https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-g787n-14d96ce
In the first episode of This Catholic Family, Lorelei Savaryn encourages kindness towards our bodies and embracing the stories they tell as we age and highlights the importance of fostering a positive attitude toward aging for ourselves and the next generation. Tune in for a nourishing discussion on the transformative power of gratitude and grace in the journey of Catholic motherhood and aging gracefully.
This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to produce. If you’re interested in supporting the work of This Catholic Family, I would be honored if you would prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Or, you can always buy me a coffee here.
As I write this, I’m in my late thirties and I’m beginning to notice some signs of age when I look in the mirror. There are a few gray hairs, there are lines on my face that didn’t used to be there. My skin is sagging in places where it never used to sag. There are moments where I see a little glimpse of my grandma in the mirror more than the younger versions of me.
And as I notice these changes, I also am ever aware of the three little girls in my home who watch the things I do, the things that I say. Girls who are getting their roadmap for how to live, for how to be a woman, from me—their mom.
Something that I noticed about myself immediately was that my first thoughts about my aging body were that I need to hide it, I need to fix it, I need to do something about it. I think a lot of that gut reaction comes from the culture I live in. It’s a culture with an entire industry focused on erasing the signs of aging, that’s obsessed with eternal youth. Anti-wrinkle, anti-aging, anti-dark spots, anti-gray hair. The messaging is so loud that I didn’t even have to try for it to embed itself in my mind.
Something that was really helpful for me was to become aware of those internalized reactions, and instead of accepting those messages as true, to question them. To pause a moment and wonder: how do I wish my daughters would think about themselves when they reach this stage of life?
Whatever the answer, I had a strong feeling that I needed to retrain myself so I can model graceful and grateful aging for them somehow.
I know that we are a body and soul composite, and our bodies are deeply a part of who we are as beings made in the image of God. Our bodies matter. They matter in many ways, especially because our bodies are how we experience the world around us, how we live our story. And when I started thinking about our bodies as the keepers of our stories, I began to find a new way to look at the signs of aging in myself.
That, in turn, is helping me talk about aging with my daughters.
As an example, one of my daughters recently pointed to the crinkle lines beside my eyes and asked why I have lines there. I leaned over and smiled and showed her that when I smile, my skin folds into little rays shooting out from the corners of my eyes. I told her that our faces show our feelings, and, after a long time, they remember our feelings, too. The lines around my eyes means that I’ve smiled a lot, and my face remembers it. My face helps to tell my story.
Another time, another daughter asked me about my stretch marks. I was able to tell her that my body had to make room for each of the four babies I made, and that my stretch marks show that part of my body’s story, a part that I’m grateful for every single day.
I think graceful aging can mean different things to different people, but I do know deep down that age is something to be proud of. Not everyone gets to grow old, and I don’t want to pass along the message that we absolutely need to hide our age, or fix it, or do something about it.
In thinking about how I want my daughters to react when they begin to see signs of their own aging in the mirror, more than anything, I realized, I want my daughters to one day look at their aging faces and to be kind. To be grateful for the stories their bodies tell. And I hope to help them along that path, and to help myself, by modeling that now and giving them a different message than the anti-aging industry proclaims. I want them to remember their mother looking in the mirror and smiling, and talking about her wrinkles, and showing gratitude for all the things her body has done and continues to do. And I hope they choose to do the same.
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-Lorelei
This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to produce. If you’re interested in supporting the work of This Catholic Family, I would be honored if you would prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Or, you can always throw a little change in the tip jar here.
I used to love the events my youth group put on in middle and high school. I started attending events regularly around the time I was twelve. Overnight summer camp, the fall lock-in, winter ski retreat, and more. I had this little chalkboard in my room and I would often create a countdown for each event, sometimes starting over 100 days out. These youth events were times in my year that were always encouraging, always edifying, and were a beautiful part of the rhythm of my life.
I recently told JP about this, and he said: “Oh, you were looking for liturgy!”
I had never thought about it that way before, but it struck me as definitely true.
In my Catholic faith, we use the word liturgy when we are referring to the whole complex of official services, all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church (New Advent). Another way of looking at the word liturgy is to think of rhythm. Liturgy is the pattern of our worship. It is the rhythm to our faith.
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that humans are wired for liturgy. Pattern and rhythm bring us comfort. We do best when our life has a rhythm and an order to it. We struggle when we are thrown off our daily routine, or maybe even moreso when we are forced to navigate something like a major life change and we must create all our rhythms anew.
But when we are in the rhythm of life, our mind doesn’t have to work hard to navigate all the details of every single moment. During a routine drive to work we may be able to listen to a podcast or notice the beauty of the sky or the trees because our brain doesn’t have to focus on not getting lost.
We know the way, and that frees us.
This has also held true for me as I practice a formally liturgical faith.
I used to believe the stereotype that Catholics were just going through the motions by following the same procedures over and over again. The same Mass. The same prayers.
But my experience living the liturgy has been so much richer, so much deeper than that. The rhythm of the Mass has embedded itself in me, and because I live that rhythm my mind and heart and soul are free to enter deeply into the presence of God. Repeated prayers like the Hail Mary create an opportunity to enter into meditation and deep reflection on the life of Jesus in the Gospels.
Catholic liturgy has been so very good for my soul.
And maybe that’s a better way to look at liturgy overall than how I used to view it. Just because someone follows a rhythm, doesn’t mean their heart isn’t in it. In fact, it may be a very beautiful part of that person’s life. We’re wired for liturgy, for routine, for rhythm. I think we all find liturgy of some kind, in at least some parts of our lives because we are drawn to it.
Turns out that little teenage me was drawn to the rhythms of my faith, and grown-up me is still drawn to them too.
Feel free to reflect or share:What do you think about liturgy, or people who practice a more liturgical faith? Where do you see liturgy in your own life?
-Lorelei
This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to produce. If you’re interested in supporting the work of This Catholic Family, I would be honored if you would prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Or, you can always throw a little change in the tip jar here.
I thought the most difficult thing for me to navigate as a convert would be the Church’s devotion to Mary. But by the time all my other theological questions and been answered and misconceptions set aright, assenting to the Church’s relationship with Mary was much easier than I thought.
It turned out that the hesitation that lingered the longest was my relationship with the saints. I understood the good in honoring them and respecting them and asking them for prayers. But there was part of me that was quite intimidated by these Holy men and women, people who had done something that seemed so remote and unattainable. I was intimidated to the point that it took a couple of years past my Confirmation before I even read a complete book of writings by Saint Teresa of Calcutta, my confirmation saint.
The sense of intimidation has faded over time, and my interest in and gratitude for the saints has increased. These days I find myself frequently asking for their prayers and pondering their words and their lives in a way that buoys up my faith.
And so, it felt like an important step for our family when we learned that the relics of Saint Thérèse and her parents Saints Zélie and Louis Martin would be visiting the National Shrine and Museum of Saint Thérèse for a couple of weeks, just an hour from our home. Especially since our youngest daughter is named Zelie.
We arrived as the reliquary of Saints Zélie and Louis Martin were being carried from on building to another, and we all immediately could tell that this was going to be a special experience.
There was a deep reverence throughout the church and museum, among all the pilgrims who had come to draw near. We learned that the reliquaries held the bones of this family of saints, and we touched the glass and prayed beside them.
Saints Zélie and Louis Martin are particularly special to our family because of their witness in marriage and because of the way they raised their children to love the Lord. We asked for their prayers for the grace to follow in their footsteps.
Another thing I noted, that particularly stood out to me as a convert, was that relics are another gift of the faith that we can experience tangibly. I fell in love with the Sacraments as I converted, the fact that we can taste the Eucharist, that we can feel the waters of Baptism, that we can hear God’s forgiveness in Confession. My Christianity moved from intangible to being something I could experience with my mind, my soul, and my body as well.
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Relics are another gift of the faith that we can experience tangibly. #CatholicMom
It is easy to be disappointed in ourselves when we continually fall short of living our faith fully. It is easy to feel disillusioned with the Church when the people within it disappoint us, sometimes deeply. But in the relics we have real, tangible evidence of people who have done it, who have let God’s love in so fully that there wasn’t room for anything else. Being close to the relics of Saint Thérèse and her parents reminded me that it can be done, that it has been done, that we are not alone in the journey toward heaven.
All the disappointments in ourselves or others faded and our whole family left reminded and encouraged that we are not alone, and that we have a heavenly family praying for us and encouraging us along the way.
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This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to produce. If you’re interested in supporting the work of This Catholic Family, I would be honored if you would prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Or, you can always throw a little change in the tip jar here.
Today is the feast day of Saint Zélie Martin, and while I am no liturgical living professional, this is one of the feast days I always like to mark with a little something special.
A little bit of background on Saint Zélie. She and her husband Louis were both on a path toward religious life when they met each other and learned that God had asked them both to the vocation of marriage together. They had nine children, four of which who died while very young. Her surviving five children all went into religious life, the most well-known of which is St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She saw a lot of hardship. She and her husband are a great example of a holy marriage. She ran her own very successful lace business as well.
I learned about St. Zélie’s canonization and named our fourth baby Zelie in honor of her. Since then, St. Zelie has held a very special place in my heart, one that I lean in to and understand a bit more with each passing year of life, in particular as I grow in my understanding of my vocation as a mom.
Ever since becoming a mom eleven years ago, I have been fighting some sort of comparison battle inside my mind and my heart, all while trying to figure out my own identity as a mother. In the early years, the question of what should a Christian mom look like? loomed large. When I converted, I substituted the word Christian for Catholic and continued to ask.
Some of the churches we attended and people we hung out with had stronger messages for us than others. You need to stay at home, you need to homeschool, you need to coupon, you need to clean with vinegar, you need to bake your own bread, you need to not have a job, you need to have a side gig that contributes to your income, you need to remember all the liturgical things, you need to pray the rosary every day with your children, you need to keep a lovely home…these messages and more swarmed, faster and faster, louder and louder. Some of the messages contradicted other messages entirely.
Social media did not help.
Now, not all the moms I compared myself to were actively recruiting their lifestyle as the absolute only way to be a Catholic or Christian mom, they were often just sharing from their passion and joy, which is a lovely thing to behold. Some, however, were. Some of the messages were more implicit in the church or online community, but still there.
And I think I get why we as humans are sometimes tempted to take what works for us and prescribe it for others, especially in motherhood. Motherhood is so intimate, so vulnerable, and so personal. We don’t want to mess it up. It isn’t comfortable to look around us and feel like we’re the only ones doing what we’re doing. The moms I know, myself included, are often questioning our decisions on a pretty regular basis. Is it the right call to stay home? Is it the right call for me to work? The right call to homeschool/private school/public school? And the list goes on.
It can feel a lot less lonely to be part of a pack. Finding or recruiting people with likeminded philosophies says “You do what I do, and that affirms that I picked the right thing. Then I’m doing it the right way.”
My suggestion isn’t that we stop talking about or sharing the things we’ve found helpful, or the mothering style that brings us joy. My suggestion is that we avoid saying that the way God has asked us to live out this vocation is the way that God is asking all women to live out this vocation. And, for those of us on the receiving end, that we reframe how these messages impact us.
Turns out, St. Zélie didn’t stay home full time. She also had in-house help. She ran a business. Her kids began their education at home for a time. Learning about St. Zélie’s life helped me see that she didn’t live like any one cookie cutter Catholic mom box, and she became a Saint. Her life helped me feel free to live the unique Catholic motherhood I am called to each day.
For me, that has looked like staying home when a new baby is very young, but eventually returning to work. My jobs are usually in education, and allow me a similar schedule as the kids. The professional fulfillment makes me a better wife and mom at the end of the day. I am a creative person, and I need a creative outlet. Mostly, that outlet comes in finding time to write. I write short and long essays for the web, and I write fiction books for young readers. Sometimes I play with watercolor markers. Sometimes I read. I am also an introvert. That means I need to carve aside time to be alone. My family can tell if I’ve gone too long without a little stretch by myself, and it is okay that some alone time is important to me. When those things are in place, all the family stuff…the family dinners, the bedtime stories and prayer, the request for a push on the swing, all of that is better and richer and more vibrant because I am embracing and respecting who God made me to be as a person and therefore as a mom.
This realization, that we have never been meant to do it one specific way, completely changed my view. I was able to admire and respect the Catholic moms with particular approaches or particular strengths. Hooray for the liturgically awesome mom! The aesthetic home mom! The daily rosary mom! The homeschooling mom! And hooray for me and the mom I am too!
It was incredibly freeing to be able to separate the idea that I have to do what other moms do, and to celebrate the diversity of Catholic motherhood that exists. It was exciting to realize that doing Catholic motherhood in the way that matched the way God made me and my unique family was not going to look like a carbon copy of another family, another Catholic mom, but that all these things could be very, very good.
As mothers, we can too often absorb the message of unhealthy self-denial. Yes, of course we are supposed to deny ourselves in terms of offering ourselves up for the good of another. But we also are meant to become fully who God made us to be, and the things God has put inside our hearts are intrinsically good. Intrinsically unique. And they are meant to shine.
Here are some questions to consider as we all continue on the journey toward embracing and growing into the person God made us to be.
When do you feel most alive as a person, woman, and mother? Under what circumstances do you see the world in full color? When does your heart feel so full it might just burst? When are you most grateful? What things do you long for, and what might those longings teach you about yourself? What might a life look like for you and your family that integrates your uniqueness? Whether your have felt pressure from yourself or from others, what steps can you take to let go of that now?
None of us are meant to be copies of another woman, another Catholic mom. We are all meant to be glorious and beautiful in our uniqueness. We are meant to celebrate each other, to lift each other up.
Like snowflakes, no two of us are the same.
St. Zélie, pray for us.
Amen
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This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to produce. If you’re interested in supporting the work of This Catholic Family, I would be honored if you would prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Or, you can always throw a little change in the tip jar here.
I grew up in the 90’s, when Christian Music grabbed a shovel and carved out a space for itself in the music industry for good.
At the time, I belonged to a pretty conservative Evangelical church, where it was generally frowned upon to listen to much, if any, secular music at all. So DC talk, The Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline and the like became the soundtrack to my formative years. I still think of a lot of these songs with incredible fondness. I’ve been known to ask Alexa to play 90’s Christian rock from time to time when I’m looking for nostalgia.
But as certain songs have cycled back into my psyche, and as I’m listening to them now through the eyes and heart of a Catholic convert, I’ve realized that some of the songs I’d belt out in my bedroom aren’t theologically accurate. And more than that, in some cases, the lyrics in these songs perhaps contributed in the end to a period of agnosticism in my life- when I didn’t really think that God was a personal God, or that He could be known. That period of agnositicism was a quiet stretch that I was too scared to share with my church family at the time, but it was real, and it directly preceeded my conversion.
The lyrics to two songs in particular have haunted me in this regard, whispering their strangeness in the decades that have followed.
The first is a song by The Newsboys called Believe.
Here are the lyrics:
I just believe, I just believe it
And sometimes I dunno why
I gotta go with my gut again on this one
The idea that faith is a matter of going with our gut, that we don’t really need (and potentially shouldn’t seek) reasons for our faith is the thing that nuzzled its way inside me through this song.
Michael W. Smith also had a song called Reason that contained a similar theme.
Here is the chorus:
There was a boy who had the faith to move a mountain
And like a child he would believe without a reason
Without a trace he disappeared into the void and
I’ve been searchin’ for that missing person
Again I found myself singing loud the idea that it was better to believe without a reason, that doubts or questions were something to lament. That a Christian just believes, they just believe it. They don’t (and probably shouldn’t) need a reason why.
Now, I’m very familiar with the idea of having a faith like a child, and how that is a beautiful thing that Jesus encourages. But when I came into my 20’s, and started needing in a very real way to transition the faith of my childhood into the faith of my adulthood, these refrains, well…they started to haunt me.
I needed some reasons. I needed to know that my faith was more than just the Bible stories of my childhood. I had to know that God was in logic, was in reason, and that those things were not in contradiction with my beliefs.
Somewhere during this time, I came upon Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God. It was a huge part of what brought me back from agnosticism and back into Christianity. It helped pave a way for me for the intersection of reason and faith, and I am forever grateful to this book.
There were a lot of good things about American Christianity in the 90’s, but I wish there had been more of an emphasis on why our faith and reason go hand in hand. Interestingly, both of the songs I mentioned above released in 1998.
You know what else released in 1998? A book called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
Lee Strobel took a systematic, reason-based approach to the evidence for Christianity, and I think perhaps was a big part of bringing about a shift in the mainstream Christian mindset. I read this book shortly after it came out, and loved it.
But by that point, that earlier message, the idea that I’d need to turn off my mind at least to some extent to accept the premesis of Christianity, had already taken hold.
These days, I don’t worry anymore about if God can handle my doubts or questions. Science, reason, logic, God built every single one of those things, so those of us who operate more on that level have free reign to lean into discovering God inside them.
In the end, one of the reasons I landed where I am today, a Catholic convert, is the fact that from the very first day I walked into my RCIA class, I was given free reign to think deeply and ask all the questions on my mind and my heart. I had already gotten to a point where I wanted to find the most full expression of the Christian faith I possibly could. I banked everything on finding it.
And I’m so glad I did.
-Lorelei
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I learned about a new podcast called The Exorcist Files from a Protestant friend. Intrigued, my husband and I looked into it further and learned that this podcast, through iHeart Media, is a partnership between Christian, non-Catholic host Ryan Bethea and Catholic exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins. The Holy See had asked Fr. Martins to do a catechesis on the Church’s teachings in this area, in particular due to a rise in occult practices in our current times, and The Exorcist Files podcast is the result of that request.
We decided to give it a listen, and have very much enjoyed the first season.
It’s a novel strategy for catechesis on the demonic, as the podcast takes actual case files from Fr. Martins’s experience as an exorcist and dramatizes them using voice actors and sound effects. This, in essence, places the listener in the room of these people’s stories. Throughout each case file, Fr. Martins catechizes on what is happening, how the spiritual realm works, how God works, and what an exorcist is and does in terms of helping those possessed or oppressed to be freed and to heal. He has chosen this format to particularly appeal to the largest age category of people leaving the Church, those aged 18-29.
I would not recommend listening to this with children nearby, as some parts would likely be frightening for them, but as an adult listening to this podcast I am thankful for Fr. Martins and his approach to catechesis on these matters. I now feel like I understand quite a bit more about spiritual warfare, God’s power over evil, and how we as humans make decisions with our free will that can give the devil a foothold. I also feel like this will help me better explain to our children why we don’t play with things like tarot cards, Ouija boards, and the like.
One particular standout tidbit was when Fr. Martins was sharing in an episode how, despite all of the vile things that come out of a demon’s mouth during an exorcism, he has never heard a demon take the name of the Lord in vain. There is something creatures in the spiritual realm understand about God that, despite all their blasphemy on all sorts of things, they won’t blaspheme His name. He then juxtaposed that with how casually and frequently we as humans take God’s name in vain, and cautioned against it.
I recommend The Exorcist Files podcast to anyone who might find catechesis on this topic edifying or useful. It has ultimately helped me to better understand the power of God over evil, as well as how evil operates in this world. I am even more thankful for our Catholic faith, the richness of our theology, and for these new tools that will help me catechize our children as we guide them in life in the light of Christ.
Copyright 2023 Lorelei Savaryn
Images: Canva
Note: This article originally was posted on Catholic Mom.
Historically, I have struggled when the young people in my care make poor choices. I have tended to take their decisions personally, and to see those moments as a failure on my part, thinking that their choices reflect badly on me.
As a parent, this has caused me to turn inward on myself, ruminating on how I am failing my kids and students, because, obviously, if I weren’t, they would be perfect little saints.
Even writing that sentence, I have to smile. Because removed from the heat of the moment, I can see how silly it is to think that. But in the moment itself, that is exactly the kind of thinking I have tended to engage in. If my children or students choose poorly, then, to me, that means I am somehow failing as a parent or teacher.
However, in doing this, I make my place in the grand scheme of things distorted, larger than life, out of proportion. As if me doing everything right (an impossible task) will somehow result in the people in my care doing everything right as well.
When I set myself back down in my proper place amongst the bigger picture, and zoom out even a little bit, I can gain a better perspective.
For example, it isn’t God’s fault that we choose to sin. It isn’t a bad reflection on God, and it doesn’t mean that God is anything less than a good, good Father to us.
In fact, our ability to choose is a reflection of His goodness to us.
Those opportunities to choose—even if we choose wrongly, are chances to learn and carve away those parts of ourselves that are not yet fully conformed to love. It allows us to choose love in the first place. We need to see the difference between where we are now and where we have the potential to be so we know how to orient ourselves moving forward. Our failures are a beautiful opportunity to learn and to move closer to Him.
The same applies to me and my relationships with my children and students. As a person entrusted with young people both in my home and in my classroom, I am learning to view these opportunities as a gift. When they make poor choices, I can get a good look at areas where my children and students have an opportunity to grow in character and holiness. And I have the honor of helping to guide them on that path.
Those moments have, in some ways, very little to do with me at all, other than the fact that they are opportunities for me to step up in my role as one who guides young people, and to help them turn back to love. To grow their virtue muscles. To help them see the difference between who they are today and who they can be, and to spur them forward. To encourage them. To help light the way.
When I view things like that, I put myself in my proper place. I put their choices in their proper place. And I can even rejoice at this thing called Free Will, and the opportunity it offers us to be sanctified throughout our lives so, when the time comes, we will be ready to meet God, Love itself, with arms wide open.
And so, in the end, it isn’t a poor reflection on me when the youth in my care make the wrong choice. In fact, it is an honor to be present, and to be ever at the ready to help.
-Lorelei
Note: This article originally appeared on Catholic Mom
As an introvert mom to four and Catholic school teacher, I know two things to be true. I love working with youth and being a mom. I also know that I am often overstimulated, and that in order to do my job and my parenting well, I need to set aside regular time to rest.
Easier said than done in the day-to-day hustle and bustle, but when I don’t rest, many of my less-than-amazing traits shine through. The impatience, the feeling overwhelmed, the irritability. The need has always been there, but rest has looked different at different phases of life for me. There hasn’t been a magic rest recipe that has worked well all the time. There have been times when I have tried to rigidly schedule rest, but I found that certain days I need certain things more than others, and sometimes the scheduled “rest” didn’t match what I needed at all, and therefore it felt more like a burden than anything else.
So I let go of the rigidity, and recently, here is what I’ve done that I’ve found helpful. And I hope some of you may find it helpful, too.
I started by making a list of things that recharge me. Things that, for me, constitute as rest. Some items on the list were a hot bath, reading a book, enjoying a nice glass of wine with my husband, writing or creating something, taking a walk, prayer, journaling, just sitting in a quiet space, taking a nap, doing a workout, and so on.
And then, rather than sticking to some regimented schedule of predetermined rest activities, I allow myself the freedom to choose what would best help me in that given moment. I do this by taking care to be mindful throughout the week of how I’m feeling. Am I overstimulated? Maybe I need to let my husband take care of making dinner so I can go enjoy a quiet bath when he gets home from work. Am I low energy? Some days, I might cure feeling tired with an energetic workout. Others, I may shut my eyes for a little while for a nap.
I’ve learned that right now a lot of my rest involves accepting the introvert inside me and stepping away from people for a little while, whatever that looks like. When I do that, I’m much better for everyone when I return.
One thing that remains relatively constant is setting aside regular time to pray. This often happens early in the morning, before the rest of the house has stirred. It’s not natural for me to get up at 5:00 AM, or even 5:30, but it is the best chance I have at quiet before the day begins for everyone else in my home. I do this four or five times per week, and it acts as an anchor to my days.
It can be very easy for us moms to push aside our need for rest, to put the needs of others above our own. I often smile when I think that even God rested, and I feel the value of rest in my soul when I see how much better I am for those I love and serve when I prioritize resting too.
Rest will not look the same for every person, and it probably won’t look the same every day, but if we can take time to recognize the things that recharge us, and allow ourselves to take the time when needed, then I trust that we are better equipped to live our calling in whatever phase of life God has us in today.
(Note: This article originally appeared on Catholic Mom)
I think how we raise our kids in the faith is likely formed, at least to some extent, by how we were raised in our own. If we had a good experience that developed a rich faith life, or if we encountered struggles or poor examples or formation in some way still lingers in our minds and in our hearts.
There are moms who do an amazing job at liturgical living, or who are faithfully and frequently found with rosary beads in their hands. Moms who take their kids to Adoration often, to Confession often. Moms who homeschool and love it.
Since converting to Catholicism in 2016, I have tried on many different Catholic-mom hats. We do love celebrating liturgical days and feasts, but not all of them. We do love praying the Rosary, but it’s not my most frequent devotion. We love going to family Adoration, and would love to do that more often than we have. There were many parts about homeschooling that I loved, but in January of this year we enrolled our kids at a local Catholic school and I am beginning work there as a teacher. That particular move has been better for our family in many ways.
At first, I think I felt like I wasn’t a complete Catholic mom, in some ways, because I didn’t fit neatly into one of the boxes I had created in my mind about what a Catholic mom should be. But over this past year, that has changed. I am realizing that Catholic moms come in as wide a variety as the women who embody that name.
And, for me, I have come to accept that the thing that I lean most into as a Catholic mom is encouraging my kids to think deeply about the faith, to ask good, rich questions, and then to walk them down a path of knowing that there are deep, good, rich answers to be found. I also want them to love the liturgy, to see the beauty in ritual and tradition, and to know that we are connected profoundly to the Christians who have come before us.
This is likely formed by my childhood growing up in a fundamentalist-leaning but also somehow charismatic evangelical church. I was taught that faith and science are sometimes at odds with each other. I didn’t know there was depth to be found past the basic tenets of the Gospel, and when I became an adult my despair that there may not be deep answers to be found lead me towards agnosticism.
My husband had similar experiences within the Catholic Church, where he grew up knowing the rules but not understanding why they were there.
So, together, it has become very important for us to let our kids ask questions, to explain the whys of our faith, and then to hope and to trust that when they go off on their own some years from now, that they will find they have a firm foundation to stand on. My prayer is that they will feel safe at home.
I am the It’s okay to wonder and ask deep questions kind of Catholic mom, along with a sprinkling of the other kinds too. And that’s one of the beautiful things about our faith: that rich diversity is what makes the Church. God has given us each unique passions and gifts and calls, and we can all be ourselves fully within our Catholic home.
I’d love to learn what you lean into in your motherhood as a Catholic.
What parts of our faith bring you joy to share with your children?
What parts of your faith formation impact how you raise your kids as Catholics?
-Lorelei
Note: This article originally appeared on Catholic Mom.
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