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February 24, 2023Stations and Soup
Wednesday, March 1st at 12:15pm
Family Stations
Thursday, March 2nd at 7pm
Drinking with the Saints (on the Evan’s Dock)
Friday, March 3rd at 6pm
If you really haven’t been too focused on your Lenten practices, this week is the time to turn that around. To jump start your Lent, commit to joining us for one or more of the above gatherings. The Stations of the Cross are a traditional Lenten practice. I lead them on Wednesday and the soup lunch afterwards is always a special time for those who gather. The Stations that Ryan leads on Thursday evening are also special, especially for families. And then Friday evening sees the return of Drinking with the Saints on the Evan’s Dock, 1210 Venetian Dr. The saints for March will be St. Katharine Drexel (the Philadelphia Filly is her drink) and St. Patrick (a variety of Irish beers). Because we don’t want to miss the 6:22pm Sunset we are starting at 6pm.
I know a good many of us developed a financial plan that allowed us to move to this beautiful paradise aka Tybee Island. And some of us have developed a plan of physical fitness so we might spend many a happy and healthy year in this beautiful paradise. But if you are like most Catholics, you probably don’t have much of a plan to get you to that eternal paradise aka heaven. Without a plan we sell our faith short, and so we sell our Lent short. Lent is the perfect time to develop a solid spiritual plan for your life.
So, many Catholics, especially those who no longer practice, think of the Faith as a series of rules that we need to live in conformity with. But if you don’t see the goal of the disciplines of faith, you are shortchanging yourself. The rules themselves are not the goal. We try to live a disciplined faith life as a path to God’s will, and therefore to an intimate and loving relationship with God and therefore to happiness.
What might a spiritual plan for your life look like? Each individual needs to make their own but it might look something like this: you might commit to 20 minutes of prayer each morning, one Mass a week in addition to your Sunday obligation, monthly confession, regular participation in a parish faith-formation group, subscription to a good Catholic podcast, and some sort of service like helping out at the Thrift Shop or Social Apostolate or Rising Tide. Perhaps you take one afternoon each month for some quiet recollection, and perhaps once a year you go on a retreat or make a pilgrimage for a few days. Now, if you’re starting out with barely making it to Sunday Mass most weeks that could seem intense and it is, but it is all a matter of how much happiness you want in this life and the next.
And as you have probably already realized, these spiritual commitments necessitate further human commitments. For instance, if you want to be attentive at prayer in the morning, you might have to get more sleep. To do that, you’ll probably need to use your cell phone less at the end of the evening. So, you set a limit to your usage: No cell phone after 10:30 p.m. Similar adjustments will have to be made throughout your life. If you intend to hold firm to your resolutions, you have to take practical steps to bring order to the whole of your life. A spiritual plan will dictate the terms of your diet, your sleep, your connectivity, your work, and your relationships. And with this human and spiritual discipline comes the promised freedom, freedom to choose what you genuinely love and what you aspire to love better. If that seems a daunting task, fear not. Next week, I’ll offer a few tips on how to make your spiritual plan a reality without driving you crazy. Sanctity should not trouble our sanity.
On the Way Home: What are some of the things we worship besides God? This Lent how can we do better at serving God alone?
