When The Church Breaks Your Heart

March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 7 Comments

This letter is free for you to read, but it took time and energy 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.

Rose Colored Glasses

Some of my Catholic author credits state that I “joyfully received the Sacrament of Confirmation on Easter Vigil in 2016.”

Those words are certainly more than true.

After living my life as a passionate, Jesus-loving Evangelical, and then as a quiet agnostic afraid to leave the routine and community of church-going life, in 2016 I stood in front of thousands of people in a beautiful cathedral and confirmed my decision to live the rest of my life in the Roman Catholic Church. It had been a long, harrowing journey, but I will never forget the feeling I had that night. I felt so intimately connected to Church history, to the Church established by our Savior over 2,000 years ago. I know this is a favorite cliché among converts, but I literally felt like I had finished a long journey and finally had found my way home.

To me, everything about the Church was beautiful. The truth of it, the traditions, the Sacraments and the infusions of grace that come with them. Even the churches themselves, the stone Cathedrals, the stained glass, the columns that stretch to the heavens. The transcendence of it all that pulled my heart closer to my Lord and Savior.

I had the privilege of the first seven years since my conversion to keep those sweet rose-colored glasses largely intact.

One year ago, that changed.

It was bad, my friends. Even writing it out, it is difficult to accurately convey the seismic shift- the millions of tiny ripple effects that impacted multiple areas of life and that in many ways still do. But, in vague terms, some of the people in our community didn’t like a decision that someone in authority made. It wasn’t a morally problematic decision, but it was unpopular with some people. And the reaction to that decision threatened to tear the community apart.

The former Protestant in me railed- at the very least, aren’t we a group of people who assent to authority? This is how schisms start! We don’t have to like every decision, but a pastoral decision that we disagree with certainly isn’t reason enough to foment a full-scale rebellion, sights set on destruction???

Ah, Lorelei, you sweet summer child.

As someone who didn’t grow up Catholic, this shocked me. I knew that the many, many different denominations that I had gone to church at over the years were all a result of a schism, at one time or another, from a different church just a little further up on the branch of the Protestant family tree. As Catholics, surely we don’t do that. We assent to the authority of the Pope, of our Bishops, and of our Pastors because we believe Jesus established a Church and set it up that way for good reason.

I’m sure I had vaguely heard of parishes having extreme struggles before, but it was always distant, always far away. None of it ever felt even remotely close to hitting home. And then when we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of one of these struggles, I found my Catholic rose-colored glasses ripped off as I absorbed blowing winds around me.

I haven’t been able to find them since.

When Home Isn’t Safe

Some of the things that followed were incredibly painful. People began whispering about others and refusing to talk to them. I watched as a big ole game of telephone took place before me, as if all the grown-ups forgot that the point of that game is the farther away you get from the source, the farther away you get from the truth. In grown-up telephone, the distortions get bigger and louder, and sometimes they even grow teeth. I would be delighted to never hear another person start a sentence with “Well I heard…” ever again.

Our decision to support the authority of our church resulted in one of our children being bullied in a group text filled with her classmates, despite the fact that she doesn’t even have a phone. She found out the next day because the bullying left the digital sphere and spilled over into cruel words and harsh exclusion when she arrived at school the following morning. When she found out why, she rushed out of her classroom in tears.

I received an incredibly aggressive and hurtful email that left my heart racing and my hands shaking in front of my children that came from someone who I thought was kind. People stopped talking to us, stopped looking at us, stopped acknowledging our human presence entirely and in some cases I don’t think that I’ll ever get the chance to ask why.

Those are just a few of the pain points, though there were many more.

I’ve thought for months now that I want to get some words out about what happened, but I’ve also put pressure on myself to have come to some grand resolution about it all. I hoped that at some point I’d have some wise words to share about how I found my rose colored glasses, straightened out the bridge, and set them right back on my nose.

That hasn’t happened, and I’m not entirely sure that it will. I’m even starting to think that maybe I’m not meant to go back to the way things were before.

Before last spring, I would hear about people who left the Church because the people inside the Church are broken and can sometimes cause pain to others. It’s difficult to admit, but I’ve been internally judgey to people who leave the Church for a reason like that. I am quick to point out that Judas was a disciple, and that Peter denied Jesus three times on the literal night that he died for our sins, and that therefore leaving the Church because of a rotten egg or two doesn’t make any sense. People are imperfect, and that fact doesn’t do a single thing to alter the truth of Catholicism on the whole.

I get why people leave the church now.

Moving forward, I’m going to be a lot more humble when I learn about people who have experienced pain at the hands of fellow Catholics and who, in their pain, decided to leave. Because while the people in the Church are not the entirety of the Church, they are the face of the Church and the hands and the feet of the Church and therefore they become a representation of the Church to others. When those people do hurtful things, it is incredibly difficult to untangle the objective beauty of Catholicism and the ugliness right in front of your face.

It can feel like the very earth beneath your feet has been torn away to think you’ve found a safe space and then to find yourself feeling the exact opposite of safe in the community you chose to call home.

Good Friday

Easter weekend is right around the one year anniversary of when the path became increasingly difficult for us to walk, and as a person prone to marking landmarks in time and using them as opportunities to reflect, I found myself talking to JP about the past year as we sat outside our cabin on our recent trip to the Smoky Mountains.

“I don’t want the Church to be ugly,” I said. “I want it to be beautiful.”

In fact, that longing of my heart hits especially close to home today, on Good Friday, as I publish this post. It is the eight year anniversary of my entrance into the Catholic Church. Eight years since one of the most beautiful days of my life.

Another reason that I converted was I fell in love with the idea of “both/and,” a common refrain in so much of the Church’s logic and theology. Jesus is both God and human. We follow both scripture and tradition. God can have created the world and we can also accept science. On and on, the both/ands of our faith drew me to it and made me love it all the more.

And so, I have to fight internally rolling my eyes as I find myself begrudgingly admitting that maybe the Church is both ugly and beautiful at the same time. For the past year I’ve been wanting either/or- I’ve been wishing for and longing for and mourning the loss of the idea that it could possibly be all beauty. That it could leave any sliver of ugliness behind.

Good Friday is a perfect example of this, and therefore perhaps today is a perfect day for me to wrestle through it.

Jesus on the cross, purpled with bruising, nails in his hands, blood dripping down his face was objectively an ugly sight to see. But the fact that he chose that, out of love for us makes it also incredibly, astonishingly, breathtakingly beautiful too.

His suffering, and our own, is ugly. Loneliness, pain of any kind is a symptom of our fallen world and it stinks. But we also know, because of the cross, that something in that suffering, when put to work, can also bring about redemption.

We can’t skip Good Friday and still have Easter morning, can we.

I find that I like the idea of redemptive suffering far more than I like the actual suffering itself. I am certain that I will be wading through the murky waters of what happened for many years to come, along with any other suffering that comes my way. But just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t important, or that there isn’t beauty to be found.

Some of my healing over the past year has come in the form of leaning into those true, good, and beautiful things. Finding consolation in the lives of the Saints, who lived very human lives and let God fill them up so much that there was nothing else. I’m drawn as much as ever into beautiful, reverent liturgy. I have carved out more time for stillness and quiet in prayer.

A year later, and things in our community are better now, by quite a lot. The culture is rebuilding and it feels healthier and on its way to becoming whole. If we had to do it again, we would have made the same decisions. I believe in the authority of the Church. It’s one of the major reasons I became Catholic in the first place.

I’m going to try and sit with these thoughts today, and in the days and weeks to come. I will wrestle through the idea of a church that can be ugly sometimes but that is also incredibly beautiful too. I will try and strip away the idea that in this area I must insist on an either/or.

During our recent porch conversation, JP suggested that maybe those years where I was able to wear my rose-colored glasses were a grace from God to let me settle in. This next part is harder, to be sure, but I also feel it is incumbent on me to not just be a passive recipient of the beauty of the Church, a consumer of it, if you will. I understand more than ever the importance of becoming part of the beauty of the Church, of leaning into the beautiful things and letting the grace of God form me so I look more and more like Him.

I don’t think I have come to any profound conclusions about the suffering we endured this past year.

But I do know this.

In a few hours, our family will load up into the minivan and go to gaze upon the cross. The ugliness of it. The beauty of it. And I will keep my heart open to the profound intermingling of the two.

-Lorelei

Heaven’s Light Shining Through

December 19, 2023December 19, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

Lorelei Savaryn reflects upon a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Champion during Advent.

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.

Our Lady of Champion is located in the middle of Wisconsin dairyland, a set of buildings and curated grounds surrounded by cattle and fields. I grew up less than 30 minutes from there, the only approved Marian Apparition site in the USA. I don’t remember ever realizing this, though I must have driven past the signs on the roads when I was out on that side of town. On a recent visit to the Green Bay area, our family was finally able to visit this site for the very first time.

I used to associate the word apparition with ghosts when I was a kid, and therefore the idea of a Marian apparition took on a strange, unsettling nature during my life before my Catholic conversion. I’ve since learned that many words that meant certain things to me as an evangelical: words like prayer, worship, veneration, and apparition, to name a few, have taken on new, more profound layers of meaning since becoming Catholic. For example, apparition doesn’t need to have anything to do with ghosts—it has to do with an appearance, and in the case of Marian apparitions, the appearance of the Mother of our Lord.

The story of Champion, and Adele, and God’s call to her through Mary to teach children the faith, inspired our family during our visit. The oratory, a darkened below-ground space lit with the glow of hundreds of candles, drew us all into prayer. Even our 4-year-old wrote the letters she knew on a prayer card and left her intentions to the heart of God and Mary. Behind a large statue of Mary, there is a cabinet filled with relics from the apostles and many beloved saints.

It felt particularly moving to visit this site for the very first time during Advent. Advent is a season of waiting and a season of hope. It leads us forward toward the moment when the light of heaven shot down to earth in the dazzling ray of our Savior being born, of God entering into humanity so that everyone could see Him and know Him, the author of our salvation.

There are frequent moments in the story of the Christian faith where heaven breaks through and sends its light down to us. Many such occasions are recorded in the Bible: the angels appearing to the shepherds, the Transfiguration, Saul’s conversion, and more. Our visit to Our Lady of Champion reminded us all that heaven still breaks through into our world, rays of light piercing our everyday existence and reminding us of God and all he has done. Of the work he calls us to do. Of His abundant love for us all.

As mothers, we are all called to teach our children the faith, just as Mary helps to teach us, just as Mary called Adele in the farmlands of Champion, Wisconsin over a century ago. As Christians, we are called to hope in something greater than ourselves. We are called to trust in the Love that came down, breaking through our darkness. And we are grateful for the ways that God still shows us his glory through the witness of the saints, through the sacraments, and through visitations from those in heaven, especially His immaculate Mother.

Let us draw near to the heart of Mary during this holy Advent season, and to listen to her guidance for our hearts and our lives, as we wait for the Savior to come.

– Lorelei

What’s The Deal With Catholic Relics? (And how we ended up with one in our home!)

November 13, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

I am over seven years past my Catholic confirmation, and I did not really know much or think much about the relics of the Saints until recently. JP and I had been listening to The Exorcist Files, a great podcast that is engaging catechesis on the experiences of an official Catholic exorcist and the theology behind spiritual warfare and the demonic. The Priest, Fr. Carlos Martins, is also known as “The Relic Guy,” and in one episode, he shared how the relics of the Saints can be a useful tool in combating demons as they can cause demons considerable distress.

This prompted me to want to learn more about relics!

What Are Relics?

In brief, a relic of a Saint is either part of a Saint’s body, or something they owned, or something they touched. There are three degrees of relics:

1st Class Relics: These are parts of the body of a Saint (bone or flesh, for example)

2nd Class Relics: These are possessions that the Saint owned.

3rd Class Relics: These are objects that have been touched to a first or second class relic, or they can be objects that the Saint touched.

An interesting tidbit is that every Catholic church should have at least one relic inside the main altar! Might be worth checking with your local parish Priest to see if he knows whose relic your parish has.

Biblical References to Relics

I was also very interested to learn that there are many examples of relics being objects that God uses for His glory in several instances of the Bible. In 2nd Kings 13:20-21, we see a man being buried. He is cast into the grave of Elisha and upon touching Elisha’s bones (a first class relic), the man revives.

In Acts 5:15-16, people go out onto the streets hoping that even Paul’s shadow will fall upon them so they can be healed.

In Acts 19:11-12, handkerchiefs and aprons that Paul had touched (3rd class relic) were taken off to people who were sick or possessed and they were healed.

There are others, but even those three passages show us that God sometimes uses relics as a tool in healings. The relics themselves are not magical, nor do they have any power on their own, God is the one who heals, but his grace can reach us through the Saints in a mysterious way.

How We Ended Up With A Relic of St. Anthony

My kids love to bring home items from the “Free to Take” table at our parish. This often means we’re coming home with prayer cards, or pictures of the Divine Mercy, or little trinkets from religious organizations that send out things in the mail. One day this summer, I was rifling through a drawer in our kitchen that contained many items from the “Free to Take” table, and I found a relic of St. Anthony preserved inside a metal frame!

Imagine my surprise! Now, the relic is a very small piece of fabric, and is very likely a 3rd class relic- something that has been touched to a first or 2nd class relic, but it’s still really cool! We ask St. Anthony for prayers to God for things that we’ve lost pretty often, so it seems especially fitting that I “found” this relic that was right under our noses for a while!

Do Relics Matter?

At the end of the day, any healing or good that comes to us in this world is from God, but I do think it’s pretty awesome that God uses holy men and women, and even sometimes the objects that they owned or touched, to be a vessel for His grace. It’s another way to take something spiritual and to connect it with our tangible experience here on earth. Remembering the Saints and their lives and how they followed God so closely is becoming more and more of an inspiration to me as time goes on.

-Lorelei

Modern Picture Book Recommendations for Advent and Christmas!

November 3, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 2 Comments

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through a link here, I receive a small commission from the seller.

What’s Out There

As an author, mom, and former classroom teacher, I love a good thematic book collection! Believe me, I’ve looked at many of the most popular Advent and Christmas book lists for Catholic families, and purchased multiple titles to share with our kids.

One thing I noticed, however, is that many of the book lists for Catholic families often feature classic stories that are many years old. There is certainly something to be said for a timeless tale, and the books on these lists absolutely deserve a place on the shelf, but there are also many more recent titles that are worthy of designation. The booklist below contains beautiful stories for Advent and Christmas that have come out within the past three years.

What’s New

The Jesse Tree For Families: This book is actually brand new, as of 2023. I received a copy to review for Catholic Mom, and I’m very excited on the approach this book takes to the Jesse Tree. We’ve tried different Jesse Tree books and activities in the past, but nothing has quite stuck. We have an eight year age gap between our oldest and our youngest kids, and I found some of the other resources out there didn’t stretch far enough in one direction or the other. This book has short picture book style stories, as well as a section for parents to learn more about each person or name of Jesus featured. There are also thoughtful questions for each day to encourage family discussion and immersion into scripture.

Purchase The Jesse Tree For Families Here

Season of Light by Jess Redman. This book is a simple, beautiful, and poetic representation of the traditions and people and beliefs that make this holiday season so very special. This is the kind of story I want to read to my children by the fire, Christmas lights aglow, as we wait for the birth of our Savior. It talks about counting down the days to Christmas, the anticipation, the joy, the giving, the singing, and more, all leading up to going to church on a star-filled snowy night.

Purchase Seasons of Light here

One Great Love: An Advent and Christmas Treasury of Readings, Poems, and Prayers. This is a lovely combination of the classic mixed with the new. Released in 2022, One Great Love is a beautifully curated collection of classic pieces of writing from years past combined in a new way, an elegant keepsake volume of stories, poems, prayers, and art from beloved writers through the centuries. Perfect for reading aloud as a family, giving to a neighbor, friend, or fellow literature-lover, or simply reading on your own with coffee in hand, this book is an invitation to a slower, more meaningful approach to the season of hope.

Purchase One Great Love here

The Light of Christmas Morning. I have not only purchased this gift for our children, but I also have gifted it to several others! This book follows a Catholic family as they celebrate Christmas Eve leading into Christmas Day. Families will recognize things like an Advent wreath and a statue of Mary in the home within the story, and it is always a joy for me as a mother to see our faith represented so beautifully and explicitly in a picture book.

Purchase The Light of Christmas Morning here

The Mass and The Manger: My Interactive Christmas Story. I have been a fan of Jennifer Sharpe since she first wrote My First Interactive Mass Book. We had a copy of that even before Ascension picked it up! The Mass and The Manger contains full page flaps that open up to reveal beautiful illustrations. As children interact with the flaps, they will discover that each scene from the nativity has a parallel in the Mass, leading them deeper into the true meaning of Christmas.

Purchase The Mass and The Manger here

If you would like to purchase all of these books through Bookshop.com, I also have the complete list linked here– including a few extra beautiful stories as well!

And there you have it, some modern, beautiful picture books for both Advent and Christmas!

Do you have a favorite Advent or Christmas story? Let me know in the comments!

-Lorelei

Should Catholic Families Celebrate Halloween?

October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

The Catholic History of Halloween, Trick-or-Treating, and Whether or Not We’ll Let Our Kids go to a Haunted House!

The Halloween Dilemma for Catholic Families

As Catholics, we get a lot of mixed messages when it comes to Halloween. It was a even confusing holiday for me back when I was a Protestant Christian too! Many of the churches I went to opted for something along the lines of a Trunk-or-Treat hosted in the parking lot of the church vs. Trick-or-Treating. Some families didn’t celebrate the holiday at all, citing it as having evil origins and celebrating evil, which is of course something we want to avoid as people of the Christian faith.

The complication takes on a new layer when we need to navigate Halloween with our children. When there are Halloween parties at school and the opportunity to get tons of candy just by walking up to different houses.

So, how do we navigate Halloween and stay true to our Catholic faith? Below is an outline of what I have learned along our Catholic journey, and I hope it is helpful to you. That said, there is not one exact right way to navigate Halloween as a Catholic, and your individual family may make different choices in this area.

At the end of the day, our decisions hopefully lift us up in faith and draw us closer to God!

The Catholic History of Halloween

One of my favorite Halloween facts is that the word Halloween is an evolution of “All Hallows Eve.” As Catholics, we know that the Eve of something is the evening before a major religious event. Christmas Eve might be the prime example of this.

All Hallows Eve is the evening before All Saints Day! Hallow is a word that means holy, and so we are on the eve of a very holy day! In fact, Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day form a Triduum of Death- which isn’t really something to be scared of at all.

On All Hallows Eve, we anticipate the Holy Day of All Saints’ Day.

On All Saints’ Day, we celebrate and ask for the intercession of those who are in perfect union with God in Heaven.

On All Souls’ Day, we pray for the not yet holy dead.

These days also remind us of the inevitable end of our own earthly journeys and our progress toward heaven. By remembering our death, we are inspired to turn more fully toward God, and to live each day well.

But the truth behind of Halloween can get confusing when we set it into our culture.

For our Protestant brothers and sisters who don’t believe in purgatory, ghosts take on a more sinister form, and are often viewed as evil in nature. People who practice paganism are quick to claim the holiday as their own, but that conclusion lacks significant historical context or backing. Unfortunately, in all practicality, these two factors combined obstruct the Catholic origins and meaning of holiday (origins: holy day) and cause misconceptions and confusion.

Those factors don’t change the Catholic origins of Halloween, but they can make it more difficult to see the truth through all the noise.

Trick-or-Treating

All that is to say that yes, we allow our children to dress up and go trick-or-treating. There is evidence to suggest that this particular tradition originated in Europe from the baking of soul cakes on All Hallows Eve. On All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, children would go from house to house begging for the cakes and promising to pray for the deceased relatives of the cake-givers in return.

Modern trick-or-treating is no longer connected explicitly to praying for the dead, but a Catholic family could easily offer up prayers for the deceased loved ones in the neighborhood we trick-or-treat through.

One rule that we follow in our home is that we don’t allow costumes that glorify anything evil. I’ve seen a lot of great ideas for costumes that feature people from the Bible or Catholic Saints, but so far our kids have mostly shown interest in dressing up like characters from their favorite movies and shows. This year, I believe we will also have one taco in the house.

Haunted Houses, Yes or No?

We have, however, decided as a family that haunted houses will not be part of our Halloween traditions, even as the kids get older, as long as they live in our home. This might sound strange to anyone who knows me and who knows that I write spooky stories for young readers, but allow me to explain.

I enjoy reading and writing spooky books. I like watching spooky movies. But, really, I should be more specific when I say things like that because what I mean is that I like spooky things that elevate what is true and good. Any book I write or recommend for kids that has spooky elements, will ultimately show good triumphing over evil in the end. It will highlight goodness, truth, and light, and even though the characters might face something scary, evil will never win. Those are important lessons for kids and adults alike, and we can use reminders of the reality of evil, but also of the healing power of God and the hope that comes from fighting for what is good and right.

I believe that haunted houses fall into a different category entirely. Haunted houses often glorify evil for evil’s sake. Their goal is to highlight and emphasize the truly scary and dangerous, and to turn those things into a form of entertainment. There is no redemption at the end of a haunted house. A haunted house simulates a world in which evil has won, and that isn’t the kind of thing we want to spend our time, energy, or money on.

Of course, we can’t control what our kids will do when they’re grown, but we hope we are able to teach them the difference between something that is scary but points to truth and something that glorifies evil before they head out on their own.

How to Have a Catholic Halloween With Your Family

In conclusion, there are many ways to continue the religious traditions of the Triduum of Death.

We can ensure that our families don’t partake in any of the cultural traditions that glorify evil, whether through visiting haunted houses or choosing costumes that represent characters with. an evil nature.

We can call to mind the progression of our life, our death, and our ultimate destination by praying for the deceased of the homes we trick-or-treat at, and attending All Saints’ Day Mass (a Holy Day of Obligation!), as well as All Souls’ Day.

We can have healthy conversations with our kids when they ask us about things like ghosts, haunted houses, and our beliefs surrounding good vs. evil and death. We can educate ourselves on Church teaching on these matters so we are ready to answer their questions as they come and can be ready to instruct when opportunities arise.

All in all, I believe that understanding the Catholic roots of Halloween can be enriching and edifying for Catholic Families. I’d love to learn in the comments if you have any particular ways you navigate this holiday with your families too!

Sources for this article and for further exploration:

Halloween and the Triduum of Death

Trick-or-Treat is Harmless Fun

The Catholic Origins of Trick-or-Treating

Do Ghosts Really Exist

-Lorelei

Looking For Liturgy

October 18, 2023October 19, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 8 Comments

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

A Visit With St. Thérèse and Her Parents

October 8, 2023October 20, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 2 Comments

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.

Bad Theology in 90’s Christian Rock

July 9, 2023October 20, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 5 Comments

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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Podcast Review: The Exorcist Files

July 5, 2023July 4, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

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.

Note: This article originally was posted on Catholic Mom.

On Not Taking it Personally When our Kids Fail

February 26, 2023 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

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.

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Our failures are a beautiful opportunity to learn and to move closer to Him. #catholicmom

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