On Love Stories

                Several months ago, a few members of the Core Team here at St. Mary’s and I got in a slightly heated discussion about the merits of Disney Princesses. Several male members of our team took up the offense, while me and the lovely Sara Bushland, the defense. They claimed that all they were about was finding the perfect man, moving into his castle and living happily ever after. We countered that they were in fact about finding yourself, and also, that there is no truly great story in our world that does not feature love in some form or fashion. Even the dude-liest of dude movies has some semblance of love. Naturally, Sara and I emerged victorious.

                Thanks in large part to a weird memory that brings up the most pointless of thoughts, this discussion came up in my head during prayer recently. I was praying through the sorrowful mysteries when all of a sudden, it hit me. There is no truly great story in our world that does not feature love, and the greatest of stories our world has ever heard has love at its absolute core- the story of our Lord, on the cross.

                See, crazy as it is, I never really thought about why Jesus pushed through all of those stations we now pray through. I never really consideredwhy he endured the tortures of the cross. Ultimately, I already knew it was for my salvation. For the forgiveness of my sins, He took the weight of them onto His holy shoulders. I knew those things in my head. But what always stood out in my mind, however, was how wickedly high Jesus’s pain tolerance was. I was so focused on the pain He bore that I never truly saw the purpose of why he bore it.

                I admired Christ’s patience, His courage to go through with it all, even His humility in accepting the torment and torture of those He came to save. But what was revealed to me while praying the rosary and meditating on the same mysteries that I have a million times, is something I thought I already knew. True patience, courage and humility are born from the same mother- Love.

Love is something that seems so supernatural and yet so earthly at the same time. It is something no one but Christ and His mother can do perfectly, and yet, we all do to some degree love something, or someone. Love pushes us past our limits, to the very edge of human capabilities. Love has transformative properties in us. I think about those experiments done during World War II, how love shown through just holding an infant for fifteen minutes a day can make or break their lives. I think about how love can push mothers to lift cars over their children. And I think about how love pushed the God-Man to bear insult, injury and death with patience, courage and humility.

It was love that motivated Him to rise up out of the Garden of Gethsemane and face his captors, and love that helped Him forbear whippings that tore his skin to shreds. It was love that let Him sit in silence while he was mocked and crowned with thorns, and love that made Jesus stand up and continue on the road to Calvary. It was love that came pouring out when he begged for forgiveness of his own murderers. And it is love that will bear us through this world.

Without love, there are no truly great stories. Without love, there are no stories at all. Love is such a key element of the human experience, our hearts burst with it so much, that it inevitably pours out onto paper, into ears and hearts, who crave more of it. That is why the great stories all circulate around love. We crave it, because it is a critical and necessary part of us. And we will keep craving it until we find the source of all love and rely on it. God himself, in the Holy Trinity.

I now understand what Saint Augustine meant when he said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Our hearts need His love, and they won’t rest until they do, so give your hearts a break already and find what you seek in Him. Become one of the great stories (we just call them saints). 

Keara King gets excited about the little things in life-like bagels on Friday, swinging on swing sets, and Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music. She is a senior student at SFA, from Flower Mound, Texas. She is a social work major, and a member of the Core Team at St. Mary's Catholic Campus Ministry. 

Love

Love. This word, these four simple letters, have been thrown at us since before we were born. We get used to hearing, “I love you,” from parents, family members, and friends and replying in kind. As we get older, we dream of a passionate love, the kind Nicolas Sparks would write about in one of his oh so addicting novels. We want to be swept off our feet and you can bet Hallmark plays this up to make a buck. This word is literally everywhere, whether it’s talking about the kind of love mentioned above or love of yourself, it’s hard to walk into a store without seeing the word placed decoratively somewhere. And why not? As one of my childhood favorites Aquamarine would inform you, “Love is the closest thing we have to magic.” Maybe that’s why people so desperately cling to the idea of love, because if someone doesn’t love you, what importance do you really have?

Okay I know that took a depressing turn, but bear with me for just a little bit longer. I was recently scanning the aisles of Half-Price Books, one of my favorite ways to pass time as long as I have my Starbucks, leggings, oversized sweater, and all other Basic White Girl attire intact. As I sipped my Vanilla Macchiato, I wondered aimlessly over to the religion section. My normal area being fiction, I was surprised to find a small section devoted specifically to Catholicism. I quickly scanned the books and picked out a few that visually caught my eye. Well for anyone who knows me, I have a hard time picking out food to order off a menu so picking out a book takes me all day. An hour later, while I’m placing the discarded books away I came across a battered copy of No Greater Love which is a compiled set of Mother Teresa teachings. She’s my role model so all other books went back to the shelf and I practically skipped up to the front as I bought the book. I made myself read only a section a day, allowing myself to truly take in what she was saying, and I’d like to share with you what I learned.
         

Mother Teresa was often described as being simple or childish in her ways and words. Personally I disagree. She saw and understood this world better than anyone because she wasn’t looking for the world, she was looking for Christ. She seeked and she found, but it wasn’t just in the Church that she found Christ, she found Christ in each and every person she encountered. Take a second and imagine what that is like, to see your God in every person you meet. That means the janitor, and the sorority girl, and the professor that assigned you that long essay, and that girl that just doesn’t know when to shut her mouth, and that boy that sits alone to eat lunch everyday… yeah it means everyone, not just your friends. If you saw God in each of them, can you help but love them? I would hope that answer is no, I want to love them too. This kind of love is a special kind though, it’s not one manufactured by Hallmark, it is so much more than that.

This is the love we see in children. Jesus told Nicodemus to, “Become as a little child.” That doesn’t mean to grab your blanket and throw a tantrum when you don’t get your way. This means to give love freely and to pray honestly with “an earnest desire to love much and to make loved the one that is not loved.” YOU GUYS WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO MAKE SOMEONE FEEL LOVED. This is like the worlds coolest superpower that God gave to each and every one of us.  Even cooler is the fact that it doesn’t take a grand gesture to show somebody that they are loved, it is the intensity of the love we put into our gesture. That means that if you honestly mean the smile that you give to the stranger in the street, it means more than the Christmas gift you spent $49.95 on due to a feeling of obligation. To Mother Teresa that smile was more than just a way to spread the love, it was a way to change the world.

One of Mother Teresa’s main themes was that love begins at home. Since we are all either on break or have recently returned back to campus dwelling spaces, I’m sure we have a good picture of what life at home is like. For me, home is a combination of loud voices, high emotions, hectic schedules, but more than anything love. My beautiful sister reminded us of that tonight at dinner when we were all light heartedly teasing my brother and she said, “Okay listen guys, I just want you to know that I love you always.” The teasing instantly stopped as all seven of us recited that we love her too. Naturally, we tried to beat each other out with the amount of love, but our cup overflows with love for each other regardless. After we have taken the time to love each other at home, our love then easily pours out to our neighbors. Thereafter the lovebug takes like a virus and spreads.

To end the blog, I feel obliged to inform you that true love is not an easy love. A famous quote from Mother Teresa is, “I have found a great paradox that if you love until it hurts there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Love is sacrifice, it is putting someone else’s needs before your own. Love is humbling yourself to know that in order for someone to open up to you, you have to first be willing to open up to them and you have to be willing to see the world from their point of view. God made each and every one of us in His hand and with unconditional love. God unconditionally loves you. He wants the same from you, and the best way to show God that love, is by showing each individual the same love. So you probably want an answer to my original question, if someone doesn’t love you, what importance do you really have? Well the question itself is illogical because God loves you. He says, “I have called you by name and you are mine.” You are important and you have the power to make someone else feel that way as well.

Sara Bushland is a Sophomore at Stephen F. Austin State University. She is studying Rehabilitation Services with a Specialization in Orientation and Mobility, largely inspired by her youngest sister. Sara is fearless when it comes to grabbing people's attention on campus, enjoys making people laugh with her, and is pretty fond of #authenticrelationships. Feel free to e-mail her at sbushland@gmail.com!

Year of Consecrated Life

With the beginning of Advent yesterday, we not only started a new Liturgical Year (Happy New Year!!!), but also a year dedicated to Consecrated Life. Over the next 12 months, we will be hearing a lot about Religious Life - what it's like, and how to discern whether you are called to it. 

I wanted to share the two blog posts below because it is comforting to know that other people are struggling with their vocation as I am. We all need the reminder that the only way to salvation is to surrender to God’s will and to follow in his steps. Pray for vocations. Pray that not only will we have strong leaders in our church, but we will also have strong, faithful leaders in our families. For this is where the seed of faith is grown!

http://imaginesisters.org/surrendering/

http://tylertenbarge.blogspot.com/2014/10/we-are-counting-on-you.html

Check out Imagine Sisters for more information about the Year of Consecrated Life! 

Elyse Dishman is a Senior Theatre major working towards her BA in Education. She will graduate in May 2015 after student teaching in Fort Worth in the spring. She enjoys singing, reading, and saving souls.

Step Away From the Ledge: STRESS

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

It's getting down to the wire, and people are beginning to feel (if they haven't already been feeling) the pressure.  University students everywhere are shooting up coffee, slamming their heads on library desks, and trying to cram a semester's worth of information into their heads, wondering all the while if they'll ever pass and why they decided to go to college in the first place.  It's Hail Mary time.


When Will This END?!
I am one of those students.  That scream up at the top?  Yeah, that's me, and I have a feeling every single student entering into finals just shared that moment with me.  I've been near breaking point for a few days now.  It's been a tough semester, but, and maybe this is just me, it feels like it's all peaking here.  Like it's been waiting, biding it's time.  I've been slowly climbing this mountain of work to the top, only to find myself facing Everest.  And all I can think is, "What the heck?! I just did this!" 


The theme for this semester has been, by far, STRESS!  I've been so attacked with every little thing that has to do with classes; I've had more breakdowns this semester than probably all of them put together (and being a super-duper-senior, that's a lot).  I just want to be done.  Finished.  As all the people around me become younger and younger, I feel the pressure just a little more.


How many of you have felt like this before (or are even feeling it right now)?  Uh, probably all of you.  I would even venture to say every single human being ever in existence.  Probably every person surrounding me in the library right now as I take my break are a part of that guess.


It seems like our stresses just kind of take turns, rotating on a lazy susan that goes around and around in our heads, never ending.  We keep wondering when it'll be done, if we'll ever be free from money stress, or study stress, or family stress.  These are legitimate worries, of course, but how much do they show our trust in God?


A God of Stress?
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a worrier.  To. The. MAX.  I worried when I was a kid, and I still worry now.  Take for instance, right now: I have a huge three days ahead of me that have me crying and sweating bullets.  Yet, here I am writing a blog instead of working on my papers so I can no longer be worried.  Silly.  I know I'm not the only one with useless worries though (those are the ones we could fix, but we don't).


God speaks to us a lot through stress; maybe a better term would be that he "yells" to us.  He constantly is calling out to us, desperately desiring our hearts to rest in Him.  I know for me it's because I don't want to listen sometimes.  It's easier to worry than to give my heart away.  I want the strength without the cost.  Instead, I been torture myself with "why didn't I do this sooner" and "why was I so dumb" or lazy.  And when I do that, stress sort of becomes my god, a "god" that only makes me suffer and fearful.


The Beauty
Recently, I've fallen in love with Psalm 46.  If you've never given it a look, take out your (dusty, if you're Catholic) Bible and bookmark it.  I won't give you the whole thing, but essentially it says: God is with us, and we will not fear, though our lives are being moved.  It reminds us that with God at our side, "we cannot be moved."  Wether we feel it or not, He is with us.  Loving us.


God has given us a power; the enemy knows it, and he will never stop attacking, especially when we are weak.  But we have to remember that God lets the stress in, so it can't all be for nothing. Suffering makes us who we are.  We were promised suffering, but we were also promised light (Matt 16: 24-5; John 8:12).  We never go at it alone.  I think God allows it so that we will run to Him.  God is constantly fighting a war for us (Psalm 46:9); He fights for our hearts, and, for some of us, our sanity.  He wants to show us His glory for Love of us, and sometimes it takes beating us over the head with an exam to get a glimpse.


The Message

"Be still, and know that I am God!" Psalm 46: 10

Be still.  We forget that bit.  We are called, daily, to stop the constant worrying and stress.  We're called to be still and recognize the true God.  Leave the god of stress behind you; embrace the God of Love.  And so... I will.  I'll suck back that scream and offer it up.  I think, for once, it's time for me to stop and let Him move.  We need to get down on our knees, instead of letting them buckle beneath us from stress.


When you take a breather from your work the rest of this week, find gratitude.  It's easy to be bogged down and busy, but make time for prayer and thanksgiving.  It'll do wonders for your day.  Life's going to be hard, and sometimes, it's going to suck.  It's the greater glory in the end that will hold us up.  Step away from the ledge, and remind yourself He's got you this week and always.


I'm praying for you all (especially during finals), and please keep this worrier in your prayers as well.  Now, back to the books.  ;)  God bless and Mary keep.

Erica Trabanino                                          I'm lactose intolerant, but I love cheese (and ice cream).  I am a missionary studying Creative Writing at SFA (and multiple schools) for what seems like a million years, but I know there's a bigger plan in mind.  Mary is my homegirl, and St. John is my brotha'.  My joyful pastimes are books, laughing at silliness, random crazy dancing, and finding God in everything.  If you would like to contact Erica, you can email her at: trabanino.eri@gmail.com Want to write a blog for Catholic Lumberjacks? Contact: stmarysccm@gmail.com