When God Seems Absent, Medjugorje, Godchildren, and More

Weekly Notes

Happy Friday, Friends!

How is it August 18th already? This is the last week of my husband’s summer vacation, and he’ll be heading back to teaching come Monday. I’ll then start doing hybrid homeschooling with Toby and Becket the first week of September. That same week, we’ll pick back up on our weekly newsletters and begin our study of Pope Benedict’s third and final encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. For many, many reasons, I accomplished just a fraction of the things I hoped to accomplish this summer, and I have a pit in my stomach about the fall to come. To that end, as I try to figure out how to make this newsletter the very best it can be, but not have a nervous breakdown in the process, I’ve put together a little poll for subscribers. You’ll find it at the bottom of this newsletter. It would help me so much if you could take just one minute to answer the questions.

Also, in case you missed it, my family is going to Italy next summer, and I would love for you to join us. You can read all about the trip here. Right now, more than 75 percent of the spots are booked. We’ve got families coming with kids ranging from age 14 to 1, married couples coming without kids, and quite a few solo travelers, so if you want to grab one of the remaining spots, you will absolutely fit in.

Thanks, as always, for reading this newsletter. Thanks especially to the full subscribers who makes these free newsletters possible. If you want to become one, it’s easy! Just click the button below.  

Question Box

How do you celebrate your godchildren without breaking the budget?

When I only had a couple godchildren (and no children of my own), I loved giving them Christmas and birthday gifts. But, as the years have passed and the number of godchildren have climbed (Chris and I have a combined number of around 20), giving gifts to everyone has become impossible. That, however, has just underlined for me that my primary job as godmother is to pray for my godchildren and help their parents raise them in the Faith.

I know different cultures have different traditions (one German reader shared that in Germany godparents are expected to raise the child if anything happens to the parents), but canonically, the only duty of godparents is to present the child for baptism and assist the baptized person in leading a Christian life (Canon 872). That’s what matters. Those are the essential duties. Everything else is just icing.

For me particularly, with godchildren spread out all over the country, the best help I can give on a regular basis is prayer, so that’s what I do. I pray rosaries and Divine Mercy Chaplets for my godchildren every week. I’m also on speed dial for most of their parents, so I can pray more intensely for them when something is happening. And Chris and I have Masses said for them multiple times a year, including on birthdays. I’m not always the best about sending Mass cards, but the Masses get said just the same, and I trust that’s the very best gift I can give any of them. As St. Anselm once said, “A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.”

Your situation may be different—fewer godchildren, closer in physical proximity, etc.—but I would encourage you at minimum to commit to a regular habit of prayer for them, along with having regular Masses said for them. Treat that as the baseline, and if you can do more, great. If not, you’ll know that you’re still loving them and fulfilling your duties in the most important way. (And you most definitely won’t be breaking the bank.)

What saint’s intercession should I seek if looking for true and meaningful friendship?

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati! He was an amazing young man, who grew up in Turin in the first decades of the twentieth century. He had a beautiful zest for life, a great love for the poor, and a genius for friendships. You can read more about him here and here. He would be a great heavenly prayer warrior to have on your side as you search for better friends.

What do you do when it seems like God has disappeared from your life and you are questioning everything?

First, you remind yourself that this is normal. Every believer, from the weakest to the strongest, experiences this feeling at some point—usually many points—during their lifetime. It’s not weird, unusual, or wrong. It just is. And we all need to expect it.

Sometimes, this happens because we’ve shut God out. We’ve chosen some kind of sin over Him and that blinds us to the reality of His presence. Other times, sin isn’t the issue; rather, it’s our expectations. There are things we want from Him—gifts we expect, consolations we prefer, a life headed in a certain direction—and God is not meeting those expectations. He is there. He is blessing us. He is speaking to us. But not in the ways we think we want or expect.

Then, there are what the Church describes as “dark nights.” These dark nights are a normal part of spiritual growth, and no one can become a saint without them. We experience these dark nights not because of sin or wrong expectations, but because God loves us and wants us to be happy, forever, in Heaven, with Him. For that kind of happiness to be ours, we have to let go of our attachments to everything that isn’t God and learn to love God not for what He gives us, but just for Himself.

Technically speaking, there are two kinds of dark nights: the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul. The dark night of the senses is where God helps us overcome our attachment to things of the world: this can be material comforts, physical health, economic security, the good opinions of others, even human friendships. The dark night of the soul is where God helps us overcome our attachment to spiritual consolations: feeling His closeness, hearing his voice, having certainty in His Presence and His truth. Despite those differences, the goal of both types of dark nights is the same: to help us love the Giver of all gifts and not the gifts He gives. God wants to be loved for Himself, just like we do. Moreover, only when we love God for Himself, are we truly free.

No matter how it seems in the writings of the saints, our progression through the dark nights is not a linear thing, especially not for lay people living in the world. I wrote about that earlier this year in an essay for full subscribers to this Substack. For most of us, the entirety of our life will be spent going in and out of dark nights, sometimes experiencing both darkness and light at the same time, sometimes going through long stretches of only darkness or only light. During these times, the most important thing we can do is hold fast to what we know to be true and be obedient to what God has asked of us. We have to choose Him. We have to choose love for Him, even when we don’t feel it or the consolations that come from Him. That’s the only way the feelings will come again, and eventually endure forever. Clinging to this truth (and knowing that this darkness is a normal part of the Christian life) helps.

It also helps to remember that God is never truly silent. He is always communicating. He has to be. Communication is His very nature. The Holy Trinity is each person of the Trinity, communicating the totality of Themselves and Their love to Each Other forever and ever. That love is also being communicated in time to us, holding us in being. You would not exist if God were not sustaining your existence every second of every day. He is communicating life and love to you, even as you experience only silence.

He is also communicating to you through the world He created, showing you His majesty, power, glory, love, mystery, humility, and even His sense of humor in all that exists. Look for Him in the world around you—in sunsets and oceans, forests and mountains, puppies and hummingbirds. Look for Him also in His Church and His Word. He is always communicating to us through Scripture and Tradition, Word and Sacrament, teaching us clearly His ways and desires for us.

Last of all, He is communicating to us through the ordinary events of our day. Through random acts of kindness performed by strangers, through family and friends, through little moments of beauty and peace. Even in the darkest nights, even when we can’t feel His love or His presence, He is there, manifesting His love to us in a hundred small ways. The more we remember to look beyond our expectations or desires for signs of that love, the easier it becomes to see Him and hold fast to Him.

I wrote about this a fair bit in Letters to Myself from the End of the World, but if you want to read what the saints have to say on the experience of dark nights, I’d recommend Ralph Martin’s, The Fulfillment of All Desire or Father Thomas Dubai’s Fire Within (or go straight to Saint John of the Cross). In the meantime, I am praying for you.

Have you heard about Medjugorje? What are your thoughts?

I think going for a swim in a pond full of alligators sounds safer than wading into the Medjugorje waters. Really, this is one of the most emotionally fraught issues in the Church today … and has been for decades, ever since six young people in the Croatian village of Medjugorje allegedly began seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary. That was in 1981. And according to the alleged visionaries, the appearances haven’t stopped. They have continued—daily for some, less frequently for others—without interruption for 42 years.

If the world of Marian apparitions is unfamiliar or exceedingly strange territory for you, here is a short primer I wrote a few months back about how the Church understands them, how she evaluates their authenticity, and what she expects of the faithful in terms of belief in them. (Scroll down to the question about the Apostolate of Holy Motherhood.)

As for why this is so fraught…I suppose, in large part, it’s because these alleged apparitions have been taking place since Ronald Reagan’s first year in office, and that’s given lots of people lots of time to have very strong feelings about them. And for good reason.

Personally, I know many good, intelligent, faithful people who’ve had profound experiences of grace at Medjugorje, and these people strongly believe that the apparitions are authentic. They look at how their pilgrimage to Medjugorje has shaped their faith and the faith of others they know, and see fruit so overwhelmingly good, that they can’t imagine the apparitions not being authentic. The devil, they would say, is not generally in the business of doing things that convince people to be more prayerful, more faithful, more generous, more chaste, and more devout. Which is a good point.

On the other hand, I know many other good, faithful, intelligent people who look at the alleged apparitions and see big red flags. After all, good fruit is only one marker of an apparition’s authenticity. This is because wherever the faithful gather in prayer, with love for Christ and one another, there will be fruit, regardless of whether an apparition is authentic or not. Two other markers of authenticity—the messages themselves and the life and faith of those who receive the messages—matter more. And that’s where Medjugorje concerns them.

More specifically, while most of the Medjugorje messages are as simple and straightforward as those of other Marian apparitions (“Pray for sinners. Pray the Rosary.”), others (such as “All religions are equal before God,”) directly contradict both Church teaching and simple logic. There is ongoing debate about the accuracy of that sentence in translation, but I don’t speak the language, so I have no way of knowing who is right. Even if it is accurate, though, it’s possible for visionaries to misunderstand or misremember what was revealed to them privately. Even authentic private revelation never purports to be inerrant. Regardless, the seeming errors of Medjugorje give many pause.

There also are some questions about the lives lived by the six young people who first received the apparitions. Typically, visionaries go to convents or monasteries right quick after a visit from Jesus or His mother (if they’re not there already). Or they die. The Medjugorje visionaries, however, all continue to live quite comfortably in the world, and have, what the Pontifical Commission of inquiry on Medjugorje described as a “preoccupation with their own [financial] wellbeing.” There also have been serious scandals in the lives of the priests who were closest to the young people when the alleged apparitions began. Which is another red flag. And for some, so too is the sheer number of visions: over 50,000 plus spread out over five decades. That’s not simply unusual; it’s unprecedented. Mary is not typically that talkative.

For these reasons and more, both Medjugorje’s bishops and the local bishop’s conference have condemned the supposed apparitions. For decades, official pilgrimages were banned, and although they are permitted now, that permission came with the clear statement that the Vatican was in no way confirming the authenticity of the visions. Rather, it wanted to make sure that the people seeking the spiritual fruits of Medjugorje received proper spiritual care.

As for my personal thoughts, I am skeptical of the apparitions’ authenticity—or at least their ongoing authenticity. But I’m not the pope or the bishop of Medjugorje or anyone with privileged insight into the truth of the matter. I’m just a tired mom who would much rather go to Rome and Assisi than to an unapproved Marian apparition site. Marian apparitions have not played an important role in my faith, and beyond what I’ve said here, this isn’t an issue I feel any sort of passion about.

So, if you traveled to Medjugorje and had a graced experience, I am glad for that. God is good and generous, and Mary will always respond to your request for prayers, wherever you happen to make them. And if you feel like God is calling you to go to Medjugorje on pilgrimage, I’m not going to try to stop you. The pope allows it, so I am not going to contradict Him. I would just keep three things in mind.

First, remember that the thirst for signs and wonders can be a dangerous thing, taking us on a never-ending chase that can ultimately lead us away from Christ and towards perdition. The truth is, no Marian apparition, no matter how real it may be, is half so spectacular as what happens every single day, in your own parish, when the God of the universe takes on the form of bread and wine and feeds you with His very self.

Second, remember that Marian apparitions are not a matter of faith. No one has to believe any particular Marian apparition, even ones which the Church sanctions. Moreover, even the Church herself holds her opinions on these apparitions with a somewhat loose hand. She will rule that an apparition is “likely” of supernatural origin and worthy of belief by the faithful, but she never says an apparition is “absolutely” of supernatural origin. What the Church holds loosely, we’re wise to hold loosely, too.

Finally, never forget that our faith is in Jesus, not in Marian apparitions, approved or unapproved. Make sure not to confuse the two, and wherever you go, go seeking Him. If that’s your goal, He’ll make sure you find Him.

Five Things I’m Loving

1.     Pinball! Not the game, the movie. I first heard about it because my former intern (and former roommate’s husband) is the executive producer. He worked in politics for years and I was 1000 percent worried that this was going to be some utterly awful, totally cheesy Christian movie. But then I read this rave review in The New Yorker (of all places!). So Chris and I took a chance last weekend and watched it. Oh. My. Goodness. It was so good. Just so, so, so good. The acting, the storytelling, the humanity of it all, was shockingly wonderful—like movies used to be before everything had to be culturally, morally, politically, spiritually, and sexually transgressive. The New Yorker reviewer said this movie was better than all the recent Academy Award winners, and he was right. Bonus: It’s only 90 minutes long.

2.     I’ve probably shared Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for Scalloped Tomatoes before, but it’s tomato season, so I am sharing it again. This is hands down my favorite late summer way to eat up gobs of garden fresh tomatoes. Just add a bit more sugar to the dish, depending on how sweet your tomatoes are.

3.     I spend an inordinate amount of time on Instagram yesterday talking about Beautycounter’s Might Plump Ceramide Water Cream, but it was well deserved time. I’ve been using this new moisturizer for 60 days now, and can now affirm that it does everything it claims to do and then some. I was excited to use it because I know ceramides can help calm skin redness, butI  wasn’t too concerned about how it would effect the hard lines on my forehead. In general, I am quite content with my wrinkles. Nevertheless, the Ceramide Water Cream has softened some lines and erased others, doing more for my skin than I even wanted it to do. It’s safe for pregnant and breastfeeding moms, and I recommend it for all but the oiliest skintypes. If this is your first Beautycounter order, you can save 20 percent with the code CLEANFORALL20.

4.     Have you seen The Lamp journal yet? My husband came across it and subscribed a few months ago. The writing is beautiful and intelligent, the stories fascinating, and it is so nice to have a paper journal sitting around the house.

5.     Best read of the week was unquestionably Jennifer Senior’s essay The Ones We Sent Away, a beautiful reflection on her aunt, who was institutionalized as a baby for her mental and physical disabilities. The world is getting worse all the time…but it’s also getting better. (And sorry, it is behind a paywall, but it’s totally worth signing up for the free trial. Regardless, writers have to eat, too.)

And now for that poll…