Resisting Structure
Sticking to a routine and a list of daily habits is much easier to do when I have momentum. Building up that momentum over a series of weeks propels me to continued success. Ideally, that routine and those habits are all oriented to completing the things that I want to accomplish. They’re guardrails that keep me heading to my goals. When I fall out of that routine, it’s remarkable just how hard it is to get back into the swing of things.
I have a plan for my ideal week. In that plan, there’s sufficient time budgeted for me to work on everything that I want to work on. There’s time for exercise, prayer, leisure, work, and play. If I stick to the schedule, I will lay my head down at night having completed work in every area of my life that’s important to me.
Lately, I’ve been out of that routine. My sleep schedule has adapted to sleeping in each day, sacrificing a much needed 90 minutes of personal time in the morning. That means I wake up and have to start my day with the kids cold, without the benefit of my typical start-up. Getting off on the wrong foot sends me down the wrong path for my whole day. By the evening, instead of reading and meditating before bed, I watch TV and go to bed late. Of course, with no winding down period, my body isn’t ready for sleep. It takes me forever to fall asleep. Repeat.
The strange thing is, when I’m off my routine, I resist going back on. It feels like my routine is going to restrict or suffocate me, when in reality, it’s going to set me free. One day, after several false starts, something clicks, and I’m back into it.
My resistance to structure is the same as my resistance to God’s plan for my life. His rules, from the outside, feel constricting. In reality, they’re offering me freedom. We heard on Good Shepherd Sunday that God is the walls of the sheepfold. He isn’t keeping us in, He’s keeping us safe from everything that’s trying to attack us. Within the confines of His rules, we’re free to be who we are, without worry.
At all times, especially in uncertain times, structure in my day brings me great relief. I need to keep this in mind on those days that I feel like slacking off.
Dive Into Something
What a difference three months can make! Back in January, I felt completely overwhelmed with all of my ongoing projects. I committed to trimming my obligations in recognition of the little time I have each day to devote to my own activities. Now, eight weeks into self-isolation, I find myself utterly bored.
I’m cautious with how I spent my time and the thoughts that I let fill my head. Drowning in an ocean of newsprint, especially in today’s gloomy news market, is a recipe for disaster. So is idleness.
Idleness dresses itself up in the trappings of rest, but it ends up leaving me feeling empty. When I fritter a day away, I never end up going to bed feeling rested. In a strange way, I feel more exhausted than when I started the day. But when I wake up early and go on my walk, and when I spend my day fully engaged, I go to bed feeling tired in a good way. I feel complete.
I’ve realized that if I structure my day in a particular way, I can have just enough time to work on a few projects. Those times of work provide me with a sense of purpose and accomplishment in my days. So I’m looking back at the things that I’ve cut and am deciding which things I want to dive back into.
Time feels like it’s standing still, but that’s hardly an excuse to waste it doing nothing. Avoid the idleness trap and throw yourself completely into accomplishing something.
Do What Works
Last year, I had the most incredible breakthrough in my life. I achieved health and fitness goals that I set for myself a decade ago. The hardest thing in managing our health is maintaining it. We can do all of the hard work, only to watch it all disappear with sloppiness.
I know exactly what I did to hit those goals. I know the daily habits that I formed and followed. I know the sequence of events that led me to success. So when I now find myself needing to get back to that point of health, I don’t need to struggle with developing a whole new program. I don’t need to tinker with the habits or routines. I just need to do the work.
When you find something that works, just do that and forget about the rest.
Family Walks
When I was in high school, we had neighbors who went for a family walk almost every evening. The family of four, along with their dog, could reliably be seen moving slowly through the neighborhood after dinner. I presume that they spent those evening walks reflecting on their days and chewing on life’s big questions.
I’ve been walking regularly for nearly a decade. It’s the one form of exercise that I always enjoy. Sustained, consistent practice leads to a noticeable improvement in my overall health. In this time of social distancing, I’ve seen lots of families walking around our neighborhood. Many of them I’ve never seen before.
Walking as a family is an ideal way to spend some time together and get quality group exercise. It gets everyone out of the house and into God’s creation. One or two laps around the block is all it takes to enjoy nature and each other. Let the conversation flow and appreciate the world around you.
Social distancing shouldn’t mean social isolation. I hope that the many lifestyle adjustments that this pandemic has forced upon us will lead to lasting changes. Among one of these positive changes is a regular family walk around the block.
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!
Mind Your Diet
We become what we consume. The uncertainty that we all experience now is only intensified when we marinate in the news of the day. To be sure, we all have a part to play. We all need to do what we can to limit the human toll that the current pandemic will take on us. But don’t let it steal your hope.
Emotions are fickle things, and they are easily manipulated. Spend your days intentionally. Check in on the news, don’t bathe in it. Dive instead into your hobbies. Spend quality time rolling around on the ground with your kids. Take your family outside to play and walk and breathe. Read some of those books you’ve always wanted to. Call your friends, write letters, clean off your desk.
All of those things on our lists that we’ve been putting off, we’ve said it’s because we didn’t have enough time. Now we do.
If you sit on the couch all day, scrolling through the news and stress-eating, you’ll succumb to panic and anxiety.
Stay in motion, in action, and plan for the future. Above all else, take inventory of your spiritual health. Make sure you’re placing your trust in God. Expand your prayer life to include things that you haven’t tried in a while. Experiment, communicate, grow in your relationship with God.
There is so much good and hope out in the world. If you can’t find any, look out your window. Spring is in full bloom, the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and the joy of Easter is just six days away.
In the Desert
What a Lent this has been. We’re familiar with the story of Jesus going out into the desert for 40 days, but never before have we had such an acute experience of that kind of isolation. While in the desert, angels ministered to him and Satan tempted him, but he was truly alone. No humans to keep him company.
I will not forget the profound spiritual experience of these last few weeks. I’ve become desensitized to the lull of my modern life. I’ve been unable to walk into a grocery store and have the confidence that I’ll be able to get the supplies that I need. I’ve been unable to ignore the human suffering in my neighborhood and in the world beyond. I’ve been unable to enter into a Church or physically receive the sacraments. I’ve been in the desert.
What’s interesting about the desert is how it clarifies things. It’s easier to discern between wants and needs. It’s easier to discern what things matter most. It’s easier to find time to pray when you have an empty schedule.
Major global events have a way of changing the way that people act, behave, and operate. When things get back to “normal,” they will be different. I hope that this desert spirituality is one of those things that’s different. I hope that the spiritual experience of this time alone redoubles my trust in God. I hope that routine and monotony don’t steal my joy. I hope that I will continue to cultivate my prayer life and seek to do God’s will before my own. I hope that I will bring the desert back into my normal life.
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.
Connecting While Isolated
Difficult times for Catholics are here. From the founding of our Church, community has been a central aspect of our faith. We gather, from our many walks of life, on a daily or weekly basis to celebrate the Eucharist, together. Increasingly, civil and health authorities are recommending the suspension of large gatherings. How do we celebrate our communal faith when we’re precluded from gathering in our parishes?
As I think about the timing of this pandemic, I can’t help but be grateful for its timing. Major disruptions are only now beginning, but the advancement of technology in the past three decades allows us to be more connected than ever. Just this morning, I spent time in Eucharistic Adoration with my children by watching a livestream on YouTube.
While we may not be able to physically attend Mass for several weeks, we still have the opportunity to attend Mass every day. Many parishes are live-streaming their liturgies on YouTube, and I’ve even found some YouTube channels that record and upload their daily liturgies. Eucharistic Adoration live-streams are widely available, as are many reflections and homilies.
To be sure, watching Mass on YouTube is very different from attending Mass in person. I feel a sense of separation, having been unable to receive the Eucharist physically. We do have to endure this physical separation for a time. However, our faith can still be vibrantly expressed.
Continue to grow in your faith, find new ways of expression, and keep in prayer the sick and suffering throughout the world. There are many Catholics who are home-bound and rarely able to attend Mass. Let’s remember them in a special way as we share the unity of this burden.