Making spiritual new year's resolutions

My latest article at Catholic Stand is up: How to Make Spiritual New Year’s Resolutions.

Now here’s the thing: I don’t really make new year’s resolutions, and I know many people don’t. Generally, it feels materialistic, or more importantly, that any resolution I make is something I should have been doing all along.

However! There is value in setting goals, and certainly in reevaluating and resetting for a new year. And, occasionally our spiritual life needs that.

Indeed, to focus on strengthening one’s inner life - one’s relationship with God - is always a worthwhile pursuit, no matter the time of year. And if setting a resolution to do so helps - go for it!

I organized ideas around four common areas we typically make resolutions or set goals: education and learning, time management, volunteering, and finances. Have a look!

My list is by no means exhaustive, and you may very well have an entirely different idea of your own. I hope those listed spur some thought, and action.

As for me, I think I want to reacquaint myself with the Blessed Mother. I am a dedicated rosary-sayer, but I know there’s more to it than that. What shape that will take, to be determined. Perhaps I will ask the Legion of Mary if I can host the pilgrim Virgin statue.

I hope you had a blessed Epiphany!

Happy new year! And after-Advent reflections

it is the twilight of 2021. I am thinking about spiritual new year’s resolutions (and maybe writing an article about it) and simultaneously enjoying the Christmas season and reflecting on Advent.

During December, I took a small, four-part online class on Carmelite spirituality through Sacred Heart Major Seminary. I knew nothing about Carmelite spirituality going into it, and am convinced it is a deep, deep well that will require much more exploration.

There are of course parallels to other orders and forms of spirituality; the emphasis on mystic prayer reminded me of the Jesuits, for example. So I need to learn more to understand what makes it different and unique, because I know there is something to it. There wouldn’t be so many great saints to come of it, if not (St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Edith Stein, and so on).

Below are some of the takeaways, or really items of interest that made me pause (and want to know more):

• Carmelites pray “on behalf of the world” - the Carmelite is to stand proxy for sinners through voluntary and joyous suffering. “Missionary contemplation.” Idea of responsibility for the other

• Spirituality rooted in “zeal for the Lord in handing over one’s life to God”

• “The desert of the soul is the very place of God’s communication.”

• Soul = precise locale of communion with God.

• We are unfamiliar with our souls and how they relate to God.

• Contemplative prayer helps us with these questions: what is the soul? How does the soul relate to God? What does God desire for my soul?

• Further: the soul as Heaven itself

• Carmelites live lives both outwardly active and interiorly contemplative - always available in service to others, while also always seeking interior conversation with God through prayer. And open to the Holy Spirit’s “interruptions”

• Contemplative love is a Carmelite’s apostolate

• 5 stages of prayer: vocal, mental/meditation, prayer of recollection, prayer of quiet, prayer of union (I don’t feel I know enough about each to accurately summarize here)

• The common human vocation is to become mother or father (not always in the literal biological sense)

• All are called to enter into a mystical way of being in the world!

There was also a good deal about the way we are to imitate Mary, the ultimate contemplative mystic (yes), and also about Mt. Carmel itself, and the ascent thereof, which I did not understand. More to learn on that and many fronts!

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

A dump cake of thoughts about Advent

I remember being at a friend’s house during middle school and her mother having a recipe book that included a recipe for something called “dump cake,” which I thought sounded horrible.

Turns out dump cake is a type of cake (you can Google it) that involves dumping all a cake’s ingredients, dry and wet, into a pan, without having to mix it. Somehow it all cooks that way. Per some takes on the recipe there is also an element of dumping whatever ingredients you’ve got in there, like a sort of cupboard clearing (or maybe I made up that last part?). That’s also how I view fruitcake - it’s just a bunch of stuff, edible and not, that someone poured into a pound cake mold.

So, in the spirit of a dump cake (or a fruitcake) - and because I think Advent is too multifaceted and full of wonder to be focused on just one aspect - below are my thoughts as we enter the Advent season, and to help you think about which devotions, prayers, or practices will be helpful to you this Advent.

First, I start with a throwback: my article from several years ago, Five Ways to Make the Most of Advent. There’s suggestions for prayer and charitable activities in there.

Read Bishop Burbidge’s reflection, Advent as Joyful Remembrance.

Sign up for Pray More Novena’s Advent retreat. Each week has a few pre-recorded teachings, and this morning I listened to the by Dr. Edward Sri on the importance of cultivating an interior life. I have never listened to a Dr. Edward Sri talk, and it was a delight.

For the first Sunday of Lent, yesterday, Bishop Robert Barron gave a homily on three different perspectives from which you can understand Advent - the three coming of Christ, in history, today, and at his final coming.

Lastly, I offer tentatively, because it’s an intense take: a couple years ago Fr. Mike Schmitz recorded a video wherein he offered that we could see another side to Advent and the notion of a second coming, to be the second coming of Jesus into our lives - at our own deaths. He offers that we could live Advent as if we knew we would die on Christmas - how would you live differently? I don’t love this approach, because the inexperienced or overzealous could take it too far. But, this is a dump cake, so you’re getting the whole cupboard.

One more thought: you may hear the term “Advent figures,” as in, those “figures” who we associate with Christ’s birth, who played a role in his birth, and upon whom we can mediate. They include: the angels, the shepherds, the Magi, and Mary and Joseph. You may find it helpful to take some time through contemplative/imaginative prayer and either live through the last few week’s of Mary’s pregnancy with her, or stand with the shepherds in the field as the angels announce Jesus’s birth, follow the star with the Wise Men, or walk for miles beside the donkey carrying Our Lady with Joseph. Who do you relate to most, least? What feelings come up - fear, hope, trepidation, confusion, wonder?

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5

Have a holy Advent, and a happy Christmas.