THE WORLD IS A MESS, OUR POLITICAL AND CHURCH LEADERS ARE CORRUPT, AND THE APOCALYPSE IS NEAR!!! Hopefully we have (shamefully...maybe?) piqued your curiosity, and we would like to apologize for succumbing to worldly tactics in an effort to command your attention. But now that we have it, we would like to use this brief moment of inter-personal engagement to encourage you through this Lenten season to consider a serious, important, and quite frankly difficult challenge. The challenge is a simple two-step process: 1. Detach and disengage – 2. Attach and engage.
The process is as follows:
Step one: make a serious and concerted effort daily to detach yourself from any and every earthly distraction: TV, phone, computer, radio, newspaper, work, family, etc. for a consistent, determined amount of time. Next, disengage your mind from all of the realities associated with each of those things.
Step two: Attach yourself to spiritual life. This can be accomplished countless different ways. However, due to the overstimulated, loud, and busy reality of our modern culture, we would highly encourage you to spiritually engage in “neutral”. No words, no reading, no music, just silent meditation on our Lord, completely opening your mind and your heart to Him. Once again, this can be accomplished many different ways, but we highly encourage you to put forth the extra effort to go to a Catholic church and sit before our Lord in the Tabernacle. Better yet, find a parish that has Perpetual Adoration. There are no words to describe the soul-piercing power of sitting face to face with our Lord, sacramentally present in the monstrance. As we have heard it said, “When you sit out in the presence of the sun, it affects you whether you realize it or not. Your skin is changed. When you sit in the presence of the SON, it affects you whether you realize it or not. Your soul is changed.”
Though simple to say, putting this into practice can be a daunting task. Satan will pull out every stop to keep you distracted. We encourage you to start small. Pick an amount you feel confident you can master and then slowly increase as you are able.
While all of the distractions of this life in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, we do live in the world and have the responsibility to engage ourselves where we each feel called. It is very easy to allow the world, especially in this current crazy and confusing time, to consume us and lead us increasingly further away from our Lord and our faith.
Even among the three members of ROMANS, despite our diverse areas of interest, and varying levels of desire and capacity to engage in the many distractions of the world, we each pray for the ability to hold ourselves, both individually and as a group, accountable to maintaining a consistent and proper balance of engagement in earthly affairs and spiritual affairs so that we can most effectively love and serve all whom we are blessed with the opportunity to love and serve.
Lent:
A special time to gaze within,
And wrestle with the scourge of sin,
The hope of new life can begin,
When we embrace our cross.
Through sacrifice our spirit earns,
The gift of grace, for which it yearns,
Freeing us from the sin it spurns,
As we embrace our cross.
And as we battle through our plight,
We shun the darkness of the night,
With hope of resurrection’s light,
Through clinging to our cross.
These forty days we journey through,
Help pave our way from grave to You,
Eternal glory we pursue,
Found only through our cross.
A blessed and productive Lent to all!