Practical Jokes

Dear friend on Facebook,

Implying that you are pregnant and then telling everyone that your "new addition" is actually a puppy and not a baby is really funny.  Really.  No one has ever done that before, and it's not going to hurt anyone's feelings.  Riotously funny.

Godparent!

Our first godchild, Lucy, was born at 10:15 this morning.  The mother's labor was easy--she went to daily Mass at 9am, and her husband barely had time to get back to the house after taking her home and dropping their toddler off with the babysitter.  The midwife also barely made it.  What a good girl to come so quickly!

I was afraid that I would feel jealous, but really I am just deliriously happy for them, and for myself and my husband.  We already adore Lucy's older brother, and I am sure that Lucy will be just as easy to love.  Her baptism was already scheduled, for February 12, the day we will officially become her godparents and accept the responsibility to pray for her and look out for her spiritual welfare forever.

Unfortunately, the blanket I was making for her is blue and white--I was convinced she would be a boy!

Prayer Request

I know I don't have a lot of readers, but if you are reading, will you please take a moment to say a prayer for the Wenzel family?  Father, mother and eleven children ages 11-28.  The father of the family has cancer that has metastasized to several of his organs.  Yesterday, one of the children, a young man about twenty years old, died.  I am not sure of the circumstances of his death, just that it happened suddenly.

Spiritual Parenthood

My husband and I were asked, three weeks ago, to be godparents for a baby who is expected to make his or her appearance in the world in February.  We are honored for a number of reasons: firstly, of course, anyone should be honored to be asked to be godparents for a child, because it's very important; secondly, even though we have lots of Catholic friends with young children, it's the first time we've been asked; finally, we've only known the parents for about six months.  It's an incredible sign of trust (and also, unfortunately, a sign about the unsuitability of their family for that role and the problem of being recently returned to the practice of the faith) to ask us to be a part of their child's life for...forever, pretty much.

Then, this morning, came a request from another friend.  Each of her four children has a different set of godparents.  Three sets are great.  But their five-year-old son's godparents are now agnostics, and she's concerned because the kid needs prayer.  Even the best-intentioned five-year-old boy can get into amazing scrapes, leaving even the most disciplined of parents bewildered.  She has asked us to be unofficial godparents for her boy.  My first thought was, "Of course!"  My husband and I love the whole family dearly, and to be part of the family in that way is very special.

But, then, the heartache of my own infertility, which has been at the forefront of my thoughts so often lately as my four closest married friends here are all pregnant, crept to the fore again.  Two requests to be spiritual parents in less than a month?  Is God sending me a sign that spiritual motherhood is to be my lot?

Maybe I'm reading too much into this.  Maybe it's just a sign that we're making new friends as adults for the first time (as opposed to college and high school friends) and taking on the roles that come with being adult Catholics. Our practice of the faith, because of our roles as church musicians (and my husband's role as parish employee), is very public, and our new friends can see us there, every Sunday, at prayer, and it's easy for them to discuss religious matters with us.  There's no dancing around, trying to figure out whether we are faithful Catholics and think with the mind of the Church--we're just out there, for all to see.  And some of our friends like what they see, enough to want us to be spiritual guides for their children.  It's very flattering, and we are ready to take that responsibility seriously.  Still, I can't help but wonder whether we will ever have the (sometimes difficult) job of choosing godparents for a child of our own.

Things to Love About Alaska #5

Last night I saw the northern lights for the first time!  Anchorage Daily News has pictures of last night's spectacular show.

And today, it's snowing.  Great big flakes have been falling for over an hour now.  On our way home from brunch with a friend we stopped at the store to buy a snow shovel and snow brushes/ice scrapers for our cars.  Then we took the dog for a 20-minutes walk in the snow.

We really do live in ALASKA!

40 Days for Life, Anchorage

I and many others here are currently participating in the 40 Days for Life, praying on the sidewalk outside Planned Parenthood here in Anchorage.  The sidewalk is being manned 7 days a week from 8am-8pm.

Mostly I go with our parish's young adult group.  On Friday this week, I did an extra hour because there was a gap in volunteers.  The man who took the 8am shift didn't want to leave until someone else came--but at 11:45 he called Megan, the organizer, to ask if anyone else was coming any time soon.  She posted on Facebook, and since I had a gap in my day, I drove down there to relieve him.  He was so brave to stand out there all by himself, in the cold rain, for four hours!  He told me that he had never done anything like that before!  So, kudos to you, Brian, wherever you are.  You're my hero of the week.

Others had heard the call, too.  Almost as soon as I took over from Brian, two parents with their five children came to stand with me.  I recognized them as parishioners from St. Nicholas Byzantine church.   And one of the women scheduled for the 1pm slot came half an hour early--she's a parishioner at St. Nicholas, too.  Byzantines, represent!

Anchorage 40 Days for Life has a blog, and if you were in doubt about whether our vigil does any good, you have only to head over there and read a story about what happened on Tuesday night, when the young adult group from St. Benedict's parish was there.  Saving a Baby 

Founder of the Alaska Mission

Last week I was privileged to hear Mr. Mario Bird, an Anchorage local who was a teacher at Holy Rosary Academy here before going to law school at Ave Maria, speak at our monthly Theology and Brew.  The topic was the life of Archbishop Charles Seghers, founder of the Alaska Mission.  If you've never heard of Archbishop Seghers, who was Bishop of Victoria Island (now Diocese of Vancouver) , then Archbishop of Oregon City (now Archdiocese of Portland).  He requested to be transferred back to Victoria Island, despite the move being a demotion in rank as it was not an archdiocese, in order to continue his missionary work to Alaska.  He had also been an attendee at the First Vatican Council and the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, and in Oregon he is remembered for his staunch defense of Catholic education against the encroachment of government schools, and for his invitation to the Benedictines which resulted in the establishment of Mount Angel Abbey.


During his first tenure as Bishop of Victoria Island, he had established a mission at Nulato, AK, called "Our Lady of the Snows." During his second tenure, he established missions at Juneau and Sitka.  He was greatly desirous of returning to Nulato, since he had promised the people there that he would come back, and undertook one more journey into the interior of the territory.  Unfortunately, he chose poorly in the matter of a traveling companion.  He set out with two Jesuits and a layman called Frank Fuller who was well-known to the Jesuits, because he had worked as a teacher and handyman at several of their establishments in the Northwest (including at Gonzaga, my own alma mater).  Fuller had several times requested admittance to the Jesuit Order but had been refused because they thought him unstable.

As winter came on, the Archbishop left the two Jesuits behind and continued on with only Fuller and two native guides.  Fuller's behavior became increasingly erratic, as noted in Seghers's diary, and on November 27, Fuller shot and killed Seghers with the archbishop's own rifle.  Bishop Seghers was only 46 years old at his death (he had been consecrated a bishop at the very early age of 33).

Seghers probably will never be considered a martyr, since the man who killed him was mentally unstable and since the archbishop had chosen him as a traveling companion against the advice of others who knew Fuller.  Nevertheless, the dramatic manner of the archbishop's death stirred up interest in missionary work in Alaska, and mission work is ongoing.

There is a small but growing movement asking that Archbishop Seghers's cause for canonization be opened.  If you want to know more about him, two biographies exist, one of which tends toward the hagiographical and the other which plays a Devil's advocate type of role.  Even the latter acknowledges Seghers's humility and zeal for souls.