Getting Ready - Pt. 1

Advent, like Lent, is a time of preparation. There is no better way to prepare your soul for God than with prayer. If you are serious about persuing God and in growing in the spiritual life, then the only way is by regular, that means daily, times of prayer. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." Make a time of complete solitude, total avoidance of people, business and "stuff to do." Seek the God hidden within you. Without this regular prayer time, we are just pretending to live a spiritual life, even the most simple one.

"Turn the Other Cheek"

Hether Fisher Klopping posted in Catholic faithhook.

Hether Fisher Klopping 5:22am Nov 18 I heard a great reflection on "turning the other cheek" from Fr. Barron's Catholicism Series the other night. He said it was NOT meant to mean you simply offer the other cheek to be hit, too, as many think. It was meant to suggest you literally turn your chin away to reflect invalidation and say, "I'm not going to play this with you." (I'll add here, "Back away from me, Satan!") Fr. Barron shared a story about how Blessed Mother Teresa once found a starving girl in the streets and brought her into a bakery nearby to ask if the baker could give her something to eat. The man spat in her face, full on. She responded, "Thank you for that for me, but how about the child?"

15 Seconds

Another major point I got from my retreat this year is the exercise of keeping a concentrated 15 seconds of attention or "focused meditation" without distractions. Really, isn't it really hard to just keep focused on one thought for 15 seconds? Even St. Teresa of Avila, great mystic and Doctor of the Church, would complain that her distractions at prayer were like "mad men" invading her thoughts. She required a meditation book for 16 years in order to stay focused at prayer.

So, on your way to receiving communion, the God of the universe, instead of thinking about what line you're going to get in, if you're walking to slow or fast, if junior is going bump his sister, who the Eucharistic minister is, smiling at so-and-so, etc. try to REALLY concentrate for 15 seconds on WHO you are going to receive and really prepare yourself. Same thing with the first 15 seconds after receiving or with keeping a straight 15 seconds at your meditation time at home before a "mad man" comes into your thoughts and interrupts you with how pleasant or rough a day it is, or what you are going to do next, or who's making that particular noise you hear. Hard, isn't it? Recollection. 15 seconds at a time. Practice, practice, practice. You'll eventually get quite good at anything with enough practice.

A Firey Furnace

The director of the Carmelite retreat said that each soul is like a different kind of metal. They each have their own melting point. Some are hotter than others. Eventually, when the furnace gets hot enough, it WILL melt. If some people respond quicker to your prayers than others, then they have a lower melting point. Some souls require HEAPS of sacrifices, prayers, offerings, and sufferings on their behalf before any change can take place. Keep that in mind when you are praying for someone for a long time and there's no visible change. You just have to "step up" the prayer. Turn up the furnace. Yes, there's a cost. It's gonna hurt. Some souls are VERY costly. Oh, Sacred Heart of Jesus, burning with love for souls, make my heart like unto thine.

Gaining the Grace of Martha

This was sent to me by a very dear friend (yes, one of those with 8 kids). Thank you, Rebecca.

Gaining the Grace of Martha by St. Francis de Sales

To have to see to a great variety of things is really a continual martyrdom; for in the same way as those who make a journey in the summer find the flies more troublesome and irritating than the journey itself, so the fact that one has to attend to a great many different sorts of things is in itself more troublesome than the actual load of business.

You need patience, and God will give it to you, I hope, if you make a special point of asking him, and if you make yourself practice it faithfully, preparing yourself for this every morning by particularly applying some point of your meditation to it and making up your mind firmly to keep patient all day every time you feel yourself slipping.

Do not lose any opportunity, however small, of showing sweetness of temper toward everyone. Do not trust in your industry to carry you successfully through all your affairs but only in God's help; and then rest securely in his care of you, believing that he will do what is best for you, providing that you for your part work diligently and yet without straining. Without straining and gently, I say, for violent effort spoils both your heart and the business in hand, and is not really diligence but rather over-eagerness and agitation.

How soon we shall be in the realm of eternity! And then we shall see how little all the affairs of this world amount to and how little it mattered whether they did or did not succeed; but all the same, now we pursue them as though they were great things. One day we shall in heaven see that what we clung to in this world was nothing more than a child's fancy…

Be patient with everyone but especially with yourself; I mean that you should not be troubled about your imperfections and that you should always have courage to pick yourself up afterwards. There is no better way of getting there in the end in the spiritual life than always starting all over again and never thinking that you have done enough.

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The part that stuck out for me was "how little all the affairs of this world amount to and how little it mattered whether they did or did not succeed." It reminds me of the scripture verse, "It is God who brings about any measure of success or even desire. Phil 2:13. So, we do nothing but obey inspiration, but do it with a peaceful heart and hold on loosely.