A 5th Sunday After Easter Thought to Push Our Easter Discipline Into The Rest of The Year.

It's the 5th Sunday after Easter (aka the Sixth Sunday of Easter in the Novus Ordo Rite). Coming up this week: Ascension Thursday (except in the Novus Ordo Rite, where Ascension Thursday was moved to next Sunday - Don't ask). And after that? Pentecost, which will bring us to the end of the Easter Season.

These last Sundays of Easter, we've posted spiritual gems from solid Catholic sources to help strengthen our Easter discipline. That discipline finds its roots in our Lenten discipline. It's the other side of the coin. Just as we hunkered down with our Lenten discipline of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, we've tried to remind ourselves that we don't stop when Easter rolls around. All our Lenten discipline should do is strengthen us to continue to build our spiritual life. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving don't disappear. The particulars may change once Lent concludes, but each retains its pride of place in our daily struggle to wrest ourselves free of the clutches of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We want to grow closer to God - ever closer until we, on that one final day in this world, enter into eternal life. 

Lent, with its focus on the Passion and Death of Our Lord, begets Easter and its focus on the Resurrection. And as our spiritual gems have taught us, we need both Lent and Easter in our lives. What distinguishes these two contiguous, most holy seasons of the year is not their differences. It's rather more our emphasis.

So during Easter, we're typically not giving things up to the degree we did during Lent; but we do continue to mortify our senses in some fashion. Maybe we don't give up chocolate, or alcohol, or sweets, or desert, or...whatever our imagination under solid spiritual direction concocted for Lent. But we do from time to time forego some pleasures and comforts to express our love for Jesus, Who gave His all for our salvation.

I hope you found those spiritual gems helpful in this endeavor. 

Now, as we approach the completion of the Easter Season, there's one more spiritual gem - and it's the shortest and sweetest of all. It comes from Abbot John Chapman, who converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism at age 25, already quite religious and spiritual. Upon conversion, he became a Benedictine monk, then a priest, and towards the end of his life the 4th Abbot of Downside Abbey in England. In the course of his Catholic life, he was known for his superb spiritual direction. We are fortunate to have letters written by him to his spiritual children. 

If you follow this blog during the week, you know that we recently focused on incorporating prayer with our work, and doing so throughout the work day. The emphasis: during the work day - not just before, once in a while, after our work is over. During, as in throughout. A comment from one of Abbot Chapman's letters helps us understand why this is so critically important:

...the only way to pray is to pray; and the way to pray well is to pray much. If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. And if circumstances do not permit even regularity, then one must put up with the fact that when one does try to pray, one can’t pray—and our prayer will probably consist of telling this to God.

Got it? Now for that shortest and sweetest of our recent Sunday spiritual gems, from the same Abbot Chapman. This is really important. But it can seem a bit "self-centered," especially in a world where the superficial typically crowds out the truly spiritual. Most especially in our American culture that - sometimes for good reasons - emphasizes and rewards the "man of action" far more than the thoughtful or contemplative. But, as I hope you'll see, Father's advice is decidedly not self-centered. Indeed it is critical not only for our individual spiritual life, but just as critical for the spiritual welfare of our entire world. 

Give Father's words a good, thoughtful reading...then a re-reading, with more thoughtfulness.

“For one can probably – or rather certainly – do more to convert the world by keeping very close to God, and growing in union with Him, than by any outside work; though it seems difficult to believe sometimes. It is really best to preach a continual mission to oneself than an occasional one to others! And it is not selfishness for our own soul; for if God wants souls, He first wants mine from me, and until I have given it to Him entirely without any reserve, I have plenty to do for Him, without saving others’ souls.” - Abbot John Chapman

This simple, short, and sweet shot of wisdom is just what we need as we - very soon - exit the Easter Season lifted and strengthened by a diligent Easter spiritual discipline that built on our Lenten spiritual discipline. As we prepare to enter what the Novus Ordo calls "Ordinary Time," we need to keep the momentum going through the rest of the Liturgical Year.

Happy Easter!