My Thorn in the Flesh - one among many

My family moved from northern Iowa to the southwest corner of the state during the summer before my senior year of high school.

I was angry with my parents for most of the 1981-82 school year. And that wasn't the only attitude problem I had that year.

I was one of three new students at Manning High School. The other two were two foreign exchange students from Kenya and Germany (as I recall).

Manning had a tradition. Foreign exchange students were featured in the school paper, encouraged to join every extracurricular activity, and they were automatically on the Homecoming Queen/King Court.

Students who moved to the Manning school district from another Iowa school district didn't receive the same treatment.

And I was green with envy.

I tried out for the flag team and made it. I auditioned for the school play and made it. But nothing could appease my jealousy. I was angry that I had to work for new friendships - not an easy task when one enters a new school as a senior. Friendships take time. Effort. But the student body laid down the welcoming mat for exchange students. Everyone wanted to be their friend.

It was a classic case of jealousy.

There are moments when I still wrestle with this emotion. Oh, I'm not as immature about it. I recognize the attitude when it comes along, and I offer my weakness up. I get on my knees and let the Holy Spirit get me rightly ordered before I have a chance to mess up the good thing He has going in me.

What is it that tempts me? Who are the foreign exchange students in my adult world? And what's the name of the school I've transferred to?

The school is the Catholic faith. The foreign exchange students are the former Protestant clergy and their wives who are featured on Catholic radio and television. The red carpet of Catholic publishing spreads out before them. As Catholic speakers, they are in high demand.

Protestant preachers' daughters and ex-wives of Protestant ministers . . . not so much.

I am ashamed of myself when these emotions enter my spiritual journey like a virus. I remind myself that it is not the temptation that is sinful . . . it is what I choose to do with it. It can be a moment of grace. Or it can be a sin against grace.

With God's help, I let it be an opportunity to identify with the little ones who live the Catholic faith with quiet, hidden tenacity and a heart for those who are even smaller and weaker and poorer. My heart finds this longing sweet with no bitter aftertaste.

That's when I realize that God has given me precisely the right amount of exposure. Just enough to use my talents. And no more, lest I forget the author of the journey and lose all that He has done.

My Thorn in the Flesh - one among many

Remains of the (School) Year

I have piles of stuff stacked all over my kitchen. My no-longer-fourth-grade-and-not-quite-fifth-grade daughter brought it all home yesterday. It's hard to know where to begin.

Of course, some of it should stay. Some of it is plain ol' trash. It is important to go about this process methodically, putting the "to keep" stuff in the right place and the "to throw" stuff in the trash.

It seems as though I have been doing this for four years - five actually. The process of conversion began a full year before I entered the Catholic Church.

But, initial conversion really is about sorting. We get to keep everything that is good. We simply have to find the right place for it. The Catechism is an essential guidebook for this. It's a little like having mom right there to help know what should stay and what should go and how to shelve the stuff that stays.

The good news for converts (and kids just out of school) is this: Only the trash gets put in the trash. For the converts, it's the stuff they don't really need anyway, the stuff that caused division and discord. Misinformation about Mary. Misunderstandings about the Communion of Saints. Confusion about sanctification and salvation.

But even with these things, the good and true parts are retained. Only the aversion, repulsion, and sketchy biases are purged.

The good stuff - we keep. And we even find wonderful places to display these things we have always treasured. The Holy Trinity has a place of honor, where we can see it and fully appreciate it. There is a perfect place for the truth about how we are saved by grace (yes, Catholics believe this). There is a well-lit pedestal for the great truths of the faith, things we have always loved and treasured. So much to keep. And getting rid of the debris, well, that is key to a proper appreciation for the stuff that really is worth keeping.

If you are in this wonderful yet confusing spot, my prayers are with you. Be encouraged, this process is worth every minute you give to it. Blessings!

Remains of the (School) Year

Unity in Baptism

When I became Catholic, I was asked one question regarding my baptism: Have you been baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? I was not asked my age at the time of baptism. I was not asked if I was baptized Presbyterian or Wesleyan or Baptist. I was not asked if someone sprinkled me, dunked me, or poured water over me. I was only asked if I had been baptized in the name of the Triune God.

In St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (4:5), we are told that there is one baptism. In the Gospel of Matthew (28:19), Jesus tells his disciples to “go into all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Since there is one baptism, and it had been done in the Name of the Triune God, there was no need to do it again. While it did not mean the Church and I were completely and perfectly One yet (as in one faith and one doctrine), it did mean that the miracle of unity had begun.

In the third chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, and Our Lord goes on to describe this new birth by saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

The Disciples called the crowds to baptism, and the people presented themselves to be baptized – they and their entire household with them. We see five references in the New Testament to the baptism of entire households (so that unity can encompass everyone under the roof). Peter baptized the household of Cornelius (Acts 11:14). In Philippi, Paul baptized the household of Lydia and the household of the jailer (Acts 16:15, 33). He also baptized the household of Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he refers to baptism of the household of Stephanas (1:16). Here’s something you may not realize – in the Greek, the word for household included everybody. Grandparent, parent, teen, child, and infant. It even included the servants and their families. Nowhere in the Bible does it turn away someone on account of age.

Through Baptism, we are born into the family, and we learn to walk and skip and run in the Spirit. We are taught “to preserve the unity,” by embracing the “One Body and One Sprit,” which we have because of our “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism; One God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:3-6).

Unity begins with baptism, it grows by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and it finds fullness in the arms of the Church.

(article by Denise Bossert first published by One Bread Lay Apostolate at http://www.1bread.catholic.org/)

Unity in Baptism