Lent

Sacrifice of Praise

April 13, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

A guest post by Dan Sealana

By this point in Lent, you likely have either mastered whatever Lenten sacrifice you promised you’d make or you’ve failed miserably. Perhaps, like me, you never even bothered to start. Whether you’re a Lent superstar or a Lenten slacker, I’m here to offer you an idea of a powerful “sacrifice” that you can start today.

I once heard a host on EWTN radio offer some startling spiritual warfare advice to a caller. The host suggested that the listener praise God for every evil and turmoil in their life. He said we should praise God out loud for everything that is troubling us.

A cynic may brush off this advice as cheesy Christian positive thinking or as just plain weird. But there was some simple and very powerful logic behind the host’s unusual advice. The enemy and the demons hate praise.

If your problems are due to spiritual attack, they’ll stop because the enemy won’t do anything that would cause you to immediately praise God. If the struggles in your life aren’t caused by evil influence, praising God is a good practice anyway! Either way, you win.

So, are your kids on drugs? Praise God! Are you suffering from depression? Praise God! Do you have strong temptations towards certain sins? Praise God!

In the just under two years I spent in religious formation and discernment for the priesthood, some of my most therapuetic moments were the times I spent in front of the Blessed Sacrament praising God out loud for my struggles. I would often think to myself, “If everyone did this, we wouldn’t need psychiatrists!”

Yes, it’s easier said then done. And, yes, perhaps the Holy Spirit inspired me to write this blog entry in order to remind my big, thick, stubborn skull that I need to get back into the habit of doing it myself.

Of course, we should never seek out problems in our life so that we have more to praise God for. (Don’t worry. Problems will come. You don’t need to search for them.) And we should never hesitate to seek out help from others and from God to help us break free of the trials we face. But offering praise to God helps take away the stranglehold that we can often feel our problems have over us. Praising God in the midst of our pain can help remind us Who is in charge and Who always triumphs.

I prepared for writing this blog entry by typing of a list of 50 things I wanted to praise God for. The list ranged from the frivilous (“Praise God for air conditioning!”) to the serious (“Praise God for the Sacrament of Reconcillation!”). It only took a few minutes and I’m sure I could have easily come up with 50 more.

Once you get started, it’s easy (and humbling) to remember all the things you should be thanking God for.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers us a startling reminder: “The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day” (#409).

Spiritual warfare is an often forgotten but essential part of the Christian life. Remembering to offer many “sacrifices of praise” is a powerful weapon in this battle.

–

Dan Sealana is the director/editor for San Antonio Catholic Beat. He has a background in journalism and radio. Dan currently blogs at several sites, including his newly started Catholic Radio Reject. You can follow Dan on Twitter as @CatholicDan.

Filed Under: Faith, guest post Tagged With: Catholic, Dan Sealana, Faith, guest post, Lent, seasons

Lent Mode

April 6, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

Brian Miller (Bj) is a husband, father, and student of the New Evangeliztion. He is the Youth Minister at Seven Holy Founders Parish and Music Minister at Fontbonne University as well as the bass player for the Pete Buncher band. He can be found on Twitter as @the_bj.

Sitting in a parish staff council meeting the other night our pastor opened in prayer as usual. The reading he used was a beautiful passage taken from 2 Corinthians 5.

There was one line that struck me and kind of kicked me back into Lent Mode.

We’ve all experienced Lent Mode at one time or another. It’s that time when you actually try to fast and pray.

That time when you can bring your faith into your everyday life and offer those little moments of trail to Jesus. That moment when all you want is that fast food you gave up for Lent, and you offer it up instead of focusing on how great you are for actually giving up something hard.

That’s Lent Mode. In the zone, living your faith the way you wish you could the rest of the year. (We should be in this type of mode all year!)

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” I’ve always struggled with this passage from 2 Corinthians 5:21. I’ve studied my fair share of theology and done lots of spiritual reading, but I’ve never been able to feel comfortable with the idea of God “making him to be sin.” That just seems so nuts to me and I end up getting stuck on that line until I give up or get distracted.

Of all the times I’ve read this passage I seem to miss the last line ”…that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” For some reason when I heard it proclaimed at the beginning of that meeting, I was reminded how simple Lent really is.

It really all comes down to being “in Him”. It’s our time to remind ourselves that throughout our day that we should be living, breathing, being in Him. And that’s all we’re called to do. Why do we make that so hard sometimes?

There a lot of other parts of being Catholic. The problem is that often times we get easily distracted by the stuff that’s supposed to lead us closer to God. We get more focused on going through the motions of our day-to-day or week-to-week “Catholic routine” and we forget to give our hearts to God.

I’m not recommending you give up on your Catholic routine–quite the opposite, actually. As you go through that routine, try focusing on the fact that it’s only in Him that we become righteous, it’s only in Him that we are truly born to eternal life. Your rosary can’t get you to heaven by itself, but only if you give your heart to the one who gave his life for you.

I love the Church. It gives us all the different liturgical seasons to continue to nudge us a little closer to God who is constantly revealing Himself to us.

So get into Lent Mode, and let your heart rest in the one who made you.

image credit

Filed Under: Faith, guest post Tagged With: Brian Miller, Catholic, Faith, guest post, Lent, seasons

Life in More than 140 Characters

March 26, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 9 Comments

A guest post by Christine Johnson, who’s the woman behind Domestic Vocation and can also be found on Twitter (though not during Lent!).

I discovered something almost three years ago: Facebook is not just for high school and college kids. It’s a really neat tool to keep in touch with your family and friends of old. It’s a convenient way to share pictures of your family – whether growing in numbers or simply in size – with far-flung cousins stationed with the Marines in Texas, Florida, Afghanistan, with aunts and uncles living thousands of miles away, with dear friends you’ve known more than 1/3 of your life but who live too far to have coffee with.

I also learned that there are games! And, oh, how those games suck your time. If you have even a smidgen of competitiveness combined with a touch of addictive nature, you can discover that your “quick couple of games” at Bejeweled Blitz have turned into an hour. Seriously! I mean, how can I let Rachel continually beat me at this game? I can beat her this time. Just one more …

So last year, I gave up Facebook for Lent. I had also been playing some other stupid game that was fun for a while but had become way too addictive. When I returned after Easter, I had no idea how to play because they’d updated and changed it. And so I stopped.

Time was gained back! I did slip back into Bejeweled occasionally. Okay, a bunch by the time Lent rolled around again this year.

Which is part of why I did the same thing as last Lent: I gave up Facebook. My family can reach me still via email, and I changed my avatar to let people know I would be off Facebook until Easter. (The only exception is that my blogs auto-post to Facebook, but I do nothing to make that happen, nor do I go and check if it’s actually posted.)

But I discovered something else in the last year: Twitter. I’d tried it before, but was quite limited in my uses. I didn’t “get” it. Until I tried again, being a little more open and following some bloggers and writers I like a lot. (Hello, Sarah!) I figured out that Twitter can be a very interesting way to find news, to learn about things happening as they happen, to find interesting articles on topics I really like. I even learned how to use a hashtag – both seriously (#Catholic #prolife #40DaysForLife) and jokingly (#whyaremykidssobig #whendidIgetsoold #doespeerybinglemissmeontwitteroramijustbeingegotistical). It was FUN!

(ahem)

A bit too much fun at times.

I suddenly realized that I was checking it WAY too often, wondering if I had re-tweets (which is, for the uninitiated, when someone likes what you say enough to pass it on – it’s basically an electronic “ditto!” that reposts your comments). I wondered if I had more followers, if I had less followers, if I could say something witty that someone famous would respond to … for the introvert that I am, it was a way to socialize.

Now, I have actual and real socialization on Twitter. I have made some friends there who I’d love to meet in person. People I pray for, who (I hope) pray for me. But I also know that there is some very fake socialization that I’d love to pass off as real, but isn’t. Things that amount to shouting into a crowd of people who do not know me at all, thinking that someone might be paying attention to me.

And being addicted to that is not a good thing. (Really, what addiction is good, save the addiction to God I ought to have but fail to nurture enough?)

And so, due to my own slightly addictive nature, I pulled the plug on Twitter as well as Facebook. Again, my blog is auto-posting on Twitter, but I do nothing to make it happen. I don’t go to check the news. I did leave the Twitter extension at the top of my Safari browser, but mostly I don’t even see it. I’m definitely not clicking on it!

I do sort of miss the back-and-forth that I occasionally shared with friends, but overall, I’m trying to use the time I was spending on these social networks to socialize with Someone more important. I’m trying to read the Bible each morning, or at least the Mass readings for the day, and to focus more on my vocation and less on myself. (My vocation requires me to focus on others first.)

I’m basically trying to live in the real world a bit more. Which, left to my own devices, I was tending not to do as much as I ought to.

One of the other things I’ve noticed is that constantly writing things in 140 characters can change the way my mind works. There are some benefits: I have to express myself more succinctly, I learn to be more direct about what I’m saying.

But there are pitfalls, too. I tended to feel more frenetic, less calm. The speed at which things can move on Twitter and Facebook can really make you jumpy. It’s as though I’m expecting everything to be in short soundbites. I was having troubles really reading anything deep for long periods of time; for someone who loves reading as much as I do, that is a serious problem.

I wanted to break that a bit. I wanted to force calm back into my life and sooth my mind so it’s able to contemplate, to be at peace, to meditate on the great mysteries of this life.

One thing I’ve discovered is that I’m a bit more able to concentrate lately, and to write longer things. I’m doing so with more clarity and with (I hope) less rambling. But I think this break from the short, punctuated writing that takes place on Facebook and Twitter is helping me think more clearly.

The biggest benefactors of this break are my children, who get my undivided attention far more than when I’m busy joking with someone on Twitter. And I’m a better mother for that.

So that’s why I gave it up. It’s why, despite others who have said they couldn’t give up Facebook for Lent because it’s their biggest connection with others, I think it’s a good thing for me.

For some people, logging into Facebook and Twitter is a fifteen-minute activity. It’s not usually that for me, or at least it eventually grows to be much more. When I go back to it, I’ll try to limit my time better, but if it gets too hectic – if I’m finding that it’s too “important” to me, I’ll break from it again.

And maybe I don’t need Lent for that, either.

What are your thoughts?

Do you use Lent as a way to eliminate bad habits or to lessen activities that seem to take over your life? Do you take breaks from those things at other times of year?

Filed Under: guest post, Motherhood Tagged With: Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post, Lent, Motherhood, new media, parenting, writing

Offer It Up

March 12, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

Jenny from A Minute Captured is back with a reflection for us as we begin Lent. Many thanks, Jenny, for your guest post and for sharing your amazing photography!

He tells the story from the pulpit a few years back. He tells how he hated to hear three words from his mother, “Offer it up.” He wanted to cry, whine, complain, kick, scream, argue, defend…anything but offer it up.

He admits now that it built character. Fr. Austin Woodbury agrees.

Father Austin Woodbury was one of the most eminent Thomistic Masters of the 20th Century. He was trained by the renowned Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and was the teacher of the brilliant Thomist Dr. Raphael Waters.

Thomistic Master Father Austin Woodbury recommends both natural and supernatural means for character building such as control of moods; avoidance of rush and dissipation; good companionship; refinement of sensibility by arts and polite social interactions; self-discipline by acts of self-denial; Mass, prayer and the sacraments; devotion to Our Lady; cultivation of supernatural interests, and other points.

“Think of Jesus falling down three times and oh how that must have skinned up His precious knees,” I remind my children when they come to me with big tears and strawberry red scrapes. “Jesus was thirsty and he was offered vinegar, surely you can drink water instead of juice,” I gently ask.

Self-Discipline by Acts of Self-Denial:

By frequently doing actions that we find hard to do, we acquire a self-mastery, which renders it much easier for us to control our moods and passions according to the judgment of reason. In this way do we assure the liberation of our intellectual powers, in which freedom resides: we give them the mastery over what is lower and un-free. Every child should be taught to do every day, or even more often, some little act which he finds hard to do, hard because it involves running counter to an animal inclination; it is important that the child be induced to do these acts spontaneously, without compulsion; we may suggest such acts as speaking kindly to one to whom the child has a sensitive antipathy, or abstaining from the unnecessary eating of sweets. These and other acts of self-discipline are of capital value.

~Fr Austin Woodbury

“Think of Jesus carrying His cross, Jenny. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and uttered not a word,” I try to remind myself when the world feels like it is crashing in and all I think of is trying to escape the weight of suffering by talking…way too much.

“Think of God the Son, struggling to take a single breath while He hung for three hours; for you, Jenny, for you.” I struggle to remember His suffering as the weight of fear and worry seem to suck the very breath from my lungs.

I was not raised with the concept, better yet the virtue, of sacrifice. Oh sure, I was told it would be nice if I did such and such on occasion, but not taught self-control through mortification. Judging by my children, it is a lot harder to learn the older you are.

So I wonder, how do you strengthen virtue through acts of mortification?

Leave your tips and suggestions in the comments for Jenny…and for all the rest of us, too!

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: Faith, guest post, Jenny H, Lent

Seven Lenten Favorites

March 11, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

There are other Lenten resources in my sidebar, too, and they’ll remain there until Easter (or whenever I remember to update). Last year, I highlighed seven Lenten links, too.

Karen’s Go-To Post

I went to it. In fact, I go to it every year. Chock-full of great stuff, all easy to implement and very accessible for those of us who are (a) craft-challenged and (b) intimidated by all the ways to share the seasons with our kids.

Papa’s Thoughts

Every year, the Holy Father writes a Lenten message. It’s not long this year, but it’s great reading. Make it a priority to read it.

Praying Lent

I love Creighton University’s Praying Lent site. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want. (If they only had an app…)

Thinking about Lent

All three of Michelle’s “Thinking about Lent” posts caught my attention, and I really appreciated the last one as a tardy-by-accident sort of person lately. Check out all three: Prayer, Penance, and Change.

40 Ways and a Top 10 List

I loved Danielle Bean’s list of 40 different ideas for Lent. You might too, especially if “easy does it” strikes a chord with you. She has them organized by Pray, Fast, and Give. She also re-ran the Top 10 Lenten Observances for Kids at Faith & Family Live, which is worth a read too.

Considering the Our Father

The brilliant Jen Fulwiler is considering the Our Father word-by-word. Her first post, OUR, is up, and I’m eagerly awaiting the future posts. This is going to change how I embrace this prayer, and what a great reflection for Lent.

Fiction for Lent

One year I gave up fiction for Lent. Not so this year, and I love that Julie, Queen Bibliophile, has assembled a list of fiction that’s appropriate for Lenten reading.

What are your favorite Lenten links and resources?

Filed Under: Faith, links, Quick Takes Tagged With: Faith, Lent, links, Quick Takes, resources, seasons

Anticipating Lent

March 7, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

Part of the Mary Moment Monday series

Finally! Lent! This week!

I have REALLY been feeling my need for Lent. And it’s made me think about why that is: Lent is, after all, usually very difficult. In that difficulty, though, I so often find fruit and, if I cooperate, grace to grow spiritually.

In the Pope’s Lenten message for this year (which I listened to via Father Z), I was struck by a few things, including this:

The Lenten journey finds its fulfillment in the Paschal Triduum, especially in the Great Vigil of the Holy Night: renewing our baptismal promises, we reaffirm that Christ is the Lord of our life, that life which God bestowed upon us when we were reborn of “water and Holy Spirit”, and we profess again our firm commitment to respond to the action of the Grace in order to be his disciples. (emphasis mine)

Then there’s the Lenten focus on almsgiving, which Papa explains so beautifully:

In our journey, we are often faced with the temptation of accumulating and love of money that undermine God’s primacy in our lives. The greed of possession leads to violence, exploitation and death; for this, the Church, especially during the Lenten period, reminds us to practice almsgiving – which is the capacity to share. The idolatry of goods, on the other hand, not only causes us to drift away from others, but divests man, making him unhappy, deceiving him, deluding him without fulfilling its promises, since it puts materialistic goods in the place of God, the only source of life. How can we understand God’s paternal goodness, if our heart is full of egoism and our own projects, deceiving us that our future is guaranteed? … The practice of almsgiving is a reminder of God’s primacy and turns our attention towards others, so that we may rediscover how good our Father is, and receive his mercy. (emphasis mine)

Almsgiving is a fancy word for sharing, that concept my girls, ages six and three, are struggling with as much as their 34-year-old mother does. It’s easy to tell them to share, but how easy is it to share of my own abundance? How often do I neglect to share myself, even if it’s a simple sharing of time with a child or relative who’s lonely? Sharing doesn’t have to mean I do more; it can direct me, instead, to let go of my attachment to things and focus on the better part, the priorities that so easily fall out of focus in my life.

This spirit of generosity that seems to pervade Lent is what my miserly, exhausted soul needs in the spring. Something about leaving winter, about being cooped up and sick and in the dark, begs for this kind of mandate: share what you have. Give what you can. And maybe, just maybe, give and trust.

Prayer is another focus of Lent, and an area where I always seem to find help in the upcoming 40 days. First, from Benedict:

During the entire Lenten period, the Church offers us God’s Word with particular abundance. By meditating and internalizing the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer; by attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism. Prayer also allows us to gain a new concept of time: without the perspective of eternity and transcendence, in fact, time simply directs our steps towards a horizon without a future. Instead, when we pray, we find time for God, to understand that his “words will not pass away” (cf. Mk 13: 31), to enter into that intimate communion with Him “that no one shall take from you” (Jn 16: 22), opening us to the hope that does not disappoint, eternal life. (emphasis mine)

Ah, prayer. It’s an ongoing struggle, balancing a realistic prayer life with the hurdles and challenges of life. It doesn’t seem to matter what state of life I’m in; I always have an excuse for why I do (or don’t) what I do.

This year, I’m feeling Mary close by my side. As I consider my plan for Lent, I can’t help but glance at her.

She sort of set the bar for generosity and prayer, offering her very life for God’s will to be done and for the Word of God to become flesh. She’s the perfect person to guide me, to lead me, to hold my hand as I stumble along on the road to Ash Wednesday.

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Filed Under: Faith, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, Lent, Mary Moment Monday, Pope Benedict XVI, seasons, Virgin Mary

Finding Silence in the Noise

April 2, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

It’s going to be a day filled with activity and noise. We have a lot going on, from horseback riding to cookie decorating. Though it’s a fast day, we’ll be reveling even as we’re thinking of His suffering.

Shouldn’t we be wearing sackcloth and walking around with some modicum of seriousness? Shouldn’t I make sure we attend a Passion Liturgy and fast and stop our ordinary life?

No. I have to get past my definition of “perfect.”

As I snap this year’s batch of pictures of the kids icing cookies with their Nanny, on a day when I won’t be eating any (though I’ll want to!), I will think of Mary at the foot of the cross. That surely wasn’t on her to-do list for life. She went willingly enough, having the wisdom to know that the cross led to something greater, having the trust in God that I so often lack.

I’ll remember what today is, and the faces smeared with icing will be a reminder that the “rest of the story” is the epitome of Good News.

As I take still more pictures of my five-year-old in her first horse show tomorrow, Holy Saturday, the day Jesus was in the tomb, I’ll think of how empty Mary must have felt that day. I surely won’t be feeling empty; there will be beaming girls and the smell of horse to fill every part of my brain if I let them.

In the midst of life as usual, I don’t have to let myself forget. I can hold on to an inner thread of silence, a space where I will hold Mary’s hand and think of the sorrows these two days involve. I can remember that joy awaits on Sunday, a joy greater than anything I can imagine.

May your Easter be filled with all the blessings of the risen Christ and the grace to see Him at work in your life.