Church Ladies: We Put the Church in the Lady and the Lady in the Church

“I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”

These words of the Apostle’s Creed never meant so much to me as they do now. I would like to focus on the words, “I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,” and pause there for a moment. During this past year, with the passing of a local saint and the birth of the “church lady” group, I have been able to reflect on this theme in a special way.

This story begins one year ago almost exactly with the passing away of a local saint in my small town in southeast Louisiana. She was a young wife mother who died after several years of struggle with a terminal illness; God must have wanted to hasten her entrance into Heaven.

I will never forget that I was throwing a football with my nephew outside on a cold morning when I heard about her passing. As I walked slowly and thoughtfully to retrieve the pass I had missed, I remember feeling a profound sense of peace. I knew that the Church was gaining another saint. I knew she would take Heaven by storm petitioning for our little town, raising up great and little saints from among us.

This assurance of her prayers for my little town was confirmed at her funeral when I did not cry. I remember telling my sister-in-law after. “We have to change. If we are not different after an event like this, it will be a tragedy.” I kept pondering these things over the next year and would think. “I cannot be mediocre. I am called to be a saint.” Intimidated by her strength, leadership, and holiness in life, I humbly asked her to help me to be a good, strong, Catholic woman like she was. Her life will not be in vain.

I was thinking too much about the event and all that happened—maybe shocked or processing it. I felt close to her especially at the Mass. During the Holy, Holy, Holy, I picture all the angels and saints gathered around the altar at Heaven, glorifying God basking in the bliss of the beatific vision.

It would take two months for the full effect of the reality of death to shake my numbness. I let the tears flow at Mass, right after Communion, for I thought of her at the Communion of saints, along with my grandmother and loved ones up there praying for me.

Over the course of the following year, I began to further deepen relationships with my spiritual sisters, friends, and mentors in my local community—holy women I affectionately called the “church ladies.”

One of my church ladies is a living local saint, so I reached out to her. Not wanting to be left behind when she gets to Heaven, I asked her to pray for me and assured her of my prayers. On two separate occasions, I experienced immediate relief from my suffering after asking for her prayers. When a mother’s young baby gets sick, 51 women are notified immediately. The prayers are sent up to Heaven. When one goes to visit a shrine, we pray for our dear Church ladies. For Advent, we picked Advent angels and sent each other words of encouragement and prayer cards. What affects one of us affects all of us. This is what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. The church militant looks to the Communion of saints to lift us up and help us to be holy in our daily lives.

I do not want to take credit for thinking of reaching out to living saints. Matthew Kelly gave me the idea. In one of his books, he said, in order to be good at something, you have to go to experts at a certain craft and learn from them. This simple concept revolutionized the way I approached my spiritual life.

In August of this past year, the group of the “Church Ladies” was born. We meet on Saturdays for coffee and a gospel reflection. We share intentions, articles, songs, etc., to enrich our faith in a private online group so that those who cannot come to our meetings can stay connected. Our unofficial motto is: “We put the Church in the lady and the lady in the Church.”

We church ladies are just a group of friends building up the body of Christ, the Church, and the Communion of saints, experiencing great joy in the process. In fact, as a memento of my local saint who loved cardinals and saw them as a sign of comfort from heavenly saints who have gone before us, my mom bought me a cardinal with a Christmas hat on it that says “Joy.” Every day, my special saint reminds me to live this virtue not just for my sake, but for the sake of the Church ladies and everyone else I am called to touch.