You know the experience. One day you are on the beach relaxing, watching your children innocently playing in the surf. The next day you’re wedged into a pew full of tanned fifty-somethings singing “Come to the Water” at full voice, while Pastor Pete accompanies on guitar strolling up and down the main aisle. And all at once you’re wondering why you ever left home.

It’s an annual rite of passage. Sometime, somewhere during a restful vacation, far from home and your familiar parish, you suddenly realize, “Where will we go to Mass?” That’s when the panic sets in and you start to sweat but not from the ninety-degree weather.

Where do we go this year? Please, please, not the parish we tried last summer, the one with the submersible baptismal font and the altar-in-the-round. And certainly not the one from two years ago, a little further out of town, where everyone stands during the consecration and the extraordinary ministers are wearing flip-flops. I know this is a beach community, but….

It’s enough to make any reasonable-minded woman throw her missal down and shout, “Sanctuary, sanctuary!”

This year looked so promising, too. We located a parish, even further out of town, named after St. John Vianney, the Cure d’Ars. Alleluia! A suburban church dedicated to the patron saint of Catholic parish priests and — this really sealed the deal — during the “Year of the Priest,” as proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.

“It must be a sign,” I told the kids and my husband, as we cleaned the sand from between our toes and squeezed into real shoes for the first time in five days. “If we get there before the vigil Mass, maybe we can even go to confession.”

Ah, the eternal optimist. Every family should have one.

With more than an hour to go before Mass, we became familiar with every corner of the church, every dedication plaque and every public notice on the bulletin board in the ancillary “meeting space.” We never did find the confessionals.

By bodily contortion we could just about pray in the vicinity of the tabernacle while kneeling on the tile floor. Good thing too, because it lessened the surprise of having to kneel on the same tiles during Mass, sans proper kneelers in the pews.

The people were friendly enough. In fact they never stopped chatting, unless it was to sing. The Sign of Peace took longer than the Gospel reading.

But surely the apex of the liturgy was during the consecration when the pastor, newly-appointed by the diocese, decided our responding “Amen” lacked the true gusto of the universal Church. “Come on now, we can do better than that, can’t we?” he said with all the vim of a team mascot during a big game. “Everyone, all together, and really give it to me this time: ‘Amen!”

At least it was air conditioned.

If you’ve stayed with this article so far you’re either thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there too” and shaking your head in commiseration, or you’re thinking “What a vacation Mass snob she is.”

Snob may be a little strong, but I do admit to being extremely protective of my rights to a valid and appropriate liturgy. I recognize that the Mass is a communal experience, but I also know that it is a sacrifice. It is solemn in its awesomeness; the Mass is necessarily a vertical experience. Even on vacation, I need quiet at Mass. I need to be alone with the Eucharistic God.

If that’s the attitude of a vacation Mass snob, then I am guilty as charged. As my 14-year-old daughter expressed as we unlocked our hot car in the parking lot, “That was like a TV show!” I don’t go to Mass to be entertained or to feel like one of the gang. I go to face my Lord and beg Him to mercifully transform me into something He can make use of.

So it was back to the beach for a last day of relaxation before we followed the predictable pattern of so many families and joined the vacation traffic heading home. As we coasted into another village of stop-and-go motorists, I spied a white framed church with a cross atop its spire, one I hadn’t noticed before. “St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church” read the roadside marker. “All are Welcome.”

Peter, Rock of the Church, Keys to the Kingdom — it must be a sign!

For next year, at least, hope springs eternal.

Why, oh why, did Catholics ever give up the many and diverse devotions which for centuries have provided people with a personal connection with heaven? As individual as our personalities, the breadth of traditional devotions to Jesus, Mary, the Holy Spirit, the angels and archangels, and the saints have served a pious purpose for many centuries when practiced with an honest heart and a soul guarded from superstitious inclinations.

It will take generations to rediscover many of these wonderful devotions, but in an effort to advance the cause just a little let me shine the light of attention on the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Undoer of Knots.” In a time of cultural complexity, of confusion and disarray in personal relationships, this beautiful devotion brings that rare commodity for which we sometimes despair: hope.

With the supernatural patience and wisdom of the Mother of God, the image of Mary, Undoer of Knots, shows the blessed Mother serenely at work untying a length of cord that is riddled with kinks and tangles, representing the difficulties in our lives. Broken relationships, sinful behaviors, unforgiven enemies, prejudices and hates, lukewarm faith, anguish and regrets, loneliness, ignorance, cowardice, and so many other human failings on our part and on the part of others are responsible for the knots in our lives.

The bondage of sin, and the realization that sins that may appear to be “freeing” actually bind and enslave us, is a traditional biblical image.  Jesus, upon raising Lazarus from the dead, declared that his bonds should be loosed so he could be set free. Our Lord gave the power of binding and loosing to Peter and the Apostles when establishing His priesthood. Sin, from the Old to the New Testament, is described as an enslavement that keeps us from the company and grace of God the Father.

Also traditional from the early Church is Mary’s role as the great mediatrix, whose nimble fingers can undo the tangles of our sins in a heavenly intercession of maternal love.

The origin for the devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots, is a meditation from Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon and a martyr of the early Church. In his book Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), he builds upon Saint Paul’s parallel between Adam and Christ, stating “Eve, by her disobedience, tied the knot of disgrace for the human race; whereas Mary, by Her obedience, undid it…For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the Virgin Mary set free through faith.”

The beautiful image of the Undoer or Untier of Knots is a Baroque icon by Johann George Melchior Schmidtner, which has been venerated in the pilgrim church of St. Peter in Perlack (Perlach), Bavaria, Germany, since 1700. For three centuries, the devotion has survived among the faithful and appears to be growing, thanks to published booklets, websites such as www.maryundoerofknots.com , and other resources. An official publication, containing the devotion’s history, and a novena with nihil obstat and imprimatur, has been printed in 19 languages and distributed worldwide.

Contemplation of the image shows Mary with a crown of twelve stars adorning Her head, a sign of Her Queenship of the Apostles, whom She consoled and counseled after Jesus’ earthly departure. Her blue mantle represents Her glory as Queen of the Universe. Her feet crush the head of the serpent indicating Her victory over Satan. She is suspended between heaven and earth, resplendent with light, and accompanied by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, reminding us that She became Mother of God and full of grace by virtue of the Third Person of the Trinity. Assisting Her at the task of straightening the cord of our life is an entire heavenly court of angels, signifying Her position as Queen of the Angels, and Queen of Heaven.

“Ah, the knots of our life! Knots of discord in your family…the knots of deep hurts between husband and wife, the absence of peace and joy in the home. Knots of hurt and resentment that so torture our hearts… How they suffocate the soul, beat us down, betray the heart’s joy and even the will to continue living,” writes Dr. Suzel Frem Bourgerie, a contributing author of the publication, “Mary, Undoer of Knots.” “Knots that separate us from God, chaining our arms, legs, all our being and our faith, keeping us from flinging (ourselves) like children into the arms of God and glorifying Him. The Virgin Mother does not want this to continue…She comes to you…to give Her all these snarls because She will undo them one by one…more than ever the Holy Mother of God is ready to succor those who cry out to her…”

No matter how knotted are the events in your life, the Blessed Virgin can undo the tangles because Her Son empowers Her to. Through this prayerful devotion we are reminded that sin never entangled Our Lady; that Christ gave His Mother to be our Mother, and that She is uniquely endowed with grace and perfections to fulfill Her role, which She willingly accepts out of great love and humility.

Mary, Undoer of Knots, is a devotion that speaks to the hearts of the suffering who have become entangled in ourr own vices and failings. In the related novena, we pray and entrust our specific “knots” to Her loving hands, learning how to let go of that which binds us. To be free of the weight of our own chains means our hearts and minds are free to accept God’s mercy and begin to do His will in our lives.

You may ask why we need such picturesque devotions which, to some, seem to smack of fairy tales and children’s stories. We need them because we are human. To ponder something at once fantastic and yet attainable raises our minds and strengthens our faith that this world we live in is not the only one, and is far from the best one available. Devotions, such as Mary, Undoer of Knots, take the everyday difficulties of the human experience and transform them into opportunities to grow closer to our Creator and to our goal of heaven.

“Mary, Undoer of Knots, dearest Mother, I thank you for undoing the knots in my life. Wrap me in your mantle of love, keep me under your protection, enlighten me with your peace!”

“Above all, we have something here you just can’t find anywhere else: a commitment to something beautiful, something that transcends the rest of our culture,” he opined. “Your support means that you recognize this beauty and want it in your life.”

Pretty heady stuff for an FM radio station, but it worked. Within the hour enough callers, at $100 a pop, had committed to “beauty” in a tangible way– with their checkbooks. And public radio was saved until the next fund drive.

I didn’t call in. Not because I don’t believe in the value of classical music; in fact I tune in every day. It was more because I already “donate” through my tax dollars, which are funneled into public broadcasting whether I like it or not, to pay for liberally-biased news reporting, whether I like it or not.

What did capture me, however, was the announcer’s reference to beauty. It’s a refrain I keep hearing echoes of in the strangest places. Like on home and garden television.

“Life is short and we want to have a home where we can make beautiful memories,” said a young woman, gushing in an episode of a first-time homebuyers’ show. “We know what’s really beautiful in life and our home is the place where it all happens.”

Then there are the self-help gurus with promises of success that reach into the hearts of searching individuals. “You are beautiful because you believe you are beautiful,” said one shiny-headed gentleman to a live studio audience and, I swear, there were tears in his eyes. “It’s time for you to step out into the world and say, ‘Here I am, and I AM BEAUTIFUL!”

Hmmm. Here’s the dilemma: I agree with them all. Sort of.

Classical music really is uplifting. Homeownership really is good for people. Healthy self-esteem really is essential to being happy.

But as with everything of substance, if God doesn’t form the foundation of these beliefs, they remain empty. If God isn’t in the music, it’s noise. If God isn’t in the home, it’s a facade. If God isn’t in the self-help lesson, it’s a fraud. Bereft of God these human accomplishments, rather than uplifting human nature, actually exploit for profit one of the deepest needs of individuals: to experience true beauty.

Beauty can only exist in friendship with God, with an acknowledgement of the Creator of all, and a willingness to serve Him. The reason beauty itself exists –all forms of beauty – is because God intends it to. Everything truly beautiful finds its ordered relationship with God and reflects His love for creation. The most beautiful forms of human accomplishment come from a love of God and a desire to make some small part of His omnipotence tangible and reachable to us. The reason we crave beautiful experiences in life is because we are uniquely made to do so.

Is this expecting too much of beauty? In the past, most people have never thought so. Sure, there have always been the naysayers, those who have “enlightened” themselves straight into darkness. Author and philosopher Albert Camus famously said, “Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of eternity that we should like to stretch over the whole of time.” The good news for Mr. Camus and others who despair is that true beauty is eternal and does last forever because God mercifully ordains it.

The epic history of men and women is one of reaching for beauty, in the arts and sciences, in the struggle for self-government, in many and diverse modes of personal achievement. However, the post-modern culture, which has gripped the hearts of nations, aims to blind us to this tradition of beauty by flinging the muck of secular humanism into our eyes. We don’t believe the truly beautiful is possible, necessary, or appropriate anymore. That’s because we don’t believe God is possible, necessary, or appropriate anymore.

The world is very busy killing unborn babies, killing personal excellence, killing true beauty, and insisting all of the time that this is the best way to live because it proves we are our own masters. In the meantime, we court false beauty in every way money can buy in an attempt to offset the bleakness we’ve engineered. Innately, we don’t like a world without substantial beauty. So we fabricate poor substitutes that require nothing from us.

In case you feel this is too philosophical a dilemma for most people to bother with, consider how this attitude towards true beauty has affected our politics, our economy, our health care, our families, and our future. What may sound absurd in a sound byte on the radio or television is having an impact of historical proportions. Here’s an example:

“The food we grow and cook, in the place we call home, define who we are,” stated a gourmet chef in an article I recently read.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be defined by more than what’s over my head and what’s on my dinner plate. I want to be defined as a creation of God Almighty, made in His image. That’s the only way I can be certain of my dignity, my worth, my own beauty. Without it, anyone can decide the value of my life, based on any terms. Without it, anyone can decide whether or not I deserve to exist.

Many people today seek to kill beauty as a passionate rejection of God. They want the rest of us to accept noisy music, empty houses, alternative lifestyles, and a host of other distractions in lieu of God’s beauty.

The good news, however, is that people in the 21^st century still respond to true beauty, even if they can’t explain why. It happens every time a movie with wholesome values is a surprise hit at theatres. It happens when people choose to have children without calculating the costs. It happens every time a person acts with authentic charity towards another. Even unacknowledged, God’s beauty can reach into the soul of a person and awaken a need that He has placed there and only He can satisfy.

People want to be uplifted. They want to reach above the fray for something true and wonderful and fulfilling. They still search for, whether they know it or not, the beauty that comes from the mind and heart of God.

“Truth, goodness, and beauty are but different faces of the same all,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

I awoke one morning from a dream in which hundreds of people were floating in wreckage and sewage, and reaching with their arms and bodies up to the sky where radiance, beauty, promise shined forth on their upturned faces. The wasteland was secular culture. The promise was the light of Christ.

Keep reaching heavenward.

MP Artur Górski, deputy head of the parliamentary commission on Polish-Lithuanian cooperation, has stated he intends to copy the Lithuanian law and introduce it before the nation’s parliament for passage.

“I have already asked for the translation of the Lithuanian law ‘on the protection of youth’ into Polish,” said Górski, a member of the major opposition party, Law and Justice. “This is a very interesting initiative and no doubt a very necessary one, especially now, when we face a more and more obvious expansion of gay activist circles.”

Górski spoke with the Catholic daily “Nasz Dziennik,” saying he believed the initiative could be ready by the fall. He stated that 50 parliamentarians would be needed to sponsor the measure to bring it to a vote, but added that he believed the proposed initiative would gain more than enough support for its passage, and possibly the support of all the MPs in the Law and Justice Party.

“If you look at the Polish parliament and see the ruling Civic Platform and major opposition Law and Justice, both claiming to be right wing, then there should be no trouble in passing such a law,” Gorski said.

If passed, the Polish equivalent of Lithuania’s law “on the protection of youth,” would ban any public promotion of homosexual, bisexual or polygamous relations among Polish youth. The law also targets public messages directed toward youth that promote violence, horror, suicide, and self-abuse.

The measure would also provide a strong legal barrier to homosexual “Pride” parades that promote the social acceptance, display, and celebration of aberrant sexual behaviors in civil society.

“I think this law is needed also in Poland,” said MP Leszek Deptu³a of the minor coalition Polish Peasants’ Party. “We should protect kids and youth from homosexuality and from promoting this idea. That’s why my opinion on this issue is very clear: if such a project appears, I will sure support it.”

“I am not against people of other sexual orientation, but I think there is no need to manifest and propagate such behaviors,” added MP Stanislaw Rakoczy.

Most faithful Catholics, after overcoming the shock of the suggestion, would have applauded such a prophecy. They would have envisioned a nation functioning in accord with God’s commandments, respecting the dignity of each human life, and standing as a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.

And they would have been wrong, wrong, wrong.

We now have people who call themselves Catholics in unprecedented positions of authority in government, and it’s the worst thing that could have happened to us. In the showdown of the political and cultural war that is rapidly escalating since January’s presidential inauguration, these baptized Catholics have been our worst enemies. They blaspheme, they cause public scandal, and they flagrantly defy Church doctrine while insisting they are “good, practicing Catholics.” With Holy Communion on their tongues, they support unrestricted abortion on demand legislation, homosexual rights agendas, irresponsible fiscal policies, and social service initiatives designed to increase public dependence upon government-run programs.

What’s scandalous about these leading Catholics is that, despite rejecting Church doctrine, they refuse to reject the Church Herself. They insist that they are Catholics “in good conscience,” whatever that phrase has come to mean. They revel in media coverage of their spiritual sincerity and seek to enlighten the rest of us that we, too, can pick and choose our beliefs regardless of the Magisterium. They refuse to leave the Church. Instead, they seem content with remaining a thorn in Her holy side.

And that’s the place where ignorance crosses the line into the diabolical. No matter how unformed, how poorly catechized these elected officials are in their Catholic faith, they must be held responsible for the intrinsically evil agendas they are promoting in our nation. Their positions of power underscore the seriousness of their sins as they jeopardize their own souls and the souls of countless others who are led by their example and word into heresy and mortal sin.

Why do Catholics in the U.S. put up with this scandal? One answer is that most Catholics don’t know what is right or wrong, particularly in the arena of morality, and specifically on the subject of sexual sins. If you consider that most people who have been baptized into the Catholic Church are contracepting, divorcing, and don’t know what the inside of a confessional looks like, it’s easy to understand how they can be numb to scandalous actions and comments by Catholic lawmakers.

Another answer is confusion about the definition of conscience. Catholics don’t (or shouldn’t) form their consciences according to political polls, national trends, or personal preference. Our consciences are formed by instruction based on Holy Scripture and 2,000 years of Church tradition, dating to when Christ walked the earth and taught the first apostles. If you are going to allow a public figure to inform your conscience, please forget Nancy Pelosi and read St. Augustine, who was just as much a public figure and can tell you everything you need to know about sexual sin.

During the French Revolution, when many Catholics found it difficult to accept the unbridled bloodshed of the new regime, they were told it was simple to overcome their consciences: just go out, commit a mortal sin, and then receive Holy Eucharist. It was the surest way to kill a conscience then, and it still is.

Just as “conscience” has been contaminated by post-modern thinking, so has “compassion.” The things we Americans let slide in the name of compassion! Homosexual adoptions, late-term abortions, pornographic classroom materials, environmental hokum, unethical mortgage lending, you name it, we’ll swallow it as long as it’s coated with a sob story about how someone isn’t being treated “fairly.” We’d rather be called foolish than prejudiced, and we’d rather condone serious sin than be considered prudes.

Approximately one-quarter of the 111th Congress is Catholic, a number slowly rising in recent decades, according to the Catholic News Service. However, an ever-growing number of Congressional Catholics are Democrats who use their legislative clout to defend their party’s anti-Catholic agenda on issues of life, marriage, finances, taxes, government regulation and more.

The likes of Catholics such as Speaker of the House Pelosi, Vice President Joe Biden, soon-to-be-confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other cabinet and Congressional members will continue to erode opportunities for a true Catholic voice to be heard in the national arena. Their presence undermines Gospel values and the clear role of Catholics in today’s confused world.

What should our response be to our own worst enemies? We pray for their conversions, and the salvation of their souls. We also look to St. Paul, who reminds us “…that to (those who) love God, all things work together unto good…” (Romans 8:28). For every Joe Biden, there is a zealous young man studying for the priesthood. For every Nancy Pelosi, there is a mother teaching the undiluted faith to her children. For every public official who is staining the Bride of Christ with their lies and dissent, there is a parish community immersed in the sacraments, which bring life and light to our consciences and empower us, despite our imperfections, to be faithful followers of Christ in and out of season.

The very presence of unfaithful Catholics on the national scene, and their perverted representation of the True Faith, is assisting in a renewal of Catholic expression, thought, and learning within parishes, schools, convents, seminaries, and most importantly, in homes. It is a movement that John Paul II prophesied would be a new springtime for the Catholic Church, and it is happening now. The inspiration is from the Holy Spirit, but much of the fuel for the fire, so to speak, is provided by the enemy within as they continually prick our determination to defend the Church of Christ.

Men and women of orthodox Roman Catholic faith are entering the ranks of law, education, mass communications, and yes, even politics. We are already seeing young priests and religious changing the course of the Church in America, as well as the thousands of young families who innately flock to them. In another generation, the numbers will multiply and the groundswell will continue to gain power.

Although the secular world may laugh at the thought of seemingly unpowerful people influencing the course of American politics and culture, they are wrong. They fail to see the eternal irony of God, Who takes the lowly and raises them up; Who takes the weak and makes them strong; and Who chooses to use the small to accomplish the greatest things.

So our own worst enemies will, in God’s design, serve a purpose after all.

Christ does choose to physically heal them, one after the other, but He gives them all a bonus, something they didn’t expect and weren’t thinking about: spiritual healing. In fact, He often withholds fulfilling their hopes for physical health until He has addressed the state of their souls and the depths of their faith in Him. Their spiritual sicknesses are Christ’s primary concern.

In every case these sufferers draw close to Christ in order to receive healing. In every case the sufferer does something extraordinary to meet with Christ. The leper leaves the restrictions of his colony; the deaf man and the blind man are both led by Jesus away from the crowds in the villages; the paralytic is lowered through the roof of the house where Our Lord is.

What do we have in common with these Gospel characters? While many people were clambering for Christ’s healing, these are the individuals recorded as particular examples for our meditation. What’s blocking up our ears? What’s blinding our eyes? Which of the many distractions or temptations of the world have paralyzed our limbs and our hearts in following the call of Christ? And what kind of extraordinary effort are we willing to make in order to encounter the Messiah and be healed by Him?

We start Lent with ashes, an outward sign of our inward spiritual illnesses and weaknesses. For one day, on our foreheads, we publicly declare that we recognize our failings and are sorry for them. Just like the leper, the blind man and the paralytic, we seek healing and reconciliation.

As for the other 39 days of Lent, the power to seek conversion is sleeping within us. We came from dust and it is certain to dust we will return. But let us consider the power of our humanity while we are on this short earthly journey. By virtue of our free will (itself a gift from God) we are given the power to choose whether we will pursue healing for our sins or not, whether we will draw close to Christ or keep ourselves at a comfortable distance. In this way we could say that we have great power over God: the power to reject Him.

Once we consider this power we can become more sensitive to the vulnerabilities of Christ, Whose Heart beats with love and forgiveness for each of us. “I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls… ” laments the Savior in The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalski, Divine Mercy in My Soul. “I want to give Myself to souls; I yearn for souls…Imagine the most tender of mothers who has great love for her children, while those children spurn her love. Consider her pain. No one can console her. This is but a feeble image and likeness of My love .”

Recognizing the great potential that exists between our free will and Christ’s mercy is necessary to our spiritual journey. The former is in constant flux, but the latter is constant and fathomless. Where these two forces intersect, there is holiness. How often they intersect is a decision most of us tend to re-negotiate every day, with an eye towards moderation and comfort. Moderate love, however, is not what Christ desires. A lukewarm Lent minimizes His opportunities to heal us from sin and give us the expansive freedom that comes from placing our ordinary lives in His extraordinary hands.

Understanding the relationship between our free will and Christ’s vulnerability in His love for us also places quite a different spin on our Lenten journey. It changes the dichotomy of a demanding Lord and a subjugated servant to the intimacy of friendship and deep love. It’s the difference between obligation and oblation, as we move away from an attitude of “giving up” things to giving freely of ourselves. Now we begin to really understand why we make sacrifices for Lent—doing without dessert, television, internet, gossip, resentment, pride—because these unvirtuous distractions get in the way of intimacy with Christ. They get in the way of loving Him. And Jesus wants so much to be loved by us.

Between the extremes of rejecting Christ or subjecting ourselves to His will are myriad gradations, like the measurements on a precision scale. With Christ as the center point, the sliding scale of our lives modulates in its nearness to Him, with each decision we make placing us either closer to Him or further away. It’s like a child’s game of taking giant steps forward or baby steps backward. We are in constant motion and continual tension between doing His will or ours.

“At the end of the day, I ask myself just two questions: What did I do for Christ today, and what did I do to Christ today ?” stated Blessed Teresa of Calcutta in her usual matter-of-fact manner. All of the saints were acutely aware that either we are for Christ or we are against Him. There is no possibility of standing still on the sliding scale of faith.

If we are looking for a fruitful Lent, a Lent of healing and intimacy, it won’t come to us in a comfort zone. Christ penetrates to the heart of those He touches and makes it clear that He has come to bring much more than physical relief. The real suffering of mankind is our estrangement from our Creator and the healing we need is the type that reaches into our souls.

How did this happen to St. Valentine’s Day? How did the remembrance of Christian martyrdom, and the spreading Christ’s gospel, become an annual excuse for every thing from fat-cheeked cherubs to licentious behavior?

The answer is sex, of course, and greed for profit. Sex and greed drive American culture on every level. They define our economy, they motivate the business world, and they monopolize all forms of entertainment. They manipulate our children, overwhelm our teens, and have most adults living in a haze of desire and frustration.

However, within the candy-coated cacophony of Valentine’s Day, amid the hype and secularization of what the day has become, is the grain of truth. We are fascinated with finding and experiencing love. We prize it and chase after it and wish our lives could be filled with it. We want to be cherished, to be someone’s joy. It is exactly this vulnerability of our characters, this yearning for love, which evil exploits, perverting what God has intended to be the noblest of our desires.

What is it about our human nature that predisposes us for love? God Himself. God is love (1 John 4:8) and we are made in His image. Placing in each being, born and unborn, an innate desire to love and be loved, God provides the answer to the very longing He creates. What we do with this desire, how we seek to fulfill it through the course of our lives, dictates whether or not we will ever find "true love."

God would not create us, place a desire for love in us, and then leave us orphans to discover how to satisfy such a complex and deep-rooted need. It makes sense to turn to Him, the Source of Love, if we are to understand how to find it and experience it. St. Paul (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) gives us a "check list" of sorts, putting it as plainly as he can:

Love is patient; love is kind
Love is not jealous; it does not put on airs, it is not snobbish.
Love is never rude, nor self-seeking, nor prone to anger;
Nor does it brood over injuries.

Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth.
There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.
Love never fails.

If you were tempted to skip over those lines, please go back and re-read them. This time try replacing every reference to the word "love" with your own name. Go ahead. It’s a sobering exercise in confronting what love really is.

Whether we are spouses, parents, siblings, friends, or — like the Good Samaritan — strangers, our names should be synonymous with the word love. St. Paul, inspired by God, tells us what love is supposed to be and what it shouldn’t be, speaking in a manner so straightforward that it challenges us just as effectively today as it did the Corinthians 2,000 years ago. Which leads us to another truth about love-it is unchanging. (Unlike Valentine fads and boxer shorts.)

True love sounds impossible, and without God it is. Like every other attribute of God, love is a mystery and we can only understand what He mercifully reveals to us. How do we become patient, kind, generous and true, how do we prepare to love and to be loved? It starts with our relationship to God.

"Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O Lord," avers St. Augustine in his Confessions . We can’t love others and be loved ourselves until we discover God’s love for us. Through an intimate relationship with our Creator first, we can then find the paths that lead to true love with our fellow creatures, whether in a friendship, a marriage, a family or a world-wide community. This remains true for every type of love that we seek: fraternal, familial, sexual and spiritual.

When you remove God from the discussion of love, you forfeit your ability to understand any portion of the mystery. Furthermore, love without God morphs into other things, ugly things, such as lust instead of charity and self-gratification instead of commitment. Instead of filling our lives with satisfaction and joy, this "love" becomes an excuse for victimization and betrayal, replacing hope with despair.

Love without God can take wicked turns and disguise itself as a noble concept, such as "compassion," "social justice," or "dignity." If ever there was a nation fallen prey to false love, it is the United States. Under cunning guises of compassion, freedom, understanding and choice, our society has accepted homosexual behavior, euthanasia and abortion, all diabolical and all false imitations of true concepts. As we can see, without God, true love is unsustainable.

Of course those faithful to the Gospel know that love can’t be separated from God, no matter how much people desire such an amputation. "All love is a determination to be God-like," states Fr. John Corapi, SOLT. "True love is not a feeling. It is a decision." If love is God-like, then it is God-centered and can not survive without His presence.

According to tradition, Saint Valentine (derived from the word "valens," meaning "worthy") was either one saint or several who lived in Roman times. The traditional feast day is not included in the liturgical calendar, however Valentine remains on the list of saints the Church proposes for our veneration. The feast of Saint Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I who included Valentine among those "… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." It would seem that Valentine, like many aspects of love, must remain something of a mystery to us.

Legend has Valentine performing marriages for faithful Roman Christians, at peril of his life, and carrying messages of love and Gospel teachings to and from prisons to give hope to the persecuted. During the 14th century, when conventional belief held that birds begin to pair on February 14 (halfway through the second month of the year), popular customs became associated with the feast day. It was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens, or valentines.

Valentine’s Day comes shortly before Ash Wednesday and the start of the Lenten season, and its no coincidence that one follows the other. It’s the time of year when God especially calls us to get our hearts in order so we can experience the true love He offers in His Son’s sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. Even death has no hold on those who seek the love of God.

As Christians, we have been given a great treasure of love that we are meant to share with all mankind. We have the opportunity, through our words and the witness of our lives, to take back the definition of true love from a secular world that has perverted and exploited it. At the time of Saint Valentine, amid rampant political and personal corruptions of every kind, the light of the faithful Christians served as a beacon of hope and truth in a world consumed with evil.

"See the way they love one another!" wrote the early Christian author Tertullian, quoting the pagans of the time who were astonished at the loving and sacrificial behavior of the Christian communities. Wives and husbands loved one another and dedicated themselves to their children. Many Christians joyously embraced celibacy for the sake of Christ. All took care of the sick, the poor and the orphaned. And the entire community derived their love from prayer, penance, and the Eucharist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the same could be said of us today? "See those Catholics, see the way they love one another! They stand outside of abortion clinics because of love. They fill the Churches because of love. They stay married and have children because of love. They enter monasteries and religious orders because of love. They find joy and satisfaction in love.

"What do they know about love that we don’t?"

And it wasn’t until I tried to erect a nativity scene on our lawn in the teeth of a northeast wind that I thought about how cold He must have been, even in the desert.

It doesn’t take an intellectual epiphany to meditate on the Nativity, just a willingness to stop and recollect what it means to be human. From such tangible starting points, it’s amazing where God will take you.

Many Christmases ago, I returned to the sacrament of confession after decades away. Following absolution the parish priest said, “Now, go to the manger. There you will find everything.”

Everything? I’d looked at manger scenes before. I’d thought about how beautiful they were. I admired the Holy Family and I believed that without what had occurred in a Bethlehem manger, there would be no Christmas. So what was I missing?

Everything. There, on a kneeler before the manger in our church, I met an Infant and His Mother whom I’d looked upon countless times and had never seen with clarity. An Infant and His Mother in human form whose sole existence is Divine Love, for one another and for all mankind. The heat of this Love pierced the cold shell of my self, and sought out the soul that waited within, the soul that remembered the sound of Love’s voice from when it was first called into creation.

I met with Forgiveness and He gave me eyes to see, without mercy, the horror of my sins, and then — precisely because of mercy — dissolved them, as sunrise dissolves the night. I understood Gratitude for all I have been given, unmerited. I met with Truth that revealed my being as it is intended to be: remade, restored, redeemed.

The more I go to the manger, the more I gain from these encounters with Love. In the manger, among the rough wood and stiff straw, there is Dignity unrecognized by the world. In the raised lantern of St. Joseph, there is Faith that overcomes uncertainty and fear. In the faces of the shepherds there is Joy born from long-anticipated salvation and freedom from the death of sin. In the glory of the angels there is Praise that teaches me the startling beauty and reality of heaven. Between the Mother and the Infant there is the preciousness of Life that no words can describe.

All of these invaluable gifts have their origin in Love. In the manger Love lays His head on His Mother’s lap and gazes out to welcome us, lowering Himself to reach us from His Seat of Divinity. In the manger there is peace and humility that tenderize our toughened hearts and make us ready to listen and imitate.

In the manger are the remedies for every weakness that keeps us from God, all of those things that show the many ways we lack His love. Family strife, marital quarrels, addictions, infidelities, coldness of heart, materialism, anger, covetousness, vindictiveness, pride, hatred, all of these and more find healing in the Love waiting in the manger. We don’t understand this kind of love and we can’t access it without the Infant Jesus Who invites us to learn about love at His simple crib. There we realize we can’t love one another until we’ve accepted His great love for us.

The people in my life need love more than any other gift this Christmas, and so do I. Every day we need fresh supplies of it, in order to communicate with one another without sarcasm, to serve one another without resentment, to forgive one another without bitterness, and to understand one another with charity. We need to learn from the Love in the manger so we can live this love ourselves and pass it on to others, encouraging them to meet Love in a multitude of ways throughout their lives.

I know a woman who keeps a small manger scene in her living room all year long in order to have the Christ Child near. It’s a constant reminder to her of the gifts of the manger. Being human, how we need constant reminding of God’s love! I once heard a priest describe the human heart as a bucket with a hole in it — all the lessons we learn tend to seep out rather quickly and the bucket needs to be constantly refilled. When it comes to my own family, I often feel my heart is more like a colander than a bucket, unable to hold love at all as it streams out through hundreds of little holes faster than God can fill it.

When I go to the manger, the opportunity is there to plug the leaks and hold onto Love for a bit longer. I am reminded how much I don’t understand Love and how I need to lean on Christ and His Blessed Mother in order to experience it. It’s the challenge of a lifetime, and every day requires us to face it anew. As the Magi journeyed long, so do we throughout our lives, seeking the Love that transforms humanity. It’s the difference between living, and living our lives abundantly.

No matter how many Christmases pass, how many mangers I kneel before, this Incarnated Love continues to offer me everything. It remains my free choice how much I agree to receive.

Go to the manger this Christmas and meet the Love that awaits you there.

Are you anxious yet? The season has just begun and already many people are on edge, some even dreading the holiday season. It doesn’t help that FM radio stations started playing Christmas carols three weeks before Thanksgiving and that many of our neighbors strung icicle lights on their homes the day after Halloween. Even the calendar is against us this year: by the time you get the turkey platter washed and put away, it’s time to unpack your wreath for the first Sunday of Advent.

Breathe deep. Now is the time to remember the purpose of the beautiful Advent season. It’s time to find the pause button in a fast-forward world. Advent is a season of truth that dispels anxiety and cultural deceptions. It is wisdom amid confusion. It is sanity when all about us is chaotic.

Advent teaches us to prepare in a very different way from the usual material rush, in a way that requires stillness instead of motion, and pondering instead of doing. There are no doorbuster coupons or 6 a.m. sales in Advent. The challenge of Advent is the Christian challenge to live in the world, but not be of it; to take a stand, and then kneel down in prayer.

Quietly yet firmly Advent defies the secular tide that has outwardly swamped the coming of Christmas. It is almost entirely an inward season that requires prayer and contemplation to realize its rewards. Advent heals and soothes and asks nothing else from us but a spiritual journey alongside the most joyful events of the Gospel and of all salvation history.

It is a penitential season, which explains the violet candles used in our Advent wreaths and vestments at Mass. In its beginning, Advent was marked by a 40-day fast, commencing after the feast of St. Martin’s in November, to prepare one’s soul for the coming of Christ. We’re not meant to celebrate Christmas during Advent. Let me say that again: We are not meant to celebrate Christmas during Advent. We are meant to examine our hearts and reflect on the way we live our lives, so that we can be ready for Christ’s coming into them.

One of the most beautiful aspects of Advent is its attitude of patience. In contradiction to the rest of society’s celebration of Christmas, Advent reins us in and feeds us slowly on the Word of God. In fact the hardest part about keeping the spirit of Advent is guarding against our own will to “get something done now.” The crush of secular culture can be so fierce this time of year, and it’s a virtue to be able to reject it and embrace the patient waiting of the season, all the while being led by the Scriptures which promise the coming of the King of Kings.

As we patiently wait for the fulfillment of God’s salvific promise, we are imitating the Israelites who waited through centuries for the arrival of the Messiah. We follow the example of Our Lady who, as a Jewish girl, spent her early life waiting with her people for the Redeemer. More intimately, we wait as the Blessed Mother did for the coming of her first-born Son, trusting that our patience and prayerfulness will be rewarded beyond our imagination.

Waiting, preparing — how do we make these notions palatable to ourselves and our families in such a culture as ours? Human nature being what it is, it’s hard to break away from to-do lists and calendars. Just make sure you’re using the right ones. The Church calendar is chock full of Advent-building feast days and traditions throughout the month of December. These individual celebrations act like spark plugs. They are the starting points for spiritual combustion, which produces the energy we need to be faithful all season long:

Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6: What better way to realign our understanding of the season than to contemplate the original Santa Claus? The real St. Nicholas was so much more than a jolly old man who gave out presents — he worked miracles and as a Bishop he gave his life to teaching and living the Gospels.

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8: A wonderful way to ponder the mysterious plan of God, this Holy Day of Obligation teaches us that the coming of Christ was prepared for in a singular and blessed manner. Mary’s conception in the womb of St. Anne was brought about without original sin or its stain, without any deprivation of sanctifying grace. Mary was preserved from these defects from the first moment of her existence. Thanks to this mystery, we can say “Hail Mary, full of grace.”

St. Juan Diego, December 9, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12: Prepare to welcome the Christmas Infant by acknowledging the miracle of life itself. As the Protectress of the Unborn, Our Lady of Guadalupe intercedes to safeguard all human life from the moment of conception. The story of St. Juan’s faith in a time of violence and prejudice, and Our Lady’s miraculous gift of roses in winter as a sign of her love for us, is inspiring to people of all ages.

St. Lucy, December 13: Patron saint of the eyes, St. Lucy’s name means “light” illuminating the darkness, as well as the interior light of clear understanding. As we approach the shortest days of the year and darkness envelops our world, St. Lucy reminds us that the Light of the World is coming. Her martyrdom and heavenly reward mirror our desire for faithful patience during the Advent season.

Gaudete Sunday: Marking the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete (broadly translated as Rejoice) Sunday is the day we add the rose candle to the Advent wreath, signifying our anticipation of the joy that is ahead. In a season of prayer and penance, Gaudete Sunday is a glimpse of the Christmas celebration that awaits, giving us strength to continue our journey.

The O Antiphons, December 17 through 23: Late in Advent the final preparation for the coming of Christ is inspired by the great “O Antiphons.” These prayers are seven jewels of liturgical song, one for each day until Christmas Eve. They seem to sum up all our Advent longing for the Savior in poetic and ancient language that Catholics today may recognize as the musical verses of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Based on scriptural texts, each one is a title for Christ, and each one refers to the coming of the Messiah: O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Adonai (Sacred Lord); O Radix Jesse (Flower of Jesse’s Stem); O Clavis David (Key of David); O Oriens (Radiant Dawn); O Rex Gentium (King of Nations); O Emmanuel (God with Us). The ancient O Antiphons add a spirit of eager expectation to our prayers throughout the final week before Christmas.

What is the reward of Advent? The sweetness of earning Christmas. Earning may be an unusual word to pair with Christmas, and it’s true that God’s gifts can not be earned because they are freely given. It is an entirely human need to earn. Investing ourselves in Advent heightens our understanding, our gratitude and our receptivity of the great gift of Christmas. By giving of ourselves during Advent, we increase our ability to enter into the mystery of God giving Himself to us. Ours is the promise of joy, made particularly piquant by a season spent in faithful expectation.

By keeping Advent we can pace ourselves, grow in faith, and build momentum to a spiritual and emotional apex by December 25. About the time when most people have grown tired and even cynical about the Christmas season, we are just approaching its glorious joy and beginning our celebration. Once again, Catholic tradition provides the antidote for what ails us in the secular world.

One of my favorite Christmas carols is O Holy Night, and the lyrical phrase, “A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices…” At a time when the world is weary from sin and yearning for light in the darkness, Advent is more relevant than ever in teaching us how to prepare for such a gift as Jesus.