Faith
A Prepared Heart
Advent is here, that most joyous of seasons. In my neighborhood, everyone put up their Christmas lights on Thanksgiving afternoon, at least those who hadn’t done so by November 1st. There’s plenty to love about December and the festivities that mark the end of our year.
The Church offers us two seasons of preparation each year. While Lent in particular may feel glum, I see the wisdom. Advent and Lent prepare the way for the two biggest celebration of the year. Indeed, they prepare our hearts to celebrate the two seminal events in human history: God made man, and God surrendering Himself for our salvation.
We live in a hurried culture that praises busyness and productivity. December is the month on the calendar that really encourages hyperactivity. In the midst of the parties, end of year sales, and trying to close out big projects at work, the Church invites us to slow down.
Advent, like Lent, is a season of reflection. It’s an earthly purgatory. We wait outside the gates of the Heavenly banquet, purifying and preparing ourselves for the awesome reality that exists on the other side. It’s an opportunity to go deeper into your prayer life, to endeavor again to overcome the biggest sin-habit in your life. It’s a time of preparation for the moment on Christmas morning when you approach the manger to see the Christ-child incarnate.
A prepared heart is attuned to the moment. It listens to the message of the Liturgy of the Word. It follows the breadcrumbs, so carefully laid out, leading it deeper into the joy of Christmas. It takes the time to step back from daily life, to focus on its spiritual health, and to recognize the mystery that we are about to celebrate. Give yourself and Jesus the gift of a prepared heart this Christmas.
Thankful for What
It’s been a year. 2020 ushered in a new decade and along with it so much hope. As we’ve slugged out the past eleven months, it may be hard to find things for which we can be grateful. Our Churches are closed or mostly empty. We’ve been subject to virtual house arrest, fearing a virus and locked down by our governments. In the midst of it all, a national election brought into key positions of power people who have an ideology that’s hostile to our faith.
A grateful heart is a beautiful thing. A grateful heart acknowledges the hardships of our days, but has the vision to see that for which we can give praise. While our parishes may be mostly empty, we have access to the sacraments. We have no fear of being thrown into the lion’s den. Isn’t that great? Our entrepreneurs in the pharmaceutical sector pioneered vaccines for a novel virus with an impressive efficacy. Our time stuck at home has brought families closer together.
Many of us are trying to quickly turn the corner on 2020 and leave it behind. While that’s an understandable sentiment, 2021 may not be much better. Who’s to say whether it will be another year of drudgery or a year more like 2019?
In misery and joy, in dread and happiness, we should always seek to have a grateful heart. No matter how trying this year has been, no matter the sadness we’ve endured, we can be thankful for the many gifts and graces God has given to us.
Pandemic Confession
I’ve made no secret that I’m a frequent recipient of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Once or twice a month, I leave my house on a Saturday afternoon to renew myself. Despite years of this spiritual practice, I still find myself in need of a regular spiritual tune-up. I’m grateful to have a confessor locally who is both patient and gentle with me. This year, as with everything, things have been different.
In the first few months of the shutdowns, I wasn’t able to receive the Sacrament at all. The Church doors were locked and all scheduled Sacraments canceled. I’m sure that I could’ve scheduled an appointment, but the grace of anonymity is among the greatest that the Sacrament bestows, aside from forgiveness, of course. In those early weeks, I was very disciplined spiritually. I was locked in and focused. My need for Reconciliation was less intense. Knowing that the Sacrament wasn’t so easily attained, I found it easier to do the right thing.
When the Churches first reopened, I went to Confession outside. The priest and I sat outside in the Church courtyard. We sat at opposite ends of a folding table and a line of people stood nearby. I’d be okay never having that experience again.
As the reality of how delicate life truly is set in, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering how well I’m living the life that I profess. I’ve considered my track record within my vocation and as a father. Without the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I could never rise to this high calling. My shortcomings would prevent me from living as the person, husband, and father that God has called me to be.
There are many lessons that we will each take from 2020 and this experience. I hope that one of those life changes that I walk away with is a greater sense of humility. Without God, without His Church, and without the Sacraments, I am nothing.
Answered Prayers
In the months leading up to my daughter’s birth, I was anxious. Both of her sisters took nearly two weeks to make it home from the hospital. The emotional drain of maintaining two households, even for just that short period of time, weighed heavily on me. 2020 is a year unlike any other. The last thing that I wanted was a two week hospital stay in the middle of the pandemic. So I took it up in prayer.
I developed a very specific intention, outlining precisely what it is that I wanted: a safe delivery, admission to the well baby floor, and a quick discharge. For 54 days, I prayed a rosary every day for that intention. I offered Masses and prayers throughout my day. It was my single focus.
As the delivery drew closer and my novena wound down, I felt the need to humble myself. It was my deepest desire for my family to be together and home recovering quickly, but not if she truly needed help. I reminded myself, and prayed, for God’s Will to be done, not my own.
Waiting in the hospital, I felt myself losing control. I was minutes away from seeing whether or not my prayer would be answered. As I felt myself spiral, I brought myself back to prayer. It was the moment of truth.
Veronica arrived, and immediately was doing better than her sisters. She still needed help. I prayed more. They took her over to intensive care on a six hour observation clock. If she improved, she could avoid admission. If she didn’t turn the corner, it was another long admission.
They got Veronica all set up in her room. I turned off the lights, pulled the shades, and turned on some soft music. I sat down by her bed and held her hand. There, in her first hour of life, we prayed the rosary aloud together.
As it happened, the hospital was so busy that they had no room for Alison, so they brought her over to us. It’s not protocol, and typically isn’t allowed, but it happened. It was then that God showed us His power.
Hour by hour, she grew stronger. By the sixth hour, she was cleared to go to the well baby floor. Two days later, we were all heading home.
Throughout this process, I struggled with doubt, with anxiety, and with disbelief. What is trusting God, what is testing Him? These are very human experiences with prayer. God knows our hearts, He can read us better than we even know ourselves.
I didn’t pray the 54 day novena perfectly, but I did pray it faithfully. God is waiting to show us His power, if only we’ll give Him enough room to work.
Start
I have a subscription to Magnificat that I’ve had for over a year now. It’s a wonderful prayer companion, filled each month with fresh perspectives, profiles, and articles. Central to each day’s prayer routine is morning prayer, evening prayer, the readings from Mass, and a short reflection.
The thing that I like most about Magnificat is that it’s all put together for me. One simple book, delightful design, and new content, delivered to my mailbox every month. I don’t have to do any planning other than deciding at what time I’m going to pray.
For the first several months, I moved through it with ease. I would do Morning Prayer and the readings from Mass before the kids were up, and Evening Prayer right before bed. We changed our clocks, Spring arrived, and suddenly I ran out of time to complete my full morning prayer time.
I grew discouraged. Each day felt like I was accomplishing less and less of my daily prayer plan. It’s a story that’s a common refrain on this blog over the past seven years.
I don’t know what it is about human nature that craves perfection. It’s an all-or-nothing mindset that demands that we do things absolutely perfect or not even try at all. It assumes that spending only half of the planned period of time in prayer is worse than spending no time in prayer. There’s also that tendency to skip an entire day or week if I mess up even one small part of my plan, in vain hope of a “fresh start” at some point later.
I don’t need a fresh start tomorrow or next week or next month. I need a fresh start right now. I need prayer to bring calm, peace, balance, and rest into my life right now, today.
Plans are wonderful things and they can be a marker to move us in the right direction. Deviation from them, especially in the realm of prayer, isn’t a failure; it’s life. God doesn’t expect me, or my prayer, to be perfect. That’s why He gives me grace and the Sacraments. What He does expect, what He yearns for, is a few minutes of my day when I set everything down, place my whole self in His presence, and we share an intimate connection.
Daily Preventative Medicine
Virtue is the antidote to sin. It’s not enough to avoid sin, whether by white-knuckling it or avoiding triggers. The only way to truly avoid sin is to live a virtuous life. The best way to live a virtuous life is to build prayer into your day.
Prayer functions like a daily preventative medicine. It builds up charity and virtue. It makes it harder for temptation to sway you and it keeps you from ending up in places that lead you to sin.
Teachers and pastors in the Catholic Church spent plenty of time talking about sin. Do we spend enough time talking about virtue? Prayer isn’t just a few minutes here and there of rote recitation. It’s rest. It’s time apart from the cares, concerns and worries of your life. It’s communication. It’s intimate connection between created and Creator. It’s rehabilitation. It’s acceptance and absorption of grace, restoring the soul to a state of grace.
If you want to beat sin, if you want to overcome temptation, focus on prayer. A consistent habit of prayer, of different means and expressions, sprinkled throughout your day is how your gear up for daily battle. Perfection is not possible; virtue is. The path to virtue is through prayer.
First Communion
I made my First Communion more than two decades ago. In that time, I’ve rarely been more than seven days without receiving the Eucharist. As I sit here at my desk in early June, it’s been over 90 days since I’ve been to Mass and celebrated the Sacred Liturgy in person.
This weekend, my family and I will return to Mass. During this time in the desert, I have hungered for the Eucharist. What was before taken for granted is now sorely missed. It wasn’t just the ritual or rhythm that I missed, it was the physical separation from Love itself.
I’ve spent time reflecting on the Eucharist and its importance in my life. One of my biggest takeaways is how difficult it must be to be a non-Catholic Christian. Christianity isn’t an easy way of life, but it’s made easier through the strength and grace that the Eucharist confers. The fact that I’m able to attend Mass almost every day of the year and come into physical contact with the God who knows and loves me is mind bending.
Frequent reception of Communion can have a dulling effect on the senses. That routine can easily bring me to the point where I put more faith in Tylenol than the Eucharist. When I take Tylenol, I expect something to happen. Do I have the same expectation of the Eucharist? How can I physically come into contact with life, love, and goodness Itself and not walk away a changed, transformed person?
I don’t specifically recall my emotions as I prepared to make my First Communion, but I have vividly experienced this time apart. I hope and pray that I will never have to endure such a period again. I also pray that I’ll never again take my Eucharistic Lord for granted.
Out of the Tomb
After an epic Lent, Easter has finally come. The earth is teeming with the new life of Spring and we enter into the joyful season at the center of our Catholic faith. Unhappily, we must do so from the confines of our homes. While Christ has risen and left the tomb, many of us are sadly still left, dithering in darkness.
The opportunity of Lent has been recast as a penitential season of suffering and self-mortification. We focus on the justice of God when instead we should’ve spent these past forty days pondering His great love and mercy. The Church gives us that nudge next week on the Feast of Divine Mercy. Lent is an opportunity to start anew, to cast off our vices and poor decisions to better embrace the love and law of God. It’s an annual retreat that gives us a shot at living the live we were called to live and to enjoys its many fruits.
While the tomb may be empty, there are still many trapped, of their own choosing. Jesus stands at the threshold, calling to us, pursuing us in every way He can. Jesus so very deeply desires to see us come back to life, as He did of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wants to destroy death’s grip on us and vanquish the sin that keeps us bound, lying in the dirt, surrounded in the darkness.
Easter is our great wake-up call. This pandemic is our great chance to regain our focus. In a comfortable world with a strong economy, it’s too easy to become lukewarm. It’s too easy to put off the difficult work of constant renewal. It’s too easy to be comfortable with venial sin. It’s too easy to ignore the importance of the Sacraments for our spiritual health.
We must give sin no quarter in our life. In the brilliance of God’s light, there is no room for darkness. Light a candle at night and watch the darkness disappear. This is what God wants for us.
Lent is a time of preparation and now Easter is the great celebration. This is a glimpse into the life God has prepared for us: eternal adoration and praise of His greatness and love, forever united with our loving creator.
If you find yourself this Easter still trapped in sin, having failed to achieve any meaningful reform during our Lenten journey, take courage. God paid too great of a price to give up on us before the very last possible moment. He didn’t go through the agony and grisly torture that is scourging and crucifixion to let you slip out of His grasp.
Don’t waste another moment in the tomb, dead and decaying. Begin the work of renewal now. Return to the loving direction of God’s commandments. Let Him take up your yoke and give you true rest. All of the grace that you need is at your disposal, ready to go to work the moment you accept it.
Lazarus, come out!
Renewal
Last week kicked off Spring. Not many of us are feeling the usual cheerfulness and refreshment that this change of season brings. Instead, we find ourselves trapped in our homes, separated from the Sacraments, and coming to terms with the fragility of our world.
Bishop Robert Barron, in a short talk posted online about the current pandemic, offered his thoughts on how Catholics should approach this time. Spiritually, we’re at great risk. At a time when most of us spend more time in Churches, and more frequently receive the Sacraments, we find our parishes closed and all gatherings canceled. If we’re not careful, it’ll be all to easy to lose touch with the importance of the daily practice of our faith.
Bishop Barron, however, expressed an optimism about our current state of affairs. His optimism holds that God will do something wonderful in this time. It’s a crisis through which He will bring a purpose. He is not the cause of the pandemic, but in His infinite wisdom, He can find ways to work through it to bring about a greater good.
From my perspective, I see great creativity in the business community. Staid, rigid companies are thinking outside of the box to continue to serve their customers. I see some of that same creativity in the Church. It was only through this crisis that I discovered the wonderful resources on YouTube, to include live-streamed Eucharistic Adoration and pre-recorded celebrations of the Mass.
Getting my three little ones to daily Mass, without backup, in the best of times is a challenge. But getting everyone together to pray as a family and celebrate the Mass at home is a very doable daily objective. I did not even consider that possibility before the quarantine. The same is true for Adoration. I’ve taken my kids a handful of times to our parish’s monthly Adoration. Yet, when we pray together at home, it’s amazing to watch all three little ones settle down in the presence of our Eucharistic Lord.
Just because we’re stuck at home doesn’t mean that we have to be prisoners of our situation. God is reaching out to us in new and unique ways, inviting us to draw closer into His Sacred Heart. He knows the pain, anxiety, and suffering that we’re enduring in this period of uncertainty. He’s inviting us to come to know once again the peace that only He can offer.
I’m spending my days getting caught up on projects around the house that I’ve been neglecting. I spent the weekend deep cleaning our cars, and today sorting and storing kids clothing. Later this week, I’ll head outside to weed the garden, put down fertilizer, and open the yard for summer. In the midst of this time in which I have no commitments and no where to be, I’m finding plenty of opportunity to enjoy this Spiritual Spring.
St. Joseph
While I normally post once per week, I wanted to write today because it’s a special day. While the World grapples with the Coronavirus pandemic and the United States economy grinds to a halt, we find ourselves celebrating the first day of Spring. Panic, fear, and uncertainty run through our minds, while nature seems not to have noticed. My azalea bushes are in full bloom, birds are chirping and building their nests, and the trees bring forth their new leaves.
Today is not just special because we are in the season of renewal. Today is a special day because it’s the Solemnity of St. Joseph. The Church holds this celebratory feast in such high esteem that the practices of Lent are suspended. Priests around the world wear their white chasubles to honor the purity of St. Joseph. The Gloria finds its way back into the sequence of the Mass. Today is a day of rejoicing and celebration in the middle of Lent.
Seven years ago, as I began work on this project, I specifically chose the Solemnity of St. Joseph as the launch date. My first post went live on the morning of March 19, 2013. At the time, I thought it appropriate to launch a blog about the vocation of marriage on the day that the Church honors the prototypical husband. A year later, I published my first book, _The Transition_.
This year, I’ve taken my devotion to St. Joseph to an entirely new level. Although I was given the middle name Joseph at my Baptism, I never developed a true relationship with the silent saint. In January, Fr. Donald Calloway published the book _Consecration to St. Joseph_, a 33 day devotional that, in one of its cycles, reaches its apex today.
For the past 33 days, I’ve been immersed in the theology of St. Joseph. I’ve learned about him, about his apparitions, about his place in the Church, and about the very special relationship he desires to cultivate with me. I’ve learned about his eagerness to point me to his foster son, and how only now is the Church beginning to fully understand and truly embrace his role in salvation history.
I’ve learned about his many titles, including Glory of Domestic Life and Terror of Demons. I’ve learned about how his life and virtue directly correlate not only to my vocation as husband and father, but to my role as a stay-at-home dad. I learned about the privileges of devotion to St. Joseph, including the attainment of virtue, escape from sin, increased love for Mary, the grace of a happy death, filling demons with terror, gaining health of body, and securing the blessing of children. These privileges are not the works of a genie, but gifts from a loving father for the sanctification of his children.
Today, I formalize our bond. Today, I entrust my vocation, health and well-being to his patronage. Today, I consecrate myself to St. Joseph, my spiritual father.
St. Joseph is humble in ways that I will never understand. He lead, protected, and provided for the Holy Family of Nazareth, but he never seeks credit or adoration. He desires nothing more than for the faithful to honor and respect Mary, his wife, and give themselves totally to his son, Jesus Christ.
May this Solemnity, in the midst of a difficult time, be a source of joy, celebration and peace for you and your family. May St. Joseph wrap you in the protection of his cloak and bring your intentions to Jesus. May the work of _Catholic Husband_ continue to be a source of knowledge, inspiration, and guidance for you in the years to come.