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My big fail for the Year of Faith

It's the Year of Faith, as proclaimed by His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI....and thus far, I've failed.

I keep telling myself I'll read that book on spirituality that I started and put down...or that I'll get to Fr. Barron's videos. Maybe spend a bit more time in prayer, especially at night. The Catechism is coming into my inbox every day in readable chunks; as of yet, I've not opened those emails.

So, yeah. Pretty much a fail.

It's like getting halfway through Lent and realizing you've been munching on chocolate every day. Or it's Christmas morning and none of the windows on your Advent calendar ever got opened.

It's not like I NEVER pray. Or that I don't spend time reading a lot of spiritual stuff, but most of that is for work, and I don't think that counts. I teach religious ed., but that's for the kids I teach, not for me. I know that I have not made a concerted effort to really dig into my spiritual life, and that's a fail.

Thankfully, one of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, reminds me that I really haven't failed: “Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.” Now, this isn't an excuse to sit back and say, "Oh, there's no way I can get good at this, so I'll just quit where I'm at and call it good." It is, however, a terrific reminder that I am not going to be perfect at this spiritual life, this friendship with the Divine, this mystery of Love, but I'm going to keep at it. After all, I'm not striving for competency; I'm striving for sainthood.

Time to pick myself up, strap on my Rosary bracelet, and get to work.
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  1. I'm doing the Catechism thing and saving them so I can do it again. Start when you can.

    I was also going to read all the Vatican II documents ... I copied them into a word processing document .... I've been on page 20 of 514 since Dec 15.

    And I was going to do a Fr Barron video every day .... then once a week .... and it's been .... a while since I watched one ... but they're still there and I'll get to them ... just a bit slower.

    Our church has started a lending library of Catholic CD's by Lighthouse Media. And I've been slowly working through those as I drive around.

    Keep going. Most of the year's still ahead!

    Jan Farmer

    ReplyDelete

  2. I did start a book on the Catechism this weekend, and I'm trying!!! to do evening prayers daily. Keep chuggin' along!

    ReplyDelete

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