Faith & Fatherhood

Today was Father's Day. As I scrolled through Facebook I couldn't help but smile at all of the beaming dads with their kiddos in tow, everyone sporting giant smiles. It sure made the heart happy to witness all of that love. It gave me time to reflect on fatherhood, faith, and the expectations placed on men in today's society.

For those of you who do not know, my husband has been completing a college degree online for the last two years to become a teacher. For the last almost eight years he has worked as a plumber, and for the last four and a half of those years, he has been a Master Plumber. When people ask me what my husband is going back to school for some people reply with things like, "Well, he's not going to be making as much money!" "You make pretty decent money plumbing." and so on and so forth..
I almost visibly cringe when nearly complete strangers say these things to me because my heart finds it so sad that money has become the mark of a successful man. It has become very evident to me in my own household that the mark of a truly rich man, a truly wise man, is that he is a God centered one.

 Many men will sacrifice their families for money, all the while saying they're making those sacrifices FOR their family, but when a man sacrifices MONEY for his FAMILY, then the world just stops making sense. How backward is that? I very much appreciate that men have a responsibility to provide, and to some extent very real discussions need to take place in a household about what that looks like, but I'm seeing more and more society's expectations creating burnt out dads striving to give their families more 'things' hoping to make their families more happy when most simply put, the only real way to provide long lasting peace and happiness in your home is by giving your wife and your children the gift of God. Leading spiritually in the household is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT task fathers are called to. When a man is striving to be God centered, when he is developing his spiritual life, then he looks at the world through a different set of lenses. It becomes much easier to know what your wife ACTUALLY needs, what your children ACTUALLY need, and what God NEEDS from YOU.

I bet this is the part in my schpeel that people start rolling their eyes, mumbling something about me being too Catholic, or 'of course Katie is religious, she would say that..' but if we're being quite honest, and decent writing is, then you must know how terribly hard my third pregnancy was mentally for me. How terribly hard my daughter's first few months of life were for me and in the midst of that storm I had God, but I also had God's LOVE through my husband. I had a husband who didn't blink, didn't waiver in loving me, he just did because he knew that's what God would do. He rooted my struggle in God, walked with me in faith, and I am almost certain prayed for me often. Any time my eyes wandered into the dark, he was always there, pointing me back to God..pointing me back to the light. Marriage is an ever changing and evolving organism all it's own. My husband today was not the husband I married. The father I am raising children with today is not the same father I started raising children with, and it is because somewhere along the way he realized he couldn't love me the way I deserved without first loving God more. That he couldn't be the man he needed to be without going to God first. It is my firm belief that if Gage wouldn't have been more God centered, then I wouldn't have been given  the advice I needed, the tools I needed, the perspective I needed to grow strong and to heal.

There is a selflessness in developing your spiritual and emotional self FIRST because society tells you that work should come first, making money should come first, building a career should come first, getting an education should come first....and if you are a man and you aren't doing that, then what kind of a man must you be? (please note this is NOT me saying it's ok NOT to work and sit around all day doing nothing because you say you're developing your spiritual life...nuh uh..) You must allow me to tell you most ardently, dear reader, that there is a CLARITY that comes with that selflessness, and if you are a father and you aren't  leading your family spiritually, if you aren't providing them with that FIRST then there is a big piece of the puzzle missing. Money MAY ease burdens for your children in their lives, but that will only be temporary. If you want to pass on a truly worthwhile investment to them, make it be your faith. Faith will be the only thing they can carry through the trials and tribulations that they will ultimately face. They will need this more than anything material you could ever provide for them because faith and their relationship with God is the one thing that can never be taken away from them. Like everything else in fatherhood, they don't need you to be perfect....they just need you to show up. They need to see you praying, they need to see you making time to go to church, they need you to talk to them about God, they need to see you developing your inner self because they too one day will need to find that peace inside of themselves. They need to see you growing spiritually so that they too recognize that beyond their physical achievements, their hearts are the most important piece of themselves because that's where their light is. Fathers, CHOOSE to be that light for your families.

When the apostles left all they had ever known, when they 'casted away their nets' to follow Christ, I couldn't imagine how scary that must have been, but as I have watched my husband, the father of our household cast away his own nets and walk the path God (the higher power) has placed in his heart, I have seen wonderful blessings unfold starting in our home. These blessings do not come without sacrifice, but they are very real and not any less beautiful because we have struggled. Our home is happier, our marriage fuller, my children are thriving, and beyond these walls, Gage has been gifted with wonderful opportunities in teaching and coaching beyond anything we ever hoped for when he set out on this journey. That's the beauty of living your best spiritual life. When you plant those seeds in FAITH beautiful things grow from them.


Fathers, do not toil in vain. Work on planting seeds that will one day produce much fruit. Gifts that will hold your children when they cry tears you'll never see. Gifts that will bless them emotionally in their relationships. Gifts that will one day help them raise your grandchildren. Garden with God at your center and watch the beauty that grows.

Dedicated to my husband, Gage and my dad, Mark.

The Parable of The Fig Tree

The year was 2014,  about six months before my wedding, and my fiance and I were having our weekly date night. I remember this conversation so vividly, it's probably a sign that the Holy Spirit was very much a part of it, but it wasn't just a conversation, it really was more of an argument. There Gage and I sat as we got in a heated debate about going to 'confession'. As he tried to explain his view I rattled off with things like:

"Who's the priest to forgive my sins?"
"If God knows everything, then why do I need to go?"
"Why can't I just pray for forgiveness and receive it that way?"
"I'm not where you are at in my spiritual journey, so stop forcing me!"
and on and on and on........

Now if you will, please fast forward to this week's readings from church about unrepentant sinners, their demise, and the Gospel including The Parable of The Fig Tree. You know, the one where the farmer wants to cut the fig tree down because year after year it does not bare fruit, but the man tending the tree pleads the farmer to let him keep it a little longer to nurture the tree, care for the tree, and fertilize the tree in hopes that he can help the tree become healthy once more....

I don't know about you, but those readings were some hard pills to swallow. At first, it is very easy for your heart to be struck with fear. It is easy to misunderstand the teachings for vengeance and punishment, and then it becomes just as easy to close your heart, to turn away.

I recently read a book called "The Biggest Lie in The History of Christianity" by Matthew Kelly. It was a profound read in that while some of his concepts seemed radical at first, I kept my heart open to them and began to ponder their implications. Matthew went on to guess that one of the biggest reasons people have fallen away from the church/stopped going to church is that because 'they stop finding a message of hope there...'

After sitting at church on Sunday and listening about God's stern warnings, towers falling on sinners, and trees being cut down (even with the quick mention of confession).....it was very evident to me that one looking in on the surface of what is preached can see these teachings as very hopeless cautionary tales. And while as Catholics we are taught that our decisions and relationship with God DO matter in determining our ultimate resting place and how IMPORTANT these warnings are not to fall on deaf ears (because as Bishop Robert Barron points out "We can become so resistant to God's grace that our leaves dry up. This is not divine vengeance but spiritual physics.")... Please, ....PLEASE take heart in what I'm about to tell you because in these teachings there IS so much hope and love to be found if only we know where to look.

Repentance.  I don't know about you, but when I hear repentance I find it so archaic sounding. Like the reverend from The Scarlet Letter whipping the shame out of himself in the secrecy of his closet archaic.....Repentance ACTUALLY loosely defined means 'to turn away from sin and amend one's life.'

The Parable of The Fig Tree begins with a stern warning of casting the tree aside (the spiritually dead person) but ends with it's tender asking the farmer that he take care of the tree and bring it back to life. While it is IMPORTANT to hear the warning in that, it is equally IMPORTANT to hear that the tender wants the tree to be fertilized/taken care of, the tender believes in the tree's ability to produce fruit, and that the tender loves that tree despite itself. There, my friends, lies our message of HOPE. At first glance, our fear wants to tell us that Sunday's message was all about punishment, but it is with a hopeful heart when we look beyond that, there is a beautiful message of redemption.

So how does hope, this parable, and repentance all fit together? As Christians who are practicing Catholics, the most evident answer to that is 'confession.'

So today, I dove into a wonderful talk by Vinny Flynn on FORMED entitled "The 7 Secrets of Confession." Below are the beautiful ideas presented to me through this talk.

Pope John Paul can be quoted saying, "Now more than ever, the people of God must be helped to rediscover the sacrament of mercy. Let us ask Christ to help us rediscover the full beauty of the sacrament, to abandon ourselves to the mercy of God, and with his grace, set out again on our journey to holiness."

 Pope Francis goes on to say, "Confession is not a trip to the dry cleaner. It is not a torture chamber. It is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ who waits for you as you are.."

Remember 2014 Katie? The Katie who was so adamant about not going to confession? The 2014 Katie who had a hardened heart? Well, I am happy to report that after years of attending mass every week and hearing message after message my heart slowly started to soften to the idea of going to confession. I have been going regularly for a few years (after only going ONCE before my first communion). You can only imagine the peace I received after stating in the confessional that I had not been to confession in 20+ years only to be told, "Welcome Home." Even after practicing this sacrament for 3+ years I still found through listening to Mr. Flynn's talk today that I have many preconceived notions of what confession is versus what confession ACTUALLY is. But that's kind of what people do when they think about the Catholic church, huh? That's kind of what people do who have fallen away from the church (myself included from the time I was 17 years old to about 22  years old). We have wounds, we have fears, then we misplace those wounds and fears on preconceived notions of what we THINK the church teaches without even knowing what it actually teaches. This leaves us hardened and often times sad. But as I listened to this talk I was reminded that Catholicism is a VERY personal relationship with God. Each and every sacrament given by Jesus Christ through the Catholic church is EXTREMELY personal. Here are the seven secrets of Confession he outlined to help with preconceived notions any of you might be facing, to remind you HOW LOVED YOU ARE, and to present what a SPECIAL gift that is made available to us through confession.

1-Sin doesn't change God.
Sin isn't about behavior, it's about a relationship. We are not just created, we are BONDED to God. Sin is a denial of His fathering. When we enter into the confessional, God looks at the broken relationship, not just the behavior. The sun will continue to shine no matter our actions. It's what the sun does, but we can affect how the sun gets to us. We can go under an umbrella, we can hide under a tree, we can run into a cave and be surrounded by total darkness.......but the sun will still be there when we walk out of that cave, venture out from under that tree or umbrella, and so will you find this is also true of God's love. It is always there.

2-It's not just about forgiveness.
Confession FIRST AND FOREMOST is about HEALING. Who knew? I sure didn't. I was definitely one of the many Americans he was speaking of when he said FORGIVENESS was the most common answer when he asked people to describe confession in one word. I had the very simple view that "Ok, I go to confession because I made bad choices and God is mad at me for those choices and now after I've partaken in this sacrament God isn't mad at me anymore because he's forgiven me." I mean this in no way to be sarcastic, but to only be brave enough to admit a very real distortion that takes place when we think about the act of going to confession. Folks, it is so much more than that. So much more. Sin-bad choices-mistakes-(whatever you want to call them) leave us wounded, they leave us hurt, they leave us disfigured. Confession is 1 of 2 holy sacraments offered through the Catholic church that is a HEALING sacrament. Confession first and foremost mends the brokenness caused by these wounds, and restores what is lost. Forgiveness is what initiates the healing process, and remember confession is a process.

3-Your sin IS different than my sin.
Sin is sin, is sin....? Not true according to this talk. Knowing the difference between mortal (e.g., breaking a ten commandment) and venial (e.g., thinking an uncharitable thought) sins is important, it offers a good guide but REMEMBER as Pope Francis so beautifully illustrates " confession is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ who waits for you as you are.." AS YOU ARE...God is not judging you solely based on your behavior (because he ALONE knows your heart), but he's also judging you in where you are at in relationship to Him and how you are responding to Him. God does not see the behavior, he sees the wound behind it.

4-Confession is never really private.
Remember 2014 Katie "Who's the priest to forgive my sins, anyway!?" Well, it is firmly taught in the Catholic church that it is not the priest present in the confessional, but Christ Himself and the priest acting "In The Person of Christ." Christ hears your confession, and the Holy Trinity hears your confession. He also goes on to explain that all of heaven is present and I would really love to look into that more.

5-You've Got Mail
He explained that God has emailed you all the forgiveness you'll ever need, but we have to log on, open the internet, click on the app to access this forgiveness that He's sent. You must access His forgiveness through your repentance. It blew my mind to consider that Christ died on the cross for all of the wrong doings I've already committed but also for all of the FUTURE wrong doings I can't even yet conceptualize.

6-New Wine Needs New Skin
"Confession requires a radical reorientation of your whole life." Confession is about change.

7-You Need to Let Go of Your Chains
Sins weigh us down. So often we walk around with our chains and our wounds. Pope Francis recently gave a talk to priests in Italy in which he drove home "We don't need more analysis in the confessional. There are open wounds. People are hurting. So much woundedness. We have to heal wounds. The priest has to smell like his sheep, the priest has to know his sheep, he has to weep for his people. Christ's heart is wrenched open by your woundedness. That is what compassion means."

As I have grown in my spiritual journey and grown in relationship with the Catholic church, it has often times become apparent to me that I must walk in faith when my heart doesn't seem automatically attracted to a teaching or when my heart doesn't automatically understand a teaching until the Holy Spirit provides me with what my soul is searching for. So during this Lenten season it is my HOPE that you return home, it is my HOPE that you can walk in faith searching for answers you cannot yet see but ones that you desperately need, it is my HOPE that you realize how loved you are, and it is my HOPE that you see the beauty/love/peace found in the sacraments given to us by Christ through the church, most importantly the sacrament of confession......the sacrament of HEALING.

God Bless.