Category Archives: Lent

A Few Changes…

Critical Mass, Lent

I created a little booklet for myself this Lent, containing my basic plan, the Lenten boot camp outline, various readings for the boot camp, and a section where I have a journal page for each day. For the past week or so, I had a couple sheets of paper shoved into my booklet: a schedule for one of my parishes of significant dates and events during Lent, Passion Week and Easter; and an article on the single vocation. I had meant to read and comment on the article and perhaps do a blog post about it, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And the schedule was for reference. Finally this afternoon, I decided to put them into my booklet, scrapbook style. I might as well keep everything in one place and keep it as neat as possible. 🙂 What do you think?

Lent 2014 Booklet: Cover Lent 2014 Booklet: Day 8

Sorry if today’s post in a little choppy. Of course, that’s rather how my day went, so… accurate. 🙂

We are invited today to pray the Memorare, as the Blessed Virgin is she that was foretold as the one crushing the head of the serpent.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.

Amen.

I was reading in John today for my Bible study, and this verse really spoke to me today. I can’t say that I had any sort of theological epiphany, but it made me feel secure, warm, and loved — and that’s a great feeling. 🙂

He loved His own in the world, and He loved them to the end.  — John 13:1b

This one reminded me of someone I pray for regularly:

If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.

How hard is this? Especially when a loved one dies. We want to keep them with us, but that is really a selfish thing to want. To truly love someone means that you want what is best for them. And what could be better for a person than to be partaking of the Divine Life in Heaven?

Today must totally be about the single vocation, because God graced this blog post by Seashell Nell in my lap today. Coincidence? I think not.

Batter My Heart

Critical Mass, Lent, Neat Things I Didn't Author

This was the assigned reading for Sunday for my Lenten boot camp. One week in and I’m already falling behind. *sigh* But the point is continual progress. I’m going to fall a lot more, but if I can pick myself up and keep going, then I’m going to count it as a win. 🙂

Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to’another due, 5
Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be loved faine,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie: 10
Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee. — John Donne

I’m not the greatest at poetry. I can read it and find a meaning for myself, but I’m never quite sure if that’s the meaning that the author intended or not. What I take from this is that the narrator (and, by analogy, us) is caught in a passionate, interior struggle between his own corrupt desires, and his desire to enter into the Divine Life. He is begging God to do violence to his deformed heart, to wrest him away from the Evil One.

I love the intensity, the emotion, and the passion of this piece. And I resemble him who “proves weake or untrue” all too often.

Dear Lord, please batter my heart with Your love for me and abduct me away from the one who has me in chains. Break me down and overcome me with the persistence of the ocean waves, until I — your creature who is dust — submits and is formed into your image as the sand submits to the violence of the sea and the ugly disruption of the day’s is washed away, leaving a pristine beach at dawn.

Pristine Beach1

ABCs of Talking to God

Critical Mass, Lent, Prayer/Prayer Requests

Perhaps you will enjoy lots of little posts throughout the day, instead of one big post with a thousand different topics? 🙂 Anyways…

I am trying to be more intentional and more thoughtful about my prayer life and the various spiritual reading that I do. My tendency is to skim through things just to get them done, rather than to ponder them for the spiritual riches they may contain. Then, when I do find something worthwhile, I seldom take the time to write it down, and I eventually forget about it, so all that benefit? Gone.

I received this article, How to Talk to God, as a link in my e-mail yesterday. Her ABCs are to (A) Focus on God, (B) Listen Carefully, and (C) Respond Thoughtfully.

Distractions seem to be my way of life. And then I get distracted from my distraction and everything snowballs until it’s several hours later and I haven’t accomplished a single thing. Frustrating. Sometimes my prayer time is like that too. I know that it’s difficult for me to sit still. It’s physically painful, as well as out-of-the-norm for me. So, I bring things for me to do: rosary, Bible, spiritual reading, lists of people to pray for… But then, I end up going from thing to thing and don’t get solid time to be quiet before the Lord. Granted, it’s still good to spend time in the presence of the Lord, even if you are just — as Father puts it — balancing your checkbook. But so much better if you are actively working on growing in intimacy with Jesus.

Then the listening part. Truly, if you know of a really good way to learn how to listen… I’m… listening? Most of what I’ve heard is to Just. Do. It. Sit before the Lord and be quiet. And eventually good listening skills will come. I am still waiting. Fidgety. May the Blessed Mother help me.

God invites, God gives grace, and then we are to respond. Like, to actually *DO* what He says, not merely to agree that X is a good idea.

Where will *you* seek out God?
Adoration at Vigil
Adoration at Vigil, World Youth Day, Sydney, 2008

Halo

Lent,

Since I’m trying new things this Lent, what better fruit to try than a Halo? 🙂

Halo

And doesn’t it look delicious? Don’t let my ultra-close-up photo fool you — it’s only the size of a stress ball or hacky sack. Which tempts me to use it as a stress ball or hacky sack… or to just toss it around like a baseball. Seriously, I am a danger to spherical food items. 🙂

I am unfamiliar with peeling oranges and the like, so I Googled how to to this. Here is my end result:

Peeled Halo

Not bad, eh? 🙂 They are pretty good! Sweet and juicy and not messy, even after peeling.

And since it’s Lent, and since we are called to help bring others to Christ, I shared my Halo with my co-workers. 🙂

Family Dinner

Lent

Just a quick little post. I ended up being 10 minutes late for Mass, due to Daylight Savings Time. Luckily for me, I only missed part of the first reading, so they must have been running a little late as well.

I got a voicemail from my mom, letting me know that dinner was going to be at 2:30 pm. Since it wasn’t that far off, I just headed over to their house after Mass. We did our grocery shopping together and enjoyed a family dinner. Usually, my parents, brother and I only get together for a meal on holidays, so this was an unusual event. It was a lovely turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, biscuits and asparagus.

I was so tired the entire day — I just kept yawning. After dinner, about 5 pm, I was so exhausted that I was about to fall asleep, so I headed home. I crawled into bed and promptly fell asleep for a 5 hour nap. 🙂

Lent: Day 4

Lent

I made plans to spend part of today at church interceding for needs of the parish; however, my plans went the way of mice and men. I needed to take my car in for an oil change, and was pretty excited about it, as it was finally warm enough that the dealership would run the car through the car wash before giving it back. It’s been so cold for so long, my black car had turned grey with all the salt.

It was a long time at the dealership, over 2 hours. Normally, the waiting room is loud and irritating with the constant drone of the TV, but I just sat there, reading the book I had brought and it ended up passing fairly quickly — I didn’t get irritated at all! Grace of God, right there!

I left and didn’t have enough time for an hour’s worth of intercessory prayer, so I just headed in to work. Stopping first to get some Jimmy John’s, since I was *starving*. But we were a little busy at work, so I didn’t get to eat my lunch until a few hours later. It was delicious, though. Thank you, Jesus, for the sandwich. I really appreciated it.

My Lenten “thing” of the day: Vance and I re-organized my desk at work. We got rid of unnecessary items, rewired things and did a bunch of cord control. We cleaned the cube thoroughly — which it *really* needed — and in the end, there was about twice as much desk space for my cube mate. So, she benefited from the cleaning more than I did.

Clean Cube

Got off work late, got home after 11 pm, had dinner, went to bed. I didn’t do my reading for today, so I’ll catch up on that later in the week.

Random Acts of Graffiti

Lent

Temptation finds you where you least expect it sometimes.

I went to Stations of the Cross after work today. After, I walked back to my car, parked in the small lot by the Day Chapel. While I was sitting there, as the few remaining people left, I saw in front of me the soccer field with it’s pristine blanket of snow.

Suddenly, I knew that I couldn’t leave the snow all perfect and unmolested. But to do something, I’d have to climb over the thigh-high ridge of snow created by the snowplow and wade around in knee-deep snow. Worth it, but I wanted to wait until everyone else left. It’s hard to be the crazy woman sometimes. So, I sat there in my car, lurking in the parking lot — not too much better.

Finally, the parking lot was empty. I had decided to “write” something in the snow with my footprints.

Wouldn’t you know…

I didn’t even get the first letter completed, when FATHER pulls into the parking lot. WHAT?!?! What is he doing here now? I am trying to cause mischief here! So, I walk closer to my car, kinda sorta “hiding” behind it. He goes into the church. Okay. Great. I go to resume my “writing”.

But wait!

He comes back out! Argh! I guess he forgot something in his car. He goes back in. I quickly finish my project. I’m barely able to breathe and in a lot of pain (stupid MELAS), and can’t get back over the ridge to the parking lot without crawling. Then, I’m having trouble breathing and dizzy, so… water. Water sounds great. I walk back into the church, headed for the drinking fountains. I run into Father in the hall, in vestments. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but he goes into the Adoration chapel.

I get my water, go back to my car and head home. It’s still another 30-45 minutes before I can breathe normally, because my exercise tolerance of late is horrible. Once I can breathe, I text Father, “Did you see it?!” He did. (And now can you…)

"Jesus" written in the snow

See? Jesus can make even snow better! 🙂

Lent: Day 2

Critical Mass, Lent

Plan of the Day

It’s already after 5 pm, and I still don’t have a coherent plan for the day. Since we don’t have Bible Study tonight, I think I’ll spend some time in Adoration after work.

Song of the Day

In the middle of the afternoon yesterday, one of the songs that was played at a recent Mass ran through my head, so I attached it to my blog post. Now, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll listen to *at least* one Christian song per day. Not giving up secular music (although I’ve done that before), but adding something that will help me stay focused.
One Way, Jesus by Hillsong is a song that I heard first at a Catechism session at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.  I’m not actually well-versed in a lot of Christian music, so if you have some favorites, please send them my way!

Chastity

In the interest of chastity… I recently helped teach at a Confirmation retreat for 5th graders. I taught on the fruits of the Holy Spirit, of which one of them is Chastity. We usually think of chastity as being chaste with our bodies, meaning that we act appropriate to our state, whether married, religious or single. But chastity also includes being pure in what we do in other ways. I got to exercise that just a minute ago. I have all of the blogs that I follow on a reader, and after reading a friend’s latest post, there’s a link up at the top that I can click on to read the Next Blog. I assumed this meant that I would read the next blog on my list. However, it opened up a post of someone I’ve never read before. That post was really interesting, so I followed it. Feeling good about that little link, I clicked it again. And found myself staring at a nearly naked woman. Aaah! Not what I want to have displayed on my screen at work! Certainly, not anything that I care to look at, either. I quickly clicked off and now resolve to not leave my browsing to random chance. I want to be careful what I take in. Images, words and music which are immoral or amoral can have a real, negative effect on me, and I want to give myself the best possible chance for holiness.

Saints in the Making University

They suggest that we recognize the fact that each one of us has a unique guardian angel assigned to watch over us, and recommends praying to our guardian angel:

Angel of God,
my guardian dear,
To whom God’s love
commits me here,
Ever this day,
be at my side,
To light and guard,
Rule and guide.
Amen.

They have a bunch of other suggestions, including spending at least 10 minutes today in prayer (which I’m already doing, according to Meg‘s Lenten Boot Camp), so check them out, if you haven’t already.

My Day So Far

I prayed the Office of Readings this morning (but not Morning Prayer, because that podcast was broken for some reason).  I managed to call only *one* person a “jerk” on the way to work.  And, to be honest, they didn’t do anything wrong.  But how dare they slow me down while making a right, when I want to get. to. the. intersection??  That was probably a failure in charity, patience AND humility.  Good thing going to Confession is on my list of things to do.  Speaking of things to do…  Getting caught up on my Google Tasks is one of my penances during Lent.  And it’s LONG overdue.  I’m working on finishing up a reading assignment that I put on my To-Do list in 2011.  It’s a commentary on Philippians, in case you were interested.  I brought the book with me to work and have only read about 2-3 pages of it so far.  I have 26 pages to go.  But I keep distracting myself.  I am my own worst enemy.

My Plans for the Rest of the Evening

I will go for Adoration after work; read Joel 2:12-17, Psalms 5-8, and Genesis 3; pray a decade of the Rosary; observe 10 minutes of silence; go home; clean out the linen closet (I’ve NEVER done this, so I’m choosing it as my penance-of-the-day); do a load of laundry and put it away; and finish up a blog post for tomorrow.

Ash Wednesday 2014

Lent

For as much as I blog, I have always been really bad about keeping a prayer (or otherwise) journal. I’ve been encouraged by my priest, my spiritual director and others to do this, but it’s always been a weak area for me. Perhaps in chronicling these days of Lent here, I will learn to make a daily examen and be more committed to journaling my experiences. I think if I can have an honest look at myself and where I fail and where I am strong as regards my relationship with Christ, I will be better able to see where I need to make changes.

One of my biggest downfalls so far? I don’t have a plan (not for Lent, but in general). I kind of do things ad hoc and by whim and there’s no consistency. I will start with these daily entries. Perhaps I won’t be able to pray at a consistent time… YET … but I have hope that I can grow. Baby steps, right?

I started the morning praying the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer as I was driving to church. There was a lot of traffic. It frustrated me. So I was continually periodically thinking uncharitable thoughts about the other drivers around me and about the situation in general. And immediately, I’d recognize my lack of charity and apologize to God. Rinse. Repeat. Not a very glamorous start to Lent, but an honest one. I arrived at church a little late — just as the homily was beginning. The church was packed. They had bused the kids over for an All School Mass. The children’s choir sung and it was lovely.

All School Mass, 9am, OLGC

I received my ashes, but not from Fr. Anonymous (because I was late, I was in a back corner by the cry room), which is probably a good thing. 🙂 We have a joke about ashes, that he would put a big L on my forehead instead of a cross, and I’d hear “You’re a loser and you won’t amount to anything,” in the place of “Repent and believe the Gospel”. (For anyone who may be concerned, (a) we’re friends and (b) I don’t think he’d actually do it.) On the other hand, it doesn’t look like I’ve received a cross, either. It more looks like a Rorschach inkblot. Here. What do you think it is?

Ashed!

When I got to work, I received my first ever, “Hey, you have something on your forehead!” comment. 🙂 I’m a little surprised that I haven’t received one before.

I had signed up for several different text/e-mail bots that would send me suggestions for things to do/give up/take on for Lent each day. One of them, 40 Acts, suggested that I start a journal. Ahead of the game! 🙂 They also suggested that I take a picture of said journal and post it on Instagram, etc. Done!

Today's first task is to make a journal for Lent. #40acts

Saints in the Making University also has a Lenten program. They note that if we are sincerely making an effort to become holier this Lent, we should expect some opposition from the Evil One. Therefore, we should keep the prayer to St. Michael on our lips:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

SIMU also suggests that we read 1 Cor 13:4-8, replacing “Love” with our own name. E.g. Jenn is patient; Jenn is kind… How does saying that passage with you as the subject make you feel? Are you living up to that?

They also have a great suggestion to help us stay on track this Lent:

Say this simple prayer: “Lord, I offer up the sacrifices and sufferings of this day for……” Pick any soul…lost sheep, family, friends, enemies, strangers, souls in purgatory…anybody. When you get busy and distracted just remember, other souls are counting on you. You have the power to help get souls to heaven….don’t waste it. You may offer up your days for whomever you please, however, I strongly encourage you to offer up each day of this challenge for “disengaged Catholics” or “lost sheep”. Let’s bring them home.

I typically request Fr. Anonymous to give me the names of some people to pray for during Lent (this year, just one person). I offer up my Lent for them, and knowing that what I am doing is helping someone else has been a great motivator.

Perhaps I’m just hungry, but as I’m praying my Psalms for the day, this one stood out for me: Psalm 4:8

But you have given my heart more joy than they have when grain and wine abound.

God is everything. Through good times and bad; plentiful and lean. He loves us, He has firm hold of us, and He isn’t letting go.

I’d like to say I ended Ash Wednesday by doing the Liturgy of the Hours or something like that, but what really happened is that I had dinner and went right to bed. I did try to pray, but praying in bed mostly looks like falling asleep.

I’ll leave you with the song that was in my mind today:
Mighty to Save

Self-Pruning

Blogging and Blog Friends, Lent
bonsai

Lent is coming up quickly! Today, Mardi Gras (one of my favorite celebration days), and BAM! Ash Wednesday!

This morning, I was browsing through the interwebs as I normally do: e-mail, Facebook, etc., and came across a new blog post by one of my friends, Shauna, where she talks about her plan for personal growth during Lent. She talks about how many people desire external things to change, but rarely seek to facilitate the change they want internally.

Another friend of mine, Ryan, likes to grow bonsai. It made me think of the care, persistence, vision and continual revision that is necessary for a good result. You first need to evaluate the plant as it is to see what you have to work with. Then, you need a vision of what you would like the plant to look like, both in the long-term, as well as changes that can be made in a short amount of time. Then is the work of daily diligence, where you apply tools and helps to encourage the plant to grow according to your vision. And there must always be times for evaluation — to see how well your plans are going and to change the course if necessary.

We are much the same way. We all want to be great, to do great things and to be good people. But — honestly — how many of us put in that due diligence to make it happen?

The goal of Lent is to come out of it looking more like Christ than when we started. So we have a vision, of sorts. We need to personalize it so that it reflects how *I* and how *you* will look more like Christ at the end. Then, we need a plan. Hopefully, you’ve been praying about what you might want to prune away from yourself during these grace-filled days. If not, there’s no better time than now to start!

As we go through Lent, carve away some time during your day or week where you can do something of an Examen — an evaluation of how you are doing regarding your plans and your vision for yourself and make adjustments as needed.

For me, one of the things I will be doing is joining Shauna in her 40 Days of Change. I will attempt to do one thing each day that I rarely/never do which will help me in growing closer in conformity to Christ. And I will (try to!) blog about this each day. 🙂 With God’s grace, I will be successful in pruning undesirable aspects of myself and promoting the growth of that which is good and beautiful.

Please walk with me during this process. Encouragement is always needed and so much appreciated!

God Bless!