Waiting for the afterlife

February 19, 2024 ~ Veronique ~ Leave a comment

Hello readers! This post will go into the weeds of Catholic theology about salvation and sin. I tried to keep it broad enough for all audiences but given the nature of the topic, it could not be avoided.

In response to my last post about hope for things unseen, reader MJ left a comment full of good questions. I decided to cut them out and use them as a prompt for this post. Saddle up because this is going to be a wild ride into the heart of what I believe and where it got me.

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MJ wrote:

Beside hope for a better tomorrow, that things would become the case, did you ever have hope for eternal life, for salvation, for unity with the God that Catholics worship? Did you ever think that heaven would become the case for you? The cornerstone of Christianity is that life is eternal and death does not mean the end. That definition of hope, that faith that better things will eventually become the case, must be applied to life as it is understood by Christians: that it won’t end when you die. Christianity does not hold together if you do not hold this view. One’s life may very well be “shit” from day one til the day one dies. Absolutely hellish vision if you think that is all there is.

These questions are difficult to answer without going into what Roman Catholics believe and how these beliefs shape religious practice. I will also need to give you some context about my family’s faith, how it formed me, and what I took with me in adulthood.

I was born to two Catholic parents, received all the Sacraments on schedule, and celebrated all the Christian major feasts by going to Mass and having a party. That said, while I remember going through phases of weekly church attendance with my mother, I would not describe my family as “practicing” Catholics. The word “practicing” to me evokes a form of strict religious observance that my parents never espoused. My parents were believers in Christian virtue, in a religion that welcomed everyone, in the qualities of belief that made you a bigger, better person. My family’s religious practice was not coercive. It was not based on fear. It was a practice of 1: Corinthians (love is patient, love is kind…) and of the Beatitudes (blessed are the poor in spirit). My parents took the parts of religion that felt good, like music and community, and left the parts that didn’t. In conservative Catholicism, people like my parents are derisively called “cherry pickers” or “cafeteria Catholics.”

My parents held that every good thing should be enjoyed in balance, including church attendance. Church was something we did on Sunday, some of the time. The rest of the week, we just tried to live upright, ethical lives. We never went to confession, we never talked about sin. We never had to behave a certain way, do certain things, or wear certain clothes just because it was what our faith instructed. There were right and wrong ways to behave and the difference was pretty clear. Don’t be a jerk, work to relieve suffering around you, be kind to others.

I don’t remember turning into an atheist as a teenager. I’m naturally disposed to delight in things the eye cannot see: love, beauty, kinship, intuition, connection. I like my universe inscrutable. I like my questions unanswerable. I am comforted by the presence of something bigger than me. I prefer not having all the answers.

Yesterday, I was driving with my daughter Ève (12) when she told me: “I don’t really believe in God, but I think that if ‘God’ wanted us to explore space and the deep sea, we would be able to breathe there.” Ève doesn’t believe in God, but she believes that some things are beyond our comprehension. She calls this mystery God. She believes that the deepest seas and farthest galaxies have a purpose that is beyond our grasp. Ève is ok being a spec of dust in a larger universe. I’m like Ève: I fell out of practice as a teenager but I never fell out of belief.

I returned to religious practice when I was pregnant with my third child. I was looking for community and belonging. I was looking for certainty. I wrote about my turn to practicing Catholicism in this 2021 newsletter post:

Like my mother before me, I came to the faith looking for somewhere to fit in. Paul’s family was associated with a close-knit conservative organization inside the Catholic Church and while conservatism didn’t come to me naturally, the ready-made community did. As a young woman with a law degree and a growing family, I longed for a sense of certainty. I wanted to be sure that I was making the right decision. Communities of faith celebrated my choice to prioritize family over career. The further I went down the conservative spectrum, the more certainty I encountered. Scripture’s promise of a “peace that defies all understanding” was extremely compelling. For someone with an anxious inner buzz, inner peace is a powerful pitch.

To me, there was always a difference between Catholicism and conservative Catholicism. I had grown up in a family where practice was strictly a matter of how you conducted yourself in the world. If parts of your religion made you mean (for instance, taking small kids to Mass), you could just cut them out. In my family, religion was supposed to help you show-up in the world as a better person. If it didn’t, it was pointless.

In conservative Catholicism, I encountered a much different approach to religious practice. It was almost entirely focused on salvation, first your own then that of others. Suddenly, what a Christian friend affectionately calls “the Catholic noise” became nooks and crannies of rites that were like pebbles on a scale. Every single thought and action was contributing to a load of sanctity that would take us into blissful eternity. There were big rocks of sanctity for sure: service to others, self-denial, and so on. But salvation was also in a myriad of anxiogenic little decisions, such as “How hard do I have to try to find a Sunday Mass when I’m on the road?”, “How sick do I really have to be to be exempt from Sunday obligation? What about my kids?”, “Is New Year’s Day a real day of obligation?” (answer: yes in the US but not in Canada so better not chance it…) “Can I attend a wedding in a non-Catholic Church or would this be validating mistaken beliefs?” “Is yoga a satanic practice?” “Is Harry Potter a gateway to wiccanism?” “Can there really be Communion if there are drums in the band?”

In my family, eternal life was something that happened organically as a result of showing up in the world as a virtuous person. We didn’t live our lives wondering how to get to heaven. Heaven was our inheritance, a given. As virtuous Christians, we lived our lives trying to make the world a better place for everyone. Here. Now.

In the faith I joined, eternal life was something we earned by behaving a certain way. Scripture and Tradition gave us an instruction manual, and if these instructions made us miserable or unhealthy, we were to work at acceptance, self-denial, and abnegation. As fallen human beings, hell was what we deserved and salvation would be granted for a lifetime of sanctity.

To root an entire belief system in fear, you have to start young. As an adult “convert” – converting from one faith expression to another – some teachings of the Catholic Church always felt alien to me. Scripture tells us that we should cultivate a childlike faith, which is understood as humble and trusting. I think that it is also a faith that appeals to the imagination. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist requires an effort of the imagination, the Immaculate Conception requires an effort of the imagination, heaven, hell, purgatory and eternal life require an effort of the imagination. Children have an openness to stories, to things that are not entirely rational. They know about the limitations of their knowledge, they understand their smallness. None of these stories about heaven and hell were taught to me as literally true when I was growing up.

I brought into my adult conversion the mind of a child that had not been imprinted by religious guilt or fear. In hindsight, I can say that I missed the bad and the good of religion’s grandiosity. I missed the fear of hell and eternal banishment. But I also missed the awe of believing in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And the comfort of believing in the promise of eternal life. My religious practice was firmly rooted in my senses: it was in making music, writing words, creating community, offering support, being a mother to my children. I found awe in nature but mostly in art, often crying in art galleries and at the end of a well-written book. In her question, MJ wrote: “The cornerstone of Christianity is that life is eternal and death does not mean the end. (…) Christianity does not hold together if you do not hold this view. One’s life may very well be “shit” from day one til the day one dies. Absolutely hellish vision if you think that is all there is.”

Does it not hold together? It does for me. Catholicism is embodied. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. Eternal life is your reward, but your life on earth is your one shot at living it well. In Catholic doctrine, human beings in flesh and blood come together as one to become the Body of Christ. Jesus himself, having died and gone to Heaven, is no longer doing good deeds in Palestine. He relies on us to be his hands, eyes, and ears. To heal, to help, to soothe, to comfort.

About 10 years ago, I read an article in The Guardian about an atheist whose beliefs had been shaken by working with homeless addicts in the South Bronx. Expecting to find hardened cynicism about the unfairness of life, he had instead found some of the strongest believers he had met, “steeped in a combination of Bible, superstition, and folklore:”

Who am I to tell them that what they believe is irrational? Who am I to tell them the one thing that gives them hope and allows them to find some beauty in an awful world is inconsistent? I cannot tell them that there is nothing beyond this physical life. It would be cruel and pointless.

(…)

Soon I saw my atheism for what it is: an intellectual belief most accessible to those who have done well.

The idea of atheism as a luxury accessible to those who have done well rang true to me. But I found that it also gave Christians an easy way out of fixing inequality in a meaningful way, because this life is not our final destination, and suffering is redemptive.

In a comment to my last post, my friend Faustina wrote “hope is not a strategy.” Shouldn’t we have more to offer those who have nothing than the promise of a better afterlife, hopefully?

When it comes to me, my hope of eternal life is now a question mark more than it ever was. One thing conservative catholicism has been good at imparting is black and white thinking about who is saved and who is not.

When my marriage ended, my ex-husband and I initially decided to stay in the same house to minimize the strain on the children. This turned out to be an ill-advised decision in more ways than one: it decimated my mental health, plunged me in the depths of burnout and depression and eventually led to my loss of employment at the City. Living with my ex-husband when he was no longer trying to sugar-coat his contempt was deeply degrading and traumatic. Zero stars, do not recommend.

I moved out of the family home in November 2020, 6 months after the official end of the marriage but I could not afford to rent in my community. Five months later, my (then) friend Glen moved in to help me pay the rent. As you probably know now – although I’m never sure how many of my subscribers read my posts all the way through – Glen and I are now “together” together. He still pays the rent but we sleep in the same bed. It’s been a good deal to be honest.

When my friend Glen moved in with me, 3 people took me aside and told me about the inappropriateness of moving-in with a man. I was emotionally vulnerable and I was putting myself in a situation of mortal sin.

In Catholic theology, mortal sin is a deliberate turning away from God that destroys love in the heart of the sinner. It’s a grave action committed in full knowledge of its gravity and with the full consent of the sinner. Repentant sinners can be forgiven by a priest in confession but repentance for Catholics is not the simple act of saying sorry. It also implies a desire to stop the sinful behaviour by any means, in thoughts and actions.

The Church does not provide a list of mortal sins but they are generally known as breaking one of the Ten Commandments: murder (including suicide and abortion), apostasy, and the range of sexual deviances which includes anything but PIV intercourse with someone you are married to (self-pleasure, homosexual sex, and – yes – adultery.)

When I left the family home, I had barely enough money to support myself and a fraction of what I needed to support my children. I made $3600 a month and $2500 would go to rent and utilities on the first day. I had signed-away my right to child and spousal support because we were sharing the family home and left with nothing: no money, no furniture, no household supplies. My commitment to Catholic marriage had left me in an incredibly vulnerable situation and I was being warned about living in sin.

Glen stepped in and paid half my rent and utilities in exchange for a single bed in my basement. He held me together as I went through the most heart-wrenching time of my life, stayed by my side as I flew into white-hot rages so loud my voice went hoarse and never faltered. Not only that, but when I lost my job 10 months later, he was able to pick up the full rent and keep my children and I from losing our home. I still have the rescue list he wrote for me when I lost my job at the City:

In the Catholic Church, my relationship with my ex-husband is the right true one, and my relationship with the person who wrote that note, paid my bills, and fed my children puts me in a state of mortal sin. Of permanent estrangement from God. I have to renounce salvation for choosing a man who loves and respects me over one who really doesn’t. My current living situation puts me in a state of mortal sin with full knowledge of its consequences, absolutely no repentance, and no intention to stop. In other words, my goose is cooked.

If the Catholic Church doesn’t want me loved, respected, supported, and whole, then there is no room for me at its table. I’ll find another party.

I don’t want to waste away waiting for something better to happen when I die. I prefer living my life as if it mattered.

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Suffer the children: A post for my Catholic readers who are just about fed-up

January 4, 2017 ~ Veronique ~ 14 Comments

The question of taking little children to church is one that most parents face at some point in their journey. Church and toddlers rarely mix, at least they don’t in Roman Catholic churches where we don’t do Sunday School and nurseries. From happy screams to whining and full-body-meltdowns, there is something inherently unnatural about sitting in a confined space for the best part of an hour, especially when you are around 2.

I have 9 children. The younger 4 have embarrassed me in church in every way you can think of and some you can’t even imagine. We’ve been asked to leave the pews. We’ve been asked the leave the narthex. We’ve been asked the leave the freakin’ cry room. When a couple explained to me that they took turns looking after the little ones on alternating Sundays, that spoke to me… And I’m a Catholic! Sunday church attendance is a precept of the Church: we have to go. I started going to Mass in 2000 when I was pregnant with my third child and I have been dealing with untenable toddlers ever since. You might think that going to church every single Sunday for 17 years might get children used to the idea but you would be mistaken: my children are determined to win this war. I have grown a pretty thick skin as a result and a different understanding of my role and expectations during Mass. It has helped me grow spiritually and that’s the spirit in which I am sharing this today.

We often expect Mass to feed us, and it is true that the Eucharist feeds us spiritually. Where our problems lie is that we often expect the Eucharist to feed us in the same way that normal bread feeds us, by giving us a sense of physical and emotional well-being. With the Eucharist, we are fed not so we can feel fed but so we can feed into the Body of Christ. That’s why we are expected to attend Mass every Sunday no matter how boring the homilies or how ridiculous the music or how mean the ushers. When we receive the Body of Christ, we become a moving Tabernacle, taking Christ into the world. Even when grumpy old folks behave like jerks, even if it’s too cold or too hot, and even if we can’t hear the readings from the parking lot where we have taken our screaming toddler. For many of us, Mass attendance falls squarely into the “sacrifice of praise” category: the idea that praise comes at a cost. My vocation calls me to raise little Catholics who understand that if we do one thing this week, it will be to go to Mass and partake in the Eucharistic celebration so we can take Christ to the world around us. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, even when it’s hard, especially when there is sacrifice in the receiving, even if we are busy during the readings and we can’t remember what the homily was about.

The first thing I like to meditate on when things get crazy and I feel like giving-up is that Christianity, the following of Christ, calls us to push the limits of our comfort zones. The Son of God died on a cross, that’s our aspiration of self-giving. So what if we organize our lives in order to show-up to church on time, with our clothes on right, without anyone pushing our buttons, so we can sit and listen? Where is the growth? Where is the cross? Where is the gift of self? Or we can come with our toddlers and get pushed around, spat on, stared at, and tell God: “You know the depth of my heart, pour into it the Grace I need. I can’t even articulate a prayer but here I am.” Jesus is made strong in weakness. He doesn’t lie when He says blessed are the weak, the poor in spirit, the meek, the persecuted. Sometimes I feel like all of the above when I take my twins and toddler to Mass, especially when we attend Mass in a church where we are not known. We can “get fed” by listening to a good homily and sitting comfortably, or we can get a fire hose of Grace by walking all over our pride and personal preferences taking our toddlers to Mass. Sometimes redemption doesn’t feel all that redeeming, just think of Calvary.

“Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. The gift of grace increases as the struggles increase.” — St Rose of Lima

My “affliction” is healthy, happy, but spirited and loud children. Children blessed with a very strong will. These children will someday be leaders. They have everything needed to become productive members of society, committed to live by principles of integrity. Taking these children to Mass can be challenging but it’s ultimately small happy fry in the big scheme of what life can throw at someone.

The other thing I like to reflect on when the Mass-going gets tough is somewhat related to the theology of the body. As Catholics, we believe that our bodies and our souls exist in union. We believe that what we do with our bodies is relevant to the state of our souls, hence the Church’s teachings on contraception and human sexuality. That’s why we hold that pilgrimages and some forms of physical mortification such as fasting are keys to the purification of the soul. That’s why people haul their butts up the Camino and skin their knees on the Santa Scala. There is spiritual growth in physically getting your sorry self to Mass with your screaming toddler in a football hold. There are graces in physically keeping your child in the presence of God during Mass. The struggle is blessed a hundredth fold compared to the contained Mass attendance with your dress unruffled and your hair in place. Mass attendance is your Camino, make it count.

I don’t mean to cast shadows on my fellow sisters who manage to attend Mass without a fight. Our paths to spiritual growth are as different as we are. But whatever your cross is, don’t leave it at home when you go to Mass.

What’s for supper? Vol. 4: More muffins and spaghetti sauce

September 12, 2015September 13, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 7 Comments

What did we eat this week?

MONDAY

Monday was Labour Day. My husband took the children to visit family but it was David’s turn to process our family’s friendly virus. I took a pass and stayed home with the sick and the underage. We had chips and ice cream for supper. Yes we did.

TUESDAY

Remember the Thai squash soup with coconut and shrimp I made last week? I usually buy a second bag of shrimps to add to the leftover (because there is soup leftovers but never shrimps). Then we have a second round of squash soup.

WEDNESDAY

Last weekend I mentioned making Spicy Peanut Chicken (with pork) in the slow cooker. I warmed it up on Wednesday and we ate it with fresh corn. My 9 year-old son announced that he was thirsty so I asked him to go get the water jug for the family. Without missing a beat he told me, very matter-of-factly: “No, I’m just going to get water for myself.” Err, no buddy, please bring back the water jug for the family, said I. “Ok then, I’m not thirsty.” he replied. “You can still get the water jug please. Which led to him saying no, me taking away his plate until he came back with the water jug, and he stomping away to get said water. Friends, if you wonder how we can raise such self-centered children in a family of 11, imagine if we had stopped at 2! Believe me, the world is a better place because we have 9 and it’s not because we are superior human beings. Pride runs strong in that gene line.

THURSDAY

Spaghetti sauce day. My children and I are not fond of chunks in our spaghetti sauce. I like to put all the veggies and herbs in the food processor and give them a whirl. I don’t puree them to soup level but I find that along not having chunks, it mixes-up the flavours nicely. This specimen has red bell pepper, cremini mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh herbs from my potted garden (basil, chive and parsley), dried oregano and sage. I saute the veggie mash in olive oil, add an entire Costco pallet of tomato sauce and 3kg of ground beef. I stir until the meat is all separated and let it simmer forever. Add salt and pepper to taste et voila. That day, I also made orange cranberry muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip muffins. Our homeschool had to be on auto-pilot and we didn’t get around to do history and science. Note to self: you can’t cook up a storm and homeschool at the same time. I use this recipe for the cranberry orange muffins. I use frozen cranberries instead of fresh and it works fine. Just a note about the streusel topping: it’s a simple mix of sugar and orange rind. I prefer to put the orange rind in the muffin batter. The streusel falls apart when freezing anyway. On a more positive note, sugar mixed-up with orange rind and left to sit on the counter for a day can be eaten with a spoon or melted over a candle and shot-up your arm, oh my goodness, someone make it stop!!

STILL THURSDAY

When I did a Whole 30 back in January I had to stop eating pasta. I discovered zucchini noodles and I actually prefer them now to pasta. I don’t have a veggie spiralizer so I use my veggie peeler and peel the zucchinis until I am almost peeling the tip of my fingers (sometimes I do.). Lucas enjoys chopping the leftover zucchinis with a big knife. As an aside, I used to pay a whole lot of money so my kids could do just that at a Montessori preschool. Which brings me to homeschooling preschool: stop worrying already!! If I got a dime every time a stressed out mom asks about a preschool curriculum, I could retire happy. Preschools need a curriculum because they are accountable to their clients. Preschool is just life. You need to live with your children and engage with them positively. Read to them, snuggle with them, let them help with cooking if you have the patience to do so. Take them outside and show them the dirt: here’s your preschool curriculum.

Back to the zucchini noodles… I slice an onion or two in very thin slices, smash some garlic and saute everything in olive oil with salt, pepper and dried oregano, then I cover for a while to let it steam a little. Zucchinis lose their water like nothing else so 6 zucchinis is barely enough for two adults. Unless they are the giant ones that neighbours leave on your doorstep.

FRIDAY

My teenage daughter announced that she would make crepes for supper. I said: “Fine!” She used the recipe from Ricardo but I prefer Josee di Stasio’s recipe. I usually quadruple it — that would be 4 cups of flour and a whole dozen of eggs — add beer to the milk and keep it in the fridge in an air tight container. The kids will make crepes for breakfast, snack or lunch using the batter all week.

Et voila, this is it for this week. I’m sparing you the weekend because it ended-up in take-out pizza.

What they ate (or didn’t) this week and some thoughts about keeping Fridays

August 30, 2015August 31, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 6 Comments

One of my favorite bloggers, Simcha Fisher, started a recurring — or not — feature on her blog I have to Sit Down called “What’s for Supper?”. Because I also feed a crowd every day and because I’m not one to miss a good link-up (I like having a topic picked for me, I’m that kind of lazy), here is my contribution.

The ground rules as far as our family of 11 is concerned are simple:

The meals must be simple and contain easily identifiable ingredients. Casseroles rarely fly here, unless they are a simple gratin.
My husband and I try to avoid grains during weekdays. Fresh corn doesn’t count as grain.
We don’t eat dessert on weekdays.
Normally I make a meal plan on Saturday, shop for food on Sunday and will often need another produce run midweek. For the last 9 months, I’ve been out of meal planning and our grocery budget is running amok.
Supper needs to be figured out and started by 3:30pm if we want to eat by 5:30pm, clean-up the supper dishes and have the five younger kids in bed between 7:00 and 8:00 pm. Lately — because of absentee planning — supper gets going around 5:30pm, we eat at 7:00 and we’re lucky if the kids are in bed by 9:00pm. We are still in “summer mode” but we’re fraying at the edges. Chaos and exhaustion are threatening our entire livelihood and we hope to return to normal as soon as we can find the energy to turn this boat around.
My husband is often gone from home from 7 am until close to 7 pm. We live in a rural community so we avoid evening engagements such as extracurricular activities as much as possible: driving into town at supper/bedtime was in fashion in 2010-2012, now we’re traumatized.

MONDAY

Eye of round roast (this one has to be started in the afternoon)

Roasted potatoes: I just quarter a whole bag of baby potatoes from Costco, lay them on parchment paper, drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, and bake at 415F for about 20 mn.

Red cabbage slaw. Or as we are expected to call it “red-but-should-be-purple-cabbage”, with vinaigrette (1/3 red vinegar, 2/3 olive oil and a splotch of Dijon proportional to what you used as a basic measurement. I do 1 cup red vinegar, 2 cups of oil and a heaping tablespoon of Dijon. There’s leftovers.)

Broccoli . Because everyone here eats broccoli but red cabbage slaw is touch and go. I like giving the kids a chance to win.

TUESDAY

Blog post_WHat they ate this week tue I — Tuesday, we received our school books. Yay?

Fish and fries. That’s what I make when I forget to take meat out of the freezer. I don’t consider cucumbers to be a real vegetable, it’s mostly water and seeds, but I just can’t sleep unless there is something green on offer. And cucumber is green.

WEDNESDAY

Roasted chickens and fresh corn on the cob. I use the organic chickens from Costco, throw them on a roasting sheet with salt, pepper, onion flakes and smoked paprika and roast them at 415F for 45mn or something. Two chickens and 12 corns fed my “small” family: the three oldest were out of the house.

When I cut the chickens, I throw the carcasses and drippings straight into a large Dutch oven. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar, fill with water and make broth right away. I used to keep the bones in a ziploc bag in the fridge until I had the optimal broth ingredients, also known as “until the carcasses turned moldy and my husband threw them out.” Water, bones, vinegar, boil forever.

THURSDAY

We had friends for lunch and I made quesadillas with the leftover chicken and corn.

For dinner, I roasted sweet peppers, carrots, garlic and a Lego wheel — just kidding! I removed the wheel before roasting. Then I had afterthoughts and checked the oven again. Phew! I did remove the wheel… — and made some orange soup with the chicken broth.

I also made a tomato salad with cherry tomatoes from my sister’s garden and basil from our garden. I used the same dressing as earlier this week.

FRIDAY

Here comes Friday. I follow a few Catholic bloggers from the United States and was curious as to why they seemed to universally abstain from meat on Friday. It picked my curiosity because I know some very legit Canadian Catholics who do not abstain from meat on Friday. Recently, I spoke about it with my spiritual director, as I was really struggling with the concept of abstaining from meat on Friday. The problem seemed to be twofold. First, meatless dishes in my family are mostly party food. They are also really easy to make for me. I felt like pancakes were too much fun for a Friday observance of the death of Jesus, fish is too good, soup and bread are comfort foods, sandwiches are a get-out-of-jail-free card for me, and so on. I came to the conclusion that the only sort of meal that would look like a universal family sacrifice would be a dish that is really complicated to make for me and that the kids don’t like, like vegan moussaka or lasagna. But making food that everyone hates is wasteful. Back to square one. Making an elaborated, suitably mortifying, vegan dish also prevented me from going to Mass and Adoration on Friday evening, the only weekday Mass offered in my Parish at a time later than 8:00 am. My spiritual adviser wisely noted that in Canada, the Conference of Catholic Bishops did not require the faithful to abstain from meat on Fridays outside of Lent but encouraged us to keep Friday through some kind of penance, prayer or act of charity. Maybe, she added, organizing your day and your evening meal so that you are able and ready to leave home at 6:00pm to go to Mass and Adoration is all the penance you need to keep Friday? Well… Now that you mention it yes, having supper ready, served, eaten and cleaned-up by 6:00 pm requires my entire day to shift 2h early.

So we had hamburgers. And Mass was cancelled that night. Oh well.

I make hamburgers using an entire pallet of ground beef from Costco. That’s in the vicinity of 3-4 lbs I think. I season the meat with my usual suspects (onion flakes, salt, sage and smoked paprika) and beat it into large but thin patties. As you can see from the picture above, they fluff-up as they cook. If you make them small and thick, you’ll end-up with a meatball on your bun. Know what I mean?

SATURDAY

On Saturday, we traveled to Kingston, Ontario to attend our son’s entrance ceremony to the Royal Military College. We called-up some old and dear friends and asked if we could stop at their house with our burgers and sausages for a last minute BBQ. We left home with a cooler full of meat and ice packs for the supper and a picnic lunch. When picnicking with van full of little kids, simple is key. I bought a big bag of round buns from Costco, some ham, celery sticks, apples and go-go-squeeze tool of the devil and a big jug of lemonade. The picnic by Lake Ontario quickly degenerated into underage skinny dipping and we made it to the ceremony well-fed, bathed and relatively dry.

For the history buffs amongst you, the middle picture in the collage above is the parade square at Royal Military College. In the very background on the left hand side of the picture is Fort Henry, a National Historic Site of Canada. The building immediately behind the parade square is HMCS Stone Frigate. Yes! The building is a boat! It’s Colin’s dorm and it’s called affectionately “the boat”. It’s the oldest building at RMC and it even has its own Wikipedia page. Can your dorm say as much??

After the ceremony, we headed to our friends’ house for an impromptu BBQ. There are a few things I enjoy more than seeing old friends, especially when our children get along well. Feeding 4 adults, their 9 children and the 6 children we had with us in one sitting was impossible so we took turns. First thing children, then the teenagers and eventually the moms and dads got to have a seat. Their 4 year-old twins Binh and Phuoc ate through all three sittings, a wonderful sight when you think of everything these girls have been through. ← (The article linked there is excellent. You should really read it.)

And there you have it my friends, what we ate last week. Now I must hang-up and run make supper. Another week awaits.

Ontario’s new Health and Phys Ed curriculum: this is not a cafeteria

March 3, 2015March 10, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 7 Comments

The roll out of Ontario’s new Health & Physical Education curriculum (better known as “sex ed”) has caused a flurry of activity on my Facebook feed. I feel blessed to have friends and acquaintances on every side of this issue but it makes Facebook commenting a bit of a mine field. Try as I may to post nuanced positions, the reality is that social media is a not a friend of nuance. That’s why I have my blog: so I can annoy everybody — from left to right — at the same time… But only if they choose to read me.

First, let’s get the elephant out of the way. I am a practicing Roman Catholic. As a matter of religious doctrine, I believe myself — and that handsome guy I make kids with — to be my children’s primary educators. This means that the responsibility to choose what my children learn falls squarely and unequivocally on my shoulders. The decision to send my children to school or to keep them at home is a religious right, or should be. Many Catholic parents oppose the new sex ed curriculum because they see it as an usurpation of parental authority and their role as primary educators. Not, take note, because they are afraid of the real names of their genitals or what they are used for. In fact, many of us wish teens would learn more about how their reproductive systems work. More on that later.

I am a Catholic parent but I am also a citizen. I live in a democracy which is — as Sir Winston Churchill reminds us — the worst form of government except for all the others we have tried so far. When Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the new and improved curriculum a few years ago, the outcry on the eve of provincial elections caused the hasty retreat of the controversial new elements. The new Premier Kathleen Wynne promised to reintroduce the curriculum and is showing no sign of backing down. The people who have elected her are reacting with a collective shrug or, as a Facebook friend of a friend wrote: “I’m so glad they’ll be teaching consent.” Because really, how else are young men and women supposed to learn what a consensual sexual relationship is unless they learn it in school? My point is that the people who elected the Ontario Liberal Party are generally happy with the curriculum changes, either because it reflects their own values on health and sexuality or because they don’t care. The parents currently storming the barricades are not those who elected Premier Wynne. Is it a surprise to learn that she is not sensitive to their plight?

As my friend John Robson explains very well in this short video, the provincial government is in the business of teaching civics and morals. You may argue that the government should limit itself to value-neutral academics such a reading, writing and arithmetic but this would be a theoretical exercise at best: the Education Act spells the role of the school system in shaping values and morals very clearly. You’re in for a penny you’re in for a pound: once your children are under the auspices of our state-run education system, the system makes the rules. And that includes the rules about dating, mating and reproducing (or, preferably, not reproducing). As Justice Deschamp wrote for the majority in the 2012 case pitting Quebec parents against the Quebec government over the contested Ethics, Culture and Religion (ECR) curriculum (emphasis is mine):

Parents are free to pass their personal beliefs on to their children if they so wish. However, the early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family environment is a fact of life in society. The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education.

Yup. That’s right. While this decision refers to a different curriculum in a different province, it does a good job of highlighting the highest court’s sentiment with regard to parental rights in education. I have heard many people, several teachers themselves, argue that the school had to teach sex ed because the parents weren’t. That’s not true. The Ontario education system has to teach sex ed because matters of civics and morals are part and parcel of its mandate. You might argue that this does not correspond to your idea of civics and morals but you ascribed to that vision when you registered your children in school. Remember that dotted line? Your name’s on it.

In an address at the Maryvale Academy Gala last January, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast tore into Kathleen Wynne’s new Health & Physical Education curriculum calling it a “seizure of parental authority”. He said (emphasis mine):

“We know that the proposed program threatens the fundamental right of parents to educate their children in the moral dimension of sexual behaviour (…). Parents are best qualified and have the greatest interest in working with their own children to handle this serious topic at an age and developmentally sensitive time,” he continued. “More notably, parents have the fundamental right to do so―a right the Province appears willing to usurp without due consideration.”

(You can read the entire address here.)

Willing to usurp? The Province is not merely “willing to usurp” the role of parents as primary educators, it’s obligated by law to do so. As for the fundamental right to educate children in matters of morals, this is a right that is not recognized by law. As the Supreme Court clearly stated, that right stops at your front door. Some of my Facebook friends who support the curriculum updates shrugged: “It’s a great curriculum. Those who don’t agree just have to opt out.” Believe me, as a parent who had to pull an anxious child out of Health & PE:

I had to collude with my daughter to find out exactly when to pick her up. Had my daughter not been a willing participant, I would have had no way of knowing when the Health component of the PE class was being taught. Then she would be marked as “absent” — which adds up on her report card — and still expected to write the Health & PE test, failure to do so would also show on her report card. I was glad to give my daughter an occasional break from “Health” but on the whole, she still had to learn the stuff and write the test. Opting out? Not exactly. And here’s the difficult lesson of my post so far: you can’t really opt out of Health & PE even though you have a theoretical right to, as per the Education Act. You have to opt out of the system. We took our children out of Health. And French, math, science and history too. We homeschool. You’re not happy with the extent of government encroachment on your role as primary educator? Your options are: (1) change the Education Act; (2) force the rolling back of the curriculum by electing a government that supports your vision; (3) take your children out of public school. I’m sad to inform you that the happy middle where you get to send your kids to school to learn things you want them to learn at the exclusion of those you don’t like is not an option. Sorry. This is not a cafeteria.

Education is always political. Remember what they say about the hand that rocks the cradle? Well, if you don’t, the Provincial government does, as does Canada’s highest court. There is no such thing as a value-neutral sexual education class. The term “safe sex” is not value neutral. Neither is “risky behaviour”. When I helped my grade 8 daughter study for her Health exam, I learned that Natural Family Planning was also known as “the calendar method” and had a success rate of 30%. This kind of misinformation is not value-neutral.

What your children learn in school is always political. It may look neutral if you share the values promoted in the curriculum but your comfort is only as safe as our democratic system: someday, the tables may turn. After all, the social conservatives — be they Christian, Muslim or Jewish — are having all the babies. Do you think Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar are raising feminists and allies? Doesn’t this make you a little squirmy about the world your 1.3 children will grow into?

Believe it or not, I am not losing sleep over the so-called graphic content of the new curriculum. My extended family has a few same-sex married couples and a transgendered woman. I have dear friends of all colours of the rainbow. Gender fluidity is a fact of life in my family. The mention of masturbation in grade 6 and sexually transmitted diseases and co-related risky behaviours in grade 7 are not phasing me in the least: by then, my children had long been exposed to them in the school yard and especially the school bus. Our bus drivers always listened to mainstream pop radio, where hip hop songs are way more explicit than anything their gym teachers could dream-up. Honestly, your children’s innocence is only as safe as that of their peers.

If anything, I wish the curriculum taught more about how babies are made! I had a conversation with my daughter a few years back while she was texting a friend. Both girls had received the best sex ed the school system could provide. A friend had had unprotected sex during her periods and wanted to know if she could get pregnant. Both thought that ovulation happened during menstruation. So here we are, giving our teens all the information they need to have safe sex. All the information except how babies are made. 16 year-old girls are having unprotected sex without the foggiest clue of when they are fertile. Great. Have we thought of letting kids figure out how to masturbate on their own and teach them how babies are actually made instead? Just a thought.

Nobody should be complaisant about the government’s mandate to teach sexual education. You may be fine with the current state of sexual education but if you — like me — live in a democracy and enjoy the perks of political freedom, you may very well find yourself on my side of the barricades one day. And I promise that I will still be there with you.

Palm Sunday Post

March 24, 2013March 24, 2013 ~ Veronique ~ 5 Comments

I don’t really write about my faith. I was raised in a Catholic family but I came to adulthood with very little formal knowledge of the Catholic Faith. I came to the practice of the faith through the heart rather than the mind and this is where I stayed. I don’t write about faith because others do it better. My most inspirational line would probably be “It sucked before. Now it’s better.” A supernatural outlook on life and a good sense of humour are staples of loving life in a big family. Today is Palm Sunday and Palm Sunday deserves a blog post.

Palm Sunday is my favorite Feast Day in the Catholic Liturgy. Not favorite as in “we get chocolate”, but favorite as in “every year, it chews me up and spits me out.” I’m a lousy Catholic, really. I don’t get the warm-and-fuzzies about Mary or the Pope. There are elements of Catholic doctrine I don’t understand, others I struggle with. There are elements of Catholic doctrine I live-out like a champ, like not using artificial birth control. But I chose to stop artificial birth control and embrace natural family planning before I returned to the Church. So even in that regard I’m not punching above my weight. I found affinity with conservative Catholics because I was not using birth control, not the other way around. So there. But when I had deep questions about the meaning of life, suffering and happiness, Christianity and the Catholic Church had the most thorough answers. And when I thought that my 3 young children were going to drive me insane, Christian moms had a peace and a fortitude I longed for. That’s how I returned to the Church: I wanted a piece of what they had. I didn’t join because I had something for God but because God had something for me. And they used to let me sing at Church.

Palm Sunday is the Feast of the Lousy Christian. It used to drive me nuts. Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entrance of Christ into Jerusalem. The procession starts outside of the Church with the blessing of palms and continues into the church with the reading of the Passion. The procession reminds us that the same people who welcomed Christ as their King would later ask for his crucifixion. I always found the procession painful. It should be solemn. We are celebrating our hypocrisy after all. But instead, we sing and dance and smile and wave our silly little branches. Don’t we realize after 2000 years that it’s a parody of ourselves and our shallowness? It took me a long time to accept than the ridicule of welcoming the celebrant 5 minutes before a dramatic reading of the Passion of Christ was part of the penance. The Feast of the Lousy Christian starts with a reminder of how weak and fickle we are.

The Gospel on Palm Sunday is always a reading of the Passion, the story of Christ’s long, painful, death. But the most graphic depiction is not of what the crown of thorns and cross did to Christ, but of the betrayal of those who once professed their faith in him. And every year, a verse of the Passion stands-up, steps out of the book, walks over to my pew and punches me in the face.

Judas’ 3 pieces of silver represent my choice for comfort over the demands of self-sacrifice. Peter’s denials, they are mine. The two thieves, one challenging God, the other humble, are my struggle to understand suffering. Palm Sunday is the Feast of falling short, of saying things we didn’t mean and meaning things we never say. It’s the Feast of the weak and the proud, of thinking we know better, of wanting to go it alone.

Palm Sunday is the Feast of discomfort, of knowing we are capable of so much more. Judas broke down. Peter wept. The thief repented. It’s the Feast of coming face-to-face with our fears and our limitations and choosing the easy way out instead of pushing through. It’s the Feast of embracing our lousiness before embracing weakness and knowing we need help. Next week, we will celebrate the hand outstretch. This week, we are not ready to accept it.

It’s my Feast, it’s your Feast. It’s the Feast of all of us.

The pond on March 20th 2013, first day of Spring.

Walking in Peter’s footsteps: My long Lenten journey

April 10, 2012 ~ Veronique ~ 3 Comments

I don’t often write about my faith… I don’t think I ever have. But there is something about a supernatural outlook that makes it easier to take the craziness of a large family. I am neither formed enough or literate enough in faith matters to publish about it and I leave the inspirational material to skilled professionals (like Leila at Little Catholic Bubble). But this is the Easter season and the high point of the Christian liturgical year. It would feel wrong to let it pass on my blog unmentioned.

Continue reading “Walking in Peter’s footsteps: My long Lenten journey” →