A Catholic Wonderwoman

Women amaze me.

I am a people watcher by profession – and a Catholic people watcher by conversion.

I pay attention to people – what they say and do, their personalities and gifts, their strengths and weaknesses – I mull it over. I learn. I wade through it, climb over it, jump in it. Then, I sit back and think some more.

And Catholic women amaze me most.

The women at daily Mass are steady. Like God-elected representatives for their families. They kneel before Christ. They do it every day . They get up when they could sleep in. Go to church when they could go anywhere – or nowhere. Enter the rhythm and rubric of the sacred liturgy when they could chat mindlessly with others on the phone or through email or on Facebook.

They stick around after the priest’s final sending. They cross themselves and go from the Mass right into the morning’s rosary.

They lift up husbands, and children, and grandchildren. The living and the deceased. The parish priest. People in Syria or the Ukraine. People they have almost nothing in common with – except the common ground of being human.

They intercede for unborn babies that are out there, all alone, in a dark womb – babies society has forgotten. But not them. These women have spiritually adopted them all. Lord, spare the life of a child from violence today, they pray. Today. Tomorrow. Every tomorrow.

They ask about you, too, – remember stuff about you that you don’t remember telling. Not because they judge. But because they care.

They let you waltz into the rhythm of their rosary. They let you waltz out. They don’t judge when you pray with them three times one week and not one time the next.

You could be away a year, and their hospitality would still be genuine, as they scoot along the kneeler to make room for you beside them.

They gather around you when you lose your mother.

Or your grandchild.

Or your spouse.

I am amazed by Catholic women. These mothers and grandmothers can instigate a conversion – even after they have been in the grave for decades. Their voices keep speaking. Their forty-something or sixty-something children come back – and somehow sense that the mother was calling them.

Their prayers are always heard. These women have a secret knock on the Door. God recognizes it. He lets them in.

Yes, I pay attention to people – especially Catholic women. What they say. What they do. How they live. I mull it over. I learn.

I climb through it, over it, jump in it. Then, I sit back and think some more.

Catholic women amaze me because they know God, and God knows them.