This is an absolutely wonderful story and so well-recounted by Jack. These sisters sound awesome and God is clearly pouring out graces on this National Eucharistic Pilgrimage!
...But what is it about the DMML's laundry setup that makes Sr Isabel look so astonished?!
The sisters are truly special and the Diocese of Manchester is blessed to have them. They are so filled with joy for the Lord and their prayers and ministries are very effective. My wife and I are so blessed to know the sisters. You can follow along their journey as the post regularly on Facebook. Looke for MotherofHealingLove
There are so many reasons not to participate in this pilgrimage. I wouldn’t fit in with all the gung-ho, rah-rah Catholics. If I tell any of my progressive Catholic friends that I went, they’ll worry that I’m getting sucked into some sort of schismatic traditionalist cult. It’s clearly performative piety, right? How embarrassing, to be part of that.
And yet.
When those sisters met the gay guys at the vet, they didn’t argue with them about same-sex unions or surrogacy. At least, not as Jack reported it. Could it be that they really did decide to love first and leave judgement to the Lord? Might it be possible to be a faithful witness and still be open to the other? How does that work?
Only one way to find out. New Castle, PA is less than two hours away.
> I wouldn’t fit in with all the gung-ho, rah-rah Catholics.
To be anxious about being different from everyone else is vanity. I know this because I have suffered from it constantly for a very long time (I was made gradually aware of this to some extent in the past several years, and then one prays for humility and rejects temptations to anxiety when they are consciously recognized; but what really brought it home recently was reading a web page, written by and for adults who are somewhere on the autism spectrum, warning about the cost of "masking" which I might describe as the drain on one's resources from a constant awareness of "what are my facial expressions and body language right now? how should I adjust them in order to look the way that I am expected to look? oh no I stopped smiling again, put the smile back on so that people don't assume I am sad or angry" and from running a constant simulation in one's head of "what are other people thinking when they look at me? has the simulation of them noticed that I don't belong?" When I finally realized that *I* was running this simulation, and simply by recognizing that it was unnecessary, *turned off* the simulation, it was much more effective than arguing with it rationally like "real people aren't *looking* at me in church, they are looking at their kids or at the priest, or if they *are* distracted, they are thinking about their grocery list" when it insisted "you don't fit in and people can see it"), because it was not really a rational thing, just an anxiety-generator. And then, I thought to myself: I could even describe my piety (or whatever you want to call it; I could not tell whether the word was used in earnest) as "an intense and highly focused interest that other people around me do not share" and it would immediately become a completely normal, and even *expected*, trait for someone on the autism spectrum (who among us has a relative with autism and has not had to field someone's question "what are they really good at", "what is their great talent", which is how utilitarianism (perhaps the most popular modern heresy) thinks of an intense interest: what is it good for? how can it be made to pay?) Therefore I do not need to be ashamed of this intense interest or attempt to hide it. To quietly accept the fact of being out of place everywhere I go (the inverse of St. Paul being all things to all people, fitting in everywhere), a minority even within a minority, and to live this fact with calm fortitude, refusing to be anxious about it and instead doing the good things that I am attracted to doing, makes life easier to live for other people who are also not just like everyone else and who have grown weary through trying to hide it.
> Could it be that they really did decide to love first and leave judgement to the Lord?
It's interesting (and I hadn't thought about it before) that people *do* tend to cast the matter in these terms: that a person "decides" to do one thing or the other, and then does that thing. If I am interacting with a stranger there are two possible approaches that I would recommend, and it does not matter which one a person takes because they are both essentially the same in the end. 1. To see the other as Christ. Or 2. To be docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Both of these are things we have heard so often that they sound shallow and meaningless, like "play nice, kids", but they are both a sort of yawning chasm that if you drop a rock into it you will not hear it hit the bottom (actually you drop yourself into it.)
Thank you for responding, Bridget. When sharing excerpts from interior dialogue, there’s always a risk that it will be misinterpreted as trolling, and dismissed.
Your insight offers some good material for me to take to prayer:
- Are anxiety and fear great sins in themselves? Or are they temptations that God allows in order to test and refine us?
- What does the process of resisting sin and turning toward God look and sound like, and how can faithful people assist their neighbor when they recognize that this unfolding has begun?
- Are we all at some level “just like everyone else”? Or is every soul unique and incomparable? Can both possibilities be equally and mysteriously true?
- What’s the difference between “masking” and employing postures, gestures, and words that are consciously chosen to invite others to approach? What was it about the sisters that helped the men at the vet’s enter into conversation with them?
The Eucharistic Pilgrimage—like the church itself—includes people at every stage in their journey toward holiness. It’s going to be easier for Jack to get quotes and photo ops from pilgrims who have made a lot of progress in their spiritual lives and in the discernment of their vocations. This is natural, and stories such as that of the Airstream sisters can provide something toward which the rest of us can aspire.
But the stories of the skeptics and the doubters and the vain who manage to hear the Holy Spirit through the static and awkwardly stumble toward the sound of his voice—these might also be useful, though they are harder to ferret out. To find traces of them, we might need to read the comments.
> Are anxiety and fear great sins in themselves? Or are they temptations that God allows in order to test and refine us?
The enemy has two approaches at opposite ends of virtue so broadly speaking, one is "convince the human that sin doesn't exist" and the other is "convince the human that everything is a sin" and we are dealing with the second one so the key is to know what things are not sins: feelings are not sins, thoughts that pop into one's head uninvited are not sins. The temptation is, at its most fundamental, "do not trust God" (this is what the snake in Genesis was aiming at, and got) and God permits this temptation so that when eventually we trust him intentionally in spite of how we feel, we get bonus points (it is for his greater glory when we do something that was hard or that took a long time for us to be able to do, and we will be able to look back on this forever and remember with grateful affection that we did it by grace and for love of him, because it was too hard for any other reason to suffice.)
These sisters are, have been and will continue to be the heart of the church . And Beth you are in the best of company only exceeded by the Body of Christ.
The Pillar's coverage of the pilgrimage has been amazing, and this might be the best piece so far. Incredible work Jack!
Thank you!
I absolutely loved this whole thing.
See you tomorrow in Emmitsburg, Maryland, sisters! Awesome article- thanks, Pillar people!
And thanks Jack!!
Excellent article, Jack! I can’t wait to read the rest of your articles about the Eucharistic pilgrimage!
This is an absolutely wonderful story and so well-recounted by Jack. These sisters sound awesome and God is clearly pouring out graces on this National Eucharistic Pilgrimage!
...But what is it about the DMML's laundry setup that makes Sr Isabel look so astonished?!
The sisters are truly special and the Diocese of Manchester is blessed to have them. They are so filled with joy for the Lord and their prayers and ministries are very effective. My wife and I are so blessed to know the sisters. You can follow along their journey as the post regularly on Facebook. Looke for MotherofHealingLove
Just amazing!
There are so many reasons not to participate in this pilgrimage. I wouldn’t fit in with all the gung-ho, rah-rah Catholics. If I tell any of my progressive Catholic friends that I went, they’ll worry that I’m getting sucked into some sort of schismatic traditionalist cult. It’s clearly performative piety, right? How embarrassing, to be part of that.
And yet.
When those sisters met the gay guys at the vet, they didn’t argue with them about same-sex unions or surrogacy. At least, not as Jack reported it. Could it be that they really did decide to love first and leave judgement to the Lord? Might it be possible to be a faithful witness and still be open to the other? How does that work?
Only one way to find out. New Castle, PA is less than two hours away.
> I wouldn’t fit in with all the gung-ho, rah-rah Catholics.
To be anxious about being different from everyone else is vanity. I know this because I have suffered from it constantly for a very long time (I was made gradually aware of this to some extent in the past several years, and then one prays for humility and rejects temptations to anxiety when they are consciously recognized; but what really brought it home recently was reading a web page, written by and for adults who are somewhere on the autism spectrum, warning about the cost of "masking" which I might describe as the drain on one's resources from a constant awareness of "what are my facial expressions and body language right now? how should I adjust them in order to look the way that I am expected to look? oh no I stopped smiling again, put the smile back on so that people don't assume I am sad or angry" and from running a constant simulation in one's head of "what are other people thinking when they look at me? has the simulation of them noticed that I don't belong?" When I finally realized that *I* was running this simulation, and simply by recognizing that it was unnecessary, *turned off* the simulation, it was much more effective than arguing with it rationally like "real people aren't *looking* at me in church, they are looking at their kids or at the priest, or if they *are* distracted, they are thinking about their grocery list" when it insisted "you don't fit in and people can see it"), because it was not really a rational thing, just an anxiety-generator. And then, I thought to myself: I could even describe my piety (or whatever you want to call it; I could not tell whether the word was used in earnest) as "an intense and highly focused interest that other people around me do not share" and it would immediately become a completely normal, and even *expected*, trait for someone on the autism spectrum (who among us has a relative with autism and has not had to field someone's question "what are they really good at", "what is their great talent", which is how utilitarianism (perhaps the most popular modern heresy) thinks of an intense interest: what is it good for? how can it be made to pay?) Therefore I do not need to be ashamed of this intense interest or attempt to hide it. To quietly accept the fact of being out of place everywhere I go (the inverse of St. Paul being all things to all people, fitting in everywhere), a minority even within a minority, and to live this fact with calm fortitude, refusing to be anxious about it and instead doing the good things that I am attracted to doing, makes life easier to live for other people who are also not just like everyone else and who have grown weary through trying to hide it.
> Could it be that they really did decide to love first and leave judgement to the Lord?
It's interesting (and I hadn't thought about it before) that people *do* tend to cast the matter in these terms: that a person "decides" to do one thing or the other, and then does that thing. If I am interacting with a stranger there are two possible approaches that I would recommend, and it does not matter which one a person takes because they are both essentially the same in the end. 1. To see the other as Christ. Or 2. To be docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Both of these are things we have heard so often that they sound shallow and meaningless, like "play nice, kids", but they are both a sort of yawning chasm that if you drop a rock into it you will not hear it hit the bottom (actually you drop yourself into it.)
Thank you for responding, Bridget. When sharing excerpts from interior dialogue, there’s always a risk that it will be misinterpreted as trolling, and dismissed.
Your insight offers some good material for me to take to prayer:
- Are anxiety and fear great sins in themselves? Or are they temptations that God allows in order to test and refine us?
- What does the process of resisting sin and turning toward God look and sound like, and how can faithful people assist their neighbor when they recognize that this unfolding has begun?
- Are we all at some level “just like everyone else”? Or is every soul unique and incomparable? Can both possibilities be equally and mysteriously true?
- What’s the difference between “masking” and employing postures, gestures, and words that are consciously chosen to invite others to approach? What was it about the sisters that helped the men at the vet’s enter into conversation with them?
The Eucharistic Pilgrimage—like the church itself—includes people at every stage in their journey toward holiness. It’s going to be easier for Jack to get quotes and photo ops from pilgrims who have made a lot of progress in their spiritual lives and in the discernment of their vocations. This is natural, and stories such as that of the Airstream sisters can provide something toward which the rest of us can aspire.
But the stories of the skeptics and the doubters and the vain who manage to hear the Holy Spirit through the static and awkwardly stumble toward the sound of his voice—these might also be useful, though they are harder to ferret out. To find traces of them, we might need to read the comments.
“Awkwardly stumble toward the sound of his voice”
Raises hand
> Are anxiety and fear great sins in themselves? Or are they temptations that God allows in order to test and refine us?
The enemy has two approaches at opposite ends of virtue so broadly speaking, one is "convince the human that sin doesn't exist" and the other is "convince the human that everything is a sin" and we are dealing with the second one so the key is to know what things are not sins: feelings are not sins, thoughts that pop into one's head uninvited are not sins. The temptation is, at its most fundamental, "do not trust God" (this is what the snake in Genesis was aiming at, and got) and God permits this temptation so that when eventually we trust him intentionally in spite of how we feel, we get bonus points (it is for his greater glory when we do something that was hard or that took a long time for us to be able to do, and we will be able to look back on this forever and remember with grateful affection that we did it by grace and for love of him, because it was too hard for any other reason to suffice.)
I've been to a number of Eucharistic processions, and one of the best things is they're full of ALL kinds of Catholics. They're for all of us!
This was a delight and I'm looking forward to meeting them tomorrow when they arrive on campus here at CUA!
These Sisters are one of the many reasons the Church will flourish.
In the words of a certain quasi-Catholic film: "we're on a mission from God."
With sisters like that, how could you not want to be Catholic? :)
These sisters are, have been and will continue to be the heart of the church . And Beth you are in the best of company only exceeded by the Body of Christ.
I love this story, God bless them all!
And as a writer I have to say that last quote is GOLD.
Bravo Pillar team. Great story but the great story maker is always the Lord! God be with you.
What a beautiful and powerful reminder of God's providence at work!