The Saints and Tubules

“What do you think the tubule is responding to?” my advisor asked me one afternoon. 

We were discussing my project wherein a special protein in the lysosome, STARD9, drives lysosomal tubulation in order to deliver cholesterol to the rest of the cell.This is one of the major questions in my lab, so there wasn’t a “right” answer at the time. Whatever I came up with would become the hypothesis driving my research.

The question of “what does a tubule do?” weighed on my mind for a while.

As this question skipped through my mind, I started to contemplate another concept that I needed to describe to the Confirmation candidates:

“Why do we need the saints?”

By the grace of God, I discovered that perhaps the mechanism which drives cholesterol transport in lysosome tubules was a lot like how God’s grace brings us to Heaven. I’m unsure as to which answer came first, but it does not matter.

Today I would like to share this beautiful little story with my Dear Readers.

To start off, I want to emphasize point. God wants all of us to be united together in Heaven. Although we see Him on Earth in the Mass, this world is not our home. All of us belong in Heaven with God and His angels and His Saints.

But we do not have to do anything to make this a reality.

Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is what saves us. However, as Pope Francis wrote, “In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draw us to Himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community.” (Gaudete et Exsultate p.6)

In order to be with God in Heaven, we must be fully ourselves. However, as human beings, we do not understand ourselves on our own.

Think of it: how many times has someone told you about yourself that you didn’t notice before?

But how does this work?

Well. It’s almost exactly like how a lysosome tubule forms.

Here is a cell with a lysosome, the ER, and the mitochondria. Cholesterol comes in to the cell, and it binds to proteins in the lysosome. When this binding happens, the protein changes shape and a tubule forms. The cholesterol is then delivered to the ER to make hormones and other important compounds for the cell to function. Some of these things are delivered to the mitochondria. The mitochondria makes energy for the lysosome proteins to work, but it also does something else that is equally important. It sacrifices itself in order to deliver specific types of cholesterol to the lysosome.

The lysosome cannot stimulate tubules if it is unable to consume the sacrificed mitochondria.

Some of my Dear Readers may have already made some connections, but to make it even more clear:

Let’s replace cholesterol with God’s grace. It comes to us, and we change and conform to fit His will. This sends us out in to the world so that we may bring Him to others. After all, God’s grace and love was not made to be kept to ourselves. As such, we go forth in love, and we give glory to God.

And God is always giving us the energy and strength to move forward.

The mitochondria’s death is unaffected by the lysosome, so too was Christ’s sacrifice. Regardless of if we accept Him or not, Jesus endured the Cross for each one of us.

Going to Heaven often looks like it is a big task. Even though the heresies which said that we were the ones who attained our salvation are rarely mentioned these days, we all suffer from the mindset that we have to save ourselves. We all suffer from the idea that faith is a big thing, that we have to do so many things in order to give glory to God and be united to Him in Heaven.

That’s just not true.

All we have to do is say “yes” to the one little thing we were made for.

Whether that be science, teaching, religious life, marriage, illness, etc…we are all given a little mission in the world. Lysosome proteins bind to specific cholesterol subtypes, and we have special tasks that God made us for.

Just say yes.

But what if the protein cannot bind to cholesterol? What if we do not conform to the will of God?

Well, just as the tubule cannot be made within the cell, so too do we struggle to go out in to the world. Life is difficult, and we feel trapped and alone.

But the cell has a way to overcome this difficulty, and so do we.

What my lab had shown in the past, and what we are trying to do now, is that the other lysosome proteins can compensate for the loss of activity in other proteins. If we can increase the activity of sterol-binding in other proteins, then the damaged protein can be carried up through the tubule. The task is still completed.

When we struggle, we need to lean on the Saints, both living and dead, so that we can carry our crosses.

“The saints now in God’s presence preserve their bonds of love and communion with us. The Book of Revelation attests to this when it speaks of the intercession of the martyrs…Each of us can say: ‘Surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God…I do not have to carry alone what, in truth, I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me, and to carry me.” ~Gaudete et Exsultate p.4

Now, what if there was a perfect protein? A protein that could compensate for nearly any loss in the lysosome, that could bind to other proteins, that could bind to pure cholesterol or mitochondrial oxysterols in order to deliver the cholesterol out to the rest of the cell?

Well there is one: STARD9.

STARD9 has four properties that make it the best lysosomal protein: it has a motor to move the tubules, it has an FHA domain to make complexes with other proteins, it is in the lysosome membrane, and it binds to cholesterol.

Is there a Saint that has properties like STARD9 that would make them the best person to aid us?

Yes.

Mary, the Mother of God.

Mary is the greatest mediator because of a few things that correlate to STARD9. She is free from sin because of her Immaculate Conception, just like the motor makes STARD9 free to move. Mary’s will conforms her with God’s will, just like STARD9’s cholesterol binding domain conforms it to the signal needed for tubules. Mary, full of grace and purity, was given to the Church, just as the STARD9’s sorting signal brings it to the lysosome. Finally, Mary is forever with Christ, just as STARD9 makes a complex with proteins that are necessary to make tubules.

If STARD9’s cholesterol binding ability is gone, a person goes blind.

If we do not allow Mary to help us find Christ, we lose sight of their beautiful relationship.

If STARD9 is removed from the body, the spine cannot form properly.

If we do not trust Mary, then the Church cannot stand in strength.

It sounds like we are worshiping Mary, but that just isn’t true. Mary is the greatest mediator because she always knew what Jesus wanted, what He needed, and who He loved. He loves us, and so Mary loves us. You see, if we separate Mary from her connection to Christ, we lose everything that matters to her. Mary’s entire life was united with her son Jesus, before and after His Passion

STARD9 activity can save virtually any hindrance.

But only if it binds to cholesterol.

Mary can aid anyone, but only if we understand that it is Christ who saves us, Christ who loves us, Christ who provides the grace Mary lovingly bestows upon all of us.

Although the Saints and Mary are able to aid us in all of our struggles, it is Jesus who serves as the one and only mediator.

“First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all.” ~1 Timothy 2:1-6

We are all called to pray and love one another, but ultimately it is the will of God that has the final say. By praying for one another, it is easier for us to accept God’s Will, whether it fits our hopes and dreams or not.

I have already told the story of my “Failed 54 Day Rosary Novena,” but I have not shared the story of the “Second Failed 54 Day Rosary Novena,” and I would like to do so now.

My heart was heavy from the burden of my own cross. I did not know what to do, so I decided to pray a second 54 Day Rosary Novena. Perhaps if I did so in secret, maybe then God would grant me relief from my cross.

Yet again my heart broke.

I tried to be happy, but it was so difficult. Why was Jesus forcing me to continue carrying a cross?

Because He had a better plan.

You see my Dear Reader, we should not expect anything. All we should expect from God is for Him to love us. That is something we cannot deny, nor should we ever give up on. Even though I said this to myself often, it was not until I had to hold my own cross that I realized what it meant.

Jesus loves us.

And He loves us through His Cross.

When we look upon the Crucifix, we are reminded of His love for us. We are also reminded of His call to carry our own cross and follow Him. The Cross calls us to love, and it draws others in to Christ’s love again.

The only response to the Cross is love.

I passed by a soul that had given up on God as I held my cross heavily on my heart. From previous conversations, I learned that this person had given up on God because of suffering. They thought suffering was a sign that God did not love us, and they said it was foolish to talk to God, let alone ask Him for help if He does not love us.

Yet when they saw my cross, they were moved with pity.

The only response to the Cross is love.

That day I overheard the soul say a prayer for me. It was the first prayer that soul had said in quite some time. Perhaps I did not receive my miracle, but this soul did. I was suffering, unable to accept God’s love and grace, so this soul conformed their will to God again, and we were brought out to the world in love again.

It does not matter how long it has been since you have spoken to God. It does not matter how far you have gone from Him.

All that matters is love.

My Dear Readers, we are all called to holiness. We are all called to love. Whether that call is filled with flowers and joy or crosses and tears, we are all made to love and be loved in our own little way. It does not matter how you get to your calling, but I can assure you that it is by your love that the world will be made a better place.

Even if it seems unimportant, all you give is important to God.

Just like every little cholesterol molecule given by the lysosome is important to the mitochondria.

Go forth in love my Dear Readers. I love you.

Together

This year I had the absolute blessing to attend the Easter Triduum services at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. For those of my Dear Readers who do not know what “Triduum” means, it is the three holy days leading up to Easter Sunday: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

There was something that struck me over and over again that I couldn’t seem to get over.

Jesus wanted us there.

Together.

We like to think that we know what God wants for us. God loves us, and as such, He wants us to be happy. Some us use this to justify our somewhat risky or immoral actions saying, “If no one can see it, then does it really matter what I do? I am happy, and that’s all God would want.”

And as we made choice after choice for ourselves, we walked further and further away from what makes us truly happy.

This is not to say that we did not have good intentions to start with. Many times we decide to walk further and further away from Truth because we thought we were doing something good. After all, no one really wants to do something bad, let alone choosing evil over good.

We just think we know more than God does sometimes.

It’s not ok, but we all fall in to this.

I know I do.

The most prevalent example of my desire to convince God that I know what I really want is my lab work. I know that God brought me to ND to be a member of the Biological Sciences department and to serve the community here. It truly is the best feeling in the world to run from room to room, troubleshooting the work of all of my students as I attempt to understand my own projects in the back of my mind.

Whenever I am homesick, I end up in the lab, and I set up a new PCR reaction, just as my father taught me, so that I can feel at peace again.

I love my labwork, and it is a great blessing that God gave me a place to work in science and be His missionary at the same time.

Recently I have been charged with the last figure of our big paper. It has been a decade in the making, and I know that our lab needs this publication in order to secure more funding and to continue developing treatments for the rare disease we study.

I knew that God brought me here to love my colleagues, and I knew that He called me to do great science.

In the face of this, I spent multiple weeks with little to no sleep, trying to get something to work. I wanted to make it all work, and I wanted to help my advisor and my labmates and the rare disease community.

I didn’t really share my work with anyone, and I worked in the early morning hours so that no one would watch me.

And it looked like it worked.

But when we looked more closely at my staining under the microscope…the results were not nearly as promising as they appeared on the surface.

Many times when we try to do something for ourselves, such as indulging on too much netflix, pleasuring ourselves with pornography, lying to get our way, or bullying someone who is more liked so that we can feel better ourselves, we end up in a situation much like my staining. We do not want to affect anyone other than ourselves, so we end up cut off from the community in little ways. Then, when we look at our hearts more deeply, we discover how sad we are.

We’re lonely.

Not because we do not have people to love us, but because we thought that we could do everything on our own. Not because we were hated, but because we hated the lives we thought we had. Not because we have nothing to be thankful for, but because we stopped being grateful for the gifts and talents we had all along.

How do we overcome the loneliness and sorrow?

“We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all” ~Isaiah 53:12

It is hard to accept sometimes, but Jesus loves you Dear Reader. You see, Jesus is part of the Triune God. This means that He is one of the three in one. God Himself is a community, and that community is love.

When Jesus rose from the grave, He did more than appear to those He loved. 

He gave them the Holy Spirit so that they could go out and bring faith to all the ends of the Earth. He gave the Apostles authority to teach and adminster the Sacraments. When Jesus had His last supper, He gave His Apostles a way to keep Him with them forever in the Holy Eucharist. When Jesus died on the Cross, He gave His Mother to The Church so that they always had a mother to love them.

He gave us The Church.

However, it was not easy. In fact, after Jesus spoke to the women on Easter Sunday, it was said that “they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:18).

It is easy acknowledge that suffering and death are a part of a holy life. We can accept that slavery to sin is real.

True freedom, the sort that raises the dead, that seems impossible.

But it isn’t…. True Freedom, true happiness, comes from a community of faith that has spanned millenia, and it will never end.

That’s why the women ran from the tomb to the Apostles.

I am extremely blessed to have been raised as a Catholic Christian for my entire life. At the age of 4 days, I was Baptized and saved from Original Sin. I was given graces that would help me to avoid sin and suffering of my own accord. However, I am still a flawed human being, and I make mistakes all of the time.

However, Jesus gave us The Church so that we would not have to struggle alone.

“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” ~John 13:14-15

Those of us who were called to faith are not meant to just have a “one and done” response to our salvation. No. We are called to give help to the helpless, hope to the hopeless, and love to the loveless. Although we are not the ones to bring others to faith, we are all called to life one another up and remind each soul that they are loved by God, now and forever.

There were many young adults that were baptized at the Easter Vigil Mass.

After they were baptized, they were given a candle that was lit by the Easter Candle to represent the flame of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Once their candles were lit, they were told to go to the entire congregation and light the candles we held at the beginning of the Mass.

It seemed like they had no direction other than to go out.

With tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces, they sprinted around the church in their baptismal gowns, holding up their little flames to each and every person they encountered. Not a single candle was unlit, and the entire congregation was filled with joy.

No matter how many candles we light with our own flame, our light will never go away.

So too is it with our love and faith.

Just as the neophytes did not have the most clear directions, we often are not sure where we are supposed to go. We do not know what to expect, nor do we know where we are expected to go or who we are supposed to meet.

That’s ok.

Expect nothing.

Expect nothing but to love for the souls God gave you.

They may love you back, and they may forget you. However, the love that we share is what lifts everyone up. Jesus did not die so that we would each rise on our own accord. Jesus did not die so that we would end up in Heaven in our own little cubicle. Jesus did not die for us to be alone.

No.

Jesus rose to answer His own prayer:

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me thorugh their word so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me” ~John 17:20-21

It is never a loss to love on of God’s little ones.

I love you Dear Reader.

"Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around

through My sight and touch and sound in you and you in Me?"

~The Summons, John L. Bell

Because I Love You (Part 3 of 3)

“But Felicity, you haven’t answered the question yet!” some of my Dear Readers might be thinking.

For those of y’all who are just coming in…the question we’ve been exploring for the past two weeks is “why do bad things happen to good people?”

Let’s go back to the children we’ve been walking with for the past couple of weeks. The first jumps on the bed when their parents said no, and they experienced pain. This is the more expected sort of suffering: a direct result of our own wrong actions. The second child had their training wheels removed and they crashed over and over. This is the less expected suffering: the kind that takes us back and makes us wonder why we even trusted our parents.

What did the children do in response to their suffering?

In time, they called out to their parents.

Some of us have experienced healing immediately when turning to Our Heavenly Parents. We are forgiven for our wrongdoing, and we are cradled in their arms. We are given some insight that helps us figure out the situation we’ve been placed in.

But that’s pretty rare.

As a result, we are looking up at Our Heavenly Parents, begging the question, “Why?”

“Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

~Matthew 16:24-25

Many of my Dear Readers have likely heard this verse in response to the age-old question about suffering. Perhaps the first time you heard this verse you felt comforted by such a bold statement, but with each time you encountered the call to The Cross, you felt more and more disheartened.

Jesus endured The Cross to save us from our sins…to save us from evil…

Why, then, should I ever suffer again?

I’ve been both of these children numerous times, but I’ll expand on my previous testimony.

There was a time when I “fell off the bed.” Much like the child, I rationalized everything I did. I would say that my actions might not be perfect, but if they were helpful for at least one person that the trouble I caused would be erased. I figured that if I looked important and holy and put together that everything would be ok.

Instead I was left alone, and I hurt peoples’ feelings.

Scared and hurt, I called out to God in Confession and prayed numerous prayers to the Blessed Mother so that the pain I caused would be taken away.

In time, I started to become more loving, and life improved, but nothing was perfect. Nothing is perfect in this life.

But I grew up.

Now older in my heart, my Heavenly Parents gave me a “bike with training wheels” if you will. My prayer life became more fruitful, and I started to gain confidence in aspects of my life that I never thought I would be able to change.

People that once hated me became my friends. People listened to me when I spoke, and they understood.

I was happier than I could imagine.

Then my “training wheels” were gone, and there was no way I could get them back.

Looking back at my journals still brings tears to my eyes. Through all of the descriptions of daily life, novenas, prayers, consecrations, and devotions, there were two words that permeated throughout the most desolate time of my spiritual life.

Why?

This word came over and over, and it was almost always followed by empty space. The silence of God and Mary, or so it seemed, was the only answer I received.

It felt like the “because” I spoke about last week.

Let’s go back to the child pestering their parents with “why?” over and over. After the parents give little explainations, they eventually stop, turn to their child, look them in the eye, and they say “because.”

There is something palpable in the silence which follows the because. It silences the child, and it draws them backwards.

Something in the silence changes the conversation.

What is in the silence? What is it that draws the child to stop speaking? What is in the eyes of their parents that changes the conversation from stressful curiousity to peaceful dialogue again? Where can we find this in our own lives?

It is the second word that filled my journal.

Love.

Although we often try to define love through dictionaries, songs, physical experiences, stories, movies, and images, there is no proper to way to define love. It is something that we feel in our very core, and it changes the entire conversation. However, because love is not fully felt in our natural senses, it takes going outside of ourselves to see it, to know it, to love it.

Why do we have to carry a cross?

So that others may grow in love.

Jesus was God. Therefore, He already had all of the love in universe in His heart. He gained nothing by dying on The Cross. However, by taking on hardships of this life, Jesus drew everyone in to Himself.

He showed us what it meant to love others.

Not only that, but He called us to love everyone around us.

Something that struck me over Holy Week was how much Jesus wanted His Apostles to form a community. He washed their feet so that they might wash the feet of others. Some of His last words were giving His mother to The Church, and to the whole world. He instituted the Eucharist so that He could physically be with each soul that would come to love Him.

To hold a cross is painful, but the silence is not meant to dishearten us.

The silence is there to change the conversation.

When we are experiencing heartache, our hearts are opened up so that others may come in and love us. Most of the time the souls given to us are completely unexpected, and they are probably not the holy and perfect people you would expect.

But that’s the point.

Jesus came to bring love to the loveless, and He calls us to do the same.

There is one important part of this that we need to be clear on: the silence is real, but if you do not allow yourself in to the silence, you will not be able to let people love you. As such, the suffering only becomes more and more unbearable.

Like I said, I was in the worst of sorts. I kept ranting to my family and friends about how upset I was with God. I would ask why over and over and over, but nothing seemed to come from my prayers. Finally, I gave up trying, just as I said last week.

Suddenly the souls I never expected to help me became God’s way of teaching me what love truly was. The little ones that He called me to love each day suddenly started to fight for me against my persecutors. Souls that I thought would never accept me slowly started to celebrate my quirks.

I realized that I did not need my “training wheels” in order to love my Jesus anymore.

By uniting my suffering with His, I came to love and be loved.

To exemplify this: I wrote this in my journal as a letter to another soul, but I discovered that perhaps it was Jesus speaking to me in love all along.

Dearly Beloved

“The silence will not destroy you. That silence is My way of changing the conversation. St. Teresa of Calcutta’s silence turned her to the poor. Your silence turned you to the lonely, particularly those in silence. I cannot say where your silence will take you. All I can say is that I am here, sitting silently, and I will not leave. God has entrusted your cross to my heart, and if you so will it, I will carry your cross as far as I can. My heart is soft, and it has been broken open. There are no secrets, and I am as real as they come. You may not know what God wants, but you canknow that He will never leave us alone. As He calls me…I will be here with an open heart for you to rest in.”

When life gets difficult, and you want to say “why” one more time…stop for a moment and listen to the silence. There, as the conversation changes, you will hear the answer you have been waiting to hear your whole life.

“Because I love you.”