spiritual

Massiversary

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I was running late this morning, and wondered if I should even try to make it to the 9am Mass. Since it’s Tuesday during Lent (the last Tuesday in fact) there is another mass in the evening. I thought a moment more or two about which one to choose, and then decided to go to the first one.

I was glad I chose that one. Today is my Massiversary, so it was really important for me to be in attendance then.

When I first started showing up at this church, it was random. If I got the urge that I should stop in, I did. I’d find a pew, also randomly, and read that day’s readings from the Missal. Often, they were right on target for what I was feeling or what I needed to hear at that moment. I was going through a lot at that time, and all I wanted was a quiet place where no one would bother me and I could sit quietly. Somewhere I could be anonymous.

I wouldn’t describe it as a perfect solution to what I was feeling, but it was peaceful and what I wanted; what I needed when I needed it. I did this for a couple of weeks, probably closer to almost four. It wasn’t everyday; It was perhaps ten times in total but they were important to me. They centered me and got me ready for my recovery. I hadn’t realized what else I had to look forward to, but all that was on my mind in these first few moments was evening out my mental health. I still call it recovery.

I had been talking about my depression on Facebook and talking about my church visits and receiving encouragement from a small group of close friends who knew what was going on as I started my medication and therapy. One of these friends, T was a college student in Nebraska. He talked about going to the seminary, but was in college for a different major. He was an incredible friend during this time, posting encouragement on his own page that really resonated with me. Scriptures, Antiphons, quotations from saints and holy people. He sent me a very nice, personal note that I still look at on occasion and it gives me abundant feels. Another friend, B, loves choir music and he would also post a variety of encouraging things unbeknownst to him until I mentioned that I found the posts and the music encouraging.

On one of these days, T suggested that I attend an actual Mass, telling me that the Easter week masses were really quite beautiful and he thought I would enjoy them.

I took his suggestion to heart, and showed up on the Tuesday of Holy. Week. A woman was sitting at the end of a middle pew in the church. I noticed her because of her jacket. It was black with multi-colored flowers and stems and leaves embroidered on it. She was also wearing a light colored straw pill box hat. She would wear a hat every day. I loved the embroidery, so I sat two seats behind her. I stood when she stood, and sat when she sat. I didn’t kneel or cross myself, but I followed along as best I could.

The service really affected me, the priest’s homily hit on things that I, again, needed to hear,  and I went back the next day and the day after that. The day after was not a Mass, but a prayer service. At the end of Holy Week the masses are in the evening. We went to visit my mother in law and I borrowed one of the missals for the weekend. I read it every day that we were away.

That was the start. Over the course of that first year, I’d either sit directly behind that woman or two rows back, depending on when the other women arrived. We’d switch back and forth until one of the women sat right next to me. We still sit together.

Today when I arrived, an elderly man was in my usual seat. I sat behind him and about halfway through I realized that this was my original seat that first day, two rows behind my first church friend with the embroidered jacket who’s not here anymore.

I hadn’t intended to make such a memorable statement on this morning, but it was nice that it randomly happened that way.

It was nice remembering that first time. Every day, it’s like the first mass. Except I know what I’m doing. I pray, I cross myself; it all came in its own time, and each different ritual when I was ready. I hadn’t told myself that I was ready; I just did something and realized after that fact that I’d participated in some aspect of the mass.

The rebirth and renewal of Easter is the perfect time to remind me of my beginning with the church. I was baptized two Easters ago even though I’ve attended since 2012. This week is full of those anniversaries, but that first Tuesday will always be a special one for me.

Lenten Almsgiving

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While the use of the word Almsgiving has fallen out of the modern vernacular, it is still to be found in religious language and one of the three tenets to be acknowledged during Lent along with fasting and prayer. Many of us give money to our churches and temples and a variety of other charitable organizations, but how many of us specifically give alms to the poor?

In the nearby city, there are several soup kitchens, homeless shelters, a city mission, and poor boxes in a variety of church denominations. Unless we are involved int he day to day lives of the poor, we do not always see the needs.  We leave it to our friends and neighbors. Much of this is without thought. Whenever I pass someone asking for money on the road, my first inclination is to roll down my window and give something to them.

Unfortunately, in this electronic world of debit cards, I rarely have any cash in my pocket.

One of the groups that is organized out of my church (and out of many churches across the country) is the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Even before I was a member of my parish, they helped me many times, including with money for a much needed hot water heater. When I went to them it was for advice, perhaps they had a suggestion of a reliable company to use or one that offered the group a discount. I had not expected money towards the heater even though we desperately needed financial assistance. We’re one of hundreds of families who request and are given help throughout the year with both money, food, and resources. Contact your local society or go through your local Diocese’s website for ways to reach them and contribute, not just money, but time as well.

Every year, despite our own monetary shortcomings, I try to give back a. little bit towards them.

Also at the top of my list is our local volunteer fire department. This is not necessarily an alms in the traditional sense of the word, used for the poor, but our local firefighters do not get paid and they come out to help with fires and medical emergencies whenever they are called, no matter the weather or time of day (or night).

Places where I try to send my money when I have it follow below. Please add your own suggestions and charities in the comments to make us aware of what opportunities are out there for us to donate to.

Don’t forget – you can donate more than money. Many charities are looking for clothes, household items, baby items, school supplies, and your time and talent. As the organization before you drop things off so you can make sure that they need what you’d like to give them. Items should definitely be in good, working order and be clean. Imagine if you were receiving this item.

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Almshouses in Llanrwst, North Wales built by Sir John Wynn in 1610 as seen from the entrance at Ancaster Square

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View of the alley of Almshouses in Llanrwst, North Wales as viewed from St. Gwrst Parish Church and the Afon Conwy

Random Acts
 
American Red Cross

The Trevor Project

Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Lenten Prayer

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Prayer is one of those things that sounds like an easy fix, but it is far from that. It is also not rocket science. Prayer is one of those things that is very individual to each person doing it. There is no right way or wrong way to pray. As long as it’s meaningful to you,  you’re doing it right.

It took me a long time to figure that out. While I’ve always believed in G-d and had conversations with him, I had always found formal prayer to be out of my reach.

There are many opportunities during the Lenten season to pray a little extra each day and to spend some of that time in contemplation of those things for Lent: fasting, abstinence, penance, almsgiving and prayer itself.

One suggestion that was just offered at a recent retreat is that upon waking up in the morning, sit up in bed with your eyes closed and breathe slowly. No special counting or breathing necessary, just try and clear your mind. No thinking, no listmaking, no complaining. Think about what you’re grateful for, thank G-d for all that He’s given you, all that you have and get ready to start your day.

Think about the ways you can be better, can do better. Last Lent I tried to pray the rosary every day. This Lent, I’m trying to be a little quieter in my thoughts and writing a bit more and looking inward.

When I first began to attend the daily masses at my church, I never knew what to pray for during the prayer of the faithful. It was easy to pray for the sick and the dead – that’s right there in the big print. I had people who were sick, including myself; I had people who had died, but what were my silent intentions? I felt that I needed something tangible to think about in order to pray for it. If I had nothing more tangible to pray for, I had started praying for patience, courage and strength. Sometimes it was a bit more – patience with my kids, courage with my therapist and the like, but it couldn’t hurt and it still felt respectful.

At that recent retreat, I was reminded of an interview Mother Theresa gave on television where she was asked what she spoke to G-d about during her prayers. Her answer was, “Nothing, I just listen.” And while she’s listening, what was it that G-d was saying to her? Her answer to the reporter was, nothing. He just listens.”

Sometimes the silence is enough for our prayers to reach G-d. It’s taken me quite some time to find that place in my prayer. I can now sit in silence during a Mass without looking around, not sure if I’m doing it the right way. What I discovered is that my way is the right way for me. And we will all find our way.

That is one of the things I really love about The Little books. I’m currently reading The Little Black Book for Lent. On the left page is usually some kind of historical reference. On the right side is a portion of the day’s Gospel and a meditation. At the very bottom of the right hand page is the suggestion to “spend some quiet time with the Lord.”

Quiet time, contemplation, meditation, prayer.

Don’t let the focus rest on you. Focus on the joy of the season. Lent isn’t about you or me or the sin we might be running away from. It’s focus should remain on G-d. Every step on this journey should be moving us towards G-d. Lent gives us the opportunity to slow that journey down and look deeper into ourselves and our relationship with G-d.

At a recent Lenten reflection, the director told us to look at who we are and offer ourselves during this time. Lent gives us the time for reflection, for prayer, for thoughtful communion with G-d.

Lenten Fasting

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There are three major things that we are repetitively reminded are a main focus of Lent: fasting, prayer, almsgiving. I don’t believe they are sacraments, but instead are traditions followed. Please correct me if I’m wrong. In my writings, I’ve often replaced fasting with penance. Both are important and often fasting leads to both prayer and penance at various times during our Lenten journeys.

Fasting.

When I was first going through the RCIA program, I was taught about Lent and the fasting that takes place on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday in addition to abstinence from meat on Fridays. I had grown up with many changes in my friends Catholic lives- no meat at all, no meat on Friday, etc. Growing up Jewish, I thought that I knew all about fasting. We fast one day out of the. year, the Day of Atonement; Yom Kippur.

It’s very simple. After age 13, barring any medical reason, you fast. No food or drink for about twenty-four hours, from sunset to sunset. Traditionally, the fast is broken with breakfast food, but I would often make a roast beef with potatoes and challah bread, very similar to what my mother in law makes at Christmas.

Lenten fast is a little bit different. And not quite as simple.

From 7 years old until the age of 59, we are expected to fast. In this case, fasting means one normal size meal with two smaller meals and no in between meal snacks. You may drink water as far as I know. The fast days are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On the Fridays of Lent, we are expected to abstain from meat. For our family, who have only two fish eaters and no cookers in the house, that usually means cheese pizza. Our church does a fish fry, which we try to attend at least once. Other good fish options in our area are Wendy’s Cod Sandwich (which is the best fast food fish sandwich I’ve tried) and Cracker Barrel who have a Fish fry every Friday even when it’s not Lent. Red Robin’s fish sandwich or plate are also good alternative options. We also have a local pizza place that has a fish fry during Lent.

So many rules for one simple thing – don’t eat.

I tend to follow the rules of Yom Kippur for the most part during the Lenten fast days although I do eat dinner as my solitary meal.

On both fast days, my church has either Mass or a prayer service so much of my day is taken up with prayer. Ash Wednesday has three options for receiving ashes. Good Friday has a prayer service, Stations of the Cross in the afternoon and then the Lord’s Passion in the evening.
I spend the rest of the day reading from my missal and The Little Black Book that I’ve mentioned before.I think. I meditate. I write.

As many of you have already seen, my writing is a part of each facet of my life, including, and especially, my spiritual life.

Fasting is one aspect of moving closer to G-d during this contemplative season.


Tomorrow: Prayer

Pilgrimage

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Is a retreat a pilgrimage? What about the reverse? Is a pilgrimage a retreat? They can be. They can also not be. Is a road trip a pilgrimage?

For a long time, I assumed that pilgrimage meant spiritual and/or religious. In looking back over my more focused travels, I’ve taken historical pilgrimages, writing pilgrimages, and nature ones. I never looked at them that way before. Everywhere I went in those instances (an in many others) always included writing. Notebooks came with me. Notebooks, journals, and my camera. Now, I will sometimes bring a sketchbook, like this past weekend retreat, but as opposed to the notebooks which is second nature I have to be conscious of packing a sketchbook and colored pencils. Drawing will never feel second nature to me, but it is something that doesn’t intimidate me as much as it used to.

While I’ve been writing this, I have come to the realization that a pilgrimage can sometimes include a retreat, but they are two different things.

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On Retreat – Welcome –

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The plans I had for posting this week kind of got away from me. Every day I stated something that I wanted to share, but then never got the keyboard out. Then there were family obligations and therapy and packing for my retreat, which I’m on right now.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a travel piece on what items tend to be forgotten. Well, here I am traveling and I’ve managed to forget things I actually needed: my eyeglass case for my glasses to sleep in, a laundry bag, a. nightlight, which this room really does need, and a hairbrush which the mirror in my room will attest to how much that was needed this morning.

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Top of the Mountain

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Sunday’s Gospel was Jesus on the mountain, well one of them. It’s the Transfiguration as witnessed by Peter, James, and John. They see it, and they’re not sure what they see. My priest called it a mountain top moment, in both the literal and the metaphorical sense. The Transfiguration is pivotal and bridges, through Jesus, the earthly life and the eternal life. Pope Saint John Paul II included the Transfiguration when he added the Luminous mysteries to the Rosary. At a recent day of reflection, Father P talked about those “born again moments” and that reminded me of Father J and his homily on Sunday about mountain top moments. We all have them in various parts of our lives and they all mean something different to each of us in those times.

In my mind during that homily, I was reminded  of a literal mountain top moment that I experienced. I was in college and had the opportunity to travel to the UK with my college roommate. She made all the plans and I followed her. I followed her to the point that I’ll follow you became a running catch phrase for the trip and the rest of our friendship including when I see her today nearly thirty years later. At some point she gave me the the itinerary with a few changes along the way, but I barely knew where we were going before we got there.

That level of trust and spontaneity sounds completely foreign to me, but at that time it was easier to just tag along. It was the trip of a lifetime and whatever happened, wherever we went would be amazing. I had no expectations and that let my mind stay open, probably for the first time in my life.

It was a wonderful trip: New Year’s in London, feeling the magic of Stonehenge, finding out that the buses don’t run on Sundays in Stow on the Wold, snow in the Highlands, but the most filled with wonder moment took place unexpectedly near the top of the Snowdon Mountain in North Wales.

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Candlemas

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If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another fight;
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.
~Old Rhyme

Around New Year’s when my husband wants to take down the tree, I say no, and try to put it off until Twelfth Night.

When Twelfth Night rolls around, and the following weekend arrives, he tries again, but I come up with but we didn’t put the tree up until late, let’s leave it another week.

And then why don’t we just leave it until Martin Luther King Day. Isn’t that what we always do? (We do, but I can’t remember why.)

This year, we got the tree down about a week ago.

Today, however is Candlemas. Or the feast of the presentation of the Lord. Or forty days after His birth when Mary, his mother goes to the temple now that she’s purified after giving birth to Jesus.

The nights are shorter, the days longer. Spring is just around the corner; if we can get through the next few weeks. The sun is bright if not warm. (I need my sunglasses more in the winter than in the summer in fact.)

With more natural light, we use less artificial light. We’re also brightened a bit more. Smiling a bit more. Less aggravated; more tolerant. Even that little bit helps, and it gets more and more as each day passes with its lengthening sunlit afternoons.

I’m thinking that we could have left the tree up another week and it would have been alright.

I’ll have to try that next year now that I’ve put Candlemas on my calendar again.

RCIA – First Day

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This morning was my first day as an RCIA teacher. It took me until last night to finally sit down with the readings and the notes from the Breaking Open the Word book that I’ve had sitting in my Adobe file for the better part of a month.

It’s not that I’m lazy – not when it comes to reading anyway, but in my subconscious I thought that if I prepared and read the readings and the papers, then I would have to go through with the class. Now, keep in mind that I was a teacher for over ten years, but those were kids, and in the end, it wasn’t for me. By last night I realized that whether or not I did the homework, the assignment wasn’t going away. I call it an assignment, but I did volunteer for it. To be honest, I want to do it. It wasn’t that long ago that I was on that side of the table in the RCIA program. Just like I brought something from my background as a catechumen, I think that I can offer something in return. I have a unique perspective, and I think everyone on the team has something special to bring to the new people.
They’ve been doing this since the fall. I was the new one again.

The catechumens are dismissed by the presider right after the Gospel is read and with me we go across the parking lot to the parish center. I glanced at my watch as Father C began his homily and tried to determine how much time I would have with them before they went on to part two of their weekly learning. Forty-five minutes. What would I say for forty-five minutes? I should have guessed that I overestimated my time when Father C said he doesn’t get to do this that often and he was going to use his time to talk about Mary.

I must admit that when he got to his fourth or fifth point about the Mother of G-d, I was almost gleeful at how much of my time had whittled away. Here I was worried that I’d run out of things to say before I ran out of time.

When we finally arrived at the parish center, the other team members were wondering what had happened to us. Father J was also there, asking if he could sit in.

Um, sure.

As it turned out, while it seemed as though he did a lot of the talking, it really was an even split between the four of us. And in retrospect, the point of breaking open the Word is to get the catechumens to think and to talk about their interpretations of the Scriptures and the Readings and to ask the questions that most concern them.

We talked about the prophet, Micah, and wondered why he wasn’t given more playing time so to speak. He’s the one who prophesies that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem. That’s a pretty important piece of information. We talked about the liturgical year and the three cycles, A, B, and C that the church follows. I didn’t get to add that this is my first C cycle. I started in A with Matthew.

We talked about Mary and Elizabeth. I added my own two cents about how through Advent, we’re waiting in our modern lives, and we know what we’re waiting for, but right there in the moment, Elizabeth also knew that she was waiting for her Lord and Savior, and was astonished that His Mother came to visit her. It’s kind of amazing to realize how they watched the prophesies come to fruition.

The one thing I didn’t get to say was about how the Incarnation is in tandem with the Death and Resurrection of Lent and Easter time. Jesus is born so that he may die and be reborn. Sometimes, it’s a lot to understand. That’s one of the reasons that I enjoy going over this with the catechumens and each year as we get another Gospel writer’s point of view.

I think having Father J at this, my first class and having Father C take up so much time before dismissing us was just the icebreaker that I needed to begin my role in this ministry. I will be better prepared, although I was ready today, but next time I won’t be as full of anxiety. I’ve already met the two women, and as I walk with them on this path, I am still learning and growing in my faith.

We also talked about the interconnectedness of everything that we do and see and how it all relates around us. Father J mentioned the Star Wars connection this week in his homily, and I’ve seen things on my journey that relate back across my entire life. I’ve been wondering what I was looking for with this year of mercy, and our parish’s holy doors. I still don’t know what I want for this year, not entirely, but tomorrow is when I’ll walk through the doors. I’ll have more about that tomorrow.