Saturday, August 28, 2010

Uniting the Faith with Daily Life

In this week's Lesson Plan feature in the Catholic Spirit (diocesan paper of St. Paul/Minneapolis) Maria Wiering has a great article on simple ways you can work to build a Catholic culture in your family.
Do you go to Mass on Sunday, but feel like Monday — and Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest — are detached from what you experience at church? For many Catholics, it’s a challenge to unite faith and the normal tasks of daily life. There’s something about a meeting at the office, or washing dishes, or shopping for groceries that seems very ordinary and outside of God’s interest in our lives.

Yet, St. Ignatius of Loyola preached that it is possible to find God in all things. With this in mind, it doesn’t hurt to add a few things in your day that are specifically about reminding yourself that what you have on Sunday should be part of every day.
I've listed the basics below so you can grade yourself, but go to her article for the details of each. There are simple ideas and some that will require a little more commitment. Almost all will work with family members of every age and there are definitely some you can try today.
  1. ___Feast on feasts
  2. ___Talk about the readings at Sunday brunch
  3. ___Say your bedtime prayers
  4. ___Learn about each day's saint
  5. ___Follow the liturgical seasons
  6. ___Greet the day
  7. ___Pray the Rosary
  8. ___Hang your crucifixes
  9. ___Attend a funeral
  10. ___Have your home blessed
  11. ___Make a pilgrimage
  12. ___Recite the Angelus
  13. ___Bless your door
  14. ___Thank your priest
  15. ___Pray before car rides
  16. ___Attend religious ed.
  17. ___Give something up
  18. ___Mail a holy card
  19. ___Read a book
  20. ___Open your Bible
  21. ___Attend a daily Mass
  22. ___Look at art
  23. ___Eat together
  24. ___Pray for the Pope's intentions
  25. ___Pray for the Pope
  26. ___Volunteer for a cause
  27. ___Talk about God
  28. ___Memorize a psalm
  29. ___Visit an empty church
  30. ___List your prayers
  31. ___Plant a garden
  32. ___Be grateful
  33. ___Light a candle
  34. ___Try adoration
  35. ___Leave out your nativity set
  36. ___Make a confession
  37. ___Schedule that retreat
And this is my prayer: that your live may increase
ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception,
to discern what is of value, so that you may be
pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
filled with the fruit of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
~Philippians 1: 9-11

1 comment:

Glenna said...

By "greet the day" do you mean "say your Morning Offering"? Why would I want to greet the day? What does that mean? If i just say a Morning Offering, then I can unite everything I do that day, as I do it, to the offering I made that morning. That means I unite everything with all the Masses being said throughout the world that day. How simple is that?