Faith
Examination of Conscience
Last month, my son received his first confession. As he was preparing to receive the Sacrament again last weekend, I sat down for a few minutes to help him do his examination of conscience.
We printed out a helpful sheet to guide our discussion. It contained the common errors that kids make, all of them rather pedestrian. As we went, line by line, I’d read out the sin, and ask if he committed it in the previous month. Each question brought a new contortion to his face. I could feel his discomfort.
My examinations require far less work and recall. I carry my mistakes with me, always near top of mind. I replay the scenarios, recall the poor decision-making, and let them be a burden. That is what Reconciliation is, a release. A forgiveness that gives us permission to set down that burden and endeavor to live our lives in freedom.
I attempted to assuage him as he felt his sins, but I also recognized that gift that it was. He wasn’t burdened by his mistakes, although he surely felt their impact. He was experiencing a conscience properly functioning. His conscience a discernible plumb line, and he knew that he’d gone out of bounds.
He has many mistakes ahead of him, but if he can stay close to the Sacraments and maintain that clear conscience, perhaps his sins will stay pedestrian.
A Sense of the Sacred
A few years ago, I watched a documentary about the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. They followed the historic rise and fall of the population, along with the complexity of adjudicating cases of those sworn to defeat the United States of America as an experiment in human history. Although I can’t tell you much beyond the scope of the documentary, I vividly recall the coverage of religious life in the facility.
There is a librarian who stores and distributes copies of the Koran. Each copy, a bound book, is kept within linen cloth. When ready to be prayed, they unwrap the book, and when the study is complete, it’s re-wrapped. To these men, the Koran is a sacred book, and they approach it as being personally handed to them by their Creator.
We’ve clearly lost this sense of the sacred. Our behavior at Mass, our attitude towards prayer, and even the way we treat the numerous Bibles and sacramentals in our household reflect this. In a way, that’s good. It means they are ordinary and expected things, they are things that make up the tapestry of our homes. But in another sense, it’s sad that we’ve brought them to a lower place in our consciousness.
There is no doubt that Catholicism possesses the best theology and liturgical life, but that doesn’t mean that we live our faith the best. We could learn a thing or two about how Muslims approach the Koran, the courage of LDS missionaries taking two years off to knock on strangers doors, or how the Baptists are always first on scene in a natural disaster.
A sense of the sacred, a sense of mission that pushes us beyond the staid confines of our pews and closer to the fruitful life God envisions for each of us.
Never Wasted
Starting or growing a habit of prayer can seem like a big lift. We first have to restructure our day to meet our new objective, and then we have to maintain the momentum each day. The biggest challenge comes when there’s disruption. Like any diet or exercise routine, vacations or illness can throw a wrench into our finely tuned machine and cause us to feel discouraged.
Prayer is a relationship, not a zero-sum game. It’s a conversation, one without beginning or end. The solid relationships in our lives aren’t things on our to-do lists, and they’re rarely quality spot-checked. Instead, they take on a character of life, requiring daily attention and not always going perfectly.
Lent is a time when we’re reminded of the importance of prayer in our lives. We need it for our healthy growth, and to remain focused on our core identity as a child of God, in the midst of the chaos of the world. Whether you’re in a good routine or starting all over, remember that time in prayer is never wasted.
13 Cents
Lent is upon us, this year’s opportunity for us to take a fresh look at our spiritual life. As our thoughts turn to what we’re going to take on or give up for the next 40 days, they’re also likely to turn back to our character flaws. We are all predisposed to a unique mix of temptation and sin, the ones that come up in confession after confession. Although this constant battle can wear us down, Lent reminds us that the war is already won.
For many years, I dealt with a low-grade discomfort from my stomach. What turned out to be un-diagnosed acid reflux would manifest itself regularly. I wasn’t aware of the symptoms and thought it was normal digestion until Alison pointed out the symptoms that matched my experience. I worked my way up the treatment ladder from Tums to Prilosec OTC. Things got worse as I adapted to the keto diet, and I’m now on a daily dose of Prilosec. A single $0.13 pill, once a day, for a dime and three pennies, and I’m symptom-free.
The beginning of Lent tends to fire us up, much like New Year, and we set ambitious plans for ourselves. But unfortunately, by the time we reach the finished line of the Easter Triduum, many of those plans are left unfulfilled. In years past, I set out to overcome my greatest sin. On this blog, I encouraged you to do the same. But hearing the starting gun of Ash Wednesday and trying to quit that sin is like walking up to a Marathon and expecting to run the whole thing without a mile of training.
Our failures in Lents past may come from our obsessive focus on the sin itself. We don’t have to beat sin or conquer sin; Jesus has done that already. All we have to do is to reassert that victory daily. We do this not by just rejecting sin or by avoiding temptation. Those are two vital components. Instead, our first step is to accept the grace and mercy of a God who loves us by implementing a robust prayer life. Prayer is the low-cost, easy to take preventative medicine that stops the symptoms of temptation before it starts. It strengths us for the journey.
A complete prayer life isn’t measured by minutes prayed, but frequency and consistency. It’s not enough to sit in silence for an hour at the beginning of the day and check it off of our to-do list. The saints tell us to pray without ceasing, which they mean every day throughout our day. We need the grace and strength that prayer confers every day.
The Church instructs us to pray as we are able. That leaves the responsibility to each of us to craft a prayer plan and develop a prayer habit that leads us closer to the heart of God.
Prayer is communication within the most intimate relationship we share, that of the creator and created. We go throughout our day calling, texting, and talking with those we love most without script or agenda. That’s the kind of relationship we should have with God through prayer.
A vibrant prayer life finds us praying in different ways throughout our day, always keeping a connection with God and with our identity as His child.
A well-lived life requires Scripture and Tradition, faith and works. We will never prevail in our struggle against sin if we focus on the sin itself. Instead, we first draw strength from prayer, and then we’re prepared to contend with and subjugate temptation.
Icy Slopes
I went skiing for the first time in my life last week. We started discussing a trip in July and firmed up later in the fall. I spent a lot of time thinking about the trip’s logistics and surprisingly little on the mechanics of learning this new skill.
As one can imagine, the critical skill is braking. While beginner trails are wide and calm, they are cut through woods. There are trees, light poles, and other skiers to avoid. Our trip in mid-February put us in the dead of winter, so it was very, very cold.
On the night before leaving, Alison and I had a ski date after putting the kids to bed. With grandparents in place watching over the house, we made five runs in an hour. The temperature had not changed much since sunset, and ice was already covering most trails. After dark, however, the ice reigned.
Cutting large S-curves into the trail is fun, but as you master your basic skills, there are many times when you take too long to start a turn or brake. As your speed increases, you become unstable, and falls can occur. On the ice, the problem magnifies. The skis accelerate as one smooth surface glides over the other, and the skier has few options.
Sometimes, I chose to fall. Better to engineer a soft landing than to careen over an embankment or slam into a snow machine. Other times, I panicked for a moment before reaching into my pilot skills to put my head back on straight. Knowing how to fly an airplane imparts many valuable skills. When panic is subjugated, and fundamentals asserted, braking is successful.
Our nature and weakness largely shape the mistakes we make in our spiritual life. Skipping one day of prayer because you overslept or were on vacation may seem like a small matter. But temptation is always like ice. It’s smooth, slippery, and sometimes hard to spot; it wants to guide you quickly and helplessly into sin. We know our weak spots, we know our blind spots, but vigilance is exhausting.
Sure enough, if we fail to maintain our speed and brake appropriately, the ice of temptation takes control of our skis and drags us to a destination that we’d prefer to avoid. But, if we don’t panic and keep our head on straight, regaining control is as simple as falling back on the fundamentals: brake, pray, and steer clear.
Detailing
Our vacation plan for this year included a trip to the Great White North to enjoy a week of snow, play, and skiing. Driving north, the landscape turned from winter browns to gleaming white. Unfortunately, flurries and snowstorms met us along the way, as well as road salt and ice.
Upon arrival, the car was filthy. Two days of toys, food crumbs, and wrappers littered the floor, and the road dirt caked on the truck’s body panels. I took it in for a half-day detailing this morning, and at lunchtime, it was spotless.
It killed me to drive out of the detailing bay and know that it has to make it all through the week and back home. Again, the same ice, dirt, and trash will return, only this time I’ll have to clean it. I desired to keep it as clean as possible, but I knew it was a fool’s errand. As soon as I pulled out of the clean bay and on the dirty road, the cycle repeated.
Next week, Benedict will take the next step in his faith journey, making his First Reconciliation. He’s excitedly engaged in our many discussions and teachable moments and is wrapped in a great sense of anticipation to receive his next Sacrament.
Reconciliation is that detailing, a thorough cleaning that returns us to Baptismal purity. The white garment that we pledged to keep clean for the banquet of the lamb, restored to its original state. As soon as we walk out of the Church, temptation awaits. Try as we might, we will pick up dirt and trash as we go through life.
I can take the car in to get detailed whenever I want, just like the Sacrament of Reconciliation is ready for us on demand. We can get back to that brilliant shine at any time and move through our day with our heads held high and the pride of a well-maintained soul. But to do so, we must first choose to embrace the process of detailing.
Preparations
I love to drive. Each year, our family takes two or three major road trips. These are highlights of my year, even if occasionally the kids don’t travel as easily as I wish they would. Although our destinations are often places we’ve been before, it takes weeks of preparations to be ready to go.
For each trip, we typically need to add a few more items to our travel supplies. Winter clothes, a cargo box, or even just a few nicknacks find their way to our house in cardboard boxes on the backs of delivery vans. It’s always my assumption that each subsequent trip will require fewer new supplies, but I’m still waiting for that theory to prove itself out.
It doesn’t take us long to pack. In fact, we’re pretty good now at bringing the right mix of clothing, packed to perfection in our travel bags. What takes the most time is thinking through the trip and ensuring that we have the right supplies. Of course, there’s always the need to add appropriately sized kids clothing to the mix, and that can be a cycle of orders and returns, ensuring a good fit.
Weeks of preparation give way to a smooth trip on which we have everything that we need. I anticipate each passenger’s needs and do my best to meet them. It makes even long road trips enjoyable experiences.
Each of us are on a journey that requires equal, if not more, preparation. The path to sainthood is both a path and the work of a lifetime. But in January, I’m not spending much time planning our vacation in November. The allure of putting off our spiritual preparations is strong.
Our desire to procrastinate is itself a paradox. If we put off our spiritual preparations, we may be too late. At the same time, if we do the small work today of cultivating a rich spiritual life, our journey to sainthood would be much more enjoyable. A life well lived in accordance with God’s Law is much sweeter than a life mired in sin and darkness.
Advent is four weeks behind us and Lent is still six weeks ahead of us. These two seasons remind us to prepare, but the work happens every day. We have to overcome the resistance that tells us that we have time. If we’ve learned anything in our world of uncertainty, time is anything but assured.
Love So Deep
The bright Christmas lights that lit homes in my neighborhood since Thanksgiving have gone dark. For my neighbors, Christmas ended at bedtime on Saturday. Not so for my house. Our Christmas lights shine forth in the December darkness, and the Nativity in our yard continues to cast a massive shadow on our garage.
This Christmas season has just begun, a mystery so great that a single day cannot contain it. It’s not just that Christ became Emmanuel, God with us, but how and why He did it.
Our life is but a breath, we read in Scripture. 70, 80, or 90 years is a blink of an eye in the scope of history. Our impacts are small; reaching a few thousand people in our lifetime and perhaps building a family tree in the hundreds. Yet, despite our smallness, God gave up everything to come and save us. He descended from His throne, the place of total power and knowledge, to take on our humanity, our weakness. He chose this path and this time for a reason.
He chose to be born in ancient times. It was a time of great discomfort when compared to our modern comforts. It was a time when news travelled slowly, a far cry from our 24-hour news cycle. It was a time of harshness, of evil, and brutal governments.
But He chose. He chose it to come and to save you and me. He chose it out of a love so great and so deep that we have no reference for it. He chose it so that we could choose to accept it, and be together forever. His choice reached its fulfillment on Easter morning, but it was a process that started with Mary’s simple fiat.
The joy of the season is now here after weeks of preparation. Leave your lights on and your tree up. Don’t put away your Christmas dishes and decorations. Leave them up and relish the joy of a love that gave up everything just to be with you forever.
Now
In some ways, I think that we like the busyness of life. Sure, everyone complains and uses it as an excuse or justification. I deserve this break because I work so hard, I can’t come to the party because I’m too busy. There are plenty of things to fill our days, but I think we might be using these excuses to let the pitch pass us by.
Advent is quickly winding down. In just a few days, the Nativity of Our Lord will be here, a season of joy and celebration. How well did you use Advent? What new insights did you gain by reflecting on the true meaning of the season? What positive steps have you taken to make straight the paths of the Lord?
Answers to these questions can be an indictment against us. After all, each time we go to Confession, we’re likely able to confess not dedicating enough time each day to prayer. But here again is another trap. It’s a trap to not be reflective, to not pray. It’s also a trap to despair or let it be cause for our prayer life to continue on in neglect.
The point is that living a moral, holy, and saintly life is not easy. That’s why we have grace, the Church, and the Sacraments. Not only do we have access to them, but we desperately need them. The objective is not to live a perfect life, that’s an unattainable goal. The objective is to live a saintly life. Ordinary men and women of all backgrounds, overcoming their human nature and striving for holiness despite their failings. That is the life we’re meant to live.
The best time to live a saintly life was yesterday. The best time to reflect, amend, and convert your heart was yesterday. The second-best time is now.
Make Straight Paths
Advent is like happy Lent. Both seasons are penitential, and both invite us to prepare our hearts for the two seminal moments of the Church year. Yet, we’re always more excited about Advent. Christmas is the long-promised arrival of the Savior, but Easter is Christ’s victory over death and the opening of our salvation.
Despite the seasonal similarities, most of us treat Lent like Catholic New Year’s Resolutions and Advent as an afterthought. We race from Thanksgiving to Christmas with only four candles standing in our way. It’s a naturally busy time, with things winding down at the end of the year. It’s an opportunity to slow down, again, and prepare our hearts for our ultimate goal.
Ancient peoples often settled on the banks of rivers. The waters ensured that people, crops, and livestock could flourish. Water is life. Rivers seldom flow straight. Instead, they cut meandering paths through the countryside. As these peoples travelled from town to town, their journey on foot took time. Today, we’ve conquered these natural obstacles with roads, bridges, train tracks, and airplanes. We’ve mastered the geometric truth that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
In the journey of our lives, we aspire to walk a straight path. We want to travel from where we are, directly to the joy of Heaven. Daily, even hourly, we deviate. As we look in the rearview mirror, a long and winding road comes into view. There are the times when we dedicated ourselves to prayer and virtue, and times when we strayed. Looking forward, we see the path before us, but don’t always choose to follow it.
The prophets tell us to make straight the paths of the Lord, to focus on Him and move directly towards Him. God knows us and knows our hearts. He doesn’t expect perfection. He patiently anticipates failures and deviation. That’s why He gave us the Church and the Sacraments. These mile markers and road signs guide us back to where we want to go.
Advent is the second check-in of the year to get us back on the straight path. It’s another chance to confess our failures, seek the forgiveness of God, and to return to the path that is the shortest distance between where we are now and life forever with God in Heaven.