Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights (From the Vault, 2016)

The Mom Weekly, Volume 135: March 10, 2025

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes: 

Whenever a certain reading from 2 Macabees comes up at Mass, I think about the title of a talk I gave at a local women’s conference in 2016 called “Finding Your Fiat.” I think to myself, “Darn, that was such a pretentious title for a talk. What was I thinking?”

Anyway, I went looking for it because I knew that I had written about Eleazar and honoring our old age, and I wanted to write about that topic. When I found the text of my talk, and read it for the first time in a decade, I thought (and not for the first time):

THANK YOU, years ago me, for being such a good writer and good thinker. You were way too hard on yourself about your skills or your ideas.

I am remarkably proud of that talk. I am proud of how I was trying to encourage the (mostly) young moms who were in attendance at the conference. I had to edit it down because it was really long, but the gist of it is still there, and I had a lot of solid insights and thoughts to share. You can let me know whether you think the title is pretentious or just right.

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights (From the Vault, 2016)

Finding your Fiat. When I mentioned to my theologian husband that I was speaking at a conference called “Finding Your Fiat,” he had to tell a joke. He reminded me that one of his first cars was a Fiat. (In fact, virtually every car he has owned as an adult stopped being sold in the US after he bought it—first Fiat, then Peugeot, then Saab.) Now Fiat is back.

Anyway, he said,“It’s like an older person wondering where his car went in the mall parking lot (here he used a crackly old person voice)—Where’s my Fiat? I am finding my Fiat if it kills me.”

So, first I’d like to ask for the intercession of two Venerables—really saints, just not canonized by the Church yet.  

Venerable Matt Talbot, patron of those who struggle with addiction. I visited many Matt Talbot sites earlier this year in Dublin, and I just love him.  

Next is Venerable Father Solanus Casey. 

(2026 note: Solanus Casey was beatified in 2018, and I wrote about him here )

Two of Solanus’ great quotes are:, “Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.” and “Thank God ahead of time.” So I’d like to thank God—and Matt Talbot and Father Solanus — ahead of time for getting me through this talk.  

So let’s officially start with Prayer, and Scripture:

Shine like lights in the world,

as you hold on to the word of life. —Philippians 2:15-16

This was the gospel acclamation several weeks back, and I thought, YES! This is exactly it.

Here is the complete passage:  

So then, my beloved obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.

Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among who you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

A little bit more complicated, but, regardless: we as Christians are meant to SHINE LIKE LIGHTS.  (as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling).

What does that mean?  Ponder it during this day and weekend.

My prayer for you?

When my husband and I were first married, sometimes he would say that the Holy Spirit protected me from bad sermons. And I agree! It’s been a great gift.

So, I pray you will hear the things that are helpful and daydream during the time that is not helpful for you. You have permission to take with you what is helpful and leave behind what is not.

What I am going to do today?

DEFINING MY TALK TITLE -oy vey, it’s a little pretentious, I know.

2. MAKING SOMETHING 

We’re going to make something — each of us will make her own commonplace book. You can jot down some notes in it, or just decorate it however you want.

3. MY COMMONPLACE BOOK — Quotes to get you thinking about what energizes you.

I’m going to share some ideas—my virtual “commonplace book,” as it were. 

4. RESOLUTION  — You’re going to consider one or two things that energize YOU and make YOU happy, and you’re going to  make resolutions about being intentional about including it in your life over the next few months.  How can you have pursuits that energize you and help you persevere as long as Eleazar?  

Here’s what I want you to come away with:

1. encouragement

2. a few new books to read or re-read

3. a resolution about one, possibly two, things that you will add to your repertoire to keep you happy and shining

DEFINITIONS

—Now let’s do some definitions:

ELEAZAR

Eleazar: a scribe in the persecution of Jews recounted in 2 Maccabees 6, martyred under the persecution. 

He is martyred just before the seven sons of the mother are martyred, and she urges them on “filled with a noble spirit that stirred up her woman heart with manly courage.” Wow, it is so inspiring to read the accounts of these martyrdoms and their strong faith in throwing away their lives. The mother was the last to die, after her sons.

Eleazar, an old man who is being forced to eat unlawful food, and the people around him tell him to pretend to eat it, but not really eat it. And here’s what happened:

But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the gray hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades.

“Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life,” he said, “for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty.  Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.”

The older I get, the more I realize it can be hard to persevere. It’s easy to want to give up.  

I call on Eleazer to bless this talk since I want to be the person who is “worthy of my old age.” I’m not “old” yet, whatever old is, but I have reached the “gray hairs,” and I want to be able to stand firm all my life. 

To shine like lights all the way to the end. I want us to shine like lights, but not to burn out. I want you—and me—to persevere through not just this year, or this decade, but to the end of your life, clinging to your faith, working out your salvation in fear and trembling, to your last day.

2026 note: (more of this talk next week!)