Blog

Catholicism, Faith, Holiness, Love

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Pray For Us!

Carrie Sue Barnes

Today marks the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa, known now as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as she has been beatified on her way to sainthood in the Church. I probably don’t need to say much on why she matters, why it is good to reflect on her life, or how she has influenced the Church, the missionary world, and countless individuals lives, whether directly or indirectly. I will say that there has grown in me a deep appreciation of and desire to emulate Mother Teresa’s one on one approach to the suffering, injustice and needs of this world. I’m not good with politics, with worldwide issues or global plans. They overwhelm me and I am left feeling helpless and ignorant. This often makes me think I am doing far too little for the good of my fellow human beings (and this is true enough) and that I am not capable of doing much at all (and this is not true at all). It is Mother Teresa’s approach that teaches me there will always be ways I can build up the good of this world. Each individual person I encounter presents me with an opportunity to love and serve, to edify and encourage. None should be skipped over; none should be dismissed. The range of actions that can be taken is truly expansive, from the simplest and momentary to the sacrificial and lasting.

May I always remember to love the person, every person, God allows me to encounter. May I not be too preoccupied to recognize a need in another. May I hold a joy in my heart so permament and abundant that it will consistently reach whomever I meet. May I acknowledge that all I have has been given by God and if He asks me to give of it to others, may I willingly and cheerfully do so.

A few words from Blessed Teresa of Calcutta…

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

Like Jesus we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing. Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.
Love, Personal Reflection

Lunching

Carrie Sue Barnes

For the past five years I’ve maintained the habit of eating my lunch at home alone. The office being a three to five minute drive from my house, depending on green lights, this has been a completely reasonable option for me. I’ve savored the time by myself, interrupting the workday with an hour to myself, maybe with some productivity or simply some relaxation. I’ve always been someone who needs a bit of time to myself here and there, so these at home lunches have served me well.

No more. Matt and I work in the same office. Our relationship began with lunch dates. We’ve now reached the point of only an occasional lunch apart from each other. The way I used to crave that hour alone and miss it if I had to skip it more than once a week, the same can now be said of lunches with Matt. Today I opted to have a long overdue lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in several months. Delightful as it was to catch up and spend an hour enjoying conversation with that friend, in the back of my mind was the constant awareness of missing Matt at my side.

It’s a simple little thing, this shift in my lunching preference. Maybe you’re rolling your eyes over it or perhaps you think it’s sweet. What’s the point of sharing this tidbit with you? I guess it has me thinking about the changes wrought in my life over the last three months. Three months… it doesn’t seem long enough in the scheme of things to achieve such marked changes in a person’s day to day life. As are so many aspects of life lately, this is just another reminder of how capable God is of taking us by surprise as He works out His plans in our lives – especially if we are carrying around expectations, as I know I have done so very much of the time.

Photography

For the Beauty of the Earth

Carrie Sue Barnes

Our excursion to Marinette County, or a bit of the county. These are only 4 of the 15 parks on the ‘waterfall tour.’ A delightful day in every sense of the word…

We began at Veteran’s Falls with a picnic and some traipsing around the water.
Next we drove to McClintock Park. I fell head over heels for this park. Not a waterfall site but a series of wooden bridges over the beautiful river and trails through the forest.
A rocky, steep trail leads from the parking area to Eighteen Foot Falls.
Along the way is one of the coolest tree stumps around.
The day was wrapped up with some traversing of rocks and trails at Dave’s Falls.

Writing

Drama Queen, I Am Not

Carrie Sue Barnes

A significant aspect of the revisions needed on Full of Days before I submit it to more publishers is the story of one of the main characters, Aillinn. She is a main character but her story lacks the richness of a main character – it fits too snugly into the shadow of the other main character’s story. So it must be changed… added to… enhanced. And how will this be possible? Greater character development, sure; digging deeper into the personality and experiences of the character as she interacts with others, yes; more tangible and captivating descriptions than are currently written of her, certainly. But besides these, key to this task is the addition of more drama. Struggle, disappointment, difficulty, dilemma, crisis, mistakes, recovery – more drama… That shouldn’t be too difficult for a fiction writer. Right? Um, right.

Dare I admit that I have a strong distaste for creating more drama in these people’s lives? They’re fictional! They are not real! The drama is not real! Yes, but I know these people inside and out, fictional or not. I hate creating drama in real life and I am living real life while I’m writing so this translates into a bit of a struggle. I am brainstorming over what to add to Aillinn’s life, what circumstances to create for her to have a richer, more significant story. Each idea that presents itself is accompanied by a hesitation. “I don’t want to do that to her!” Or, “that might be too dramatic.” It’s hard to sort out the thoughts to know which to heed and which to ignore.

“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” (Arthur Golden) It is this which I believe I did accomplish in Annie, the other main character of Full of Days. It is this which I am attempting to do for Aillinn.

Intentionality, Simplifying

Taking the Ordinary Time

Carrie Sue Barnes

The walk I took yesterday morning deserves its own blog post. It was that lovely. However, it’s loveliness put me in the right frame of mind for other thoughts and I won’t restrict myself to the walk itself. Over the weekend I visited my brother and his family in western Michigan. Their home is situated on a country road in a hollow surrounded by hundreds of acres of cornfields and century old pines, maples and oaks. The setting is impossibly and inherently nostalgic. Having attended Mass the evening before, I took advantage of the quietness of Sunday morning by sneaking out for a walk before anyone else in the house stirred. It was early enough for the dew to still soak the leaves of every plant in existence but late enough for the sun to be halfway to its full height and heat. The picture above is not one I took on this walk but might well have been. The sunlight poured through trees tall and old enough to pass as Ents and it draped the surface of vast cornfields in yellow splendor. I set my iPod to shuffle through five Matt Maher albums and trekked over the broken concrete of the old roads for an hour.

Upon my return I tried to capture for myself why this walk was so gloriously refreshing. I hadn’t taken a solitary, early morning walk in a few months… maybe I was rediscovering something I’d forgotten I love. The exercise was edifying… but it isn’t as if I’d been motionless in the previous days – hours had been passed in the backyard pool with my nephews and niece. As I wondered over it, my mind drifted to thoughts of the coming week. I searched my brain for what I had scheduled in the days and nights. What would fill my evenings? Anything significant happening at work? Events to attend or people to see? I came up with nothing. Nothing. A possible dinner with friends passing through on Monday evening, but that was only tentative. Relief settled over my skin like a cool sheet on a humid night and I smiled over my discovery.

What was particularly extraordinary about my walk that morning was that it was ordinary. It was an ordinary thing to do – taking a walk – but because I had the time and the energy and the uncluttered mind for it, it had the potential to be extraordinary. Suddenly I could look forward to this week with great delight. Having time to do ordinary things could be counted as extraordinary because of how seldom it is the case. All the things I’ve been thinking I ought to take time to do, in the next weeks I might actually have the time to take for some of them. Time for the taking – now that’s worth a smile and a sigh.

Catholicism, Faith, Hope, Jesus, Love, Scripture

The Fundamental Decision

Carrie Sue Barnes

(originally written for/printed in “The Bells of St. Mary” parish newsletter)

If questioned on what it means to call yourself a Christian, how might you respond? Do any of the responses that come to mind reach to the heart of what it means to live under the title of Christian?

Pope Benedict XVI looks to the disciple, John, for an answer: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16). This, our pope states, is “a kind of summary of the Christian life.” Indeed, coming to this belief in God’s love is the “fundamental decision” of the Christian’s entire life. Caught up in the ways of the world and settling for rote prayers and surface-only principles, many men and women carry the title of Christian their whole lives without facing this decision. But for those who do face it, this decision brings transformation.

Faith and hope are made possible; perspective on this life in the context of eternity is gained; obedience to God’s commandments becomes an honor; worship provides nourishment of the soul; prayer holds the rich depths of personal conversation with the Holy Trinity. By this fundamental decision to believe in God’s unwavering, self-offering love, the grace gained in the soul at baptism is activated and all aspects of living as a Christian are infused with meaning.

This single fundamental decision can then be reaffirmed in each particular decision to love, serve, obey and worship. In the daily circumstances of family and work and play, all can be placed under the sovereignty of God. A person can then, with practice and maturity, love as a response to Love. Virtue will be preferred to vice not merely to avoid ill consequences but because the heart recognizes and honors the great, unmerited gift of God’s saving love.

For some, the fundamental decision to believe with the whole heart and mind in God’s love is met with hesitation. There are what might be dubbed “fundamental doubts.” (1) How is it possible, with me being me and God being God, that He could love me so completely? (2) Can I ever be sure in my belief? (3) Do I have the capacity to respond well enough if I dare admit the extent of God’s love for me?

To those struggling with the first doubt, Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment of God’s love, points out that He did not come “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Awareness of our unworthiness need not produce despair but rather humility and a determination to abandon that which would hold us back from the full acceptance of God’s transforming love. It is not in God’s nature to be inconstant or to love partially. Though we know we are undeserving, we need never entertain the question of whether God wholly loves us.

And to the second doubt is offered the response that faith can indeed be certain. Our world equates faith with superstition or unrealistic idealism but truly the faith of the Christian, when understood and experienced, does not fall into either category. Certainty can be gained in the heart as a gift of the Holy Spirit through prayer and self-surrender. Certainty can be gained in the mind by committed, ongoing growth in knowledge and understanding. When there is a question or an instance of confusion, face it and seek answers. A sincere search for truth will always find truth. The authors of Scripture, the writings and lives of the martyrs and the saints, the summary of the faith found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church – all offer their insights for the sake of our edification in faith.

Thirdly, to the question of our capacity to love in response to God’s infinite love, God Himself answered at the dawn of creation: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Made in the image of God, we are created with the capacity to love as He loves. We can grow ever more faithful, generous, joyful, merciful and forgiving as He is all these things to the fullest degree. There is no limit to our capacity to image Him and therefore honor Him.

The fundamental decision to believe in God’s love is a matter of saying yes to who God is and who we are as our truest selves. It is carried out in simple, humble ways as we move through our days, relate to one another, and worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a decision, if reaffirmed unto the last hour, which will carry us into eternal life.

Faith, Family

I Am All These Things

Carrie Sue Barnes

I am distracted and focused. I am scattered and gathered. I am prayerful and skeptical. I am angry and comforted. Last night my sister received confirmation from her doctor that the tumor she had removed last week is the same kind of lymphoma she had three years ago in an entirely different location in her body. Last night I felt only sadness – baffled, helpless sadness – over this news. Listlessness slipped me into sleep. This morning I awoke angry. On her behalf, on her husband’s behalf, on her children’s behalf, on our parents’ behalf, on our family’s behalf, I’m angry. Aware that it is far from hopeless, that it could all be okay, I can only consider how it shouldn’t be at all.

You know those times when you are aware of exactly what you ought to do, what is in your best interest to do, but you cannot do it? All logic, all experience directs you but you willfully veer left instead of right. In the back of your mind you retain awareness that eventually you will listen to that guiding voice… eventually you’ll reenter the road that leads to hopeful trust and peace of mind… but not yet. No, not yet. For now, you choose weakness, aggravation and distraction.

I should pray. I should visit my sister. Instead I am itching to go for a jog, to start those revisions I’ve been procrastinating on for weeks, to shop, to bake, to finish the book I’m reading. I am a woman of faith and hope and love, but I am also a woman of selfishness and fear. I am all these things. If not for the grace-granting knowledge of God’s love for me, I would only be the lesser of these things.