Strength Comes From Humility

Balancing humility and pride can be difficult. On the one hand, many of us desire confidence and independence. As an adult, you strive to provide for both yourself and maybe a spouse and family. In the family or at work, you need to be dependable. People need to have confidence in you. You need to project a sense of strength. But you can’t go too far down that road and fall into the sin of pride. You need to keep in mind that you can’t do everything on your own and that you’re part of a greater community made up of people who can make their own contributions.

Humility is seen almost like a negative trait because it conveys a sense of weakness. It requires you to admit that you can’t do everything. You must admit dependence on others. And yet, it’s through humility that God pours his grace on us. One of the best examples is the Holy Family. In her article, Grace is Given to the Humble, Debra Black quotes Fr. John Tauler about Mary:

She became one spirit with God, and she was taught by Him; for she resigned herself as a fitting instrument to His dear Will, in fervent love for His glory. She was poor in spirit, and always bore herself in God with deep humility and self-annihilation; for she had no desires, no will, and was as passive, as though she were uncreated. And thus an entrance was made for God into her spirit, soul, and body. 

Fr. John Tauler (14th century)

Mary was an empty vessel filled only with God’s grace, both spiritually and physically through giving birth to Jesus Christ. Her humility was a complete dependence on God. But that total submission didn’t make her weak. On the contrary, God was able to work through Mary and raise her up as Queen of Heaven and our Mediatrix. Mary shows that it’s through humility, not pride, that one achieves true greatness.

Also notable for his humility is Saint Joseph. Little is said about him in the Gospels. As a husband and father, he was the traditional head of the family. And yet, he was humble enough to understand that God had made special plans for his wife and child. Saint Joseph needed to show strength to step aside and have Mary and Jesus take center stage in God’s great plan. While there’s no mention of this in the Bible, I would have to imagine this would have been hard for Joseph to give up a role society expected him to have.

The Rosary Connection

Lessons in humility abound in the Rosary. And they all have to do with people letting go of their pride and earthly desires to allow God to work through them. First, look at the Visitation. Mary could have acted like a worldly queen upon learning that God chose her to bring the Messiah into the world. I’m sure many of us would flaunt how we were God’s chosen one. But Mary goes out to help her cousin Elizabeth. Mary’s first act as the Mother of God was to be in humble service to someone else.

This role of service carries on through the Fourth and Fifth Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. Mary is Queen of Heaven. But the focus of that exultation isn’t Mary, but Jesus. In her many apparitions, Mary’s focus isn’t on herself but on her Son. She desires all of us to form a close and loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ and is willing to help us however possible. Again, Mary’s greatness is not through what she does herself, but through which her humility allows God to work through her.

Finally, consider the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, the Presentation in the Temple. Think about both Simeon and Saint Joseph. Simeon shows great humility and patience. He devoted his life to serving God and for that, he was able to hold the infant Jesus before his death. Also remember Joseph, the silent protector in the background of Mary and Jesus’ life. He may not have been “showy” as the head of the family but he was humble enough to accept God’s role for him.

What do We Learn?

God gives great strength to the humble. Because humility leaves room in our hearts for God’s grace. In a way, humility is us actively setting aside room for God. We make a choice to put aside pride, greed, our busy schedules, our worries, and our earthly desires for God. We admit that there are things that only God can provide. We can’t find them on Amazon.com or any store. But leaving room for God means we are leaving room for that which will ultimately make us the strongest, most confident, and happiest.

Pride and personal holiness mix about as well as oil and water. Where our ego is, little if any room is left for God. What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ but to be someone who fills himself totally with God in order to bring him within the reach of everyone. But what union, grace or friendship with God can there be in a proud soul? What fervor, what degree of holiness? There is no possible compromise between God and a proud soul – either the soul would have to let go of itself, or God would have to stop being God.

Regnum Christi

Any Time is an Ideal Time for Prayer

We all know someone who feels like they need to invest a lot of time and money before starting a new exercise regiment. Before doing that first squat, they need to buy the right shoes, clothes, activity tracker, weight set, and videos. It’s only when they feel like everything is in place that it’s the right time to start exercising. In the meantime, they pass up doing a few pushups, taking a walk, or many other exercises because they aren’t as good as the ideal workout they want to start.

I think the same thing can be said about the prayer life of many of us. We tell ourselves, “I’ll start praying seriously, attend Mass, and go to confession when…” And that when is often some sort of demand — when God gives me better health, when God gives me that job I’m applying for, when God helps me find someone special in my life. We constantly make excuses why now isn’t a good time to start investing in earnest prayer and spirituality. We tell ourselves that we have too much on our plate, we don’t feel well, we don’t know the right things to say, or we haven’t purchased the right prayer book and rosary.

In Learn to Profit From Your Spiritual Trials,  Archbishop Luis M. Martinez writes about how any time is the right time for spiritual unity with God. He said:

The best rule for the spiritual life is this: to receive, moment by mo­ment, whatever God sends us and to persevere at all cost with our soul united to God, in spite of all vicissitudes.

I like this idea of taking advantage of the current moment to build a stronger relationship with God. You don’t need to wait for the perfect time because the perfect time doesn’t exist. Bishop Martinez talked about how life is complex and “God affects us with the most varied invitations of grace and the Devil with his ceaseless solicitations to evil.” In other words, in every moment there are opportunities for prayer or excuses for not praying. Waiting for the right moment to start praying could be the Devil trying to lead you away from God’s grace. The Devil wants you to delay prayer until you find the ideal conditions because he knows you’ll never find them.

Your Rosary Meds

Look at the First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, the Annunciation. By all accounts, Mary was taken by surprise by the Angel Gabriel’s proclamation that she was to be the Mother of God. We can picture many of us, in that same situation, probably thinking how the angel’s announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time. Many of us would come up with a list of excuses and tell the angel that while we’re on board with God’s plan in theory, to come back in a few years when we’re better prepared.

We pray the First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary to ask God for the awareness to take advantage of every opportunity to draw closer to Him in prayer. We need to imitate Mary and accept God’s Will even if His timing doesn’t align with our expectations. We need to ask Him for strength to see past all the excuses and realize that the perfect time for prayer is now. It doesn’t have to be an ideal time and place. It can be a single Rosary decade, meditating on a Gospel passage, or saying a few prayers. They can be said at home, in the car, on a work break, or in bed. A prayer, when said earnestly, makes any time and place an ideal one.

Referring back to my previous article, Jesus took every opportunity to pray even when He found himself in less than ideal situations. In the First Sorrowful Mystery, we think about how Jesus knew His life was going to be taken in the most painful way possible. Many of us, when facing a huge challenge or sorrowful situation often run away from prayer. We do this because we are angry with God for putting us in a difficult situation or we don’t see the situation as an opportunity to build our relationship with God. Bishop Martinez said this:

How many souls think in times of desolation, as I have so often said, that all is lost, and that their spiritual life has gone to ruin! Invariably the exact opposite is the truth. If, in those moments, we would come to see with clarity the value of desolation, perhaps we might even cease to suffer, and then desolation itself would lose, at least to a great extent, its efficacy and worth.

It’s an odd Mobius strip of cause and effect. The best time to grow closer to God through prayer is when we are facing a challenge. Through prayer, that challenge or difficulty might be lessened. The more frequent the prayer, the greater the faith. And with greater faith comes a clearer perspective of life’s challenges and they can become smaller and less daunting.

In my life, perspective has been God’s greatest gift to me since I started praying the Rosary. The world around me hasn’t miraculously changed because I started praying the Rosary. But how I see the world has. I think I can better put the events of my life into perspective. I try not to worry about the small inconveniences in life and let them derail me from living how God wants me to live. And I also know that the “big” things in life are ultimately in God’s hands. The more I pray, the better perspective I have and the less life’s challenges worry me.

Not praying or delaying prayer is like wearing a blindfold. Every little inconvenience can be blown out of proportion because you have no sense of perspective. Or you may be blind to the fact that you aren’t living as God wants. Take the blindfold off by praying. You don’t need to wait for the ideal conditions to get started. Any condition can be turned into the ideal condition for prayer if you choose.

It’s Okay to Fall: That’s How God Builds Us Back Up

Jesus is a hard act to follow. Sure, we meditate about His human nature like how He was scared at the Garden of Gethsemane. We hear about His suffering and crucifixion. But Jesus is the Son of God; someone with super-human abilities that he demonstrated throughout the Gospels. Surely he must have had super-human abilities to deal with the suffering. We may profess that He was human in all ways but sin, but it’s still a difficult concept to fully believe. I think many of us hold to this notion that Jesus, while human, was stronger than we can ever be. We believe that our suffering must be greater than His because we don’t possess His divine faculties.

This idealized, almost magical view of Jesus leads to many of us having a hard time fully believing in God’s great plan. The Church teaches us that God doesn’t give us a larger challenge than we can handle. But when those challenges become too much, we start to question whether God expects too much of us. Is God overestimating our abilities? We can feel that God is even more distant because He doesn’t appear to understand us. We aren’t Jesus and yet sometimes we can feel that God expects us to act just like Him.

How can we live up to Jesus Christ Superstar?

This is why I appreciate the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary. It lays out a template on how we can realistically imitate Jesus. When I meditate on this mystery, it tells me that it’s okay to fall under the weight of life’s challenges. Jesus fell multiple times under the weight of the cross. At one point He even needed help carrying the cross from Simon of Cyrene. Jesus, in all his perfection, had a hard time physically doing God’s will.

We will also have hard times in our life. We will have times when we feel like everything is knocking us down and the weight of our crosses is crushing us. And as much as we may not want to admit it, that’s okay. That’s us imitating Jesus.

Sometimes, life needs to knock us down so that God can build us back up. We have to let go of our preconceived ideas of how life should be so that we can leave room for God to work His grace. And for some of us, God needs to be more forceful by giving us a large, seemingly insurmountable challenge. And we may ask “why God?” or even become angry with Him. But at least we’re talking to God in these cases and starting a dialog.

In Jesus Walks with Us Even When Our Cross is Too Heavy, Jeannie Ewing talks about her struggles raising a daughter with severe medical conditions. She admits that there were times when it felt like God was putting too much on her. She lays out a road map for dealing with the crushing pain. And like many other programs, it begins with acceptance. She writes:

Begin by telling yourself that the burden you are carrying is too much for you to bear. It is more than what you can handle. Don’t feel guilty or ashamed of this, as if you have somehow lost the possibility of sanctity in your very human experience. Acknowledge your hurt.

Building a Spiritual Reserve

Look at the ordering of the Sorrowful Mysteries. The Agony of the Garden comes before Jesus took up His cross. The ordering is significant. Jesus didn’t begin praying to God when He fell under the weight of the cross. He prayed to God before His arrest. He asked God for the strength to do His will before the challenges set in.

We should take Jesus’ prayer example to heart. We need to pray and talk to God before the challenges of life occur. We need to prepare ourselves for whatever direction life takes us. This is why daily Rosary prayer is so important. It allows us to build up a spiritual reserve that we can tap into when life gets difficult. We need to meet God halfway. He’ll be there with us when life’s difficulties hit us in force. But we need to also be with Him; drawing on a close relationship with Him.

Faith — the building should never stop

The other great part of the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery is that there’s a flip side to it. We may be the Simon or Veronica to someone’s suffering. Someone may be praying to God for relief from sadness, pain, and suffering. But God’s answer may be to call on us to respond and help that person. We may be the miracle someone is praying for. But again, we have to be constantly praying so that we can hear God and respond to what he’s asking us to do. Sometimes God calls us to be a hero. But are we listening to the call in prayer?

We are the answers to other people’s prayers

Disclaimer

Here’s the lawyer disclaimer. When I talk about falling, I’m not talking about falling into sin. Jesus never said through his preaching or his actions that sinning is okay. He understood that we have a tendency to sin and he gives us the gift of Reconciliation for that. When I talked about falling in this article, I’m referring to feeling crushed under the weight of life’s challenges or trying to follow God’s plan.

The Importance of Asking God "Why?" through Rosary Prayer

Sometimes we face challenges in life that call for a little honesty with God. But this is something many of us, myself included, are often hesitant to do. If we’re angry or upset about something, we often don’t want to put that at God’s feet. I feel like I would be offending God by questioning His divine plan. After all, what gives me the right to complain to God about His plan for me; the perfect plan that ultimately leads me to Heaven?

I have a five-year-old son. He’s constantly asking why? But my answers always seem to be followed with yet another why? As a parent, that can be frustrating. But I often forget that I’m an adult who understands more about the world than a five-year-old. The why? isn’t he complaining or questioning me. It’s him trying to better understand the world around him. And maybe my answers are equally confusing. That is why he might continually ask the same question until he gets an answer that finally clicks with him.

The same can be said with our prayers to God. We do not have the knowledge or perspective that God has. And so we are left continuously asking Him why? Why did this person have to die? Why is my child sick? Why am I having problems at work? Fortunately, unlike the all-too-human parent, God has infinite patience with us. He doesn’t mind the why’s? and will always give an answer, whether we ask one time or a thousand times.

It’s that dialog with God that is the key. We need to continuously come back and ask God for help and voice our questions, frustrations, and thanksgivings. This is what makes daily Rosary prayer such an effective tool. The Rosary is one of the best ways to lay out all our concerns, frustrations, and worries and then listen to God’s response through meditating on the life of Christ via one of the twenty mysteries.

Many people complain about the repetitiveness of the Rosary. But take a closer look at this complaint. Most of us need to hear the same explanation repeatedly before it starts to make sense. We are like my five-year-old always asking why? We have to approach our problems, concerns, and thanksgivings from different perspectives. We have to search for that angle where God’s response will finally start to make sense. While there are only twenty mysteries, each one has multiple dimensions to be explored and pondered. We can come to those mysteries with the same problems repeatedly and each time, possibly gain just a little more insight into what God is telling us.

Sometimes, my five-year-old asks the same question because he didn’t listen to my initial response. His mind jumps from topic to topic and he often asks new questions before listening to an answer to the first ones. That can be true about our prayers too. I know I can race through Rosary mysteries without stopping to listen to God’s response. Remember, the Rosary isn’t some sort of point system where you level up by saying a certain number of Hail Marys. You pray the Rosary partly for help and guidance. And you’ll get those but you have to first slow down and listen.

Remember, there’s nothing wrong continuously asking God why? He won’t take offense because He understands that you are only trying to understand His plan. Don’t be discouraged if His answer doesn’t come easily. God’s perspective is infinite while ours is finite. It will take time to even understand a sliver of how you fit into God’s big picture. Keep up the prayers and make sure you slow down to listen to what God is telling you.

The Tragedy of Having Too Much Stuff

I was listening to the soundtrack to the movie, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, the other day. It isn’t a great movie although it has a terrific score. It’s a telling of the story of Christopher Columbus and his discovery of North America. But I’m not reviewing that movie in this article. Instead, there’s a scene from the movie that I want to explore on how it relates to Jesus’ teachings and the Rosary.

Towards the end of the movie, after the Spaniards established a colony on an island in the Bahamas, a massive tropical storm hits and destroys nearly everything the settlers had built. Their grand church, houses, and other structures lay in ruins. Meanwhile, the natives, having been through such storms in the past, didn’t lose much given the simple structures that they could easily rebuild.

This scene demonstrates that the more stuff we surround ourselves with, the harder it becomes to part with it. The storm was a tragedy for Columbus and the settlers because they had invested so much time, energy, and other resources to bring the comforts they were used to into the new world. But the natives didn’t feel a huge sense of loss because they didn’t have a huge worldly investment for the storm to wipe away.

The Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus warning against the acquisition of worldly goods. He tells the rich man to give all that he has and follow Him (Matthew 19:16-24). He talks about the man who builds bigger barns to store his crops only to die the next day (Luke 12:13-21). Whether it’s the movie 1492 or the Gospel, the message is clear. The more stuff you acquire, the more attached you are to this world and the harder it will be to detach yourself from it. Eventually, it’s not you who owns stuff. Rather, more stuff masters over you. And with all that stuff in your life comes the worries of losing it or the pursuit to acquire more. Where is there room for God’s grace?

Now it’s not like I live a Spartan existence. Like many modern households, I surround myself with television, computers, smartphones, and other things. But I try my best to remember that they are just things. I try to keep the perspective that my life will actually be just as happy and fulfilling if those things went away (and maybe even happier). When I pray, I ask God for the strength to not let my possessions own me. That’s easier said than done, but that’s where daily Rosary prayer comes in.

When I think of detachment from worldly goods, I pray the Third Luminous Mystery — The Proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Call to Conversion. I remember that Jesus taught us that we should store Heavenly goods, not worldly ones. All the wealth and possessions in the world mean nothing if you don’t leave room for God’s grace. When I do find myself focusing too much on “stuff” I ask God to help convert that worldly focus to a Heavenly one.

Let’s face it, our pursuit of possessions is a form of greed, one of the seven deadly sins. The opposing virtue is charity. When I pray the Second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation, I think about Mary’s charitable act of helping her cousin, Elizabeth, in her pregnancy although she was pregnant as well. She made the effort to think beyond her needs and desires to help someone else. When we meditate on this Rosary mystery, let’s think about how we can be more charitable in our lives, not only with monetary donations but also with our time and talents. We ask Mary to help us counter our greedy vices with charitable virtues.

Get More from Rosary Prayer by Praying in a Church

While earnest prayer is good no matter the location, praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament is particularly beneficial. But why is that the case? After all, if God is everywhere and hears our prayers, why should we make an extra effort to go into a church and pray or attend Eucharistic adoration? In his book, Transforming Your Life Through the Eucharist, Fr. John Kane explores this great mystery and majesty of the Blessed Sacrament. An excerpt was published on Catholic Exchange titled Why We Pray Before the Blessed Sacrament. A word of warning, this is not a light read. Fr. Kane’s words are dense and packed full of ideas. It would be to your benefit to read this article a few times. You may even want to read a small section and meditate on it.

In the Holy Eucharist, Christ is not only the food of our souls, but also the companion of our exile. The human heart yearns for the sweet consciousness of companionship. The Divine Presence in the tabernacle fully satisfies this natural longing, for God alone can fill the heart.

Christ fulfills His promise of continued companionship by laying hold of this universal law of His own implanting in our nature. In the Blessed Sacrament, through the unmistakable signs of our Lord’s nearness, we experience the most thorough enjoyment of His companionship.

Fr. John Kane

My daily routine involves stopping by a church after dropping my kids off at school in the morning. There, I pray the Rosary, read the daily readings and other prayers. It’s hard to explain, but I feel so much better praying the Rosary in church than at home. I think Fr. Kane nails down why. The Blessed Sacrament is Jesus! Naturally, of course, we will feel more comforted and satisfied praying in Jesus’ presence.

I highly encourage you to take up the practice of making time to pray in a quiet church in front of the tabernacle. It’s a great practice that acts as a prayer multiplier. It helps center your day around Jesus. Honestly, the days when I can’t make it to church to pray are days where I feel a bit “off” because I haven’t grounded myself praying in Jesus’ presence. Give this practice a try and see for yourself how beneficial it is.

Putting the Rosary Ahead of Chitchat Before Mass

When I was in high school, I constantly saw people copying each other’s homework in the morning the day it was due. These typically weren’t the slackers either, but the honors students. They were the ones often overloaded with school work and extracurricular activities. There was this unspoken agreement that if someone could copy a few math problems one day, the other person could get a quick peek whenever he was short a few answers.

No one ever approached me to copy my homework. And it wasn’t because my answers were incorrect. They knew that my answer was going to always be “no.” At times I felt bad telling a friend who was at practice till 6 pm and had three hours of homework that they couldn’t look at my work. It felt unfriendly. But not participating in these cheating rings was the right thing to do.

This brings me to what I witness every Sunday before Mass. I see so many people chatting with each other. And these are regular Mass attendees who should know better. But there’s this idea that Mass doesn’t begin until the organist hits that first key and everyone stands.

Pope Francis tells us we need to resist this temptation to visit before Mass. He said:

“When we go to Mass, maybe we arrive five minutes before, and we start to chitchat with those in front of us,” the Pope said Nov. 15. However, “it is not a moment for chitchat.” “It is a moment of silence for preparing ourselves for dialogue, a time for the heart to collect itself in order to prepare for the encounter with Jesus,” he said, adding that “silence is so important.”

Pope Francis

I think many of us are afraid of coming across as unfriendly if we don’t chat before Mass. We think the person sitting next to us will think we’re snubbing them or are mad at them. But going back to my high school experience, do you know how many people gave me a hard time or put a lot of pressure on me for not letting them copy my schoolwork? No one. Deep down I think they knew I was doing the right thing and that copying someone’s work was wrong. They weren’t going to give me a hard time showing the behavior they wanted to show as well. The same goes for being silent before Mass starts. People understand that silence is correct pre-Mass behavior and won’t take offense if you don’t partake in the chitchat.

Want to provide a clear sign that you’re not going to participate in idle chitchat? Simply put down the kneeler and pray the Rosary. Trust me, no one is going to strike up a conversation with you when they see you on your knees praying the Rosary. And that is the type of preparation Pope Francis wants from us. We are taking the time to converse with Jesus and listen to God.

And what if you are the sort of person who likes to chat before Mass? In this season of Advent, I suggest trying to break that habit. Get on your knees and pray the Rosary too. Advent is a time of preparation and making room for God in our hearts. And that is exactly what we do when we pray the Rosary.

I love coming into a quiet church and praying. There is something so motivating walking into a crowded church and yet it is whisper quiet with pews filled with people praying. It makes me want to pray. And you know what? I usually find plenty of time for chitchat after Mass, outside the church. It’s a matter of priority. Your dialogue with God needs to come before the chitchat with your friends.

The First Secret of Spiritual Warfare: Total Trust in God

Imagine if Jesus invited you on a personal spiritual retreat for three days. Just three days, 1-on-1 with Jesus. Think of what you would learn! Imagine how renewed and unwavering you faith would be after that experience. Saint Faustina had exactly that experience in 1938. But she didn’t keep what she learned to herself. She wrote down 25 secrets she learned so all of humanity could benefit from this unique experience. Do you have the faith to take the words of this saint seriously as if you personally heard them from Jesus? I want to explore many of the secrets of spiritual warfare through the lens the holy Rosary. Let’s look at the first secret.

Never trust in yourself but abandon yourself totally to My will.”

In this first secret, Jesus sets the foundation for the subsequent ones. All these secrets revolve around practicing humble faith. It’s having the faith that leaving everything in God’s hands will see you through all the challenges and hardships in your life and eventually lead you into God’s heavenly kingdom. It’s following God’s Will even when it seems ridiculous or difficult.

Naturally, Jesus is the embodiment of completely trusting God’s plan. When he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (First Sorrowful Mystery), He said “not my will, but your will be done” (Luke 42:22). He put his life entirely in God’s hands. And while that may have led to physical suffering and death, it ultimately led to Jesus conquering death and opening the gates of Heaven for us all. Jesus didn’t redeem us all by doing his will, but God’s Will.

We fight battles every day. We fight against the temptation to sin. We also fight the temptation to be lazy in our faith which leaves us vulnerable to Satan’s influence. We need all the help we can get. But when we try to do things our own way, we are like a soldier ignoring the well thought out plan and charging out on our own only to be cut down by gunfire. God is our general in this spiritual war and we need to listen to Him. God tells us to trust Him and that when we do, true joy and happiness will come either in this life or our eternal life with Him in Heaven.

This faith doesn’t come easy and this is where daily Rosary prayer is so important. We need to meditate on the faith Jesus showed in the First Sorrowful Mystery. Or the faith that Mary showed in the First Joyful Mystery. We need to take the words and experiences of the saints seriously, as if God was telling them directly to us.

 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38)

Jesus didn’t hold anything back. He didn’t sort of follow God’s Will. He put his life entirely in God’s hands. And that is what Jesus tells us to do through the first secret of spiritual warfare recorded by Saint Faustina. Sort of following God’s will is like wearing armor with a crack. It’s better than nothing but Satan can still exploit that weakness. For your soul, let God completely protect you. When you pray the Rosary, ask yourself and meditate on these questions.

  • Are you trying to live according to God’s Will or your will?
  • Are you taking the time to pray and listen to God?
  • Are you holding anything back from completely following God?
  • Are you receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation to better let go of your earthly desires and sins and instead desire whatever God has planned for you?

Breaking Out of The Routine Through Prayer

Someone I know has a son who has some issues interacting with others. It’s nothing serious but he does sometimes live in his own little world and doesn’t respond well to directions. One morning when she was at her wit’s end, this mom decided the two of them would go to a church to pray. It’s something they don’t usually do. But she thought it would be a great idea to “break out of the routine and try something different.”

There were a few things that I liked about this story. First, I thought the notion of going to church and praying to break out of the routine was a fascinating idea. It reminded me how we so often go through our day without including God. We encounter challenges, experience triumphs, and have many things to be thankful for. And yet, instead of including Him in our day, God is an afterthought. Many of our routines do no include God which is a shame. How many of our challenges could He help us with if we only asked? How much better would our days be if we included God in the routine?

I also liked the idea that when times were tough for this parent, instead of running away from God, she ran towards Him. She didn’t blame God but instead asked for His help in prayer. I’m sure there were some moments of asking “why?” But she approached God as a source of help, not someone who many of us wrongly see as the source of our hardships. The world brings about hardship. God brings comfort in that hardship.

When I pray the Rosary and think about how we must break out of any worldly routines, I meditate on the First Joyful Mystery. I don’t think any of us can say that Mary’s life was routine after the Annunciation. Everything changed both for her and for us. Mary’s “yes” to God changed her life. I think we need to also say “yes” to God so that He may change our lives. While it’s true that God will be with us through our lives whether we ask Him to or not, it helps immensely when we are receptive towards Him. We have to break out of our routine of work, hobbies, housework, etc. and remember to include God in our lives. And this is best achieved in the stillness and quietness of prayer.

We also can’t run away or blame God for the hardships in our lives. Jesus didn’t blame God for His Passion and Crucifixion. Instead, Jesus asked for God’s help through prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew that God was asking a lot from Him. And sometimes God asks a lot from us. But God doesn’t abandon us. He will help us if we have the awareness to ask for His help.

Life isn’t easy. But we make it much more difficult when we try to tackle life’s challenges on our own. God is always there ready to help us. All we need to do is take a break from our busy routines and talk to Him in prayer.

Blessed Are Those Who Believe Who Have Not Seen

I read this article on Catholic Exchange about the miracle of the “Dancing Sun” at Fatima on October 13th, 1917. On that day, 70,000 people witnessed the sun moving around the sky as if it was dancing. There is no scientific explanation about the event and believers and skeptics both witnessed it. The article said the following:

The sun moved around in a curious fashion. It became very bright and seemed to move around as no one had ever seen it. The best way to describe it was a “dance of the sun.” This day has been called “the day the sun danced.” 70,000 pilgrims witnessed the event firsthand. People from other villages also reported seeing the curious movement of the sun. Some were as far away as twenty-five miles. The event was reported in newspapers around the world and really cannot be doubted.

Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LCThe Day the Sun Danced Over Fatima

70,000 people! That’s a large athletic stadium filled to capacity. And yet many of us still have doubts about the existence of God, the power of faith, and following the teachings of Jesus. We doubt because we didn’t personally witness the event despite thousands of people saying it was true. It seems ridiculous that we discount the testamony of thousands of people because we didn’t experience it ourselves. If the events at Fatima don’t drive us to give Mary our full attention and really internalize Her desire for us to embrace Her son, Jesus Christ, what will?

I think of Fatima when I pray the Second Glorious Mystery of the Rosary — the Ascension. Many people saw the risen Jesus after His resurrection until His ascension into Heaven. But because we didn’t see Him with our own two eyes and it was nearly 2000 years ago (no smartphones and Twitter), Jesus’ ministry just doesn’t have a large impact on us. But should the fact that it happened so long ago really lessen the impact and importance of Jesus’ mission on Earth?

I think about the apostle Thomas who didn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection until he was able to personally see Jesus and touch His wounds. And Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). How many of us are like Thomas? Despite accounts from literally thousands, if not millions of people, over the ages, we still have our doubts about putting our lives entirely in God’s hands. We are like Thomas, clinging to our doubts because God hasn’t announced Himself in our lives to our satisfaction. That falls under the sin of pride — not accepting God’s ways but expecting God to conform to our expectations.

I also can’t help but think of the parable of Lazarus. The rich man, in the agony of Hell, asks Abraham to warn his sons about the consequences of not caring for those in need. But Abraham says that all they need to know has already been told to them through the prophets.

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

Bible Gateway

How many of us act like the rich man and ask God to send some definite, irrefutable sign of His existence and love for us? I like to change the last verse a little by rephrasing it like this: “If we don’t believe in what is written in the Bible, expressed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, or witnessed through countless miracles, we won’t be convinced if God hosted a podcast and posted selfies on Twitter.” We have all the signs and evidence we need to fully embrace God by embracing our faith. When you pray the Rosary, ask yourself, what is preventing you from fully embracing God?

Now look, I’m no saint and I often take my faith and God’s love for granted. I surely do not live each day with passionate faith that unquestioningly follows God’s Will. But when I pray the Second Glorious Mystery, I do remind myself that God has revealed himself countless times to humanity and I should take those signs as seriously as if God revealed them to me personally.