What's the Excuse Now?

I had all these great plans for my spiritual health and as well as my physical well being, but I can't seem to get started. January flew by with the best of my intentions to incorporate all these things back into my life, but the three weeks that I was dealing with my dad, while he got over the virus pretty handily, it was other stuff that kept knocking me down. At this point, my prayer life is practically non-existent, my spiritual growth is at a standstill and I haven't been to the gym since before Christmas.

I love all these activities. I find pleasure in each thing that I do, but I find I can't even seem to find the motivation or the desire to pick them up again. My rosary, Christian Prayer, and a few other books sit on my night table unopened or unused. It's not that I don't have the time to sit quietly and pray or read, I have plenty of that. I'm not having a spiritual crisis, dark night or even a feeling that I am distant from God, though I might be right now. I am certain of His prescence in my life and I don't even doubt my faith, but I feel so detached right now.

For some inexplicable reason, I cannot make myself put aside the least amount of time to pursue any of these activities. I need to exercise both physically and spiritually but I'd rather just put it off for another day. I could certainly spent less time online. I always manage to find things that I enjoy that are offline. I certainly have a lot of time invested in blogging, chatting and this new found amusement with Facebook. It's not that these things are bad. I enjoy them but how many times can a person refresh her LJ friend's list a day before it becomes way too much? An addiction perhaps?

I suppose I feel slightly better that some of the blogs I read and communities I spend reading are Catholic/Christian related. And fortunately, the blogosphere has been pretty calm and mellow these days.

At least I'm getting back to my writing. I'm trying to make that a my focus while everything else seems a bit awry. I do have some Catholic writing/story observations to make as well.

Also, I am looking forward to Lent. Perhaps I'll get my spiritual life back on track by then.

I did not stage that photograph either.

Thomas Merton Alert

Ok, so on Facebook where I don't have Jesus friended, but I do have the Thomas Merton Facebook club friended. Today I got a heads up for this Lent and Holy Week Resource by Thomas Merton from Ave Maria Press. I picked up a nice book for Advent and Christmas with reflections from St. Francis. Sadly, I put it down after Christmas day, which is also the time I started getting lax with praying as well.

I may try to order before Lent. I think it would be nice.

Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

I'm finally going to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours. I think I'm going to muddle my way through them for a while and maybe I will be able to find a community which prays them, just so I can experience praying them in common once or twice. I'll probably write more about this, and how I got to the point where I've come to praying the Psalms.


Tomorrow is the memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin, Martyr, known more commonly as Edith Stein. A Jewish convert to Catholicism, a Carmelite nun, a scholar and a victim of the Nazi Holocaust. She apparently converted to Catholicism sometime after reading about the life of St. Teresa of Avila. I don't know much about her, but I find the lives of saints intriguing, most especially saints of the modern era.

As Catholics, we're taught, once a Catholic always a Catholic. I believe that's also a common belief in Judaism. Both faiths have much to say about the consequences of apostasy, and throughout history there have people converting from one faith to the other many times. Some, very likely were forced and some were by choice. This is an interesting opinion about St. Edith Stein and her connection to her Jewishness. It was written just after her Canonization to Sainthood by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

Some thoughts taken from the article.

A convert is "born again," which also means that from God’s perspective he or she has retroactively always been in the community. An apostate, conversely, does not quit the community existentially; he or she is only absent without leave.Excommunication bars a sinful Catholic from receiving the sacraments, not from the Church herself, just as herem, the ban of ostracism, does not mean that a Jew is no longer a Jew. So Jews regard Edith Stein as a Jewish apostate, but always a Jew nonetheless. And she agreed with us about her Jewish identity; it is about her apostasy that she obviously had a different opinion. We cannot avoid the question of apostasy because it brings us face to face with the rival truth claims our two communities make—to ourselves, to each other, and to the world.

I must digest it again before I even attempt to make any commentary, but I thought it was an interesting reflection for the day.

picture of St. Edith Stein via wikipedia.