Welcome glorious October! My favorite time of year!. The earth is getting ready to rest for the winter months but before she lays down her head, there is a surge of beauty and comfort. The hot weather has slipped into chilly nights and days that are bearable and cooler.
A great number of us are in the Autumn of our lives. Where is the surge of beauty and comfort for us? Just because it is Autumn doesn’t mean it is time to stop functioning or even worse….stop caring.
You would think by this age we should be running on auto pilot. We have spent a lot of years learning our life lessons so now should be a time to lean back and ride on our past experiences. NOT! This is our time to shine, to be living examples to those who are at an earlier part of their journey.
What are we doing to make this happen? Do we add color to our lives by adding something new to our prayer routine? Yes, routine. It can be comforting to do things the same way all the time. It can also be boring or stale or allow us not to pay attention. Shake things up a bit. Change up your routine.
Light a candle before you say the Liturgy of the Hours. Turn off all the background noise before you start. – (phone, TV, computer) Don’t let the electronic world intervene in your prayer practices. If I am going to be in church, I like to pray the Office before Mass. There is a pew filled with older women who manage to sit behind me no matter which pew I land in. They chatter and visit before Mass like long lost relatives. More than once I have turned to them and said “I am trying to talk to God, but I can’t hear Him”. Maybe not the most Franciscan way to handle it, but my usual M.O. is to keep quiet until I’m ready to explode. I need to learn to deal with it before I get to that point!!
Is your prayer life broken or missing something? I don’t know about you, but I have a magic drawer and a magic closet for just such things. I put things that are broken or missing a part into either the drawer or closet and expect if I leave them there long enough, they will magically become whole again. These places are also known as the junk drawer and the bottom of the closet. Every so often I go through the ‘stuff’ in these two places; pick up each item, look it over, say “hmmm” to myself…..and put it back hoping that somehow the magic will work this time. Believe me, brothers and sisters, it doesn’t!
We need to fix the broken parts of our lives and find the missing pieces. It’s not that hard, really. But it is always easier to put something out of sight and then we don’t have to deal with it. Saying a Crown Rosary? Try using the 7 Sorrows and 7 Joys of St. Joseph that has been featured on our website. (Can’t find it? Let me know and I’ll send it to you)
Add a little color to your prayer life and to God be the glory! Sit in a different chair, go outside when the weather allows. Any little change will shake you out of your routine. God deserves our full attention. Isn’t that what He gives to us? How can we offer back anything less?? I’d love to hear your success stories! Until next time….
Blessings and much love,
kate
