Journeying With The Saints

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Ahhhh….gotta love things that make you feel nostalgic.

If you grew up in the 80s and 90s there seemed to be this huge push to be a multi-tasker. People took great pride if they felt like they could multi-task well. Books were written on it and ways to successfully multi-task were touted.

Even in my younger years, it never seemed like a real thing. I never thought that people could actually multi-task. Like you can't cook dinner, read a book, and write up an email all at the same time. You may cook some food, then move over to reading a book while the pot is boiling, and then put the book down, and write an email. You simply can't do it all simultaneously and really accomplish anything.

Yet, people still strive for this and it leaves them anxious and their able to do things very well. Not to mention, it leaves us extremely unfocused and then we get stressed out and we don't enjoy anything we do.

St. Francis is going to talk to us today about being careful in our business without overeagerness or solicitude. So, let's open to Chapter 10 of the Third Part.

Welcome back, Catholic Pilgrims. I'm so glad to have you with me.

If you are a devout Catholic, you know that we are to be striving for holiness. Sainthood is the goal. You, also, know that as a devout Catholic, we all fall short sometimes. And while I'm not one to listen to excuses or give an easy pass, it is important that we be gentle with ourselves as we travel down the road to sainthood. Not gentle, as in we excuse away our faults and failings, but gentle in that we don't beat ourselves up and allow that to turn us into bitter, crass human beings.

St. Francis is going to talk to us today about being gentleness towards ourselves, so let's open our books to the Ninth Chapter of the Third Part and begin.

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. Today, we are going to dive into one of the things I struggle with the most and that is anger.

Anger is an emotion that I've struggled since I can remember. I have gotten better, I will say that, but it's a work in progress. Early on in my life when people would try to tell me that my anger was getting the better of me, I would get angry and tell them, "This is just who I am, okay? I can't change this about myself."

But, that was a cop-out. The truth was, was that I didn't really want to work on it because it had become a coping mechanism and it made me feel powerful. Once I started to realize that it was hurting my husband and others I loved, I knew that I needed to own up and admit that, to be angry or not, is within my control.

There are times when we should and must have righteous anger, otherwise we are indifferent to evil and that is never good. However, we must never let our anger control us and we must learn to not get angry all the time when we don't get our way, or someone irritates us, or we feel slighted in someway. Too much anger poisons the blood.

Working on meekness as opposed to anger is our topic for today, so, let's turn to Chapter Eight of the Third Part.

Catholic Pilgrims, welcome back. Thank you as always for tuning in today, it really does mean a lot.

Do you have a good reputation that you work to preserve? Has anyone tried to tarnish your good reputation and, if so, how did you deal with it? Does humility demand that we just take it when someone tries to ruin our reputation?

Whenever I think of a good reputation, I always think of the story of Susanna in the Old Testament. Susanna was a devoted wife, a good woman, and a well-respected member of her community. One day, she goes into bath in her garden and two elders who are lusting after her, sneak into the garden and try to force her to be intimate with them. She refuses them and they attempt to set a trap.

They tell the husband that they caught Susanna laying with a younger man in the garden. The community is shocked. Susanna's servants are dismayed that their lady would do such a thing. Susanna tries to defend herself, but because the two elders' testimony is seen as more truthful, she is sentenced to death.

Daniel, thankfully, steps in and saves Susanna by catching the two elders in their lie. He saves Susanna's good reputation and her life. I feel so much for her when reading that story because sometimes, when people are trying to ruin your good name, you feel helpless.

Preserving a good reputation in humility is our topic for today, so lets open our books to Chapter Seven of the Third Part and begin.

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. I'm glad you are here with me today. Just a word before we read: I'm back on a Air Force base and the jets are flying all the time. So, sometimes, you'll hear some jet noise in the background. It's the sound of freedom, as we like to say on base, so just enjoy. :)

Before we begin, we need to make sure we understand the terminology from today's reading. St. Francis is going to be talking about how humility makes us love our own abasement. Now, you may be saying, "Huh?"

When we choose to practice humility, there are certain consequences that may come with it. We may experience abasement. We may be reduced in rank, office, reputation or estimation. The abasement that comes from practicing humility can often be harder to bear than the practice of humility itself. For example, because Our Lord humbled Himself to become one of us and, yet, at the same time claimed His divinity, He suffered at the hands of the Pharisees and Romans. He was ridiculed, hated, rejected, and ultimately killed for His humility.

St. Francis is telling us that we must learn to accept abasement and learn to love the fact that we can suffer for the Lord. That's some hard stuff, but I think you'll see as we read that it's necessary. If we think we are going to practice humility without every experiencing abasement, we are in for a rude awakening.

Let's go ahead and turn in our books to Chapter Six of the Third Part.

My fellow Pilgrims, welcome. How is going today? Good? Not so good? So-so? Well, however you are feeling, I'm glad you showed up here today to join me for another reading.

The other day my daughter and I were watching this video of a MadTV skit. The actors were all dressed up in wealthy 1900-period garb and they were standing around in a room as if at a dinner party. One of the ladies asks one of the guys to play something on the piano and another lady pipes in with, "Don't make me sing." It's hilarious because she really wants to sing and she thinks she is a good singer, but she's trying to be humble. However, it comes off as false humility and everyone is just annoyed with her, because she goes on and on. I'll see if I can find the video and put the link in the show notes.

God gives each one of gifts and we are to use those gifts to better the world and make the light of Christ shine in our dark world. It's not true humility to deny our gifts, it's a false humility and that is what we are going to talk about today.

So, let's turn our books to Chapter Five of the Third Part.

https://youtu.be/zSnCjyoMNgs?si=pnikjVSKJELEoO2G

Welcome, Catholic Pilgrims. Glad to have you back. Today, our topic is on external humility and while I know not everyone will be listening to this in the month of June, I think it's a great time to discuss pride and humility. If you have young listeners, you may want to wait to listen.

I wrote something the other day when we entered into the month of June that said, "Instead of pride, let us have humility and draw closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus." The wide majority of people were very supportive of what I wrote, but a few voiced their displeasure at my supposed "dig" at the LGBT community. One guy said sarcastically, "That's right, you can't be proud of your children, your families, or being an American."

Now, all this is to ignore the fact that there is no day to collectively celebrate children, there is no day to collectively celebrate being proud of your family. There is only one day to celebrate being "proud" to be an American. According to GLAAD, a pro-LGBT organization, there are 94 calendar days set aside to honor or celebrate some group within this community. 94 days.

External humility. A good topic to discuss. So, let's open our book to Chapter Four of the Third Part.

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims, welcome to our reading on patience. I don't think it's a mistake that this is the first virtue St. Francis choose to write about. Patience, I believe, is one of the hardest virtues to practice.

And to be very honest, there are some things that I just have no patience for, such as most of what the secular culture is pushing these days. I just have no patience for it—none. Mostly because I can see the trajectory its taking all of us, our country, and individuals on. People are always telling me that I have to be gentle and nice and win people over with honey, but, again, I've got to be honest, that's just not me. Part of that is that, well…I'm not patient and the other part is that sometimes you just need to shoot straight and tell it like it is.

There's so much of what we are going to read about today that made me say, "Ahhhh…yeah, but it just doesn't seem fair to have patience with this or that."

So, this is going to be a necessary chapter to read and one that isn't easily put into practice, but let's go ahead and open our books to Chapter Three of the Third Part.

How is it going, Catholic Pilgrims? I hope life is treating you well wherever you are in the world.

Today, our reading is a continuation of last time. To refresh, last time St. Francis was talking to us about living out the virtues, which is what he is going to be talking about in the Third Part. He is continuing on with the overview of the virtues and so we won't see any particular virtue singled out for our practice.

So, let's get started by turning in our books to Chapter Two of the Third Part.

Hello, Pilgrims, welcome back! Today, we are entering into the Third Part and it is all about practicing the virtues. Our first reading today is longer than normal and so I want to jump right in and get started. Everybody's time is precious, I know.

So, go ahead and grab your books and open to Chapter One of the Third Part.