The liturgical season of Lent has begun

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The liturgical season of Lent has begun
Spiritual retreat

The liturgical season of Lent has begun!  We’re already three months into the year and I feel like I just wished everyone a happy new year.   I must admit that I had not made a plan for my Lenten journey until yesterday – Ash Wednesday.  Boy have I been distracted, overwhelmed and uninspired!  Hopefully these next forty days will lead me to a better place spiritually.

I am blessed to be participating in an online course for certification as a catechist.  Through my studies I came across many online resources that I believe are going to get me back on track.  I’d like to share one of the websites with you.  I hope you can make a commitment, for Lent, to participate in the retreat that’s available on the website.  I’m on day 2 and am finding it to be enlightening, inspiring and very informative.

I know that many people, including myself, often feel like they don’t have the time to sit, pray, study and/or delve deeper, but it’s the only way to grow.

Please make the time, I promise you won’t regret it!

The website is ignatianspirtuality.com.  Once there you can tap on the tab entitled Ignatian Prayer and click on The Spiritual Exercises link.  On that page there are many different links that may be of interest to you.  However, the retreat that I am participating in and would recommend is the one entitled An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.  It’s an 8-week retreat with something to do and read everyday.  You can spend as much or as little time as you want in prayer.  Might I suggest you just go with the flow.  If you feel like you have no time, how about you sacrifice some television.  Maybe you can focus on this retreat before bed or get up earlier and start your day with it.  It just might change the course of your day for the better.  God bless you!

What the Lord requires is quite simple

Posted on by MSFriend
Do justice, act kindly, walk humbly
What is good!

What the Lord requires is quite simple.  Micah 6:8 says:  He has told you, O Man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God!

To DO justice:  to exhibit just behavior and treatment.  The definition for justice reads:  a concern for justice, peace and genuine respect for people.

To LOVE kindness:  Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate.  We must LOVE these things.

To WALK humbly WITH your God:   Walk, unhurried.  Humbly, having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience.   WITH your God, aware of His presence in and around you, fully dependent on Him, knowing that without Him you can do nothing.

How often do we rush through our prayer time or stillness in order to get to the “next” thing? Do you boast?  How often do you view yourself as superior to others?  Do you take the time on a regular basis to soak it all in and acknowledge moments in your daily life where God has rested His hand?  What changes do you need to make with regard to these things?

This post has been in my “notes” for quite some time.  I wrote it after hearing the readings during Sunday mass a few months ago.  Why I hadn’t posted it I’m not sure.  Maybe I felt I needed to elaborate a bit more.  Anyway, today I was reading lecture notes for an Old Testament course I’m taking and here’s what I read:

And so the past is prologue.   The prophetic conscience of the past becomes the prophetic consciousness of the present, if we open our minds and hearts to God.  The people in the days of Micah were wondering about the right way to be religious, worrying about the correct performance of their rituals, concerning themselves with looking good.  The prophet said to them:  “What is good has been explained to you.  The Lord wants only this:  that you act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God.” taken from The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament by Joseph Martos and Richard Rohr (maybe this is why this post had to wait)

It’s really that simple.  Why do we continually complicate things?

Examine your conscience today.  Are you fulfilling the requirements?  Are they your priority?