Charity

I recently went to confession and the priest said to pray to grow in the virtue of charity. I had listed all my sins, and they are closely related. Father said that the virtues work as a whole organism, and said something along the lines of charity being the ultimate virtue - with it comes all the other virtues, so we have to allow ourselves to grow in charity. I've been praying for this a lot, and trying to grow here too, looking for opportunities. I had one the other day, and opted out because "I didn't feel like it" but the next moment I had I acted on it, and chose to put away the dishes and clean up the kitchen even though I didn't feel like it, but I knew it was something that my roommates would appreciate, so I did it out of love for them. Now, I don't say this for bragging rights by any means, but I shared it as an example.

The past two days I've had a lot of anxiety. There have just been some tough things lately, kind of the "when it rains it pours" occurrence. So I called up one of my friends today to see if I could come over because I didn't want to be alone. First, I had to admit to myself that I did not want to be alone, that was a toughie - admitting to myself my struggle in the moment. Second, I had to ask.. yikes. But it was great.. as I was driving home after I realized that in asking to grow in charity it goes both ways. There are going to be opportunities where I need to choose to be charitable to others, but there are also going to be opportunities where I am going to have to allow others to be charitable towards me.

You see, a lot of times I try to be super woman (that's punny because my last name is super). I try to do it all on my own. I might attempt relying on Jesus (maybe, if it's a good day). But more often than not I am super woman, do it all, get it all right the first time, etc. So today, today was humbling. I had to allow someone to be charitable towards me, to allow them to love me, and to not try and walk the walk of faith on my own, as much as I might try to, it's not possible.

So I ask you - are you trying to be super woman/man or are you allowing others to be charitable towards you, as you are charitable towards others?

God bless!
Pax in Christi

Jesus:Divine Physician

So my parish has their parish mission this week, I haven't been able to go because Sunday night was too cold and the roads were probably still questionable (basically there was simply no leaving of the house), and tonight I had night class. However, the speaker put in the bulletin a brief summary of his talk and the scripture he was using as well. So, I've been using that for my prayer this week, and it has been quite refreshing to my soul. Today used Mark 5:25-34. I decided to read the scripture first and just see where it went, and then reference the summary as a spark for inspiration if needed. However, the Holy Spirit lead me all on my own.

 And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had been done to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

"Go in peace and be cured of your affliction" (Mk 5:34).

As mentioned in a previous blog found here, I struggle with seasonal depression. It comes in fits and spurs. The exception cold has been causing me to be more isolated than normal because I prefer to stay home where I can stay warm. In addition to having a hard patch this month, I've had a hard time adjusting my prayer life to my new schedule/semester. And to top things off, today there was an explosion of family drama, that ended up being very hurtful to many people. And after talking to my mom about what was going on I actually sat and just cried for a while (which was actually a good thing, to allow my emotions to happen and let them pass rather than push them aside and stew in them). Needless to say, I'd been feeling a little down, but when I read the line above from Mark I was inspired and reminded of a few things that I just want to share.

Jesus does not want us to be miserable. he wants us to have peace, to have joy. He wants to immerse us in his mercy and grace. As I struggled today, Jesus wished to offer me peace. Yes, we must suffer for the salvation of souls. Suffering is an inevitable part of being a Christian. However, we need to suffer with joy. Jesus is the Divine Physician, and he wishes to heal us of our affliction and offer us peace.

We also need to remember our free will. It is our choice to pick faith and peace, healing and joy or to allow the miseries of the world to consume us.

The woman in the Gospel today chose faith, and Jesus rewarded her. He teaches us that by choosing faith we are given peace and opportunity to be healed from affliction. However, one thing to keep in mind is Jesus may not heal us in the way we want or expect to be healed. He will do what is best for us, for the salvation of our souls, and the souls of those we love. So offer yourself to the Lord, offer your suffering to him, simply knowing that he will work and will heal in the way that is most beneficial to us, even when we don't see it in the moment.

I want to close with a quote from The Imitation of Mary: grace is intensified wherever effort is made. Any effort we make to choose faith, to choose Jesus is rewarded with grace. Wherever you are at in your faith journey, offer whatever it is that you can to the Lord to allow him to begin working in your heart and in your life, and you will see a difference that will cause you to continue to return to him.

God bless! Pax in Christi

What Makes you Feel Alive?

This year I am serving on an adult leadership team for a youth group. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my year, and of my life.

At the beginning of the year Drew (youth minister) asked us what makes us feel most alive in our faith? It was something I hadn't spent much time thinking about before, but it has been something continually impacting me as the year goes on. I realized that I feel most alive in my faith when I am serving. I came to know who God was through mission trips in high. My best friend at the time invited me to youth group because she didn't know anyone, and she didn't want to go alone. So we went, and we went on a mission trip with the youth group. I had never had much guidance in faith up to this point. There was a while when my family went to a little Methodist church at the end of our street, we went to a Christian preschool for a while, things here and there that at least put God as an idea in my head, but knowledge didn't span far beyond that until I went on this mission trip. I went two years in a row, and after the second one I really experienced an emptiness due to the lack of God's presence in my daily life. I soon made the decision to complete RCIA and become Catholic... and well here I am 4ish years later, knowing that it was the best decision of my life.

Last week was my first week back in school after Christmas break, and tonight we had our first youth group night. Now, over my Christmas break I did basically nothing. I worked a little bit, but nothing compared to what I've worked in the past. I went to mass, and laid around watching netflix, did a little bit of crafting... and that was pretty much the extent of it. In two weeks I watched approximately three seasons of the show Bones. It's actually kind of pitiful to look at what I did over the break... because it was pretty much absolutely nothing... which what I'm getting at.

Earlier in the week I posted a blog about seasonal depression you can read it here. In my nothingness, I got stuck in a place of self-loathing. I was doing nothing outside of myself. I was being completely selfish and justifying it by saying this is the last time for a really long time - like 7 months really long time - that I will be able to do this, so I'm going to take advantage of it... and did I ever... But now, I had a week of school, youth group, etc. I was so excited to go to youth group tonight...because I was finally going to do something for someone other than myself, and that was an awesome feeling.

In prayer the other night I realized the extent of my selfish actions the last month. I realized how I was being consumed my anything and everything other than God - school, work, loneliness, television, pleasure reading, etc. I was not allowing God to consume my heart or be the focus/center for my life. I just kinda set him on the back burner to cool off, and placed myself in the front running. Upon that realization I have been making my prayer for God's love to consume me. I want to be consumed by him. I want to know his love. I want to choose him. I want my life to bring glory to his name. But most of all, I want to feel alive.

I chose nursing because I knew I wanted to spend my life taking care of people, serving other people. Think about the last time you said "man, today was a really good day?" Now, why was that day a good day?

The world tells us success, money, accomplishment, sex, and beauty are going to fulfill us, they are going to satisfy us, make us feel alive. Those notions are wrong. But there is validity to some of them, well all of them really, but I would write a novel if I went into all of those - we're going to focus on success/accomplishment. We tend to feel very alive, or well pleased, or like we're thriving at life when we accomplish a goal or our successful in something. I felt really good about myself when I got a ton of stuff done the other day. But I also felt livened tonight when I was serving my high school youth group. And that's ultimately what I wanted to get at in this blog post.

For the last month we have been on break for youth group. I was on break for school. I didn't work very much. I was pretty much on break from life duties... and I did absolutely nothing, and it was glorious for a while. But soon I got bored and started to feel rather apathetic about life. I wasn't loving it; I didn't feel like I was thriving.. We need to do the things that make us feel alive, fulfilled, satisfied. Jesus ultimately will satisfy us, so I want to leave you with this question: what gifts and talents have you been given, and what allows you to utilize them in such away that you feel alive in life? Essentially, what makes you want to keep living your life? Go out and make it happen! May everything in your life bring glory to God, and may you live a life of joy and love!

Seasonal Depression: It's a Thing..

Seasonal depression: it's a thing... a thing that many people, particularly in the midwest, struggle with. It is something I have struggled with for several years now, and each year I recognize a little more how it effects me. Last year (2013) was a hard year, for a variety of reasons, but during the particular winter season it was challenging because of my headache issues. My life was masked by headaches.

However, this year was quite different. My prayer life had been very consistent and very fruitful. There are plenty of good, healthy, encouraging, supportive female relationships in my life. I am blessed with a job that I love, an opportunity to get an education, and a wonderful, wonderful small group of women to meet with regularly and share life with. Yet, I feel down in the dumps. I catch myself isolating. Going out of the house is absolutely exhausting. Running errands would simply drain me. I notice myself lacking a desire to eat. I just want to lay in the warmth of my bed and spend hours watching netflix.

My desire to isolate, my exhaustion from social encounters, and my lack of desire for food were all major triggers for me.. they were kind of like NEWS FLASH: SEASONAL DEPRESSION... I mean, not exactly, but they were my red flags that something was up. And then today, there was also an anxiety component to it. You see, depression manifests itself in a variety of ways, and I could feel my exhaustion, and my brain was just lost because I hadn't read the chapter before my lecture today (because I didn't know what chapter to read because we didn't have a syllabus yet) and I didn't recognize some of the stuff in the lecture that I felt I should know, so I started to panic and feel anxious.

So seasonal depression, it happens for a variety of reasons, and in order to address you have to know what triggers it and how it manifests itself for you. Like I said, I knew it was here when my red flags came up. And I know now that it's partially triggered by the cold. My body does not respond well to cold. I tense up and thus get my headaches. I enjoy running, but it's really hard to run in snow and in cold temperatures. It's darker more hours of the year, and I often feel trapped inside a house, where there is only so much I can do.

To combat this I do a couple of things. I go to events, and see people. I do social things because I need those interactions, but I might leave early, or come late, or refrain from doing something else earlier in the day. I pray. Pray, pray pray pray pray. Satan does use this as an attack on us, to tempt us to turn from God. He tempts me into dwelling in my loneliness. I often don't want to be with people, but at the same time feel extremely lonely - now talk about contradictory! So pray.. that's what got me started on this whole post anyway. Today, I came home after feeling very anxious from my class, and I knew my prayer had been off for over a month now. I try to keep a gratitude list. Throughout last semester I sought to keep a gratitude list, I tried to write every day in my gratitude journal something that I was grateful for... I wasn't perfect in this obviously, but every couple days I'd sit down and come up with a list of a ton of things that I was thankful for, and write them in my journal. Over my break I really lapsed in my prayer.. well I was praying, but it just wasn't how I normally pray, and I skipped out on my gratitude list (oops)... So today, when I came home I got snack and immediately got out my gratitude journal ( i keep a special notebook for my gratitude list) and started praying and started writing out things I am grateful for from the past month. Almost instantly I started to experience so much peace. There is something so profound about writing down our gratitude list. I kept one in my head, and would often think of the awesome things that happened over break, but it wasn't the same as physically writing it and concretely naming it.

To close this jumbled post I want to quote something from The Imitation of Mary - no one has ever become a saint without vigilance and struggle.

When we are struggling, we are on a good path... we are well on our way towards the narrow path, if not already on it. If we are struggling it means we are recognizing our sins and our temptations and fighting to resist them. We are fighting to live a life of virtue, by the grace of God. Pope Francis is always calling us on to be a people of joy, yet this struggle of seasonal depression directly opposes living a life of joy, it to some extent acts as a spiritual attack, in addition to the physiological and psychological discrepancies.

Therefore, I encourage you to join me in being vigilant in our struggles. Choose joy. Choose gratitude. Eucharisteo. Struggle and fight to live the life of virtue and grace. 

God bless.