Step 1 – Page 5 – Walk in Trust

Chastity, the key to Fulfilling our Divine Call

Chastity, many people when confronted with the word, think of it as merely being about sexual abstinence but that’s only a very small part of it and not in every case. Every person is called to a chaste life, however the call to abstinence itself depends on marital status. Chastity is the guardrails that protects ‘eros’, which is the fuel that drives us to fulfill our life’s mission. If our call is to the married state and to procreate, then this divine force will pull us to our mate for that intention. But it has other purposes as well, since bearing children is not the only way designed by God to be co-creators with Him. All of humanity is called to this Divine partnership in one way or another, but most notably through our creativity functions. So Chastity, permits us to honor God’s plan for creation by allowing us to love and respect ourselves properly in line with who and whose we are, and then love others in the same manner. The enemy often distorts and misdirects this creative force in many ways. It is put there to bring together those who have a job to do in common and is meant to inspire His children towards a common goal for His purposes (with parenting being the best example) not towards each other to become stagnant there. One looks outward together and moves the individuals forward, the other at it’s most benign merely blocks the path and immobilizes.

The answer then is to channel this powerful force and use it for God’s purposes. This great passion is from God, but what we do with it is up to us. Just as sinfulness often starts in the mind, chastity has its roots there too. Our thoughts and visualizations should be well attended to. It is a powerful tool that can be easily misused. We should be using our mind’s eye as a path seeker, leading our way to God’s will. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8) The Power of Positive thinking and the ‘name it and claim it’ people often get a bad reputation from fellow Christians but I think they are on to something. Our amazingly generous and creative Father has set many powerful tools at our disposal, and the mind is certainly such a one. It can be a powerful aid in pursuing our God given talents and putting our gifts to use. Eros is meant to rocket us to our destinies as Christopher West says when discussing ‘Theology of the Body’, and he goes on to tell us that there are three choices when addressing our passions…that of the stoic, the addict, or the mystic.

So go ahead dare to reach higher as the mystics did, ask the Lord for direction in every area of your life and with His guidance start setting out the very particular path that the Lord has set out for you. Start small maybe, don’t let negativity and self doubts get in the way, visualize what the Lord is asking of you and start taking the required steps towards pursuing your calling.

Humility

This was the first week of Nineveh 90, a 90 day period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparition in Fatima, Portugal. To go along with it, I chose one virtue per week that I’m to learn more about and grow in. ‘Humility’ was for the first week, or I’d like to think that the Lord chose it for me (as well as all virtues for the remaining weeks). It started off with me being reminded of the following prayer that was written by a dear friend, Catholic Shepherd. When he showed it to me, the thing that captured my interest was the names of the two chosen saints, as they were my parents names as well. I had loved these saints separately, but had never thought of them together this way.

Although it all resonated with me at a deep level, it wasn’t until re-reading it last Sunday that it really hit me hard that THIS was the epitome of humility. All of it, with total surrender being the ultimate desired state of being and that these two saints embraced it so well!
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Personal lessons from the week:

I am weak but He is strong. Learn to be ok with being alone. God alone is sufficient. Seek love within.

The answer to my hunger for love and fulfillment will not come from outside myself. When I look for answers out there, it always disappoints. People are imperfect beings, only God can offer us what we most want and need. He IS perfect love itself.

My body is the Temple of the Lord, to be used in His service and to be cared for accordingly. Be responsible for self-care.

I can’t ignore my health, or push it on to others like my family or my doctors. It is up to me to do what is right, especially as it concerns eating right, exercising, getting enough rest. God leads me to the right path, but I need to step into it myself.

Humility demands that I confidently step into the role that the Lord has entrusted me with.

I often lack self confidence (or actually ‘confidence in the Lord’ would be more accurate), and justify my self deprecating ways as being humble which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Humility is knowing who you are in the Lord (what He’s called you to) and ‘stepping into it’! If we catch ourselves saying no to God because we don’t think we could do something, or not do it well…that might be pride kicking in…we don’t want to look like fools, what if we fail, what if they laugh, what if they talk about us…what if. Humility is giving it all to God! Think of Mary…may it be done to me according to your word! YES! Whatever You want Lord! Total surrender!

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Release perfectionism. Let go of expectations. What is, is ok.(It is what it is). To accept this moment just as it is without wanting to tweak it or improve it in any way, evokes joy. Stay present, it opens us up to miracles.

When I can accept the simplest of moments and am able to see beauty in it instead of all the small faults that it may contain, I am filled with gratitude!

Don’t invest in the outcome, invest in the process.

It’s ok to have goals, but I need to approach things differently…to just enjoy the journey. If the steps themselves are taken side by side with God then the final destination will be reached without so much struggling.

Fr. Leo Clifford – Humility

Matt Maher – Lord, I Need You
I Give You My Heart | Hillsong
Hard wired for happiness (audible)

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Step 1 DAY 4: Order out of Chaos

Today we will take a look at the more practical side of obedience.

In the beginning God brought forth order out of chaos, He set about creating and ultimately made male and female in His own image. The original plan was for Adam and Eve and their descendants to be in constant relationship with Him. Everything that they ever could need was set before them in the garden. Their only desire was for the One who could truly satisfy them, all they wanted was to be near Him and to do His will. Then sin entered in. The relationship was broken, and as if a spell was put on humanity, a sin induced haze came upon us. We forgot whose we were. We still had desires that needed to be fulfilled…where before the desire itself was focused, with this great breech it seemed to splinter…so many wants and yet no idea of how to fulfill them. We have inherited this great ache. Generation after generation still yearns for something they can’t quite comprehend. We’ve started making ‘gods’ out of things that can never fully satisfy us. Money, sex, power and on and on. But our hearts were created for one thing and one thing alone. God Himself.

If you are like me, sitting there right now with a particular area of your life in chaos…or maybe even multiple areas. There is hope! Jesus is God’s answer to this monumental disarray. Yesterday we saw how obedience to God shows faith in action. That principle applies even to the smallest, most mundane areas of our lives. God doesn’t want to be left out of what is happening with us and to be relegated to Sunday morning visits only. No…remember that He wants a personal and intimate relationship with us. So obedience even in the smallest things, releases our faith and prepares the way for amazing things to take place. He covers us with His grace! Will things always work out the way we want them to, of course not, we don’t always know best. But we trust that He does and that what He allows is indeed for our best.

So the first thing in step 1 in caring for SELF, the temple of the Holy Spirit, is to become aware of the chaos areas of our lives especially as it pertains to our bodies. Are we nourishing our bodies properly, do we get enough exercise, how about rest? If we don’t take good care of ourselves then we might find that the enemy can get at us a lot easier. The acronym HALT, tells us what to be aware of. It suggests that we should never allow ourselves to get too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely, or too Tired. The Lord can’t bring healing to an area that we are trying to hide from Him or from ourselves. We need to glance at the messes only to acknowledge them and then we must move on. We don’t dwell there, if we are tempted to do so, we know it is coming from the enemy. We move on by giving that area of our lives to the One who best knows how to handle it. We offer it up. We ask for discernment on what steps if any we need to take. Once we get some clarity, then we act on it. That is practical obedience.

Have a blessed day everybody.

Please go listen to Fr. Lauer’s talk for today.

Step 1: Day 3: Jesus My Lord and Savior

Yesterday we renounced satan, today we will continue renewing our baptismal promises by professing our belief in Jesus.

Sola fide or Faith Alone is a spot of contention between Catholics and many other Christians. As Catholics we believe in GRACE ALONE…but the concept of faith alone is one that can easily be misleading. Some people think that simply believing in Jesus is enough to be saved. But really, even the Devil believed in Jesus. So what makes the difference? Obedience! Here’s a little story to show you the difference.

Many people were watching a famous tightrope walker getting ready to cross Niagara Falls one day. He approached them and asked if they believed he could do this. They had seen him successfully do it many times before, so there was no doubt to his abilities. They cheerfully replied YES!! Then he asked the crowd if they believed he could take a person across. All answered with another exuberant “Yes.” Then he came to one man and asked him to get on his back and go with him. The man refused!

Did the man believe? Well, it’s one thing to say you do…and its quite another to put your life on the line. As Christians we are asked to put our lives on the line and climb on to Jesus’ back. We are not being told to walk across on our own volition (that would be the works of the flesh that Catholics are often accused of committing), but we can’t stay sitting on the sidelines either. Remember that Jesus honors your free will though and won’t drag you across…but He will keep asking, so don’t worry about lost opportunity. 😉

I often hear the plight of many saying that God doesn’t speak to them or worse, claiming that God doesn’t speak personally to anyone anymore. This is not true! He’s speaking to us all the time. You just need to tune in to the right frequency. You need to be listening. Start by listening to the predominant voice, the voice of His Church…take the steps to obey its teachings…enter into relationship with Him and He will take it from there. All it takes is one small step towards Him, showing Him that you are willing to walk with Him…He will come running for you.

I like the story of the Bike Ride with God , many self proclaimed Christians are on the road with Jesus (they’ve been Baptized, they may even go to church regularly), but unfortunately He’s in the back seat. They proclaim Him as their savior but He’s definitely not Lord of their lives. For that to happen a switch needs to take place. Jesus needs to be in His rightful place up front .

Please go listen to Fr. Laurel speak about this very subject at my LENTEN page.

Step 1 DAY 2: Renouncing Satan

Here we are on day two of step 1 , yesterday we discussed HUMILITY, today we will be taking a closer look at FASTING as it relates to step 1.

As we saw before, we can’t receive God’s gifts (His graces) with arms that are already full. This fasting process is a letting go, a turning away from all that does not give life. Remember Jesus came to give life in the fullest, the devil came to destroy it. We need to take a closer look at everything that we are letting in to our lives and make a judgement call. It is part of our Baptismal Vows, before we are asked if we accept Jesus, it asks us if we renounce Satan and all his works!

There are three very distinct steps on the spiritual life.

1)Purgative

2)Illuminative

3)Unitive

Today we are dealing with the first step, the purgative way. We need to ask ourselves is this person, place or thing bringing me life, or helping to destroy it. Sometimes it won’t be blatantly obvious. Sometimes it just subtly sucks the life out of you. You don’t fully know what happened until you are no longer in their presence and you feel deflated. Sometimes even apparently good things can have this effect. God given gifts on the other hand are long lasting and spiritually energizing, even if they are harder to come by.

Here are some other fasting concepts that you might be more familiar with…purging, detoxing, letting go, decluttering.These principles can be used for any area of our lives. More obvious would be how it affects your spiritual life but a little less so with whole area of SELF, but let’s take a look at a few possibilities.

*DIET: Is what I’m eating giving me the energy required to live a healthy life. Am I consuming any toxins that may be contributing to my current health problems?

*RELATIONSHIPS: Do the people that I let in to my inner circle bring me closer to God, or are they in any way sabotaging my efforts? Even though you really can’t do anything about who your family members are, you can choose how you interact with them and how much power you give them to speak into your life. Friends however, are totally your choice.

*ENTERTAINMENT: Take a closer look at all that you are allowing in through movies, television, books, social media, etc.

This is just a quick look, I’m sure you see where I’m going with this and can apply it to your own situation. If it doesn’t give you life, let it go. No…I’m not going to post a video of Elsa here because everyone is quite done with her by this point, especially those of us in the Boston area…lol.

Please go listen to a wonderful talk by Fr. Lauer on Renouncing Satan over at my Lenten page.

Be in the moment

I’m still going through my notes from the retreat last month, and trying to digest all the goodies that I received. Here’s another one. “You don’t always have to be searching for the next big thing. God is right here, right now and quite capable of bringing to you all that you need. Just wait on Him!”

This was actually the most impactful message that I received while there. To just be really present to the moment…even if it seems inconsequential, or on the other extreme… even too painful to handle. God is enough. We don’t always have to be reaching out in order to control everything…which all it does is cause distraction anyway. It’s not that entertainment is bad…it’s not…as long as you are fully present for that as well. We need to stop doing things half heartedly. And by ‘we’…I totally mean ‘ME’. This constant distraction is robbing us of the intensity of life that we crave. By turning to counterfeits that can never provide what we seek, we end up with a shallow existence.

Many Parts but One Body

1 Cor 12:12-14

“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.”

Prior to going in to the retreat one of my greatest struggles was measuring myself up against some great people…whether the saints already in heaven or my saintly friends here on earth.

One of the big lessons was that yes I AM very different from those around me and that can be extremely lonely at times…but my life was different from the beginning and that wasn’t an accident. I can’t measure myself against what everyone else seems to be able to accomplish…but only against what God is putting in my own heart. Step into it! It may look weird to everyone else…maybe not even all that ‘Christian’…but He has set me up. I have all that I need to do His will!

We are ALL needed and important!

Too Small a God?

“If your concerns seem too big, then you have made God too small…and in turn you have become too small.”

At each meal during the retreat they put a CD on for us, on a given topic. The message above was part of one of the talks. I bawled like a baby when I heard this. It really hit home. YES…I so often fail to see the grandeur of God, to KNOW without a doubt that He is HERE…in this moment, wherever that may be and whatever that entails. That HE is CAPABLE to handle any of my issues. All of them! I then shrink down to what I see as my limitations and failings, they envelope me and I allow them to set my course of action.

The best part of the week was being in constant connection with Him, through the good and the not so good. In the good I found reason to rejoice, in the other stuff I ran to Him and trusted Him to make good of it. Hmmm…I don’t think I need to be living in a monastery for THAT! 😉

I experienced without a doubt His love for me. My concerns never seemed too big, I eagerly gave them to Him in joyful anticipation of what He might do with them. He never failed. He doesn’t fail…ever!

reverent submission

Reverence: Honor or respect felt or shown.

Hebrews 7

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and was heard because of his reverent submission.”

This passage sort of ruled my week. I wanted to be obedient and eagerly submitted to whatever I felt His will for me was for the moment. With His grace, I was able to follow through even in the smallest of things…like food choices (I had been on a fairly strict gluten free diet plan prior to this, but chose to not make an issue of it and just eat whatever I was served), the clothes I wore (I went with skirts most of the time), and running to the Adoration chapel whenever I needed His direction. The daily schedule that they provided for us was the back bone of my day. I tried to keep as many of the prayer times as I could. I think I may have missed one vigil and a couple of the none hours. But whenever I did, the Lord would use someone to remind me to stay on track.

The most important lesson that I bring back from this is that if anything good happened, it was NOT by my own strength. My body suffered! It got very cold up there at night and the heat was not yet working. One of the women on retreat with us ended up leaving. The bed was hard and my body ached terribly after a while. Getting up for vigils at 3 AM, kind of throws you into a perpetual state of exhaustion for the rest of the day. Eating gluten and whatever else was served, gave me terrible tummy aches. The first day I was there, I even started spotting…after having been in menopause for over a year. I nearly freaked. Nearly. Instead of rushing to call my doctor as they suggest…I texted my friends instead and had them covering me in prayer then I headed to the Adoration Chapel which was two doors down from my room and offered it to HIM! (spotting stopped the next day).

I don’t mention these things to make me look saintly (or crazy depending on your life view)…far from it. It was just what God used to show me that these things don’t matter AT ALL! My spirit was connected with Him! I felt alive and refreshed.

I think that’s the point…that no matter what your state in life, or what the exterior conditions might be…we CAN stay connected. It may take more of an effort out here because there are more distractions vying for our attention…but I’m determined!

Called into the Great Silence!

I had the pleasure of being on retreat last week. I went in on Monday afternoon and left Friday morning after breakfast. I’m still trying to process all that I experienced and learned there. These blog posts are about that…my own processing…I hope that they make some sense to you who may be reading and possibly even afford some inspiration…but I’ll leave that to the Holy Spirit.

Let me start at the beginning. I was supposed to be going on a long weekend get away trip with some girl friends the second weekend of September. My husband scheduled a few days off from work, to watch the kids. I was looking forward to some time to myself to recharge my batteries and spend some time with some awesome people. It didn’t work out. One thing after another happened, and the weekend plans were eventually cancelled. To say I was disappointed was putting it mildly. But I had to trust in God’s plan.

However, part of the reason that I had so wanted to get away was my current struggles with severe depression. The week before my retreat, it had hit me again. For any of you who may struggle with this, you know that it comes in waves…you never really know when or how intensely it will hit you. So when it does, I retreat to my chair (or sometimes to my bed) and just let it pass. Shortly after crying to the Lord demanding to know why I had even been born, I got ‘the call’. A dear friend had been at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer that morning and the Holy Spirit had put me in their heart…the feeling was strong that I had to be there. I was left with no doubt that I had to obey. So I placed a call to the Abbey right away. In their website they say that retreats need to be booked six months ahead of time. Ok…it’s in God’s hands…whatever He wants…shall be. I left a message and hoped for the best.

A bit later someone from the Abbey called me back. The following week would be the women’s retreat (it’s the third week of each month) and they still had rooms available…would that be ok with me? Ha! Yes…that sounds just about perfect…especially considering that the week in question began on the 15th with the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows (right after the Exaltation of the Cross on Sunday which was my 29th wedding anniversary) and ended on the 19th…the day before my birthday. 😀

I think God had a plan, don’t you? Please stay tuned…