Regnum Christi

For quite some time, my husband and I have considered ourselves “minimalists”. We make weekly trips to second-hand depots where we pass on things we once thought we needed. We second- and third-guess our purchases, asking ourselves and each other “do we really need this?” before allowing it into our home. Most of our cupboards and drawers are half full, and in several rooms, we’ve had to take down shelves because we simply had nothing left with which to fill them. “Is this room too bare?” I asked my mom after another recent purge. “It’s… sparse,” was her reply. Perfect, that’s just the way we like it. Continue reading →

I originally wrote this reflection with my consecrated brothers and sisters in the Legion and Regnum Christi in mind, but I think it can still be helpful (at least analogously) for any Christian who is seeking a deeper friendship with God. I’m currently studying the Classical Humanities in Cheshire, CT, and am preparing to go to Rome to continue my studies for the priesthood. It is a tremendous blessing to have so many companions from which to draw this reflection and experience of friendship of the soul.

The times we live in can be so blind to the gifts of God. And we, children of our times, are subject to the same blindness of heart. A book or even many books could be written about today’s crisis of real friendship and its misunderstood place in our society. I simply want to share my reflections over a question that perhaps we wonder in our hearts, yet we struggle to articulate: Does friendship really matter for a consecrated man or woman who has heard and answered the Lord’s call? This isn’t just a “friend” on Facebook or a colleague you’ve worked with for many years, and have learned to tolerate their rough edges. I am speaking of a friendship of the soul. First, let me describe what sort of friendship I am thinking of and then we’ll consider why it could be worthwhile. Continue reading →

I love taking my daughter to her fiddle lessons. They’re held in an old two-story house downtown, each room of the house having been converted into an instruction space for a different instrument. Guitar lessons are at the back of the house in what used to be the kitchen, and the drum kit is set up at the front behind two (acoustically insulated) French doors in what once was the living room. What was the upstairs bedroom at the front of the house is now dedicated to piano and voice lessons, the middle bedroom is for the electric guitar, and the back bedroom is devoted to those learning the fiddle and banjo. One room upstairs is set up as a waiting room, lined with folding chairs and furnished with books, toys, and one ancient green velvet armchair that welcomes me each week. And every Tuesday evening for exactly one-half hour, I get to sit in that green velvet chair, tune out the sound of five or six lessons of dissimilar instruments going on all at once, and read my book, totally guilt-free. Continue reading →

In the Legion, we call an apostolic assignment a “mission.” Last year, I got the dream mission.

Legionary vocation director Father Edward Hopkins welcomed me to SEEK 2017, the San Antonio conference hosted by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). Taking a break from my role as a teaching assistant to Legionary novices and humanists in Cheshire, I flew south to talk and listen to enthusiastic college students about the priestly vocation. How exciting! Continue reading →

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. – Matthew 16:18

It would be easy to get depressed by the Irish referendum. Two-thirds of voters said they wanted restrictions eliminated on abortion.

Two-thirds of the Irish took the pro-death side – although I doubt many thought of it in those terms.  They voted for the right of a woman to choose, a modern progressive position that puts Ireland squarely in line with most of the “first world.” Continue reading →

I might be the only person who loves Mondays — in fact, it’s my favorite day of the week. Now that all my kids are in school, it’s the day I get to take the house back from the chaos of the weekend and get back to work on my own projects. But even when the kids were little and the routine of the weekend didn’t differ much from the routine of the week, Monday always felt like a fresh start. It was a new beginning, another chance to eat healthier, to stay more organized, to stick to my schedule. This week I’ll do better.

Not surprisingly, I’m also the kid who eagerly anticipated the first day of school: the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, a stack of empty pages, a box of pristine crayons. The start of a new school year accompanied a list of resolutions: this year I’ll be more organized, this year I’ll be less shy. Continue reading →

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:7-13 Continue reading →

I love keeping up with friends and relatives near and far on social media, and being informed and inspired by the things they share.

This morning, picking up my phone after my morning prayer time, I was inspired.  What if, instead of scrolling through my social media feed with curiosity or with boredom, I approached it with prayer? Continue reading →

At Easter we display a Påskris, a tree made of twigs and feathers.

Over the past few years, our family has been exploring my husband’s Swedish roots. We’ve mastered making Swedish meatballs and the pantry is always stocked with lingonberry jam from IKEA. We’ve tried to incorporate Swedish traditions into our family celebrations, especially those that enhance our Catholic faith. Our favourite is the Feast of St. Lucy: every year on the morning of December 13, the eldest daughter of the family traditionally makes lussekatter (S-shaped saffron buns) and serves them to the rest of family wearing a wreath of lit candles on her head. We don’t do the latter, of course, because we don’t favor the smell of burnt hair with our morning coffee, but for many years (at least until adolescence!) our daughter Mia wore a wreath of fake leaves and felt candles while serving breakfast to her siblings.

The newest Swedish notion we’ve begun to explore is the concept of lagom, which, loosely translated as “not too little, not too much,” is the art of balanced living. To Swedes, lagom in daily life is a sense of balance and moderation in all they do. It means work, rest, and play in equal measures. At work, it means taking time for fika, a morning and afternoon coffee break (traditionally with kanelbullar, or cinnamon buns) that is as much an institution as work itself. At home, it means balancing the “stuff” with an equal amount of clean, bright, open space. In conversation, it means listening as much as they speak, and embracing silent pauses as a chance for everyone to reflect. Continue reading →

Automedon with the Horses of Achilles by Henri Renault

“What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardent-hearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.” ― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Henri Renault’s painting of Automedon with the Horses of Achilles brought to mind a book I have recently read about ardent-hearted horses and ardent-hearted men and these men’s relationship to nature. In All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy presents John Grady Cole, the last heir in a long line of Texan cowboys. As a youth, he escapes the comforts and cares of his more “civilized” mother in search of wilderness and adventure. He and his horse ride through the vast deserts and rocky mountains of northern Mexico searching for destiny. John Grady believes his fate is tied to working the earth and tending the cattle and, most importantly, breaking and riding horses.  He claims to be able to establish a deep relationship with the beast that runs under him. Continue reading →