Before Mass:
There’s a song from 1967 from a group
called Buffalo Springfield which captures the theme of today’s readings. Stop.
What’s that sound? Everybody look
what’s going down. Stop. What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down. Every one of us once in a while needs to stop
what we’re doing – raise our head up and notice where we are, where we’ve been,
and where we’re headed. Only when we do
that can we make a course correction so we can end up where we WANT to be. So as you listen today, think about three
questions: Where am I now? Where do I want to go? And What do I need to do different to get
there?
Jerry thought he was in pretty good
health. He jogged once in a while,
usually watched what he ate, although he would binge on Ice Cream once in a
while. I say he ‘thought’ he was in
pretty good health…that is… until a series of events happened a couple of years
ago.
First, his employer wanted to do
something to limit Insurance costs. The
way they chose to do that was to pass out these little things… step counters or
pedometers. It was actually a stroke of
genius – by giving folks these step counters and challenging them to average at
LEAST 10,000 steps per day, they could improve the well-being of employees,
which in turn should reduce insurance costs.
See this is based on the principle in business that you can only improve
what you can measure. Up to that point,
the only measures they had of employee health was the number of sick days and
the dollars spent on healthcare. Step
counts made it personal…THIS was something each person could individually
control.
Jerry accepted the challenge and put
on his step counter that first day – going about his normal daily routine – but
at the end of the workday, he only had like 4000 steps! He had spent most of that day at his computer. Yikes – this isn’t going to be as easy as I
thought! He went for a jog that
afternoon managed to beat the 10,000 steps that day – but then came the next
day. He wasn’t in the habit of jogging
EVERY day, so how was he going to make up the steps he needed? He got creative. He parked his car at the far end of the
parking lot so that he’d have to walk further to and from his desk. He started hitting a local park once a day
just to go for a 30 minute walk while praying his rosary. By changing his HABITS, he was able to start
averaging 15,000 steps per day… which he felt really good about. Not only that, but he noticed he had more
energy during the day and actually LOOKED FORWARD to his exercise time. Jerry’s life changed because of that little device. Our lives change when our habits change.
Second, Jerry didn’t like to go to
the doctor… in fact; he hadn’t been for a Physical in 5 years or more. When he caught the Flu that year, he went to
the doctor who twisted his arm into scheduling a physical. So, he went through
the normal blood tests and poking and prodding which nobody enjoys… and as he went home he thought, Great – done
with THAT for another 5 years… Until the
phone rang the next day. There were some
abnormalities in one of the tests, and they were sending him to get a couple of
follow-up tests. As you can imagine,
THAT got him worried… what did they find?
Was he going to die? His mind
went to the worst-case scenarios, and by the time the results of the second
test came back, he had worked himself into a tizzy. The doctor explained that it was SERIOUS, but
He could probably control it by changing his eating habits.
A DIET!? Yuck, Jerry thought, my life is over… if I
can’t eat what I want, I won’t be happy.
But, like any good wife would do, his wife Brenda jumped on board with
the doctor’s orders and helped Jerry to change his eating habits. Jerry was surprised to find how much he LIKED
salads and Kale… things he avoided at all costs before the diet. He missed the ice cream, but soon found that
Sherbet was a decent substitute. He
noticed that he was sleeping better and had less head-aches than he used to
have. Who’d have believed that he could
improve how he felt by changing what he ate!?
Jerry’s life changed because of his diet. "Our lives change when our habits change." (special thanks to Matthew Kelly for this phrase)
What’s all this have to do with the
readings today? The first line in Paul’s
letter: “Now is the hour for you to
awake from your sleep”. Jesus’ words in
the Gospel: “Stay Awake” and “So too,
you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man
will come.”
The theme for today is to wake
up. It is sooo easy for us to get in a
rut – to let the routine of our lives carry us along so that we don’t even
realize where we are slipping. We don’t
even realize we have unhealthy habits.
We need something to trigger us to stop, look around, and make a course
correction.
So the
Church gives us Advent – a time to do a spiritual health check-up. Ask ourselves: am I better off than I was a year ago…? Do we have any way to actually KNOW we’re
better or worse? I mean – how do you
measure SPIRITUAL health? I guess you COULD
measure how many times per week you go to Mass, how many times you pray a
rosary, meal prayers, Eucharistic adoration, how many Catholic books you’ve
read, how many Catholic CD’s. Those
aren’t necessarily a good measure of spiritual health, but like taking your
temperature tells us if there is an infection in our body, our prayer life
might be a good indicator of how healthy we are spiritually.
WAKE
UP! Are you in a rut? ARE you closer to Jesus than you were a year
ago? Regardless of the answer to that
question, what can you and I PLAN to do start TODAY so next year we CAN
honestly say we’re growing spiritually.
I Mean, if I just keeping doing whatever I have been doing, can I
honestly expect to GROW in spiritual health?
If we’re not growing, we’re dying.
So what can we do this Advent?
What habits can we start NOW that will change OUR lives?
I have
several ideas:
1) Get yourself a Journal and every day
write down what God did for you that day
2) Bring it Mass and write down the one
thing that God shows you that you can do better this week
3) Schedule a prayer time: for example, Get out of bed 5 minutes earlier
and start your day in prayer
a. You can read the readings of the day
b. Read a reflection – sort-of a 1
minute homily - there are many ways to
get these: email, internet, an app on
your phone, and actual books like the Magnificat
c. You could do an examination of
conscience: walk through your day
looking for what went well, where you need to thank God, and recognize where
you could have done better… then think through the day ahead and ask for God’s
Grace
d. Or follow the prayer process – these little
cards are at all of the doors for Free. It’s
a simple outline to help you to hit the key points of prayer…to start to build
a personal relationship with God.
4) Pick up a Catholic book and read one
per month.
5) Listen to a Catholic CD each week
6) Join a Bible study… we’re going to
start one on Tuesday nights in January… more info to come
7) Make a Cursillo – it is a short
course to learn what it really means to be a Disciple of Jesus
8) Join a faith sharing group – we have
several meeting weekly. Catch me if
you’re interested.
9) Come to Eucharistic Adoration: Wed at SR, Fri at SC – or stop in either
church…we’re blessed that we have our churches open 24 hours a day. Stop in for 5 minutes on your way to or from
work.
10) Pray a rosary together as a family –
once a week – or even every day. Or go
for a walk and pray a rosary – thereby exercising your body and your spirit at
the same time.
11) If you’re not praying at meals, start
now
12) Read the Sunday readings together as
a family one evening – maybe even discuss what YOU think the homily will be
about
13) Sign up to have your house
blessed: There will be more information
in the next few weeks, but Father and I would love to come Bless your
house. We’re going to leave some nights
open in January and February and you can sign up. Then – invite your neighbors to do the
same: as long as we’re in the
neighborhood, we may as well bless a bunch of houses the same day/night.
Obviously, these are just some random ideas to help all of us get off the
starting block… to WAKE UP… to push ourselves out of our every-day routines and
form new habits, to do a spiritual check-up… Am I closer to Jesus that I
was a year ago? Am I satisfied with my
spirituality? If I ask Jesus about my
prayer life, would HE be satisfied?
Start a new habit today…Our lives change when our habits change.
