7QT: Holy Week Edition

Welcome back for another Seven Quick Takes.  Since this is Good Friday, I'm going to keep this post focused on holy week.

photo credit: here

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Palm Sunday was a roller coaster of a day.  It started out with the events of this post, not really a high point for me.  But when we got to mass (we go to evening mass) things turned around. We were asked to bring up the gifts, and as simple as that was, it was a whole lot of healing for me. I finally felt at home in our parish, and felt like I had something to offer, beyond all my brokenness. Sometimes its the small things that make all the difference.

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Ok, so maybe not a holy week event, but Tuesday I went to a talk by an amazing priest, Fr. Robert Spitzer, about happiness and suffering, which is mentioned on his website here.  I had never heard Fr. Spitzer speak before, though I had heard great things about him, and I can say he lived up to what I had heard and then some.  The talk really made me look at some things in my life, and was really helpful in considering suffering too.  I'm really glad my sister dragged me along to it :).

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On Wednesday, the Hubs and I went to confession and holy hour.  There is an awesome Norbertine abbey close to us, St. Michael's Abbey, which offers adoration and confession ever day during their night prayers.  Attending is always a beautiful experience.  This one was no different.

The wait for confession was pretty long, an hour and a half, and I'll admit I got impatient at some points, but in the end I consigned myself to the fact that God wanted me there.  Having adoration the whole time was beautiful.  The first half hour, maybe 45 minutes, was easy, as I counted up my sins, got ready to go, and said prayers for anyone I could think of.  The rest was more difficult, but good.  I took a good hard look at the sins I was bringing to confession, and made sure I was actually sorry for them, and was going to do something about avoiding them in the future. Then I just spent time in silent prayer until it was my turn for confession.  It was a wonderful experience.

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After confession I felt awesome.  The next day (yesterday) I felt like I was bouncing on a cloud of grace for the first half of the day at least.  I always know confession is good for me, but I don't always get the happy clean soul feeling, as I think of it haha, so that was nice.  Of course, as the day went on it got harder and harder not to slip back into the usual routine of being irritated at people, gossiping, and the rest of it. I did my best though.

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Last night we went to the Holy Thursday service at our parish.  Again, it was a beautiful mass.  Growing up it actually wasn't something we would traditionally do, so going has kind of been a new tradition the Hubs and I have started.  I will admit that sometimes I do get impatient with the long masses (anyone catching the fact that I have an issue with patience? lol) but I love being more immersed in the liturgical year, and especially the happenings of holy week.  It also makes me appreciate our parish, our pastor and priests, and the community there more too, you can really sense the reverence and care that goes into everything.  After mass we picked up pizza at the same place we ate at on Ash Wednesday.  Not so much a symbolic intentional gesture, really just because its one of the closest places to our church to eat and I was hungry!

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God has made pretty clear that I should be clearing my distractions for Good Friday.  My boss gave us the whole day off for Good Friday, which is a first.  I will give him credit, the last couple years he would give us the afternoon off if we asked for it. I also had a phone interview that was supposed to take place at 12:30 that I was feeling uneasy about.  Yesterday it was cancelled (due to the position being filled).  So, I guess that leaves me free and clear.

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That leads us to today, Good Friday. Having the day off has been a nice way to slow things down.  I'm going to try to make more time for prayer and meditation, especially during 12 and 3 pm.  A few church near me have services, so maybe I'll catch on now or later when the Hubs gets home.

Thanks again for stopping by.  I hope you are having a blessed triduum. For some great conversion stories (I love conversion stories) and more great posts, check out Kelly's at This Ain't The Lyceum.

Infertility, Suffering, and Holy Week

I apologize in advance if this gets rambly, but I can't seem to make my thoughts cohesive.  But anyway, this all started with me being part of a gathering today that should have been happy.  We were celebrating new life, multiple new lives actually, and I should've been happy for them. But while I might've put on a good face, I wasn't happy inside. I was sad, angry, and heartbroken, for myself of course.  I sat there with my closest friends feeling alone, like an outsider, looking in on a club that I don't know I will ever be a part of.  I held it together until I got to my car and then broke down.

It felt like a punch to the gut, like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs and I couldn't breathe.  The pain, the pain that has been building up for so long, it was unbearable.  I cried, and cried out to the Lord in my heart.  I told Him, "This is not fair! I've followed all of your rules!  I always turned down birth control!  We waited until marriage! We've been open to life! We never contracepted! I've turned down all immoral procedures! Isn't that enough? Why am I being punished? I don't deserve this!"

But then I remembered, neither did He.

"But, Lord can't you give me something?  If it's not a child, can't you take this pain away?  Why does it only hurt more the more I ask for relief?  If you won't give me a child or relief, can't you at least give me a better job? Make me productive somehow?"

But then I remembered, He has given me all, He gave His very life for me.

The truth is, I am not innocent as He was, and is.  I have sinned many many times, in many ways, repeating them over and over again (looking at you, envy).  I don't know if any of those have contributed to my infertility today, but they could have (looking at you, gluttony).

It's also true that the rules God has given me are not for His benefit, but for mine, so that I may not harm myself or others, so that I might not turn away from Him and foreclose the possibility of heaven.  And it is by His grace alone that I have not fallen more than I have.

And I have to remember that life is not fair.  It has been infected by sin, original sin, that brings death and disease into the world.

As this week focuses so clearly on, Christ, above all, understands suffering that He did not deserve.  Suffering that He willingly undertook for our salvation.  Like it says in 1 Peter 3:18 "For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit."

So, I guess in some way, the sorrow and the pain present in Holy Week is a comfort to me.  Like it says in Hebrews 4:15-16 "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help."

Christ understands our smallness and weakness, and our pain and suffering in ways deeper than I ever could. He does not leave us stranded, alone, but has suffered with us.  And through His great suffering and death, we are offered eternal life, which is the greatest gift we could be given.

It brings me to the realization that so much of this pain I am in stems from fighting His will and trying to hold on to what I want.  I know, I've posted several times before about surrendering to God's will, but it seems I've never been able to make a whole hearted effort, and I will probably keep fighting His then trying to surrender mine my whole life.  I don't know how to let go of what I want the outcome of this journey to be, what I want God to give me.

I know that I need to let it go, to die to myself, to drag this cross of my self will to Calvary and leave it there at the foot of His.  I have to die to myself and accept that He is enough.  He will give me all I need for salvation, and that is all I need, nothing more.  My will is not better.  My plan for children may not have anything to do with His plan for me.  If raising children is part of my path to salvation, then that is what He will give me, if not, then so be it.

That was so hard to even just to type, but I know it's true. Perhaps there are other souls He will bring to me in other ways to help, I just don't know, and I won't know, probably until it's all over. All I know is that I all I can do is try to take one step closer to Him, and one step closer to letting go of myself, every day until I get there.

It's like this quote of Mother Teresa:

Some day I hope to get to that place where there is no more hurt, only love.

Halfway Through Lent

Back when we were talking about preparing for lent, I came up with some pretty good ideas for what I was going to do.  They covered all the categories and ensured that I would have a fruitful lent (not that I said that in the post, but I may have been thinking it).  Well, here I am, a little over halfway through lent, and it is so not going as planned.  Some things failed a few days in (or the first day, like when we went out for pizza after Ash Wednesday mass) and some never got off the ground.  The one thing I have stuck with is praying the rosary on my way to work on the weekdays, if half distractedly listening to a rosary CD counts.  But you know what, I've realized that I'm ok with it.

This lent has been difficult in a lot of ways, with work and the unsuccessful job hunt, my personal life at times, and with treatment, side effects, and failed cycles.  Its been a battle most days to make it through without being bitter, angry, envious, or giving up.  I don't always win them, but I try to bring these battles to prayer, and acknowledge that I still believe in God's goodness regardless of these trials (as trivial as they may be), that I won't give up on Him, as much as the devil tries to tempt me or whisper lies in my ear.

To be clear, it hasn't been all bad, or even that bad compared to probably most other people, just difficult for me.  And there have been plenty of moments of good.  As I sit here on a sunny Saturday morning in my pajamas drinking coffee watching the silly dogs and Hubs run around, life seems pretty great actually.  I'm trying to learn to savor these moments and to be thankful for them as they come along as well.

I think for right now that that's enough.  Or at least its all I can take, and I think God understands.  Maybe its even God teaching me that He has his own plans for my lent.  I'll admit I didn't pray about what He wanted me to do, I kind of just came up with what sounded good to me.  So who knows.

Going forward though I would like to kick my participation in the sacraments a notch.  I know it definitely couldn't hurt, haha, and would more than likely help.  I can use all the extra back up I can get.  I have literally driven in circles deciding whether or not to go to adoration and confession (there's a great abbey nearby me that offers both every day) and I always come up with some excuse not to go and heading home instead.  I need to work on getting past that.  So I think that is one thing I do need and want to focus on in what remains of lent, though again, I'm not setting any solid goals or quotas here.  Here's hoping I can.

How has your lent been going so far?

Preparing for Lent

This year, lent has kind of snuck up on me.  I started seeing Facebook posts from friends that it was coming up, and I was kind of in shock at how early it is this year.  I have to confess, I didn't even get my Christmas Tree and decorations down till this week (during which process we also knocked a light off the ceiling).  The process started a few weeks ago, but I'm a little slow, haha.

But anyways, now its almost here, and I've started thinking about what I should do this year to make it a good one. I think I want to focus on doing something with each of the three important areas prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  Here are some of the ideas I've come up with so far.

Prayer:  Last year, the main this the Hubs and I did during lent was read from the Bible (almost) every night, starting at the very beginning.  The idea was to get us started with a good habit that we would carry throughout the year.  Yea...shortly after lent we hit Leviticus and just could not keep up with it.  Maybe this year we'll pick it up again, but maybe skip the listings of laws, just to keep the momentum going.

I also want to work on, using a handy acronym provided by a priest I knew in college, MARC: Mass, adoration, rosary, and confession.  I've been working on saying the rosary on the way to work, and I want to commit to saying it every day, or at least every work day.  I also need to work more on the other three.  I think I got to adoration once and confession and daily mass only a few times last year. Ideally, I'd like to start going to daily mass and adoration weekly and confession every other week maybe.  I'm not sure if I want to commit to that exactly, or just commit to trying to increase the frequency, I'm still thinking about it.

Fasting:  Another thing from last year that I think I'd like to do again is give up going out for food.  We aren't really good cooks over here, and with being tired and lazy, we tend to do a lot of going out or picking up fast food for lunch and dinner.  Last year we gave it all up, well except for our tradition of going out to eat after mass on Sunday.  Although it required a lot of work (from me) and patience (from the Hubs), I think it was a good experience over all.

I think I'd also like to  "fast" from wasting my time.  I spend a lot of my down time on Netflix binges and aimlessly surfing the internet.  I don't know if I could do a straight up ban on it, or even craft a rule for myself, but I do want to be more mindful of how I'm spending my time, and perhaps take some more time on spiritual reading, or taking care of our place instead.

Almsgiving:  This is a tough one.  I've kind of tended to ignore almsgiving in the past.  Either I was a starving student, just married and getting our feet on the ground, or, last year, we had just bought a place.  This year things aren't much different, after a slew of unexpected expenditures last year, finances are still pretty tight, though I would like to see where we can find some wiggle room.

But even if I can't give much money, I know there's something else I can give, my time. Last week there was a ministry fair at our parish, and there are a couple we are looking into.  One I think we're most leaning towards doing is driving elderly parishioners who can't drive themselves to church.  I also approached a member of the parish counsel about possibly starting a new ministry.  There isn't much to say about it yet, its obviously still in the super early stages, and I still have to hear back from the parish counsel on whether its something they want.  But I am doing research, and if I do get the green light I'll let you know all about it :).

Beyond all this, I feel like there's a couple things God's been trying to teach me that I want to focus on, acceptance and detachment.  More particularly, accepting what He brings into my life, and detachment from those things that don't matter.  There's not really anything I can think of to do to learn about these, but it is something I want to think about, and try to understand what He is trying to do.

Well, at least this is a start, and gets me thinking.  What are you doing for lent?

By the way, I'm linking up with Blessed is She.  Head over there for more great posts.