Being Earnest and Thoughtful
March 4, 2025
Being Earnest and Thoughtful
Hello! How is each and every one? Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, we start with the season of Lent, 40 opportune days of redeeming ourselves once again by sharing and accompanying Jesus in His Passion, Death and Resurrection. Lent is an opportunity for you and me to reciprocate God’s love for each one of us and to accompany Jesus with prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
In prayer you and I talk to Him about our desires to
seek Him, to encounter Him, to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this
life. We adore Him because He is
Almighty God, Creator and Father; we thank Him for everything because
everything is His and we are nothing without Him; we ask Him for mercy and
forgiveness for our sins against Him and others; we ask Him for everything we
need to respond to His ever faithful love and provident care for each one of us.
We deny ourselves of many things we like, comfort,
food, drink, etc. because we want to follow the footsteps of Jesus who suffered
all the comforts of life out of love for each one of us. Being rich and yet He became poor for us.
Practice almsgiving through corporal and spiritual
works of mercy: feed the hungry; give
drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; shelter the homeless; visit the sick
and lonely; visit the imprisoned; bury the dead; counsel the doubtful; instruct
the ignorant; admonish sinners and encourage them to receive the sacrament of
confession; comfort the afflicted; forgive offenses; bear wrongs patiently; prepare
dying persons to meet the Creator and be happy; pray for the living and the
dead.
Well, well,
well. Somebody just shared the following
article and reading halfway through it, I started forwarding to many others in
both viber and messenger. Guess what? I
received a reply clarifying on fasting and abstinence from meat. Yes! Indeed! A clarification is called for.
And so I share with you an edited version of the article. Allow me first to
quote St Paul’s words to the Philippians 4:8: “For the
rest, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever honorable, whatever just,
whatever holy, whatever lovable, whatever of good repute, if there be any
virtue, if anything worthy of praise, think upon these things. And what you
have learned and received and heard and seen in me, these things practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
Great Wisdom from Pope
Francis during Lent
Aside
from fasting and abstaining from meat on March 5, Ash Wednesday and April 18, Good
Friday; abstain from meat on all 6 Fridays of Lent. And then freely challenge and master
yourselves on the following suggestions by Pope Francis:
1. Say hello (always and everywhere).
2. Say thank you (even if you don’t “have to”).
3. Remind others how much you love them; how much God loves them.
4. Greet with joy the people you see every day.
5. Listen to the other’s story, without prejudice, with love.
6. Stop to help. Be attentive to those who need you.
7. Lift someone’s spirits.
8. Celebrate the qualities or successes of another.
9. Select what you don’t use and give it to someone who needs it.
10. Help when needed so that another can rest.
11. Correct with love, don’t keep quiet out of fear.
12. Have nice details with those who are close to you.
13. Clean what you use at home.
14. Help others overcome obstacles.
15. Call your parents, if you are fortunate enough to have them.
*Fast from hurtful words and spread kind words.
*Fast from discontent and fill yourself with gratitude.
*Fast from anger and fill yourself with meekness and patience.
*Fast from pessimism and fill yourself with hope and optimism.
*Fast from worries and fill yourself with trust in God.
*Fast from complaining and fill yourself with the simple things in life.
*Fast from pressures and fill yourself with prayer.
*Fast from sadness and bitterness and fill your heart with joy.
*Fast from selfishness and fill yourself with compassion for others.
*Fast from unforgiveness and fill yourself with attitudes of reconciliation.
*Fast from words and fill yourself with silence and listen to others.
Let us continue
praying for the person, intentions, and health of the Holy Father. “May the Lord preserve him, and
grant him life, and make him holy on earth, and not deliver him into the hands
of his enemies.”
May I also ask for your prayers as always and more
especially on March 8, Saturday. It is
International Women’s Day and also my birthday.
Following now is the continuation of the chapter on
our divine longing for well-being (From
Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the
Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 9).
The Heavenly Virtue of Temperance:
The Antidote to Gluttony
The heavenly virtue of temperance, the ability to pursue every good thing in a healthy way, is the only way to reclaim the balance we need in order to achieve the wholeness we crave. Where gluttony gives the illusion of well-being—either by making us full or by giving us a sense of false control—temperance helps us to achieve balance in every aspect of life: work, play, relationships, and health. It facilitates mindful living by helping us find that balance that allows care, openness, acceptance, and love to grow. Truly, the only way to satisfy the divine longing for well-being and defeat gluttony is to commit to doing the work on oneself and one’s relationships that leads to an authentic experience of wholeness.
Temperance, because it encourages us to achieve an ecology between our internal and external worlds, enables us to appear fit on the outside and to be whole throughout. To neglect the psychological, relational, and spiritual work that we need to do and focus only on the externals of diet programs and gym memberships is to become what Jesus called “whitewashed tombs” (Mt 23:7). That is, whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of death and dry bones.
Temperance facilitates our call to divinization in two ways.
First, it makes us stop and ask the question “What do I really need?” Instead of mindlessly consuming food or drink, or mindlessly pursuing physical solutions to every problem, temperance enables us to pause, reflect, and identify what parts of our lives are really out of balance so we can respond not just to the hunger for food but also to the hunger for meaning, purpose, healthy connection to God and others, and a peaceful spirit.
Psychologists refer to the ability to be aware of one’s true needs as mindfulness. Christians might do well to think of mindfulness as temperance in action.
By facilitating mindfulness, temperance helps us monitor small positive or negative shifts in each of the five major areas of well-being we discussed at the beginning of the chapter, and to make appropriate plans to adjust for any imbalance we might be experiencing.
The exercise of this ability enhances our sense of healthy self-control (Teper and Inzlicht, 2013). The mindfulness cultivated by practicing temperance has been shown to have multiple, direct health benefits, from decreasing stress (Creswell, Pacillio, Lindsay, and Brown, 2014) and mediating the impact on physical health of depression and anxiety (Kurdyak, Newman, and Segal, 2014), to lowering blood pressure (Hughes, Fresco, Myerscough, et al., 2013) and enhancing health outcomes for patients suffering from coronary heart disease and diabetes (Keyworth, Knopp, Roughey, Dickens, et al., 2014) and even from cancer (Newswise, 2014).
Not surprisingly, with all these positive health benefits, research has found that people who cultivate the healthy self-control that accompanies temperance live significantly longer than those who don’t (Turiano, chapman, Agrifroaei, et al., 2014). In fact, participants in the latter study who reported poorer degrees of temperance in their lives were three times more likely to die during the period of the study than those who exhibited higher degrees of temperance.
The second way that practicing temperance facilitates the call to divinization is by enduring that every part of us is exposed to God’s grace so that our personal, emotional, social, and spiritual selves can be developed to their fullest potential. Recall that nothing that is imperfect can enter into the full presence of God (Rv 21:27). Temperance facilitates our growth in perfection by putting us in touch with each part of ourselves that could benefit from some attention, and making sure that no single dimension of our well-being consumes all of our energy at the expense of every other part of ourselves.
In sum, temperance is a key ingredient for an abundant, healthier, happier, and longer life in this world and the next! It is the virtue that enables us not merely to survive in this world, but to thrive.
Message from the Pope for Lent 2025
The Holy Father shares what it means to journey together in hope this Lent. “All of us are pilgrims in this life; each of us is invited to stop and ask how our lives reflect this fact. Am I really on a journey, or am I standing still, not moving, either immobilized by fear and hopelessness or reluctant to move out of my comfort zone?”
Dear brothers and sisters,
We begin our annual pilgrimage of Lent in faith and hope with the penitential rite of the imposition of ashes. The Church, our mother and teacher, invites us to open our hearts to God’s grace, so that we can celebrate with great joy the paschal victory of Christ the Lord over sin and death, which led Saint Paul to exclaim: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54-55). Indeed, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is the heart of our faith and the pledge of our hope in the Father’s great promise, already fulfilled in his beloved Son: life eternal (cf. Jn 10:28; 17:3). (Cf. Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos(24 October 2024), no. 220).
This Lent, as we share in the grace of the Jubilee Year, I would like to propose a few reflections on what it means to journey together in hope, and on the summons to conversion that God in his mercy addresses to all of us, as individuals and as a community.
First of all, to journey. The Jubilee motto, “Pilgrims of Hope,” evokes the lengthy journey of the people of Israel to the Promised Land, as recounted in the Book of Exodus. This arduous path from slavery to freedom was willed and guided by the Lord, who loves his people and remains ever faithful to them. It is hard to think of the biblical exodus without also thinking of those of our brothers and sisters who in our own day are fleeing situations of misery and violence in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones. A first call to conversion thus comes from the realization that all of us are pilgrims in this life; each of us is invited to stop and ask how our lives reflect this fact. Am I really on a journey, or am I standing still, not moving, either immobilized by fear and hopelessness or reluctant to move out of my comfort zone? Am I seeking ways to leave behind the occasions of sin and situations that degrade my dignity? It would be a good Lenten exercise for us to compare our daily life with that of some migrant or foreigner, to learn how to sympathize with their experiences and in this way discover what God is asking of us so that we can better advance on our journey to the house of the Father. This would be a good “examination of conscience” for all of us wayfarers.
Second, to journey together. The Church is called to walk together, to be synodal. (Cf. Homily for the Mass and Canonization of Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and Artemide Zatti, 9 October 2022). Christians are called to walk at the side of others, and never as lone travelers. The Holy Spirit impels us not to remain self-absorbed, but to leave ourselves behind and keep walking towards God and our brothers and sisters. (Ibid). Journeying together means consolidating the unity grounded in our common dignity as children of God (cf. Gal 3:26-28). It means walking side-by-side, without shoving or stepping on others, without envy or hypocrisy, without letting anyone be left behind or excluded. Let us all walk in the same direction, tending towards the same goal, attentive to one another in love and patience.
This Lent, God is asking us to examine whether in our lives, in our families, in the places where we work and spend our time, we are capable of walking together with others, listening to them, resisting the temptation to become self-absorbed and to think only of our own needs. Let us ask ourselves in the presence of the Lord whether, as bishops, priests, consecrated persons and laity in the service of the Kingdom of God, we cooperate with others. Whether we show ourselves welcoming, with concrete gestures, to those both near and far. Whether we make others feel a part of the community or keep them at a distance. (Ibid). This, then, is a second call to conversion: a summons to synodality.
Third, let us journey together in hope, for we have been given a promise. May the hope that does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5), the central message of the Jubilee, (Cf. BullSpes Non Confundit,1) be the focus of our Lenten journey towards the victory of Easter. As Pope Benedict XVI taught us in the Encyclical Spe Salvi, “the human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39).” [Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi(30 November 2007), no. 26]. Christ, my hope, has risen! (Cf. Easter Sequence). He lives and reigns in glory. Death has been transformed into triumph, and the faith and great hope of Christians rests in this: the resurrection of Christ!
This, then, is the third call to conversion: a call to hope, to trust in God and his great promise of eternal life. Let us ask ourselves: Am I convinced that the Lord forgives my sins? Or do I act as if I can save myself? Do I long for salvation and call upon God’s help to attain it? Do I concretely experience the hope that enables me to interpret the events of history and inspires in me a commitment to justice and fraternity, to care for our common home and in such a way that no one feels excluded?
Sisters and
brothers, thanks to God’s love in Jesus Christ, we are sustained in the hope
that does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5). Hope is the “sure and
steadfast anchor of the soul.” (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.
1820). It moves the Church to pray for “everyone to be saved” (1
Tim 2:4) and to look forward to her being united with Christ, her
bridegroom, in the glory of heaven. This was the prayer of Saint Teresa of
Avila: “Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch
carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes
doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one.” (Ibid,
no. 1821, quoting The Exclamations of the Soul to God, 15:3).
May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope, intercede for us and accompany us on our Lenten journey.
Rome, Saint
John Lateran, 6 February 2025
Memorial of
St Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs.
FRANCIS
Let us cultivate those details of
respect and regard for each other in our relationships so as to make life more
and more pleasant and thereby more meaningful for each one of us. Let us pray
for one another in this journey you and I are going through not only during
this season of Lent but throughout our life as pilgrims of hope.
Wow!
We have so much to talk about with Our Lord, much to desire and to work
on in ourselves, for the others out of love for God with His grace during this
season of Lent.
See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and
laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us
together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
Comments
Post a Comment