I’ve written for a variety of publications over the years, and I thought it was time for a catch-all/ catch up post!
Many earlier essays and pieces have gradually been lost to website changes and link breaks (and the infamous and tragic Ramen on the Keyboard Episode of May 2015), but that’s what I get for assuming that the “Internet is Forever” for written content– and not just for grainy Facebook pictures.
Ben kindly found a number of my archived pieces from 2014 on Wayback Machine that I thought were lost forever. Thanks, Ben!
Below you’ll find links for some of my published works that I could piece together from 2014 through the present. (A couple of the links are talks I’ve given rather than published).
October 11, 2022: FaithND Daily Gospel Reflection: FaithND is run by the Notre Dame Alumni Association and sends the daily Gospel, a reflection, and a prayer each morning.
November 29, 2023: Podcast appearance on Curious Spirits. My friend Zoe (hi, Zoe!) is hosting a lovely podcast with topics for young adults and all those curious about Catholicism. Our topic was Prayer with a Young Family
It’s the end of January and a bit late for resolutions of any sort. But I am hoping to write more in 2024, and am starting an online writing workshop this week! May 2024 bring more writing, and may God’s grace abound.
It is 8:14 pm. The room is darkened- but hints of light peek under the bedroom doorway onto the green rug. A bit of Chicago light pollution sneaks through the window blinds. The fan blades whir overhead, and the noise machine muffles some of the traffic sounds.
My four year old daughter’s body is curled next to mine (cuddling, like she says). Her head cozies into my left shoulder, and she tucks the top of her feet under my calf. “Because you’re cozy and warm, my Mama.” She is as safe as I can make her. When strangers or family tell us to hold onto moments from when our children are small, I know they mean moments like these. But I am also keenly aware how fleeting these moments are and how fragile life can be.
Calmly, nonchalantly (and to my ears, sweetly) we quietly sing together the end of what the Catholic tradition calls Night Prayer, from the Liturgy of the Hours. Right now we are praying the Canticle of Simeon, those beautiful words from Luke’s Gospel. We remember the words of a very aged man, glad to meet the infant Savior his heart had longed for his whole life.
”Lord, now you let your servant go in peace, your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation, which you prepare in the sight of every people…. A light to reveal you to the nations….”
I have prayed this Canticle with her since she was a few days old. Even on those earliest nights just home from the hospital, when the total blurriness of sleep deprivation clouded my mind, and the three of us lived surrounded by the milky smell of infancy, we prayed this way together.
And if you aren’t listening carefully, you might miss a critical element. I am praying about death – with my four year old. She does not understand yet, that in addition to the words of Simeon’s Canticle, the accompanying Litany of Saints- where we ask saints and our loved ones who have gone before us to pray for us- entrusts us all to the love of God from now until our last breaths as she enters the unawareness of sleep.
She does not know yet that she might pray these words with me as I die one day (like I did with my mother’s parents, when they lay dying). And this does not sadden me to think of or feel overly morbid – it just seems like a gentle way of forming our family to be people who can bear with one another and love one another in the best moments and in the hardest moments of life. Right now, these prayers form a simple, meaningful nighttime tradition that I cherish. I hope she will feel the same one day.
Together we end the litany of saints, “And may the all- powerful Lord grant us a restful night, and a peaceful death.”
My daughter eventually drifts off to sleep, sheltered in my love and surrounded by the infinite Love I cannot see, but that I hope she always knows.
May love like that bless and keep her always.
Amen.
P.S. I participated in a Spiritual Nonfiction online writing workshop back in January and wrote this piece in that context. I realized I never published it anywhere, so here it is! I probably need to do a long form something or other about Night Prayer one day, because it’s been a foundational spiritual practice for me since college and has been an absolute anchor through both significant life happenings and calmer, more routine nights such as this. P.P.S. If you have publishing connections for pieces like this, let me know – I am working towards more publishing slowly but surely.
Back in November, I wrote a piece for FemCatholic on all of the talk swirling around Eucharistic coherence. Here’s a snippet, and you can find the rest here.
A few weeks ago, you may have seen that President Biden met with Pope Francis in Rome. “We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,” Biden reported to news outlets after the meeting. Among discussions of climate change and coronavirus, Biden’s comment that he should “keep receiving communion” references a debate that’s been happening in Catholic circles about whether he and other Catholics who publicly disagree with Church teachings like abortion should be allowed to receive communion at Mass.
The public debate has surfaced ahead of the fall meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Before the headlines surface, here’s a primer on what’s going on behind all the news about President Biden, the bishops, and the Eucharist.
Because 2020 is … well, 2020, and our dear girl is a champion of sleep resistance, I’ve been desperately wanting to write and yet completely unable to come up with something long-ish that’s coherent. I think in the last 11 months I slept more than four hours in a row …. three times? Sorry, universe shmuniverse, I don’t have the mental capacity for a thoughtfully organized post right now. But because writing, even in a half-assed kind of form is good for my soul, my mental health, and at least sometimes for a balm or gentle edification for others, here goes! I’m going to offer a few short musings/ vignettes on recent happenings; maybe it’s worth something. Edited later to add: Guess what! I didn’t have time for multiple musings. Just one. You get onevignette.
(Moment of self- pep talk. It is worth it, Hope! Even if actually no one reads this, doing what’s “useless” for its own sake is what makes us purely human. Yeah, right! Humph! Don’t even just take my word for it. Josef Pieper will back me up).
But then, traditional wisdom has always understood that there are also human activities that do not serve some other purpose and so are not servile. These are the forms of activities to which everyone, including the working man, is entitled, even as a fundamental right and necessity
Josef Pieper, Art and Contemplation, p. 20
A bit later, he continues:
“What constitutes, here and now, an activity meaningful in itself?…Whenever in reflective and receptive contemplation we touch, even remotely, the core of all things, the hidden, ultimate reason of the living universe, the divine foundation of all that is…. whenever and wherever we thus behold the very essence of reality – there is an activity that is meaningful in itself taking place.”
Josef Pieper, Art and Contemplation, p. 23
Only I could use half of my post space to justify writing said post. Well, humbug to myself. Just gosh-darn muse already, Hope!
Vignette 1: The Incarnation: God has a nose.
There’s not much time in the life of parenthood 2020 style for receptive silence that can receive insight as gift a’la Pieper’s thoughts on contemplation… what does that mean for the souls of parents?!? I’m still adjusting to that. But sometimes in learning the world through our Anne-girl’s eyes, little gifts are given.
The scene is helter-skeleter. The bin of toys with cubed pastel blocks, a variety of funny, fluffy animals, and an already worse-for-the-wear “Mr. Teddy” have been unceremoniously dumped on the floor. The wicker bin for her books is likewise mostly emptied, and the board books are strewn about half of the dining room floor. Where there are no toys or books, there are crumbs: dried up Cheerios, shriveled pieces of broccoli. I swear, we vacuum as often as we can, but … she’s terrified of the vacuum, so that’s not as often as it ought to be!
A few other curious objects are sought out and then left under tables and chairs for objects more deserving of Anne’s attention: Mama’s socks (pulled from an unknown locale), multiple blue Tupperware lids (the best teethers money can buy, apparently) and her baby booties that snap.
Mama Mary has a nose!
She likes to take a small pile of these and throw them around, turning herself in circles crawling, almost like a small dog chasing their tail, but she chases little interesting and soft objects. But this day (and many other days since), none of these objects keep her attention for long. What does?
Two separate items. The first, a small diptych portraying replicas of a stained glass window of Joseph and Mary in one of the hall chapels at the University of Notre Dame. This sits, perched high on our windowsill in the dining room, and Anne loves it beyond all things. If we ask her, “where are Joseph and Mary?” she quickly, insistently, confidently points, “eh!!! eh!!!” and more often than not, she demands with further gesticulations that it be brought down for her inspection.
And when she does, she keeps pointing to Mary and then Joseph’s (or Joseph’s and then Mary’s) noses. She looks up for recognition, as if to say, “See Mama? See Papa? They have noses like you, like me.”
And she does the same thing with our crucifix.
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
The saints have noses. God Himself, who made everything, who loves me and gave of Himself for me, who wants to draw close to me and “abides with us” now… has a nose.
For a reason I can’t remember, I read Corrie ten Boom’s work, “The Hiding Place” somewhere around my freshman year of high school. One scene in her autobiography recalls her sister’s ability to give thanks in all circumstances. She cajolls her sister Corrie into thanking God even for the fleas in the Ravensbruck concentration camp barracks:
“‘Fleas!’ I cried. ‘Betsie, the place is swarming with them!’
“We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle and hedged our way to a patch of light.
“‘Here! And here another one!’ I wailed. ‘Betsie, how can we live in such a place!’……
“‘Corrie!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!’
“I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. ‘It was in First Thessalonians,’ I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen.
“In the feeble light I turned the pages. ‘Here it is: “Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.
“‘Go on,’ said Betsie. ‘That wasn’t all.’
“‘Oh yes:’…”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.'”
“‘That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’ I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room……
“‘Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.’…………….
“‘Thank You,’ Betsie went on serenely, ‘for the fleas and for–‘
“The fleas! This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’
“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.
“And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.”…..
Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place
I can’t say that I’ve been able to put this into practice in my own life – I fall more into the, “why, God? Give me strength, if I have to bear it” category of prayers during times of difficulty. (Ben, the most grateful person I’ve ever known to exist, differs from me in this.)
Relatedly, I’m scared of this winter- more than I’ve ever been, in part because of the removal of some of the coping mechanisms that we’ve had for pandemic life while the weather has been warm. As a child of the Appalachian south I rejoiced in the snow that visited with rare (and disappointing) infrequency. I wore my pajamas inside-out and flushed ice down the toilet as any good Tennessean child would many a time, hoping to see snow on the ground in the cold early morning light and “Knox County, TN” on the list of school closures underneath the news. As an undergraduate in northern Indiana, I excitedly and regularly sent my family snowfall pictures.
But by the time I got to grad school and more formalized “adult life” the cold and the dark and the WIND, my GOSH, the WIND, the cutting knives of WIND of the Midwestern winter pressed heavy on me like an stifling and unhelpful weighted blanket.
This “canticle” is my funny attempt to remember that all of creation gives praise to God by its very existence (theology teacher ETA: not talking about ‘natural evils’ like destructive wildfires and hurricanes). It is my attempt to say that I can bless and thank God for all things. Even the Midwestern winter during Covid. Freaking Covid, freaking 2020, and I won’t even mention what’s happening this coming Tuesday. I can bless the Lord, but it doesn’t mean that I’m always joyful about it yet! Bah!
But the thought of the dark loneliness dragged my soul down
to the chilled mud
Hallowed words rang hollow in my ears, heavy on my tongue
So, wanting to bless, I say an October canticle
Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord
You, afraid of the dark and cold, bless the Lord
You, relentlessly cheerful ones, bless the Lord
You, cold raindrops hanging from the railings
like children on the monkey bars,
Bless the Lord
All you birds flying and fleeing, bless the Lord
You chipmunks and squirrels, gnawing at pumpkins
Bless the Lord
You fire-red and shining yellow October leaves,
Bless the Lord
All you, stuck and lonely, bless the Lord
You fading autumn sun, bless the Lord
Cold fingers wrapped around the stroller handle, bless the Lord
First wet snowflakes, bless the Lord
Praise the Lord, all of His fall creation!
Praise and adore Him above all, forever!
It’s going to be a dark and cold and lonely next four months or so. I hope you find comfort where you can, bless the Lord where you’re able to, and remember this. The gift of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery means that you’re never alone in your suffering and that your suffering can be, is, and will be redeemed by the God who would have created the whole world just to hear you say you loved Him* and who dwells with us even now in a myriad of ways.
(Fall isn’t all bad)
(*apparently what Jesus once said to St. Teresa of Avila)
Yesterday, our little family of three came in from our evening walk through the squeaky back door with the ancient brassy old doorknob that always seems one extra-vigorous shake away from a serious repair job. We removed our shoes, laid them on the square blue rug, and locked up for the night to begin our nine month old daughter’s bedtime routine.
But as she sat on my right hip, our Anne looked directly at my husband Ben, tilted her head to watch him… and she began the most precious Queen-of-England- type wave with her right hand. [She’s nine months old. This is a new thing!!!]
A bit like this 😉
We’ve been doing some little ‘baby signs’ with her, connecting our words with simple actions (hi, eat, drink water, milk, sleep, etc). While we’ve known for a couple months that she can understand what we say or ask by her glances or babbles, this wave was new. It served as her first way of reflecting our motions in a way that made sense to her – communicating back what we have been ‘telling her’ in signs for the last few months.
In that moment, she said and reached out in her own tiny way “Hi Papa, I see you. You see me? Hi!” Ben’s gentle smile reflected delight in seeing her new wave, and he waved back, which brought her joy to the point of giddiness. And her total gladness in communicating in a new way, and her awareness that Ben saw what she was doing — and loved her as she did it– caused me to pause.
Her new ability helped me reflect on a mother’s love for her child and gave me an almost painfully glad gratitude at seeing her grow. Both she and we are enthralled whenever she attempts to communicate with us in the way she now knows. It brought a joy that I am struggling to describe – a very “the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day” kind of moment as a parent.
Happy Fall!
She is still learning to connect the meaning of the greeting with her physical ability to do it, so the sign gets used everywhere at the moment. In her high chair, tired of having blueberries and bell peppers? A frantic, fast, “hi hi hi hi hi hi hi GET ME OUT OF HERE, PLZ!” hand gesture. Waking up from a nap? A smile and the wave. You had the audacity to interrupt her playing for a verboten diaper change? You’ll get a betrayed look and a fast wave. The trees start swaying in the fall breeze, or a neighbor crosses the street with her tiny dog? A slow wave and a grin.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and her writings help me to reflect on this moment of our life with our daughter. St. Therese seems to be one of those saints who keeps tabs on me non-invasively, ready to spend time when I remember she’s there. (Her parents Louis and Zélie are some of our favorite family patrons and I’ve been meaning to read this book with their writings for a couple years now).
Therese and the Hobbits (obviously!)
I first read St. Therese’s autobiography, The Story of a Soul towards the end of high school. At the time I didn’t understand her; her writing struck me as extraordinarily sappy. Her concerns over her (super small and yet dramatic???) faults brought out in me a scrupulous tendency which was often… not helpful for someone prone to anxiety. Still, her reflections sketched out some powerful images that nestled their way into my brain and my developing spirituality. To a younger and less-experienced me Therese signified an appreciation of the good of “being small” in the world’s eyes (both physically, as the shortest-kid-in-the-class/ and in a more symbolic “a small fish in a big pond” type of way).
I found comfort in passages like this:
“You make me think of a little child that is learning to stand but does not yet know how to walk. In his desire to reach the top of the stairs to find his mother, he lifts his little foot to climb the first stair. It is all in vain, and at each renewed effort he falls. Well, be this little child:through the practice of all the virtues, always lift your little foot to mount the staircase of holiness, but do not imagine that you will be able to go up even the first step! No, but the good God does not demand more from you than good will. From the top of the stairs, He looks at you with love. Soon, won over by your useless efforts, He will come down Himself and, taking you in His arms, He will carry you up”
St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul (my emphasis)
Therese, who is now a saint, acting the part of St. Joan of Arc in a play. META SAINT LEVEL
At the time, I took this excerpt and others like it to mean something like, “I’m OK as I am, even if I’m little and a mess and I can’t do much of anything…. God still loves me!” While that is true, it isn’t an adequate understanding of her words because it fails to take into account the laudable (albeit appropriately small) striving towards growth and virtue that Therese emphasized God would see and respond to with a parental, joyful love. Inspired by St. Therese and imagining a link between her and the hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, I later learned through the writing of my senior thesis in college that neither Therese nor Tolkien loved the small merely for being small. Therese called for “the practice of all the virtues” and “lift[ing] your little foot,” reaching out to God insofar as one can. Tolkien’s discusses in many of his letters the theme of”ennoblement” or sanctification of the “the humble” — aka the hobbits — explicitly emphasizing the growth of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin in particular, not just a generic “small hobbits are cute and wonderful as they are” vibe. This emphasis of the work is manifest in a poignant scene where a dismayed Frodo asked why the Ring came to him. Gandalf responds to Frodo’s entreaties,
“Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have”
Between Therese and Tolkien, I learned that I don’t get a free pass in the spiritual life because I’m not sure what God wants to do with lil’ ol’ me. There is virtue [teacher voice: ‘a habitual disposition to do the good’] to be developed here. The lifting of my proverbial foot, the actual striving and actively choosing to love when it is difficult—- the picking up my ‘spiritual hand’ to wave to Him, persevering in prayer even when it doesn’t bring delight or peace that I can sense—matters…. And when I do it, God delights in seeing my tiny signs of growth, as Ben and I delight in our daughter’s new waves, because I’m responding to God’s grace with the abilities I do have.
Perfection consists in doing God’s will… in being what He would have us be.
Yuppers, that’s Therese again.
God sees our striving, anywhere we respond to His grace and turn more towards him. And He will keep smiling at our small efforts, until we find that desiring and doing the good eventually becomes an effortless joy.
“So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in [the Gloria]…. We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you….”
Carpenter (ed.) The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 399-400
My daughter’s efforts at communication, her unbridled joy at her tiny attempts, and my total delight at her efforts remind me: the Father loves me, delights in me, and wants me to actively communicate with him however I can. He loves it when I do so. I needed the reminder through her that the Father responds in joy to me whenever I reach out to Him in love, in the ways I know how, and He will rejoice in the small ways in which I grow.
He will give me the grace to do more than the equivalent of a tiny, stiff wave one day if it’s in accordance with his will. In the meantime, He will love my slow, deliberate waves, pleased that I am lifting my arms toward Him in love and praise in the best way I can.
“If only they have the will to walk, He is pleased with their stumbles” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters).
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a dear friend about how our families are coping during this pandemic. Our (text-based) conversation started with her saying something like this: “I feel bad about it, but right now I just feel so angry and PISSED at God for letting this pandemic happen.1 I’m absolutely miserable…”
My immediate reaction was to give her a big hug and tell her that I understood and that this truly feels impossible at times; we are communal beings made for relationship, not for isolation. Social distancing is necessary to protect the vulnerable, but it’s excruciating in many ways. I wanted to climb down in the pit with her, but there’s no hope of doing so in person right now because of the reality of our situation.
Instead, after empathizing, I offered a little advice from my days of theology coursework and my experience as a theology teacher. That expanded advice led to this piece.
The main takeaway from our conversation is this: It is OK to be angry with God, because prayer is a living relationship. God would rather you be honest about where you are than hide what you’re going through. Furthermore, the biblical tradition (and the saints who follow it!) is full of saints, patriarchs, heroes, and women and men who, through the course of trials in their lives, expressed their anger and desperate need to God……….
You can read the rest of it here on FemCatholic and learn more about FemCatholic’s mission here.
[Cue decision paralysis, a fear of not having anything worth saying, grad school, engagement, moving to Chicago, teaching high school theology, getting MARRIED, a pandemic, having a BABY, and leaving teaching for the time being. All the while, gentle but unrelenting encouragement from my dad, my husband, and my friends nudged me back toward writing. Well, mostly gentle. My dad was pretty straightforward. Good work, Papa.]
Some disclaimers should be made: this blog definitely won’t be the best- edited blog you have ever read. I don’t know who will read it besides my husband and dad (and me obsessively as I edit posts #perfectionist). I overthink nearly everything and wonder how it will be received out of some intertwined combination of anxiety and pride; this hampers my writing speed.
I am verbose.
But, all caveats aside, in the midst of so many life changes and challenges, I am coming back to writing in the hopes that it will both ground me and serve as something beautiful for God, becoming a source of encouragement for all of you.
That leads me to the name and background inspiration: Our Sacrifice of Praise. Have you ever heard the song, “Oh God Beyond All Praising?” (If you haven’t, you should)
Here’s the last verse:
Then hear, O gracious Saviour, accept the love we bring, that we who know your favour may serve you as our king; and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill, we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still: to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways, and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise.
(We chose O God Beyond All Praising for the recessional hymn at our wedding!)
The entire verse declares my hope for this blog. Writing has, at various points of life, been something that has been both a gift for me and it seems that my writing has helped others. My primary way of loving right now (my vocation, how God has called out to me and how I serve Him in the lives of those around me) is supposed to be through the joys and crosses of life in marriage and parenthood. For a while, teaching deservedly filled the spot in my heart for a secondary vocation – another calling from God, though done at the service of my family. Now … well, now I’m not teaching, for the time being. Writing has called out again like a siren. I am hopeful that writing and online community will take some of that love that I poured into teaching.
Please, Lord, accept the love I bring!
We too often think of sacrifice with negative connotations, but Scripture and the Tradition give us a more rich understanding than an elementary gave-up-candy-for-Lent spirit. Psalm 51 speaks of the sinner’s sacrifice as a “humble and contrite heart.” Jesus preaches about how the widow’s two small coins are more valued because she is offering all that she has, rather than from her extra wealth (Luke 21). All over the Tradition (a topic for a later post, maybe!) we learn that one way of sacrifice is to offer to God what we have – what we are doing, who we are helping, how we are loving right now. (I’m thinking of Mother Teresa and Therese of Lisieux both, here)
“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love”
Therese of Lisieux
So my “sacrifice of praise,” is offering God what I have while giving thanks for it; this can be my “joyful duty” — living out how God asks me to serve on a daily and hourly (11:45 pm.. 2 am… 3:14 am…4:45 am… when will this sleep regression stop, Dear Daughter?). And writing is a soul-nourishing joy for me; I hope that whatever is written on this blog may be for His service.
Finally, what re-introduction to the world of writing would be complete from moi without a proper “Lord of the Rings” reference? As I’ve encountered seasons and times of transition in life, I often step into the next chapter with this particular scene from “The Return of the King” in mind. Peregrine (Pippin) Took has been dashed away by Gandalf on the back of Shadowfax and has now arrived at the court of Denethor, the steward of Gondor, having made some pretty idiotic decisions which need not be mentioned here. Pippin is, rightly, forbidden to speak by Gandalf before entering the halls. Because he cannot keep his mouth shut and is foolhardy (he is, after all, a Took), but also because he has some sense of what has been lost, he steps forward to Denethor and offers “his service, such as it is” in “payment” of the debt of his life that he owes Denethor, as Boromir his son died defending Pippin and his friend Merry (who themselves were defending Frodo, but I digress). Although Denethor is the *W*O*R*S*T kind of lord imaginable to swear fealty to and this action has a whole host of consequences, the simple beauty of the offering stands. This is Pippin’s service, “such as it is.” It is not a life-for-a-life; it is more like the debtor in the Gospel who could not even begin to hope to pay back his debt and whose debt is then forgiven than anything else.
“I offer you my service, such as it is – in payment of this debt.”
Accept Lord, my offering of my writing (which shares my heart, which is what You say You want, anyway) in payment of this debt – of my life, of my dreams, of the people and love you have shown to me.
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.
I’m Hope – a wife and mom, a perpetual student of theology and a teacher- turned – campus minister and writer. This (dated) picture clearly cropped out my friend Emily. (Sorry, Emily! Photo credit to Emily’s mom, Cathy!)
I began “Our Sacrifice of Praise” to share Catholic thought on living lives of faith in the midst of this beautiful and bonkers world. You’ll find my musings here spanning vocation, music, liturgy, literature, sacramental life and historical theology — all mixed in with stories and anecdotes about how I hope God is at work in the world and in my family.
I hope that you will share yourself with me, so that together we can offer our life’s “sacrifice of praise” to God in all the seasons of life.
*shrugs and inserts Parks and Rec and Lord of the Rings memes*
Our Sacrifice Of Praise 