Life's been interesting lately.
That's the long and short of it. ;)
An important milestone has been reached! This past Monday, I celebrated my one-year anniversary of my baptism and entrance into the Catholic church. Whoop! I played hooky from school for a bit and caught a 7 am mass at Magdalene. With Lent in the recent past, and all of us still in the celebration of Easter, I have actually been thinking a lot about my baptismal promises that I made and then renewed again at the Easter Vigil.
V. Do you reject Satan?
R. I do.
V. And all his works?
R. I do.
V. And all his empty promises?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
R. I do.
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
R. I do.
V. God, the all-powerful Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and forgiven all our sins. May he also keep us faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and ever.
R. Amen.
Even reading them once again right now I am wanting to yell "I do, I do, I do, I do!!" And then when I read them it is a tad frustrating because I KNOW I can and should do better.
I guess Monday, and really a lot lately, I have been reminded constantly about God's love for me- one who professes so loudly how much she loves Him, yet seems to mess up all the time. But then He NEVER fails to still love me.
I'll give two recent examples:
The first example happened on Divine Mercy Sunday. I did not want to go to mass. What!? I wanted to stay in bed and sleep. Two alarming things about that statement- I love love love Sundays......because I get to go to mass. Secondly, my mass isn't even until 10:30!
Well and actually, let's make that three alarming things. This was the Sunday after Easter......after all the baptismal vow renewing and here I was pondering skipping out on mass. Geesh people!
Even still, I laid in bed pressing my snooze several times, arguing with myself about why I should or shouldn't go to mass. Finally, I decided I was being extremely ridiculous and made myself get up. Due to my big debate in my head, I was late. It was also First Communion Sunday so there wasn't an empty seat in the house. So I stood the whole time in the back of the church.
Then I got to kneel on the hard, cold floor. Which kind of seemed to fix everything. ;)
Second example-
Monday was great. I had the chance to go to confession and mass. I received Him in the Eucharist. Magdalene is awesome, so I even went to adoration for a bit. I had time to drive and pray and relax. Time to reflect on how blessed I truly am. Time to give thanks to God for His love and bringing me to this faith. What a blessed morning!
Then I went to school......
And it was like my whole world was flipped-turned upside down. Honestly, I don't even know why. It wasn't like some horrible day. However, I do know by the end of the day I felt like I needed to go to confession again. :) "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was 8 hours ago....."
Luckily, it was a Monday aka adoration night. I hadn't been to Winfield in two weeks because of school events, so it was long overdue. Not surprisingly, it was a bit difficult for me to quiet myself after my day. However, I did read this in a book I brought in:
"Practice poverty of heart by doing the following: If someone is angry at you today or you are angry with someone, let it go; if you feel hurt, let it go; if you are too busy to have a conversation, stop what you are doing and enter into conversation. Take one hour for silent prayer today."
And I realized lately how much I haven't been letting things go. It is in fact our human nature and weakness to want to get angry when someone does something bad to us. It is our human nature to dwell on what someone did to hurt us. It is our human nature to take all this hurt and anger and not just let it go. Or even worse, to then take that anger and hurt and shoot it right back at them. Which in turn feeds the cycle. Why not just lay it at the foot of the cross and be done with it? Let Him help you.
But back to the beginning, I guess the other long and short of it is this:
There is nothing better than a day that starts and ends in adoration!
