Exhaling at Home (Opus Gloriae)

Lectio for the First Sunday of Lent

"When temptation comes, turn straight to God and He will help you."

After His baptism, the Lord is "filled with the Holy Spirit" and is led by that Spirit into the desert for 40 days, during which He was tempted by the devil. "When temptation comes, turn straight to God and He will help you," says St. Leonard of Port Maurice. This is exactly the example Jesus gives us, as St. Luke shows by describing three particular temptations.

Christ came to "undo" what Adam and Eve had done, and to "destroy the work of the devil" (1 John). We can draw many parallels/distinctions between the Original Sin in the Garden and Christ's victory over sin in the desert. Here are just five of them:

1. Adam and Eve are in a lush garden, with all that they need; Jesus is in the desert, depriving Himself of even the essentials of life.
2. Adam and Eve face the tempter and fail, which affects all of us; Jesus faces the same tempter, but takes the victory for all of humanity.
3. Adam and Eve DISobey God; Jesus OBEYS, and His obedience "unravels" the knots that our first parents' disobedence tied like anoose around the neck of humanity.
4. Adam and Eve EAT the forbidden fruit; Jesus refuses to eat, or even to be tempted by His stomach ("Man does not live by bread alone.").
5. Adam and Eve begin to doubt God's word ("You surely will not die; you will be like gods."); Jesus refuses to doubt the Father and remains steadfast in trust.

Prayer and fasting gave Christ the strength to withstand the temptation; these are the tools WE are given as well, to strengthen our own wills. Jesus showed us how to resis the enemy: to have unwavering trust in the Father and to remain steadfast in loving obedience. Temptation is no reason to despair, but an opportunity to exercise our LOVE. Every time we resista a temptation, we extend the Kingdom of God, winning back territory from the prince of this world.

We are given strenth in Christ to fight valiantly for His cause, sharing His sufferings and His triumphs.

A happy St Patrick's Day to ye!

Sing it, say it, read it, pray it.

It's a beautiful way to pray on St Patrick's Day

in the mornin'!

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.

Mardi Gras, Carnival, Shrove Tuesday, fetter Dienstag

Tomorrow (3/7) is Shrove Tuesday. We won't all be shriven on that day, but I prefer that term to the Fat Tuesday references; especially as we don't adhere to a rigorous fast that eliminates all meats and dairy, eggs and fats for 40 days (though it may be in our interests to do so!), so we no longer need to eat up all the rich foods in the pantry. And the term "Mardi Gras" has taken on implications so ridiculously removed from the true meaning of this day that I can barely stand to hear it.

One interesting thing I learned last year is that the official colors for New Orleans' Mardi Gras actually have appropriate meanings: the colors were chosen in 1872 by the "King of the Carnival" as purple, green, and gold. Purple represents the justice of the King of Kings. Green represents faith. Gold stands for God's power. At least that's the official story, and the one I'm telling my kids. We will decorate with those colors for our family gathering.

The liturgical year is a fluctuation between feasting and fasting, and you can't really have one without some form of the other! So, in this instance, we feast before we fast.

We usually have some extended family over on this evening and eat a hearty assortment of appetizers for dinner. Then we have a selection of several desserts, as it is the last hurrah for desserts for six weeks. (I should say here that we DO have small desserts on Sundays to remember that Sundays are special, and not penitential; they are dedicated to the Resurrection. This is a matter of personal discretion; I know families that think indulging what you've "given up for Lent" on Sundays is "cheating." We don't go crazy on that day and do with reckless abandon what we've surrendered for Lent, but we are less rigorous with the children. It seems to us a way of balancing the asceticism and not discouraging them.)

We will have traditional and non-traditional foods and desserts, from kid-friendly chicken nuggets and mini-burritos to Polish Paczki (We are not Polish, but who can resist? These are local favorites!) and Italian fritelle (we ARE Italian!). Kids are allowed to drink pop (that's what we Midwesterners call soda) while the adults will break into a bottle of wine. I will make my soon-to-be-famous mochaccino for my sisters and I to linger over dessert. We will play music and games, and the kids will be allowed to stay up later than usual, which is almost more exciting than the desserts.

All of this comes, of course, after several conversations about Lent - what it is, why it is, how we as a family and each individual will take this time to prepare for the commemoration of the deepest Mystery of our faith. We prepare by remembering what is essential, and denying ourselves what is inessential.

But as I said, we will feast a little before we fast.

Ash Wednesday

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday.

Lent in our house begins with complaints about how tired everyone is (from our Mardi Gras indulgence in foods we don't usually eat!), Mass, and the receiving of ashes on our foreheads, followed by comparisons of those ashen crosses. But this sign on our foreheads is a sign that something is different, that we are entering a new season, that we are prepared to prepare.

The Paschal Mystery is so deep, the traditions so rich and varied, that it would be beyond the scope of this little blog to explore them all. I would like to unwrap some of these things over the next 40 days, but we can't get to everything. These jottings are only about how WE breathe the Church's rhythm in our own busy 21st century home. Admittedly, our breath is sometimes a bit shallow. But as I often say, "All we can do is all we can do," and some years we can do more than others!

So, in this house, we will begin our Lent Tuesday before bed - we will replace our centerpiece with our Lent candles and centerpiece of the Last Supper, ready for the morning. We will make our own version of the hidden Alleluia, leaving the box in our prayer corner until Easter. We will remove the statues from the children's bedrooms, leaving only the crucifix in each room. In our prayer corner, we will change the votive glass to purple; Our Lady will remain beneath the crucifix there, but our Angleus display in the dining room will be covered.

We will put up our "Pathway to Calvary" poster, which helps us count the days until Easter. (This picture is from a past year, so don't study it too closely, as it is incorrect!) Every day, one person takes a turn placing a cross sticker on that day's square, and we feel like we are climbing toward Calvary.

Tomorrow, we observe the Ash Wednesday fast and abstinence - we will have a light breakfast, a larger meal after the noon Mass, and then another small meal later in the evening. No snacking, unless you are small and need fuel.

After we are home from Mass, we will take the time to write out our Lenten promises - for example, we are tightly limiting "screen time" for everyone in this house, unless you have a paper to write (or maybe a blog post to compose!), to free up time for other activities; we are drinking only water and milk, no juice; we are working on breaking some poor habits, which are different for everyone. We also make some positive promises - to do something extra, say something kind, spend more time doing something in particular that we tend to neglect, etc. Again, these are different for each of us. Putting them in writing (which no one else needs to see) gives them solidity and helps keep us all (Mom and Dad included) accountable. Ideas and generous sentiments often remain just that! Writing them down helps objectify them.

All of these things help mark this moment when we embark on a new endeavor. We are entering a season of grace. We are (hopefully) prepared to prepare.

 

Loaves and fishes (Corpus Christi)

Faith and trust. This Gospel is about faith and trust, in many ways.

Christ had recently sent the apostles out to proclaim the Kingdom, telling them to take nothing with them - they must trust in God's providence to supply all their needs, just as they must trust in the power of grace to act through them to cure and preach.

On the heels of this experience, the hungry apostles suggest to the Lord, after a long day of preaching and healing, that He send the crowd elsewhere to find food and lodging. The logical thought is that it is getting late and they should go fend for themselves, as it were.

But Christ has a better plan, and will provide for all, abundantly.

"Give them something to eat yourselves," Jesus tells them. Hmmm. If they had tried to share the very little they had (it was truly not even enough for the 13 of them, much less the thousands before them!), would Christ have worked the same miracle because of their generosity and faith? Or would He have performed an even greater miracle? We cannot know, but we DO KNOW that He provided for the needs of all, in spite of their little protest, which was really no more than a statement of fact, in case/as if Jesus didn't know it: "We have no more than five loaves and two fish."

So the Lord gives them a second command, which is much easier to obey: "Get them to sit down in groups of 50." This they can do, and they did it, though even this must have been a challenge with such a crowd. Crowds, especially tired and hungry ones, are not known for their quiet cooperation.

Did the twelve hand over their meager rations with uncertainty, or had they by this time learned to trust fully so that they joyfuly submitted, expecting something amazing? It is easy to guess that they were probably hesitant as they handed over their supper.

Jesus took the food, raised His eyes to Heaven and blessed it (one of the great and glorious joys of heaven will be to hear the prayers He prayed in these moments!), then broke it and handed it to them to be distributed. Took... blessed.... broke... handed it to them. The same four actions of the Eucharist.

Christ kept stretching the faith and trust of the apostles and rewarding their efforts so that they (and we) would know that - if we give Him our complete faith and trust - He can expand our little efforts into proportions we cannot even envision. The apostles must surely have thought they were being asked to forego a meal for the crowd, though they could not see how this could work. Surely, there would be nothing left for them! But Jesus shows them (and us!) that if we give everything away, we will be MORE THAN SATISFIED. "They all ate AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED." And there were still 12 baskets of leftovers.

Did each apostle receive their own basket of leftovers for supper? It seems that they would have waited until all the others were fed before they took any for themselves.

The more we give to Him, the more we will receive; God only wants us empty so that He can fill us with something better. If we refuse to let go of our little bit - our portion of the loaves and fish, which is not even enough to satisfy! - then He will let us keep it. But we are depriving ourselves of the abundance He wants to give us! The self-sufficiency that we foolishly insist upon prevents us from relying on His grace, which can do things that we cannot even calculate with all of our complicated considerations.

To our human minds, it makes little sense to give our little bit - it is not even enough to sustain us, much less the multitudes! What can my little effort achieve? What can my little idea accomplish? We will never know, until we give it for Him, put it into service in faith and trust - only then can God feed the crowd, far beyond our human assessments. Our doubts and hesitations prevent us from doing what we CAN, with an expectant hope that God will do the rest.

Let us ask for the grace to abandon ourselves completely to Him, in loving confidence, and DO WHAT WE CAN, rather than lament how little we can do! He always blesses our efforts, and multiplies the little loaves and fish we give in faith and trust.

A blessed Christmas

"He became what we are, that we might become what He is."
~ St John Chrysostom

 

Really. Love. Coffee.

This is really yum. Even the decaf.

Just thought I'd share with the coffee-lovers among us...

The Sacred Heart and His Priests

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (my "name day" in Carmel).

It was John Paul II who established this day as the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. Beautiful. You can learn more here.

This prayer is from the site:

You came from among us
to be, for us, one who serves.
We thank you for ministering Christ to us
and helping us minister Christ to each other.

We are grateful for the many gifts you bring to our community:
for drawing us together in worship,
for visiting us in our homes,
for comforting us in sickness,
for showing us compassion,
for blessing our marriage,
for baptising our children,
for confirming us in our calling,
for supporting us in bereavement,
for helping us to grow in faith,
for encouraging us to take the initiative,
for helping the whole community realise God's presence among us.

For our part, we pray that we may always be attentive to your needs
and never take you for granted.
You, like us, need friendship and love,
welcome and a sense of belonging,
kind words and acts of thoughtfulness.

We pray, also, for the priests who have wounded priesthood.
May we be willing to forgive
and may they be open to healing.
Let us support one another during times of crisis.

God our Father, we ask you to bless our priests
and confirm them in their calling.
Give them the gifts they need
to respond with generosity and a joyful heart.

We offer this prayer for our priest,
Who is our brother and friend,

Amen.

As we have several good priests in our lives, this day is special for us. We take the time to remember each of these priests by name. You can pray for them too:

Fr Don, Fr Victor, Fr Tom, Fr Jim, Fr Don, Fr Joe, Fr Gene, Fr Ayub, Fr Mark, Fr Joseph...

 

Trinity Sunday

In honor of the Trinity, we try to do things in "threes" on this Sunday. We eat things in threes.We sing our Adoration Song in a three-part round during morning prayers. We light three candles on the dinner table. For dessert, we each had three small brownie bites. Smothered in Praline Pecan topping ;-)

We have a mirror in our dining area that is divided into three sections, which is perfect for our little lesson in the Trinity. One mirror, three panes; but all three reflect the exact same thing! Though they are three, they act as ONE. One pane never does anything different than the other two.

It's a child-friendly analogy for something we cannot ever truly comprehend. God is Mystery. Three in One is Mystery. We take it on faith because Jesus said they are one.

The other facet of this mystery that I like to highlight is that from all eternity, BEING is COMMUNAL. God is not One alone. God is a community of Persons, interacting in love. God is Love, loving. This is the thing we forget, and the truth that needs to be firmly rooted in our own families. God is not an individualist. God is GIVING, eternally. Mutual self-giving is the meaning of BE-ing. There is no "taking;" there is only fully receiving what is freely given. THAT is love. THAT is the model for family life. Love unites, not separates.

If we keep this model before us, we will be less likely to fall into the little selfishnesses that divide us and more likely to learn to give ourselves for the good of others. It is the grand backdrop for my constant reminders to the children to ask themselves, wherever they are, "What can I do? How can I help?" It is the background music for their every activity, so that they always remember that "I am THIRD - others go before me, and always first: the Word." The Trinity is the model for the perfection of love to which we are called, and to which our families must strive. It is the supernatural motive for "be nice and share." It is the Family we want to be worthy of entering into eternally.

And that's our modest goal for the day.

Pix of Pentecost

Well, our Pentecost didn't go quite as expected, which is to be expected by now. In our parish, each person is invited to reach into a basket and draw a Gift of the Spirit for which to pray during the next year; our ride home began comparing and commenting on who had drawn what. I wondered if I would get the same one I had drawn for the last three years : Wisdom(was God trying to tell me something?). But this year, I drew Fear of the Lord. Interesting.

We spent Mother's Day at Grammy's with the rest of the family. Of course, this begins with the mad scramble to deliver their handmade Mother's Day cards, with detailed explanations of what each part of the drawing is and why it's there. Grammy is very patient to listen to so many child narratives! Then, there was the food, laughter, too much coffee, and the kids engaged in begging for cookies or gum, playing Wii (it was our gift to Papa last year), or making precarious but beautiful wooden marble mazes. Should have taken pictures of those.

A low-key, quiet day with the rain steady all day; the sunshine inside made up for the gray outside. Even though we missed Papa.

We scrambled home nearing bedtime to decorate our Pentecost Cake with 7 large roses for Gifts, 12 small flowers for Fruits, 11 yellow and white candles for Apostles, one blue candle for Mary, and one large blessed candle for Jesus, the Light of the world. Whew. Then we sang Happy Birthday to the Church. And then, we BLEW - the family version of a rushing, mighty wind! Cake was our "bedtime snack" on Sunday, then off to brush teeth and say prayers before being tucked in, just in time to listen to Christian radio's "Adventures in Odyssey."

It's always amazing when we manage to get the littles to their rooms in time to listen on Sunday evening!

A bit later, I found a quiet moment to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, but I almost hesitated to do so, knowing that when Evening Prayer was finished, so was the Easter Season. Realizing this made those last Psalms and Readings of the day so much more precious, and I savored them slowly, as if I were putting something away for a long time.

And I guess I was.