After a month of reading my musings, I thought the final post should feature a different medium. I’m an avid podcast listener, although I don’t actually keep up with everything that is on offer out there. I mostly listen to Catholic podcasts, although I have the odd marketing or homemaking one on my list. Here are 5 recent episodes from 5 of my regular podcasts that inspired me.
The first advice they give to someone going through a dry patch in the spiritual life is to keep showing up. After a particularly difficult week, I decided to do just that and reached out for one of Regnum Christi’s online retreats. Even with the dysfunctions in the Legionaries and the disgusting life of their founders, the resources are good and unless crimes are committed by the people who create them I will not punish them for the sins of the people around them. I intended to do one of the Lent ones, as a preparation for this season of spiritual renewal, but the one on spiritual growth caught my eye. Later, as I looked at Youtube videos to find inspiration for this week’s prompts, I stumbled upon a retreat on St Thérèse. If you read yesterday’s post you already know how much I love her, and how I just had to watch the talks. Little did I know that the first talk was on the same subject of the stages of spiritual growth.
If I had to think about 3 stereotypes that would tell anyone they are around Catholics, it’d be the rosary, making the sign of the Cross seemingly all the time, and telling someone to “offer it up” when something goes wrong. It’s also one of the least understood theological issues in popular Catholicism, or at least it took Fr Bartunek to explain it to me because nobody else until then could. In short, it’s a prayer that unites us with the suffering of Christ on the Cross. We do it intentionally whenever something we don’t want happens, no matter how small. Or should I say “they”, since I am really bad at doing this…
Mrs Ryan in Dawson’s Creek called it “the greatest gift Our Lord has given us, but for a long time, I’ve not known what forgiveness is. Yes, the Our Father we pray every day talks about it, so it’s important, but nobody really tells you what forgiveness truly is. One big misconception that is common is that to forgive you have to mend your relationship with someone, no matter how dangerous that might be. You may have long forgiven, but if you equate keeping someone away with unforgiveness you won’t realise it. I have made that mistake myself, partly out of a specific person’s emotional manipulation. She would press the issue in a way that could only mean I had forgiven her if I let her in.
One thing about Catholics is that social media can be a stream of engagements, weddings, and pregnancy announcements. It’s easy for time to feel like it’s hardly passing at all, as many couples have honeymoon babies and it all happens so soon. Even if there is no chance of joining that club any time soon, I have been thinking a lot about what kind of mother I want to be, and what kind of mother I feel I will be if I don’t change the course of the current. Perhaps it’s the same instinct that made me read so much about marriage, and a desire to give myself enough time to build healthy habits before I need to lead by example. Because the example I received was not the kind of mother I want to be.