Advice to Pray, Fast, Do Penance and Offer Sacrifice for important intentions...?

[mommamaree]

Hello everyone!

There are some strange and disturbing things happening in our world and in our Church, and the sound spiritual advice that always gets offered is what I detailed in the title of this thread. I am a convert, and a homeschooling mother of four who is expecting baby #5 soon, so I have some questions about how to implement this advice in my own life:

(1) For a pregnant/nursing mother, obviously I am prohibited from fasting, so how could I apply the principle of fasting in my own life?

(2) I am so busy caring for the needs of my family, including bodily, spiritual, emotional and educational development, and almost the entirety of my waking hours are full of this kind of service. So how can I do prayer or penance, in a way which still allows me to fulfill the duties of my vocation?

(3) These important spiritual practices are not out of reach for people like me, are they? I seriously doubt that Catholic spirituality would have guidelines for holiness that exclude the simple folk, because our faith is universal. So, what does it “look like” to be living a life of prayer and penance for the sake of our Church and our world, when one is already giving so much of one’s energy toward service of others for the Lord. I can’t see that God would be pleased if I abandoned my duties to care for and educate/catechize my little children for the sake of “extra prayer and penance”.

Thanks to anyone who can help me understand.

 

[CountrySteve]

Actually, your work and acts of charity and fulfillment of your duties ARE prayer

Our Blessed Lord only asks what we can do “by the grace of God I am what I am”

So pray as much as you are able to and as for acts of penance these can be whatever you have the strength ot offer up say you drink two cups of coffee in the morning give up one of those. etc. etc.

Pax

 

[chataranga]

Greetings,
If you feel the need to fast it does not have to be from food. We can fast from the television and or radio for a day or longer or part of a day. If you wear makeup you could not use it for a time. Back to food - you could eat less processed foods and sweets and stay with simpler foods for the day (less seasoning for example). In his book “the sacred art of fasting” Fr. Thomas Ryan csp covers different ways to fast other than what you may normally think of. Blessings to you on your journey.

 

[1newcatholic]

(1) For a pregnant/nursing mother, obviously I am prohibited from fasting, so how could I apply the principle of fasting in my own life?

Wait until you’re not pregnant, as the Church recommends.

(2) I am so busy caring for the needs of my family, including bodily, spiritual, emotional and educational development, and almost the entirety of my waking hours are full of this kind of service. So how can I do prayer or penance, in a way which still allows me to fulfill the duties of my vocation?

Some Christian saints have recommended praying through your actions–your service to your family is a prayer before God, whether you intend it or not. Penance… five children sounds like penance enough…

(3) These important spiritual practices are not out of reach for people like me, are they? I seriously doubt that Catholic spirituality would have guidelines for holiness that exclude the simple folk, because our faith is universal.

This is the point I really wanted to address. The truth is that for centuries the Catholic Church saw the layperson’s life as inferior to the clerical life, which was in turn inferior to the contemplative life. Many traditional spiritual practices–elaborate penances, time-consuming contemplation, extensive fasting–developed within monastic communities, and were intended largely (though certainly not exclusively) for monks, nuns, priests, and other church officials.

The last century or so has seen a major shift in the Catholic perspective on “spirituality,” and today the Church recognizes the validity of our ordinary, non-clerical spirituality. But if we go only by the traditional literature of the distant past, we might get a distorted understanding of what the Catholic Church reasonably expects from a married mother of 4 and 1/2 children.

So, what does it “look like” to be living a life of prayer and penance for the sake of our Church and our world, when one is already giving so much of one’s energy toward service of others for the Lord. I can’t see that God would be pleased if I abandoned my duties to care for and educate/catechize my little children for the sake of “extra prayer and penance”. Thanks to anyone who can help me understand.

My two cents: endeavor to be a good mother, and a good wife, and a good Christian, and a good person. It is by fulfilling these duties first that your spiritual life will thrive. We do not necessarily need to view our domestic, sometimes mundane activities as somehow separate from the spiritual sphere. You must take care to care for yourself, as well. His yoke is supposed to be “light,” not chaotic and burdensome . Be sure to rest. Do something just for the fun of doing it.

You might be interested in Brother Lawrence’s Practicing the Presence of God; he was an ordinary monk known for his extraordinary attentiveness to the presence of God in even the most tedious of chores. Again, your experience as a mother living in the world will be different than his experience as a monk living in a monastery, but it’s a valuable resource.

 

[St_Francis]

Mommamaree,
Back when some of mine were still little, the older ones went to CCD, and I thought, wow, I should really be volunteering to teach CCD! I felt bad because I couldn’t but I had the littler ones and no one to leave them with.

But one day I sent my youngest off to his first CCD class, and a couple of weeks later o) I realized that now I could volunteer!!!

Now you are very busy with the duties of your state in life. You can do some little things: grow in patience, etc., and you can put less sugar in your coffee on Fridays, or have 0 or 1 cookie when the children have 2 each, that sort of thing. (Don’t go overboard and wonder if you can ever eat another chocolate chip cookie guilt-free–make a sort of schedule of these things and stick to it rather than doing it willy-nilly!)

But overall, now is the time in your life when you are doing one set of things. The time will come amazingly soon when you will have extra time, and *then *you can pray the extra Rosary, attend a daily Mass or two, more serious fasting, volunteering to help the poor,…

For everything there is a time, and every activity has its season…

 

[fred_conty]

Do everything in joy and love for Jesus.

May God our Father give you grace and peace.