Purveying Positivity

God is good all the time! All the time God is good!

An acquaintance of mine has dubbed me the Purveyor of Positivity. It's an appropriate moniker, I think. I have spent a good part of my life training myself to be the quintessential optimist. I can remember being very frustrated with my avid sports fan of a mother during my childhood in terms of what I saw as her pessimism. I grew up in the wonderful age of baseball when the Big Red Machine cranked out back to back World Series. I did not choose to be a baseball fan; it was thrust upon me. I would have rather watched "Little House On The Prairie" but Mom insisted we watch baseball. I wish I had understood at the age of seven the great sports history I was witnessing. Mostly I remember keeping track of the game on my homemade scorecard and telling Mom in the late innings, "It ain't over til it's over!" It seemed no matter how good the Reds were, she thought they were going to lose. I countered with no matter how far behind they got, they could still win. I'm sure I annoyed my mother as much as she annoyed me, and I later learned that what I took for pessimism was more often than not pragmatism-- something I am in lack of.

Where does my optimism come from? At the heart of it is my Catholic faith. To be a Christian, a Catholic, is to be a disciple who lives in great hope and faith despite what the world presents us. I can't be truly Catholic without being positive about life, the future, and the world. It all began that way. (Everything God created He declared "Good". See Genesis 1.) I believe that I and my gift of life are good. They began that way, and God intends for us to continue that way. It's up to me to be in accord with that plan.

We live in hard, challenging times. Our culture is a culture of death. There is fear and negativity and sin everywhere. I have to purposely focus myself on this endeavor of optimism in today's world. I have discovered some practices, disciplines if you will, that have helped me to cultivate this habit of optimism.

The first practice was taught to me two years ago when I was faced with being a budget cut at the school I was teaching at. My immediate response to this potentially devastating news was to ask for prayer from some of my best prayer warriors. Two quick text messages garnered me the desired prayer cover, but I got a big bonus in the surprising response from one of my friends. His text read "Thank God!" I must admit I was taken aback by what could have been construed as an insensitive response. I had just been told I was unemployed. But as he explained, we are called as followers of Christ to thank God in all circumstances. For the next three weeks, per his advice, I put aside my worry and fear, and focused on thanking God for this blessing and all those in my life. I am forever thankful for this prayer warrior friend's timely lesson, as I believe it is what spared me from a very bitter path. Instead I have found a life of joy. An attitude of gratitude can be a skillful tool in avoiding the pit of depression in our negative world

The next lesson came from my patron and tutor, St. Anthony of Padua. He gave me a prayer that I have found to be very useful in many aspects of my life. "Lord Jesus, help me to find what I need to find and lose what I need to lose. Amen."  Of course, with St. Anthony being the patron saint of lost items, I have found this to be helpful in dealing with material items and needs. But I have found this prayer to be especially useful in terms of cultivating this positivity. I pray that I lose my attachment to my fear, my stress, my anxiety about the things of this world. I pray that I find the peace that surpasses all understanding.

The prayer has led me to a lesson about emptiness and living in the present. Our world does not value voids. It is the law of physics that nature abhors a vacuum. We want our life full. When it does not seem full we can fall into the pit of negativity, which can feel like being trapped in quicksand. I realized this lesson while speaking with a friend recently. He has a great love of history. This is a blessing and a curse. Because of his love for the past, he often finds that the present is not satisfactory because it isn't like the past. Our language about the past implies a void. We say, "I miss the way it used to be." or "Life was good back then." The implication, though not said, is still there that today is empty of the good we value. We equate emptiness with negativity. That is a false premise. Often it is far better to have things, people, ideas, and opportunities missing from our life. When the wrong things are gone, we have a void that God can fill with blessings. We need to change our attitude toward voids. We need to begin to see them as opportunities and places for God's blessings to come into our lives. If we live rooted in the NOW (as opposed to constantly looking at our past or anticipating the future-- they both don't really exist, anyway), we can ask God to help us keep the flow between what we need to lose and find balanced.

It is helpful to keep a physical list of the blessings in our life. This list-- its very existence and the act of creating it-- can become a train track that guides the direction of our mind during our daily life. Purposely creating voids in our life (cleaning out closets and boxes, leaving spaces empty in our life, embracing silence, etc.) can help us to deal with the unexpected voids in a positive manner.

It is my prayer that we all can learn to see the blessings this life has to offer, and can connect in a deeper way with our Father who passionately loves us and blesses us. And He wants to continue to bless us in abundant ways. After all Jesus told us, "I came so that you might have life, and have it more abundantly!" Being salt and light to the world means proclaiming Good News over the neverending din of negativity.

As Johnny Mercer wrote, "You gotta accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, try hard to be affirmative, and not mess with Mr. Inbetween."

Remember "It ain't over til it's over." (Thank you, Yogi Bera.) And when it is over, Christ has won! Alleluia!

Praying for Papa

One of the things about being a Roman Catholic that I enjoy the most is the very real feeling that I am connected to such a large family in the Communion of Saints. At no time has this been more apparent to me than in the past month as we pray for the election of the new pope. This meant being united in prayer with so many people around the world, the cardinals themselves, and the saints in Heaven. It meant sharing in intimate prayer with family near and friends far. It meant bonding with both my traditional Catholic boyfriend and a non-Catholic writing friend over the movie "The Shoes of the Fisherman." It meant praying the Litany of the Saints with the 115 cardinals as I watched them enter the conclave. It also meant joining my previous holy papas in prayer for my new papa.

See, the election of a new pope is personal for me. My faith is at the heart of who I am, and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church is the Vicar of Christ. He is representing Jesus here on earth. My relationship with Jesus is intimate. Aside from Holy Communion and Holy Scripture, one cannot get anymore spiritually intimate than sharing Him with the men who are His spokesmen on earth. The Holy Father, like my earthly father, leads me as a father leads a child. He shows me the best way to follow The Way, The Truth, and The Life.


Blessed Pope John Paul II is the first pope to really make an impression on me. My relationship with this Holy Father mostly goes back to my pilgrimage to Denver, Colorado for World Youth Day in 1993. Papa, as I fondly call him, has taught me much over the years, and I continue to learn from him. His initial message of "Be not afraid" has continued to come to me over the years. I struggle with that as a prayer warrior. Fear is the number one evil that prevents us from doing good in this world. I don't want to fear, but I do. I try to beat it back. Papa helps me with his exhortation, but I can't do it on my own. It sure helps to know that I have such a large family in the Church to stand with me. Papa JPII has also implanted in me a deep sense of the sacredness of Life at every stage. It goes way beyond fighting against abortion and euthanasia, but my defense of life began there.


Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is my good German Shepherd. He has led the flock that God gave him with steadfastness, knowledge, and courage. His adherence to Church doctrine and tradition have given me an appreciation for the wealth of the Magisterium. I am surprised a bit by how this scholarly man has helped to lead me on the pilgrimage that JPII started me on. I did not think that he would really be a part of it, but as he has taken the courageous step away from the Petrine Office, he is teaching me that much can be done to help the world and individuals with prayerful silence. I am reminded that God's voice is found in the whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). My Good Shepherd is demonstrating to me the power of prayerful silence in a world too loud. I must learn this as a prayer warrior princess. Funny how my German heritage lovingly taught me that children were meant to be seen, not heard. My German Shepherd is showing me that not seeking first to be heard gives me the opportunity to hear God. We must listen with prayer. B16 knows this-- he's teaching by practice, not by word-- very much like his predecessor did while embracing the suffering that comes with disease and advanced age.  

His Holiness Pope Francis has quickly become my new papa. I am smiling as a I type that; one can never have too many papas in the Catholic Church, especially when they line up so wonderfully! As the 266th  pope, Francis has immediately called to mind the natural progression from where his predecessors have left off. He began to lead us in silent prayer, just as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has committed his life to prayer for the Church. Pope Francis, in choosing to take up his name after St. Francis of Assisi, shows us who he is to be as papa. He will be the pope of "preach the Gospel always, use words when necessary." He will share with us his prayer for peace. His very first words and actions as our papa were words and actions of prayer and humility. He led us in prayer for my good German Shepherd. Then he asked for our prayers. But he didn't leave it to us to do on our own time. He asked us to pray right then over him and he bowed his head for several seconds. Actually, I didn't know that he had done that. I was doing as he asked. I had bowed my head, found God in my heart, and fervently did as my new papa bade. My "Our Father" was personal, not memorized words just tripping off my lips. It was a rather personal appeal to my Heavenly Father for my Holy Father. How moving it was to join my intimate prayer with the prayers of the tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square, with the millions around the world watching! I know that among those viewers some were not as serious about their prayer as I was. But I also know that so very many were. If I needed proof of that all I needed to do was to look at my Facebook newsfeed. But I didn't need proof. I felt it. It was in the holy silence that engulfed St. Peter's square when the youthful and universal crowd prayed with their hearts, minds and souls. When Pope Francis prayed for "urbi et orbi" (the city [Rome] and the world), he prayed for me.

I have great excitement about the papacy of Pope Francis. He has already has packed so many lessons for my ongoing pilgrimage. Bl. John Paul II physically led me in my World Youth Day pilgrimage. That was my first pilgrimage, and I have discovered that it never ended. To be a prayer warrior means to be a pilgrim, and to be a pilgrim means being a prayer warrior. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, now devoting his life to prayer, has said that he is "just a pilgrim starting his last part of his pilgrimage on this earth." Pope Francis invites me, all of us, to walk with him on this pilgrimage:

And now, let us start this journey, bishop and people, bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which leads all the Churches in charity, a journey of fraternity, of love, of trust among us.
"Let us always pray for us, one for the other, let us pray for the whole world, so that there may be a great fraternity. I hope that this journey of the Church that we begin today and which my cardinal vicar, who is here with me, will help me with, may be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city.

That takes me to St. Francis again. Francis of Assisi was well acquainted with pilgrimages. He was a knight in search of victory for Christ. He learned that a life of Communion with Christ was to live as Christ. In Pope Francis I see images of him that show me that he is going to lead by example. He has laid down his life for the People of God. He has humility. He has the servant heart. He will continue to wash the feet of the outcasts. Several years ago I read an article by a priest who said that throughout history God has raised up great saints in times of great struggle. St. Francis lived during a very dark time in history. Our Church needed him. For more than 800 years, St. Francis has helped to rebuild the broken Body of Christ. During this dark, modern age, we too need great saints to be raised up. People like Bl. John Paul II, Bl. Mother Theresa, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and others. I believe that Pope Francis will continue on the same path of holy imitation of Christ and he will lead me. He too will rebuild the Church, as Jesus commanded St. Francis. He will do it stone by stone, person by person. Every pilgrimage begins with a single step... It continues with each single step. Onward, Church!