Injury

I am deeply sorry to all of my adoring fans for the lack of posts. I hurt my ankle, and I need that to type, obviously.

Instead of any inspirational tidbits of faith, I will share with you some fetching finds found around the web. Just click on the link [for my parents if they are reading, the link is the colored underlined word ;)

-Father John Zuhlsdorf had a great blog post on the importance of prayers being memorized

-true and beautiful

-let's get some school vouchers, PLEASE

I hope you enjoy! If you like this, maybe next Saturday I will do it again!
Peace!

Wisdom

Dare I speak about wisdom? I heard a quote by St. Francis de Sales that was along the lines of, prayer is dangerous, because praying about virtue and holiness can lead the person praying to believe they possess those things.

Well, let me preface by letting everyone know I do not have the gift of wisdom. Yet.

But! I learned all about it yesterday, and I want to share an interesting little nugget I gleaned.

Any Christian, faithful or lukewarm, has most likely heard the phrase "fear of God" (or perhaps this is a grand assumption for me to be making, but I need to rest on this assumption to make myself believe what I am about to say has some meaning). I was always a bit wary of fearing the Lord.

I had someone ask me once, how fair is it to only want to go to heaven because you don't want to go to hell? My first response is, well, of course that's not so great, we should want to go to heaven because we have a positive desire to go to heaven, not simply an aversion for hell. Then, they pull out the old "fear of God" quote and I am left babbling and really being a terrible witness.

So what does fear of the Lord mean? The way it was so wonderfully explained to me, is to think of someone you respect, like REALLY respect. Take Blessed Mother Teresa for example. You have so much respect for this woman, that if you were ever in her presence, you would be so afraid to act like a fool, or disrespect her in any way. You would be so careful with every movement, every word. That is what is meant by fear of God.

If I feel this strongly about Blessed Mother Teresa, how much more should I feel this way about God? And yet, it is a struggle.

How does fearing God tie into wisdom? It's one of the biblical characteristics of a wise person (among other things, like listening and learning, and not cutting babies in half).

For now, I will try to be wise and prudent, by studying for an economics homework. Hopefully homework does not fall prey to the same danger as prayer in the eyes of St. Francis de Sales.

Results

For every action there is a reaction. For every sult, there is a result?

I learned, for the umpteenth time, the result of procrastinating. I will be enjoying a late evening finishing my spanish paper. I only have 300 more words, but need I remind you, those words are in Spanish.

The gospel on Sunday just proved to me, for another umpteenth time, that Jesus is awesome and he never procrastinated. In fact, he was always vigilant and sober, ready for anything. He fasted and prayed for 40 days in the desert (not much else to do in the desert, according to Father Peter at mass), so that even when he was face to face with Satan himself, he could ignore those temptations. In fashionable internet speak amongst young people, Jesus pwnd. Everything the devil tossed out, Jesus had his response made ready.

One of my favorite verses in the bible is 1 Peter 3:15, which reads "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (NRSV).

Procrastinating is certainly not being prepared for anything. Fortunately, I am what society calls a college student, and we can run off minimal sleep for extended periods of time. This knowledge of my ability to function on little sleep, as well as knowing I procrastinated by going to the gym for an hour and a half, and writing in this blog, help me rationalize this terribly silly habit of procrastination.

So tonight's actions and results?
Paper-not done
blog- DONE!
sore muscles- DONE!

2 out of 3, not bad.

Holy Report Card

I am a terrible procrastinator.
Like I said in my previous post, I am visiting home this weekend, but instead of going out to enjoy this wonderful city, I resolved to stay in and get homework done.

Oh, I stayed in, and in the 7 hours I have been awake, I have accomplished 3 paragraphs for a 4 page paper. Granted, it is in Spanish, and Spanish is not my first language. It is also a history paper and I do not particularly care for the history of the Iberian peninsula and how it affected the Aztecs. It will take un milagro for me to finish this paper tonight.

So 3 paragraphs in 7 hours. That's pretty pathetic. Assume 6 paragraphs a page, 4 pages total, I need 21 more paragraphs. At this rate, it will take me about 2 more full days to write this. Don't worry, I will speed up. Those 7 hours that only produced 3 paragraphs were interrupted by my sick dog, my family, and eating, lots and lots of eating the yummy leftovers from the casino party last night.

This measuring of academic achievement today prompts me to think about my Lenten achievements. The problem with this is that it isn't quite as measurable. There isn't a word count or a page limit, in fact the achievements necessary for holiness are endless. You never reach a holiness 4.00 or a holiness limit, it is constant growth. A good friend of mine has said to me many times, "There is no standing still on the path to holiness. If you aren't moving forward, you are moving backwards."

We do not have the convenient tool of a time sensitive check list, but we have other wonderful resources for how to grow in holiness, like the Bible (I'm a fan of the NRSV), and a whole slew of documents and teachings of the church to guide us on our way. I am currently reading Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on economics (ok, not exactly economics, but there is a lot of good stuff for econgeeks like me).

I must conclude this post and return to my Spanish paper and/or watch my school's basketball team on ESPN.

Economics of Sacrifice

I was absolutely delighted at the homily in daily mass today. Father was talking about sacrificing things during the Lenten season, and how we might sacrifice things and not even know about it (which ultimately doesn't end in spiritual growth). For example, being so busy with school work you miss a meal. You probably won't be blessed abundantly for being so pious and "fasting" from that meal, but it was a "sacrifice" nonetheless.

I am studying economics, so of course I wanted to raise my hand and say "actually, I would call that a trade off", but homilies aren't the time to be raising hands. Instead I pondered.

What are the differences? Every sacrifice is a trade off, but not every trade off is a sacrifice. Sacrificing is a trade off with the end in mind of growing closer to God in some way. A trade off is a simple human mechanism of exercising our preferences in a world of scarcity.

Examples
Trade off: Pressing the snooze button a third time. You prefer 5 more minutes of sleep to 5 more minutes getting ready and letting your face look more awake and less zombie.

Sacrifice: Not eating dessert after dinner to complement your prayer for souls in purgatory.

Both examples involve giving up one thing for the sake of another, but a sacrifice involves a conscience and deliberate trade off for the sake of holiness. (I'm just making these up, so correct me if you have a better text book definition)


Something new I have learned thus far in Lent: Prayer+Fasting= amazingly amazing if you want God's will to be done. I haven't experienced it quite yet, but I hope I can successfully try this combination.


In other less Lent-y news, I am visiting home this weekend! My mom is throwing a casino party tonight, and I just couldn't miss out on playing blackjack and craps without worrying about spending my own money. We are having two dealers come in and set up their tables (real ones! with green felt and everything!), and lots of good friends to come and enjoy the party.

The menu had to be redone a week or two ago, when my mother realized she planned the party for the first Friday in Lent. Luckily, we live right near a big ocean so seafood is easy to come by and deliciously fresh. This ties in so well with Father's homily though, because my mom made a trade off, and a sacrifice, by reconfiguring the entire menu and working tirelessly to cook and prepare for the party, so that we could still follow the rules of Fridays in Lent, and assure that her house guests enjoyed themselves. Mommas are awesome.

TNS

Every Thursday night at my university, the Catholic Campus Ministry celebrates daily mass, then all 100something of the students eat a delicious meal and are able to hear a quick talk about something faith-related. We affectionately refer to it as TNS, or Thursday Night Supper.

At mass, I almost forgot about the lack of our proclamation before the gospel, you know, that overly-covered song that Jeff Buckley sang in the movie Shrek? I was surprised, just because it is still so early in Lent, but it was also a nice reminder and a supplement to my prayer. After mass and then a delicious dinner, we all scooted our chairs around to face the night's speaker. Tonight's talk was about finding true Christ-centered love.

The focus of the talk was mainly marital relationship, but it is so easily applied to everyone's personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our speaker, Elizabeth Foss (http://elizabethfoss.com) shared lists of qualities that a good man or good woman should strive for on their path to holiness. Luckily for all of us, God has all of those qualities! God is all that is good, He is all that we truly desire in any relationship.

This Lent, and every other day of my life, I hope I am graced with all the good qualities and virtues that make me a good woman. As Mrs. Foss began the list of qualities, I began to take inventory of which ones I had. Unfortunately, I have a very long way to go, but fortunately, it's Lent! Best time to start! Frankly, it's even better than New Years, because Lenten resolutions have a stronger degree of accountability, which I find most often in the form of fraternal correction from my roommates.

My roommates, I am sure, are keenly aware of my need to live out at least one of the qualities in Mrs. Foss's talk, which is listening to and receiving that fraternal correction. Thanks roomies :)

Tomorrow will be the first Friday in Lent, and I will have to tie a string around my finger to remember not to eat meat!

Don't smear it!

I received ashes at noon mass on campus, and my day up until that point had been filled with two primary concerns. First, I hoped that my ashes would be dark and defined, because in past years my ashes have been light and frankly a little wimpy. They would never last the whole day, or if they do, it ends up smudged and looking like dirt on my forehead. My other primary concern was not to smear the ashes. The urge to rest your forehead in your hands is always the strongest on Ash Wednesday.

Like my cosmetic concerns with the ashes I receive on my forehead, it is easy to get caught up in the other outward aspects that Lent brings, especially fasting. But lucky for me, the Church anticipated this and adjusted accordingly. The readings at mass addressed exactly that topic. I can't think of where in the book of Joel, and which letter of Paul were read, and where in the Gospel of Matthew(?) these wise words of God came from, but two things in particular stuck out to me. First, do not let one hand know what the other was doing, so basically don't brag about holiness, because that is just obnoxious (so that's not exactly what it said, but we all know it's true), and second, not to look gloomy while fasting, so as not to draw attention to ourselves and our supposed piety.

It can be easy to forget why we fast, and sometimes even easier to get caught up in the nitty gritty of the details of what fasting is (one meal, and two small snacks that don't add up to one meal, no meat today and Fridays!). We can also get gloomy, as was talked about in the gospel, because our stomachs are empty. But, if it is any consolation to your sad empty stomach, those hunger pains are a beautiful, albeit small, reminder of our spiritual hunger for God.

We can survive without facebook, candy and creamer in our coffee, but we cannot survive without God. I have to keep reminding myself that whatever Lenten resolution I make must be done with joy in knowing that God is still with me. Hopefully I can keep that on the forefront (or forehead) of my mind, so as not to forget what it's all about.

Lent starts...NOW!

Part of my Lenten resolution is to start a blog. I haven't really conceptualized everything, but I know it will be something along the lines of being a Catholic college student from the female perspective.

I came to this idea because I myself follow many a blog, all cute little design blogs with colorful pictures, a love for cupcakes and puppies, and the use of the word "lovely" to describe anything that strikes a fancy. I am sure my roommates are sick of me telling them the latest little lovely things I find in my browsing of the blogosphere, but perhaps I can take the time I spend bothering them with writing a blog of my own.

Lent is a wonderful time to start! It is a time of preparation, prayer and fasting. I hope to do all these things during this season of Lent, and share some things I discover along the way through this little blog.

And if you were wondering why my blog is called The Itchy Scapular, you must wait, because that will be a whole new post.

It has been Ash Wednesday for 25 minutes now, as I glance at my clock. Pray for me friends! The journey begins!