Resisting Happiness
Post #64, March 24, Blessed Oscar Romero
“Well here I am, at the end of the book. I have beaten resistance.” (p 185) Last post for this part of the blog….with the business of Lent, the other pages and writing I needed to do, I haven’t done justice to the last few pages…but persistence and perseverance has brought me here…now the hard part begins.
Do we just put the book down and go…thanks be to God I have checked this off my list? Or do we go back daily, pick up the cross, practice the spiritual works we have learned and begun and follow Jesus?
The great gift of freedom says, IT IS YOUR CHOICE!
Remember there are a few basic steps
Quickly they are found on pages 153-54
- Believe: Have faith that holiness is possible….
- Ten minutes a day: create a daily habit of prayer
- Hour by hour: Offer each hour to God for a specific intention
- Feed you mind: Read the Bible or a spiritual work
- Serve powerfully: look to serve others
- Mass: Weekly and if possible at daily one, two or 7 times a week.
- Fasting: Not just for Lent…deny yourself in small ways
- Reconciliation: Check out times for confession at your parish
I will be praying that your resistance is conquered daily by the love and faith we share in Jesus Christ.
Be assured of my prayers for each of you today and forever.
God Bless, Fr. Mark
Post #63, March 21, Blessed John of Parma
I am back after my Marriage Encounter Weekend, rested and full of joy. As noted above…we are almost finished. The last two chapters of the book are here. I would continue to encourage you to review, re-read, “Resisting Happiness” and listen and pray with Matthew Kelly in his short videos found at http://dynamiccatholic.com/bestlentever/
Realizing that we are “Blessed and Grateful” (p 183) is the beginning of understanding the amazing transformation that occurs in our lives. Blessed is seeing the world with eyes of love and understanding…grateful is the response, the tugging of our hearts, to the abundance of blessing surrounding us.
Blessed, for me, is knowing the desire God has for my holiness in the people he sends daily into my life. It is not always easy to see and accept them as blessings and there are times when I ask God not to bless me so much, but even in these challenges, when I have my heart opened to knowing I am blessed and love then I can and do grow in holiness…and this is all God wants from us…to be holy, to be saints, to be like Jesus.
I saw a quote the other day that has stuck in my mind….I can’t remember where or who said it but it’s stuck in my mind. “God doesn’t want us to be like other Christians…he wants us to be like Jesus.” Amen.
God bless
Post #61, March 17, St. Patrick
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Let’s talk about perseverance and persistence in the eyes of faith…and we have the St. Patrick…what a blessing. If you read his story you understand how he began to do the work of God and slowly but surely changed the world. Bringing Jesus to others does this. Matthew Kelly shares this small quote, “resistance hates persistence.” (p 181)
Prayer the prayer below…
A prayer from St. Patrick
“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”
If we always have Christ with us, then we can never truly fail. We will be following God’s plan for us.
An Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Post #60, March 16, St. Clement Mary Hofbauer
)rats again…forgot to this save yesterday.
“When you are discouraged or caught up in procrastination, simply do the tiniest thing to move whatever you are working on forward.” (p181) great advice.
We are often overwhelmed and discouraged in the spiritual life and can find ourselves stuck and unable to move forward.
What to do? Well this is a very good question because we should be able to ask this when we are stuck…”What is the one thing I can do today that will make me and the world better?” Nothing grand or earth shattering perhaps but surely something good and holy…a small prayer, an act of mercy and kindness, a blessing shared with our loved one…all of these are responses to “What to do?”
It is the gift of persistence that Matthew Kelly writes about. It is slowly, gently and with joy moving forward celebrating the gift of life.
God bless
Post #59, March 13, St. Leander of Seville
At the end of Chapter 34 Matthew Kelly offers to us a prayer of transformation (p 177) and challenges us to pray this prayer as a novena (9 days) in making ourselves totally and completely (100%) available to God.
The last line of the prayer is the hope that through our lives we may lead others to Jesus Christ. This is the witness we are called to be in the world. The Second Vatican Council in the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ‘Lumen Gentium'” reminds us, we are all called to holiness, to be a holy people. A people who show forth the light of Christ in all we do.
As we pray this prayer of transformation…just a reminder of the other steps we are called to take.
Quickly they are found on pages 153-54
- Believe: Have faith that holiness is possible….
- Ten minutes a day: create a daily habit of prayer
- Hour by hour: Offer each hour to God for a specific intention
- Feed you mind: Read the Bible or a spiritual work
- Serve powerfully: look to serve others
- Mass: Weekly and if possible at daily one, two or 7 times a week.
- Fasting: Not just for Lent…deny yourself in small ways
- Reconciliation: Check out times for confession at your parish
God bless
Post #58, March 11, St. John Oligvie
Are you available to God? That is the one question Chapter 34 asks in “Resisting Happiness” and it is a very good question.
There has been a lot of ink and internet writing spilled on the availability of people in the “social media” society. The Facebook “maybe” when answering and invitation is often seen as the exemplar of the problem. Many people, even when they RSVP to a party/event, do not feel the need to show up if something better comes along. This can also be our pattern with faith and God.
As a priest it is disheartening when a family prioritizes the Superbowl Sunday parties over attending Mass in the morning. Or when sports and after school activities take away our young people from learning more about their faith and growing in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I know that many people will respond with “It’s only once a year.” or “It’s only for a short time in their lives.” but in reality it sends a deep message about how available I am to serving God and serving my sisters and brothers. God does want us to have fun, to celebrate, to achieve in all areas of our life, that’s the truth. But God wants us to do this knowing we give Him honor and glory always pointing back to His grace and blessing. And we can’t do with this without knowing Him, being available for time with Him and speaking with Him from our heart daily in prayer.
God bless
Post #57, March 10, St. Dominic of Savio
For what purpose did God create you? Many of us would answer this question with our specific vocation. God created me for the purpose of husband/wife/priest/religious/single to serve others in this gift of grace. We may look at occupations or other works that may define us in our purpose on earth. Whatever we answer, and all answers are acceptable as long as they include a very short word….SERVICE…God has created us to be of service to our brothers and sisters in the world.
Now, believe it our not, this is not always the answer people want to hear or do in their lives. Our temptation in resisting happiness is to hold ourselves apart, to isolate, to ignore, to shun, to ostracize, to expel, to do everything to protect our being from the messiness of life, which means the messiness of love. It is all so very hard.
Jesus’ call to service is sacrificial but also bountiful. We discover the truth of receiving more than we give in each action of sacrificial service. We remind our self that the service we do is done not for our benefit but for the blessing of God’s love. We serve others to bring them closer to Jesus Christ.
St. Pope John Paul II spoke these works in Rio de Janeiro in 1980, “Now this is the only motive that the Church–and with her the Pope at this moment–has before her eyes and in her heart: that every man and woman may meet Christ in order that Christ may walk with every person along the ways of life.”
Matthew Kelly ends chapter 33 with this Key Point: you cannot be happy focused onyourself. You were made for mission. It’s deep within you. Only by serving others in a meaningful way do we truly discover the happiness we yearn for so unrelentingly. (p 173)
Reach out and serve someone in love today.
God bless
Post #56, March 7, Sts. Felicity and Perpetua
The link above is from Dynamic Catholic’s resource The Best Lent Ever program where Matthew Kelly is discussing “Resisting Happiness” daily..chapter by chapter….Just a thought to subscribe and continue the journey of Lent.
It is also a wonder way to recap the book if you have finished it…or haven’t begun it…or are stuck somewhere in the middle. Don’t resist happiness…embrace the sacrifice and the challenge.
God bless
Post #55, March 6, St. Mary Ann of Jesus of Paredes
“Each night before my children go to bed I spend a few minutes with each of them. they call it “special time,” and different rituals have developed for each child during that time.” (p 163)
If we believe that God is our Father, then just as Matthew Kelly describes his nightly ritual with his children as “special time,” should we in our nightly ritual have special time with God as his beloved children.
Just to let you know…the answer should be a “yes.”
What is your nightly ritual of special time with your Father? Mine as a priest is praying the Night Prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours. It begins with an examen of how the day went…this happens before night prayer. Night Prayer follows. Then a quiet few minutes asking the saints whose images adorn my prayer chapel to pray for me and with me for the many intentions shared with me that day. I end with a prayer in bed with our Blessed Mother and the invocation of the protection of Michael the Archangel and my guardian angel for a peaceful and protected sleep.
It can sound quite elaborate, but believe it or not it brings me to a place where rest comes quickly as I have taken time with God, my Father, my special time with him and my brothers and sisters, the saints that surround me in prayer and love.
What’s your special time routine? If you don’t have one…try to begin with something simple and God will bless you abundantly.
God bless
Post #54, March 5, First Sunday of Lent
Sorry I wasn’t able to post yesterday, I was helping to present a Works of Mercy retreat to married couples. It was truly great.
Chapter 32 is entitled “Let Your Light Shine” and Matthew Kelly on the first page of the chapter writes, “Every person lets his or her light shine in different ways. Every person has a perfect mix of talents abilities.” (p 162) These two short sentences are at the heart of our resistance to happiness. Do you truly believe them to the deepest core of your being. I certainly don’t. I can list a thousand things I wish I was better at or could do at all. I could tell you all my faults and failures by the bucket full and still I do believe these words at the deepest core of my being too. I know God has made me good and for a purpose in this world. I know God has given me all the talents and abilities to do this mission in abundance and grace…but…..
I had a meeting several months ago with a young mother of three children…all below the age of 5. She sat down, burst into tears and said, “I am a terrible mother!” Of course she wasn’t but in some way she had been tempted into believing this lie. She simply, as I listened, encouraged, listened, prayed, listened, encouraged, was a human mother who at times would fail but loved her husband and her children deeply. God had given her everything she needed to be a wife and mother but it didn’t mean she would and will at times fail. That is what we need to embrace…God’s goodness, our failures and His wish to help us move always into blessings.
God bless
Post #53, March 3, St. Katharine Drexel
“We think you are wasting your life and you need to make some changes,” (p 159) If we have ever heard these words or similar words we know how much they can sting. Matthew Kelly in “Resisting Happiness” shares his response of surprise, shock and stunned into silence, and if you have ever met him in person you would know exactly how big the effect of these words were on his life. And yet, they were needed words in his life as they are in our life from time to time.
This is where friendship, relationship and the self reflection and stillness of life come into play. If we don’t have deep and abiding relationships and take time to reflect and be in the relationships of love and happiness then we truly are wasting our lives. Even the world in a small way recognizes this reality. If we think of those credit card commercials that list the price of so many things bought and shared, then the word priceless is given to the time spent with another.
More importantly, as we enter Lent, it is a good time to look at those 8 things in Post #51 and with a good and honest friend ask the question. Am I wasting my time with what I am doing to get closer to God, my spouse, parents, family, friends, work etc or do I need to change.
We know from experience and the reflections in the book, change is hard…but always necessary when we are pointing towards God and the love of the people surrounding us.
God Bless
Post #52, March 2, St. Agnes of Bohemia
“I have had some incredible spiritual experiences over the years, but it is the ordinary daily spiritual practices that matter the most. These day-to-day encounters with God are a hundred times more important than the extraordinary graced-filled spiritual experiences that God gives us sometimes.” (p 155)
I echo these words with a hearty Amen! As a priest I have participated and been present at some miraculous moments in the life of many people and yet, as Matthew Kelly writes, my faith and love in Jesus Christ are found more readily in the daily prayers, celebrating Mass,visiting the sick, interacting with the office staff and meeting with parishioners and my brother priests for dinner or drinks. This is truly the foundation of our faith.
And it makes senses. For all the moments that are shared with us in the Gospels, how many more days and nights did the Apostles and his disciples spend with Jesus doing very ordinary things. We are always tempted to just look for the miracle and in doing so miss the blessing that comes through the normal interactions of life.
If we think of marriage and the love between the husband and wife we see this even more clearly. Yes, there are moments of great passion and love shared together but it is in the daily kindness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, sacrifice and self-giving, often unnoticed by every one except the two united with God in love….
Today and every day, look for the and share the small blessings we experience and give.
God Bless
Post #51, March 1, Ash Wednesday
In many ways we have come full circle as we begin Chapter 30 of “Resisting Happiness” The First Intervention.
It is a good place to start Lent as Matthew Kelly through the eight steps covered in the book thus far.
Quickly they are found on pages 153-54
- Believe: Have faith that holiness is possible….
- Ten minutes a day: create a daily habit of prayer
- Hour by hour: Offer each hour to God for a specific intention
- Feed you mind: Read the Bible or a spiritual work
- Serve powerfully: look to serve others
- Mass: Weekly and if possible at daily one, two or 7 times a week.
- Fasting: Not just for Lent…deny yourself in small ways
- Reconciliation: Check out times for confession at your parish
If we can follow this process then we will have the best Lent, the best year and the best life that God has planned for us.
God bless
Post #50, February 28, Fat Tuesday
Tomorrow morning we will begin the great pilgrimage of our Lenten journey towards the Cross of Good Friday and entering the darkness before the bright dawn of Easter morning. This is the journey we all must make as disciples of Jesus Christ.
During the two months we have been reading an discussing “Resisting Happiness” much of our discussion has centered around the reality of discovering how we are sabotaged by our own actions. As we talk about the fasting, praying and alms giving we often don’t like these discipline and are frustrated with how we can “get through” Lent as quickly as possible.
The fasting we do is to empty the resistances from our life and allow the place to be filled with God’s peaceful presence.
A few weeks ago I went on a call to give Last Rites to an elderly man who had been a parishioner for many years until sickness did not permit him to attend Mass and for the last 11 years living in a nursing facility. When his daughter called and as I spoke with her at the hospital almost the entirety of the conversation of was why she didn’t go to Mass anymore and how she was worried that when she called the parish we wouldn’t come to anoint her father. She never shared why she stopped but I simply assured her that we would pray for and bless her father and we would always welcome her and the family back with joy. Reminding her, God always waits for her. Letting go of resistance means we must take the first step.
God Bless
Post#49 February 27,
“Prayer can truly change our life. For it turns your attention away from yourself and directs your mind and your heart toward the Lord. If we look only at ourselves with our own limitations and sins, we quickly give way to sadness and discouragement. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, then our hearts are filled with hope, our minds are washed in the light of truth, and we come to know the fullness of the Gospel with all its promise and life.” (Address to the youth at New Orleans, Sept 1987) St. Pope John Paul II
A pilgrim lives the words of St. John Paul II in a very special way because the intention of the journey is to see beyond and gather together the hopes of life, the dreams of discipleship. Why is this? Because for we who follow Jesus Christ prayer is never a solitary adventure. Even praying in the quiet of our room, alone and undisturbed we are united with a great communion of saints, the angels of heaven, the Church on earth and most intimately with the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are never alone.
Pilgrims understand this joyful noise that surrounds us. I recently spoke with a person who had went to Lourdes in France and he commented on how noisy and chaotic it seemed until they entered the final preparation when all began to be quiet as they heard the voice of our beloved God begin to whisper and calm and silence the heart. He spoke of how he knew he was connected by this great mystery to the millions of pilgrims that had gone before him to bathe in the waters of Lourdes and how we would always be united with each pilgrim who would follow seeking healing, mercy and peace in their lives.
He shared with me how this truth opened his soul to be filled with the blessings of life as he lived more fully the gift of being part of the living and breathing Body of Christ.
God bless
below are some Lenten resources.
Best Lent Ever from Dynamic Catholic (Matthew Kelly) http://dynamiccatholic.com/bestlentever/
Word on Fire Ministry (Bishop Robert Barron) http://www.lentreflections.com/
Busted Halo Young Adult Ministry (Fr. Dave Dwyer) http://bustedhalo.com/video/go-into-the-desert-this-lent
Evango Catholic Ministry (Patrick Sullivan) https://evango.net/
Redeemed Online http://redeemedonline.com/
Morning Offering (The Catholic Company) http://www.catholiccompany.com/morning-offering/signup/#features
Post #48 February 26, 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Our Gospel reading at Sunday Mass can be very instructive in letting go and relying on God. It is an exposition on not Resisting Happiness but rather to embrace the blessings of life. (Mt 6:24-34) Jesus encourages us to not worry about tomorrow but live fully in the life given today. This is not a don’t worry be happy philosophy, rather it is a allow yourself to trust in what is greater in your life.
Chapter 29 “Are you a Pilgrim or a Tourist?” can help us understand this Gospel reading in a wonderful way. First, a pilgrim will take advantage of the blessings presented to them in the moment. To take time to wonder at the beauty of what is seen. To talk with those around us. To tell our stories and allow the moment to become the blessing. To allow the relationship and experiences to radically transform or views of life and our very life it self. The tourist is always worried about the next thing, the next place the end of the time and can miss the beauty that surrounds them as they rush and view the vacation through the small lens of the smart phone and camera. Where we are not changed but rather store the time in a album which becomes dusty and forgotten in search of the new experience.
As we wrap up this book and move to Lent, (don’t worry I will still be reflecting on the book even during Lent), we may ask this simple question, How am I going to live my Lent? As a pilgrim or as a tourist?
God bless
http://aleteia.org/2017/02/23/when-is-ash-wednesday/
Post #47, February 25, Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio
“Be gently with yourself, be gently with others, and never stop striving to be all that God created you to be: the-very-best-version-of-yourself.” (p 145)
This small piece of advice Matthew Kelly shares with us, that was shared with him and I am certain has been shared throughout time needs to be repeated again and again because we are often very hard on our self. Or at least I am.
We do want to be the-very-best-version-of- our self that we can be and God truly has this in mind as he created us to be this way. We should always strive for excellence but never at the cost of love. We should set goals that challenge us and others but never at the price of community. We should keep our moral standards in line with God’s will but never to degrade the other in our life. This is the balance of discipleship in and through Jesus Christ.
The advice given to all priests is that we must celebrate the reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation frequently. Why? Because it helps us to discover God’s compassion and mercy in our own life and then (hopefully) to share this compassion and mercy when we enter into the Sacrament as healer and guide. In receiving God’s mercy and compassion we act in the same mercy and compassion. Think of the parable of the steward who was forgiven a great debt and Jesus’ desire that he share this forgiveness with others. (Mt 18:21-35) God is willing and excited to forgive and desires us to be the same.
The invitation into relationship is always done in kindness. No husband romances his future bride with words of unkindness and no wife calls her future husband to unity with a mean spirit. It is done with the kindness of love.
The last sentence of Chapter 28 reads, “every person who ever crosses your path needs a little compassion.” (p 145) Don’t we all.
God Bless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGJRFkkc-q8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yZ5gryEZTc
Post #46, February 24, Blessed Luke Belludi
I often look at my calendar the night before I go to bed and make plans for the day. I notice where I will have a few minutes to rest, an hour to exercise, taking time for prayer and the other daily activities that fill up the time. I know many of the plans that I make the night before will be overturned by what walks through the door throughout the day or the traffic and time needed to get from the parish and back for visits and appointments. But I am always hopeful the new day will be filled with moments of grace and blessings even as I get frustrated and tired when “my plans” don’t go the way the should.
One the areas of resisting happiness Matthew Kelly describes from bottom of page 139 to 142. The desensitizing of our life to sin makes it more difficult to see the life of blessing and grace that surrounds us. Each time I read this analogy that he shares, and he has shared it in several books, I always go and clean out the back seat of my car. It doesn’t get used often by people so the tidbits of life seem to accumulate and yes begin to look normal rather than the mess they are.
Each day, the selfishness of life, seeks to want to believe only “my way” will make me happy. Only if things go exactly to plan will I finally be satisfied and be able to say…What a great day. The reality of our life with God and others is when we do it only and always “my way” we loose the flavor of life and we loose the friendship of life.
Spiritual friends/coaches/guides help us to see God’s way is also my way when I embrace the other in my life.
God Bless
Post #45, February 23, Memorial of St. Polycarp
For the past few posts we have looked at a spiritual coach. In Chapter 28 “The Light is On” Matthew Kelly reminds us of the great spiritually coaching that occurs during the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The first line of the chapter “”When was the last time you went to confession?”John asked” (p 138) is a pertinent question for many of us. I know the last time I went…it wasn’t that long ago but I know from experience that for many of us, it has been a long, long time.
Going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) on a frequent basis has two wonderful effects…first, we have our sins forgiven and we know God’s love for us is great–even in my sinfulness…second, we get great spiritual coaching. Believe it or not the priest does not get tired of forgiving the same sin over and over again because like you, most priests (including me) confess the same sins over and over again to their confessor. What we gain by frequent confession is advice, encouragement and embracing happiness rather than the self deception that comes from thinks we can do it on our own. Resisting happiness, as we understand by now, is to go it alone, thinking we are able to do everything without the love of the other in our life. God loves you deeply and wants to heal you with His Divine Mercy.
Come to be blessed in the great sacrament of healing. Below are two short clips about Reconciliation. The first a reason for confession and the second how to do it if you haven’t been for a long time.
God Bless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAhOvcD9ng
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8pzvnnL20
Post #44, February 22, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
Who do you think was the spiritual coach of St. Peter? It is a great question to ponder. Certainly, during the 3 years they were together on earth Jesus would have been a great “spiritual coach.” But who would have followed him in Peter’s life?
If St. Peter was anything like normal people, and we know he was, he most probably resisted being coached (resisting happiness) and stumbled and failed because of this stubbornness of heart. I get that way often. Spiritual coaches are often people that are present in our lives for long period of times but they can also be the drop in and share coaches also.
A spiritual coach could be a retreat master for those couple of days or a friend from college who is able to help you see how far you have wandered from the dreams and hopes of a happy and holy life. It is also someone who reminds us to do what we should be doing to be happy, holy and healthy in our daily life.
Whom ever it is, it is a call to community. Reminding our self and others that we are on this journey with Jesus and the whole Church. Yes, it is harder at times because of the others (and I am sure they think the same thing because of me) but it is truly better because we are each enriched by the love and experience of the other. This is what it means to truly embrace happiness–seeing the blessings that the other brings into my life.
God Bless
Post #43, February 21, Memorial of St. Peter Damian
Chapter 26 of “Resisting Happiness” talks about listening and more than just listening to seek out a “spiritual coach” to help us to follow and embrace the plan God has for us to live our life of holiness and happiness.
So who makes a good coach? First and foremost, someone who listens. A good coach always first works with the person in front of them and is not trying to change the person into their own image and likeness. Second, to have the best interest of the other in mind. It’s not about them rather it is about the person who is seeking what is greater and better in their life. Third, they share a similar goal/direction in life. Do you know someone like this?
They certainly do not need to be an “expert” but rather someone who is willing to grow with you and guide you in your growth. This takes trust and confidence but most importantly a shared direction.
A few quick thoughts. First, a coach could be part of a prayer group, a bible study, a peer who is growing in faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Walking in the journey like we do with this (almost) daily blog and reflection and then choosing to talk about it with others we find the smaller coaches helping us to discover our ways of living our faith in joy and blessing. Of course there is also seeking out a spiritual direction in a very formal manner. It is a reminder of a very old saying from our tradition, “the person who is their own spiritual director has a fool for a spiritual director.”
Seeking out coaching is important and as we follow the steps shared with us by Matthew Kelly we truly discover the happiness in our life.
God bless
Post #42, February 20, Presidents Day (Memorial of Blessed Jacinta and Franco Marto)
“Day by day, man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives. When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain. In this regard our contemporary age has developed the hope of creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable. Thus Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real “Kingdom of God”. This seemed at last to be the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of galvanizing—for a time—all man’s energies. The great objective seemed worthy of full commitment. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly receding. Above all it has become apparent that this may be a hope for a future generation, but not for me.” (Spe Salvi: Saved by Hope #30)
Pope Benedict XVI wrote the wonderful reflection on hope as an understanding of how we are called to hopefulness in our lives. In reflecting on self-denial we might ask the question, What is our hope? Surely we cannot deny our self unless we have a hope for some better outcome. What is this better outcome? It always, as Pope Benedict reminds us, be something greater than we are, transcendent in nature. A deeper, more joyous, happy love that draws us out of our self and into another. Resistance to this happiness is the fear of sin and of inadequacy to remain in the love. So why even try is often the statement we hear from the young, the despondent and the wounded of the world. The true answer lies in the healing nature of trying to love, the life giving breath reaching out in love gives us, the energy of revealing the soul of a beloved. these are the true gifts of hopeful love.
Self-denial without a goal, and especially without a transcendent goal will only become bitter struggle and ultimately failure. The gift of life shared and given in the self-denial of the momentary for the gift of the eternal draws us from our resistance to the embrace of hopeful and happy love.
God Bless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Ab6l0q784
Post #42 February 19, 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time
“If we want to bring together what is divided, we can not do so by imposing one division upon the other or absorbing one division into the other. But if we do this, the union is not Christian.It is political, and doomed to further conflict. We must contain all divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ.” (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton) I can’t give the page number to the above quote because I got it off my Kindle…note to self; How do you reference Kindle?
I chose quote from the great mystic Thomas Merton because it reminds us what self-denial entails in the end. It is the opening of our hearts to hear the voice of the other: God, friend and enemy. That is today’s Sunday Gospel (Mt 5:38-38) in a nut shell. How can we open our heats to seek our conversion and be examples of conversion to others when it is all about “ME.”
The encounter with one another, if true conversion takes place, is always followed by the pilgrimage with the other towards something greater. Jesus encounters his disciples, asks the to follow him, then begins the conversion of heart to see and hear like God sees and hears. In this there is always the conflict, forgiveness and reconciliation that makes the heart grow ever stonger in love.
Self-denial in the end isn’t I am wrong and need to changer but rather in Christ we are always on a journey that if we choose to embrace rather than resist we will grow ever deeper in love with God and our community.
God Bless
Post #41 February 17, Memorial of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order
Chapter 26 You Cannot Succeed at Anything Without…. (p129)
If you would take a poll of people in general, what do you think would be the most popular answer? Would it be money? Would it be power? Good looks? Talent? Luck? and perhaps you have many different answers. In “Resisting Happiness” Matthew Kelly gives the simple and powerful Christian answer, an answer that screams out resistance and what each of us struggle with…the answer is SELF-DENIAL!!!!!
Crud. I was truly hoping for a different answer this time. I often feel like the person who goes to the refrigerator in the morning and there is no milk and yet I continue to check throughout the day to see if somehow the milk has magically appeared, complaining all the while when it is a walk across the street, down the block or a short drive to buy the milk. Self-denial is not the funnest or most accepted manner that we want to grow and get what we want.
What we don’t want to do is end up in the end with nothing but things that surround us. We want to be surrounded by others, people, loved ones, the true and only blessings that matter. We see this portrayed in movies, advertisements and in songs, poems and literature but fail to take it to heart as we should. I leave you with one of my favorite songs by Johnny Cash, a song of lament and hope. A song that asks the question of, Why did I resist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc
Post #40 February 16, Saint Claude de la Colombière’s
“Any type of inner slavery limits our ability to love ourselves, to love God and to love others.” (p 128) Our Gospel reading at Mass today has another of those very famous lines…actually several…but only this one for this little post. “Get behind me, Satan.” (Mk 8:33) And St. Peter thought he was doing so good. Resisting happiness and following the path of sin is always accompanied by self-deception and “inner falsehood” that blocks the truth of what and who God is calling each of us to be as beloved daughters and sons.
Breaking the cycle is to begin to have those conversations of blessing with God, family and the Church. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is often a moment of admitting our inner slavery and begin to slowly love God, ourselves and others. A question is often asked, “why do we need to tell our sins to a priest?” The answer is simple, if we are honest with the priest, who sits in the place of Jesus, then we choose to not fall for the lie we tell ourselves over and over again that we are without hope and the sins we commit aren’t that bad. We find an honesty of conversation that places a light in the darkness of self-deception.
Many years ago I was hearing a confession of a young person who told me many things and during the course of the confession it was clearly understood she was living with her “boyfriend.” As the confession was winding down I asked her a simple question, “Are you going to ask forgiveness for the sexual activity outside of marriage?” (Yes, it is still a sin.) It made the confession longer but also helped her to begin to ask the harder questions about her relationship and the hurt and sadness that was building.
Ask yourself, Am I being honest as I list my “resistances” each day? Am I really recognizing the true resistance? Do I need to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation?
God Bless
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/02/self-deception-can-make-evil-appear-good/
Post #39 February 15, St. Walfrid and St. Agape
Saints of the day fascinate me…there are many minor saints (if any saint can be minor) who populate our Catholic calendar. It is one of the ways we break our resistance, when we look to the saints for inspiration.
ACTION STEP: Pray and fast, asking God to liberate you from that area of slavery in your life. (p 128) (and as a good pastor I would add…give alms:) Matthew Kelly begins Chapter 25 with a quote from the Gospel of Mark 9:28-29 that talks about breaking the cycle of resistance through the two great acts of prayer and fasting. (this all can sound very Lenten and don’t worry, we will have plenty of time in Lent to focus on these two pillars of the spiritual life).
I think he brings this up now because if we have been serious about the journey we now are able to recognize the moments of resistance that occur again and again throughout the day, weeks and months of our lives. I personally can attest that my greatest resistance has been forcefully reminding me that I am very flawed and fail alarmingly easy in when I am lax and fail to be attentive to the wonder that surrounds me. Several people have shared with me this same experience where the attacks of resisting happiness have been stronger and more frequent over the past few weeks. And let us be very honest, the devil does not want us to succeed in our journey of holiness. He is patient and tricky and will wait for our weaknesses to show.
This is were prayer, and especially, fasting help us to combat this weakness. When “By denying ourselves in these small ways, we also strengthen our will, which increases our ability to love God and other. To love is to freely give ourselves to another. In order to freely give ourselves, we must first possess ourselves. So we can only love another to the extent that we are free.” (127-28)
As we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.” (Mt 5:37) Discipline and humility are the true paths to happiness.
God Bless
a little pre-Lent bonus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbYPObpyLaE
Post #38 February 14, St. Valentine Day (or the Memorial of St. Cyril and St. Methodius)
After this post today, we will move on from hunger to continue on with the book. I will be continuing to write this daily reflections throughout the Lenten season which begins on March 1st. More about that later.
How does God confront our hunger and how are we called to respond to God. I believe that it is essential we understand how God created us…”God s we encounter him in the Bible takes a risk monumental in its implications. He creates on being, humanity, capable itself of being creative. He creates, that is to say, a being in his own image. This act alters the whole nature of the universe. For now there is a life-form capable of language, thought, reflection, imagination and choice, able to conceive the idea of God, but also, given the nature of freedom and the human imagination, capable of rebelling against God. the implication is far-reaching in in the most ultimate sense, for there is now one form of life that can choose between obedience and disobedience, good and evil, turning nature to good ends or destroying it altogether.” (p 193-94 from “To Heal a Fractured World” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)
I use this long and extensive quote because at the center of Matthew Kelly’s observations throughout his book is the reality of the freedom to choose and, at times, the resistance against choosing the good who is God. We can choose destruction, of our own body, our family, community and the world. Our hungers can drive us to selfishly seek only what will satisfy my wants and immediate desires, to use others and the goods of the world to ends that fail to fulfill my hearts longings and desires.
As God takes a risk, we in the hungers of desire, are called to also take a risk of trust where we let go of the immediate resistance to the eternal, sacrificial and self-less and trust that embracing this love will fulfill the true happiness God has planned for us.
With that…don’t let resistance thwart your keeping a journal, logging both your blessings and resistances, taking time to pray hourly for someone or something and to offer words of love to those around you.
God Bless
Post #37 February 13, Memorial of St. Catherine de Ricci
The inner hunger is found in discovering the truth of who we are in the eyes of God and the eyes of our loved ones. We understand our dignity and holiness when we are able to turn our focus away from the resistance to happiness/goodness of the eternal and embrace the truth and reality of who we are each created to be.
Matthew Kelly writes, “What I know is my relationship with food is unhealthy. The primary purpose of food is to fuel the body; its secondary purpose is pleasure. But I often revers the order.” (p 122) Amen, brother!!!! We all know sins and resistances like this, many of us food but it could be any of the other deadly sins that lead us away from happiness.
Choosing to be intentional and holding ourselves and others accountable through conversations and prayer help us to right the relationships we find disordered, whether it be food, spousal or community, and then move back into the holy and happy relationships founded in God’s love. It is remembering the words spoken my millions and millions of saints and repeated by Pope Francis in the first days of his papacy…”I am a sinner.” needing the life-giving and necessary grace of forgiveness from our Heavenly Father.
To use a phrase from Fr. Richard Rohr OFM I have written and placed on my mirror, “There are two utterly different forms of religion: one believes that God will love me if I change; the other believes that God loves me so that I can change!” (p 104, from “What the Mystics Know”) We do not change to be loved but through love are changed…and our inner hunger satisfied becomes it comes from within.
God bless
Post #36 February 12, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today the Church focuses on the blessing of married life and how marriage and the love of husband and wife fulfill the deeper hungers God places in our hearts for holiness. It is this hunger that we have been talking about for the past few post and will continue for a few more.
Katie Warner in her book “Head and Heart: Becoming Spiritual Leaders for your Family” shares with us many insights into how husbands and wives become spiritual nourishment for their families and more importantly for each other as they live this call to holiness. It is in the heart of the family we discover the longing for God that we often try to resist in seeking the false, temporary and foolish lies of the world.
She begins with the reality of how husbands and wives lead their families and the roles we are called to fulfill which bring peace and contentment rather than restlessness and upset, And attitude of surrender. Strong spiritual heads are willing to hand over control to God, recognizing that He is the one who is Lord of their lives, their families–everything. They recognize that it is a sign of true masculinity, not weakness to call on God for guidance and to surrender to His will. (p 13)
And while she is speaking of the role of husband/father we should recognize in this paragraph and the one to follow much of what Matthew Kelly is calling us to be as sons and daughters of God. When we turn our lives over to God; in prayer, service and sacrifice, we are no longer resisting the happiness God intends for us.
She continues, A habit of sacrifice. Strong spiritual hearts seize frequent opportunities to give of themselves, to die to their own desires, inclinations, or preferences for the good of others, especially for the good of their husbands and children. They master the art of self-gift, giving everything from their bodies to their time, talent, and energy for those they love, and they find joy in doing so.” (p 14)
Once again, while written for the wife/mother we should see the foundations of accepting the joy of vocational love surrounded by the love of God, family and friends. We do not loose happiness in seeking the blessing of others but only discover more intimately the true spark of eternal love that enlivens and fires the soul.
God Bless
Post #35 February 11, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes
As noted in post #34, this is the second today because of basic failures to understand computers by me:)
Today is the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and the attention she receives as the healing that many people have received through her intercession. Many of the healings shared are not physical but the spiritual and relational healing that prepares us for the ultimate moment when we stand before the Cross of Jesus in the gift of eternal life.
Often times we name our hunger as the need to be healed, physically and through the mercy of God. It is easier to see the physical and yet in the spiritual and emotional healing we find the great truth of God’s love.
Matthew Kelly writes, “The ultimate spiritual awareness leads us to understand that every yearning is in some mysterious way a yearning for God. While we are searching for him far and wide in this world, he is waiting for us in the very depths of our souls. But in the early stages of spiritual development it is enough to recognize that god speaks to us in our hunger. He uses our hunger to teach us and guide us. (p 120-21)
When we begin through prayer, reception of the Sacraments and seeking forgiveness from one another, to discover the true hunger in our lives we see how the resistance to happiness is a self inflicted would that can only be healed in God’s mercy…seeing him in love.
God Bless
Post #34 February 10, Memorial of St. Scholastica
(Feb 11) Guess what happens when you write an update for your blog but don’t hit the update button before closing the computer….yes…it goes away.
I will do a quick recap of what I wrote yesterday, then do the post for today….thanks for reading and your patience. The below quote comes from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” 72. The sacrament of marriage is not a social convention, an empty ritual or merely the outward sign of a commitment. The sacrament is a gift given for the sanctification and salvation of the spouses, since “their mutual belonging is a real representation, through the sacramental sign, of the same relationship between Christ and the Church. The married couple are therefore a permanent reminder for the Church of what took place on the cross; they are for one another and for their children witnesses of the salvation in which they share through the sacrament”.(Familiaris Consortio 13) Marriage is a vocation, inasmuch as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational discernment.
The feeding of our soul, in every vocation and station of life is found when we take time to place our relationship of love at the foot of the cross. Our call to seek the face of God in those whom we love, and especially in married couples, we fill the deep hunger with truth and blessings and resist the temptations of feeding our hearts with the sin that is offered as the false road to happiness.
God Bless
Post #33 February 8, Memorial of S. Jerome Emiliani and Josephine Bakhita
What are you hungry for? Lot’s of people ask that question daily trying to figure out what to make for lunch/dinner or perhaps they are going out to a restaurant and want to know what type of food you are hungry for or many other times during the day this happens. But ultimately Matthew Kelly is asking in Chapter 24, what is our deepest desire and how do we stop resisting the steps and pathways necessary to fulfill and satisfy these deep and abiding hunger.
We all know this feeling that is often met with another statement/question: Something is missing? We can’t quite figure it out but we know the path we are on, what we are doing and our relationships with God and others is “missing something.”
We are going to spend a few days on this chapter discussing some of the ways to seek true satisfaction for the hungers of life. My vocation story is a story about hunger. As a teacher, although I was happy, loved teaching, enjoyed working with the children and parents and was good at my job, I knew deep down something was missing and the longer I taught the deeper this longing became. It was only when deep in prayer, deep in desperation for find out what was missing, I finally asked the question to God…What do you want me to do? And I knew.
Take time for prayer, write down your deep longings, the resistance we have and then begin to walk forward again.
Take time to review the book…the marked pages, the notes you have taken…look for a pattern and begin to pray again.
God bless
Post #32 February 7,
Murdering truth….”Our culture is trying to murder truth. It will fail. But sadly, millions of people are suffering each day from the confusion that this assault on truth is creating.” (p 118)
Lies lead to unrest, to worry and to judgement. Lies seek to separate, to lessen and to falsify the good and holy around us. Lies create a person that cannot exist in the light of the God’s love so it must seek the darkness of hatred, envy and bitterness.
One of the great epiphanies I had as an adult was the reality that lies create something apart from God and if we participate in the lie we become an illusionary creation apart from the divine plan of God. We can always return to the first sin, the lie that creates the false darkness that we too easily, like Adam and Eve, wander into to seek to be godlike when we have already been created in the image and likeness of the God.
Matthew Kelly in each and every book he has written, in every talk I have heard him give and throughout his ministry has shared this one small piece of advice…enter into the classroom of silence. Or words to this effect. Spend time each day in silence, without the background noise of resistance from the television, radio, computer, earbuds, texts, social media…simply in silence seeking the truth of God’s voice calling to us. The resistance of lies cannot stand in front of the silence of God’s love…the truth of our heart screams out against the lies of life as his gentle whisper of truth and love open our soul to the healing blessing of God’s presence in our life.
It is a necessary practice to step away from the hustle and bustle of life…and if you don’t believe me or Matthew Kelly…listen to the voice of a saint, “We need to find God and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.” (St. Mother Theresa, from “Listening to God” p 78)
God Bless
Post #31 February 6, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and companion martyrs
St. Paul Miki was a native Japanese martyr, a Jesuit and a great example of faith along with those who died with him.
At the beginning of this journey I noted how many books on happiness and the search for happiness had found their way into my life over the past year. This God-insidance keeps coming back to me again and again.
Fr. Jonathon Morris in this book “God Wants You to be Happy” In the book he shares six steps to live a joy filled life of blessing and happiness. I share this with you because they may be another way of understand Matthew Kelly’s plan. Remember these are not to complicate but to simplify our lives.
- Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of your life. (remember the need for truth)
- Admit to God, to yourself, and to other human beings the exact nature of your wrongs and your powerlessness over them. (remember the Sacrament of Reconciliation)
- Turn you will over to God’s care and live trusting that he can make you whole. (Remember the need for prayer and the Eucharist)
- Begin to live the New Commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Remember to allow yourself to get back up from failures..resist the idea of worthlessness)
- Make amends to anyone you have harmed along the way with your selfish pursuits. (It’s okay to begin again…relationships are about love…forgiveness…love….forgiveness …love…forgiveness…etc)
- Design and follow a practical plan to hold yourself accountable to God and to others. (Put in place the first five steps and don’t do it alone) (p 145-147) Italics are mine.
Some of may recognize the basic outline of 12 step spirituality…once again we remind ourselves that this isn’t new but what “Resisting Happiness” is trying to get us to live a life of holiness.
Continue to seek happiness….don’t give up.
God Bless
Post #30 February 5, Memorial of St. Agatha, (5th Sunday of Ordinary Time)
And yes….Superbowl Sunday
Chapter 23 of “Resisting Happiness deals with the reality of truth that we have been talking about for the past few posts. It is a reality that is often resisted and the alternative truths seep their way into daily conversations and relationships.
One of these realities is in sins of resistance. We all know our sins of resistance, these sins that lead to death in relationships, brokenness in life and the destruction of the joy we are called to share with each other.
Matthew Kelly asks us this important questions, “Why are you allowing lies to take root in your life?” (p 117) It is a great question.
We believe as a people of God that sin leads to death in our relationships. We can find hope and truth in the prayer of the Act of Contrition we pray at the end of the Sacrament of Reconciliation where we prayer, “to avoid whatever leads me to sin.” or as prayed in other versions, “to avoid the near occasion of sin.” Both of these short phrases point out the need to be proactive in our spiritual battle, to be mindful of those sins of resistance that lead us away from God and others.
For example….If we have trouble avoiding cookies in the house that can lead us to the sin of gluttony, it may be prudent to remove the temptation from the house (the near occasion). If we find that watching television of movies that are of sexual nature tempts us to the sin of lust, then we are called to choose more appropriate viewing. Or if we are tempted to stay up late and not get enough rest that tempt us to avoid morning prayer/exercise leading us to sloth, then we are called to set a bed time (it’s not just for children) and turn off our electronics 30 minutes prior to sleep.
Each of these sins of resistance are temptations for me personally and I know as a confessor many others share these and many other habitual sins of resistance that lead us away from God.
Sin lead to death of relationships while chooses the habits of virtue, faith and love lead us to true happiness within the blessings of God’s love for us and our neighbor.
God bless
Post #29 February 4,
Today I will spend the day with 50+ teenagers seeking confirmation in the Catholic Church. It is always a great blessing and a tremendous challenge to work with our young people. Their questions are challenging and real as they seek to discover the presence of God in their lives.
Going back to the post from February 1st, the seeking of truth is foremost in the hearts of our young people. It has been my experience that the truth, and knowing the truth is a search central to the lives of our young people. Our first reading from Hebrews at yesterday’s liturgy gave us the reality of God’s presence when the writer reminded us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and always. In other words, the truth is always the truth and while me have different circumstances in our lives, the truth remains the truth.
When we recognize and list those areas of resistance that remove us from the happiness of God’s love we begin to discover the truth of our true calling in life. We begin to recognize how the relationships we share with God and others are the true gifts of happiness and not what we can accumulate or use in the world.
Please pray for our youth today…that the Holy Spirit may enliven their hearts in search for truth who is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and always.
God bless
Post #28 February 3, Memorial St. Blase and St. Ansgar
“We must know that one of the weapons that the devil uses most commonly to prevent souls from advancing toward God is precisely to try to make them lose their peace and discourage them by the sight of their faults.” (p 63 from ‘Searching for and Maintaining Peace” by Fr. Jacques Phillippe)
Resisting happiness is often the focus of failure, on sin and on those parts of our life that hold us away from God. The above quote reminds us that the steps Matthew Kelly shares with us are tried and true within our Catholic Christian tradition.
The goal of embracing the grace and joyous gift of life is to recognize our faults but to keep our eyes on our blessings. One easy way to think of this is to go back and review the steps we are called to take to overcome resistance.
It is around 30 minutes in length..but Archbishop Fulton Sheen offers us some great advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e5oPIHnHQs
God Bless
Post #27 February 2, Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple
As part of my spiritual retreat a few weeks ago now, Fr. Timothy, our retreat director asked us to write a “litany of thanksgiving” It was a wonderful exercise that opened my heart in prayer to God for all the blessings received in so many different ways. I have taken time over the past week to add a few more blessings and to begin to re-read the blessings noted.
It is a habit of happiness that I will begin to incorporate into my prayer life. In choosing to write the Litany I modeled my prayers on Psalm 136 because it has a refrain at the end of each line “and His love endures forever.” I fell in love with this Psalm during the Jubilee Year of Mercy when Pope Francis used it as the foundation of his Papal Bull announcing the Jubilee Year.
These are a few of what I wrote..
For my Mom and Dad and their gift of life–His love endures forever
For my brother and sisters–His love endures forever
For playing in the canyon–His love endures forever
For the 4th of July and firecrackers–His love endures forever
Some are silly, some are serious, some are sad, some bring up painful memories…but they are all blessings. Chapter 22, “How Many Sundays Left?” is short…very short but thought provoking. We know neither the time or the place…but we do know that one day we will draw our final earthly breath and (we pray) continue in the eternal breath of God…Are you ready?
Resisting happiness is to resist the reality of life…take time today to seek God’s mercy, compassion and forgiveness and perhaps write your own litany of thanksgiving…sharing all the blessings and giving thanks to God–His love endures forever
And a few words from Fr. Mike Schmitz
God bless
Post #26 February 1,
Last night Dynamic Catholic tweeted…”To consistently overcome resistance we need to give truth a place of honor in our lives.”
If we continue on the them of life-changing habits and how we need to enter into the resting in happiness of God’s love then truth must be our center. Truth allows us to be who we are and not to put up the facade of being other than we are at the core of our lives. God’s truth is found in the steps that we have been reading about and (hopefully) working at in the moving away from sin of resistance.
Truth is important because resistance is built on one of two great lies…1. I’m not good enough….2. I can’t do better. Each one limits the truth of who we should be. When we believe #1 we look backwards all the time and focus on the failures and past regrets and never look forward to the possibilities of God’s plan in our lives. When we fall for #2 we are looking forward but with the limited vision of believing the temporary over the eternal.
As we go through the habits of change in our work against resistance remember to seek the truth in the silence of prayer and know that God desires the very best, the great joy of living in happiness.
God Bless
Post #25 January 31, Memorial of St. John Bosco
“But let me ask you a question. When was the last time you set out intentionally to create a life-changing habit? Overcoming resistance is hard to do a hundred times a day. We get hungry, angry, lonely, tired and we end up giving in. That’s were habits come in.” (p 111)
We could almost stop and go back again and again into the question above. Those decision for the change of intentional habits are almost a dime a dozen. The caring out of the intentions are rare indeed. At least that is my decision making process.
One of the things, as we read the book, we may notice is that the habits that Matthew Kelly talks about aren’t about changing everything all at once. The habits he talks about are really very simple…read scripture, pray, worship and serve at a very basic level that the habits of resistance begin to slip away and the habits of holiness are formed and maintained.
The intentional life-changing habits are those that begin with the first small step. There is that commercial about loosing weight where the narrator talks about loosing his “spare tire” around his waist where it began with choosing to take the steps at work rather than the elevator.
God bless
Post #24 January 30,
If yesterday we that it might sound so easy…today we might as we look forward to Chapter 21 “The Power of Habits” say, “It sounds to daunting.”
This really is deep breath time. Because we all must honestly look at what we are doing today and ask the very simple question? What am I doing to fight against resistance today? Have I changed the patterns of life that are resisting happiness? If not, then…Am I hopeless?
The answer to the last question is very easy. No one of us is hopeless…we are all endowed with hope from God when we choose to move towards the grace, blessings and happiness God has planned for each of us.
So what do we do if we haven’t changed the patterns and habits? What do we do if we have slipped again into resisting happiness after the initial success? Easy enough…we start again. We don’t become discouraged and maybe even ask for a little help.
Coming off of retreat, where I had time to rest, think, pray and do many of the habits that helped me discover joy my hope was to continue them…but I haven’t…that’s a reality. The biggest one for me was the writing the list of those I would pray for…I haven’t for the last few days and my prayer life has suffered because of this resistance.
We may need to begin again…to start over…to walk back to the place where we began to resist and turn once more to embrace God. Remember this is a journey. Sometimes we take an exit we were not supposed to take. The smart thing is to turn around and get back on the road that leads to our destination (Heaven). Or we can just continue resisting God’s happiness.
I began my list again this morning…
God Bless
Fr. Mark
Post #23 January 29,
It sounds so easy…”Learning to Listen”…why do I have to learn?
First, “One of the fastest ways to improve any relationship is to become a better listener. (p 101)
Second, “Everyone loves being listened to.” (p 103)
The whole of Chapter 20 is summed up in those two little sentences. Why is it so hard for us to understand this simple truth?
Well, we often get it backwards. I love being listened to. Its a fact. I am not always that eager to listen to others. It a fact too. There is the old and wise saying. God has given us two ears and one mouth. We should use them in that proportion in all our interactions. It is a lesson that need to be learned over and over agian. It is the practice and attention to the practice that is necessary. We have been talking about habits and we can make it a habit to learn to listen.
I always start with the very simplest of conversation. “How are you?” Ninety percent of the time that answer comes back “Fine.” But at other times it isn’t…sometimes the word says fine but the voice, the body posture, something tells us that it isn’t “fine”, in truth it is far from it. This is where listening becomes life giving and where we stop resisting happiness and embrace the peace of Christ. When we stop resisting and begin embracing, we begin hearing the voice of our god speaking to us in the voices of others. Especially the voices of those in suffering and need of a gentle ear and a kind word.
In my work with Worldwide Marriage Encounter, this lesson of listening is the foundation of all happy, holy and healthy relationships of love. As we journal, pray and embrace today we look for those who need our listening as we share the blessings of life.
God Bless
Post #22 January 28, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas
Sorry I missed yesterday.
If we look again at Chapter 18 of “Resisting Happiness” and continue to see a vision of God’s dream for you, me, your spouse, children,parents, friends…or in other words…everyone in the world we know deep down that our happiness is united to others happiness. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation I will often challenge children when the confess that the disobey, give attitude, or talk back to their parents with these three “resisting questions. Does disobeying/not listening to your parents make you happy? Does it make your mom or dad happy? When you do these things is your family happy?
Children are very honest and can quickly see that their actions have consequences and their desire for joy is cut short bys the hurt caused by the sin. Now, admittedly, their behavior will be a habit that needs changing over time but thy and we begin to understand the common courtesies of the words: please, thank you and your welcome, have huge impacts on the daily happiness of life.
God’s dream, the dream of holiness, is never isolated from the larger community and surely not from the family. We might think today of the small blessings our family shares with us and then ask ourselves, How can I serve and be a blessing to my family today in a concrete action of love?
God Bless
Post #21 January 26, Memorial of Bishops St. Timothy and St. Titus
In Chapter 18 we are confronted by God’s dream for you. Not our dream for ourselves–but God’s glorious dream for you, me and each person ever created. What is that dream. I believe is can be summed up in this short phrase: to live life in hope and holiness. That’s it. Not a lot more needs to be said. It is a grace filled life.
Of course, this does not mean we don’t have hurt, sadness, suffering or sacrifice. Those are part of life, even the lives of saints. What it does mean is that we face them with hope and holiness. We look into life not to find the worst but to find the best of life. Where is God in this? The question should constantly be on our minds, our lips and our hearts…you know the prayer we say as we prepare to hear the Gospel at Mass. Where is God in this?
This can and is a lesson that is learned over and over again. Resistance asks us to turn away, find the easier, find the temporary in life. Grace asks us to look deeper, take up the cross and seek the eternal blessings of life. It is in this that we discover, live and share happiness.
God Bless
Post #20 January 25 The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Conversion can come as a lightening bolt that knocks us off our horse are it can be the subtle transformation of attitudes and beliefs where we wake up one morning and find ourselves in a completely different place than where we began or thought we would be. This happens with the good and the bad. Resisting happiness can lead us into the darkness of sin in our life where we find ourselves in the exact opposite place of joy, generosity and happiness.
I was visiting our parent classes for the children preparing for First Communion. In the Spanish language group our Pastoral Associate Antonio was asking two important questions from “Resisting Happiness”–What do you want? What are you searching for? Two very basic questions.
If you look at the lists of resistance, the lists of blessings, the lists of prayer intentions we should begin to see a pattern and these two questions become easier to answer. What we want in life often is funneled into the physical and objectified areas of life: I want a new car, house, job, which are often temporary fixes to happiness rather than the long term and subjective gifts of relationship, peace and contentment with the blessings we receive.
The experience we search for fulfill either the temporary of the lasting eternal. That is the reality of resistance to happiness and the embracing of life in relationships that fulfill our deepest desire. This holds true because our deepest desire is to discover the eternal love that enters our soul. I leave you with this short reflection from catholicmom.com on this Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
http://catholicmom.com/2017/01/25/ultimate-life-hack/
God Bless
Post #19 January 24
Today may be a day that we look back and regroup. It is a time to reassess where we are and how we are doing. We need to remember that spiritual reading is not like reading a novel or magazine article because the reading of spiritual books and or articles should focus on change and how our lives will be effected in change.
Analogous to this may be a diet book, a self help book, a article that relates to helping us to understand better the working of our electronic devices or a myriad of different things. If as we read we do begin to practice and incorporate the things we learn and how God is challenging us to stop resisting and begin embracing the happiness, joy and blessings in our daily life. I’ve done it and I’m pretty sure the vast majority of us have had this experience.
In returning from my recent retreat there were and still are wonderful intentions about how I would be changing certain actions that were interfering with my happiness and how I was truly resisting the joy and happiness of the priesthood and Christian life by holding on tightly certain poisons of sin. It is a reality.
Today and maybe for the rest of the week, take a deep breath and review the resolutions and changes you may have challenged yourself to seek in your life since beginning to read this book…Have you let some of the drop? (I have.) Have you stopped focusing on the areas that need God’s grace and blessing? Have you begun to fall back into the same old routines, saying, “It’s to hard.” “I don’t have time.” or the thousands of other excuses.
Don’t let resistance win…Be Bold, Be Strong, Be Catholic and begin again.
God Bless
Post #18 January 23
Daily Mass—here are two quick stories.
I began attending daily Mass when I worked at St. Bonaventure Indian Mission. http://www.stbonaventuremission.org/ It was a wonderful experience and helped me to grow closer to God and understand the vocation I was called to lead in life. For me the greatest experience was hearing the daily readings, especially the first reading which is often a long series from the same book of the Old Testament or Letter from the New Testament and how the priest, Fr. Doug, would link them together. The Mass became like a long story, interesting and new each day and the more I attended during those two years the more my story and life became woven into the story of God…or visa versa…In the end it helped me see God in my students, parents, fellow teachers and each person I would meet.
The second was when I was parochial vicar at St. Martin of Tours, the principal and pastor made the decision to have the children attend Mass once a week as a class (in addition to Sunday). There was a lot of resistance and some hesitation by the parents and faculty. The resistance and hesitation was lessened by a story that a teacher shared a couple of months into the year. One of her more rambunctious students confided in her one day after morning Mass where he said that “he really liked going to morning Mass.” When in surprise she asked why? He said, “It is so peaceful and quiet. I’m peaceful and quiet.”
Daily prayer, daily Mass, daily conversations with God help us to be peaceful and quiet. These practices help us to see the possibility of joy, gratitude and generosity in all people and in all things. It is the opening of our eyes to begin to see with the eyes of God. Not all of us can attend daily Mass, but we should try to do so as often as we can. It’s just 30 minutes. In the peace and quiet we enjoy we will hear the whisper of God’s call to follow him, to embrace life and to not resist the happiness he has intended for each of us to live.
God Bless
Post #17 January 22
Key Point: Life is always teaching us lessons (p 93)
When we read the sentence above we can often think silently….Duh, no kidding. Here is a fun thought though. If life is always teaching us lessons and God is the author of all life and if we believe that God is present in our lives, then God is always teaching us lessons. Maybe, just maybe this doesn’t sound appealing but hang in there for a moment.
The oft used phrase, we learn more from our failings than our successes, has been used in one form or another for the entirety of human history. Many times this means a painful lesson but when looked at in perspective the lesson helps us to see more clearly the ultimate goal in life and the smaller holy goals that will move us towards heaven. This is why discipline/sacrifice, hard work and a great support group is always necessary for success.
Children should have this built into their lives in family. Mom and Dad help to discipline and mirror sacrifice in their lives, teaching and giving the example of hard work and supporting them in their endeavors. Spouses should be this to each other too. It is also why, as priests, we are asked to form or join a priest support group immediately after we leave our ordination Mass. It is a lesson we all learn over and over again…discipline, hard work and support build healthy and fruitful relationships.
I think of what occurred when I went through boot camp upon entering the United States Marine Corps out of high school. those three pillars. Certainly discipline and hard work were very easy to see. The learning of sacrifice, not just of deprevation, but the sacrifice to the other in supporting the other Marines were the lessons that help to form me and continue to shape my life.
We may add another item to our writing and other lists…what lesson did I learn today?
God Bless
Post #16 January 21
I am back from a wonderful retreat. It was very fruitful in practicing much of what we talked about over the first 15 Chapters of “Resisting Happiness”. One of the things that I began to do on the retreat was write down the 16 hours I would be praying for others and listing the names of the people or ideas that I would then offer to God for that hour. This was both challenging and wonderful as I was able to take time each evening and list who and what I would be praying for the next day. I found myself thinking and praying for people that I knew were in immediate need of prayer, both family and parishioners and country…bu also I found myself remembering people from the past, people who God placed in my mind at that moment to be prayed for.
I know that it seems like a lot of writing but it also is a way of making sure our focus is on giving each hour to God for the intention of a better world. It was also liberating in many ways, writing the names down, because I didn’t have to remember them and in fact once or twice I went through hours knowing I was offering it but not always remembering until I got back to my list who and what it was for…but just the reality that the hour was offered helped me to focus on so many more blessings of the day.
Did I still resist the blessing that surround me…you bet…I resisted time to pray or read in order to sleep or day dream but God worked through it all. Thank you all very much for your prayers over the past week…they were needed and they were felt.
God bless
Post #15 January 16
Just a brief note. I am beginning my annual priest retreat this morning and will not be posting again until Friday afternoon. It is a silent retreat and I will be leaving my computer behind at the parish as to not to be distracted and resist the voice of God in my time of prayer and renewal. I would ask each of you to please pray for me and my brother priests on retreat.
As we celebrate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. today the God-incidence of Chapter 14 “Interesting People” cannot by be noticed in great and small ways. The chapter is calling us to immerse our hearts in the word of God by daily bringing God’s holy Word into our lives in a deliberate and consistent way. It does change your life, your outlook, your relationships and your attitude towards others, your work and yourself.
When I was teaching before I entered the seminary my first work was at a Mission to the Navajo people in New Mexico. I had a wonderful experience at St. Bonaventure Indian Mission in Thoreau NM where I taught 7th and 6th grade for my two years there. One of the greatest blessing was the ability to attend Mass daily and to hear the Word of God proclaimed and prayed with daily. I discovered very early that when I went to Mass each day, my days were better. Now, I wasn’t the holiest person in the world…I had my sins (my resistances) against leading a better life but the Word of God broke through even those resistance so much so that when I began teaching 6th grad at St. Lawrence the Martyr in Santa Clara I would always try to arrive early at school and spend twenty to thirty minutes in prayer as I prepared myself for the coming day…and I could tell when I resisted and failed to do so because of my attitudes and stress that seemed to be greater.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was also a man steeped in the daily prayer and interaction with Jesus Christ…he changed the world. Do we have the courage to seek this same change in our life and the life of the world?
God bless
Keep writing and listing those areas of life where you find resistance and blessing….pray and begin reading one of the Gospels. We are beginning St. Matthew in the Sunday readings…that may be a good place to start. I will be praying for each of you on my retreat.
Post#14 January 15 (Sunday)
It is the normal practice for Catholics, especially Catholic priests, to offer Mass for specific intentions. People will often ask for me to pray for them and I joyfully bring them to my daily prayer but also to Mass. While we will often hear “an intention” for the Mass spoken aloud, many priests, me included, will usually bring many intentions to the Mass. You can too, lifting up your prayers during Mass is an important of life giving way to fully participate in the celebration of the Mass.
In Chapter 13 “Hour by Hour” we are offered this piece of advice about making work and the hours of the day opportunities for prayer, “Another way to approach it is to offer each hour of your work to God as a prayer for a specific person or a particular intention. For example, you might offer the first hour of each work day for your spouse, and the second hour of work for your children.” (p 63) To bring people to prayer and offering the work we do for them is a beautiful way to connect to the blessing and joy of God’s love.
This is a wonderful a practical piece of advice…now the hard part…to do it and to do it without conditions. What do I mean about conditions. Well for example, if you are married you might pray for your spouse by asking God, “please make him/her more________(fill in the blank).” This is not what or how we should be praying for others. We should simply ask God to bless them. To pour out his love upon them. To fill them with his grace. If the person has asked or is in need of special prayers for a specific intention, such as sickness or work, then certainly we can and should pray for their intentions but once more allowing the freedom of God’s will to drive the direction of prayer…following Jesus prayer…”Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Ultimately when we choose to offer our work, our play, our rest and all parts of our life to God for the blessing of others we discover the reality of our life of grace and love in serving God. We discover true happiness.
God bless
As you write your list of resistence…your lists of blessings….you may also wish to write down your list of intentions.
Post#13 January 14
Key Point: God wants to give you present-moment awareness. he wants you to be aware of things while they are actually happening. (p54)
Are you aware of the one blessing occurring in your life at this very moment. (and no, I don’t mean reading this blog) Stop for a moment, recognize the presence of God in your life, breath deeply and look with eyes of love…what is that one blessing?
We often embrace “busyness” and resist “quietness” in or life. With electronic devices in every corner of many of our lives, music, podcasts, television, texting and social media trying to fill every single moment of quiet in our lives we often fail to stop, look and listen to what God is sharing with us in the world. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes (or maybe often and perhaps always) God does speak through these mediums of communication but God also whispers to us in the quiet silences of life.
I love going for early morning walks through the streets of Campbell. I have a pretty set routine but I do vary from time to time. I pray my rosary, think about my Sunday homily and try to sort of problems in my life. I have made it a practice to not plug in earbuds in the hope that this hour of “quiet” will be fruitful in helping me hear clearly God’s voice. And even in the quiet of the early morning hours, you begin to notice the blessings of God surrounding you. The hello of a early morning walker and the waking of nature as birds tweet and trees rustle to life in the breeze. I would miss all of this and miss the blessing of God if I chose to not listen in quiet.
This is the challenge…”present-moment awareness” offers to us. Stop…recognize God is here…breath and look with eyes of love. repeat…repeat….repeat.
ps…have you continued to journal your resistance…if not begin again and also begin listing those blessings surrounding us…both small and big.
God Bless
Fr. Mark
if you wish to share any ideas, please go to the bottom of the page to comment.
Post #12 January 13
I have been attending and celebrating many funerals the past few weeks and at each funeral the theme that I wrote about in Chapter 10 in the previous post became very obvious. Some times the regrets were voiced in death with things left undone and goals not achieved and other by family and friends regretting the time not spent, the love not shared, the loss of the center of life.
Once again, we understand, life is the dance between looking forward and looking back. It is understanding the reality of loss but also the great possibilities of the next day, the next moment, the next encounter with love. Our Gospel at this Sunday’s Mass (January15) will talk about the looking forward and John the Baptist points out “the Lamb of God” Jesus Christ and invites everyone to follow him.
We follow Jesus by accepting the need to reach out and serve and at the same time to be touched and be served. In the quiet moments of life, as we pray and reflect on our day, we should take time to recognize those blessings we have received and those blessings we have shared with others because in this we open our hearts to seeing how we move beyond the regrets of life and enter into the possibilities of love.
We also acknowledge the sin and hurt surrounding us. We are the cause of some of it and at the same time can be innocent receivers of the violence of sin. I would offer you this video to reflect upon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm0UNn7tJ5o It is a way of understanding how we are called to be people who move forward even from the tragedy of sin. the little girl in the video link is talking about living a life of reconciliation and love. At one point in the video she reminds her mom that the monsters of hate and sin will eat up the humanity of our souls if we allow it. And if unchecked, then all that will be left are the monsters of sin destroying love and happiness. To live a life of human love we must choose love, forgiveness and, yes, happiness to share and revel in the joy of life and God’s love.
God Bless
Post #11 January 12
Sorry that I missed yesterday….”Get Busy Living” is the title for Chapter 10 of Resisting Happiness or perhaps a better title for the chapter may be “I wish I had/I wish I would have” as Matthew Kelly goes through the various lines of regret that often crop up in life.
I know I have written about this before but the regret of living is a poison that infiltrates the seeking of life, love and yes happiness in so many different ways. My own personal example is being called to a later vocation in life. I spent several years in the seminary “wishing I had” heard God’s call earlier. The wish was real because I had, on reflection, recognized how many times God called me before my hard-headedness finally heard his gentle invitation to serve Him and the Church as an ordained minister. But the reality was, God called me and ultimately I responded. The experiences of life, upon answering the call, helped me to be the priest that I am today which is exactly what God wants me to do.
To get busy living, isn’t to deny or turn away from the past and the regrets we have for our failures, sins and missed opportunities…to get busy living is to seek and recognize how God is calling me today to serve and bless others in the joyful recognition of the generosity and grace that is continually offered in love and blessing.
For us, as Christians, this is a moment to recognize the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is the blessing of recognizing that the first step to happiness is to seek to heal the brokenness and sin that often accompanies regret in life. One of these practices is a Daily Examen detailed by the founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the link below you can find a brief explanation of this prayer and how it helps us move from the regrets of a day/life into the presence of God and our loved ones, our beloved, and as we become the beloved for others.
http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen
God Bless
Post #10 January 10
Chapter 9 “Are You Spiritually Healthy?” once more take on the vital place prayer must hold in our lives. If you have read any other Matthew Kelly book you should not be surprised at his emphasis on prayer. It is the very life breath of the Christian faith and our relationship with Jesus Christ.
This link is from Fr. Mike Schmitz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk8In-6KUGc
Fr. Mike gives us a great take on prayer and why it’s important and how it is working in our life. For me as a Catholic priest the most challenging part of this chapter is when Matthew Kelly talks about his dream of keeping our churches open 24/7 so that all people at all times of the day can visit God in this sacred space and visit the Blessed Sacrament whenever and for whatever reason necessary.
I can always cheat…I have keys to the church building…when I need my Jesus moment I can simply walk over and sit quietly with Jesus. What would it look like for our parish, St. Lucy, our every parish to begin to open their doors. I have placed every objection on a list and each deals with fear…fear of people damaging the church….fear of cost…fear of fear…whatever it is it is something that we all need to confront. We often have our parish open throughout the day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. or later each night depending what is going on the church that night. It is a challenge that we all need to pray about and answer the challenge with honesty.
Our spiritual health, and the spiritual exercise of prayer will be a continued theme throughout our life. The day in and day out struggle of prayer can be and should be the place of our greatest joy/happiness. Don’t resist…
God Bless
Post #9, January 9th
Happy Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. The Gospel today remembers the story of Jesus’ Baptism where he tells John the Baptist, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” this was in response to John’s confusion at why the lesser would baptize the greater. It is an understanding of how we are called to serve Jesus in a very wonderful way.
This Gospel reading flows wonderfully into Chapter 8 “Four Big Words.” What are those words? Thy Will be done. We all struggle with these words. It often begins, as St. Augustine noted, with the young child who utters the word NO! to a parent when their wishes are not being met. It continues in many different ways as we grow into our teenage, young adult, married, parental and work life that manifest itself over and over again. So it is very easy to say NO! to God and his plan for us in our lives.
It even goes back to prayer life. When I was in seminary my spiritual director asked me to begin a practice of prayer that required me to spend more time in scriptural prayer. My complaint was “my prayer life was going great…why rock the boat.” And in truth I could have just kept on doing what I was doing. I was saying NO! in my heart even as I begrudgingly began to take more time in scriptural contemplation and less on recitation of prayer. I hated it and continued to tell God how good my prayer life had been and how crazy my spiritual director was by “forcing me” to do this type of prayer.
And of course you have guessed already what happened…he was right. My prayer life became even deeper and my relationship with God grew even closer through following the advice of my spiritual director. Here’s the deal…we often only want to take the advice/direction of what we already want to do or what will seemingly be the easiest path to follow when in truth it will only continue to lead us in the direction we are going.
Seeking happiness (seeking God) is choosing the more difficult paths of love, forgiveness and reconciliation. Jump in…the waters fine.
God Bless
Post #8 January 8th,
If you are in California right now, it is raining the proverbial “cats and dogs” and blowing mightily. Thank you God for the rain.
Chapter 7 “The Big Question” talks about prayer and how ten minutes of prayer each day can change you life. If you don’t believe Matthew Kelly then believe me…if not me, then our Bishop Patrick….if not him, then Pope Francis…and if not him then Jesus…who we know spent time in prayer. The big questions are in the for many people…What is prayer?…and…How do I pray?
These were two questions that often plagued my in my life as a teen and young adult. I would hear the priests, sisters and other people (including my family) tell me to pray about it. To make sure I prayed every day. Or a similar phrase. I would think to myself, “Well, how am I supposed to pray?”
It is a conversation I often have with people because I can be that priest who tells you “just pray about it” forgetting my own experiences. So here are a few basic steps I like to use.
- If you can’t get to a church daily for ten minutes…find a time and place where you feel comfortable and uninterrupted for a brief time each day. I know that for parents this is a great challenges…you can tag team…one prays the other run interference and then tag out. (especially for married couples…pray together each day…even if it is just a few seconds together…it is very important)
- Matthew Kelly will talk about a purpose to prayer…have a direction…an intention…something to point towards other than just reciting prayers. You can use readings from scripture, the rosary, a spiritual book, something that helps you point in a direction…please remember that reading the whole time is good but not when we want to pray, we want to read for a short moment and then begin the listening and speaking with God.
- Listening…if with spiritual reading and then in quiet…with the Rosary bringing our intentions to God and listening through the breath of the prayers….but listening and not being afraid of the quiet as we hear the gentle whisper of Gods voice.
- Don’t get discouraged…perseverance very important because prayer is a discipline that must be practiced even when we feel there is nothing happening.
- Last but not least share your story with spouse, friend or prayer partner. Don’t be afraid to pray with and for others by talking about how God blesses and helps us grow each and every day.
Have a blessed day….God bless.
(if you have any questions or thoughts about prayer please share them below)
Post #7 January 7th,
Remember on the first day how I ask you to have patience because with my work at the parish I may not always be on time with the posts? Well today was one of those days. I certainly had time to write, but the interruptions happened and the momentum of writing seemed to dwindle.
It is a little after 9:00 p.m. the evening. I have just finished a dinner with the parish staff on the feast of the Three Kings, giving thanks for the wonderful work they do in in the parish.
I think, as I will talk about in my homily tomorrow, that we can see how the characters in our Gospel of the Three Kings (Epiphany) can be role models of how we can resist and how we can overcome the resistance to the joy of God in our lives. Our choices, just as the shepherds, the Three Kings, Herod and others who populate the early pages of the Gospels lead us on a trajectory that is either away from or towards the goodness of God and his divine love and mercy. I would encourage you to read the Chapter 6 “Something is Missing” along side the Gospel and other readings from Mass tomorrow.
There is a yearning for the greater inside of each of us…how do we travel and search to understand this “missing” of who we really are? Take time to pray. Look at the list of the moments we have written down “resisting happiness” and then allow the messy-ness of life to be given to God.
Happy first week of post….Come Holy Spirit…
God Bless
Post #6 January 6th
It is a little late in the day but believe me I have not been resisting writing this post rather life has been busy. You can look at the Friday posts to see some more thoughts on “Resisting Happiness”
The saint the Church celebrates today is St. Andre Bessette and brother of the Holy Cross Congregation who served in Montreal Canada. His story is very fascinating because it shows what happens when we choose not to resist the will of God in our lives. you can read a wonderful article at this link http://aleteia.org/2017/01/06/saint-andre-bessette-the-miracle-man-of-montreal/
I like Br. Andre’s story because we both share a devotion to St. Joseph in our prayer life. More importantly for our purposes his life was one of embracing the challenges and conquering the sins and resistances of the world. He served with humility and grace in the menial jobs no one thought were important and required no discernible skills and yet through God’s grace he grew into a man of deep faith that others admired and sought out for council and prayers. A person who worked miracles in the life of those who came.
Matthew Kelly reminds us “Life is Messy” in chapter 5. We need not hide the messiness under the resistance that we must be perfect to be holy. We find holiness and happiness when we share our lives, especially the messiness of life, with Jesus and others. I am praying for you…please pray for me.
God bless.
(if you wish to share a prayer intention with me, please post it below)
Post #5 January 5th
I hope that you have taken time over the last few days to write down the list of resistance moments in your life. It has been illuminating for me as I not only notice the pattern but become aware of how many times I make excuses for my choosing unhappiness. There have been a few surprises at what I resist also. But let us continue.
I am going to stay in Chapter Two with the Key Point about what really makes us happy. And rest one more day on our called vocation and how we respond to this invitation from God. I used the word called because that is in truth how we discover our vocation and happiness. We recognize that we have been called into something greater. We often use this language for the consecrated religious life and priesthood but I would like us to remember that married and the single state are also vital and sacred calls to discover God’s presence and blessing in our life.
Marriage and relationship between husband and wife seems so natural for us that in the past the call didn’t seem extraordinary because that is how God made us to be. (first chapters of the Bible) But more and more for our young adults the call to marriage (and priesthood/consecrated life) seem to be resisted even though study after study indicates the “happiest” people are those in married life and religious vocations. It is a small hobby horse of mine that keeps on growing. Me, “How long have you been dating?” Them, “Five/Six/Seven…years.” Me, “When are you getting married?” Them, “We are not ready yet…to young…not settled…etc” Me…pulling my hair out!
Are we ever ready? old enough? settled in our job enough?…are we ever ready for true happiness?
Trust and faith are just that…preparing then jumping in by listening to the voice of God. Being honest with our desire for unity helps us to discover our true happiness…resistance is futile.
Can you thing of a time in the last week/month when God’s love helped you love in a more holy and honest manner?
(Please share you thoughts at the bottom of the page.)
Post #4 January 4th
It is a great mystery that we know what makes us deeply happy and yet we so often settle for what makes us feel happy in the moment. I love to watch a good soccer match. It gives me a moment of excitement and happiness to watch the game being played but I also know that this isn’t about lasting happiness because it is only a momentary emotional rush. I recognize it very clearly and still there are times when I will choose the momentary over the greater obligations of life that I know help me live a more contented and happy life.
Take for instance the early morning matches that the English Premier League showcase each Saturday morning. I do not mind awaking at 4:00 a.m. to watch the games. It is a small sacrifice and I can even get some useful exercise into the day on my stationary bike watching the games being played…and then there is the interruption of prayer and Mass in the morning. Now I enjoy soccer but I know deep down that I love God and find deep joy and satisfaction in serving and speaking with God in prayer and in the Mass. But I must almost drag myself away from the TV to go and do these wonderful actions of love because of the resistance of the momentary pleasure.
Ultimately we know that our vocation, for me priesthood, for you a spouse or single person, religious are the foundation of our true happiness. Choosing to focus daily on the servant gift of our vocation…serving others, caring for others, blessing others with love…is the singular path for happiness. In doing this we are able to allow God’s grace to flow through our lives into each and every action we do. Our proper vocation touches each part, word and action of the day. Choosing to live our vocation fully is choosing to embrace the happiness of life…even in suffering.
Have you written down where you encountered your “resistances” today? Have you asked what really brings you happiness?
As Fr. Jim Misfud constantly reminded us “Never Give Up!”
God Bless
Post #3 January 3rd
My first resistance this morning was dealing with my cold and whether or not I should make the effort to greet the school families back from their Christmas holiday. I had planned to do this and was ready to do this when I went to bed last night. I even made sure, even though it would be my normal day off, to lay out my clothes for the morning. Yet, when I awoke, coughed a few times, felt the warmth of the bed the thought came through my mind…maybe I should just be sick and comfortable today. It would have been very easy.
But I know that would not have made me happy. I would have regretted not greeting the parents and students this morning. It would be a moment that I would not be able to redo…no matter how much I tried. The action step of the first chapter is to “write down every time you encounter resistance for a week.” (5) That is a daunting task believe me because the second resistance I encountered this morning was writing down my first resistance. It is a bit embarrassing to do so because you begin to see a pattern that plays itself out in your life.
I can already predict one of my continued “resistance” moments. It is midday prayer. As a priest I promised at my ordination that I would pray for the Church through the discipline of praying the Liturgy of the Hours. I am asked to take a pause, 5 times during the day, and step back to give myself to God and His Church in prayer. I do really well with the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer. I am usually on time and focused. It is Midday Prayer that I tend to resist. Why? I don’t know. I usually end up praying it towards late afternoon or sometimes right before Evening Prayer. The funny thing is, I know I am a better man and priest when I pray in the middle of the day.
I invite you to share a resistance you experienced today.
God bless
Post #2 January 2nd
Welcome!!! You, as Matthew Kelly writes, have already done something that many of your contemporaries who received the gift of Resisting Happiness have chosen not to do. You are choosing happiness.
A couple of business notes before I begin. 1. I will try and post everyday. 2. I will try and respond to each note that is sent. I am new to this so don’t expect too many miracles. 3. I know I shouldn’t have to say this but…please in your comments use constructive language…vulgarity is not allowed. 4 Also remember that I have a full time day job as pastor too. . Please be generous with your prayers and patience.
You may also want to have a 1. Copy of the book, 2. A notebook, 3. A pen and or highlighter.
So let’s begin. I recently read a short story about a pastor who was challenged to do something completely out of his comfort zone. After fiddling around for a while convincing himself that he would do it, he spent one Sunday at all of the Masses announcing it to his 2000+ parishioners what he was going to do over the next few years at the parish. His thought was that if he told everyone then they would hold him accountable for going out of the comfort zone and beginning something new.
In many ways this is what we are doing. Jesus reminds us that we must share the good news. It is not optional or a perhaps…it is essential to the mission that God gives to each of us. The notebook and pen will help us to keep track of our thoughts. Choosing to share what we read with another person…and yes with me…will help us to continue even when resistance seems to be winning. God, as we will hear over and over again wants us to be happy…he truly does. And the deepest desire of our soul is for happiness…it really is. But we must begin to choose between “feeling happy” and “being happy.” There is a big difference.
No matter how far you are in the book…and you shouldn’t be that far…take time to go back and review, reread and take a note two about a Key Point, Action Step, something your read or a random thought that may occur as you slowly read this book. And remember to take time to dream as we turn off the noise of the world.
As we are reminded, “you never defeat resistance once and for all. It is a daily battle.” (p 4)
Post #1
Coming the first week of January….see you then
Happy New Year and God bless
Anna Quinones December 30, 2016
Love ❤ this… I am selfishly going to enjoy every post. Happy ? New Year, Padre!
marnzen@dsj.org December 30, 2016
Looking forward to hearing the thoughts of many people….Happy New Year.
Molly January 4, 2017
Resistance to running errands after work. I really needed to get gas after work,. It was about 15 degrees and I tried to convince myself that I could put it off for another day. I did stop for gas knowing that the stress of watching my gas gauge in the morning would not be worth skipping the errand tonight.
marnzen@dsj.org January 4, 2017
Amen….thanks for sharing. It is always better to do what needs to be done. Less stress.
Anita Manuel January 4, 2017
Resistance to get out of bed during cold dark and rainy morning as we all go “back to school” “back to work” and get out the door on time, left me to miss my morning prayers. They were rushed. So I’m trying to “catch up” midday. Thank you for sharing Fr. Mark
marnzen@dsj.org January 4, 2017
Thanks for your checking in Anita…it was my resistance this morning. I had a morning off but should I get up to pray and exercise at the normal time?????
Resisting the resistance.
Jenn January 5, 2017
Thank you for sharing today’s thoughts, Fr. Mark – the example you gave resonated with me. As does the book, which is exactly what I needed, such a God-incidence!
I cannot write down all the times I encounter resistance, there are too many. This in itself motivates me to get them down to a manageable level by not giving in and by doing the thing that I now understand will give me true peace and happiness.
I really appreciate your sharing this book with us!
marnzen@dsj.org January 5, 2017
Dear Jenn,
So glad you are enjoying the book. I thank you sharing your thoughts…please continue to do so. Recognizing resistance is the first step then fighting the good fight.
God Bless
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An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who has been conducting a little research on this.
And he in fact bought me breakfast simply because I found
it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!!
But yeah, thanx for spending time to discuss this
matter here on your web site.