In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (14:27). I don’t know about you, but as hard as I try to always pursue the peace of Christ, my heart still gets troubled. I still get afraid.
There are so many things that threaten to rob us of our peace and succeed in doing so. Fear of suffering. Fear of situations we can’t control in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones. And as I wrote last month, it is easy to try to make sense of the world we live in, but we’ll often walk away from that frustrated, or perhaps even angry at what we see.
Make no mistake: what’s going on in the world matters. Current events are not inconsequential. Elections DO have consequences.The evil that used to cautiously lurk in the shadows seems to be dancing in plain sight on the front lawns of our homes, our church, and our capitol. As Catholics, we ARE called to be soldiers for Christ (2 Tim. 2:3) and to fight for the Truth, but not with derisive, spiteful discourse that does nothing but sow fear and anger in our hearts and drive the Body of Christ and humanity itself further apart. Then how do we fight the evil we see in the world, as soldiers for Christ?
Meditating on the spiritual fruit of each mystery -- a specific virtue that we can aspire to live out in our own lives like Jesus and Mary -- can make our prayer experience deeper and our devotion more spiritually fruitful. Meditating on the fruits of each mystery of the rosary is a way to preach the rosary with our lives, pursue and attain virtue, and become more of the person that God is calling each of us to be.
The logical assumption would be that the person getting promoted is #1 in something or everything, but if you think about it from the lens of a manager, if I have a team member who is always so busy he never has time for the projects I need him for...how helpful is he? Who's he really helping? How much of the work he does is actually directly benefiting his boss? This is why your best ability is your availability.
Turning away from prayer means turning away from union with God. Maybe you don’t understand prayer or know where to start... for others we know prayer is important, but continue to struggle with “fitting it in”. Here are some recommendations to start winning the prayer battle.
