Spiritual Life

Day 3 Praying Novena to Mary Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments

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Prayer for Day 3 of Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles 

Immaculate Mary, Co-Redemptrix of the human race, look upon humanity redeemed by the blood of your divine Son, yet still immersed in the darkness of error and confusion. 

The harvest is always great, but the laborers are still very few. Have pity, O Mary upon your children whom the dying Jesus entrusted to you from the cross. Increase religious and priestly vocations; give us new apostles full of wisdom and fervor.

Sustain with your maternal care those who consecrate their lives to the good of their neighbor. Recall your care for Jesus and the apostle John; remember your consoling presence on the day of Pentecost. You were the counselor of the first apostles and of the apostles of all times. By your invincible intercession,  obtain a new Pentecost for all those called to the apostolate, that it may sanctify them and inflame them with holy zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity. Guide them in all their efforts; help them with your graces; sustain them in moments of discouragement; crown their zeal with great success.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            – from Prayers of the Pauline Family

What’s My “Character Arc”? Personal & Spiritual Growth in Discernment

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments
© Daughters of St. Paul, by Sr. Chelsea Moxley-Davis

© Daughters of St. Paul, by Sr. Chelsea Moxley-Davis

Picking up from Monday’s post about how discovering our desires is part of our “character arc” (or personal growth) as we continue to be the co-protagonists with the Holy Spirit on our discernment journey:

The character arc in the discernment journey—the inner part of our journey towards choosing God’s will in our lives—is twofold:

1) a journey towards understanding ourselves and our deepest desires and needs

2) a progressive freeing of our minds, wills, and hearts from anything that will limit our free choice and availability to God’s call

Our character arc—the personal and spiritual growth that is needed for a wise and authentic discernment—is often what requires the most time on our discernment journey. This is why we need patience, faith, and trust in God for the discernment journey, because it’s a spiritual journey that goes largely unseen, and is hard to explain to others and even harder to understand from the outside.

Coming to know ourselves—as we’ve been exploring—is not easy. It takes prayer, self-reflection, and courage. But coming to freedom, which is so essential—even critical—to our discernment, can be even more challenging. It’s critical because our full and free assent is the only kind of “yes” that God wants. God wants our greatest joy and happiness—but to be truly joyful and happy, we need to be truly free. Growing in freedom—from sinfulness, selfishness, old ways of thinking and acting, past habits of relating to others and accomplishing our goals, old and limited ways of seeing things—letting go of all of these can be extraordinarily challenging!

Becoming truly free is a lifelong journey, and it doesn’t need to be fully accomplished in order to make a good discernment. But lacking in freedom in certain areas can make it very difficult to discern God’s invitations in our lives. When we pray for the light and grace that we need on our discernment journey, we are often mostly praying for the grace of spiritual freedom.

Day 2 Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

Today, the second day of the Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles, is the first day of the Novena to the Holy Spirit for the feast of Pentecost. So today, our prayer will focus on Mary as Spouse of the Spirit.

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Mary, Queen of Apostles, rejoice for the days
in which you were Teacher, Comforter
and Mother of the apostles in the Cenacle.
You invoked and received the divine Paraclete,
the Spirit with the seven gifts,
Love of the Father and of the Son,
Transformer of the apostles.
With your invincible intercession
and your humble and irresistible prayers,
which always move God’s heart,
obtain for me this grace….
                                                              –excerpt Prayers of the Pauline Family

It’s not too late to send in your prayer intentions to me–via email, a comment below, or Twitter (@SisterMPaul).

 

Send in Prayer Intentions for Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

queenofapostlesToday, we begin the novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles. This feast day is celebrated on May 23rd this year–the Saturday before Pentecost, when Mary gathered the apostles in prayer to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Of course, when the Holy Spirit descended, the Apostles received very special graces to go forth and carry out their mission!  It’s a very special feast day for my community as communicators of the Gospel, because Mary is the ultimate Communicator of the Word of God. 

Our Pauline website has an explanation of what the title means. In the images of Mary, Queen of Apostles, Mary is holding Jesus out–as if to give him away. Blessed James Alberione describes the meaning of this gesture very specifically: “In the ‘Hail, Holy Queen,’ the Church describes her [Mary] to us with very beautiful titles, but the most beautiful is the one we see portrayed in the new painting of the Queen of the Apostles, in which the Madonna does not clasp Jesus to her heart, but holds him out to the Apostles, as her most sweet fruit, in order that they, in turn, will hold him out to humanity.”

For our purpose as discerners, Mary is also known as the “Spouse of the Spirit” because she so closely listened to, treasured, and responded to the invitations of the Spirit.

I invite each of you to send in your prayer intentions–you can email me if you want to remain anonymous, or send me a message on Twitter. (@SisterMPaul) If you add it in as a comment below, I will cut and paste all the prayer intentions (including the initials of those who wish to be anonymous), and we can all pray for each other on our discernment journeys.

I will post up a short prayer each day of the novena, so that if you check in over the next nine days, we can unite not just in intention, but also focus our prayers. The prayer below is an excerpt from our Founder’s prayer of entrusting to Mary–his own version of Consecration to Mary. It’s a beautiful prayer to begin our novena:

Receive me, Mary, Mother, Teacher and Queen,
among those whom you love, nourish, sanctify and guide,
in the school of Jesus Christ, the Divine Master.
You identify in God’s mind those whom he calls,
and for them you have special prayers, grace, light and consolations.
My Master Jesus Christ entrusted himself wholly to you,
from the Incarnation to the Ascension.
For me this is doctrine, example and an ineffable gift.
I too place myself entirely into your hands.
Obtain for me the grace to know, imitate and love always more
the Divine Master, Way and Truth and Life.

                                                                                                                – Blessed James Alberione

Discerning with Deep Despires

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment


04A 2As we explore how God might be speaking through our deep desires, it might be helpful to describe “deep desires” a little more, as compared to other kinds of desires:

  • a sudden sharp craving for ice cream on a hot day
  • a yearning to spend time with a loved one
  • a fancy for a new gadget
  • a pining for some peaceful moments in the midst of a busy day or week
  • a physical attraction to someone we find good-looking
  • an impulsive “itch” to clean the house or do something else we find immediately satisfying
  • a passionate love for our spouse
  • a longing to be immersed in creativity—writing, music, art
  • a yearning for a real, profound relationship with God
  • a devotion to someone(s) else; a dedicated giving of ourselves in love to someone(s) in need

We all have many kinds of desires every day. Because we are body and soul, our deepest desires often manifest themselves physically even when the desire isn’t for something material. We may say that we “ache” for something, or experience restlessness when a desire goes unfulfilled. Whenever we desire something, we perceive it as good. Eating unlimited chocolate feels good on some level, and so we might desire to eat two pounds of chocolate in one sitting, even though it is not actually good for us.

Our desires can be good and healthy, or they can be evil, disordered by original sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about feelings, desires, and passions in #1768. If you are interested in exploring a bit more about the morality of feelings and desires, you may want to read up in the Catechism or other sources. (If you need references, send me an email or visit a Pauline Book & Media Center!)

Because in any discernment, we are discerning between good things (see my January 23 post on four essential principles for discernment), this blog isn’t the place to address evil desires that are sinful or lead to sin beyond the obvious fact that evil desires are to be avoided, and that God doesn’t “speak” through sinful desires.

However, for the purpose of discernment, we distinguish different kinds of desires. We look at their source, how lasting they are, how connected they are with our identity. If we feel a craving for chocolate (can you tell that I have the potential to become a choc-a-holic?), we know that is a physical desire that arises from our body—perhaps a need for certain nutrients, or a desire for the gratifying pleasure of a delicious bite. But a desire for chocolate has nothing to do with my God-given identity, and while it may arise periodically, it is not a lasting desire.

Our deep desires are longings that are profound, lasting, and entwined in our very identity. The reason that we look more carefully at how God might be speaking through deep desires is because we know that God wants our happiness, and fulfilling a deep desire often leads to happiness. Personally, the further I go in life, the more I see how my deepest desires are given to me by God.

A deep desire is something that we will long for and be passionate about for a long time…perhaps our entire lives. Many people would agree that the deepest desire of the human heart is to love and be loved. (This is definitely a God-given desire!) Since God is Love, this can be rephrased to say that the longing for God himself is the deepest desire of the human heart. In discernment, we acknowledge this deep desire for God, and we look for the specific, unique “how” God is calling me personally, to love and be loved in my daily life.

We all desire love, goodness, beauty, etc. Getting to know our deep desires and the unique “how” we feel called to fulfill them is really helpful and important to living God’s invitations. Here is a personal example from my own life. All human beings desire not only beauty, but to express beauty. For me, that desire to express beauty is specified in one way by my deep desire to write. I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but it took me years to discern that my desire to write was not just a personal desire but also a call from God. Eventually, my community confirmed my discernment when sisters and superiors affirmed my written works and gave me writing assignments.

I still love other forms of beauty, and I dabble in music, but writing seems to come from (and go back to) the core of who I am.

To Pray & Journal With

  • Pray with Psalm 63: “My soul thirsts for you.”
  • How do you experience your longing for God?
  • What are your deepest desires?

What’s the connection between deep desire and discernment?

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

Anna_Brassey_438-victorian-woman-writing-jornalThe driving force of any story is the protagonist’s deepest needs and desires, because they determine what the protagonist chooses and does. Think of Will Smith’s character in the film The Pursuit of Happyness. Or Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. 

Whenever we are discerning, we want to become more mindful of our deepest needs and desires. (Deep desires go much deeper than a passing urge, such as our appetite for chocolate or ice cream. “Deep desire” means desires that well from deep within our soul, such as the longing for happiness, etc.)  Just like in a movie, our needs and desires drive our choices—often without our knowing it. So the more aware we can become of what we want and need, the more honest and free our discernment becomes.

When writing a story, the writer has to write two stories that are deeply connected: the outer story with events, plot, obstacles, and other characters; and the inner story of the protagonist’s growth with the protagonist’s desires, needs, and choices. In a good story, these two stories are so deeply connected that it’s the resolution of both the inner and outer challenges that make a powerful ending.

Just as a good story has both an inner and outer story, so does a good discernment. In our world today, it’s easy to spend time focusing on the outer story: What are the needs of the world today? What do my family and friends tell me about myself? What does this spiritual book tell me? What is Pope Francis saying about the needs of the Church and how to live our Christian vocation?

All of these are important and critical when we discern. Yet the most critical place to listen to the voice of God is interior: within us. The basis for any discernment is our relationship with God. If we do not pray, we cannot hear the voice of God—often the whisper of God—within us.

When we discern, we also need to go within, to listen to God speaking and working within us. Our deepest desires often express our God-given identity! It’s just as important to pay attention to the voice of God within as it is to pay attention to how God speaks to us through events, circumstances, and people in our lives. Discernment involves weighing the different “voices” that I hear—from within, from outside—and discovering which is God’s call.

Our interior journey—our understanding of who we are, and our needs and desires—will profoundly influence and shape our response to God’s call in our choices and actions.

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To Journal About

  • Make a list of the ten things in life that are most important to you.
  • When you’re finished, bring that list with you before the Lord in prayer, and ask him to reveal his priorities for you.

Living Our Vocation “to the Full”

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment
"The Good Shepherd" by Joseph Ritter von Führich, c. 1840

“The Good Shepherd” by Joseph Ritter von Führich, c. 1840

Yesterday, “Good Shepherd” Sunday, was the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. If you are discerning your vocation, I hope that you could feel the support of the Church’s prayers for you, lifting you up from all over the world!

Pope Francis offered a really beautiful reflection for the day in his Message for the 52nd World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  One of the coolest things about it is that he describes “vocation” in such a dynamic way, comparing the living of our vocation with the exodus experience. Thus, Pope Francis’ message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations isn’t just for those discerning their vocations, but an invitation for all of us to live the gift of our vocations fully. I’d like to share three points that particularly struck me and that I’ve been praying with:

 

Following One’s Vocation (whether for the first time, or as a renewal of our commitment): 

Belief means transcending ourselves, leaving behind our comfort and the inflexibility of our ego in order to centre our life in Jesus Christ. It means leaving, like Abraham, our native place and going forward with trust, knowing that God will show us the way to a new land.

Living One’s Vocation “To the Full”:

The exodus experience is paradigmatic of the Christian life, particularly in the case of those who have embraced a vocation of special dedication to the Gospel. This calls for a constantly renewed attitude of conversion and transformation, an incessant moving forward, a passage from death to life like that celebrated in every liturgy, an experience of passover…. Vocation is always a work of God. He leads us beyond our initial situation, frees us from every enslavement, breaks down our habits and our indifference, and brings us to the joy of communion with him and with our brothers and sisters. Responding to God’s call, then, means allowing him to help us leave ourselves and our false security behind, and to strike out on the path which leads to Jesus Christ, the origin and destiny of our life and our happiness.

The Model for Every Vocation:

The Virgin Mary, model of every vocation, did not fear to utter her “fiat” in response to the Lord’s call. She is at our side and she guides us. With the generous courage born of faith, Mary sang of the joy of leaving herself behind and entrusting to God the plans she had for her life. Let us turn to her, so that we may be completely open to what God has planned for each one of us, so that we can grow in the desire to go out with tender concern towards others (cf. Lk1:39).  

If you can, go and read the entire message here. It’s not just beautiful, but challenging and encouraging, reminding us that the Christian vocation is to love, and that living the fullness of the Gospel message does not limit us but leads us to the fullest possible freedom. I also was struck by his comparing each Christian’s vocation to the Exodus experience, because in doing so, Pope Francis is indirectly validating the “storytelling” lens that I’m using on this blog to talk about discernment!

How Our Weaknesses Shape Our Discernment: the Importance of Knowing One’s Self

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 3 Comments

“The Mirror” by William Merritt Chase, c. 1900

What makes a novel or movie fascinating for me is when the protagonist is flawed and must overcome inner obstacles to achieve his goal, or to choose (and find) her happiness. If all the characters—especially the main ones—are practically perfect, then we have trouble being interested in the story or the characters, because they’re not real. (Even the practically perfect Mary Poppins has a fault—or at least a weakness—in how she deals with her affection for the children and for Bert.) Perfect characters don’t just make the story less interesting. We are unable to relate to these flat characters, or to their lives, because they aren’t struggling with anything. They’re not like us.

We all struggle with ourselves—our faults, a flaw, or even a simple tendency that, in our situation, causes pain or distress. If we truly come to know ourselves, we acknowledge that we struggle with much more than the occasional fault. We all have a tendency to sin, and the more honest we are with ourselves, the better we know our sinfulness and flaws. (One of the benefits of spiritual direction is gradually coming to a clearer self-knowledge.) St. Augustine encourages us to pray for self-knowledge, and it’s something we can do daily before we make our examen.

People have different levels of awareness of their faults and sinfulness, but almost all of us have “blind spots” when it comes to how we see ourselves. A strength or talent we take pride in may actually be an irritant or flaw to others. For some of us, pride blinds us to our flaws and we have trouble acknowledging our sinfulness, except in things that we don’t consider that important. For others among us, all we can see is our faults and sinfulness. And many of us swing back and forth between the two perspectives—we have days we feel we can conquer the world, and other days where to love that irritating person for the love of Christ feels way more heroic than we can manage.

Neither perspective is really helpful. If you are someone who, like me, shifts back and forth, then you have one advantage: you know that you have still not come to the truth of who you are. For me, the key word in my understanding of who I am is one word: and.

Who are we? We are flawed and saved. We are called to eternal glory through the gift of our Baptism, and we are limited and sinful human beings. We are sinners and redeemed. We are cherished and we are called to conversion.

When we are discerning an important decision, it is crucial that we remember who we really are: precious and weak, sinful and called to holiness. At some point, God will probably call us to go beyond ourselves, beyond our own strength, sustaining us with the gift of his grace. But God also perfects our human nature, the gifts of our specific personality inherent in us. Our weaknesses shape our call just as much as our gifts, so it’s important in our discernments that we know who we are, in all the greatness of our call and all the weakness that we suffer.

For some helpful real-life examples, we can read more about the saints. In comparing two saints, we will often discover that the questions that they wrestled with were very different. A sensitive monk who grapples with scrupulosity and becomes a great confessor (like the great saint, Padre Pio) will have very different discernments during his life than a practical peasant woman who grows up on a farm and founds a religious congregation dedicated to bringing the love of God to others through the corporal works of mercy (like the great St. Frances Xavier Cabrini). Both are great saints known for their love for God and selfless service of others, but their love was expressed in completely different ways.

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To Journal About

  • How do I see myself? Do I use “and” or “but” when I describe myself?
  • At this point in my life, what is my greatest fault?
  • At this point in my life, what is my greatest gift?

You may wish to conclude your journaling time with a prayer to the Holy Spirit for the grace to see yourself through God’s eyes.

God Wants a Relationship with Us

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

To understand God’s call for us, we need to also understand how God sees us; we have to understand our “backstory” (to put it in storytelling terms) or where we come from.

How does God see us? Most simply put, we have been loved into being:

There is one truth for believers that, no matter how much our wounded nature might try, cannot be twisted. This truth is that God chose to create each of us. There is something so unique and wonderful about us that God wants to share his life with us. God wants us in the world.  – See Yourself Through God’s Eyes

Not only is this true, but it has an amazing corollary: in creating us, God is expressing a desire to have a relationship with us. Because of Jesus, we know that this relationship with the God is adoption as God’s child, and our relationship with Jesus is friend.

Image 7How precious is the worth and dignity of every person on earth! The core of our identity is that we are created in the image of God, invited to become a child of God through Baptism so that we can share in Jesus’ divine Sonship. Created in God’s image, we have the ability to know and to love. Unfortunately, the freedom that gives us the ability to love also gives us the ability to choose to turn away from love.

When we choose not to love, we aren’t living according to the greatness of our identity. Although we are beloved, we are also flawed and sinful. Yet, even God’s response to our sinfulness proves his love for us! God sends his Son Jesus to save us from ourselves, from the power of sin, from the power of evil. Every time that we repent of our sins and ask forgiveness, we are invited to return to the depth and beauty of greater communion with God.

Our “backstory” helps us as begin or deepen our attitude of discernment, because God’s call to us is congruous with this reality that we are precious in God’s eyes. Since our very identity is founded on our relationship with God, it makes sense then that God is the Co-Protagonist in our life. God wants to partner with us, to draw us always closer to himself (in deeper communion with him) throughout our lives.

To Pray With

Psalm 139 is wonderful to pray with and ponder our identity in God’s eyes—God’s beloved ones. Pray with it over the next few days, and allow the awe and gratitude of this psalm to fill you.

My True Identity

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

In this series of blogposts about discernment, we continue to look at our life through a storytelling lens…beginning with ourselves as the co-protagonist of our lives (co-protagonists with God).

453px-Caravaggio-The_Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus

Conversion on the Way to Damascus, 1601, Caravaggio

Who am I as the protagonist of my story? Who am I, really? What are the key events that have shaped my life? What important choices have I made so far? What are my deepest desires around which I want to base my decisions, plan my future? What do I consider my successes? my failures?

Each of us is a son or daughter of our families, and members of the human family. If we have been baptized, we also belong to the family of God, the Church. We are sons and daughters of God—adopted into God’s life.

And if we able to honestly and realistically look at ourselves (and this is not easy!) we will recognize great beauty and potential, but also great flaws and woundedness. We will see greatness and pettiness, openness to grace and attraction to sin. We will recognize that we carry both love and pride in our hearts, selfishness and generosity.

* * *

I used to not know this. As a teenager, I used to relegate the Redemption—Jesus’ suffering and dying—as  important background to my life. (Forgive me, Lord!) After all, I was baptized as an infant years ago, and I was grateful that I had been redeemed. But now I was on my journey toward holiness, and I didn’t need to keep going back to those ideas of conversion, sin, mercy, forgiveness, Redemption…

I look back and chuckle at how clueless I was—about myself, about human nature, and about my relationship with God. (One proof of God’s infinite mercy is that I’ve grown beyond this cluelessness!)

Saint Paul—one of the greatest saints ever—wrote, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Saint Paul’s entire life was shaped around the merciful love of Christ—the merciful gaze of Jesus as he forgave Paul for helping to stone Saint Stephen and persecute his first followers, the mercy of Jesus that revealed to Paul God’s great love for him in Christ. This was the merciful love that Paul constantly preached.

You might say that Paul needed conversion, but he wrote this years later, after he had already spent years of his life preaching Christ all over the world.

No matter where we are on our journey, even if we are baptized, live our faith in a dynamic and vital way, and earnestly seek God’s will, we will always, constantly, be in need of the mercy and grace of God to live out our truest identity—as human beings, as children of God.

This is where we need to start in our discernment, because the experience of God’s mercy is the foundation of our relationship with God. God creates us and loves us gratuitously: we cannot possibly ever do anything that would “earn” us God’s love. It’s in the midst of our unworthiness and even our sinfulness that we discover God’s immense love for us. God’s merciful love becomes the bedrock of our relationship with God!

Pope Francis, in his letter officially announcing the Year of Mercy (from Dec. 8, 2015-November 30, 2016), says this eloquently:

“Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us… Mercy: the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to a hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”

Pen_UncappedTo Journal About:

Answer the questions at the beginning of this blog post:

  • What key events have shaped my life?
  • What important choices have I made so far?
  • What are my deepest desires around which I want to base my decisions and plan my future?
  • What do I consider my successes? my failures?
  • Who am, really?