Staying Strong at Work During This Mess - 4
We concluded Part 3 of "Staying Strong at Work During This Mess" by noting the common traits between physical exercise and spiritual exercise. One of these: the time of day.
Being a morning person, that's my best time for getting a lot done. There's an old saying: Early to bed, early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. I don't know about the wealthy part, but I can vouch for healthy and (in my better moments) the wise part.
If you get decent sleep, you'll generally be healthier. If you get to bed early (by 10 PM), you'll get a better night's rest. (We talked about this in the first post in this series.) It also sets you up nicely for your exercise, if you do that first thing as I do. Ditto for your spiritual life, which is what we'll focus on today.
But instead of rehashing my personal spiritual "morning routine," let's look at what we can learn from the similarities between physical exercise and our spiritual life. Again, I'm coming to you without any expertise. I'm just a Catholic guy who takes his religion seriously most of the time. (I say "most of the time" because if I took it seriously all of the time, I'd likely be in better spiritual "shape." At least that's what I think.) And because I'm offering what is essentially my opinion, I'll just use examples from my own life to illustrate those similarities.
Just as my efforts to get in shape began out of necessity, so too did my original stabs at working on my spiritual life. While not as urgent as that excruciating attack of back pain, over the years I've experienced a kind of spiritual pain. It began the day I realized I had turned my back on Our Lord.
It wasn't a one-time thing, this turning. It was a cumulative series of thoughts, words, and actions that built up over time, carrying me far from the Jesus I loved as a child.
I really did love Jesus early on. I served as both and altar boy and a choir boy in grammar school. I loved the traditional liturgy I grew up with. When our parish's 40 Hours Devotion took place, I remember kneeling as an altar boy, in the sanctuary, gazing at the monstrance. It was surrounded by beautiful flowers and candles. My assigned time for keeping Our Lord company wasn't just an obligation. It was an act of love. Really. I was completely taken in, literally enamored, being in His Presence, accentuated by the beauty of the devotion. And I understood, at some level, that Our Lord was really there, listening to my prayers and thoughts. (If you've never experienced a traditional 40 Hours Devotion, you don't know what you've missed.)
Without dragging you through the mud, as time passed, so did my devotion and enthusiasm. I could blame the change from the old liturgy to the new, the Jesuit education I received that, while academically excellent, served to undermine my faith (a subject for another time), the '60s counter-culture, heretic bishops and priests whom I encountered, etc., etc. All of that could and did serve as good excuses for why I wasn't practicing my Catholic religion faithfully. In the end, though, it was personal sin that pulled me away. I chose sin over Christ.
My return to the practice of my faith unfolded over time. What gave me the final push was the birth of our first child. I had never completely rejected Christ. I wanted our child to be raised Catholic (as did my wife). To do that I figured I at least had to act Catholic.
"Act" is an apt description. I went to confession, attended Mass, received Holy Communion. Eventually, I helped teach our kids their faith. (We home-schooled.) I'm not minimizing the importance of all this. But none of that caused me to take my spiritual life seriously. What did was a slow ever-clearer recollection of how I had once loved Our Lord as a child. Shouldn't I love Him now? I knew I should. I just didn't know how. The old feelings didn't just spring up inside me. I felt empty. Eventually, that emptiness turned to pain. I realized that my feelings weren't the point. I realized the Jesus loved me. And I had not returned that love - for so many years.
That realization opened my mind and my heart. It didn't result in an instantaneous flood of love for Our Savior. It was only a beginning.
Fortunately, I met a good priest and some other serious Catholics. (Most of those I grew up with or attended school with weren't serious about their faith.) Through conversations and my own study, I learned about what some call "norms of piety" - basically regular prayer, reading, study, meditation each day. Add in an examination of conscience, regular confession, proper preparation for reception of Holy Communion.
Because I had already spent years pursuing and perfecting various forms of physical exercise, I could use that experience to pursue a decent spiritual life. The structure, repetition, persistence, patience that marked my exercise routines easily translated to my spiritual life. My experience with the one helped the development of the other.
Now, to be clear, all of this developed over many years. And after all that time, there are days I feel like my efforts are thoroughly inadequate, even useless. Then again, I've been through spells where that's been the case with my exercise. And there, I learned to address that by diversifying my routines. I use that same approach in my spiritual exercise. When my daily routine becomes too routine, I mix it up.
But getting back to our theme of "staying strong," I'll state the obvious: If your spiritual life is strong, you'll be able to weather whatever storms the world throws at you.
Today, we tried to establish a connection between physical and spiritual exercise, using my personal experience. Based on that, it's safe to say that pursuit of spiritual "fitness" will serve to keep us strong. We're composed of body and soul. Physical exercise strengthens the body, spiritual exercise strengthens the soul. It's a good combination. Let's see if we can apply this more specifically to our work - next time.
Being a morning person, that's my best time for getting a lot done. There's an old saying: Early to bed, early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. I don't know about the wealthy part, but I can vouch for healthy and (in my better moments) the wise part.
If you get decent sleep, you'll generally be healthier. If you get to bed early (by 10 PM), you'll get a better night's rest. (We talked about this in the first post in this series.) It also sets you up nicely for your exercise, if you do that first thing as I do. Ditto for your spiritual life, which is what we'll focus on today.
But instead of rehashing my personal spiritual "morning routine," let's look at what we can learn from the similarities between physical exercise and our spiritual life. Again, I'm coming to you without any expertise. I'm just a Catholic guy who takes his religion seriously most of the time. (I say "most of the time" because if I took it seriously all of the time, I'd likely be in better spiritual "shape." At least that's what I think.) And because I'm offering what is essentially my opinion, I'll just use examples from my own life to illustrate those similarities.
Just as my efforts to get in shape began out of necessity, so too did my original stabs at working on my spiritual life. While not as urgent as that excruciating attack of back pain, over the years I've experienced a kind of spiritual pain. It began the day I realized I had turned my back on Our Lord.
It wasn't a one-time thing, this turning. It was a cumulative series of thoughts, words, and actions that built up over time, carrying me far from the Jesus I loved as a child.
I really did love Jesus early on. I served as both and altar boy and a choir boy in grammar school. I loved the traditional liturgy I grew up with. When our parish's 40 Hours Devotion took place, I remember kneeling as an altar boy, in the sanctuary, gazing at the monstrance. It was surrounded by beautiful flowers and candles. My assigned time for keeping Our Lord company wasn't just an obligation. It was an act of love. Really. I was completely taken in, literally enamored, being in His Presence, accentuated by the beauty of the devotion. And I understood, at some level, that Our Lord was really there, listening to my prayers and thoughts. (If you've never experienced a traditional 40 Hours Devotion, you don't know what you've missed.)
Without dragging you through the mud, as time passed, so did my devotion and enthusiasm. I could blame the change from the old liturgy to the new, the Jesuit education I received that, while academically excellent, served to undermine my faith (a subject for another time), the '60s counter-culture, heretic bishops and priests whom I encountered, etc., etc. All of that could and did serve as good excuses for why I wasn't practicing my Catholic religion faithfully. In the end, though, it was personal sin that pulled me away. I chose sin over Christ.
My return to the practice of my faith unfolded over time. What gave me the final push was the birth of our first child. I had never completely rejected Christ. I wanted our child to be raised Catholic (as did my wife). To do that I figured I at least had to act Catholic.
"Act" is an apt description. I went to confession, attended Mass, received Holy Communion. Eventually, I helped teach our kids their faith. (We home-schooled.) I'm not minimizing the importance of all this. But none of that caused me to take my spiritual life seriously. What did was a slow ever-clearer recollection of how I had once loved Our Lord as a child. Shouldn't I love Him now? I knew I should. I just didn't know how. The old feelings didn't just spring up inside me. I felt empty. Eventually, that emptiness turned to pain. I realized that my feelings weren't the point. I realized the Jesus loved me. And I had not returned that love - for so many years.
That realization opened my mind and my heart. It didn't result in an instantaneous flood of love for Our Savior. It was only a beginning.
Fortunately, I met a good priest and some other serious Catholics. (Most of those I grew up with or attended school with weren't serious about their faith.) Through conversations and my own study, I learned about what some call "norms of piety" - basically regular prayer, reading, study, meditation each day. Add in an examination of conscience, regular confession, proper preparation for reception of Holy Communion.
Because I had already spent years pursuing and perfecting various forms of physical exercise, I could use that experience to pursue a decent spiritual life. The structure, repetition, persistence, patience that marked my exercise routines easily translated to my spiritual life. My experience with the one helped the development of the other.
Now, to be clear, all of this developed over many years. And after all that time, there are days I feel like my efforts are thoroughly inadequate, even useless. Then again, I've been through spells where that's been the case with my exercise. And there, I learned to address that by diversifying my routines. I use that same approach in my spiritual exercise. When my daily routine becomes too routine, I mix it up.
But getting back to our theme of "staying strong," I'll state the obvious: If your spiritual life is strong, you'll be able to weather whatever storms the world throws at you.
Today, we tried to establish a connection between physical and spiritual exercise, using my personal experience. Based on that, it's safe to say that pursuit of spiritual "fitness" will serve to keep us strong. We're composed of body and soul. Physical exercise strengthens the body, spiritual exercise strengthens the soul. It's a good combination. Let's see if we can apply this more specifically to our work - next time.
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