What We Do

A friend and I were talking about Halloween this weekend (because I am obsessed with it, I know, I need to get over it a bit).  But it's been a bit of a big deal for me, because it's really got me thinking about why I do what I do, and in particular that I don't want to be doing the right thing just for the sake of doing the right thing.  Not taking part in something just because it's perceived to be evil, or taking part in something because everyone around me is.  Jeff and I listened to a talk with a friend this weekend on the topic of "How is the presence of Christ born in our experience", and afterwards my friend commented that seen in this light, the whole conversation of whether or not Halloween is moral, should we have only saint costumes or just not scary ones, should we have candy or not, just seems to be so superficial.

I do it with everything.  I always think I'm not doing enough.  Should I pray a full rosary (instead of the three hail Mary decade) like this family?  Should I pray the liturgy of the hours like this family?  Should I get to adoration like this family, or weekday Mass like this family?  All of those things are good, don't get me wrong.  But they need to be born of a deep conviction of the heart, not a desire to check things off a list of things I've drawn up for myself that I think will make me a good Catholic.

The things we are most faithful to are unique.  We pray a prayer for the unborn everyday (the simplest prayer I've ever stumbled across!) because one of my kids picked up a prayer card after Mass one day with it on the back, and decided we should pray it as a family.  We pray a litany for priests that I stumbled across one year because we have a few dear friends who are either priests or seminarians, and also because a few families we know and look up to are very good at taking care of their parish priests, and it convicts me that all priests need to be well prayed for and lifted up by the people they serve.  We say a (shortened) rosary because another family (who has probably had the single greatest impact on my formation as a wife and mother) used to do that back when I was hanging out with their kids, and I spent many an evening joining them in family rosary.  We don't need to do what everyone else is doing, and a good faithful Catholic life looks so different from one family to the next.  The things that endure and that will lead us closer to Christ are the things born of our heart's desire for Him, a response to a call so intimate that it needs not be judged against anything but Him.

We need not ask, what is everyone else doing.  Only how is the presence of Christ born in our experience?  And there we meet Jesus and follow Him, wherever He leads us.