Ordinary Time

By Lucia A. Silecchia

As September dawned, eyes turned to Rome with joy to celebrate the canonizations of two young men – Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis. In a particular way, many hoped that the holy lives of these two new saints would have a special appeal to young people who would see in them examples of lives well and faithfully lived.

Merely a week later, Sept. 14 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the canonization of another young saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton. I dimly remember this event from my early childhood, and recall similar excitement that she would inspire a world hungry for good examples of faithful lives.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was the first American-born saint to be canonized, a sign that our still-young nation can be the soil from which holy lives spring forth for the glory of God.

As a native New Yorker, I am parochially proud that St. Elizabeth Seton was born in New York City. In addition, St. Kateri Tekakwitha was also born within what would become New York State. Other saints such as Frances Cabrini, Marianne Cope, Isaac Jogues and John Neumann, while not born in New York, contributed greatly to the spiritual and temporal good of my home state. Certainly, not all saints from the United States are from New York! In the past fifty years Elizabeth Seton has been joined by other saints and blessed from across her homeland.

The story of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s short life is well known, but worth reflecting on in this milestone year. She was born in 1774 to a prominent Episcopalian family. Her mother died when she was a mere toddler – the first of many profound losses she would experience. Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, a prominent businessman, in 1794. Together they had five children.

Sadly, their happiness was short-lived. William’s business fortunes declined, and tuberculosis took a toll on his health. Hoping that a change in climate would cure him, they sought refuge with friends in sun-soaked Italy. Alas, William died there in 1803, leaving Elizabeth a young widow with five children aged eight and under. It was in Italy, however, that Elizabeth learned about the Catholic faith and it touched her soul in a bleak season of her life. When she returned to New York, she entered the Catholic Church in 1805 – a decision with a deep cost to her in social circles hostile to Catholicism.

Four years later, Elizabeth and her children came to the Diocese of Baltimore – the premier see in the young United States – at the invitation of Bishop John Carroll. She established both a school and the first American community of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity of St Joseph.

“Mother Seton,” as she was now known, her children, and the first of her sisters settled in the hills of Emmitsburg, Maryland to build their school and community.

I have often visited Emmitsburg to enjoy the peaceful beauty of the hills she knew and the places she dwelled. What I easily lose sight of is that the rugged beauty of this place was, two centuries ago, harsh and unforgiving. It was in those hills, in a simple graveyard, that Mother Seton buried two of her daughters, Annamaria and Rebecca, who succumbed to illness in the cold. Many of Mother Seton’s first sisters – including other members of her family – also died in those early, desolate years in Emmitsburg.

After losses like these she said, “I am satisfied to sow in tears if I may reap in joy. And when all the wintry storms of time are past, we shall enjoy the delights of an eternal spring.”

Now a saint, Mother Seton truly does “enjoy the delights of an eternal spring.” The community she gathered and the school she founded, at such great cost, continued to flourish. To her is credited the American Catholic school system that, for more than two centuries, has taught generations about both this world and the next.

I vaguely remember watching her canonization on television and discussing it in school. I remember the excitement, on the eve of the United States’ Bicentennial, that an American saint was celebrated beyond the confines of the time and the place she had lived.

As he proclaimed her a saint, Pope Paul VI said, “Elizabeth Ann Seton is a saint. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is an American. All of us say this with special joy … Rejoice for your glorious daughter. Be proud of her. And know how to preserve her fruitful heritage.”

Fifty years have passed since then. I was blessed with many years as a student in Catholic schools and have spent my adulthood in Catholic higher education. I have read Mother Seton’s writings, inspired by the simplicity and the strength of this older sister in faith. I have wondered how willing I would or could be in saying “yes” to the labor asked of me, if I knew in advance how high the cost might be.

I have spent time in the hills of Maryland where Mother Seton lived, worked, prayed and died at the age of forty-six, on January 4, 1821. I hope that if time and travel allows, you might find yourself in Emmitsburg someday to walk where she trod, pray where she mourned, see where she taught and pause at the tomb of this “glorious daughter.” More than that, it is a beautiful place to pray for all who serve our church and our nation. May they have the strength, faith and wisdom to “preserve her fruitful heritage” in the hard work of ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at The Catholic University of America. “On Ordinary Times” is a bi-weekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

ON ORDINARY TIMES
By Lucia A. Silecchia
It happens all year – the requests for donations for all manner of charitable causes.

Pleas come in the mail from children’s hospitals, medical researchers, religious communities and educational institutions seeking funds to further their missions.

Television ads, set to melancholy music, beg for contributions to end world hunger and save abandoned animals.

Celebrities lend their names to fundraising campaigns and telethons for the causes they embrace and the issues they champion.

Emails pour in from every charitable organization, seeking resources to expand – or to survive. In the week of “Giving Tuesday,” the promises of matching contributions and competitive giving takes on an energy all its own.

At nearly every Mass, second collections seem to be taken up to aid victims of natural disasters, support those in need at home and abroad, and fund education and welfare activities of all kinds.

It can, at times, seem overwhelming. Whether we write checks, enter our credit card number on a website, respond to a solicitation call, or drop some folded bills in a collection basket, the array of needs we are invited to meet seems endless – and, many times, impersonal. Often, convincing potential donors of the enormity of a problem, the depths of the despair and the vastness of the need can seem to be the most effective way to jolt them into a response. In this, though, it can become too easy to forget the individuals on whose behalf the help is sought. It can also become too easy to do nothing when it seems like any individual response is too small for problems so big.

I have noticed, however, that this seems to change at Christmastime. Certainly, the end of the year spurs fresh large-scale outreach to those who may want to take advantage of charitable tax deductions while time remains. Yet, it is at Christmastime that requests for help become more personal.

There are Christmas trees in the vestibules of so many churches, inviting parishioners to purchase a gift for a child in need. This is not an anonymous request for funding, but a specific invitation to buy a Lego set for a 5-year-old girl and a book for a 2-year-old boy.

There are sign-up sheets to bake casseroles for parish families in need. Again, this is not a faceless fundraiser to solve world hunger, but a specific recipe to prepare a simple meal for a neighbor.
In a season celebrating the birth of a child, crisis pregnancy centers seek infant clothing and cribs, and donors respond as they recall an infant in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

Local shelters continue to seek monetary contributions, but they also solicit the warmth and care of volunteers who will serve hot food at holiday dinners for those who have no place to call home. Christmas concerts at nursing homes bring young singers into the life of those who need the gift of cheer and joy more than they may any other gift.

Families are encouraged to adopt families in need and offered the chance to purchase the essentials for a holiday meal. Food drives in schools, supermarkets and neighborhood associations invite shoppers to purchase extra grocery items for neighbors when they are shopping, with love, for their own families
These small gestures do not solve the big problems of the world. In practical terms, they inefficiently ignore the economies of scale that drive larger campaigns.

Yet, in a deeply profound way, love is not efficient. It is best served in the intimate doses that are personal opportunities for sisters and brothers in Christ to see each other, to respond to each other’s needs, to learn the aches of each other’s’ hearts, and to believe that simple, small acts done with love make a difference.

Soon, in our Christmas songs we will sing of a Child with “no crib for a bed” and “a Child, a Child [who] shivers in the cold.” Soon after that, when January comes, giving can too easily become more impersonal again. But, perhaps the inefficient, personal love we are invited to share at Christmas will linger behind and be a new way of giving in ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia
Last weekend, the morning glories took me by surprise – as they always do.

During the all-too-brief months of this past spring and summer, I bought some plants and tried my best to give them the attention they needed so that they would grow into the plants I wanted and the plants I planned. I am too impatient to be a serious gardener, so I was not attempting anything more than keeping the flowers in a few pots alive and well throughout the season. Some did not make it. To my pleasant surprise, others did.

As August rolled around and the plants that thrived were reaching peak bloom, I felt the satisfaction that comes from seeing the tangible beauty of plans realized and effort rewarded. The fruit of my carefully laid botanical plans were blossoms that burst forth looking at least a little bit like the pictures in the garden shop.

Yet, just as the plants I tended were reaching primetime, their beauty was eclipsed by the bright bold explosion of vibrant pink morning glories bursting forth from previously nondescript vines along my fence and in my neighbors’ yards.

We did not plant them, and they received no care all season – except for the sun and rain freely bestowed on them. They were not planned, paid for, or cultivated. Indeed, many serious gardeners rail against morning glories as aggressive, invasive trespassers.

Nevertheless, I must admit that the most beautiful blooms in my yard right now are not those I planned. Rather, it is the morning glories – my uninvited interlopers – that catch my eye and warm my heart.
Lowly, often reviled morning glories may point to something important about life itself. So often, the plans we make – even when they are realized – pale in comparison to the joy that comes our way unexpectedly and uninvited.

So often, we can plan a well-organized and costly vacation only to find when we return home that our favorite memory is an unplanned ice cream cone bought on a beautiful night.

So often, we can meticulously plan a business trip and find that the most valuable time was not the conference we duly attended but a seemingly random conversation that began an important collaboration.

So often, we can plan the perfect Thanksgiving meal and find that decades later it was a culinary disaster that gave the family a wealth of happy memories.

So often, we can plan a specific career path and then pivot to a whole new plan because, unexpectedly, someone or something unanticipated inspired us to try something new.

Appreciating that the unexpected may be better than our own plans is not easy. For a planner like me, it is uncomfortably uncertain. In those moments, though, when I find a new, beautiful, delightful surprise in my path, it may be time to remember the lowly morning glory.

The same God who made the morning glory sees every other beautiful thing for which I have not planned, worked, or sought. The same God who freely offers the beauty of the morning glory also freely offers all the other unexpectedly beautiful gifts that are waiting to be discovered every day.

There is great joy in seeing plans realized as intended – and in seeing the flowers bought, cultivated and cared for bloom on schedule. But there is a very special joy that comes from those beautiful, unhoped for surprises that fill our lives. They are the glory of ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

By Lucia A. Silecchia

“If you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.” So goes a line from the prelude to “Getting to Know You,” one of the songs that punctuates the classic musical “The King and I.”

After many years as a teacher, I can vouch for the truth of this observation. I am particularly reminded of it during this time of year. Invariably, as I watch my students prepare for final examinations, they teach me much about how we should and could be companions to each other on our journeys through this life.

Anyone who has been to school will remember final exam season as a time in the semester that is fraught with work, worry and the desire to perform well on the examinations that will determine course grades. (Students may not realize that this season can also be one of equal stress for their teachers!)

Each semester, I am pleasantly surprised when I see my students navigating this season together. I see them working together in study groups, coming to my office hours with friends, and lingering after class to continue discussing the material we covered amongst themselves or with me. When I meet with them on Zoom, there are sometimes two, three or four on the screen, bringing to me their debates and their questions – or asking me to resolve a friendly dispute they have had about the correct resolution to a problem. I see them gathered around tables in our student lounge or our courtyard deep in discussion and notice that they share their notes with each other when one seems to grasp some of the material better than his or her peers.

In one sense, this is not what many would assume to be rational behavior. After all, there is a temptation to don blinders during the final weeks of the semester and focus solely on individual preparation for the exams that lie ahead. It can be tempting not to “waste” time helping others in the hope that all will cross the finish line together. To cynics, it might even seem counterintuitive to share wisdom or understanding with others out of fear that this will propel them to outperform the one who first shared that wisdom.

Yet, each semester I see my students traveling this final stretch of the semester together, and I am both proud of and grateful to them.

I am proud of them because they have not let the stress of exam season distract them from the opportunities they have to be of help to each other, to support each other, and to share the highs and lows of their common adventure.

I am also deeply grateful to them because the way they treat each other during exam season teaches me something about living the Christian life.

As human beings made in the image and likeness of God, we are made to live in community with each other and to share our lives with those entrusted to us and to whom we have been entrusted. We are not made to travel through this life to the next life alone. Rather, we are called to a faith that we do not keep to ourselves, but that we share freely with others.

 We are called to help each other through the seasons of doubt and to rejoice with each other in the seasons of fulfilment. We are called to wrestle with the challenging questions of life together and help each other bear the burdens of difficult times. We are called to share freely “the reason for our hope” with those who ache to hear it. We are called to pray alone, but also to gather with our parish families, our friends and family, and even strangers to pray as a community.

My students show me this. In the mundane ways they walk together through exam season, they show me a glimpse of the more glorious way we are to walk together through this life and enter the next one in the company of each other. They show me what it means to be companions for the journey through ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

On Memorial Day last year, an acquaintance of mine visited a parish not my own and brought home a church bulletin. I glanced through it and saw, prominently displayed, a colorful graphic wishing everyone a “Happy Memorial Day.” I found myself surprisingly angry to see this festive greeting. I have come to accept the misunderstanding of Memorial Day by secular advertisers pushing Memorial Day sales and promoting the start of the summer vacation season. Yet, Memorial Day is not a “happy” day for those who see its real purpose: to remember with gratitude and to mourn with sorrow all those who gave their lives in defense of this nation we call home.

Memorial Day has its origins in the state and local “Decoration Days,” begun in the bloody aftermath of the Civil War. On those days, loved ones would follow ancient traditions and bring flowers to decorate the graves of those who died in battle. In doing so, robust spring blooms brought a hopeful sign of life and respect to the resting places of their beloved. In 1868, General John Logan’s General Order No. 11 proclaimed that such days were a time to visit soldiers’ burial sites and “garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”

With the passage of decades that brought future wars and future sacrifices, Memorial Day was eventually fixed as a federal holiday celebrated on the last Monday of May. While Veterans’ Day in November expresses gratitude to all who have ever served in the military, Memorial Day has a more solemn significance. It specifically honors those who served in the military and gave to our nation what President Abraham Lincoln eloquently called “the last full measure of devotion.”

I have never spent Memorial Day kneeling with teary eyes at a grave dug too soon – or burdened with the aching angst of having no grave to visit. Since the days of World War One when my grandfather became both an American citizen and a private first class in the United States Army, multiple generations of my family have served in uniform. They came home. So many families – including, perhaps, some who saw “Happy Memorial Day” in their church bulletin – have not been as fortunate.

The Catholic Church knows so well how to honor, remember and pray for those who have passed from this life. She also understands the depths of grief carried by those who mourn and offers the profound hope that death does not have the final word. I hope that as Memorial Day comes again, our Catholic churches, cemeteries, nursing homes, hospitals, schools and universities will all be places that are filled with many who comfort those who grieve and pray for so many souls lost in battle since the birth of our nation. I hope, too, that all people of faith will bring to the public square a sense of grateful reverence for those we honor on Memorial Day.

Family gatherings, beach trips and much-anticipated barbecues all have their places on this national holiday. They are the good and beautiful things that were no doubt held dear by so many who lived to see so few of these celebrations.

But I hope that in the midst of this, we take time to pray for those we memorialize – and honor them by remembering them every day of our ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

By now, the eclipse glasses have been put away. The photos of the April 8 nature show have all been posted to Facebook and Instagram to prove that it really happened. The stories from the day have, likewise, also been told – ranging from the “wow” from those in the path of totality to the “meh” from those who saw a partial eclipse through a cloud shrouded sky.

I was in the latter camp since my cloudy neighborhood seemed merely and anticlimactically overcast. Yet, it was still a “wow” day. For me, the excitement was not what I saw in the heavens. It was, rather, what I saw here on earth. For a day, I saw busy people catch their breath and look skywards. I saw genuine excitement about a natural sky show. I saw all too cynical people embracing the excitement, without seeming self-conscious at all.

Since then, I have wondered why. Perhaps it was simply a case of FOMO, the fear of missing out of a big event. Perhaps it was mere curiosity. Perhaps it was the desire to be part of something bigger and to be connected to others even if only for a few minutes.

Perhaps it was something else.

Perhaps there is, in all of us, the search for wonder. Perhaps there is the fervent hope to catch a glimpse of the face of God in those things that seem far bigger than ourselves. Like many, I learned more about eclipses these past weeks than I have ever known before. To my amazement, I learned that the sun is both 400 times larger than the moon and 400 times further away. This is a symmetry that demands wonder at the One who made it thus. What demands even more wonder is that He also cares deeply and completely for each one of us.

I almost wished, for a while, that I had become a student of science because that seems a direct path to the divine. It is not surprising that so many great men and women of science have been, through the centuries, people of deep religious faith. It is perhaps far more surprising that any true scientist can remain unconvinced of God.

Yet, we do not have to wait for the next eclipse to keep that sense of divine wonder. I am a person of little patience, so I cannot wait until 2044 when an eclipse next returns to the continental United States!

Fortunately, every single day, I can see a flash of a sunset and the rise of a silver moon and know that Christ himself once gazed on them too. I can listen to the roar of an ocean and know that God filled the seas. I can see a bird fly and marvel at how well engineered the tiniest feathered creature is, or watch a cat lie in wait for that same bird and wonder how well designed the lowliest feline is.
I can see a butterfly and know that nothing exactly like it has flown before or will again. I can see a crocus burst from what was just soil a day ago and wonder how it got there.

I can be dwarfed by a tree whose peak I cannot see or be amazed at photographs of the cacti that dot our deserts and the creatures that fill the dark depths of the oceans.

I can look at a coral reef or smell the first rose of summer and know that I need not look to the heavens for a rare burst of wonder. I can touch the tiny toes of the smallest child or gaze into the gleaming eyes of a great-grandmother and be left without words. There is so much that inspires awe down here too.

As the eclipse of 2024 recedes in memory, I hope that it leaves in its wake that sense of wonder that turned our eyes upward. May that same wonder also turn our hearts upward, to the God who gave us all the extraordinary splendor that fills our ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

Recently, I was in the happy company of a seven-year-old. She asked me the delightfully shocking, and shockingly delightful question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The question was shocking to me because it has been decades since someone asked me this question with the earnest sincerity of my young interlocutor. Perhaps she has been asked this question so often that she thought it was a standard part of social etiquette. Perhaps she dislikes this question and thought she could avoid it by going on the offensive by asking it of me before I could ask it of her. Regardless of the “why,” the question certainly surprised me.

Yet, it surprised me in a delightful way.

When we ask young children “what do you want to be when you grow up,” we are usually asking them a superficial question about the role they hope to have in life. Most often, they will reply by telling us the occupation of their dreams, the trade they hope to learn and, perhaps, as they get older, the state of life they anticipate will lie ahead.

But, when this inquisitive young child asked me that same question decades into my adulthood, I had to think about it for a while. That was a delightful excuse for reflection.

Too often, when the date on the calendar tells us we are adults, it can seem as though we have already answered the big questions about what our lives will be. Indeed, we have likely made some of the sacred commitments that will define the rest of our lives. Yet sometimes it takes a small question from an earnest young child to remind us that, even then, we never stop growing up.

It takes a small question to remind us that even if we think we know “what” we hope to be when we grow up, we have a lifetime to become “who” we want to be. There are times – blessedly frequent times – when I meet someone I admire for who they are, not what they do. When I meet such good people, I sometimes say to myself, or in jest to a friend, “That’s who I want to be when I grow up.” It is never too late to be inspired by the good and holy people in our lives and to hope we will “grow up” to be like them.

It takes a small question to remind us that there is great value in asking ourselves throughout our lives whether we are doing what we should be doing or whether there is something more or something else to which we could and should devote our time and energy. It is easy to get used to a routine, ignore an unrealized dream, fear a new invitation, and avoid a new beginning. Prayerfully seeking guidance about new ventures such as these is yet another way to learn what life may look like as we continue to “grow up.” If somehow, we can do that with the fearless optimism of a child, we are truly blessed.

It takes a small question to remind us that no matter how old we think we have become, we remain, in the eyes of God, still His children. Each day He gives us is still another day not to tell Him “what I want to be” but to prayerfully ask Him “who I should be” when I grow up.

It takes a small question to remind us that we should not only ask the children in our lives what they anticipate it will be like to “grow up.” Perhaps it is also a question to pose, with love, to the adults in our lives who need to know that there is a newness of life unfolding in all the days of their ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

This past weekend, side by side in the grocery store, lay both bags of salt to pour on icy sidewalks for winter’s last hurrahs and bags of topsoil to spread in flower beds to welcome spring’s first blooms. This juxtaposition perfectly represents the unique place of March in the cycle of the year.
Some say March goes “in like a lion and out like a lamb.” However, seeing March as the season of salt and soil captures its essence as well.

On the one hand, March still remains very much part of winter. Some infamous blizzards have buried cities with snow just as winter-weary residents let down their guard. In a single week, a warm day that beckons the start of spring can be followed by a dip in the temperature that, once again, sets furnaces humming for a week. Light spring jackets and heavy winter coats both wait in our closets. Somehow, it still seems too daring to put away winter boots.

We set our clocks forward and relish the longer nights that seem like summer. Alas, though, our mornings are dark and still tinged with winter chill. Whenever there are a few spring days in a row, we dare to believe that spring is here to stay. Yet, we remain cautiously unsure.

In many ways, March seems like the perfect metaphor for the human condition and for our journeys through this life.

We are so often torn between the shadows of our winters that hold us back and the bright joys of spring for which we hope. We know the temptations, weaknesses and faults that keep us from being who we are meant to be. We also know those things that are good and true toward which we move. Yet, just as March toggles back and forth between winter and spring, so too can human nature seem to do the same thing.

We rejoice when there are hard won victories over vices and look forward to each new day lived better than the one before. Then, sometimes, just as a string of spring days in March can disappear with a returning gust of winter, so too can come the setbacks in our own lives. We know that each day can bring us closer to God and the good, just as we know each day of March brings us, undeniably, closer to spring, Yet, sometimes, this progress can feel fragile.

In all its frustrating challenges, in all its uncertainties, and in all its tensions between victories won and setbacks endured, life can sometimes seem to be a season that looks suspiciously like a very long March!

This year, though, March is a little different. Whatever its first thirty days may hold, there is something uniquely beautiful about celebrating Easter on the very last day of March. It is joyously comforting to know that the tempestuous days of this unpredictable month will end with the joy of Easter.

When we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, it is the definitive end to the darkness of winter. It is the victory over all those things that pull us back when we ache to move forward to new life. It is the triumphant celebration of a new life that is no longer temporary and tenuous. It is not a timid warm day in March that can be easily overtaken by a returning gust of winter. It is, instead, a final victory over sin and death.

Through the roller coaster that is March, and through the highs and lows of life, there remains the beautiful hope of Easter joy. It is a hope that sustains and strengthens through our turbulent march through ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary times
By Lucia A. Silecchia
Many years ago, I stopped at the supermarket for groceries on my way home from work. The gentleman who rang up my order said, “that will be nineteen eighty-nine, miss.” I ran my credit card through the terminal, authorizing the charge of $19.89.
It was then that the cashier said, either to himself, or to me, or to both of us, or perhaps only to God, “1989. That year …” His voice trailed off and he did not finish his thought out loud. If there had not been a lengthy line behind me, I might have stopped to ask him what it was about 1989 that crossed his mind. In retrospect, I regret that I did not – even if that would have roused the ire of other shoppers in a hurry to be on their way.
That cashier has crossed my mind from time to time since that day long ago. I have wondered what was on his mind as he thought back on that one year of his life, a year that obviously made a deep impression on him. The year 1989 may have been a good year, but the look that crossed his face led me to believe, instead, that it was a year that held sorrow in his life. I will never know. That grocery store closed years ago.

Yet, as a new year dawns I have thought of him again. All of us likely look back on certain years that have been pivotal in our own journeys through this life. Perhaps they were years of immense joy when we celebrated the births of loved ones, marriages that expanded our families, accomplishments achieved, and dreams come true. However, it is also possible – perhaps even likely – that some of the most pivotal years in our lives were those that held a measure of sorrow. Perhaps the death of a loved one, the dashing of a hope, the fading of a dream or the limitations brought on by illness made a particular year a turning point.
Now that 2024 has begun, none of us know what it will hold – for us as individuals, for those we love or for the human family. Some of us begin the year anticipating this will be a momentous year. Those whose calendars hold plans for graduations, weddings, ordinations, job changes or moves are likely to look back at 2024 as a year when life changed in a dramatic way.
Yet, at the dawn of a new year it is impossible to predict all of the unanticipated, unplanned and, yes, ordinary moments that will be less dramatic but no less profound pivot points in our lives. It is these that so often are the things that change our lives in ways we cannot yet know.
It may be a seemingly random conversation or chance encounter with a stranger that changes the course of our lives. It may be a decision to forgive another or ask forgiveness that sets a new path for a future. It may be reading a book recommended by a trusted friend or hearing a word spoken in a homily that offers insight into a truth that will shape the rest of a lifetime.
It may be in time “wasted” with the very young or the very old on a random afternoon that gives a glimpse of something we have never noticed before. It may be a glance at an explosive sunset or a sky full of stars that makes us feel small in the best possible way – and in that smallness we get our first true sense of the greatness of God.
It may be an unexpected crisis or loss that we could not foresee – a cross that breaks our heart in a way we never thought possible. And, it may be that same crisis or loss that shows us the strength a broken heart can hold and the deep kindness that dwells in the loving hearts of those who sustain us in sorrow.
When 2024 ends, many of us may look back on it with the same profound reflection as a stranger long ago pondered 1989. I hope, though, that it will not only be the big things that catch our attention this year. Often, it is those things that, at the time, seem most ordinary that leave lasting marks in our lives. So often, I have realized only in retrospect that seemingly little things have changed my life in the most unexpected and important ways.
There is something both exciting and frightening about the start of a new year with all the unknowns that lie ahead. I do not yet know if in the future I will ever say to a stranger, “2024. That year …”
But there is one thing I do know. The start of a new year is the perfect time to repeat a prayer of St. Francis de Sales that I keep in my office, so I see it every day. It pleads “Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day.”
May God bless all that happens in the tomorrows of our ordinary times. Joyous new year!

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

On Ordinary times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

I miss shopping for clothes with my mom.

Some of that stems from that too-familiar ache known to all those who have loved and lost. The desire to run an ordinary errand, exchange a quick phone call or share a cup of coffee together just one more time is a deep longing with a permanent home in my heart – and the hearts of so many I know.

But there was something unique about shopping for clothes with my mom. She was an accomplished seamstress. When we shopped together, she had an eye for salvaging clothes that I, in my quick judgement, was so often inclined to reject.

I could look at a dress and, after a passing glance, reject it because the sleeves were too long, the buttons were the wrong color, the collar was awkward, or an otherwise tailored skirt had an inexplicable, oversized bow at the waist. I could look at a jacket and move along quickly because it had bulky shoulders, an awkward pleat or a flimsy zipper.

But, my mom did not see the forlorn inhabitants of the clearance racks the same way I did. In her mind’s eye, she could see what they would look like if she tailored the sleeves, found better new buttons, replaced a collar, turned a bow to a belt, streamlined shoulders, sewed up a pleat and switched a flimsy zipper for a classier closure. More often than I can recall, I would come home with something new to wear – and my mother would come home with a sewing project.

I miss that.

I miss the example of someone who could, in something as trivial as clothing, see not merely what was, but what could be. Someone who could see not merely what was wrong, but what could be right. Someone who could see that a quick judgement may mean missing out on something very good.

I wonder if there is something in those ordinary shopping trips to teach about life and the way in which it can be all too easy to see in others – and in ourselves – only what is and not what could be.

Yes, there is a real danger in relationships and friendships when we see others merely as works-in-progress, not accepted for who they are but only for who they might be if they could only change to our liking. But I learned on those long-ago shopping trips that it is also dangerous to see only that which is before us without also seeing potential and optimism about all that could lie ahead if we seek out the good that is so often hidden away.

Maybe I also learned something about God. I like to think that the God who loves us “as we are” is also a God who sees our best selves – not just the flaws and failures that makes those who love less perfectly turn away. I like to think that the God who made us is also a God who sees not only the way we are today, but all we can be tomorrow. I like to think, too, that with God’s help we might also be able to see ourselves and others with eyes a bit more like His.
There are still days when I wear a favorite outfit and see my mother’s small stiches tucked away. When I see these relics of repairs and remodels of yesteryear, I am grateful.

Yes, I am grateful that awkward bows and tacky buttons have been replaced with something better. But I am more grateful for that subtle example of one who could say “yes” when a quick “no” may have been the easier, first reaction. This is the blessed, better vision that can brighten our ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)