This past Sunday, I was delighted to be honored by my local Knights of Columbus council ( Holy Family Council #6831 ) as the council’s Knight of the Year for 2008-2009. While the Grand Knight had mentioned that he wanted to recognize me at our annual Communion Breakfast for my work in running the council...
I saw a post earlier today on Twitter asking what’s “good” about Good Friday. I don’t know enough about the person who posted the question to know whether it was asked in jest or in seriousness, but it caused me to reflect a bit on what, on the surface at least, may seem like an odd name for the day...
One thing that is a near constant in our lives is activity and noise. It can sometimes seem as though every waking minute is occupied by doing something, or having some device (be it stereo, MP3 player, TV, whatever) blaring at you. And if it’s not the electronics, it’s the kids (those of you who work from home as I often do, know how hard it can be to concentrate with two boys “playing” in the same house). All this activity leaves precious little time for something pretty important in our lives. Silence.
When I started getting up at 5am several weeks ago, I decided early on to use some of the time before my wife and kids were up for exercise. I typically spend between 30-70 minutes a day working out. In part to give my muscles some time for recovery, I also decided to only exercise 6 days a week, taking a break on Sunday. That left me with some extra time on Sunday mornings. Given my recent conversion to Catholicism, I realized that this would be an ideal time to prepare myself for Sunday Mass by praying, reading the bible, and also reading the Catechism (if you’re not a Catholic, but want to really understand what the Catholic Church teaches on a given subject, the Catechism is a good place to find out…and it’s available online, in searchable form. The Catechism is a good source for Catholics, too!).
As mentioned in What is 0 Dark 30?, one of the things that’s been helpful to me in making positive changes to my life is the role of prayer. If you’re uncomfortable with discussions of faith, here’s the important thing to understand. Making significant changes to your life, for most of us, requires outside help and support. For me, that help and support comes from family and prayer. If you can get the necessary support from family, friends, or other sources, that’s fine too. What’s critical is not going it alone.