I just became a grandmother!

I have a little 3.5 day old grandson now.  And I have five adult children who are all setting out into the world, beginning careers, earning degrees, trying to establish themselves in the year 2019 and all that entails.  I worry for the future though.  I worry for our planet, our food, our air and water.  I worry about all the anxiety and rush and alienation and corruption and perversion and mass shooters and all that culture of death stuff.  I worry about the future of the Catholic Church, poor Bride of Christ who has been so mistreated and betrayed by her clergy.  I worry about a culture that wants to fill up the empty God-sized hole in our hearts with things and pleasure and power. 

I live in a wealthy area.  My husband makes a good living and I have every need and luxury.  I have a nice air condition/heated home.  I have all the appliances and a car and money to put gas in that car.  I never go hungry.  I get up each morning and drink some lovely coffee.  I never have to go without.  I often think about how Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.  That's kind of startling because I know that I am probably richer than most of the world.  I didn't even set out to be.  It just sort of happened.  I am grateful for it all.  But I think I've been stealing from others.  I think I've been stealing, without even thinking about it and just sort of going along with the flow, from my children and my grandchildren.  I've been stealing and abusing the poor.  I have.  All. the. time.  I never meant to, but once I found out I was complicit, I didn't want to do it anymore.

I think it's time to really ponder all this and then do something about it.  I think it is time to stop taking for granted all the stuff and conveniences I've been showered with all my life.  Because it is too much and it is making it harder for me to get through that eye of the needle.  Lots of stuff spoils you.  It warps the soul.  It makes you narrow and blind and self-serving.  And that is the opposite of trying to be Christ-like. 

It occurred to me that from my present situation living right now, my greatest connection to the world around me is that of consumer.  I am a wife and mom and sister and member of a parish.  But the thing I actively do daily that I don't even think about much is . . . consume. 

How can my role as consumer draw me closer to Christ?  Because that's my ultimate relationship, yet everything in the world wants to diminish that foundational role.  I, myself, often forget it for large swathes of time.  Just today, on this Solemnity of the Assumption, a plea came into my prayer at Mass.  It welled up in my heart, unbidden.  Because it has been in my mind so much of late:  Lord even though I always forget about you, even though I go through my days shallow and distracted and peevish and all the rest, let me be connected to You.  Even if I can't feel it or am unconscious of any connection, be my anchor!  Let it be at some mystical level and present, even if I can't know it!

So this blog is about how to wrestle with consumerism from a Catholic point of view.  If you are Catholic and care about creation and want to live your life like you actually did care about God and the consequences of your lifestyle, then you may be interested!