by The Face of Grace Project | Mar 3, 2021 | Presence
The third week of Lent begins and the ‘giving up’ may be tougher than planned! Giving up social media, taking on cold showers, perhaps learning to play board games again…hopefully Lent will bring a change in lifestyle that is life-changing. Our lifestyle conditions both our bodies and our psyche to conform to the media, entertainment, technology, food, and whatever else we take in. We instead want our humanity to conform to Christ.
Satan knows this, of course. He will work extra hard to stop you. A saint once asked Jesus why he permitted the enemy to attack her. Jesus responded that it gave opportunity for Him to rescue her.
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 27, 2021 | Presence
I recall the decade of the 80’s working long hours, then coming home to sit on the couch watching TV all night. And the gluttony of snacking on just ‘a few’ chips but munching until the dip was gone, too tired to stop. I can also recall what it feels like to rely solely upon my own self-discipline: very limiting.
That was the decade I quit going to mass. I didn’t intend to quit. I just procrastinated each weekend for 11 years or so. But even under the weight of that sinfulness, there was still a little piece of something inside me that said I needed more discipline simply because it was the right thing to do. I hadn’t stopped talking with God; I simply quit visiting Him.
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 24, 2021 | Presence
Unforgiveness in our heart is akin to a big sign that says, “demons welcome”. Life trauma can make it very difficult to forgive. The key to forgiveness is this: We must first desire to truly forgive the other person (and not just because others expect us to!). Since all desire comes from God, we must ask for this first until we have let Him fill us with sincerity. He has given us in our own nature the ability to do so intellectually. Typically, then, with His actual Grace we reach some tranquility, some level of forgiving the other person.
That is, until we actually must spend time with them again, and then something triggers the pain. What is forgiveness if it’s so quick to fade away?
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 20, 2021 | Presence
When my niece was little, she would spit her chewed up candy into her hand and offer it to me with be biggest smile only outdone by the gleam of joy and excitement in her eyes. She was so sure I would understand how wonderful these are, and she couldn’t keep her joy to herself. It was easy to control my gag reflex because the love driving her desire to share was so all-encompassing! With reflection I realized my heart is mangled like that chewed up candy, and too much of my life has been spent hiding it from God. I finally came to learn that if I offer it to Him with that same purity of intent and desire to love as an innocent child, He responds with great affection.
God doesn’t have a gag reflex; he understands. There is nothing to hide.
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 17, 2021 | Presence
Lent is more than a period of atonement for sin. Sincere atonement requires change. People just don’t like change, and the call to holiness is precisely that: change.
Once the desire to change is embraced, it can be difficult to keep our eye on the prize. With the cycle of shame keeping a person convinced of their shortcomings and unworthiness, it is difficult to see themselves for anything other than their faults. We make our brokenness our identity. God desires us to detach from the need to be perfect so that our efforts to reject temptation and overcome weaknesses are ordered towards loving and desiring Him.
As St. Francis of Assisi teaches us, our nothingness is the free space where God creates. This is the simplicity of Lent, making room for God.
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 14, 2021 | Presence
For 16 years I was blessed with Blossom, our little Yorkshire Terrier who made me laugh every day. To keep us from leaving home without her, she would hide with her head and shoulders under my bed and her rump still out in the open. It was so funny to see this little five-pound Yorkie butt sticking up in the air. Meanwhile, she couldn’t see us so she assumed we couldn’t see her.
This is how we are with God too. Adam and Eve hid in the woods—did they really think God couldn’t see them? I have my default hiding spots, too, that I fall into when avoiding a ‘hard conversation’ with God…do I really think He can’t see me?
Perhaps the greatest change we can make this Lent is a new perspective. 😊
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 7, 2021 | Presence
Lent is less than two weeks away…yikes! Many of us are taking to heart how we can let this special season be a catapult to change in our life. Maybe I’ll finally become holy?
Sometimes, however, the path to holiness looks more like the child’s game Candyland than it does the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz fame! Filled with peppermint sticks, gumdrops and Grandma Nutt’s peanut brittle (all God’s grace), we forge ahead. But alas, we take an easier choice and land in the cherry pitfall for a while. With God’s grace, however, we persevere straight through the Ice Cream Floats and can see King Kandy’s Castle ahead, only to get stuck in the Molasses Swamp. That one takes a real purging of ourselves to ‘lighten the load’ of our souls.
The purpose of Lent is to prepare us for Easter, the Resurrection. If we let God have His way, it can become His resurrection in us, bringing us new life. Let’s build a Lenten plan that cleans the junk out of the soul so that God can move in. 😊
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 3, 2021 | Presence
I have been thoroughly enjoying Fr. Mike Schmitz’s daily “read the bible in a year” program at Ascension Press. While doing mindless tasks like laundry, my mind is filled listening to the scriptures being read out loud, followed by a prayer and a few minutes of his thoughts. Whether it is Leah’s woundedness feeling least loved by Jacob, or Esau so lacking control over his own passions that he sold his birthright for porridge (because he was famished), each day we are given a tidbit that later can be taken to God in our mental prayer.
by The Face of Grace Project | Jan 31, 2021 | Presence
I often sit in awe of God in the Holy Family while taken aback by realizing what a weakling St. Joseph was. His wife was perfect, and his son was God. Yet he was head of household, the decision maker. That had to be intimidating! Honestly reflecting upon this experience of awe in God begins the humbling experience of realizing your so-called ‘discerned’ and ‘holy’ choices weren’t so holy or discerned after all. But don’t beat yourself up over it. St. Joseph did the same thing when deciding to divorce Mary quietly, and God had to send him an angel to set him straight. May God do so for us too!
There are many lessons to be learned from Candlemas.
by The Face of Grace Project | Jan 27, 2021 | Presence
Consistently in the lives of the saints, two practices are found: (1) mental prayer, and (2) a practice of reviewing one’s day in dialogue with God. St. Ignatius of Loyola captured this daily review in the examen prayer. For some reason, when I first learned the examen, I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it because my way of thinking didn’t seem to fit into that prayer. After several months, I finally could remember the steps, use my calendar to help me remember my day, and found a time to pray it when I could stay awake. My life wasn’t exciting enough to keep me from dozing off…but the truth was I didn’t yet have the zeal for the spiritual life to uncover God’s presence in every moment.
I eventually realized that if there was something so different about God’s way of thinking from my own, then there was something very wrong with my way of thinking!
