I think for our kids it's better for them here, living in a small village and going to a small school. Had we stayed in suburban Texas they'd be swallowed up in some institutional school system where parents have restricted access to what happens in the school. The alternative would have been to move to a small town in the U.S. where there aren't jobs or send the kids to our parish's private school which we couldn't afford.
(The unaffordability of Catholic schools for most parents is a burr in my britches - but that's for another time.)
For me, living in Poland is rather like self-imposed exile. I'm an alien here and I'll never be fully part of the community. My Polish has improved but there's still a great chasm between me and other people due to my deficiencies in the language.
I like teaching English far more than working in transportation logistics. That was truly 'hamster-on-a-wheel' type of work and I don't miss it. However, I don't get a regular and consistent paycheck here like with my job in Texas and so there's more financial stress here.
As I wrote about in my previous post, my mind here is freer and more open to work on my writing. Yet, I have limited access to books in English beyond what I already own because of financial restraints.
I could go on, but I think I've given enough examples of the painful contradictions, the pluses and minuses, of living here. Pray and ask God to give us strength and wisdom.
Mary, Undoer of Knots
Pope Francis has been devoted to Saint Mary under her appellation of "Undoer of Knots" since seeing a painting of that name by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner while studying in Bavaria, Germany in the 1980s. The painting shows Mary surrounded by angels, with the Holy Spirit hovering over her head, as she rests her foot on the head of 'knotted' snake. The idea of Mary untying knots comes from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: "The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith."
May our Lady assist me in untying the knots of contradictory desires in my own heart.
Why Catholic?
When I converted to the Catholic faith 7 years ago, the reaction of my family and friends was mixed. I was raised in a Protestantism that was very anti-Catholic. There was some hostility from a few people (who I eventually lost contact with more or less as a result of my conversion), some concern from a few others, some genuine interest from one or two and silence (indifference?) from the rest.
I've been tempted to write an explanation for my conversion (an 'apology' in the old sense of the word, which means 'explanation' and not 'saying sorry'). But as the Catholic convert John Henry Newman once said, "An explanation of one's conversion to the Faith is not something that can be fully given between the soup and the entrée." (I'm quoting from memory as I can't find the exact quote to save my life. Really, Google?)
In other words, it can't be fully explained in 50 words or less. For me the road to the Church started very early in my life with many signposts pointing the way that I didn't recognize at the time. I saw this text recently that goes a long way in giving my own answer:
Q: What kind of Catholic are you . . . a dogmatic Catholic or an open-minded Catholic?
A: I don't know what that means. Do you mean do I believe the dogma that the Catholic Church proposes for belief?
Q: Yes.
A: Yes.
Q: How is such a belief possible in this day and age?
A: What else is there?
Q: What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism, atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Islam, Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.
A: That's what I mean . . .
Q: I don't understand. Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: It's not good enough.
Q: Why not?
A: This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer "Scientific humanism". That won't do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don't see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let him go until God identified himself and blessed him.
Q: Grabbed aholt?
A: A Louisiana expression . . .
Q: How do you account for your belief?
A: I can only account for it as a gift from God.
Q: Why would God make you such a gift when there are others who seem more deserving, that is, serve their fellow man?
A: I don't know. God does strange things . . .
Q: But shouldn't one's faith bear some relation to the truth, facts?
A: Yes. That's what attracted me, Christianity's rather insolent claim to be true, with the implication that other religions are more or less false.
Q: You believe that?
A: Of course.
Walker Percy, excerpt from Conversations with Walker Percy, printed in the July edition of Magnificat
Walker Percy
If I were to add to what Walker Percy says above it's that the Church is Who she says she is - the Body and the Bride of Christ Jesus. (The Wedding Feast of the Lamb is happening in the eternal now and every mass is a participation in it.) No merely human institution could last 2,000 years. Not with such people like me in it!
Here's Hilaire Belloc:
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
Benedicamus Domino - Latin for 'Let us bless the Lord'
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