What I’ve been reading lately….
I just finished this book this week and it was a keeper! I’ve recently stumbled across Mother Mary Francis, a poor Claire abbess, who gave amazing talks to her cloister over her 40 years of leading the community. Lucky for us, someone was smart enough to keep a record of them to share with the world. Poor Claires are cloistered nuns, meaning they do not have much to do with the outside world (like at all), so it was beautiful to get to read what the nuns talked about during their retreats and daily masses. We have a group of poor Claires locally, so this was special to me.
Cause of Our Joy is based off of a series of talks Mother Francis did over the years on Marian feast days and includes an expanded meditation on the entire Litany of Loreto. If you do not know about the Litany of Loreto, look it up! It’s a basically a really long prayer filled with all of the names the church has given to Our Blessed Mother over the past centuries, asking for her intercessions, and they are simply lovely. Mother Francis dives into each one and expands our ideas on what each one really means by her beautiful meditations on who Mary really was and the joy she can bring to our lives if we let her.
Something beautiful I’ve read this week….
That Mary rewarded the waiting of God with her Fiat, or her “yes” to His question of, “Will you bear my son, Jesus?” The whole of creation held its breath as Mary pondered her answer…including Jesus! The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance He had awaited from the beginning of time” CCC 2617. I just find that utterly beautiful. Mary was the first one to welcome Christ into her life and into her heart. It was an important reminder to me that God never demands, He asks ever so gently. Are we listening to His quiet invitations or drowning Him out with all the clutter in our lives? What invitations of our Lord have I missed in my own life by not taking the time to listen to His whisper. We should all pray to be like our Our Lady, who could not help but say yes to bringing our Lord into the world because she trusted in the Lord and was willing to do His Will…even if she could not understand His plan fully.
Something new I tried recently….
I have been trying to do reverse formation in my daily thoughts. Reverse formation is catching a negative behavior or idea before it takes root and flipping it around to be a good thought or action. For instance, I tend to be a tad bit judgmental (this is an understatement), so once I begin a thought that is a bit judgmental, I flip it around and praise the person or situation. This nips the sin in the bud before it can take root. It also makes me more aware of my behavior and the thought patterns my brain wants to explore in my day-to-day life. I am hoping this will help retrain my brain to focus on the positive and give people the graces that I would want given to me.
**This was especially important to my spiritual life this week because I read recently that if you are focused on other people’s faults, it is 99.99999% true (its science!) that you are avoiding your own faults and projecting them onto others….ouch….yep….that is correct! This is why the saints never focused on other people’s sins because they knew they had their own to worry about. If we work on our holiness and live out our faith, this strengthens the Body of Christ which helps to inspire others to be more holy. You cannot hope to change the world if you cannot change yourself. Jesus, of course, warned us of this when He told us to worry about the log in our own eye and ignore the speck in our neighbor’s. Wise words to live by.
Things that have been bring joy to my life….
First an unhealthy joy. Joy comes in many forms. This week it came in the form of a delicious treat. These Caramel Sea Salt Pretzels bars are amazing! It looked a bit weird coming straight out of the package but they are the perfect sweet/salty combo that I needed that day. If you have just one (or two…) they aren’t that bad for you. Luckily, there were only two left in the package when I found them!
On a healthier note, I have developed a love (love is too little of a word, I would say a deep, deep joy) for praying an entire rosary (all 4 mysteries) during my long walks. I read a book by Gabriel Castillo about the benefits of praying the entire rosary each day and I will say I have to agree that it has been life changing. My mental (and spiritual) peace has gone way up, and my faith life has blossomed even more over the past four months since I started this habit. A bonus is that I get to have 16 lovely meditations on our Lord’s life while I get in my 3.5 miles, so this is helping my spiritual life and my physical life at the same time! If you have ever wondered if the rosary could be for you, try it out. I have yet to find anyone whose life became worse after praying the rosary daily. Here is a lovely video that walks you through the entire rosary.
Something I am looking forward to….
We are hosting another Eucharistic Adoration night for our parish this week. I loved the new adoration songs that the musician taught us last time, “O Come to the Altar” and “The Goodness of God” (gorgeous songs!). They have been playing in my head each time I go to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and if I am all alone with Him in the middle of the night, I even get to serenade Jesus while I adore Him. They always say, “Singing is praying twice” and I firmly believe that.
I hope this week is a joyous one for you. I pray that you take time to listen for the Lord because He always wants to tell us something, but we have to enter a place of silence to hear His voice.
God Bless you all!
Clinging to the Little Way 