Each year on Mother's Day, my heart goes out to those who struggle with this holiday. Inspired by this column on "How to Widen Our Hearts On Mother's Day," I've gathered prayers from readers into a litany to be prayed at church or at home - to remember all the mothers. Feel free to adapt for use within your parish or congregation. Please simply credit the source: Copyright © 2019 Laura Kelly Fanucci, MotheringSpirit.com. Response: Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer. For women who long to be mothers.For all who desire to be married and raise a family.For all who are experiencing infertility. For all who are waiting to adopt or foster a child. For mothers who have lost a baby.For all who have suffered a miscarriage.For all who lost a child to stillbirth or SIDS. For all whose baby died after birth. For mothers whose children have died.For all whose children died in infancy, childhood, or adolescence.For all who mourn their young adult or adult children.For all … [Read more...] about a prayer for mother’s day
community
do this in memory of me
If a word is mysterious and also a mouthful, it’s sure to become my favorite. When I heard “anamnesis” for the first time, I was sparked. The concept is deceptively simple. By calling to mind the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ (as Catholics do at Mass in each Eucharistic prayer), we enter into these mysteries of salvation. Let me put this more simply and shockingly: we do not simply remember, in a past, passive way. We participate in a present, palpable reality. Memory is a powerful, potent process. We return in our minds to a time and place that is not here and now. We sift through the impressions of experience, in constant conversation with the changes that have happened since. Beyond mere recollection, memory is the deeper imprinting of what mattered in the past that we carry with us into the future. In Catholic theology, memory is an act of prayer, faith, and transformation. Celebrating communion is not a memory of the Last Supper; it is a participation in … [Read more...] about do this in memory of me
hearts of flesh & hearts of stone
He and I stare down at the freshly laid gravestone, edged by spring-green grass. "When people come into our office for this," he trails off, shielding his eyes from the morning sunshine, his weathered face suddenly young in disbelief. "It's the absolute worst when this happens," he shakes his head, unable to speak the words "baby" or "dead" in the same sentence. I nod. I can say anything; I have already baffled him with my sunny cheer, interrupting his silent, solitary task by jumping out of a minivan full of (living) children to ask if this was my daughters' gravestone he was laying. When you start having a Strange Conversation with a Stranger, you can say anything and it is marvelously freeing. (It wasn't theirs; there is another baby buried next to them now; she lived two months; my mind calculates the math every time; dates are codes in this terrible club.) "It's not like Grandma who got 80, 90 years, lived a full life," he continues, waving a heavy hand toward his … [Read more...] about hearts of flesh & hearts of stone
holy anger
I'm mad. Spitting mad. Irate, outraged, furious, frustrated, livid, fuming. Angry doesn't have enough synonyms to sum up the fury I feel at the most recent sex abuse scandals to shake the Catholic Church. I can heap adjective upon adjective, yet everything falls flat in the face of depraved evil and systemic injustice. The men who perpetrated such heinous crimes and the men who covered them up have made a mockery of the church I love. I cannot stay silent. In the weeks since the news broke, nearly every Catholic I know has struggled to digest and respond to the sickening scope of evil in our midst. But when I turned to Scripture for help and hope, what I found was clear. Holy anger. "Putting away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil." (Ephesians 4:25-27) This Scripture leapt off the page on the night I read the … [Read more...] about holy anger
