I use my words
Reflecting back and looking ahead
Last Friday marked the 7th birthday of Intentional Catholic.
Officially, that is.
In truth, Intentional Catholic was born nineteen years ago, when the doctor came into the recovery room to tell me my newborn daughter had Down syndrome and my first thought was, “I’m going to give her up for adoption.”
This scene features in every talk I give, pretty much everywhere, because it’s in a moment like that—when you face a mirror and discover that the person you thought you were is not the person you actually are—that you start to confront the world as it is and not as you would like it to be. A world made up of of 2-D planes with neat and tidy edges (right/wrong, black/white) is easier to grapple with. More comfortable. But it is not the real world.
Confronting that hard truth about myself with honesty broke me open. I could share countless points along the path in those first years of my daughter’s life that reinforced what God was trying to get me to see.
Like the email from a devout person, cc’d to every person on our distribution list, responding to the news of our daughter’s bonus chromosome with a prayer saying that her Down syndrome was a demon, and we should pray to have it exorcised so that she would “be the person God always intended her to be.”
Or like the story of a father in my state who turned down a job promotion because, even though it would have lifted them off the public welfare rolls, it was not a big enough raise to replace the Medicaid insurance for his disabled child that they would have lost. He chose to remain in poverty so that his child would have health coverage. (I thought: “Whoa. This whole pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps thing really doesn’t work, does it?”)
Or like the day we discovered that the orthotics provider had misfiled the insurance paperwork and therefore we were being billed $5000 for a pair of orthotics that would last one year. We are tigers where our kids and justice are concerned, and in the end the orthotics provider ate the entire cost. But as I regarded the difference between the $2500 that the insurance would consent to pay for those orthotics and the $5000 that people without insurance coverage were billed, I couldn’t help thinking, “This system accessing health care is totally, irredeemably broken.” And nothing I have experienced in the years since has changed my perspective on that.
I could go on forever.
I pound mercilessly on the bigness of what it means to be pro-life, because people of faith have reduced it to something so small, it has ceased to represent reality. When you reduce being pro-life to abortion and assisted suicide, you can pick a political side and hang on for dear life, no matter how twisted and immoral it becomes.
If you see the world in its full, complex reality, it’s impossible to do that and remain at peace in your own conscience.
For all these years, my prayer has been: “God, please let me make a difference.”
Starting in 2007, I began exploring the theme of faith and the real world on my personal blog. But that was a mommy blog and nobody really read those posts. They just cared about cute kid stories.
Seven years ago, when I launched the original Intentional Catholic blog, I envisioned staying behind the scenes, putting the words of our popes and bishops in the spotlight, and letting them speak directly to the consciences of modern Catholics who’ve been sucked into the either/or mentality (either side of it), without me inserting myself.
But those posts also didn’t have the impact I’d hoped for. It was only when I started sharing my own reflections that people began to respond.
Then a reader comment made me realize that nearly everyone who read these posts assumed I was a man. And that irritated me. I realized I needed to come out in front. The Church hears from men all.the.time. The Body of Christ needs to hear from women as well.
I have no pretensions of having studied theology. I’m “just” an intelligent, well-educated, faithful Catholic whose life experiences have challenged me to grapple with the world on its own terms, rather than through the lens of academic theology divorced from reality.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of theology. Theology is important.
But it has no impact unless we examine it in the context of the real, nitty-gritty, complex world.
Eventually, I realized that God has given me a unique combination of gifts. I am a seasoned speaker and presenter, a composer, and a novelist (i.e. storyteller) as well as an essayist. I realized that I could go out into parishes and tell stories of our faith, share music, and make a difference person to person as well as on Substack, because stories resonate in a way that theology in isolation does not.
And here we are today, with a subscription that is creeping up on double what it was three months ago.
And so today, I would like to issue an invitation. I recently revamped Intentional Catholic as a website, moving it under the umbrella of my author website, so that I can honor the many and varied things God has called me to in one place.
It’s not perfect and probably never will be, because I am chronically overstretched. But it’s functional, and it contains the raison d’être behind this ministry and an overview of the many things I can offer in a parish. Foremost among those are the “Stories of our Faith” evening parish event and the half-day women’s retreat I co-present with my good friend and fellow Catholic composer, Katie Wills.
I invite you to hop over and poke around. If you like what you see, please reach out, even if you’re not a person who makes programming calls in your parish. An introduction from you could unlock doors.
And since I’m usually too wordy to leave room to say it: thanks for walking this journey with me.
If you’re in the vicinity of St. Louis, join Katie and me at the Mercy Center on April 17th. If not, share with anyone you know who is!
