherwise.

One example I like to think of is the remarried widow: She loved her first husband with her whole heart, but he died. She is then released from her first marriage vows and, after a time of healing and a newfound joy, undertakes new vows with a new husband. Would anyone say that she is unable to fully give herself to her second husband? Certainly not! But, she has already given both her body and heart away to another man, her first husband. So, we cannot say that the act of giving oneself completely in love renders one incapable of doing so again. However, there remains a big difference between the case of the remarried widow whose husband has gone before her to his heavenly rest and the young woman who finds herself at the end of a dating relationship.

In our post-modern age, we don't always like to acknowledge that there are supernatural phenomena at work in our lives. Boy, does that ever sound New Agey, but it's true! Whether or not you even acknowledge God in your life, God is at work, and our lives are touched not only by His direct intervention, but by His laws, both natural and supernatural. Just try breaking one of God's natural laws: you can't do it, and if you tamper with it, there are bound to be consequences, even if you refuse to attribute those consequences to the tampering. Something similar happens when we try to break or tamper with supernatural laws: there are consequences, even if we never recognize or acknowledge them as such.

Romantic relationships are the warp on which is woven the woof of powerful supernatural laws of love and commitment, and this intricate weaving creates soul ties, whether we know it or not. When you enter into a romantic relationship, you become intimately connected with another human being, whether in mind, body, heart, or soul--or all of these! This is precisely what is supposed to happen in a marriage. The Bible speaks of this beautiful mystery as the "one body" or "one flesh" union of man and woman in marriage.

In our day and age, we are prone to want to "tamper" with the supernatural laws governing conjugal love. Our modern marriage preparation model, recreational dating, is by its very nature a method of tampering with marriage, since through dating, one is able to experiment with bits and pieces of marriage without actually forming the sacred covenant. But, some of the effects of that covenant are going to come through anyway, because marriage, ultimately, is not a license; it is a relationship!

If you start entering into bits and pieces of a marriage relationship with someone who is not your spouse, you are tampering with the supernatural laws of God. There are the obvious consequences: if you give yourself physically to someone outside of marriage, you may become pregnant out of wedlock and suffer all the pain and brokenness of that reality. You may find yourself permanently linked with someone you didn't want to spend your life thinking about because of shared paternity or a disease that you would be bringing into a future relationship. You may also find yourself saddled with emotional baggage from a past relationship, unable to render yourself truly vulnerable in a future marriage. Most profound, however, are those consequences that we cannot see as easily: the soul ties.

Conjugal love is meant to be characterized by total self-giving on the part of both spouses, and if you are holding back parts of yourself because of the baggage of a past relationship, your marriage will suffer. When you play at conjugal love in a dating relationship, you do not experience true conjugal love, and you do so outside of a fully ratified convenant relationship. However, that doesn't mean you won't feel some of the effects of that covenant, because you have been quasi-forming the relationship that constitutes it!

And, the tricky thing about a covenant is that it cannot be broken--even when we try to break it. With a pseudo-covenant, such as the one formed by becoming emotionally and physically intimate with someone out of wedlock, you cannot cut the tapestry; if you do, it is going to fall apart. You cannot put knew woof on the broken warp. But there is hope. If you want to have any chance of completing your tapestry, you cannot simply cut it, you need to unweave, and this takes a lot of time and effort.

I have known more than one young person who has "gone too far" emotionally or physically outside of marriage. I confess to having been one such young person. I have witnessed--and personally experienced--the healing that God can bring in such circumstances. I have seen young men and women who have experienced even what I might term "second virginities", at least emotionally and spiritually, as God devotedly transformed and reformed their lives, hearts, and souls. I have also known marriages that were entered into with a lot of unresolved wounds from broken soul ties that have been able to mend even within the marriage relationship itself. But, all these processes are very painful and can be quite long and arduous. Those individuals who need to be healed from severed soul ties while already in a marriage relationship have the hardest row to hoe, because it is not only themselves but their spouse and their marriage that is going to need healing. Additonally, they are learning how to unmake broken soul ties at precisely the same time they are supposed to be forming legitimate, covenanted soul ties with their spouse.

So yes, you may find, at the end of a dating relationship, that you are able to stretch your heart to accomodate more love. You may even find yourself stronger. But, the reality remains that there is also brokenness. God, of course, can and does heal all our wounds, but that doesn't mean we are not left with the consequences wrought by our attempts to tamper with His laws, and though our wounds may heal, we may still bear the scars. Dating does tamper with these laws. Courtship, certainly, is no guarantee against such tampering, but at least it does not contradict God's laws by its very nature as dating does.
* The Bookworm's Library has been updated: The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp.

Courtship: Reasons and a Resource

"To all those who, in our times, consider it too difficult, or indeed impossible, to be bound to one person for the whole of life, and to those caught up in a culture that rejects the indissolubility of marriage and openly mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity, it is necessary to reconfirm the good news of the definitive nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ its foundation and strength."

- Pope John Paul II, Familiaris consortio

My daughter, Sophia, only recently celebrated her second birthday. James is only two months old. Some people might think it's a little early to be thinking about courtship. But, that's precisely the topic that's been bandied about in Brian's and my evening conversations lately.

The very word "courting" sounds terribly antiquated to our modern ears. Thoughts of chaperoned young women in corsets and feathered hats might come to mind. Courtship is, of course, very ancient, but it is also very modern and is, arguably, of even greater importance in our times than it has ever been before. So, what exactly is courting, and why do it?

Courtship can mean different things in different circles, just as the rituals of courtship can and have varied from culture to culture and from era to era, but the essential principles are the same. Basically, it is a process by means of which two young people, with the intention of marriage, get to know each other, under the guidance of their parents and, specifically, the young lady's father.

"Well," you may say, "isn't that basically dating?" No. Courtship is completely different from dating. True, both of them are meant to prepare a young couple for marriage, but the methods--and results--of the two different models are as different as can be. Let's take a look at each, starting with the norm of our day: recreational dating.

Recreational dating is actually an extremely recent phenomenon. It's existed really only just long enough for us to realize that it doesn't work. The basic concept is this: two young people get together and "play" at bits and pieces of married life. These two young people may inform their parents of what is going on, but they do not, as such, involve their parents; their relationship is private, between the two of them exclusively. The young couple may "go steady," or they may date around. They may remain emotionally and physically pure or they may cross boundaries on either or both of these fronts and attach themselves--body, heart, and soul--to each other long before thoughts of marriage ever enter their heads. Once they hit an age where they may seriously desire to get married, they will evaluate whether or not the person they are with is really "the one." Then, they either choose to get married, or maybe they just move in together, or perhaps they keep dating for a few more years, just to see what happens, or they might just call it quits and go their separate ways, taking the baggage of their relationship with them into the next.

The basic theme of recreational dating is, in order to prepare for marriage, try it out for awhile, try a few different people out, and see if it works for you.

The fall-out of this should be predictable. A mentality that says the various parts of marriage may be "played with" and then discarded if it doesn't "work out" is going to prepare people for marriages that will be "played with"and then discarded if things don't work out. And, that is precisely what has been resultant of recreational dating: a legacy of divorce, and generations of young people who are now so disillusioned and confused about marriage that many no longer even wish to enter into it and spend their whole lives stuck in the limbo of recreational dating, giving their hearts and perhaps their bodies away countless times to people other than their husband or wife.

Courtship, on the other hand says, when a young man feels called to and ready for marriage, he makes his intentions known to the young lady's father and, if given permission from her father, gets to know that young woman's character and slowly, under the guidance of their parents, form the bonds that will lead them to the altar.

Still sound confusing? Here are the basic elements that a courtship involves:

1. It begins with God.
2. The young lady and her father/(parents) must establish a strong, godly relationship with each other, which is characterized by open communication and trust.
3. Courtship is always initiated by the young man, never the young lady. There are many excellent reasons behind this, but I think I will have to save that for another post...perhaps later this week.
4. It is established and conducted under the direct guidance of the young couple's parents and, specifically, the young lady's father.
5. It is conducted with the specific intention to marry.

The courtship period is usually rather brief (very brief by many of today's dating standards!) as all of the guesswork has been dealt with up front. Then, free from the baggage of past relationships and any encumbrance of sin in the present one, the young couple is able to enter joyfully into the Holy Sacrament of Marriage.
Courtship takes effort--much more effort than recreational dating--not only on the part of the couple but on the part of the parents, specifically the young lady's father. Restraint is required, patience, sacrifice, trust, good communication, and plenty of prayer. In otherwords, courtship requires precisely those things that make a marriage strong and lasting! Not only has this model of marriage preparation been time-tested, it is makes absolute logical sense.
I realize that courtship is highly counter-cultural. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it really is the best model I have seen for preparing for godly marriage. Statistics show that the divorce rate within the Church is pretty much equal to that of the rest of the world. This makes sense; if we are using the world's standards and methods to prepare for marriage, how can we expect our marriages to fare any differently? If you are a single person who desires marriage, I highly recommend that you learn more about courtship, and if you have children, please bless them by educating yourself and them about this model.
I'm sure I will be writing more on this subject over time. In the meanwhile, here is a link to a wonderful resource my husband and I have just become aware of: Seasons of Courtship, a website "designed to help fathers take an active part in their children's lives leading up to the choice of a life partner. Not a dictitorial role, nor a passive role, but a role where a father helps them determine what is desired in a spouse and then protects them from unqualified choices." Enjoy, and may you be blessed by this ministry, as we have been.

Homemaking Tip #7: Buttermilk Substitute

Ah, buttermilk--that magical ingredient that gives so many delicious baked goods their characteristic lightness. Unfortunately, it's not exactly a staple in everyone's household. What's a girl to do when the family is clamoring for buttermilk pancakes and all she's got is plain milk? Well, she could just adjust the recipe and use the plain milk (for the record, you simply use the same amount of milk as buttermilk called for, eliminate the baking soda and double the baking powder to do this), but the flavor and texture of the pancakes is just not going to rival that of real buttermilk ones.

Fortunately, there is a remedy! You can make your own buttermilk substitute, called "sour milk." For every one cup buttermilk called for, measure out a scant cup of regular milk, and add to it one tablespoon of lemon juice or distilled white vinegar. The lemon juice will give a more authentic flavor, but either one works. Then, stir your concoction and let it sit for five minutes, and you've got sour milk--but in this instance, that's a good thing!

I use this trick all the time and very, very rarely do I buy buttermilk. One reason is that buttermilk is quite a bit more expensive. Secondly, in my area, it is sold only in quarts, and I rarely need exactly one quart of buttermilk, and I hate to waste. Thirdly, in my area, buttermilk is only sold "lowfat" (1% milkfat), and I find that most baked goods really taste best when made with full-fat dairy products. By using "sour milk" in place of buttermilk, I can ensure that I have full-fat ingredients.

So there's the tip for today. Even if you still want to stick with purchasing buttermilk for the most part, I hope this can help you out in a pinch!

The Weight of Parenthood

"Sleepy Baby" by Mary Cassat

I've thought a lot before about the weight of parenthood. I've thought about the important vocation God has blessed me with, my responsibilities to care for, nurture, educate, protect, and guide my precious children. But, tonight, that responsibility hit me with new poignancy.

We'd just taken the roast chicken out of the oven and Brian was carving it up. Suddenly, James woke up from his nap, so I ran off to change his diaper before dinner. Just as I was setting him down on the changing table, already crying at the top of his lungs, I heard a loud "thud," and then another little voice crying from the hallway outside the bedrooms. When the wailing from the hall not only didn't stop but became more urgent, I set my screaming baby down on the bedroom floor and ran to find Sophia.

When I got to her, she had her hands over her mouth. I hugged her to me and tried to calm her. Then, I looked behind her hands: Her lip was swollen out terribly and was already a blackish purple, and there was blood streaming out of her mouth! Immediately, I tried to discern how badly she had injured herself and whether any teeth were broken, but being a typical frightened toddler, she wrestled her head away from me and wailed all the more, and I couldn't see what was going on.

In time, Brian and I staunched the bleeding and calmed her down. He sat her on his lap and read her her favorite nursery rhyme book to soothe her while I went off to care for our other crying child. And, as I was changing the baby and then sat beside my husband and poor, brave little girl to nurse James, I thought to myself, "I am the mother of these children. The only mother they will ever have. And, I'm responsible for taking care of them if something is seriously wrong. I'm the one who has to think and react and make decisions. Wow."

And, blessedly, this hightened sense of responsibility did not frighten me. For I remember that I have a Father and a Mother in Heaven who are caring not only for my children but for me, as well. Yes, I have tremendous earthly responsibilities in regard to my children. But, ultimately, they are God's children, and He and His Mother will protect and care for my babies in ways even I cannot, ways I cannot even comprehend. I cannot fathom how hard it must be to be a parent without knowing and experiencing the loving care of God.

Thankfully, Sophia is alright. She even asked to have some of the roast chicken, which didn't suffer from sitting cold for the half hour or so it took to take care of our kids and went down for bed just a little later than usual, though she did ask to sleep in her "cah-reeb" (crib) instead of her big girl bed tonight. We willingly obliged.

I wanted to thank all of you who have been praying for my grandmother, as well. She is so much better today, I am told! She was very lucid and was able to eat and drink a bit. We continue to pray that she will maintain the capacity to swallow, as this will allow her passing to be much less painful since she would not have to suffer dehydration. We know this is the end (barring a miracle, but somehow, I sense the time is right for her, even though I wish we had longer), but we just pray that the end will be a peaceful time rather than a painful one, for her sake.