This year I spent Mother’s Day away from home, without spending any time with my sons and their families. I had been sick for several weeks and my husband thought a few days away at the shore would give me time to rest.

The hotel was lovely, as was the ocean view.  Still, I was feeling sad about missing my family. Then we went to eat lunch in the hotel restaurant .

An elderly woman, probably in her 80s, came into the restaurant where the waitress greeted her as if they were friends, asking her if she had a good winter.

The older woman replied, “Well, not really, but we have to deal with things as they come, don’t we.”

She went on to explain that her daughter had become very ill with cancer during the winter and had died. The waitress was stunned, and unsure about how to respond, asked, “She wasn’t your only child was she?”

The woman, now seated with a young man, shared that she lost her only other child, a son, two years ago. He had a heart attack at the age of 63.

Now I was stunned. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing one child let alone both children, and within such a short period of time. How did she cope? How was she sitting here getting ready to have a Mother’s Day lunch?

A moment later the gray-haired woman smiled at the waitress and said, ”I’m just so grateful to be here with my nephew, and for my four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.”

I felt myself getting choked up, but I was starting to understand.

Later that evening, when we went for dinner, my husband struck up a conversation with our waitress and discovered that she was the single mom of three children, ages nine, seven and two. She was spending mother’s day working her second job at the restaurant.

“It’s been hard,” she said, “but I was so happy to get this job. My kids are having a hard time adjusting to not seeing me but I explain to them it’s not a forever
thing.  The extra money gives me, and them, security for the things we need. I’m very grateful to have been hired.”

There it was again, the one thing that seemed to make the impossible, possible – gratitude – a powerful state of mind that serves as a wellspring for strength, persistence, positivity and growth. Rather than live in their pain and their struggles, these two women made the decision to live in a state of gratitude.

Of course, there is always a need to first work through our grief, our anger, our pain when we are suffering, but eventually there comes a time when we must move forward. Sometimes our losses are so traumatic that we need the support of professionals or others who have been through a similar experience. But, when we find ourselves healing, choosing to live in gratitude can be an important step in reclaiming a life of hope and meaning.

Priest and author, Father Henri Nouwen, explains that gratitude is not as much a decision as a discipline: “The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. Because every gift I acknowledge reveals another and another until, finally, even the most normal, obvious and seemingly mundane event or encounter proves to be filled with grace.

“There is an Estonian proverb that says: ‘Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.’ Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal that all is grace.”

In my lifetime as a Catholic, and particularly as a Catholic writer and journalist, I have been called a lot of things.

Often I am charged with being a bleeding heart liberal, other times a right-wing conservative. I’ve been called a heretic, a Jesus freak and a Church lady.  I’ve been accused of having delicate sensibilities, while others have charged me with being outspoken and ideologically aggressive.

I guess I am either living my life as a pendulum, or I suffer from schizophrenia.

Or maybe it’s just that for me, my faith in God and my attempts to live what Jesus taught is not a political issue or a social ideology. It is a way of life that transcends all attempts at definition.

The reality is, I do not belong to the left or the right. I belong to Christ.

The heart of my faith rests in a God who created all things, especially humanity, with love and for a purpose, and integrated all things into an interdependent whole.

In this world which God created, all life is sacred, and we are called to care for and respect the life of the world that harbors us.

I am pro-life, from the moment of conception until natural death, but I believe that education, not legislation, is our greatest weapon against abortion.  I also believe that one does not have to exclude the other.

It seems obvious to me that if we poison and adulterate God’s creation, our anti-abortion, pro-life efforts are for naught. How will new life, or any life, survive on a planet that we have destroyed?

Personally, I am grateful for the teachings of Pope Francis who, in this harsh and divisive world, is attempting to renew our understanding of the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of Love.  I was deeply encouraged to read his words to the American bishops in 2015 when he spoke about the challenging issues of our time. His words speak to the laity, as well:

“Ever present within each [challenge] is life as gift and responsibility. The future freedom and dignity of our societies depends on how we face these challenges.

The innocent victim of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants who drown in the search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden, the victims of terrorism, wars, violence and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards but not masters. It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent.”

Being a Christian is not easy. It is not a warm and fuzzy, feel good faith that allows us to be armchair commentators. We are called to thought, to prayer, and then to action, which is why we often hear that faith is a verb. It is why so many of our saints are also martyrs.

As we head into the Lenten season, and prepare for Easter by examining our relationship with God and our journey on the way of Christ, Pope Francis’ words to his brother bishops can serve as an opportunity for our introspection, as well:

“I trust completely in the voice of the One who ‘teaches all things’ (Jn 14:26). Allow me only, in the freedom of love, to speak to you as a brother among brothers. I have no wish to tell you what to do, because we all know what it is that the Lord asks of us. Instead, I would turn once again to the demanding task – ancient yet never new – of seeking out the paths we need to take and the spirit with which we need to work.”

“Each year, Lent offers us a providential opportunity to deepen the meaning and value of our Christian lives, and it stimulates us to rediscover the mercy of God so that we, in turn, become more merciful toward our brothers and sisters.”  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

 

As I sat down to order breakfast in our local diner, I remembered a time years ago having dinner here with friends we hadn't seen in a long time. They ordered
their perfect meal from the senior menu, but when I attempted to do the same, I was looked at with furrowed brow by the server. “M’am, you have to be a
senior to order from this menu.”

I proudly pulled my license from my pocket and said, “Here’s my proof.”

The young man tried to hide a snicker, “Fifty-five is not a senior in this restaurant,” and proceeded to turn the menu over so I could order something else, something more costly.

“Well, it is by AARP standards,” I muttered under my breath.

Who would have thought I’d be at a place where I was proud to be 55 years old?

It’s not the case for many my age or older who often feel a terrible competition from the younger generation.

I think many of us seniors would benefit from having a fairy godmother of our own, perhaps an older version of Cinderella’s, a little bent here and there, with a few brown spots and definitely a knee problem. She would, unashamedly, wear purple dresses and red hats and eat ice cream sundaes when everyone else is eating sherbet. Children, especially, would love to be around her because she would be REAL, authentically herself, and fully aware of the hard earned wisdom she had to share with others.

And rather than appear when we need help finding our Prince or Princess Charming, she would appear to us senior folks when we focus too much on how good we used to look or feel, or how we never accomplished our dreams or maybe even, now, feeling that we have no purpose in life.

It’s then that our fairy godmother would do one of those, Cher “snap out of it!” routines, and remind us in no uncertain terms that we are “all that” and more, especially when it comes to having a purpose in the lives of our families, and especially, in the life of our Church.

My 25 years of work in religious education has shown me that, in many ways, our children are hurting and our families are hurting, and in that hurt they need their faith. But, for many families, faith and religion receives just a tiny portion of their attention, if any at all.

So what happens to our children? What legacy is being left to them and their relationship with God and the Catholic family to which they belong? There is a real disconnect for them, a loss of their sense of roots and an emptiness that comes from a lack of tradition and ritual.

How are they to come to know God, to learn to love God and to learn to love an imperfect Church without someone to guide them?

I believe that seniors are integral part of the solution. Seniors are the elders of the Church, the wise ones, the people who must share their story with the younger generation so they may share the story with their children, keeping the cycle of faith and love alive and well in the American Church and in their homes, as well.

Mary was such an elder, one who guided, sustained and comforted the faithful of her time by her presence and holy examples. She must be our example, too.

Children may be the future of the church but without elders guiding them through the present with our witness and our wisdom, the future will continue to look bleak, especially the future of the Church as we know it.

As ancient cultures knew well, the special gift of elders is not is knowing everything but in being able to tell the stories – whether it is the story of your family or the story of the parish, the stories that have happened over the many years of our lives, leaving us with gray hairs and wrinkles and bad knees and worse eyesight, or most importantly, the story of our faith. There is wisdom in these stories and that places seniors among the greatest treasure our parish families have.

Tell the story of your Catholic faith to a child today. You can give them no greater gift.

Inevitably, while sitting at my computer trying to write, e-mail notifications distract me. 

“Let me just respond to these few,” I think, because, of course, they’re important. Behind me, the phone rings every few minutes, some calls I take, some I let go to voice mail, certain to store them in my mental “things to be concerned about” file.

Today, a new bounty of mail sits on my desk, added to the pile from the past week or so that is screaming to be opened.  As I answer the phone, a letter from the tax attorney catches my eye and I decide it’s best to take a peak.  After a minute of reading and sighs, I realize there is no longer any sound on the other end of the line.  My caller has been waiting for more than a few seconds for me to respond to her question, which I never heard because I was distracted; a case of being so busy nothing gets done.

And my writing? Now I need to reboot the entire process because in multitasking I lost valuable time and energy on my most important project. Besides, it will have to wait until I return from the supermarket and finish cleaning the house because my grandchildren will be here bright and early tomorrow morning.  And then there’s that on-line class I’m facilitating tonight.

Suddenly I am thinking of Dr. Seuss and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

Bartholomew is young boy who wears a plain red hat and lives in a hut on the edge of a cranberry bog. His family lives in the Kingdom of Didd. When mighty King Derwin comes to town and expects all the townspeople to take off their hats as a sign of respect, Bartholomew runs into a problem. Every time he removes his hat a new one appears on his head. Will he ever be hatless?

It’s a question to which many of us can relate, including the 16^th century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila who I am happy to have as my patron saint. Now here was a multitasker and wearer of many hats.

Teresa’s childhood desire was to follow in the footsteps of the martyrs, but fortunately her life unfolded according to God’s plan. She became a mystic, a writer, a poet, a bold religious reformer and businesswomen, and the foundress of the Discalced Carmelite order. She continually had to dodge the inquisition as she strove to do God’s work, frequently wore the hat of a politician to get what was needed for her order, her nuns and priests, and eventually became the first woman to be declared a doctor of the Church.

Though she originally desired only to establish a monastery for contemplative prayer, this passionate saint with a keen sense of humor eventually traveled thousands of miles of poor roads across Spain and Portugal by curtained carriage or mule carts, to found 17 monasteries for nuns, and with St. John of the Cross, two for friars. She also composed a body of mystical literature that continues to inspire and strengthen the faithful worldwide.

As a tireless fighter for her faith and her God, her life was a whirlwind of responsibilities, and while the rule in her Carmelite monasteries was one of discipline, intense prayer and work, in solitude and community, she wisely recognized that such effort needed to be balanced by recreation.

St. Teresa was so convinced of the value of rest and enjoyment she wrote it into her rule, requiring her nuns to take two recreation breaks a day. Joy was a hallmark for her, and she lived that joy, often singing and dancing for convent occasions and sharing her talents with the castanets, drums and tambourine,   In fact, the image of St. Teresa with a tambourine was written into a beautiful icon by Franciscan Brother Robert Lentz, and is a wonderful tool for meditation.

In her spiritual memoirs, St. Teresa offers some invaluable advice to those of us who sometimes struggle with many hats and many tasks, while our spiritual lives, and our joy, flounder in our busyness: “I am amazed by how much can be accomplished on this path by being bold and striving for great things. Even if a soul is not quite strong enough yet, she can still lift off and take flight. She can soar to great heights. But like a fledgling bird, she may tire herself out and need to perch for a while."

Near the end of the beloved Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” the cold heart of Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed and he exclaims, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

That was London in 1843 and Dickens was writing about making Christmas something joyful for those in need.

In 21st century America, we are faced with the consumptive Christmas, crafted by marketers and advertisers for the sake of business profits. To be effective it must keep the focus of Christmas on us. Sadly, it works.

For nearly three months we are assaulted by the “Christmas is coming” frenzy that eats away at what should be a  peaceful, reflective Advent, and imbues our Christmas with a compulsion to spend money we don’t have on things no one needs.  

I saw it for the first time this season in mid-October. Two women in the local toy store were pushing around several baskets filled to overflowing.  I thought they were store employees restocking the shelves.

But when I got to the check-out, they were at customer service with six shopping carts piled high with toys. My daughter-in-law engaged them in conversation and learned they were Christmas shopping – for two children age three and five.

“You’re buying all those gifts for just two little boys?” I asked.

The grandmother assured me that was the case, and there was more to come.

Our faith assures us it is love, not presents, that makes Christmas the season of more.  But over the years, Christmas has become the season of consumption, buying more gifts, spending more money and running ourselves ragged attending to the superficial trappings of a “perfect” Christmas.

All of this adds to stress and frustration, and, often, to the sadness and depression many already feel at having to navigate a season of joy when they are impoverished, sick, grieving, or alone.

Faced with an ever expanding commercial Christmas, how can we ignite the true spirit of Christmas in our hearts, and “keep it all the year”?

First, we can take a lesson from Santa and keep a tight hold on the Christmas reigns.  He knows how fast joyful gift-giving can deteriorate into chaos if he lets Rudolf and the rest run wild through the sky.

For us, keeping control of our Christmas doesn’t mean giving up our love of all things Christmas – twinkling lights, a beautifully decorated tree, gift giving or even Santa – but it does mean scaling back and prioritizing.

Most importantly, it means refocusing on the Christ-child and the Holy Family. Their Christmas story should be our Christmas story – a story of saying yes to God, of humility, gratitude and love.

Our Christmas spirit is wrapped up in swaddling clothes. Like Mary, we need to keep the story of the Nativity in our hearts and reflect on it throughout the year.

Pope Francis has said, “In switching on the light of the Nativity scene, we wish for the light of Christ to be in us. A Christmas without light is not Christmas. Let there be light in the soul, in the heart; let there be forgiveness to others; let there be no hostilities, which are dark. Let there be the beautiful light of Jesus. This is my wish for all of you, when you turn on the light of the crib.”

We can keep that light burning throughout the year by celebrating Mass and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. We can also be the light of Christ by serving others.  Whether we help one or many, service can lift us out of ourselves and our own pain. And as we move into the New Year, we can remember the Magi, making our resolutions as gifts to the Christ child.

Of course, we are people moved by our senses, so I’ll admit I cheat a bit. I have a small pine tree next to my front door and keep it lit all year round with little white lights. Visitors are often surprised by the aroma of balsam in the middle of the summer. And since I spend a great deal of time in my car, I listen to the words of a beautiful hymn:  “More love, more love, the heavens are blessing, the angels are calling, O Zion, more love …”