Catholicism

a collection of reflections on our conversion and practice of faith in the Catholic church

Present in Advent
© Elizabeth Henry (December 2025)

Reminding myself this Advent that being present does not mean having everything exactly how I want it.

As the days go on and we light candles, considering the virtues of hope, peace, joy and love, I also must consider the steadiness that God offers and the graces He gives.

I often feel that I am waiting for everything to be as I want it to be so I can then enter into the peace of Advent, but the weeks slip by and I instead find myself having been agitated and occupied with needing things to go my way rather than reverently awaiting the birth of Christ as I make preparations.

I consider if Mary has chosen the same perspective I often do. Waiting for things to be as they should have been for her birth experience before deciding to ponder and be present in the miracle of Jesus’ arrival. If Joseph has chosen the same perspective as I often do. Stubbornly holding off on fully engaging in the tasks at hand because it wasn’t all happening how he would have preferred.

Choosing petulance instead of presence.

Believing that being present is dependent on my preferences denies the graces God wishes to bestow in every circumstance and every season.

And so now with anticipation, choosing to be present in all the ways the days will go, I await Christmas and am grateful once more for the season of Advent and the wisdom to be found in the waiting that brings about a greater appreciation for the celebrations ahead.

warmth of the home
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2025)

“Don’t you feel annoyed and uncomfortable deep down inside when the affairs of your family, honorable and ordinary, emerge from the warmth of the home into the indifference or curiosity of the public gaze?”

– Josemaria Escriva

I think about this quote often when considering what to share on social media these days.
As someone who has a history of chronically over sharing online it’s been a journey to grow in discretion when choosing how much to surrender to the algorithm.

I used to ignore feeling uncomfortable to share. I thought it was prudish and oppressive to my personality to not always be an open book and that ordinary things were less enjoyable if I wasn’t also posting them on social media. That perspective did little to help me though. I disclosed far too much about myself, my husband and our children, and I stayed absorbed in unproductive things, distracted from learning how to truly care for myself and my family.

Growing in discernment and keeping so much more within the warmth of the home, and the community we live with, has been one of the best changes I’ve made regarding my social media use in the past few years and I am so glad for it.

from our Mother
© Elizabeth Henry (August 2025)

Because of a collection of personal circumstances I deeply trust that our third child was a gift to our family through the intercession of Mary.

Through nightly rosaries while pregnant, to whispering Hail Marys through contractions during labor, to prayers over him as I rock him to sleep, I continue to recommend him to Mary’s care and Christ’s mercy, along with my older children as well.

Being a mother is a precious vocation and Mary knows that better than any mother that has ever been and to continue to learn by her example, and grow closer to sainthood by her prayers, is a blessing I still don’t even fully understand and yet live my life reaping the benefits of already and so I continue to pray,

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

their souls to their father
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2025)

I recently read Little Women for the first time and this was one of my favorite quotes,

“The girls gave their hearts into their mother’s keeping-their souls into their father’s; and to both parents, who lived and labored so faithfully for them, they gave a love that grew with their growth, and bound them tenderly together by the sweetest tie which blesses life and outlives death.”

Such a lovely description of parental vocation and the eternal purpose of the family.

I desire to be worthy of the keeping of my children’s hearts and the growth in virtue that will enable it and while Justin has always been a good man and a good father, it has been a privilege over the last few years to watch him become a great one and to be able to confidently entrust our children’s souls to his keeping is one of the greatest gifts he has ever given me.

due to the Sacred Heart
© Elizabeth Henry (June 2025)

June, the month dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

It was 2 years ago now, at the Pentecost Vigil, that Justin and I were confirmed in the Catholic Church and tonight I have the privilege to stand by a friend as a sponsor as she does the same.

I struggled to understand how to live a lifetime of faith before Catholicism. I didn’t truly understand the role God was meant to have in my choices, my convictions, my maturity or my rest and conflated my feelings with what I thought to be faith convictions often. In my day to day God seemed like an optional entity to engage with when I felt anxious or sad, but it was unclear what role He might play beyond that. With the many options of faith it seemed as though it was easier to have no faith at all. A mix and match belief system seemed like a hassle and one conviction was as easily disproved as the next when I might venture out into the variety of options anyway.

Why did it seem as though God had left us with so many loose ends when it came to a life in relationship with Him?

It was not until within the Catholic Church’s sacraments and tradition that I genuinely began to understand who God is and actually see how He had considered the world He made and the people He loves and desires to be in relationship with in entirety. Now I easily see a lifetime of faith, and beyond into eternity, as there is so much to learn and be reminded of.

Reason and tradition that dates back to Christ’s time on earth and a cohesive understanding of the human and the holy for there is no age or season that God has neglected to give graces and guidance for through the gift of Himself and His Church.

More than anything I feel endlessly grateful to have gone no more than 30 years of life without the Eucharist, Jesus Himself, and endlessly humbled to go no further in life without it as it is truly the source and summit of faith itself.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on Us.

The Real Life
© Elizabeth Henry (January 2025)

As someone who is quick to be discouraged and lose hope in harder seasons, growing in virtue, and the role of the Sacrament of confession in regards to this matter, have been significant for me over the past, nearly, two years since our confirmation into the Catholic Church.

This little book on maintaining peace speaks to it in yet another clarifying way.

“I have the feeling, according to Rimbaud’s expression, that “the real life is elsewhere,” elsewhere than in the life that is mine. And that the latter is not a real life, that it doesn’t offer me the conditions for real spiritual growth because of certain sufferances or limitations. I am concentrated on the negatives of my situation, on that which I lack in order to be happy. This renders me unhappy, envious and discouraged and I am unable to go forward.

The real life is elsewhere, I tell myself, and I simply forget to live.

We often live with this illusion…but this is often an error. It is not the exterior circumstances that must change; it is above all our hearts that must change. They must be purified of their withdrawal into themselves, of their sadness, of their lack of hope: Happy are the pure in heart; they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).”

– Father Jacques Philippe in ‘Searching for and Maintaining Peace, a small treatise on peace of heart’

Time to Ponder
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2024)

Pondering is not a quick task, but is often only allowed a fragment of our time.

It requires a great amount of time and honesty to discern the movement from season to season. Life is not a disjointed jump from era to era and should be less about reinvention as each stage arrives and more about compounding lessons that lead to greater maturity.

Life is a developing story and over documentation and over identification can often complicate the motion from season to season that humans require to grow and understand.

Finding the threads that help us understand it in a valuable way requires our attention and our patience and often isn’t conducive to quick summaries and stubborn coping mechanisms.

We must be brave enough to remove that which makes us too lazy to act. No entertainment or vice is worth losing one’s ability to be honest about the circumstances or deadened to the agency we have to improve our actions.

I don’t think this balance is truly possible without submitting to the reality of how God made us. If we seek our definitions and our clarity from unreliable sources that contradict reality we will formulate an understanding that can’t be built upon, but rather one confines us to a certain season or a certain mindset that is, often, just the most positively peer reviewed and thus ever changing.

Treasure up the days. Ponder them. Remove that which steals away the ability to build a good life and willingness to act.

There is better for us than simply camaraderie in poor life choices.

Live quietly, because wisdom is not a fast track method.

Live quietly, because critical thinking with charity is not a fast paced habit.

Live quietly, because it is easy to neglect the threads that bind our life together.

The Home Altar: Revisited
© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

Even the most sacred and beautiful spaces can grow familiar to us and we can begin to pass them by without really seeing them. To mirror the way the church marks the liturgical and calendar year we make changes to our home altar space that reflect the seasons and draw our eyes, and hearts, back to the most important things that never change, even when we fail to notice them.

Never underestimate how beauty can draw one back to Jesus’ most sacred heart.

What Mary Does
© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

Mary is often an obstacle for those considering the Catholic Church and while the teaching regarding her never stood as a barrier for me, I think partially due to already beginning to understand her importance more while still in the Anglican church, I knew it would take time to fully understood the role that she’s played since the moment of her conception.

May is dedicated to Mary and, with a desire to become more educated about her and the gifts she is said to give, I decided to embark on a Marian consecration. On one of the first days of the consecration a thought was shared that stated, “a principal reason why we fall into sin is because of forgetfulness.”Despite not being a particularly revolutionary thought, the phrase has stayed on my mind ever since hearing it.

There are still many days to go on this consecration journey and much to understand, but already I’ve begun to see better how Mary cares for us. Simply put, she helps us not forget. Through her we are always brought back to Jesus, for she wishes to play no other role in our salvation than to remind us of who God is, what He has done and what He asks of us and, considering humanity’s ever present desire for distraction, that is certainly no small task.

May we show reverence and appreciation for the Mother of God who never tires of the task of bringing us back to her Son.

Ave Maria, gratia plena
Dominus tecum
benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Sancta Maria mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.

On the mountain top or in the Church
© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

When we were joining the Catholic Church I was very sensitive to anything that felt like a distraction. Crying children, sound systems malfunctioning, administrative delays, in short, the humanity of the Church. I wanted the experience to stay immaculate, to hold up the practice of the faith as something sparkling and unblemished. But the thing is, oftentimes, the shiniest of things are not the most functional and the worn-in, often blemished, things more honest and fruitful. Throughout this first year in the Church I’ve come to understand better why the Church, and the humanity within it, all matter and how a faithful posture, with the virtue of humility, are worth far more than a sparkling ideal.

A long while ago I read a post by someone, just beginning to deconstruct their protestant faith, that said something along the lines of, “We hike on Sunday mornings now instead of going to church, because we feel God far more on the mountain top than we ever did in church.”

The desire to meet God in a way that aligns with our emotions is not uncommon, or even unreasonable. Our feelings don’t make reality, but they do inform our experience and when the soul believes there is no sure place to find the most sacred of things, then our ungoverned feelings rise to inform our practice in a way that feels justified. When emotional experience is the most honed gauge for the presence, and value, of God, then, so often, the ever changing, and challenging, humanity of the church leaves us feeling the need to seek God on the mountain top.

But both the gift and graces of the Sacraments are what teaches us how, and where, to find God. He has given us the Sacraments because He understands our humanity and the Church matters because it is who God has tasked with stewarding and distributing the Sacraments.

We return to the Church because, even when feelings are uncertain, the Sacraments are certain. However we feel going to Church, or while we’re there, the sacrifice of the Mass will still happen and the miracle of the Eucharist be given out to the people in the Church, by the Church. You can seek God on a mountain top, and you may feel Him there, but you can be sure that you will always find Him in the Sacraments of the Church, no matter how you are feeling, and that He has given a foundation, unchanged for thousands of years, that protects and provides those most sacred gifts, despite the humanity we all bring to the altar.

Open to Life
© Elizabeth Henry (March 2024)

The peaks and valleys of secondary infertility is not a path I thought I would ever walk.

Discontinuing use of contraception was its own multifaceted thread in our story of marriage and faith and I thought a pregnancy would happen quickly. We had often been so nervous it might when we were not wanting it that it felt like chances were so high now that we were open to conceive again. But then it didn’t. And still hasn’t. And that was nearly two years ago.

The rhythm of a full heart and a broken heart turn together in a dance beyond my control.

Some days my heart feels bursting with gratitude for what we’ve been given and clarity and contentment are easy, but those brokenhearted days, even though they are fewer, can feel like they take up so much space and always somehow arrive when I least expect them.

Hand in hand go the joy of celebrating the pregnancies of those around me and the tears mixed with water going down the shower drain.

I know my experience pales in comparison to many who have labored under infertility for much longer and walked far more painful journeys. It has just been one of the most vulnerable invitations to surrender in living out the belief that being open to life is a blessing whether it results in a new life or not.

The Home Altar: A Reminder
© Elizabeth Henry (February 2024)

Make a home altar a place that is both beautiful and functional. A resource for the whole family that catches the eye as one passes through the home and also provides what is needed to practice the faith. Bring in the seasons, in nature and the church, to reflect on the times of life we repeat.
We naturally create spaces in the home for so many other things, study and play, work and sleep, and there is many a good reason to dedicate at least one place, always before our eyes, to remember to worship, to pray, to rest and, especially, to remember that while they offer a window into heaven, they stand, overall, as reminders of the realities that far exceed the walls of the home.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, filled with Infinite Love;broken by our ingratitude and pierced by our sins; yet loving us still; accept the consecration we make to Thee of all that we are and all that we have. Take every faculty of our souls and bodies, only day by day draw us nearer and nearer to Thy Sacred Heart; and there as we shall hear the lesson, teach us Thy Holy Way

Sick With Fear
© Elizabeth Henry (January 2024)

“For those who promised to drive off the fears and disorders of a sick soul were sick themselves with ridiculous fear.”

This became one of the biggest things that, personally, disillusioned me about continuing to deconstruct my faith.

Through the years I was passively stepping away from God, I was also jumping from one person’s opinion to the next, trying to figure out what I aligned or identified with most. Working to find myself through the experience, or the rhetoric, of someone else. But then, if I might change, or if the opinions on which I had settled suddenly did not seem to produce results, I was tasked once more with adjusting my life, to acquire a new set of perspectives that seemed to make sense.

It was more than simply the general ebb and flow of life, but rather like building from the ground up again every nine to twelve months depending on the current interest I could obsess over or the status of the people I deemed the most worthy of following.

After a few years, of what at first felt like freedom, it began to hit me that this was how so many lived their entire lives, evidenced by what they themselves were sharing. Was this, seemingly, never ending cycle of reinvention, or obsession, all that life was?

I felt more fearful than ever that it could be and had a sinking feeling that the best that I could find for my sick soul was simply an understanding with others of all of us being sick in some way…and that seemed a very tragic point of conclusion.

Wisdom called out to show courage, to not be afraid, and I listened to her voice. It didn’t necessarily feel brave, it wasn’t so much boldness, but a timid hope, for that is its own kind of courage, that made it feel safe to be humble again. And while my humanity still brings changeability, I do not live by promises that bend or fear that settles day by day any longer and I know the way beyond the acknowledgment and shared experiences of pain and sorrow and this is how I can finally see a life well lived unfold.

“For fear is nothing but surrender of the helps that come from reason; and the inner expectation of help, being weak, prefers ignorance of what causes the torment.”

.

Wisdom 17:1-13

Great are thy judgments and hard to describe;
therefore uninstructed souls have gone astray.
²For when lawless men supposed that they held the holy nation in their power, they themselves lay as captives of darkness and prisoners of long night, shut in under their roofs, exiles from eternal providence. ³For thinking that in their secret sins they were unobserved behind a dark curtain of forgetfulness, they were scattered, terribly^[a] alarmed, and appalled by specters. ⁴For not even the inner chamber that held them protected them from fear, but terrifying sounds rang out around them, and dismal phantoms with gloomy faces appeared.⁵And no power of fire was able to give light,
nor did the brilliant flames of the stars avail to illumine that hateful night. ⁶Nothing was shining through to them except a dreadful, self-kindled fire, and in terror they deemed the things which they saw to be worse than that unseen appearance. ⁷The delusions of their magic art lay humbled, and their boasted wisdom was scornfully rebuked. ⁸For those who promised to drive off the fears and disorders of a sick soul were sick themselves with ridiculous fear. ⁹For even if nothing disturbing frightened them, yet, scared by the passing of beasts and the hissing of serpents,¹⁰they perished in trembling fear, refusing to look even at the air, though it nowhere could be avoided. ¹¹For wickedness is a cowardly thing, condemned by its own testimony;^[b] distressed by conscience, it has always exaggerated^[c] the difficulties.¹²For fear is nothing but surrender of the helps that come from reason; ¹³and the inner expectation of help, being weak, prefers ignorance of what causes the torment.

This Advent
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2023)

Trying something new this Advent season and taking more notes from tradition. Fasting and feast days, seasonal prayers and blessings day by day, decorating slowly week by week. Greenery first, lights after the feast of St. Lucy, red and gold decor just before Christmas Day, the beginning of the liturgical Christmas season.

In ways similar to Lent, throughout Advent we face the longing nature of the human heart and history instead of avoiding it. Hopeful, but also sober and contemplative, the season of Advent is an important time before Christmas for we know that there are some truths that can only be found in the pause of anticipation.

To Return
© Elizabeth Henry (October 2023)

I have been thinking on how, even more important than learning how to begin a good habit, is learning how to return to it.

How to bake bread again after a season of lacking time for it. How to read again after neglecting the practice of sitting and focusing in stillness. How to exercise and grow stronger again after sickness or recovery.

I always wished that when I chose to do something I could just continue with it and never fail or forget it.

But I realize now that the way of staying is the way of returning and it is only in learning to return that we can actually stay.

I’ve been reading the kids the stories of the Old Testament and all the times God’s people fell away from Him. It’s an exasperating read at times and yet also an all too familiar pattern.

I also noticed more this time though that, just as consistent as their habit of going away, was the faithfulness of God the moment they turned back to Him.

God cannot bless sin, but He has never turned away from those that seek Him.

If, in our free will, we can only choose, even by just a small turn, to face in His direction we will find Him there.

One way we practice this way of returning in Catholicism is through confession. A sacrament given to us that is wholly intended to return us to a state of grace and remind us that God is always waiting to offer it.

It is easier to fear acknowledgment of sin than distance from God, but it is the distance from God, rather than facing our sin, that should give our souls great concern.

When going to confession this past week I was reading a prayer meant for after confession and a particular line stood out to me, a portion of it says this, “I am awed by Your divine compassion and the incomprehensible love of Your Son, which has led Him to institute so gentle and powerful a remedy for sins.”

That final line is such a beautiful way to explain confession for never do we need something that is so distinctly gentle, yet powerful, then when we are returning to God.

In the end, stability in this life isn’t a matter of perfection at all, but a matter of continuing to return to so many things of virtue, most especially to God’s unending grace.

Advice for Marriage
© Elizabeth Henry (September 2023)

In marriage do not merely grow together,
for two can even grow apart together,
rather grow in virtue together.

In this way the marriage is kept sacred,
the love true.

Man and woman develop as individuals,
while also understanding what it means to walk alongside another in both affection and sacrifice.

Faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude and so forth.

Whatever one’s time and resources,
whatever personality or temperament,
the invitation to virtue is always available
and within it is the strength to continue on in a romance of decades.

Marriage is a holy sacrament,
fruitful and full,
may it be kept as one.

Bound to Worship
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2023)

Humanity is bound to worship,
for it is a perfectly fitted desire of the human heart.

It is a desire that does not fail even after walking away from God, but simply results in tearing down altars to Him and hastily building them back up to other things.

Humanity’s worship always resounds, even if merely in an echoing chamber amongst itself.

We don’t choose to worship or not, only to whom, or what, our worship is given and our worship was never meant to end at the limits of our, or others, humanity or offered to the demons whose hatred for humanity is as innately part of them as worship is to us.

There is only one that will not crumble, or cause us ruin, under the desperation of mankind’s desire to worship and it is He who created us to worship at all.

May God have mercy on us and may we return to Him what our hearts burn to offer.

The Home Altar
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2023)

It was a year ago this month that I began the process of reflecting the liturgical seasons in our home, especially by way of a home altar.

As the year has passed, and we’ve moved from Anglican to Catholic, I’ve gained a greater understanding of how I want to use the space to remind us of our faith and give us resources to practice it.

As a homemaker I see it as another opportunity to center my family around truth in a beautiful way and as a Christian and Catholic I believe in the value of putting at least as many spiritual reminders before my eyes as secular influences that I encounter.

I look forward to continuing to think on the way I, as keeper of the home, can contribute to a spirit of peace for those in my care and how even the small things, simple liturgies and little habits, invite the merciful presence and covering of Christ into this home and into our hearts.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
have mercy on us.
All you holy Angels and Saints,
pray for us.

Last weekend at the Pentecost Vigil mass we affirmed our faith and were confirmed, sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, now in full communion with the Catholic Church.
The rain poured down as generously as the Holy Spirit as we received the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time.
Our souls are at home, joyful to celebrate and practice all the sacraments that God has given.
Through them we are reminded of His great love for us, we adore Him and we receive His grace as we practice them on the way to sainthood.

May they honor me knowing that I’ve honored them.
That I have considered them, body and soul, in my care for them.
May I remember my sacrifices for them honor God and contribute to the holiness I am called to pursue. May the beauty of this vocation of motherhood be ever on my mind. May God bless them as they have blessed me. May I never forget the great privilege it is to tend to their souls alongside Jesus and may I always remember that even my deep love for them pales in comparison to God’s great love for them.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
have mercy on us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary,
pray for us.

Contemplating how to live a life of virtue and not vice.
Changing rhythms, rethinking results.

Not by way of self-help, but practice of faith. There is no human quality that God has not taken into account, that He has not supplied a form in which to grow in virtue. It is a delight to seek Him and consequently uncover a greater understanding of myself as a result.

“It is Your love, more than the fear of hell, which makes me weep for my sins.”
(Stations Of the Cross)

I thought I would find more love when I left the church,
love free from religious pressure or control.
The love I found though was brittle, quick to become fickle, with an undercurrent of fear and judgment, the exact things I had thought I could avoid or reduce by leaving the church. It was a slow realization to see that I was depending on the love of humanity for far more than it could ever provide. No matter which group of humans I went to, the story of broken love would be the same. I remembered that God said His love was something different. It felt like a childish recollection, a Sunday school answer, but stuck with me as I began to acknowledge the fact that I wanted, truly needed, to find out if it really was different.

I quelled the acquired trait of deconstruction that only desired things exactly as I preferred them, removing anything that made me uncomfortable. If I was going to face the reality of the love God said He had for me, I was also going to have to take into account the reality of sin that He also said was present. Through a variety of resources I began to unravel the anxiety I hadn’t avoided by neglecting God, but had actually compounded in my attempt at personal peace and love away from Him. Externally I never altered much of my life during deconstruction so it was surprising to find how sitting under the sole education of my peers had negatively affected the workings of my soul on so many levels.

I could write much on this ability to hold together all of reality as God states it is, but when I came across that line during Stations of the Cross it seemed to perfectly sum up a certain difference in my understanding.

I know better now of God’s great love and it is through that love, not a scrupulous fear of hell, that I can also acknowledge the great reality of my sin. No longer dependent on the ever changing affections of human love, it is in God’s tender mercy that my soul resides and through His graces, that I practice and encounter through His Church, that it is sustained.

Simplicity is the ultimate description of the Protestant gospel and how it was taught to me as a child. A certain prayer once for salvation forever. One particular moment of repentance that secured eternal status.

But simple doesn’t equal complete anymore than easy equals better. One prayer in life, or especially at death, does not a lifetime of sin remove and complete paradise supply. Confession grants us God’s grace, but we are not perfected in a single moment or situated for eternity after one admission. Occupation with faith requires a way of living that truly takes into account just how human we are and just how holy Christ is.

Our daily position towards God matters because it is a relationship with a perfect God and it deserves, if not requires, us to be reminded of that often. Salvation can be lost to us. Our free will does impact how our souls exist in this life, and the next, and does not just change how close we do or don’t feel to God.

Strangely enough I am burdened less by a faith that is rigorously structured around my brokenness and God’s holiness, the sacredness of Jesus’ sacrifice and the incredible blessing of the Eucharist, than I ever was by the simple gospel I was taught as a child and the process of realizing that has had no small impact on my life.

It didn’t take long on our study of church history through an Anglican context to find that we consistently found ourselves on the Anglo-Catholic edge. Months of study and discussion led us to the matter of discerning if we were meant to remain on the fringe of Anglicanism or move into Catholicism.

We refused our initial draw towards the Catholic church citing typical Protestant critiques as being enough to shut down our growing inclination.

We continued to study, circling around Catholicism, until eventually it became necessary to begin an honest investigation into the critiques that were holding us back.

What we’ve found has surprised us again and again and continues to startle our childhood beliefs and fill in gaps we didn’t know could be resolved. There’s a sense that we are finally reading the Bible in its entirety and following commands in their intended form. I think that’s why the Chesterton quote rang so true for us, “The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it.”

There is truly a story of mystery and discovery happening as we step into the Catholic Church. It’s been difficult to know how to express the nuance of it all as it has also been unique for each of us. It does not feel like a path we’re blazing ourselves or a formula we’re working out though, but a grace laid out before us that we are just now ready respond to.

There is much more to come from this course.

Of all the things I wondered that I might feel when I began veiling, protection was not the one I expected to sense the most.

I began to consider veiling about 6 months ago after learning that the practice had only been stopped on a larger scale about 60 years ago. As I studied and learned about so many other ways the historic church had practiced faith I began to wonder why I wasn’t taking up the veil as another way to remind myself of all I believed to be true.

Even with my conviction growing I had some hesitancy. At the time I would be the only one in service veiling, would it be too embarrassing? Too distracting? Eventually though I could find no good reason to put off the draw to the veil any longer.

As I sewed my first veil I prayed asking that I might know what kind of a gift this was meant to be for me as a woman and a wife. I had grown curious to explore the blessing and the humility of the veil.

The first time I veiled was this past October. I felt anxious so I set my mind even steadier on what the veil was intended to be, centering my heart on who veiling was truly for, then the weight of the fabric on my head and shoulders felt like grace and security and I sensed a type of peace that was new as I entered into the presence of God covered in body and spirit.

I now embrace the physical and spiritual practice of veiling and believe there is much more to discover through it. I am grateful to have begun the journey and to experience the blessings of it as I continue on.

“Veiling indicates sacredness and it is a special privilege of the woman that she enters church veiled.” – Alice von Hildebrand

2022 held a surprising journey of faith by phases for our family which eventually led us to the historic church through the Anglican Way.

2023 will see our family come home to the Catholic Church as our final destination as we partake in the study and practices that teach us of the past and lead us forward in faith and truth.

“And the third stage is perhaps the truest and the most terrible. It is that in which the man is trying not to be converted. He has come too near to the truth, and has forgotten that truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion. He is filled with a sort of fear, which makes him feel like a fool who has been patronising “Popery” when he ought to have been awakening to the reality of Rome. He discovers a strange and alarming fact…the moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it.” -G.K. Chesterton

Catholicism

Time to Ponder© Elizabeth Henry (July 2024)

The Home Altar: Revisited© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

What Mary Does© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

Time to Ponder
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2024)

The Home Altar: Revisited
© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)

What Mary Does
© Elizabeth Henry (May 2024)