![From "should have been" to "exactly as it should be"]()
by Catherine | May 9, 2013 | Faith, Family
When we found out we were pregnant in August and due May 20, 2013, I started daydreaming about what May 2013 would look like. Mother’s Day would be a week before my due date, and our son, Walt, would turn 2 the day before my due date. May 2013 would be a month full of celebrations and excitement!
Daydreaming about Baby came to an abrupt end when that pregnancy ended in miscarriage in November. I was twelve weeks along when I started to miscarry, and I ended up having to have an emergency D&C from severe blood loss. We named the baby Thérèse (after St. Thérèse of Lisieux) since we thought she was a girl and thought of her as our own “Little Flower.”
Just as we were beginning to process our emotions, the grieving process was truncated when we found out a month to the day after we lost Thérèse that we were pregnant again. Of course, we were thrilled, but I lived in constant fear that we would lose that baby as well. A few episodes of bleeding and an incident around 11 weeks when my OBGYN couldn’t find Baby’s heartbeat on the doppler didn’t help matters! A few months later, I’m 25 weeks pregnant, and Baby is due August 17–just three months after Thérèse’s due date.
The pain of losing Thérèse is still very real, but it doesn’t take my breath away or reduce me to tears like it used to. During that in between month before we knew the kind of roller coaster ride God had in store for us, I experienced what I’m sure a lot of mothers who have suffered a miscarriage experience. I would be going about my day, trying to lose myself in the ordinariness of laundry, dishes, and changing diapers, and I’d get caught off guard–I’d receive a formula coupon in the mail, an e-mail saying how large my baby was compared to a vegetable, or a bill from the hospital from my emergency D&C. It was tempting to think about how things “should have been.”
I used to dread Thérèse’s due date and thought it would be one of those “I don’t know if I can get out of bed” days. Other moms that are due around Thérèse’s due date are having their babies. Instead of preparing to go into labor with Thérèse at any moment this Mother’s Day weekend, we arranged for her burial in November. We added “Baby Thérèse in heaven” to our family bedtime prayers, and I’m nearing the end of my second trimester with “New Baby.”
This “New Baby” in no way replaces Thérèse, but I’d be lying if I said getting pregnant so soon after losing Thérèse didn’t help with the healing process. I tell our family and friends that having our faith throughout this last year sometimes “feels like cheating.” Without our faith, I don’t know how we would explain the kind of pain we experienced. Instead of falling into despair and constantly thinking about how things should have been, we are confident that things are exactly as they should be. After all, if we believe what we say we believe as Christians, Omniscience knows what He’s doing, right?
Philip and I are confident that God wouldn’t take our precious baby Thérèse from us unless a greater good would come of it. Countless unexpected blessings have already come to fruition that never would have been possible had things gone how they “should have.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14 took on a whole new meaning in light of what we experienced with losing Thérèse.
“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
God knows well the plans He has for us, and I now know that they are plans for my welfare and not for woe. Sure, it hurt like heck when we found out in that ultrasound room that Thérèse had died, and I’ll never forget the emotional trauma of having to miscarry and have an emergency D&C, but I know God allowed it to happen so that I could become an even better wife and mother and bring other countless blessings to our family through it.
Now, we are doubly blessed. We get to have our precious baby Thérèse as our family saint interceding for us from heaven, and, God willing, we will get to meet “New Baby” in August. Obviously, I was excited to meet each of our babies with each pregnancy, but anticipating seeing “New Baby” face to face has a whole new level of drama. I simply cannot wait to look into the eyes of the baby that never would have been had things gone how they “should have” with Thérèse. Now that I know the pain of losing a child, I anticipate the opportunity to try my darnedest to love a baby the best I possibly can from his or her very first breath.
So, I’m not dreading Thérèse’s due date anymore, and I’m excited to celebrate Mother’s Day with our family exactly as it is. I’m sure Thérèse’s due date will be bittersweet when I think about wanting to hold her in my arms. By God’s grace, any sadness I feel will be softened when “New Baby” kicks and I remember that things are exactly as they should be–because He made it so.
 |
| From left to right: 23 weeks with Jane, 27 weeks with Walt, and 25 weeks with “New Baby” |
![From “should have been” to “exactly as it should be”]()
by Catherine | May 9, 2013 | Faith, Family
When we found out we were pregnant in August and due May 20, 2013, I started daydreaming about what May 2013 would look like. Mother’s Day would be a week before my due date, and our son, Walt, would turn 2 the day before my due date. May 2013 would be a month full of celebrations and excitement!
Daydreaming about Baby came to an abrupt end when that pregnancy ended in miscarriage in November. I was twelve weeks along when I started to miscarry, and I ended up having to have an emergency D&C from severe blood loss. We named the baby Thérèse (after St. Thérèse of Lisieux) since we thought she was a girl and thought of her as our own “Little Flower.”
Just as we were beginning to process our emotions, the grieving process was truncated when we found out a month to the day after we lost Thérèse that we were pregnant again. Of course, we were thrilled, but I lived in constant fear that we would lose that baby as well. A few episodes of bleeding and an incident around 11 weeks when my OBGYN couldn’t find Baby’s heartbeat on the doppler didn’t help matters! A few months later, I’m 25 weeks pregnant, and Baby is due August 17–just three months after Thérèse’s due date.
The pain of losing Thérèse is still very real, but it doesn’t take my breath away or reduce me to tears like it used to. During that in between month before we knew the kind of roller coaster ride God had in store for us, I experienced what I’m sure a lot of mothers who have suffered a miscarriage experience. I would be going about my day, trying to lose myself in the ordinariness of laundry, dishes, and changing diapers, and I’d get caught off guard–I’d receive a formula coupon in the mail, an e-mail saying how large my baby was compared to a vegetable, or a bill from the hospital from my emergency D&C. It was tempting to think about how things “should have been.”
I used to dread Thérèse’s due date and thought it would be one of those “I don’t know if I can get out of bed” days. Other moms that are due around Thérèse’s due date are having their babies. Instead of preparing to go into labor with Thérèse at any moment this Mother’s Day weekend, we arranged for her burial in November. We added “Baby Thérèse in heaven” to our family bedtime prayers, and I’m nearing the end of my second trimester with “New Baby.”
This “New Baby” in no way replaces Thérèse, but I’d be lying if I said getting pregnant so soon after losing Thérèse didn’t help with the healing process. I tell our family and friends that having our faith throughout this last year sometimes “feels like cheating.” Without our faith, I don’t know how we would explain the kind of pain we experienced. Instead of falling into despair and constantly thinking about how things should have been, we are confident that things are exactly as they should be. After all, if we believe what we say we believe as Christians, Omniscience knows what He’s doing, right?
Philip and I are confident that God wouldn’t take our precious baby Thérèse from us unless a greater good would come of it. Countless unexpected blessings have already come to fruition that never would have been possible had things gone how they “should have.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14 took on a whole new meaning in light of what we experienced with losing Thérèse.
“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
God knows well the plans He has for us, and I now know that they are plans for my welfare and not for woe. Sure, it hurt like heck when we found out in that ultrasound room that Thérèse had died, and I’ll never forget the emotional trauma of having to miscarry and have an emergency D&C, but I know God allowed it to happen so that I could become an even better wife and mother and bring other countless blessings to our family through it.
Now, we are doubly blessed. We get to have our precious baby Thérèse as our family saint interceding for us from heaven, and, God willing, we will get to meet “New Baby” in August. Obviously, I was excited to meet each of our babies with each pregnancy, but anticipating seeing “New Baby” face to face has a whole new level of drama. I simply cannot wait to look into the eyes of the baby that never would have been had things gone how they “should have” with Thérèse. Now that I know the pain of losing a child, I anticipate the opportunity to try my darnedest to love a baby the best I possibly can from his or her very first breath.
So, I’m not dreading Thérèse’s due date anymore, and I’m excited to celebrate Mother’s Day with our family exactly as it is. I’m sure Thérèse’s due date will be bittersweet when I think about wanting to hold her in my arms. By God’s grace, any sadness I feel will be softened when “New Baby” kicks and I remember that things are exactly as they should be–because He made it so.
|
| From left to right: 23 weeks with Jane, 27 weeks with Walt, and 25 weeks with “New Baby” |
![Game-Changing Book]()
by Catherine | Apr 22, 2013 | Faith
Have you ever read a book that changed your life? I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight have a tendency to embellish from time to time, but I finished reading a book two weeks ago that I’m calling a “game changer” in my life. The book is The Bible Compass: A Catholic’s Guide to Navigating the Scriptures by Dr. Edward Sri.
Despite being a cradle Catholic and having attended Catholic school for grades 1-12, I still had what Dr. Sri calls a “Humpty Dumpty” knowledge of Sacred Scripture. I knew the major players and the big stories, but I had noooooooooooo idea how they all fit together in the big picture of salvation history.
The Bible Compass is compact, hard-hitting, and simple enough for an everyday lay person like me to access. Dr. Sri wrote the book in 4 parts:
Part I – Divine Revelation: The Unveiling of God
Chapters 1-2: What it means when we say that the Bible is “inspired by God,” and how Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium all tie together. Without an understanding of how Catholics view the Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium as being inseparable, we cannot arrive at an authoritative interpretation of Sacred Scripture.
Part II – Five Keys For Interpreting Scripture Correctly
Dr. Sri explains how a Catholic uses the “five keys” for interpreting Scripture from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to make sure we’re reading with a Catholic lens. The five keys are:
- Discover the author’s intention
- Be attentive to the unity of Scripture
- Read Scripture within the Living Tradition of the Church
- Read Scripture within the symphony of God’s revelation
- Use the four senses of Scripture: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical (with descriptions of each)
Part III – Where Did the Bible Come From?
Chapter 8 discusses the creation of the New Testament Canon and the Gnostic “Gospels,” and Chapter 9 tackles why Catholic Bibles are bigger in a discussion of the Old Testament and the Deuterocanonical Books.
Part IV – Biblical Background
With the foundation from Parts I-III, the reader is ready to take on Part IV–the nuts and bolts background you need before actually delving in and reading Sacred Scripture. This was the part of the book where I underlined every other line, starred most paragraphs, and wrote notes in the margins. I would have bought the book just for Part IV!
- Chapter 10: Taking God at His Word: Is the Bible Trustworthy?
- Reading “literalistically” vs. literarily (“carefully examining the literary forms being used and seeking the author’s intention”), avoiding fundamentalism, science, history, and dealing with difficulties
- Chapter 11: The World of the Bible: Archaeology, Geography, and History
- “In order to understand better the words of the Bible, we must strive to learn more about the world of the Bible.” This section explores how studying archaeology, geography, and history reveal the context in which Sacred Scripture was written. This helps us as modern readers to use the “Five Keys” discussed in Part II.
- Chapter 12: Knowing God’s Story: The Twelve Periods of Biblical History
- Holy Cow! Hands down, this was my favorite part of the book! Dr. Sri uses the “narrative approach” to break down all of the books of Sacred Scripture into 12 periods to tell “the ‘big picture’ of salvation history–the overarching narrative from Adam to Christ and the Church.” Here’s the best part: in 6.5 pages, Dr. Sri briefly summarizes each of the 12 periods of salvation history and shows you how they all fit together. After spending ten minutes reading those pages, I felt like I knew more than all of my theology classes combined ever taught me about the Bible.
- If you think that is cool, then you should know that there is a Bible study called The Bible Timeline by Jeff Cavins (also published by Ascension Press) that uses to same narrative approach to delve even deeper into these same 12 periods of Biblical history. (If you don’t have the time to dedicate to that in-depth study, consider reading Walking With God by Jeff Cavins. I’d call it a “Cliff’s Notes” version of The Bible Timeline. I’m reading Walking With God now, and I’m about to start facilitating The Bible Timeline.) Awesome, awesome, awesome!
- Chapter 13: Getting Started: Translations, Resources, and Methods
- Translations: Not all translations are created equally, and different translation methods affect the reading
- Tools & Resources: Brief introduction and explanations of how different tools/resources such as concordances, Bible commentaries, Bible atlases, etc. enhance your reading of Scripture
- Methods: Brief overview of the 2 main categories of biblical criticism (historical criticism & literary analysis)
- Chapter 14: Lectio Divina: Praying Scripture
- An explanation on how to pray with Sacred Scripture so that it can penetrate your daily life. Dr. Sri introduces the four basic steps of Lectio Divina:
- reading
- meditation
- prayer
- contemplation
After reading The Bible Compass, I feel ready to start exploring Sacred Scripture through The Bible Timeline study. Without The Bible Compass, I know I would have felt very intimidated and overwhelmed. The Bible Compass gave me some very, very helpful tips and tools to access Scripture as a beginner and incorporate it into my daily prayer. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed and c
ompletely lost when it comes to reading the Bible, do yourself a favor and read The Bible Compass. It will give you direction (it has the word “compass” in the title, after all!) and confidence that you are reading God’s Word through the Church’s lens.
![Jane's Lunchtime Prayer]()
by Catherine | Apr 18, 2013 | Faith, Family
We took a little hiatus from daily Mass Wednesday and today because the kids have been overtired from a busy schedule. This morning, little Walt walked to me with arms outstretched, tears rolling down his cheeks, and asked, “Binkie? Night, night?” at 8:15! My kids definitely belong to me–they love their sleep! We plan to resume daily Mass on Monday. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing if I can tell a difference in their behavior at Mass this weekend with Philip.
About the time we started attending daily Mass, Jane started asking to pray for various people or things before saying the meal prayer. As I started to lead the meal prayer at lunch yesterday, she interrupted me.
“Mama? Can we pray for Jesus?”
“Of course,” I said. “What would you like to say?”
She thought for a few seconds. “OK. Dear Jesus, thank you for heaven.”
“Oh, Janie, that is a beautiful prayer! Is there anything else you’d like to say?”
She closed her eyes to think about it. Her eyes popped open. “Yes! Thank you for dying on the cross to save us. I am sorry you got all of those ouchies. I will kiss them to make them feel better. I will get you a band-aid. Amen!”
 |
| Jane and “The Child Jesus” statue in our parish courtyard |
No wonder Jesus insisted that his disciples let the children come to him. They love so purely and passionately, without seeking repayment or having an underlying agenda. They just love. Their prayers must be among his favorites.
![Jane’s Lunchtime Prayer]()
by Catherine | Apr 18, 2013 | Faith, Family
We took a little hiatus from daily Mass Wednesday and today because the kids have been overtired from a busy schedule. This morning, little Walt walked to me with arms outstretched, tears rolling down his cheeks, and asked, “Binkie? Night, night?” at 8:15! My kids definitely belong to me–they love their sleep! We plan to resume daily Mass on Monday. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing if I can tell a difference in their behavior at Mass this weekend with Philip.
About the time we started attending daily Mass, Jane started asking to pray for various people or things before saying the meal prayer. As I started to lead the meal prayer at lunch yesterday, she interrupted me.
“Mama? Can we pray for Jesus?”
“Of course,” I said. “What would you like to say?”
She thought for a few seconds. “OK. Dear Jesus, thank you for heaven.”
“Oh, Janie, that is a beautiful prayer! Is there anything else you’d like to say?”
She closed her eyes to think about it. Her eyes popped open. “Yes! Thank you for dying on the cross to save us. I am sorry you got all of those ouchies. I will kiss them to make them feel better. I will get you a band-aid. Amen!”
|
| Jane and “The Child Jesus” statue in our parish courtyard |
No wonder Jesus insisted that his disciples let the children come to him. They love so purely and passionately, without seeking repayment or having an underlying agenda. They just love. Their prayers must be among his favorites.
![Daily Mass Day 2 & True Love]()
by Catherine | Apr 10, 2013 | Faith, Family
I took the kids to 8:15 Mass for the second day in a row this morning. The church was jam-packed, standing-room only, so I ended up sitting with the kids in some chairs in the narthex. I told them that they had to stay on the rug or in their chairs. We had a few blunders (for example, Walt tried running to the altar after we returned from Communion), but for the most part, it was a pretty grace-filled morning of prayer with the kiddos.
We brought a few board books, and each kid got to bring one stuffed animal. Everything else stayed at home. They didn’t miss the extra bells and whistles one bit, and their behavior was actually better today.
I know you’re not supposed to be whipping your phone out at Mass, but I couldn’t resist capturing the sweet little ones “reading” so quietly–at least for that moment. We’ll ignore that Janie’s hymnal is upside down…
Here’s to hoping that Day 3 of daily Mass tomorrow goes just as well!
After Mass, we made our weekly grocery trip run. Each time we go to the grocery store, I bring two Oreo cookies (Double-Stuffed, of course) in a baggie. I tell the kids that they may each have one in the check-out if they are good listeners and do a good job of waiting. Here are the kids post-Oreo a few weeks ago. Walt’s crazy hair and the crumbs all over his face are killing me!
The kids did a great job at the store today, so I distributed the cookies as the cashier rang up our groceries. Like always, Walt snarfed his down in seconds, and Jane took her sweet time. When Walt realized that his cookie was gone, he started crying. Without skipping a beat, Jane split her cookie in two, handed half to Walt, and said, “Here ya go, Walt. I share with you.” The cashier and I looked at each other in amazement. She said, “Wow, I don’t think I could share my Oreo with someone else! Now that is true love!” Yup. It sure is.
