Pray Always!

One of the women I work with has taught me a lot about what it means to “pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17.)” When she says she’ll keep you in your prayers, you can count on it. She keeps soft, Christian music playing in the background in her office, so her heart is constantly uplifted. She writes down the names of friends who are facing especially steep challenges and puts them on her bulletin board so she’ll glimpse them throughout the day and remember to hold them up in prayer. She is connected to a prayer chain through her church, and calls it frequently to enlist the loving support of other friends who are committed to this way of life.

The fruit of that prayer is evident. When storms rock her own life—and I have witnessed that as well—she is unshakable. I have seen her overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder as the love and energy of the prayer she offers for others comes back to her, bringing her physical, mental and spiritual peace in her times of need.

I’ve been thinking about St. Paul’s admonishment to “pray without ceasing” and to “rejoice always” a lot lately, and I’ve decided most of us could do a much better job at it if we would just wake up and pay a bit more attention to the opportunities around us. I love the story Fr. Brian Pierce, a Dominican priest, shares about his experience as a young novice. One autumn, when one of the brothers in his community suggested they spend their free day enjoying the fall leaves, they packed up a picnic lunch and headed for the mountains. “We drove frantically for several hours,” he writes, “stopped at a national forest, got out and ate our lunch, and sped home in time for evening prayer.” It wasn’t until that point, when he was so distracted he could hardly focus on the psalms in the book he was holding, that he realized he had missed the real prayer of the day, “the chance to praise God for the wonders of creation,” along the way.

I do feel a special responsibility to pray for the needs of my husband, my children and the members of my immediate family. I think we are intricately involved in each other’s salvation, and even when I don’t have words, I believe love and graces are called forth as I consider each family member before the Lord in my heart.

But I know that every time I stop to really tune in to the people and situations of my daily life—whether it’s the wonder of a child revealing a moment of character or the laughter caused by some goofy television show my youngest is enjoying—when we reflect on it and celebrate it as gift, it all becomes prayer.                      

—Anne-Marie Welsh serves as editor of FAITH Erie magazine and can be reached at editor@faitherie.com. She and her husband, Tim, are the parents of three children.

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Sweet Baby Angel

I debated about this column, and finally decided to share excerpts from a personal essay I wrote several years ago. I didn’t write it as a pro-life statement, but have come to feel that’s really what it is.

“Pitocin.”
That’s the first thing I remember hearing. Through a fog of drugs and pain, I could hear two nurses chatting idly as they washed my stomach. “I’m conscious and they don’t even know it,” I thought. I couldn’t move or talk. I truly thank God I didn’t connect the fact that I was four and a half months pregnant and that Pitocin is used to induce labor. I woke again, briefly, in the middle of an MRI. The next scene I remember is my parents at my bedside, standing to my left. On my right was a priest. “Oh,” I remember thinking. “How nice that they’re here together.” Their tight smiles weren’t enough to make me understand the priest was giving me last rites.

The following day I emerged from the chaos again, this time in the presence of my husband. Somehow, my situation had begun to register, but in the confusion, I decided the nurses had stolen my baby. Tim gave me a pencil and I wrote, “gift camera.” I wanted him, desperately needed him, to get pictures of those women who had kidnapped our baby. Why couldn’t he figure it out? Surely there was a gift shop in this hospital with a disposable camera. I pulled at my tubes so I could explain, but it just gave those nurses an excuse to tie me down.

I don’t remember anything about the accident, but they explained it to me in small doses each time I awoke. I knew my two daughters had been with me when, for whatever reason, I pulled out in front of a car that was going 45 miles an hour. “Anybody die?” I wrote. “The baby didn’t make it, honey, but the girls are fine. So is the guy who hit you.”
I didn’t believe him. “Girls,” I scrawled. I needed to see them. I did not understand how terrifying I looked. Tim produced a Polaroid picture of our daughters but I still wouldn’t trust him. “Girls!” And so, one at a time, he brought them in and held them tight at a distance from Mom. I wept.

For eight days I floated back and forth between life and death. Teams of doctors stood whispering at the foot of my bed. My sister flew in from Kentucky. It wouldn’t be until much later that I would understand the peril I had faced. I do feel just a little cheated that the Lord didn’t grace me with a near-death tunnel experience during the ordeal. We named the baby Angel. The doctors agreed I probably would not have made it if little Angel hadn’t been there to take the brunt of the impact. Baby Angel, forever my child.
Perfect and beautiful. Pink. Life-giving. Waiting for me. Sweet Baby Angel.

—Anne-Marie Welsh serves as editor of FAITH Erie magazine and can be reached at editor@faitherie.com. She and her husband, Tim, are the parents of three children.

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Anita “tells” it like it is

Every once in awhile someone comes up with a message that resonates so clearly with our culture that he or she is able to break through the noise and find a place in our lives. Comedienne Anita Renfroe surfaced this fall, grabbing the attention of television viewers and Internet lurkers with Momsense, her hilarious attempt at condensing everything a mother says during the course of a day into a two-minute version of the William Tell Overture. (If you haven’t had the pleasure, check it out at www.AnitaRenfroe.com.)

You have to see it to appreciate it, but you can practically hear the cannons going off as she builds to the big crescendo near the end. When I first caught the song on Good Morning America, her brutal honesty took my breath away. I was surprised but not shocked to discover that Renfroe is actually a regular on the Christian conference circuit. A pastor’s wife, her ministry evolved as she infused presentations with her natural sense of humor. Even her simple admonishment that we not take ourselves so darned seriously all the time swept gobs of cobwebs off the path of my daily routine.

Searching around for additional words of wisdom from Renfroe, I came upon a video clip in which she declares most women believe they are not as “together” as everyone else seems to be. But she follows that truth with healing words of encouragement, insisting she has yet to come across a woman who doesn’t believe she is a mess inside. She, of course, then makes a point we can accept in our heads more easily than our hearts: that each of us is wonderfully made, deeply and passionately loved by our creator.

I do feel like a mess a good deal of the time. I constantly fall short of my goals as a parent, a wife, an employee, a writer, a friend and on and on. But it is in my brokenness that I come to prayer most easily, trying daily to offer up my weaknesses, asking for enlightenment and opportunities to grow, responding with gratitude to the graces granted.

With this issue of FAITH magazine, we conclude our year-long focus on the fruits of the Holy Spirit, with the emphasis, this time, on love. To be sure, we will succumb to stressful moments as we make our way through Advent, Thanksgiving and Christmas before reaching 2008. But with God’s help, we have the power to diminish those moments by thoughtfully and prayerfully approaching the holidays with the only centerpiece that really matters: love.

—Anne-Marie Welsh serves as editor of FAITH Erie magazine and can be reached at editor@faitherie.com. She and her husband, Tim, are the parents of three children.

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De Colores!

If you’ve read the introduction to our cover story in the table of contents this month, you know De Colores is the greeting those who make Cursillo give to each other. Yes, I am a Cursillista, but shame on me, I’ve never sponsored anyone and I’ve never gotten further involved with the movement.

In my defense, I made my Cursillo in my very early twenties, right after spending a year as a volunteer at the Young People Who Care Center in Frenchville. It was an amazing send-off from Sister Therese Dush, who has been helping young people in our diocese discern their gifts and strengthening them for a life in tune with God’s spirit for more than thirty years. I plan to give my children the same send-off some day.

What I remember most clearly about the experience was the physical encounter with God’s grace. If you are having any doubts about your faith, about the meaning and purpose of your life or about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world today, Cursillo will take them away. It’s that simple.

When I interviewed Jeff Gibbens for this issue’s cover story, he told me it snowed constantly throughout the weekend he made Cursillo. An employee of the Streets Department for the City of Erie, he grudgingly accepted the fact he was missing out on about $500 in overtime. The day after his Cursillo, he put two dollars on a lottery ticket, something he insists he never does. He had made men’s Cursillo #197, so that’s the number he played. He swears it’s true, he hit the number that night and came away with $580.

I’m not saying all Cursillistas have quite that kind of luck. But there are those who like to call such phenomena “co-inkydinks,” a phrase coined by Cursillista Jerry “Rocky” Rzodkiewicz to describe the little coincidences that really aren’t coincidences at all, but simply a touch of God’s handiwork that continues long after people make or work a Cursillo.

When I was a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Erie several years ago, the pastor once invited those who had made a Cursillo to stand up and tell people what year they’d attended. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who stood up, row after row. Just for fun, I queried the columnists of FAITH magazine to see how many include Cursillo among their past experiences. All but one of us have made it.

I am the world’s worst salesperson, and the last thing I personally respond to is a hard sell. But if you’re intrigued, if you think it might be just the shot in the arm you’ve been looking for, there’s really nothing to lose by setting aside a few days to give God a chance to “break through” as Ed Derrick said in his cover story interview. Our bishop is fond of saying God will never be outdone in his generosity, and I can assure you that will be the case if you choose to make a Cursillo.

To my fellow Cursillistas, have you, like me, been away too long? Log onto www.eriecursillo.org.and get back in the swing of things. I can’t wait to serve on a committee or a team in the very near future. Hope to see you there.

—Anne-Marie Welsh serves as editor of FAITH Erie magazine and can be reached at editor@faitherie.com. She and her husband, Tim, are the parents of three children.

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