theROCK

Habits

Habits. We all have them. Some are good for us and some are not so good for us. One habit that I have is to start my day with three things.

The first is my daily prayer. I have a routine to my prayer that is rooted in a prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. This prayer quickly transitions into the Act of Consecration to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The third component is an informal prayer to our Lord to lift up my “big asks”.

The second part of my morning routine is to read the daily meditation from Thirsting For God: Daily Meditations of Mother Teresa edited by Angelo D. Scolozzi. I often dog-ear the pages of “the good ones”. It is fun to come upon these dog-eared pages a year later and wonder what inspired me to dog ear it.

The third component is to read my daily reflection and prayer from The Catholic Mom’s Desk Calendar by Lisa M. Hendey. This waits for me in the kitchen. I read it while I am waiting for my daily dose of coffee to finish brewing.

If I don’t accomplish these three things before leaving the house, I feel like I am missing something. It is in sharing this habit of mine, that I share the meditation from St. Teresa, as noted on October 22, which inspired my writing today. “To almighty God, the smallest action given to him is great. But for us, we always measure how much we did, for how long. For God, there is no time. What should be important to us is how much love we put into the giving.” All in all this habit of mine to start the day takes all of 10 minutes,
sometimes 15 if something is weighing on me. It is amazing how small of a thing can have such an impact on my relationship with God and others. This habit brings me to peace. It brings me to hope. It brings me to a better version of myself.

What habits do you have? Are you looking to start a new one? I am happy to share my resources any time. I’d love to hear about some of yours.

Complacent

Recently at Mass, a word during the first reading popped out at me. The word was "complacent". The text read, "Woe to the complacent in Zion" (Amos 6:1). To be complacent is to be self-satisfied to the point of not working for change because contentment blinds you to the issues at hand. In the reading, those in Zion are resting on their laurels while suffering surrounds them. They are blind to it. Have I grown complacent? Have you grown complacent? So stuck in what I am doing that I have grown negligent to the needs around me? Have I grown self-absorbed to the point of not wanting to bother with anything outside my comfort zone?

That word has bothered me for days now. Complacent implies being unmoved. If our purpose is to come to know, love, and serve God, we can never become complacent. (This might be where the warning came from in the first reading.) Our goal is to live in relationship with Jesus. We strive to help one another get to heaven. None of this can happen with complacency. We can never be satisfied with just being, we have to move. We have to move from knowing, to loving, to serving. This is discipleship. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to never be complacent. To be better. To be more. Not just for yourself but for God and your fellow human beings. I guess I got my answer for how to be the best version of myself this week. What about you?

Faith

Faith. If God loves us, why do bad things happen? That isn't an easy answer. Some of the bad things that happen are the result of God loving us enough to give us free will. We are free to choose what we do and what we don't do. God created us with a conscience, reason, and gifts us with a whole lot of grace, so that we hopefully choose options that are in line with His will. Working counter to God's will results in actions with less than great consequences. That makes sense.

But what about those things that randomly happen. To this I would say, especially as it related to natural disasters, that the Earth has been doing what it has been doing for millions of years. Plates shift and move, air masses collide, stuff happens. People get in the way. The Earth is bigger than people. That makes sense. God has empowered people to develop ways to track storms and warn people so choices can be made.

Then the questions of illness, pain, suffering pop up. Indeed, these are the toughest because one can't reason it away. That is where faith steps in. When we struggle to understand why, our faith compels us to action. There's a reason in the suffering somewhere. It can be hard to find what the reason may be but faith leads us to it. This level of "bad" is to compel us toward God; to a dependence on Him. It doesn't make sense but it will if you have faith. It is said that hindsight is 20/20. When a person takes time to think back to a time of suffering, the fruit can be seen. What was to be learned? What was the reason? In fact, long suffering is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. How is suffering good? It brings us to dependence on God. Faith.