Praising God’s Blessings

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I have a confession. As a Catholic writer, I have many times been guilty of acts of cruelty. What’s worse, I am aware of this — but I’m not planning to stop.

It’s like this: I’m a Catholic convert, wife and mother of four healthy boys. My life is good. I’m happy. And I make sure the whole world knows it. Like a Catholic peacock (I’d say peahen, but they’re less, well, cocky), I strut around announcing that, basically, it’s pretty awesome to be me.

Why is this cruel? Because I know perfectly well there are others out there, better women than I, who never received these same blessings. Some dreamed about marriage and motherhood from early childhood but never had chances to marry. Some married but struggled with infertility. Perhaps they hoped for 10 children but only had one. Perhaps they never even had one.

I know so many good people who’ve encountered these kinds of challenges. I’m confident many could handle my life much better than I do. If they were me, their houses would be cleaner and their children would be better disciplined. Their husbands would more regularly come home to joyful greetings and hot meals. I’m not being modest here. I’m confident this is just the unvarnished truth.

I cause these people pain with my exultant odes to life, marriage and motherhood. Sometimes they admit it to me; sometimes they’re too nice for that, and I read about it in beautiful pieces like “Learning Prudence From Miscarriage, Postpartum Depression and NaPro,” by Constance Hull (Catholic Exchange).

And yet, I keep strutting around, showing off my awesome Catholic life.

Truly, I don’t wish to be cruel. I have so much sympathy for the unhappily single or childless, for those whose marriages have gone or ended badly, for the lonely and the infertile. I even have a small measure of insight into how they might feel, because the early years of my marriage were also infertile, and I remember the bleakness of constantly shopping for baby gifts but never for birth announcements. It felt like I’d submitted my motherhood application to heaven and had been rejected. Every time I write about my family, I think about the people who might read it and feel similarly downcast.

I carry on anyway for three reasons.

First, the world is so dark nowadays, and we all need a little relief. As a cultural critic, I do a fair amount of wallowing in gloom and doom, but it seems perverse to let that dominate my whole perspective when I’m, frankly, ridiculously blessed. Happy reflections on marriage and family help me to find the lighter side of life. I think many readers also appreciate hearing how, despite everything, married couples are still holding hands, children are still being born and loved, and families are still getting up on Sundays so they can worship God together in the most holy sacrifice of the Mass. I write for those people: to remind them all is not lost.

Second, I want younger Catholics to develop a strong sense that this sort of life is both normal and expected. Unless they feel “called out” of that ordinary path (and into religious vocations), young people should see the central features of my life (husband, children and household) as likely components of their own futures. They should prepare themselves from childhood to assume these roles, as husbands and fathers or as wives and mothers. Given the radically confused messages of our culture, it’s hard to stress this too soon or too clearly. Raising a family is a momentous and challenging task, which many people need to undertake. When I’m crowing about how fabulous it is to have four healthy boys, you might think of me as a recruiter for the “Faith and Family Squad.” I have to sell it a little to be effective.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to project the message “this is normal” without making someone else feel inadequate. If I’m “the norm,” what does that make the single, the childless and the unhappily married? There’s really no neat solution to this problem. It can only be “solved” through a better and more complete appreciation of the worth of individual souls and of the myriad contributions people can make to their communities and to the Church. Abolishing normal is not the right way to appreciate diversity, as our society is discovering at a terrible cost. But it’s far easier to state that truth than to live it.

The third reason I flaunt my happy, wedded fecundity is because in fact I do want people to want my life. I’m not out to impress the ones who were on board from the start. I’m after the ones who really believe contraceptives have liberated them from the scourge of their natural fertility. I’m taunting the ones who think marriage sounds boring and conventional. I’m issuing a challenge to those who reflexively assume mothering is for the ambitionless and mediocre (who frankly aren’t capable of much else). Those are the people I want to needle. With that kind, though, you can’t be too subtle and still stand a chance of getting through. Accordingly, I’m not subtle.

I hope I do make the right impression, at least every now and then. You never really know, do you? We do what we can and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. And the truth, of course, is that everyone’s life is hard in some way. With four boys under the age of 6, there are quite a few days I get through only by reminding myself, “It won’t always be like this. Someday you’ll be able to chat on the phone without ear plugs and wear pants for a whole day without collecting stains.” We all need some graces to get us from one week to the next.

Today though, I don’t want to complain. I just want to apologize to everyone I (knowingly but inadvertently) hurt by bragging about my wonderful life. I see you. I know you’re there. I admire your many gifts and the grace with which you offer up your struggles and disappointments. You may not realize how many people you’re inspiring from day to day, just by faithfully living the life you have. It’s the hardest and most important thing that any of us can do.

I pray for you. I hope you’ll pray for me, too, because I surely need it.

 

Rachel Lu teaches philosophy at the

University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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