I’m back! Phew…close to three weeks without blogging, and I felt it. I wasn’t intending on taking a break, but I got out of my rhythm and had a hard time finding it again. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit stepped in this past Monday through the words of Sacred Scripture and gave me a powerful incentive to sit down for a few hours on Wednesday and bang out a mid-Lenten reflection piece, A Prophet Without Honor, An Easter Without Anticipation. That serves to give the writing bug a much-needed kickstart!
This past Saturday I made my Lenten pilgrimage to the shrines in Emmitsburg, MD, which turned out to be an incredibly fruitful day filled to the brim with prayer. I went with my friend Channing, who drove down from Lancaster, PA and met me at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. After opening with a couple of prayers to St. Bernadette and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we entered the shrine and proceeded to get lost in prayer for the next two hours. It was wonderful! We prayed the Stations of the Cross, spent time in prayer before the tabernacle inside the small chapel on the site, prayed and lit candles at the Grotto itself, ascended further up the mountain to a depiction of Calvary where we prayed further, and then made our way back down and out along the Rosary Trail, praying the Sorrowful Mysteries as we went. If you’d asked me how long it felt like we were there, I would have said 45 minutes, tops. The time just flew by as we immersed ourselves in the grace-filled atmosphere of that shrine.
After grabbing lunch, we went down the road to the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where we spent more time praying in the basilica before the saint’s relics and in front of Our Lord in the tabernacle. We closed by going to the adjoining cemetery and praying the Seven Sorrows and the Divine Mercy Chaplet before another depiction of Calvary. When I visited these shrines for the first time back in January, I walked away feeling filled to the brim with the bubbling joy of Christ. This time I experienced instead a deepening of my interior peace and the sense that, as I progress along my Lenten pilgrimage, my feet are securely planted on the steady ground of God my Rock.
This past week I’ve been on a Audrey Assad kick (if you don’t know her, she is a wonderfully talented Catholic artist who has put out a couple albums of beautiful Christian music), and her song Known is really resonating with me. Every time I hear the lyrics “As a lover knows his beloved’s heart, All the shapes and curves of her even in the dark…” I get a little shiver.
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I recently started to make a more conscious effort to take a minute or two before beginning prayer to still my mind and heart and place myself in the presence of God. I got the idea primarily from reading Introduction to the Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales. He outlines a series of meditations as part of a program of purgation from sin and from the affection for sin that he lays out as the starting point for anyone seeking to practice genuine devotion to Our Lord. Each of these meditations begins with placing oneself in God’s presence. While I am not working through the meditations themselves, this aspect struck me as a good practice to adopt.
For such a quick and simple thing, this tiny step has made a huge difference in my daily prayers, especially when I pray the Divine Office. I begin by closing my eyes, bowing my head, and taking several deep breaths. Then I just take a minute to meditate silently on the reality of God’s presence in relation to me: God the Father permeating and guiding all Creation around me; God the Son a short distance away in the tabernacle at my church, waiting with longing for the moment when I next come to communion rail and He can once again take up His dwelling in my own poor flesh; God the Holy Spirit burning as a pure flame of love in my heart of hearts. Then I continue on to whatever prayers I plan to offer up.
This practice only takes a minute or two, but it has been highly fruitful. It really helps me to quiet my mind and rid myself of the extraneous thoughts that oftentimes linger and intrude into prayer, and it causes the prayers I offer more heartfelt and reverent. It truly does feel as if God is closer.
Have you adopted a cardinal to pray for during the upcoming conclave? Well, why not?! Click through and get on that! My cardinal is Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, SJ, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
These past two weeks have been fairly momentous for me with regards to my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary:
- I was finally enrolled in the Confraternity of the Brown Scapular
- After months of struggle, I have gotten back into the habit of praying the Rosary every day, which I directly attribute to the extra graces I have received from my Brown Scapular enrollment
- On Wednesday I began the thirty-three preparation to make the Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary, according to the method of St. Louis Marie de Montfort
I am so excited that I will be making my Act of Total Consecration in just thirty-two days on the Feast of the Annunciation! This is something that I have felt called to do for over a year, and to be finally taking this step and giving myself over to the service of the Queen of Heaven fills me with such joy and excitement! Thank you, Lord Jesus and Blessed Virgin of Carmel, for leading me to this point through the heartwarming example and gentle encouragement of a good friend and sister in Christ. Please guide my steps, my thoughts, and my prayers as I continue to pass into an ever deeper devotion and love for the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. Totus Tuus, Maria!
Finally, I’ll do something that I rarely do and ask for a prayer request for myself. My doctor is going to be filing paperwork on my behalf to get me enrolled in a prescription assistance program so that I can afford to keep taking the medication that helps me to manage my ADHD. Please pray that this goes smoothly and quickly and that I am approved (he says that I should be, but I’m not taking anything for granted). My medicine makes a big difference in my quality of life: improving my focus, increasing my motivation, cutting down on my anxiety, and helping me to feel awake and alert. The past few weeks I have cut back to one pill a week, and while I have been managing adequately, it has been more difficult, though, praise God, not as much as I feared it might be. Thank you so much for any prayers you can offer up for this intention!
God bless!
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!
