peace

5 Ways to Give Your Family a Peaceful Advent

November 22, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

To prepare the way for our Lord, John the Baptist withdrew into the desert to fast and pray. We try to imitate that model of self-mortification every Advent, loading ourselves down with parties, shopping, and Holiday Preparations. Surely getting the whole family into matching Christmas sweaters is the new Hair Shirt, right?

It doesn’t have to be this way. Here are five things you can do – or rather five things you can not do – to trade in the frenzy and the agony for joy and peace. (I promise none of them involve eating locusts.)

Don’t over-decorate.

If decorating feels like work, you are doing too much. Clean out your house (that will feel like work, but it’s supposed to), and then decorate just enough. If your dining room is clean and de-cluttered, a purple table cloth or candle shouts “Advent” loud and clear. A tiny tree is just as Christmas-y as a big one. If your decorations are lost in mounds of other junk, what you need is less other junk, not more decorations.

Stay home.

There are a few mandatory holiday events: the office party, Great-Grandma’s drop-in, Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. That’s it. You don’t have to see the Little Singers, the Christmas Parade, the Nutcracker, your cousin’s annual Reindeer Roast, and certainly not anything, ever, at the mall. Unless you truly love it, skip it.

Every holiday craft, recipe, and tradition was not made for you.

Just because Mother did it, the parish is hosting it, or the craft magazine swears the kids will love it, doesn’t mean you have to do it. Think of holiday choices like the phone book: Lots of numbers, but most of them are not for you. Choose the ones that fit with the actual life God has given you. Canon lawyers agree, it is perfectly licit to serve your family store-bought cookies*.

Don’t pray so many ways.

I love Sarah’s Advent book because she tells you not to use every single idea. Your soul is not starving for lack of variety. Dig in deep with the few prayers and devotions God has chosen for you and your family. Be steadfast. Pray them well. Leave the rest for others.

Let someone else spend your money.

You want to feel like a rock star this December? Give away some cold hard cash. It’s got to be your money, so if you are in debt, pay that off first. But if you have some money of your own, that you are free to spend however you like: Give it away. Joy is knowing someone is getting a meal today who would have gone hungry if not for your five dollars.

Jesus is coming. How do we clear a path for the Lord? By emptying it of everything that’s getting in His way.

*No canon lawyers were disturbed in the writing of this post.

image credit: Shrine Chapel

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Jennifer Fitz is a homeschooling mom, catechist, accountant, and writer. She helps out at the Catholic Writers Guild blog and writes on Catholic topics at Riparians at the Gate.

Filed Under: Faith, family, guest post Tagged With: Advent, Faith, family, guest post, Jennifer Fitz, peace, seasons

Peace through Mary

July 3, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

Here’s my latest “Finding Faith in Everyday Life” column from our diocesan paper:

I have a prayer card that I found a year or so ago when I was holy card shopping before Christmas. It has a lovely picture of Mary with her hands clasped and her gaze looking heavenward, looking serene in a white head covering and dress.

For some reason, I don’t find her unattainable, even though it’s unlikely that (a) my hair will ever be that orderly or (b) I will be able to keep an outfit as white as Mary’s is. Still, this Mary isn’t impossible for me to imagine. She doesn’t feel untouchable.

Maybe it’s because I kept her by my bed for a while, when I was having trouble sleeping. Maybe this Mary reminds me of the mom I want to be, or, for that matter, the woman I want to be.

I want to be a source of peace for those around me, but to do that, I have to have peace myself. And to have peace, I have to be listening to God.

For me, this takes shape as what might seem like a ridiculous amount of committed prayer time early in the morning. Some days, though, my kids get up early or they keep me up in the middle of the night, and I can’t carve out that early morning time.

I have felt quite a few stressors in my life in the last year. This holy card with Mary on it went into my pocket right after we found out about my brother-in-law’s untimely death over a year ago and stayed there as we wondered what was going on with our oldest daughter’s health.

When our old farmhouse tossed in some extra features recently, like croutons on the salad of stress, I gripped my rosary in my pocket and felt the edges of this holy card and knew that Mary was truly with me.

Oh, I haven’t told you the title of Mary on this holy card, have I? Our Lady of Mental Peace.

Yeah, I know. Doesn’t seem to be a coincidence, does it?

There’s a lovely prayer on the back, and I invite you to pray it with me. I have searched, but there’s not really a lot of history on this title of Mary. She has history with me, though, and she’s a new favorite nickname for my heavenly Mother.

Mother of Tranquility and Mother of Hope, look upon me in this time of my weakness and unrest. Teach my searching heart to know that God’s love for me is unchanging and unchangeable and that true human love can only begin and grow by touching His love. Let your gentle peace which this world cannot give be always with me, and help me to bring this same peace into the lives of others. Our Lady of Mental Peace, pray for me. Amen.

May Our Lady of Mental Peace stroke your forehead and offer you the calming presence of Her Son.

The image I used is from DiscountCatholicStore.com, where this card is for sale.

Filed Under: Inspired by the Virgin Mary, writing Tagged With: Catholic Times, Finding Faith in Everyday Life, peace, Virgin Mary, writing

Prayer for Peace

May 31, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

As we commemorate Memorial Day, let’s join in praying for peace — in our world, in our country, and, most importantly, in our own hearts:

To Mary, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by Grace,
let loving and devout appeal go up from every corner of the Earth:
from noble temples and tiniest chapels,
from royal palaces and mansions of the rich as from the poorest hut;
from every place wherein a faithful soul finds shelter,
from blood-drenched plains and seas.
Let it bear to her the anguished cry of mothers and wives,
the wailing of innocent little ones,
the sighs of every generous heart,
that her most tender and benign solicitude
may be moved and the peace we ask for be obtained for our agitated world.

Pope Benedict XV on May 5, 1917
(Eight days later, Mary appeared to three children at Fatima, Portugal)

Courtesy of Women of Grace Daily Grace Lines

image source

Filed Under: Faith, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays Tagged With: Christian, Faith, Mary Moment Monday, peace, prayer, Virgin Mary

Finding Her

May 17, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

I find her in the most unexpected places, in the most unexpected times, just when I need her. She’ll be there, quiet and serene, not judging or pointing her finger.

She’s just waiting for the chance to hug me. And to take me to her Son, who will heal me (and hold me) as often as I need it.

In that first iris, the one that seems to be blooming way before all the rest of the irises around our house, I saw peace.

I’ve been reflecting on peace a lot this weekend. That was supposed to be a focus for me this year.

Peace has come to be an umbrella for me, protecting me from the onslaught of life. Maybe a better image is that of a special shield all around me.

(Yeah, I know, I’m quoting myself. But I needed that picture of peace, so maybe you do too.)

In that solitary iris, I saw a glimmer of something I had almost forgotten in a recent mental funk: peace.

I find it, so often, when I curl up in Mother Mary’s lap and let her stroke my brow. I find it when I turn to her holding my blankie prayer crumpled in my fist. I find it in the sudden unexpectedness of spring.

She’s there, in that iris, as the Lady of Sorrows, and she reminds me of the many family members I hold close in prayer (whether they know it or not).

One blooming flower made all the difference for me on that day of mental funk.

One flower.

Looking at the pineys (which you might call peonies) waiting to burst and the bleeding hearts starting to explode, I know Mary is out there, in my garden, smiling at me.

The question is not if she’s there. The question is…will I choose to see her?

Filed Under: Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays Tagged With: flowers, gardening, irises, Mary Moment Monday, peace, pictures, seasons, spring, Virgin Mary

Finding Peace This Year

January 9, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 7 Comments

I started thinking about a one word resolution for the year when I read Rachel Balducci’s recent post at Faith & Family Live, and then, hearing Lisa Hendey and Rachel talk more about it in this week’s Faith & Family Livecast, I found myself suddenly sure that this was something I needed to do.

I knew just the word.

PEACE.

It’s been something that’s been on my mind for quite a while. I can’t put my finger on when I had the realization that peace was more important to me than almost anything else, but it’s something that struck me like gradual lightening in 2009.

Happiness is overrated. It’s elusive. It’s like water in my hands, something I’m always grasping and unable to describe.

Peace, however, is not.

I find peace at Mass; I find peace on my couch in the evenings; I find peace in the mundane tasks of folding and washing and doing.

Peace has come to be an umbrella for me, protecting me from the onslaught of life. Maybe a better image is that of a special shield all around me. I know it’s strengthened by prayers, because right now, I’m experiencing it, even in the midst of trials unlike any I could have imagined.

The word of the year, for me, then, is PEACE. I might even go so far as to try to find some different plaques to hang up around the house and in my office. I’m going to carry it with me, write it at the top of my planner page, inscribe it in my mind. It’s going to become my approach to life, the lifeline I use when I reach up to God and ask Him to carry me through the trials. It will be the code word for whether I answer the phone or let it go to voice mail. In the evenings, when I’m tossing around the idea of working (despite the fact that Offline Evenings (#6 on this post) are supposed to be the rule), I’m going to remember my word, my goal, my promise to myself.

The photo, incidentally, was taken in February a few years back. I stepped outside and was overcome by the need to take a picture, capture the sunrise. Looking at it now, I still smile, feeling that cold morning, the day ahead of me, the wonder of the explosion of color.

What’s your word for the year?