Prayer – Page 10 – Daily Graces

Saint Mommy

Published on January 24, 2016January 23, 2016 by Kate1 Comment

My husband has a complicated last name. When you look at the spelling, you would think it is fairly obviously pronounced just as you would sound it out. Whenever someone does this, I usually smile and say “Sure, that’s how it goes.” It’s much easier to move on than to stop our conversation and say “Well actually, it’s pronounced absolutely nothing like it is spelled, sorry for messing up every English lesson you had growing up for a moment.” Because of this, we made the decision early on that we would give our children first names that were classic and simple to pronounce. They are going to always struggle with the last name, at least their first people will be able to get on the first try. We also have intentionally named them after saints so that no matter what, they would have a solid role model attached to them in their name.

John (age 4) is becoming more aware of the saints as holy men and women who are now in heaven with God. Not only are they with God, they can help us by praying for us and reminding us to have good behavior and morals. We have already encouraged our children to pray to their name-saint, asking for help in whatever area of the day they struggled with .

When Ben left for his last deployment, John was pretty upset Ben’s last night home. We decided while praying together that we should choose a family saint – a saint that could watch over our family while Daddy was gone and we all could pray to during our nightly prayers, no matter where in the world we are. John liked that and of course, asked if our family saint could be St. John. The next day, he figured we should add St. Rose and St. Clare too for Rosie and Clare.

This evening at dinner, Rosie (age 3) was trying to figure out the whole saint thing since we’ve been talking about it so much. “Mommy, St. John helps John make good choices and helps take care of him right?” “Yes Rosie, St. John can do that.”

“And St. Rose can help me?”

“Yes”

“And St. Clare can help Clare? Well, Clare is a baby, but St. Clare can help her someday?”

“Yes Rosie, St. Clare can help Clare.”

“And Mommy, St. Mommy will help you too! And St. Daddy will help him too! And St. Uncle Steve will help Uncle Steve!”

Oh my sweet Rosie. What a beautiful thing she came up with. While we might be a little confused about the whole name = saint thing, she is laying a beautiful foundation of understanding for the communion of saints.

Even if your given name isn’t a canonized saint, you can still adopt one (or many) as your own patrons. Patron saints are saints that you feel close to, that inspire you or challenge you. Though my name is Kathryn and there are a number of St. Catherine saints, presently I feel closest to St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Frances of Rome, and a Carmelite monk from the 1600s, Br. Lawrence.

When you ask a friend to pray for you, the saints operate in the same manner. They are dear friends who happen to be situated that much closer to God – we believe they are in heaven after all.

Book Review: Couples Advent Devotional

Published on November 13, 2015 by KateLeave a comment

The season of Advent is my favorite liturgical season. I love the mood, the tempo, the music and the insistence on slowing down while the world is telling us to speed up. Each Advent, I look forward to experiencing unique reflections and powerful homilies that will inspire me for the new liturgical year. And, as a military spouse, I am always on the lookout for ways my husband and I can connect, emotionally and spiritually, when he is away from home. I was so excited to discover Patricia Mackie’s Couples Advent Devotional.

Patricia has crafted a devotional for couples that is specific for our new liturgical year. Each day you are invited to read and reflect on the daily Gospel. Then, there is a brief reflection, followed by 2-3 reflection questions that also serve as discussion starters for you and your spouse. This devotional is intended to be prayed aloud, together.

The reflection questions are really where Patricia shines. She goes right to the heart of marriage, pulling out topics like communication, needs and desires, stress, forgiveness, support and compassion, prayer, and so many more. She also weaves into the devotional a number of traditional Catholic prayers, including the Our Father, Hail Mary, Mary, Undoer of Knots, the Prayer of St. Francis, the Act of Contrition, and a number of others. Each prayer was clearly specifically chosen and it’s placement reinforces the theme being discussed.

I think that one of my favorite things about this devotional is that when prayed to its fullest, it is a dynamic experience. First and foremost, Patricia challenges the couples to pray every single day together. Every day! For 4 whole weeks! For many couples, especially those with children, it is struggle to find time to pray with this kind of intentionality every day. Having a resource like Couples Advent Devotional would help couples prioritize their time together and hopefully deepen their spiritual bond. Also, because the reflections are brief, couples will spend the majority of their prayer time together talking to one another, perhaps discussing things they have never discussed before. Second, Patricia encourages couples from the very beginning to stretch themselves beyond the four walls of their own home. In the first week alone, coupes are asked to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation and to discern some type of service experience their family can participate in during the season. Third, because the devotional is based on this specific liturgical year, couples will be able to connect what they are hearing at Mass with what they are discussing in their home.

I am very excited for Advent to begin this year. Couples that are looking for a way to connect daily on a deeper level and nurture their marriage need look no further. I highly recommend Patricia Mackie’s devotional and I hope that she continues the project for subsequent liturgical years.

That thing you’ve been meaning to do….

Published on September 4, 2015September 3, 2015 by KateLeave a comment

We all have something we’ve been meaning to do or take care of. Maybe it’s folding the laundry and then actually putting it in the drawers. Maybe it’s clicking “Unsubscribe” on the daily junk email or advertisement you keep deleting and it keeps coming. Maybe it’s writing your son’s thank you notes for his birthday that was 3 months ago (not speaking from experience here at all…sorry everyone).

Perhaps the thing you’ve been meaning to do is less tangible. Maybe it’s calling a friend you haven’t spoke with in a while. Maybe it’s finding some space in your day for quiet stillness. Maybe it’s a lifestyle change – food, exercise, schedule, etc.

Something I’ve noticed about putting things off, tangible or not, is that the longer I wait, the larger the task becomes. It’s easy to see with the tangible things. For example, the laundry. The longer I leave the basket of clean but not folded or organized clothes out, the harder it becomes to put away. Everyone starts shifting through the clothes, finding what they need and leaving the pile behind them. After a few days, it almost makes sense, in some twisted logic kind of way, to just leave it. The basket is half empty and laundry day is coming up again soon anyway. Just let it ride and I can try again next time.

For some things, it becomes embarrassing. Take the example of the thank you notes that in no way are one of the key points of inspiration for this blog post. The longer we waited to write them, the more embarrassing it got in my head. But, instead of buckling down and just writing the darn things, I would conveniently find something else that needed to be done since I didn’t want to own up to the fact that the cards would be so late.

Procrastinating on more intangible things is just as problematic. I think we all probably have a friend that we wish we kept in better touch with. I know I do. Quite a few in fact. We have so many means of communication at our disposal – email, Facebook, texting, a phone call. But, at least for me, I find it hard to connect with someone when we’ve been out of touch for a period of time. Maybe this is a side-effect of our ability to have constant communication and connection. Since I don’t know everything that has happened to them over the past few months and they don’t know what has happened to me, how can we possibly catch up all that time? It becomes a barrier to reaching out at all, which means I’m missing out on some special relationships because of my own hang-ups and tendency to over-think everything.

While I’ve been thinking about things I’ve been meaning to do, coincidentally while avoiding doing these exact things (a laundry basket is within eyesight, I promise to fold it tonight….or tomorrow), I stumbled across the thought that maybe this is one reason why it hard for people to start to pray after avoiding it. Think about the reasons why we might not strike up a conversation with someone who we haven’t talked with in a while. You don’t know where they are in life anymore. You don’t know what trials they have faced. What if you bring up something awkward or accidentally stir a pot you didn’t realize you were stirring? What they do the same for you? They don’t know what’s been happening with you. I imagine that some of these thoughts might be played out in our minds when we think about our conversations, or lack of them, with God.

The thing that we have probably forgotten in all our wonderings is that unlike our friend who hasn’t been walking our journey with us, God has. We might not have been talking to him, but He has been talking to us. While we were neglecting to include Him in our daily routines, He has been ever-present. So the thought that God may not know what we’ve been going through is simply not true. No matter what we’ve encountered and regardless of how long it’s been, God wants to renew His relationship with us.

Thankfully, God isn’t like the laundry basket, slowly being emptied only to be refilled with more dirty laundry. God is always ready for us, always willing to be with us and always, even in this moment, actively pursuing us. When coming to God in prayer, especially after a period of silence, don’t get hung up on what you haven’t been saying. Just start talking.

Pray as you can, not as you can’t.

God answers every prayer… and sometimes He says “No” or “Wait”.

If you experience dryness in prayer or a time when you come to Mass and feel like you didn’t get anything out of it, then that’s a good day… That’s a day where you get to choose to love God for His sake and not for what He can do for you.
Father Mike Schmitz