Prayer Archives - Amazing Catechists

The Silence of Christmas Speaks Loud and Clear

In his wonderful book, The Power of Silence: Against The Dictatorship of Noise, Cardinal Robert Sarah tells us

Without silence, God disappears in the noise. And this noise becomes all the more obsessive because God is absent. Unless the world rediscovers silence, it is lost.

We might rightly ask, what does Cardinal Sarah mean by silence and noise? The answer, my friends, is all around us right now. Cardinal Sarah refers to silence as that environment by which we can encounter God, Who is Divine Silence. Only by placing ourselves in the silence that is God can we ever hope to hear Him in our hearts, minds, and souls. I was once told that God always answers our prayers but that we often are not listening or do not want to listen to His answer.

If God is true silence, then what is this noise that we speak of? Is it the sirens and whistles that invade our daily lives? Is it the clamoring of crowds and busy streets? Is it the blare of alarm clocks and bells that dictate our hypnotizing routine toward ends we may no longer even know?

For Cardinal Sarah, noise is anything which distracts us from God, and so that kind of noise is far beyond the sounds that disrupt our quiet moments of meditation and reflection. We all have our favorite sounds and songs. Some love a bubbling brook or birds chirping. Others enjoy the sounds of a forest or soft background music. Ultimately, inevitably, sounds surround us with such frequency and intensity that we become oblivious to their power over us. The loud sounds of a factory or office fade into the distance the longer one works in those environments. Eventually, we internalize those sounds so that they become part of who we are and, for that matter, part of who we become to others. If we allow this world to become our priority, we will invariably allow the sounds of this world to become the background music of that priority.

Faced with such variety of sounds, we indirectly choose which will become noise and which will remain simply sounds. Sounds are those things that we hear through our ears, but noises are those sounds that we hear through our minds, hearts, and souls which distract and even distance us from God. Most people will agree that alarm bells, whistles, busy streets, and bustling workplaces by themselves do not really distract us from God. I do not necessarily distance myself from God when I hear an alarm clock or enter a busy office.

So when do sounds become noise for us? For many of us, a sound becomes a noise when it is annoying, unpleasant, unwanted, or distracting, and that is a valid, earthly view of noise. Earthly noise inspires us to escape, avoid, or distance ourselves from the source of that noise. Listening to songs or music that we do not like is often noise to us because we do not find these pleasant or to our liking. In fact, things we do not understand, care about, or relate to often become simply noise to us.

However, for Cardinal Sarah, the worst kind of noise is that which pushes us away from God and what God is about. This noise is contradictory to the love and essence of what God truly is. The silence of God is not found in criticism, judgment of others, gossip, vulgarity, arrogance, or mockery. Neither is this divine silence found in idle, useless talk about superficial things.

As we proceed through our yearly Christmas journey, we may ask ourselves if this journey has become a mundane routine, a robotic ritual, or a remote control duty to fulfill. Do we do Christmas or do we truly experience its essence? Do we treat Christmas like some shopping list to finish or do we embrace Christmas as a beautifully profound opportunity to re-connect with what really matters?

There is nothing inherently wrong with Christmas music, shopping, decorations, parties, family gatherings, and all of the exciting preparations we make each year as long as we do not allow these things to define Christmas for us and therefore distance us from God. The sounds of Christmas become the noise of Christmas to the extent that we forget Christ as a result. There was a time when celebrating Christmas and getting closer to God went hand and hand. That time is past and lost. We are surrounded by a word and society immersed in very temporary, superficial, distracting, and even destructive spiritual noise. We live in a world which no longer inspires us toward God but, sadly, seems to make every effort to drag us away from Him. Whether this world succeeds in that effort is up to each of us.

God is Divine Silence, but He speaks to each of us loud and clear if we are willing to listen. We encounter Him in our prayer, in our kindness and love toward others, and in the eyes of the fragile elderly, frightened sick, confused young, and marginalized homeless. If we engage in the daily struggle to push away this world’s noise and simply listen to God’s divine, not-so-silent call, we can encounter the child Jesus on that silent night each and every day of the year.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

5 Ways to Wait with Purpose

By Jeannie Ewing

Advent is a perfect liturgical season to apply what we have learned and understand about the spirituality of waiting – its purpose and gift for us from God. Because taking a lofty spiritual concept can be difficult to break down in terms of practical application to everyday living, it’s important to understand particular steps that can assist us in using our seasons of waiting with intention.

This Advent, try to be sincere in your effort to wait with purpose. Turn to God with these five ways of entering into dialogue with him as only a guideline to understand more deeply what he is asking of you or telling you in your time of waiting.

A brief preface of these five steps is this: You may enter into the first few cyclically for months or even years before you reach the prepare phase. This is because preparation often requires a very refined and fine-tuned faith in which God will chisel and prune you in order to move you closer to a specific call or mission.

Listen

We can never expect to glean clarity in our uncertainty or holy tension if we don’t regularly enter into the sanctuary of our own hearts, nestled in silence. Solitude is absolutely imperative for us to hear God speak to our hearts.

Though it’s difficult to do in my current state as a wife and mother to three young daughters, I create a sacred space every day to enter into the heart of God through silence. This is how I begin my daily prayers and devotions. I gather my prayer journal, daily inspirational flip calendar, liturgical companion Magnificat, and seasonal devotions, if applicable. Then I breathe and gaze at an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus mounted above our holy water font in the living room.

Listening means we turn our ears toward another. We must eliminate every distraction possible if we are to effectively hear that “still, small voice” within.

Ponder

Sometimes God is silent when we seek him in solitude, but there are occasions when he will give you a bold message. Prepare yourself for all sorts of surprises led by the Holy Spirit! When you read Scripture, and a particular word or phrase or passage really jolts or sears your heart, pay attention. Write it down and mull it over for a few moments.

Ask some questions about it. For example, while I was writing Waiting with Purpose, the words “wait” or “be still” or “trust in the Lord” came to me frequently during the listening and pondering stages of prayer. I kept asking God what he wanted to teach me and wrote down the thoughts that inspired the book.

Pray

After you formulate some questions, bring them directly to the Lord in conversation. Pour your heart out to him – your fears and doubts, your anxiety or concerns, your excitement or restlessness. Give him everything that flows forth as you delve more deeply into your own heart in search of his.

You are conversing with the Divine, so there’s no need for format or formulae here. It’s just your heart language speaking to God’s heart.

This stage will likely lead you back to listening, pondering, asking more questions, and praying again. You will likely engage in this process for quite some time before advancing to the last two.

Prepare

Over time, you might discern that God is asking something specific of you. Everyone’s mission will look different, of course. But the point is that you receive a divine assignment, based on the pattern of listening to and speaking with God.

If and when this happens, you will need to find a good spiritual director if you haven’t already. This person needs to be objective in matters of guiding you more deeply into accepting your holy assignment and discovering what that means. Think of St. Teresa of Calcutta whom Jesus asked to found an order serving the “poorest of the poor.” Or St. Teresa of Avila who heard the Lord tell her to reform the Carmelite order.

God asks some people today to become overseas missionaries, write books, enter into a specific vocation, found a non-profit, lead a parish ministry, and so on. Regardless of the assignment, know that he has something specific in mind for you. Be attentive and vigilant like the wise virgins who kept their oil ready for the Bridegroom’s arrival.

Act

Again, you will need a spiritual director to guide you before you actually go forth to begin your mission or ministry. The point is to be ready for whatever God asks of you. It seems as if waiting lingers forever, but once God acts in your life, he moves quickly. This isn’t always the case, but you will find that timing is such an important piece to your waiting experience.

This post is an abridged version of Chapter 6 in my book, Waiting with Purpose: Persevering When God Says “Not Yet.”

Advent #GIVEAWAY and Interview With #aromaRosary Inventor, Chantal Howard

By Lisa Mladinich

UPDATE: Comments were turned off by accident but are now ON. Feel free to enter! So sorry for any inconvenience!–Lisa

Guadalupe Rosary Bracelet

Beloved Readers, we have an exciting and unusual giveaway: an Our Lady of Guadalupe rosary bracelet that diffuses essential oils, as you pray!!! Talk about awesome!

TO ENTER, please tell us in the comments why you would like to win!

The popular Our Lady of Guadalupe aromaRosary Bracelet will be awarded on December 12^th, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so enter right away!

**And start praying the Novena to Our Lady, which starts today (December 4th)!**

Now, meet aromaRosary’s inventor, Chantal Howard!

Welcome, Chantal! Please give us just a few glimpses into your world so that we can get to know you a bit more personally.

I am a Byzantine Catholic by birth, giving me a great love for icons, chant, and the Divine Liturgy. I am an oblate of the Community of St. John and, therefore, identify myself as Eucharistic, Marian, Seeker of Truth, and devotee of all things truly Catholic. I have a charismatic side, a traditional Latin-loving, veil-wearing side. Above all, I want to live a life of prayer, holiness, and heroic virtue. The New Evangelization is knit into who I am.

Rosa Mystica Rosary Bracelet

Chantal HowardI have been married for nearly 15 years to the man of my Jane-Austin-like dreams. I can truthfully say Peter and I are a work in progress. But I rejoice in the Mercy of God that is helping us to put lofty ideas of love into practice with greater gratitude and tenderness. I love that I get to share life with a man of such conviction, passion, and fidelity – to me, to Our Lady, and to Our Lord.

My five children are the pure light of my life. We homeschool. I admit, though, that our homeschool has been interdependent with much family collaboration and even part-time school going opportunities to help round out our family dynamic, allowing for me to be as active in work as I am. This is the nature of the “School of the Family,” as it has developed for us. The desire to nurture them in health, in mind, in spirit, and in creativity and joy is foundational and much of that I can give to them, but I also realize that I am not fully sufficient alone. I laugh when I hear the not so popular expression, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and yet can we really deny the fact? So, we had better choose our villages carefully. In our case, our family is our village, and so we have recently relocated to Northern Idaho to be near all my siblings and my mother so that we can foster our kids in the context of family, faith, farming, good food, and adventure.

Tell us about the nature of your work.

Victory Heirloom aromaRosary

My Grandaddy began the entrepreneurial streak in our family as an inventor. My mom and dad firmed it up by building a family business. I grew up helping to answer phone calls, strategize marketing plans and work in the field. As my mom homeschooled me, this practical work in business became second nature. Since then, I have not ceased drumming up new ventures. Ministry, writing, dōTERRA, and my family have offered platforms to launch entrepreneurial dreams in more directions than I ever imagined – Catholicpreneur style. In addition, as a young person I was a highly competitive gymnast and high-level athlete, in several arenas. This promoted a lifestyle of fitness and wholesomeness that has been a steady undercurrent in my life. Together, these life experiences have brought me to where I am today as a “natural solution coach.” I help families find health and happiness through an essential oil-inspired wellness lifestyle, without New Age overtones.

Where did your passion for the rosary begin, and why do you see it as such an important mission to bring to the world?

As a young person my parents rested all their hope of us remaining a faithful family on the prayer of the Holy Rosary. Through their inspiration, we began early chanting the rosary in a Byzantine style, and I have never turned back from loving the rosary and wanting to bring it to life as—not just a prayer but—an experience that helps us traverse from our earthly dimension to the spiritual plain of contemplation. (You can check out the audio CD in the Byzantine style that we produced as a family, here.)

How did your passion for essential oils and the rosary together take shape?

The Rosary is a gift that has been given to all of humanity to heal our wounded nature. It offers us a way to ascend to the heights of our calling as children of God by tethering our fidgeting hands, our wandering minds, and our wayward souls to the life of Christ. In light of my work coaching so many people who are wounded physically and emotionally, the support of essential oils tied to the rosary struck me as a natural bridge.

A few years ago, Immaculée Ilibagiza spoke to my heart, as she shared her story of suffering and triumph through the power of the rosary with 30,000 other individuals. It just so happened that she was the keynote speaker at a large, global essential oil summit I was attending. As she shared, I marveled at her passion and unhindered dedication to sharing the rosary with the world. Here, in one moment, two of my greatest loves in life were colliding before my eyes—essential oils and the rosary! As I drove across the county, I reflected on my personal visit with Immaculee, her powerful gesture of throwing her rosary to someone in the crowd, and all I had just learned about the movement of essential oils in health care. My heart overflowed with inspiration and the desire to bring to our hurting world the solace and rich blessings of essential oils and the rosary. Thus this effort was born.

Describe an aromaRosary.

Every aromaRosary is hand-crafted to hold and diffuse essential oils, to expand the prayer experience. Using natural stones and lava rock and other ceramic, metal, or wood beads, we have designed rosaries that can withstand the intensity of therapeutic grade essential oils that have been chosen carefully to reflect the mysteries of the rosary. These blends are symbolic and calming, to help promote an atmosphere of prayer. Together with fingering the beads, chanting the prayers, and smelling the aromas of sanctity, we can more fully engage our senses and focus our prayers.

Unpack for us briefly the four essential oil bends you have chosen.

We use four unique blends. The Joyful Blend is comprised of frankincense and other oils that help create an aroma reminiscent of the Nativity. The Luminous Blend is a blend of citrus oils that reflect the light and miraculous nature of the Luminous mysteries. The Sorrowful Blend is woody and earthy, with Myrrh and other wood oils that are an aromatic encounter with the cross and the mysteries of Christ’s suffering. The Glorious Blend offers floral notes and Easteresque aromas that are gentle, soft, and Marian.

Do you have resources that would help others to learn about aromaRosary and your work as a coach and speaker?

Please visit us at aromaRosary.com. We’re having our Advent sale, right now! I would welcome your comments, your reviews, your support of our efforts, and of course I would love to work with you. I offer coaching and essential oil training. We have a dynamic Catholic team of essential oils coaches throughout the country and we want you to be a part of what we are doing to heal families and evangelize in the process.

Thank you, Chantal!

TO ENTER:

NOTE: you must have access to a mailing address in the United States, to win!

Passive Waiting and Suffering Well

By Jeannie Ewing

We established that no one likes to wait and that a small fraction of our waiting experiences is what we term active, or Advent waiting. What, then, comprises the majority of those periods of life when we linger in tension, when we are in between or feeling stuck or lost?

Passive waiting is when we move from a place of knowing specifically that God will complete some good work He has begun in us to becoming entirely unaware and uncertain of what He is doing or asking of us. We move from subject to object in passive waiting. For example, if you are late to work and get stuck in the midst of unexpected construction, you are experiencing passive waiting. If you just had a biopsy and have to spent an agonizing week not knowing if you have cancer or not, you are in passive waiting.

These times when waiting is painful, when we do not choose to suffer, is precisely what makes life worthwhile. It’s not because of the suffering itself; it is because of what Passion gives birth to, that is, Resurrection. We know that suffering is not the end and that our tragedies can bring about beautiful blessings. But how do we understand passive waiting so that we can learn to suffer well, or at least better?

The Gift of Helplessness and Dependency

Maybe you or someone you know has recently become injured or suffered an accident that left him/her incapacitated. Maybe you have fallen ill with a terrible malady and simply cannot keep up your active lifestyle anymore. Maybe you are disabled.

These are all examples of the helpless state, whether temporary or permanent. And when we can’t move around like we’re used to – going to work, doing household chores, taking care of our families – we feel guilty, as if we are a burden. But God shows us the hidden gift of helplessness, because He deliberately sent His Son as an infant totally dependent on His Mother’s love and nourishment:

The popular imagination discerns nothing in God: no dependence, no waiting, no exposure, nothing of passion or passibility…and therefore, when these conditions appear in the life of man, they must appear fundamentally ‘ungodlike;’ and therefore again they must appear alien to the proper status of man and unworthy of his unique dignity. (W.H. Vanstone quote from Waiting with Purpose, p. 87)

So when you find yourself in a helpless state, know that you are not alone and that God longs to reach you in your suffering.

Preparing for Mission

When we suffer, we gain wisdom and life experience that cannot be replicated by books or rhetoric. Our experiences, then, shape us fundamentally. They make us stronger, more compassionate, and resilient. Even more, they lead us to mission.

You probably didn’t ask for your sickness or your child’s disability or your spouse’s Alzheimer’s. You didn’t want to lose a friend to addiction or a parent to cancer. Yet all of these atrocities can lead us to accompany others who are suffering similar afflictions. We are more equipped to handle their pain when we have already been through our own journey of grief.

Entering Your Resurrection

I learned something extraordinary while researching my book, Waiting with Purpose: all of the Greek verbs used to describe Jesus’ life and ministry were in the active tense until He was handed over in the Garden of Gethsemane. He spoke to His apostles at the Last Supper, “My work is finished” but immediately before expiring, “It is finished.” These are powerful examples of how working isn’t the be-all-end-all to life’s meaning and value.

Your true work is to suffer with Jesus and learn to suffer well. This doesn’t mean perfectly – just well. That means you will have moments when offering up your pain in solidarity with Jesus’ or someone else’s pain is effortless and other times when it’s impossible. The point is to keep moving forward in your own passion, knowing with confidence that your own Calvary journey will lead you to new life in Resurrection, whether in this life or the next.

This post was adapted from Chapter 6 in my book, Waiting with Purpose: Persevering When God Says “Not Yet.”

The Joy of Expectant Waiting

By Jeannie Ewing

There are so many beautiful words to describe active waiting: expectancy, joy, pregnancy, anticipation. It’s what we tend to experience during the Advent season. Active waiting (also called Advent or expectant waiting) evokes incredible hope in us, because we are on the cusp of watching how God’s plan unfolds for a specific promise.

A few points pertaining to this type of waiting will guide us as we move through our own journey. Think of the popular song, “I Wonder As I Wander” for this type of expectancy. A seed has been planted. Its in the germination stage right now, and what is required of you is to be vigilant and patience until the time of flourishing – which God determines – arrives.

We Wait In Community

Let’s look to a beautiful example of expectant waiting – the Visitation. What did the Blessed Mother do as soon as she heard the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy and after she accepted the invitation to bear the Son of God? She went in haste to share this joy with her cousin! They were both pregnant with a promise, so they gathered together in friendship, in community, to allow the seed of human life to grow within them.

When we wait in joyful anticipation, we remember that ‘nothing is impossible for God.’ (Waiting with Purpose, p. 47)

Have Confidence in God’s Promise

One of my favorite saints-to-be is Blessed Solanus Casey. He is well known for his famous quip, “Thank God ahead of time.” What does this mean for us when we are waiting – often with a certain amount of restlessness or tension – for new birth, new life, or a new phase of life to begin? We focus on who God is and all He has already accomplished in our lives. It’s important to thank God for all that He has done, is doing, and will do for us. That’s what expectant faith is – it’s faith that is confident in God.

We know He will act, and we pray accordingly – with expectation of answered prayer.

Expect to Move from Community to Contemplation

God often prepares us for a particular mission in cycles and seasons. We know this from our waiting experiences that somehow give way to seasons of activity and then back to dormancy. If expectant faith relies upon our lives in relationship, then we know we are being formed by those to whom we are closest – family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, spouses, children.

The people who live with us see us at our best and worst. They might draw out specific flaws or weaknesses – tendencies toward impatience, for example. As we enter into prayer each day, God reflects this reality to us so that we might allow Him to further chisel away the imperfections that deter us from spiritually advancing.

Then, one day, or perhaps gradually, we will move from a stage of activity to the desert. Community tends to precede contemplation, in that God draws us – whether quite literally (as in the case of an anchoress or hermit) or interiorly – into a more reflective state of solitude. It is during our time in the desert when God guides us more directly, though we cannot see or feel much of anything.

We wait – always in joyful hope – whether in community or contemplation.

This post was adapted from Chapter 3 in my book, Waiting with Purpose: Persevering When God Says “Not Yet.”

Five Steps for Mentoring Kids in Prayer

By Brandon Harvey

It is important to teach kids how to pray the Rosary, the Angelus, and other common Catholic Prayers. These should be taught in the home, but sometimes the Catechist is called to help. One of the most terrifying things you can do in the classroom is to ask a child to lead prayer. Yet, we can easily teach our children how to lead prayer in the classroom. These steps can be used with kids as young as five.

Step 1: The Catechist is the Prayer Mentor

The catechist needs to be a person of deep prayer and be the example of prayer for the class. The opening prayer for each class should always be done by the Catechist. This sets the tone. Even if you want to practice a specific prayer with them, you can still offer a spontaneous prayer and conclude with your memorized prayer.

Step 2: Mentor with Short Prayers

In the beginning, it is important to lead prayers that are easy for a child to recognize a pattern and imitate. For example: O God, thank you for this day and help our class to know you better. We ask this through Jesus. Amen.

Step 3: Just Get Started

Do not wait for a magical moment to begin having the kids pray. Have one or all of your kids offer a closing prayer at the end of class. Encourage them to close their eyes, fold their hands in prayer, and imitate the opening prayer.

Step 4: Teach Prayer as a Response

Kids should learn to incorporate the class in their closing prayer. I call this “Responsory Prayer” for my students. We pick something from the class or Mass that we could hear or see God at work in and incorporate this into our individual prayer. I ask all my students to say a Responsory Prayer at the end of class. I go first and set the example.

Here is an example of prayers my students recently made when learning about the Immaculate Mary hymn as we created Psalters for each kid.

Dear God, thank you for this day, help me to have self-control, and help me to have virtue like Mary. Amen.
Dear God, thank you for this day and help me to love Mary.

These prayers were offered by small children. You can see how they are similar, simple, and incorporate something from the class that day.

Step 5: Challenge Them

Challenge the students to grow beyond the simple prayers of comfort. In the beginning, small children and teens both tend to stick with personal petitions and personal thanksgiving. Place a jar in your room with different types of prayer. Ask each student to draw one and incorporate it into their closing or Responsory Prayer. Examples could include:

Give THANKS for something in someone else’s life.
PETITION (ask) God for something for someone else.
ADORE God as God.
PRAISE God for the work of creation or redemption or some manifestation of God’s work in your life.

Spontaneous prayer forces a student to unite their mind and voice. Hopefully we can also mentor them in the use of their heart. There is no hiding in spontaneous prayer, and there is no mindless routine. When memorized prayers and devotions are introduced in class, the students will now have a firmer foundation for praying the prayer and not simply the saying of the prayer.

Jesus’ Missionary Healers

By Maureen Smith

A few years ago, as I was ushering my 3rd grade Sunday School class to our annual Advent confession day, I reminded them that Jesus was present in the Tabernacle. One of the girls repeated the word “Tabernacle” several times, as if chewing on the word, before proclaiming, “Tabernacle…that’s my favorite word!” It became the word that grounded us when lessons about the Trinity and Church teaching somehow became a weekly update about everyone’s pets. The Tabernacle was our anchor, and each class I reminded them that Jesus was present in that gold box called a Tabernacle whenever they saw that red sanctuary candle lit.

As our Church grapples with the sorrows of the past few months, I feel buoyed up by this memory. It reminds me that our Church is made of much more than the few people who have led us to disappointment and doubt, and I feel emboldened to pray the Creed. Yes, Lord I believe in One God…

I believe that there is a power in being a broken Church. Certainly the Apostles, who felt the corruption and blasphemy of the leaders of their faith at the Church’s very beginnings, must have felt similar emotions. Who can I trust? Is the Lord really present in this Church? Is it worth staying?

Years ago, when I lived in Rome, my parish was Sancta Maria in Trastevere. In the early Church, the taverns, which occupied the Church’s current location, became the very place where the Gospel was spread and hearts were converted to Christ. This bit of history reminds me that the Gospel is not meant to be experienced solely within the confines of the physical church building, and that Jesus Christ is not meant to be kept on reserve in the Tabernacle like a book in a library. Rather, we are all, priest and parishioner alike, meant to proclaim that Gospel and bring that Presence of Christ wherever we go. We are both Tabernacle and sanctuary candle, alive with Christ, present within us, and aflame with the joy of Love Incarnate.

A few years ago, the Holy Father challenged us to be “Missionary Disciples.” I think that, particularly now, we must also be Missionary Healers. Every person is wounded, even (and perhaps most especially) the wound-er. We must accept into our hearts the broken, those who feel alone and rejected. We must give them a resting place in our hearts so that they can experience the warmth of Christ’s Presence in our hearts. Often it is in this moment of mercy that I recognize He is really there.

The world is cold and dark, but His Presence is still aflame, even if it feels like the dying embers of a once roaring fire. The fact remains that light is more powerful than darkness. Even in the darkness we have the moon and stars for light, just as we have Our Lady and the saints (and each other!), giving us hope, pointing us to the sun we cannot see.

We must have faith even when those who promise to lead us go astray, and remain strong in our defense of Christ and His Church, even when our offense fails. We must pray for our leaders, our parish priests who are on the front lines, the offensive line, if you will, taking the hits even when the quarterback fumbles. We are the defense and special teams! We must support our faithful offense, the clergy, who lead us to closer to the endzone, to our Heavenly goal, to become saints in God’s kingdom.

Only God knows the trajectory of our Church. It is my hope, however, that this horrific experience will generate saints of all states of life. Our faith is stronger than sin, as it is made of the very Presence of Christ in our hearts, so long as we let Him remain there. We are living Tabernacles, charged with bringing healing to our broken world. Together we can rebuild His Church, a mission not unique to Saint Francis.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that each of us is broken, wounded by sin, others, and the fallen world in which we live. To all of you, let Christ heal you! He accepts you, as broken as you are. You are never too broken for God.

When you find yourself feeling lost remember the anchor. You are a Tabernacle, Jesus Christ is with you, and you have a mission. Our Church will never crumble because Christ is truly present in our sanctuaries, in our hearts, and in those of countless other Christians. Wherever you are, at home or in your car, at work or school, in a bar or a tavern, you are a Missionary Healer, because you are His and He is yours.

Fasting 101: My Experience Over the Last Six Weeks

By Amanda Woodiel

A reader, referring back to a post from a couple of months ago, asked me if I had actually done anything to implement a weekday fast so that Sunday could be a feast day without being gluttonous.

And, wonder of wonders, I have!

So often the noble percolates in my head, and it takes months (maybe even years!) to materialize in my everyday life. But this time, thanks to several different threads coming together and by God’s grace, I have actually implemented a weekday fasting schedule.

Most days I fast from dinner until dinner. This is called intermittent fasting. (If you want to learn more about intermittent and extended fasting from a medical, physiological point of view, read The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung.) Several years ago, my trim chiropractor mentioned that this is how he eats, and I thought he was completely nuts. In truth, it is really not so radical (humans have been fasting and feasting since time immemorial) or so difficult (I found that anticipation of how hard it will be is way worse than the reality).

I have been fasting now for over six weeks. I don’t fast on Sundays or on feast days. The first big feast day since I began this practice was the Feast of the Assumption, and it really felt like a feast! After breakfast, I took the kids to a local bakery and relished a pecan sticky bun. For lunch, I put sugar in my coffee. And for dinner I ate take-out pizza. It was awesome, and it was awesome without being gluttonous. It felt like true feasting.

So how do I feel while fasting?

Mostly I feel great. The hunger comes occasionally, but as I had read, it comes in waves. If you make it through the wave of hunger, the feeling goes away and stays away for a couple of hours. So for me it’s about an hour of feeling hunger around lunchtime, and then I am fine until dinner, and even then, I don’t feel that hungry. I have done two 44-hour fasts, and those were only marginally more difficult than my usual routine.

I have felt far less lethargic than I have in a long time and have more energy than usual. I even tackled cleaning our basement (a cellar-style storage space), which is a project I have ignored for over a decade.

Overall, I have simply enjoyed food more than ever. The daily meal tastes so good and is such a delight; I feel like I have re-discovered the joy of food. It feels like the way God probably designed food to be consumed: I feel hungry when I eat, and I’m not just shoving it into my body because I want it or because it’s there or because I am feeling a negative emotion.

I should also mention that there have been surprising practical benefits. I find I have about an extra four hours per week (the time that would have been spent preparing and eating my own breakfasts and lunches throughout the week). I am spending less money. While I wouldn’t say these would personally be reasons enough to motivate me to fast, they have been pleasant advantages.

There is a spiritual side of fasting too. One of the main reasons why I fast is because I felt that food had power over me in a way that it shouldn’t. I was cranky when I didn’t eat. I thought about how to reward myself with food. I turned to food when sad or stressed. I ate too much of certain foods just because I wanted to. Intuitively, I knew that that part of my life was not properly ordered. If you are in a similar situation, you might enjoy taking a little food attachment quiz I created when I was deep in exploring my own disordered attachment to food.

Jesus presumed we would be fasting. “When you fast,” He said (see Matthew 6:16). I know so little about the power of fasting, as I am so new to it. But I can say that it has already induced some sense of detachment from the things of the world. Like all Christian spiritual practices, such as prayer and alms-giving, fasting molds the soul into the way of holiness.

Fasting also has always been a way of showing remorse for our own sins and a way to make reparation for the sins of others. I am tempted to think that because I am doing it for my physical and spiritual health, it cannot also be “applied” as a prayer. Nonsense! Think of the Holy Mass, when we pray “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good, and the good of all his holy church.” If the Mass itself can be said for God’s glory as well as for ourselves as well as for the entire church, well, then so can our small acts of fasting. Offer your sacrifice to God for His glory, your own good, and the good of the whole world.

If you feel out of control regarding food, want to re-discover a spiritual practice that has been around for thousands of years, and/or desire to create a rhythm in your family life that accords with the liturgical year, I encourage you to try fasting! It is changing my life.

__________________

The Forgotten Victims of Clerical Abuse

By Ellen Gable Hrkach

“He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.” Psalm 147:3

The recent revelations about Cardinal (now Archbishop) McCarrick, and the newly published Grand Jury report from several dioceses in Pennsylvania, are disturbing, especially to the most devout Catholics. Some members of the Church are leaving in disgust. I haven’t yet read the PA Grand Jury report, but from what I can gather through social media, it will take someone with a strong stomach to endure the entire document.

For every abuse that was reported, there are hundreds, maybe thousands over the past 70 years, that were not – and have never been – reported.

The most recent announcement that homosexual networks existed within seminaries and dioceses has caused some Catholics to have a crisis of faith because numerous seminarians tried to alert higher-up prelates, to no avail. It’s unacceptable that a bishop – or as in the case of McCarrick, the cardinal – would be complicit. Pope Francis has now made a public statement promising justice for the victims. There are many victims, however, who will never see justice.

Whenever I hear a story about clerical sex abuse, it opens a wound, not only because I’m Catholic, but because my father was abused many years ago. He is one of many who never reported the (likely ongoing) abuse.

Summer, 1961, visiting my father at the psychiatric hospital

My father’s abuser was indeed a priest, who happened to be one of his teachers in high school. This information was something that my siblings and I didn’t find out until after my father died in 1978 as he had only told my mother about the abuse.

Back in the 1940’s, priests were placed on a pedestal. My father couldn’t go to his parents or other teachers or anyone because he was ashamed, and he didn’t think anyone would believe him. At the time, my father was discerning the priesthood. To say the abuse confused him is an understatement. I can’t imagine having to attend school and see your abuser every day and not be able to say anything.

Dad later met and married my mom and tried to settle down into married life. But his troubles were far from over. He dealt with depression and other mental illness on and off for a few years before he had a mental breakdown in 1961 and was committed to the local psychiatric hospital. I remember visiting him there and, despite the odd surroundings, I was always happy to see my dad.

He was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and manic depression (now called bipolar disease) and was prescribed a regimen of medication.

My dad continued to battle with mental illness for the rest of his life. He eventually became an alcoholic and died tragically at the age of 49. His life ended not unlike many of the thousands of other abuse victims.

It wasn’t easy to lose my father. He was only 49. But the first time I saw him in the casket after he had passed away, he looked more at peace than I could ever remember. I felt confident that God would take care of him.

When I first found out my own father had been abused, I was angry. I wanted to strangle the priest who traumatized him.

There are many like my father out there, some living, and some already deceased, who are/were unknown victims of clerical abuse.

But we as a family were (are) victims too. As a family, we watched my father’s struggles and suffering. We watched him go through drunken stupors and depressive episodes. We watched him get on and fall off the wagon too many times to count. It wasn’t unusual for him to break down and cry. I know that there are many factors that cause someone to have a mental breakdown or become an alcoholic, but I believe the abuse contributed substantially to his ongoing despair.

So with the recent allegations, what is the way forward? First, I’d like pass on encouragement to the many faithful and virtuous priests with the words of Dr. Janet Smith when she said: “To all you wonderful, faithful, chaste, devout, self-giving priests out there, my heart goes out to you. Thank you for answering the call and thank you for staying. The temptation to leave will be great. Please stay. We need you now more than ever. And please know I am praying ardently for you!”

Second, many of the links below give detailed ways the Church can move forward. One thing is for certain: leaving the Church is not an option.

Did my father ever leave the Church of his youth? No.

Following his example, I will do the same. Why? Because my faith is not dependent on the pope, any priest or any human being. I’m Catholic and will remain so because of the Eucharist, because of Jesus Christ and because I believe God’s Word. My faith also tells me I must forgive: the priest who abused my father, anyone who tried to cover it up, and any past and present priests, bishops and cardinals who have been guilty of any wrongdoing.

As Frank Sheed said in the early 60’s: “We are not baptized into the hierarchy; do not receive the Cardinals sacramentally; will not spend an eternity in the beatific vision of the pope. Christ is the point. I, myself, admire the present pope (Paul VI), but even if I criticized him as harshly as some do, even if his successor proved to be as bad as some of those who have gone before, even if I find the church, as I have to live with it, a pain in the neck, I should still say that nothing that a pope (or a priest, Bishop, Cardinal) could do or say would make me wish to leave the church, although I might well wish that they would leave.”

And there is always hope. I believe very much what Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) predicted in 1969: “From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek… But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.”

As we pray and make reparation in the days ahead, I ask you to pray for all those forgotten victims (like my father) who never reported the abuse, and for all families of abuse victims.

Let’s continue to pray and fast for all victims and their extended families. As much as we yearn for a renewal of the Church and the defrocking of any cleric who chooses not to live a chaste priesthood, let us also continue to pray and fast for the conversion of the abusers. As difficult as it is, we are called to forgive.

Read more about the Grand Jury report here.

Read more about the homosexual subculture in the Church.

Healing After Grief Through Divine Mercy

By Jeannie Ewing

By now, most of us have been inundated with information about the Divine Mercy devotion popularized through St. Faustina’s Diary. But have we learned about how divine mercy itself aids us through grief as a healing balm for our wounds? Probably not.

It’s easy to take care of yourself in the immediate aftermath of loss: you make sure you are fed, clean, and get adequate rest. You drink enough water. You might take a walk or sit down to read a book. But what about the condition of your soul? Certainly we are a composite of mind, body, and soul, which are all intricately interconnected.

But we cannot neglect our souls. In fact, I strongly believe that, when we don’t face our deepest inner turmoil from a spiritual perspective, we will not ever be completely healed.

How does divine mercy give us the grace to experience lasting peace and permanent healing? I am not implying that grace alone will solve all of your suffering, nor that it’s not important – necessary at times, even – to seek medical or professional help in addition to turning to your faith. What I am saying is that if you truly wish to be deeply healed, you simply cannot overlook the value of sacramental grace.

Here is a way for you to understand how divine mercy plays an integral role in grief healing:

Divine mercy is the only means by which we can be fully restored and made whole after we have incurred grave losses. It’s not His obligation, but He cannot deny us this because of love. Mercy is the way God reaches our torn and tattered hearts after betrayals and breakups (p. 125 in my book, From Grief to Grace: The Journey from Tragedy to Triumph).

If you need some practical ways to experience the power of Divine Mercy, start with these:

Frequent the Sacrament of Mercy – Reconciliation. Better yet, frequent the Sacraments of Healing together – Reconciliation and the Eucharist.
Read about God’s incredible mercy in the Psalms.
Pray to St. Faustina for a deeper understanding of how much God’s love envelops you in your pain.
Offer your misery to Jesus as a gift. His mercy will transform your heart.
Be merciful to both yourself and others. This means being more patient and kinder than necessary. Remember the quote, “Be kinder than necessary. Everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle”? Keep that in mind regarding the message of mercy.
Practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Pray about which one or two God is inviting you to try rather than committing to all of them. Base your selection on your specific gifts, talents, personality, lifestyle, and the time you have.

Consider this quote from the Diary of St. Faustina (no. 1273). Read it as if Jesus is speaking directly to your heart. Ponder it throughout the week. Ask the Lord to reveal to you what it means for your particular cross right now:

There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted, it increases. The soul that trusts in My mercy is most fortunate, because I Myself take care of it.

Friends, faith alone will not solve all of your ills. Neither, though, will prescriptions and therapy. Remember that your soul is the center, the wellspring of your existence. From it flows the Spring of Eternal Life. Access this spring so that you might discover true and lasting healing through mercy, as well as the other ways you care for your health.

I believe if we “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” then truly “all these things will be given to you besides” (see Matthew 6:33).

Adapted from my book, From Grief to Grace: The Journey from Tragedy to Triumph.

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