I watched a couple of NFL games a few weekends ago, beginning with the Jaguars. They were getting blown out so I skipped ahead to half time. They were still getting blown out, so I skipped to the 4^th quarter and ended up watching them come back to get in position to win the game with a field goal. As I watched the kicker for Jacksonville get ready to kick the game winning kick, I noticed he was clutching his necklace – which looked like a crucifix or a cross, I couldn’t tell. What was interesting was that after he kicked the game winner, his team mates carried him around on their shoulders. As they were doing this he grabbed the necklace and took it off his head and was holding it up for everyone to see.

Then I watched the Giants vs Vikings game and after the game was over they panned to the Giants coach walking over to the Vikings coach. The Giants coach was wearing what appeared to be a crucifix with some type of medal on each side of the it.

The NFL is not known for its outright Christianity or even support of Christianity. But many of the coaches and players are Christians, and I am sure many are quite devoted.

Don’t let them tell you that there aren’t devoted Christians in the world. There are plenty.

“The girl pounding her typewriter may be pounding for nothing but dollars’ sake and wishing she could stop. The Poor Clare sweeping the monastery cloisters is doing it for God’s sake and prefers sweeping, at that particular hour, to any other occupation in the world.”

Mother Mary Francis

Let’s say that you’re a housekeeper cleaning the rooms of a cheap motel. It is not glamorous or easy, but you do good work. You’re working there to feed your family. Or you’re a nurse changing sheets at the nursing home. Or maybe you have the easiest job in the world. It is not what you do that is important, what matters is the love you have in your heart when you do it. So says Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. in her book, A Right to Be Merry: “This is another of the marvels of living in obedience. No one is ever doing anything more important than you are, if you are obeying. A broom, a pen, a needle are all the same to God. The obedience of the hand that plies them and the love in the heart of the nun who holds them are what make an eternal difference to God, to the nuns, and to all the world.”

Later in the book she adds: “As with writing, so with all else. Work is done simply and without consideration for the comparative dignity of varying tasks or enterprises. Such comparisons could never be anything but specious for cloistered nuns, whose work has a common dignity in that it is done with a common love and for one Lover.”

So don’t worry about moving up the ladder, or getting a great job or position at a prestigious company. Just worry with doing well what you’re supposed to be working on, on what you’re working on right now.

Fr Isaac Mary Relyea talks about the duty parents have to properly catechize their children. I’ve never thought about it before but out of all the people on earth, God entrusted to you your child’s soul, and He wants you to teach them about Him. Fr. Relyea says it better:

God gives you – married couples – the gift to procreate. To bring life into the world. And He gives you that child – that son or daughter and says “Here, I’m entrusting this greatest treasure, which is worth more than all the material things in the world, are nothing compared to one soul, that soul is worth so much that My Son shed, not only one drop of His blood, all of His blood.” That’s a big responsibility that you parents have. That’s why children, this isn’t going to just happen on its own. That’s why you have to start forming them in the school of the saints.

Many say that you can’t judge the actions of others. But if someone is committing sin, it is charitable to correct them (certainly at the proper time, out of charity and love, and within your state in life), as Father Isaac Mary Relyea says in his first podcast (he is speaking here about people in sinful relationships):

“Correct these people, out of charity. If you love someone you will the highest good for them – that they get to Heaven. And if you love someone therefore you want them to get to Heaven, you’re not going to lead them into sin and you’re not going to condone their sins.”

“Living completely for God. Little by little chiseling away those things that you’re attached too.” Friar Anthony

I’m trying to slow down my sugar intake dramatically. On most days, I drink 3-4 cups of coffee with each cup having 60-70 grams of sugar in it. That doesn’t include the amount of creamer I drink with each cup also. So I’m cutting that down and today was the first day. I drank 1 cup of coffee with 50 grams of sugar in it. I notice no change in my demeanor except I feel more sluggish right now – 4pm – than usual. I think I drink this coffee and sugar concoction out of habit, mindlessly drinking as I work. But I have to chisel away these things…for my health…but mainly because I am attached to them.

I recently was reminded of the great saying, “Health is wealth.” And it is true, to a degree. But health is in second place to the ultimate and true wealth which is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Read about the great saints throughout history and their lives attest to that. Many of them lived hard and difficult lives – oftentimes by choice. Eating little, sleeping on the ground or on a plank of wood. To this day I think that most if not all Franciscan monks sleep on bags of straw. They wake up in the middle of the night (appx 12:30am) to pray.

So to many of the saints health was irrelevant, they didn’t strive for it at all. They did everything for our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Francis of Assisi apologized to his body before he died, for all the torment he put it through.

I try to read two “Saints of the Day” (on the Laudate App) each morning. Seeing when they were born and when they died, not many make it to 60 years old. I think the aforementioned St. Francis lived to be 44.

So what to do? Look at each day as a great blessing, truly a day to worship God and do His work. Your time is short. Momento mori, ‘remember you must die’. Your health will fail, it will come faster than you think. You must live rightly right now. There is no time to wait. All the things that so many people of the world are focused on are irrelevant, they are but “strings which tie us to this world.” So get rid of your attachments, like for me, sugar. “Living completely for God. Little by little chiseling away those things that you’re attached too.”

I was listening to EWTN Radio yesterday and a young, 12 year old girl called in. She said she had suffered from depression and anxiety for years. There is much to say regarding suffering, depression and anxiety but I thought this talk from Friar Anthony was good to keep in mind whenever the attacks are strong. Just grip tight to the Lord.

I remember reading that Saint Teresa of Calcutta said that anytime she had doubts or faced spiritual dryness she would “cling to Christ”. Friar Anthony echoes this. All words below are his (my bold):

Finally the habit of prayer – the source of divine help in every kind of assault. Well when you’re being assaulted in grave temptation obviously it doesn’t feel like prayer is helpful but that’s the whole point. your prayer becomes very very simple at that point it’s just constantly trying to look to God it’s not like you have to be able to be absorbed and not have any thoughts in your head and be sitting there completely wrapped in God. No, you got all these Temptations going on okay when you’re in the middle of a hurricane your prayer is very very simple:

“Save me Lord.” I mean you’re not trying to like act like you’re not in a hurricane and pretend that everything’s calm and peaceful around you and you’re just offering your heart up to God and there’s no distractions no. There’s like, you know, buses flying at you and all kinds of stuff so the point of it is is to have a very simple prayer because it’s a very effective prayer. When you’re temptations are being

inundated with thoughts or those images are flying into your head you just kind of grip something that is God and just keep crying out the same thing because as St (Alfonso) says “if you’re praying you’re not sinning”. That’s the thing to remember if you’re praying you’re not sinning so the simple prayer would just be The Hail Mary or mother help me or dear Lord whatever it is but as long as you’re raising your heart and your mind to God in all of its simplicity then there you are – you’re praying and you’re not going to be sinning. I don’t care how filthy those thoughts are coming into your head if you don’t want that thought you don’t want to engage that thought and you keep praying you are not sinning.

I don’t care what effect it has on you. Thought comes in it affects you even physically somehow, but you’re not engaging that and you’re still praying but it’s so it’s such an onslaught, but you keep praying and you’re not thinking about it – you’re not sinning you’re not sinning. You just have to remember that – you’re not sinning. Don’t let him think he’s beaten you all the time he’s not. You can be at complete peace. The body’s the body, the soul makes the choice, the body doesn’t make the choice.

So if your soul stays on target of gripping on to God and you keep praying no matter what that effect is having on you you just keep praying keep your mind up you stay off of it there you go, you did not sin. He who prays doesn’t sin St Alfons is very clear about it. But you can’t be

engaging in it and trying to pray at the same time that’s blasphemy. Do you understand the difference? Don’t trick yourself with stupid stuff you have to understand the very simple principle is that you don’t consent in any way to these things but we can become such a target from the devil that we can be flooded with so much impurity into our mind’s eye you have no idea where it even came from and for anyone who’s engaged in that stuff for extended period of time which so many young people have today there’s a lot of stuff there that can be just brought back out it’s like vomit coming back up and you see like the little nuggets of the little hot dogs but because you’re hungry you might want to eat the little hot dog nuggets that are in the vomit and things like that well no it’s still just vomit coming up so you have to just avoid the vomit. But it’s not your fault that the whatever reflex stuff happens.

We have a duty – we are obligated – we must – stand up for what is right, says Pope Leo XIII. The below is copied directly from https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/n167_doctrine_2.htm:

Pope Leo XIII exhorted us in Sapientiae Christinae of January 10, 1890, to defend and proclaim the truth of the Catholic Faith at all times without fail. To safeguard the integrity of the Faith, he insists, is a duty that belongs to each one of the faithful and not just those with power of rule. Further, one who keeps silence in face of error is repulsive to God and unworthy of eternal salvation. These are important lessons for the progressivist clergy and laymen in our days.

Pope Leo XIII

But in the same matter, touching Christian Faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance necessary at all times in the interest of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days.

Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion it is, as we have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping.

But when necessity compels, not only those who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of the Faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains, each one is under obligation to show forth his faith either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.

To recoil before an enemy or to keep silence when from all sides such clamor is raised against truth, belongs to a man either devoid of character or one who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is shameful and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of Faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.

Moreover, lack of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions. And, by always exerting themselves more strenuously, they might count upon being successful.

“Chastity makes us like the angels.”
There is so much beauty in this talk by Friar Anthony on Christian Purity (embedded below) that there is no way for me to sum it up. This is not a transcription of his talk, just my notes from it. All bold is mine, all words below are Friar Anthony’s.

(Overcoming the temptations) The gift is so much sweeter afterwards. The happiness of a man in Heaven because (he) fought through the temptations of the flesh and the concupiscence of the world, that means the desire for pleasure – its all around us, because we’ve had to fight through this, they say that it makes us greater than the angels. It’s in this where we become greater than the angels. It’s not because we’re smarter than them, because the dignity of a man, a man has to fight through all the barrage that he feels in his flesh, that he sees with his eyes, that he hears with his ears, that his flesh longs to touch, all these things he has to fight through so that he can actually arrive at that purity, so he can maintain that purity, so he never loses that purity. And if he loses it, to gain it back through greater violence like St. Mary Magdalene had to do. This is what makes us greater than the angels – it’s the struggle, to stay, remain and arrive in Heaven, in purity.

The angels take great delight being around men that are pure.

Chastity means violence to the flesh. Your flesh desires something and you say no to it, that’s a violence. You have to suffer something to say I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to have this, I’m not going to touch that, I’m not going to say this, I’m not going to listen to that, there’s a violence that happens in that.

If you have a friend that starts using bad language, there’s a violence in standing up for your faith and telling them I’m not going to listen to this.

St. Paul says we carry it (our purity) in earthen vessels. It is delicate. If you slip, its gone. It is the same thing with our purity, with our chastity. We have to very delicately take care of it with all zealousness so that we see it through to the end.

Someone that has a pure soul – they’re not speaking about foul things, they’re not thinking about foul things, they’re not doing foul things, they’re not desiring foul things. Someone like this lives like a little child in the presence of God and as they grow in that purity they grow upwards before God and they walk before the face of God.

In Easter time they put all the beautiful lilies in the church, and they smell so good after a long Lent.

The saints talk about the odor of the soul. St. Pio could smell the odor of the soul. And the soul doesn’t smell good because of impurity. Our Lady of Fatima said it is impurity that sends the most souls to hell.

But purity causes the greatest fragrance in the soul. St. Pio could smell the sin on people, and he smelled the putrid disgust in them.

One time a guy smelled St. Pio and he thought, this friar, he’s wearing perfume. St. Pio didn’t wear perfume and so St. Pio’s soul would emanate a beautiful aroma and that’s what they smelled.

Our Lord had a great love for those who were chaste. He made His mother the Immaculate Virgin. St. Joseph had an angelic type of purity. St. John the Baptist was preserved in his mother’s womb. His beloved disciple was St. John. All of these were lilies about Him, that He placed about Himself. Our Lord likes to be in the presence of the pure.

So chastity is a penance, a lily among thorns.

Self discipline – we have to be disciplined on our time because we know if we don’t take care of our time well, if we have lots of free time just sitting around we can become prone to vice.

Self denial – we may want to eat more than we should, or do things we shouldn’t do, or think about something we shouldn’t think about. We have to mortify this. We have to have self denial, tell yourself, I will not do that because those are the things that will make me slow and dumb like everybody else who is on the road to hell instead of the road to Heaven. We seek purity, the upright before God. So that we can have a mind that works clearly, a heart that loves purity.

Self restraint – no more pieces of pizza.

Mortification

Watchfullness – keeping a close eye. You have to be watchful because it only takes an instant to lose purity.

Segregation – just stay away from certain people. Stay away from certain people because they’re not going to lead us to Heaven.

Sacrifice – these are sacrifices, because sometimes we like to be around those types of people. But Heaven is worth it and so we make these choices.

Conformity to God’s will. We conform ourselves to the will of God.

We beg for fortitude and courage so we can do this kind of stuff.

So purity of heart gives us health of our soul, it gives us health of our mind. It makes things clear, it makes us long to be around other people who are pure.

We want to exist as a mountain that is untouched it’s what we want. And it’s sin that ruins it. Creates the avalanche in our life to start tending downward pulling us ever downward and then life becomes difficult because once we enter into these unchaste and impure things, once we allow this room to – to defile our beautiful little souls, once that starts to happen things get hard. It’s harder to make decisions, it’s harder to do what’s right, it’s harder to stay on the right course. Things get more difficult but as long as we fight and we do that penance and we stay pure and we do that struggling and that wrestling so that we’re equal to the Angels, when we do that we get stronger and we get clear in our mind and we’re able to come to things like, hopefully to understand the beauty of what St. John said and to penetrate in truth.

In the case that we find that maybe there has been an offense against our purity, there has been an offense against our chastity in some capacity, we know from St. Mary Magdalene we can always repent. We can repent and through the deepness of love and the penance that Mary Magdalene did she was reputed at the time of her death as having a virginal soul, which it was at a great cost.

Modern life wants you to ‘hustle’ all the time. You have a side hustle, right? That’s the hustle you do after you’re done with your main hustle. Success in america is determined by how much money you make whilst hustling. But not for us. Throw all that out of the window, and do one of these:

Go on a walk with your family and pray the Rosary.

Sit and think of the majesty of God.

Follow your kids around and be a kid with them. Let their imagination be the guide.

Turn on the fireplace, get cozy and read a book.

Microwave popcorn, turn on a movie.

Go to bed early, wake up early when it’s still dark outside and pray.

Put your favorite meal in the oven.

Write a poem.

Sing a song, play the guitar, turn on your favorite music.

Invite someone to go to Mass with you.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. in her book A Right to Be Merry said: “When St. Clare sent her Sisters out of the monastery for any reason, she would remind them to praise God for every flowering tree they saw, to exult in every little blade of grass.” So do that. Exult every little blade of grass. Praise every flowering tree.

Call friends and family you don’t often talk to. Wish them a Merry Christmas. If you don’t talk to them during the holidays you probably won’t the rest of the year.

Just a couple ideas…

In the eyes of God there is no ‘better’ way of making a living – if you are doing it for Him.

Let’s say that you’re a housekeeper cleaning the rooms of a low-rent motel. It’s not glamorous or easy. But you do good work. You’re working there to feed your family, in accordance with your state in life. Or you’re a nurse changing sheets at the nursing home. You’re doing work equivalent to or probably better than the greatest tycoon.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., in her book A Right to Be Merry, says of the old sister who can only clumsily sew from her infirmary bed:
“Sister would be propped up in bed, mending someone’s undergarments with great clumsy patches and generous stitches. But this was all the work she could do now. And so it must be shown to Mother Abbess. Foolish? Oh, no! The young nun writing books or painting canvases in oils may perhaps be doing something far less important in God’s eyes than is the old child in the infirmary patching under-tunics.”

She speaks of the obedience which is key:

“This is another of the marvels of living in obedience. No one is ever doing anything more important than you are, if you are obeying. A broom, a pen, a needle are all the same to God. The obedience of the hand that plies them and the love in the heart of the nun who holds them are what make an eternal difference to God, to the nuns, and to all the world.”

She writes about the joy of working on that which you’re supposed to be working on:
“Contemplative nuns freely elect to obey a monastic Rule inspired by God. The girl (ed: out in the world) pounding her typewriter may be pounding for nothing but dollars’ sake and wishing she could stop. The Poor Clare sweeping the monastery cloisters is doing it for God’s sake and prefers sweeping, at that particular hour, to any other occupation in the world.”

So don’t worry about moving up the ladder, or getting a great job or position at a prestigious company. Follow the example of the Poor Clare’s, who do what they are supposed to do, do it with obedience and joy, and do it as though it is the greatest job in the world – because it is.