Aching and Longing

In The Cloud of Unknowing, the author writes, “I tell you this, one loving blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than to anything else you could do.”

I came across this quote in a book that I’m re-reading during the pandemic, Life Lessons from the Monastery: Wisdom on Love, Prayer, Calling and Commitment by Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB. I don’t know about you but my re-reading list has only grown in covid-days. It’s a time to rediscover what was forgotten. Books are about the only thing I collect and when I come across a gem like the quote from the Cloud, I can only smile.

“...one loving blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself...”

— Cloud of Unknowing

Back to the quote- read it again. Could this really be true, that a single “blind desire” for the Lord does more good than anything else we can do? More good than sharing the Gospel with someone? More good than feeding a hungry person? More good than sacrificing for someone else?

We tend to underestimate longing and desire, aching and yearning.

We overemphasize intention in American culture. I didn’t mean to hurt you…I didn’t mean to bump into your car. Then, when we make a mistake, we apologize in some sort of beige manner as if all is ok simply because we didn’t intend to do wrong, “If I hurt anyone, I’m sorry”. You might think that the flip side of the over-emphasis on intention is action and it may be. Actions do speak louder than words, for sure.

Still, there is some space for heart, for longing, for that primal desire for doing good and for God Himself. This is something very different, harder to put your finger on. For the author of the Cloud, this longing-aching may be more important than both intention and action.

Psalm 84 puts it this way, “Happy are those who find refuge in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrim roads.” (V. 6) This is the language of longing, of searching for something that is ahead and somehow attainable.

I see a lot of churchy people who spin their wheels at a moment’s notice. The pope said what? The local civil authority tried to do that? The cultural decay hits a new low! And on it goes. I can fall into this myself as another morning devotional time gets sidetracked by a quick glance at the news. The invitation is to re-orient our hearts to “pilgrim roads”. We are passing through, not building cities. We are always slightly dissatisfied with the world because it’s not our ultimate home. Deep down, we are meant for heaven, not ignoring the world but loving it enough to bring all that we can with us to eternal life.

Do we spend as much time praying for the grace to desire God? The blessing of aching for God more than we stress over the things of this world…the mercy to start again in our pursuit of holiness…the satisfaction of knowing that we belong to the Lord. Especially for those of us who are in ministry (laity, ordained, religious), let us remember that our work falls apart if we do not spend time alone with the Savior.

Let us begin again today, renewing our passion for the Lord, for that ‘blind desire’ to know Him more fully in each moment of the day.

Quitting Time

Cal Newport has an interesting post (here) about trimming back your news intake. Especially during the coronavirus, he argues, it is important to focus. And, so goes his article, it is hard to focus when you are bombarded with news. The antidote- less is more.

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

— St. Francis de Sales

I’ve spoken with a lot of readers of the blog and listeners of the podcast (wait, you haven’t yet subscribed?) who have shared a higher level of anxiety than usual. Viruses, social unrest and an impending election will do that.

This all affects our prayer lives. You sit down to pray and your brain is flooded with distracting thoughts or worries. Or, you open your iPad and get sucked into a news article about another man shot by the police. Sadly, even our churches can breed anxiety as a homily goes off the rails into a political “grenade drop” on the congregation. (To my preaching friends, please don’t do that. There are better ways to address difficult things.)

One Strategy to Consider (but be careful)

My strategy of late- quitting time. When I’ve begun my devotions in the morning and then I can’t seem to focus, I’ve been tempted to just call it in and declare, “Sorry God, I just don’t have it today! Too much worry to let you in… maybe tomorrow will be better!” On one hand, this is an honest response to internal unease. And, some days, you just don’t have your A Game when it comes to prayer. It’s healthy to be gentle to yourself.

“We must pray incessantly for the gift of perseverance.”

— St. Philip Neri

But, and here’s the key part, there is something lacking to the approach. First, prayer is not so much about us. I know, I know- our stress levels go down and our confidence goes up when we build a life of prayer. We need to pray. It’s part of being human and becoming holy. But, God doesn’t need our prayers and more of our prayer should be about God than about us. More praise, less petition. More listening, less speaking.

Secondly, I invite all of us to an earnest inventory of what we let into our noggins prior to praying. Newport is on to something here- garbage in, garbage out. I realized that the days when I’m more likely to call it in are the days when I allowed myself to read a negative news story before I prayed. I need to be disciplined and go for the Word prior to typing in the URL to CNN. In other words- don’t spoil the entree by eating too many appetizers.

Quitting time isn’t the answer. A more disciplined front door to our minds is. This will in turn lead to a more fruitful prayer life.

how to Create a Family Faith Curriculum

My wife Cary and I have been married for nearly 22 years. It took little effort for us to pray at night before bed. It took a lot more work to develop a system for educating our kids in the faith.

Let me explain.

“Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored and that specifies both its dignity and responsibility: family, become what you are!”

— St. John Paul II

For many years, I’d say 10-15 or so, we relied on outside resources for teaching the faith. Catholic schools and Catholic Churches were our primary means of instruction. We saw those as the best “vehicles” for faith instruction. Our approach was simple enough- we would send our kids to Catholic schools, attend weekly Mass and then complement those with our own at-home example. Sprinkle in praying before meals and emphasizing good morals and we were done.

Except that it didn’t work.

You see, we had it all backwards. We thought that the outside structures would be enough. Over time, we found our hearts broken by the Church we love. Scandal and corruption became common. Schools closed. The clever “system” we had relied on was no longer enough. We still loved being Catholic but realized, painfully, that our Church simply could not provide all that we needed.

A Sobering Reality

And, this part is harder to admit- our kids really weren’t grabbing hold of the faith. They knew Jesus but didn’t really know Him- if you know what I mean. I started to acknowledge that if we didn’t make some adjustments, they would likely leave the Church and the faith.

For many years, Cary urged us to “do more” at home. I would deflect, pointing out others who did far less than we did. But she was right as converts often are.

It wasn’t until we moved to a new home in a new city with new parishes that we fully embraced what the Second Vatican Council meant by the family as the “domestic church” (Lumen Gentium). Then, unplanned by us, the coronavirus struck. Our new approach was all we had. Our “curriculum” is essentially a curated system for teaching our kids the faith that we love and want them to embrace.

Our Inspiration

Two resources that have been tremendously helpful are Dr. John Cuddeback’s LifeCraft website and the Messy Family Project by Alicia and Mike Hernon. John places a lot of emphasis on the role that “home” plays in faith formation, with a nod to classical concepts. Alicia and Mike take a practical approach, weaving in their experience of parenting 10 kids (!) with their faith. If you haven’t spent some time on either website, pour yourself a cup of coffee and you’ll be in for a treat.

We’ve been inspired to create our own system, not to detract from the model of our own family. I grew up Catholic and my parents provided a wonderful example to me and my two brothers. Cary grew up in a home without faith and later became Catholic. Where we live in Bethlehem, PA, there are few supports for Catholic families. No intentional Catholic communities. No charismatic prayer movements. No couples ministry. We have tons of great people and wonderful parishes but if you want to be intentional with your family, you have to be crafty. For a while, I complained about this. Now, I accept it as Fr. Thomas Judge, CM described it as the “providence of everyday life”.

The Components

Here are the components of our Family Faith Curriculum. Keep in mind that these work for us. You’ll need to try things out and make some modifications as you go. We start with lenses and in later posts I’ll detail the exact things we do each day.

1. A lens of Truth, Goodness & Beauty. Bishop Barron talks a lot about this as did Hans Urs von Balthasar. We make sure that each week, we are talking about and emphasizing topics that deal with the intellect, with justice and with art.

2. An emphasis on classical things. Whenever we can, we use original sources, obscure readings and old things.

3. Variety. Kids need this as do we as parents. Variety is key so that you don’t become stale. Variety also allows you to pivot when you feel that you need to. Variety lends to flexibility.

4. Personal ownership. We don’t want a curriculum that is passive. Rather, we want to be training our kids to know the Lord and practice the skills that are necessary for fruitful discipleship.

5. A nightly practice. We do something prayerful every night. This provides the family with an anchor they can rely on. The average night’s activity is about 15 minutes.

6. Scripture. We want our kids to be touching a Bible as often as possible and over time, learn to love Scripture.

In future posts, I’ll detail what our Family Faith Curriculum currently looks like, with detailed examples of each day’s points of emphasis. This can change from month to month but it will at least provide you with a glimpse. Then, you can take this framework and customize it to your family.

As for me and My House: a Coronavirus Response

“I think they should be practicing social distancing because even if — and I think it's still true that younger people are at much, much less risk of getting into trouble — that doesn't mean they aren't going to get infected and then they are going to infect the older people. So everybody should be taking really good care to avoid infection," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, in early March while appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

The context- the outbreak of the coronavirus. 

Fauci was discussing young people when he referenced “they” as he outlined the importance of social distancing. This phrase, now understood widely in America, wasn’t a part of our vernacular a few weeks ago. Now, it’s the advice of the day in order to help slow the spread of the virus.

Are people heeding his advice?

I live in Bethlehem, PA, a small city of just over 70,000. Schools shut down last week and were mandated by the governor of PA to be closed for a minimum of two weeks. When my wife asked for me to get “a few more things” at the local grocery store, I obliged. I am a good husband after all.

Thinking that the store would be filled only with its workers and maybe a few people wearing masks, I trudged out with my list. When I arrived at ShopRite, I was blown away.

The store was packed.

Not only were there a lot of people, there was clearly no desire to social distance. People were chatting. Others were on their phones doing God knows what. No one had a mask on . Only one woman had rubber gloves. A few elderly women drove around in the motorized carts, trying to reach for Wheat Thins and other items within grabbable distance.

What about the advice from Dr. Fauci? Was I the only one watching CNN, CBSnews and FoxNews?  I bought what I needed and got the heck out of the store.

From Scripture to Everyday Life

The car ride home reminded me of Joshua 24:15 which states, 

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It’s not my place to judge the hundreds of others who were at the grocery store on that particular day. Maybe their spouses had sent them, like me, with a list of goods. All I know is that I’m responsible for how my family- not only in our practice of the Christian faith but in temporal things.

Things like social distancing.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be hunkering down. If we go to the store, if will be during non-peak hours. We will look for ways to find normalcy. We can do what is ours to do. How about you and your house? What is your prudent response to the virus?

Five Clever Ways to Memorize a Bible Passage

There’s a popular Catholic hymn that features the words, “take the Word of God with you as you go.” 

There are two meanings to this:

1. To savor God’s words from Scripture as if to appreciate them in your heart.

2. To remember particular Bible passages such that you can “recall” them at a moment’s notice during the day.

It’s the latter meaning that I’d like to discuss today. I suspect that most of us have little trouble appreciating various passages from the Bible but do we remember them throughout our day?

Protestant Christians are often taught to memorize Bible passages when they are young. Catholic Christians are not and this is a detriment to them as they get older after all, memorization is not just an academic technique. It can be a spiritual skill as well.

Consider that God makes hundreds of promises in the Bible- wouldn’t you want to remember at least some of those? Or, consider the amazing words of Jesus throughout the New Testament- wouldn’t you want to carry these in the back pocket of your mind so that you can claim them at a moment’s notice?

There are many ways that you and I can become better at remembering God’s words from the Scriptures and here are five of them:

1. Spend some time with your Bible in the first half hour of the day. Don’t just read your Bible but spend time with it. Hold your Bible in your hands (apps are not as effective) and enjoy the habit of morning reading.

2. Use a physical Bible. I know that there are apps (I use them too!) but a Bible in your hand is just better. The touch of the pages activates something in your brain that is very effective for memorization.

3. Read a passage 3-4 times. Then, close your eyes and let the Lord imprint the words on your brain. If you need to read it a 5th or 6th time, give yourself permission to do so.

4. Write it down on paper and carry it with you through the day. Take it out when you are waiting in line at the store. Read it before a meal. Let the crumpling paper sound remind you to read the passage again.

5. Revisit the passage later in the day. This might be at lunchtime or before bed. It’s also important to recall the book (i.e. Matthew), chapter and verse. 

While there are printed Bible verses in card-format that you can purchase, these five techniques should do just fine.

You Need Alone Time

​In this episode of Praying Well, I talk about the serious need that each of us has for alone time. Call it thinking time, time with God, or interior time- breaking from the everyday pace of life has never been more important.

The Why​ of Alone Time

Rather than filling all of your time with others or with the noise of technology, each of us needs alone time. Here are just a few of the “why’s” behind alone time:​

• Because ​our world is increasingly noisy due to social media and technology

• Because solitude is elusive​, scary and looked down upon (i.e. it’s not seen as “fun”)

• Because Jesus himself took time alone to pray ​(see Mark 1:35)

The When of Alone Time

If you’re not sure when you can actually get some alone time, try the following:​

• Early in the morning ​

• During your commute to work​

• When you are running errands​

• Late at night​

• When you are working out​

• When you are outside in nature​

I know, some of you may be saying, “Mike, you don’t understand. My days start early and end late. There is literally no down time!” This is a lie we often tell ourselves. You have 15 minutes that you can carve out for God. I do too.​

Is Alone Time Prayer Time?

This is an important question. ​Just spending time in solitude is not necessarily prayer time. For example, you could be out and about, running errands and listening to sports talk radio all the while. That’s time by yourself but probably wouldn’t constitute true alone time. 

Rather, quality alone time with God ​integrates prayer with time. For example, you need to weed your garden and you say a prayer at the start of it, thanking God for nature and the beauty of the outdoors. Then, while you are working, you are thinking of spiritual things and talking to God. This might be out loud on interiorly. The key is that you’ve “located” your time within God’s providence. It’s His time. You are participating in it. A quiet atmosphere helps. Things don’t have to be totally quiet but less noise is always a good thing.

Following Up​

You’ve read this post and you’re already thinking of the busy details of your day. Still, you want to incorporate more alone time in your schedule. What to do? I suggest scheduling your alone time with God right now. ​Is there a 15 minute block that you can pencil in and just “be” with God? Even a small window of time can be helpful.