I was thinking recently about all of those times in my life when someone has confronted me about a behavior of mine that was leading me astray in some way. Speaking up when you see a loved one headed in the wrong direction is a spiritual work of mercy, and boy am I thankful to have received that kind of mercy a few times in my life. The theological term for the spiritual work of mercy that corrects someone going astray is “admonish sinners” (and there are some good guidelines to follow before we start making lists of who needs our mercy next:).
Admonishing sinners is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage and real love to first discern that kind of action, and then to carry it out. It takes the kind of love that can handle a bad reaction. I think about all of those times in my life that someone has spoken up about something to me and I have responded with anger, irritation, or self-righteousness (even if I kept those thoughts to myself at the time). But I responded to those confrontations in that way because, deep down, I knew they were right.
Feelings of disquiet, remorse and confusion will bite and nag at us when there is something we are choosing to do that is not of God. St. Ignatius wrote about how a spiritual desolation with those kinds of feelings can be given to us by God when we are not fully orienting our lives toward Him.
Self-awareness and grace have always brought about forgiveness when I’ve felt hurt by a “speak up” person. I can see now that it took years for the seed sown in of some of my “speak up” experiences to blossom in my soul, but at other times I really had a near-instant change of heart.
Recollection is so important for the spiritual life. For me, one of the greatest gifts of looking back through my life so far in a recollected way is that I see some of the ways that God has used others to steer me toward Himself. My hope today is that by me sharing a few of the “speak up” experiences in my life, you will be inspired to recognize some similar experiences of God’s work in your life.
Pure Speech
In sixth or seventh grade, I went through a phase where I was desperate to act cool. For whatever reason, I decided that cursing sounded cool, and so I started cursing up quite a storm (but only at school, because at home that wouldn’t have gone over well). I remember exactly where I was on campus the day that my friend Sarah stopped me out of the blue at recess and said something to me about it. She asked me how I could let curse words come out of the same mouth that received the Eucharist and prayed to God. All I remember is that I suddenly felt very foolish and very ashamed. And kind of amazed that those powerful words had come out of the mouth of a seventh grade girl. I thought, What does she know and feel about God that I don’t? That was the day I stopped cursing. I pray often that my children will have friends like Sarah.
Modesty and Charity
Sometime in the first few months of dating Michael, we were getting into his car to go somewhere when he shyly, but firmly, said something very unexpected. He said, “I was wondering if you would please not wear that skirt around me anymore. It’s really short and I’ve actually seen your underwear a couple of times getting in and out of cars and chairs and stuff.” After my initial feelings of embarrassment and a flash of anger, thankfulness and joy flew into my heart on wings of grace. If I didn’t already know I was going to marry this guy, I knew I wanted to then.
We had been reading and listening to some CDs about this “new stuff” called the Theology of the Body. I was thrilled to bits about all of the things we were learning, and I talk-talk-talked his ear off about it all the time, but that one “speak up” moment of his showed me that he, too, had been listening and letting God work on his soul. Michael bravely and unknowingly taught me in that moment about the link between modesty and charity. I could help him be the man he was trying to be.
Avoiding the Near Occasion of Sin
Michael and I had just returned home from our first summer at camp. We were spending a lot of time together, since we had not seen each other daily over the summer (we had mostly written letters and spent our days off together since we worked at the boys’ camp and I worked at the girls’ camp). Spending a lot of time together quickly evolved into me staying later and later over at his apartment every night. A few weeks into the semester, my roommate Lacey confronted me gently one morning after I came home at 3am. “Erin,” she said, “I know what kind of girl you are and what you want for your relationship with Michael. I’m worried about you.” She was right. So, so right.
Things had been quickly progressing toward a place where Michael and I didn’t want to go, but were giving ourselves plenty of near occasion to go. I hated the fact that Lacey had noticed me slipping and had said something. It took me a few days, but I put my love-struck head back on straight and was soon grateful for what she said. I went to confession sometime after this episode, and the part in the Act of Contrition about “avoiding the near occasion of sin” jumped out at me as I said it. Staying late at my boyfriend’s apartment and watching movies alone with him often was giving us plenty of “near occasions” and temptation to go physically where we didn’t want to go.
“Have you been going to mass?”
The fall semester of my freshman year of college, I was overwhelmed with starting college and with what I had experienced over the summer modeling in New York. Going to Sunday mass alone for the first time in my life quickly had led to a lack of desire to go. I was in that stage of young adulthood when I hadn’t really chosen and internalized my faith yet–it was more of an environmental given, a routine. I had stopped attending mass while I was in New York (mostly because it was intimidating to figure out how to get to the nearest one by myself), and then I found myself attending mass less and less once the school semester started up back at LSU. At some point that fall, my dad called to see how I was doing. He asked me at one point in the conversation if I was going to mass. I was surprised by that. I think I lied to him at the time and said that I was. His question stuck with me.
I went back to New York over my five-week winter break after Christmas. I remembered that my dad was hoping I would go to mass, and so I did. I looked up the nearest church in the phone book and trudged out through the cold streets to find it. It was a big effort for me, still new to the city and learning how to find my way around. I made it just in time for mass. It was at that mass that it hit me for the first time how amazing and telling it was that the Catholic Church was the same in every Catholic Church around the world, and had the same teachings and liturgy all the way back to the time of Jesus. My parents were listening to the same readings that I was listening to. I was receiving the same Eucharist that people in Nigeria, or China, or Mexico, were receiving. College students enjoying new-found freedom sometimes don’t like to have someone checking up on them, but I’m so glad my dad did.
“Do You Really Know What the Church Teaches about That?”
In college, I had signed up with Michael and some other friends to work a popular Catholic high school retreat. The staff application for the retreat was lengthy. I came to a page that had a list of questions that asked, “What do you believe about the Church’s teaching on ____?” For all but two of the questions, I wrote that I respected Church teaching. But there were two issues that I had issues of my own with at the time. And so I wrote down what I honestly thought about them.
The next weekend, at a training day for people staffing the retreat, the Retreat Director sat everyone down for a special talk. She said firmly and passionately that the Catholic Church taught what it taught for a reason, and that issues of life, death and morality were not matters of opinion. Have you really read and understood what the Church teaches on these issues, but more importantly why?” she asked us.
I had never had anyone challenge my well-intentioned opinions. I had always thought that my conscience would never lead me wrong. What that brave, spot-on Retreat Director did for me was challenge me to realize that I could not rely on a conscience that was not formed properly.I knew that the Church said “no” about certain things, but that was it. I didn’t know why it said no to those things. The why is so important in the Catholic faith, because once you understand the foundation of how we were created to relate to God and one another, then you don’t need the rules anymore. The rules are there until we learn the why’s–just like a toddler is told not to stick things in the electrical socket, or touch the hot stove. When we come to maturity as Christians who know who and Whose we are, we don’t need rules about birth control or abortion or in vitro fertilization or the death penalty. After the retreat, I started digging. I realized that my understanding of Church teaching on some big issues had contained some misinformation, vague notions, and opinions formed on a few personal experiences or over-simplified explanations of others.
Makeup Mortified
I’ll finish this post (and lighten it up a bit) with a special work of mercy I remember from my freshman year of high school. I was getting picked up for a dance when my mom ran to stop me on my way out the door. “You need to go wash your face, honey. Your foundation is way too dark for your face, and your eye makeup looks kind of clownish.” She didn’t really beat around the bush. I was mortified. And mad. And then thankful after I stomped dramatically back into the house, saw myself in the mirror, and scrubbed off everything but my mascara. I won’t say I haven’t had any more fashion or makeup flops since then, but I believe very strongly that Mom’s bluntness that day has saved me from myself many times over.
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