Find the Little Way of Catholic Motherhood.

“Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your head.”
When I first heard this quote from actor Martin Mull many years ago, I thought, yup…he nailed it. His remark certainly encapsulated my experience of motherhood.

After my husband Patrick and I had our children (4 sons and a daughter) in 9 years, I sat in my figurative bowling alley and wrote about family life: the expectations and the realities.

Before I became a parent, I looked forward to being married and having children. As a Catholic who loved Jesus, I knew that raising a family would be a joyful, arduous, and privileged calling. But I was not prepared for the-bowling-alley-thing. Or for the intensity of the work God would do in my soul and in my life through my vocation: the tilling of soil, the pruning of branches, and the periods of drought.

Our children are now young adults. Remarkably, over the past five years, they have all married and have had bowling alleys installed in their own heads! My husband and I have 11 grandchildren under the age of five, plus 4 little souls already in heaven.

With my child-rearing days behind me, I understand more clearly than ever the value of the work I did during those years. For a long time, it was hard to see the fruit of the myriad sacrifices my husband and I chose to make as parents. Now, I am utterly astounded to see a bumper crop. My family is not perfect, but God is at work in us, as individuals and as a family.

Now, I am a writer and speaker who helps other Catholics to continually reorient themselves to Christ, whether in seasons of life when it seems easy to love God and neighbor, or in periods of desolation when we feel the heavy weight of this earthly pilgrimage.

I don’t know what kind of challenges the future has in store for me or those I love most. But from a young age I have witnessed God’s faithfulness and learned the connection between intimacy with Jesus and the peace that surpasses all understanding, between reckless confidence in God and a life worth living. I have also learned that true transformation and fruitful mission flow from this intimacy and confidence. Jesus is my hope, and it is my life’s work to share that hope with others and to glorify God at all costs!

My husband and I met and married at Franciscan University of Steubenville over 30 years ago, and have since lived in Nicaragua, New Mexico, Maryland, New York, and Colorado. Recently, we moved back to Steubenville, Ohio in order to live closer to our children and their families.