7 Quick Takes

—1 —

I was in Living Faith yesterday. And here’s a post with photos to illustrate the point of that entry. 

— 2 —

Here’s a forthcoming book that looks great!

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

In this book, we walk the path of medieval science with a real-life guide, a fourteenth-century monk named John of Westwyk – inventor, astrologer, crusader – who was educated in England’s grandest monastery and exiled to a clifftop priory. Following the traces of his life, we learn to see the natural world through Brother John’s eyes: navigating by the stars, multiplying Roman numerals, curing disease and telling the time with an astrolabe.

We travel the length and breadth of England, from Saint Albans to Tynemouth, and venture far beyond the shores of Britain. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory.

An enthralling story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man and an extraordinary time, The Light Ages conjures up a vivid picture of the medieval world as we have never seen it before

Well, a bit overwrought, but if it enlightens folks, have at it!

Available in the US in November.

— 3 —

Speaking of books, as I mentioned before, I’ve been tracking my book sales since the Covid-soused pre-Easter plunge. (Tracking in the only way I can, through the metric Amazon provides authors, which tracks…something. I really have no idea what. I think it’s more than Amazon sales, but I’m not sure).

The cratering reached its worst point the last week of April, when sales this year were about a tenth of what they were last year. Maybe an eighth. No First Communions, no Confirmations, not much Easter visiting and associated gifting from grannies. This year’s sales lagged behind last’s until the second week of May when the tables began to turn.

All summer, slowly but surely, this year’s sales started to surpass last year’s. By mid-summer this year’s cumulative sales of all my titles (as recorded by this metric) were regularly double or triple what they were last year each week.

It’s interesting to me because it’s my way of tracking parish life – obviously what was happening was that parishes were slowly opening back up and beginning to celebrate these sacramental milestones again. And then, as summer waned, folks started looking for religious education materials and supplements. This week’s big sellers were Prove It God, Prove it Prayer (both with sales about ten times the usual – it seems to me that they were required by some classes or schools) and the book of Heroes (sales 7 x what they were the same week last year) and Sign and Symbols (3 x this week last year).

It’s fascinating because at this rate, my sales during this six month royalty period are probably, after a disastrous start, going to even out and end up being commensurate with last year’s.

As I said, it’s mostly interesting to me as a sort-of concrete way to “measure” Catholic parish and catechetical life in these very weird times.

And guess what – you don’t even have to pay a dime for this title!

Mary Magdalene: Truth, Legends and Lies – normally priced at an exorbitant .99 – is absolutely, positively free through Saturday midnight.

Pretty exciting stuff, all around.

— 4 —

Speaking of Catholic parishes and the pandemic, if you know of a parish that’s truly worked hard to serve the needs of its people and the community during this time – nominate them to be recognized for this! Here’s an article about the effort, and here’s the site.

— 5 –

Yes, there’s good news out here in Catholic land – I’ve tried to highlight some local parishes that I believe have really stepped up – but I also will co-sign Phil Lawler’s stance here:

As much as I applaud him for bringing our Eucharistic Lord out onto the streets of the city…

As much as I thank him for taking the lead (when so many other prelates remain silent) in insisting that religious worship is “essential activity”…

As fully as I agree with him that the response from city officials—or rather, their failure to make any response—is an insult to Catholics…

Still I wonder: If the archbishop thinks that the city’s restrictions are unreasonable—if he thinks that it would be safe to celebrate Mass for a larger congregation in the city’s cathedral—why doesn’t he take the obvious action? Why doesn’t he go into his own cathedral, invite the public, and celebrate Mass?

Before I go any further let me emphasize that I do not mean to single out Archbishop Cordileone for criticism here. On the contrary, I mean to praise him. The question that I ask of him could apply, far more pointedly, to all the other bishops and priests who have meekly accepted unreasonable restrictions on the administration of the sacraments—to the bishops and priests who have not raised public objections, have not mobilized the faithful, have not organized Eucharistic processions.

Give Archbishop Cordileone full credit for speaking truth to power: for telling the faithful who joined him last Sunday outside the cathedral that city officials “are mocking you, and even worse, they are mocking God.” Credit him, too, for the public campaign that has urged faithful Catholics to call San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed, and has already raised 17,000 signatures on a petition “asking the City of San Francisco to free the Mass.

But again: Why ask city officials to “free” the Mass? There is only one man who has the rightful authority to restrict and regulate the liturgy of the Catholic Church in San Francisco, and his name is Cordileone. If he wants to celebrate Mass for the public in his cathedral, he can do it.

But wait, you say. He can’t celebrate Mass for the public in his cathedral. It would be against the law.

To which I respond: what law?

— 6 —

Looking for a movie to watch or argue about? Check out Movie/Writer Son’s “Definitive Ranking of David Lean Films” here.

David Lean was a great filmmaker who grew up in the British studio system preceding the outbreak of World War II and became a director, hitched to Noel Coward, during the conflict. After working directly with Coward for four films, he broke out on his own and became one of the most important British filmmakers. His great epics tend to overshadow his smaller films, some of which are pretty much just as great, and that’s really why I do these exercises of running through entire filmographies.

Looking for a quick Halloween craft? Pick up this kit from my daughter’s Etsy shop!

— 7 —

Speaking of books, again – a few lists if you are poking around for something to read either now or in the future.

Micah Mattix’s ongoing bookshop of interesting forthcoming titles.

Looking backwards, the #1956Club – from my favorite “The Neglected Book Page”

For about five years now, Karen Langley (Kaggsy of Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambles) and Simon Thomas (of Stuck in a Book) have instigated a semi-annual event in which people around the world take a week to read and write about books published during a particular year. The next round, coming up the week of 5-11 October, will look at books from the year 1956.

1956 was a terrific year for what I might call good but not stuffily great books. Perhaps the best example is Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond, which won her the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and which is much loved for the spirit embodied in its opening line: “‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” This was Macaulay’s last novel; also appearing in 1956 is Anthony Burgess’s first novel Time for a Tiger, the first book in his Malayan Trilogy.

To encourage folks to take advantage of the #1956Club while also discovering something beyond what’s readily available for instant download or overnight delivery, I’ve put together this list of 10 long-forgotten and out of print books from 1956.

Go here for the list.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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St. Peter Claver – September 8

“No life, except the life of Christ, has so moved me as that of St. Peter Claver.”

–Pope Leo XIII

A statue of Peter Claver and a slave in Cartagena. This is a very good introduction, from a Cartagena page. 

He’s in the Loyola Kids Book of Saints.

BTW, link does not go to Amazon, but to the publisher’s page, where you can find links to all the Loyola Kids books that I and others have written and still others have beautifully designed and illustrated.

Here’s the entry. Mostly so I can experiment with this new editor.

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• 

• 

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If you’re ever in Cartegena…from Lonely Planet:

This convent was founded by Jesuits in the first half of the 17th century, originally as San Ignacio de Loyola. The name was later changed in honor of Spanish-born monk Pedro Claver (1580–1654), who lived and died in the convent. Called the ‘Apostle of the Blacks’ or the ‘Slave of the Slaves,’ the monk spent all his life ministering to the enslaved people brought from Africa. He was the first person to be canonized in the New World (in 1888).

The convent is a monumental three-story building surrounding a tree-filled courtyard, and much of it is open as a museum. Exhibits include religious art and pre-Columbian ceramics, and a new section devoted to Afro-Caribbean contemporary pieces includes wonderful Haitian paintings and African masks.

You can visit the cell where San Pedro Claver lived and died in the convent, and also climb a narrow staircase to the choir loft of the adjacent church…. The church has an imposing stone facade, and inside there are fine stained-glass windows and a high altar made of Italian marble. The remains of San Pedro Claver are kept in a glass coffin in the altar. His skull is visible, making it an altar with a difference.

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Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Today’s her feastday. 

Pope Francis’ homily at her canonization:

Following Jesus is a serious task, and, at the same time, one filled with joy; it takes a certain daring and courage to recognize the divine Master in the poorest of the poor and to give oneself in their service.  In order to do so, volunteers, who out of love of Jesus serve the poor and the needy, do not expect any thanks or recompense; rather they renounce all this because they have discovered true love.  Just as the Lord has come to meet me and has stooped down to my level in my hour of need, so too do I go to meet him, bending low before those who have lost faith or who live as though God did not exist, before young people without values or ideals, before families in crisis, before the ill and the imprisoned, before refugees and immigrants, before the weak and defenceless in body and spirit, before abandoned children, before the elderly who are on their own.  Wherever someone is reaching out, asking for a helping hand in order to get up, this is where our presence – and the presence of the Church which sustains and offers hope – must be.

Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded.  She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”.   She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created.  For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” which gave flavour to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.

St. Teresa is in The Loyola Kids Book of Heroes. You can read most of the entry here, at the Loyola site – they have a great section on saints’ stories arranged according to the calendar year. Some of the stories they have posted are from my books, some from other Loyola Press saints’ books.

When we think about the difference that love can make, many people very often think of one person: Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A tiny woman, just under five feet tall, with no tools except prayer, love, and the unique qualities God had given her, Mother Teresa is probably the most powerful symbol of the virtue of charity for people today.

Mother Teresa wasn’t, of course, born with that name. Her parents named her Agnes—or Gonxha in her own language—when she was born to them in Albania, a country north of Greece.

Agnes was one of four children. Her childhood was a busy, ordinary one. Although Agnes was very interested in missionary work around the world, as a child she didn’t really think about becoming a nun; but when she turned 18, she felt that God was beginning to tug at her heart, to call her, asking her to follow him.

Now Agnes, like all of us, had a choice. She could have ignored the tug on her heart. She could have filled her life up with other things so maybe she wouldn’t hear God’s call. But of course, she didn’t do that. She listened and followed, joining a religious order called the Sisters of Loreto, who were based in Dublin, Ireland.

Years ago,  when the excerpts from Mother Teresa’s journal detailing her “dark night” were published, I wrote several posts. All have links to other commentary.

The first is here.  One of the articles I linked there was this 2003 First Things piece.

A second post, in which I wrote:

My first post on the story of Mother Teresa’s decades-long struggle with spiritual darkness struck some as “dismissive,” and for that I apologize. That particular reaction was against the press coverage – not the Time article, but the subsequent filtering that I just knew would be picked up as a shocking new revelation and used by two groups to promote their own agendas: professional atheists (per the Hitchens reaction in the Time piece itself) and fundamentalist Protestants, who would take her lack of “blessed assurance” emotions as a sure sign that Catholicism was, indeed, far from being Christian.  Michael Spencer at Internet Monk had to issue a warning to his commentors on his Mother Teresa post, for example, that he wouldn’t be posting comments declaring that Roman Catholics weren’t Christian.

So that was my point in the “not news” remark. Because the simple fact of the dark night isn’t – not in terms of Mother Teresa herself or in terms of Catholic understanding and experience of spirituality.  It is very good that this book and the coverage has made this more widely known to people who were previously unaware of either the specifics or the general, and it is one more gift of Mother Teresa to the world, a gift she gave out of her own tremendous suffering. What strikes me is once again, at its best, taken as a whole, how honest Catholicism is about life, and our life with God. There is all of this room within Catholicism for every human experience of God, with no attempt to gloss over it or try to force every individual’s experience into a single mold of emotion or reaction.

In that post, I linked to Anthony Esolen at Touchstone:

Dubiety is inseparable from the human condition.  We must waver, because our knowledge comes to us piecemeal, sequentially, in time, mixed up with the static of sense impressions that lead us both toward and away from the truth we try to behold steadily.  The truths of faith are more certain than the truths arrived by rational deduction, says Aquinas, because the revealer of those truths speaks with ultimate authority, but they are less certain subjectively, from the point of view of the finite human being who receives them yet who does not, on earth, see them with the same clarity as one sees a tree or a stone or a brook.  It should give us Christians pause to consider that when Christ took upon himself our mortal flesh, he subjected himself to that same condition.  He did not doubt; His faith was steadfast; yet He did feel, at that most painful of moments upon the Cross, what it was like to be abandoned by God.  He was one with us even in that desert, a desert of suffering and love.  Nor did the Gospel writers — those same whom the world accuses on Monday of perpetrating the most ingenious literary and theological hoax in history, and on Tuesday of being dimwitted and ignorant fishermen, easily suggestible — refuse to tell us of that moment.

     In her love of Christ — and the world does not understand Christ, and is not too bright about love, either — Mother Teresa did not merely take up His cross and follow him.  She was nailed to that Cross with him. 

Another post with more links to commentary.

And one more.

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7 Quick Takes

—1 —

Okay guys, this might be rough. As I mentioned yesterday, WordPress has forced a new editor on us, and it’s definitely one of those things of:

We’re giving you this intuitive process…

That isn’t intuitive to me at all.

Perhaps I’ll get used to it, but I am currently finding it weird and I resent it. So. This might be short.

— 2 —

Here’s a link to all my Yellowstone/Grand Teton posts which, as per usual, feels like a trip that was a lifetime ago.

— 3 —

So yes, we returned Friday night – all flights went smoothly. I will say that flights to and from Jackson (WY) were PACKED. I received a few emails over the course of last week asking me to change my flight, but I declined. There wasn’t an empty seat on either of those flights. The BHM-Dallas and Dallas BHM flights were considerably less crowded. But …yeah.

And everyone was very nice, and everyone was, of course, masked, with the not-so-subtle threat that “if you argue with us you probably won’t ever fly American again.” Which, given my past experience with them was not actually much of a threat, but hey, I paid for these tickets with miles, so whatever.

— 4 —

Progress report on the new editor. I think I get it. But I don’t like it.

So anyway, the week since has been all about Starting School For Real, getting updates from College Kid on the shifting sands of his place, and music, specifically, not one, but two funerals.

Hey! An advantage of being homeschooled! Your friends may be at school, sitting in class together, walking single file down the hall in their masks, but you can, instead, attend funerals every day.

Okay, two days.

— 5 –

School:

• Algebra 2 tutoring resumed. We’d begun, casually, over the summer, but will be more focused now.
• Chemistry class doesn’t start until next week.
• Latin: Started chapter 4 of Latin for the New Millenium 2 . Perfect and Pluperfect Subjunctive or some such rot.
• History: He’s on his own, doing this thing. Focusing on Ancient Greeks at the moment.
• Religion: Chapter 1 of the vintage textbook below, along with a pdf of the five proofs for the existence of God, and a viewing of one of the excellent Dominican House of Studies Aquinas 101 videos. This one.
• Also religion, this week: When you are the Teachable Moment Mom, yes, you take advantage of the student playing at not one, but two funerals to teach him about the symbolism in the Catholic funeral liturgy and what it says about both Catholic teaching on death and on baptism. So yeah, there’s that.
• Literature: I’m taking hold of this one, and guiding him through American Literature. Made out a syllabus for the month and everything. Using the two textbooks seen below, plus handouts, plus novels – The Scarlet Letter for September. This week, he read several readings from European explorers (Verazzano, de Vaca, Champlain) and will start with Colonial North America (Smith, Bradford, Winthrop, Bradstreet, etc. ) next week.

Process with the humanities: mostly reading and discussion, with him having to do a weekly written notemaking/assessment type of thing – of just whatever strikes him, in any way.

This week has been a little wacky because of the funerals, which took up two whole mornings. I don’t think that’s going to happen again any time soon.

Also every day: biking with his friends around town, banging on guitars and a bit of video gaming.

• 

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— 6 –

From Atlas Obscura:

As in many, maybe all, matters of Jewish law, the exact meaning of this rule has been debated for centuries. At times, Jewish leaders (and leaders of other religions) have advised artists to avoid any representation of human figures. At other times this scriptural stricture is interpreted more loosely. But in the early 14th century, it resulted in a remarkable illuminated manuscript that illustrates the story of Exodus without ever showing a human face.

Some of the figures simply have empty circles where their faces would be. But others, the ones representing Jewish characters in particular, have bird-like heads and human bodies. It is “the earliest surviving example of the phenomenon of the obfuscation of the human face,” scholar Marc Michael Epstein writes in his book Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts, and it’s a mystery. Why did the artist choose these avian heads? And what do they mean?

— 7 —

I actually did some cooking this week. I got myself out to the Asian grocery store and finally figured out what the Thai Basil was as well as some other ingredients, and came back and made a couple of things:

This (used skirt steak) and this. (I used pork instead of beef in this one – boneless “country style rib” meat – which turned out to be fabulous in the recipe.)

Well, neither call for Thai Basil, but I used it anyway. (I got it because I had tried to make Thai Drunken Noodles several months ago without it, but it was not, as they say, a success. But I didn’t make Drunken Noodles this time…I just used the basil in other..recipes…never mind.)

Also, may I say something about dumplings? Perhaps you live in an area in which you can find good frozen Asian dumplings in your regular grocery store, but if you don’t, and if you have a good Asian grocery store – go there, and buy bags of dumplings and fix them just as the package suggests, and you won’t ever spend $$$ on dumplings in a restaurant again unless you can actually see them being hand made. I’m sure 90% of restaurants simply used the frozen ones, just as with egg rolls.

This is what I’ve been buying.

Oh, and speaking of restaurants?

Drew Talbert on Instagram. (Or Tik Tok, if that’s you’re thing)

That is all. Insanely talented.

Okay, that’s enough learning curve for today. I don’t think I hate it. Much.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Yellowstone and Grand Teton: Why, How and Where

 

Friday morning here in Jackson, WY, so let’s summarize this trip, and link it all up so when I get home I can focus on the work that calls and pays.

When:  August 19-28, 2020

Where: Flying back and forth from Birmingham, Alabama to Jackson, Wyoming. American Airlines. Tickets purchased with miles about a month before departure.

Why: Never been. It was a place we could, indeed, get to, using only miles to pay for tickets. It’s Covid Time, and cities are just not good destinations for travel for a myriad of reasons.

General Itinerary: 

August 19-22: Fly from BHM to Jackson, landing about 6:30 pm. Drive to Colter Bay in the Grand Teton National Park.

August 22-24: Old Faithful area: Old Faithful Snow Lodge

August 24-27: Mammoth Hot Springs area: Hillcrest Cottages, Gardiner, MT.

August 27: Drive back to Jackson

August 28: Fly from JAC to BHM.

I think that was just about the right amount of time. We probably could have cut out a day, but I appreciated not having to rush, not feeling as if we had to “get it all in” in a compressed amount of time.

Accommodations:

All were very clean. No one is doing complete daily housekeeping for multi-day stays, which is fine with me. Of course anything you need is provided on request.

Colter Bay Village Cabin: Vintage cabin, very nicely redone inside. No fridge or microwave. Very nice area with complete services, all food take-out, which was fine, since it was a picnic-like area anyway. Best official gift shop I went into. Wi-fi: None in cabins, but available at every office, gift shop and laundry area. Good speed, even while sitting outside.

Old Faithful Snow Lodge Cabin: Roomy, very clean, fridge, no microwave. Of course, easy walk to Old Faithful geyser features. Some food on the property – the best was the Cafeteria at the Old Faithful Lodge. Wi-fi: none in individual rooms or cabins. Available in main hotel lobby, super slow.

Hillcrest Cottage, Gardiner MT:  Vintage guest cottages, a little worn on the exterior, super clean. Kitchenette, with stovetop, microwave and fridge. Towels changed and trash emptied daily. Super fast wi-fi in cottages. Walking distance to everything you need in Gardiner.

Here’s the more detailed itinerary, with links to posts:

August 19: Travel day, first bison sighting. Arrival in Colter Bay.

August 20: Hermitage Trail at Colter Bay in GTNP, canoeing on Lake Jackson, dinner in Jackson, initial exploration of Jenny Lake.

August 21: Hike to Inspiration Point at Jenny Lake, then a chunk of the Cascade Canyon Trail, Signal Mountain overlook.

August 22: Leave Colter Bay, go on to Yellowstone. West Thumb area, Kepler Cascades, two Old Faithful eruptions, one from ground level, the other from a viewpoint on a nearby hillside; Black Sand geyser area; Grand Prismatic Spring from ground level.

August 23:  Biking in Yellowstone; Drive to Firehouse River; Paintpots: Hike to Grand Prismatic Spring overlook.

August 24: Check out of Old Faithful Snow Lodge, on the way north.  Norris Geyser area. Stop in Canyon Village, then most viewpoints of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and then a few thermal features to the south. Back north, arrive in Gardiner, MT, check into Hillcrest Cottages

August 25: Mammoth Hot Springs, various trails in the area.

August 26: Day of driving towards the northeast entrance to the park, through the Lamar Valley. Many bison, riverside picnic lunch, fairly strenuous hike on part of the Hellroaring trail, to the suspension bridge.

August 27: Check out of cottage, drive to Jackson through West Yellowstone because of road closures. Check into Jackson hotel, then back up to Jenny Lake for a hike partway around the lake, then to Moose Ponds and Hidden Falls. Seen: deer, moose, bear.

August 28: Fly back to BHM!

Conclusions:

Beautiful, fascinating, a treasure. I’m grateful for all those late 19th century folks who worked hard to prevent exploitation and development of the area.

I’d like to come back. I’d like to bring College Kid, who is not into hiking, but would definitely appreciate the geothermal features and wildlife and awesome views. I’d like to do more hiking in the Grand Tetons. Kid #5 would like to explore other corners of the park and of course would like to mountain bike where he can, but I keep telling him – he has two more years until he’s 18, and so he can save all that for then if he keeps working and saves his money.

Practical Conclusions and sort-of-advice on random things: 

Basically:

GET UP EARLY AND DO THINGS EARLY. 

Or – I’ll add – late in the afternoon.

Mid-day, parking at popular features becomes impossible and ends up eating a lot of time. I mean, if you have to spend a half-hour walking to the Norris Geyser area from your car and half an hour walking back, you’ve eaten up an hour of your day and tired yourself out just to commute, when you could use that energy for more interesting sights.

If at all possible – and I know it’s not possible for everyone – do what you can to see the most popular sights at any time other than mid-day (I’d say that means 11 am – 3 or so.)

Should you stay in the parks?

If you can, probably, although I’d say it’s less important for Grand Teton NP. I’m certainly glad we didn’t stay in Jackson for that chunk, but since it’s only half an hour from most of the more popular GTNP sights, it’s certainly doable.

But Yellowstone? I was very glad to be able to stay in the Old Faithful area, for it’s a long drive from, say, West Yellowstone down there. A pretty drive, but a long one. And to do that back and forth for, say, three days, would be tiring. And considering it’s not recommended to drive at night on park roads (and after seeing bison strolling down the road during the day, I see why), getting stuff done and scene in the most-busy time – the middle of the day – would be your default. Problem is there’s no camping at Old Faithful – but there is in other, closer areas in the park, so that might work for you.

I just think for all those central features in the park – Old Faithful, Norris, Canyon – staying in the park is better, if you can swing it, because you can hit them earlier and avoid crowds.

After this year, hopefully, too, things will be back to normal and there will be more accommodations actually open.

But for the north section of the park? Well, the Roosevelt Lodge is closed this year, and that seems to be a good place to stay, but for now, with that option off the table, I’d recommend staying – if you are wanting to see things in that area – in Gardiner MT, not at the Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge in the park, and for two reasons – there are lots of hotels in Gardiner, so you have more choices – and food. Especially this year, I’d imagine most people staying in Mammoth ended up going to Gardiner for most of their meals anyway, rather than one more take-out from lodge vendors.

And finally – my rule of travel and of life, in general. You can’t do or see everything. Don’t make that your goal, even if you know you’ll never be back in this specific place again. Take your own limitations into account, accept them, embrace them, be grateful for what you can do, and dive into the moment, where ever you are.

 

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7 Quick Takes from the Grand Tetons Again

—1 —

First, St. Augustine, who’s in the Loyola Kids Book o’ Saints, under “Saints are people who help us understand God.” The first two pages:

— 2 —

Secondly…well, we’re back. And about to be gone. So here’s what happened today.

We packed up and left Gardnier, WY, at the north end of the park, about 7:30. We were met at the Yellowstone entrance (which is right there) with the news that not only was the road I knew was closed still closed because of fires (between Old Faithful and West Thumb), but another road  – the alternate I’d been assuming would be our way out – was closed as well, because of an overturned gas-carrying 18-wheeler. That one, between Canyon and the lake (below is a campground map – first thing I grabbed – it’s the road between Canyon Village and “Fishing Bridge” campground.)

So here’s a map.

You can see the problem. There would be no way to get from Gardiner, in the north, to the South entrance, which then would get us on the road to Jackson. It was going to be a 3.5 hour drive, straight shot (you can’t go over 45 on most park roads), and we were planning to take our time and see things we’d missed and maybe take another look at some geysers.

But with that news, the route had to shift, didn’t it? Like, dramatically – out through West Yellowstone and out and over further west, then south through Idaho, to Jackson from the west. Adding not only distance, but time as well. Okay, champ, I’ll settle in to drive, you settle in to sleep.

And now is the part where I tell you that I just learned that as of 8am this morning that road between Old Faithful and West Thumb was opened. I don’t know why they didn’t know that at the entrance gate at 7:35, but it is what it is. No regrets. It’s fine – we saw some lovely sights along the way.

— 3 —

I shook traveling companion awake not long after departure to take in the Roaring Mountain – it used to emit this steam with a lot more force and noise (hence the name), but it’s still impressive.

After that – the drive to West Yellowstone is gorgeous, with stunning cliffsides lining the road.

Then….Idaho. So, new state! That means three new states added to our list with this trip, and I’ve now realized I’m up to 45. Only Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii remain.

It also means that one traveling companion awakened and learning where we were, it was a steady diet of Napoleon Dynamite quotations until the Tetons loomed into site again – and from the west, they are quite lovely. And we were delighted to see that we could, at last…actually see them, since the smoke from the fires further west had evidently dissipated.

— 4 —

Once over the pass, we took a slight detour into Teton Village, since I was curious what a ski village would look like. I’ve known folks who’ve traveled to the area to ski, and I confess my image of what that was wasn’t exactly what I saw, and not just because it’s summer. I guess I imagined something more bucolic and rural, not condos crammed at the base of a mountain. Huh. Well, it’s probably real nice in winter and obviously people like it, so they can have it.

On to Jackson, lunch, since it was a little early, wander around a bit, since it was still early, finally gain access to hotel.

This is not from our hotel, but from the balcony of a shop. See the arch? It’s elk antlers, and there’s more of the same on the square, and one at the entrance into the Jackson airport terminal, as well. 

— 5 –

Then back into the car and back up to Jenny Lake – about 30 miles north. We had hours of daylight left, so why not get in some more hiking to points we’d missed before? The route was partway around the lake to the Moose Pond trails – no moose where seen – there– and then up the rest of the way to where the boat had dropped us before, the starting point for hikes to Inspiration Point, Hidden Falls and then the Cascade Canyon trail, which we’d walked a good bit of on Friday, and greatly enjoyed.We decided the best use of our time would be to get up to Hidden Falls and then take the boat back to the other side. Which we did, getting back to the car by 7, back into Jackson by 8, then to dinner at Bubba’s Barbecue, which was excellent. 

— 6 –

And so…..animals today? Lots of elk, of course. Two does with their fawns crossing the road near the Visitor’s Center on this end of Grand Teton NP, and then, on the Jenny Lake hike…

— 7 —

And….

I think he was in the same spot 45 minutes later when we rode the boat across the lake, because I could see a group of folks on the trail there, looking down. For video, go to Instagram. 

As per usual, I’ll do a post– probably tomorrow, from the airport – describing our itinerary and accommodations choices, for anyone contemplating a similar trip.

Back to ordinary life very, very soon. But in these days, of course, “ordinary” is anything but….

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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St. Monica – August 27

St. Monica…because mothers will never miss a chance to think about St. Monica…

The best source? Her son, throughout the Confessions, but mostly in Book 9. 

Such things was I speaking, and even if not in this very manner, and these same words, yet, Lord, Thou knowest that in that day when we were speaking of these things, and this world with all its delights became, as we spake, contemptible to us, my mother said, “Son, for mine own part I have no further delight in any thing in this life. What I do here any longer, and to what I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are accomplished. One thing there was for which I desired to linger for a while in this life, that I might see thee a Catholic Christian before I died. My God hath done this for me more abundantly, that I should now see thee withal, despising earthly happiness, become His servant: what do I here?”

What answer I made her unto these things, I remember not. For scarce five days after, or not much more, she fell sick of a fever; and in that sickness one day she fell into a swoon, and was for a while withdrawn from these visible things. We hastened round her; but she was soon brought back to her senses; and looking on me and my brother standing by her, said to us enquiringly, “Where was I?” And then looking fixedly on us, with grief amazed: “Here,” saith she, “shall you bury your mother.” I held my peace and refrained weeping; but my brother spake something, wishing for her, as the happier lot, that she might die, not in a strange place, but in her own land. Whereat, she with anxious look, checking him with her eyes, for that he still savoured such things, and then looking upon me: “Behold,” saith she, “what he saith”: and soon after to us both, “Lay,” she saith, “this body any where; let not the care for that any way disquiet you: this only I request, that you would remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you be.” And having delivered this sentiment in what words she could, she held her peace, being exercised by her growing sickness.

But I, considering Thy gifts, Thou unseen God, which Thou instillest into the hearts of Thy faithful ones, whence wondrous fruits do spring, did rejoice and give thanks to Thee, recalling what I before knew, how careful and anxious she had ever been as to her place of burial, which she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband. For because they had lived in great harmony together, she also wished (so little can the human mind embrace things divine) to have this addition to that happiness, and to have it remembered among men, that after her pilgrimage beyond the seas, what was earthly of this united pair had been permitted to be united beneath the same earth. But when this emptiness had through the fulness of Thy goodness begun to cease in her heart, I knew not, and rejoiced admiring what she had so disclosed to me; though indeed in that our discourse also in the window, when she said, “What do I here any longer?” there appeared no desire of dying in her own country. I heard afterwards also, that when we were now at Ostia, she with a mother’s confidence, when I was absent, one day discoursed with certain of my friends about the contempt of this life, and the blessing of death: and when they were amazed at such courage which Thou hadst given to a woman, and asked, “Whether she were not afraid to leave her body so far from her own city?” she replied, “Nothing is far to God; nor was it to be feared lest at the end of the world, He should not recognise whence He were to raise me up.” On the ninth day then of her sickness, and the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the three-and-thirtieth of mine, was that religious and holy soul freed from the body.

Benedict XVI, from 2006, sums it all up:

Today, 27 August, we commemorate St Monica and tomorrow we will be commemorating St Augustine, her son: their witnesses can be of great comfort and help to so many families also in our time.

Monica, who was born into a Christian family at Tagaste, today Souk-Aharàs in Algeria, lived her mission as a wife and mother in an exemplary way, helping her husband Patricius to discover the beauty of faith in Christ and the power of evangelical love, which can overcome evil with good.

After his premature death, Monica courageously devoted herself to caring for her three children, including Augustine, who initially caused her suffering with his somewhat rebellious temperament. As Augustine himself was to say, his mother gave birth to him twice; the second  time  required  a  lengthy  spiritual travail of prayers and tears, but it was crowned at last with the joy of seeing him not only embrace the faith and receive Baptism, but also dedicate himself without reserve to the service of Christ.

How many difficulties there are also today in family relations and how many mothers are in anguish at seeing their children setting out on wrong paths! Monica, a woman whose faith was wise and sound, invites them not to lose heart but to persevere in their mission as wives and mothers, keeping firm their trust in God and clinging with perseverance to prayer.

As for Augustine, his whole life was a passionate search for the truth. In the end, not without a long inner torment, he found in Christ the ultimate and full meaning of his own life and of the whole of human history. In adolescence, attracted by earthly beauty, he “flung himself” upon it – as he himself confides (cf. Confessions, 10, 27-38) – with selfish and possessive behaviour that caused his pious mother great pain.

But through a toilsome journey and thanks also to her prayers, Augustine became always more open to the fullness of truth and love until his conversion, which happened in Milan under the guidance of the Bishop, St Ambrose.

He thus remained the model of the journey towards God, supreme Truth and supreme Good. “Late have I loved you”, he wrote in the famous book of the Confessions, “beauty, ever ancient and ever new, late have I loved you. You were within me and I was outside of you, and it was there that I sought you…. You were with me and I was not with you…. You called, you cried out, you pierced my deafness. You shone, you struck me down, and you healed my blindness” (ibid.).

May St Augustine obtain the gift of a sincere and profound encounter with Christ for all those young people who, thirsting for happiness, are seeking it on the wrong paths and getting lost in blind alleys.

St Monica and St Augustine invite us to turn confidently to Mary, Seat of Wisdom. Let us entrust Christian parents to her so that, like Monica, they may accompany their children’s progress with their own example and prayers. Let us commend youth to the Virgin Mother of God so that, like Augustine, they may always strive for the fullness of Truth and Love which is Christ:  he alone can satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart.

2009:

Three days ago, on 27 August, we celebrated the liturgical Memorial of St Monica, Mother of St Augustine, considered the model and patroness of Christian mothers. We are provided with a considerable amount of information about her by her son in his autobiography, Confessions, one of the widest read literary masterpieces of all time. In them we learn that St Augustine drank in the name of Jesus with his mother’s milk, and that his mother brought him up in the Christian religion whose principles remained impressed upon him even in his years of spiritual and moral dissipation. Monica never ceased to pray for him and for his conversion and she had the consolation of seeing him return to the faith and receive Baptism. God heard the prayers of this holy mother, of whom the Bishop of Tagaste had said: “the son of so many tears could not perish”. In fact, St Augustine not only converted but decided to embrace the monastic life and, having returned to Africa, founded a community of monks. His last spiritual conversations with his mother in the tranquillity of a house at Ostia, while they were waiting to embark for Africa, are moving and edifying. By then St Monica had become for this son of hers, “more than a mother, the source of his Christianity”. For years her one desire had been the conversion of Augustine, whom she then saw actually turning to a life of consecration at the service of God. She could therefore die happy, and in fact she passed away on 27 August 387, at the age of 56, after asking her son not to trouble about her burial but to remember her, wherever he was, at the Lord’s altar. St Augustine used to say that his mother had “conceived him twice”.

2010:

Again, in Confessions, in the ninth book, our Saint records a conversation with his mother, St Monica, whose Memorial is celebrated on Friday, the day after tomorrow. It is a very beautiful scene: he and his mother are at Ostia, at an inn, and from the window they see the sky and the sea, and they transcend the sky and the sea and for a moment touch God’s heart in the silence of created beings. And here a fundamental idea appears on the way towards the Truth: creatures must be silent, leaving space for the silence in which God can speak. This is still true in our day too. At times there is a sort of fear of silence, of recollection, of thinking of one’s own actions, of the profound meaning of one’s life. All too often people prefer to live only the fleeting moment, deceiving themselves that it will bring lasting happiness; they prefer to live superficially, without thinking, because it seems easier; they are afraid to seek the Truth or perhaps afraid that the Truth will find us, will take hold of us and change our life, as happened to St Augustine.

Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to say to all of you and also to those who are passing through a difficult moment in their journey of faith, to those who take little part in the life of the Church or who live “as though God did not exist” not to be afraid of the Truth, never to interrupt the journey towards it and never to stop searching for the profound truth about yourselves and other things with the inner eye of the heart. God will not fail to provide Light to see by and Warmth to make the heart feel that he loves us and wants to be loved.

May the intercession of the Virgin Mary, of St Augustine and of St Monica accompany us on this journey

St. Monica is in The Loyola Kid’s Book of Saints under “Saints are people who love their families.”  A page:

From Living Faith in 2014:

We may not all be mothers, as Monica was, but we all have had one. Our relationships with our mothers might be terrible or beautiful, or somewhere in an in-between place: bewildering, regretful and hopeful.

Desire lies at the heart of our mistakes and successes as parents, caretakers and children. Monica desired her son Augustine’s salvation, and Augustine yearned for a love that would not die. Around and around they went.

What is it I desire for others? Is it that, above all, they find authentic, lasting joy?

Lord, may I be a help to others as we journey to you.

 

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Meandering

 

Thanks to decent wi-fi (more than decent – excellent  – thanks place that I’ll name when we’re gone!), I can get this done for you this evening instead of my usual routine, which has been: write it on the word processor at night and then attempt to load photos at 7am when hopefully fewer people were trying to be online at the otherwise quite nice NPS accommodations.

(For the record – a cabin at Colter Bay in the Grand Tetons and a cabin at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge – both wonderful in every way.)

The day began with me stressing out a bit about the next few days. Not because we might or might not do here, but because of what something called Laura is doing down south. We are flying home via Dallas later this week, and I just started worrying that this hurricane would disrupt travel throughout the Southeast, and it would be better for us to try to get home tomorrow. Well, I called, and yes there were seats, but I’d have to pay $$$ for them (I got these tickets originally with miles) and I’d missed the no-cancellation-fee timeframe for the night-before-the-flight’s hotel in Jackson, and I’d lose the money for the last night here, and so, I just said oh well, we’ll chance it and just hope we can make it home in time for the Organist to practice before Sunday.

Nothing compared to the plight of those in the storm’s path, of course. Nothing. 

---

So here we are, in a part of the park that is certainly gorgeous, but without the set of  obvious “must-sees” that one finds in Geyser or Canyon country. Plus, there’s a major road (between Tower and Canyon) that is closed for the year, which makes travel down that way circuitous and those sites inaccessible unless, of course, you are backcountry camping which we are most decidedly not.

So we are taking this time to meander. We had one major site to check off today, and then rest of the time, we’ll be driving, stopping to walk/hike a bit, see something interesting, and then get back in the car and drive some more.  This part of the country is so gorgeous and so different from our usual stomping grounds that taking it in that way is more than satisfying.

I’d thought about rafting on the Yellowstone River – but Kid just did some of that a couple of weeks ago (on the Ocoee, not the Yellowstone, of course) , and wasn’t keen enough on the possibility for me to spend the money. I also thought about heading up to Bozeman to the Museum of the Rockies, which is, indeed, open, but today was so pleasant, we decided we’d rather just have more of the same tomorrow.

First stop was about five miles south of Gardiner to the Mammoth Hot Springs site of Yellowstone. You can read more about it here(and if you ever saw the first Star Trek movie, know that it was Vulcan, with modern elements erased. ) It is also the headquarters of the entire park, and historically quite important as “Fort Yellowstone.” 

The nationally significant Fort Yellowstone-Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District is in the northwestern portion of Yellowstone National Park on an old hot springs formation. The buildings on this plateau represent the first development of administrative and concession facilities in the park.
For the decade after 1872 when Yellowstone National Park was established, the park was under serious threat from those who would exploit, rather than protect, its resources. Poachers killed animals. Souvenir hunters broke large pieces off the geysers and hot springs. Developers set up camps for tourists, along with bath and laundry facilities at hot springs. Civilian superintendents were hired to preserve and protect this land from 1872 through 1886. The good intentions of these early administrators, however, were no match for their lack of experience, funds and manpower. Word got back to Congress that the park was in trouble and legislators refused to appropriate any funds for the park’s administration in 1886.

Invoking the Sundry Civil Act of 1883, the Secretary of the Interior called upon the Secretary of War for assistance in protecting the park. The Army came to the rescue and in 1886 men from Company M, First United States Cavalry, Fort Custer, Montana Territory under Captain Moses Harris came to Yellowstone to begin what would be more than 30 years of military presence in Yellowstone.

The hot springs themselves are primarily large travertine formations – cliffs, hills and terraces – formed by the water dissolving limestone and such. Read about it here. 

It was interesting, but right now, there’s not a lot of activity going on – it’s totally unpredictable and constantly changing – so what we saw was certainly worth seeing and studying, but it wasn’t nearly as mystically magical as most of the photos you’ll find online suggest. Still, very weird to see this landscape sticking up in the midst of life-filled mountains.

We saw the formations in the lower terrace area, walked around the historic buildings and then decided to head back to our lodging to eat leftover pizza from last night before heading out again.

At which point, the first stop was the Rescue Creek trailhead.We walked perhaps a quarter mile into vast, open fields, watching a trio of elks, including a calf, from a safe distance. (video at Instagram).

Hopped in the car, stopped at the 45th parallel (halfway between the North Pole and the Equator).

Then to the Lava Creek trail,  where we walked for a bit further, down to the Gardner River, spending some time watching elk on both our left and right take the waters – doing a weird move with one of their back legs to get water on themselves, it seemed from a distance. Then the hike back up the hill to take in the upper terraces (more easily driven than walked) and then down to the  Hoodoo Trail for rock scrambling.

Yes, I’m sixty,  no, I’m not an athlete or a super-hiker or outdoorswoman and yes, I can think of other activities I’d “rather” do – in a way, but on the other hand, since this is about helping one of my kids experience things he’s interested in, and I’m in a position to make that happen, well, of course there is nothing I’d rather do. Not that I’m selfless and all sacrificial (because, when you get down to it, this is no sacrifice) – but because I have the perspective of a parent who has kids who’ve been out of the house and on their own for twenty years now. That day is coming for this one, too, and not too far in the future. This is it. Before  know it, this moment will be gone, and I don’t want to look back on it and say, I spent that time obsessing about my own thing  – well, good for me. 

Here ends the lesson.

Back to the lodging to clean up, then out for a decent dinner (bison burger for him, trout for me) here. 

More of the same tomorrow, but in another direction…..

Big Sky Country is right….

 

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Bubble, bubble toil and trouble…

On to Yellowstone.

Which is…amazing. At least the geyser areas. To me, the experience has been a bit like seeing the Grand Canyon was.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ve seen pictures. It’s big. Got it.”

And then you go and…well..it’s grand.

Same here in Yellowstone. I’ve seen pictures. I’ve seen hot springs here and in other countries (Italy, Honduras). I’ve seen bubbling mud (Sicily). Old Faithful? Sure. Iconic. Got it.

And then you go and…well…

 

I’ll just start by saying that once we got into the park, we headed for the West Thumb area, on the way to our first couple of nights near Old Faithful. Saw our first little tiny (relatively) bubbling pile of mud and I immediately thought…Okay, when is this whole damn thing going to just blow and take us all out?

Because the energy in just that small hole was…astonishing. And I tried to imagine all of that happening times infinity in this caldera and there’s one more reason to get right with God.

Also, after a day of wandering these features, you immediately understand the mythological associations of the underworld, death and satan with steaming, sulfurous cracks and holes in the ground. Of course harmful things dwell down there.

Shall I trace the day? I’ll try although  the wi-fi here is terrible. And my T-Mobile doesn’t work at all. Wifi is far worse than it was in Grand Teton NP (neither had wi-fi in cabins, of course, but the Grand Teton NP – Colter Bay – wifi, where they had it (offices, laundry, outside of stores) was fast and not annoying. This is annoying. At least it was tonight, but perhaps that’s because everyone on the property was trying to access it.

(And don’t say…oh, just get away from it all….Guys…I’m a single parent with many irons in the fire, a kid just restarting college in a time during which every day various schools are “pivoting”….so yeah, I want to stay in touch.)

So, quickly:

Leave Grand Teton. Get into Yellowstone. Stop at Moose Falls. Tell some guy that the berry he was wondering about was huckleberry, then praying I was right as he popped it in his mouth. Stop at Lewis Canyon overlook, marvel at the devastation of the 1988 fire, still evident 32 years later. Wonder how much 3 big Yeti coolers being trailered by a family ahead of us could possibly cost.

Get to West Thumb, marvel at our first geysers and springs and such.

Stop at the Kepler Cascades.

On to Old Faithful which, at 3 in the afternoon my son kept saying, “This reminds me of Disney World.” Yes, it was crowded. But it thinned out mightily after five, and our early evening visits to features outside the Old Faithful area were quite pleasant. No, we weren’t alone, but they weren’t packed, and everyone just seemed so….happy. Really. Just content to be out and about and seeing beautiful, strange and wonderous things with family and friends.

The negative here is that services are greatly reduced. I don’t mind no daily housekeeping at all– stay out of my room! – but the stores on the property – which are the only stores around for people, you know, staying here – closed at six. SIX! Even the Grand Teton shops stayed open until 8. But I understand they are understaffed. It seems it is a combination of not really being able to plan staffing, considering no one knew how the summer was going to pan out, as well as restrictions on  the normal dormitory- type accommodations for the seasonal workers. What I read is that they can’t share rooms, so that cuts possible staffing by half. That may or may not be true, but not only are those services reduced, many of the hotels are closed and, sadly some of those fantastic NPS visitors’ centers (like the one here at Old Faithful – closed) and there are no ranger programs.

But anyway, on to the water bubbling, erupting and surging from the earth around here.

It’s so very strange. The Old Faithful area is desolate and dry except for the geysers and ……We arrived just as Old Faithful was to erupt, and it did not disappoint. We then (since the room wasn’t ready) took a hike up a nearby hill from which one could watch the eruption from above. Just as impressive from up there. We then wandered around the other geysers and ….in the area (180 of the 200/250 in Yellowstone are around here), finally got into our room (and I say finally because it took two sets of keys and a security person to figure out what was wrong with the lock), chilled for just a few minutes, then hit the road for some geyser areas that are in easy driving distance. First the Black Sand area.

Which, as I walked up to it, brought to mind some sort of hellscape. Sulferous odor, bubbling liquids everywhere that would kill you instantly if you tumbled in them, steam rising from the ground, dead trees standing in dark, still pools. Beautiful, fascinating, but still an interesting reminder as to why “sulfur” and underground are associated with evil and death.

Up the road to the Grand Prismatic Spring and the associated Excelsior Geyser. Gorgeous. Warm steam rising from Excelsior like a spa. From ground the level, the Grand Prismatic is impressive, but we think it will be even more so above, so we’ll try that today or tomorrow.

It was, by that time, getting dark. So we returned to the Old Faithful area, found food – halfway decent noodle bowl from the cafeteria that wasn’t a burger, at least. Successful re-entry into room.

Not many photos because of the wi-fi. I wanted to artfully distributed them throughout the post, but to heck with that. And not too many right now. Come back in a week and perhaps I’ll update with more photos. This has taken too long, time to get back to the room, awaken the traveling companion and rent some bikes.

And if you want to beat the crowds at Old Faithful? Come early in the morning!

 

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St. Rose of Lima – August 23

Sorting out St. Rose of Lima can be a challenge.  Perhaps you know the basics – what I knew for most of my life: mystic, extreme ascetic.  When I was a girl, I remember reading about how she drove her metal-spiked crown of thorns into her scalp. That was, not surprisingly, my main takeaway.

Digging deeper,  I read through most of this 19^th century biography – a translation into English from French. I read what chapters I could (the first two) of this reassessment and psychological unpacking, and finally settled in a more comfortable place than either of those with a chapter from Quartet in Heaven (1962) by British author Sheila Kaye-Smith.

What to make of her, the first saint of the Americas, this young woman who engaged in such extreme mortifications that even some of her contemporary confessors and other observers, including her mother,  thought she was going too far?

It might be tempting for us moderns to dismiss figures such as Rose. She was, we might gently suggest, mentally ill.  She was a victim and product of a guilt-ridden Catholic culture who could not simply accept the grace of God, but thought she had to abnegate herself in order to merit it.

But we shouldn’t do that. It is not helpful or right, in a Catholic context, to be so dismissive. Nor is it necessary to uncritically embrace all the hagiography. We must also always remember that in the Catholic view of saints, we bring two perspectives: to imitate and to admire. We are not called to imitation of every action of every saint, because we live in different cultures, with various personalities. So not feeling the pull to jam a crown of metal thorns into our scalps should not cause anxiety. It’s okay.

In thinking this over, this struck me: it seems to me that even the saints who pursued extreme ways of personal asceticism did not indicate that everyone do the same.

St. Catherine, in her many letters, does not advise her correspondents that the solution to their spiritual problems was to live as she did, on a single grain of rice a day and sleeping on a board (when she slept). There might be a call to change, to repent, and perhaps to embrace some small mortification, but mostly what we read in her writings, at least, is an urgent invitation to realize how deeply Christ loves us and to live in that light, not the darkness the world offers.

They seem quite aware of the uniqueness of their own path, and do not suggest that theirs is the standard by which all others should be judged. In fact, the saints seem to take the opposite tack: as stubborn as they are about their own mortifications, they tend to keep them secret as much as they are able and are uncomfortable with “followers” who are following them rather than following Christ.

In trying to understand St. Rose, these thoughts come to mind.

She sensed a call to belong to Christ alone. In her culture and her family circumstance, she had to go to extremes to make sure that was clear to everyone and she would not be forced into marriage. Perhaps you can see this as manipulation, or you can see it as a strong rejection of the world in a most personal way.

It is interesting and important to note that hardly anyone knew of these mortifications during her life. The people of Lima who flocked to her funeral by the thousands certainly did not – they came because this young woman radiated the love of Christ.

St. Rose would say that her mortifications were in fidelity to her call to conform herself completely to Christ. Christ sacrificed himself. Christ’s supreme act of love was his Passion and death.  Many of us think of this call differently today: to accept what sufferings happen to come our way in a sacrificial spirit, in imitation of Christ, rather than to create them ourselves. Perhaps the experience of St. Rose can expand our own approach by helping us understand that living as a disciple does, indeed mean conforming ourselves to the Crucified Christ, accepting that the Cross will be a part of whatever path we follow, but that if we do find ourselves conforming to the world instead, it is time to take action and be more intentional – to make sacrifices in addition to accepting them as they come.

I also wondered, based on the minimal reading I did on this, if perhaps Rose knew herself and we should trust her. Perhaps she knew that she had a tendency to vanity. Perhaps she knew that even if she gave up marriage and lived as sort of anchorite, intensely focused on Christ, that she would still draw attention and that attention, even if it is directed at spiritual rather than physical beauty, would be a temptation to her. Perhaps her extreme mortifications were directed at keeping herself conformed to the humble Christ in the most radical way, a way that she knew, for herself, would be at risk as people were drawn to her. Perhaps she wanted to keep herself radically open to Christ in her physical weakness so that she would always remember it was Jesus, not her, that the people of Lima desired and sought.

I don’t know. I’m just guessing.

It comes down to this. Different culture, but same Jesus, same faith. We are tempted to dismiss it, but that’s not Catholic. Instead, we dig deeper, realize our own cultural limitations, and listen. Because, you know, she’s not wrong.

It’s a mystery, but suffering can be beneficial and bear tremendous fruit. She’s not wrong.

Christian discipleship is about conforming ourselves to Christ. She’s not wrong. 

The world is beautiful (Rose grew flowers!) but can stand between us and God if we don’t know how to love properly.  She’s not wrong.

“Success”  in the spiritual life can lead to an inflated sense of self and hubris.

She’s not wrong.

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