Seasons of Grace

What an incredibly busy week it’s been!

First, a great honor:  I was invited to be one of three guest-bloggers for The Anchoress this week, as Elizabeth Scalia tried to accomplish some other projects.  What an intimidating venture, posting my thoughts on that highly-read page, where readers have come to expect such logic, intelligence and grace!  I want to thank Elizabeth Scalia for entrusting me with this powerful platform, giving me the keys and letting me drive for a few days.

Add to that:  Youngest son Jerry came home from New York.  He got sick at the holidays and was unable to travel—so this was our Christmas week with him.  I took some days off work and we have really tried to spend some quality time together!

And my husband’s minor surgeries were successful and he’s coming along just fine; but his activity is still restricted, so  for now, I am the driver and the trash can manager and the snow shoveler and the grocery bag unloader….  I am blessed to be married to a guy who rolls up his sleeves and does whatever needs to be done—but lest I forget, this brief interlude has helped to remind me just how much he really does around the house to make my life easier!

So now here I am, back in the saddle at Seasons of Grace.  If you missed any of my posts over at The Anchoress, you can catch up here.  And here and here.  There’s some more stuff, but you can find it if you look hard, and if you never see it, you can live with that, too!

My news?  Soon—sometime later this month—my blog will be migrating over to the Catholic Portal at Patheos.  There I’ll be in the company of some really influential writers in the Catholic world.  And the Patheos site has grown (and is still growing) so that I can expect to reach a much wider audience.  It is a great opportunity, and one that I don’t take lightly.

The one down side to the anticipated move is that I’ve enjoyed a great working relationship with my son Jeff, chief architect of the Seasons of Grace website, and his business partner Teresa McLain.  Maybe I won’t let the old site go, but will continue to use it in some way?  I’m not sure yet—but let me offer my thanks now for all the times Jeff and Teresa have bailed me out as I learned to load a video or a link, or change a poem to single-space, or organize photos in a logical, consistent way.  Thanks, you two!

Anyway, for now here I am.  My files of Stuff I Really Should Talk About are bulging!  Watch this space.

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Oops!  I forgot to mention this:

This week, I’ll be guest-blogging over at The Anchoress, while Elizabeth Scalia takes some much-needed time off. 

You should come over and check it out!  It takes three of us to fill The Anchoress’ shoes:  Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Elizabeth Duffy, and me.  It promises to be a week of fun with some good friends.

Since my bilocation skills are not that great (and since I still have a day job!), I will probably not bother to post over here.  Check out The Anchoress on the Patheos website!

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In 1886, concerned about the spread of communism around the world, Pope Leo XIII penned a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.  Based on the Book of Revelation’s report of a great heavenly battle (Revelation 12:7), the prayer invokes the assistance of the Archangel Michael to protect us against the evil one.  Pope Leo instructed Catholics around the world to recite this prayer after Mass. 

The Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel was commonly recited after Mass from that time until the 1960s.  Then, the Second Vatican Council refocused attention on the liturgy and discouraged extra prayers, like the Rosary, being recited during Mass.  There was some concern that the St. Michael Prayer and other Leonine prayers, too, might distract from the liturgy; and in 1964, it was suppressed. 

In April 1994, Pope John Paul II recalled the Prayer to St. Michael, encouraging Catholics to once again pray this prayer for protection against the work of the devil.  The Pope said:

“I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world.”

Now, Bishop Daniel Jenky, bishop of the Diocese of Peoria, in a letter on his blog has asked the people of his diocese to again pray the St. Michael Prayer this Sunday.  In response to the government’s action against freedom of conscience—as evidenced by this week’s HHS ruling mandating Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilization—Bishop Jenky has called on parishes, schools, hospitals, Newman Centers and religious houses to insert the prayer into their intercessions at Sunday Mass.

Bishop Jenky strikes a somber tone in a public letter on his blogsite:  “I am honestly horrified,” he writes, “that the nation I have always loved has come to this hateful and radical step in religious intolerance.”

He pledged that the Church will never abandon its commitment to the Gospel of Life and called on the faithful to “vigorously” oppose what he called an “unprecedented governmental assault upon the moral convictions of our faith.”

In case you’ve forgotten it, here is the Prayer of St. Michael.  Print it, cut it out, tape it to your bathroom mirror—and remember that God’s people win in the end.

PRAYER TO ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

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Twenty-six years ago, on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, disintegrating over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of central Florida.  All seven of its crew were killed, including the “Teacher in Space,” Christa McAuliffe.

On this sad anniversary, it’s not space flight I want to talk about, though.  I want to talk about jealousy, and about the seasons of life.

When the Challenger exploded, I had three young children at home.  To supplement our family income, I had taken a few neighbors’ children into our home, as well, providing after-school snacks and homework help for the children of working parents.

My life, it seemed at the time, revolved around cleaning toilets and changing diapers.  Oh, sure, I had made the choice to stay home to mother my children.  Together we read stories and baked cookies, sang the ABCs with gusto, embarked on sun-splashed walks in search of caterpillars and wildflowers.  But when would I ever have an opportunity to use my business education, my college degree, the skills for which I’d trained?

It was around that time that I met Dr. Sharon Newman Bordine.  Sharon, a science teacher here in Southeastern Michigan, had been selected as part of NASA’s “Teacher In Space” program.  She was a stand-in for Christa McAuliffe.  Had McAuliffe so much as caught a cold in the weeks leading up to the Challenger’s final flight, Sharon Bordine might well have replaced her on the ill-fated voyage.

But McAuliffe walked smiling and waving onto the Challenger that day.  As John Magee wrote in his poem “High Flight,” quoted by President Ronald Reagan after the disaster, she “slipped the surly bonds of earth…and touched the Face of God.” 

And Dr. Sharon Bordine went on to serve as a NASA Space Ambassador, visiting high schools and science classes and generating enthusiasm for space exploration.  Sharon was a local celebrity, visiting the White House, appearing on television and radio to promote the space program. 

But Sharon’s saga of privilege and adventure doesn’t end there.  Sharon told me about how she had met her husband, local nursery owner Bruce Bordine, at church, and how Bruce had proposed to her while they were on a church-sponsored pilgrimage, as they sailed on the Sea of Galilee.

The point/counterpoint was discouraging: 

• SHE:  touring the world, speaking for NASA, and getting engaged in the Holy Land.
• ME:   hand-picking Play-Doh out of the carpet, running the vacuum, and serving up macaroni and cheese on paper plates.

I was…. Well, I felt…. I thought….  Geez, I was jealous as hell!  I mean, I was hardly a world traveler:  I’d been on a few road trips across theUnited States, I’d crossed the Ambassador Bridge to Canada—but that’s about it.  Adventure?  I couldn’t imagine that in my plebeian, suburban life I would ever have a real adventure.

That was then, this is now.  The kids whom I loved half to death grew up and moved away; and what I wouldn’t give to have back those earnest little hands to wash, those breezy days of hugs and giggles and whispered secrets. 

I’ve had some grand adventures.  I’ve flown across the ocean not once, but six times, and I plan to do it again.  I’ve met the Pope and kissed his ring.  When the time was right, I returned to the workforce.  I’ve had a satisfying career, a joy-filled marriage, and a home that’s comfortable if not extravagant.

It’s just too tempting, as you wipe smudged little faces and tackle yet another mountain of dirty dishes, to forget to thank God for those most precious of life’s blessings.  But today, if I could choose one day to live again, one poignant memory to forever hold up to the light, I’d rush to embrace those soft little bodies, begging for just one more goodnight kiss, one more silly song, one more question. 

Being a mother is, after all, the greatest adventure of all.

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I was a high school sophomore when someone told me that in China, aborted fetuses were considered a delicacy.

I thought they were lying. 

I still think they were lying. 

I had seen a spider consume its prey, the hapless insect rolled in a silken web.  I had seen our cat consume the placenta, after giving birth to a litter of kittens.  But we humans—advanced beings made in the image and likeness of God, and upon whose hearts natural law had been inscribed—do not eat other humans. 

Oh, I had read far-fetched adventure stories in which cannibals fired up a big stew pot full of missionaries.  In that rare case, I thought, the imaginary antagonists—deviant and uncivilized—were driven by pokeweed or some jungle elixir to engage in a grotesque religious ritual.  It would never really happen.

But what do I know?  This week Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortley introduced  S.B. 1418, a bill in the Oklahoma legislature that prohibits the manufacture or sale of

“food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”

This would seem to be a completely unnecessary bill.  Surely, NO ONE would ever do this! 

But a stomach-turning 1995 article in the Hong Kong Eastern Express reported on hospitals which routinely sold aborted fetuses as “health food.”

And Shortley’s bill follows on the heels of recent reports that a San Diego-based research and development company, Senomyx, is conducting flavor enhancement research with HEK293, a cell line which has become a staple in biochemistry labs, and which was originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells.  Among Senomyx’s clients are major corporations such as Nestle, Campbell’s Soup, Kraft Foods and PepsiCo, which market common food products such as Pepsi and GatorAde. 

Shortley doesn’t know whether or not human embryos have been used in the state of Oklahoma.  He told Tulsa-based KRMG Radio, “I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma; it may be, or it may not be.  What I am saying is that if it does happen, then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here.”

Hitler’s SS troups did, according to reports, fashion the skin of murdered Jews into lampshades. 

I am reminded of the old radio drama “The Shadow” and its creepy theme:  “What evil lurks in the hearts of man.” 

Lord, have mercy.

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