October Rosary.

The month of October is dedicated to the Rosary.
Although I recognize the value of praying the Rosary every day, I haven't lived up to that. I'm resolving say a Rosary every day this month.....and on into November due to the upcoming election. These are not easy times that we live in.
I awoke early this morning. It was after my wife had left for work but before our three year old son woke.I was ending the fourth Mystery as he came into the room......he sat quietly on my lap as I finished the fifth Mystery and said the Hail Holy Queen. He's sat and listened to my wife and I pray the Rosary often enough to know that it is a special time and not the time for play or TV.
Of course, once I finished and made the sign of the cross, he realized it was over and he could ask me to let him watch Thomas the tank engine.

One Year Later.

As I look at the record of my posts on my three blogs, I see that it has been a year since I last posted on this particular one.
Writing about the inner life enhanced by meditation and prayer is not easy.
I'm currently reading Thomas Merton's "The Seven Storey Mountain".....a wonderful example of just how such writing should be done.
Would that I could do as well.
My situation hasn't changed very much in the past year- I continue to practice "centering prayer" twice a day, and pray the Rosary a few nights a week with my wife (with our child beside us). I am still involved with a group that gathers on the first Saturday of each month for a prayer vigil to Our Lady of Fatima and, most importantly, I receive Holy Communion whenever I can. I've tried to be more attentive in going to the church on the first Friday of the month for Eucharistic Adoration.
One change of note. I have recently become an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at our church. This is a wonderful privilege.
I hope to return more often to this blog.....but writing here is more difficult than writing on my other. I need to be more "serious" here and that doesn't always come easy.

Mother Teresa's 'Dark Night'.

Just in time for the anniversary of her birth, the news services were reporting the story of the publication of a book of letters written by Mother Teresa. According to the reports, this book will show that she was plagued by doubts and possibly a loss of faith throughout most of her life.
The reasoning behind the secular media publishing these reports now are obvious, of course.They'll look for any excuse to cast doubt in God's existence and even better....in their view....if they can discredit a holy person and the Catholic church all in one fell swope. Some even supposed that this new information could put her canonization in jeopardy.
When an email was sent to me regarding the book, I realized right away that Mother Teresa had been under-going what is known in spiritual circles as "the dark night of the soul". Further reading of comments from Church leaders confirmed what I had thought.
Using the "logic" of those inclined to believe "The Da Vinci Code", one would think the Catholic Church would have suppressed the letters, but it was Father Brian Kolodiejchuk -the head of those pushing for her sainthood- that insisted on saving the letters and publishing them.
The book is due to be released in September. At present, Time Magazine has exclusive rights to excerpts.Their online article can be found here.
A good understanding of the Catholic Church's view can be found in this article from Zenit.

My prayer life....cont.

The month of May has brought about a small change in regards to my prayer life.Saturday,being the first Saturday of the month,we went to the regular Fatima prayer and we prayed the Rosary at home Sunday...the first time in over a month.Maybe things are turning around.With my new work schedule and the possibility that my wife will start a new job may make it more difficult to pray the Rosary together daily, but I'm sure we can pray it as a family on the weekends.
Still,planning my meditation times around my infant son remains a challenge.Even though my new schedule has changed how and when we can do the Rosary and meditation, I'm able to attend Mass every Sunday and can receive the Eucharist and for that, I'm grateful.

My prayer life.

April has not been a good month for me in terms of keeping up my prayer life.While we were in Philippines,it was easy enough doing my morning meditation;I'm an early riser,so the house was always quiet enough.The afternoon meditation was different.There were always people roaming about....the T.V.,radio.There was far too much noise and I couldn't bring myself to ask someone to be quiet in their own home.I was the visitor.We did even worse in keeping up the Rosary.That was most surprising to me since we were in a Catholic home.It should have been easy to find time before bed for that,but we did not say the Rosary once while we were in Dumaguete.
We haven't done better here at home since our return.My work schedule has changed and so has my sleep pattern.The difficulty lies in not being able to get a 1 1/2 year old child to be quiet at the right times.
Now that my work schedule has changed, we no longer pray the Rosary before going to bed at night.Every day I think this will be the day we get back to doing it properly.So far,it hasn't.Maybe putting this down will be the push that I need.
I hope so.

Thanks

Thanks to God and His servant, Saint Jude Thaddeus, the passport arrived in time and we left for Dumaguete as planned.It will be difficult for me to write in three blogs while I'm here so I will only write in sorryalltheclevernamesaretakenfor the next few weeks.

Saint Jude Thaddaeus

There's been some many delays and contradictory stories concerning my son's passport that I felt a need to appeal to the patron saint of lost causes.St. Jude Thaddeus is known as the patron saint of desperate causes. He is believed to be able to intervene in such cases and create miraculous solutions. Novenas (prayer services) are often dedicated and/or directed to St. Jude.The following is a popular prayer to St. Jude:

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
be adored, glorified, loved,
and preserved throughout the world,
now and forever.
Sacred Heart of Jesus,pray for us.
St. Jude, helper of the helpless,
pray for us.
St. Jude, worker of miracles,
pray for us.