Tag: Program of LifeShould I relax my “Rule of Life” during the holidays? – Part II of IIQ: Dear Father John, Is it right to relax one’s Rule during a holiday period (or a day off)? If so, what should we In our first post we talked about the purpose of a rule of life and vacation. Now for some practical suggestions… Some Practical Suggestions (Just Suggestions) First, some spiritual ideas: - If your family or spouse is not in the same place as you are regarding your faith, try not to fret about it. God knows the situation, and he knows the limits that that necessarily puts on your own activities. He sees your heart, and he will provide chances for you to have the faith-experiences and times of silence and prayer that you would really like to plan into your vacation schedule. - If you normally do your morning meditation in your room or in a chapel, you may want to do it outside, walking through a beautiful natural setting. If you normally pray your Rosary in your car on the way to work, you may want to take the time to pray it more congenially while walking through a park or sitting quietly in a church. - Change the times of day during which you do your normal prayer commitments. - If you are a priest, celebrate daily Mass privately, or concelebrate with the priests who are with you on vacation. Insofar as the liturgy permits it, choose your favorite votive Masses. - Use different source material for your daily meditation, changing up the themes that you reflect and pray about. For example, if you usually meditate on the daily Gospel, during vacation you may want to find a good commentary on a book of the Old Testament or a Letter of St Paul, and meditate on that instead. - Put on hold whatever books or materials you are using for spiritual reading or faith-study. For vacation, change gears. Take something fresh, something that really attracts you, maybe something you always wanted to read but never had time to (a historical novel, an old-favorite, a classic…). Of course, it should be edifying and inspiring, not scandalous or superficial. - Live Sundays the way you would always like to live them during the year – totally dedicated to God and family. As Pope Benedict put it:
- It can be nice to include during vacation a visit or even a mini-pilgrimage to a shrine or a notable sacred location. But you have to make sure that this is fun for the whole family or group. If no one else is interested, you may want to take a solo trip. - Most people following a rule of life have a “motto” that sums up and unifies their spiritual work. It can be useful to give yourself a motto for vacation, something that will help remind you of your purpose for this time, e.g. “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). - In general, be flexible with the externals of your spiritual life, but faithful to the substance. Second, some general ideas: - If at all possible, a change of place is most helpful. I used to know a couple of families that simply traded their houses for two weeks each summer – it was less expensive than going to a vacation resort, but it still provided the change of atmosphere that is so helpful for healthy rest. If you really can’t afford to go somewhere, at least change the places where you do your normal activities. Eat outside, for example, instead of in the dining room. - Change gears on the type of activity you engage in. Someone who works in an office, for example, should be sure to spend time outside and get involved in some physical activity; someone who works outside should think about ways to engage in culturally enriching vacation activity. Divide up the necessary chores in a different way than you normally do. - Unplug as much as possible from cell phone, email, and other electronic media that are an integral part of your normal daily activity. This may seem impossible, but it isn’t – really! It just requires determination and planning ahead. I guarantee that if you do this you won’t regret it. Along the same lines, plan ahead regarding the amount and kind of media entertainment you will use during vacation. - Include simple ways of playing and engaging in friendly competition in your vacation activities: board games like scrabble or Pictionary; cards; sports and outdoor games that everyone can enjoy (bean bag toss, badminton, volleyball)… - Make a point of having regular and abundant contact with nature. - Sleep well, and eat fresh food whenever possible. - Know what type of activity helps you relax, and make time for it. Some people relax more by being alone, reading, reflecting. Others relax more through social interaction or physical activity. We each have to lovingly help those around us relax, but we do that better if we are also finding time to relax ourselves. I am sure you are not the only one who has been thinking about this question. And so, I would like to invite our readers to share their own experiences regarding decisions that have helped or hindered vacation from being what it is meant to be – something that builds up our friendship with Christ, not something that wears it down. This summer, let’s all keep in mind Pope Benedict’s comment last July on the passage from Luke about the two sisters, Martha (the more active one) and Mary (the more contemplative one): “…[T]his Gospel passage is more than ever in tune with the vacation period, because it recalls the fact that the human person must indeed work and be involved in domestic and professional occupations, but first and foremost needs God, who is the inner light of Love and Truth” (Angelus, 18 July 2010). Should I relax my “Rule of Life” during the holidays? – Part I of II Q: Dear Father John, Is it right to relax one’s Rule during a holiday period (or a day off)? If so, what should we
 hang on to and what should we ‘shelve’? What about a priest with a fairly demanding Rule of Life? As you will have guessed, I am a priest and am unsure about my own practice. I also find that this question comes up among other clergy and among committed and faithful lay folk (especially those married to partners who may not practice the faith in quite the same way).A: This is not only a great question, but an important question. We live in an almost completely secularized popular culture in which the highest good (as habitually presented by advertising and entertainment) is enjoyment. And so, living for the weekends, for vacation, for retirement – this is constantly offered to us as the proper priority in life. Even though, as active Catholics, our friendship with Christ has given us a different set of priorities, the bombardment of secular images and messages that we navigate through each day has its effect. By reflecting briefly on a truly Christian view of vacation, we can, I hope, extirpate some well-disguised mental parasites that tend to disturb our interior peace. As usual, the best place to start is at the end – in all things look to the end, as the ancient philosophers used to say. What is the goal, the purpose of a rule of life (on our posts, we sometimes refer to a rule of life as a “program of life” or a “program for reform of life”)? What is the purpose of vacation? Answering those questions will pave the way to an answer to your more specific question about whether/how to adjust one’s rule of life during vacation. The Purpose of a Rule of Life A rule of life usually contains a few essential elements: daily, weekly, monthly and annual prayer commitments; a list of our strongest selfish tendencies and some points of work to foster growth in the contrary virtues; some kind of life-mission or vision statement, summing up in our own words the calling and mission we have received from God; some kind of personal schedule or schedule parameters that will enable a healthy pursuit of that life-mission. A rule of life should be a living document – constantly referred to, reviewed, adjusted, and reworked through spiritual direction, retreats, and personal prayer and reflection. In this way, a rule of life becomes a powerful tool to help us steadily grow in our friendship with Christ and effectively put our God-given talents at the service of his Kingdom. Without a rule of life of some kind, we easily fall prey to moodiness, inconstancy, and dissipation in our pursuit of holiness and spiritual fruitfulness. In short, a rule of life helps us know and stay focused on following God’s will in our lives – the only path to lasting happiness and spiritual maturity. The Purpose of Vacation What is the purpose of vacation? A good analogy comes from farming. Before planting a new crop, a farmer plows and fertilizes his field. He has to turn over the earth, expose it to the air, break up the hard surface, turn over the roots and stalks left over from the last harvest, and refresh the soil under the surface by exposing it to the air, sun, and rain. Then he is ready to plant a new crop. Vacation does something similar for our souls. Daily life in this fallen world is demanding, exhausting. We pour energy – mental, psychological, spiritual, and emotional energy – into work, the duties of our state in life, and relationships. Our activity drains the nutrients from the soil of our human nature, drying it out. Vacation is met to refresh that soil, to reinvigorate it, to restore balance to our physical and psychological organism. Thus restored, we can return to the demands of our life-mission with renewed energy and determination. An annual vacation is to each year what a day off is to each week. As Pope Benedict XVI put it: “I hope everyone, especially those in greatest need, will be able to take a bit of vacation to restore their physical and spiritual energy and recover a healthy contact with nature” (Angelus, July 8, 2007). The Upshot In short, we go on vacation from what we do, not from who we are. Vacation is meant to provide necessary rest from and rejuvenation for the normal, meaningful, but draining activities of daily life; it is not meant to separate us from God or be pause on our journey towards deeper communion with him. Vacation must never be an excuse to pray less, to skip out on the sacraments, to indulge in irresponsibility, to sin, or to flirt with occasions of sin. In that sense, a rule of life retains full validity during periods of vacation. And remember that your companions and circumstances will not be perfect even while you are on vacation; you will still need to exercise self-sacrifice, patience, and other virtues (especially those you most need to develop). If you expect and accept this, it won’t spoil your rest. After all, as our Lord reminded us, “there is more joy in giving than receiving” (Acts 20:35). On the other hand, a vacation will yield little rest and rejuvenation if it fails to include a notable change from the daily grind – the soil has to be plowed to be refreshed. And this change can certainly be reflected in some of the more external aspects even of our spiritual lives. Here are some examples that may help illustrate the point. They can apply to weekly days off as well as annual vacation periods. In our next post on this topic, we will talk about how to put some of these ideas into practice. How can I identify my root sin?
A: You are already on the right track. A program of life is worthless (well, almost worthless, at least) without having identified our root sin. Unless we understand the dynamism underlying our frequent faults and failings, we will never be able to work intelligently to overcome them. It’s like gardening. If you want to get rid of the weeds, you can just pull out the stems; you have to get at the roots. Otherwise, progress is short-lived and unsubstantial, and sooner or later discouragement and frustration set in. In trying to identify our root sin, the wisdom of the Church comes in handy. Spiritual writers through the ages have identified three possible candidates. Before I describe them, however, it behooves us to make one clarification. All of us, simply because of our fallen human nature, have sinful tendencies linked to all three of the candidates. Saying that we have a “root sin” simply means that for each of us, one of the three is dominant. It’s bigger than the others and exerts greater influence on our day-to-day behavior. That said, here are the three possible root sins: pride, vanity, and sensuality. Pride, in this sense, refers to a disordered attachment to our own excellence. The proud person tends to seek meaning and fulfillment in their own achievements and conquests. Vanity is a disordered attachment to the approval of other people. The vain person tends to seek meaning and fulfillment in being appreciated or liked by other people. Sensuality is a disordered attachment to comfort, ease, and pleasure. The sensual person tends to seek meaning and fulfillment in taking it easy and simply enjoying life. Notice that each of these root sins is a disordered attachment to something. The things in themselves – achievements, relationships, pleasures – are not evil. The problem comes when we seek meaning and fulfillment in those temporal, created realities. In fact, we are created and called to seek our meaning and fulfillment in God alone, in our ever-deepening relationship with him. Achievements, relationships, and pleasures are meant to be ordered around and towards that principle and foundation of our life. As the Catechism puts it in #27:
Again, it is important to realize that we each have tendencies that spring from pride, vanity, and sensuality. None of us is exempt from any of them, because we all have inherited a fallen human nature. But in each of us, one of the three is usually dominant. If we can identify which one, we can better aim our efforts to grow spiritually; we can strive to develop the virtues that counteract the cause, the root, of our falls and faults. We can identify this root sin, also called “dominant defect” by some spiritual writers, by looking at the common manifestations of each. The manifestations which are strongest in your life can clue you in to your root sin. Below you will find a list of these common manifestations. Read through them once quickly and make a note of the ones that characterize you most. You will find that sometimes you fall into all of them, but some of them will jump out at you as particularly common or strong in your life. Whichever of the three has more of those is, most likely, your root sin. As you go through this exercise, you may find it more difficult than you would like. That’s because self-knowledge is slippery. And that’s one of the most compelling reasons for finding a spiritual director to help us be objective in our spiritual work. I hope you keep looking, and pray that God will lead you to one. COMMON MANIFESTATIONS OF PRIDE:
COMMON MANIFESTATIONS OF VANITY:
COMMON MANIFESTATIONS OF SENSUALITY
Yours in Christ, Fr. John Bartunek, LC, STL How much of spiritual direction should focus on prayer versus sin and virtue?
A: Thank you for asking this question so directly. I will try to be as direct in my answer. Spiritual direction, in its essence, is merely one means (though a powerful one) to help us know, love, and follow God more deeply. And so, the guidance received in spiritual direction should touch on those activities and experiences most directly related to our communion with God. Without a doubt, sin is one of these, and so the topic of sin will be part of spiritual direction. But before we look at how, let’s remind ourselves of what sin, that disobedience to God’s eternal law, really is. Sketching a Profile of Sin Sin is rebellion against God. It is an echo of Satan’s refrain, “I will not serve!” It is a denial of our status as God’s creations and his children, dependent on him for our existence at every single moment. It is a repudiation of his goodness, love, and wisdom. It is the prodigal son wishing his father were already dead so that he could get his inheritance and abandon home. When we sin, we cut ourselves off from the very source of meaning, virtue, and happiness, both temporal and eternal. When we sin, we become absurd and self-destructive, like trees uprooting themselves from the soil because they feel constrained by their roots. Sin is turning our backs on our Creator, Redeemer, and Savior. (For a more detailed discussion of sin, and its different types, see our entries on scrupulosity.) The Throes of Repentance Usually, when someone is at the point in their spiritual life where they are seeking regular spiritual direction, they are repentant. This means they have received the grace to turn away from their sins and to sincerely desire to come back to the Father’s house. Otherwise, why would they be wanting spiritual direction? But repentance from past sins rarely includes the total banishment of sinful habits, actions, tendencies, and attitudes. Repentance is the first step of a difficult journey along the path of holiness, a journey fraught with temptations to fall back into old sins or dive into new ones. For this reason, spiritual direction has to involve a frank discussion of our most common temptations and falls (usually, this forms part of the “program of life”). In the sacrament of confession, we confess our sins, receiving forgiveness and the grace of renewed strength to resist temptation. But in spiritual direction, we analyze and discuss our sinful patterns and tendencies, trying to understand their roots and identifying ways to overcome them. This discussion and analysis has to do at least two things:
Stages of Growth At the earlier stages of the spiritual life, the emphasis falls on weeding out the sinful and self-centered habits that are constricting the action of God’s grace in our lives. As we grow, the emphasis changes. There are fewer weeds in the garden, and we begin to focus more on how to make the good plants (the Christian virtues) grow and bear more fruit. We also become more sensitive to less dramatic sins, to more subtle manifestations of selfishness (which is why we never grow out of confession: the more we love our Lord, the more sensitive we will be to even the smallest offenses to his friendship). A tendency to anger, for example, may lead to frequent, violent explosions early on, but to less visible spats of impatience later. In both cases, however, these are weeds; they are obstructing our friendship with Christ, and we need to work intelligently to uproot them by growing in the virtue of fortitude. Spiritual direction should help us in that effort, by providing both spiritual encouragement and tactical advice. Moral integrity (avoiding the big, obvious sins, like those alluded to in the Ten Commandments) is the foundation of the building called holiness. But the building really begins to soar once we establish that foundation firmly and become free to focus our spiritual energies on the active loving of God and neighbor, not simply the avoidance of offending them. Thus, our prayer, our program of life, and everything else associated with spiritual direction is not meant to be divorced from daily life, but actually should enable us to live each day more deeply and fully, by helping us plug even the most mundane activities into the great adventure of seeking, finding, and following our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, may his name be praised forever! Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC What is a “program of life” and why is it important to my spiritual progress?
A: One of the enemies of good spiritual direction is excessive subjectivity. We all have urgent personal issues that come and go; they occupy our attention and energy intensely for brief periods, but they really don’t touch the deeper regions of our character and personality. When a child is sick, it preoccupies us. When someone at work is having problems that affect the rest of us, it preoccupies us. Sometimes issues like this are important enough to deserve ample attention during spiritual direction, but not usually. And yet, because they are on our mind, we will naturally tend to let them dominate our conversation during spiritual direction. This can inhibit us from the kind of deep, systematic, and structural work that spiritual direction is really designed to foster. The headlines of our lives change every day, just like the news headlines. But headlines are by nature superficial. We need to make sure that we don’t waste all of our spiritual direction talking about superficial headlines. This is where the Program of Life comes in; it helps us to keep our ongoing spiritual work objective and profound. To understand how it does that, we only have to understand what it is. The term Program of Life has some siblings: Rule of Life, Reform of Life, Plan for Spiritual Growth, Game Plan for the Soul, Business Plan for the Soul… In all cases, the core meaning remains the same. The Program of Life is a tool that helps us personalize the principles of spiritual progress: Prayer - Everyone needs to pray, but how often should I pray, what type of prayer should I focus on, what factors are making prayer hard for me? Every individual person, because of their life-situation, background, education, and temperament will find individualized answers to those questions. Virtue - Likewise, everyone needs to become more Christ-like through the practice of Christian virtue. But which virtues do I most need to develop and how exactly can I work on them, which habits of selfishness are most deeply rooted in me and how can I diminish them, what is the underlying cause of my most frequent sins and faults? Again, every individual will answer these questions differently State in Life - The same goes for the fulfillment of God’s will through fidelity to the responsibilities of one’s state in life. Every father needs to guide, discipline, and spend time with his children; every husband needs to give his life for his wife, as Christ gave his life for the Church; every professional needs to be another Christ in their workplace – but these ideals will take on unique (and uniquely beautiful) characteristics as they are incarnated in the unique and dynamic reality of every individual. The Program of Life consists of the personalized answers to all these questions, phrased and arranged in such a way that they become a guide for daily living. The Program of Life, then, is like a spiritual workout program that insures spiritual growth because it is customized to the individual’s needs and opportunities. When we meet with our spiritual director, it is good to start by going over the headlines, but, reviewing together the main points of the Program of Life is the real path to consistent, substantial progress. Three other things are worth noting.
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Q: Dear Father John, what is a “Program of Life” and why is it important to my spiritual progress and Spiritual Direction?
