Doctrinal Quiz Show! Not much soap left, so this one's crucial....

So many post ideas, so little time!  Here we are at a new Doctrinal Quiz Show! Let's make it short and sweet, because my hair is in a towel and my laundry is piled high:


Name the two Judgements every soul will receive, and describe them.


Good luck! (Both on the Quiz Show and when God judges you, ha ha!)

Can I just say...

... I am so impressed by all of your comments on my last post. Seriously, as I read each one I kept thinking, I wish I had thought of that! and I'm going to use that next time! I wanted to respond to each of your thoughts, but instead I am doing a collective "thank you" right here!


Most of you guys are youngsters compared to me, and the quality, depth and thoughtfulness of your comments fills me with great hope and gratitude!


Now on to other matters, I have a certain soap burning a hole in my pocket (or rather, a certain soap has a hole in it), and I feel the urge to bestow it on yet another lucky soul who needs a good, green wash. So, start brushing up on your doctrine, and get prepared for another Doctrinal Quiz Show -- coming soon!


PS: Still accepting faith stories, hint hint!

What the heck is so bad about "rules" anyway?

I've never understood why people routinely bash the Catholic Church for having "rules," but it's a classic complaint. 


Recently, I read yet another anti-Catholic comment on a blog, and I thought I would address the main points here. I have edited the original text for clarity and grammar, but it's mostly intact. The commenter's words are in red italics:


I don't want to overstep my bounds here...


(She is about to overstep her bounds here.)


...but I just went through and read all the comments on this post and I have to say, I don’t agree with many of them. 


(Some Catholic commenters had defended the Church's teaching on the immorality of in vitro fertilization.)


I’m not a religious person in the sense that I do not subscribe to any organized religion. 


This line is one of the most common around: "I don't believe in organized religion." I heard a commentator on TV recently make a good observation: Is disorganized prayer somehow more desirable than organized prayer? As for me, I prefer order whenever I can find it, in my home, in my town, in my government and yes, in my religion.


One of the reasons for that is I don’t believe in all the “rules” they make for their followers. 


Who are "they" and what are the "rules"? I wouldn't believe in some random people making random rules, either. However, in the Catholic faith, we believe that truth has its origin in God. If the Catholic Church were just making up arbitrary "rules" willy-nilly, with no basis in reason or objective truth, then there would be no Catholics. I know I'd be gone in a heartbeat.


Many "rules" seem so close-minded and unfair. 


They may "seem" that way to you, but I would bet my last dollar that you haven't studied the reason and meaning behind the "rules". As a random example: If one had no understanding of the beauty of marriage or of the catastrophic damage that results from adultery, one might think it was "close-minded and unfair" that a person can't have occasional sex with the cute man down the street.


I was raised a Catholic... 


Forgive me, but that is usually the signal that someone has no clue what the Church teaches or why, and that some very strong but misguided opinions will soon follow. 


...and even got confirmed (though I didn’t want to). 


Your parish did you a disservice. No one should be confirmed if he or she objects to the sacrament.


I know that the Catholic Church is against IVF, and I have talked with my grandmother (who is VERY Catholic) about it at length. The bottom line is that I just don’t understand how an institution that is supposed to be created in love can deny people a chance at something they so desperately want. 


If you talked about it at length, and yet you still frame the debate as people being "denied a chance at something they so desperately want," then either your grandma didn't have good resources to give you, or you have missed the point. Because "denying desperate people what they want" is not what the Church is about. You wouldn't claim that the Church's teachings against stealing or lying or adultery are simply there to "deny people what they desperately want," would you? Perhaps there are deeper truths that you are missing.


It just seems to arbitrary to me. You can use drugs but not this procedure? What is that? 


"That" is a consistent moral ethic. One may use medication or surgery to restore fertility (i.e., restore bodily health) so that a child may be conceived naturally. But one may not create a child outside of the marital embrace. That's a very clear line. Not arbitrary in the least. 


I feel like the Catholic church is full of discrepancies like that and it makes it difficult for me to take any of their “rules” seriously.


You may "feel" like that, but you need to study more if you are truly interested. The "discrepancies" that you "feel" exist are simply your own misunderstandings based on extremely limited knowledge. I used to misunderstand the Church's teachings, too, and then I set out to learn why the Church teaches what she does. It is the lack of discrepancies in Church teaching, i.e., the breathtaking consistency of it, which convinced me to remain Catholic when I was ready to jump ship.

I’m not trying to be judgmental here, though I’m sure it sounds that way. 


Actually, to me it sounds more like ignorance than judgmentalism.


I don’t presume to say religious people shouldn’t be religious or shouldn’t follow the “rules” of their religion. 


Thank you. (By the way, I'm not sure why you keep putting "rules" in quotes? Do you have something against rules in general? Can you imagine a family, a community, or a nation without rules? I don't think anyone would want to live there.)


But I do think religion should be about spirituality, not a huge bureaucracy that creates endless rules to follow, especially when those rules speak down to some of its followers and keep others from feeling accepted or achieving happiness.


The Catholic religion is based in reason and truth. It has ritual and structure and focus. It is not some fluffy, feel-good, nebulous "spirituality" designed to make us feel giddy. Now, don't get me wrong: Catholicism certainly does have spirituality. In fact, it's the most mind-blowing, transcendent spirituality of any religion I can think of, and you can read the works of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, or any of the great Catholic mystics to see what that looks like. I think you'd like it. 

I guess what I want to say is that I hope a person's reasons for not wanting to do IVF are her own, and not something that's forced on her by someone else. 


The Church proposes, never imposes. Every soul is gifted by God with free will. It is sacrosanct, and neither God nor His Church will touch it. God forces no one to love Him or do His will, and the Church forces no one to follow her teachings.


If you believe in someone else’s reasons for not doing IVF then that is one thing, but if you feel beholden to an institution and that is why you’re not doing it, even though you want to, well that is a different situation entirely. I hope you can find your own way to your children and feel good about the path you chose.


Can you think of a situation in which what we "want" to do is not what we should do? And, is it possible that an individual could be wrong about something? And could a 2,000-year-old "institution" possibly (maybe even probably) have some wisdom to impart?


I, for one, don't feel "beholden" to the Church. I feel grateful for her clarity, her guidance and the consistency of her teachings, whether in season or out. And yes, I feel grateful for her correction. I love that Church teaching is based in truth and the dignity of the human person. I love that she speaks the truth in love, even when that truth is wildly unpopular and even hated, and when she is the lone voice in a culture which says that anything goes as long as you "want" it desperately enough.


Rules? If they are based in truth and love, then rules are freedom.


Again with my favorite quotes from G.K. Chesterton:


"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."

"[When the convert] has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."

Back! And playing catch up...

I love going away, but I hate trying to catch up when I come back! I actually tried to follow the blogs on my husband's Blackberry while we were gone, so I was able to read some, but not really comment. Thanks for patience!

When I was away, I thought of about a million different posts that I want to write! So many ideas, so little time. What do you all do when that happens? Do you have tons of posts in draft form?

Okay, off to do laundry and try to get my life in order....

Generalizing is not a bad thing

Before I take a blogging break starting tomorrow (yay for holiday weekends; I need a holiday after the atheism post!), I thought I'd just throw out one quick thought.


Every now and then someone will complain that I "generalize" too much. I used to think that generalizing was a bad thing, because for some reason we are taught in this society that we shouldn't generalize. 


But then I heard a brilliant man* explain that if we do not generalize, we can't even talk. Of course, he's right. Think about it. If we have to note, discuss and dissect every caveat, every variation, and every possible exception to every idea we wish to debate, then we are conversationally paralyzed.


For purposes of debate, I need to be able to say, "The desert is hot," without going into the fact that there are times when the desert is cool and even cold (I know, because I live in the desert). I need to be able to say, "Liberals support a right to abortion," without having to provide a disclaimer about the small percentage of liberals who are pro-life. (I'm just throwing out two examples off the top of my head, but you get the point. It's late and my brain is fried!) 


Basically, I assume that every party to a dialogue understands that of course there are exceptions to almost everything. If there are some cases where I believe there to be no exceptions (moral absolutes, for example), I will be clear about that. But generally speaking (there I go again, generalizing!), exceptions are a given, and we don't need to spell them out every time, do we? It doesn't add to the clarity or understanding of the subject at hand when we must always discuss the exceptions as well as the rule.


Anyway, I just thought I would throw that out there and declare that I will, generally, generalize. Because I like discussions that actually go somewhere and mean something.


*Political and social commentator Dennis Prager. Prager is also the man responsible for my motto regarding dialogue with liberals: I prefer clarity to agreement.

Spiritual Bouquet!

The IF bloggers have meant the world to me this past year, and I am happy to participate in offering this multi-blogger spiritual bouquet for all those who are struggling with infertility or pregnancy/adoption loss. Thank you for your witness to the world. You have been an inspiration to me and to countless others!                             

Just curious...

To lighten things up from the atheism talk (which is ongoing), I thought I would throw out another "Just Curious." (I need an icon for it. Well, I made an icon for it, but I didn't like it. Must try again soon.)


Did you go to public or private high school?  And, did you enjoy high school?


I went to a public high school. There were about 2,000 kids in the school, and about 500 in my graduating class. I wasn't super-popular, but I wasn't unpopular, either. Generally, I enjoyed my high school years and have a few really great memories, but I can't say that I miss those days. 


How about you?

For atheists, a couple of questions

Dear atheists, 


I desire to understand you. I really do. I am not being sarcastic or flippant when I say that. I don't get you. I try to figure things out so that they make sense to me, and so I have a couple of questions that may seem silly or simple-minded or obvious to you, but I am asking in good faith. They are not trick questions. Here goes:


1) Billions of years ago, the material universe was created when some stuff interacted with some other stuff (chemicals, gases? I don't know... I'm not a scientist so I will defer to you). My question: Where did the "stuff" come from?


2) Atheists believe that "gathering knowledge" and "intellectual curiosity" are important (and I agree wholeheartedly). My question: If your brain is the product of randomness and chance, then why do you trust your brain to give you true information?


Thanks in advance for taking my questions seriously and answering them directly, without tangents.

Just Curious...

How many siblings do you have?


I have one sister, and she is 19 months older than me. We didn't really get along growing up, but now we are very good friends!


She knows about my blog, but she doesn't read it unless I force her, ha!

Part II.... File this under, "Why haven't I heard this before??"

Read Part I, here.



Well, I guess describing something as a "spiritual equivalent of a nuclear bomb" is setting the bar high! But I really do stand by that analogy. If you take what I am going to tell you and truly apply it, then a nuclear bomb will look like a water balloon in comparison. Because union with God is infinitely more powerful, exponentially more earth-shaking, than a nuclear bomb.

The book which changed my life is called The Ordinary Path to Holiness, by R. Thomas Richard. I have the original, regionally-published edition, which isn't professionally done and looks pretty cheesy. I used to wonder why something so amazing hadn't been published by a "real" publisher, and eventually it was! It now has a pretty cover and new typeset, and a foreword by Fr. Benedict Groeschel (who doesn't love him??!).

The "ordinary path to holiness" is just that. It's ordinary, meaning, it's the usual way that every soul must travel to get to God's Heart. Every one of us, no matter our vocation, is called to the highest form of prayer (infused contemplation/mysticism) and to spiritual marriage (consummation) with the Trinity. Please stop here and re-read that, slowly.

What this book did for me was to lay out a path that I could see, with a clear goal at the end and recognizable landmarks along the way. I am a linear, logical thinker, and I need things to be spelled out clearly. I had no idea that the spiritual life could be this way. I thought that while doctrine was concrete and linear, holiness was sort of nebulous and abstract, fluffy and wispy, like a cloud. I figured I would just pray throughout my life, read the Scriptures, be kind to others, and then holiness would just sort of "happen," in some sort of meandering, ill-defined way.

I was shocked and ecstatic to discover traditional Catholic spirituality. The author (a former Protestant pastor... ya gotta love those converts!!) synthesizes the works of several experts on the interior life and prayer (including saints who've walked the whole path!), and he makes it easy to understand the route our souls will take as we approach union with God.

A soul in mortal sin is not on the path. Once a soul gets on the path (i.e., is in a state of grace), he will travel through three stages of holiness: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. These stages are not static and perfectly separated, yet they are identifiable and trustworthy as our guide to the interior life. I briefly described these stages in my latest Doctrinal Quiz Show, so check that out for a little more info.

The Ordinary Path to Holiness presents the order of the path. Oh, how I love order! To discover order in the spiritual life -- be still my heart! It now makes perfect sense to me that just as the body goes through normal stages of growth (childhood, adolescence, adulthood) so, too, does the soul.

The book layout goes like this: The author first explains the three stages of holiness, which are unknown to most Catholics. (By the way, you will never hear the parable of the sower in the same way again!).

In the next section, he shows us how a soul in each stage reads and responds to Scripture. An advanced soul encounters the Bible in a completely different way than a beginner. I knew after reading that section that I was definitely a beginner, ha!

Next, the author illustrates how the experience of prayer changes for the soul as it progresses through each stage. Can I just say, WOW????!!! You will crave holiness when you read what the Lord has in store for those who perfectly align their hearts to His.

Another section walks us through St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, corresponding her seven mansions to the three stages of holiness. He also corresponds the sections of the Our Father with the three stages. Amazing stuff which just further illustrates the perfection of the Lord's Prayer.

Then, after a section on the sacraments, we are shown how the three stages of holiness are made manifest in the Holy Mass itself. All I could think of was how much I wanted to one day experience the Mass while in the unitive stage! Ahhhhh!!!

Finally, there is a section on holiness in suffering and dying. Again, wow....

When I finished the book, a whole new life opened up to me, and I couldn't wait to learn more, pray more, and love God more. A perfect follow-up book for me was Fire Within, by Fr. Thomas Dubay. While The Ordinary Path to Holiness changed my life, Fire Within just about set me over the edge. I couldn't believe the descriptions of the interior life of a soul that is in union with God. Talk about a romance!! Fr. Dubay focuses on works of the prayer masters, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. I think I walked around on a cloud for days after that one.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention Fr. Benedict Groeschel's Spiritual Passages (an old work of his... did you all know that he is a psychologist as well as a priest?) and Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange's The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life. Fr. Groeschel's work (subtitled "The Psychology of Spiritual Development") is a fascinating look into the psychology of the three stages, in simple terms that I could understand. No psycho-babble and lots of real life examples, too. As for Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, he is pretty much the acknowledged expert on the three stages, and some consider him the greatest theologian of the 20th century.

Okay, just writing about this stuff makes me want to recommit to my prayer life! If you really think about it, there is nothing -- truly nothing -- more important than the path one's soul will take to its eternal destiny. The fact that I can see it laid out before me in a simple but breathtaking road map form is the perfect way to draw me out of my head and into a full-on love affair with my Beloved, Who continues to wait while I dilly-dally in the first stage.... But more on that later.... Maybe I will make that Part III.

And since I guess this ended up as a Books in the Bubble, here it is:

*Update: Another book in this vein is Descending Fire: The Journal of a Soul Aflame, by Jean Petit. I can't leave that out, as it left me reeling, too, and exclaiming, "I want what that soul has!"