The guide for week 34 of the Online Retreat in Everyday Time is here.

All those weeks and months ago, when this retreat started, and even though I’d been through it before, 34 weeks seemed like a LOOONNNGGG time. It’s less than the duration of most pregnancies. It’s not a year. And yet, in the window of this time, there’s been room for a shift, one that can be felt and seen and documented…by God, if not by me.

I was going to go back to the beginning and explore just how far I’ve come. When I went to the first week, though, I read the quote from the first week: “Do not expect, look for or demand progress. Enjoy and live the process, even though as with physical exercise, you may not like doing them every day. … We allow God to give the increase, the insights, the progress. We begin expecting God to be busy laboring on our part of creation which we have found quite unfinished as a work of art.”

Do not expect, look for or demand progress. And here, 34 weeks later, I’m still examining that statement and swallowing the urge to mark measure my growth.

How can I keep the lessons learned, the experiences weighed, the insights gained?

For me, it’s all contained in the the last line of this week’s In These or Similar Words: “Give me only your love and your grace. I want nothing more.”

Love and grace. Grace and love. Surrounded with the hug of Jesus’ arms, his mother and angels and saints all around me, what else do I need?

Now, the challenge is going to be remembering that…

The guide for week 33 of the Online Retreat in Everyday Time is here.

There was a prayer in the guide this week that I copied down — twice — and that I have been praying all week. My mother-in-law was at my house and she called me to tell me how much she enjoyed praying it when she was in my kitchen and in my bathroom. (Hey, they’re the places when I probably need prayer the most!)

As we near the end of the retreat, I don’t look back and see any fireworks. (Someday, maybe I’ll have a spiritual experience with fireworks. I’m pretty sure, though, that it is God’s infinite wisdom, seeing me WISH for pyrotechnics, but knowing I really, truly, could not deal with them.) But I can look back and see that I’ve come quite a way. It was not a straight road to this point, but how often are our journeys straight? Oh, I can look back and see them as a straight line, but, in retrospect, it is often more like a winding cow path in the pasture than an interstate between two cities.

But it’s in that rambling in the back pasture that I have found what I most needed. I started off with vigor and energy and the focus was on the background, on the experiences that shaped me. The winding path took me from my memories to an examination of Jesus. And I guess it’s never really moved from either of those places…except that, somehow, it has.

Somehow, Jesus has become more personal and more real. God seems accessible in a way he didn’t before, don’t you think? He’s never moved; he’s always been right there, over my shoulder.

I just needed to learn to look and see him there.

And once I could see him, once I recognized the grace of his glance, the love of his embrace, then somehow everything changed. It was a way of seeing and a way of being that changed ME.

That changing doesn’t stop, if I cooperate, because the winding path doesn’t end. I reach milestones and pausing points, but I don’t stop my journey. This retreat may be ending next week, for my second adventure through it, but the “everyday life” part of it continues. Lord, help me continue to find you in the moments of ordinary, in the mundane and the spectacular, in the way you are always holding me.

Image from Chapel on the Hill

The Week 32 guide for the Online Retreat in Everyday Life is here.

Thinking of that makes me think of just how long this journey of 40 weeks is. It makes me look back over the last 32 weeks and wonder at the path I’ve traveled with you, with Jesus, with a different me.

There haven’t been lightning bolts or fireworks in my journey.

That’s probably a good thing, because they would distract me anyway. I’m always wanting there to be fireworks, lightning bolts, something exciting. I forget that the quiet voice, the transformed heart, the shift in my thinking…these are exciting too. They’re exciting in a different way, without the glamor, and I am a sparkle-loving, drama-creating, flower-picking girl deep down. It takes me a while to appreciate the excitement that’s longer lasting.

My husband epitomizes this retreat for me. He is an introvert, a thinker, a quiet kind of guy (unless you have him around his brothers or his best friend, who might as well be a brother). In the years we have been married, he has taught me, through his example, to cherish silence, to ponder in the stillness, to stop my incessant activity and just be. He didn’t intend to teach me; that’s just how he is.

I find God in my husband all the time. I see Jesus reflected in his eyes when he’s smiling at my daughters as they tell him a story. I see God’s joy in his face when they come running up to him when he comes home from work — early or late, they don’t care; they’re delighted to see him. I find Jesus in his words to me, tender and honest, pointing me back to what I love and what I need to do.

If Jesus were stop by for dinner today, I think he would look and act a lot like my husband. I think he would probably act a lot like my husband, greeting both me and the girls with a sincere “Hello Beautiful!” no matter how we look and listening to our chatter as though it’s the most interesting part of his day.

It’s in that wonder that I start to appreciate the graces in the sacrament of marriage and that I realize, yet again, how very, very blessed I am by this great sacrament.

During this retreat, I have gained a different understanding of Jesus and a deeper appreciation for his love for me. This retreat has helped me make God and Jesus less distant. Instead of having them far away, up in heaven, I see how they are right beside me and even in the people closest to me. I see how heaven is but a breath away from me, and that the “much I have to do” to get there really starts with my hard heart.

Jesus appeared to his disciples, his closest friends, and they didn’t know him. That didn’t stop him, though. It doesn’t stop him with me, either. I don’t recognize him much of the time in the child who’s pushing me to my limit, in the person who’s testing me with their flaws, in the help I receive from friends and family and spouse on a daily basis.

Jesus, help me to see you, to know you, to love you by loving the people around me. Help me to cooperate with your work in me.

The Week 31 guide for the Online Retreat in Everyday Life is here.

Have you ever been going along, minding your own business when all of a sudden, with a SMACK, you realize the enormity, the implications, the beauty of what you’re doing, just by living your life?

Have you ever thought you were doing one thing, headed toward one goal, when, as it turned out, you were going a completely different way?

Have you ever felt the hand of God — or maybe just a finger or two — involved in your life, in your mundane doings, in your journey?

How must it have been when the disciples realized that the well-versed guy they were walking with was Jesus? What kind of shock — and realization that, somehow, they had known it all along, that they had ignored their good sense — must they have felt when, after inviting him in for dinner, they saw him for who he was? Can you imagine their excitement, their relief, their bubbling-over?

What awaits you this week, as you walk on the road? Where will you see Jesus? Will you recognize him?

Image source: Short Sharp Science

The Week 30 guide for the Online Retreat in Everyday Life is here.

After weeks of contemplating the end of Jesus’ life, I find myself here, on Easter morn, a little…speechless.

Recently, someone dear to me asked me about my faith journey. From what they could see, I went from being a pretty ardent atheist to being an equally enthusiastic Catholic. It didn’t make sense.

I’ve been chewing on what I will tell them for over a week. “Can I just send you some of the other stuff I’ve written?” I emailed.

No response. While I attribute that lack of reply completely to busy-ness and nothing else, maybe it’s also a sign to me that it’s time.

It’s time to write about my faith journey in more than just cozy little essays. It’s time to explore the ugliness and the beauty that are wound together within it. It’s time to give credit for what’s been done in me (and even more credit for what’s left to do!).

Maybe the best place to begin that story is in front of the open tomb. Jesus isn’t there anymore. His bruised body has risen to new glory. He has defeated death.

How can this be?

It defies logic. It defies science. It defies understanding.

And it’s ironic to the max.

I love irony. I remember learning about it in fourth grade and recognizing, at last, a word for that feeling I had when I really, really enjoyed something. It was irony!

It’s ironic in the unlikely aspects of it: young Jewish girl, small town in Israel, no-name carpenter to raise the Messiah. The Messiah rides into town, not on a horse and not leading legions of soldiers to defeat the persecuting Romans, but on a colt, with a band of illiterate fisherman tagging along behind him.

It’s ironic in the ongoing saga: that Jewish carpenter inspired those twelve fishermen to give their lives in martyrdom, because they believed him. It continues to change lives, souls, worlds.

It’s ironic in the fact that it wasn’t recognized at the time, that the fulfillment of all the prophets and scripture would go unnoticed by the scholars. It’s ironic that it would sweep the world and continue for 2000 years in an unbroken line. It’s ironic that I could consider Christians an uneducated bunch of dreamers (not in the good sense of that word) without doing more research than just what I thought of it.

That empty tomb speaks to me. It reminds me of what Jesus did for me…yeah, he died, and that’s the biggie. But he also washed my feet, and he will do it again, and again, and again, as many times as I’ll let him. He washes my soul just as often, when I let him.

This week, during the retreat, consider the many ways in which Jesus has risen in your life: how he has become someone you turn to, the ways he has become a friend, the times he held you. While you reflect, think of how Jesus is alive in you, with you, for you.

Image credit: Sugar Coated Shroud of Turin

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The Week 29 guide for the Online Retreat in Everyday Life is here.

This week, during Holy Week, we contemplate Jesus in death during our online retreat.

In our everyday life, we let this fact — this astonishing reality — touch us: as we do the dishes, as we put on our shoes, as we go about the routines of our life.

This is the sort of thing that’s easier said than done for me. It’s the sort of thing I like in theory, but not so much in practice.

And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

In every Catholic church, there’s a crucifix. That’s not because we’re obsessed; it’s because it’s that important. It’s not because we can’t let Jesus be alive; it’s because we can’t forget that he died for us.

This week, I’m going to hold close the words from this week’s letter to Jesus (for some reason, it’s often the “In These or Similar Words” letters that grab me the strongest):

What happened? Dearest Jesus, how did it all come to this? How is it that I am looking up at you hanging there in such incredible agony? We are huddled here in fear and disbelief. Your mother, the other women. John. A few others.

I look at you writhing in pain, unable to breathe, pulling yourself up by your nailed wrists, just to gasp for air. I see you look down at me with your warm, familiar eyes veiled in pain but it is still you. I see my dear friend, the one who has been with me through so many terrible moments in my life. Now I stand here with you, unable to do anything.

Oh, Jesus, why? Why did this happen? I know intellectually that it was to enter so fully into my life and my pain, and the pain of everyone else. But so much pain? How can one person bear it all?

I realize that as I stand here, I have been holding onto your mother’s arm. Mary, who is so grieved that she is having a hard time standing. Mary, who has sat with me for so many hours as I’ve talked with you about my life. Now I see her almost doubled over in grief. Oh, Jesus, I don’t want you to even see her pain because it will only add to yours.

She understands so well that your life is slipping away. We watch and pray and hold onto each other, this small knot of silent people who love you so much. Then I realize that as much as you mean to me, as much as I don’t want you to die, I can’t stand to watch you suffer either. Please God, let him be at peace. Let him pass out or die. Don’t let him suffer so much.

But still, you continue to gasp and pull yourself up to breathe, in spite of the torturous pain as the nails rip down into the nerves in your arms. We listen as you pray, continue to ask the father for help and then, finally, surrender to him. Your pale body, covered with dirt and blood trembles a final time and then is still.

Mary turns to her sister and falls into her arms, but she has no tears left. The rest of us hold each other in silence and numbness. The soldiers come and take down the body and as it drops to the ground, Mary lifts you into her arms.

Oh, the pain in her face as she sees you! I want to help her. I want to be there for her because I know you would want me to be there. She holds your lifeless body gently and with such love, just as she did for so many years. She looks at me silently, tragically. I find a jar of water and I use my cloak to get it wet. If only I can wash the blood off your face. If only I can stop the blood from running down from the thorns. I want to do this so Mary won’t have to keep seeing you in such pain. Mary Magdalene and I remove the thorns from your head and wipe your face as your mother kisses it.

Dear God, help us! Be with us in this pain and confusion. Jesus, help us to make some sense out of your suffering. Help me to see how you are a part of my suffering each day and how this act joined you to the deepest sufferings of all of us.

Thank you God for the gift of Jesus. Thank you Jesus for your life in mine. I feel it somehow, even in the midst of this.

May your Holy Week be blessed and filled with the joy that comes after sorrow, with the hope that comes despite darkness, with the love that comes from God.

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The Week 28 guide for the Online Retreat in Everyday Life is here.

This week we’re led to the Passion. It’s hard for me to read it through new eyes. We hear it every year around this time, and though I know it’s amazing, I still struggle.

What happened to Jesus during the Passion seems so distant. After a while, it doesn’t even sound so bad.

When I saw the movie “The Passion of the Christ” a few years ago, I was shaken to my core. That is what happened? That?!

It’s good to have reminders of just what the Passion entailed, of just what a gruesome experience it was, of just what a sacrifice Jesus made. This year, I found the same sort of reminder, one that rocked my world, when I downloaded the Lenten special from Divine Mercy podcast. In it, the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary are examined, one by one, using readings from the writings of Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich (you can read her writings here and here). St. Anne was taken there, to the Passion. She saw it, and she described it. Her writings are what Mel Gibson used as inspiration for the movie “The Passion.”

Lent is a good time for a wake-up call, and, for me, both the movie and these decades of the Rosary are a not-so-gentle nudge in my spiritual backside. They’re a spur in my reflections, inspiring me to go deeper than just the “Jesus loves me” happy huggy stuff to explore just what love it must be to have experienced that.

This week is a challenge to us. Here we are, near the end of Lent. Whether we’ve done well or not, it’s almost over. The temptation, for me, is to sit back and call it done. But it’s not done! It’s only just beginning!