Category: Catholicism

Catholicism, Friendship, Gratitude

Side by Side

Carrie Sue Barnes

If you’re hoping for a detailed summary of the March for Life excursion, please don’t be too disappointed. Certainly, there are plenty of details I could share and anecdotes I could tell, but those are not what is on my mind. I do promise to post some pictures from the journey and event, just not in this particular post.

What is filling my head and heart for the time being is grateful amazement. The goodness of God, His generous heart, continues to catch me off guard. This trip to the March for Life reunited me with some traveling companions of my youth. The experience of partnering with them once more for a faith-based event brought about an eyes-wide-open perception of God’s goodness toward me. My teenage years were filled with normal, average teenage experiences for the most part, but they were interwoven with the out of the ordinary as well. The out of the ordinary came in the form of numerous travels, retreats, conferences and gatherings with my fellow Catholic teenagers from the Diocese of Marquette, MI. While I’ve always known that these contributed a great deal to my formation, I have still managed to underestimate their effects.

For one reason or another, it hit me this past week how much I owe to the Lord for placing me amongst the people and providing for me the experiences of my youth. I grew up with my very own “cloud of witnesses” running with me on every side. What courage was gained from the relationships forged by faith! What might have been different if that faith hadn’t been rooted, nurtured and solidified at such a young age! In the last week, as I was plopped into a scene so closely resembling my past, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the beauty of my friends.

Beauty…. The joy it effected thankfully had an outlet in the laughter and prayer we were continuously engaged in for the last five days. I ought to give those friends credit for that aspect of my life, too. Learning to laugh, to simply tumble about in humor and enjoyment of each other, came through this group of friends. Then to have these friendships not be merely a memory but a blessing that continues to braid itself into my life with all the other things I am caught up in as an adult, for that I am grateful, to say the least.

“My cup runneth over…” I kept thinking of the Kingdom of God parables that liken the kingdom to a buried treasure or a perfect pearl. Worth everything, priceless, abundant, beautiful; the kingdom of God includes the people in it.

Advent, Catholicism, Faith, Hope

What’s Your Compass?

Carrie Sue Barnes

As a Catholic I get to celebrate two New Years. This past Sunday signified the end of the Church year (the liturgical cycle of feast days and seasons commemorating the great truths, events and mysteries of Christ and the Church). With this coming Sunday, the new Church year is inaugurated by the 1st Sunday of Advent. Advent: that holy season of preparation, waiting, anticipation, contemplation. During Advent we have a two-fold focus in our liturgies (and are invited to have them in our personal prayers as well) of the Incarnation, when the Son of God assumed a human nature to dwell among us for our salvation, and the Parousia, when that same Person shall return at the close of time for the final judgment of all men and women ever created. It’s a rich set of weeks, easily missed in the bustle of the “holiday season” celebrated by shopping centers and television programming.

Lately I’ve been troubled by how few things there are that I can count on, especially how few events or experiences I can count on happening. At any given moment, I could probably think of a dozen things that I want to happen, even that I have genuine hope of happening, but there is truly only one event left that I can count on happening. That is the coming of Christ. The 2nd Coming, to be specific. The glorious return of the King of kings, the Lord of lords, triumphant and final. Nothing else is guaranteed.

Is this a pessimistic, negative, ‘to hell with all my work and plans’ sort of perspective? Or is it a realistic, positive, ‘everything only matters in light of Christ’ perspective? I suppose it’s neutral in itself. But how do I apply it? How am I influenced by it? That’s where the rubber meets the road. Accepting and grasping this truth can shape those wants and hopes I have from day to day, year to year, as well as my reactions when they either do or do not come to fruition. The lasting weight of anything that happens in this life is only measurable in terms of eternity, e.g. did this loss unite me more closely to Christ? Did this gain incline me toward praise of and thanksgiving to God? “God works all things for the good of those who love Him,” assuming I freely submit to His divine Providence.

In a recent discussion with some fellow Catholics, the question came up of whether or not we were wasting our time to be pondering Heaven. What can we know of it? What can we hope for? What will it be like? Admittedly, we are almost laughably limited in our capacity to understand or grasp the reality of Heaven. So do we waste our time by thinking about it? I argued vehemently, no. Pondering Heaven (or likewise, the end of time when Christ will return) is not a waste of my time. To explore the reality of Heaven is to explore my destination, my eternal homeland. To contemplate the return of Christ in all His victorious glory is to contemplate the final, definitive consummation of love. All that was begun when God, out of the abundance of His love, created the heavens and the earth and all who dwell there, all that was redeemed and reconciled by the sacrifice of perfect, divine love in Jesus Christ on the Cross, all that is hoped for and sought by the generations of faithful believers since will be completed by His return. The Kingdom of God, that mysterious ‘now but not yet’ reality of what Jesus has done and what we are cooperating with by grace and free will, shall then be everything there is and ever will be.

The mind boggling truth that I get to contribute to this coming of the Kingdom has the power to shape every day that I live on this earth. Contemplation of the adventus, the coming of Christ at the end of time, does not cause me to neglect the things that make up my earthly life. Rather it informs that life, contextualizing it and directing it. Heaven is our true north.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Catholicism, Faith, Gratitude

Old Friends

Carrie Sue Barnes

In preparation for a talk I’ll be giving in December, I am revisiting some dear old friends-in-print: Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, the Didache, Loving the Church by Cardinal Shonborn. It all has me remembering a lot of things. Why I got into Theology; why I loved every day that I was able to study it at Franciscan U; why I thrill with elation in the moment of catechesis… I can hear Sr. M. Johanna’s voice as she lectures on christocentricity, and Fr. Pattee’s insightful explanation of each of the seven Sacraments. I remember the excitement of (the attempt at) absorbing the depth of Dr. Hahn’s lectures, and the giddiness of grasping, after considerable effort, an eternal truth that was new to my mind and heart. Considering how frustrated, impatient and drained I get from the task, the love I have for learning the mysteries of the faith must be what keeps me teaching it. I complain because I get worn out; I weaken because I neglect prayer; I am discouraged because my calling to adult catechesis doesn’t translate into a full time gig in the Church. None of this stands much of a chance though in the face of becoming a theology student once again, be it in my bedroom with a book in my hands or at a lecture or Bible study. On such occasions, I am renewed in both the joy I am gifted with when I study the faith and in the commitment previously made to be a catechist in whatever ways God allows.

I mean, when I read, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways,” and realize I have the opportunity to not only learn but also share the very faith that the Apostles learned firsthand from Jesus and taught to the first generation of Christians, my heart can’t help but cry out in gratitude to the Lord.

Catholicism, Photography

Autumn at the Basilica at Holy Hill

Carrie Sue Barnes

Last Sunday I took my passengers and myself on a detour on our drive home from Kenosha. These are pictures from Holy Hill, the Basilica of Our Lady, Help of Christians. It’s not too far north of Milwaukee. Gorgeous sacred place. The day was so particularly beautiful, I’d have liked to stay all afternoon! I took some pics of the scenery and outside of the basilica, as well as a few inside but not many. I walked the outdoor Stations of the Cross rather quickly (must plan a time to return and pray them mediatively) and took photos just of the details that really struck me at the moment.