Let’s see yesterday it was … the kids, my husband, even my cat… As much as I desperately want to carve out some holy QUIET, quiet being a key word :), time to myself it is so difficult.

I am attempting to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, something monks and nuns do as well as deacons and some others. The Liturgy of the Hours is a series of prayers that incorporate the Psalms and are said at the same times throughout the day (for the full version, seven times a day). I’ve made it a goal to pray first thing upon waking, 9 a.m. or right after I get the kids to school, Noon and before bed. I work in 3 p.m. when I can.

The as-soon-as-I-get-up-one has been the most challenging as have been the prayers on days when school is out like Labor Day yesterday. I go to our bedroom or the guest bedroom and shut the door, but it’s hard to concentrate with kids playing rambunctiously downstairs or your cat rubbing up against you as you kneel in prayer. I suppose it’s better than not praying, but I get frustrated at my inability to focus on the words due to lack of quiet. It’s hard enough to focus on the words and really try to take in their meaning when it actually is quiet. With any distraction, it feels hopeless.

So what is the answer when I desire so much, “thirst,” in fact, to use the verb often used to describe spiritual longing, for as much prayer and spiritual reading time as I can find? But yet live the life of a lay person, a mother, a wife, a business owner, a cat owner J?

I prayed about it this morning in front of the Blessed Sacrament to Mary and this is what came to me in response. First of all, I am carrying out the work of God as a mother. Wasn’t that Mary’s call? To raise the son of God? So time spent there is doing God’s work in itself. But, also, I found encouragement to wake early, before the house does (even the cat!), where I can enjoy an hour of solitude. Quiet reading. Prayer. Silent meditation. Even 6:30 a.m. mass.

I’ve been working on this morning thing for a while now but it’s a struggle for me. It’s not that I’m a night person, but just that I’m not really a morning person either. But as I cannot seem to find a way to fit it all in to my spiritual satisfaction otherwise, I am going to take Mary’s advice and pray to be awakened early with vitality (at least enough to get out of bed) and the anticipation of what lies before me if I do put those feet on the floor and stand myself up.

I’ve also instituted an hour of quiet on the weekends for my whole family to encourage everyone to understand and value “silence” in this noisy world. I even encourage “no words” for that hour, especially challenging for a 4-year-old who wants to verbalize his every thought. But silence can be powerful and I want them to realize that as they grow up.

Have you struggled to find time for quiet prayer amid life as a mother and wife or father and husband? What has been your solution?

I’ve come across the same passage from Corinthians several times, first in the book “The Cloister Walk” and then at mass. It speaks to God’s dismissing the importance of knowledge, learning and wisdom and lifting up instead “faith,” a virtue which defies logic. A message that’s incredibly impactful and relevant to me at this stage in my life…

The passage:

1 Corinthians 1:21 “For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.”

This theme has come up again and again for me. Our priest discussed how in another passage Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, distances himself from the learned academics who came to convince and sway the people (which very much reminds me of politicians).

He asks the people instead not to believe him because he is most convincing but to instead, to take a moment, listen to their hearts and believe him if their hearts tell them they are called to what he is saying: the good news, “the way.” As my heart has said to me…

There is also another biblical passage where Jesus praises the child-like over the learned:

“At that time, the disciples approached Jesus and said, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child over and placed it in their midst and said ‘Amen, I say to you unless, you turn and become like children — you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven…'” Matthew 18:1-3

And I love these two quotes from St. Augustine:

• “If you understand it, it is not God.”
• “Do not seek to understand in order to believe, but seek to believe that you may understand.”

Faith versus wisdom.

This is a HUGE paradox I have experienced since my calling to Catholicism. I’d always rejected religion on the premise of logic. How could people really believe all this craziness to be true and fall prey to the many preachers and evangelists out there, believing whatever was said to them? It defied logic, so it couldn’t be.

And when I look at myself now, attending mass as much as possible, reorienting my life toward prayer and holy reading, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, guiding my family on the path toward holiness, I can NOT believe it. It defies logic.

I often stop and say to myself “What is going on here? What has happened to me? This is not the person I thought myself to be. How am I overcoming my past objections? This makes no sense.” And indeed it doesn’t, and that is just the point.

I have to follow my heart. My heart has been called and it feels so right and so good and so full of complete and utter joy; I cannot question it. It MUST be right no matter what my logical mind says.

Every step I have taken since feels divinely inspired and I see reminders and signs constantly that I am on the right path.

It makes no sense, but it doesn’t have to. I am guided by faith; knowledge was just in the way…

Humility is a big area that I feel I need to work on as a future Catholic and an admirer of Benedict’s Rule (a book written hundreds of years ago as a guide for monasteries). St. Benedict even outlines something like seven steps to humility!

I feel myself too wrapped up in self, focused on what do I need/want/feel like at any given moment. It is Christ’s and Catholic teaching to shift the focus to others. Christ was the original “servant leader,” washing the feet of his apostles. Benedict, in fact, instructs monks to welcome all visitors as Christ, washing their feet in a sign of humility.

So, while pondering all this one day, I found a perfect place to put it into practice: the grocery store! It was a busy day, and time and again I started to hurry past someone, only to stop and realize I need not be in such a hurry. Let this other person finish their task and THEN I can go.

How many times did I almost bump into someone going around a corner only to end up in the inevitable “dance” of who goes first? In a practice of humility, I determined to let whomever I bumped into go first. I am not the most important person; let them go.

I also found the opportunity to shine the light of Christ within me to all I saw. Why not smile at your fellow man and share a bit joy? You see so many people in the grocery store; that’s the chance to make everyone’s day just a bit brighter.

And in the parking lot, I determined to be patient, unhurried and defer to others.

Who knew one could learn a lesson in humility at the grocery? But as Benedict teaches, it’s in the little moments that make for a joyful life.

Where have you/can you practice humility?

Yesterday I started reading the book “The Cloister Walk” by Kathleen Norris after being referred to it by many different books I’ve been reading on Benedictines (an order of monks) and the Rule of Benedict. The Rule is a guidebook for the operation of monasteries written by St. Benedict in the sixth century. It’s a simple rule of moderation and taking joy in everyday life that has endured to this day as a guide for living – monastery or not.

Norris wrote the book to share her experience in spending time at a Benedictine monastery and the transformative effect it had on her life.

While I’ll share more about my fascination with Benedictines and the Rule of St. Benedict later, today I wanted to share with you something that stood out to me in the introduction to her book. She notes that for most of her life she was leery of the Christian religion, which I could immediately relate to. I’ve continued in my mind to try to explore what it was that didn’t appeal to me for so many years that appeals incredibly to me now. In her explanation, I found my reason.

She said she has a skewed vision of Christianity and had been put off by religious evangelists who manipulate religious language, preaching of “the saved” and “the kind of holy talk that can make me feel like a lower life form…” (7). That is precisely how I felt. I did not want to be saved, never appreciated anyone trying to “save” me and felt all religious talk had this aim. And if I wasn’t “saved” I was no good. Don’t judge me please 🙂 was how I felt.

And so I never gave Catholicism a chance. I thought it likely even one-upped all the other religions I’d tried over the years – Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ. None of these was a fit for me.

But, when I felt the internal longing (more to come later :)) at the age of 36 to return to a Catholic retreat I’d once attended for my marriage, and felt a deep stirring when visiting the beautiful campus of Notre Dame, I began to listen. And I finally gave Catholicism a chance after 16 years of being with my Catholic husband.

And what do you know, but the religion I thought would top all religions in judging and looking down on others who were foreign to its ways, who had more jargon than I could learn in a lifetime, who  has more traditions and sacraments than I could ever get my arms around, would be the one that stuck. Why? Because of its plainness, its simplicity, its clarity.

Catholicism at its heart, once you get past all the Biblical and Latin words, is the language of Benedict: do good and you will life a joyful life. Love others; make time for prayer, work, rest and community. All things in moderation. Help those who need help without complaint. Follow a routine and find joy in the littlest of chores. Indeed. Nothing fluffy about it to me.

So amidst the complication of Catholicism live the simplest messages of all, at least to me.