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J1ST 87: The Seven Sorrows of Mary and Infertility

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Hello Listeners!

With yesterday being the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, in today’s episode, we’re taking a closer look at the Seven Sorrows of Mary along with the concept of being open to life, even if it leaves your arms empty (or emptier than you want them to be).  We’re talking specifically about infertility but as Catholic Women, practicing natural family planning can leave our families looking very different than we’ve envisioned, so everyone can get something from this episode (we hope 🙂 )

The devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is closely connected with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross which has been celebrated since the year 326. Many of the great saints have written on her sorrows and Mary recently encouraged this devotion in the 1980s when she made several visits to school children in Kibeho, Rwanda.  There is also a religious order that originally formed around a devotion to Mary at the foot of the cross called the Servites, formed in 1239. 

The Seven Sorrows are:

  1. The prophecy of Simeon
  2. The flight into Egypt
  3. Loss of the Child Jesus for three days
  4. Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary
  5. Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
  6. The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross
  7. The burial of Jesus

There is even a special form of the rosary with seven ‘septets’ instead of five decades (maybe you have one in your house put to the side because you thought it was defective. haha).  

We talk about the temptation to compare joys but also compare sorrows… She has it better than me. Or my struggle is more difficult than hers.  But the fact is: there is no way to objectively rate someone else’s pain on a scale of 1 to 10.  God doesn’t rate our suffering.

Katie speaks about the loneliness and ‘compassion fatigue’ (or maybe burnout?) that comes with infertility.  It’s hard to be sympathetic with a friend who is ‘accidentally’ pregnant or suffering from morning sickness, but the fact is their suffering is real too.  And pain is only magnified when we’re trapped in it.  Our Mother can help us with our sorrows. She is with us in this pain. She knew loneliness (Exile in Egypt), anxiety (the Christ Child is lost for three days), and desolation (seeing her son crucified).

There is so much to learn and so much comfort to find meditating on our mother’s sorrows.

One More Thing: If your parish or diocese is offering some sort of a ministry for those facing infertility: Please share with us!  We’d love to get more happening all across the US.

Your sisters in the small things,

 

Nancy and Katie

 

Things we mentioned in this episode:

 

Katie’s New Book: Waiting with Mary: A Seven Sorrows Devotional for Catholic Women facing Infertility (Lulu Link will be added here within the next week and a half…  follow TheJoyfulLeap on IG or FB for updates)

 

Naprotechnology: medical treatment of fertility issues that are in line with Church Teaching on Human Dignity and Sexuality

 

Organic Conceptions (Online emotional support program for couples dealing with delayed conception/infertility; Coupon Code for J1ST Listeners: JUSTONESMALLTHING)

 

This instagram post

J1ST 086: Creating a Catholic Home with Sterling Jaquith

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Hello!!

Sterling is back with the Just One Small Thing Podcast, joining the select few who have been guests TWICE (Sterling, your certificate is in the mail 😉 ).  You might know Sterling from her Catholic Minimalism Facebook Group or her podcast ‘Coffee and Pearls.’ Or maybe you’ve read some of her books? Today, the three of us discuss how to make a Catholic Home without breaking the bank as well as how to create an atmosphere of peace and hospitality.  

Home decorating, just like the spiritual life, this is NOT a task that can be accomplished in one afternoon, but rather a gradual progress towards the idea you have in mind.  How can you keep costs down while still making your home beautiful? All three of us have some beloved and ‘featured’ decorations in our homes that we found/rescued from second hand stores as well as prints we purchased through Etsy (or Peter’s Square) from a variety of Catholic Artists.  

In terms of ambiance, candles and music are what Sterling loves best in her home.  Books read aloud or listened to via Audible or Overdrive are part of daily life in the Jaquith household. Home should be a place where we long to be… somewhere we feel at peace and comfortable and what we listen to can be just as important as what we choose to hang on our walls.

Why make our homes Catholic?  Well, first of all, our kids are like sponges and what we choose to surround them with is what will occupy their imaginations.  Also, as someone wrote in a thread in one of Nancy’s Facebook groups, when children are presented with religious images around their home, it acts like a visual anchor and seeing them at church will feel ‘like home’ too.  Having a Catholic Home can also serve as an inspiration, reminder, and challenge for us as well. The words we choose to use, the shows we choose to watch, the music we choose to listen to.. This all affects our souls. Lastly, it’s a chance to evangelize to others.  What is on display in one’s home shows to guests what the person values.  

Finally: we also touch on Screens and their ability to pull us in and away from real life.  It’s a real addiction and Sterling has created a challenge course to help you cut back on screen time and re-claim your life (see link below)!  I think Nancy and I are both signing up.  I know I need it.

We hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording!

Your Sisters in the Small Things,

Nancy and Katie

Here are some Links from today’s episode:

 

J1ST 085: Wearing a Scapular

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Next in our Sacramental Series, we’re learning about Scapulars.  We’ll talk specifically about the Brown Scapular today but there are several different color scapulars each with their own particular devotion.

The Scapular is a beautiful tradition of our Church started with the Carmelite Order.  The Carmelites, unlike many of the orders founded around the same time, have no saintly founder that we know of.  Instead, the order was founded by laymen who were former crusaders. Their community began on Mt. Carmel in Palestine, the same mountain on which Elijah defended the faith in One True God from via a challenge of the priests of Baal.  After religious persecution (meaning martyrdom for some), the Carmelites returned to Europe around 1235.

Now, if you’re like me, you have been wearing a scapular for decades, so this next bit might be troubling, but Stay With Me…  Carmelite St. Simon’s vision of Mary in July of 1251, which included the gift of the scapular, has not actually been given an official “Truth” stamp by The Church.  Unlike Fatima (1917) or Lourdes (1858) or Guadalupe (1531), this vision has not been verified. Part of this is due to the fact that it happened long ago (1251-ish).  Records that might have documented the vision have been lost. Some say that is was an attempt to legitimize the Carmelite order, who unlike the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc. had no saintly founder.  Infact, St. Simon’s feast day (May 16th) had been removed from the calendar for a time, only to be placed back with the understanding that no mention of the vision would be made. (Check out his bio on the Carmelite Website)

REGARDLESS: As Nancy states: throughout the history of Our Church, heresies have been uprooted and destroyed.  The scapular, much like the rosary, remains. Although as I child, I thought of it as a ‘get out of Hell free’ card, as an adult I wear it as a sign to my devotion to Our Blessed Mother, a physical reminder that I am under her protection and I have pledged myself to be “totus tuus.”

There is a rite of investiture in the brown scapular that any priest can perform for you (Nancy’s family takes ‘the plunge’ this coming spring!!!). Part of being vested is a pledge to pray some form or Marian Devotion daily (the rosary) and to live chastely according to your state in life.

 

Let’s close with the morning offering of those who wear a scapular (which I found here):

O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary (here kiss the scapular as a sign of your consecration), I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from all the altars throughout the world, joining with It the offering of my every thought, word and action of this day. O my Jesus, I desire today to gain every indulgence and merit I can, and I offer them, together with myself, to Mary Immaculate, that she may best apply them to the interests of Thy most Sacred Heart. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us! Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Your Sisters in the Small Things,

 

Nancy and Katie

 

Need a scapular?

My parish priest recommends these ones, hand-stitched by Sisters of Carmel but the ones Andrea makes over at StellaMarigoldArt are breathtaking!

J1ST 084: Chapel Veils

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Today, we’re diving into another sacramental of our Faith: the Chapel Veil.  Reminder from last week:

Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. (CC1670)

Wearing a veil at mass will not give you special graces the way a Sacrament does, but some women find it helps open them up to receive the graces of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Did you grow up in a parish where veiling was the norm?  Neither of us did. In fact, Nancy remembers seeing it once as a child and thought they were Mennonites or something (kids think funny things!!!) and Katie’s first exposure to covering (see what I did there) was at Latin Mass as an adult.

Interestingly, St. Paul writes about women covering their head while in prayer in his first letter to the Corinthians(Check out Chapter 11).  The tradition was carried over from the Jewish people and then picked up by various other religions after Christianity.  

The tradition was actually a requirement for centuries and then due to some misinformation from the press circa Vatican II, the Catholic World was told women veiling wasn’t required anymore.

Despite it not being ‘required’ anymore, many women are choosing to pick up the tradition again.

 

Why Some Women Choose to Veil:

  • As a sign of reverence for the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
  • As a way to symbolize the difference between men and women
  • As a sign of unity with your husband 
  • Because, like the Eucharist, women can bare life. Life baring things are sacred.
  • It can act as ‘blinders’ and increase focus during mass/deepen prayer

 

Why Some Women Choose not to Veil:

  • Not aware of the tradition/that it is still “okay”
  • Husband is not on board (wearing something that is meant to be a visual sign of submission to your husband as to Christ that your husband Doesn’t Want You to Wear wouldn’t be a good idea)
  • It can be ‘attention grabbing’
  • It can be hard to keep your head covered while wrestling little ones during mass (making it more of a distraction than something that filters out distractions)

In this episode, we’ll tackle some of the Whys and Why Nots (and some solutions to the Why Nots). 

Just to be clear: We did not record this episode with the intent to tell every woman that they need to veil, BUT: if you have wondered if you should… if you’ve felt it on your heart to consider… this episode’s aim is to educate and assist in your discernment.  We hope you enjoy it!

 

Your sisters in the small things

 

Nancy and Katie

 

J1ST 083: The Miraculous Medal

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For the next four weeks, we’re diving into Sacramentals.  What are they? Why do we have them? How did each particular devotion come to be?  To begin, let’s take a look at this line from the Catechism:

Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. (CC1670)

Sacramentals can be an object (such as Miraculous Medal or Holy Water) or an action (like the Sign of the Cross or the different postures we assume during mass).

For our first episode of the series, we’re discussing Miraculous Medals. 

For the cradle Catholics, this is, quite possibly, something you’ve had close to you and worn for a while, but were you ever taught about the Saint this medal was given to?  We weren’t!

In July of 1830, St. Catherine Laboure, a novice of the Daughters of Charity in Paris, was woken up by a child (some say her guardian angel) and asked to come to the chapel. There, Our Lady appeared to her and told her, “My child, I am going to give you a mission.”

In November of the same year, Mary again appeared to St. Catherine and gave her the image of the medal she wanted made and worn by all the faithful: “Have a medal struck upon this model. Those who wear it will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around the neck.”

Two years after these visions, the medals were made with approval of the Church and handed out all over Paris.  Originally called The Medal of the Immaculate Conception, it quickly became known as the Miraculous Medal within the first decade of the devotion because of the many miracles attributed to it.   In 1836, after proper investigations, the apparition was declared genuine by the Church. St. Catherine didn’t reveal herself as the recipient of the medal until shortly before her death, almost 50 years later.

What I love about the Miraculous Medal is how it can be used for catechesis.  Each symbol on the medal tells us something about Our Lady and Christ in a simple yet beautiful way.  Much like the stained glass windows in our churches, this medal serves as a means to learning more about and growing deeper in our Faith.

What we mention in today’s episode:

This Blog Post

Chewslife Rosary Bracelets

And here’s a cool info-graphic to share with the kiddos

 

Hope you enjoy today’s episode!  

Your sisters in the small things,

 

Nancy and Katie