Traces of Heaven

SO much to write about, so little time.
Wayne and I watched a Marcus Grodie (He's a former pentacostal pastor turned Catholic evangelist) video on the differences in protestant and catholic worship yesterday and learned soooo much!
I'm going to type up another blog about it in the near future because I need to watch it again and take notes first... its too much to relay from memory. I want to buy this DVD and send it to everyone I know!

Yesterday, Wayne took Annika for the morning and I went to morning mass with Ishod. It has been in the triple digits all week and very humid, and even with the air conditioner on we were sweltering hot.
My sister in law came to daily mass for the first time. Its hard for her to appreciate alot of it because she is so pregnant, but this pregnancy has caused her to grow in her faith so much! She humbles me every day with new insight and its' beautiful to watch God working in her and her spiritual wheels turning! I am thankful for her and glad we decided to remain in the area for a while longer to stay close to her in case Sean goes to the field and she needs something or whatever.

Afterwards, she and I went to brunch at another woman from church's house. She's awesome, has four kids, is pregs with their fifth, and is a homeschooling, food from scratch makin' momma. I was worried I wouldn't meet alot of these women in the Catholic environment but I can't tell you how cool it was to enter her house and see posters on the walls to teach the kids all sorts of things, a rack by the front of the living room where each kid's rosary was hanging, art books about Jesus and the Blessed Mother, and just a general, crunchy homeschooly-type environment with a Catholic twist. It was AWESOME for me to see that.
After brunch, Jess and I drove all over town checking out farmers markets and stuff, and then she dropped me off just in time to take a shower before Andrea came to pick me up to take me to Raleigh. We were heading to a women's discernment group in the dioscese vocations office.The group initially began meeting as a group of women who were intending to discern their vocations to married vs religious life. But in the end, they discovered God's will for the group was instead to form the "Society of St Therese," and to devote themselves to prayer for the seminarians and to prayer for vocations! Hehe... God is funny like that. Anyways, it seemed only appropriate, since I'm discerning a vocation to the Third Order Carmelites anyways, that I would attend this group meeting-- and I"m SOOOO glad I did!
Andrea and I drove down early so we could go to In His Name, the Raleigh Catholic bookstore, which was SOOO cool! I'd never been to a Catholic bookstore before. It was very interesting and I think telling of the vast differences in the Catholic and protestant theoloies.

Every Christian bookstore I've been to had a layout that looked kinda like this:
Bibles. Bible studies. Prayer and Devotional books. Church History. Cults. Leadership.
And then the majority of shelves devoted to "Christian inspiration" in various categories like "women's issues," "parenting" "youth" "mens' issues" "marriage" etc.

This Catholic bookstore had one TINY section dedicated to marriage, celibacy, parenting, NFP etc. A large children's education section. A large youth education section. A huge bible selection. A huge prayerbooks selection. A huge selection of books on church history. A huge selection of books on the lives of the saints. Missals, books on worship. And then, of course, a wonderful selection of sacramentals (everything from statues, rosaries, art, crucifixes, and chapel veils and scapulars.) I discerned none of the "fluff" that I'm used to seeing in Christian bookstores--- no "Christian self help" section. It was so encouraging to me!

Thats when I saw it-- a stand in the corner with tracts! I sighed, wondering what I was going to come into contact with that would "bristle" my feathers. My heart sank when I saw one called "What do Catholics need to know about Mormons?" I pulled it out, ready to be assaulted with the usual "Mormons are an evil cult you should stay away from" critique (I should explain that while I dont disagree that mormonism is false worship, I don't think the way to bring that to people is through these highly charged nasty little tracts, but rather through a demonstration of TRUE worship and actions that represent Christ's love)
Anyways, I stood there for a full ten minutes, reading this little tract. It started out by explaining in a textbook "world religions" kind of a way what Mormons believe. (mormonism 101, and I was surprised to find it was taken DIRECTLY from the LDS.org website.) The last page said: what should Catholics conclude about mormons?
Tears welled up in my eyes as it described that Catholics had much to learn from the mormon example of service and generosity towards others. "Catholics should be aware that mormon doctrine is not in line with the Church's teachings and should therefore be examined in light of the Church's teachings in both tradition and scripture. Much progress has been made lately in interfaith dialogue. However, as Catholics we must look to mormons as men and women who can also benefit greatly from our service, kindness, and compassion."
I was crying like a little baby... what a refreshing change from the ornery little "mormons are evil and dangerous" tracts I was used to seeing... I immediately called my friend Selah to share what a touching moment I had just experienced, confident that she would understand my joy.

Anyways, afterwards we went to Panera's for dinner and pulled into the Cathedral parking lot at about 6:50. We met up there with Father Ned, the vocations pastor, who surprised us by informing us that the holy hour would be in the cathedral-- yay!
For those who don't know, Holy hour is:



The priest removes the host from the tabernacle, places it in a monstrance:



and then places it on the altar for all to adore and worship. There is a small prayer service that is chanted before and after (if you're lucky, in latin) and then the entire hour is spent on your knees in silent prayer and adoration. Some people just sit (one man there said "I look at Him, He looks at me.") Some people pray rosaries, read the bible or prayerbooks, etc. Others just pour out their hearts. Still others meditate and wait.

I have never stayed on my knees for over an hour before. It was excruciatingly painful by the end of the hour, and I was in a pew so at least I could rest my arms on something. Fr Ned simply kneeled by himself off to the side of the altar with nothing to hold on to, and he is at least twice as old as me.
It dawned on me that this was a sacrifice of praise. It dawned on me that I had never sacrificed anything like this before--- Iv'e maintained raised arms for ten minutes before, but never for a whole hour in worship (I did in basic training, but I didn't have very holy thoughts about it then :P) as you'll see in the picture above, where a group of homeschoolers are having a holy hour, it IS possible to do , even with children!
It also dawned on me that this was pure joy-- to sit quietly in the presence of my Lord and be still and wait for Him to speak to me. Everything about the experience was so beautiful--- the space, the incense , the candles, the statues, the beautiful building, the crucifix showing me what Jesus did for me, at the foot of which was an altar with a monstrance showing me what Jesus does for me still daily!
I was so moved I just started bawling!! Fortunately, I wasn't alone. I wish I could bring everyone in the world with me to a Holy Hour. And I'm so excited that I have another one on Sunday with the Carmelites!
Because it was a women's vocations holy hour, it was all young women, my age-- which made the chant that much more beautiful (fortunately, Fr Ned is an excellent singer also!) and powerful... and very appropriate for some of those women discerning their vocations, I imagine.


Directly afterwards , we walked down the block to the vocations office where we had snacks and prayed the liturgy of the hours, followed by a discussion on the subject at hand-- hope and joy. I should take a moment to describe the scene of a group of beautiful, modest young women following a priest walking out of church. It turned more than a few heads , I noticed, and rightfully so since we don't always see such a pious image in todays' society. we walked out into the stifling summer heat and I realized for the first time how BEAUTIFUL Raleigh is! I've always thought it was just this blah north cakolaki city, but in that moment I realized how.... well, how civilized it was (for lack of a better word) and how nice it felt. Immediately, all my apprehension about possibly having to take a job in Raleigh evaporated.


Anyways, the discussion was amazing. At one point, Father began to describe how his understanding of joy came from realizing how often he just "did his duty" as a priest but didn't do it OUT of joy and didn't derive joy from it, only a sense of duty. (sound familiar? That IS me in my own daily routine) He had to ask himself where his joy came from, which is what I had to do last week when I was panicking about marrying Wayne--- where does my joy come from?
MY joy is in the name of the Lord--- immanuel, which means God is with us. My joy comes from the incarnation. So imagine my surprise when Father began speaking on his own realization of that-- -I wanted to jump up and shout to heaven: "OK, I GET IT! I am LISTTEEENNNNNNINGGGG!" :)

What a glorious God we serve!