Martha Stewart is so easily parodied that maybe you haven't noticed how Catholic she is. If you did, you wouldn't laugh at her; you would try to imitate her.

You certainly have enough opportunity to check her out for yourself. She hosts a weekly syndicated TV show (seen Sundays at noon on WTEN), puts out a magazine, and writes newspaper columns and frequent books on such topics as how to make wreaths. Soon, she will be launching a daily TV show.

It's simple to make fun of Stewart. After all, when someone spends part of a TV show demonstrating how to serve raw sea urchins, you don't have to be Mark Twain to find a joke. As a result, she's been ridiculed on "Saturday Night Live," by numerous stand-up comedians and in a magazine parody called "Is Martha Stewart Living?"

Catholic aspect

What's so Catholic about a woman whose newspaper column recently addressed the wrenching question: "Should I boil noodles or other pasta for soup separately, or add them to the boiling soup and cook until they are done?"

What's so Catholic is that Stewart -- who was raised a Catholic and may still be one for all I know -- celebrates God's creation so effusively. In a world filled with sour faces, cynicism and breast-beating media folks, she delights in chicken eggs, tiny plants and making something pretty for a loved one.

Okay, she goes overboard. None of us is likely to have the time or desire to create curry in our kitchens when it's readily available on a store shelf. But I bet you couldn't tell me what curry is, what's in it and how it's used without watching her make it.

Those who tease her are really saying, "I don't want to know more about such topics as exotic food, hand-made decorations, international customs and fine furniture." And any time you start a sentence with "I don't want to know more," you are actually saying, "I want to remain ignorant."

Happy face

But it's not so much the information she gives as the way she gives it that makes Stewart so fascinating to watch. Her face lights up when she learns something new about manufacturing ribbons or baking cookies. Life to her is not drudgery; it's an adventure. And she invites people to come along, to find something special in their homes, to seek out the delightful around them in nature and to cherish what's beautiful, even if it's the old family dog.

That's a very Catholic attitude; it says that creation is good and that God has made beautiful things for us to enjoy and share with others. Those ideas stretch back to Eden.

We are what we eat. We are also what we surround ourselves with. If we lie down with dogs, we get up with fleas. On the other hand, if we fill our world with beautiful things, sweet-tasting cookies and fine friends, aren't we likely to rise up with cleaner hearts, sharper minds and gentler souls?

Go ahead and make fun of Martha if you want. But by doing so I suspect you might really be trying to hide from what you don't like about yourself: lack of ambition, self-satisfaction, a willingness to take what comes even if it's worthless and acceptance of a second-rate life.

And those are not very Catholic notions.

(The answer, by the way, is to boil your noodles separately.)

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