What We're Missing

What am I doing. I definitely don’t have time to be writing a blog post right now. I need to clean up dinner, plan our schedule for tomorrow so our day doesn’t feel as hectic as today, and catch up on all of the work I didn’t have time to do during my day today.

But I have a lump in my throat and I think writing out all of my thoughts will help. And maybe, possibly, it could help you, too.

I drove through our downtown today and the once bustling, hard to park, crowded streets were mostly empty. People were practicing social distancing like bosses and the art supplies I was running out for were hand-delivered and fully plastic-wrapped through my car door by a store clerk in gloves. We ran the credit card through the phone so we wouldn’t have to have any physical contact.

It really freaked me out. Our new archbishop suspended Masses for the foreseeable future today and when I drove past our local parish, made the sign of the Cross, and chorused, “Jesus, we love you!” with my boys, it hit me that I may not be able to receive Jesus for a significant amount of time. For those who don’t feel that weight, it’s almost as if you have to be apart from your spouse for an unknowable amount of time.

So, I’ve been reflecting on what the bleep is happening to our world. Praise God that the technology for home delivery and curbside pickup had been nearly perfected by big box stores and Amazon prior to the outbreak of Coronavirus. Praise God that we live in an age with FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom, so events can still somewhat take place, connections can still be made, and our very humanity can at least feel normal.

But what I hope from this forced time spent in majorly virtual reality is that we will be left aching, yearning, striving for the physical connection to each other, to Jesus in the Eucharist, to crowded restaurants, and, for the love of Pete, a high five.

I firmly believe that the Lord will use this time to reveal to us how vastly secondary our virtual connections are to real, human, physical connection. Our culture has been running, full-speed, toward the most digital culture we’ve ever known and only a worldwide pandemic would awaken us to the futility of this pursuit.

Don’t get me wrong. Many, many technologies that have arisen from our digital culture are very good, but alongside them, real connections have been shallowly substituted for by social media. With that, our patience, problem-solving, creativity, understanding of vulnerability, and absorption of the present moment, have been at stake for a long time.

I pray that this time will be fruitful for us all. We are forced to stay at home with our closest connections for an unknown amount of time. This is the time we’ve been praying for. When the whole world can witness the power and beauty of the family.

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” - Saint Teresa of Calcutta

AMDG,

Holly

Reality Check

Recently, I read an article on Relevant Magazine called "Everyone Loves Sex. So Why Wait?" and while the author makes compelling points for how significant sex is in our lives, he barely scratches the surface at what a gift the Lord has given us in this act.

I couldn't stop thinking about all of the other reasons for why sex is reserved for marriage. And it boils down to a completely different foundation of thinking. What if instead of viewing life as God pointing to our reality, we saw it as our reality pointing to God? Stay with me. 

In Genesis, God made man. In His image. And it was good. But "it is not good that man should be alone" (Gen 2:18), so He made man a partner, woman. So, if he made man in His image, but needed to create woman to make it more good, it follows that the man and woman more perfectly image (that is, to embody) the Creator of the Universe. It is in man and woman that the King of Kings is revealed in a special way on Earth. Which makes perfect sense when we see God as Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One being couldn't image the Trinity fully. To image the relationship within the Trinity requires an other, to fully express the love and community between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the fruit created.

It is within the relationship between man and woman that we can more fully understand God for who He is. Meaning, in the most intimate encounter between man and woman, we can see God. The gift of sexual union is a prayerful experience in that through it, we can come to know God deeper. During the marital union, we see God's capacity for love in an earthly way. We open ourselves, making ourselves completely vulnerable, to our spouse and allow our spouse to enter fully into ourselves. The oneness, unity, and huge, gigantic love between the Trinity can be seen in this very act. By working together for the other's good, by fully opening ourselves to the other, by experiencing physical pleasure, and by becoming one though we are two, we can see the mystery and beauty of the Trinity.

Which is where I agree with the statement from Relevant's article that marriage is a "bond...so powerful, so transcending, that marriage is the only force that can contain it."

The biggest, most incredible, most ultimate part of the marital union is that it creates. It is the end toward which the marital union is geared. The Lord's love is so powerful that by His very breath, He speaks Creation into being. His love is so strong and so efficacious that it begets fruit. And, in marriage, we get to participate in that same creation. In the unity of a man and woman, one being is created from two. A new life is created from mere matter from two souls. Fruit, offspring, beautiful children are created through this wondrous act of love in the same way that the Lord's love was so big that He begot his Son and continues to multiply His love through the Holy Spirit. 

When we use this understanding to look at sex, we see that sex embodies the relationship between the Trinity. As we see that the Trinity is loving, inseparable, vulnerable, and fruitful, we can see all of those within the marital bond. And when we get to experience that...our spiritual understanding of sex is vastly, vastly expanded.

When we see our reality as imaging God, our whole world comes alive: in our relationships, our marriages, and in the wonderful Creation that surrounds us. For example, instead of when a good father reminds you of the goodness of God the Father, the more sacred outlook is seeing that the Lord's qualities that make Him the ultimate Father are within that father before you. This participation in our reality is discussed by St. Paul throughout all of his letters when he discusses being "one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Rom 12:5) using the terms "in Christ" and "in Him".  That "in" denotes participation in Christ's life, sacrifice, and redemption, inasmuch as the entire Trinity, since all are One. After I listened to this podcast based on a new perspective on Paul, my world has literally been turned upside down.

Sex is reserved for marriage, not only because it's a blessing meant to be shared with only one person, but because it's sacred: an outward sign of an inward reality, one of the most significant earthly ways that we can experience and come to know God. It points toward the most perfect union - the Trinity - and so we must strive to live out married life as perfectly as we can to make manifest that most perfect bond. It is in our covenant to each other that we can experience God's covenant with us. Anything outside of marriage defies that. 

For further reading on this subject, check out the Theology of the Body Institute and The Cor Project by Christopher West. 

- Holly

Love and Violence

As many of you have probably heard, an auxiliary bishop of Newark was assaulted at a Mass offered for Roberto Clemente (this is apparently a thing in New Jersey). If you haven’t seen the video or read any accounts, it’s pretty shocking. Basically, a very loudly dressed man steps into the sanctuary, walks up to the bishop, and punches him right in the face. With the abundance of indestructible TV and movie characters who can take dozens of punches and keep moving, it’s easy to forget how visceral and painful a blow to the face can be. It’s really the most basic and primal act of violence that one can perform. What makes the scene even more bizarre is the fact that assailant apparently walked straight out of a Flannery O’Connor short story. Seriously, read about this guy’s background. Crazy.

But I don’t want to focus too much on the assault itself. I think it’s sufficient to say that it’s a startling reminder that we live in a broken world and that the forces of evil haven’t gone away on vacation (like we needed more confirmation of that). What I do want to highlight are two aspects of the event that caught my attention. The first is the timing of the incident. Bishop Cruz had just finished the penitential rite when the man steps in front of him, poised to strike. The bishop has literally just finished praying that God have mercy on us and forgive us our sins and in the next moment he is laid out by a very angry man. I don’t think that I could imagine a more fitting illustration of humiliation (which, in essence, is the action of being humbled). Mere moments after confessing that he - along with all of us - is weak and sinful and desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness, the bishop has this notion confirmed in a very real way. I am by no way insinuating that the bishop deserved being attacked or that it was because he was a sinner. What I mean is that here we see what it means to be made low. It’s painful and embarrassing and wholly unpleasant, but it’s what we open ourselves up to when we cling to Christ. After all, what we see as the ultimate victory, the cross, is viewed by the rest of the world as nothing more than a failure, the death of one leader among many. When you think about it, the image of a bishop lying on the ground, struck down while in the process of praying for himself and his flock, rings more true than many other contemporary depictions of the faith.

Lest I get too gloomy (let’s all pray for more suffering!) let me move on to the second facet of the attack that I noticed. For me, this is the most significant part of the whole ordeal and the one on which I think we all need to focus. After the bishop is knocked back and falls to the ground, the camera pans to the left to show several police officers tackling and restraining the attacker. But in the bottom right corner of the screen, you can see the altar server cradling the bishop’s head in his lap and seemingly trying to comfort him.

Pictured: The Catholic Church. 

This seriously almost makes me cry every time I see it. It is such a candid and spontaneous gesture of love and compassion. I don’t know if the altar server knew the bishop personally or not, but regardless, here is a young man doing what he can to relieve a spiritual father’s suffering and protect him from further harm. And that’s what the Church is! We are all sinners and every so often we are made to know just how lowly and vulnerable we are. And when that happens, we can count on the loving embrace of our Lord and each other to raise us back up. Yes, we suffer, but we suffer together. When one part of the Body of Christ is harmed, we all feel it. And we know that this is not done in vain, but rather we find solace and fulfilment in uniting our suffering to Christ’s and to His Body.

There are probably many other lessons that can be extracted from this occurrence, but I hope others will take some time to think about the ones I’ve mentioned. We all need a reminder to follow St. John the Baptist and declare, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We need to remember to let go of haughty notions of ourselves, to be prepared to be made low. But at the same time, we can also rely on the healing love of Christ to grow with us, fostered and sustained by encountering His Body.

- Daniel

The Real Thing

A few weeks ago, we travelled down to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with our families. One of the perks of being from the same hometown as your spouse is that you never have to decide whose family you visit on holidays. The value of this perk is greatly diminished, however, when you live 500 miles away and the entirety of your immediate families live in close proximity to said hometown. Now, we have to endure an 8-hour road trip whenever we want the boys to see any of their grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins. An additional effect of living so far away is that all of the little toys and treats that grandparents pick up for their grandchildren here and there end up accumulating over time and when we eventually come to visit, the boys are showered with gifts. 

One of the surprises that our toddler, Jack, received (with delight) was a scale model backhoe. It’s actually an excavator, but in Jack’s world, any piece of large construction machinery that digs holes is called a backhoe. Jack has other “backhoes”, but this one actually looks like the real thing with all the right hinges and parts and even has little tracks that roll along when you move it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the desk of an executive at a construction company or displayed at a construction vehicle dealership (that’s where you buy bulldozers and cranes, right?). Of course, to a 2 and a half year old, it’s just an awesome new thing to play with and Jack immediately took it outside and began digging holes in the garden with it. My first instinct was to tell him not to get it dirty, to only pretend to dig in the mulch, but the determination and focus on his little face made me just sit and watch as a fine layer of dirt spread across the toy and my son.

It was in this moment that I realized that my understanding of toys and playing is very different from a child’s. For Jack, that little model IS a backhoe and it is MEANT to dig in the dirt. That’s what backhoes do. The distinction between real and not real that is so clear in the minds of adults simply isn’t there. There are backhoes that are big that people drive and dig big holes with and then there are small backhoes that dig in the dirt in the backyard. It’s as simple as that.

I know that play is an important developmental tool for small children and that it’s how they experiment and learn about the world around them. And I know that the fact that I can distinguish between make believe and the real world makes me a functional adult. Nonetheless, watching Jack with his backhoe has gotten me thinking about his ability to merge in his mind the toy and the real thing, the symbol with the referent (that’s right, I studied literary theory). My thoughts naturally go to the sacraments, the ultimate signs of God’s continued involvement in our lives. They are outward signs that point to an interior grace working within us. When we’re baptized, the water pouring over us is a visual representation of God’s cleansing grace. In Eucharist, we physically consume bread that is at the same time spiritual nourishment and replenishment. When we are absolved in the confessional, God releases us from our sins through the actions of the priest.

This is nothing new to anyone who’s aware of the Church’s teaching on the sacraments, but lately I’ve been asking myself a question: am I treating the sacraments like a real backhoe, or am I content with just pretending to dig dirt inside? Am I getting out in the mulch, so to speak, and really using these gifts like I believe what they contain? Do I leave Mass and act like I have in my stomach the body of the King of the Universe? Or am I content to pray for a few moments and then get on with the rest of my day to day life? Granted, we cannot fully understand the mysteries of the sacraments and our sinfulness clouds our understanding sometimes. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. So for the rest of Advent, hopefully longer, I’m going to be asking myself daily if I am really living out what I believe. Am I going to take those graces with me outside of the church and the confessional and my home and put them to work? 

- Daniel

Losing Faith in Humanity

If you know me, then you know that I am not a big fan of buzzwords and clichéd phrases. With the advent of “social media” (I die a little bit every time I have to say that), it seems like their proliferation is at an all-time high. One phrase that has been particularly galling to me lately has been “faith in humanity”, which is frequently being lost and restored at an alarming rate. When it’s lost, the reason is usually disappointment on the part of the speaker that something in the world is not as they would wish. This can range from the laughably mundane (people don’t like the same music as me) to startlingly divisive (people have a different opinion than me and that is not ok). The flipside, having your faith in humanity restored, is generally prompted by some pleasant human interest story, often involving animals.

The trouble with these public declarations is the dissonance between the seriousness of the claim and the (relative) levity of what brings them on. It is really sensible to write off all of humanity because middle schoolers love One Direction, but don’t know who the Beatles are? Are you truly going to withdraw from the world because someone disagrees with you? And are you seriously going to suddenly become a champion of all mankind because you saw a video of a guy stopping traffic to save some baby ducks, or because of a news story about someone leaving an exorbitant tip?

I get it. These things are said (as are most things on the internet) with a tinge of irony. They’re supposed to be hyperbolic and, at times, silly. But underlying that sardonic tone is a bit of truth.  I would venture to say that with the recent presidential campaign and its surprising conclusion, people may be a little more truthful with their thoughts about humanity. We might really be a little dismayed at the values of people who are different than ourselves. We might find it genuinely puzzling that people could hold a view that we find logically or morally incorrect. And it may bring some warmth to our hearts when we realize that our society isn’t as divided and polarized as it’s sometimes made out to be.

Nonetheless, we are destined to always live with a little bit of the good and the bad. One’s “faith in humanity” can never be constant or ultimately fulfilling. The reason for this is simple: humanity isn’t something we should put our faith in. Our world is rather complicated. It is a fallen world inhabited by fallen people, but (here’s the kicker) it’s a world that’s been redeemed. You don’t have to be a Christian to see that people are capable both of great love and great evil, sometimes even in the same person. When we decide to live apart from God and put our faith in ourselves or humanity at large, we will inevitably be disappointed. Things may go our way at times, but even the greatest accomplishments of men can quickly crumble when we forget that without God we are nothing.

This is a lesson I’ve needed to learn myself lately. People will be unthinking and uncaring. They will allow themselves to see only enemies around them instead of brothers and sisters. This goes for all stripes of life: the young and the old, the left and the right, Christians and non-Christians. Our country has problems and is facing a lot of change and it’s not clear whether that will be good or bad. Even if it’s good, what’s good for one person is terrible for another.

It would be foolish to think that such problems only exist in secular institutions. Within the Church there is division and dissonance over a number of issues. These things trouble me and can cause despair. But I need to remember that this is the way it’s always been. Humans are not perfect and that’s who the Church is made up of on earth. But, again, we need to remember to put our faith in the right place, to focus our hearts and minds on Christ. And we can always rely on the protection of Holy Mother Church. Not its individual members, who are merely human and subject to the same faults we all have, but on the Bride of Christ, whom the Lord will not abandon.

I find an odd comfort in the fact that many of the great heretics were priests and even bishops. Appolinaris, Donatus, and Cornelius Jansen were all bishops and actually have heresies named after them. Rather than driving me to utter in defeat, “the Church isn’t perfect,” it makes me want to shout triumphantly, “the Church isn’t perfect!” Catholics fighting amongst themselves and erring in thought and deed is nothing new. In fact, it’s not even that unusual. Judas is often called the first heretic, which means that the Church has been imperfect from the start. Seriously, 8.3% of the apostles wanted to sell out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. But that didn’t stop Christ from establishing the Church, and it didn’t dissuade the Holy Spirit from continuing to guide her.

Christ is the head of the Church and the King of the Universe. Nothing that happens here on earth can change that and nothing will cause Him to abandon us. That doesn’t mean there won’t be problems or that it’ll be easy to see error and division spreading through the Church and the world. But as Catholics we are called to persevere and be a light to the world. At times we might feel like we’re the only ones carrying the light. We must fix our eyes on the cross and be sustained by the help of the saints who have endured much more than we have in service to the Lord.

So maybe we all should lose our faith in humanity and focus on fostering our faith in the Lord. Without Him we are doomed to fail, but with Him we will become who we were truly meant to be.

- Daniel

Finishing the Conversation

Yesterday, I was at a play café (a place where the boys can play freely and I can drink coffee and eat food too… it’s genius) and I had a conversation that I can’t really stop thinking about. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, but I had to leave it before I wanted to because – you guessed it – Jack was hitting a kid with a broom. Anyway, she saw me with the two boys, and we exchanged the normal mom pleasantries.

“He’s so cute! How old is he?”

“Thanks! 8 months and the other one is a little over 2 years, and your little girl?”

“17 months. How is it with two?”

And I responded with my usual, “It’s pretty crazy, but it’s awesome and I love to see Jack interact with Blaise.”

“Ah, I just don’t know if I can have another one. I’m so tired. I don’t know…”

My reply was casual:

“DO IT.”

We talked for a short while longer and I was able to say some of what I wanted: “What’s been really cool about having two is that by seeing all the things that are special about Blaise, I realize all of the special things about Jack that I didn’t know were unique just to him.” And my typical, “It was tough for the first 6 months, but now that Blaise is sitting up and is able to do more and react to Jack and play and laugh, it’s much, much easier.”

When I had to run after Jack to save his poor victim from the next impending broom strike, she was still saying how tired she was, so I wish I was able to say more.

If I were able to finish the conversation, here is what I would say:

We have been given this awesome-amazing-ridiculous power to generate human beings. We get to create people. When we don’t, that’s one less person in the world.

Isn’t your daughter your best friend, the person you love more than anything, the light of your life? What if you got to have that twofold? Threefold? FOURFOLD? I don't know anyone who, when they're old, wishes they had fewer kids. I know many who wish they had more. 

And isn’t she undeniably worth the late nights and early wake ups? How could the next one not be the same?

And biggest of all,

What is love without sacrifice?

The bigger the sacrifice, the bigger the love.

Which, of course, always brings us back to Christ. I get the other mother's mentality. She still feels like she’s in the trenches. How can she come up for air when she feels like she has a weight tied to her ankle? I get it. I mean, I’m there right now. But sometimes what we have to realize is that the weight tied to our ankle isn’t our children, it’s our own attachment to ourselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is discernment needed with spacing children – to look at one’s mental and physical health prayerfully and seriously before considering another child. But the offer should stay on the table, not permanently written off for temporary reasons. Or, even more, reasons that are keeping you from holiness.

Now, this woman probably isn’t Catholic, but the points I wanted to share with her are true for anyone coming from any background or worldview. For whatever reason, I come across this question often and fleshing out my unfinished exchange with this woman has helped me form a response that, while challenging, is ultimately encouraging. And in a world where everyone seems to want change and revolution, the family is the best place for it.

- Holly

And we're blogging!

For a while now, Holly and I have been thinking about mixing things up here at Halfway Saints. We often have thoughts or ideas that we want to share and explore more deeply, but aren't enough to fill a whole podcast episode. Or there's something specific to either Holly's or my own experience and wouldn't work well as a conversation between the two of us. Like true millenials, we decided that the best solution was to start a blog. The podcast will remain our main endeavor and we hope to keep putting out episodes regularly, but we hope the blog will let us provide some musings and commentary throughout the week that wouldn't ordinarily get to share. Be on the lookout for our first post later today!

- Daniel