Gosh, it feels like every week there’s another convert to Catholicism. Maybe from Protestantism, evangelicalism, or indeed agnosticism.

I wrote last year about the vibe shift and nothing has changed my mind on that score. For decades, it’s seemed that Evangelical Christianity was on the front foot and we Catholics were racing to keep up — with distinctly mixed results. Now, things seem a bit different. The slew of conversions might not be meaningfully moving the statistics (there are still far more Catholics leaving the church than entering it), but it’s certainly changing the conversation.

What’s fascinating is that this has happened before.

Evangelical Revival

In the 18th Century, Great Britain and the United States witnessed a great revival in Protestantism of preaching and conversion. Men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley travelled around, preaching gospel conversion to hundreds of thousands of people. This became the First Great Awakening and the cornerstone of the Evangelical Movement.

Almost a century later, and the movement was still culturally ascendant. Converts were flooding in, the Methodist and many modern Baptist churches were formed, and Protestant missionary societies began taking off. In the political realm, the American Revolution was deeply influenced by the simple piety of evangelical Protestantism. In the United Kingdom, abolitionists like John Newton (he of Amazing Grace fame) and William Wilberforce fought to outlaw slavery in the British Empire.

And where was the Catholic Church? Buffeted by the French Revolution, struggling to come to terms with modernity, and with Napoleon had just kidnapped the pope to boot. Not terribly edifying to say the least.

But within a generation, things seemed to change.

Catholic Conversions

Few stories better illustrate that shift than the children of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was an exemplar of evangelical Anglicanism. A member of the Clapham sect, he favoured a simpler liturgy, prioritised bible reading, and fought vigorously in the public square, not just against the slave trade, but also against cruelty to animals and for sabbath-keeping and better working conditions. He was a man who could sing Amazing Grace full throttle and without a doubt.

Wilberforce had six children, including four boys.

Wiliam, the elder and named after his father, was a barrister and MP. In 1850, he converted to Catholicism.

Robert, the second son, became an Anglican clergyman and archdeacon in Yorkshire. He was friends with John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey and the other members of the Oxford Movement. He converted in 1851.

Samuel, the third son, became an Anglican clergyman of the high church party and rose to become the Bishop of Winchester. He was good friends with William Gladstone (the future PM) and Henry Manning (another convert and future cardinal). He never converted, although his only daughter Emily and his husband Rev. Henry Pye did convert in 1868.

Henry, the youngest son, was tutored by John Henry Newman and became one of his more devoted disciples. He also converted in 1850.

The Oxford Movement

Yep. Three of his four sons converted to Catholicism — and indeed, all of them left evangelicalism in any some sense. They were the original exvangelicals.

That’s kind of crazy.

But it was in the air. Broadly speaking, the evangelical revivals of the 18th Century gave way in the 19th Century to a greater focus on liturgical worship, the sacraments, and a renewed sense of the Church as the Body of Christ, and not just an appendage of the state. Today, we know their movement as the Oxford Movement, in which many Anglicans abandoned the Church of England and became Catholics, led by such luminaries as St John Henry Newman and Cardinal Manning.

But one aspect of the movement which seems to be forgotten is that the men and women who converted were often the children of sincere and outstanding evangelicals. Or they themselves were evangelicals in their early days like Newman was. They were raised to love Christ Jesus but they were also looking for more: they wanted more depth, more catholicity, and especially a beautiful liturgy.

Sound familiar?

I don’t think we’re about to see mass conversions to the Catholic Church, or the collapse of Evangelicalism, any more than we saw them in the 19th Century. The Oxford Movement ultimately splintered as some remained Anglicans and some converted to the Catholic Church. And Protestantism certainly didn’t disappear because a few “exvangelical” men from Oxford became Catholic converts.

But the men like the Wilberforce brothers, like St John Henry Newman and Cardinal Manning profoundly influenced the Catholic Church in the English-speaking world. Imagine a Catholic world without G.K Chesterton or J.R.R. Tolkien, without a coherent theology of the development of doctrine.

It also shook the Protestant world, bringing the claims of St Peter back into the conversation. Their questions of authority and the sacraments are still ones we wrestle with today.

Wilberforce’s Sons

Wilberforce himself had died in 1833 so he never witnessed his sons’ conversions. (Well, at least not earthside.) I wonder what he would have made of it. He was an avowed anti-Catholic in his youth but as time went on he thought that toleration of Catholics would be good for society and might even lead Catholics to convert: “By removing the civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics, we shall eliminate that irritation which prevents them from looking at our religion with a calm and impartial eye.” (So maybe a little ironic.)

I think that Wilberforce’s sons discovered what many others have and continue to find. Their evangelical faith was sincere and Christ-centered. But that was not enough.

Their father’s example had taught them to value truth over conformity and to let their faith guide their actions. To quote Wilberforce, “A private faith that does not act in the face of oppression is no faith at all.”

In the end, the same faith in Christ Jesus led them to the Catholic Church.

You could call it an irony, but I rather think of it as the opposite of ironic. It was the fulfillment of the faith their father had given them and the conviction he shared with them that “there is no shortcut to holiness; it must be the business of our whole lives.”

The new Archbishop of Canterbury was enthroned in Canterbury Cathedral last week.

As a Catholic who also loves everything English, it was a strange experience to watch from afar. On the one hand, I’m not celebrating that the new Archbishop is a woman. On the other hand, I don’t really need to worry because I don’t think she’s a bishop anyway.

There’s part of me that feels positively snarky. That’s our cathedral, I want to object. And it’s our bishopric: the first bishop of Canterbury was St Augustine who was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century to re-evangelise England.

I shake my head. Poor St Thomas Becket must be rolling over in his grave — oh wait, he can’t roll over in his grave because the founder of the Church of England desecrated his tomb and scattered his bones.

It was funny timing too.

The day before the enthronement, the Vatican released a document discussing the Anglican patrimony in the Catholic Church, specifically through the Anglican Ordinariates. I’m sure this was planned far in advance: 2026 is the sixtieth anniversary of the first formal ecumenical declaration between the Anglicans and the Catholic Church.

The Anglican Ordinariates are groups of Anglicans who converted to the Catholic Church.1 These conversions were often sparked by issues like like ordaining women to the priesthood or supporting abortions (as Sarah Mullaly also does). The role of the Ordinariate structure is “to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church”, including their liturgy,2 “as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.”

But like, what exactly is the Anglican patrimony?

It can’t simply be the beautiful cathedrals, titles or vestments. Sarah Mullally had those. It can’t even be the presence of the Royal Family. (Although the Princess of Wales looked stunning as always.)

We know that it has a distinctive Englishy culture, but it’s hard to describe it without falling into stereotypes, exaggerating minor differences or — and this what tends to happen — just describing basic Christianity and calling it “Anglican”.

The bishops identified seven characteristics of the Anglican patrimony as it is lived in daily life. So I thought I’d read it over and have a guess at what these features actually look and how they historically evolve that way.

Now, my credentials to do this are pretty limited. I’m not part of the Ordinariate, nor was I ever a “proper Anglican”. But I did go to an Anglican church in Sydney for six years (and I do love everything English), so I have half an idea. Maybe a quarter of an idea.

So, what did the Ordinariate bishops think was key to understanding the Anglican patrimony?

1. An Ecclesial Ethos that emphasises the role of the laity, especially as they collaborate with the clergy. This has long been a feature of English ecclesial life. In the Middle Ages, many parishes had two (or more) churchwardens who managed the logistical side of parish management. During the Reformation, Elizabeth I took the existing parish structure and extended into the civil realm with the Poor Laws. This meant that each parish was responsible for the care of the poor in their area, legally and not just spiritually.

2. Evangelisation through Beauty, especially in the liturgy. This seems to be a particular emphasis of the Anglo-Catholics, who reacted against their Protestant brethren in the C of E by embracing ALL the bells and smells. When I think of beauty in this context, however, I think of the beauty of the King James Bible and English musical tradition. I admit, I don’t tend to think of their art per se. My sense from attending and visiting historic Anglican churches is that they are rather fond of ecclesiastical heraldry. The Italians have the pieta; the English have their needle-point heraldic banners. (I’m a fan of both.)

3. Outreach to the Poor. I’ll be honest, I don’t immediately think of this when I think of the Anglican patrimony but that might just be my ignorance. The document points to the example of St John Henry Newman who was loved by the people, not just as intellectual but as a man of charity. The Methodist influences in the Anglican Communion might be particularly pertinent here.

4. A Pastoral Culture where there is “a liturgical, almost monastic rhythm drawn from the English spiritual tradition” in parish life. During the English Reformation, Cranmer took the monastic tradition of praying the Office eight times a day, and condensed it into two solid Offices, Matins in the morning and Evensong in the evening. It works really well for a cathedral or parochial setting, when you can’t be a monk popping in and out of the chapel constantly. I defy any sane person to not fall in love with the Anglican service of Evensong.

5. The Family and the Domestic Church. The bishops emphasised the centrality of Walsingham (“England’s Nazareth”) in English spirituality and the importance of the family. With many married clergy (who bring their families with them), it makes sense that an Ordinariate parish might be even more family-focused than most. The document talks about “the role of parents as the primary educators of their children in the faith” and of the parish’s role in supporting parents and in “lifelong intellectual formation” for the entire parish.

6. Scripture and Preaching. Now, this might also explain the strong intellect culture mentioned above because a key part of the Anglican patrimony is “a strong tradition of preaching grounded in Scripture”. This is where you can see the Protestant influence coming through most strongly: that love for Scripture and focus on preaching the Word.

7. Spiritual Direction and the Sacrament of Penance, where “they have inherited an approach to these elements of the care of souls that prioritizes giving each person time and accompanying them as they encounter Christ the Good Shepherd”. I wonder if this is because the C of E practically got rid of Confession and then had to sneak it back under the guise of “spiritual counsellor”. Hey, God truly works in mysterious ways and I think many Catholics (not just Ordinariate Catholics) could do with remembering that Confession is far more than box-checking exercise in securing forgiveness.

Altogether, it’s a solid list of characteristics. You can see how each of these characteristics really is a “treasure to be shared” with the wider church. It makes me wish we had an Ordinariate church nearby! (As a kinda former Anglican, I could fit in, right? Wear a thick wool coat, bring a bottle of sherry, sing God Save the King?)3

I think back to Sarah Mullally’s enthronement in the Cathedral, during which she wore an emerald ring. It was a gift from Pope Paul VI to her predecessor, Michael Ramsay in 1966 during that initial ecumenical overture. Back then, reunion seemed possible, maybe even likely. But that was before the Church of England decided to ordain women, bless same-sex weddings, and turn a blind eye to the killing of unborn children in abortion.

Despite drifting even further from the Catholic Church, they still choose to wear that ring. It has the outward appearance of an episcopal ring, a gift blessed by the pope. But in reality, it means very little.

There are countless faithful and devoted Christians in the Anglican Communion. I should know. They shared the gospel with me as a teenager, taught me how to read the bible, and showed me how to follow Christ. I owe them so much.

But the future of the Anglican patrimony, at least from what I can see, is firmly with the faithful men and women of the Ordinariates. They love their English heritage and the long history of saints it has produced, following the likes of St Augustine, St Thomas Becket, and St John Henry Newman. And by the grace of God, they choose to embrace, not just Christ, but the fullness of truth in His Church.

And what a gift to the rest of the Church that is.

There was once a widow who brought the bread for Mass every Sunday.

One Sunday morning, she’d baked the bread as normal. It wasn’t a special loaf, she’d made bread thousands of times before. Perhaps she had ground the grain the day before herself, or taken it to the local miller. She’d leavened it and kneaded it with her own hands, before baking it in the oven that morning before she went to Mass. There was nothing unusual about the liturgy either. The bishop prayed over the bread she had offered with the whispered words of Consecration: This is my Body, given for you.

But as she approached the altar to receive, she thought, “there’s no way” (And I’m paraphrasing a seventh century Roman widow here but you get the drift.) “There’s no way that that bread I made this morning, with my own hands, could become the very Lord of the Universe. Nope.”

She laughed.

She laughed right in the bishop’s face. He didn’t criticise her; he simply stopped and he prayed for her doubt to be disproved. And before their eyes, the Bread turned into a piece of human flesh.

This miracle would be remembered as the Miraculous Mass of St Gregory the Great, the first of many Eucharistic miracles where the consecrated bread of the host would appear to be like human blood. The medievals loved this story, which first appears in texts from the 9th Century. In their art, Our Lord often appears entirely, as a man, on the altar, even though the earliest versions say the bread turned into what seemed to be human flesh. We’re still fascinated over these miracles. St Carlo Acutis devoted his internet days to compiling a website all about Eucharistic miracles. As recently as 2008, Poland witnessed a confirmed Eucharistic miracle where the blood appears to be from a dying man.

But there’s one detail of the Miraculous Mass of St Gregory that I’d never noticed before.

The woman who doubts is the same woman who made the bread.

In the ancient world, bread-making was woman’s work. While men tilled the fields, planted the seeds, and did the bulk of the harvesting and threshing, it was up to the women to turn that raw material of wheat germ into delicious bread. Women ground the grain, often using a hand mill, leavened and kneaded it, and finally shaped and baked it the oven. No wonder the Proverbs 31 Woman “makes her arms strong”. (Proverbs 31:17).

Just as they did for their families, women made the bread for the liturgy. At least in the West, making the bread for the Holy Mass was not the preserve of just monks (although they certainly did so too), it was the work of ordinary women, in concert with the men in the fields who’s back-breaking work supplied the grain.

When our Lord wants to explain how the Kingdom of God grows, he looks to this sort of work.

Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; […] He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.” (Matthew 13:31-33)

I love the parallelism here between the man who took and sowed the seed in his field and the woman who took and hid leaven in her flour. They’re both parables of the secret, hidden power of God at work, even when we can’t initially see it. And both are told through the archetypal occupation for man and woman: sowing the fields and making the bread, respectively.

I feel an affinity with that doubting widow. I suspect she didn’t doubt just for the lols (I mean, not that many of us do). So why did she doubt that morning?

Well, she’d made that bread. She’d seen inside the process. It takes a long time to make bread and a lot of effort. How could God hallow such mundane work? I feel like there’s a hardness in her laughter, an air of self-sufficiency. She doesn’t want to be taken for a fool because she’s not like those ignorant believers; she knows what’s going on.

But this is how God works. This is how God has always worked. It is the logic of the Incarnation. He takes the ordinary stuff of humanity and raises it up by His sanctifying presence. He takes on human nature in order to hallow it. He becomes present, under the appearance of bread and wine, in the Eucharist. He uses water to unite us to Himself and oil to pour our the Holy Spirit.

But there’s more to it than that. She had made that bread. I wonder if behind the air of all-knowing superiority, there isn’t a far deeper shame.

Because we can all piously agree, oh yes, God makes holy the work of human hands.

But not my hands. He’s not going to sanctify me or the works of my hands.

As I’m writing this, I’m up-and-down from the computer, cooking dinner at the same time, feeding the baby, getting the boys some veggie-and-hummus snacks. (I may have forgotten to turn the chicken drumsticks.) This time yesterday evening, I was wiping away tears in the bedroom (mine and the kids) because I lost my temper one too many times.

It’s exhausting, overwhelming, and I often feel totally adrift and unseen.

The idea that God wants to use this is, well, laughable. I’m inclined to laugh like that widow did. Or laugh like Sarah when the angels declared she would conceive a child at the magnificent age of 90.

This, Lord? THIS!?

Yes, even this.

This sense of unworthiness isn’t always a bad thing. If placed under the authority of Christ’s love, it becomes an unworthiness that turns to Him for mercy. It’s not by accident that we pray just before we receive the Eucharist, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my rood but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.”

But that unworthiness, when it is untethered from Christ’s love, can easily turn into a deep shame that keeps us away from Him. As if our sins are bigger than His love and our weaknesses are too powerful for His grace.

The miracle of St Gregory’s Mass reminds us that it’s our bread Christ blesses, and it’s our lives that He sanctifies. In the Offertory, I can bring all my efforts, worthy or not, and place them before Him.

And I can trust that our good Lord knows how to transform it into something beautiful.

That is what God has been doing with the daily handiwork of women and men throughout history. And He can do it with us too.

I just put my son down to bed. It’s late, and despite his best efforts, he just couldn’t get to sleep. We read a book about gumnut babies, talked about kookaburras, and I lay beside him as he finally drifted off to sleep.

I sometimes think about my children leaving the faith. Especially in those quiet moments when everything seems so still and their innocence, so perfect. They are the dearest thing in the world to me, and I want nothing more for them than to love and be loved by their Creator who died for them.

But I think about it.

What if my kids leave the faith? What if, after all the effort and prayer and heartache, they just decide to walk about from it all?

It happens.

Sometimes it’s all the kids. And sometimes it’s just one and you wonder, what was different about their experience from all the others?

I think about it because, in a sense, I also left the faith of my parents. They raised me to be a good secular liberal. And yet here I am, praying and practicing my patriarchal religion. Honestly, kids these days.

I can’t control what they’re going to do. In the big picture, I don’t have an absolute say in how they respond to the invitation of God’s love for them. I can love them and shepherd them as best I can and pray they take advice of Proverbs to heart:

Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching. (Proverbs 1:8)

But I can’t make them love God.

And so, as I’ve thought about it, I’ve asked myself another question: if they did leave the faith, what do I want them to say about it?

In my mind, it goes a little like this.

“My parents were always very sincere. They wanted to do the right thing and held themselves to the same standard as anyone else. We prayed every day; it was just what we did. I remember falling asleep during the Rosary so many times. They laughed a lot. They could always see the funny side in things. They wanted us to ask questions and to the follow the truth, no matter what. They really did love the poor and the lonely. The people society looks down on: they went out to them and really loved them. It wasn’t enough to just donate money or tins of food, they wanted us to learn to speak to anyone with love. Obviously, Sunday Mass was non-negotiable. But we always had treats afterwards. Funny, I don’t remember them ever criticising a bad homily or poor music (well, except for a few times). They’d always search for the good. They really did believe that God was watching over them.”

At some point, they’d explain their own view:

“I’m not a Catholic now, of course. I know my parents say aliens from Jupiter can be baptised but I don’t buy it… how can they have souls when they communicate via algae infestation? Crazy.”

Aliens aside — I wasn’t going to give a good reason to leave the Faith now, was I? — it’s an oddly helpful thing to think about. As a parent, what do I want my children to remember about their childhood experience in the Faith?

And even more importantly, am I living that vision?

Because I can tell you, that description of us as parents is light-years away from where we are. We’re inconsistent in prayer, we grumble and complain, we focus on our own material needs which always seem very important. (They are not.) We do laugh a lot. So there’s that, I suppose.

It’s something to work towards.

It reminds me too that, as much as I love to fixate on liturgy and apologetics, I don’t want that to be what my children remember. All the neat syllogisms in the world isn’t going to mean much to a child who’s wrestling with their faith. What matters is kindness, joy, love for the poor, and a supernatural surrender to God’s good providence.

I still can’t believe I’ve been entrusted with these beautiful human beings; that I get to be their mother and all that that entails.

I want them to be saints.

I want them to be children of the Father who loves them through Christ who died for them. But the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love and He will not force their hearts. (Unlike me strapping them into their car seats. Force can and will be used.)

But I think if we can get a little closer to that vision, the chance of them abandoning the Faith will be that little more slimmer. Not zero, by any means. Free will be free-willing. But we will do our bit to “train up a child in the way he should go” and trust that the Holy Spirit will do His bit “and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

At least that’s the plan.

I love my phone. I love the YouTube theological deep-dives, the Instagram reels of relatable toddler content, the Pinterest smorgasbord of delectable English country houses. And finding my feet on Substack hasn’t helped either.

I’ve known I needed a break from my phone for a while. I put on app timers and set alarms so I wouldn’t waste hours scrolling away. But I could just never quite bring myself to moderate it. Not really.

Seeking Something More

I remember a priest talking to me about it — when I’d shared it was an issue — and he warned me about how these apps can lure us into consumerism and waste. “Oh, I don’t actually buy anything”, I explained. And that was true. No glammed-up influencer is going to pry a cent out of these stingy Scottish hands.1

“Ah”, he said, “so it’s beauty you’re seeking.”

It cut me deep.

So often, it was beauty I was seeking. Beauty, rest, creativity, connection, leisure — the stuff that makes life worth living! The tedium and the mess of little kids, with the agonizing exhaustion of pregnancy thrown in, can be a lot. Was it any surprise I was turning to my phone to find something lovely to enjoy instead of monster trucks, dried porridge clumps, and yogurt smeared floors?

I know, at this point you might be probably thinking, well, what can you do? Life is tough. But I’m no stoic. (Please ignore my claims to stereotypical Scottish ancestry; clearly I was mistaken.)

I’m a romantic at heart.

And if I’m going to moderate my phone use, I need to focus more on how to fill my world with real rest and real beauty.

The Jubilee Indulgence

So when I saw that the 2025 Jubilee indulgences included a plenary indulgence for abstaining from futile distractions, like media or social networks, I knew it was the final push I needed.

It says:

The Jubilee Plenary Indulgence can also be obtained through initiatives that put into practice, in a concrete and generous way, the spirit of penance which is, in a sense, the soul of the Jubilee. In particular the penitential nature of Friday can be rediscovered through abstaining, in a spirit of penance, at least for one day of the week from futile distractions (real but also virtual distractions, for example, the use of the media and/or social networks)…2

The indulgence carries all the usual stipulations: detachment from all sin (including venial sin), Confession, Holy Communion and praying for the intentions of the pope. So I’m not saying I’m about to get that. (Detachment from all sin is no small matter!)

But let me tell you, that Sunday was glorious.

I felt freer, calmer, and oddly more energetic than I had in months. I slept well, went to Mass, poured over a fun, glossy magazine, played around with floor plans, took a nap, finished Perspectives on Paul, took the kids to the park, and made a yummy roast chicken dinner. I was even more eager to wash up than usual. (Now that was weird.)

It had some hiccups too. I think it took all of ten minutes before I started acting snottily superior to anyone else I saw on their phones that day.

But it was so worth it.

Entering into Real Rest

Now, you obviously don’t need an Enchiridion of Indulgences to take a break from social media. Anyone can do it. (And probably should.)

But my hope this Jubilee Year is that abstaining from the “futile distraction” of my phone won’t just give me a mental break, it will bring me into real rest. Sabbath rest. Divine rest.

Honestly, I’ve always been pretty good at not working on Sundays. Incorrigible laziness has it perks.

But the biblical picture of Jubilee rest is so much more.

In the Bible, the Year of Jubilee is every fiftieth year. Leviticus 25 explains how it would work. Every seventh year would be a sabbath year, where the fields were to lie fallow. And after seven sabbath years (7 x 7 = 49), you would come to the fiftieth year when all leased or mortgaged lands would be returned to their original owners and all slaves freed.

It was a glorious year of restoration and redemption.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus stands up at the beginning of his ministry and proclaims that He has come to bring the Year of Jubilee — or the year of the Lord’s favour as it was also called:

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4:18-19)

And not just for a year, or even every fifty years. But in a permanent, radical way: to be free not just from earthly ties but from the spiritual bondage of sin and death.

Enter His Rest

This Jubilee Year reminds us of exactly that.

Christ has come to set us free so we can rest in His Sabbath. As the letter to the Hebrews explains, the weekly Sabbath day of Israel’s history represents the eternal rest of heaven to come.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; ¹⁰ for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest… (Hebrews 4:9-11)

Make every effort to enter that rest.

In all my distractions and diversions, I’ve been trying to find beauty and rest in earthly things. And the most unnatural of earthly things — pixels on a screen, not even real stuff! And all this stuff has its place.

But I need so much more. We all do.

I was seeking Sabbath — and placating myself with doom scrolling.

Christ wants to show us the real beauty out there and invite us into the abiding rest of His sabbath Heart.

But we need to make space in our lives for that to happen.

So here’s to a year of Sundays!

I scroll Instagram and every second crunchy mom blogger is rediscovering traditional Christianity. I open substack, and half the posts are from women who’ve either just become or are becoming Catholic. I scoot over to YouTube and I’m inundated with the likes of Michael Knowles, Candace Owens, JD Vance, and other conservative “celebrities” — all Catholic converts. There are record numbers of converts in France and England. And now, I’m even getting video suggestions of “Why is everyone becoming Catholic?” and “Is the Protestant church dying?”

Even Jesus is Catholic.1

What gives?

As a Catholic revert myself, I clearly have some skin in the game. I think people are converting because they’re discovering that it’s true. But that’s not always the most interesting answer. (Although arguably it should be.)

Because I’ve also studied enough history to know that the why’s are always complex and layered. Often, ideas take off at a certain point in history because the conditions are finally right for them. It isn’t that they’re all that new or exciting. They’re just possible or plausible for the first time.

Or to put it another way, I’d argue that Catholicism has always been true. So why now? Why does it feel like everyone is becoming Catholic or Orthodox when twenty, thirty years ago… it definitely didn’t. And what’s the significance of the move to both Catholicism and Orthodoxy?

Accessible Information (Thanks Internet. No Joke.)

The biggest reason is it feels like so many people are becoming Catholic and Orthodox is, arguably, because lots of people are — and they’re sharing about it online. I think we forget how recent this deluge of information on the internet really is.

Today, you can research a ton all about the different churches. You can hear it from the horse’s mouth and find stories from both converts and life-long members. I mean, I started writing online because I started sharing my own conversion story from barely cultural Catholic to born-again Evangelical and back into the Catholic Church.

I remember googling doctrine after doctrine, figuring out the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Without the internet, that would have been so much more difficult. And I might never have gotten very far.

For example, in 2011, I got a kindle for my birthday. Naturally, I downloaded all the free Christian books I could get my hands on. But do you know what they recommend after C.S. Lewis? G.K. Chesterton. And then Ronald Knox, Hilaire Belloc, and some lady called Teresa of Avila.

The first properly Catholic book I ever read was Robert Hugh Benson’s Paradoxes of Catholicism. Mainly because it was free. (And still is.). But it blew my mind by explaining how the Church, as the Body of Christ, was also human and divine, like its Head and Master. That both/and logic drastically changed the way I approach Catholic doctrines.2 None of that would have been possible without the abundance of information online that was both free and easy to access.

People are learning about Catholicism and Orthodoxy for themselves. What the printing press was to the Protestant Reformation, the internet might just end up being to the ancient, apostolic Churches. It enables the information is spread far and wide.

Visual Medium (Thanks Again Internet. No, Really.)

One thing is very interesting about this most recent surge in conversions we see online. It’s not just the classic 90s Scott-Hahn-inspired Calvinist to Catholic pipeline. Lots of evangelicals are also becoming Eastern Orthodox. This definitely seems to be a new thing.

Some of that is simply the availability of information again. Orthodoxy in the west is relatively small — so lots of people simply wouldn’t encounter it or its claims without the internet.

But there’s more going on.

When I converted in 2012, the big thing was books and blogs. These shared experiences, but they mainly provided arguments. Lovely logical arguments for why you need a magisterium or why the Greek verbs in John 6 are they way they are.

Since then, visual mediums on the internet have exploded. Instagram. Tiktok. YouTube. Today, we’re likely to first expose to something visually.

And this is where the liturgical faiths shine. Because they look good on camera! People many first glimpse the Latin Mass on TokTok. Or see an Orthodox monk chanting on YouTube. And there’s something so powerfully alluring about that. It enchants you and awakens a longing within.

Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, along with Latin Mass communities, have a leg up here because they’ve kept their pre-modern liturgies which developed a time when most people also received their faith as an embodied experience — and not a dry, academic handbook or moral treatise.

Liquid Modernity (Thanks Internet but Actually Sarcastic This Time.)

But this is all the “how” of why people are converting. Does it really get to the why? Oddly enough, the same internet that facilitates easier conversions also creates the same dire need for them. (Ahh internet, the cause and solution of all life’s problems, quoth the chronically online Homer Simpson.)

The internet has further sundered us from our roots. Modernity had already uprooted us — pulling us from the land into suburbs and cubicles — but now it’s gone bonkers. People are alienated from their families, their communities, their churches, and even their own bodies.

In an age when the cyborgs seem ever closer, the sacramentality of the Catholic and Orthodox Church is a welcome reprieve. An 18th Century Baptist might have thought those papists were too superstitious. But we’ve seen where the stripping of sacramental meaning of creation gets you — and it’s not pretty.

People want a Faith that, like Our Lord, is truly embodied: that baptises with water, transubstantiates bread and wine, blesses with oil, kneels before miracles, kisses icons, welcomes life, upholds ancient truths, and sings the old, eternal songs.

Both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches take our experience as embodied human beings deadly serious. Because Jesus did. God descended to take on human flesh, not to ignore that flesh, but to ennoble, divinise, and glorify it in His image.

The irony, of course, is that we moderns have to go online to rediscover this sacramental reality.

But it seems that many more people are doing exactly that.

To mark the occasion, I’m going to (attempt to) learn some hymns. I think I’ll start with the most Advent-y hymn of them all: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. It’s actually my favourite Christmas carol. (If the liturgical purists will let me call it a Christmas carol *gasp*.)

O Come, O Come Emmanuel and the O Antiphons

I’ve loved this hymn for years, not least because it comes from an ancient church practice of anticipating the birth of Jesus with the O antiphons. In the seven days leading up to Christmas, we sing a different antiphon (or little chant) before the Magnificat hymn at Vespers, as a way of preparing our hearts to welcome the longed-for Jesus.

Starting on the 17th December, we prepare ourselves to receive Christ, who is:

• 17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

• 18 December: O Adonai (O Lord)

• 19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)

• 20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

• 21 December: O Oriens (O Morning Star)

• 22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)

• 23 December: O Emmanuel (O God-with-us)

Each is deeply rooted in the prophecies of the Old Testament, as Israel waited and longed for the messiah. O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel. But of course, Israel’s messiah was never just for the descendants of Abraham — but for the entire world.

The O antiphons date back to the first millennia. The philosopher Boethius seems to reference them in the 6th Century while Amalaris, one of Charlemagne’s advisors and liturgists, wrote a lengthy commentary on them in the 9th Century AD.

The Other Medieval O Antiphons

But what I hadn’t realised until recently was that these seven antiphons were really just the core. Medieval Christians, in typical medieval fashion, were like… “we love these Advent antiphons, but you know what would make them even better?? MORE antiphons!”

The Sarum Rite, which was the most common liturgy in England, had an eighth antiphon, which was addressed to Our Lady as O Virgin of virgins:

O virgo virginum quomodo fiet istud? / Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem. / Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? / Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? / For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. / Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? / The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

The Parisian Rite added two extra, to make a total of nine antiphons (a very appropriate number to anticipate a birth, if you ask me — but that just might be the pregnancy talking):

• O sancte sanctorum (O Holy of Holies)

• O pastor Israel (O Shepherd of Israel)

Other O antiphons that pop up in medieval texts include:

• O Rex Pacifice, tu ante saecula nate (O King of Peace, that was born before all ages)

• O Mundi Domina, regio ex semine orta (O Lady of the world, sprung of royal seed)

• O Gabriel, nuntius coelorum (O Gabriel, messenger of heaven)

• O Hierusalem, civitas Dei summi (O Jerusalem, city of the great God)

and perhaps my personal favourite,

• O Summe Artiflex (O Great Architect)

Can’t you just picture medieval Christians — monks and masons, peasants and princes — standing in the midst of a great cathedral, singing about the coming of the Great Architect? That the One who designed the entire universe would fashion Himself into its very architecture, so that He, the cornerstone which the earthly builders rejected, would rebuild us “like living stones… into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)

It’s giving gothic cathedral chills.

We Restore the Seven O Antiphons… with Ironic Results

During the Counter-Reformation, the O Antiphons became more standardised across Catholic Europe (as did nearly all liturgies).

But England held on to a few of her old Sarum practices in the Anglican Church. Even up to the 20th Century, the Church of England used the eight antiphons, beginning at Evensong (their evening prayer) on the 16th December, concluding with the O Virgin of virgins on the 23rd December. In fact, it wasn’t until 2000 that they decided to adopt the standard Roman seven O Antiphons.

The bizarre irony, of course, is that a Protestant church dropped a devotion to the Blessed Mother so they could follow the Roman Catholic practice… I mean, it’s kind of funny. (Although poor St Edmund Campion or St Thomas More must be tearing their celestial hair out in frustration!)

The fact that we have seven — rather than eight or 12 — antiphons is just one of those classic quirks of liturgical history. And to be clear, more isn’t always better. (Unless it’s cups of tea on a cold day.) I just love seeing how these things just change over time and witnessing how Christians prayed and practiced in the past. (The more weird minutiae the better, but that’s just me!)

The Longing for Jesus: O Come Lord!

But what is universal at this time of year, as we prepare for Christmas, is that our hearts and minds are longing for Jesus. We are longing for our redemption, the healing mercy of Christ, that sets us free from sin and darkness.

The very last words of the entire Bible record St John’s vision of Christ:

¹⁶ ‘It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’

¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. […]

²⁰ The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

²¹ The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen. (Rev 22:16-17,20-21)

When we sing and pray the O antiphons — in the original Latin or with our favourite hymns — we are living out this final biblical command: to cry out “come” to Jesus. We even sing about Jesus as the Root of Jesse, the Key of David, and the Morning Star as He describes Himself in this very passage! (v. 16)

This prayerful longing isn’t an optional extra. This is what it means to live as a Christian while we wait for His return: To long for Jesus. To thirst for Jesus. To pray in the Spirit: Come, Jesus Christ!

As we prepare for all the Christmas festivities, which recall His first coming, it’s a good reminder that what we really need is His second coming. In our lives and in our world. We need Jesus — there’s just no getting around it. Because only He can set us free from the sin and darkness which mar our lives.

“And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’”

Come, Lord Jesus!

And honestly, I’ve been struggling a bit. It’s nothing serious. It’s just the very normal, very human struggle of being pregnant, with two toddler boys, in a wider society that’s like “staying at home with your kids? Eww…” I find myself often exhausted, often lonely, often overwhelmed — and frankly, too tired and dejected to actually do anything productive about it.

You should pray more! You need to make time for yourself! Why not catch up with friends!

And I’m like, I would like to! Very, very much. But those things don’t just require time, they require energy. And perhaps even a sense of hope… which right now, is sorely lacking.

Don’t get me wrong, it comes and goes. I’m not always in a “tired mum slump”. But it also feels like it just hits me sometimes out of nowhere – and it makes me reluctant to plan anything or commit to anything. Because I don’t know when it’s coming next… and perhaps, I can’t bear the thought of failing at yet another thing.

Listen, I probably sound like a misery guts right now. And I’m not trying to bring anyone down. Truly.

It’s just that hard seasons really can be hard.

And not in a glamourous, “oh look at me, I’m so longsuffering I’ve started levitating again” kind of way.

More in a crying-on-the-toilet, eating-too-much-chocolate, snapping-at-your-kids, running-out-of-Mass kind of way. (To name four completely random things I definitely did NOT do today.)

Growing in virtue, by the grace of God, only ever seems admirable in retrospect. At the time, it doesn’t feel good – and it certainly doesn’t look good. In fact, you kind of just feel like a failure. All the time. But for some stupid reason, you keep showing up – and therein lies the grace and the growth.

You’re the widow, giving your two mites to the temple because that’s all you’ve got.

You’re the blind man, grasping at thin air, hoping the Christ is finally passing by.

You’re the sinner, sneaking into the back and praying no one notices you (because then they’d see how red your eyes are and how broken your soul is.)

You’re the overwhelmed dad, all out of options, telling Jesus, “I believe… help my unbelief.”

You’re Hannah, crying out to God while people wonder if you’re actually drunk because come on, who gets that emotional?

You’re Jonah, sulking under your tree because nothing is going like you planned.

You’re Job, wondering if you should just curse God and die like everyone keeps suggesting.

You’re the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, trying to rouse the sleeping Lord because doesn’t He care that we’re all going to drown here??

You’re Peter, confessing Christ one minute and completely misunderstanding His plans in the next.

You’re Our Lady and the women at the Cross, lost in sorrow and pain but somehow, still there. (Is it just stubbornness at this point, you wonder?)

You’re even Christ Himself, begging the Father “take this cup from me”.

Take this cup from me. So often, that’s where my tiny prayers, whispered over undrunk cups of tea and shouted in pillows, end.

I’m too tired for another sleepless night, too lonely to know what to do with all these feelings, too overstimulated to respond with patience, too frustrated at the (really rather normal) limitations of another pregnancy.

I’m done, I tell Him. I’m sorry, I’m a weakling but this is what we’re working with. And I’m so done. To quote my toddler, I want someting differwent. Someting ELSE.

And that’s when I have to remember the second half of that prayer: But not my will, but yours be done.

There are some parts of this that are not God’s will for my life – things I can change and improve. (It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this right now. Trying to get out of my head, ya know?)

And there are some parts that He is asking me to accept. Embrace even. This life. My children. The kindness of my husband. The weirdness of my brain. The friendships and opportunities God is putting in my path, even if I’m afraid I’m going to screw them up.

Because I might be done — and believe me, right now I feel sooooo done — but God’s not done with me yet. And He’s certainly not done with you either, no matter what you’re going through. I hope you know, whatever your struggles (small, big, horrific, embarrassingly mediocre), He really is there with us.

He is God with us.

My initial instinct is to laugh maniacally. Are you KIDDING!?

I can’t think of much that is less contemplative than the everyday, poopy, yogurt-smeared grind of motherhood. And that’s on a good day. The demands of motherhood and the call to contemplation seem to fit together like oil and water.

And yet.

This story from Fr. Ronald Rolheiser jumped out at me.

Carlo Carretto, one of the leading spiritual writers of the past half-century, lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the Sahara desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company, milking a goat for his food, and translating the bible into the local Bedouin language, he prayed for long hours by himself. Returning to Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to a startling realization: His mother, who for more than thirty years of her life had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely ever had a private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was.

It’s a strange argument to make if you think about it. Monks and nuns leave behind their earthly ties to family — its real goodness and its rigmarole — to embrace silence and contemplation with the Lord. They give up all that other stuff precisely so that they can spend more time with Jesus.

Are you telling me that they could have just as easily gotten married, had a load of kids, and still enjoyed this rich interior life of prayer and contemplation? And more to the point, does that mean I can have such a life, even when my sleep is disrupted and my head full of onesies and playgroups?

As I’ve sat with this question — and grumbled dramatically about my lack of precious alone time — I’m slowly realizing two things.

Firstly, it simply can’t be true that mothers can’t be contemplatives.

Contemplation is nothing less than friendship with Jesus — and that is what He wants for all of us. He wants your heart, dear mama, just as surely as He wants the heart of any Carmelite.

Contemplative prayer, or mental prayer, St Teresa of Avila says, “is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” It is “the prayer of the child of God”, which means it is for all of us. (cf. CCC 2712)

But equally, we’d be idiots to say that motherhood naturally provides the perfect avenues for contemplation. It doesn’t.

It’s messy, busy, hard, and in our sinful natures, can easily lead us to be irritable, resentful, and frankly fed up with the thought of doing anything extra for God. When you add in our own lack of human virtue (*raises both hands as high as they go*), it’s tough going.

That isn’t just a sleep-deprived mum talking either. Holy Scripture isn’t gaslighting you about how difficult this path of family life. St Paul says,

The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord. (1 Co 7:32-25)

St Paul isn’t having a go at married people. He’s simply pointing out a fact. God might be infinite but you are not. There are only so hours in a day, so many brain cells to use. (And I feel them shrinking by the day!)

I think one of the key differences is that the contemplative religious has many of the natural aids to prayer, as well as the supernatural. She has quiet, she has order, she has easy access to the sacraments, she had no distractions. (Well, fewer distractions perhaps!)

That’s why hermits retreat into the desert and nuns seek out the solitude of their cells: there are less earthly distractions and more room for grace to work in the silence of our hearts.

But. And this a big but: God doesn’t just work naturally, He works supernaturally. And that is the key. He is able, with our consent, to infuse all the mundane tasks of motherhood with a supernatural grace. He can make contemplatives of us all!

It takes a lot of trust, and it isn’t a guarantee by any means. (In that sense, religious life provides a far safer route!) But it is no less powerful. Fr Rolheiser goes on to say,

A mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because she wants to, but because it’s time for that activity and time isn’t her time, but God’s time.

Even though I’m always adding to my to-do list, prayer isn’t my work. It is a grace and a gift of the Holy Spirit. We have received the Holy Spirit, who prays as Christ within us, “with sighs too deep for words”, to intercede with the Father. (cf. Rom 8:26-27)

And if we give a little each day, whatever little that is, and ask God to transform our mothering — He can infuse those very ordinary tasks with extraordinary grace. And the demands of motherhood that threaten to pull us into worrying about this, that, and the other, can be transfigured into opportunities to rest in the presence of Christ.

Contemplation and motherhood don’t go naturally together.

It’s a good thing God doesn’t play by those rules.

Happy Easter! Chris is risen!

So… do you miss Lent yet?

I know, how could I even ask such a question!

But the truth is that Lent is so… delightfully definite. It’s easy to know what you should do during Lent, even if you’re not very good at doing it.

There are special devotions and customs, like the Stations of the Cross and eating fish on Fridays. We know the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Even the secular world understands Lent: that’s when you give up chocolate so you can gorge yourself when the Easter bunny comes.

What to do during Easter?

But then Lent comes to its climax in the agony and glory of the Sacred Triduum. Easter is finally here! Where Lent was forty days of fasting and penance, now we have a glorious fifty days of rejoicing in the resurrection of Our Lord!

How shall we celebrate just a marvelous time as this?, we ask with excitement and just a little bit of trepidation.

And…

*crickets*

*very holy crickets*

What exactly is there to do during Easter? Like seriously, what are we supposed to do?

As appealing as it sounds right now, I can’t very well eat chocolate eggs every day. Or sing alleluia, alleluia, alleluia every waking moment. (That sounds a little less appealing.)

This has bugged me for a while now but it’s the first year I have an answer that’s more than just, “well I feel like…”

Let me introduce you to my new favourite thing: mystagogy.

Meet Mystagogy

Mystagogy is a Greek word, meaning roughly being led through mysteries. Team RCIA explains,

The root of “mystagogy” is “agogy,” which comes from the Greek word “agogos.” That means “leader.” So pedagogy, for example, is about leading (or teaching) children. A synagogue is a gathering place (syn-“together”) to which people are led. Mystagogy is a process of leading (or training) into the mystery. Or, perhaps a better way to say that is that mystagogy is initiation into that which is not yet fully revealed.

It was a vitally important of the ancient Church’s practice, when newly baptised Christians — called neophytes — would be taught all sorts of things about the sacraments, the Scriptures, and the spiritual life. They would know some of it before hand as catechumens.

But it wasn’t until they were initiated into the Church through baptism that the bishop, their mystagogue, would lead them more deeply into the sacred mysteries of the Faith. We still have the mystagogical homilies of St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Ambrose of Milan, and St John Chrysostom, among others.

Today, mystagogy refers to the fourth and final stage of the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, between Easter and Pentecost. It is “a time for the community and the neophytes together to grow in deepening their grasp of the paschal mystery and in making it part of their lives through meditation on the gospel, sharing in the eucharist and doing works of charity.” (RCIA 234)

Our Annual Mystagogy

Now, you might rightly point out that you are not a newly baptised Christian. (And if you are, huzzah and welcome and God bless you!)

But that doesn’t mean mystagogy isn’t for you.

Every year, Lent is a kind of annual catechumenate for us. We go back to the basics: prayer, fasting, and charity — in order to prepare ourselves for the renewal of our faith and baptismal vows at Easter.

So it only makes sense that Easter is also a kind of annual mystagogy for us too. It’s a time to go more deeply into the sacred mysteries of the Church, unfolding exactly what being baptised into the Body of Christ means for us.

Sacraments, Doctrine, and Community

The great heroic bishops of the the Early Church knew what the newly baptised needed. They needed to understand the power of the sacraments, to be led more deeply through the mysteries of the Faith, and to be truly welcomed into the Body of Christ as beloved sons and daughters of the Father.

In this, they were just following the Great Shepherd of the sheep, Our Lord Himself.

Jesus led the first mystagogy on the road to Emmaus with the disciples, leading them through the brand-spanking-new mysteries of the Faith on that bright Easter day. He spent time with time as a friend. He explained the Scriptures to them. And He ate with them, revealing himself in the Eucharistic breaking of bread.

Community. Doctrine. Sacraments.

These three can function as a kind of ‘three pillars of Easter’ for a spiritual program for Easter.

1. sacraments

2. doctrine

3. community

They also recall Christ’s threefold office as the priest who sanctifies through the sacraments, the prophet who teaches the truth, and king who gathers the community under his rule of love.

So that’s kind of nifty.

Sacraments

The primary focus of the period of mystagogy, for the early Christians and for us today, is the sacraments. The mysteries that mystagogy referred to were the Sacred Mysteries, the sacraments. So how can we deepen our love for and understanding of the sacraments?

Go to Daily Mass, spend time in Eucharistic Adoration, go back to Confession (before Easter is over!), pray for and work on your marriage (date nights!), pray for your priests and for more vocations to the priesthood and religious. Receive Anointing of the Sick if you are sick.

But also take up those sacramentals: make the Sign of the Cross, rediscover the power of Holy Water, get your house blessed, enrol in the Brown Scapular. Easter is such a sacramentally charged season. (If I were a parish priest, which needless to say I’m not, I would preach the power of each of the seven sacraments on each of the seven Sundays of Easter.)

The fifty days of Easter are about spending time — ordinary, every day time — with the risen Lord. How better to do that than to sit at His feet like the disciples did in Eucharistic Adoration?

Doctrine

While Lent is a time for stripping back, Easter is a time for filing up. In the Early Church, mystagogy was the time to teach the neophytes the really serious, juicy theology and spiritual practices.

So this is time to deepen our knowledge and understanding. It’s the time to listen, read, and think. In some ways, Lent primarily targets our will. We have to chose to make a lot of sacrifices, including discipling our bodies through prayer and fasting. But Easter might just be more about illuminating the intellect through study and prayer.

Read the Bible, especially the New Testament. Read a good book on theology or spirituality. Finally get an answer to that question that’s always bugged you. Crack open the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Fill up your mind and soul with true knowledge!

Community

We think of Easter as a time for feasting — and so it is. But I think we tend to think of feasting as just the flipside of fasting. (Food, glorious FOOD!) But really, feasting is actually about community. (Can you even feast alone? I’m not sure.) It’s about coming together, to relax and enjoy each other’s company, simply for the sake of it.

Just as the Lenten practices invite us out of ourselves — and our neat spiritual lives — to help others through almsgiving, this third and final pillar of Easter urges us to really seek out authentic community.

Easter is the perfect time to reconnect with old friends or gather new ones together. Reach out to neophyte or someone you know who wants to deepen their own faith. How many of us fall away from the Church because we don’t have anyone to even try and stop us?

Be Led by Jesus this Easter

I’m not telling you how you should spend your Easter season. The Lord knows I don’t have that authority or competency.

But this sacred period of mystagogy can be a template for us on how we can be led by Jesus this Easter: deepening our love and knowledge of Him through the sacraments, the Scriptures, and our fellow Christians.

I imagine there are worse ways to spend your Easter.

You know how I know I’m a contrarian at heart?

I was lying in bed, and I thought… “I should write about Our Lady’s No. Everyone’s always taking about her Yes. But, but that’s not enough. We need her No too!”

I didn’t have any other thoughts beyond that title: Our Lady’s No.

But it niggled at me. I sat with it and prayed with it. And I asked Our Lady to tell me what she meant by it — assuming it was her and not some diabolical interjection. (In which case: Begone Satan. Bugger off and never come back, ya slimey good-for-nothing.)

And she sent me to Chesterton:

Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else... Every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion. Just as when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take one course of action you give up all the other courses…

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, The Suicide of Thought

When you say Yes to becoming the Mother of God, you say No to an awful lot else.

A Life of No’s

Mary’s life was life of No’s.

She said no to sin. No to doubt. No to fear.

She said no to marriage and children. She choose to become a consecrated virgin, possibly modelling her personal vow on the vows of the Essenes who took private vows of celibacy even within marriage.

She said no to putting her own comfort first; she went to St Elizabeth to help her in her pregnancy.

She said no to trusting her own lights and trying to figure everything out before it’s time; she treasured everything in her heart.

She said No to being controlling, manipulative, self-absorbed and No to dictating policy to her divine Son. She could have made it so easy for herself — she had the Creator under her roof, after all!

As we go on the via dolorosa this Holy Week, she see how she said no to keeping a safe distance, no to doubting her Son, no to begging for his life or urging him to keep out of trouble. (And you better believe that if I were that mum, I would have been launching at Pilate like a wild cat. And Salvation History might have been quite different.)

The one time we might have expected her to bellow out an almighty NO! was the time she was utterly silent: standing at the foot of the Cross, watching her Son suffer and die, offering up her own sacrifice through and with Him, for the salvation of the world.

There, there was no Yes or No, just pure love.

The Power of Our Lady’s No

Our Lady knew the power of her No. When the angel approaches her, the first thing she says is what she hasn’t done: “How can this be, since I do not know a man.” (Luke 1:34). Many translations have “since I am a virgin” but that’s not quite what she says. She says what she is not.

Her act of self-limitation opens up the space for God to enter.

It is the holocaust — the burnt offering — that clears the ground so that the Son of God can enter in, in power and holiness.

The grace of God teaches us to say no. St Paul tells Titus,

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ […].” (Titus 2:11-13)

If the grace of God teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, then Mary who is full of grace must be excellent at saying No!

And if her Yes has something teach us, then so do her No’s.

Where is My No?

Sometimes, we need to say a decisive “No!” to sins in our lives. (I mean, we always need to say no to sin but you know what I mean.) There are some things we just can’t flirt with — it’s too dangerous.

Our Lord commands us to ruthless in destroying sin in our lives: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away." It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.” (Matthew 18:8) And St Paul commands us, commands us, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” (Eph 5:11)

Sometimes, we need to hear no. I was hated that quote about prayer: “God always answers prayers. But sometimes the answer is no.” I hated it because it’s true. God always hears our prayers and receives them as the true desires they are. But He is a loving Father, not a jukebox. And He gives us what we need for our holiness; not just what we want, even if it feels like what we want is very good.

Sometimes, we need to say no to ourselves as an act of self-control. (Ugh. Always difficult.) Sometimes, we need to say no to others who are sinning against us or demanding too much of us.

And sometimes, we need to say no to very good things — good options or ideas that would have been great, except they are not for us. When I married my wonderful husband, I said No to all my potential lives as a cloistered Carmelite, a missionary doctor, a foreign princess, a farmer’s wife, a hermit — maybe. (Some of these were more likely than the others, admittedly.)

Because we can’t do everything. Or really even most things. We are not infinite and, in His mercy, God allows to experience our limitations.

Your No will Set You Free

Thankfully, at the end of our limits, we find our freedom.

Chesterton goes on to say:

Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in you bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel from the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Our Lady’s No’s set her to be perfectly her: the spotless Theotokos, crowned with the sun, and mediatrix of grace.

Our No’s set us free to be truly ourselves: free from the disfigurements of sin and the distractions of worldly expectations. To fulfill the vocation that God has given to us, and to no one else. We are always fighting our boundaries but God delights in our particularities. It’s why He made so many of us!

So let me ask you, if I may, what do you need to say No to today?

Don’t let the naysayers stop you. On the other side of No is the most glorious Yes.

For God is with you.

A man calls up the Dave Ramsay Show.

“I’m worried my wife is spending all our money on online shopping.”

A fair concern, you might think.

“Some days I come home and there’s all these Amazon boxes piled on the kitchen table. So many boxes. What’s in that one?, I ask her. But she says she doesn’t even know!”

The female host smiled and talked about how to talk about it calmly with his wife. But she also raised the possibility that maybe, just maybe, all those boxes were needed. Toilet paper. Kids clothes. A new potato peeler. Storage jars. Toothpaste. Socks. Always more socks.

The wife, she explained, is often the CFO of the household; she is the Chief Financial Officier who is in charge of supplying everyone with all the “stuff” that they need.

And there’s a lot of stuff!

But this burden isn’t just a modern phenomenon. (Although we definitely make it worse than it needs to be. I mean, do I need a novelty popcorn maker or a mandolin? No. But do I want one? Oh heck yes. Kitchen gadgetry is my preferred retail therapy.)

For thousands of years, women have been the keepers, cataloguers, and dispensers of the family stuff. They were the ones in charge of making sure there was enough flour, oil, wine, eggs, butter, linen, wool, etc., for the household. She had to make sure everyone had enough to survive through the winter and even droughts, famines, and plagues. It was her domain.

One of my favourite tropes among female saints is the sneaky charitable saint.

A pious and charitable married woman who just slightly overdoes it on the generosity side, gets in trouble with her husband, but then God comes through for her and smooths it all over.

The most famous example is St Elizabeth of Hungary and the miracle of the roses. The young princess was riding through the woods one day to being bread to the poor when she was stopped by her husband, Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia. (What a name!) He wanted to know what was in her apron and accused her of stealing from the castle stores. St Elizabeth was royalty so the practicalities of running the household stores was not her job, but the oversight of it all was still her responsibility. But when she opened her apron, there was no bread — only beautiful, fragrant roses.

Her great-niece and namesake, St Elizabeth had a similar story. She was out delivering food to the poor as well when she was also stopped by her husband, King Denis of Portugal, who was abusive and an adulterer. But just like her great-aunt, the bread miraculously became roses. The skeptical historian might say that this is just a carbon copy of the earlier St Elizabeth miracle but I’m not so sure. If you were a famous saint and your grand-niece was about to get busted by her husband, wouldn’t you intervene? And if you could gift her the same sort of miracle, wouldn’t you?

But it’s not just bread and roses.

Bl Jane of Aza, the mother of the great St Dominic, had a similar run-in with her husband, even though he was a faithful and honourable man. While he was away on a long trip, Bl Jane had given away all the family wine to the poor. Everyone in the area knew it and when her husband was passing through one of the villages, they told him how profligate his wife was. He couldn’t quite believe it. So when he got home, he instructed Jane to serve him and many of the village guests wine. She went down to the cellar, knelt and prayed, imploring Jesus’ help. She opened the jar and found it full. And so she served the wine, to everyone’s surprise!

For St Francesca of Rome, it was her father-in-law who was the source of trouble. She had taken over running the family estates as mistress of the household. During a famine, she turned part of the estate into a hospital and generously gave good and clothing to the poor. Her father-in-law was so angry though that he took away the keys to the supply rooms. But once again, St Francesca knelt and prayed, and the barrels of wheat and wine were immediately replenished. He relented and gave her back the keys.

Why do we have so many of these miracles of sneaky female charity?

I call it a trope but I don’t mean that it’s untrue or cliched.

This is where the rubber hit the road for most women. This was a (and is!) a huge part of the work managing a household. The vast majority of pious women didn’t have the wherewithal to found religious orders, build chapels, erect chantries, or endow hospitals. But they were in charge of the family “stuff”.

These saints used what God had given them to do good, even if their compassion was sometimes misunderstood. In this way, the husband often represents the judgment of society at large. We often don’t think helping the less fortunate “makes sense”. We think that money could be better spent. We judge other others for their charity because it’s not how we would do it. (Forgetting that how “we do it” is often not to do it at all.)

So what about us today?

These miracles are a prompt from God to trust Him a little more. To give a little more than it might feel comfortable, to take the opportunities to feed the hungry and clothe the naked beyond our immediate family circle. And to do so even if it doesn’t feel like the most super-duper prudent thing or might raise a few eyebrows.

I know I find it very easy to get so focused on my job as a mum — which feels so all-encompassing — that I forget I’m not just a mum and a manager of the household. I’m also a Christian, called to live out Christ’s command to love the poor. I truly wonder how many woman we’ll meet in heaven who will be there because, out of love for Jesus, they put a little aside each month to give to others who desperately need it.

But it’s also a promise. God knows this isn’t always easy, especially when money is tight or children are little. He miraculously stepped in and smoothed it over when these holy women found their charity for their families and their community at odds. That’s still a tension we often feel. Where the legitimate need of our family to be comfortable meet with the legitimate needs of the poor. It’s one thing to deprive yourself; but what about when it affects others?

It’s a delicate balancing act. But when God told us to love our neighbour, He knew there was more than one way of doing it. I love these slightly sneaky female saints because they weren’t just managers of the household stores; they were investing in heavenly stores. They loved their families. They loved the poor. And they loved Our Lord.

Even if they had to sometimes go behind their husbands’ backs.

One of my favourites is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It was written by Robert Robinson, a London Baptist minister and scholar, when he was 22. That’s the same age I was when I came back to the Catholic Church via a detour in Evangelicalism. So I remember the fervour well!

Every line is a little gem but my favourite line comes right at the end:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.

Years later, he was travelling in a stage-coach when a woman started saying how much she liked the hymn. Robinson replied,

Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.

Isn’t that just the truth?

I too am prone to wander away. Despite all the zeal and fervour I might feel, I’m still prone to wander away from God and hide myself from His presence. And it’s not because I hate God or I’m angry at Him. (Well, not most of the time.) I’m prone to wander from the God I love. Madness! And yet, it’s almost textbook: God loves girl. Girl love God… and then forgets and wanders off to worry about something else.

That’s why I love Lent.

(Although I’m not sure Mr. Robinson would approve.)

Every Lent, the Church calls us to conversion. It is a time to look up from whatever we’re doing and realise that yes, lo and behold, we’ve wandered. Again. And it’s time to turn back again to God. Again. He is never surprised by our wandering, although we may be. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” (Ps 103:14) We can confess our sins — whatever they are — and start again with His mercy — which is everlasting.

Historically, the fasting period of Lent was often the final period of intense preparation for new converts before they were baptised at the Easter Vigil.

Today, we still follow that ancient tradition. On the First Sunday of Lent, we have the Rite of Election where the catechumens publicly request baptism. They begin a period of Purification and Enlightenment, during which they receive three “scrutinies” or minor exorcisms and are also presented with the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. This is the final period of conversion before their baptism.

But this time of Purification and Enlightenment isn’t just for the soon-to-be-baptised. It’s for us baptised too.

The Church invites us to re-live our conversion, as it were. To go back to the basics and remember why we follow Jesus in the first place. It’s our own annual catechumenate before we renew our own baptismal vows at the Easter Vigil.

Because for us, conversion isn’t a one-off event that we remember fondly in the distant past. It’s a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment decision to drag our wandering hearts back to the God who loves us so much.

So we go to confession. (Even if we haven’t been in forever.)

We set aside time to pray every day. (Even when it’s feels futile.)

We pick our penances. (Because our self-control is severely lacking.)

And we allow the Father to take us into an ever-deepening conversion of heart. Because in the end, God isn’t after our penances or pieties — although they serve a useful purpose — He wants our hearts.

Here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.