A Devotional Meme…

CJ’s blog had this meme on it, with an invitation to play… it was more intriguing to me than any others I’ve seen, so I took her up on it…

1. Favorite devotion or prayer to Jesus?

The Anima Christi and The Universal Prayer.

2. Favorite Marian devotion or prayer?

Hail Holy Queen followed by The Offertory

3. Do you wear a scapular or medal?

No.

4. Do you have holy water in your home?

Yes, in holy water fonts and bottles for filling them.

5. Do you ‘offer up’ your sufferings?

Yes.

6. Do you observe First Fridays and First Saturdays?

No.

7. Do you go to Eucharistic Adoration?

Yes.

8. Are you a Saturday evening Mass person or Sunday morning Mass person?

Saturday evening, 5:00 regular.

9. Do you say prayers at mealtime?

Yes, and over snacks too.

10. Favorite Saint(s)?

Blessed Imelda Lambertini; JPII; Mother Theresa; among others.

11. Can you recite the Apostle’s Creed by heart?

No, but I’m working on it. (Grew up Baptist.)

12. Do you usually say short prayers (aspirations) during the course of the day?

I wouldn’t say usually, but often yes.

13. Bonus Question: When you pass by an automobile accident or other serious mishap, do you say a quick prayer for the folks involved?

Yes, I do… and for the EMT’s etc who are/will be caring for them.

It is Jesus…

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

~Pope John Paul II

Merry Christmas!

I am on my way to Christmas Eve Mass, my first since I was received into the Church, and wanted to say a quick Merry Christmas to you all.  Regardless of whether or not you will be attending a Christmas Mass of your own, or celebrating some other way, I will be lifting up prayers of thanks for you at mine and asking for God’s blessing upon each one of you.

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Lord, in this holy season of prayer and song and laughter, we praise you for the great wonders you have sent us: for shining star and angel’s song, for infant’s cry in lowly manger. We praise you for the Word made flesh in a little Child. We behold his glory, and are bathed in its radiance.

Be with us as we sing the ironies of Christmas, the incomprehensible comprehended, the poetry made hard fact, the helpless Babe who cracks the world asunder. We kneel before you shepherds, innkeepers, wisemen. Help us to rise bigger than we are. Amen.

Spiritual Directors…

As I told Father Tim Finigan in response to his comment on an earlier post, I’m beginning to understand the desire for the Catholic practice of having a spiritual director.  When I first heard someone mention their spiritual director, my ears perked up… ‘your what?’  I must admit that I was skeptical at the time. Ok, that’s putting it nicely. Seriously though, that’s a lot of trust to place in someone. I couldn’t imagine ever trusting someone to ‘direct’ my spiritual life, and yet, there was an appeal… which I squished. What can I say, I was a new convert…

Time passed, I learned that many things I once said ‘uh uh, no way’ about were really huge blessings (the rosary for example) and I ran across books which piqued my interest by Thomas DuBay.  Seeking Spiritual Direction: How to Grow the Divine Life Within and Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer among others. Besides my own… reticence… I recognized the difficulty of finding an appropriate director and could see how I had a companion (and more now) on the journey who were somewhat described in the first book.

More time passed, and here I find myself tackling some things.  The continued desire to implement the Liturgy of the Hours more fully into my day. The nagging thought that daily Mass really would be a good thing to do, even if it IS at 7 am. A real understanding that my assessment of myself isn’t always accurate and sometimes the objective assessment is a real blessing. Enter Father Finigan’s comment, the thought that a spiritual director has great wisom to offer, clearer insight, and the growing desire for a spiritual director finally breaks through the subconscious.

Which of course, brings me back to the ‘real difficulty of finding an appropriate spiritual director’ thing. **sigh** The Lord doesn’t give us a desire that He doesn’t have an answered prepared for, so if He desires this for me, I trust He’ll provide one. In the meantime, I must be patient and wait upon the Lord… and that will be spiritual exercise aplenty.

Excommunication…

We’ve tackled this topic on the forums ad nausem.  It’s tedious, but boy did I get excited browsing my Catholic blog links this evening.  One blog I have saved as a resource is In the Light of the Law  by Edward N. Peters, JD, JCD… basically it’s a blog on canon law. He has a new book out on excommunication called Excommunication and the Catholic Church.  ANYWAY, Ignatius did an interview with him and I found some of his answers both familiar and interesting.

IgnatiusInsight.com: And the most common misperceptions?

Peters: I’d say there are two, maybe three.

First, there is the idea that excommunication kicks one out of the Church. That is not right. There are ways to cancel one’s Church membership, but excommunication isn’t one of them. The analogy I use to explain it is that of a felon serving a long prison term; he’s in prison, but he remains a citizen bound by the laws of his country. If he, say, owns property upon which he incurs taxes while in prison, he still owns the property and is still liable for the tax from prison; if he commits a crime in prison, he can be prosecuted for it, and so on. A felon loses certain important rights, obviously, like freedom of movement and the right to vote, but he is still a citizen. Similarly, an excommunicated person is still a member of the Church, but he or she has lost certain key rights attached to Church membership and is cut off from many of the activities and benefits of the Church.

The second misconception is that people who die excommunicated go to hell. Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t, but we don’t know with certainty either way. In any case, the Church does not claim to exercise jurisdiction over the dead, and one’s final fate is determined by God based on the life one leads. Of course, appearing before God for judgment in the state of excommunication from His Church on earth is not a good thing.

The third misconception is sort of complicated. Still want it?

I am the vine…

When I was ‘growing up protestant’, scripture verses were something which became as familiar as breath.  Various verses stood out particularly to me over time, and one of those verses was John 15:5.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

This is a verse that caused a great deal of frustration and doubt for me.  My father is very active in teaching in his church, and outside of it.  He’s led Bible studies in a prison ministry, Sunday school classes, private Bible studies in homes, worked Kairos and Walk to Emmaus Weekends. He’s impacted a lot of people for the Lord.  My eldest brother was a missionary for seven years behind the iron curtain (before it fell). Big shoes to follow in… and this verse was often referred to in such a context. 

I never liked the whole ’street corner/tract/accost people’ type of evangelism, and it seemed to me to do more damage than good. In study of scripture, it didn’t seem to be what we were told to do anyway. Witness meant LIVING it, not TALKING about it. So despite my strong conviction about living my faith as my witness and using words only when necessary to share it, which I did my best to do, this verse haunted me. Despite every effort I made to ‘remain in him’, despite every effort to be and do what God wanted from me… I bore no fruit. I wasn’t ‘reaching anyone’ like these members of my family were… and for sure no one every ‘came to Christ’ because of me.  I couldn’t help but feel like that was an indicator that something wasn’t right, that somehow I was failing God, I wasn’t a good enough believer, a good enough follower… and so it went.

Then God made me Catholic, and I didn’t think about winning anyone to Him anymore, I just wanted to sit at His feet and learn, absorb all that I had been cheated of, and incorporate the devotions etc into my life that would help me to love Him, know Him, and serve Him better. It was just enough to be His… enough to live my life in service to Him, even if I was never good enough to be of any real use… I’d give what I had and it was a joy to do what He had called me to do.  I was excited to share what I was learning and discovering, but that was it… and in doing so I had come to understand that reaching others wasn’t my job. It never had been.  That was the Holy Spirit’s job and it was a relief to stop trying to be good enough to do it myself.   

I understood, accepted, believed that in my head… but the teaching of one’s youth is not easily to rise above… even when it was in error. Then today, my paradigm shifted… again…

Today, on the Spitfire Grill, someone posted saying that “The Journey Home”, currently playing on EWTN, had a woman on with an experience very similar to ours.   Her name is Carol A. Fletcher, a former charismatic pentecostal.  It was an excellent testimony to her journey and many things stood out to me, but one thing stopped me cold and I had to turn off the audio feed to process it.

John 15:5 was mentioned and the ‘fruit’ discussed… but it wasn’t about winning souls.  As I realized they were talking about a familiar verse, but in an unfamiliar way, I listened closer and suddenly it hit me like that proverbial two-by-four and I turned off the audio feed as tears welled up and flowed down my cheeks. This ‘fruit’ that had tormented me for so long wasn’t the ‘fruit’ of winning of souls at ALL… it is the fruit of the SPIRIT! All this time I had been judging myself so harshly, and not even by the right standard (ok, so I had been judging myself by the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ verse too, but you see what I mean). It took me awhile, sitting there in shock, allowing that understanding to seep in, and felt a big burden I hadn’t even realized was still there, lift and fall away.

I’ve come so far, have learned so much and yet, I know nothing. I am still a child and have so much yet to learn. I am so grateful for the great blessing and gift of a faith filled upbringing.  I owe much to my father for such a great gift… he gave me the most precious thing he had to give… faith… I would not be here were it not for him, for that foundation, for the things he taught me, for teaching me to always hunger for everything of God.  Were it not for him, and the leading of God, I would not be here… and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world.

After Confession…

I don’t know why, but lately after confession I feel so much more aware of just how sinful I am.  Not that I don’t have peace from the absolution… I do… but it’s followed by such an intense mourning over my sinful nature and how very many ways I fail God each day. Yesterday, I listed a few things and then just was overcome and said, ’so many things Father, so many things…’  I felt bad for not elaborating further, he waited, but I just couldn’t express it.

Communal Life… Communal Penance…

In a recent post to the Spitfire Grill, I shared something that had come to me a few months ago when meditating on why God called me into the Catholic Church and not any other member of my family (so far, that I know of). 

There was a time earlier in my conversion when I was thinking ‘why me?’  I mean, why not anyone else in my family.  I’m the youngest, and definitely the least ’spiritual’ I guess you could say, of them all.  The thought also occurs that it probably isn’t anything special about ME per se.  Not only that but thinking about how much I wished that I could share what I’ve found with my family… and knowing that wasn’t possible. 

I don’t remember how the thought process segued but I ended up thinking about the people of Israel and God’s dealings with them.  In the scriptures, when God talks about Israel being taken into bondage, and then brought back out four hundred years later, He talks about them as though they are the SAME people.  He considers His promise to bring them back as fulfilled, even though the generation who was taken captive died long ago, even though generations have died during the captivity.  He doesn’t see them, or always deal with them, individually.  He deals with them COMMUNALLY.  He says His people have been brought home, and so they have. 

At the time, that was a rather revolutionary concept for me to understand.  It did give me a measure of comfort though, to think that however long ago my family broke away from God’s Church militant  and the Authority He placed over us, in some small way my family had come home, or begun to come home, in me and my children.

Since then, I’ve been learning a lot more about the communal life of the Body of Christ.  As gracious as He is to us individually, it really isn’t about us individually.

As a former protestant, I was intimately familiar with the individual aspect of faith in an imperfect form. As a Catholic, that individual aspect has been re-formed into a more ancient, more perfect form.  A form that helps me to be better at the individual aspect of the faith.  However, God has been teaching me more and more about the communal aspect of the faith… something I very much needed in order to have a more balanced and accurate perspective of the life of faith.  I find that balance very hard to maintain as I tend to be such a selfish, self centered person. I do not find that focusing on the communal causes me to neglect or sacrifice the individual. Rather, focusing on the communal helps me to keep the individual in it’s proper place and aids me in self discipline and sacrifice. 

Tonight we had our Advent communal penance Mass at Church.  It began very like a normal Mass, but the altar candles remained dark as we did not celebrate the Eucharist.  Having progressed through the readings, and prayed a common confiteor, our priest explained the procedure for individual confessions. 

He had two priests assisting, so they were spaced at three of the four corners of the sanctuary. At the front of the Church, there was a small table with a lit Christ candle on it which was surrounded by very small red candles which were unlit. Father turned on music, to assist us in prayer and to help maintain the privacy of the confessional in the open room. After we went to confession, we were to light one of the small candles and return to our pew to pray. After everyone had been to confession and candles were lit, we knelt or sat quietly and prayed.

I was done fairly quickly, as I tend to sit near the front of the Church and the priest I preferred was up in that corner by the baptismal font. Having lit my candle I knelt to pray and wait for my children to finish.  Slowly, one by one the individual candles were lit from the Christ candle. Slowly, as each soul was cleansed, the light spread and grew.

As the last parishioner lit their candle and sat, our priest, the last still hearing confessions, came down to sit by one of the other priests.  He leaned close and I thought he was just speaking to his brother priest while waiting for us to finish.  However, when the priest nodded and completed the absolution and blessing over him, I realized that our priest too had made his confession.  Rising, he lit the last small candle and the beauty of this service broke over me.  This man, our priest, our brother… the completeness of our communal penance made more perfect by his joining us in the sacrament. This small portion of the Body of Christ come together to purify itself during Advent, to prepare the way of the Lord as best we could in obedience to Him.

It struck me deeply, the beauty of this communal act.  The humility and brokenness of each penitent, admitting before each other and God their sins.  The mercy, comfort, and forgiveness evident in the welcoming smile of each priest. The indescribable blessing that comes with the hands upon your head as absolution is given, the burden lifted. A new beginning, ours once again.