1. Prudence conquers busyness and overload by helping us to focus on what is most important.

Prudence is the virtue of knowing what is truly good and making a plan to attain it. So the first thing practicing prudence leads us to do is to evaluate the things we are after. What goals is your life oriented toward? Are these the greatest goods? Are they the best use of your time, energy and resources? Here are some of the standards we use to analyze the directions our life are heading.

• Do our current goals lead us into a deeper relationship with God?

• Are our current goals making us better, more loving people?

• Do our current goals feed and nurture our relationships?

2. Prudence conquers busyness and overload by encouraging us to set goals and work toward them so we're always making progress.

Productivity experts tell us that a fundamentally important step to achieving anything is to

• create specific, measurable goals

• Write them down

• Look at them every day.

Most of us don't take the time to stop and think about our goals, let alone shape our lives around them. As a result we live most of our lives floating from event to event, wasting a lot of our time and energy on things that don't move our lives forward or lead to spiritual growth.

By taking time out to think about our goals, we empower ourselves to

• Focus on what is truly important (see the point above)

• Orient our lives toward getting the most and the best out of life

• Create specific plans to attain what we need to be fulfilled

• Know concretely what we need to invest our time, energy and personal energy into

3. Prudence conquers busyness and overload by leading us to plan what we do with our time and therefore regain control.

The main problem in what we call “busyness” is a lack of control over our time. We feel pushed from even to event, task to task. In fact, I’m feeling exactly that sensation as I write this. I have three deadlines looming, and I have had very little time this past week to work on any of them.

So how can prudence help? Well, the reason that I didn’t have any time to work on my deadlines is that I did not plan well for the needs of my family last week. Instead of being a planned use of resources, my family became an intruder into my schedule, adding to my sense of busyness - lack of control.

What would have happened if I had communicated better with my wife and planned the needs of my family into my week? Would I have had the time to complete my deadlines? Probably not, actually. But I wasted a lot of time fretting, rearranging my schedule, and multitasking. If I had planned more carefully I would definitely have had more time to dedicate to those projects.

The good news is that my family didn’t suffer this time from my lack of organization. Thanks to the small but steady progress I’ve made in setting priorities, they received my undivided attention when they needed it most.

Remember - I stink at this stuff! So I’m struggling to implement these strategies right along with you. But the good news is that they work, even for someone like me! I could have taken much more control over my time this past week by exercising prudence more completely.

[slider_ads id=1]

4. Prudence conquers busyness and overload by reducing our tendency to react to life and increasing our ability to respond.

My experience from last week illustrates another point too. The reason I wasted time last week was because I fell into old habits of multitasking and reacting. So when I say “reacting” I mean that I spent a lot of my time giving immediate, unplanned attention to little emergencies that popped up - emails, phone calls, orders to get out, requests from my wife, etc. These constitute what marketing professional Dean Jackson calls “reactive activators.” They are triggers that activate within us a behavioral pattern of giving up control of our time.

Prudence helps us to turn off these “reactive activators.” Yes, phone calls and emails need to be answered (most of the time). Yes, I need to respond to my wife’s request (all of the time). But we can do these things much more efficiently when we exercise prudence and plan a thoughtful response to them rather than spontaneously reacting to them. For example, if we set aside a defined period of time to answer email, we tend to respond to emails much more efficiently and much more thoughtfully than when we spontaneously react to them.

These are just four benefits of prudence, but they are the four benefits that I think are most related to conquering busyness and overload. Because as Catholics we know a lot about the virtue of prudence, we are actually in a good place to activate that knowledge and conquer this time management thing in a major way.

I have more to offer you in this arena as well, but these are two services that really compliment and expand on what I'm teaching. Click on each link now and subscribe to one of the services.

First Name * Email *

When I talk to people about the obstacles they face in growing in their faith, one response that I get quite consistently is the problem of being distracted by the world. The world constantly clamours for our attention. Just think about

• All of the advertisements you are exposed to every day
• The constant bombardment of communication through media, "old" and "new"
• Demands of work and social responsibilities
• Changing cultural and legal morality that devalues life, marriage and freedom and overvalues material possessions, sex, and worldly success
• The desire of the heart that I hear from my clients and customers is to be able to shut it all out - just for a while - in order to focus on God. Do you experience that same desire? I sure do.

How can we hope to focus ourselves on the Kingdom of God with so much distraction?

What Answer Does Saint Benedict Offer?

In the first century AD, Saint Benedict felt the same desire. He was living in the bustling city of Rome, going to school at the age of 19 or 20. Yet, he felt the draw to leave behind the wild life of his pagan school companions and to deeply embrace the more meaningful life offered by Jesus. Benedict left Rome to seek shelter from the distractions. Eventually this desire of his heart led him to found a religious order and build a monestary. Saint Benedict's monestary became a place of sanctuary sought out by many people who felt the same desire to shut out for a time the world in order to recenter themselves on Jesus.

Find Your Inner Monestary

Yet, Saint Benedict's famous rule and "Spiritual Exercises" talked more about the importance of establishing a sanctuary within your own mind and heart. Those of us who are called to serve in the world, not to the life of religious orders, are still called to focus on Jesus - to center ourselves on the Covenant. Here are some ways to get started building your inner monestary.

1. Begin your day in prayer - one great idea is to turn a morning habit into a time of prayer. I'm a coffee drinker. My morning delight is to linger over my morning coffee, usually reading or daydreaming. I have recently been challenged to use that time for prayer, to make a morning offering. What a simple way to begin my day focused on Jesus! I don't even have to carve out more time in my day than I already take. What morning habit do you have that can be overlayed with a morning habit of prayer?
2. Be sure to take time to pray before each meal. Don't just say the "Bless us oh Lord" prayer (though this prayer is considered an official blessing of the Church and is important to say) - also take a minute of silence to refocus yourself on God.
3. After your work day, don't launch right into your evening routine. Instead, take some silent time to build the wall of your monestary. Turn off the TV, radio and computer for a specific amount of time. Sit quietly. Use this time to pray, read the Bible, or do some spiritual reading. Or just sit silently in God's presence. End your time of silence with a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings you received during the day.
4. Before you go to sleep for the night, do a quick examination of conscience. An examination of conscience includes recognizing where you sinned or fell short of the goodness God expected you to do during the day. But it also include recalling the good that you were able to do abd the grace and blessings that God gave you through the day. It may also include creating some goals for the next day. End your time of prayer with an "act of love" - just a statement to God that you love Him and desire to participate in His life.

Begin Simply - But Begin!

Look, the good news is that the solution to our distraction is within our control. But it is a challenge, no doubt about it. Most people make the mistake of trying to tackle the challenge with a large commitment.

"From now on, I'm going to pray at least an hour every day."

Then they fail to make the commitment and they just quit.

Growing a virtue (a good habit) is like building muscle. It is best to start small and simple, and then slowly add "weight" and intensity of the workout. If you start with too large a commitment, you're going to pull something!

So begin by grafting new habits of prayer onto habits and routines you have already established (like praying over your morning coffee). Begin by making small daily commitments to prayer (1 minute before meals, 10 minutes after work). But do it - every day - until it becomes second nature. Then add to the intensity (saying a Rosary after work would take 15-20 minutes).

It's important to remember that our primary call is to live our primary vocation. Our spiritual growth needs to integrate into our vocation. For most of us, our vocation calls us to be members of the "world." We are not called to completely shut it out. However, creating an inner sanctum to which we can retreat periodically helps us to stay focused on what is truly important - and can help us to nurture our spiritual growth on the road to sanctity.

Like many, I assumed that my busyness was out of my control. I was frustrated, but I really didn’t think I could do anything about it. Then I read about margin and I realized that feeling that I lacked control was exactly my problem! I had the same 24 hours in a day that you have, and how I use that time is really mostly up to me. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time - the typical perception of busyness. The real problem was overload - I was allowing other forces to take control of what I did in the time I had. Once I recognized the real problem, I decided to apply some Catholic principles that I had been teaching but not living. I began to exercise the cardinal virtue of prudence. I can honestly say that my life has changed. Busyness has all but disappeared.

And that is what I’d like to share with you in this series and beyond.

Now, what I have been applying to my life so far is pretty focused on time management. And that’s what we’ve been discussing so far in this series. But these concepts can actually be applied to a number of areas in life. So in this post I want to just explore some possible spheres in which we could apply these concepts. Getting deeply into each area is beyond the scope of this series. But the “Planning for Grace” program can take you as deeply into each of these domains as you want to go.

Let’s explore six spheres that we can apply the area of margin.

Time

No Margin Ned Episode 2: Time Management

We’ve already explored the idea of margin in time when we discussed the myth of busyness, and this will be our area of focus. When you take control of your time, you empower yourself to focus on what is most important. You therefore do not feel like life is “passing you by.” You have a strong sense of control over your time. You therefore don’t feel harried and rushed all the time. You don’t feel like you can’t fit another thing into your schedule, though you’re going to be judicious about what you choose to add. When the unexpected happens, you have the flexibility necessary to adapt.

Physical Energy

Much of our problem with overload is related to a lack of physical energy. This lack of energy is caused by being out of shape, lacking sleep, and eating poorly. At the same time that medical advances have gotten rid of many threats to human health, we are allowing bad habits to give us a “disease of lifestyle.” 50% of all deaths are related to lifestyle choices (Swenson, 96).

If you are able to build margin in physical energy, your energy levels stay fairly constant throughout the day without a large crash (except for the natural circadian rhythm low that happens in the early afternoon - prime time for a short nap). You can enjoy a productive, high energy day and rest at the end of the day in a satisfied way, rather than collapsing from exhaustion.

Emotional Energy

Emotional overload saps our strength, paralyzes our resolve, makes us more vulnerable, and erodes margin in other areas.

If you have emotional margin, you are empowered to confront problems and challenges with hope and a sense of power. Think of emotional energy like a bank account. All of us have a limited amount of emotional energy in our account. Overdrawing our account causes us pain. However, we can also make a deposit into this account. Building emotional margin is a matter of recognizing when we are approaching our limits, knowing when and how to put on the brakes, and how to recharge our emotional batteries.

Finances

No Margin Ned Episode 3: Finances

Living with financial margin means first of all living within our financial means. Debt is the main symptom of financial overload. However, according to financial expert Thomas Zordani, financial margin also includes having enough money saved to plan for the unexpected. In his book Faith Financies, Zordani recommends saving up to six months worth of income as an “emergency fund.” His book also has many other recommendations for creating financial margin.

Having financial margin gives you peace of mind and a sense of security. It is also the most practical form of margin. It can really save you when the unexpected expense comes up, or if you suddenly lose your source of income.

Moral

No Margin Ned Episode 4: Morality

Without moral margin, you are always living on the edge of sin. You may worry about the salvation of your soul because you can’t seem to kick the bad moral habits that continue to drag you down.

Living with moral margin begins with knowing what kind of person you want to become and what kind of person God created you to be and working toward those goals. It means erecting a hedge around yourself to protect you from sin - this is called “avoiding the near occasion of sin.” It means seeking the greatest good, rather than simply trying to avoid sin. This not only gives you a sense of peace about your eternal destiny, it fills you with joy, peace, and excitement.

Relationships

No Margin Ned Episode 5: Family

When you nurture margin in your relationships, you give your relationships the greatest gift you can. What Matthew Kelly calls “carefree timelessness.” This is the ability to completely dedicate yourself to being present with those you love, to the point that you lose all track of time. Total presence is the best way to nourish relationships.

One last word from No Margin Ned

So these are just six domains where we can build margin. And if we do, we will find the peace and happiness that alludes us in our overloaded world.

I’m speaking from experience here - from the overloaded side. I came very close to burnout a few years ago. This past year, I discovered this concept and have since been working out how to use this concept. I’ll share with you some of my successes and ongoing challenges - and hopefully I’ll bring you to the magic place of marginland a lot sooner than I got there!

So the next question that would be natural to ask is how do we build margin? We’ll begin to tackle that question in the next article. For now, I’ll give you the quick answer - the secret that I discovered. The virtue of prudence is the secret weapon.

First Name * Email *

And busyness is a myth as well as an addiction! Margin is where it's at!

What is Margin?

Margin is a time management concept that comes from Dr. Richard Swenson. He defines margin with the mathematical equation Power - Load.

• Power is the totality of resource at our disposal, including energy, skills, time, training, emotional reserve, physical strength, faith, financial resources, and social supports. 
• Load is the totality of the demands being made on us, including work, problems, obligations, commitments, expectations you place on yourself, expectations that other have of you, debt, deadlines, and interpersonal conflict (Swenson 70).

When that equations returns a positive "number" (we have more power than load), we have margin. We have reserves of our resources to dedicate to other areas of life or to deal with the unexpected. When the equation turns negative (our load is greater than our resource), we suffer from overload.

So one example of margin would be the amount of energy that you have available to apply to your daily activities. One of the main sources of this energy is our sense of control over our time. That's why busyness is so dangerous. Busyness is a sense that we are out of control, and lack of control sucks the energy right out of us. Busyness leads to overload rather than margin.

So, yes, we do have a time crisis. When I say that busyness is a myth I'm not saying that you don't have a problem. But my point is that the crisis is not so much busyness as it is margin.

Why do we have a margin crisis?

1. An incomplete definition of progress

One of the main reasons for the overload syndrom in our culture that Dr. Swenson identifies is a poor definition of progress. We can see the same idea in Catholic social teaching. For example, Gaudium et Spes(called "The Church in the Modern World" in English), a document from the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council (Vatican II), talks about the need for authentic human development. Authentic human develop means shaping culture, technology, economics, etc. In ways that help us to grow toward human fulfillment. Since human beings are both physical and spiritual, authentic human development includes both physical and transcendent (spiritual) improvements. Transcendent improvements would include things like freedom, growth in wisdom, strengthening relationships, seeking the answers to man's most pressing questions, and to seek God.

Dr. Swenson points out that the "modern world" defines progress based on technology, finances and education. These things are good, but they are not complete. They speak to our physical needs but not to our transcendent needs. 

Therefore our current definition of progress does not lead to authentic human development, and therefore to fulfillment and happiness.

2. Lack of understanding of overload

Another reason we have an overload epidemic in our culture today is that the concepts of overload and margin are relatively new in human culture. In my article "The Myth of Business," I used an illustration of a frontier woman who worked very hard all day long, but who did not experience overload. She was able to keep a sense of margin in her life. Overload is really a product of the industrial revolution. So we lack the historical awareness of the problem. Therefore, on a more personal level, we do not see that our live are getting overloaded until we run smack into the wall of burnout or psychological breakdown.

3. Sociological and psychological influences

Each of us actually has a number of factors in our lives that push us to overload. This is a cultural as well as a personal syndrome. 

• The need to feel productive & successful
• The sense of commitment to doing all we can for our families, our jobs and our society
• The desire to "have it all" in life, and the feeling that we are somehow behind everyone else
• The fear of being judged a slacker or weak or lazy
• The overemphasis our culture places on youth, giving rise to more severe midlife crises

4. Being drive to overload by authorities

Because overload is a cultural syndrome, those who have power over us and influence on us also fall prey to the same influences. Then they in turn become influences on us. Driven bosses drive employees to give everything they've got and then some to the job. Social leader tell us that we should be more involved in politics and social change. The media and gurus of various sorts tell us what we're missing in our quest for "progress" and what we need to do to attain it. We are often driven to overload even by well intentioned authorities in our lives.

5. Frivolous consumers of our power

One of the most common, most easily solved, and most often overlooked cause of overload are all of the small, frivolous ways that we waste our own time. I know that I am typical in this arena. If I have an hour dedicated to writing, I can easily use half of it aimlessly browsing email, social media sites and Internet site. I also tend to waste quite a bit of time watching movies and shows on Netflix.

Sometimes I waste time just figuring out what to do. Juggling my task list, trying to multitask, and getting stuck in "analysis paralysis" are all frivolous consumers of - not only my time - but also my energy. 

Marketing expert Dean Jackson calls them "reactive activators."

Consider your own habits. What frivolous consumers of your power take up your

• Time
• Emotional reserves
• Social support

6. Overload is the state of rest

The Law of Entropy states that if left alone, the universe naturally tends toward chaos. This is certainly true of overload as well. Overload is easy. It just happens. If you're floating - if you're not planning your time and energy - you will naturally run into overload. Margin takes planning, effort and work.

First Name * Email *

Busyness is the sign of the times. We all suffer from busyness in one form or another. It seems to us that every minute of our time is spoken for. Our schedules are full. We cannot possibly handle another commitment.

Perhaps including family time, prayer, learning our faith, and spending time with friends.

Find out what Blaise Paschal had to say about the effects of busyness and distraction on our relationship with God and on our happiness

And that would be fine if we were happy. But we're not happy, by and large, are we?

We are dissatisfied, harried, burned out.

Busyness cannot be a substitute for meaning in our lives, yet that is what we try to do.

But are we really as busy as we think we are?

Permit me to share two illustrations with you that will challenge your perceptions.

Example 1: Lori

Lori is a regular customer at From the Abbey book fairs. I love to watch her browse. She walks into the book area and draws the atmosphere around her shoulders like a cloak. She uses the bookstore ethos to shut out the bustle and stress of the outside world. She caresses the book titles with her eyes, and sometimes with her hands. But she never buys. She passes me by with a sad smile, sometimes verbalizing her regret other times expressing it with her eyes.

I wish I had time to read. Then her family bursts into her bubble. Husband and children are all in a hurry to leave. They all have places to go after Mass. Work and other commitments (and the occasional football game) call.

Example 2: Becky

Becky is a young mother living in western Wisconsin in 1868. She wakes up before the sun rises to stoke the fire and get breakfast started. After breakfast is eaten and cleaned up, and her husband is off to the lumber camp, she grabs some time to mend clothing and turn some butter. The baby and her two year old son also need tending to. Then it's time to make lunch. Her husband comes home for the midday meal and he is always very hungry. It has to be on the table as soon as he comes through the door because he doesn't have very long to eat if he's going to cut his quota today. Her husband comes and goes, and after lunch is cleaned up Becky goes out to tend the animals. Her afternoon Chris take up a good part of her day, but she still finds some time to make thread for her next weaving project - a blanket for the baby. Then she needs to start making supper. Her hard-working husband will be home soon, and hungry again.

After supper, she sits by the fire with her husband. They talk and read the Bible together. He spends some time with the children and helps get them to bed. Then he reads out loud to her from the latest news monthly periodical while she nurses the baby and cleans the kitchen. When the light gets too dim to read from the single lamp, they go to bed.

So Which Example Describes You?

We all have the perception that we have no more time to add anything else to our plate. The hard truth is that we have more discretionary time than anyone else in history. First of all, most of our time is not taken up with necessities of survival. Yes, we dedicate a lot of time to our careers. But we also have more time to dedicate to social engagements, to extracurriculars for our children, to television and other entertainment, and to our own hobbies.

Secondly, we have more time in the day. Electric lights, better shelter, and better health give us more time in a day than anyone else in history.

So we have more time in the day and more discretion over our time. Yet, we perceive ourselves as too busy.

Busyness is a myth!

So What’s the Real Problem?

And yet, it seems that we are addicted to busyness. 

Look, I’m no different. I claim to be too busy too. So I started taking a close look at myself. If I cannot claim busyness, what is the real problem?

As part of my exploration, I came across a book written by Wisconsin native Richard Swenson called Margin. And my eyes were opened. The concept of margin fit my life so perfectly I almost laughed out loud as I read it. I believe that Swensen has hit on a concept that is critical and life changing. And I’ll share it with you in the next article in this series. Then we'll talk about one key to finding margin - focus.

First Name * Email *

Busyness is one of the biggest hurdles to get over for Catholics who want to grow in their faith. We are not going to grow in our faith if we are too busy to pray. We are not going to defeat our ignorance if we don't take the time to study.

So the first step to grow in your faith is to conquer the curse of busyness. This tutorial will help you apply the principles of Catholic time management to gain control of your time, your energy, and your personal resources so you can focus on what is truly important.

I have personally found the principles taught in this tutorial to be life-changing. They have not only made me more productive in my apostolate work, they have improved my life, my marriage, my family and my faith. I hope you will find them as powerful to implement in your life as I have in mine.

Don't trust yourself to keep up with the tutorials on your own? Subscribe to this tutorial by email by filling out the form below

]]> http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-time-management/feed/ 0 http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-evangelization-reaching-those-we-love/ http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-evangelization-reaching-those-we-love/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:06:43 +0000 Jeffrey Arrowood http://www.fromtheabbey.com/?p=1286 The final concern that came through the client survey has to do - directly or indirectly - with Catholic evangelization. Many of you were concerned about loved ones - often grown children - who are no longer living the faith. It looks like you are trying some wonderful things to win their hearts back to God's]]>

The final concern that came through the client survey has to do - directly or indirectly - with Catholic evangelization. Many of you were concerned about loved ones - often grown children - who are no longer living the faith. It looks like you are trying some wonderful things to win their hearts back to God's love - from prayer to email campaigns. But the solution that is missing is a concept of Catholic evangelization.

• A better prayer life and how to sahre my faith with others.
• Courage to speak up when my Catholic faith is challenged
• I started a fmaily religion list where I periodically send out info on the Catholic faith. Sadly, many family mambers do not want th eemails. Too mant Catholics in name only.
• Soften the hearts of my children in their 20's so they can hear Jesus speaking to them better.
• Increase the communities knowledge of what a Sacramental marriage is.
• The faithfulness of all four of our children and their families in our beautiful faith would definitely double our gratefulness. Two families have turned away from our faith and two families are very active in the Roman Catholic faith...we'll keep praying!!!
• I am happier teaching CCD to share my love of Jesus to 6th graders Some of my adult children do not attend Sunday Mass even though my husband and I are faithful
• What hasn't worked: teaching my children something and then them see the exact opposite done in society.
• I became a convert to Catholicism when our youngest daughter was just a baby; I wish that I would have converted much sooner and then I might have been able to influence our three older children in their journey of faith. Thankfully, my husband, who graduated from Notre Dame didn't give up on me! God bless them all!!

Do any of these describe you?

Does This Describe You?

Pat sighed as she sat in her recliner at the end of the day and pulled out her Rosary. She always looked forward to this time of the day, when she could finally find some quiet and spend some time focused on God. As she made the Sign of the Cross, her mind immediately went to her daughter Sarah. Sarah was now 28 years old, and she hadn't gone to Mass since she was 18. Pat's peace was broken as her thoughts turned to worry. She had tried everything she knew to invite Sarah back to the faith. She had been praying for her for 10 years. Nothing seemed to work. Pat became sick at heart when she thought of her beautiful, sweet daughter spending eternity in Hell. Pat shook herself and focused her mind on the first decade of the Rosary. She would just have to rely on God's mercy. What else could she do? She was afraid to push any more than she had. ". . . Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy."

What Are You Afraid Of?

Pat's fear to "push any more" is very common. What if I told you that most of your fear could go away with better education? Catholics often fear evangelization because they don't truly understand it. Catholic evangelization is very different from the common image of evangelization we gain from some other Christians. For example, Catholic evangelization is not

• Standing at a street corner yelling Bible verses to people walking by
• Going door-to-door asking people if they have ever considered where they will go when they die
• Handing out pamphlets or tracts at a shopping mall and asking people if they're "born again" or "saved"
• Leading an educational or entertainment program in order to entice people to the faith

Just to prove that this isn't just by idea of evangelization, here's Dr. Scott Hahn talking about what to avoid when you evangelize as a Catholic.

In fact, a true understanding of Catholic evangelization can really open the door to a lot of positive action.

A True Understanding of Catholic Evangelization

OK, so what is Catholic evangelization if it's none of those things? Well, let's look at how Catholics view salvation. We do not consider ourselves simply saved as individuals who create a one-to-one relationship with Jesus. Yes, the Catholic Church does teach that we should have a personal relationship with God - a relationship based on trust, intimacy and love. We also believe that each person will be judged as an individual. But while we all of that is true, we also believe that we are not only saved from sin and death, but we are saved into God's Family. In fact, a relationship with God is automatically a family relationship - and therefore a relationship with each other.

So does that give you a clue about what Catholic evangelization is all about? It's about relationship and family.

There is no one formula for Catholic evangelization. But a truly Catholic form of evangelization always flows naturally from a real relationship. In other words, evangelization doesn't mean doing something alien to your nature.

Here's my simple formula for Catholic evangelization. We'll look more carefully at each of these elements in this series.

• Lead by Example -- Witness
  The Importance of Personal Sanctity in Evangelization
• Evangelize through Relationship
• Learn to listen
• Equip Yourself to Be the Go-To Person for Questions & Discussions
  Dr. Scott Hahn Discusses the Importance of Apologetics (knowing why we believe what we believe) in Catholic Evangelization

Dealing with a Loved One who Has Left the Faith

• Get rid of the Guilt
• Put Yourself in Good Company
• No Guarantees

]]> http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-evangelization-reaching-those-we-love/feed/ 0 http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-community-heart-catholic-learning/ http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-community-heart-catholic-learning/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:05:24 +0000 Jeffrey Arrowood http://www.fromtheabbey.com/?p=1276 Note: while this post is about smaller versions of a Catholic community, some of you may be interested in taking this idea to the next level and actually living in a Catholic neighborhood. Such a lifestyle has its strengths and weaknesses, but it's a fascinating idea. As I went through the client needs survey I was]]>

Note: while this post is about smaller versions of a Catholic community, some of you may be interested in taking this idea to the next level and actually living in a Catholic neighborhood. Such a lifestyle has its strengths and weaknesses, but it's a fascinating idea.

As I went through the client needs survey I was surprised to see the desire for Catholic community so low in the results. The need for a Catholic community was certainly present in the responses, just not as strongly as I expected it to be. 

You see, almost by definition Catholics are not loners. This is one reason we have such a difficult time sometimes communicating to our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters when they ask us  questions like, "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and savior?" We just don't think that way. Jesus is our savior, but he saves us not only from sin but into the Catholic community - the Family of God - the Covenant - the Church. 

Learning within a Catholic community is incredibly important. Yes, it is good to have quiet, alone time too. But learning with a community is a great way to move your knowledge from your head to your heart. When it is done well, growing in intimacy with each other within a Catholic community connects us to the family, and therefore helps us to grow in intimacy with the Divine Family (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

Here are some responses from the client needs survey that reflected a need for Catholic community

• Finding or building community, learning to contemplate
• Things that didn't work: trying to do it alone. It always helps to reach out and talk to others, go to events that help inspire and educate.
• Talk to my wife and athers more about my faith. Going to daily Mass more often. Both have helped.

As I write this, we are a week past the feast of the Epiphany and I am still thinking about our pastor's homily. He began by asking us what we have in common with the Magi who sought out Jesus.

1. The magi were outsiders to the Jewish people, just as most of us are.
2. The magi left everything to seek God, just as we are called to do (though most of us - including me  - struggle to do so)
3. The magi didn't go it alone. They traveled in a community, just as we Catholics always seek God in the context of a Catholic community.

Why Do We Seek Catholic Community?

The reasons that Catholics seek community range from the practical to the deeply theological. 

On a practical (natural) level, we seek community because God made us to need each other. Each of us is better when we are empowered by others. 

I have just joined a membership program for online writers. Despite the talents that God has given me as a teacher and writer, I would be foolish to think that I couldn't benefit from having other writers look at my writing, from seeing what content others are creating in their own areas, from exchanging ideas and support. And hopefully I am bringing the same value to the table that I am receiving from others. 

If there is such value in joining a community of writers, how much more value would there be in striving for growth in our faith within a Catholic community? 

By being a member of a Catholic community we give ourselves the opportunity to

• Learn from others aspects of our faith that we could never figure out on our own
• Hear fresh perspectives on ideas we had been taking for granted
• Get support for the changes you need to make in your path to conversion
• Come to realize that you are not the only sinner in the Church
• Learn from the struggles and successes of others who are on the same journey as you
• Gain accountability to help you take your growth in faith seriously

It's All About God & His Family

In addition to the practical and natural reasons to gain a Catholic community, there is also a supernatural and spiritual reason that we seek community. 

As a human being, you are created in the image of God. By his very nature, God is a Catholic community. More specifically, God is family love (if you want to learn more about the Trinity as family, buy Scott Hahn's talk on the subject - it's only $3 plus shipping and it is excellent).  The three divine Persons abide in a perfect relationship of family love, and as God's image you are created to exist in the same sort of relationship. This is why it was "not good that man should be alone" in Eden - why Adam needed Eve to be complete. 

God is faithful to human nature even in his act of salvation. Yes, you are judged and redeemed as an individual. But while you are redeemed from sin, you are also redeemed into God's family - the Covenant. At this stage in salvation history, the covenant - God's family - is expressed through the Church (have you ever wondered why we call priests "father" and religious "brother" and "sister"?). 

So our relationship with God is deeply embedded in our relationship with each other. Being part of a Catholic community is an expression of our connection to the larger Family.

In future articles, I'll explore how we can achieve a sense of authentic Catholic community.

This is definitely an element that I am going to want to pay attention to in the Catholic Learning Plan. Anonline community cannot provide a complete Catholic community experience, but a sense of community - the opportunity to interact with each other and provide help and support to each other - really needs to be an integral part of all Catholic adult learning. 

We'll explore more about this later. In the meantime, if you're not yet part of the little community of subscribers to these articles, why not give it a try? Fill out the form below to receive updates whenever I post a new article. And please, please, please comment on this article! The comments can be a great start to building a Catholic community! Let's do it!

]]> http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-community-heart-catholic-learning/feed/ 0 http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-spirituality/ http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-spirituality/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:40:23 +0000 Jeffrey Arrowood http://www.fromtheabbey.com/?p=1265 I recently stepped in to teach a high school Catholic spirituality class for a teacher out on leave. This was a time of spiritual discovery for me. My first question for myself is why I’m so miserably bad at growing my own Catholic spirituality. Now don’t get me wrong. I go to Mass at least]]> I recently stepped in to teach a high school Catholic spirituality class for a teacher out on leave. This was a time of spiritual discovery for me.

My first question for myself is why I’m so miserably bad at growing my own Catholic spirituality. Now don’t get me wrong. I go to Mass at least weekly and my family prays together every day. I pray Morning Prayer many days and spend an hour a week in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

Yet, despite these good habits I struggle with two obstacles to Catholic spirituality - as I believe many Catholics do

• Consistency - my current prayer life is routine, but it is far from disciplined. I have a very difficult time molding in new Catholic spirituality practices. For example, Morning Prayer and prayer with my wife are constant struggles.
• Depth - while I pray out of a general love for God, I wouldn’t say that my typical prayer experience is the kind of love that is supposed to move Catholic meditation prayer. It is more the fulfillment of a duty than a quiet time spent between best friends. Catholic spirituality is all about loving God more perfectly. I am falling a bit short in that.

The client needs survey reveals that many of you struggle with the same issues surrounding Catholic spirituality:

• A better prayer life and how to sahre my faith with others.
• Finding or building community, learning to contemplate
• Finding peace, finding peace, finding peace. And greater trust in God. Almost one in the same I suppose.
• Living my life in a way that mirrors God's will, being more mindful of God and His presence.
• Staying focused on our marriage improving my personal prayer life
• I need to have more faith and trust in God and His provision and guidance in my life. I need to look at life as a gift from Him, and look at all the positive things and not dwell on negative or self condemning thoughts.
• Consistent family prayer
• Prayer
• Continue to pray and stay faithful to my faith communities
• Active prayer life especially the sacraments. Acceptance of God's will
• Daily mass when possible, individual visits with our priest
• My wife and I have started praying together daily as a family and go to adoration once a week. Keeping focused on the reason we are here on earth, to show our Love to God and gain heaven for eternity.
• I like reading uplifting books.
• I have learned to accept suffering in reparation and I am trying to increase my participation in the Mass.
• Talk to my wife and athers more about my faith. Going to daily Mass more often. Both have helped.
• Worked - going to daily Mass. Praying the rosary as a family. Trying to read more about the faith. Didn't work - talking to others, letting society play into our lives too much.I am very happy with Jesus front and center in my life. I'm a living example for others and someone Christ can work through. I'm just so small compared to the clanging of secularism. I'll never give up.
• Continue to pray and read more scripture. Practice what my religion has taught me. Being too impatient and wanting my prayers answered the way I want them to be answered.
• Prayer & trusting in God works
• Need for Discipline and Virtue

A lot of our struggle with prayer has to do with what we previously talked about in this series - the need to exercise the virtue of prudence, and the need to grow in virtues surrounding self-discipline.

What's Mark Twain Got to Do With It?

Well, besides the introspection I also began to ask how Catholic prayer is best taught. The seniors that made up the Catholic spirituality class told me that they had a difficult time reading the spiritual books (we covered Story of a Soul, Imitation of Christ, and Interior Castle in my time with them). But they got a lot out of our discussion of the material. In other words, the ideas were valuable but wading through the works of the spiritual masters was difficult. In fact, while most of the seniors actually did read the assigned readings, none of them would have done so without the help of the discussions that shed light on what they were supposed to get out of it all.

My experience with these high school seniors got me thinking about adult Catholic learners and works of Catholic spirituality. Most Catholic spirituality books fall under Mark Twain’s description of classic literature.

"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." —Mark Twain

I think the connection between the spiritual masters and the literary classics is more than just surface. The reason most people don’t read the classics is because they don’t know how to read the classics. They don’t understand the underlying metaphors, cultural elements and literary styles that would help them get the true message out of it. The same is true of the great works of Catholic spirituality! The truth about the classics is that if you could receive the guidance of an expert teacher, you would actually love reading many of them (though I will admit not all of them - some of them are still real snoozers).

How much would your spiritual life grow if you could be guided through great works of Catholic spirituality such as Saint Therese of Liseux’s autobiography Story of a Soul, Saint Terese of Avila’s spiritual masterpiece Interior Castle, Imitation of Christ by Tomas A Kempis, Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis de Sales (my personal favorite), and Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross?

Hey - I’ve already done the work for all but the last one! Why not? Sign up to receive updates on this blog using the form below and we’ll get started on this project here. But I’ll also have some intense online classes produced that will take you through these works in even greater form. Then - with a lot less effort on your part - you and I can both enter into the world of meditation and (God willing) contemplation (I’ll explain the difference between those two types of Catholic prayer in a future post) together and share the experience!

]]> http://www.fromtheabbey.com/catholic-spirituality/feed/ 0 http://www.fromtheabbey.com/virtues-secret-transforming-life/ http://www.fromtheabbey.com/virtues-secret-transforming-life/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:18:20 +0000 Jeffrey Arrowood http://www.fromtheabbey.com/?p=1250 Could the secret to the life transformation you seek lie in the depths of ancient Catholic teaching? None of us is really satisfied with who we have become. We all know we can be better than we are. But how? The secret to transforming our life lies in the depths of ancient Catholic teachings. In]]> Could the secret to the life transformation you seek lie in the depths of ancient Catholic teaching?

None of us is really satisfied with who we have become. We all know we can be better than we are. But how?

The secret to transforming our life lies in the depths of ancient Catholic teachings. In something called virtues . The Cardinal Virtues. The Theological Virtues. The moral and intellectual virtues. The natural and supernatural virtues.

The desire for life transformation rang out strong and loud in the client needs survey. When I asked you what you need to be happy and to grow in your faith, you responded with things like

• I need to follow God's will rather than allowing myself to be ruled by my feelings.
• To live more simply and mindfully
• Develop the virtue of temperance
• Working on being humble in all that I do and giving everything I do back to God, as I am nothing with out him.
• Trying to make my Faith deep strong, inflexible and unwavering so if need be to die for it.
• Patience, forgiveness, less materialistic needs.
• Patience
• More patience with the spiritual changes taking place around me.
• Be more embracing of others

We don’t hear much about virtue today, not even in Catholic learning circles. We hear a lot about “Catholic values” instead. A value is simply something that you deem important. It’s a priority. Values are good and fine. They help us to stay true to ourselves, to live lives of integrity. But what they cannot do is raise us above ourselves and inspire us to reach for more. That’s the power of virtues.

A virtue is a good moral habit. It is the tendency to embrace what is truly and objectively good for us, what fulfills our potential and purpose. The source of goodness in a virtue lies outside of ourselves - beyond us. Therefore, they represent a good that we can aspire to.

Natural Virtues

The idea of a virtue predates what would properly be called Catholic thought. You can find references to virtue in ancient Jewish and Greek texts, for example. That’s because they originate in the natural moral law. In other words, they indicate how we can become more human and fulfill our human potential. The virtues that meet this description are the natural virtues. When we feel that we are weak in our personal character, we are sensing that we are lacking these natural virtues, which can also be called character virtues. Among the natural virtues, there are intellectual virtues that help us to grow in our ability to know truth and moral virtues that help us to embrace what is truly good.

Supernatural Virtues

When we examine our relationship with God, we may likewise feel that we are not quite where we would like to be. The supernatural virtues draw us beyond ourselves into the divine life of God. While the natural virtues make our life more fulfilling, the supernatural virtues can make our life glorious. In the realm of supernatural virtue, the intellectual virtues equip us to grow in intimacy with God (to know him more deeply) and the moral virtues empower us to love him more.

There are hundreds, and probably even thousands of natural and supernatural virtues. Where does one begin on the road to self improvement? Fortunately for us, our ancient Catholic teaching tells us exactly where to begin. There are seven that are key to them all.

Cardinal Virtues

The Cardinal Virtues are the four key moral virtues. The word “cardinal” means “hinge.” All other natural virtues hinge on these four powerhouses: prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice. So, if we can strengthen these four we pave the way to mastering the other natural virtues as well.

Theological Virtues

The three theological virtues give us a direct relationship with god. They make knowing and loving God possible. Therefore faith, hope and charity are the source of all supernatural virtues. Once you fully understand the glories of living the divine life, that statement will send shivers down your spine. Strengthening faith, hope and charity pens the door for us to a world of beauty and goodness beyond our imagination.

But How Do We Get There?

The Surprising Secret to Growing in Virtue

It won’t surprise you, I’m sure, to hear that growing in virtue is a matter of hard work and discipline. But you’ve heard the saying, “Work smarter not harder,” right? Well, that principle can be applied to growing in virtue as well! No, there are no shortcuts to developing our character. But there’s a way to make the work seem a lot easier - a way that certainly seems like a shortcut.

So again I invite you to join me on the journey! And this will be a journey for me too. Frankly, I stink at growing in virtue. I am surrounded by friends who have more self-discipline and self-control than I’ll ever have. However, I have had some increasing success. The surprising secret to developing virtue is to do it through practical practices. So, to grow in temperance (the virtue of balancing our desires for physical pleasures), I went on a diet, started counting calories, and dedicated myself to 30 minutes of exercise a day. These practical, measurable activities have really paid off! I slowly find my self control growing. Of course, as I write this it’s just past the Christmas and New Year’s festivities after I’ve gotten back into the habit of eating cookies and candy every day. But besides that, I’m doing really well!

Join me in the adventure!

]]> http://www.fromtheabbey.com/virtues-secret-transforming-life/feed/ 0