From the Boston Catholic Women's Conference

I am writing this from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Leah Darrow is speaking right now, talking about her experiences on America's Next Top Model. She's interesting, but the person I can't wait to hear is Patty Mansfield, who is speaking next.

Two years ago, Patty spoke at this conference, and her talk about the beginning of the Catholic charismatic movement had a profound impact on me. I won't tell her story here, because you really should buy her book, "As on a New Pentacost," and read her telling of it. But the piece which I took home was that when they were preparing to go on retreat, their priest had them all praying the Veni Creator Spiritus prayer.

At the time, I was in the middle of praying a rosary novena to help me discern what God wanted for me, specifically regarding Matt. I knew I loved him, but he was in the seminary, and the situation seemed hopeless. So I decided to pray that God change my heart, or change the situation, or give me the grace to endure it, and I knew that if nothing had changed by the end of the novena then I would have to find some way to stop being friends with Matt without hurting him. The novena was 27 days of petition and 27 days of thanksgiving, and I had gotten to the thanksgiving portion of it, nothing seemed to be changing, and I was sick thinking that I would have to stop being friends with him. So after hearing Patty speak, I decided to begin praying the Veni Creator Spiritus prayer whenever I began to feel afraid that God would answer the prayer by saying no.

That was on April 18, 2008. On May 2, 2009 - 2 weeks later, and exactly on the last day of the novena - Matt told me that he loved me completely and couldn't imagine not spending every day with me. Now, I'm not saying that the prayer was like some kind of magical incantation which made this happen. But I also know that these prayers were effective. I know that God worked in both of our lives through these prayers and the prayers that Matt prayed at the same time.

So Patty's talk is titled "To Jesus, through Mary." I can't wait to find out what she has to say.

Saying Yes

This week is the parish mission at Ste. Marie's. Since the music group was playing music on the first night, I was there and was able to hear the main talk from Sr. Ann Shields, and I've been thinking a lot about what she had to say.

Her talk on Sunday night was based on the first chapter of second Corinthians, when Paul says:
Do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, "Yes, yes" and "No, no"? But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. Sr. Ann was talking about how we need to learn to say "yes" to God in all things. Sometimes that means saying yes to something which is difficult, and sometimes that means simply saying yes to being holy when we are tempted to sin.

Many years ago, I had a conversation with a very good friend who told me that in a time in her life when she was struggling with something, a priest she knew advised her to spend an entire week saying "Yes, Lord." Yes to anything and everything that a person would normally want to say no about. Getting up when the alarm goes off, getting stuck in traffic, the person who was difficult to deal with, work, etc. He told her that she shouldn't have a discussion with God about it (I'm not happyabout this for these 8 reasons, but I'll do what you say), nor a negotiation (Okay, I'll say yes to you on this, but you know you owe me on that, right?). It should simply be, "Yes, Lord."

That has stuck with me over the years, and there have been times when I have come back to that advice in my own life. A few years ago when I was very lonely and absolutely terrified that I would spend my life alone, I was taking a walk at work during lunch, and talking to God about it. It suddenly occured to me that being single was something I needed to say "Yes, Lord," about. "Yes, Lord, if you want me to be single, then I will trust you and I know it will be okay. If that is your plan for me, then yes." Of course, my conversation wasn't entirely that. It was over the course of several prayers, and most of them consisted of me saying "I don't want to!" But finally after many months, I came to the conclusion that I really did need to say "Yes, Lord."

The thing is, it wasn't like a magic spell. I wasn't suddenly not lonely, and I didn't lose the desire to be married. But it was... something. I didn't even realize it had changed in me until a long time later, when another friend made a comment about me being alone and she was trying to be sensitive to me about it, and I surprised her and myself by saying "I am fine with it. I have been fine with it for a while." And I really was. It seems odd to say that I was okay with being lonely, but that was how it was.

Sr. Ann, in her talk, said that God gives us all kinds of opportunities in our lives to say yes to him, and those opportunities are times for us to practice saying yes to the bigger things he might be calling us to. She spoke of a priest who was in jail, who had been tortured and beaten and was near death. One night a man was thrown in the cell who had been a guard in the prison, the same man who had done the torturing and beating. The man was crying, saying that no one, not even God, could forgive him for everything he'd done. The priest called for someone to bring him over to the man, and he said to him "God forgives you, because I forgive you, and I will hear your confession." Both men died that night. "You don't say yes to something like that if you haven't been in training for it for a very long time," Sr. Ann said.

So, this Lent, I am looking for ways to say yes. I don't know to what, or who, God will call me to say yes to, but I will be looking for it. Because I guess I've been out of training for a while. And I don't want to find myself unable to say yes to whatever God has planned.

Short, but worth it

So Matt's working on designing the cover for the new album for covenant. This weekend, Bill commented that he doesn't want a "typical Christian music" cover, and Matt wasn't sure what that means. I googled this morning, looking for some examples, and came across this. Holy crap. I mean, holy CRAP. If you don't look at any of the rest, you must look at #37.

Actually blog posting tonight, I hope. But I had to share that.

In Pursuit of Banana Bread

Matt loves banana bread. It's one of his favorite foods (along with eggs bendict and buffalo chicken wings), but I haven't been able to find a really good banana bread recipe, so I usually will cop out and make it from the Betty Crocker mix.

A few weeks ago we had taken home some leftover bananas from Israel's baptism, and I came across a recipe for buttermilk banana bread in a spice catalogue I received in the mail. So I decided to give the homemade banana bread idea another try. Unfortunately, the first attempt was an epic fail. There must have been a misprint in the recipe, either a misprint in amount or in baking soda vs. baking powder, because the overwhelming flavor of the bread was not banana, but rather baking soda. Ick.

But that got me going again, and so I began searching for recipes in the various cooking blogs I read. I found this one on smitten kitchen and like the blogger, I loved the fact that it required very little mixing. I didn't even have to uncover the mixer, but just beat it all together with a wooden spoon. Easy. I also tweaked it a little. I didn't have any bourbon, but I did have Irish whiskey, so I substituted that, and since Matt is a fan of nuts in his banana bread, I added 3/4 of a cup of chopped pecans as well. I also had 5 overripe bananas, and his usual complaint is that it's not banana-y enough for him, so I used all of them.

This baked up incredibly moist and delicious. Almost too moist, and very banana-y, so I think the next time I make it, I'll reduce the banana count to 4. We had it for dinner one night this week along with some homemade turkey and rice soup. It was my compromise, since Matt doesn't think soup should count as an actual meal, and I could eat soup every day (and often do for lunch) and be happy.

Cathy & Matt's Wedding

Even though he was feeling terrible, Matt made it to his cousin's wedding on Saturday. Cathy and Matt have been together for a while, and have three kids together. Not only did they get married, but they also had their youngest son baptized. The chapel at St. Joe's is so very beautiful, so much like the small chapels in Italy. It is wonderful in every way, except that the lighting is pretty low. Yet more proof that I need a tripod and a better flash, right?

Down with the Sickness

Matt has had some kind of stomach flu for the past few days. I should have seen it coming; he has been tired all week, having no opinion on what to eat for dinner, telling me I could play whatever game I wanted and falling asleep on the couch around 9. So the actual being sick part started Thursday and he tried to go to work yesterday but only made it a few hours before he gave in and asked his boss to let him go home. And I'm such a hypochondriac that every twinge, burp or stomach growl was carefully considered to see if I was getting sick, too. I wasn't. Today we have his cousin's wedding and he's still in bed right now, and when I asked him how he was feeling, he moaned and pulled the covers over his head. Then again, that might have simply been healthy Matt not wanting to get out of bed. We have a few more hours before the wedding, so we'll see.

It's kind of boring when he's sick. A lot of the stuff we do in the evenings we do together, whether it's playing games or watching a movie, or evening the annoying stuff like cleaning and other chores. When he doesn't want to do anything, it feels kind of odd for me to go do stuff, like I'm being callous and not taking care of him. Not that I could do anything to make him feel better, but still. This morning I got up at 8 and I had been planning on making breakfast (we haven't had a good home breakfast in a few weeks) but he's too sick for anything big. So I ate cereal and have been checking out prices on warming filters and looking for better banana bread recipes. FYI, Kashi's Honey Sunshine cereal looks like Cap'n Crunch but tasts like Honeycomb.

Tonight, regardless of how he's feeling, I have work to do. We're hosting a superbowl party, so there's plenty of cleaning and cooking to do to get ready for that. And I'm not a big football fan, so I'm planning on working on some crafty stuff for the games for our youth group night next week. It's on dating, and some of the kids came over last Sunday to shoot videos for the evening. We also need to edit them and we really have no idea what we're doing when it comes to using the editing program. So I'm going to have to try to figure that out.

Footsteps upstairs. Someone's out of bed. Hopefully feeling little better.