How’s Your Spirituality?

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Faith, Love, Prayer, Scripture

Tags

Charity, Faith, HolySpirit, Love, Prayer

Every six weeks or so when I see my friend, Tim, I get asked the question, “Hey, Jer, how’s your spirituality?” The neat thing is he’s not just making small talk, he’s sincerely interested in knowing how I’m doing spiritually and is willing to jump in and give me a boost if I need it.

The first time he asked me I was taken by surprise and didn’t know what to say, so I gave him an automatic, “Great, everything’s wonderful!” response. The next time I was a little better prepared and, fortunately for me, I was being truthful when I said, “Man, it couldn’t be better.” The third time he asked, I hesitated because, although I wanted to tell him everything was fantastic, I would have been lying. Instead, I gave him a tentative look and said, “Well, actually, I’ve been going through a little dry spell lately.” And then, true to form, he helped me talk through it and helped me get back on track.

Tim’s concern for not necessarily just my physical well being but, instead, for my spiritual health, is a good example of the type of friend I’ve made since becoming a Christian. I have been blessed with many friends just like him.

At some point a couple months ago I started thinking seriously about his question. “Why should I wait for him to ask me? Why not ask myself from time to time? And, if I take time for reflection and do a self-evaluation, how do I describe and qualify my spiritual life? What makes it great as opposed to being only mediocre or not good at all?”

First, I thought I needed to define Spirituality. So, I Googled the word hoping to find a dictionary but the first hit that came up was a link to the Student Wellness Center at Ohio State University (go figure?). Their definition of Spirituality started out like this, “Spirituality is not religion and is not even necessarily affiliated with religion.” I thought, “Hmm, the heck you say!” Obviously, this was not going to get me close to the spirit (pun intended) of what Tim was asking. Finally, in checking Webster’s dictionary, I found a suitable definition – “Spirituality: The sensitivity or attachment to religious values”. I thought, “Now, I can work with that!”.

The word “Sensitivity” lends itself towards how I feel about my religious values. Generally, from one day to the next, I feel grateful, excited and full of hope about my faith in God, my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior, and my desire to live life as He wants me to live – full of charity for, and service to, others. It feels good to acknowledge and accept His love, and to recognize and proclaim my love in return.

But, I have so-so days at times, too. These are when I feel overwhelmed trying to understand everything; feeling confounded that I can’t get the pieces to fit together, which causes me to doubt; and days when life simply gets in the way and keeps me from those precious prayer moments.

Then, there are the bad days: the days when I let my concupiscence get the upper hand; days when I let stress and aggravation cause me to feel less charitable than I ought to be and I don’t realize it until it is too late

The second part of the definition is, “Attachment to religious values”. Unlike the feelings related to sensitivity, “Attachment” conjures up the idea of putting that acceptance into action. Again, there seem to be different levels of qualification to this aspect.

The best days seem to include some element of showing kindness to others – there’s not much that feels better than that. I admit I feel pleased with myself when I go out of my way to help others. Same thing for sacrificing for others – there’s just something special about it. And then there’s prayer. The act of telling and showing Him my love, and accepting His love, definitely produces a spiritual high. I’ve noticed, too, the wonderful feeling, the positive self-affirmation, when I do something that appears to influence and lead others toward Christ. I feel like I’ve earned my pay for the day.

In business it’s often said, “Some days they pay me too much and others they don’t pay me nearly enough.” The same goes with spirituality, I think. There are days I just don’t earn the right to feel very spiritual. Days when I don’t act with love to others. Times when I take out frustrations either intentionally or unintentionally on others. And, worst of all, when I sin and I know I’m sinning but I do it anyway. I’m thankful this doesn’t happen often but when it does it feels devastating. When I look at those actions in retrospect, I know that Jesus is weeping for me.

When I became Catholic, many caring friends, Tim and others, cautioned me to take it easy, to accept a certain slowness to the learning process. Sometimes I just don’t want to go slow. But, I think they’re right. It’s easy to put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes, and get ahead of myself in trying to understand Christianity and trying to live it like a saint. I kind of feel like a newbie golfer who is just learning the game but gets frustrated because he can’t shoot par. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that even the pros don’t always shoot par.

During this exercise of examining my spirituality I’ve learned a few other things, too. I’ve found that when I pray, when I read the scriptures, study the bible, and associate with other men and women who do the same, I begin to understand what was in Jesus’ mind and I think I’m starting to think more like he did. My mind is becoming renewed. Instead of just existing in the flesh like I did for years, I have begun existing in Spirit, too. I think my mind has reached a higher level because of its connection with the Holy Spirit.

So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I am so very grateful to all the people who have gently pushed me, pulled me, guided me, offered insight along the way, and waited at each way-point with open arms and a knowing smile. I appreciate friends like Tim, the guys in my bible study group, the men and women on the Christ Renews His Parish teams, and my family who care enough about me to ask about my spirituality, my walk with God. It’s heartening to know that, as I move ahead, you will be there for me. God bless you all.

(The post How’s Your Spirituality? appeared first on Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

On Second Thought, I Did Have a God-Moment

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Bible Reflections, Faith, Love, Marriage, Prayer

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

God-moments, Love, Prayer

It’s been over a month since I sat down to write. December found Melinda and I a little busy with preparing for Christmas and for my daughter Mary’s wedding the Saturday after Christmas, and driving to and from Lake Charles, Louisiana for both.

In spite of all that activity, I tried to stay focused on the “Reason for the Season”. These were my first Advent and Christmas seasons as a Catholic and I wanted to make sure I experienced the difference between the two.

Although I didn’t miss a Mass or Holy day of obligation during the almost two weeks we were down South, there was so much activity that my daily prayer routine was seriously interrupted. By the time we returned home I desperately needed to get back into my faith.

Back at home, I made it to the New Year’s Eve vigil Mass but by the time Epiphany Sunday rolled around I came down with a case of bronchitis and was struck with fits of such violent coughing that I decided to stay home and not ruin other folks’ worship that morning. It was a little disappointing to me because it was the first Mass I had missed since becoming Catholic last Easter and only the second time since my decision to convert in April 2012.

But, by the next Wednesday I was feeling well enough to get with the men’s bible study group I meet with every two weeks. After the scripture discussion we went around the room and, as always, volunteered our “God-moments” – those times when God shows up in your life and graces you unexpectedly. I told the guys that over the two weeks I was gone I really hadn’t noticed any God-moments – none had jumped out at me. Then, as the others related their God-moments, I began to think back and I realized, again, that I didn’t see them because I wasn’t looking for them. In fact, I wasn’t just not looking for them, I had instead been so occupied with other things that I had literally closed my mind and heart to them. And, as I relived our trip, I came to see how there were many God moments that passed undetected right under my nose:

Jesus was with us in our car that first day of driving as we struggled through eight hours of torrential rain and storms between Ohio and Southeast Missouri where we spent Saturday night at my folks.

Attending the only Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Dexter, Missouri would have put us in Lake Charles very late that night. So, we skipped it and hoped to find someplace else along the way. Looking ahead, I estimated we could be near Hammond, Louisiana around 5:00 p.m., so I checked masstimes.org to see if there were any Sunday evening masses in that neighborhood. I don’t think it was dumb luck that there happened to be a Mass at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Hammond at 5:00 p.m. I plugged the address into my GPS and nine hours later we arrived at 4:50 p.m.

God was speaking to me through Fr. Robert Merced, pastor at Holy Ghost Church, when he elaborated on the Gospel reading, Matthew 1:18 – 24, for this 4^th Sunday of Advent. In it, Matthew describes, “…how the birth of Jesus came about.” I had already spent much time marveling at the caliber of man Joseph must have been to forgive his betrothed and marry her instead of “divorcing her quietly” or, worse, having her stoned. But Fr. Merced opened my eyes to the fact that Mary’s faith was equally strong. As a young woman, she knew that to be unmarried and be with child was an offense against the Jewish laws punishable by stoning until death. Yet, through her faith, she still said, “Yes”.

On our first morning in town we met a friend for breakfast at a local café. We briefly chatted over coffee about children, but then our friend moved right into a heartfelt discussion about preparing our hearts for Christmas and not getting caught up in the busyness and commercialization of the season. With only two days to go until Christmas, and a wedding looming just three days later, she somehow knew what we needed to curb our mounting anxiety.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, found me, my soon to be son-in-law, Michael, his father, and a fishing guide skimming across the marsh hoping to slay some redfish. It turned out to be one of the best fishing trips I had ever been on. We limited out on reds, and caught several speckled trout and flounder as well. I won’t be so bold as to say that Jesus helped us catch fish like he helped Peter, but His love was there in an unexpected way through the opportunity for Michael and I to get to know each other much better. I caught a bunch of keepers that day but I also confirmed I was catching a keeper son-in-law.

We wrapped up Christmas Eve by enjoying a traditional Christmas Eve dinner with our close friends who were graciously putting us up in their home for the week, and then attending the Christmas Vigil Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Lake Charles. It was a beautiful Mass and celebration of the birth of our Lord, in a beautiful church, with an angelic A cappella choir.

Christmas day was a relaxing one with the morning spent in the company of Mary and Michael, Michael’s parents and the three of us opening gifts and having fun, followed by a wonderful dinner in the afternoon with more relatives, and with plenty of time to contemplate why we were celebrating in the first place.

On Thursday, we were blessed with the safe arrival of our other two daughters and their husbands, my parents, my brother and sister and their families for another round of gift giving and a delicious fish fry from the fruits of our catch two days earlier. We gave sincere thanks for everyone’s safe travel and “…these Thy gifts…which we… received, from Thy bounty”.

When Friday rolled around the wedding preparation activities picked up speed. Since Mary is my third daughter to get married, I knew what I needed to do: stay out of the way, do what I was told and be an efficient gopher. I know some dads who have found the role of being the Father of the Bride daunting. I have found it to be immensely pleasurable. It gives me a chance to see the joy and hope in my daughters’ eyes and in their smiles, and one last chance to get comfortable with the idea that life is turning out like God intended – that they found someone to love and spend the rest of their lives with. Did I get sentimental? Yes, but my happiness for her far outweighed any last moment feelings of selfishness.

Friday also saw dozens of other relatives arrive safely into town from around the country. When we finally assembled that evening for the rehearsal dinner, Mary and Michael had about sixty relatives surrounding them. God was there in the hearts of everyone as there were many reunions that night. And He was there in the smile on the face of my 15 month old, first and only, great-niece when I met her for the first time.

Saturday, the day of Mary’s “big event” arrived and it seemed to fly by without a hitch. We arrived at the church at the appointed time, and before I knew it I was walking down the aisle, arm and arm with Mary looking as beautiful as I’d ever seen her. My only thought as they opened the doors for us to process in was a prayer of thanks to God for blessing me with such a wonderful loving daughter and the opportunity to be her father and make this walk down the aisle with her arm in mine.

God was there with us as we reached the altar and I turned to Mary, hugged and kissed her, and told her I love her, and she replied with, “I love you, too, Dad”. And, He was there with us when I turned to hug Michael and asked him to please take care of her, and he replied with a sincere, “Yes sir, it will be my pleasure.” Lots of dreams came true in that moment, and not just for the bride and groom.

Unexpectedly, the priest revealed to us that that particular weekend was the celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, a fitting time to become united in the first step to starting a new family. It also struck me that both the bride and groom have good role models in their parents and grandparents. Both sets of parents have been married for a total of about 65 years, and for Mary, at least, her grandparents for 110 years.

Following the wedding ceremony, everyone reconvened at the reception venue where the first order of business was the traditional first dance by the bride and groom. God was here, too. As they began to dance to the song, I Won’t Give Up by Jason Mraz, I looked up onto the DJ’s stage to see my youngest daughter, Grace, with microphone in hand and performing the song live, unassisted by any lyrics on a karaoke machine, singing her heart out in front of about 350 people. I knew she had a pretty voice but I didn’t know how beautiful it really is because I had never heard her sing like this before. This was her debut and she looked and sounded like an experienced professional. I had earlier fought back tears when I entrusted Mary to Michael, but I couldn’t hold them back listening to Grace sing. It was a beautiful moment.

I was able to curb the tears before honoring the next place on Mary’s dance card – the father/daughter dance. For years Mary told me she wanted us to dance to Paul Simon’s Fathers and Daughters, and we did. I think the only thing that kept me from losing it was that my happiness for her overcame my own sentimentality. Still, we both knew, “As long as one and one are two, there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you”. That kind of love can only be a gift from God.

So, to my bible study buddies, “Sorry, guys, I lied. On second thought, I did have a God-moment….or two…or fifteen”.

A Beautiful Re-Union

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Love, Marriage, Renewal

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Christ, God, Love, Marriage, Marriage Encounter

When I posted I Am New Parts 1 and 2, I had no idea that God would re-create me again through a life changing event the very next weekend. But He did, and, once again, I feel obliged to tell you about it in the chance it might bring you closer to God.

In I Am New – Part 1: A Product of Secularity, I shared with you my semi-agnostic life style of the last three decades. I explained how I tried to be a good husband and father by attempting to lead a Christian-like life, but in the absence of Christ. After my conversion last year, I became more aware of a disconnect in our marriage. Because Christ had always been very much a part of Melinda’s life, but was a new phenomenon in mine, I realized that He had been our marriage’s missing common denominator.

Although I believed our marriage was still a loving relationship, I noticed it had moved toward the all-too-familiar rut of complacency; of taking each other for granted; and letting things other than each other become the “first things”. I felt I needed to try and make it better.

I have a framed collector’s print hanging in my office. We bought it with saved nickels, dimes and quarters not long after we were married. When it was new, it was vibrant with color. I was looking at it a while back and I noticed how it had, over time, faded towards becoming monochromatic. It didn’t happen all at once; rather, it lost its sharpness one day at a time. This struck me as an analogy for our marriage. Had I taken the time to recognize its beauty on a daily basis, I might have given it more TLC and taken action to keep it from fading.

Since I became active in our church I have made many new friends and I have observed several married couples who exemplify strong relationships. They exude a closeness and connectedness with each other, and they appear to have the type of relationship one would want to emulate. As Melinda and I got to know these couples better we came to realize that many of them have something in common: they are “Encountered Couples” – they have attended Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend retreats.

Without much discussion or input from Melinda, I decided to sign us up for a weekend in hopes that our slightly faded but otherwise solid marriage might become even stronger.

We arrived at the retreat center on Friday evening, along with another dozen or so couples, and, similar to our Christ Renews His Parish receiving weekends, we didn’t know what to expect. So, we went in with the attitude of leaving our hearts and minds open to whatever the Holy Spirit might provide for us over the next forty-five hours. We were met by three couples and, to my surprise, a priest, who would all be presenters and facilitators for the weekend.

We turned our cell phones off and tried to forget about issues at home. The purpose of the weekend was to strengthen our relationship by focusing on each other.

Through the course of the weekend the facilitators shared times in their married lives when they struggled. They modeled techniques for effective communication and opened our eyes to how we as individuals have unique personality types and how we each require slightly different styles of communication.

During the talks and exercises I realized how our normal daily communicating primarily consisted of chit-chat, and facts and information about children, work, bills, and stuff – all kinds of stuff – much of which was of little significance. I saw that we seldom talked about ideas and thoughts, about our dreams for the future, and our feelings.

We both discovered we had some sensitive items we didn’t like to discuss – little things that upset us, and personal things we didn’t want to share because of fear of disapproval, embarrassment, or fear of hurting the other. In talking through some of these issues we discovered we were wrong, that we were actually very understanding and supportive of each other. Because of this, we saw new possibilities for improved communicating in our relationship.

I read a quote from author Matthew Kelly’s book, The Seven Levels of Intimacy, in which he writes, “Love is a choice. When we choose to love, our spirit expands. When we choose not to love, our spirit shrivels”. I thought I knew how to love. But, after some serious dialoguing and attentive listening, I made the unfortunate discovery that I perhaps had the verb form of the word “love” mixed up with the noun form of the word. Even though I feel tremendous love for Melinda I saw where my actions have not always been representative of that feeling. I felt sorrow because I may have caused Melinda’s spirit to ‘shrivel’ by my actions, or lack thereof. And, I was embarrassed because I had written and posted just last June an article entitled Love Is A Verb in which I claimed to have, in the last year and a half, learned the difference between the two. I needed to think again.

I mentioned there was a priest among the presenters. He discussed his “marriage” to the Church, the Catholic community that is the Body of Christ. It was interesting to hear him reveal his struggle to feel oneness with the community; of how he finds it difficult to prioritize his time with the Lord, and his time as His representative to his parishioners; and how hard it is to be totally charitable without feeling the need for a little bit of selfishness. It was, in a way, comforting to know that even he has struggled with the same types of issues as us married folk.

I think his main purpose for being there, though, was to remind us that our marriage is not a contract, but a covenant, an unbreakable promise made to God and each other, of unity, intimacy and responsibility (including forgiveness). He reminded us that marriage is a Sacrament, an outward sign of God’s love for us, and, having entered that covenant, it is our duty to love contagiously; to be life-giving; to lift up our marriage as an example of His love for all to see; and to use that love as a tool for healing within our union when it is necessary. He helped us see that marriage is like a three legged stool: the pair of us making up two legs and God making up the third leg. Without all three the stool fails to function properly.

By the end of the weekend both Melinda and I accepted shared responsibility for allowing our marriage to lose some of its luster over the course of thirty-one years. We agreed we needed, and wanted, to: be more open with our feelings; get better at listening; have more trust in each other and be more trustworthy; and be a true “married couple” instead of sometimes being a couple of “married singles”.

We want to take our marriage from good to great.

It’s been a little over two weeks since our retreat. Melinda and I agree it was the best weekend we’ve ever had together as a couple. Since the weekend, we have been rediscovering each other and restoring our relationship – that piece of art made and sanctified by God, but which we allowed to fade over time. It’s been a joyful and beautiful re-union.

If you have not been on an Encounter weekend and you think you might like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to ask. If you feel your marriage isn’t quite what it used to be, my guess is that, with a little help from WWME to get you pointed in the right direction, you can also rekindle the fire, the spirit, and the love which the two of you once felt for each other but may have since faded. You deserve to give yourselves the gift of a Marriage Encounter weekend.

On the other hand, many of you reading this may have already been on an Encounter weekend. If so, and you care to share an experience, please comment. I would love to hear your stories.

God Bless you all

The Light of Hope in Christian Community

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Faith, Hope, Love, Prayer

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Faith, Hope, Love, Prayer

Light of Hope

It’s been almost four weeks since my last post. Much has transpired since then and it’s been a roller coaster of emotions at times. In The Other Side of Prayer Requests, I left you hanging with the news that someone special to me had been diagnosed with a disease that would require surgery the next day, and that I had asked friends and family to pray for us. I probably should not have been quite so vague but I suppose I was holding on to that last shred of privacy. The rest of the story eventually came out when I replied to comments posted by friends. In case you missed that thread, that special someone was my wife, Melinda, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a lumpectomy on 24 July, our thirty-first wedding anniversary.

Ever since she was diagnosed on 31 May, I had been praying for her healing harder than I had ever prayed for anything in my short history of praying. Although the lump was small, we didn’t know if the cancer may have spread or if it was localized. My biggest fear was that cancer cells would be found in her lymph nodes, indicating a spread that would require chemotherapy. So, when I asked others, or they offered, to pray for her, I asked specifically for prayers that no cancer would be found in her lymph nodes. Personally, I prayed that when the final pathology report came back they would find no cancer at all and she would be pronounced “cancer-free”.

In spite of my praying, both Melinda and I had an uncanny feeling of optimism, that everything was going to be alright, that all the prayers being registered on her behalf from a legion of experienced prayer warriors were being heard. As I mentioned, we had “a confident assurance from an entire faith community who seemed to be saying they had inside information.” I also took comfort in a passage from a book of daily reflections by St. Augustine:

“Be assured that all your diseases will be healed. Have no fear. You may say that your diseases are powerful; but this physician is more powerful. There is no disease that the Almighty Physician cannot cure. Just allow yourself to be healed and do not reject His healing hands. He knows what He is doing.” – Commentary on Psalm 72

So, cutting to the chase, Melinda had her surgery on Wednesday and the early report was there was no cancer found in the lymph nodes, nor in the marginal tissue around the tumor. But, we had to wait until the following Monday before the official pathology report was completed. That was a long and anxious five days. On Monday we received the news that, indeed, no cancer was found in her lymph nodes, nor the marginal tissue around the tumor…. and none in the tumor itself! This was precisely what I had been praying for. Praise God!

My intention with this post is not for it to be a play by play of my wife’s surgery. Rather, it is a testament to the power of Christian Community. It is difficult for me to describe the way we felt about the tremendous support, caring and prayers we received during this ordeal. There is no doubt in my mind we would have been unable to sustain such strong confidence, such unwavering faith in the healing power of prayer had we gone it alone and not reached out to our community of friends and family, people who care for and love us, and asked them for their prayers. The outpouring of love and the demonstration of faith from everyone gave us something special – it gave us hope. And, I believe, it was this powerful combination of practicing the three theological virtues that brought about the miracle of a clean and cancer-free diagnosis for Melinda.

I had heard witnesses about Christian Community from men on the Christ Renews retreats on which I had been. But, especially for someone like me who is new to this life, you don’t know what you don’t know until your eyes are opened by a personal experience. I witnessed so many examples of love and caring I feel compelled and obligated to mention some of them:

To all those who prayed with an intensity honed by years of practice that I can only hope to achieve one day; to those who went the extra mile and sacrificed and fasted on Melinda’s behalf, who prayed Rosaries and Novenas specifically for the two of us, I give you my utmost gratitude.

We had a promising indication that all would be well when the surgeon surprised us and asked us to pray with him for healing and for God to guide him during the procedure.

I was overwhelmed with the caring and love expressed by so many asking how Melinda’s surgery went and how she was recovering. It was honest, look-you-straight-in-the-eye concern followed by sincere hugs borne of relief. Your love was truly felt by both of us.

To Melinda’s sister, Carol, who traveled from Texas to be here for both moral and physical support for Melinda, our daughter Grace, and me, many thanks, you were a God-send.

A special group of people took it upon themselves to unselfishly prepare dinners for us during the two weeks between Melinda’s surgery and the completion of her two-a-day radiation treatments. Thank you all for the plentiful and delicious meals, they were wonderful and so welcome! I still plan to hit you up for the recipes.

For someone who is both unfamiliar and uncomfortable with receiving so much love and assistance from others I have been totally humbled by the overwhelming support and encouragement to open up and share my emotions instead of keeping them bottled up inside me. Your prayers not only helped heal Melinda, they also healed me.

One thing that helped me open up and receive this kindness was understanding and acceptance of another bit of advice given by St. Augustine:

“For when we are harassed by poverty, saddened by bereavement, ill, or in pain, let good friends visit us. Let them be persons who not only can rejoice with those who rejoice but can weep with those who weep. Let them be persons who know how to give useful advice and how to win us to express our own feelings in conversation. – (Letter 130)

To close, please accept mine and Melinda’s gratitude for your gifts of prayer for her healing. And, specifically from me, please know my appreciation for your example of Christian Community by showing this neophyte how to shine the Light of Hope as suggested by our Lord, Jesus Christ:

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. – Matthew 5:13-16

God Bless you and thank you for being our Light of Hope.

The Other Side of Prayer Requests

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Love, Prayer

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Community, Prayer

Back on 15 April my friend and co-contributor, Rich Brewers, posted How We Respond to Prayer Requests. His post came just two weeks after my official conversion and entry into the Church. I admit that, subsequent to reading his thoughts, praying for others was an action for which I only had about a year’s experience. I simply didn’t know how to pray prior to the singular event which led to my decision to become Catholic. Any prayers I might have intended to offer before this time really couldn’t be considered to be much more than best wishes.

That event was my first Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekend. During the weekend I had the opportunity to pray for others and be prayed over by others. Not really knowing how to do the former, I chose to do the latter. I had a compelling reason. I had just returned the night before from an Easter week visit with family in Missouri. My sister has a 14 year old daughter who is both mentally and physically handicapped. With every visit I would leave saddened knowing that their struggles in life are incomprehensible to me, and frustrated that I didn’t know what I could do about it. This had bothered me for a long time and, so, even though I barely knew these men, I asked them for their prayers for my niece, my sister, and for myself. One of the men praying for me was Jim, the gentleman Rich referred to in his post. I sat in the chair with his and other men’s hands on me and they prayed for the three of us. In my heart I felt something happen in that chapel. I wasn’t sure what it was but it was certainly nothing I had ever experienced before. I was shaken. I thought maybe it was simply the sincerity and love of these fine men. But, I came to realize it was the Holy Spirit working through them. It was such a powerful experience I decided to stick around and participate in the prayers for other men. I’m not sure I can describe the feeling other than to say I found a tremendous sense of fulfillment in doing so.

I believe one of the most difficult obstacles to asking others to pray for you is the fear of appearing weak or of lacking control. What other obstacles might prevent you from asking someone else for their prayers for you?

Since that experience I have had several opportunities to pray for other people both with and without their requests. I’m still not very good at it but I think I’m getting better. I try to pay attention and learn from role models, like Jim and Rich, who make it seem so easy. I’ve also learned that, like golf, to get better at praying you have to spend more time praying. Thus, I usually have two or three intentions on my list at all times and I pray for them daily. I find deep satisfaction in this. Although I may not always see any direct results which can be attributed to my prayers, I have faith they are being heard and the intended recipient will be affected in some positive way. And, somewhat selfishly, I find my time in prayer, even for others, allows me to get closer to Jesus.

But, there is another side to prayer requests – the side of requesting people to pray for you and your loved ones. It’s not as easy as you might think it would be. In many ways, it’s more difficult than responding to prayer requests from others. Such was my case. Up until about a month ago, I had been focused on praying for the needs of others. I never really considered that I would have another significant reason to request their prayers. But, then, one never expects the person whom you love the most to become ill with a disease that requires surgery and further treatment. We discovered what a scary proposition it really is. When we got the news, we, like many folks, thought we would keep it to ourselves. No need to burden others with our situation, right? We thought we might tell one or two people who ought to know. But, then, we decided that sooner or later those one or two people would feel the need to tell someone else and eventually everyone who you didn’t want to burden would eventually learn of it anyway, or be hurt that they were the only ones who had not heard. And, then, fortunately, we turned the table and looked at the situation from the outside in – what would we want if we were a friend or family member of the afflicted? We realized that we would certainly want to know about it for no other reason than we love the person and would wish to pray for them and ask for Jesus’ intercession and healing. We have a large family relatively speaking (pun intended), but our parish family of loved ones is much larger. After realizing we could use all the requests for divine assistance we could get, we decided to let the cat out of the bag.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation seemingly out of your control and hoping for a miracle? Have you kept it to yourself? Or have you sought prayers from others?

Spreading news like this via word of mouth, especially through people who you know love and care about you, is a wonderful thing! It doesn’t take long. By the time I got around to making the official request to be added to our parish’s prayer chain, most folks already knew and had been praying for a while. How do we know? We can feel it. It is the sense of peace that has come over us, the sense that everything is going to be alright, and the feeling that we are in Good Hands. It is in the comforting smiles and the reassuring hugs. It is a feeling borne from knowing that so many people have said rosaries, novenas, offered personal prayers, fasted and made other sacrifices on our behalf. It is the collective, confident assurance from an entire faith community who seem to be saying they have inside information.

If you have requested others to pray for you for personal reasons, how did you feel? Was your faith strengthened? Were you comforted?

Thus, here we are on the eve of the prescribed surgery and I believe we could not have a more positive outlook, feel more at peace with the outcome, or more accepting that this is just a bump in the highway of life. We know we have our immediate families and our extended parish family and friends who will all be pulling for us tomorrow. We have faith in God and the healing power of prayer. Please know that your love and heart-felt prayers are indeed felt and appreciated. We love you.

God Bless you all.

Love is a Verb

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Love

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

C.S. Lewis, Charity, Love

John 13: 34-35 “I give you a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The last two weeks have been unlike any I’ve had in some time. My emotions have run the gamut from worry about some serious and scary health concerns within my family, to feeling so much love for and from God, my family, and my parish community, that I find it difficult to describe. I think my frequent and fervent prayers about the former were answered and actually begot the latter. The emotional love I am feeling is, I believe, a direct result of the acts of love shown to me from others and by my acts of love to them. It’s the act of loving that has built a bridge over that emotional gap. And it’s that bridge that has caused me to examine it and to count it as one of my blessings. Let me explain.

Many years ago I lived in England and, as a seventh grader, I studied Latin. I don’t remember ever learning the Latin word for the noun form of the word meaning “Love” but I remember, like it was yesterday, learning to conjugate the verb “To Love”: Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatus, Amant (I love, you love, he/she loves, etc.). And, even though I memorized this, I don’t think I understood what it really meant as a verb, or an action word. Instead, I lived my life for the next fifteen years taking for granted that it was only a feeling, a noun, not something to be done.

In fact, I’m embarrassed to say that I probably had not yet made that connection when I married my wonderful wife thirty-one years ago. Love, to me, was a feeling, and any actions that could have been interpreted as love were probably more a result of trying to satisfy my own desires rather than hers. I was self-centered and immature into my early twenties. My only consolation is that most everyone my age was the same way. All these years later, when I look around our world and examine its culture, it looks much the same to me.

Why is it this way? Is it just a part of growing up? Is it our culture? Is it due to parenting in today’s society? Do some parents work so hard to build the egos of their children that they become self-centered and live in a “me” world?

With luck, young adults will have a unique defining moment that helps them to redefine what love means, that it’s an action word, a verb, and not just a feeling.

My defining moment didn’t happen with my marriage although I felt extreme love for my wife. It wasn’t with the birth of my first child, either, although I had never felt new love like that before. No. It was the simple act of understanding the phrase, “Love is a verb”, that I read in a book by author Stephen Covey when I was trying to get control of my life during a very crazy period. Quite simply, Covey wrote that if you want to feel more love, then you have to give more love. Love is an action word. It’s something you do. What a novel idea for me at the time!

Have you ever stopped to consider the idea of love being something you do, not just something you feel?

I like to think that, since then, I’ve grown up and learned a thing or two. I wish I could somehow effectively teach teens, young adults, and others who’ve never before stopped to consider the concept, the definition of love as explained by C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity. In his chapter on the theological virtue of Charity, Lewis writes,

“Charity means ‘Love, in the Christian sense’. But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people. Christian Love for our neighbors is quite a different thing from liking or affection. But, liking or [having] affection for people makes it easier to be charitable towards them. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love them.”

And, I would like to explore with those students what St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans,

“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:10)

Fortunately for me, I was old enough for the meaning of ‘Love is a Verb’ to make some sense. I started practicing this new idea. Lo and behold, I noticed that my intentional efforts to do things to show my wife and children how much I loved them returned good results. I felt more love from them. But the biggest eye opener was something unexpected – the more I showed them love, the more love I felt for them. The engineer that I am recognized this as exponential growth – a powerful thing.

How do you show love? Have you received something in return which you never imagined would happen?

So, I rocked on for about twenty-five more years in this way, focusing on a loving relationship with those closest to me, my wife and four daughters, (who, I’m proud to say, are much more mature and responsible than I ever was at their age) and my extended family. And, with just a few exceptions, that was about the extent of the loving in my life. The people in that circle made up my world. Oh, I had a few people I called friends, people at work and neighbors who I liked but they were not “loving” relationships under this new definition of love.

It has only been in the last 15 months, since my first Christ Renews weekend, that I’ve been able to truly extend my circle of love beyond my family. Since then, my new extended family of my Catholic community has shown me example after example of love in action and I have been so blessed to have had opportunities to act with love for them, too. And, over the last two weeks, I have felt God’s love, and Jesus’ presence next to me, more intensely than ever before. I can’t help but believe there is a direct correlation between these feelings of love and peace, my time spent praying, and the reciprocating actions of love I have shared with family and friends.

Do you notice the noun version of “love” the more you practice the verb version of “love”? Do you have an experience to share?

Good day and God Bless.