Oh, is that all?

A  hermit  had a gift from God to cast out evil spirits.
One time he asked to learn what they feared most and what compelled them to flee.

“Perhaps it is fasting?” he asked one of them.
“We,” the evil spirit replied, “neither ever eat nor ever drink.”

“Sleepless vigils, then?”
“We do not sleep at all.”

“Flight from the world?”
“Supposedly an important thing. But we spend the greater part of our time wandering around the deserts.”

“I implore you to confess what it is that can subdue you,” insisted the elder.
The evil spirit, compelled by a supernatural force, was pressed to answer: “Humility—which we can never overcome.”

— The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: Section 1
V. Rev. Chrysostomos, trans.

The Litany of Humility
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
          From the desire of being esteemed,
          Deliver me, Jesus.          

From the desire of being loved...
          From the desire of being extolled ...
          From the desire of being honored ...
          From the desire of being praised ...
          From the desire of being preferred to others...
          From the desire of being consulted ...
          From the desire of being approved ...
          From the fear of being humiliated ...
          From the fear of being despised...
          From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
          From the fear of being calumniated ...
          From the fear of being forgotten ...
          From the fear of being ridiculed ...
          From the fear of being wronged ...
          From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
          Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

            That others may be esteemed more than I ...
          That, in the opinion of the world,
          others may increase and I may decrease ...
          That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
          That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
          That others may be preferred to me in everything...
          That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…            

The Litany of Humility at EWTN

Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn’t agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.

—Saint Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 39:1-2

Not just your ordinary de-cluttering

This is a holy mission, a quest to find time and space for God.It is an imperative for authentic Catholic homemaking. This is a clearing of soul as I pursue a clearing of space. And time. Colleen captures it better than I do:

Over and over I have talked myself out of this being the problem.  Overand over I have reasoned that I just needed more containers and bookshelves (stuff for my stuff).  And over and over I have found myself lying in bed at night feeling like a total failure because of the state of my stuff.  Even on a day when we have prayed together, learned together, played together, I can often find myself guilt-ridden at night because I was not able to manage my home as I think I should. If stuff is in the way of my experiencing God's love and mercy, it's definitely the problem. Read the rest here.

Less than a Week Until Ash Wednesday

There is less than a week before Ash Wednesday--one week to ponder and to pray and to petition God. What does He want from us? We have a week to seek Him and ask Him to help us plan. I've started to prepare a bit here at Real Learning. In the upper right hand sidebar is a short Lenten prayer. I prayed this prayer last year during Lent and found it to be incredibly powerful and transforming. It's short, easily committed to memory, and highly recommended.

I've got some plans for our family and we've begun to discuss them with our children. You can read them here at the Herald site this week: Before Lent, A Time to Refocus. This will also be our time for Patrick to finish his Confirmation notebook and Nicholas to make his First Communion notebook. These notebooks have become treasured family projects. My plan is to post Nicholas' notebook here as we go and to make a photo album of it for the sidebar.

On the lefthand sidebar is a list of books found in my bedside basket this Lent. I'm hoping to work through these early and have ample time closer to Easter to read The Life of Faustina Kowalska and The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska before Divine Mercy Sunday. This is quite a stack of books. I admit to having already begun--I'm reading Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life with a friend this week as a Lenten warmup. And I've already read some of the others.

His Suffering and Ours is a book I last read with my friend Nicole as she was dying. It has sat on my shelf untouched since her death. I remember writing to Kathryn Mulderink, the author, and telling her about Nicole. I had given my copy of the book to another friend who was suffering greatly and I needed a copy for Nicole shipped quickly, frankly, so that we could read it before she died. That's really the simplest and best recommendation I can give for this book. It was written by a close and dear personal friend who walked with me hand in hand through the lowest valley in my life and it's the book I chose for another friend when she wanted to find God in the agony of terminal cancer.Kathryn was God's instrument to bring peace to Nicole's final days. I will forever be grateful to her for her ministry.

Where will I find the time to read these books and also to sit quietly and listen for God's thoughts on these books in my life? The Lenten Prayer is a good beginning to clearing time away. A reader noticed it recently and sent me a little longer version. She writes, "It reminds me of the prayer of St. Ephrem that we, as Byzantine Catholics, pray daily during the Great Fast (Lent):

O Lord and Master of my life, keep me from the spirit of indifference and discouragement, lust of power and idle chatter.  (prostration)

Instead, grant to me, Your servant, the spirit of wholeness of being, humble-mindedness, patience and love.  (prostration)

O Lord and King, grant to me the grace to be aware of my sins and not to judge my brother, for You are blessed now and ever and forever.  Amen. (prostration)

O God, be merciful (+ and bow) to me a sinner.  O God, cleanse me of my sins and have mercy (+ and bow) on me.  O Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned (+ and bow) without number.  [Repeat 4 X]

Honestly, I believe that all the "time management" tools necessary are wrapped neatly in this prayer. A blogging friend told me recently that she only reads three blogs on a daily basis. The rest she saves for an occasional (rare?) time when she might have some unexpected downtime to sit and read a bunch at once. Or she doesn't read the rest at all. My blogs are all on my Google Reader. It's a great tool. It keeps me posted on who has something new to read on any given day. It allows me to organize my blogs according to category:  all the craft blogs in one place, all the gardening blogs in another, and the cooking blogs, and the home education blogs. It allows me to easily share with you on my sidebar any blog posts I have found especially interesting. But my friend who only reads three blogs a day says that those three are chosen because they are the blogs she includes in her prayer time. She reads them to come closer to her Creator and to better answer her call to be a holy wife and mother. This gave me pause. Can I choose just three blogs to be a part of my daily time with God?  Those had better be well worth reading.And if I did and if I limited myself to just those blogs for Lent, wouldn't I be well on my way to avoiding "the spirit of indifference and discouragement, lust of power and idle chatter?"And wouldn't I clear up a considerable amount of time that I could dedicate to those books on my nightstand? Yes, I would.

Lent is a time of penance and prayer and fasting. It's a time to re-evaluate, to strengthen ourselves spiritually, to root out the "stuff" that keeps us from being who God intends us to be. Recently, I was thinking about Lent in light of purgatory. I've long struggled with the concept of purgatory, mostly because I can't wrap my mind around the "time" dimension. But I do fully see the need and the reality of purgatory and I do trust the wisdom of the Church. Puragtory is the warm hug that envelopes the saved. Mary Beth Bonacci recently wrote an excellent article on purgatory. In part, she wrote:

I will see what God’s perfect plan was for me, and how I — to the extent that I was lazy or selfish or otherwise occupied — fell short of that plan. I will see how many more souls I could have touched if I had followed Him more closely, if I had listened to His promptings. I’ll see how their lives could have been better, or even how their souls could have been saved, if I had more generously allowed the Holy Spirit to work through me.
Yes, purgatory involves suffering. But I have read that the souls in purgatory are happier than those of us here on earth. And why wouldn’t they be? They are assured of salvation. They know they are going to heaven.

Lent also involves suffering. And the goal is very similar to the one Mary Beth reflects upon above. Can the ascetism of Lent allow us to see how we are lazy or selfish and what He desires instead? Can we live Lent in such a way that we touch more souls because we listen carefully to His promptings and follow Him more closely? In our prayer and fasting, can we be generous? Can the Holy Spirit fully inhabit us so that at the end of our Lenten journey, Easter is taste of heaven?

The Lenten Prayer

O Lord and Ruler of Life, take from me the spirit of idleness, despair, cupidity, and empty talking. Yea, O Lord grant that I may see my own sins and not judge my brother. For thou art blessed forever and ever. Amen.

This ancient Lenten prayer has been posted around my house this year. I’ve found it to be a good one over the long haul. At first, I read it and thought it a nice prayer, easy to memorize and entirely usable for Lent. Then, it began to seep into me.

Take from me the spirit of idleness, despair, cupidity, and empty talking. Idleness?  Dear Lord, I have eight children who still live at home and are all still homeschooled (except for the infant who is attached to me twenty-four hours a day). How in the world can I be idle? Ah, but I can and I am. When I sit at the computer and mindlessly click away while I nurse the baby, I am idling my brain and, more importantly, my spirit.  After a few weeks of praying this prayer, I have found myself whitttling my Bloglines down to only what I could manage in a fifteen minute sitting first thing in the morning. I promised myself I would not go back and check during the day. I lived without blogs entirely just a short year ago. I'm sure this own't kill me.

I'm spending that nursing time with one of the spiritual books I chose just for Lent (linked on the sidebar) or in the quiet of my room, rocking with a rosary, or next to a couple of children on the couch, reading them a good book. Yes, please, take from me the idleness. Take it and don’t let it creep back in.

What about despair? Honestly, I don’t often feel very despairing. But I’ve noticed it in my household. The spirit is here.  This prayer is for my children—particularly my teenagers—who are all too often held captive by feelings of despair.

Cupidity is a desire, usually for things.  For me, the Lenten discipline is to take good care of the things I have, to be very careful with home maintenance. I don’t desire things but I also don’t outwardly appreciate what I have the way I should.  This is a great big house, with lots of people in it and lots of people have lots of “stuff.” There is no excuse for it to be poorly tended. I have been given much and much is expected. I do not desire more; I desire to do more with what I have. I had a very honest talk with a dear friend yesterday. We went step by step through the realities of my day to try to find time to ensure that my home is good witness for this lifestyle. I will not desire more, but I will desire to do well with the abundance I have.

And empty talking. This really is why I was drawn to this particular prayer. There was a time when women at home were drawn to chatting away over the backyard fence or meeting each other for coffee in a restaurant or wiling away the hours attached to a telephone with an extra long cord. These are not my temptations. I have no fence, I no longer drink coffee and I’m not all that fond of the phone. No, my temptation is captured in a screen. Lord, save me from email and message boards. Save me from hours and hours of philosophical and theological conversations that actually draw me away from You and lead me outside your will.

I cannot live my vocation if my time is taken with idleness and empty talking. Even talking about motherhood, homemaking, and God himself can be empty talking if I talk (or write) about it and I neglect to do it. Time on earth is finite. The days of childhood are numbered.  Distracted mothers are a curse to their children.

There is a place for online support and fellowship. It serves a purpose and can be a blessing. I love friends I have made online and I count them among my blessings and my joys. Online conversations and blogs can inspire us to lives of holiness. They often do just that; they show us how to be better wives, better mothers, better teachers, better Christians.

But I also think that the devil drives the information superhighway. He claps with glee when moms log on. Lent is a time of discipline. Ascetism is about growing in self-discipline. This prayer helps me to see how I must order my time and my attention. Quiet stillness is a good thing. Idleness is not. Concern is a good thing. Despair is not. A home to grow in is a good thing. Chaos in that home is not. Encouragement and support in my vocation is a good thing. Empty talking is not.

Layer by layer, we peel away the things that stand between ourselves and godliness. We make more time for and pay more attention to the good things. And we leave behind those things that are not.

In the Garden of Gethsemane

There is a moment between "I think we might have a problem" and the diagnosis of cancer that is the loneliest, most painful, darkest moment of all.  It is the moment when you get up in the quiet of the dark hours of the morning and gaze at your sleeping baby and wander back to watch your sleeping husband and you beg. "Please, Lord, take this cup. Please!"

I know that moment, Melanie.  I wish I could reach across the wine dark sea and just let you cry on my shoulder.  I wish I could tell you that you will make it through this time and that your young marriage will grow stronger and sweeter and your child grow ever dearer. And I wish you could see me, whole and healthy, almost exactly seventeen years from my own Lenten despair and Easter diagnosis, just to give you tangible hope.  There is an Easter, Melanie. You will arise from your knees in this garden and you will embrace the cross in front of you and you will carry it well.

And we will help you. We will pray and pray and pray.  And we will even be here, in those dark hours of the early morning. In our own homes, with our own babies, we are mothers who can certainly stay awake and keep watch with you. When you think you are alone with your fears in the night, you are not. We are with you, calling upon the communion of saints to console you. We are with you and we will be there to celebrate your Easter with you, too.