I'm Making Some Radical Changes!

I need to make some radical changes in my life. I need to be less selfish, lazy, and unfocused. I need more discipline in all aspects of my life: spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. I feel like I've been saying this for years, however I don't think I've ever really taken myself and my need to change seriously. If I had, I would have done it, right?

So, yes, I need to make some radical changes...changes in the way I live my life, but also changes in my attitude. I need to start taking seriously my need to change. I've heard that it takes 4-6 weeks to break bad habits and create new ones. With Lent starting in less than two weeks, its time I start taking my need to change seriously and to create new, good habits to replace the old, bad habits I currently have. So here's what I'm going to do:

1. Prayer. Duh! I should be doing this anyway, but you know what...I haven't been praying as consistently as I should. I work for a church, so I am committing to get in front of the Blessed Sacrament every work day to spend some time with Our Lord. It should seem easy, right? I've tried this before, but I've been inconsistent. I haven't been taking it seriously enough. I need to believe that there is nothing more important than prayer, that prayer is to the soul what water is to the body. I can't survive without it. I'm going to schedule prayer into my day, and I am going to stick to my commitment.
2. Fasting. I wrote a blog post on the importance fasting just last week. I also committed to fast every Friday. Well, here I am barely a week into it, and I've already failed. Again, I'm not taking it seriously.I need to understand and believe that fasting is good not only for my body, but also for my soul. I need to be willing to make small sacrifices in order to purify my soul. And I need to do it with a spirit of prayer, and not out of a sense of obligation.
3. Spiritual Reading. I love to read! I always have. It's part of the reason why I obtained a bachelor's degree in literature. I need to spend time every day reading something spiritual. I need to expand my mind spiritually and intellectually and am committing to read every day during Lent. I plan on reading The Gargoyle Code by Fr. Dwight Longenecker. I'm really excited about this book and the spiritual growth I hope to gain from it. If you don't know who Fr. Longenecker is, check out his blog, Standing on My Head.
4. Discipline. I will remain focused and disciplined at work and at home. I will not allow distractions to keep me from doing the important work in my family, on the job, and in the above three goals for Lent. To help with that goal, I am going to stay away from Facebook and twitter throughout the course of Lent. I have set up my blog to automatically post new articles to those sites to keep my friends, family, and followers informed.

I know that I am committing to a lot this Lent. Some may say that I am taking on too much. Maybe I am. But radical change calls for radical action. This is all stuff I should be doing anyway, and Lent poses the perfect opportunity to get my life back on track spiritually, physically, intellectually, and emotionally.

What are you doing for Lent?

The Culture of Addiction

We are a culture of addiction. Yes, there are many people that are addicted to drugs and alcohol. But many of us are addicted to money and power. We are addicted to food and our physical appearance. We are addicted to sex and instant gratification. We are addicted. Henri Nouwen, in his book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming states:

'Addiction' might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates contemporary society. Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love. These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs.

We have become slaves to our passions. The voices of our world are telling us that we need to be successful, popular, beautiful, and we have given in and surrendered to these voices. We have become addicted in our pursuit of self-fulfillment and in an attempt to satisfy our deepest needs.

What, then, are our deepest needs? I think the heart of our deepest needs is the desire to love and to be loved. At the root of our addictions is the longing for love and acceptance. We are just pursing that love and acceptance in the wrong places. We are looking to the world to build our self-esteem. We are looking to the world to find love.

It is only in and through Christ that we can find love. It is only through Christ that we can build our self-esteem. It is only through Christ that we can find acceptance. Only Christ can satisfy our deepest needs. All else will leave us wanting. All else will lead us down a path to depravity.

So, how do we overcome our addictions? We must pray. We must pray that God will give us the strength and grace to overcome our addictions. And, we must fast. St. Augustine says: "Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God? Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving." Fasting, making some small (or large) sacrifices, draws us closer to Christ. Through denying ourselves something temporal and filling it with a spirit of love and prayer, we are able to overcome our addictions and temptations. Matthew Kelly, in Rediscovering Catholicism: Journeying Toward Our Spiritual North Star states:

I am utterly convinced that if we are able to develop the inner freedom to resist the temptations that face us in the modern world, we must learn to assert the dominance of the spirit over the body, of the eternal over the temporal.

It is through fasting that we are giving graces that cannot be accomplished through prayer alone. It is through fasting that we are able to return home to God. It is through denying the temporal that we conquer our addictions and satisfy our deepest need, our need for the love of God in our lives.