When The Church Breaks Your Heart

March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 9 Comments

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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

A Helpful Phrase for Trying Times

March 20, 2024March 20, 2024 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

Lorelei Savaryn ponders the power of the words “so that” in being open to the movement of God in the midst of human struggle.

This past year, I have walked through a number of struggles that at times were rife with uncertainty and confusion. It has been tempting at times to emotionally distance myself from God because, for me at least, it is easier to be happy with God when things are going well on the whole than it is when I’m being asked to navigate some kind of storm. Difficult times make it easy to call into question God’s goodness, or God’s involvement in my life, much more than the easy times do.

But the truth is, at any given moment, most of us must coexist with struggle. Sometimes those struggles are bigger; other times they take up a smaller place in our lives, but it’s a rare day when we haven’t faced some trial, no matter the scale.

Maybe a relationship has broken down, or maybe you are being asked to sit a while in the waiting place until you learn what’s coming next. Maybe you’re feeling lonely, or that you’ve lost yourself somewhere along the way and aren’t sure how to get yourself back. Maybe you got stuck in traffic, or forgot to pack a lunch, or are simply waiting for the sun to break through an endless stretch of clouds.

No matter what it is, we’re all there at some point or another, or maybe even most of the time.

As I navigate the situations in my own life, I am finding it helpful to ponder the phrase so that as a way to help direct my suffering toward God and helps keep my heart open to Him.

The idea of so that is a leaning in to trust that God does care very much about our trials. It is a leaning into hope that we are going through a thing for a reason that is good for us and/or for those who we interact with. It is choosing to believe that there is a picture bigger than the piece we can see.

So that allows me to affirm that God has allowed anything that I am facing into my life. I also believe that God is not in the habit of asking us to walk through something without a purpose. So when I’m in any of those struggling places, it can help to look around and be open to the potential reasons that God might be asking me to navigate the struggle, even if I don’t know what they are, so that something good can come, even if that something good is not unknown to me for today, or even for a long time to come. Leaning into the idea of so that helps cultivate patience. It helps to cultivate an openness to look around and pay attention for signs that God is working.

Are we in a boring job so that we can be done with work at the end of the day and be mentally and emotionally present for our kids?

Are we stuck in traffic so that we can grow in some virtue that is vital to our holiness?

Are we feeling lonely so that we can learn to better depend on God?

We can ask those questions, but we don’t even need to arrive at any answers in order for so that to be helpful. I’m sure that God’s reasons for allowing us or asking us to walk through a difficult time are as varied as the number of souls on this earth, but no matter the reason and no matter if or when we learn what the reason is, we can trust that the reason is there. We can be assured that there is a so that that God has in mind. And that can help us not only make it through a challenge, but to allow that challenge to do the work it is meant to do.

-Lorelei

Bad Theology in 90’s Christian Rock

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

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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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What We’re Teaching Our Children About Prayer

January 9, 2021 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 1 Comment

A Thin Foundation

Growing up, I didn’t really have a strong foundation in the area of prayer, or how it worked, or what it really meant. I knew in a general sense that prayer was talking to God, and that it often meant asking Him for something, or giving thanks. A lot of times I saw people pray for things they wanted to happen that didn’t come true, even though they prayed for it really hard.

That kind of thin, shapeless theology ended up causing trouble for me as a young adult. I didn’t understand how my prayers would even matter a little bit to a God who had so many bigger problems to deal with. I also didn’t think prayer really worked, so I went through the motions of praying at church and with family. And when alone, I didn’t really pray at all.

Fast forward to raising children and becoming Catholic. I understand prayer a lot differently now, I think, in part, because I understand God differently. As such, in our home, we’ve become much more intentional about how we pray, and what we teach our children about it, which can be boiled down to three main ideas.

1: Share Anything On Your Heart

This is one aspect of prayer that I understand better because I’m a parent. We teach our kids that they can literally come to God with anything on their hearts. As such, our kids often pray really beautiful, honest, and vulnerable things. And sometimes they pray that they would grow up to become super heroes and rock stars, too.

We teach them this because, as parents, I don’t care what my kid is feeling, I am ready to hear their heart. Any thought they have that they want to share, I will kneel on the floor in a heartbeat and lean in close. I want them to know I am a safe space for the vulnerable places inside them, or the joyful places, or the silly ones. God is the absolute best Father, and I am certain that He leans close too, no matter what we have to say.

2: God Gives What We Ask…Or Something Better

I think prayer can sometimes fall into operating like a slot machine, where we want the answer we want and right when we want it. We can get disillusioned if we get something else instead, or if we receive silence. Which is why we also teach our kids that God always, always, answers our prayers. And if he doesn’t give us what we ask for, he will give us something better.

Now, this doesn’t mean if you ask God for a lollipop that He’ll give you an entire candy store, although He could! What it does mean is that God knows our needs far better than we do, and we need to trust that He can and will only give us what is good for us.

I think, if I let them, my kids would eat pure sugar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They might think that sounds amazing. They might think doing that would be the very best thing. But I know a bit about growth and nutrition and blood sugar, and, because I know what’s good for them, I can’t let them have candy any time they want. I have to say no and offer them an apple instead.

God might answer our prayers a different way than we asked it. But He is Good, and just like as a parent I understand that certain things are good or bad for my children that they might not understand or see, God knows which things are good or bad for us too, and He will never give us something that isn’t truly good.

3: The Role of Suffering in Prayer

Which brings me to this. We also teach our kids that sometimes God might allow us to suffer. We live in a world that is fixated on comfort, and often strives to avoid suffering at all costs. But our Catholic faith doesn’t even come close to teaching that comfort is best. Sure, we can and should hope for better things to come, but we also need learn to accept what He gives. Sometimes, there might be a thing that is broken inside us that will hurt while it mends. Growing in holiness comes with the pain of releasing attachment to sin. We don’t deserve comfort, even though sometimes we are gifted it generously, and for that we can and should be grateful.

But our goal isn’t comfort. Our goal is sainthood, whatever it takes. We need only to look at the cross to see how suffering is redemptive. The most loving God saved us through it.

The Three Things

Let’s especially remember, as we head into a new year after a year that brought so many hardships on a global scale, to ask God for whatever’s on our hearts, trust that His answer is good, and to accept what He gives, even if it means we need to accept the call to suffer. These are three big things I’ve learned about prayer as a parent and a Catholic. And I pray that my kids will hold onto these truths both now while they’re children, and as they grow up in the faith.

Lorelei

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The First Day I Chose to Go to Mass

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 2 Comments

This December marks the five year anniversary of the first time I ever went to Mass by choice.

I had been to Catholic Masses before…as a baby, for my own baptism and that of my brother. I had been to funeral Masses. A few weddings. I had begrudgingly and awkwardly joined JP’s very devout family at Mass when we visited them so as not to cause ripples.

But there was something very different about the first time I decided I wanted to go to Mass, the first time I chose it for myself.

The Pre-Conditions

First of all, the conditions to led me, a once anti-Catholic evangelical, to seek out a Catholic Mass in the first place.

I had gone from a very fervent young Christian, to a disillusioned young adult inside the walls of various Protestant churches over a number of years. I was struggling to reshape the faith of my childhood into something with the depth required for my adult experiences. My own journey of faith began as a strong believer when I was a child and teen, but transitioned to a life as a near-agnostic in my early 20’s. That shift called into serious question the Protestant doctrine of “Once Saved Always Saved” because my own experience proved that one can start out with true belief but deny it later on. Our foray through a variety of denominations brought me to doubt individual interpretation of Scriptiure- if it’s that clear, why do all these churches disagree on issues both big and small? I grew weary of the hyper-emotional structure of worship, and the expectation that I developed equating a good church service with feeling emotionally fulfilled.

To top it off, no one could tell me what the early Church looked like, just as I was beginning to suspect that the Americanized version of Protestant Christianity wasn’t it. I wasn’t sure if what I was looking for even existed, and if it didn’t, I didn’t think I could remain in good conscience a sola-scriptura, once-saved-always-saved, American Protestant for much longer. Or, if this was all that Christianity was, I didn’t know if I would remain a Christian at all.

Cue me, sitting on my sofa, realizing that among these and many other things, I was possibly starting to think like…gulp…a Catholic. I hungered for a connection to the history of my faith. I wanted something deeper than an emotionally-driven experience could offer. I wanted sound theological depth.

I didn’t really know how to bring this up to JP because I had persuaded him away from actively practicing his Catholic faith early in our marriage. But I sprung the question on him one snowy night in downtown Racine while we were out at dinner. I asked, simply: “Do you want to go to Mass?” Shocked, JP shared with me that he had been praying for our unity in private, and had himself felt like he was being led back to the Catholic Church.

We got home from dinner and I sent a message to one of my friends, who I suspected might be Catholic:

The Mass Itself

Two days later, on December 6th, JP and I led our (then) two children through the doors of St. Lucy Parish in Racine, Wisconsin for the 10:30 Mass. Even though I had been to Masses here and there, I didn’t really know what to expect, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do throughout the different components. But, on that Sunday, my experience in a Catholic church that early Sunday in December was markedly different from any Mass I had been to before.

I had chosen to be there. And, at last, my heart was open to what I might find.

I don’t remember a ton of specifics, other than the distinct feeling that if what I was looking for existed anywhere at all, it likely existed here. The very Church I had sometimes ignored and other times argued against, certain that it was filled with irrelivant, extranneous, anti-Biblical teachings, now might just be my only chance to remain in the Christian faith.

I do remember that there were many families with young children sitting altogether in the pews, which impacted me because at the church we went to a the time, we sent our kids to Sunday School in different rooms. I remember that there wasn’t any sense at all that this service was designed to cater to me, another marked contrast to the hip coffee-house, welcoming committees of the Protestant churches we had recently attended. The music was traditional. The components themselves were somewhat foreign, and yet oddly familiar too. I caught in them some echoes of the fragments that Protestant churches have held onto- Scripture readings, an act of contritian, Communion. But here, inside the Catholic Mass, they weren’t fragments of some lost, greater whole. I remember trying to piece together how it was I grew to be so anti-Catholic in the first place, when it was clear I knew so little about it.

The Aftermath

My friend met us after Mass and, after expressing my continued interest, she helped us get connected with RCIA at St. Lucy’s. We enrolled immediately. Inside the walls of that little RCIA room, I asked every question my heart had been wrestling through, knownig that I had to leave everything on the table. Based on what I had seen in multiple Christian churches over nearly 30 years, if the answers couldn’t be found in the Catholic Church, then they probably couldn’t be answered by anyone, and the Christian faith was a sham. One week later, we attended my last church service at the Protestant Church we had been a part of. I have many friends who love Jesus who remain Evangelical, but I could no longer look at it the same way as I once had.

And the rest, as they say, is history. That early December night, where the snow fell like wisps of cotton outside the restaurant window, when I asked JP if he wanted to go to Mass, was less than four months away from the day I’d stand in front of a full Cathedral in St. Paul Minnesota. Easter Vigil, 2016, when I was confirmed into the Catholic Church.

Protestant churches do a really good job of making new guests feel welcome. They greet you, connect you with a small group, offer you donuts and coffee. They give you great concert-quality music and an inspiring message. My first intentional visit to a Catholic Mass didn’t contain any of those things to the same extent I had been used to before. But I didn’t need any of that to be drawn in to the Catholic Church, at least not once my heart was open to it. The Mass drew me in, not with bells and whistles and trends and the promise of friendship with other people like me. It drew me in with beauty, and history, and, above all, rock-solid Truth.

-Lorelei

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Leaning into the Saints as a Catholic Convert

November 12, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 1 Comment

I love learning about the Catholic Church. We’ll be celebrating my 5-year confirmation anniversary in the spring, and the more I’ve lived the faith and studied it, the more I fall in love. It might sound silly, but many times it feels like I’m stepping into the warmest hug in the safest arms when I go to Mass, or study theology, or even see the effects of my faith slowly but surely overcoming my own tendencies towards selfishness and sin. The depth, the beauty, the history, the Truth–it’s all there and it often leaves me in awe.

There were a couple of areas of faith that were a bit more difficult for me as I made my transition. Understanding Mary’s role in the church took a bit more time. And so did my appreciation of the Saints. I used to tell JP that the Saints intimidated me, half as a joke and half as a serious comment.

For some reason, the Saints seemed so out of reach. It was tough to think that people existed who walked this earth let God fill them so much that there wasn’t room for anything else. Meanwhile, I felt so far from that. I lose my patience so easily, and tend to seek my own comfort, and am prone to anxiety and worry about things I can’t control. I feared that I’d read something by a Saint and be frightened off…of what, I don’t exactly know. But I didn’t trust that it would be helpful, at least not for a while.

My Walk with Saint Teresa of Calcutta

In the end, I want to grow in holiness no matter how uncomfortable it feels, so I decided it was time to read my first official work by a Saint. Since Mother Teresa of Calcutta (now Saint Teresa) was my confirmation Saint, it made sense for me to start there. I received a couple of books for my confirmation, and they’d been staring at me from my bookshelf for far too long. I read Where there is love, there is God over the course of about two weeks. It’s more a collection of things Saint Teresa wrote and said than a book she wrote from start to finish, but I got such an intimate glimpse into the person she was through it. I could see her simple, yet poignant theology in the stories she repeated, in the phrasings she came back to time and time again.

A few points that have particularly woven their way into my heart:

Humility is to accept humiliations. Wiping my baby’s diaper. Letting someone say something short to me without saying anything back. I had never really thought of humility like that before, and it was refreshing and rang so true.

Love starts in the family. This was especially meaningful to me. I struggled for many years if staying home to raise my kids was ‘meaningful enough’ work according to some mysterious earthly standard. We have a framed piece of art in our living room with a quote from Mother Teresa, and we look at it every single day.

Seeing her broader perspective on this sort-of Theology of the Domestic Church, encouraged me in the truth I’ve been coming to accept more and more as time goes on: that my work here is vitally, beautifully important. Jesus says that when you feed the hungry and clothe the naked, that you’re doing it to Him. Saint Teresa helped me grow to understand that the little children living under my roof are the hungry one and the naked one too, and that by loving them, I’m also loving Jesus.

I also see my own sin the most at home in my family life, because I show it the easiest here. They’re the ones I lose patience with, or snap at if I’m stressed out. Because my interactions with them are such a clear mirror to my heart, they’re also the ones who give me the best chance to become a Saint. They’re the ones who I can learn to love well and patiently and fully, no matter what. They’re the ones I can most often offer dignity to in the big things and small, because they’re the ones I’m most often with.

Jesus thirsts. On the cross, Jesus said “I thirst.” While I’ve learned there have been different approaches to understanding His words, Mother Teresa’s is my favorite. Those words are displayed in each chapel of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa’s saw Jesus’s “I thirst” as a deep expression of how much he desires each and every one of our love, our souls, our all. And, therefore, she concluded, every act of love that we do is, in some mystical way, quenching the thirst of Jesus on the cross. It begs the question: have I quenched Jesus’s thirst today?

For love to be real, it has to hurt. This isn’t about staying in an unhealthy or unsafe situation, but it is about self-sacrifice and what it means and what it takes. We have the ultimate example of Jesus on the cross, because that was His love, full and true, given for us. And it hurt. My opportunities to love until it hurts are frequent but so much smaller than that- getting up when I’m exhausted to comfort a crying child, admitting that I was wrong and apologizing for it. The world has it so backwards when it comes to love- the world tells us that love should make us feel good, that it should serve us well. But it’s really the other way around. Realizing that to truly love means that I hurt because selfishness and sin is being put to death in me, well, it changes everything. I’ve been familiar with this way of looking at love for a while, but Saint Teresa put it so beautifully, and it made such an impression on my heart.

Do small things with great love. I think many of us have heard this quote from Saint Teresa a time or two. My three year old asked God to help her become a Saint yesterday, and a few minutes later I asked her to pick up a blanket from the floor and put it on the couch. She wasn’t sure she wanted to help, but I had the thought that she could probably understand what the idea of “small things with big love” meant. So I told her that one way to become a Saint was to start doing small things with really big love. Like even picking up that blanket for her mother. If she does that little thing with big love, then she’s letting God’s love into her heart more and more. Mother Teresa’s life was marked by some really big moments, but it was filled with many more small moments where she fed a hungry person, or washed a dirty person, or smiled at someone who needed to be seen. Even washing a dish or sweeping the floor can be done with love. That was a challenge to me, in a good way. It’s something small but significant that I can do in the dozens upon dozens of small, seemingly insignificant tasks set before me through the day.

Simple, Yet Profound

The funny thing is, Saint Teresa didn’t even feel close to God for most of her life. She felt his absense from her, but loved him with all of herself regardless of that. She used that sense of absence to unite herself with the lonely and abandoned in the world and to fuel her love.

And her theology was fairly simple compared to some. JP is reading the Summa Theologica right now, and it’s quite a bit heaftier both in weight and in wording than what I just read. But I think that’s one of the really amazing things about the Saints. Saints have been made from all kinds of people, all over the world, with such a diverse array of experiences. The Saints didn’t all start out holy, but they proved that it can be done. Here, now, while we live on earth. If they could do it, then maybe there’s hope that we can, too.

Turned out, reading Saint stuff wasn’t that scary at all. In fact, it was lovely, and challenging and inspiring. I haven’t fully decided who I’ll read next, but I’ve got my eye on Saint Zelie. We named our youngest after her, and I know I’m inspired by her life as a worker, mother, and wife. I think we have a lot in common, I’d love to gain some deeper insights into the person she was.

-Lorelei

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Southern Hospitality and Sharing My Story in Texas

April 29, 2018November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 3 Comments

I had the amazing opportunity to give my talk, “A Protestant Interrupted,” at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Angleton, Texas last weekend.

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

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10 Tips for Those Entering The Catholic Church This Easter

March 20, 2018November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 8 Comments

Two years ago this Easter Vigil, I entered the Catholic Church. Here are 10 things I found helpful when approaching my own Confirmation. I hope they are helpful to any of you out there who will be Confirmed this year! Several of the items on this list are helpful for us all to remember, no matter how many years we have been a part of the Catholic faith.

1. Go to Confession

This is a good idea for anyone as we come up to Easter. Let us make sure we are turning towards God in our lives, with our choices and our heart, so we are ready to receive Him and celebrate the joys of Easter Sunday. Let us bring our struggles before God, and let him help us change. Let us get right with our God.

2. Go to as Many Services as You Can

The days leading up to Easter Sunday can be a profoundly spiritual experience for someone entering the Catholic Church. If you can attend the Triduum services, that is amazing. It helps put our faith into context as we approach this most significant celebration. It gives you time to pray, to connect with God, and to prepare your heart.

3. Look Around

When you stand in front of the congregation on Easter Vigil in the moments after you are anointed with oil and confirmed into the Catholic Church, take a moment to look around you. Take a moment to appreciate that you are in full union with the Church established by Jesus himself 2,000 years ago. The Church that has remained connected to its history and its source through apostolic succession. You are connected, in the most powerful way on earth, to the roots of your Christian faith.

4. Take Pictures

I am so thankful to have pictures from the night of my Confirmation. I can just see the joy on my face. It takes me right back there, right back to that moment when I knew I was finally, and fully home- as much as I am going to be before heaven. Whatever your path to get here, it’s worth recording and remembering and celebrating. It’s a hugely significant moment in your life. Document it.

Lorelei_Savaryn_Easter_Vigil — Yay Catholic!!!

5. Reflect

When my own Confirmation approached, I took some time to look back and was so, so thankful for all the bits and pieces along the way that led me to find peace, and Truth, and such a firm foundation. So, take some time. What was your path like to get here? Was it smooth, difficult? Did you wrestle through doubts or did you walk a path of peace? Where do you see God’s hand leading you? Who were the people who helped you along the way? How would you tell your story? However you got here, it’s beautiful. It’s amazing. Give it the weight it deserves, and be sure to give thanks.

6. Get Connected with Other Converts

One of the things that helped me the most,both when things were good and when things were difficult in my transition to the Catholic Church, was being connected with other converts. Regardless of how similar or different our backgrounds were, I found I had so much in common with those who walked the path before I did, in so many ways. This gave me encouragement and strength. It still does to this day. This connection can take many forms. I read stories of converts in books like Journey’s Home. I joined the Coming Home Network, which provides resources, articles, and community online and in print for those of us making our way back to Rome. Watch Journey Home episodes on EWTN. Keep an eye open for other converts in your parish. We all share a common bond. Let’s continue to walk alongside each other even after Confirmation.

7. Go Big

One of the most fun things for me around the time of my Confirmation was getting caught up on my Catholic “Swag.” I was so excited to receive some Rosaries. We got a Mary statue for our backyard. Bought some books on the Saints. Put up a legitimate crucifix in our home. Holy water font. Had things blessed by a priest. I gotta be honest, the weeks leading up to Easter still get me excited and I just bought this Nerdy Catholic Tee (not making fun of it- that’s what the company is called!)

My lovely, but cradle Catholic husband asked me what on earth that meant. When we become Catholic, we call it Crossing the Tiber. And this shirt is awesome. So, if you are feeling inspired, add some of those items to your own life and home. They are tools to help us keep our faith in our hearts and minds at all times. They are tools to help us reflect, remember and pray. And, at least in my case at the time, I had some serious catching up to do.

8. Study up on Easter Vigil

Friends, if you have never been to an Easter Vigil service before. It is amazing and beautiful and symbolic and The. Best. It is also long. It will help so much if you can take some time to understand what is happening and why at each part of the service. Here’s a primer on the USCCB website. I found I was able to embrace the beauty of the Catholic Church once I understood what it was. You will be able to get the most out of the service if you do too.

9. Be Patient

If you are already connected to your parish community- great! If you don’t yet feel connected, I encourage you to keep pressing on. Sometimes it takes time to get to know people in a Catholic parish. This is a huge, global church. Depending on the background you are coming from, and depending on the parish you attend, many things might be different from what you’re used to. There might not be an active home/small group structure, there might not be donuts and coffee after Mass. But there will be people there that you will connect with. It might just take some more time. Two years in, JP and I have found some very dear friends in our parish, and in the Catholic community in our town. We recognize people at Mass on Sunday and stay for a bit and chat. It didn’t happen overnight, but somewhere between year 1 and year 2 we got there. We weren’t feeling lonely anymore. Not only do I now know I’m spiritually home, but going to Mass actually feels like home in the way of the fact that our parish family is there with us too. Be patient. Connection will come.

10. Celebrate!

Whether you will be alone with your sponsor at Mass on Easter vigil, or if there will be pews filled with people who have come alongside you on that day, Confirmation is something to celebrate. Celebrate in whatever way is right for you. A dinner before Mass, some time in Adoration, taking a walk, announcing it to the world. Stay true to yourself, but celebrate. Celebrate the beauty of Easter, the beauty of our faith, and the beauty of crossing the bridge into full unity with the Catholic Church.

-Lorelei

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My Experience on EWTN’S The Journey Home

December 12, 2017November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 51 Comments

A few weeks back, I hopped on an airplane and headed to Columbus, Ohio to film an episode of ETWN’s The Journey Home, hosted by Marcus Grodi.

I was met at the airport by Scott Scholten and his wife Barb. Scott produces and directs the show, and they also have a special B&B apartment in the basement of their home to host many of The Journey Home’s guests.

I had read other articles about people who had been on the show, and was very excited to see the famous “Guest Book,” where many notes and signatures from guests of the program reside. It was a surreal moment adding my name to that list, especially considering that two years ago, I was closer to leaving Christianity entirely than I was to becoming Catholic.

And let me tell you this, the Scholten’s are experts at hospitality. I was so blessed to be able to stay in their incredibly comfortable accommodations. Every little detail was attended to, and I was made to feel like a member of their extended family.

1511189820655 — There was also a Mother Angelica mug, out of which I just had to drink my evening tea 🙂

We had lovely conversation over dinner and breakfast the next morning, and then it was off to Mass at this beautiful, quaint, historical Catholic church near the Coming Home Network headquarters, where we would film the show.

I caught sight of Marcus Grodi in the back of the church and we made a quick wave ‘hello’ to each other during the giving of the peace. I knew from my hosts as well as other guest posts about the show that Marcus doesn’t spend much time with guests before the filming begins. He wants to get to know each guest and his/her story for the first time genuinely during the taping.

1511192397074 — They filmed 2 shows this day, back to back. I was up first.

Walking onto the set was also very surreal. I had seen this set before in the shows I had watched. There were some people who were very important and encouraging to me on my faith journey who had sat on the same side of the desk I would sit on soon. Scott Hahn, Jennifer Fulwiler and Steve Ray were a few that immediately came to mind. But there are many others.

1511189832287 — Well hello there, Mr. Desk.

The show used to be filmed live, and still tapes as though it is. There are no re-do’s, just a 2 minute break in the middle. It was a bit intense to think about at first, but everyone is so kind and welcoming. I was definitely on high alert and excited, but once we started filming it felt more like a conversation. I didn’t forget about the cameras and people in the shadows of the lights, but Marcus Grodi is a very gracious host, and it was easy to tell him my story.

He listened so well. I don’t remember everything I said, but I do remember there were a couple of things he brought up at the end to help a point I had mentioned earlier come full circle. He asked great questions to help me elaborate on some things. You can tell Marcus is a pro. I told my story pretty much from birth to life after conversion, and felt like the time flew by. We then answered a couple of email questions, filmed a short promo, and that was it!

After filming, some of the Coming Home Network folk took me and the other guest out to lunch, then it was back to the airport and home again. It was a whirlwind, but one I will never forget.

I also don’t think it will ever cease to amaze me that my story is now counted among those that made a huge difference to me as I prepared to enter the Catholic Church, and even still after. Those stories were a lifeline as I wrestled through questions, dealt with loneliness and difficulty in the transition from our Protestant Church, and as I rejoiced in the Truth I had found resided within the Catholic faith.

I hope you will have the chance to watch my Journey Home. It airs Monday, December 18th, 2017 at 8pm Eastern/ 7pm Central on EWTN. If you don’t have EWTN, you can live stream it here online.

Encores will air:

Tuesday, December 19th, 1am Eastern

Friday, December 22nd, 1pm Eastern

Or Watch the whole episode below!

My written conversion story is also featured in the Coming Home Network’s newsletter this month, and can be found here.

-Lorelei

Tag: Catholic Convert

When The Church Breaks Your Heart

A Helpful Phrase for Trying Times

Bad Theology in 90’s Christian Rock

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What We’re Teaching Our Children About Prayer

A Thin Foundation

1: Share Anything On Your Heart

2: God Gives What We Ask…Or Something Better

3: The Role of Suffering in Prayer

The Three Things

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The First Day I Chose to Go to Mass

The Pre-Conditions

The Mass Itself

The Aftermath

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Leaning into the Saints as a Catholic Convert

My Walk with Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Simple, Yet Profound

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Southern Hospitality and Sharing My Story in Texas

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