Deeply Love One Another

I've been wrestling a lot in prayer with attachments to others and with relationships. And I've discovered that when it comes to loving others, there are two extremes: to be too attached to people or to be too afraid to be attached to people.

For most of my life, I lived in the first extreme. I cared far too much about what others thought about me, and I placed too much emphasis on my relationships with others and not enough on my relationship with Christ. My relationships, instead of leading me into greater holiness, detracted from my relationship with Him because I gave them a higher place in my heart than Him. There was always a certain grasping in these relationships: it seemed that no matter how much love these people showed me, I was always hungering for more, grasping for things that I didn't think they were giving me, expecting more than was reasonable from them.

But now that I've progressed a bit in the spiritual life, I find myself falling into the second extreme. Every time I feel a deep love stir in my heart for another person, I live in a state of fear that I'm falling back into that first extreme. So instead of examining this love or allowing it to grow, I try to squash it or run from it.

There's this relationship in my life right now that is extremely important to me. This person is a spiritual mentor to me, and she's teaching me so much about what it means to be a holy woman of God. She’s become such a big part of my heart that I can’t imagine my life without her in it.

And honestly? That terrifies me. I live in a state of fear that I'm too attached to her, that my love for her is unhealthy, that our relationship gets in the way of my relationship with God.

When I begin to feel this deep love for her rise up in my soul, my first instinct is to run. Squash it. Root it up out of my heart and throw it far from me. Because obviously this deep and incomprehensible love that I have for her isn't from God--it must be from my own grasping, my own brokenness, my own need that I'm grasping for her to fill.

False.

In prayer, the Lord has been opening my heart more and more to the truth that He wants me to be in this relationship. He wants me to have this deep love for her. He wants to use her love to change me. He wants to use my love for her to soften both of our hearts to His love for us. Through her spiritual motherhood, He wants to teach me more about what it means to be a daughter. And through my spiritual daughterhood, He wants to teach her more about what it means to be a mother.

“My children, I will be with you only a little while longer … I give you a new commandment: love one another.” -John 13:33-34.

This is our faith, sisters. It is Incarnational -- He could have saved us in any way, but He chose to come in the Incarnation -- to come as a human person that we could see and touch, to use a human body as the instrument of our redemption. And He chooses to come to us physically in the Eucharist, to give us His Body and Blood in order to continually sanctify us and draw us closer to Him. And just as He wants us to encounter His love in His real presence in the Eucharist, so He uses others to bring us to a deeper encounter with Him.

Faith is not a solitary journey. It's not meant to be. Our God is a communion of persons -- three Persons, one God. And just as the Trinity exists in community, so are we meant to exist in community. We can't go it alone. We need others: friends, spouses, spiritual mentors, teachers, siblings, parents. And when I live my life in fear of being too attached to others, when I try to squash the love that stirs deep down in my soul for others, I miss out on the way that He wants to move through those relationships to transform my life.

Ultimately He is the only one that can fulfill all those desires that we feel so deeply, but that doesn't mean that others aren’t part of His plan to do that. He works through others to fulfill those desires.

And this relationship in my life? The love that stirs so deeply in my heart, a love that seems to reach into the abyss of my soul, a love that scares me and yet brings me an incredible amount of peace and joy--this is His love. I’m not capable of loving that deeply and selflessly on my own. This love flows from my love for Him. Because I love Him with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, I am free to truly love this beautiful and incredible spiritual mother of mine as myself. "Love of neighbor is inseparable from love for God" (CCC 1878).

And the love that this spiritual mother has for me flows from His love. When she loves me, she is truly and freely loving me, but only because it is His love being poured out into her soul. He could fulfill my desires in any way, but He chooses to do it in an incarnational way--to use her love to show me how deeply He wants to fulfill my desires. When I think of this deep love that I have for so many in my life, I’m reminded of the quote from Les Mis: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Through my relationships, I see the love that God has for me.

Sisters, there is nothing wrong with desiring relationship. There is nothing wrong with desiring to be loved, affirmed, wanted, cherished by others. There's nothing wrong with being attached to others--as long as we're attached first and foremost to Him. When we set our sight on Christ and our focus on our relationship with Him, others are going to come into our lives. He's going to bring other people into our places of need, and He's going to use their love to change us and to show us His own love for us. And what a beautiful gift. What a blessing to know that we do not walk this journey alone, to know that a love that stirs so deeply in our souls is a participation in the love of Christ.

Be not afraid to love deeply, to seek relationship. Just remember that He loves us first and that He loves us most. When we allow this truth to be the penetrating force and guiding principle, we are truly free to love deeply and to love selflessly.

So here's to deeply loving others.

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Catie Destatte is a senior Theology and Catechetics major. She has a passion for writing, Mama Mary, ministry to women, and evangelization. Her life motto is Totus Tuus Maria, and she tries to live that out in her every moment. After graduation, Catie will be serving as a missionary on a college campus with St. Paul's Outreach. You can find out more about her here.

We Lost God

Today is Good Friday. Today we celebrate the liturgy of Our Lord's Passion and Death on the Cross for the sake of our redemption.

Being raised in a nominally Catholic household, I never really celebrated Good Friday until I came to Franciscan. Even then, my freshman year I wasn't capable of really entering into the mystery, and my sophomore year, I was in Austria and travel plans fell apart so that my group could only make it to the Easter Vigil. Last year was the first year that I fully entered into the Triduum. On Good Friday last year, I had an experience that shook me to the core. So much so that I know that every year on this day, I will remember this experience and feel the sobering reality of what we celebrate today.

Last year on Good Friday morning, I went to confession and it rocked my world. I felt so ready to go to the liturgy and fully enter into the mystery and receive our Lord with a clean soul, with no sin standing between us. I also happened to be serving as a member of the Liturgy Committee, and because of something that I had to do for committee, I was unable to receive the Eucharist at the Good Friday liturgy.

Now ladies, I can't fully explain what happened next, because a year later, I'm still struggling to fully comprehend it. All that I can say is that being unable to receive Our Lord that day was devastating for me. It broke my heart in a way that I first thought was completely irrational. After all, there have been plenty of times when I refrained from receiving because I didn't feel well or for various other reasons.

But for some reason, this time, I felt as if my heart was being wrenched open. After all of my responsibilities of cleaning up after the liturgy were finished, I made my way to the Eucharistic Chapel in CTK, sat before the empty tabernacle, and quite literally wept.

At first I was frustrated with myself. What the heck, Catie. You need to get more sleep. This is completely irrational.

But then suddenly a line came into my head that I had been pondering for quite a while before this, and the Lord shed a light on the hot mess of emotional turmoil that was going on in my soul.

There's a poem written by Msgr John Duffy called I Sing of a Maiden. The poem is about Our Lady the morning after she gives her fiat and the Word becomes flesh to dwell in her womb. Cardinal John O'Conner, the founder of the Sisters of Life, was so struck by this poem that a line of it is engraved on the medal that all of the sisters wear as a part of their habit.

The line is: "And nothing would again be casual or small, but everything with Light invested, overspilling."

The Lord used this line to open my eyes and show me what a gift He was offering me by arranging things so that I could not receive Him. So I'm going to share with you the insight that I received, in the hopes that it will help you to enter into the full reality of what we celebrate today.

Sisters, the mystery of the Incarnation was an earth-shattering event that forever altered history. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. From the moment that our Blessed Mother gave her yes to the invitation of the angel, our God, the One who created the world and formed each of us in our mother's womb, has dwelt among us, on this earth, forever leaving His presence with us. Since that incredible event, there has never been a single moment when He has not graced us with His presence.

Except for those three days between His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead.

We rejected Him. We condemned Him to death. Because of us, He suffered excruciating torture and carried a heavy wooden beam up a rocky hill, where He humbly and willingly allowed Himself to be nailed and to suffer three hours of the worst pain imaginable.

And after He surrendered His spirit to the Father and died on that cross, we lost Him. For three long days, we were without our God. There was no Holy of Holies, no Incarnate Word. His body was in a tomb, but His soul was in hell, awaiting the moment when He would come back to us and forever free us from the power of sin.

But for those three days, He did not dwell among us.

And the turmoil that I felt not being able to receive, the grief that I couldn't understand, the tears that didn't seem to stop no matter how hard I tried to talk myself out of being upset, they were all a gift from Him, for He wanted me to fully enter into the reality of what His death meant for us.

Now, I know very well that even if our tabernacles are empty, He still dwells among us now. In fact, I even know where we keep Him during that time. I know that I will never fully understand the agony that Mary and the Apostles felt for those three days. But thanks to that experience, I will never not understand the significance of this day.

These three days mark the darkest days of history, but tomorrow night, we will celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord, when once more "everything with Light invested" will spill over into our souls.

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Catie Destatte is a senior Theology and Catechetics major. She has a passion for writing, Mama Mary, ministry to women, and evangelization. Her life motto is Totus Tuus Maria, and she tries to live that out in her every moment. Along with being a member of Women's Ministry Core Team, she's involved in Capture My Heart Core Team, Liturgy Committee, and Totus Tuus Maria Household. Her five great loves are JPII, St. Peter, tea, praise and worship music, and the ocean. Along with Shannon, one of Catie's roles in Women's Ministry is to run this blog. You can find out more about her here.

Why I Don't Wear a Purity Ring (But, yes, you'll still see a band on my finger)

A household sister and friend of mine recently wrote a personal blog post about the problems with “Purity Culture”, specifically the “purity ring,” and I wholeheartedly agreed with every word of it. When discussing her post with another friend of mine I couldn’t help but notice the confused look on my friend’s face, even though she shared my mutual distaste for “purity culture.” When I asked her if she was confused by my position she said she was confused not with my negative opinion of purity rings but with the fact that I wear one despite my apparent distaste for them.

“What?” I said, “I don’t wear a purity ring…” but my eyes had already fallen on my left ring finger where the sterling silver ring bearing a heart and a cross that I had received for my Confirmation was positioned.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “This isn’t a purity ring it’s just…well…actually I’m not quite sure what you would call it.”

I’d like to assure everyone reading this at this moment that I am not in fact crazy and I really don’t think I’m stupid. But believe me when I say that I never considered this ring to be a purity ring, despite the fact that in hindsight, it probably appears so to everyone I encounter.

The truth of the matter is that this ring of mine represents so much more to me than some trite pledge to remain chaste for my future spouse, but to explain all of that I am going to need to back up a bit and start from the beginning.

I’ve never really bought into the whole “purity culture” thing, even from the beginning. The first time I ever really considered the topics of sexuality and religion at the same time was in sixth grade. But unlike a lot of Christians out there my first intellectual consideration of “purity” wasn’t at some youth rally or church group that was telling me to “save myself” for marriage. I’m not going to lie, I was a pretty naïve little sixth grader so if someone had said this phrase to me I probably would have asked what exactly of myself I was supposed to be saving for my future husband (A lock of my hair? My baby teeth?). Fortunately, I had an amazing religion teacher in sixth grade who took it upon herself to write her own middle school curriculum based on the Theology of the Body that had been articulated by JPII (a revolutionary idea at the time because there weren’t really even curriculums out there for high schoolers yet).

But unlike a lot of theology teachers and youth group leaders who only dive into TOB to talk about sex (specifically how you shouldn’t be having it but should rather be “saving yourself for marriage”) I distinctly remember how my teacher chose to introduce our class to the subject. She wrote two questions on the board and had us consider the answers:

Who am I?

Why do I exist?

Good luck trying to find two other questions that are equally important and equally terrifying to a sixth grader.

After posing these questions and allowing us to share our responses, my teacher then began to gradually unfold over the next few weeks the profound truths that can be discovered in JPII’s Theology of the Body. It’s important to point out that the answers she gave to these questions focused on one important thing: Love.

We are created lovingly by Love for love. God is our Father and we are His children. The Love exchanged and shared within the Trinity is so good and life-giving that God desires to share it and let it overflow so He creates us out of love to share His Love with us. And within each human being he gives us the ability to love and to be loved.

I know, there’s a lot of love there, but the important things to take away from all of that are the answers to the questions my sixth grade teacher posed to us:

Who am I? I am “one who is loved and one who loves”

Why do I exist? I exist “to love and to be loved.”

Why am I sharing this? Quite simply, it’s to emphasize a point. In my experience I learned that the discussion about my human identity doesn’t begin with a discussion of my sexuality; it begins with a discussion about love.

The problem with most of the “purity culture” that we find in many Christian circles is that, while it may have good intentions, oftentimes it is no better than the secular world in where it places its emphasis: on sex. This ultimately comes across as a hollow and empty message because sex disconnected from our deeper identity of love is hollow and empty.

Because at their root, the virtues of purity, chastity, modesty, etc. have NEVER first-and-foremost been about sex. They have always been about the human identity which is wrapped up in love. But because part of my personhood (or identity) is embodied (i.e. I have a body), these virtues have repercussions for what I do with my body.

But Satan, along with much of the world, is really messed up because he twists my understanding of love and the body. If my identity is tied up with loving and being loved, Satan is going to do everything in his power to make me feel unlovable and incapable of giving love.

A moment of true, personal vulnerability here: I’ve always really struggled with both of these lies, but I’m going to especially focus on the first one in this blog post. Satan has done a pretty good job of convincing me my entire life that I must be unlovable because despite the fact that “on paper” I seem to have my life completely together, I’ve always had a hard time making friends. Going further and really solidifying this lie in my mind, Satan has never once failed to tell me that I’m clearly unlovable because no man has ever found me lovable enough to ask me out on a date.

Verily Magazine recently posted an article written by a man explaining why he doesn’t ask out the seemingly “perfect” girl that he knows. One of the reasons he gave in the article boiled down to attraction (perfect as she may seem, he just might not be attracted to her). It was a well-written article and the rational part of my brain appreciated the wisdom of his insights. But as soon as I read it I felt that familiar dark shadow creeping into my mind and whispering again and again, “Well there’s your answer: you’ve never been asked out by a man because no man has ever found you attractive.”

Now, I knew that this was a lie of Satan’s the moment I heard it, but that didn’t make it any easier to shake. Weeks and weeks that same lie spun around in my head, inflamed by the fact that every aunt, sibling, parent, hairdresser and optometrist I encountered over the Christmas break wanted to know if I had any romantic prospects looming on the horizon. To have to keep insisting that “No, I have nothing to report,” while deflecting comments like, “That can’t be true, a girl like you surely has admirers!” was a trial, to say the least.

But here is where we get back to my supposed “purity ring” because every time that the lie that I was unlovable popped into my head, I would glance down at the ring I wore on my left ring finger.

You know, I didn’t always wear it on my left hand. Until about a year ago I had always worn it on my right. I only changed it last spring after going to confession with a little Eastern European priest who was the spitting image of Padre Pio. He told me that at the heart of my spiritual battle was the struggle to remember and trust that Jesus loved me despite my imperfections. He told me to wear a piece of jewelry to remind me of that truth whenever I began to doubt it. I walked out of that confessional and slipped the ring from my right hand to my left and haven’t looked back since. Before that moment it had always been just a pretty piece of jewelry, but after that moment it became an important symbol of truth in my life.

You see, this ring for me is NOT a purity ring because I don’t wear it to remind myself that I’m waiting for the love of the perfect man. No, I use this ring as a constant reminder that the perfect Man already loves me.

Satan’s lie that I’m unlovable is just that, a LIE, because Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried for me. He descended into Hell for me. And on the third day he rose again from the dead for me. This isn’t some fairy tale or analogy that Christians made up to feel better about their lives. It happened, and I profess this truth every time I recite our Creed.

But because I’m not just a spiritual being it sometimes takes more than words to get this truth to sink into my thick skull. Remember, I’m an embodied creature and so sometimes it takes visible, material, embodied things to get through to me. That’s why Jesus gave us the Eucharist, as a physical reminder of His love for us. But because we can’t physically carry the Eucharist around with us all the time (darn!) we sometimes need even more material reminders of spiritual truths.

Think of scapulars, Marian consecration chains, saint medals, prayer cards, rosaries, crucifixes, and sacred art. These remind us of already existing realities. They aren’t just some visible way to show others about some resolution we hope to complete in the future. They’re not conditional like a purity ring is (if I remain chaste until marriage then I will be pure) but rather unconditional (Jesus can and has purified me despite my sins and the lives of Mary and the saints prove it). While purity rings focus on the past (what you have or have not done) and the future (what you can expect as a result) sacramentals show us all of time in one eternal moment (whatever you’ve done in the past or will do in the future, Jesus loves you then, now, and always and He gives you eternal life to live with Him in Heaven forever.) Sacramentals, like my ring in this instance, remind us of our profound dignity and worth because they remind us of the love God has for us right now.

Knowing then this profound dignity and worth that I possess, I am given confidence to demand that others treat me (which includes my body) accordingly. The virtues of purity, chastity, modesty, etc. are then the natural conclusion to the thesis of love. If I believe that I am loved freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully by God then I will seek to live out this perfect model of love (after all, God is love) in all my interactions with others. When I begin my self-understanding with the understanding that I am made to give and receive the perfect love that is modeled by Christ, I won’t want to settle for anything less.

Thus, purity, chastity, and modesty make sense and flow naturally from this true understanding of love. They are not some arbitrary dictum handed down by power-mongering old men in funny hats who think sex is bad and we need to “protect” people from its corruption and temptations. People who think this is the Catholic Church’s understanding of human sexuality have clearly never read a word of Pope St. John Paul II (or St. Edith Stein or St. Thomas Aquinas or St. John Chrysostom or anyone else for that matter).

We shouldn’t begin our discussions of the human person and their sexuality talking about sex or abstinence or modesty like the “Purity Culture” does. We shouldn’t do this because the Christian exhortation isn’t to go forth baptizing all people in the name of the purity ring, the pledge to “save ourselves,” or the slogan that “modest is hottest” (honestly, anyone who utters this phrase, let them be anathema!) The Christian exhortation is rather to go forth baptizing all people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Christian mission is Trinitarian, and what is the Blessed Trinity but a Communion of Love. Christians are not called to build up a “Purity Culture;” we are called to create a Civilization of Love.

Because ultimately people, they’ll know we are Christians by our Love, not our purity rings.

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Alyssa Snyder is a Junior studying Humanities and Catholic Culture, Theology, and Philosophy. She is a native of Texas where she lives with her family in a blue-roofed house on top of a hill. She is passionate about the Truth of the Lord's Incarnation and loves spending time discovering and discussing ways in which others have incarnated the Gospel in film, history, literature, politics, and art. Her favorite saints are St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena because they both personify St. John Paul II's "feminine genius" in her mind.

Our Good, Good Father

I have a confession to make. I have been in serious spiritual desolation for the last four months. And y’all, it stinks. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. But it’s the Year of Mercy! And this morning, our good Father hit me over the head with His mercy!

This morning, as I was trying to pray morning prayer, I reached the end of the intentions portion, and I realized that I didn’t have the strength to pray for anything that wasn’t already scripted for me. So instead of trying to spout off the thousands of intentions I know that I should pray for, I opened my hands and my heart to God and cried out, “Father, you know the intentions of my heart even better than I do, and I don’t have the strength to pray for them myself, but I give you this empty vessel I call a heart and hope that it’ll be enough for You.”

And despite the fact that it’s a very meager gift for the King of kings, I think it was the most pleasing thing I could have given Him.

Maybe this is the mercy of God—that it is more pleasing to Him when we come to Him with empty hands and breaking hearts than when we come to Him with what we think is perfection and righteousness.

Because the reality is that we’re never going to be sinless or perfect in this life. There will always be something within us that is lacking, that needs to strive for a higher degree of perfection. It’s the price that comes with being fallen creatures in a fallen world.

And you know what? I think God prefers it that way. If we were already perfect, or if belief in God were the only necessary requirement for Heaven and it didn’t matter how we lived or sinned (a common misconception in our modern culture), then we wouldn’t need a Savior now. We would only have needed Him to die for us that one time 2,000 years ago, and we wouldn’t need Him now. We don’t still need a Savior if we’re already saved, right? Sure, we might still really love Him—after all, how can you not love someone if you truly believed that He died for you? But we wouldn’t need Him, not really.

But here’s the thing: God is a Father. And like any good father, He wants His children to need Him. 

So often, I’m tempted to think that I need to pick myself up from my sin and make myself perfect before I can approach my Father’s throne. But more often than not, I can’t do that. Most of the time, when I approach that throne, I do so with empty hands. And sometimes, I have to crawl my way to that throne, because I don’t have the strength to pick myself up and walk.

And as I was praying about that this morning, you know what I heard Him speak to my heart? Well obviously you don't, so I'm about to tell you: He prefers it that way. He wants to be the one to pick us up. He doesn’t want the finished product. He wants all of us, all of our brokenness, because He wants to be the one to fix us, to make us whole.

There’s this song that I love. I want you to take a few moments to listen to it now, because I think we all need the reminder. It's called Good Good Father, click here.

Oh I’ve head a thousand stories of what they think you’re like, but I’ve heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night, and you tell me that you’re pleased and that I’m never alone. 

You’re a good, good Father, it’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are, and I’m loved by you, it’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am. 

I’ve seen many searching for answers far and wide, but I know we’re all searching for answers only you provide, cause you know just what we need before we say a word.

The mercy of God lies in the fact that He loves us. Not because of who we are, but because of who He is—goodness itself. 

Today, I’m thankful for my brokenness in a way that I have never been before. Because it is only when I acknowledge and embrace my brokenness that I can clearly hear that tender whisper that reminds me who I am—a daughter loved and cherished beyond belief.

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Catie Destatte is a senior Theology and Catechetics major. She has a passion for writing, Mama Mary, ministry to women, and evangelization. Her life motto is Totus Tuus Maria, and she tries to live that out in her every moment. Along with being a member of Women's Ministry Core Team, she's involved in Capture My Heart Core Team, Liturgy Committee, and Totus Tuus Maria Household. Her five great loves are JPII, St. Peter, tea, praise and worship music, and the ocean. Along with Shannon, one of Catie's roles in Women's Ministry is to run this blog. You can find out more about her here.

The Wise Men

“Behold, Wise Men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.’ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” (Matthew 2:1-3)

You know the rest of the story all too well. After Herod poses as a well-wishing fellow adorer, the Wise Men continue on their merry way and find the child with his mother. They prostrate themselves in worship and present their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They intend to give Herod the stable address, but an angel in a dream conveniently prevents their return to the king by hanging a huge detour sign over the palace. 

Matthew’s account of the Christmas story is worth meditating upon. I love to picture Jesus nestled in the protective arms of Mary. Picture the rich kings, born in the grand halls of Eastern palaces, now adoring a little baby born in the poverty of a stable. The Wise Men make me think of what gifts I myself can present to the Christ child, or of the great courage needed to leave every security and seek Jesus.

With all this rich material for prayer, I often pass over the details of Herod as historical background info.  But this time, I was really struck by one simple, seemingly insignificant sentence:

“When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with Him.” (Matthew 2:3)

To be fair, I can understand why Herod is troubled.  A few men from Persia show up on his doorstep babbling about a certain star and their intent to worship a new king of the Jews.  Surely, this situation made a light bulb go off for Herod. It must have reminded him of Balaam’s prophesy: “A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel…Edom shall be dispossessed.” (Numbers 24:17-18).

Ok, I know we aren’t biblical scholars, and even with Advent readings we aren’t exactly experts on Old Testament prophesies.  First you should know that Herod is an Edomite (non-Jew), who was appointed by the Romans as king. He is troubled by this star and newborn king because he knows that He is the Edomite Balaam says will be dispossessed. He knows his kingdom will be overthrown and he will lose his power.

So Herod is troubled. Fair enough.  But all of Jerusalem with him?

Aren’t these the people who have been waiting for a Savior? Who lived through slavery in Egypt? Who wandered in the desert? Who were exiled in Babylon? The prophesies aren’t warning them of this new king—they are reassuring them that he is indeed coming! They know he is the Prince of Peace who is coming to restore unity, to destroy their enemies, and to establish a new Kingdom. 

They know that Jesus has come to save them from their brokenness.  And yet, the gospel says that all of Jerusalem is troubled.  How does this make any sense?

I am judging Herod, and I’m judging Jerusalem even more! They are troubled by the birth of their Savior. And yet, I can’t help but become embarrassed. I see myself in Herod. I see myself in all of Jerusalem. 

As the Savior of all mankind, Jesus came to save even Herod and welcome him into the eternal kingdom. Herod is troubled because he doesn’t want to give up his earthly kingdom and power. Like Herod, I too am troubled when God asks me to give up my attachments and power.  He has asked me to physically get rid of some of my belongings and to mortify my own will.  He has even asked me to give up certain friendships.  And it’s painful. Believe me, I cling to my possessions, to certain people and to my sense of control. Why? Because, like Herod, I don’t trust that what He has for me is better. But Jesus is trustworthy, and he empties only to fill.  He will take our earthly possessions only to give us his eternal riches in heaven. 

I know all too well that I am like the people of Jerusalem--enslaved to sin and wandering in confusion. Although they only had prophesies promising a Savior, I have the fulfillment. I know that Jesus has already become incarnate and come to save me from my brokenness.  And still, I am troubled when he comes to me.  How often have I avoided confession because I am troubled by the very mercy that will flood my soul and free me from the bonds of sin and death? How often am I troubled by the need to pray or go to Mass, seeing it as a mere item to check off on my to-do list?

This Christmas season, let’s throw away our foolish troubles.  Be not afraid--He has come to save us! Let’s rejoice that Jesus has come to fill us with greater riches than we can imagine (even if he empties us first). Let’s celebrate that He has come to save us from our brokenness and our sin.  Let’s run to him in Bethlehem with the Wise Men who left everything they had to worship a tiny baby under a shining star. 

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Mari Seaberg is a junior nursing major from Gilbert, Arizona.  Her favorite saint is St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church. As a member of Women's Ministry Core Team, Mari feels called to "give myself in service to the women of this campus because the Lord has repeatedly shown me what a precious gift femininity is, lived out so uniquely by each individual woman. I hope to give of myself and to become a better daughter of the Father in the process."