A lot has happened since my last post. For one, the grieving process of losing my aunt the way we did took a lot out of me. Still does, sometimes. I struggled to think of ways I could write encouraging or even true posts on our family blog, and the words just weren’t coming like they usually did, at least in this way. So I gave myself some grace and some much needed time.
But, interestingly enough, words did come in other, different ways. I had been pursuing publication with my first manuscript, but the summer after we lost Jeannine I came up with a new story. A story written for children but that also, in the strange way that stories do these things, helped me walk the path of my own grief, too.
That story is going to be published by Penguin Random House’s Philomel Imprint on September 1 of this year (2020). It’s called The Circus of Stolen Dreams, and I can’t wait to share it with the world.
That was one of the big things that has happened since I wrote here last. You can learn more about my journey as an author by visiting my author website, www.loreleisavaryn.com
The other big thing is after 9 months of constant nausea, I gave birth to Zelie Rose, our 4th child. She has also been keeping us busy!
For those wondering where we got her name, St. Zelie Martin is one of my favorite Catholic Saints. She is St. Therese of Lisieux’s mom. I admire her greatly, and am so excited to have had the opportunity to name a child after her.
For anyone keeping track, yes, all of our children are named after Saints (some with multiple meanings to our family). Even the two kids we had before my conversion to Catholicism got, by some divine intervention, Saint names. So now we have Felicity, August, Mary, Zelie. And of course my husband John Paul. The running joke in our house is that there isn’t a Saint Lorelei yet, so I’ll just have to become the first one. (No pressure! Ha!)
I hope to be back here more often and writing more about our faith and family life. I’ve missed sharing and writing, and am happy to be ready to return!
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Lent is always an appropriate time to reflect on suffering, and over the past 12 months, This Catholic Family has had some rough times.
I’ve shared a few times about the loss of my aunt to suicide in February 2018. The grief from that, and the slow path toward healing, has been a part of the fog that made it hard to write at times on this website. I poured a lot of my energy over the past year into writing a fiction manuscript about a young girl who experiences a loss, and finds her way to healing. Using words in that way for that time helped a lot.
The other fog we experienced has been for a much happier purpose.
We found out in December that we are expecting Baby Savaryn Number 4! New life is the happiest of news, but for our family, we also knew it would be difficult for a while. I, to varying extents during my pregnancies, suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum. This is extreme nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. A condition that used to be fatal for some mothers, and is slowly gaining more publicity in our current times for its devastating impact on an expectant mother’s health while she suffers.
This time, despite proactively taking nausea medication and planning for my care, I ended up incredibly sick. As it amped up, I wasn’t able to be in the kitchen, or prepare food, or eat much. It felt like I was on a boat with severe seasickness 95% of the time I was awake. Movement and smell made it worse. Relief only came when I slept. Then, I hit a point where I couldn’t keep anything down and hadn’t had something to eat or drink in over 18 hours. I had to go to the hospital, where I ended up being admitted for three days until they could rehydrate my body and until I could eat and drink on my own without getting sick with the help of some additional medication.
I was this sick with my son, who will turn five soon, and I had much better medical care this time than I did with him, but it was still one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through inside my own body. And when it was at its worst, it was very hard for me to see the light beyond all the darkness in the struggle to survive moment by slow moment.
Friends came through and brought us food, and there were so many praying, and my husband was good about reminding me that this would all be worth it.
It was still so difficult to lose myself, even for a little while.
The Hope and the Grace
But in suffering, there is grace.
I was fed by the Eucharist during my suffering, and I weakly attempted to unite my own suffering with that of Christ. In many ways, I do not feel like I suffered ‘well.’ But I also knew Jesus would carry me through, and that if I was willing to walk this path for Him, that he would not forsake me.
On the first Sunday I was home from the hospital, I was still confined to my bed, and the family had to go to mass without me. I hear the door open as they returned home, and in moments, my two oldest children entered my room with their hands folded in front of them in quite reverence.
JP soon followed, and produced that which had fed my soul so many times during this sickness.
A priest at our parish had helped JP bring Jesus in the Eucharist to me right where I was, and I was able to receive communion, right there, in my bed. When I couldn’t get to mass, Jesus came to me.
And there is such hope in new life too. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap our heads around the idea of redemptive suffering. That something good can come out of something hard.
It has helped more than a little to know there is such a clear and redemptive reason I went through all I did. I am bringing a new life into our family and into the world. At 18 weeks now, and finally feeling much better, I can feel our little one kick. I can speak to this baby, as it now can hear my voice. I can reflect on the phrase ‘this is my body, given for you,’ in a new and profound way. I can understand just a little bit better, in some small, small way, how Jesus gave his body for us, and the love that must have been there for him to go through his passion.
Let the Sun Shine In
The fog is clearing away from the difficult year we have had, and the very, very, dark and cold and grey winter. The days are getting longer. The sun is shining a bit more. And our family is soon to embark on a vacation to the beach, a much needed bit of togetherness and warmth and light.
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Donate to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:https://afsp.org/
Grieving Suicide
Grieving my 47-year-old aunt Jeannine’s suicide has been different than any other grief I have experienced in my time on this earth. It is heavy, it is dark, it is slow, it is hard.
Me and Neen before.
She left so many things behind. Family, friends, loved ones. We all must live now with a story that ended in a nightmare. We hurt for our grief, but we also hurt for the pain Jeannine felt in those final minutes. We want the chance to go back in time, to take some of that pain off her shoulders. To write a different ending.
Sometimes suicide grief is weird. I’ve had so many thoughts and emotions. Anger, compassion, pleading, confusion, an insatiable hunger for answers. I’ve been mad at the inanimate objects that were in her apartment because they witnessed her die and did nothing. I’ve had to think long and hard about which of the items that were in that room I wanted to keep. A million weird things have passed through my head as I frame our life ‘after.’
She left so many things behind. Her gemstones, her clothes, her records, her movies, her furniture, her art, her jewelry, her dishes, cookie cutters, board games, pictures, books.
And journals.
We have an abundance of journals. Part of my grieving process has been, in small pieces, to read her heart on those pages. At first, I wanted answers. Sometimes, I was mad. Now I am trying to understand.
You see, to many who knew her, Jeannine was a bright spot of sunlight on a cloudy day. She paid attention to the little things. She saw people, and helped make their day better. She cooked delicious food, and baked, and made her own amazing chocolates. She loved being silly. She planned elaborate trips for me and my friends on multiple occasions to visit her in NYC. We laughed a lot. We had deep conversations.
I, like many others, had no idea my aunt was chronically depressed.
But there it is, on the pages of her journals. She wondered what was wrong with her, why she was always so tired. She thought cruel things about herself and her self-worth. More than once, she considered ending her life.
And no one knew she was depressed. Not even herself.
I haven’t read a page yet where she connected her struggles to depression. She wanted to snap herself out of it, she felt like she was watching her life go by, she was really, really sad a lot of the time and thought it was because something was intrinsically wrong with her. But, except for to a very few people on extreme occasions, she put on a smile and lit up the room.
My Why
I’ve journaled in the past, on and off, but particularly when I’ve been going through a struggle. When I look back on my journals during those difficult times, I am struck by how similar her journals sound to mine. Like, eerily similar.
And it’s hard not to wonder what the difference was, that I came out of it okay and Neen lost her life. Was it that I identified it as depression? That I had someone close to me who saw the problem? But I isolated myself and put a happy face on plenty, too. Was it that my depression was more situational/hormonal, and hadn’t been following me for decades? That I had years of relief between relatively short depressive seasons and for her it was relentless?
In the end, for my aunt, we know it was the perfect storm of trauma on a terrible, awful night. All the wrong pieces came together in the absolute worst possible way, and she was left without hope.
In light of this, or, perhaps to try and make some sense of it, I’m going to briefly describe my own experiences with depression in the hopes to shed some light on the variety of faces depression can take. No matter how many pages of journal I read, I will never have all the answers about why my aunt didn’t survive her depression. But I can work to understand my own experiences, and be a voice that breaks the silence.
Depression Three Times
In my adult life, I have had three seasons of depression. As mentioned above, mine have been either circumstantial or hormonal/body chemistry related. Here is a summary of what those seasons looked like form me.
1- Between the ages of 20 and 21, I worked at a small company in a small office with three men. The owner of the company was also a man, and the only woman I interacted with there was his wife. The three men who worked in the office asked me inappropriate questions about intimate things, and joked about inappropriate sexual things while I was working, or eating lunch with them, or whenever.
I scheduled a meeting with the boss and his wife to share that the work environment had gotten uncomfortable for me. They listened intently and I left that meeting believing I now had some advocates on my side.
The next time I went to work, the men apologized. But only days later, I got a call from the wife of the boss telling me I was being let go.
The quality of my work hadn’t changed, and the company was pretty busy, which was why they had hired me as extra help. The only thing that had changed was I spoke up about their inappropriate sexual comments at work.
After that, I suffered low moods, some hopelessness, and feelings of being helpless. Within a couple of months, my life had moved onto other things, and there was much in my life that was going well, and the depression subsided on its own.
2- After giving birth to my children, I had mild to severe postpartum depression, and it was a bit different with each child. It varied from low mood and pervasive sadness after Felicity was born, to very, very scary thoughts of self-harm after August was born. I felt like I was watching my life through a pane of glass and couldn’t get in. I didn’t think I was good for my children. I thought the world would be better without me.
After we diagnosed the postpartum depression, I took Zoloft for approximately 6 months in combination with therapy, and reading books about postpartum. I followed all the directions for how to take care of myself and I began noticing an improvement after I had been on the medication for 2-4 weeks. Things started feeling better, I was able to smile and enjoy my children again, and I knew I would be okay. I wrote in detail about my experience with postpartum depression and anxiety here.
3- Three years ago, a woman broke into my home while I was alone with our then two children. I was on the phone with 911 for just under 6 minutes before they arrived, hiding in an upstairs bedroom as I watched this person peep around my backyard and ultimately gain entry. When they police came, she was in my kitchen. To this day I don’t know what her intentions were, but I do know that I was home alone with my young kids, without any means of defending myself while someone who was drunk, or high, or both was in my house.
After that happened, I exhibited many symptoms of PTSD. Functioning at work became difficult. Seeing an unfamiliar face in my neighborhood caused a panic. Unexpected loud noises did the same. I slept better once we installed a home security system.
I ended up having to leave a job that was highly-stressful even when I was functioning at 100%. It was hard to leave. I felt like I was letting a lot of people down, and that didn’t help. My thoughts, for a time, grew dark and scary. We were going to buy a gun for home protection. I told my husband not to. I was worried about myself with a weapon like that in my home.
As weeks and months passed from the traumatic event, my depressive symptoms again subsided. Besides that very unique traumatic incident that I couldn’t have controlled, our life was in a very good place. I was able to weather the storm of acute stress probably in part because of that. But, having experienced scary depression prior with the postpartum issues, it was a very unwelcome return to that place for even a relatively short time.
The Other Side
Writing a lot of that feels very weird now, because I am in such a different mental space now, and in general. I’m not someone who struggles with chronic depression, but I have struggled at different times, and in different ways each of those times.
But I am so thankful I survived, because it wasn’t a guarantee. And I now understand what depression is, so even when something happens that is triggering, I can label what is happening and I know where to reach out for help if I need it.
And I wonder how many people could be saved by having access to tools to help them identify what is happening?
It’s been hard not to play the what-if game with Jeannine.
What if she had understood that her depression wasn’t something innately wrong with her as a person?
What if she had been able to put a name to all the things she was feeling and was able to get help?
What if she had taken an anti-depressant?
What if people just simply talked about it more so she would have had a chance to recognize the overlap between others’ experiences and her own?
Walking Wounded
For those of us who have suffered a suicide loss, we walk this earth wounded every day.
I did keep some of her personal belongings, and they now sit in my home. I am thankful to be able to remember her with those items, but I often think how they don’t belong here. They belong with her, in her apartment, with her there to look at them each day.
I’ve also been appointed the personal representative of her estate. There are a lot of things to do with that. Legal things, tax things, things that remind me daily how I wish things had turned out different. I even play out different scenarios in my head while driving or sitting after the house has gone quiet late at night. I imagine what would have happened if I had seen her deactivate her Facebook page the minute she did it and called to check in. If she had answered her phone. If there could have been a different ending to this story.
Jeannine walked wounded every day, too. It’s there, plain as day on the pages of her journals. And so many of us here also walk wounded because of depression.
Breaking the Silence
It’s so important to break the silence. Breaking the silence is a way to start a conversation, to end stigma, to open up avenues of support. And maybe, a way to save a life.
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
So much of my life is framed by hope. I hope the kids will sleep well, I hope the weather will be nice, I hope I’ll have time to drink my coffee. Hope, hope, hope. Little things like that. And big things, too. I hope I’ll be a published author some day. I hope my kids will grow up to be kind, good adults. I hope JP and I will live long lives and be able to see our children’s children grow.
But there is also a deeper hope than this. And it is also part of my every breath. It is something that brings me such joy, even when things don’t go as I hope on a small scale, or even big.
And it is the hope that there is something more than just the physical world we encounter during our short time on this earth.
A Crutch of Hope
For example, I have to hope that this intense love I feel for my children and my husband is more than just biochemistry for biochemistry’s sake. I have to hope that humanity is an echo of God, and familial love is an echo of heaven. I have to hope that my attraction to beauty and harmony comes from something deep and vast. And that my anger at injustice comes from a connection to an ultimate source of Good.
Some people may say I’m weak for leaning on a crutch like that. But I’m okay with going through my life on a crutch of hope. A few years ago, when JP and I were figuring out the worldview by which we would live our lives, I experimented to see if I could find meaning dissociated from a higher power. And maybe some people can. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get myself to a place where I could believe we didn’t have souls, and that there was no ultimate source of Good, and there was no point, and never would be for our existence, and then along those lines still believe my life had value, or that it mattered how I treat others, or that justice of any kind was important other than to further survival in a segment of our species so we could live long enough to be burned up by the sun.
If I lost that hope, I couldn’t find a way to justify, other than a desire to procreate, why I would have brought three more meaningless souls into the world. But if there is hope, then procreation is co-creating with the Ultimate Creator, who is also the ultimate source of Good. My children, like all of humanity, carry souls and are stamped with the image of the Creator.
So, for these and many reasons, I actively, and with great intention, chose hope.
My True North
Hope in something more is my True North. It is the direction by which everything else in my life is set. It’s how I frame my own minutes spent on this earth. It’s how I frame my actions towards other people. It is at the very foundation of the value and dignity I believe every human inherently carries by virtue that they exist.
It is this same hope that underlies my belief that there is still a chance my aunt, who we lost to suicide in February, has found or is finding peace and healing. That her story doesn’t end with ultimate despair. That all our stories don’t just end.
I choose to believe that Aslan will defeat the White Witch. That Good will defeat Evil. That wrongs done on this earth will be made right in a way that will more than atone for the suffering people faced.
Once I decided to live a life believing something bigger than us out there, I also chose to believe that higher power is all Good, is all Love, and is all Truth. That next step helps me to further frame how I build my life.
If There Is…
Because if there is Good, then it matters that I learn what is Good, and that I choose Good over its opposite.
Because if there is Love, then it matters that I learn what is Love, and that I live a life built around willing the good of those whose lives cross paths with mine.
If there is Truth, then it matters that I learn what is Truth. That I sift through my own personal biases and preferences, and even my own selfishness in order to recognize Truth and assent to it.
A Life Well-Lived
I hope to look back on my life one day, and have peace that it was well-lived. Lived for others, lived in the promise of something more, something beyond, something that is the source of all Good and all Love and all Truth.
It gives me great peace to hope we are all a small part of something bigger, something ultimately Good. It doesn’t matter if someone thinks I’m foolish for leaning on a crutch. That person doesn’t have to answer for the minutes of my life, or for how I choose to experience my existence. But in the name of hope, I will always hope that all those I encounter are able to find their peace. The compass by which they can walk this journey of life.
And that, in a nutshell, is why and how I have chosen to frame my life through a lens of hope.
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Well, we’ve made it to Illinois! Though the move wasn’t too far, mileage speaking, it was far enough that we are having to reset many aspects of our life. In the next few weeks, we will be finding new doctors, dentists, playgrounds… pretty much everything. We keep checking things off the list, but new things get added as well. They all keep telling me it will settled down at some point. And I will choose to believe them. I look forward to the day when all the big stuff is done. But we are here. And that’s a good start.
So here’s a little update on the goings-on of This Catholic Family, now of Illinois.
Donuts After Mass
We think we’ve found a parish! St. Raphael the Archangel. It’s a gorgeous church built of multiple old churches, just a few minutes from our house. I have grown to love beautiful churches so much in the past few years, and this one just felt right for our family, almost as soon as we walked in. The beauty is there, and the history, and the hope of something new. They are still installing the stained glass windows, and have additional work to to in finishing the build of the church so we feel like we are a part of a beautiful beginning, but also something that has roots.
One of the things we were going to miss about moving was our family tradition of donuts after Mass. We would go to O+H Danish Bakery in Racine frequently after Mass for donuts. As we were preparing to move, I looked and couldn’t find a bakery in our area that would quite feel the same. St. Raphael’s, it turns out, offers donuts and fellowship time in the basement of the church each and every Sunday. And you can bet we’ve checked it out! I wish more parishes had something like this, and I am so thankful St. Raphael’s does. It’s helped us get to know a few people already. We are optimistic about joining our family life with the life of this new parish.
Emptiness = Potential
There’s a lot of empty in this house right now. Empty walls, waiting to be painted then filled up with art and pictures. Empty rooms waiting for furniture to arrive. And the emptiness that comes from living in a space you haven’t made many memories in yet, which feels a bit lonely at times. But that kind of emptiness is also filled with potential. The potential for all the memories that we are going to make. It’s been helping me during this transition to pay attention to when a new memory shows up in this new town, in this new home we are forming for ourselves.
A few examples:
When the kids came to the the house for the first time after we moved, they ran and squealed as they went to find their new rooms, and checked out the space. The kids have their own rooms now, but August went right to Felicity and said “My door is always open.” It was so sweet.
There’s one.
A huge rainstorm came through. We can see a lot of sky from our front yard, and when the rain passed, the dark purple rainclouds brushed away to more open skies with streaks of clouds containing every color of the rainbow. The burnt orange sun slipped down toward the horizon, and I stood outside in that salty, warm air, and saw a sunset I would have never been able to see from outside our old house. JP joined me outside and we just stared at it for a while together. I could have looked at that sunset forever.
There’s one.
This weekend we had a family movie night, and watched The Greatest Showman with the kids. At the end credits everyone was dancing and twirling around the family room until we were all pretty dizzy.
There’s one.
Slowly, but surely, this empty house will fill up. With furniture, with kids projects from school, with pictures on the wall. And with memories. This will be the house we think of first when we tell our family’s story. The emptiness of this space has so, so much potential.
And we found a way to still have donuts after Mass. 🙂
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
I hope this post finds our This Catholic Family readers well. As tends to happen in life, we have entered into a season of transition after 4 years in our current home.
We moved into this home when August was just a newborn. At the time, we barely qualified for a mortgage under JP’s post-doc salary. But we desperately wanted a yard for the kids to play in, and a place we could make our own. To be able to make this happen, we could only find a home we could afford in Wisconsin, which made JP’s commute at times anywhere from 50 minutes to about 2 hours one way.
Here are some pictures of our cute, little first home, from our real estate listing:
Fast forward to now, and we’ve been discussing the need to find the home our kids will be able to grow up in, and that will allow JP to be home with the family more each day by reducing his commute. All 3 kids are in one bedroom, which is okay for the moment, but won’t work when they are all in their teens. And time is precious.
We are so thankful to share, that after a short search, Lorelei also found a job in her same field (instructional coaching) near where JP works, which opened the doorway for us to turn JP’s commute from 50 minutes into 15. That means we will have him home for a full hour more each day with us. Over the years to come, that will add up to a significant amount of time.
We went house hunting, and looked at 9 houses over the course of one morning. And there was one home we just couldn’t get out of our heads.
Here are some pictures from the real estate listing for our new home.
This is the home we see our kids graduating from high school in. The home they will come hang out with their rowdy teen friends in. The home we will drive up to and see our Christmas tree in the living room through the window. Our life has been in some form of transition since we were married. JP was in grad school, and we didn’t know what field he would end up in, or where he would find work. Then he finished his post-doc and searched for months for a job, finally finding one here in the Midwest. We lived in this house, and have been so thankful for it, but also knew it wasn’t going to be our family’s long-term home.
We still can’t believe we’ve gotten to the point where we are ready to settle in to a community, and become a part of it, without knowing in the back of our minds that we might have to leave. This next month will be kind of crazy, but, God-willing, the move will go as painlessly as possible, and we will be settled in before the kids start school.
Sorry to have been quiet for a few weeks here- but now you know why, and are all up to speed!
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
I (Lorelei) had the pleasure of being interviewed for The Christian Circle Podcast on Raising Children in the Catholic Faith. It was lovely speaking with the host, Pamela Fernandes on the subject.
I hope to get the chance to visit again! Click here to take a listen, as well as to read a bit about behind the scenes. We hope you enjoy. 🙂
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
I think we’ve all seen or heard someone make a joke about “Catholic Guilt” at one point or another.
This article explores what Catholic Guilt is, really. And if it’s actually funny. Or, on the other hand, if it a misrepresentation of something meant for our good.
What is Sin?
It’s important to get on the same page about sin before we even attempt to talk about this issue. Let’s turn to the Catechism to get our definition.
1849Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it.Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
(emphasis mine)
Using this definition, I often break down the idea of sin to conclude it is any time where I choose to serve myself rather than another. It’s desiring my perceived good over my actual good. It’s refusing to love. And in refusing love, I am refusing God because God is Love itself.
Sin wounds my relationship with God, because I’m actively rejecting Him. It hurts my soul. It makes me sick.
When I think about sin now, I think about any one of us, if we gave in freely to our own passions, distorted from God’s good intent, might even find ourselves on earth in our own sort of personal hell.
Sin is serious business. But, thankfully, that’s not the end of the story.
My Protestant Practice
Before becoming Catholic, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the ways I rejected or blocked God (Love) out of my life. Some of the churches I attended would have a moment for such reflections. But it was usually just that, a moment. And, to be honest, in those moments I most often thought “meh- I think I’m doing pretty good, comparatively speaking.” I shake my head at my past self now. And I’m still not exactly sure who I was comparing myself to… those convicted of crimes against humanity? The people in pews beside me, as some sort of holiness version of keeping up with the Joneses? Just the general sense that, in the grand scale of humanity, I was doing okay?
And then the service would move on and I would move on and I continue along my merry way. I knew I could ask God for forgiveness, but as someone who had come from a Once Saved, Always Saved tradition (for much of my life), I didn’t have an ingrained sense that my confession mattered. I had ‘invited Jesus into my heart’ as a child. And if you are Once Saved, Always Saved, then the moment you say that prayer, it’s a done deal.
Now, you can read more about how I learned that perspective didn’t fit with my actual life experience in my Coming Home Network conversion story by clicking here, but suffice it to say, I had accepted Jesus as a child, then possibly crossed over into rejecting Him as a young adult before I made my way back through the Catholic Church.
I learned through that journey that my choices do matter. They have eternal impact. And yes, everything good I do is by the grace of God, but I’m not an automaton. God can work through me to show his love and healing to this world, but He needs my yes to do it.
And so I’d better pay attention to the areas in my life where I’m letting Love in, and also to the areas in my life where I’m not.
The Value in Examining Our Conscience
I worry about the fading of the concept of confession in general as the trees of Christian separation continue to branch farther and farther away from their historical roots. And I have personally found immense value in examining my conscience on a regular basis, followed by a good Confession.
But first, what is an Examination of Conscience?
An Examination of Conscience is a beautiful exercise we do as Catholics, where we take stock of our lives and our heart. We spend time praying about and thinking about the areas where we are letting God (Love) lead the way, and the areas where we are turning from Him (Love) and choosing to serve ourselves first. We take an honest look at where we are being selfish, or prideful, or fearful, or careless, or impatient, or any number of things.
There are many ways to examine our conscience. Click here for a link to some excellent resources that walk you straight through the entire process.
But we don’t just leave it there when we’re done. We aren’t meant to just acknowledge our shortcomings and sit around feeling bad about ourselves. We know we have the ability to make a change. We can grow in virtue and holiness. We can turn our “No” to God, into a resounding “Yes.”
Once we have examined ourselves, we are ready to make a Confession.
Confession is so many things. But one thing it is not. It is not a rote recital of our wrongs just for the sake of checking an item off a list.
It is a Healing Sacrament. And for good reason.
When we go to Confession, we sit before a Priest, who is standing in place of Jesus for us. We share with him those struggles we identified in ourselves. And we receive, not only God’s forgiveness to us, but we also receive penance, our medicine to help heal the wounds created by our sin.
We leave Confession with the Grace of God to continue to say yes to Him. And if and when we fail, we know Confession is always there, to help us right our path. To help us to learn to love others better than we could on our own. To help sanctify us, and to flood us with God’s Amazing Grace so we can effectively live as His hands and feet.
Back to Catholic Guilt
Nothing about the Catholic Church desires for us to hobble around, eternally burdened by our shortcomings. And long story short, anyone who has been haunted by Catholic Guilt in their life, has taken these beautiful practices meant for our own good, for our own healing, and for whatever reason, allowed them to become distorted.
When I’m carrying some burdens inside my heart, I might know it’s time to go to Confession. So I just set up a time and go. I know I want to let as much of God (Love) into my life as possible, and if I can be honest with myself about when I’m not doing that, then I can experience healing and let His Grace help me make different choices.
There’s a huge difference between the conviction we need to make something right, and then doing something to heal what we’ve broken, and the notion of “Catholic Guilt.” Guilt, when left to its own devices and void of the connection to healing, can turn us inward and makes us focus dangerously on ourselves. And when we focus on ourselves, we are entering a realm that is unhealthy for our souls. We are entering the realm of sin.
So, no, Catholic Guilt isn’t funny. It’s actually probably a sign that someone has experienced pain in some form or another inside the Church, and have not yet found their way to the healing. If we know people who struggle with this, or who have left the Church because of it, it is so vital that we live Grace in our own lives. Forgiveness in our own lives. The joy of healing in our own lives.
We have the opportunity to be an example to those who misunderstand our faith, to those who are seeking, and to those who might be confused. Let us be an example of the Church’s beauty as we seek, more and more each and every day, to choose Love.
-Lorelei
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
I had the amazing opportunity to give my talk, “A Protestant Interrupted,” at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Angleton, Texas last weekend.
Mary’s got my back 🙂
Father Victor Perez had seen my Journey Home episode, and reached out via Twitter to invite me to his parish. I have to admit, at first I wasn’t sure if it was a serious invitation or not. Tweets are mysterious like that. But sure enough, he followed up via email, and soon we were talking about dates and travel arrangements!
And Southern Hospitality is a real thing, y’all. I met so many kind people, including Judy, who was my airport transportation and lunch companion, and Dan and Rita, my awesome hosts (and providers of early morning coffee and Tex Mex dinner.) Along with so many others.
Most Holy Trinity is a beautiful, energetic parish, with lovely music and passionate people. It was a pleasure to meet so many of them before and after I shared my story.
The one tricky aspect to this trip was early departure times from the airports. I wanted to make sure to get home in time to spend Sunday afternoon with my people back in Wisconsin, so there was a slight shortage in sleep over the course of the weekend. But that was a small sacrifice for time well-spent. Plus, on the way home, I had a layover at the Dallas Airport, in the terminal that contained a Ben and Jerry’s. I walked, wide-eyed up to the lady at the counter and was all like “I am so glad you are here!” She may have looked at me like I was a little crazy, but she was certainly generous in her scoopage, and for that I am eternally grateful.
What a joy it is to be able to share some of the many reasons I love the Catholic faith with some new friends. I hope to be able to visit again soon. 🙂
– Lorelei
For more information on booking Lorelei for a speaking engagement, please see our Speaker page above, or click here.
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
We had a period of time this fall into early winter where things were relatively calm. I remember thinking to myself during that time, Remember to appreciate this. Be thankful for this.
Because I’ve been around at least long enough to know that life comes in seasons, in swells and crests, and that something would come to stir up our temporarily calm seas.
Mary was in the hospital for two nights just before Christmas, and RSV spread through the rest of the family for most of Christmas break.
Then, in January we caught our breath.
In February, we lost my aunt to suicide, and we are still recovering from that loss. The pain continues to come in waves. There are good days, and there are difficult days. The air leaves my chest and my stomach sinks every time I go in the basement and see a pile of boxes there. All her stuff. Filled with clothes and baking supplies and art that I have no idea what to do with and no clue if or when or how I will be ready to see it, to touch it, to use it again.
Coming to terms with the pain she felt, our own powerlessness to do anything to change it, and the hope that my prayers can help her still all make for a complicated mix of emotions. I can’t control when the grief hits. And when it does, it isn’t always convenient.
And it just seems like right now there is an abundance of regular but personal and professional business that make finding balance more tricky than it is at other times. I’ve wanted to have time to write more on the blog, but it’s been difficult to find the words to say amidst all the sadness.
I’m struggling with knowing the best direction to take my novel, and in discerning if it’s time to let it rest for a bit and start something new. It’s tough for me to leave a thing unfinished, in any area of life. And it’s also tough for me when there is no clear end point. I can’t say for certain when it will be ‘done.’
We are making some positive, needed, good changes, like moving to a bigger home to account for the growing number of people in our family. I’ve started being asked to speak even in different states, which is super cool and exciting.
Managing Self-Care
But compartmentalizing is tricky for me. It’s tough for me to keep everything in it’s own separate baskets in my mind and things tend to spill over. Today, I wrote an outline for myself to make sure I’m managing my self-care. Blocking time to write, to read, to exercise, to sleep. To make sure I respect the rhythm of my own body and the way God has made me. I recharge my batteries by having time alone. By writing. By reading. And by prayer. If I don’t make it a priority, then I can go too long without making it happen, get caught up in the current, and I start to feel anxious.It was good to take time to actually write out those priorities. And it’s amazing what a quiet hour by myself can do for my peace of mind and ability to be present for my family.
The long and short of it is, I need to remember to give myself a break! I can’t be All The Things All The Time to All The People. I can’t read an article while Mary is crawling on my lap. I can, however, set aside time specifically for Mary crawling on my lap and other kid related endeavors, and also set aside different time to read that article.
I am strong, but I am not a superhero. And I think consistently trying to do more than one thing well at one time is a way to drain this momma fast.
If I need some time to grieve, I need to take some time to grieve. Not grieve AND feed the kids dinner. Not grieve AND coach a teacher. I need to open up time to just let myself grieve, at least at some point during that day. And respect it. Likewise, I can’t write a super cool blog post AND interact with my kids (with any level of patience). I can work on house hunting/building stuff, but not at the same time as I pack my lunch.
It sounds so simple, but it is something I try and do so often! Not only am I going to do this one thing, but I’m going to do more than most other normal people and try and do more than one thing at the same time and then take pride in the fact that I am able to be so productive and efficient!
But at the end of the day, I just make myself tired.
So this is a good, recurring lesson for me. We won’t ever be able to finish All The Things when all is said and done. And learning to let myself take a slower pace, or set something aside for a while will only help maintain some much-needed balance. During the times when the seas are calm, but also when they are rougher too.
-Lorelei
What helps you keep balance when things get busy? Have you had seasons of your life where you learned new ways to keep a healthy perspective?
Purchase Lorelei’s Books Here:
Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of The Secret Garden, released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.
This Catholic Family: Catholic Womanhood, Family, and Conversion 