Last week I began a one year program in the Resilient Catholics Community lead by Dr. Peter Malinoski at soulsandhearts.com. Souls and Hearts was developed to meet the needs of practicing Catholics who struggle with the everyday challenges of life. Grounded in a Catholic anthropology, Souls and Hearts' contributors draw from the psychological sciences to offer Catholics mental health education and information in an online format.
I think it's safe to say that most of the time the answer is no, and the main reason is found in Fr. Sebastien's words above. "Grace...is a reality that conditions our humanity to attain the purposes God has for us." There is a great lesson here if we have eyes to see it.
On my worst days I can fall victim to being anxious about my anxiety where I'm convinced that this cross is a barrier to God's will being realized in my life.
If instead we surrender that struggle to God, offering up our efforts in battle for the conversion of sinners and resigning the outcome to God, I think we'll find peace there.
I wrote an article on Monday called Public Enemy #1 about my encounter in adoration. In that email I challenged you to think about the #1 habitual sin in your life, and I offered some suggestions that have proven to be helpful for me personally in the past. There was a second insight from adoration that day that I had planned to share today, but something happened this week that I just had to tell you about.
