How to be a Good Catholic Woman in Today's Modern World

Below are excerpts of my talk for the Women's Guild at St. Ann's Church on Saturday, February 4, 2006. I hope you enjoy reading it.


Today I am here to hopefully give you some insight on how to be a Good Catholic Woman in todays modern world. Now I have to preface this by saying that I don't profess to actually BE a good Catholic Woman. I'm just not. Just like all of you in this room, I am a work in progress, but I DO take my faith seriously and continually try hard to live this Christian Catholic life to which we are called. I can honestly tell you God is working hard to mold and shape me into the woman He knows I can become....and that thrills me beyond belief.It is an everyday challenge and sometimes it is a FIGHT down to the wire between God and I , but in the end, if I can swallow my pride, I realize, He is usually right.

So I've learned a few things from God in my life as a cradle Catholic, a mom, wife, friend, church worker that you may benefit from and that I would like to share with you today. Hopefully this talk will inspire you to continue to bloom into women of God in this modern age and maybe take a few laughs home with you to get you started.

I'm here to make things really simple for you girls today. I can compare the Catholic church to some of the more complicated recipes that I have in my pantry for chicken. I mean, who writes these involved recipes ingredients that include spices and food that you've never heard of with a pinch of this and a dash of that? It's a complicated chicken recipe, and I'm sure it tastes really good, but I could have made plain ol' ordinary chicken with only one or two extra ingredients and it would be almost as good. But the one ingrediant you MUST have to make chicken, is, well, chicken. If you don't have the chicken, you can't have a chicken dinner. When it comes down to being a good Catholic Christian Woman in today's world, we Catholics sometimes make things really complicated. We read the Catechism and list the proper postures for our worship, and that is all very important and enhances our faith BUT if we miss the one ingrediant necessary to HAVE that faith. We essentially have no faith at all.

So...can anyone venture a guess to what that one ingrediant is?


It's LOVE!


Ahhhhh, Love-You have to love. In fact, the Bible has an awful lot to say about love.

The word LOVE itself is found 475 times in the bible! We hear in John Chapter 4 : to love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Faith, Hope and Love and the Greatest of these is LOVE.
We love because God first loved us. At weddings we constantly hear the 1 Corinthians passage of love is patient, kind, not jealous. We've even heard from our new Pope, Benedict XVI in his new encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) --which all of you should read-- about God's love for mankind.

All this is fine and good and yeah, we've heard that a million times and tell ourselves, I love people and I love Jesus and so I'm ok you are ok we are all doing just fine. Love is the easy part you say. You hear a lot about extra-ordinary love from the pulpit, the kind of love that lays down its life for another, but how often does that opportunity come up????? One time at most. (nine if you are a cat.) but if you are like me, we never actually get a sufficient picture of ordinary love. The kind you need every day. What that means for us in our everyday life or for your friends or for your spouse. Pope Benedict said in his encyclical, that the word LOVE has been so abused and misunderstood that it needs to be purified. I think it also needs to be made more ordinary....For us ordinary folk....who clean toilets, and organize closets, and vacuum rugs. How do I go about loving the way CHRIST intends me to love? Purely? Without conditions? How do love ordinarily...everyday....


I'm going to reduce the recipe of love down to only 3 ingrediants: how women of God can love. Love in their own unique way. I call it the 3 L's and they are all you need to know: Laundry, Lolipops, and Laughter. At this point you may be thinking: What in the world is this woman talking about? But before you write me off, let's see what the 3 L's teach us about ordinary love.

Laundry: We all have it, we cannot avoid it, it can be an unpleasant thing to do, and usually there is no relief from the mundane job of doing your laundry. You can learn a lot about love when you do the laundry. For example, it's easy for me to say that I love say, Vickie or Gina, but it's much harder for me to do their dirty laundry. Would you be willing to do not only your own laundry but your neighbors? friends, childrens? Ect.
:) Read this previous post about my mom and laundry.


My mom can say she loves me all she wants, but it is the showing of that love by doing something that is tedious, small and possibly unpleasant with NO expectation of getting anything in return is the real act of charity. It is through these ordinary, small acts of charity for one another, for our children, family members, neighbors, strangers, that we know we are loving the way God wants us to love: the laundry, cooking, cleaning, all these small things. When I go into my laundry room and witness the mounds of laundry piled up for what seems like miles, I tell you I just want to run the opposite direction, screaming. Same when the washer eats half of my children's socks and I'm left with 20 mis-matches,it all makes me want to pull my hair out!

But what keeps me going back, is knowing that I'm thankful for the little feet that go into those mis-matched socks, that I'm thankful that I have a husband who has a job where he has to wear those clean khaki pants, gleeful about the fact that I even have a modern convenience like the washer to aid me in such a monumental task, that I know that my children will go to school smelling fresh and clean. Doing that laundry reminds me that I am loved by my family and that God loved me so much that He sent me these children--only for a little while--sent me these children because he knew laundry would be a small sacrifice of love to practice every day. We must never discount the smallness of our deeds. The bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things that we do simply because God loves us SO much that His presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life.

(Remember in John's gospel when Peter and John run to his tomb and go in? They saw Jesus gone, and wrappings lying on the ground? But then John adds an odd thing. He says that the wrapping from jesus head was rolled up in a place by itself, and then they believed. Why? Maybe it was rolled up like he always rolled his laundry, like Mary had shown him to do, and the disciples had seen him do before. They didn't believe only because his body was gone, it could have been taken, but apparently only Jesus would have rolled up his headcloth like that. If this story doesn't sanctify your laundry for you, it will at least give you something to think about while you fold clothes.)

God cares so much as to desire to be present to us in everything we do. So never, ever give up on doing the small deeds of charity,like someone else's laundry. Write that check, make that call to just say hello, smile at the check-out lady, Organize that rummage sale, participate in that 50/50 bazaar, donate items to those travel kits, pick up that trash, say that encouraging word, pour that Diet Coke for your spouse, read that extra book to your child, say that sleepy prayer, make dinner for a priest....Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. (Cure for the Common Life: Max Lucado)


2. Lolipops I love lollipops. Lolipops are one of the simple things in life. When my son Gus was a baby, I tell you, he was the crabbiest baby in the world. Impatient, moody, cranky and impossible to go shopping with or anything else, for that matter, that required leaving the house. Early on, I would use a binky to sooth Gus when he screamed, didn't work. Later I tried his bottle, but to no avail. One day, when Gus was doing his usual screamfest,I quickly grabbed a lollipop that the bank teller gave me and popped it into his mouth...... Night. And. Day. I tell you....The miracle cure! Halleluia! From that day forward, I carried huge bags of lollipops in my purse for Gus. He stayed happy and so did I. Today Gus is 5, and has no teeth, but I have my sanity. (Just kidding about the teeth comment.)

But my point is: Everyone NEEDS a lollipop! We are all screaming about something in this crazy world of ours and God gives us lots of lollipops to help sooth our aching souls. We mostly know what our lollipops are. My lollipops include things like eating blueberry scones, foot massages, chocolate, a good movie, and hot sauce and chips. Finding someone elses lollipop and giving that person that soothing thing, is an act of love and sacrifice. It takes work and effort to find that one thing that sooth someone's soul, but if done in the right spirit, the spirit of unconditional love, God speaks. God speaks through the actions of others of us....little you and little me.

For example, when I was 8 months pregnant with my first child, Rebecca, I worked in a shoe store 40 hours a week to make ends meet for my husband and I while he did his graduate work at the University. We lived in a small two bedroom/one bath house that we furnished with the help of my parents and the money we were given as gifts from our wedding. At 9:00pm, when I would come home, my feet and back would hurt so much from the weight of the baby. I was big, fat, and all baby! I remember that I was so scared back then of the future, of how to raise a child, of childbirth, you name it..I was scared, but I just forged on praying for God to help me through. One evening, as I arrived home from work, Chris, my husband greeted me at the door and told me to go into the bedroom for a surprise. As I walked into the room, there, on the bed were chocolate covered strawberries on a silver tray, hot sauce and chips, soda and to top it off, he rolled the T.V. into the bedroom so we could watch the movie "The Mission" together in bed! Absolute heaven! I tell you, what a night! I loved it. It was just what I needed and through my husband's effort and love, God assured me that everything would be just fine. And it was. And it still is. Chris found the thing which soothed my soul. God spoke through the actions of my husband. Never discount the smallness of your deeds. Find what things are soothing to your loved ones, and give them to them.


Laughter: The late Erma Bombeck, one of America's funniest columnists and author of quite a few dissertations on the humor of life, knew the importance of laughter. "If I could live my life over," she once wrote, "I would have laughed more." People who laugh are pleasant to be with; the importance of laughter can never be underestimated. It is a part of life. Those who know me know that I love to laugh. In fact, I'm usually happy most of the time (except when I have to do the laundry). And it is proven that laughter can be the best medicine for any ailment. Laughter's importance can be observed in tense moments. It can be used to defuse potentially explosive situations at my house. Take my youngest son Gus, aged 3 at the time:

When all the other children would be asleep, Gus would be bouncing up and down in his bed, doing somersaults, and would regularly ignore my repetitive requests to GO TO BED. When Gus is naughty, he tends to resort to whatever means available to make the family laugh. This allows him to escape just punishment. One night in particular, Gus was bouncing uncontrollably in his bed and ignored my numerous pleas to go to sleep. I had my sweat pants on, my hair was up, no make-up and wearing glasses. I looked at Gus (who was upside down-mid flip) and told him in my most stern face that he would get a spanking if he did not go to bed. You would think I had struck the fear of God in the kid, but instead, he propped himself upright, looked straight at me and said,

Mommy, YOU look UGGLYYYYY!

I totally burst out laughing and walked away thinking, “What have I given birth to?

The point is that God loves to laugh with us as much as we love laughing with our family members and friends. Have you ever passed a room where people are laughing? Aren't you intrigued by what was so funny and wish you had heard that special joke or saying? Our world needs to laugh more and frown less.

One of my most valuable memories I have as a child was when my aunt and uncle would come visit from out of town. Every morning they would get up early, along with my parents; have their coffee at the kitchen table and talk. After a few minutes they would wake me and the whole house with their laughter bursting, busting, table slapping, belly shaking laughter. To this day, I smile when I remember those lazy mornings as a child, hearing the laughter. What WAS so funny all the time?
It has been many years since I've heard that kind of laughter, and I miss it. People don't laugh as often as they used to, maybe they are too afraid to hurt or offend, but we NEED to laugh just like we NEED to love. Laughing at the ordinary, the potatoes that overflowed on the stove, the dog that jumped up and messed up your new white pants, the child that plodded into you living room with muddy boots. All ordinary, all kind of funny, all to be taken with an attitude of joy and thankfulness.

So there is our recipe on how to be a good Catholic Woman in today's modern world. Just as in the recipe mentioned at the beginning. If we have not love, we have not faith...we are simply going through the motions. All the other things associated with our faith, the "other" ingrediants, such as Mass attendance, Eucharistic Adoration, Prayer, Service, Adult formation, Sunday School, Social Events, Youth activites... are wonderful and enhance and enrich our faith...but without pure love, we are simply going through the motions. I would even go farther to say that when you have pure love, you are naturally drawn to the other ingrediants of our beautiful Catholic faith...the love beckons you to deeper faith.

So, go forth and love. Do that laundry. Soothe those souls. Laugh at yourselves.

That's where you will see the face of God.

Thank you for having me this morning.