Resting like an athlete

Exciting news! 

I am thrilled to be a guest on "Morning Offering" on Annunciation Radio and Ave Maria Radio this Tuesday, February 17th. I look forward to speaking with Pat Oedy-Murray live at 8:45 am. Listen online at: https://www.avemariaradio.net/listen-ave.

 

I was slogging along on my treadmill while watching the winter Olympics. I was no match for the agile, fast, sleek fast skaters gliding along their icy track.

Have you been able to watch the various events?

It simply cannot escape us how hard the athletes work--and for how many years they practice--to achieve their level of expertise. Sometimes the result of all their practice is satisfying, and sometimes not so much.

It seems to me that our journey to a mature faith can take no less time to achieve a level of communion with God. I've been reading Thomas Merton lately and he seemed to acquire a sense of unity with God that goes beyond words.

Merton put it this way:  

"the contemplative . . . [is] he who has risked his mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas . . ."

He continued . . . "if you dare to penetrate your own silence and dare to advance without fear into the solitude of your own heart, and risk the sharing of that solitude . . . you will truly recover the light and the capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanations because it is too close to be explained."

This really gets at the heart of prayer, doesn't it? Prayer is communion with God, resting in and being with God, where our heart of love can experience more than words, because as has been said, it is the love of God that is within us that creates that oneness. It is not something we manufacture.

All of this is just a fancy way of saying--make sure you take time to sit in silence with your heart open to God. It may not seem like anything is "happening," but it is never a waste of time. Like a skilled spiritual athlete, resting in the quiet and practicing solitude may seem like work, but it is well worth our time.

Janet Cassidy
Email me at:  jmctm2@gmail.com

janetcassidy.com
https://www.facebook.com/reflectionsinfaith/
https://www.youtube.com/@janetcassidy 

 

 

 

 

Always learning

 

 

I've studied a lot of theology and such, so you can imagine my surprise when I learned from a little reflection that Jesus tells us who he is in the Beatitudes.

I mean, how many times have we sat with the Beatitudes, reflecting on them and praying with them?

How is it I have never heard anyone suggest that Jesus is revealing himself to us in them?

If you are unfamiliar with the Beatitudes altogether, you can find them in the 5th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel. They are so beautiful in their call for us to be meek, merciful, clean of heart, peacemakers and so forth. 

Naturally, when you read them with the idea that Jesus is describing himself, you can see him in every line, right down to the acknowledgement that he/we will be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. 

I encourage you to open your bible to the Beatitudes and see them with new insight and allow God to call you one of the blessed for the ways that you strive to imitate Jesus through them.

Janet Cassidy
Email me at:  jmctm2@gmail.com

janetcassidy.com
https://www.facebook.com/reflectionsinfaith/
https://www.youtube.com/@janetcassidy 

Here is a link to the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5 

Is my conscience enough?

 

                                                                     Mr. Didanoto's classroom

I shuddered when, in response to a question about what could restrain his power, the president said:

"My own morality, my own mind."

God placed in our hearts a natural law, whose voice calls us to "love and to do what is good and to avoid evil." (CCC1776)

But, we must understand that Natural Law uses reason and a well-formed conscience:

"It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law." (CCC1778)

We have to be careful here, because our judgment should be deeply rooted in divine law. It is actually the mind of God that we must follow.

Following are some points of wisdom from the "Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)." I encourage you to take your time with them: 

1783 Conscience . . . formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. 

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

Let us not miss the reality that our decision-making is not as simple as proclaiming "my own morality, my own mind." We must use our reason and divine law when it comes to making moral decisions that should always lead us to "doing good and avoiding evil." (We can certainly go even deeper into this in identifying what is evil.)

The truth is, if we rely ONLY on morality of our own making, and the thoughts in our own mind, we can easily be led to poor decision-making.

I encourage you to check out the links below that are related to today's blog. Pray over these and study them a bit to educate yourself on these important topics.

Janet Cassidy
Email me at:  jmctm2@gmail.com

janetcassidy.com
https://www.facebook.com/reflectionsinfaith/
https://www.youtube.com/@janetcassidy  

 

Relevant video (Trump):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZJUjhnt3M

Relevant article on conscience: 

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/index.cfm?recnum=4994

Relevant article on Natural Law:

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/natural-law