A Case of the Mondays

This morning was unlike most Monday mornings for me. Instead of taking 3 or more hits of the snooze button on my alarm clock I only took one and felt somewhat rested. Normally my Monday mornings are a bear b/c I get home so late from ministry on Sunday nights ~1am, and the latest I can really be sleeping is around 715 am so I can hopefully be in the chapel for Holy Hour at 730. I have a bad habit of being a couple minutes late and I end up only have a Holy fifty minutes. I’ve taken to strategize ways to combat my sleepiness and have found that a short brisk walk in the cold air usually shakes things up well enough to keep myself from falling back asleep in the chapel. It’s difficult sometimes since quieting my mind and body for prayer sets me up for being relaxed and ready to sleep some more.

I’ve come to know that my role in prayer is to simply clear out all the nonsense, rid myself of distractions, and be waiting in hopeful expectation for God to make the encounter. That’s what I’ve come to know through reading books on prayer and spirituality and my own experiences of honest encounters with God, sometimes a good day of prayer is simply being able to clear my mind of distractions and spend some good time being present with God in the Blessed Sacrament. There are also days when I have a good bit on my mind and I have to learn to be submissive to God’s will and put those things away trusting that God has a plan for them and if and when he required some cooperation from me he’ll let me know, but for now I need to be working on clearing out the things that don’t matter so God can continue His work of forming me.

I’m currently reading a book by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR entitled ‘Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones: Spiritual Answers to Psychological Questions.’ I’ve really been digging it so far and have found the psychological approach to it very appealing. The premise is that for each chapter or essay it takes two spiritual vices and pairs them up with one virtue to aid in conquering those vices and applies how they work or develop in our human psyche. He also identifies human tendencies and how we normally mature and overcome them by our approach and trust in God’s work in our lives. I identified with a passage I read this morning that put words to the growth that I’ve been feeling over the past couple months:

If you want to love, you must be willing to be vulnerable. The Gospel makes
it clear that if you extend your hand often enough in a gesture of love, someone
will drive a nail through it. If you love Christ, you must walk the difficult
road to Calvary. But you will begin to see yourself borne by powers that are
beyond you. It may not be very noticeable at first. It may be no more that
patience with criticism, or extra generosity after you have done enough. You may
feel firmly drawn to God even when you can’t pray. You will begin to change. And
this is the effect of charity, which will overflow into a love for others that
goes beyond affection or pity.

The Exultant Warrior

The past week and a half I had a good bit of fun with the things in my schedule. Starting on Friday I changed my first head light in a car, which gave me that good puff up your chest feeling of performing a successful manly task. That night I was heading to my former residence down in Woodbridge for some Irish Festivities with the fellas and had a grand ole time. I know October is an odd time for celebrating the Irish culture, but it was fun anyways.

Late morning Saturday I had my first monthly consecrated gathering with the other consecrated guys in Youth Apostles (there are 9 of us now). Being my first I didn't have too much of an idea about the normal flow of the gathering went, I just did my best to have read through the document we were going to begin to discuss (Fraternal Life in Community) and see where it went from there. I've noticed over the last couple years since they started these gatherings how the friendship between the consecrated brothers has grown and how that has had a domino impact on a number of other unifying things in Youth Apostles.

After the gathering Tom Yehl and I headed over to Clyde's in Old Town for a friends Birthday Brunch. The amusing part to that trip was that after brunch we were going to head over to get cup cakes at some place that was suppose to be a couple blocks up from the wharf. Well as we stepped out side the drizzle slowly and slowly turned into a full downpour and the "couple blocks" quickly came under close scrutiny as the rain fell harder and we still hadn't made it to our destination, but I kinda like walking in the rain myself. The kicker to the amusement was that the cup cake store was closed and Tom and I walked the "couple blocks" back to the car with no reward.

Later that evening I had dinner with my old roommates at the Paquette's house down in Lorton. The Paquettes are one of the Youth Apostle family; Mike and Helen and their four boys and two girls. Dinner was a lot of fun as most things are at the Paquette household...it reminds me a little bit of the environment at my house growing up with lots of energy and the older siblings being relied on more and more to wrangle the younger siblings when ever outsiders were at the house.


This past Wednesday, Fr Jack, Brian Abrams, and myself headed down to Virginia Tech to visit the Youth Apostle guys down there for some festivities and of course a Cheesy Western (the real breakfast of champions) or two. It was great to get to see the guys down there and was my first trip of the semester.

Yesterday, we had our house work day to clean up and reorganize "the ranch" seeing as when you live in a house with 15 or so bedrooms and a large amount of gathering space you need to set aside a good bit of time to conquer and divide. Afterwards we feasted on a very nice scallop and pasta dinner cooked here at the ranch, which prepared me for a night of costumes and college students (CCM Halloween Dance Party at GMU). It was a pretty impressive party that the students threw over at the FOCUS missionary house near campus, with shuttle rides and all. Yours truly donned a completely black get up with a pretty creepy looking batman mask. I didn't think it was that creepy but when you pull up to a curb late in the evening to pick up students, it can set an uneasy tone for someone to get into a car on Halloween with a person they can't easily identify. I only stayed for a couple hours as I needed to get some sleep and get up for some "Buff like Jesus" time the next morning.

I started out this morning a little bit ahead of myself. Actually a whole hour ahead as I forgot it was day light savings this morning. Since it was raining Jonathan and I headed straight down to the weight room to see what would get us motivated. I had found these 20 minute Yoga tapes a few weeks back and hadn't given them a shot yet. It was quite interesting to say the least, we started off with the flexibility tape and found out quickly the guy that was leading the exercise was related to gumby. We pushed on and did our best and learned some of the Yoga language as I'll call it. The mountain pose, the upward dog, the downward dog, the exultant warrior, and a few others. I kinda digged it and will probably keep that in the rotation.

Another development over the last couple weeks is that I decided after I cut my hair it was time to get over this despisement that I have of facial hair and pretty much hair in general...or at least challenge it. I did that by starting to let things go for a few weeks and not shave...and for the most part I kept to that. Someone had mentioned to me recently that in the original rule for the Franciscans that it was mandatory that the brothers had to grow a beard and the reasoning behind it was because "it is the manly and austere thing to do in imitation of Jesus Christ, Francis, and the early Church Fathers" I'll probably be "manly and austere" for one more week before shaving it off so my family can heckle and let me know what they think. ;)