Sharing a Bit of "Link Love"

One of my favorite Catholic sites : Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction. Check out this meditation!

Time Gluttony

James Tissot: Wikimedia Commons

I suffer from a strange malady.

I am a "time" glutton.

Let me explain:

I have to force myself to be generous with my time. (Notice the "my" that comes before time.) And it doesn't come easily for me.

See, I like to cram as much as I can into as little time as possible so that each moment is ready to explode like a volcano because it is stuffed beyond its capacity.

In other words, I have a tendency to multi-task. Multi-tasking robs me of my peace and makes me feel as if I am rushing through life and using my time unwisely. And that is exactly what I am doing. I know it, I fight against it...and still catch myself stuffing each moment with too many things. Too much thinking, too much activity.

A wise use of time is to focus on the task at hand. To give it your full attention and live in the present moment.

Sadly, I often don't even notice the present moment because I'm too busy overfilling it.

Just sayin'.

It's okay if you think this is an odd thing to post about.

I think so too.

The Evening of the Visitation

The Evening of the Visitation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Go, roads, to the four quarters of our quiet distance,

While you, full moon, wise queen,

Begin your evening journey to the hills of heaven,

And travel no less stately in the summer sky

Than Mary, going to the house of Zachary.



The woods are silent with the sleep of doves,

The valleys with the sleep of streams,

And all our barns are happy with peace of cattle gone to rest.

Still wakeful, in the fields, the shocks of wheat

Preach and say prayers:

You sheaves, make all your evensongs as sweet as ours,

Whose summer world, all ready for the granary and barn,

Seems to have seen, this day,

Into the secret of the Lord's Nativity.



Now at the fall of night, you shocks,

Still bend your heads like kind and humble kings

The way you did this golden morning when you saw God's

Mother passing,

While all our windows fill and sweeten

With the mild vespers of the hay and barley.



You moon and rising stars, pour on our barns and houses

Your gentle benedictions.

Remind us how our Mother, with far subtler and more holy

influence,

Blesses our rooves and eaves,

Our shutters, lattices and sills,

Our doors, and floors, and stairs, and rooms, and bedrooms,

Smiling by night upon her sleeping children:

O gentle Mary! Our lovely Mother in heaven.

                                           
                                          Thomas Merton

God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. Got it?

"See? I created day and night and it WAS good."

Some people love Daylight Savings Time - they enjoy the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day.

Me? Not so much.

I never understood (barring wartime) why anyone wants an extra hour of light at the end of the day.

People who struggle with insomnia do not like Daylight Savings Time.

And you know who else hates DST?

New moms, that's who. They hate Daylight Savings Time. With a passion I might add.

And Moms with babies and young children? They hate DST too. Messes up the sleep schedules and all other schedules in the house.

You know who else hates it?

The dads who have to deal with the grouchy moms and kids.

Teenagers also hate it. (What's new?)

People who have to get up early for work hate DST - nurses, doctors, EMT's, firemen, policemen, pharmacists, etc...

The folks who work at bakeries, doughnut shops, TV news (and radio) stations hate it as well.

And dogs hate DST. They can't figure out why their human doesn't come home from work when they are supposed to anymore and why their walk and food schedules are all messed up. They have to wait at the door a lot. For nothing.

So, there are tons of people who hate DST.

And by the looks of the half-empty pews at Mass this morning we are the majority rather than the minority.

Which means God doesn't like Daylight Savings Time either. "My people, my people, what is wrong with the day as I created it? Must you control time itself?"

Yes, Lord, I guess we must. The proof is in the chocolate pudding. (Oops, sorry...one of those Lenten Freudian slips.)

Man, it felt good to let that out. Been brewin' for ten tears (okay...now THAT proves it, folks - I wrote tears instead of years by accident and the reason for that accident is because...

... my frain is bried due to Staylight Raving Lunatic Time.

A Healing Balm for the Soul

An Allegory of Man

What is the cure for the soul that is weary? What is the antidote to a world stricken with vice? The remedy for the soul overwhelmed by despair?

What "sweetens" the crosses we bear?

The answer is one and the same for all of the questions above.

Virtues. Those God given helps for the soul. The beautiful "coat of many colors" the soul needs to be cloaked in...that God yearns to cover its nakedness, its poverty, with so it doesn't walk about the world completely exposed to that which seeks to harm it.

In the painting above, "An Allegory of Man", Man is being attacked by the Seven deadly Sins and Death, but is shielded by the Seven Virtues. We have really gotten away from studying and practicing the virtues in the past century and this loss is becoming more noticeable each day as the proliferation of every kind of sin and vice sweeps across humanity. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we can be so obdurate in our unwillingness to see what is as plain as the nose on our face:

The world is drowning in the Seven Deadly Sins. We all struggle with them but millions have given themselves over to them completely.

The loss of the practice of virtue in this world has had tragic repercussions. One of the effects of the Deadly sins is that they do in fact have a deadening effect on the soul. The soul grows numb and weary. It cannot function properly in the manner that it was created to - as a clean and holy temple of the Holy Spirit. It loses its sense of being closely connected to God. The soul falls asleep, you could say.

We are a people who are snoring their way into oblivion. An oblivion where no one exists except me, myself, and I. The ultimate dreamworld where the only god that exists is the god of self. A world where people have forgotten both God and neighbor. (Oh, wait, so sorry...I forgot that this "dreamworld" actually has a name. Hell, I think it's called. )

The virtues on the other hand "wake up" the soul. They have a vivifying effect on it because their source is God. When the soul is not coated in virtues it feels their absence because the spiritual state of man depends on the virtues. We have lost our understanding of the protection virtues give us, a truth which the people of past centuries understood well.

When our physical bodies are ill they manifest clear symptoms so that we know something is wrong. It's the same for our souls - they too manifest spiritual symptoms so that we may take note and apply the remedies needed to cure its ills.

And God has given us so many remedies.

 One of the greatest is Confession, which purges the soul of the poisons within it. Once the poison is cleared, the virtues have the necessary room to take root, flourish and grow. Not confessing our sins is like trying to plant a seed in rocky soil, the plant has no room to grow because the soil (of the soul) is so poor. Confession removes the rocks and preps the soil.

Prayer is the conduit through which the soil is watered.

Holy Scripture and the Eucharist feed it. (Anyone who likes gardening knows soil needs to be fertilized to produce anything worthwhile.)

The virtues protect it and cause the soil of the soul to produce fruit abundantly.

Let's turn the tide of sin and despair in our world today by praying for and practicing the virtues.


Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.
                   St Francis of Assisi

Bucket of Virtues for Kids (And Adults too!)

Join in on the 2nd Annual Keep Love in Lent Link-Up!
Add your inspiring LENT post at one of the following Catholic Blogs:

Catholic Bloggers Network

  Equipping Catholic Families (Monica)
 Campfires and Cleats (Chris)
 Truly Rich Mom  (Tina)
A Slice of Smith Life (Tracy)
and discover NEW WAYS to Keep LOVE in LENT!

For Lent, our family usually makes a fasting cup which we fill with slips of paper that have things that we can fast from listed on them but we decided to do something different this year:

Michaela and I have been studying virtues lately and since the best way to learn is by doing I decided that a "virtues bucket" would be the best and most practical way for her to integrate the virtues into her daily life.

We used an old plastic coffee container as a bucket, decorated it, and then cut out flowers and butterflies and wrote down a virtue on each one. On the reverse side of the cards we wrote down
which vice the virtue opposes or what help the virtue gives.

Each day we will pick one card from the "virtues bucket" and will then put into practice for that day the particular virtue we have picked. At the end of the day, after our evening prayer, we will go over the opportunities we had to practice the virtue and how we can further work the virtue into our everyday lives.

The list of virtues we used can be found here (Theological and Cardinal Virtues, along with a good activity that will help kids learn about them) and here (the moral virtues).


Have a blessed Lent!

(Can you tell I just dusted? Yep, Mom is practicing "diligence" today!)

Your Biggest Cross

Sisyphus: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Rumor has it that a newspaper once sent out an inquiry to famous authors, asking the question, What’s wrong with the world today? And Chesterton responded simply:

“Dear Sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton.”



This story about G.K. Chesterton is not substantiated but I sure wish it were true. Why do I wish this?

Because sooner or later every person stumbles upon one of the great truths of life. And "stumbles upon" is the right phrase because this truth sure feels like a huge stumbling block. God knows this truth, the saints knew it, the souls in Purgatory definitely know it. We may know it as well, but our pride resists it. This truth is:

We are our own heaviest crosses.

There, I said it.

And it's true for all of us.

When I first came upon this realization I thought it was only me. That I, myself, was my own heaviest cross and that this didn't apply straight across the board.

But it does. It applies to all of us. When you read the lives of the saints you see that every single one of them came to this conclusion about themselves. It's a common thread that runs through their writings and one we should take note of.

Those who say, "But my husband (insert person or circumstance of choice here) is my heaviest cross!"

Nope. Not true. You are your heaviest cross. This is a truth about ourselves that we tend to resist in an extraordinary way because pride has taken root in our hearts and we don't want to believe that one of our biggest problems just might be ourselves.

When we believe that others are our "heavy crosses" it may be one of the strongest signs that a virtue we should be praying for in abundance is the virtue of humility and maybe some charity to go with it.

It took me ten years to learn this. (And another five to accept it.)

It is part and parcel of our fallen human nature.

It's a great lesson though because as soon as we REALLY learn this,as soon as we stop resisting God's
efforts to point this oh so hard-to swallow, it's stuck in my throat fact out, we can begin to make quick progress in the spiritual life because our focus is taken off the sins and faults of our neighbor and responsibility is planted squarely on the shoulders to whom it belongs. We stop blaming others for our heavy loads and start seeing that WE are the heavy loads. This is not to say that there are not external circumstances in our lives that do not make our cross heavier. There are. But the reason the *external circumstances* are so "heavy" is because of our *internal circumstances*.

In other words, if you want to lighten your load you have to work on yourself first.

As G.K. Chesterton so bluntly puts it: Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

Funny how some of the most obvious things in life are the most difficult to see. Not only are we seasick, we are "see sick" as well and our biggest blind spot is ourselves.

~ You cannot escape it, wherever you run. For wherever you go you carry yourself with you, and will always find yourself. Turn upwards or turn downwards, turn inwards or turn outwards: everywhere you will find the cross.                      Thomas A Kempis

~ The greatest cross of all is self.       Archbishop Francois Fenelon

Lent Meme

Victor at Time for Reflections has tagged me for a Lent Meme. This Lent Meme is very easy to follow. 

 The rules are very few:

1.   Copy/paste this post on your Blog.

2.   Contact as many other Bloggers as you like and leave them this comment: "You have been tagged for the LENT MEME on my Blog".

3.   And now the difficult bit: Do someone a good deed. Anyone. Relative, friend or stranger. Any good deed. Saying a prayer for someone in need. Helping an old person with shopping, transport, gardening. Visiting a sick person. Giving some money to charity.

Just use your imagination and do any good deed.

If you are greedy you can do more than one good deed. To more than one person. You can do a good deed every day of Lent if you wish. The minimum is just one good deed.

As soon as Victor tagged me for this meme I jumped right on it because this is probably the most meaningful meme I've seen. And I tag each person who reads this post and wants to join in. Let's go all out this Lent and place our focus on what REALLY matters: love of God and neighbor.

As We Forgive Those...

Eduard Veith: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I've heard people say, "I cannot forgive this person but I do not wish them in hell." What they may not understand is that this is the spiritual reality that underlies not forgiving others, the condemnation of the person, and this is why God warns us about it over and over in the Bible. The refusal to forgive is your personal "judgment" on the soul you withhold forgiveness from. When you don't forgive you are in essence saying that your judgment holds more water than God's. We align ourselves with the accuser instead of the God of mercy whom we claim to trust.

I am not being harsh in my assessment of unforgiveness.  In the Bible, Jesus himself makes this very clear to us numerous times (see below). The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say regarding
"forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" :

2840 Now - and this is daunting - this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father's merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.

"Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible" - this statement says so much. Who are we harming by our refusal to forgive? The entire Body of Christ, that's who. Everyone.  And mercy cannot penetrate our hearts if we refuse to forgive. Daunting, for sure. Thank you, Lord, for Confession, that beautiful Sacrament that lays bare our hearts so that we can be healed.

2841 This petition is so important that it is the only one to which the Lord returns and which he develops explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount. This crucial requirement of the covenant mystery is impossible for man. But "with God all things are possible."
. . . as we forgive those who trespass against us

2842 This "as" is not unique in Jesus' teaching: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"; "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful"; "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." It is impossible to keep the Lord's commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make "ours" the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves "forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave" us.

2843 Thus the Lord's words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end, become a living reality. the parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord's teaching on ecclesial communion, ends with these words: "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." It is there, in fact, "in the depths of the heart," that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.

2844 Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high-point of Christian prayer; only hearts attuned to God's compassion can receive the gift of prayer. Forgiveness also bears witness that, in our world, love is stronger than sin. the martyrs of yesterday and today bear this witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another.

Reading this section on forgiveness from the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes me very grateful to be Catholic. What a treasury of wisdom we have at our fingertips!

Here are two links on unforgiveness that I also found helpful:

Unforgiveness is the cause...

Human Defenses Against Forgiveness