All that is Beautiful

I’ve always been struck by the beauty of movement, whether it’s a ballerina gracefully moving across the stage, a baseball hitter’s powerful swing, a skier masterfully navigating the mountain, or an athlete in the gym maneuvering heavy weights with ease. 

Beauty is all around us in many forms and I try to take the time to appreciate how the many hours of repetitive practice allow the human person, at every level of athletics, to move with beauty, grace and ease. Thanks be to God for the incredible design of the human body and all that it allows us to do

The ability to appreciate beauty, in any form, is truly a gift from God. I was reminded of this recently as I listened to a Catholic podcast and the topic was goodness, beauty and truth. This time of year especially, when the trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, and all of nature becomes a flourish of green, it is a easy be thankful for the goodness, beauty and truth of God displayed in the majesty of His creation.

Beauty resides not only in our vistas and valleys, but also in literature, art, music, theatre, gardening, cooking, woodworking, athletics, and most especially in how we love and serve. Beauty resides in really any activity that we unite with God and that lifts our eyes and hearts to Him in thanksgiving. God generously pours his grace into us as we live, laugh, love, pray, play, move, share and create—each of us in our own way—and so we all contribute in some way to the beautiful tapestry of God’s creation.

What a powerful prayer to ask God to guide us in our creative, artistic and physical endeavors and that we do everything with pure hearts rooted in His love. Let us nurture and share our gifts and talents freely so that the goodness, beauty and truth of God flow out from us to others.

The pinnacle of beauty is love in the human soul. St. Pope John Paul II referred to the human person as the “masterpiece of God’s creation.” May we give thanks for the inner beauty of every soul which is like a shimmering jewel illuminating the light of Christ, each in our own way. 

St. Augustine said, “How does that beauty bring us closer to Him? Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”

Help us Lord to appreciate the goodness, beauty and truth of both the joys and the sufferings that we will inevitably experience in this life — and by your grace, may we unite all of it with the love of your Son Jesus Christ, who by the Cross, gives us new life.

Woe to Compare

One of the tenets of physical strength training is to listen to your body and go at your own pace. It can be tempting to compare our progress to others, but comparison can lead to discouragement and frustration. It can take the fun out of our little successes.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

In the spiritual life, comparison can also lead to discouragement. God gives each  of us different gifts and inspirations about how to use them. Praying for guidance, being faithful to the Sacraments, and learning about ourselves through the study of scripture are some ways God reveals who we are through Him and how we are called to use our gifts and talents to accomplish our unique mission.

St Paul addressed comparison in 2nd Corinthians 10:12, “Not that we dare to class or compare ourselves with some of those who recommend themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”

As Christians, we are called to support, encourage, love and be inspired by each other. We are on the same team! We are each given unique gifts for the purpose of lifting up the Body of Christ and bringing people to Christ. How ineffective we would be if we all had the same gifts! 

God is so generous, and has such great plans for each of us that if we wallow in the fact that some people have more gifts (or what we consider better gifts) than we do, we may miss out on our unique mission and purpose. Most certainly comparison opens the door to Satan to discourage us and perhaps even stop us from striving for holiness (and sainthood!) altogether.

Christ knows our individual strength and weaknesses and he works with us just as we are — so let us seek Him rather than looking to people to give us our mission and identity.  St. Francis de Sales said, “Be who you are and be that well.”

Let us pray for the humility to be honest with ourselves about our gifts and to patiently discern how to use them. Often our mission is small and hidden, but of no less importance than what appears to be someone else’s grandiose mission. May we be grateful for whatever gifts we have and pray to find God’s peace and joy in living authentically with Him as our guide.

Our Call to Greatness this Lent

Mediocre is such an odd word. It’s Latin root is ‘medius’ meaning middle and ‘ocris’ which means rugged mountain. So mediocre is being about half way up the mountain. I don’t think any of us want to be mediocre in any area of our lives, but ’mediocre' is a good word for us to consider during this season of Lent in which we are called to go all in with spiritual practices for 40 days.

Spiritual mediocrity can mean something different for each of us. I think that we can agree that we want to keep climbing the mountain, the entire 40 days of Lent, and not be stuck halfway up with habits of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that fizzle, become ho-hum, or are cast aside altogether.

We are all called to greatness. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Us. How we get there is very individual, between each of us and God. It is not something we can do on our own and it often doesn’t feel like the world is helping us much.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”

The secular world doesn’t encourage the sacrifice and selflessness that we seek during Lent. It is however, the giving more of ourselves that helps us lean into Jesus and his love more deeply, richly and purely.

I want Lent to be meaningful for you and for me. I want to pray more, be faithful to holy and healthy habits that will help me grow closer to Jesus and grow in holiness. Of course, our desire needs to be paired with solid actions that we discern and implement to see real, sustainable changes in our attitudes and actions, to avoid mediocrity.

Journaling is something I have added to my prayer life this Lent, so I can reflect on the Gospel, a saint, or my love (or lack of love) of neighbor. I haven’t journaled for a while, but so far it is revealing a lot about my motivations, where I am weak or strong, and I think this practice will bear good fruit over time.

As we seek to implement Lenten actions that help us rise above mediocrity, the word ‘courageous’ comes to mind. Feeling called to a new spiritual or physical practice this Lent? Do it. Go for it. Be courageous and give your yes to God! 

I’ll close with these encouraging words St. Pope John Paul II, “It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

St. Augustine's New Years' Wisdom

The New Year is always filled with promise. Something shifts in us that makes us want to become more holy and healthy. Maybe its the change of routine during Christmas and New Year, the travel, or our over-indulging in things of the world (like cookies and wine) that make us ready to begin anew in January.

It’s a great to build new habits of exercise and healthier eating patterns, but more importantly, this is an excellent time of year to renew our commitment to prayer, fasting and receiving the sacraments. Developing strong holy habits now can help us have a more holy and healthy Lent (which is just around the corner.)

As it turns out. St. Augustine has some priceless and even humorous words of wisdom about the power of habits and the role of God in our lives. 

He said, “Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.”

I laugh (and cry) in agreement with him. I want so much to be faithful to holy and healthy habits that will help me grow and to more fully live out God’s mission for me, but I try and fail, try and fail, again and again. Oh misery!

He encourages us. “You aspire to great things? Begin with the little ones.”

Small steps daily, little things with great love, small changes like 10 more minutes of prayer, offering kind words to others, doing a chore without complaint, starting a Holy Hour. A series of small steps can be a gift, a surprise of happy and holy changes that take root and bear fruit in our lives and in the lives of those we love.

St. Augustine said, “For if God is man's chief good, which you cannot deny, it clearly follows, since to seek the chief good is to live well, that to live well is nothing else but to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind.”

And so in our steady stream of resolutions, goals and desires for achievement, we are reminded by this dear saint to stay the course, to pray, to listen and rely on God by seeking his will and loving him with all we’ve got.

When the discipline of holy and healthy habits becomes wearisome, we are reminded that what we are trying to do here on earth is filled with temporary toil and that our true destiny is to be with our God one day in heaven. 

St. Augustine said, “When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a real life, being wholly filled by thee.”

Just in case we become full of ourselves with all of our trying, controlling and doing to improve conditions for this temporal body, St. Augustine points us to hope in our mighty Lord and the powerful union we have with him as his beloved sons and daughters.

“Now, may our God be our hope. He Who made all things is better than all things. He Who made all beautiful things is more beautiful than all of them. He Who made all mighty things is more mighty than all of them. He Who made all great things is greater than all of them. Learn to love the Creator in His creature, and the maker in what He has made.”

May this new year be a joyful kickstart of holy and healthy habits for you, with our mighty God at the helm, and with a new appreciation of God living (and working) within each of us.

From Within the Familiar

In physical training, there is much to gained by training a limited number of key exercises. I think good coaches don’t seek to entertain, but rather help people learn, grow and progress with a small set of lifts and movements that have the most potential to help them achieve their goals. People like familiarity, and in the familiar, they gain the courage and strength to move to new heights.

I was re-reading the Gospel of Matthew recently, and though I have read and participated in bible studies many times, I am amazed how the familiar words moved my heart in a new way. This time, the familiar became a catalyst for something new.

I love how Matthew describes Jesus and the disciples teaching, healing, praying and responding to the actions of Pharisees and Sadducees. The stories are familiar and comforting, but in this reading, I became almost solely focused on how often Jesus went away to pray alone.

From Matthew 14:23, “And after he dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.”

What does it mean when scripture jumps off the page and into our hearts in a new way? Most of us have been introduced to Lectio Divina in some form — the reading and prayerful reflection of scripture to allow God to work in us, but discerning the meaning in our lives can take time. 

I wanted a quick answer, but instead felt called to go up the mountain to pray. For me this is on our back dock by the pond, or in my favorite chair in the family room, or walking around our yard in the sunshine. Probably much like you, I have lots of ‘mountains’ in which to pray.

In the familiar stories of Matthew, God was trying to teach me something new or to take me to new heights. I began to set aside time to pray, not with my usual routine of Mass readings, the Rosary and Chaplet, but instead being quiet and listening, asking, waiting and allowing God more time and space to work in me.

I asked for a saint to assist me in praying more from the heart and St. John of the Cross turned up; I found this deep and tender prayer from him that revealed more of what I felt God was trying to teach me.

O Blessed Jesus, grant me stillness of soul in Thee. Let Thy mighty calmness reign in me. Rule me, O thou King of gentleness, King of peace. Give me control, control over my words, thoughts and actions. From all irritability, want of meekness, want of gentleness, O dear Lord, deliver me. By thine own deep patience give me patience, stillness of soul in Thee. Make me in this, and in all, more and more like Thee. Amen.

Our amazing God can break through, crack us open, and pull us closer to him through the words of scripture — and in any other way he desires. May we be watchful for these breakthroughs from within the familiar — as the familiar may be just the catalyst that God uses to move us to new heights.

Encouragement

Any teacher or coach knows that while we our job is to instruct others, there is also the aspect of encouragement that is an important part of our role.

I teach group strength classes and each student is different in the type of encouragement they need to excel. For example, some need encouraged to try heavier weights and others need to be encouraged to pull back so they don’t overdo it.

Encouragement is part of the instructional process no matter what we are coaching or teaching and it applies to all areas of our lives.

I’ve been thinking about encouragement in spiritual terms lately. One of the primary roles of a Christian is to lead others to Christ. To do that we need to pray and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to encourage people on their journey of growing in relationship with Jesus. 

Much like coaching and teaching in our temporal roles, this encouragement is a very individual process and we are called to simply give what we have been given. Encouraging people with love, being authentic — and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit is what we are asked to do. The rest are up to him.

We can look to Jesus in the Gospels as our model of how to encourage others. Encouragement is rooted in love, forgiveness and being willing to stand up for others and to share the truth. Never has there been a time when our culture needs love and encouragement rooted in faith in God. May our role of encourager foster hope and healing in those who are hurting, angry, and feel misunderstood.

St. Paul said, the second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, 4:2, “be persistent; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.” He is one of many saints who encourage us to persevere constantly no matter what the circumstances. In fact, the saints are the embodiment of encouragement.

St. Teresa of Avila is one of my favorite saints when it comes to simple, everyday words of encouragement.

She said, “May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

She also said, “May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.”

One more beautiful thought from St. Teresa, “May you be content knowing you are a child of God.”

Encouragement. It’s simple, but not easy in a world where we are busy and often too focused on ourselves rather than lifting up others. Telling someone they are a beloved child of God is amazingly encouraging. God loves us and asks only that we pass on his great love. May St. Teresa’s message inspire us to be courageous encouragers in our everyday lives.

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”

Focusing on Our Spiritual Fitness

This is the time of year that we often focus on physical New Year’s resolutions … eating healthy, getting into shape with exercise, creating new habits that will help us feel and look better. All of that is well and good, but keeping our focus on our spiritual fitness is an even greater priority.

I have worked in the field of fitness for a while now. The longer I do this work, the more I see our cultural obsession with our physical bodies. Over time, the Lord has shown me that we can easily miss the point of our lives when things of this world begin to play too big of a role or become our identity

My goal as a strength coach has always been to help people learn to move well, lift heavy things to get stronger, and to have fun doing it, with moderation and consistency. While this is a good thing, it began to change for me when I realized I was spending too much time and energy on it and not giving enough time to God.

I am learning to approach any and all goals, physical or otherwise, from a spiritual perspective. Jesus is with us 24/7 and he cares about everything we think, say and do. He and His Mother will help us discern and guide us to enjoy recreation (and any secular activities) with moderation when we seek their help — as it is our spiritual fitness and fulfilling our vocational call from God that matters most.

There was a time when I was new to coaching (this was a second career for me) and I exercised 2-3 hours a day. I was learning how to teach and that’s how I justified the amount of time I spent on physical activity. I was aware that I exercised far more time than I prayed, but it was new, fun and exciting. Eventually, the Blessed Mother intervened and set me on a more spiritually healthy trajectory by straightening out my priorities.

One day when I was swinging a kettlebell in the gym, the Hail Mary prayer kept coming into my heart. I put the weight down and took an honest look at my spiritual life. I wasn’t praying the Rosary any more and I knew that I needed more prayer time in general. I had a desire to go to daily Mass, but I hadn’t made the effort to make it happen with my teaching schedule. I wanted to give my time and talent more freely to those in need. This all came bubbling up as I prayed for Our Lady’s intervention, so I put the kettlebells away and went home to ponder these things in my heart.

Our Lady of the Rosary

That moment with Our Lady in the gym prompted a big change in my life. I was led to SoulCore Rosary prayer and exercise, attended their retreat, and started leading SoulCore Rosary prayer and gentle movement in parishes.

I made other changes too. I changed the location of my gym to reduce maintenance time. I decreased the number of classes I offered. I exercised for only an hour a day (and now it’s less than that and fewer days per week) and I’m healthier, happier, my life is more balanced and I have a loving and active relationship with Jesus and Mary.

Most importantly, God is first in my life, my prayer time is far longer than my exercise time, I’m able to attend daily Mass, be a volunteer, and enjoy the richness of family, friends, parish and diocesan life in a more peaceful balance with my physical life.

My identity is a child of God, a woman in love with the Lord, a wife and mother, a SoulCore leader, and a servant and sinner who is striving for holiness. My role as fitness coach is very small and I’m thrilled about that. It’s not who I am, it’s something I do — and I ask God to sanctify it every day. There is real spiritual freedom in not allowing a secular activity to own the lion’s share of my time and energy.

So in this new year, I pray that we focus on our spiritual fitness first, keep Jesus at the center of our lives, and ask him, and his Mother, to help us discern how to approach any and all New Year’s resolutions.

Set the World on Fire

I have always loved these words from St. Catherine of Siena, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” We see this on tee shirts, journal covers and I even have it in my email signature.

But what do those words really mean, practically speaking, in our daily lives? I don’t know about you, but I often don’t feel like my ordinary life is setting things on fire.

But then let’s think about starting a fire. We have an old-fashioned wood-burning stove in our kitchen, with no gas starter, so It’s really challenging to get a fire going. We use different types of kindling and patiently feed a few sparks with more wood until it catches on and ignites the bigger logs — which eventually results in a strong blaze … and a nice warm kitchen.

If we look at starting a fire in a spiritual sense —lighting up our souls with prayer, Scripture study, the Sacraments, and acts of charity — over time these habits ignite our hearts with more love for God and neighbor. When the flame of faith is fanned, it catches on to others. The spiritual life takes patience, care and nurturing, like starting a fire; if we don’t stay united to God in this process, the embers of love can quickly fade and die out.

Let’s look at setting the world on fire. Some saints did visibly great things, but most saints are relatively unknown and grew in love (greatness) over the course of a mostly hidden life. They were often of ill health and had to persevere through many obstacles to do God’s will. One thing they had in common was the fire of faith that carried them through their lives and grew into magnificent flames of love by the time they were called to their eternal home.

It seems that setting the world on fire is the result of patiently seeking to be the person God created us to be with our unique mission and circumstances — and persevering through all of it with great love. So that fire is love … and if it is real, the flame of love will grow and ignite others.

A friend of mine died of cancer recently and I had the privilege of visiting her in Hospice before she passed into eternal life. God has given me the grace to be comfortable in a Hospice environment and I love being with the sick and dying near the end of their lives as God is so present there. 

My friend told me she loved God and she was grateful to have received Last Rites. Her family was by her side through the entire cancer journey and they had done everything that was medically possible. She said she was at peace, grateful for the loving support of family, friends, and her trusted medical team and she was ready to go home to God.

She was setting the world on fire for all who were touched by her illness and passing. By God’s grace, she was able to do, what we all hope we can do in death … trust in God and be at peace in his embrace as we return home. Her faithful witness was a form of evangelization on her death bed. I believe that the impact of her joyful witness will stay with me forever. 

The fire of her love for God was ablaze in her heart, and since our time together, I have shared her story with many people, and now I am sharing it with you. So the fire of her faith continues to burn bright and set others aflame even though she isn’t physically here anymore — all praise and glory to God!

So I think my takeaway is this … setting the world on fire is about being true to what God is individually calling us to do — right here and right now — sharing whatever gifts we have with as much love as we can muster. The example of St. Therese’s ‘Little Way’ challenges us to love the people God places in our ordinary lives and this may be exactly what God is calling us to do to set the world on fire.

Our fire may not be fully visible to anyone except God (many did not truly know St. Therese’s holiness until well after her death), but that doesn’t matter. God sees and loves even a tiny flicker, a small burning ember, and the more we lean on him, the more he fans the flames of love in our hearts. Be who you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire.

God's Work and Our Effort

It takes a lot of effort to start a new exercise routine. Sometimes people are not ready, but when they are, it is a beautiful thing to behold. As they learn to move in new ways, you can almost see the pathways expand in their brain and body as they respond to the new impetus. When it clicks, it is pure joy to help that person move better and get stronger.

So let’s look at effort in our spiritual lives. We know that it takes effort to start anything new and to build strong relationships with people in our lives. It’s the same with growing more in tune with God’s will for our lives. We have to give time and effort to God so that he can work in us and through us.

Our Catholic faith teaches us that God responds to our efforts. It might not be in the way we expect, in fact most likely, it will not be our way at all. In faith, we trust that he recognizes even our tiniest desire to give more effort to our relationship with him and with our neighbor — even if our response is slow and weak.

We had a discussion in bible study recently about allowing God to be the pilot in our lives. It seems that many of us were catechized in a way that places us as the pilots with God as the co-pilot — myself included. It is interesting to take this to prayer and ask God to show us where we are depending too much on our efforts, where we are holding back something from him (and why) rather than allowing God to be fully in charge of our lives.

It is good to remember that God is the one who inspires us to make any effort in the first place — and that thought makes me crazy happy. Our effort is the result of cooperating with God’s grace received through the Sacraments, in prayer and scripture study, and in loving and serving others. He is first and we are second. He is pilot and we are co-pilots, no matter what is going on in our lives.

St. Teresa of Avila said, “The feeling remains that God is on the journey too.” 

Do we give God full reign of our efforts on this journey, in all matters, temporal and spiritual? Do we trust that his way, and our effort to cooperate with his grace, will lead us to greater joy, freedom and peace on our journey to eternal life with him?

From the second Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, 1:11, “To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith.”

God brings fulfillment to our efforts. He makes our crooked lines straight. He is almighty and all powerful and has our best interest in mind. He love us and doesn’t give up on us — and I pray that we don’t give up on him — no matter what is going on in our hearts, families, parish, community, country or world. 

May we make every good effort to know, love and serve God, using the gifts and talents that he has given us so he can do amazing things with us and through us. Cooperation with his grace is a beautiful thing to behold.

St. Peter the Rock

It is both holy and healthy to reflect on the New Testament readings from daily Mass this Easter season as the apostles are on fire with the Holy Spirit and begin to teach, preach and evangelize freely.

From Acts of the Apostles 4:13-14, “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, the leaders, elders, and scribes were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus.”

Peter went from denying Christ to preaching boldly in the name of Jesus at risk of imprisonment and even death. His courageous words challenge us to live and share our faith with others in our daily lives.

It can be difficult to know how to specifically do this in our lives today, but if we stay committed to a daily prayer life and receive the Sacraments as frequently as possible, we might be surprised how God’s grace will work in us to inspire, form, transform, and enliven us with the Holy Spirit to be more fully alive in our faith — and willing to bravely share the Gospel message in the ordinary circumstances of our lives.

I’d like to use the Knights of Columbus as an example. Their humble service in parishes around the world is a beautiful example of being St. Peter-like by serving in many ways in their families, parishes, communities as a result of their relationship with Jesus. 

We are all called to serve and evangelize in different ways — most often the ways are quiet and behind-the-scenes, such as cleaning up after a Fish Fry, adoring our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, making dinner for a sick friend, and even allowing someone to go ahead of us while we are driving, but Jesus sees all and loves all that we do — even the tiny seeds of desire to serve that haven’t sprouted yet do not go unnoticed by our Lord.

It is my hope and prayer that as we move through this Easter season we do so with an uncommon courage and glorious hope in the power of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

St. Charles Borromeo said, “God wishes us not to rest upon anything but His infinite goodness; do not let us expect anything, hope anything, or desire anything but from Him, and let us put our trust and confidence in Him alone.”

Let us spend time in silence to get to know Jesus even better and to open our hearts to what he is asking of us. It matters not whether our time with God involves a walk in nature, listening to spiritual music, reflecting on sacred art, reading scripture, or just sitting quietly in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

May we take to heart these words from St. Peter the Rock in 1 Peter 3-5: 

“By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Conversion

I’ve been helping people get physically stronger for nearly eight years. In that time, I’ve gone through a lot of changes in how I teach others and how I train and care for my own body. I’ve watched my students learn and grow. I’ve seen my training program, change, evolve and it continues to do so.

Change is inevitable in all areas of our lives, and it can be good, but sometimes life hits us hard with any number of challenges in family, work and life. On top of that, we are aging and dealing with forms of physical suffering, such as injury, illness and infirmity. In our physical difficulties, we learn about the spiritual power of suffering with love and perseverance—and by God’s grace, we have an opportunity to grow spiritually and to develop more compassion for the hardships faced by others.

Spiritual conversion is similar in that changes occur in us that can be both uplifting and challenging. We may experience many conversions in our lifetime as God seeks to bring us closer to him to help us grow in holiness. Changes, both big in small, by the grace of God, can lift us up, lead us into darkness, move us into new ways of serving, living and doing for God and for others. The changes might surprise us, even frighten us a little, and we may, believe it or not, even have an occasional longing for some sins that we’ve left behind.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1989: “The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high.”

Sometimes conversion, or this movement away from sin and toward God, means we change how we use our resources, our time, our energy, and even the people we spend our time with. We might be called to simplify, to give more, to lead or to follow in new ways, to pray more, or to just be more. God works with us so personally that the path of conversion is not predictable nor is it ever universal.

I look to the saints for wisdom on this journey of conversion which we pray continues throughout our lives here on earth. The saints are regular people who had many points of conversion in their lives and grew to great holiness by their gradual, yet eventual submission to God’s will.

Pope Saint John Paul II encourages us. “I plead with you! Never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, never become discouraged. Be not afraid.”

The fruit of conversion can in fact, be the gift of journeying more fully with and for others. Other times, it can be more of a dark and lonely road like St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta experienced when God didn’t feel near to her — and so we rely on faith to keep moving forward without the clear light of His presence guiding us.

In our physical journey, as in our spiritual journey, there will be changes, conversions, movements, big and small, good and not so good — I pray that we listen to our bodies and respond with prudent care — and more importantly, listen to God, accept and cooperate with his grace with a steely focus on the ultimate goal of eternal life.

St. Padre Pio knows well the struggles we face. “The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the heart of its perfection except at the price of pain.”

Haste Does't Always Make Waste

It’s funny how the Holy Spirit sends you a thought, inspiration or even just a word that you have to take to prayer to try to figure out how to respond.

For me recently, the word was ‘haste.’ During Christmas, I reflected on ‘haste’ as it related to the Three Kings and the Shepherds as they made haste to meet the newborn King Jesus. Haste can be positive or negative and we see both in Sacred Scripture. 

At the Visitation, we see Mary move with beautiful haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth to care for her and to share her joy of the impending birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

In Proverbs 19:2, we see another side of haste: “Desire with knowledge is not good; and whoever acts hastily, blunders.”

We might think of haste in this way—as being rushed, hurried, or that we’ve been negligent or wasting time on something else less important that sets us behind so that we’re forced to respond in a way that is rash or reckless and leads to mistakes.

This could be true. But if we approach haste prayerfully, and in the context of our spiritual lives, haste might be exactly we need to get busy responding to God’s call or to sharing our love of Jesus more openly with others. May we be like the  Samaritan woman who left her water jug behind in her haste to share the news of the Messiah with the people in her town.

Are we inspired to make haste to attend daily Mass, to meet Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to read Scripture, to pray daily, to commit to a Holy Hour, to start something new for God, or to invite others to experience Jesus?

Could haste be the key to getting unstuck from a prayer rut, or out of a spiral of sin or selfishness or feeling reticent because we don’t clearly see the path Jesus is laying out for us? Let us rise up with holy haste to pray, discern, and take some action—even if we start small.

May our haste start with getting to know Jesus better so we an share him with others in whatever way God is calling us. Let us move forward in our life’s mission with courageous haste that bubbles over from a life of prayer and discernment. We’ll make mistakes, but if we stay close to Jesus. and his will for us, he can make our well-intentioned haste work for good.

St. Ursula Ledochowska (foundress of the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus) urges us onward, “You must never ask Jesus to wait.”

Jesus and Our Resolutions

This time of year we might think about developing new healthy habits such exercising more, eating healthy, perhaps getting more sleep, de-stressing and so on. There is nothing wrong with making some resolutions, but do we include Jesus in this process?

It’s funny how we don’t call on Jesus to help us with our physical goals and other needs in times of good health and prosperity the the same way we do when we are experiencing illness, injury, infirmity or other trials. Jesus desires to be part of our lives in difficult times and in good times. 

Jesus, help me to make food choices that are give me strength and vigor to serve you and others. Jesus, guide to me to some like-minded Christians to begin to gain more physical strength with safe and sustainable exercises. Jesus, order my day so that I have to time to rest and recover. Jesus, help me to maintain a habit of praying and and being physically active daily. Jesus, help me to be at peace with my body.

We know from Scripture that Jesus cares about all of our needs and concerns and that includes our physical needs. We see Jesus respond to the physical hunger of the crowd of 5,000. He see him repeatedly pair physical and spiritual healing. He understands that we get tired and hungry, that we grieve, that fasting is difficult, and that we are in need of a balance of activity and rest.

Why are we prone to separating our physical and spiritual lives when we know that body and soul are one—and we know that Jesus cares about, and wants to be part of, every single aspect of our lives?

Unfortunately, we don’t see ourselves, and others, as Jesus sees us. When it comes to the physical, we can be influenced by popular culture which focuses on aesthetics. When we see our face or body in a mirror, do we exclaim with delight because we are temples of the Holy Spirit, his beloved children, made in his image and likeness? Or are we more likely to lament about aging or some aspect of our physical appearance?

What would happen if we gave thanks for the gift of God’s magnificent creation before us in the mirror and asked Jesus to guide us in our quest for a physical life that reflects His love and helps us advance in our unique mission? Can we be childlike and turn to Jesus to guide us in prayer and good works on our way to developing new holy and healthy habits?

Jesus, help us to be gentle with ourselves, to set realistic physical goals, to accept our physical limitations, whether injury, illness and infirmity, and to unite our physical crosses with your cross. Jesus, remove the scales from our eyes so we see our physical appearance as a reflection of you, and your great love for us, rather than succumbing to a cultural view that attributes beauty to worthiness.

Jesus, we give you our temporal concerns because we know that you care about everything we care about and you know what is best for us. We pray to move forward with you, in faith and trust, to humbly address our physical and spiritual challenges, desires and concerns, both big and small in the new year.

How will Jesus respond? I think that’s the exciting part. We don’t know because he works so individually with us. We may even be surprised to find that what we thought was a physical need, like a thirst for a cool drink of water, is actually a thirst for spiritual strength, or in the words of the Samaritan woman, a cry for living water—water that will last.

Jesus, we pray for the courage to entrust you with every aspect of our lives, and to seek you first on our journey to be more holy and healthy.

Astonishment

We see repeatedly in Scripture that people were astonished, amazed and surprised at the teachings of Jesus. 

From Luke 5:26, “Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, “We have seen incredible things today.” 

They hung on his every word, they followed him wherever he traveled, and they were in awe of his teaching, preaching, healing and forgiveness of sins. Jesus barely had time to eat or sleep, but he prayed to be filled with the Father’s love to continue to minister to the people then—and to you and me now.

Astonishment can be described as a feeling of great surprise, wonder and awe and it defined Christ’s public ministry.

We also see that whenever Jesus astonished the crowd, it angered the Pharisees who wanted to arrest him, yet they were afraid of the reaction of the astonished crowd.

Do we experience astonishment at the words of Jesus? Are we surprised when his words reveal to us exactly what we need to do to respond to a problem or to a person, or to address an area of sin in our lives? Do we give thanks, with a sense of awe, when he heals one of his beloved children physically or spiritually? Is his endless mercy something we reflect on in prayer with wonder and joy?

St. Augustine said, ”In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me."  

I don’t want to miss moments of astonishment, and in fact, I want to meditate on, celebrate and share these moments with others as Jesus calls us to evangelize and encourage each other on our spiritual journey. 

I pray to grow in humility and childlikeness so that moments of wonder and dazzlement change me and make me more like him. We pray for him to pour his grace into us as grace can open the door for us to make real changes in our lives.

Recently, I felt called to go to Confession. I wasn’t sure how to make that happen with a full schedule of family, work and ministry commitments. So I prayed for Jesus to make it possible whenever the time was right.

About a week later, I attended daily Mass at another parish and I was astonished when the pastor announced that the Sacrament of Reconciliation would be offered afterward—as Reconciliation isn’t typically offered after daily Mass at this parish. Jesus led me to that place, at that time, and worked out the details so that I could receive this vital sacrament.

Astonishment can take many forms and I love hearing stories about how Jesus works in peoples’ lives in astonishing ways, both in suffering and in joy, in little ways and in big ways too.

I pray that we cultivate a childlike openness so that we see and appreciate Jesus guiding and protecting us in our everyday affairs. May our hearts be open to an astonishing journey with Jesus.

Simplifying our Lives for Jesus

Trying to live a more simple life can help us to become more holy and healthy. What is a simple life? That will vary for you and for me. Here are some thoughts for us to consider.

A good place to start is looking at areas of our lives where there are excesses. I’m thinking about my kitchen pantry right now that has built up with too many items; it’s time to clean it out and give food to my local food pantry. Too much stuff weighs us down. In the example of my pantry, I can’t find things quickly and easily, so it takes extra time to prepare a meal. I also end up buying duplicate items because I can’t see anything in the mess. Simplifying helps me be more efficient at home and giving food away helps others.

Another area of our lives to consider is our activity level. Do we have too much going on, feel stressed, too busy, rushed or worn out? These are signs that we might be doing too much and not doing God’s will. Taking this to prayer can help us sort out what God is calling us to do—and then we can reduce or eliminate activities that are not using our gifts and talents to be balanced and peaceful servants for Christ.

We can also look at how we spend our time. Time management can be critical in simplifying our lives. For example, we can examine how much time we surf the Internet, watch television or pursue a hobby. If we are not finding time to pray or keep up with work and family responsibilities, we might need to adjust activities that are not essential to our vocation. 

Simplifying our lives doesn’t necessarily mean we are doing less. Before making changes, we should pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us order our lives. It might mean adding in more activity that is aligned with God’s will for us and removing those that don’t contribute to our desire to be holy and healthy. Maybe we need to add more silence to our lives, commit to a regular Holy Hour to talk to Jesus, exercise for more mental clarity, read a good book, or reconnect with a friend.

Simplicity can make more room for God to work in us and help us be better to serve the people we love—and this can help us grow in holiness. 

“Order your soul. Reduce your wants.”―Saint Augustine

The Holy Spirit has showed me that I need to give more time to nurturing friendships. I’m trying to organize my time so that I’m more available to meet friends in person, talk on the phone and hand-write notes. Simplifying my exercise routine and spending less time online is helping me do this.

When our lives are too busy, too complex, with too much stuff, activity, or noise, we can feel lost, lonely, out-of-control, and out-of-touch with God and his mission for us.

Think about a saint you know and love. Look at that saint’s life and you will see a spirit of simplicity. One thing common among the saints is their desire to love and serve God and to do his will—and they make a lot of changes in their lives to do this. Ask your special saint to intercede for you as you seek to simplify your life to be more free to respond to God’s call to you.

The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.” ―St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Changes in Our Spiritual Lives

I’m writing to you from the dock on our backyard pond and I am contemplating change. While it feels like a mid summer day, it is fall, and change is in the air. Leaves are landing all around me and the wind and sun’s warmth on my face is intoxicating. This spot in nature is where I pray the Rosary, talk to Mary and Jesus, wait and listen for God to prepare me for the day.

As I reflect on the beauty of God’s creation, I feel a rush of uncertainty in the change of seasons. While I tell my friends that I like change, I know that with change comes new responsibilities. With the advent of fall, the fireplace needs cleaned, firewood ordered and stacked and gardens and porches cleaned and prepared for winter.

Isn’t it the same in our spiritual lives? Change can be seasonal, constant, comfortable, unpredictable or a little of all of these. As we head into the winter months, we might have a tinge of excitement about change and our plan to start a new spiritual book, begin a bible study or make a retreat.

It’s funny … at the gym, my students tell me one of the things they like most about how we exercise is that it’s never the same. It may feel that way, but there is a consistent structure, and while the tools and movements vary, the change has a pattern that is familiar and comfortable to them … so there isn’t as much change as they think.

Similarly our spiritual lives may change in the way we feel called pray, but we have the sturdy anchor of the Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration and perhaps a calling to pray the prayers of the Catholic Church, such as the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Church and our parishes give us a sturdy structure, along with other constantly changing ways to grow in our faith no matter where we are on our spiritual journey. 

When I contemplate change, I think of the Blessed Mother and her preparation for the birth of her Son who would change the world forever. Change must have been on her mind on her long journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also expecting a son, John the Baptist. She must of known that her life would be one of constant change, but with the sturdy structure of uniting her will to the will of the Father. May her example inspire us to stay strong in our faith amidst the changes in our lives.

Let us pray: Blessed Mother, you give us the perfect example of embracing change according to God’s will for your life. We pray to imitate your surrender to God’s plan for our lives with joy, trust, and patient perseverance. Amen.

How Much is Enough?

When it comes to exercise, the general train of thought is that more is better. Sometimes my first task as a fitness coach is to gently move people to a new way of thinking that developing quality technique is more productive that doing lots of work without careful attention to how the body is moving and recovering.

Most people are exercising for general fitness and overall health for life and sport. Even when they are training for a specific event, such as an obstacle course race or a marathon, focusing on the quality of training, rather than the quantity, is essential to prevent injury and ensure they are well prepared.

I was reminded recently, in a conversation with a friend, that sometimes we have the same view of our prayer lives … that more is better. That may not always be the case.

If we set a goal of a specific quantity of prayer, rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us as to what and how to pray, we might not even start, or if we do, we might rush through without any heartfelt contemplation at all.

We might be expecting too much from ourselves based on our vocation and especially with our full lives serving family, community and our employer— which, with the proper intention, are also forms of prayer.

Asking the Holy Spirit to guide our prayer lives and coach us on how to pray can be freeing and spiritually productive — without a time element. So we start by setting aside a little time and space, in our schedule and in our hearts, and trust that the Spirit will move us to pray in the way he desires us to pray.

St. Teresa of Avila said, “Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Our Father said, now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention.”

What if it isn’t clear how we should pray? 

We can stop, listen and have an openness to the gentle movement of the heart to pray, for example, a fervent decade of the Rosary for a family member. Maybe later in the day the Holy Spirit will prompt us to pray another decade. We may have a lunch date cancel and we have a desire to attend noon Mass. We might comfort a suffering friend with spontaneous prayer. We can pray the Gospel for that day in a few minutes at bedtime. The possibilities are endless and the Holy Spirit might just surprise us!

I know that each of us have had ‘God instances’ when we asked for help with time to pray and get everything else done too. Then we look back over the day and see how Our Lady and her Son worked it out all in a way that we could never have imagined.

St. John Vianney reminds us that prayer is love rather than an item on a checklist. “Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.” With that thought in mind, let us pray with joy and confidence in the way the Holy Spirit is individually and intimately moving each of us.

Interior Focus

One of the aspects of strength training that I really enjoy is executing a heavy barbell or kettlebell lift with careful, thoughtful, methodical precision. You are interiorly focused, especially if the weight you are lifting is near your maximum effort. You are not talking or laughing or thinking about what you have to do later that day. For that moment, you are laser-focused on the lift. You apply patient perseverance and trust your body to make a go at cracking the bar off the floor or heaving weight overhead.

Thinking, feeling, moving mindfully, and with perfect technique can be challenging especially if you haven’t developed an interior focus. New students often comment that the hardest part of lifting weights is the ability to think, feel and concentrate without distraction.

It can be like that in our prayer life as well. We might not be used to sitting in silence, interiorly focused, and waiting patiently for God to speak to us in our hearts. If we are able to quiet the mind, and ease out distractions, speaking to God and listening can be a transformative time of prayer.

Yet for many of us, that silent interior focus can be elusive.

So when I heard that Robert Cardinal Sarah, with Nicolas Diat, had written a book about silence, I felt drawn to it immediately. While I seek silence to pray, I often fight restlessness, so I sought inspiration and insight from Cardinal Sarah’s book, The Power of Silence. A sample:

“Without the moorings of silence, life is a depressing movement, a puny little boat, ceaselessly tossed by the violence of the waves. Silence is the outer wall that we must build in order to protect an interior ediface.” (pg. 68, paragraph 112)

This topic of silence and deeper interior focus is critical to a strong contemplative prayer life to grow closer to our Lord and illuminate God’s will for our lives. 

You probably agree that spending time in silence is counter-cultural; more than ever it can be challenging to find silence even in our own homes. Cardinal Sarah refers to this as the dictatorship of noise.

Back to our lifting example … when we lift heavy weights, the muscle fibers in our bodies change, grow and and over time we become physically stronger. We may not see the changes right away, but we know it’s happening as we progress to heavier weights. 

Similarly, our time in prayerful silence transforms our hearts even when we don't immediately see changes or feel any different. We trust that God’s grace is at work in us and that over time a strong interior prayer life will yield sweet fruit in our lives.

June is Devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The month of June is devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is recognized as the saint associated with the Sacred Heart of Jesus due to her private revelations in 1673-1675. She responded to Jesus by promoting the Feast Day of the Sacred Heart, First Friday devotions, and the Holy Hour of Reparation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 478) states that Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.

When I contemplate the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the beautiful statue in our Church, I am reminded that he is constantly pouring out his grace to us to strengthen and guide us. With the present day challenges, turning to devotion to Sacred Heart of Jesus can comfort us and prepare us for what lies ahead in our lives.

When Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon your shoulders and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will rest, for My yoke is easy and My burden light.” (Mt 11:28-30) he is truly calling us to share in his love … love poured from his Most Sacred Heart and we are called to respond to his love by building a loving relationship with him and with our neighbor.

We recently enthroned our home to the the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. This a beautiful and way to bring Jesus and Mary into our hearts in a new and special way to receive his grace. Visit www.sacredheartcolumbus.org for information about home enthronement.

The Sacred Heart Feast Day is June 23 and here is a beautiful prayer to the Sacred Heart:

O most holy heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore you, I love you, and with lively sorrow for my sins I offer you this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to your will. Grant, Good Jesus, that I may live in you and for you. Protect me in the midst of danger. Comfort me in my afflictions. Give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, your blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death. Amen.

The Lost Sheep

The group of adults who I have the privilege of teaching to use kettlebells vary in their athletic backgrounds. Some people pick up the skill of lifting heavy things very quickly. Most students make steady progress over time. Every now and then someone really struggles to learn to move well for a variety of reasons.

I find the greatest joy in helping that struggling student progress. The student has to first have the courage to start, then the persistence to persevere and practice, and finally the patience to allow their bodies to adapt to the movement over time.

We have a supportive, non-competitive gym environment, but it can still be tough when you feel like you’re the only who isn't getting it in the group.

So that student is the one who makes my day when they step up to a challenge or improve in a weak area. That one improvement is more exciting to me than if the entire group lifted heavier than they ever did before. That one student is the one my husband will hear about when we have dinner together that evening.

That may be why one of my favorite Scripture passages is Luke 15 3-7 about the one lost sheep.

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

An interesting thing about the one lost sheep in the gym is that the other sheep also rejoice when that person makes progress. They might even applaud that person. Before you know it, that lost sheep might inspire others to accept new challenges or to develop a new spirit of gratitude for what their bodies can do.

Aren’t we all lost sheep at some point in our lives, whether spiritually, physically, emotionally or intellectually? Aren’t we happy when someone notices and comes after us to help us?

We can ask the Holy Spirit to show us who needs us and how we can help. One person, powered by God’s grace, can do great things to help another.

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” ~St Teresa of Calcutta