Tag: spiritual life

Working with your FOMO

Many people are plagued with FOMO. Do you know what FOMO is? Think: Fear of missing out.

Why ain’t I doing this? Why ain’t I at that party, in that conversation, being recognized for this and that achievement. FOMO questions our making of the right choices? FOMO wants to advance my cause. The other as other counts for little. FOMO paralyzes our humanity because its focus on the sentimental, superficial, on the unfocussed. It reduces our human relationships to an object. FOMO is a post-modern way of speaking of deadly sin (mortal sin). FOMO leads to the death of one’s personhood.
FOMO is an insecurity not only in social circumstances but also, and more importantly, in the spiritual life. It is a reduction of our religious sense, a reduction of someone greater. FOMO is not living life in the present moment. FOMO is the sin of envy, pride, and self-centeredness. It is the un-awareness that you can’t do it all. Reversing the effects of FOMO is the recognition that you are not able to be everywhere at all times. Most people are not given the gift of bi-location. Saint Padre Pio had the gift, but he likely used it for the building the Kingdom of God and not his own agenda.
Do you have joy? Do I love? What fills me with anxiety? How does Christ answer the desires of my heart? Are you aware of the gifts that are in front of you? Can I discover my true self in the life I lead, in the work I do, in the person I am? Are you bitter towards others? Are you aware that you are loved by God and others for the person you are, and not the person you think you are, or should be? The focus on Christ overcomes FOMO because it’s less about the whim (what could have happened…) and more on the certainty that Christ exists, that He’s a concrete reality and that only God makes and sustains us. say it another way, attention to the religious sense in my life (and other others) acknowledges that God has a tenderness for me — and this tenderness is a sign of a relationship with Him.
Above I mentioned that FOMO is a reduction of one’s religious sense. What does that mean? Well, look at it this way: what are the desires of your human heart? How do these desires of the heart allow us to see the attractiveness of everything, even to consider the implications of  a desire’s inadequacy. The masters tell us it is not enough to be aware of the religious sense, the religious sense has to push us forward in our relationship with God (the Divine Mystery) so as not to lose my personhood, my “I”.

Are you living in Christ now?


Saint Benedict has a special place in his Rule for eternity.
The eternal life is usually a subject that many people run away from because in
order to fully enjoy eternity one needs to confront death. Well, that’s what
many think. The Lord’s promise of eternal life and many of benefits can be
enjoyed before one dies. In fact, that’s what the sacraments give us: a
foretaste of eternity. Baptism opens the door, washes away sin, imparts grace,
and makes one an adopted child of God; the Eucharist nourishes our spiritual
life, and builds communion with the Trinity; Confirmation imparts the Gifts of
the Holy Spirit and Beatitude, etc. Sacraments give the faithful a share in
Beatitude if lived in a state of grace and according to the Eight Beatitudes. 

The
question really is what the Apostle Paul said, and what is adhered to by true Christians, particularly saints, “To
me to live is Christ,” (Mihi Vivere Christus)” (Phil: 1, 21). Living means being closely united, in communion, with Christ. Catholics live in Christ by living the sacraments and according to Scripture but the teaching of the saints also illumine our path.

A verse in
the Prologue to Saint Benedict’s Rule refocuses us:

“If we wish to reach eternal
life, even as we avoid the torments of hell, then – while there is still time,
while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things by the
light of life – we must run and do now what will profit us for all eternity.” (Prologue
42 – 44,RB).

The teaching, some have said, can be interpreted to mean that Saint
Benedict is urging his disciples to put into daily practice right now what we will
be doing for all eternity: that is, giving glory and praise to God. How we give
God glory and praise is done through our daily lives of personal and communal prayer,
in faithfulness and obedience to the Divine Majesty. This was the source of someone
who knows God: a lifelong fidelity, joyfulness, and an openness to Wonder. The
position of wonder speaks to our youthful spirit and joy was keeping our eyes,
our mind and our heart fixed on Jesus Christ and the promise of the Hundredfold.

Do you wish to reach your ultimate destiny, eternal life? What will you do to run along the path?

How nice are you?

“Our Lord was crucified by the nice people who held that religion was all right in its place, so long as its place was not here, where it might demand of them a change of heart. The gravest error of the nice people in all ages is the denial of sin.”

The Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen


h/t Fr Z

The Lord waits to be gracious

God’s providence means that wherever we have got to, whatever we have done, that is precisely where the road to heaven begins. However many clues we have missed, however many wrong turnings we have taken, however unnecessarily we may have complicated our journey, the road still beckons, and the Lord still ‘waits to be gracious’ to us.

Father Simon Tugwell, OP

Yearning for the riches of the Lord’s glory

The incredulity of Christ.jpgThe Incredulity of Thomas is likely one of the most identifiable images for Christians to meditate on. It is for me. Few artists can trigger my Catholic imagination as Caravaggio can. As I run through my day, I keep as a constant refrain in my mind the sentence from St Mark’s gospel: Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Today, following from Divine Mercy Sunday, meditating on John 20:26-29 is a needed mercy.
The medieval abbot, theologian and mystic William of St. Thierry (1085-1148) has the following to say about the topic of mercy:

Continue reading Yearning for the riches of the Lord’s glory

Can God still surprise me?

Emmaus detail Caravaggio.jpgEarlier this evening at the School of Community we were talking about our problem recognizing Christ in daily living. In what ways am I moved by Christ? A (vigorous) prayer life keeps us focussed on the meaning of our life in Christ.

Taking some clues from Father Julián Carrón may be helpful to those who want to make sense of the spiritual life.  Father Carrón encourages a few things:
1. to understand that we need an awareness of ourself;
2. to be mindful that we never fully possess Christ in this life because Christ is a Mystery; that to possess we’d be alone and that is not what the Holy Trinity has promised;
3. yes, it is easy to complain about not being “connected” to Christ in a meaningful manner but we need to consider that to really engage in the Fact and Event of the Incarnation of the Word Made Flesh is to accept that Christ is not reducible to an idea or an opinion;
4. to recall that to have real confidence that God loves me unconditionally; that is not say that God doesn’t care about the sinful things we do, He does and he desires true Charity and justice, but His Mercy for our being is stronger than anything we could imagine.

Continue reading Can God still surprise me?

Happiness and fullness of being in communion, not suffering, did God make us


God did not create us for suffering and renunciation,
but for happiness, for life; not for an ephemeral happiness during life in this
world, but for an eternal and unfailing life, which can be found in God alone.
However, God passes by unnoticed by our senses, whereas the things of this
world press upon us and entice us from all sides, leading us to seek our
happiness in them.


From this arises the necessity of controlling and mortifying
their immoderate tendency toward pleasure, their looking for satisfaction in
creatures. For those who desire to attain to the fullness of life in God, St.
John of the Cross, in full accord with the gospel, suggests that they gradually
accustom themselves to gving up any sensory satisfaction that is not
purely for the honor and glory of God. . .out of love for Jesus Christ. In his
life, he had no other gratification, nor desired any other, than the
fulfillment of his Father’s will which he called his meat and food (Ascent of
Mount Carmel I 13-4).

Again it is a question of not seeking our joy and delight
in pleasures of sense, which satisfy selfishness, self-love, and attachment to
creatures, but in the will of God, in what pleases him. If we would be
spiritual persons, we must force ourselves to change the direction of our inclination
toward pleasure by detaching it from the goods of earth and turning it
decisively toward God, until we can repeat with Jesus: I always do what is
pleasing to him (John 8:29).

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen,
OCD
Divine Intimacy

Compunction awakens our soul


Compunction involves a moment of awakening, the first
glimmer of enlightenment, the dawning of a new day lived against a different
horizon. St. John Cassian, one of Benedict’s principal sources, defines
compunction as whatever can by God’s grace waken our lukewarm and sleepy souls
(Conferences 9:26)

This definition seems to envisage us living our spiritual
lives in a slumberous state of half-wakefulness. The grace of compunction is
the transition to a state of fuller awareness.

The great difference between the
saints and the rest of us is that they were spiritually awake more of the time
than we are; they were alert to possibilities. It is because they went through
life in a state of greater consciousness that they were more conscientious in
doing good and avoiding evil.

We who stumble through life with many mistakes
and omissions admire their saintly deeds but without necessarily realizing that
perhaps we could imitate them more closely if our spiritual senses were not so
drowsy 

Michael Casey, OCSO
The Road to Eternal Life

Gratitude is a sincere gift of self


The saints
(Augustine, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Ignatius and Philip Neri) remind us of
something crucial in the spiritual life, indeed, our life right now: we need to
exercise the virtue of gratitude because of our dependence on God. Gratitude reminds that we are in need of grace but also to give of ourselves to another. Saint Thomas
Aquinas teaches that gratitude is closely connected to the cardinal virtue of
justice, by which we give what is due to others. But with gratitude there is actually a
holy exchange between two people. One person benefits from a good act of another but
also wants to repay the benefaction. Rahner spoke of giving alms at Mass as a way of being involved in the good works of the Church when giving personal time is not possible but no less important because while there is some sort of a bond among the pastor, the benefactor and beneficiary it is only made stronger because real faces are behind the dollar. Think of the times when we write a thank
you note, make a promise of a deeper connection in friendship, or even the
promise spiritual works of mercy. I frequently write, “know that you are in my
prayers” to remind me and the person I am writing that I may not be able to
give something material in return, but I can make a sacrifice of gratitude
before God on behalf of another because of friendship. Gratitude and justice is
rooted in charity, in love for another, because of the Other. I think of Blessed John Paul II’s  insistence that we ought to make “a sincere gift of self.”

Saint Ignatius tells us that to be ungrateful is a sin. Imagine if we account for acts of ingratitude in our daily examination of conscience even in Confession. How is it that today I can make a sincere gift of myself? Lent is a time to recall the concrete times we’ve been grateful and made a promise to pray for another.