After the Flood: Cajun Armies Provide Spontaneous Volunteer Corps for Flood Relief

Possibilities are endless when we come together. Angelle Albright, Northshore Cajun Army

Cancer-survivor and Chemo Beanie inventor Angelle Albright made a deal with God: if she survived cancer, she would be his vessel and would wake up every day asking how he you could use her. God took her up on her promise the day after what is now called Louisiana’s Great Flood, and he quickly made his plans clear.

“I was lying on my sofa the night after the flood watching live coverage and feeling guilty that I’d just bought a brand new, enclosed 6 x 12 foot trailer to move furniture to our beach house in Florida,” Albright explained. “I was thinking that we have so much, and wondering what I could do to help those who had lost their homes.” Officials now estimate that 100,000 Louisiana residents are displaced as a result of the unprecedented amount of rain that fell last week, swamping 60,000 houses.

The next morning Albright spotted a Facebook post by the wife of the pastor of Christ’s Community Church in Denham Springs, located at the epicenter of the flood, asking for immediate donations of critical supplies. There were eight things on the list, and Albright felt called to fill her trailer with the needed items and deliver them to the church the next day. “I put out a call out on Facebook and posted the supplies that were needed by flood victims. Within two hours the trailer was filled with donations. Everybody in our community stepped up, including the Catholic churches and schools in our area.”

Albright immediately started using the hashtag #cajunarmy on her social media posts, playing off the name of a group of volunteers known as the Cajun Navy who evacuated people using boats during the flood. After learning that hers is one of a number of unconnected volunteer groups that go by the name of Cajun Army, Albright changed the name of her volunteer corps to “Northshore Cajun Army” to designate the Louisiana location from which her team primarily hails. She has since set up a Cajun Army Facebook page to meet the growing demand for information from volunteers asking how they can help.

Though her inspiration to offer assistance came just over week ago, Albright and her sidekicks, Gianna Schlottman and Karen Kleinpeter Lindsey, have since delivered 11 full trailers of provisions to Christ’s Community Church, where 1000 flood refugees had slept the night before they first arrived. The first thing needed was provisions for those sleeping at the church-turned-shelter, and Albright’s team quickly gathered a trailer full of pillows, blankets, underwear, diapers and personal items hygiene items for evacuees to use.

Next up were the supplies necessary to begin cleaning flooded houses, and donors sent buckets, bleach, brooms, mops, gloves and masks to scrub water-soaked homes. One generous contributor, who owns a janitorial supply company in nearby Bogalusa, donated $4000 worth of a special solution used to stop the spread of mildew in wet homes, saving numerous residences from further destruction. Donations continue to arrive, and Albright now coordinates daily with Shannon Easley, the wife of the pastor whose Facebook post she first responded to, in order to secure a list of essential items for the next day. Additionally, a make-shift free store has been set up at the church, which the Northshore Cajun Army and others stock daily for those in immediate need of food, water, clothing, toiletries and critical cleaning items.

Financial contributions have also begun to arrive; money that Albright, Scholttman and others on their team, including Jackson, Mississippi based Debbie Hendry, have used to buy provisions at every Dollar Tree within a three hour radius of the flood zone. Someone sent a check that enabled them to purchase 800 mops, 800 buckets and 800 brooms—all one dollar each and all critical to scrubbing down homes in a timely manner to prevent further damage. Yesterday, Albright’s team set up a foundation called the Northshore Cajun Army Fund to collect contributions that will enable them to continue to meet the overwhelming demand for help they face daily.  Their mission is to "develop and deploy resources to support relief and recovery."

“Every dollar and every donated item is one piece of hope,” says Albright, “hope that helps people take one step forward in rebuilding their lives.” Given the extent of the devastation, where miles and miles of homes and businesses are uninhabitable, much more help and hope will be required as people begin to rebuild their homes and communities from the ground up.

In spite of the level of shock and sadness she’s seen, Albright stands amazed by what she’s watched God provide through the generosity of volunteers, including numerous others unconnected to her personal efforts who have arrived pulling trailers of hot cooked food, cold drinks, and even ice cream. Eight thousand meals were served in the church’s parking lot last Saturday, and whatever was left over was sent out into the neighborhoods of flood victims to distribute to those who are now camping out in their destroyed homes. On Thursday, a Mardi Gras-style parade drove through one very poor neighborhood of 300 homes that still sits untouched by relief efforts, bringing hot food plus donations of every item necessary to begin cleanup efforts.

How long will the Northshore Cajun Army continue to help flood victims? “Until everyone is whole,” says Albright. “I can’t live with myself knowing how much they need—once you see the devastation it is impossible not to help.”

Donations to the Northshore Cajun Army Fund can be made here.

Donations can also be made to Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge.

 This article originally appeared at Aleteia.

Is God Good All The Time? Or Only When We Feel Blessed?

 

Forty thousand Louisiana families lost their homes this week to what is being called the “Great Flood,” and more homes are about to go under as I write. Meanwhile, I’m reading posts on Facebook that are saying things like: “God is so good! He spared our home. We are so blessed.” And I’m asking very seriously: Really?

So if your home had flooded, would God be less good? And where does that leave the forty thousand now-homeless families in our state? Are they cursed instead of blessed? Or maybe just less blessed than those whose homes were spared?

One of my pet peeves in life is how often we Christians equate “the blessing” with our own physical and material prosperity, and God’s goodness with how well our lives are going on any given day. Without being cognizant of it, we have somehow bought lock, stock and barrel into the “prosperity gospel,” which purports to guarantee blessing in the lives of those who are favored by God—those who pray hard enough, have potent enough “prayer warriors” in their camps, and do this thing called Christianity just right.

This convoluted approach to the Christian faith has seeped deep into our collective Christian psyches, and it seems to reverberate everywhere we turn. It’s also a message that I personally experienced as a despair-provoking battering ram in the midst of multiple life calamities; during the long, painful years I spent with clenched fists asking God: “What does it take to get the flippin’ blessing?”

After many years and much suffering, I finally came to the conclusion that I was asking the wrong question completely. It was then that I began to ask instead: Lord, what IS the blessing?

So what does Jesus actually have to say about “the blessing”? There’s only one place in the Gospels that Jesus repeatedly invokes the word “blessed,” and that is in the Beatitudes. In Luke 6, Jesus uses the word “blessed” four times in a row (nine times in a row in Matthew’s account in Chapter 5). In every case in Luke’s Gospel, the word is followed by an adjective that describes people that most of us would consider anything but blessed: the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the excluded, and the insulted—those we would probably quickly deem “cursed” today.

I’ve pondered much about Mary—the most blessed woman that ever lived—and how her life would be judged were she alive right now. She was apparently widowed; and then lost her only son to a brutal, violent death upon a cross between two notorious criminals. And that was only after her beloved son was publicly accused of being a blasphemer, a lunatic, and possessed. In spite of this, we find the word “blessed” used repeatedly in regard to Mary; starting when Elizabeth proclaims to her in a loud voice: “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:42-45). We hear those words again in reference to Mary when “a woman from the crowd” cries out to Jesus saying, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed” (Luke 11:27-28). Jesus’ response—“Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it”—is an implicit reference to his mother’s unwavering faith in God that echoes the words spoken by Elizabeth.

Mary’s life gives us a glimpse of what the blessing looks like, and it is not based on the fact that her life went “well”—at least as the world defines “well.” Instead, her beatitude was found in her steadfast trust in God no matter what trials life brought, in her continuous “yes” to him in the face of great adversity, and in her constant cooperation with his salvific plan, no matter how much it suffering it involved.

This is the blessed state of being to which we are all invited to participate as Christians—a way that defies this world’s way of thinking. It is a way of living in peace and hope that comes only through faith, trust and surrendered abandonment to a God we believe is always good, no matter what happens.

This article was previously published at Aleteia.

When Death Births Life: St. Bryce Missions Grows Out of a Family's Grief

“I went to the jungle thinking I was going to grieve, but God brought me there to heal,” author and full-time missionary Colleen C. Mitchell said as she sat on a stool in my kitchen, watching me prepare a pot of Crayfish Étouffée. Mitchell and I had met only a week earlier at a Catholic Trade Show in Chicago, but when I learned she was a native New Orleanian who would be coming through our hometown in a week, I insisted we get together. During our visit, Mitchell openly shared her story of heartbreak and grief, and how it led her family to a cloud forest in Costa Rica to serve as missionaries caring for the spiritual and physical needs of the indigenous Cabecar peoples.

Their journey to the jungle began in 2009 while Mitchell, her husband, Greg, and their six sons were living a normal, happy life as a Catholic homeschooling family. On what she called “a perfect homeschooling day,” tragedy suddenly struck when Mitchell found her three-month-old son, Bryce, unresponsive in his crib due to SIDS. Within a short time, the couple lost four more babies to miscarriage, leaving Mitchell completely shattered and irrevocably changed by the multiple heartbreaks and ensuing grief that had visited their lives.

Shortly after Bryce’s death, Greg became inspired to establish a non-profit organization in Bryce’s name for the purpose of sharing the Gospel. “I can’t say I opposed the idea,” wrote Mitchell in the exquisite new book that grew out of her grief entitled Who Does He Say You Are: Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels.  “But I could not make logical sense of how you give your heart away when you are holding its shards in bleeding hands.”

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Still tentative about how they could help others while in so much pain themselves, Mitchell offered God and Greg a “weak-kneed” yes, and St. Bryce Missions was born. Not long after that, Greg visited Costa Rica on a business trip, coming home with a vision for their future that his wife had not imagined: moving their family to the Chirripo Mountains of south Central Costa Rica to minister to the unevangelized indigenous peoples who live on a government-provided reserve therein.

Making a radical leap of faith, Mitchell packed her family’s belongings and necessities into 12 suitcases, embarking “sight unseen on a journey of redemption” to the poorest area of Costa Rica, unsure of what lay before them. Three weeks into their new life in the remote jungle, tragedy struck again via the death of Greg’s mother, necessitating his departure from Costa Rica for three weeks. “It was then—as I sat broken-hearted, isolated and alone in the jungle with my boys, with no car, unable to speak Spanish, apart from everything and everyone I had known—that I realized I needed to get to know God in a new way.”

Mitchell spent long days sitting beside a running river with her Bible and journal in hand, meditating upon Gospel stories of Christ’s healing, transforming power as her boys played in the river’s clear waters. There the grieving mother began to hear Christ speaking life into her heart again, and it was there that she began to reclaim God’s vision of her by journaling the “tender mercies” the Lord gave her in prayer—the very journal entries that would eventually become the chapters of her beautiful new book.

“I began to own that even with all the cracks and broken places the last few years had wrought in me, I was beautiful and beloved to him, and I had a purpose. He wanted to use me,” she wrote. It would not take long for that purpose to be realized.

Mitchell began to notice that basic healthcare was inaccessible to the Cabecar women, forcing pregnant women to walk as many as ten miles while in labor trying to find a hospital in which to safely deliver their babies. Wondering how she could help, she hatched a plan in her mind to find and engage an existing organizational institution to solve the problem of making healthcare more accessible to these poor women. Again, God surprised her with an unimagined solution.

“One day in prayer, I heard God say, ‘Use what you have to meet this need,’” Mitchell told me as I sat listening in amazement. “You have a car, a house, and a way to get these people to the hospital. Share with them what I’ve given you.”

Mitchell said yes.

The very next day Mitchell and her husband encountered a Cabecar woman with an extremely sick baby who had already walked eight hours in the pouring rain to find medical help. They picked her up, drove her to the hospital, and stayed with her to make sure she received the care she needed, leaving their phone number with her in the event she had no way to get home upon the baby’s release from the hospital. The woman called the couple the next day, and ended up staying in their home for a week until the baby was stable enough to go home.

After this first encounter, the Mitchells put the word out that they were willing to help others, and more women began to show up. This influx eventually prompted the family to move to a larger home close to the hospital which sleeps 25 women in addition to their family of 7—bringing to life the St. Francis Emmaus Center, a home-based ministry that is only one of several initiatives St. Bryce Missions is currently undertaking to reach out to those on the peripheries of society with the Gospel.  To date, over 700 Cabecar women have come through their doors to receive food, shelter, health education and health-care advocacy in the state-run medical system, receiving love and care from the Mitchells and their five still-homeschooling sons, all of whom are engaged in the work of St. Bryce Missions.

The Mitchell’s “yes” to God has birthed healing in hopelessness and grace in grief—for themselves and numerous others. Their efforts have not only spurred a 50% drop in the infant mortality rate among the people they serve, but has given whole families in an oft-overlooked part of the world the opportunity to encounter Christ.

This article appeared previously at Aleteia.

Mercy Upon Mercy: My Father's Final Farewell

“At that last hour a soul has nothing with which to defend itself except My mercy.” —Diary of St. Faustina, par. 1075

“Do you believe in God, Dad?” I asked from the driver’s seat as Daddy and I cruised down St. Charles Avenue heading for my parents’ New Orleans home.

My then-eighty-year-old father, known to cry freely, began to weep. “I’m totally dependent on God’s mercy, Judy Marie,” he choked out using my entire given name, which he’d called me exclusively since the day I was born. “What else is there?”

That conversation contained the most open display of faith I’d ever seen in my dad; a father of ten whom I’d never witnessed initiating prayer or church attendance. Daddy and I had never even talked about faith before, and we only stumbled into this conversation because he was attending my Health Care Ethics course at a local Catholic college. Our weekly post-class lunch together, and the drive home, left ample time for conversation but it seemed that the topic of God was the hardest thing to broach.

Until Daddy lay dying.

“Dad,” I said out loud as I held the hand of my lightly comatose father in what would be the last week of his life, confident he could still hear me. “Remember what you told me about being completely dependent on God’s mercy? Trust in the mercy of God when you meet him, Dad,” I continued. “That’s all you need to do.”

Family members had been gathering daily by Daddy’s bedside to pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, engaged in a vigil of prayer and personal attendance as he slept in a newly delivered hospital bed. At least one person from our large family sat next to him constantly, while others occupied nearby spaces—keeping company with Mama and each other, preparing meals, and running necessary errands.

“What a beautiful way to die,” I thought one evening as I stood in the kitchen tending a rump roast and sipping a glass of wine. I was overcome with awe by the sheer grace of it all, noting the powerful manner in which our father’s impending death had pulled us all to God and to each other; offering gratitude for the way a father’s final days had drawn a family that’s experienced more than its fair share of adversity, division and tragedy solidly together in faith, hope and love.

A priest friend had come by twice in eight days to offer Mass, anointing both of our ailing parents each time with the Sacrament of the Sick. At the second Mass at least thirty members of our extended family crammed around the dining room table to celebrate the liturgy—the same table at which at least a dozen people would gather for dinner another night to pool our hearts and prayers:  intermittently praying, eating, crying, laughing, and sharing stories of our lives together. An Apostolic Pardon was given to Daddy, as well as the offering of love, peace and pardon from many family members. One particularly precious night, a room full of grown children raised our voices beside our unconscious father to thank him for the many gifts he’d given us, including endless hours spent in the scorching Louisiana heat teaching twenty-eight first cousins how to ski, crab, boat and fish in the murky waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

Life had not always been easy and Daddy had borne his scars, especially from the heart-shattering deaths of two of his sons to suicide.  Indeed, life had seemed almost merciless at times and God far distant, and our now-fragile father had cried many tears over life’s bitter disappointments.

But now—at the hour of death when it mattered most—mercy upon mercy showed up.

A peaceful, holy death was granted to a man who had the grace to comprehend that he was “totally dependent on God’s mercy”—tender, faithful Mercy that drew us all into its embrace during a father’s final farewell.

This article previously appeared at Aleteia.

Pre-order my new book at MemorareMinistries.com.

My New Book Release: Mary's Way

Dear Friends,

I am happy to be back at my desk after taking a three week sabbatical from writing due to the death of my father and other family commitments. First of all, let me thank those of you who knew of my dad's illness for your prayers and support.  He experienced a beautiful, holy death and was buried on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, a most special feast day to me. I am so very grateful to the Lord for the many graces that my dad and our entire family received during his illness and death.  I will be sharing some of those later this week in a blog post.  God is so good and merciful!

I also wanted to share with you the news of the publication of my new book, Mary's Way: The Power of Entrusting Your Child to God, which will be released on The Feast of St. Monica,  August 27.   This book is a true labor of love; written in prayer and tears as I reflected upon and retold stories of the miracles God has worked in our lives in the midst of deep suffering.  It is my ardent prayer that Mary's Way will not only help parents and grandparents pray more effectively for their children and grandchildren, but that it will bring honor to Our Lady, who has helped our family countless times and in countless ways.

I am delighted by the response the book has received thus far by those who have previewed it, including the following testimonials:

"With poignant and relatable storytelling, Judy invites us into the intimacy of her profound sorrows as a wife, mother, sister, and daughter in the hopes that the lessons of faith she learned will benefit us in our own struggles.  If you're a mother or grandmother, you need Mary's Way."  Kitty Cleveland, Author, Speaker, Singer

"No matter how great the struggle, God has a way and can bring you through. A great message of encouragement...you clearly made the point that faith and prayer made all the difference...Some of your insights regarding Mary's life and the power of the cross blew me away!" Carol Marquardt, Author

"I am at 35,000 feet and just finished your beautiful book! My heart is bursting and my eyes filled with tears. You have done it again. What a gifted writer you are. Thank you for sharing yet more of your faith and life with so many. I can't wait to order several copies. As I was reading, God placed several people on my heart who I want to give the book to. Can't wait it share with them!"  Kelly Reed, Theology teacher

You can pre-order your copy of Mary's Way now at Amazon.  Please join me in honoring Our Lady as we learn how to live and pray "Mary's Way."

Blessings and grace to you and yours,

Judy

His Own: New Group Launches With Music and Ministry for the Feminine Heart

 

At the risk of sounding like a doting mother (okay, I'm guilty:), it is with great joy that I share with you the exciting news of the launch of a new Catholic singing trio, His Own, who just released their first song,  Nothing Can Separate Us, last week.  You can listen to it here.

The group consists of Kara Klein, Maria Spears and Christine Simpson, three close friends with years of musical experience between them who prayerfully decided to come together to share their love for Jesus, passion for music and desire to proclaim the joy of the feminine heart.  Their motive?  As they share on their website at behisown.com: 

In a world where women are exploited, misused, and misguided, we desire that our music and ministry will inspire women to come before the Lord as they are, to encounter His unique love for them, and to be reminded of the eternal measure of their feminine dignity and worth.

It all began when Kara moved to Nashville over a year ago and struck up a friendship with these two beautiful women (both inside and out), Maria and Christine:

Besides laughing a lot, the friends started praying, singing, and writing songs together and before long, they realized the Holy Spirit was calling them to join forces to minister to women, specifically concerning the challenges around faith and femininity they had personally navigated.  The result?  Well, just watch the music video of their song, It's You, to experience the beautiful anointing that this little band of God's precious daughters has on their voices and message.

Finding a holy friend and sister-in-Christ is a true blessing...but finding TWO?  I can hardly wait to see what the Lord has in store for this dynamic group of women worshippers.

Check His Own out and enjoy!  See why it's all about that grace, about that grace, no devil.  (This is a personal favorite of mine.)  And if you feel so moved, bring them your parish to visit.

Meanwhile, may the Lord bless you and yours this Fourth of July, and may God shed his grace and light upon America.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Whom Do I Judge the Harshest of All?

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.  Matthew 7:1

Sitting in the enclosed brick courtyard in front of our home prayerfully pondering those words on Monday morning, I clearly heard the Lord say: “Stop judging yourself.” That’s odd, I thought, because while judging others is something I regularly confess to a priest, it suddenly occurred to me that I rarely consider the effect of the harsh judgments with which I habitually assail myself. I then wondered how many of our self-judgments become self-fulfilling prophecies, and how the unloving measure with which we measure ourselves might actually keep us stuck in patterns of sin.

An hour later, I walked into nine o’clock Mass quite late, and the first words I heard Fr. Mark speak as I entered the church were “we must stop judging ourselves”—not exactly the homily one would expect to hear regarding Jesus’ teaching on judgment.

“Okay, Lord, I’m getting the memo,” I prayed.

Following Mass, I settled into a chair in the adoration chapel to pray and ponder some of Elizabeth Scalia’s new book, “Little Sins Mean A Lot.” My eyes almost popped out of my head as I read her words in Chapter Nine, entitled “Clinging to Our Narratives Beyond Their Usefulness,” which said:

Self-denigration stops being healthy and starts becoming sinful when it serves to create a despicable or pitiable narrative that we then cling to, and eventually allow to utterly ensnare us in characterizations that we can no longer control or amend.

Now, I was really getting the message.

How many of us live with a familiar narrative of self-condemnation playing in our heads wherein we judge ourselves with words like: Stupid! Worthless! Reject! Freak! Unlovable! Hopeless! Fat! Ugly! Lazy! (Or fill in your own favorite personal insult)? How many of us stay stuck in a perpetual loop of self-rejection that not only erects a wall that prevents us from receiving God’s love, but also keeps us from rightly loving others and ourselves? How many of our judgments of others are really projections of our own self-hatred that keep us locked into a pitiful measure of participation in the one reality in which God longs for us to share, which is love?

 Pope Francis’ homily on Monday’s Gospel challenged us to look into the mirror when we are tempted to judge. He said:

 If you judge others constantly, with the same measure you shall be judged. The Lord therefore asks us to look in the mirror: Look in the mirror, but not to put on makeup to hide the wrinkles. No, no, no, that's not the advice! Look in the mirror to look at yourself as you are. Pope Francis, Homily of June 20, 2016

I believe the Pope’s words were right on, but they also beg another question. Are we capable of seeing ourselves as we truly are when we look in the mirror: as broken sinners who are redeemed and infinitely loved by a merciful Father who sees us as not as worthless rejects but as precious, beloved children? Or are our mirrors cracked, warped and foggy, hampering our ability to see as God sees:

You are precious in my eyes and glorious…You shall be called by called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the Lord. You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God. No more shall men call you “Forsaken,” or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.” For the Lord delights in you.                                    Isaiah 43:4, 62:2-4

There is a tension in the dual reality that we are redeemed sinners, mercified prodigals, glorified messes—as well as in the fact that the more we trust God’s love for us, the less prone we are to rejecting both ourselves and others. Letting go of our own disordered self-judgments may be the very act of virtue that enables us to stop judging others, just as experiencing God’s love and mercy makes us more capable of extending love and mercy to others.

Let us pray that the Lord will remove the logs from our eyes and enlighten the “eyes of (our) hearts” (Eph. 1:18) that we may see as he sees, and consequently, love as he loves.

This article was previously published at Aleteia.

On Mary, Jezebel and Suffragettes

As I watched the excellent movie Suffragette this past weekend, which documents the history of women’s struggle for the right to vote in England, two things really struck me: 1) The women’s rights movement was rightly spawned by the need for women to escape the unjust, dehumanizing and often brutal treatment suffered at the hands of men. 2) It took less than 100 years after gaining the right to vote for women to begin to use the same force, violence and dehumanizing domination they had sought to escape—most tragically, by exerting themselves against their unborn children.

While the movie did not place the struggle for women’s rights into a Christian context, I couldn’t help but think about Saint John Paul II’s words in Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women), which I recently reread to prepare for a talk at a women’s conference. More relevant today than when he wrote the Apostolic Exhortation nearly 30 years ago, the great pope wrote forcefully and with striking clarity about the effects of Original Sin, particularly upon women:

“Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16)… Domination takes the place of “being a sincere gift” and therefore living “for” the other…This “domination” indicates the disturbance of and loss of stability of that fundamental equality which the man and woman possess in the “unity of the two”: and this is especially to the disadvantage of the woman. Mulieris Dignitatem, par. 10.

In other words, the fundamental equality God intended between men and women was ruptured through sin; sin that has played itself out historically in disunity between the sexes, most often at the expense of women. As Suffragette accurately depicts, women have fought hard to gain a voice in a world ruled by lopsided patriarchal attitudes and customs, sometimes at the expense of their own lives. Their goal was threefold—the right to vote, the right to education and the right to employment, rights for which women in various areas of the world are still fighting today.

Sadly, the struggle for women’s rights did not stop with authentic human equality, but instead morphed into an all out battle over women’s “reproductive” (read: abortion) rights which rages throughout the world today. It is bitterly ironic that such “rights” demand that women imitate the male models of violence and domination they sought to overcome in the first place. John Paul II warned of the grave danger of such an approach:

Consequently, even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the biblical words, "He shall rule over you" (Gen 3:16) must not under any condition lead to the "masculinization" of women. In the name of liberation from male "domination," women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine "originality." There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not “reach fulfillment,” but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential richness. Mulieris Dignitatem, par. 10.

And what constitutes the “essential richness” of women? While our feminine giftedness, which John Paul II referred to as “the genius of women,” is deep and multi-faceted, it is grounded in the fundamental orientation that women have toward love and life in virtue of the fact that our hearts, minds and bodies are ordered to motherhood, and hence, naturally toward loving and caring for other persons.

Suffragette left me asking: what went wrong in the fight for women’s rights, which has culminated in millions of women doing violence to the very persons we are called to nurture and protect? My theory is that the bastardization of the authentic movement for the recognition of women’s dignity was hijacked by what I call “the Jezebel spirit,” which is the age-old temptation toward grasping for power wherein women to use manipulation, domination, control and even violence to beat men at their own game.

One of my favorite stories from the Bible is in this week’s Mass readings, where the prophet Elijah engages in a showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel during which the reality and power of Israel’s God—the one true God—is ably demonstrated. The backstory of that power encounter reveals that the wicked pagan queen, Jezebel, and her spineless husband, King Ahab, together led the Israelites into apostasy through “the veneration and worship of Baal” (1 Kings 16:31).

Interestingly, Baal worship involved the belief in having sway over the fertility gods, who were supposedly appeased by self-mutilation, deviant sexual practices and child sacrifice. Sound familiar? Jezebel’s “spirit”—in direction opposition to the spirit of Mary, the Mother of God—is all about exercising power for the sake of control: control over men, control over the gods, control over fertility and ultimately, control over life and death. In contrast, Mary’s spirit, which is the icon of both authentic femininity and all true humanity, is all about reigning supreme through the gift of self given to God and others in self-donating love, life-giving generosity and self-sacrificing service.

Mary or Jezebel? Each generation of women must decide whom we will emulate. Indeed, the future of the world depends on our choice—and the choice is in no uncertain terms one between life and death, the blessing or the curse.

The Painful Pruning of Our Diseased Hearts and the Glorious Mark of the Cross

They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord to display his glory.

Isaiah 61:3

They were at it again when I woke up this morning: amputating dead limbs from the majestic oak trees that line the brilliant white beaches of Pass Christian, Mississippi, which is perched like a pearl on edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Lying in bed at my sister Jojo’s tranquil beach house, I could hear the saws humming since practically the crack of dawn.

I’ve reflected a lot on the oaks in recent years, especially since they’re the only things that stayed standing when a massive tidal surge slammed these shores during Hurricane Katrina. That, thanks to deep roots grown over many long years, roots that held the trees in place when the “hundred year storm” swamped the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. And though the oaks survived the hellacious storm, it’s been an ongoing project ever since to trim their dead branches, branches that require constant stripping in order for the trees to grow and prosper.

He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit (John 15:2). I thought of Jesus’ words as I took a long walk beside the beach later in the morning, observing how many dead oak branches still need to be cut off. Like the oaks, we must all encounter the necessary pain of pruning, as the Divine Grower mercifully strips away everything in us that hampers our growth in him. Paradoxically, when God wields the pruning shears it is not for our destruction, but that we might have life. I experienced this first hand the year my late husband Bernie died, a year when many of my diseased beliefs about God were cropped off as a Category 5 storm blasted our lives.

I’d been dreaming about Bernie when I woke to the sound of saws, probably because yesterday was his birthday. Hit by a massive heart attack seven years ago, Bernie was given the great grace of undergoing a near-death experience, of clearly seeing the condition of his soul, and of being sent back by God to undergo, as he put it, “necessary purification.” Over the course of three long months in the ICU, Bernie suffered profusely as his life was stripped away, all the while discovering inexplicable peace, joy and love as the pruning hand of God reordered the very depths of his soul. Previously a very driven man, Bernie found himself devoid of all power, possessions and productivity, laid bare before a merciful Father who wished to communicate only one thing his broken son, a mantra Bernie would repeat many times during his short time left on earth: You have no idea how much God loves you.

When Bernie got sick I, too, was in need of radical healing; healing of my trust in God’s unbounded goodness. A deep wound of mistrust in God had festered in me since childhood, keeping me in a defensive posture against a distorted image of an angry, exacting God I believed was out to get me. It wasn’t until an unexpected cyclone hit our lives that those distorted beliefs were cut away, when I personally experienced the miraculous love and goodness of a Father who demonstrated in no uncertain terms that he would not only hold me steady in the teeth of death and devastation, but would do so with unspeakable tenderness and love.

So much of our walk with God is about encountering the inevitable storms of life, and about what the tsunamis that hit us expose in our hearts. Do we trust the Lord with all of our hearts, believing that he’s not out to get us, but that he’s got us? Do we believe that God loves us, that he is good and that he works all things together for our good, even the things we may consider disastrous?

One thing I noticed about the oaks is that they each bear a telling mark of their stripping; a mark that often takes the shape of a cross. The cross that takes shape in their flesh is a sign not only of their struggle for survival but of their pruning, the very pruning that leads to transformation and new life.

This article previously appeared at Aleteia.

It's Pentecost and I'm Burning to Death: Is It Possible to Do Purgatory on Earth?

Have you ever had a magnanimous moment where you begged for the fire of God’s love to consume you, only to find in short order that it’s burning the hell out of you?

Literally.

Somehow, I’m always surprised when I pray for holy fire to fall, and its flames begin to burn me to death. I’m not referring to the kind of death that ends earthly life, but instead to the painful death of my egocentric plans and programs, and especially the death of my unholy determination that life will unfold according to my will.

I’m a firm believer that purgatory—the purification from disordered attachments that all humans must undergo to be perfectly united to God—begins on earth. For some, though God alone knows who, purgatory will be completed during their earthly sojourn as they are “salted with fire” (Mark 9:49), allowing the flame of God’s love to burn away the dross in their souls until love is perfected in them. For other souls (at least for those who are heaven bound), this purgation will be completed after death, as they pass through the fire of God’s purifying love to behold him face to face (1 Cor. 3:10-15).

While we tend to think of purgatory as a “place” we enter after death, St. John Paul II said that "the term purgatory does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence,” where Christ "removes ... the remnants of imperfection.” (General Audience of Wednesday, 4 August 1999). Surely, such a condition should be part and parcel of our daily walk with Christ.

 In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II explained it this way:

The ‘living flame of love’ of which St. John (of the Cross) speaks, is above all, a purifying fire. The mystical nights described by this great Doctor of the Church on the basis of his own experience corresponds, in a certain sense, to Purgatory. God makes man pass through such an interior purgatory of his sensual and spiritual nature in order to bring him into union with Himself. Here we do not find ourselves before a mere tribunal. We present ourselves before the power of Love itself. Before all else, it is Love that judges. Love judges through love. (St. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 186-187)

I’ve spent the past few weeks praying with St. Therese of Lisieux for the fire of God’s love to come upon me as I prepare to make the Little Flower’s Consecration to Merciful Love on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity (Fr. Michael Gaitley, 33 Days to Merciful Love). “O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of your Divine Love!” I’ve mimicked St. Therese with gusto.

Sadly, it only took one episode of overt rebellion by our resident teenager for me to be burned by Love’s fiery flames. It wasn’t pretty to find myself completely unable to pray the words thy will be done for several excruciating days, as I shook my fists at heaven and demanded that God do things my way. My outburst revealed a lingering lack of trust both in God and his goodness, along with a need for deeper healing and conversion.

You see, it’s one thing to say that we believe in God, but another thing entirely to trust completely in in his unwavering goodness. It’s one thing to claim that we love God, but another thing to truly trust in his infinite love for us—and for our children. It’s one thing to say that we have faith in God, but another thing yet again to yield to him in a faith-filled act of surrender.

Life on this earth gives us ample opportunities to surrender to God’s love, and in so doing, to be stripped of our sins, doubts and mistrust. This stripping is the painful “condition of existence” that may just constitute “purgatory on earth”—the suffering that breaks our attachment to the disordered love of self.

While such trials by fire may put us on the hot seat, they shouldn’t surprise or scandalize us, but instead cause us to rejoice (1 Peter 4:12-13).   For it is Love alone that is capable of sending such holy fire, and an encounter Love’s fire alone that can heal us.

This article was originally published on Aleteia.