Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Our family has always enjoyed the opportunity that Thanksgiving provides to remind us to be grateful not just once a year, nor even for a month, but every single day and throughout the day.
Recently, I have tried to cultivate two habits for giving thanks. First, I try to begin time in prayer with thanks and to spend as much time giving God thanks as I would spend in any other part of my prayer. Second, I try to take just a moment at the beginning of each day in the office by writing on a small pad of paper at least seven things for which I am grateful at that moment. I read about this idea, and I have found it to be very helpful for starting out the work day in the right frame of mind. By my thinking,we should be grateful to God constantly; it should be our overall mindset. With reminders like these, I hope to cultivate is an attitude of thanksgiving in order to maintain it at all times as much as possible.
For some fun ideas to help you celebrate Thanksgiving in your family and to remind you to give thanks, you can check out these Thanksgiving ideas from the
Homeward blog.
[Painting:
Angelus, Millet, Musée d'Orsay]
Labels: General, Prayer
Posted by David at
7:30 AM
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Over the past nine months or so, most posting has been very occasional. I continue to believe that there might be a more full return to action. Or at least a more frequent schedule of posting. Perhaps it would be best if I consider an achievable goal such as once a week. That seems somewhat reasonable.
That being said, this is my first attempt at moving in that direction. However, the most important thing is that I place all of this in His hands. I have been reading and listening to the book,
Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. I received the tip on this book from Fr. Groeschel who mentioned that he has been re-reading it ever since he first read it as a teenager.
Reading this book has solidified in many ways what I have thought and experienced in my life. Namely, that the path to following God is one in which one completely abandons oneself to following God's will in the present moment. Every item of one's life, no matter how mundane, is important to the life that God has planned. In each moment, He is calling to me to be obedient to His Will. Focusing on the past or the future will not help me as much as my concentrating on doing His will by fulfilling my duties in the present moment.
Although there is only Way for salvation, there are countless variations of the details of how to follow Christ that are made particular by God to suit the individual creatures He has created. In practical terms, I will not be called to live as you are called to live. You will not be called to live as I am called to live.
This seems so obvious, but in reality, many stumble in this area because they expect, conscioulsy or uncounscioulsy, everyone to follow the details which they follow. For example, I have found people who practically function as if one mass time on Sunday at a particular parish is the only mass to attend for "serious" Catholics. This is nonsense. What if God is calling them to attend that mass, but God is calling me to attend mass at a different time? Indeed He does this all of the time. The volumes of the lives of the saints are filled with men and women who did not necessarily follow the established path. The common bond for these saints was that they submitted to God's will, as best they could, in every moment of their lives. Perhaps today they are called to do one thing. The next day God might call them to do something else. Their trust in Him allowed them to not become attached to either things or creatures, but to remain attached to Jesus. This is my hope. That, I too, would strive to radically follow Jesus wherever He may lead me in the present moment He has given me. Much of this will be mundane fulfillment of the duties of my state in life. No matter, if it is what He wills, it is the best for me.
Labels: Books, General
Posted by David at
12:40 AM
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New This and That and Patient Endurance of Suffering
This is the first post with the new Blogger. I have not fully explored the new features, but then again, I did not seem to have a choice. When I connected to Blogger, I was given the choice to either convert to the new Blogger or never post again. Fortunately, I already had a Gmail account. That saved one step. The other thing that made this less painful was the fact that I now have high speed Internet. It is somewhat unbelievable given my background, but we have just now moved from dial-up to DSL. So far so good. It is fast, and that makes quite a difference.
The next step is to move the graphics and scripts for this blog from the current server to the a new server because I need to shut down the dial-up service. That should not take too long, but tonight is not the night for that. I need to do a few more things and then head to bed.
This has not been a particularly theological or spiritual post. To make up for that I will add a quote from
St. Colette whose feast is March 7th:
If there be a true way that leads to the Everlasting Kingdom, it is most certainly that of suffering, patiently endured.
The older I get, the more I grasp the very simple truth of that statement. Suffering, patiently endured, was the way of our Lord, and there is no reason why it should not be my way too.
Every time I avoid the cross, I quickly am given an opportunity to remember that my (spiritual) life is fundamentally about my cross that must be carried every day. The key, as St. Colette notes, is the patient endurance by which the suffering is borne. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the moment and to forget the need to remain calm under the pressure of daily life.
The virtue of patience allows me to recognize that often, well within 24 hours, what seemed to be a terrible crisis, is no longer even a problem. If I am able to remain focused on our Lord, have faith in Him no matter what the problems are, I can endure the suffering that is permitted. If I forget our Lord and try to muddle through on my own without the cross, I will make a mess of things. And if I try to do an end run around suffering or numb myself from it, I will be even worse off than if I had let it beat me down like wave in the ocean. No, my only hope for success is to heed this saints message and pray for the grace to patiently endure all that He allows, and to strive to overcome my own reluctance to accept suffering and embrace it as the way of our Lord.
Image Credit
Labels: General, Saints
Posted by David at
12:25 AM
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