Prayer

September 12, 2014 By Bob Waruszewski 7 Comments

Manly Catholic Reads: Joseph’s Way

“Often a father believes that being married and having children hinders him, if it does not altogether disqualify him, from achieving great sanctity.” To dispel this incorrect notion, Devin Schadt, in his book, Joseph’s Way, the Call to Fatherly Greatness, lays out practical ways for fathers to become saints within the day-to-day life of the family.

This eighty-day devotional walks through the life of St. Joseph in light of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, specifically Abraham and Jacob. Each day’s short reflections provides the reader with ample material to meditate upon in prayer.

The book contains two major sections, the Prayer of Faith, and the Prayer of Hope. The Prayer of Faith consists of three components, silence, obedience, and sacrifice. Likewise, the Prayer of Hope also has three main components, humility, wrestling with God, and establishing the domestic church.

Each section builds upon lessons learned in the previous section. For example, first we learn how silence is necessary for a man to hear God’s voice in prayer. Then we learn that a man cannot just simply listen to God in prayer, he needs to obey the instructions that he hears, which often requires him to make sacrifices.

The book contains deep insight and wisdom for fathers as well as some discussion of Theology of the Body. I will just mention a few examples.

“The vocation of fatherhood has been created by God in such a way that it acts as a fire, which burns away the desire to be noticed, while purifying the sincere underlying desire to be authentically known.” (Day 12)

“When a husband encounters a particular crisis, particularly within his marriage, his faith is tested and he is afforded an opportunity to discover or rediscover his true essence, which is to become a man who sacrifices himself on behalf of his wife and God. (Day 31)

Throughout the book, I gained a greater insight into the virtues of St. Joseph and the patriarchs as well as the many parallels between them. Not only did I learn a lot about some great men of the Bible, but I learned practical ways that I could imitate their example. In particular, the discussion of Jacob’s mistakes, and his growth in overcoming them to become a man of character were helpful to me.

Often, we can think that the only men called to be saints are priests and religious. Yet, the book Joseph’s Way, reminds us that as fathers and protectors of our families, we have a vocation too! To lead our wives and children in holiness and build up the domestic Church is a sincere task, not for the faint of heart. As fathers, we must embrace the call to hidden service of our families, just as St. Joseph did, so that we can become the saints of the 21^st century.

May 15, 2014 By Guest Contributer Leave a Comment

An Everyman Saint: St. Isidore the Farmer

All you really need to know about St. Isidore the farmer (or “the laborer”) is that in the town of Pulilan in the Philippines, parishioners of San Isidro Labrador make their water buffalos kneel before a statue of the saint. This is a fitting veneration for a saint who was often accompanied by a team of heavenly oxen driven by angels. St. Isidore is known as the patron saint of farmers and laborers but he isn’t some morality tale on the benefits of hard work. In fact, Isidore spent so much time praying instead of working that he’s hardly a model of an employer’s ideal worker.

Born to a poor family in Madrid in 1070 AD, St. Isidore lived his entire life as a hired hand for a wealthy landowner, Juan de Vargas. Despite his poverty, Isidore was well known for his charity to the poor. His wife, St. Maria Torribia, always kept a pot of stew over the fire because of Isidore’s habit of bringing home beggars to dinner. He was also known for his devotion to his faith, praying often and attending mass daily before going out to the fields. Stories of miracles followed St. Isidore throughout his life and after his death.

Isidore was canonized in 1622 along with Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri. Neither a scholar nor a religious, Isidore stands out from these other Spanish saints. St. Isidore is a kind of “everyman’s saint,” serving as a model for those of us who find ourselves behind a plow or desk and not an altar. He shows us that all of us can and should aspire to sainthood.

We might be tempted to see St. Isidore as the patron saint of hard work, the Catholic idealization of the Protestant work ethic. But Isidore’s virtue was not in his zeal for manual labor. Actually, in many ways, he wasn’t a very good worker. His daily trips to morning mass often caused him to be late to his fields. Once he did finally make it to work, he often stopped his labors to take up prayer. He also poured out valuable grain for wild birds and gave food to beggars.

While these qualities would make Isidore an undesirable worker, they made him a very good Catholic. And it was for these qualities, not his hard work, that he was rewarded. One of Isidore’s fellow farmhands, who didn’t share the saint’s habit of attending daily mass, became angry at Isidore’s occasional tardiness and informed their master of the offense. When the master came out to the fields the next day to learn the truth, he found that Isidore was indeed absent. But he didn’t find his plow idle. Angels had taken up the task to ensure the work got done.

Interestingly, God didn’t send these angels to work the plow for Isidore as a reward for his exceptional dedication to his work. On the contrary, they joined Isidore because the saint was exceptionally dedicated to prayer and the sacraments. Similarly, St. Isidore was not rewarded for thriftiness. Although poor himself, the saint gave freely to the poor, sometimes past his means. But when Isidore dumped out grain for hungry wild birds, the grain bag miraculously refilled. When Isidore brought home a house full of beggars, his wife’s stew pot never emptied. The miracles that accompanied St. Isidore were not the results of unceasing diligence at work or frugality in the home. Instead, it was his devotion to God and charity to neighbors that brought about the miraculous events.

There is certainly something to be said for hard work and good stewardship of wealth. But, from the Catholic perspective, there is a great deal more to be said for charity and spiritual devotion. In St. Isidore, we see that God values these virtues even in poor laborers; so much so that he will perform miracles for the sake of a hired hand’s daily mass attendance.

One reason this may seem so odd to us in our culture is that it’s easy to think of our occupations as our “real” work and our spiritual lives as a helpful, secondary kind of labor. Prayer may be a good thing, we think, but our jobs are the necessary things we do for money. We may even think of those with priestly or religious vocations as those who perform spiritual work for a living while the rest of us go about making money to support this work.

I’ve fallen into this way of thinking before and used it to justify neglecting spiritual exercises. But, in St. Isidore, we see that our spiritual work ought to come first. We see that the Lord eagerly wishes to meet with us in prayer and the sacraments and will take care of our other work if we make time for him. If I’m late to my office because of morning mass, it’s unlikely a pair of oxen will show up at my desk. But I am convinced that we will be blessed for placing our real work first.

The following post was written by Daniel Stewart, and it originally appeared at Catholic Exchange. It is reprinted with permission.

April 29, 2014 By Sam Guzman 42 Comments

Spiritual Weapons: Fasting

Fasting gives birth to prophets and strengthens the powerful; fasting makes lawgivers wise. Fasting is a good safeguard for the soul, a steadfast companion for the body, a weapon for the valiant, and a gymnasium for athletes. Fasting repels temptations, anoints unto piety; it is the comrade of watchfulness and the artificer of chastity. In war it fights bravely, in peace it teaches stillness. – St. Basil the Great

Are you struggling with a sin? I mean a sin that you just can’t seem to get rid of; a sin that is keeps you in a constant state of guilt and despair. You’ve prayed, you’ve frequented the sacraments, but you just can’t seem to break its hold.

We’ve all been there at one point or another, and such struggles are part and parcel of the spiritual life. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Today, I want to introduce you to a very powerful, but much neglected weapon in the spiritual arsenal: Fasting.

If you want to put to energize your spiritual life, if you want to slay a sin that has you in bondage, if you want to grow in union with God, take up the holy weapon of fasting. For as Jesus said, there are some demons that “cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.”

Let’s examine this powerful weapon and its use in the spiritual life.

What’s the point?

From her earliest days, the Church has taught the need for asceticism in the life of every Christian. That’s right—asceticism is not just monks and priests, but for laymen too. But what do I mean by asceticism? For our purposes, asceticism can be loosely defined as self-denial with the ultimate goal of self-control. And this self denial most often takes the form of, you guessed it, fasting.

Asceticism is necessary for everyone because of our passions—intense fleshly desires, which are sometimes referred to as concupiscence. Experience teaches us that we our often lead about by these desires in a way we can barely control. St. Paul tells us that “the impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war with one another.”1 This war is so intense that our passions often lead us to do things we don’t want to do, and we find ourselves saying, “My own actions bewilder me; what I do is not what I wish to do, but something which I hate.”2

Keep in mind that the passions of our flesh are not necessarily wrong, but because of our fallen nature, they are out of control and they want to dominate us. Left unchecked, our passions will lead us to soul destroying behavior like gluttony, hatred, disordered sexual acts, or addictions of all kinds. Eventually, their dominion will lead us to hell. “The sinful passions…yield increase only to death,” explains St. Paul.3

Faced with the reality of the passions, it can be easy to become discouraged and think we can never overcome them. We cry, “Pitiable creature that I am, who is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death?”4

Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story, and we are not left as helpless slaves to concupiscence. “The spiritual principle of life has set me free, in Christ Jesus, from the principle of sin and death.”5

Through the grace of God, and by walking in the new life purchased for us by Jesus Christ, we can overcome and subdue our passions. We can live as children of God, free from the law of sin that leads to death.

So how do we find this freedom practically speaking? Again, St. Paul explains:

“Nature has no longer any claim upon us, that we should live a life of nature. If you life a life of nature, you are marked out for death; if you mortify the ways of nature through the power of the Spirit, you will have life.”6

“Those who belong to Christ have crucified nature, with all its passions, all its impulses.”7

“I buffet my own body, and make it my slave.”8

In other words, we find freedom from the passions by mortifying them, putting them to death, through the practice of grace-empowered asceticism—specifically, fasting. Fasting helps us tame the wild stallion of our flesh and bring it under the bridle of self-control.

In his apostolic constitution on penance, Painitemini, Pope Paul VI explains this point clearly:

This exercise of bodily mortification—far removed from any form of stoicism—does not imply a condemnation of the flesh which sons of God deign to assume. On the contrary mortification aims at the “liberation” of man, who often finds himself, because of concupiscence, almost chained by his own senses. Through “corporal fasting” man regains strength and the “wound inflicted on the dignity of our nature by intemperance is cured by the medicine of a salutary abstinence.”

How to Fast

Now that we’ve discussed the purpose of fasting, let’s take a look at how to build fasting into our daily lives.

1. Start with the basics – The first step in fasting is obeying the law of the Church—fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstaining from meat on Fridays, and observing the Eucharistic fast (do not eat or drink one hour before communion).

Regarding abstaining from meat on Friday, it’s true that it is technically is not required in the U.S., but some sort of food-based penance or sacrifice is still required. But instead of trying to invent some new penance, why not just stick with what Catholics have always done? Abstain from meat on Fridays. There’s a good reason for it.

Men, fasting two days a year and abstaining from meat on Fridays is incredibly easy. In the “old days”, fasting was required every weekday in Lent. And there was once even a time when that fasting required abstinence from all dairy products. There were a ton of other fasts and days of abstinence throughout the liturgical year as well. I would say that we have it easier than any other period in Catholic history. So let’s start with the basics and obey the law of the Church without grumbling or complaining.

2. Add more – As Catholic men, we should never be satisfied with the bare minimum. We should seek to constantly pursue a deeper conversion. St. Francis de Sales gives some good advice in this regard:

If you are able to fast, you will do well to observe some days beyond what are ordered by the Church, for besides the ordinary effect of fasting in raising the mind, subduing the flesh, confirming goodness, and obtaining a heavenly reward, it is also a great matter to be able to control greediness, and to keep the sensual appetites and the whole body subject to the law of the Spirit; and although we may be able to do but little, the enemy nevertheless stands more in awe of those whom he knows can fast.

Accordingly, once you’ve begun to follow the law of the Church, build on that foundation to include fasting in other ways. Here are some ideas:

Skip one meal extra a week, like breakfast or lunch. In addition to Fridays, Wednesdays are traditional days of fasting, so that might be a good day to start with.
Deny yourself dessert on set days. Most of us eat too much sugar anyway.
Skip salt on your food.
Fast from soda. It’s terrible for you!
Skip the beer or other alcoholic drinks when going out to eat.
Don’t eat between meals. This sounds easy, but try it. You’ll find it’s quite hard since most of us snack frequently and don’t even realize it.
Include things besides food. For example, fast from all technology one day a week.
Fast (one main meal with two small snacks) one day a week.
Drink only water.

Now, you don’t have to fast from all of these things all of the time. It is best to choose set days for fasting, like the Wednesdays or Fridays mentioned above. Doing so helps keep our fasting consistent.

3. Fast from sin – Bodily fasting is meaningless unless it is joined with a spiritual fast from sin. St. Basil gives the following exhortation regarding fasting:

Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord. True fast is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood and perjury. Privation of these is true fasting.

4. Pray – Fasting is not simply a matter of will power. Grace is absolutely necessary. While fasting energies prayer, prayer energizes fasting. Both are weak without the other.

As you fast to conquer your passions, pray constantly for the grace of God to flood your soul, beg for the virtues in which you need to mature, and ask for strength in the spiritual warfare.

5. Beware of Pride – With any kind of self-discipline, penance, or fasting comes a temptation to pride. We face the danger of believing that we are superior to others because we fast, or thinking that fasting is an end in itself. But fasting itself is never the goal, nor does it make us perfect or more spiritual than others. Rather, fasting is an aid, a training tool in our ascent toward perfection, which is found in a pure, self-giving love of God and neighbor.

“Be on your guard when you begin to mortify your body by abstinence and fasting,” says St. Jerome, “lest you imagine yourself to be perfect and a saint; for perfection does not consist in this virtue. It is only a help; a disposition; a means though a fitting one, for the attainment of true perfection.”

Conclusion

If we neglect fasting, our spiritual life will always be mediocre. We will be weak in the combat against our passions, we will easily succumb to temptation, and we will never truly overcome our inherent selfishness and self-indulgence.

As men, our desire should be to strengthen ourselves and be the best that we can be. We should train ourselves to be strong in the spiritual warfare, so we can resist the temptations of the evil one. There is no better way to begin this spiritual training than through the practice of fasting.

1 Galatians 5:17
2 Romans 7:15
3 Romans 7:5
4 Romans 7:24
5 Romans 8:1
6 Romans 8:13
7 Galatians 5:24
8 1 Corinthians 9:27

March 26, 2014 By Sam Guzman 15 Comments

Catholic in the Cubicle, Part 2: Interacting with Co-Workers

The following is a guest post by Bob Waruszewski.

In my first post, I talked about three ways to be Catholic at the cubicle. As a follow up, let’s look at some ways to be a Catholic Gentleman when interacting with our co-workers.

1) Use Words to Build Up, Not to Tear Down – Most offices have a gathering place for complainers. Maybe it’s at the lunch table, that cubicle on the other side of the floor, or the water cooler. As you pass by these spaces, it is easy to get sucked into the negative conversation. Maybe it’s a cold rainy Monday and no one feels like working, or maybe you inbox is flooded with emails that all need to be answered by this afternoon.

Whatever the reason, many times we use the office as a place to grumble about the problems in our lives. Yet as Catholics, we know that Christ has a higher standard for us. We are called to use words in a constructive way. Think about the conversations that you have at work. Are you creating a positive environment or dragging people down into negativity with complaints?

Key Scripture Passage to Remember: Colossians 4:6 “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should respond to each one.”

2) Pray Before Lunch – A simple way to share your faith with co-workers is to pray before lunch, yet this basic practice can be intimidating to do. Often you may be the only person to pray before a meal. It may feel awkward to pray alone while everyone is starting lunch, but do it anyway. Prayer keeps us grounded in what really matters even in the busyness of our day-to-day activities. A simple sign of the cross and silent prayer before you eat lets your co-workers know that God is important to you. Remember that the sign of the cross is powerful and that God can pour graces into our lunchtime discussion through that simple prayer of thanks.

Key Takeaway: The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours. (CCC 2698)

3) Ask the Holy Spirit for Teachable Moments to Share Your Faith – The thought of evangelizing at the office can be rather scary. Fears of offending others, losing one’s job, or standing out as the crazy Catholic can keep us from sharing our Faith. Yet there are simple ways we can share our Faith without coming across as pushy. The key is to be open to the Holy Spirit. Pray for the grace to speak the right words at the right moment to your co-workers. If you try to create moments for Faith-sharing, you can come across as fake and cheesy. Trust that the Lord will give you opportunities to share your faith if you follow his lead.

For example, if someone asks you what you did this past weekend, mention that you went to Mass. If the co-worker follows up with a further question about Mass, tell them more about your Faith. If not, don’t awkwardly try to bring the conversation back to the Catholic Faith. Let it go for the moment. You have planted a seed in their hearts. They now know that Catholicism is important to you. If they have more questions, they will come back and ask you later.

Key Scripture: Matthew 10:19-20 “do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

These are just a few more ways of ways to live out one’s faith at work. For further study of this subject, I highly recommend, The Catholic Briefcase by Randy Hain.

What are your experiences sharing your faith at work?

Bob Waruszewski is a cradle Catholic from Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from St. Vincent College with a bachelor’s degree in both mathematics and economics. Currently he works in the regulatory department for a natural gas distribution company in the Steel City and is enjoying life as a married man. In his free time, which will be cut dramatically when his wife gives birth in May, he enjoys playing sports, hiking and reading a good book. His favorite saint is St. Joseph.

March 15, 2014 By Sam Guzman 19 Comments

How to be Catholic in the Cubicle

The following is a guest post by Bob Waruszewski. It is the first in a series on sanctifying our work.

A few weeks ago, I was reading an excerpt about how a man chose to serve as a missionary on a college campus following graduation. He said that he decided to become a missionary because he wanted to something meaningful with his life and not just push papers in an office. As an office worker his story struck a chord with me and I began to wonder, Can you only be holy if you work for the Church? Are those who work in an office destined to live a life of mediocrity without meaning?

Upon further reflection, I realized that the various saints show us that holiness is possible in every state of life, even at the office cubicle. Maybe one day we will even have a patron saint for office workers. Yet until an office worker is canonized, I have offered a few suggestions in living out your faith at work.

Schedule Brief Times for Prayer at Work – I like to start my day with a prayer to St. Joseph, patron saint of workers. This helps me focus for the day and reminds me that my work should bring me closer to Christ. Other ways to pray could include saying the Angelus, grace before lunch, spiritual reading during lunch or a prayer of thanksgiving at the end of the day. While an office worker is not a monk, and should not attempt to pray the whole Liturgy of the Hours during work, we should aside a few moments each day to communicate with God as we go about our work.

Offer Up the Annoyances of Cube Life for the Souls in Purgatory – Cube life has little privacy. The habits of our co-workers such as loud talking on the phone, barging into your cubicle without permission, or crinkling open a bag of chips can be rather annoying. However, whatever irritations you encounter, treat them as opportunities to grow in patience and offer them up to Christ for the souls in purgatory who are suffering much greater than any irritations at the office.

Contribute Financially to the Needs of the Church – If God has blessed you with a well-paying job, then one of the easiest ways to serve Him is to support the different ministries of the Church. Maybe you can’t do a year of service in Jamaica or work full-time at the soup kitchen because of your office job, but you can support full-time missionaries and religious of the Church. By financially supporting charities and religious, our work can take on a new dimension. Not only are we providing for our needs and those of our family, but also for the needs of the Church at home and abroad. Even if our work does not always appear to be meaningful, we can take solace in the fact that a part of our labor is sponsoring people serve the needs of Christ around the world.

These three ideas only scratch the surface of ways to grow closer to Christ through our work. As we approach Lent, consider new ways to become holy, especially at the office. Remember that in our work, “Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others” (Colossians 3:23)