I went back to Notre Dame for my 20th reunion this past weekend, leaving my husband at home with our five kids and traveling solo. I am a stay-at-home home schooling mom. Although, I have been Catholic all my life it is really in the past 15 years that I have developed a deep appreciation and love for the Catholic Church. This love was fueled by personal suffering along with my Calvinist husband’s doubts and questions. I did a lot of research and found that I believe everything the Church teaches. Her wisdom is one seamless garment to me. I am especially passionate about the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life and more specifically, birth control. Heading back to my reunion, I realized that I am in the minority and that many of my classmates do not share my enthusiasm. I had been praying for months that I would be able to share what I believe without coming off preachy or judgmental. I was on the planning committee for the reunion and we had been having conference calls for the last 2 ½ years in preparation for this weekend. Many of these people I would be meeting for the first time in person, although I knew their voices well. We joked that we needed to close our eyes and just listen to each other’s voices to identify each other.
Many of the girls that I hung out with at ND were not able to come so a nice group of women allowed me to tag along with them throughout the weekend. There were moments however when I found myself alone. One such moment occurred when I was leaving the South Dining Hall after lunch. I came down the steps and was heading back to our class dorm when around the corner came a man whose back was so curved that it made a 180 degree turn to the right of his body and his head was literally upside down as he walked toward me. I was in shock. I have never seen anyone whose curvature of the spine put them in such a position. For a minute I thought my eyes had deceived me so I looked back over my shoulder to make sure he was real. There he was. I could see that his spine was curved like a paperclip and his head was literally upside down.
I immediately started contemplating his situation. My first thought was how surreal it must be to see everything upside down all the time. How horrible. How does he eat and/or drink? It would be an incredibly difficult task. Obviously, gravity would be working against him at all times. How does he sit down? Can he sit down at all? It looked to me as if his head was almost as low as his knee making it impossible to sit in a chair. And if he could sit down in a chair, his head would be at the very least below the table and he wouldn’t be able to see anything but the underside of it and lots of people’s legs. At that point how would he get the food into his mouth? How would he keep from choking? How does he lie down at night? Lying down might be the only time that he would get relief from the topsy turvyness of his world. As he is he must be incredibly isolated from other people. Simple eye contact is almost an impossibility.
Prayers to God for healing were my next thoughts. I know a healing priest in Chicago who has done many miracles. I visualized this man going to Fr. Rookey and the power of God working through Father’s hands to straighten this man’s back and restore his physical life to him. It is still hard to believe that God can heal people physically but it is even more miraculous that God can forgive our sins and heal our souls. Throughout the weekend this man’s situation came in and out of my mind. I could not stop thinking about the sadness of his situation. I felt a deep compassion for him — a man I have never met. As I kept pondering his situation, the man with the twisted spine revealed spiritual truth to me.
Many women have a funny — as in peculiar — habit of sharing their birth control methods right off the bat nearly as soon as you meet them. I am not sure why. It comes unsolicited. All I know is I wish they would not do this because once they mention it I feel that I have to say something. I don’t want them to feel bad but I also don’t want to pretend that I think they have made the right choice. I am always at a loss as to what to say so most of the time I don’t say anything. I am a wimp and a coward because I know that Jesus would want me to speak the truth in a loving way. I am confident about the Church’s teaching; I am just not confident about my ability to articulate it properly. I am also too worried about other people’s approval.
I want to tell them that God loves each one of them infinitely, body and soul. We are the only creatures that were made with spiritual and physical dimensions. He loves us so much that He took on flesh becoming a defenseless baby in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His love was so powerful that it poured out of his sacred side on the Cross and started the Church. The Church is a great gift to us. The rules that are given to us to follow are not made up by a bunch of men wearing funny hats in Rome. The Holy Spirit has guided the Church to teach us truth. We are supposed to be children of the Church. Every parent knows that you cannot teach your child anything until they learn obedience. We are at times like stubborn children who want things our way not trusting the wisdom of our parents. I don’t believe in my own wisdom; I believe in the wisdom of the Church. I want to remind my classmates what a gift it is to be co-creators with God in bringing new life into the world. Why would we want to limit the number of eternal souls destined for heaven and stand in His way by contracepting?
I want to share with them that contraception causes a break in the unitive and procreative dimension of lovemaking and that many marriages break up because of it. There are physical and spiritual consequences to our actions. What we do with our bodies effects our souls. When you understand and believe in the sacredness of life from conception to natural death then the Church’s teachings on all the controversial issues makes sense. At times we don’t want to bend our will to His will as found in the teachings of the Church. Lou Holtz spoke to all the alumni during our reunion weekend and one of his main points was “do right,” plain and simple. A person needs to know what is good and right in order to do it. We need properly formed consciences.
Looking back, I can see that as I have taken that leap of faith to believe and trust the Church good things have happened in my life. What a blessing the Church’s teaching on contraception has been for my own marriage. We have practiced NFP from the beginning and I feel a great freedom in it. We have not always had the spirit of generosity that we should have had and even today my husband is not as open to life as I am. BUT I am in it for the long haul. I know that my husband is not simply a sperm donor. I respect and honor his wishes to not have another child by abstaining. I realize that this life is not all about me and what I want. Don’t get me wrong. It can be difficult and I have all the emotional mood swings that everyone else has. I just know that when I put my trust in Christ and His Church I am on the winning team and I can face anything. I have a peace of mind that I am not sure other people have.
One classmate in particular was trash talking the Church and also mentioned the people that she knows that believe all of the Church’s teachings and try to follow them are mean people. I am not sure exactly what she meant but it bothered me because I think she has a point. Some people who are committed to the Church and her teachings can come off holier-than-thou. It might only be a perception and not a reality but it is there. I started thinking about how God must look at many of us and want to knock our heads together. He wants us to love each other but real love has a price and too many don’t want to pay it. I realize that I am painting with a broad brush but bear with me: on one side you have the people who are committed to the love of Jesus –- his mercy at the expense of His justice. On the other side people are caught up in his justice and law at the expense of His mercy. They are the ones who are similar to the elder brother in the Prodigal Son story. They wonder why God is so good to the wayward brother while they themselves have been so good all these years. As St. Theresa of Avila once said, “Lord, deliver us from sour faced saints.” I hope we can realize that God is all merciful and all just and you cannot have one quality without the other. The first group is focusing too much on God’s mercy thinking it doesn’t demand action and the later group is focusing on the actions of “righteousness” without having the spirit of love that needs to be behind it at all times. We are spiritual and physical beings and need to take care of both. My only response to this blonde Sandra Bullock look-a-like (and you know who you are and I love you) was “I love the Church and everything about it.” I also told her that I was sorry that she was treated badly by the “devout Catholics” in her parish.
My thoughts went back to the man with the deformed back. When I meet people who have a “twisted” view of the Church what is my first response? Is it compassion? Is it love? Or do I run and hide? Jesus came to heal the sick. I am 100% sure he meant people who are sick both physically and spiritually. My classmates need my joy, compassion, and knowledge just as much if not more than the man with the twisted spine. And then I need to turn the mirror around and look at myself. How am I “twisted” in my own soul? How do I need to be touched by Christ and straightened? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. If and when we are out of line with God’s life and love, his love as well as his justice, we are like the man with the twisted spine. Everything is difficult for us. We can’t digest His word properly. We can’t connect with each other. We are truly isolated. The world is upside down when we don’t see as God sees, loves as God loves, serve as God serves. We are not fully functioning until we surrender our will to the will of God and the will of God is inextricably connected with the Church. Jesus wants to touch each one of us. He wants to bring healing to our minds, hearts, bodies and souls and bring about a unity in our entire Church family. He can do this for us through the sacraments of His Church. What a great gift we have in the sacraments! I hope and pray that my classmates will see Christ’s love shining through me as I try to be true to Him by loving and defending His Church. May His life and love flow through us all so that we can stand up straight when we meet him face to face and He will say “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
