Emily M. DeArdo

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catholicism

Celebrations and Sweet Memories

family, travel, Scotland, CatholicismEmily DeArdoComment

Baptism of Jude Family Photo

Jude’s Baptism

Emily’s nephew, Jude, was baptized on September 14,2024 and it was a joyous event as shown in the picture (above).  The family was so excited for this day and Jude’s big sister, Maddie, was so engaged (and busy) that it was hard to keep both her shoes on her feet!  While Emily’s earthly presence was deeply missed, we know that she had a much better perch from her heaven and are certain she enjoyed it.

A Dream Come True

It’s also been a year since Emily’s trip to Scotland. It was the last trip she got to take before going home to the Lord, but it was such precious time for her as she well documented in her blogs last year (starting September 15, 2023). It was a blessing that she was able to experience this much anticipated trip, which included all the things she loved (churches, art, royal castles and food) as she wrote about in blog entries like this, which included a visit to the National Shrine of St. Andrew.

If you ever get the opportunity to visit Scotland then you might want to take a look back into Emily’s documentation of her adventures there last year to get some ideas. We also want to leave you with some restaurant recommendations Emily made that we hope you might visit and think of her while you’re enjoying your meal and scenery:

Howie’s Victoria Street

Ensign Ewart Pub on the Royal Mile

The Grand Cafe, Scotsman Hotel (afternoon tea and lunch)

Mowgli Edinburgh

Eteaket Tea Room

Cafe at the Palace (of Holyroodhouse)

Mimi’s Bakehouse (don’t take reservations but we popped in several times for drinks and snacks)

Ivy on the Square

Badger and Co.

The Scran and Scallie

Royal Deck Tearoom, Britannia (they don’t take reservations so if you want to eat there, head there first when you get on the yacht!)


To wrap this post up, whether you’re in a season of celebration, adventure, uncertainty or earthly suffering we want to leave you with encouragement. As has seemingly been a theme this year following Emily’s passing, we hope that you take each day a moment at a time and thank the Lord for all His blessings. We never know the time we have left or what season of life we’re moving into, but we should depend on Him for our every given moment.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
- Isaiah 41:10

Lent Week 4: The Mindset of Fasting

LentEmily DeArdoComment

For the next 3 weeks, we wanted to dig a little deeper into the 3 Pillars of Lent: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. We hope you enjoy past writings from Emily that are good reminders for these pillars, as well as enjoy the additional thoughts to ponder.

So let’s talk about fasting. The image above was chosen because we know Emily would appreciate the fine English aesthetic. :) Now, if were were honest with ourselves, it’s the least “enjoyable” of the pillars for most. It’s giving up our everyday life schedules we are so used to and comfortable with in exchange for going without. It’s an interruption. It’s a disconnect from the familiar. But honestly, it can be downright irritating when we don’t have the right heart and mindset about it!

Emily gave a list of reasons for fasting in this great post from Lent 2016 here.

Here is the summary of her 4 points on why we fast during Lent:

  1. It’s in Scripture (Matthew 4:1-2. 17:17-20)

  2. It’ll show us where we need discipline in your lives.

  3. It will make us grateful for what we have and remember those without.

  4. It will help us recognize our sins.

Take this week to dig into what fasting up until now has taught or shown you about yourself and your mindset. Remember, you’re fasting because you get to focus time on your relationship WITH God, not for making others believe you are so much more righteous than they are or making them sympathize for your sacrifices during fasting. Give thanks to God for this time you get to dedicate to Him!

Matthew 6:16-18 - “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”’

May whatever you have planned to fast be a holy and pleasing offering to the Lord. May He fill you with strength and his protection as you grow closer to Him.

Lent Week 2: Live Life Boldly

Emily DeArdo2 Comments

Bible Verse from 1 Peter 5:10 that says, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

We are a week into Lent, and we hope it’s been a meaningful time that has already begun to reveal Christ’s goodness and mercy in your life while you dedicate time to Him.

The following tribute, titled “A Life Lived Boldly”, was written by Emily’s friend Fr. Philip Humbert Kilanowski, O.P. We thank him for his willingness to share such a beautiful reflection of Emily’s life through his eyes in light of the Lent that is upon us. We hope that as you read, you’ll consider your own life and ask the Lord how you can deny yourself the tendency to make excuses while feeling self-pity for misfortunes and instead turn your difficulties into praise. Live life boldly!


She was born on Good Friday.  And it was snowing.  How’s that for an entrance?

Emily always lived her life close to the Cross—as if she was chosen for it.  Her sufferings read like a litany: periodic seizures as a young child, cystic fibrosis from age 11, multiple cases of tuberculosis, a rare virus that put her in a coma for two weeks during college, 16 bouts with pancreatitis, diabetes, a heart condition that required surgery—and I haven’t even mentioned the double lung transplant that, no doubt, extended her life, but also left her with permanent hearing loss and a scar the length of her right forearm.

And yet, once you met her, you never would have known that she suffered through any of this.  She never let any of this get the best of her, and remained as joyful and feisty as ever.  She could hold a conversation using just movie quotes and show tune lyrics.  She would fiercely debate all comers not only in religion or politics, but over who was the greatest hockey player of all time, or what constitutes an authentic Italian restaurant.  She would even casually downplay any trip to the emergency room, and called any overnight stay in the hospital a trip to “the Resort.”

So you may wonder, what made all of this possible?  How could she keep so cheerful and lively, and live her life so boldly, in the face of such great suffering?

Grace. Only the grace of God, the grace that comes to us through the Cross of Jesus Christ, by which we are saved, could enable Emily to have carried all her crosses with joy.  This grace is the free gift of God most high, and through the lens of grace, Emily could see that every day of her existence, as weak and fragile as it was, truly was a gift to be cherished and used well, because God Himself, in the Person of His Son, took on all the weakness and fragility of our human condition to save us from our sins and from death itself, coming into the world that we “may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

And Emily certainly lived the life that she had to the fullest, never letting any setback keep her down.  So her weakened hearing prevented her from a singing career?  She lived out her passion for musical theater with a long string of chorus roles in community theater productions.  So she had to quit her job in the state government after missing too many days of work?  She retired early and started a second career as a free-lance writer.  So she wasn’t able to give her life to God in a monastery of cloistered Dominican nuns?  She joined the Dominican Third Order and lived as an exemplary lay member of the Order of Preachers: teaching the basics of the Catholic faith in the classroom, in her writing, and in conversations with her Protestant friends; preaching the truth of God’s grace with her witness on social media, at conferences, and on Jeopardy!; and making known the gift of God in the only book she published in her lifetime: an autobiography arranged, not in chronological order like most memoirs, not in dramatic order like a Christopher Nolan movie, but according to the Stations of the Cross—as only she could.  And so what if she was never married, and was unable to bear any children—something with which she struggled her entire life?  She showed her love and her intense loyalty to her family, to her godchildren, and to her friends—of whom I am blessed to call myself one.

And I remain forever indebted to her for driving me 100 miles to the Dominican novitiate in Cincinnati to begin my religious life and my path toward the priesthood, at a time when I could not trust anyone in my family to bring me there.  (We got a lot better!)  Emily herself was discerning a vocation to religious life at the same time, and we listened to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the car on the way there to celebrate this new beginning.  My novice master, upon seeing her, proclaimed, “You had a woman bring you here?  That’s bold!”

We have remained good friends for nearly fourteen years, even if I had to miss her final promises as a Lay Dominican because I was the godfather at my oldest niece’s baptism, and she had to miss my ordination because she was a bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding.  Her prayers have certainly sustained me throughout my time as a Dominican friar, even as I bore my share of the Cross, and even as I administered the Sacraments to her—and no doubt they will continue, for as both St. Dominic and St. Thérèse of Lisieux have said before her, she will spend her Heaven doing good on Earth.

For one who, as the Psalmist said, was “wretched, close to death from [her] youth” (Ps. 88:16), Emily always sought “the things that are above” (Col. 3:1) and overcame the wretchedness of her condition with anticipation of the joy of eternal life.  She could tell that her time in this life was short, even more so lately.  She made her only overseas trip to one of her ancestral lands, Scotland, just this fall, and wrote a brilliant article on her experience with not only her transplant, but also with how God’s providence has worked in her life, this past year, that reads now like a last will and testament.  Even as she checked into the Resort one last time in the closing days of Advent, she faced it with her signature sense of humor.

And so the woman whom I once described as “a radiant soul trapped in a body held together with duct tape,” who was born on Good Friday, ended up dying at Christmas—but she had to wait until the seventh day, because that’s when it finally snowed.  How’s that for an exit?  Emily met her Maker on the same day on which the Church sings the Te Deum in thanksgiving to God for His benefits at the end of one period of time, and on which the orchestra in Tokyo always plays Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to celebrate the end of the year and mark a new beginning.

And even in death, Emily carries out her vocation as a Lay Dominican, preaching and teaching the Truth who is Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls.  So what can we learn from her, especially now in this season of Lent?  What has she taught us?

First, do not be afraid of the Cross.  The world often says that all suffering is to be avoided, and that a life full of suffering is not worth living at all, but Emily has proven otherwise with the way that she lived her life and shown how God can work great good even through suffering, just as He wrought our salvation through the suffering and death of His Son.  Following her example, we too can offer the pain and misfortune of this world along with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, for as the Lenten hymn says, “For only those who bear the Cross can hope to wear the glorious crown.”

Second, acknowledge your limitations—and then live your fullest life within them.  So often we hear of people trying to ignore their limits, or trying to be someone that they’re not, but while each of us is limited by our own bodies and minds, and our human nature, it is this same shared human nature that gives us our dignity and our capacity for the infinite God.  Emily demonstrated this with her ability to bounce back from setbacks and find a home, a place in the Church, and a task that she carried out with her writing to build up the Kingdom of God—and to enjoy life along the way.  We also can find how God would like to use the gifts that He has given each of us for the common good, and in doing so to live the most fulfilling life we can, by following the words of St. Catherine of Siena: “Be who you are, and you will set the world on fire!”

Third, and last, while many say to “live each day of your life as if it’s your last,” that kind of saying can often be twisted to encourage unreasonable pleasure-seeking.  Emily would rather say, “Live each day as it it’s the beginning of eternal life.”  For while she was born on Good Friday, she celebrated her last birthday on Easter Sunday, the first and only time in her lifetime that the dates coincided, as if it had to be that way.  She acknowledged all of her life after the transplant as borrowed time, and even compared the event to the Resurrection in her writing, but still acknowledged it as only a shadow of the glory to come, a glory into which, we pray (and for which I have seen signs), she has entered.  But we already have “a pledge of future glory,” in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, here on Earth: with the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, to which Emily was so devoted, and as God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwell within our souls by the grace of Baptism and the other Sacraments.  Truly, eternal life begins here and now, and Emily reflected that truth by radiating the light of Christ from within her.  We can do the same, showing the life of God to those we meet in this world, while keeping in mind that we are meant for a life after death, which is the only way that our lives can be fulfilled.  For in her own words, Emily tells us, “Remember you will die—and then get to living.”

So as we learn from Emily, and as we miss her, let us also pray for her—or if we are so bold, pray to her—that we all may be reunited by the grace of Jesus Christ, who, as we sing in the Te Deum, “overcame the sting of death, and opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.”

Fr. Humbert Kilanowski, O.P. is a Dominican friar and priest who teaches mathematics at Providence College in Rhode Island.  He hails from Columbus and met Emily at a Lay Dominican meeting at St. Patrick's Church, the friars' parish in town, in Lent of 2010, and joined the Order that following summer.

Ash Wednesday 2024: Remembering Joy in Suffering

LentEmily DeArdo1 Comment

Hello everyone!

Knowing how much Emily loved Jesus and spent her time serving Him and spreading her faith, we couldn’t let Lent or the time leading up until the Holy Resurrection Easter celebration pass without doing something special. For this Ash Wednesday, we wanted to share some former content from Emily that we think will bring encouragement and the Lord can use to guide you.

First, we wanted to share archived videos from Emily of her book club commentary on each chapter of her book, Living Memento Mori. These would be great if you’re using her book for a book club or for your individual journey through as well. These are housed on Facebook, so please sign in to access them
(Click the image below).

Click the image to access Emily’s archived commentary videos for Living Memento Mori.

“A life that has suffering can still be a life of joy.”

Emily had a great conversation with Kyle Heimann in February 2020 in which she talked about some of the things she was going through and how her book was her life and not just a book. She wrote it with the hopes of it reaching others facing similar trials or needing some hope. Our quote from the interview was, “A life that has suffering can still be a life of joy.”, and we hope you all can take time to meditate on that with the Lord as we go into Lent.

Lastly, we plan to post more helpful content over the next 6 weeks of Lent up until Good Friday. There will be special messages from those who knew Emily, more videos, and content Emily shared previously. Please comment if you have anything specific you’d like to see touched on in the coming weeks.

May whatever you planned to fast be a holy and pleasing offering to the Lord. May He fill you with strength and his protection as you grow closer to Him.

Happy Hallowtide! (We're back!)

Emily DeArdoComment

Image from Baritus Catholic

We’re BACK, y’all!

I know I took a long hiatus post-Scotland! But now I’m back with things to write about and talk about, starting with today’s Solemnity!

(It’s also a Holy Day of Obligation, so Catholics, go to Mass today!)

The three days we’re currently in—October 31, November 1, and November 2—used to be call “Hallowtide”, “hallow” meaning “to make or set apart as holy.” All Hallow’s Eve (ie, the day before All Saints’ Day, saints being “set apart” and "holy”) was contracted in “Halloween”. The Church’s actual celebration of the day begins the night before.

All Saints’ Day is a Solemnity—the highest type of celebration in the Church calendar—where we celebrate the saints (who are all people in heaven, not just the canonized saints), and tomorrow (November 2) is All Souls’ Day, where we remember and pray for those who have died. It’s a good idea to write a list of your own friends and family members who have died and pray for those people during the month!

The other thing we can do in November (really all the time, but especially in this month, where we think about the holy souls) is think about our own death.

I know, not exactly breakfast conversation. But—we’re all going to die. And knowing that we’re going to die informs how we live.

So, yes, it’s a great month for my book! (Support your local Catholic authors!)

If you would like a signed copy (for $20, including a prayer card and bookmark!), you can get one by emailing me!

If my little book can help you live more intentionally pointed toward God and help you remember that “this world’s our ship and not our home” (St. Therese), then I’ll have done my job.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Pope Benedict XVI:

The solemnity of All Saints is, in the deepest sense, a celebration of our hope. Christians are people who affirm the reality of God and count on it. This is what it means to believe. Likewise, it can be affirmed with good reason that Christians are people who accept God’s promises, build on them, and rely on them. In other words, they hope. Hope is the other side of the coin of faith…

The creeping illness of our time is hopelessness. It seems to take root everywhere….

Beneath the surface of today’s feast, a powerful cry is perceptible: “You are expected! Definitively and forever, with the guarantee that your expectations will be fulfilled, after perhaps having carried some burdens for a long time and having asked yourself whether it all had any meaning.” The cry of hope and encouragement from the finish line reaches those who are still on the journey. It is a cry made up of many voices; a cry that causes hope to dawn: hoping with assurance and trust, hoping in a community and in a brotherhood that knows no disturbance, because the one calling is God.


"Joy Depends on the Cross"

Emily DeArdoComment

Botticelli, “Holy Trinity” , tempura on panel

The title for this post is the epigraph for my book. It took me. long time to find it—I wanted something perfect to encapsulate what I thought the book was about, and it had to have the right mix of seriousness and joy. Upon re-reading The Sign of Jonas while I was writing Living Memento Mori, this quote jumped out at me.

But a funny thing about different types of Christianity is how often we forget the truth of this statement.

I was recently reading Jinger Vuolo’s (nee Duggar) new memoir, and the “prosperity gospel” idea (aka, “God as Vending Machine”) is detailed throughout. The church she was raised in was huge on this (For context: Gothard was the founder/leader of her church):

“Gothard taught me that if I was suffering, there was a good chance it was because of some hidden or secret sin in my life. I was disobeying God in some way, and that was why I was experiencing pain and hardship. He even said that “most illnesses today are the result of bitterness, or guilt, or just lack of love.”…

“Just as problematic as Gothard’s opinions, however, was his guarantee of success for everyone who follows his rules. Gothard taught that the future I wanted—husband, kids, financial freedom, and health—would be mine if I followed everything he was teaching. He claimed his seminars were the key to success, and I was sure to get all those blessings if I obeyed. In other words, I was being taught a version of the health and wealth gospel.

“The health and wealth gospel is simply this: God wants to give His children money and physical health, but they must have faith that He will bless them. The size of someone’s financial success is proportional to the amount of that person’s faith and obedience. Here’s what Gothard said about money: “God uses riches to bless those who obey his commandments, and he removes money from those who violate his commandments.”…

“When I was a teenager, I would have said that I rejected the health and wealth gospel. Gothard himself would have criticized what prosperity preachers were teaching. But I did believe that obedience was the key to success in life. I was convinced that if I obeyed, God would reward me with the blessings. In other words, I believed the health and wealth gospel. ”

As I read, I kept thinking, but this isn’t the gospel at all.

The radical truth of the Incarnation is that it led to the cross. It led to extreme suffering. And it happened to the most perfect Man who ever lived.

To paraphrase St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, If Christ went to the cross, how do you think you’re going to get out of suffering?!

You’re not. There’s no way you’re going to avoid it. It doesn’t matter how good of a Christian you are, how perfect of a person you are—suffering is going to happen to you.

“Life is pain, highness,” says Westley in The Princess Bride, and it’s true. There’s no wonky interpretation of the gospel that’s going to change that. Almost all of the apostles died horrible deaths. St. Paul was beheaded. If you read the lies of the saints, you’ll see that a lot of them had severe trials to go through. That’s part of Christianity-—the part we don’t talk about very much, because we don’t want to be downbeat or negative.

But joy fully depends on the cross. We only get eternal joy, eternal happiness, because of the cross. There is no eternal bliss without death on a Friday afternoon.

Today (February 11) the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, a very poor, often ill girl whose family lived in a former jail. In one of the most poignant parts of the apparition, Mary told Bernadette, “I do not promise you happiness in this life, but in the next.”

Yes, we want to be happy here. We don’t want life to be an unending “valley of tears”. But at the same time, we need to remember, as St. Therese said, that “this world’s our ship and not our home.”

There are lots of “benefits”, if you want to put it that way, to following Christ. But He didn’t say it was going to be easy.

Second Week of Advent: The Immaculate Conception

Advent, Catholicism, ChristmasEmily DeArdoComment

One of the most confusing Catholic beliefs, I think, is that of today’s solemnity.

The Immaculate Conception doesn’t refer to Jesus—it refers to Mary. It means that Mary was conceived without original sin in the womb of her mother, St. Ann, as a singular grace. It doesn’t mean she’s a goddess. It means she was special prepared to be the mother of God. In Mother Mary Francis’ words, Mary was “pre-cleaned.”

(For more on the Church’s Marian doctrine, check out this Catholic 101 post I wrote.)


“She did not have that downward pull that we have, but she still had choices, and she could have wrong ones or right ones. She could have insisted after the finding in the temple that Jesus explain what he meant. She could have said, ‘I am your Mother, and I have got to get this straight. I don’t understand what you are talking about.’ But she preferred, she chose, to accept what was to her not understandable, and to return to her humble home and to go about her duties and to ponder these things in her heart…She chose the will of God and she chose is freely—again, we say, unencumbered by the downward pull of concupiscence that we know so well, but still a woman quite capable of doing right or wrong, or doing good or better or best.

“It is very important that we do not allow our Lady to be distanced from us by her Immaculate Conception, but to be brought closer to us. She is the one to teach us poor sinners because she is called the Refuge of Sinners. Our Lord did not give her to St. John and say, ‘Now I am giving her to you, and she is the Mother of all the flawlessly holy ones.’ But he gave her to be the Mother of all persons, of all men and he knew what was in them, what is in each one of us, our weaknesses as well as our strengths.”

—Mother Mary Francis, PCC, Come Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting


Mid August Daybook

Daybook, family, health, books, food, knitting, links, transplantEmily DeArdoComment

Flowers at the local French cafe

Outside my window::

Sunny and breezy—great late summer weather.

Listening to::

The Rings of Power soundtrack. I’m very excited for the show to start on September 2!

Wearing::

crops and a gray t-shirt—a uniform of sorts for me.

Grateful for::

Conversations with Di, Patty, and Johnny.

Good Echo results!

new knitting projects

Pondering::

Functional fitness. As I wrote in the last daybook , this is important in just keeping up the house and doing regular things, but it’s also important in giving my body the tools it needs to “get through” things. If I’m stronger at the outset then I have less to lose if/when I get sick.

Like right now, I have a sinus infection. Wheeeeeee again. I’ve had a lot of them sine 2020, and that’s unusual for me. I had a long-overdue sinus surgery last December, but that didn’t seem to solve the problem the way it normally does.

So right now I’m on Cipro, which is a great, super powerful antibiotic which will clear up the sinuses—but will also mess with my tendons. So that is a bummer when it comes to the whole “functional fitness” thing, because I really do not want to rupture a tendon.

This means that my workouts have to change—I can’t be doing things like treadmill workouts. So I’m doing gentler things, but things that my body still needs, like yoga/stretches for my body, especially my legs (because my legs get really tight), and things I can do that don’t put a lot of stress on my knees or Achilles’ tendon, because these are the areas that tend to get grumpy with me. I’ve gotten some permanent injury to my right knee because I didn’t listen to my body when I’ve been on Cipro, so I don’t want to repeat that.

It’s a fine line, but it’s one that I have to figure out how to manage, and I think I have a good plan for the next two weeks that I’m on this medication.

Reading::

The Silmarillion,* The Book of Lost Tales (Part 1),* (yes, lots of Tolkien right now!) The Crossing* (my parents are really into this book series and so I’ve started reading them too), and Memories Before and After The Sound of Music.*

In case you’re wondering how I read multiple books at one time—I was an English Lit major in college (and Political Science), so I’m very good at reading multiple books at one time! I’m reading Silmarillion almost like I’d read it for a class; I take it slowly because there are a lot of names and places and things to remember. I try to read 1-2 chapters a day. The other books I’m not reading like that. But I’m very good at juggling books and plot lines.

Creating::

A '“stupid easy” shawl with some of the gorgeous yarn I bought on the yarn crawl!

The pattern is Casapinka’s “Woven”, which I had bought and forgot about in the wilds of my desk, but as part of the house reorganizing/decorating project, I was going through papers and found it, and then decided it would be perfect for this yarn. Ravelry notes here. I still have two shawls to block as well.

(Yes shawls are my favorite thing to knit. They’re so diverse and you can have o much fun with yarn and technique! BUT color work is also really fun. And I’m liking cowls. So cowls/shawls are my favorites right now.)

To live the liturgy::

Today is the feast of St. Bernard, Doctor of the Church and Abbot. Did you know he wrote “O Sacred Head Surrounded” (or “now Wounded” in some translations)? I didn’t! I love that hymn. He’s also featured in Dante’s Paradiso. (The last part of the Divine Comedy. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it!)

Around the house::

Still going on the big project but things are coming together! Yay!

From the kitchen::

I will make another load of Sourdough sometime this month to incorporate Diane’s suggestions to my last attempt! I’m actually really excited. I need to feed Sammy the Starter today.

Plans for the week::

All day doctor extravaganza on Monday for yearly testing. WHEEE. Since I’m on Cipro I won’t have to do the six minute walk, which I sort of hate anyway, so that’s a plus!

Catholic Girl Problems

CatholicismEmily DeArdo4 Comments

So I had to read at Mass on Saturday night—Pentecost Vigil. No biggie. I did my job, I pronounced “Bitumen” correctly (that word is not fun to say), and it was time to receive Communion.

As a lector, I am sitting in the front row on the right side of the church. So, I’m fairly visible.

I go up to receive communion. Now, I have done this for 32 years. That’s over 1,600 communions roughly. I have received on the tongue pretty much exclusively for the past 12 years, no problems.

So I get in line.

Then, the following:
Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion: (ECMH) (Holding up the Host) The Body of Christ.

Me: Amen. ( I open my mouth. the EMCH extends his hand, holding the Host, toward my mouth. The DEACON appears, and STARTLES the EMCH.)

THE HOST FALLS.

ALL OUR EYES meet in total panic and confusion.

ME: Where did it go?
Deacon: It went…down your dress. (With discreet hand motion indicating it went….south.)
Me: OK. (To EMCH) Let’s try this again.

EMCH: The Body of Christ.
ME: (receiving in the hand this time) AMEN.

I head back to my seat. I look at the floor I just walked over. No host there. OK. So Jesus is….on my person.
I begin discreetly patting down my dress, wondering if the Host got caught in the folds or the lining or the flounces…

And then I see.

The Host is IN MY BRA.

That’s right. Jesus—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—has taken up residence in my bra cup.

(Did I mention I’m in the front row?)

My dress neckline is a shallow v-neck. So very discreetly (I HOPE), I reach into my dress and remove Jesus from my bra. I then consume the Lord.

I don’t know if Jesus thought that I needed extra grace this week or what, but I totally want to crack up laughing and I’m wondering, OK, what do I do with my bra now? Is it a relic? Am I a relic?! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

(What makes it even more humorous is that usually we have altar servers with patens to catch any Hosts that escape like this. We were short one altar boy, I think, on Saturday. So if the altar boy had been there, this wouldn’t have happened! But it did!)

So after Mass the other lector asks me, “What happened during Communion?” I tell him. He cracks up.

Mom asks me the same thing as we head into the parking lot. She starts cackling, and then laughing so hard she cannot breathe. And then I’m laughing.

I mean, the ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious. But I had never thought that The Lord would…decide to fly down my dress.

Whatever Lord. Whatever.


A Thrill of Hope

Advent, essaysEmily DeArdoComment

I’m featured over at Spoken Women, writing about today’s second reading from St. Paul!

Excerpt:

This Sunday, with almost two weeks left before Christmas, St. Paul tells us to “rejoice always!”

Do you feel like you rejoice always? Or rejoice at all? Do you have joy in your daily life? 

I’m going to make a confession here: I am a very naturally happy, nay, joyfulperson. In fact, when I was a contestant on Jeopardy!, a Twitter user wondered if I was trying to imitate Carol Channing with my enthusiasm. (If you don’t get that reference, google Carol Channing. You’ll get it.) 

I wasn’t. I’m just a naturally joyful person. So when St. Paul says to “rejoice always”, I can say I do that often enough. Not always, though, because, let’s be honest: It’s hard to rejoice always

Read the rest there.

Letters to my 14 YO and 23 YO selves

Catholicism, essaysEmily DeArdo2 Comments
Me at 14, right after eighth grade graduation.

Me at 14, right after eighth grade graduation.

We’re doing things a little differently today! Instead of normal quick takes, I’m giving you two letters that I wrote to myself at different ages.

Emily Stimpson Chapman is running a contest on Instagram to promote her new book, Letters To Myself at the End of the World. To enter, you write “letters” to your younger selves about four topics—so far, they’ve been on The Church and holiness.

I’ve really loved doing this and I thought I’d share my letters with those of you who might not be on Instagram!

I’m posting them in “age” order, so the one to 14 year old me, on the Church, is first.


Dear Emily, 

You just graduated from eighth grade. You’ve spent your entire life surrounded by Catholics, by people who believe what you believe, and live how you live. When you go to high school, that will change. 

Within your first month, you’ll be asked if you’re “saved” at the lunch table. You’ll answer that you’re Catholic, and everyone will look at you “like you have lobsters crawling out of [your] ears.” You’ll be told that you’re going to Hell because you’re Catholic. (Don’t worry. In the midst of all of this you’ll make wonderful, lifelong friends!) 

You’ve never heard any of this before. You’ve never been told that your Church is wrong, that what you believe is false or silly. 

You have two choices—you can be embarrassed by your faith and hide it, or try to change it. Or, you can delve into its richness and find out what you believe, and why you believe it. 

You’ll choose the second option. You’ll get the family bible out from under the glass-topped coffee table, and you’ll read it, and the big beige Catechism. You’ll stick post-it notes inside to mark pages (the start of a life long habit that will set you up well for majoring in the liberal arts). And in all of this reading and debating at the lunch table, you’ll fall more deeply in love with the Church. 

The Church is not perfect. You know this. You’ll meet plenty of imperfect people, even criminals, in the church. You’re not perfect yourself. ;-) But you will never leave it, because where else would you go? 

You love Mary and the rosary; the rosary, in fact, will become your life line (Literally, at times. Seriously). You love the Eucharist so much it can make you breathless at Mass. You love the saints, the sacraments (even confession, which you’ll learn to like more!), and the liturgy. You cannot image giving up any of this, or thinking that any of it isn’t true. 

Most of the people in your life will not be Catholic. You will be, in some places, the only Catholic they’ve ever met. You will have to talk about the church over taco salad at your office (it’s always over lunch!). 

The Church is your home. It’s your family’s home—generations and generations of Heilmanns and Dorrians and Ireardis and Corrados, back and back and back, to Ireland and Germany and Italy and Scotland. It’s *you*. You are welded to its body, grafted into it—and it will feed you forever. In every moment of your life, it is home. You will weep in pews. You will rail against God’s designs there. You will rejoice. You will cry from happiness. You will be filled with thanksgiving. You will ask why. 

Everything, everything is laid bare at the altar. It’s your strength. Never lose it. 


Love, 

Emily

To 23 year old me, about holiness:

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Living the Church Year: Assumption Party!

Catholicism, food, hospitalityEmily DeArdoComment

So we’re gonna start with the real-ness, here:

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Realness, people. It’s even blurry because I was tired, sorry bout that. :)

But also the sign of a good party, if there are lots of dishes and plates and cutlery and cups in the sink…..it means people ate and drank and made merry!

So, when I wrote about Feasting last week, I didn’t mean multiple courses and all sorts of fancy dinner accoutrements and fancy things like that.

No. What I meant was a dinner in your home with other people!

It doesn’t have to be complicated! You don’t have to have everything perfect!

Let me tell you what I did.

First: Invite the people

My table only seats four adults (unless I put the leaf in, which is at my parents’ house). So inviting three people was the max I could do for a sit down dinner. I checked with my friends, we picked a day that worked, which was also the day before the Assumption, so, Assumption Party!

Otherwise it would’ve been a late St. Dominic’s Day Party. :) OR a something something feast day party. :) We’re good at naming things around here.

Second: Figure out the menu

I didn’t want to make anything terribly elaborate. I always make Guinness Cake for dessert….

The cake, in mom’s cake stand, which she lent me! Thanks, mom!

The cake, in mom’s cake stand, which she lent me! Thanks, mom!

For dinner, I made Rachael Ray’s Drunken Tuscan Pasta, which is really yummy, and easy to serve to people. I don’t always like making pasta for a dinner party because you can’t really make it ahead. But then as I was making this, I remembered why I like it—it’s just so dang good. (I”ll give you the recipe.)

Third: Delegate

I didn’t do all of this myself. One of the guests brought sparkling water and a bottle of wine, and another brought the makings of an appetizer and a big, lovely salad, which she made at my place. It was so fun having someone to cook with in my kitchen! It’s so much more convenient here than it was at the old place, because I have an island instead of a “peninsula” sort of thing, so people can cook in multiple places!

Fourth: Make a plan

I wrote out my list of ingredients and went grocery shopping a week before (and then two days before, for the things I had to get sort of fresh, like the portobello tops) . The cake can be—indeed should be—made the day before, so I did that. That way all I had to do was cook the pasta when people were here. A few hours before everyone’s arrival I chopped rosemary, sliced mushrooms, and portioned out red pepper flakes into my little prep bowls. This just makes everything easier when people get there.

Fifth: Try to make it pretty

“try” being the key word here….

I used my pasta serving bowls, which I got at Crate and Barrel eons ago, but are perfect for this. I even dug out place mats and real napkins, because, hey, why not?



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And finally….

It doesn’t have to be perfect!

I didn’t have wine glasses. People drank wine out of mugs! It was FINE! We used the same forks for salad and pasta! It was fine! (We did have different forks for the cake, though, because I had enough for that!)

The house was spic and span because it was the first party in the new hours, and we had house blessing (one of the guests was a priest) and the guests hadn’t seen Orchard House before so I wanted it to look nice. But really, I still didn’t go nuts. I didn’t polish all the fixtures until they sparkled. I didn’t freak out about water spots on the windows from a rain storm.

The point of a party is to get together and have fun and celebrate!

So, yes, make sure your house isn’t, you know, unsafe! :) Make sure it’s hygenic! :)

Make sure it’s comfortable, that people have places to sit, but really, don’t worry about everything looking like House Beautiful because it’s not going to happen!

And even if I didn’t make dinner and we just had Chipotle take out, it would’ve been fun. If the food doesn’t turn out, or you burn it, get a pizza and just chill. It’ll be fine.

I’ve found that having people over to share food and conversation (and prayer!) is a great way to build community, to bolster your feelings, to feel that you’re not alone, and that living the Christian life is a pretty great thing to do. We need community!

So go out there and plan a party!

St. Dominic, the Innkeeper, and Twenty-First Century Preaching

Catholicism, essays, politics, DominicansEmily DeArdoComment
El Greco, St. Dominic in Prayer

El Greco, St. Dominic in Prayer

There’s a story about St. Dominic that’s familiar to every Dominican, and I think it has important implications for us today.

Here’s how the Nashville Dominicans tell the story on their website:

Two years later a diplomatic trip brought Dominic into the Albi region of Southern France. A strong zeal for the salvation of souls was enkindled when the young canon encountered an innkeeper who was steeped in the errors of the Catharists, a heresy which threatened the region. Although other religious had been commissioned to preach in the region, little progress had been made. After a long night of intense discussion, the light of truth prevailed and the innkeeper returned to the practice of the faith.


So let’s break this down. Think of a hotel. Imagine you’re in the lobby, getting something to drink before you go to bed, and you start making small talk with the desk clerk. You discover that he’s an agnostic.

You have a few options:

Don’t say anything. Just smile and say good night, but mentally pray for him.

Share that you’re Catholic. Don’t go any father.

Tell him that he’s going to Hell.

Say that you’re Catholic and spend the rest of the night trying to browbeat him into submission!


What did St. Dominic do? He talked to the innkeeper. All night. You can imagine that it wasn’t full of highly charged statements (like, hey, you’re going to Hell! Good night!) or polemics. It was probably logical—because we Dominicans love study—and it was probably methodical. And it was also probably gentle. I doubt the innkeeper would’ve stayed up all night if St. Dominic was banging him over the head with proofs!

There’s nothing wrong with a good discussion, including one that gets a little exciting.

My siblings and I are all half-Italian. When we have discussions, we get loud. We get boisterous. We use our hands! For people new to way we converse, you can think we’re arguing. (Growing up, our mother, who is not Italian, often told us to stop arguing. “We’re not arguing! We’re talking!”) St. Dominic was Spanish, so I wonder if he used his hands, too. Maybe!

But there’s a distinction between passionate arguing and getting personal. And on St. Dominic’s Feast Day, that’s what I want to talk about.

St. Dominic (detail) from “Christ Mocked with the Virgin and St. Dominic,” Fra Angelico

St. Dominic (detail) from “Christ Mocked with the Virgin and St. Dominic,” Fra Angelico


One of the mottos of the Dominican order is “Veritas”—truth. We love truth. We live to spread the truth of the Gospel all over the world! And that’s part of the reason we study, so that we can know what the truth is. Truth isn’t about what you think is true, or a “personal truth". (for example, children believe that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny exist. We could call that their “personal truths.” )

Truth is verifiable. Truth can be known. Sometimes, yes, there is mystery! We will never understand everything—and we’re not meant to. Some things are just beyond our reach on this earth. But we know the truth of faith because it’s able to be studied. It’s able to be seen. We believe in the truth of Jesus Christ. At Mass every week, we say the “credo”—”I believe”. This isn’t what just I believe, or what you believe, or what the pope beliefs, or what Fr. Patrick up on the altar believes. It’s what we have always believed, as a people, a family of faith.

If you are Catholic, you have to know what you believe, and why you believe it—and you have to assent to it. You can’t just say, well, that’s fine for you, but I don’t believe in Transubstantiation. (You would be….wrong!) I don’t believe in the Church’s definition of marriage. I don’t believe in Hell. Etc.

Truth is truth whether you believe in it or not. People believed the earth was flat—but it wasn’t. People believed that slaves weren’t people—but they were. People believe that unborn babies aren’t people—but they are. See how this goes?

It goes without saying that the truth needs to be spread far and wide. That’s part of what Dominicans do.

But, the question is “how to do it.” As the Wicked Witch of the West said, “These things must be handled delicately.” We can’t be too nice that we deny people the truth—because the truth sets them free, and truth is the best thing you can give someone! But we also can’t be so awful and hard-core that we turn people away from hearing the truth and listening to it.

Let’s take a story from the Bible. It’s one that’s familiar to everyone—the story of the woman caught in adultery. I’m going to quote it here, so we can all have it freshly before us:

John 8:3-11

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in their midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”


Do not sin again. That’s the crux, really. We are all sinners. Every single one of us. I am, you are, everyone. None of us is without sin. But Jesus doesn’t say to the woman, “Oh, what you did is fine. Go ahead, go home, it’s all good.” He said, I don’t condemn you. But don’t sin again. That’s what happens when we go to confession—we have to promise to try not to sin again. We can’t just think, oh, I can do what I want, because confession!

Jesus loves us more than we can possibly imagine. And because he does, he doesn’t want us to keep messing up. It makes him sad! Do parents like it when their kids make bad choices? No! But are they angry? Maybe. Are they disappointed and sad? I think this is probably more likely. (I mean, they might be angry at first. But I think then it becomes more sad/disappointed.)

When we discuss heated issues in the twenty-first century, we are not good about being gentle about it, like Jesus is here. Now, yes, Jesus also turned over tables in the temple. Sometimes we can be righteously angry. I get righteously angry whenever I talk about disabilities or abortion. That’s my thing. But if I slip and start calling people names, or want to incite violence against them, I am sinning.

We can be preachers of the word. We have to be, both preachers of the word and doers of it. We have to live the life of Christ. Sometimes that means standing up for people. Sometimes that means living a quiet life of witness. Sometimes it means both!

If you want to make your point, if you want to convert people, you aren’t going to do it, usually, by violence or hatred or name calling. We need to stop doing that. We need to do it like St. Dominic did it—gently, with facts, with truth, and then….step back. See how it goes. Conversions aren’t instantaneously. St. Dominic famously cried, “Oh Lord, what will become of sinners?” He cared about them. He didn’t just want to score a point like in a college debate match. He didn’t want to just win. He wanted the other person to see the truth because it would save them.

Politics in America has always been nasty (see the Election of 1800!). But we must stop seeing each other as enemies across a divide. We have to state our position, but also realize that we can be friends with people who don’t vote the way we do. In fact, we are required to love them.

I know things get heated in the public realm. I worked in politics for 10 years. I saw it, up close and personal. We cannot want to kill our opponents, guys. We can’t approve the shooting of congressmen and women because the victim disagreed with us! What kind of people will we be then?

A story was told to me by the first legislative aide I worked with, who had been in the senate a long time. She said that senators used to argue like crazy on the floor, and then go out to dinner together. They were friends with each other. That was becoming rarer and rarer

Christianity isn’t a religion for wimps. Jesus doesn’t ask us to be a doormat. He asks us—and St. Dominic shows us how—to preach the truth, to live the truth with our lives, to pray for our enemies. We can have discussions—even loud Italian ones! We can be passionate! I’ve always been passionate when talking about the Church.

But there’s a fine line between being passionate, and being so whipped up into a frenzy that you can’t see the human being on the other side.

St. Dominic saw the humanity in the people he met. That’s what drove him to preach—his concern for them and his love for Christ.

Does the same thing compel us?




Feast, Feast, Feast!

CatholicismEmily DeArdoComment

Guys, it’s AUGUST!

And that means that it’s time to FEAST!

The Church calendar is just jam packed with feasts in August! This week we had…

Dedication of St. Mary Major (yesterday)

The Transfiguration (today)

Thursday is the feast of St. Dominic! (A feast for me, because, DOMINICAN POWER!)

And then we have the feast day of St. Edith Stein, and Maximilian Kolbe, and the Assumption is next week…..

It’s all happening!

Part of living the Catholic life is living liturgically, which means to fast when the Church fasts….and to FEAST when the Church feasts!

Remember to do that! It’s not just about the penance and the fasting! It’s about joy, too!

So be sure to celebrate!

Raphael, The Transfiguration

Raphael, The Transfiguration


I’m having an Assumption Party next week, so I’ll share all those details with you, to give you an idea of a feast you can have at home with pals.

But really, be sure you celebrate the days that are important to you. Celebrate your confirmation saint’s day! Celebrate the Holy Days and the Feasts! Join the Church in her party!



The Annunciation

CatholicismEmily DeArdoComment
Jean Hay, The Annunciation, 1490/95., oil on panel.

Jean Hay, The Annunciation, 1490/95., oil on panel.

Happy solemnity of the Annunciation!

(If you’re a Tolkien fan, you know today was the day the Ring was destroyed….so go watch Return of the King today.)

I thought I’d share some poetry with you today. I don’t generally do this, but there’s a lot of good stuff about the Annunciation, so, to the poets!

John Donne, Divine Poems, 2. Annunciation


 Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie       

 In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;        

Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now

Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother.

Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room

Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb.

And some Rilke. In this one, the angel Gabriel is the speaker.

Annunciation
The Angel speaks


You are not closer to God than we
We’re all from Him so far

Yet with such sweet wonder

Your hands blessed are.

So do they ripen, so they shimmer

from the sleeves as by no woman before.

I am the day, I am the dew,

But Thou,

Thou art the Tree.


I'm weary, for the way was long

Forgive me, I forgot

What He, who sits in gold array as in the sun sent me to say,

You thoughtful one

(great space bewilders me)

You see: I am the beginning

But Thou,

Thou art the Tree.


Wide I spread the arc of my flight

I found myself so strange and far

And now your little house is drowned

in the folds of my great, bright dress.

And yet you’re alone as never before

You don’t see me at all

As if: I’m a breath of wind in the wood

But Thou

Thou art the Tree.


All the angels fear like this

Let one another go:

Never had we such desire

Uncertain yet so great

Perhaps that something happens soon

You only know in dreams

Hail, for thus my soul now sees:

You ready and so ripe.

You, Lady, are the great, high door

that soon shall open wide.

You, most beloved ear to my song

Now I feel: my word is lost

in you as in a wood.


So I came and I fulfilled

A thousand and one dreams

God looked at me; bedazzled me…

But Thou

Thou art the Tree.

On My Soapbox: When people say they want "healthy" kids

Catholicism, CF, essays, health, life issues, transplantEmily DeArdo3 Comments

and some theology

I know that when most people say they want a “healthy baby”, they’re not being rude or mean. They’re probably trying to be nice.

But guys, I wasn’t a “healthy baby.” I looked healthy, initially, but I wasn’t. I had seizures. I had (and still have) thalessemia minor (I think it’s called type b now? Not sure). I got the CF diagnosis when I was 11.

So, should my parents have just pitched me back? “Nah, sorry, we wanted a non-defective model.”

And I know that people do that now. People kill their babies in the name of the kids “avoid suffering” in their lives. Bull crap. “Yes, let’s kill you, so you never get to have a life.”

That ties into part two: saying “God is Good” only when things go the way you want them to go.

Guys. God is good all the time. He is Good. It is in His very nature to be good. But that doesn’t mean that God’s Goodness=what you want.

Because it doesn’t work that way.

God created me with my “defective” genetic code and my blue eyes and my blonde hair and my fair skin and my wonky teeth and an ankle that cracks oddly. I have a really good memory and I love children and I do a pretty good Sebastian the Crab imitation. I have The Phantom of the Opera libretto memorized. (And Les Miz. And Miss Saigon. And Ragtime. And Parade…)

And yeah, I also have CF. I had a transplant. I’ve got scars. And I do talk about it, because it has become clear to me that it has to be talked about, because people see illness as scary and something to be avoided and pain as awful, to the point that Canada is allowing pediatric euthenasia.

God is always good. And God made me the way I am for a purpose. Is it always fun? No. It is not. There are times when I’ve been really peeved about it, to put it mildly.

But at the same time, it has made me who I am, and in general, I like who I am. I wouldn’t want to change that for the world.

God is not being “mean” to me. He created me the way he wants me to be.

And health doesn’t always stay health. Health is a transient thing, guys. Everyone will get sick. Everyone will die. It seems that in our society now we are idolizing life and health to the point that it is fully unhealthy. We’ve forgotten that we will die, that life is fleeting, that our home isn’t here.

Children are a gift from God, no matter how they come.

And God is always good. And He always loves me.

He always loves you, too. No matter what.

As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”

John 9: 1-3, NABRE

#21 The Garden (retreat notes III)

Catholicism, journalEmily DeArdoComment
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It was really too hot to spend much time in the garden, but I did manage to get out after breakfast on Saturday and take photos of the roses, and spend some time in the little replica Lourdes Grotto. Isn’t the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes gorgeous? There’s a tiny bench in there, so you can sit and pray, and a little water feature to represent the spring at Lourdes, so there’s the peaceful bubbling sound of water as well. It’s so pretty, and I just wanted to share it with you.

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Flourish, the new Take Up & Read study on the book of Romans!