Spirituality to Transform a Busy Life

The Elevator Version

Galatians 5:19–23 RSVCE

Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.

The Myth: One is Too Busy for God

The reality: we make time for what we want. Social media. Binge-watching whatever is streaming.

“O God, Thou sellest all good things to men at the price of effort.” Leonardo Da Vinci, quoted by Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life 124

The reality: there is a constant war for our attention, incrementally devouring our time bite by bite

no peace at the pump

like the free app? watch the ads

at least 20% of radio time is advertising

one study: average sports fan spends 80 days of their life watching advertisements

What would truly make us happy?

When Augustine describes happiness as “having nothing but the good and having all that one desires,” he is equally defining the best kind of memory. The Intellectual Life, Sertillanges, 176

The Sanctification of Time and Space

Time and space are bound together. If we are struggling to find time for God, it is likely also because we have not sufficiently examined our spaces, and its capacity to receive the sacred. Various alterations of space can enhance the sacred, and the timed alteration of space can also enhance the time.

The Sanctification of Time

The Sanctification of the Year

the gift of the liturgical year

Penitential seasons: Advent and Lent

Festal seasons: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost

“Holy Days of Obligation” or “Holy Days of Opportunity”? Rediscover festivity.

Festal times: Becoming People of Pentecost

Healthy boundary: sacrifice with the Church and feast with the Church (e.g., Friday penances, light self-denial during Advent, the 12 days of Christmas)

The Sanctification of the Season

ember days: 3 days, WFSa, each of the four seasons following

St. Lucy’s feast (winter)

Ash Wednesday (spring)

Pentecost (summer)

Holy Cross (fall)

Spiritual seasonal health: discover God’s creative wisdom in nature at least once each season

The Sanctification of the Month

Each month is devoted to a particular saint (e.g., March is the month of St. Joseph)

Healthy practice: make time once a month for confession

The Sanctification of the Week

But do not let your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on Monday and Thursday; but you shall fast on Wednesday and Friday. Didache of the Twelve Apostles 8.1 (50-100 A.D.)

Why would Christians designate Wednesday and Friday as penitential days?

There is a commandment associated with keeping the Lord’s Day holy. Because it is a ceremonial precept, we keep the “sabbath” by observing the day of the Resurrection, Sunday.

Early Christians were visiting the Temple on Sabbath (before they were expelled) and gathering in their homes on Sundays

Healthy boundary: keep Sunday festal

Transforming Our Prayers

Memorized prayer gets a bad rap. It is tempting to say, I want to have a more personal and unconstrained prayer relationship with God. But then why is spontaneous prayer so exhausting/unfulfilling/unanswered/fill-in-the-blank? C.S. Lewis has an important insight in the Screwtape Letters...

The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether. When the patient is an adult recently re-converted to the Enemy’s party, like your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember, or to think he remembers, the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood. In reaction against that, he may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularised; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part. One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray “with moving lips and bended knees” but merely “composed his spirit to love” and indulged “a sense of supplication”. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy’s service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

St. Athanasius on Praying the Psalms

Athanasius: Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms

12. And it seems to me that these words become like a mirror to the person singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul, and thus affected, he might recite them. For in fact he who hears the one reading receives the song that is recited as being about him, and either, when he is convicted by his conscience, being pierced, he will repent, or hearing of the hope that resides in God, and of the succor available to believers—how this kind of grace exists for him—he exults and begins to give thanks to God. Therefore, when someone sings the third psalm, recognizing his own tribulations, he considers the words in the psalm to be his own.

Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus A Letter of Athanasius, Our Holy Father, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms

If the point needs to be put more forcefully, let us say that the entire Holy Scripture is a teacher of virtues and of the truths of faith, while the Book of Psalms possesses somehow the perfect image for the souls’ course of life.

The Sanctification of the Hours of the Day

morning offering (“O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day...”)

hours of prayer: traditionally about every three hours (especially try morning and evening prayer, i.e., vespers)

blessings before meals

nightly examination of conscience (those who pray the liturgy of the hours could pair this with compline)

Healthy boundary: avoid checking email unnecessarily after hours

...once your workday shuts down, you cannot allow even the smallest incursion of professional concerns into your field of attention. This includes, crucially, checking email, as well as browsing work-related websites. … support your commitment to shutting down with a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday to maximizes the probability that you succeed. Cal Newport, Deep Work, p. 151

The Sanctification of the Moment

cultivate a doxological spirit of praise and adoration

Memorize key Psalms, that can be summoned in an instant:

when grateful to God: “Give thanks to the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endures for ever” (Ps 106:1, and elsewhere)

when in a pickle: “Help me, O Lord my God; and save me according to thy mercy” (Ps 109:26).

when oppressed by an enemy: “how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” (Ps 13:2).

prayer of the publican: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Sacred Space

our bodies - Temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16-17, 1 Cor 6:19-20)

the home - how to sanctify: home blessing, prayer room or sacred space, crucifix and icon

the office - how to sanctify: crucifix and an icon of our Lady or of a patron saint

the world itself - rediscover wonder - every creature reflects the divine mind, the power in nature walks and stargazing

the Church - we are not meant to be fed by a virtual Eucharist, so let’s find ourselves in it

Lifelong Theological Learning

Tools available to us

rosary

prayer, fasting, almsgiving

apps, but a word of caution - like a woodcutter praying with his axe

most overlooked: our powers of memory (memorize Scripture verses for the moment)

metanoia (a change of mind) Rom 12:2

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.