Rosary Diary - January, cont.

In what truly is a miracle of conversion, I said daily Rosary number 4 yesterday. I already feel it hard to skip it. Doesn't habit forming usually take longer? It's great. Still, since I started on Tuesday and yesterday was Friday, I had to go through the Sorrowful Mysteries twice without the full balance of the other more happy ones. The Sorrowful Mysteries are truly not something I look forward to, but perhaps it is our penance. God bless the Church for giving us 3 more happy mysteries. I don't know what it was like for those saying the Rosary daily when there were only 2.

But I did have a moment of discovery. My Rosary guide includes a quote from scripture with each mystery, which is very helpful to me for the purposes of reflection. In the mystery of the Crucifixion, the quote "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit" is included, from Luke 23:46. I was saying the Rosary before bed. This quote jumped out at me because I have also been using my grandmother's prayer book from 1944 (original publication in the 1920s). Times were a bit different then. For evening prayer, at the end of the final prayer, the prayer book recommends sprinkling holy water on your bed and repeating those words from Luke. "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit." Besides the fact that I've been fresh out of holy water since my other grandmother cut off the steady supply sometime back in my childhood, I can never bring myself to say this before bed--it's a bit scary, to be fully truthful. Which made me think that as Jesus say this when he died on the Cross, it had to be the culminating act of complete trust and surrender in what was the ultimate act of trust and surrender. Trust perfect in its completeness.

Scrapbook

Good for the Soul
Lewiston, ID on a Christmas 2008 visit, experiencing rare heavy snowfall

Spirit Day

Today, my high school-aged brother went to his Catholic school out of uniform. It is "Spirit Day," the day students can support the school teams by wearing school apparel with the school logo--out of uniform. It is a treat. My brother last night harassed my dad, the self-designated "Keeper of the Laundry," about making sure his sweatshirt was washed. What if Spirit Day was also a day to talk about the gifts of the Spirit?

Inspired by...

My friend Andria, who is so good to others, so actively involved in living, and who has been affected by the bad economy. You lightened my days when we worked together, and still do every time we talk. Your friendship is a gift, and you are in my prayers.

Rosary Diary - January

Yesterday, Thursday (this is getting posted a day late), was the day for praying the Rosary and reflecting on the Luminous Mysteries. I have been waiting for three days to get to the "mysteries of light." They are my favorite. The first mystery is the baptism of Jesus. This was a recent celebration in Mass--the baptism. Reflecting on the mystery, it strikes me, as it did in Mass, that it shows so profoundly the love God has for His Son. Sending down the Holy Spirit, saying "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). I am not a parent yet, but I felt such a warm feeling of love. God's love for Jesus is something we humans can relate to and share as we love our children. All of us can understand the relationship between parent and child. And to think that God was willing to give us such a gift.

The Luminous Mysteries seem to be arranged in a parallel sort of structure, leading up to and following after the third mystery, proclaiming the kingdom, like the events mirror each other. Not sure about this. Maybe because I'm an English major studying to be an English teacher, I see order where there isn't necessarily order, but it's a thought I had yesterday.

Today, after I say the Rosary, it will be my fourth time in a row. I'm pretty sure that will be more times than I've said it in my life, much less in consecutive days!

Blessed

I try, when I pray, to start with thanking God. It seems like a good way to start, and it always puts my life and my struggles in perspective. I am very blessed, for so many things that I am only now beginning to grow out of the expectation that something ultimate and bad is going to happen one day. I've always thought that I was blessed, so much so that whenever I would see God continuing to act in my life via getting me safely home, getting exactly what I needed at just the right time, I would feel amazement that I could be so fortunate when there are those in this world who have such hard lives. But I was wrong. Being blessed is not simply the hand of God guiding you safely through life. Being blessed is experiencing God's love, whether "good" or "bad" things are happening to you. I will never feel deserving or worthy if I count my blessings overly much. I knew that "bad" things happening were not indicators of God removing His grace, or "good" things signs that I was on the right track in my life. But I have struggled with imagining myself as a being worthy of love, and when you feel unworthy of love, you have some fears. I should never fear the "bad" that might come. I am not blessed because I have a beautiful family, close dear friends, and have always been led safely home by God's grace. I am not blessed because I have something wonderful that can be taken from my life. I am blessed because of God's grace, which is absolute, unconditional and endless. Family, friends, safe journeys--those are gifts of God's grace, not to be counted, but to be thankful for.

Something that happened today has overwhelmed me with joy and wonderment and gratitude--I feel blessed--I had a moment--one of those in which you become suddenly aware of the tangible, physical presence of limitless love in your life. My friend, who has been trying for years now to get pregnant is pregnant. She is pregnant. If you are reading this--bless you, bless you, bless you, bless you!

Beginnings

This is the beginning. And not. I suppose anyone who starts a blog does so because they feel like they have something to share that is of value, or because they feel it is an act of reaching out. I think so. For me, at least, it is both of these things. I don't know anything about blogging or about web pages, but it is time to jump into the fray. I am a Catholic who needs to share her journey into her faith because it is not a perfect one, not complete, and I have been inspired by other Catholic blogs that have greatly assisted me on my journey. We are human, and shared experiences connect us in a way that I think we were meant to connect.

Today is my third day of saying the Rosary. When I was younger--high school, college--I completely disregarded it. Later--college, grad school, early career--I was a bit suspicious and avoided it. I gave too much ear to Christians who were suspect of the nature of the Catholic relationship with Mary. It was a necessary process for me, to question things about my faith. But I did so, throughout my late teens and 20s, during a time in my life when I was not connected to my faith in almost any way, except that I at least still believed intellectually in the goodness of the Catholic faith and dogma. Over the past few years, in my late 20s and early 30s, I have been guided back into my faith through what must only have been God's grace. I have listened much more with my heart, working it open with unsure fingers and the free will that God has blessed us with. I have no idea what I am doing. I don't know or understand everything about Catholicism. And suddenly, lately, I find myself totally absorbed with praying the Rosary and with what seems like no will of my own, utterly desiring the closeness I feel when I devote real time to prayer in the context of the Rosary. I think I am beginning to understand that this time in prayerful reflection is part of what I was created for, part of the God-given desire to fulfill what Fulton Sheen calls "an urge to be all that one ought to be" (Sheen, 1951, p. 8). I'm even reading Fulton Sheen (very slowly)!

Sheen, F. J. (1951). Three to Get Married. New York: Scepter.