My Summer of Purification

My husband, PJ and I were now married in the Catholic Church.  We had our first child a little after our first anniversary, and 9 months later we were expecting our second.  I was still teaching social studies (world history) at the middle school and coaching cheerleading.  PJ lost his job while I was pregnant with our first, but started working from home while staying home with the baby.

Not my team, but my girls did stunts like this.

Stunts were probably my favorite part of cheer.

I enjoyed my job.  I was told that I was good at what I did.  I had a well structured classroom and great classroom management (aka discipline).  I enjoyed teaching about world religions and I always came up with strict rubrics to be sure ALL of my students not only passed my class, but actually learned something.  I was known as a strict coach, where the younger girls had a healthy fear to listen to me and my veteran girls had a great deal of respect for me.   I didn't agree with middle schoolers wearing short skirts to school (and it was against dress code for "normal clothes"), so the girls were never allowed to wear them to school on game days.  Instead, we had custom shirts made that they'd wear with jeans.  I had high expectations and wanted them to be positive role models.  The girls had to keep a C or higher in all their classes to participate.  They got one warning and then they were kicked off the team.  My girls were very respected at school and whenever we had try outs we had over 60 girls show up each time (I had 16 uniforms).  They may not have enjoyed my toughness when I was there, but a year after I stopped working several girls started to contact me via email to beg me to come back because the cheer program was going downhill.

The decision to stay home was a tough one, but it was something that I absolutely had to do.  I spent a year working while my first was a baby, and everyday I hated leaving him.  I struggled to breastfeed while working and this was something that caused me a great deal of stress because it was important to me.  I knew he was home with daddy, but I saw how fast he grew and I didn't want to miss out on anymore than I already had.  I felt like a bad mother by being away.  I loved my job, but with children at home I could no longer give 100% to the kids at school and that wasn't fair to them either.  PJ would still be working from home, but he kept so busy that he no longer had the time to do anything but work.  On my last day of work (I was 6 months pregnant) I cried throughout the time I was there.  I knew nothing about babies.  I was great with middle and high schoolers.  Would all the schooling that I had go to waste?

 I also felt very lonely at first.  It's hard being around two little ones all day long that aren't old enough to communicate.  I also didn't know many stay at home moms around where I lived.  My first child was very active, but always played by himself well.  My second child was such an easy baby and was always happy, yet I still felt inadequate as a mother.  I isolated myself for a few months.  I didn't go out, unless it was to get groceries or to church.  PJ and I were going to Mass weekly, but we'd take turns; I'd go on Saturday evening alone, and he'd go to the 8am mass on Sunday.  We'd go with the boys occasionally, but having a young baby and an almost 2 year old makes it difficult to make it through Mass.

A few months after second child was born, I started having issues with depression.  Some of it was caused to the rocky relationship with my mother.  We had moved her to Arizona before our first was born and I tried my best to have a good relationship with her.  She'd come and baby sit a couple times a month so we could go out for a couple of hours.  We'd give her gas money and were always grateful for her to come.    This didn't last too long though, and her need to control my life and my children's required me to push back, and it would lead to having to listen to a verbal assault on me.  This happened several more times and only seemed to escalate.  When my second was about a year old, PJ and I had to eliminate contact with her completely.  She became and unsafe person for my children to be around, and she was causing me too much anger.  She criticized many of our choices as adults and as parents.  My husband was very supportive of me, and even though I know that he had enough of my mother, he was careful never to speak ill of her.

After being home for about 6 months, I considered volunteering at our Parish.  I knew I had to get rid of this "rut" I was in, and I knew some of my depression was due to me quitting my job.  I contacted the Parish office and I was told that the Confirmation classes needed some help.  They preferred each teacher have an assistant, so that there were two adults in the room at all times (there were 6 classes split between two times of kids-yes, lots of kids, so they needed lots of teachers, and little room to do so as well).  I started assisting a class one night a week.  It worked out great; the baby would go to bed (so I could nurse one last time) and then I left.  The teacher, E, was great.  She had grown children herself, and was very caring and motherly to the kids in class.  I really enjoyed the discussions in the class and I'd always leave wanting to look up information on the topics from class.

One night, toward the end of the class, the youth group leader and a few of it's members came in to talk to the class. This group continued throughout the summer, unlike the other classes, so they gave an invitation to any students and teachers who would like to join them.  Even though I enjoyed helping with the Confirmation class, I felt like I needed to wait until the following year to begin to commit to anything.  Even though this seemed logical to me, I felt God asking me to "suck it up" and talk to the youth leader about helping.  A couple of weeks later, I started regularly attending the high school youth group meetings.

Much of the desert has a beautiful landscape, but there is also an abundance to dust and dirt

If you've never experienced an Arizona summer, you don't understand the full meaning of the word, hot.  Our Parish had little room to accommodate 50+ kids that would show up for the youth group, so many times we'd meet outside, in the Church, or in the offices and cram them all in.  Even though some times we were really hot, even inside because of people going in and out of the offices, kids still showed up week after week.  There were some AMAZING leaders/teachers, who I became good friends with.  The topics were wonderful (always true to Church teaching), and I learned quite a bit.  Our pastor was also incredible.  He was always at everything and available to answer questions.  We always had lots of prayer, lots of teaching (on very important topics on morality), discussion and food.  It wasn't too long before I started teaching classes.  This was the summer that lead to a complete change in the way I lived my life, but how I viewed the Church, especially Mass.

I remember going to church as a group with the youth one evening and as we waited in silence to pray.  I opened my Bible to  1 Corinthians 11.  I was drawn in and this piece of Scripture consumed my mind for weeks.  There was a lot there.  I kept going back to read and re read for days.  I already believed in the true presence in the Eucharist, but the rest of the writings of St. Paul kept me questioning what he was telling us to do.  I started to research what Catholic theologians have to say.  That night at at church was the beginning of a transformation in the way I dressed and carried myself as a wife.  Soon after, I asked PJ to start praying the rosary with me at night.  We were already praying together, but it was just a couple simple prayers before we went to bed.  Praise God for sending us this amazing gift of the Rosary!  God spoke to me and changed my heart over many things during these nights in prayer together.  I was afraid of complete submission to him, but he alleviated all of these fears.  

These are the some of the abrupt changes that I made within weeks..

1.  I started wearing a veil to Mass.  After much research, I determined it was tradition for a woman to cover her head and I thought the veil (mantilla) was beautiful.  I didn't know anyone else at the time who wore a veil and this was actually one of the most difficult changes for me.  Satan attacked me spiritually for a long time (I was very nervous, worried I'd cause a distraction, or offend someone- making others thing I'd judge them for not wearing one).  PJ was very supportive (I was worried at first that I'd embarrass him).   This is one of my favorite blog posts about it.

2.  I started wearing skirts to Mass.  This wasn't so hard.  Since I dressed up for Mass anyway, and it was always warm in AZ.  After a couple of months I devoted myself to maxi skirts because of my love of the writings of St. Padre Pio, who had high expectations of modesty.  I eventually started wearing maxi skirts anytime I would be in the presence of a Catholic church (teaching class, going to a church event, etc).  It makes me feel feminine and is an outward acknowledgement for me that I accept my role as a woman.

3.  I got over my fear of conceiving another child.  I had 2 c sections and my OBGYN was very negative about me having more children.  My second was 9 months old and we were not following Church teaching in regards to birth control.  I accepted that the pill and many other forms of birth control caused early abortions, and we never used them in our marriage.  We found other ways to avoid pregnancy, not knowing how serious it was.  We now had to change to a NFP method, but only for very serious reasons.  I was very afraid for my health, and clung to this control, but after much prayer about this, I learned to trust God.  I found out that I was pregnant a month later with our third child, our first little girl.  We used NFP after our third until she was about 10 months (when I've gotten pregnant before).  Since she is almost 1 now, we wait and see... (and no, I'm not pregnant right now). 

4.  I started going to Confession regularly.  I really made sure I understood the types of sin and try to do an examination of conscience more frequently.  I also tried to take my firstborn to daily mass occasionally while my second napped (the beauty of having a work at home husband).

5.  I stood up for the Church publicly (on Facebook mostly, but also in one on one discussions) on issues of homosexuality and abortion (birth control included).  I not only read a ton of theology on both of these issues, but God finally granted me the graces to fully understand and accept them 100%.  I finally recognized that God wants the best for us, gives us a guide to protect us and wants to keep us close to Him (by the Holy Spirit being carried in the human vessel, which must be a holy place).   I spoke about these issues in the youth group, and also focused on modesty for the young women.

6.  I started seeing my body as a vessel for the Holy Spirt and the Eucharist.  Not only did my soul need to free clean (free of sin) out of respect for all that is Holy, but I needed to educate myself on how best to treat my physical body.  Thanks be to God for my husband who was already doing these things, and we were able to live this way together.  We started eating more organic, watching what we put in and on top of our body and taking care of our bodies.  

7.  I applied to the Diocese of Phoenix Kino Institute to further my religious education.  They offered a two year program that focused on Church history and theology.  The diocese sent their future deacons through the same classes.  Here I would meet many wonderful, faithful Catholics and hear some incredible lectures by some very educated priests and laity.  I had a desire to learn as much as I possibly could.  We are so blessed to have so many wonderful theologians and doctors of the Church in our Catholic Faith.  St Jerome once said, "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ".

8.  Secular music is out of my life.  I can't believe that this came to my mind last.  This was a HUGE change.   The teacher that I worked with for Confirmation classes recommended a Christian station one night when we were listening to the youth band play outside for a gathering.  I had thought about my music choices before, but I started to feel like a hypocrite listening to Lady Ga Ga driving out of the Church parking lot.  I don't think all secular music is bad, but a lot of the popular stuff is.  I didn't want anything dark or sinful entering my subconscious while driving.  I gave it two weeks- listened only to Christian music.  The first few days were tough, since it was new to me.  When the two weeks were over, I never stopped listening.  Two years later, I now only listen to Catholic artists and traditional Catholic music.  It's a way to keep me more holy.  We have also gotten rid of cable and only watch movies on Netflix.

I'm sure there are many more, but these are probably the most prominent examples of the changes I had made that summer. I made these changes because I believe God called me to do so.  PJ has been right beside me, and started going through his own conversion of heart around the same time.  I think he may be going through another one right now. 

Unfortunately, when we no longer do what the secular world likes, you're going to loose some friends. I did.  Some of my friends I've known since middle school, who were offended by the way I live my life chose to end our relationship.  My own mother mocked me.  I did gain some new friends, however.  These have been some of the best friends I've ever had and support me in my faith.  John 5:19 is such a comfort, because I know that as long as I please God, if those hate me for it, He knows and is there for me.


John 5:19
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.