Guest Post
There is a place for you here. A place to sit down, put your feet up if you want, and tell us how God reveals Himself to you. We’ve got tissues and a hug ready or we can put together a song and dance of praise that would rival King...
Read MoreGod's first gift to us is the gift of life
and this gift is already a vocation.
Dishin’ It Out
A pious and wise person once advised praying with your list of intentions while doing the dishes. You either have your intentions list in your head or written on a piece of paper and placed by the sink where you can see it while washing the dishes. It’s a strategy that gets the dishes done and the intentions prayed for at the same time.
I’ve always thought of that advice as one of the most practical and useful gems I’ve ever come across as a housewife and mom. Who doesn’t want a prayer corner all to herself and a non-negotiable prayer schedule? Sometimes, though, the practical aspects of living the faith do not converge in a frictionless manner, so Plans B surface. And they are not at all bad. It’s the purity of intentions that count in the end…
“A married woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to God at the altar to find Him in her household affairs.”
What if I don’t do the dishes because I have a dishwasher (actually, I don’t)? Well, there are alternative scenarios, like folding laundered items, reshelving books, or mopping the floor. Any chore that involves repetitive action and does not require too much “technical thinking” so that I can actually dual-task it with my intentions list, will do.
The intentions list can also be the gratitude list, the praise list, or even the text for memorization for the month!
Everything that we do can actually be turned into prayer.
“Let us work. Let us work a lot and work well, without forgetting that prayer is our best weapon. That is why I will never tire of repeating that we have to be contemplative souls in the middle of the world, who try to convert work into prayer.”
And healthy and balanced doses of verbal or mental prayer and “action prayer” are always good prescriptions, right?
How do you keep up with prayer
when everyone in the family
demands your attention the minute you get up
(or even before you do)?
Marcia has five reasons to wake up in the morning — the man of her dreams and the four children that God gave them. She constantly wishes for a cleaner and more orderly home, but understands that this goal needs constant tweaking. One day, she will devote a lot of time to her sewing. She just hopes that she is not yet half-blind or arthritic then! She blogs at Imperfectly Living a Dream.
St Martha Pray for Us
There are those days…those days when prayer is your only recourse and you wish someone would do it for you. You need to be lifted up in the hopes of getting just a little bit closer to God the Father. But you’re tired and weary and worn and beaten down. So you wish someone would come along and hold you up…’cause you can’t hold your self up any longer.
Let’s be that support for each other. Let’s set aside Tuesdays to pray for each other in community. Let’s run to the feet of Saint Martha, a woman who worked and worried in our Lord’s physical presence. Let’s recommend ourselves and our sisters in Christ to her. {Tuesdays have been traditionally set aside as a devotional day to St Martha.}
Here is the novena prayer, asking the intercession of St Martha for each of us here at Suscipio. After all, our very name means to encourage, support and maintain, so let’s have a plan to do just that.
Novena to St. Martha
This Novena is prayed on nine consecutive Tuesdays and involves lighting a candle. Pray also especially beginning 9 Tuesdays before 29 July, the Feast of St. Martha.
(Light a candle)
O admirable Saint Martha, I have recourse to thee and I depend entirely on thy intercession in my trials. In thanksgiving, I promise to spread this devotion everywhere. I humbly beg thee to console me in all my difficulties. By the immense joy that filled thy soul when thou didst receive the Redeemer of the world at thy home in Bethany, be pleased to intercede for me and my family, in order that we may keep God in our hearts and therefore, deserve to obtain the remedy to our necessities, especially the present situation that overwhelms me.
(Mention your intentions here)
I implore thee, O Auxiliatrice in all needs; help us to overcome our difficulties, thou who so victoriously fought the devil. Amen.
Recite three times one Our Father, one Hail Mary, one Glory Be, and the invocation “Saint Martha, pray for us.”
If you have a specific prayer intention, or just need us to ‘set the timer’ and pray for you every hour, stop by on Tuesday and leave it in the comments. {This post will re-run each Tuesday morning as a reminder.}
Why I bother cleaning
Theresa/my desert heart
…the bathroom was clean…sparkling faucet, clean sink, white tub, toilet wiped, clear mirror…
I realized, standing there at 6 pm, that I hadn’t been in the upstairs bathroom since I cleaned it at 9:30 am.
And it looked it.
Did I clean the bathroom today or was that yesterday? I look at the children’s books on the floor along with pieces of toilet paper, an empty toilet paper roll, smudges on mirror, toothpaste in sink, linen closet left open as well as the shower curtain thrown carelessly aside…and oh yeah…hair in the drain. What’s the point? I ask myself…why do I bother? *sigh*
I have been tempted to think that as I walk out of confession, after confessing the same fault for the umpteenth time. What’s the point Lord? I am just going to do it again. It’s just going to get dirty again.
Good thing I don’t give into that thinking with my bathroom…or my soul. Imagine the filth!
Regardless of the fact that my soul may be smudged again within a few hours of confession, there has to be a determination to begin again…even if it means a weekly cleansing in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There has to be hope and perseverence that we will do our best with God’s grace not to commit the same sin again.
We must repeatedly say Nunc coepi…Now I begin.
Some day, my soul won’t get quite as dirty as quickly as it does now. I have hope.
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