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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Day Five of Lent

In my attempts to better understand the Catholic faith and my own journey converting, I'll be spending this Lent doing a daily reflection of things I've learned. The faith encourages reflections on subjects like this (even the Pope reflects!) so I figure I'll reflect through writing. As always, my understanding of this is noobish so forgive any wrong conclusions and do feel free to correct me where needed. Here we go. 


Today in the blackbook, the author told the story of St. Augustine of Hippo, one of two saints I knew somewhat a decent amount about (the other being Aquinas). Hippo and I go way back, as I studied him a bit in my philosophy class. The author points out that Augustine wasn't always a saint, which is true; the dude was an animal in terms of wild behavior. Drinking, women and good times around, yet he managed to find his way to sainthood.

He transitions from that to the idea of spiritual renewal at Lent. He says that it's a time when we need to turn away from specific sinful attitudes/actions, reconcile with those we aren't at peace with and examine ourselves.

All this is something I feel like I'm capable of doing and I agree with him should be done. I'm good at self-examination (perhaps too critical but better to be too honest than in denial, in my opinion) and, based on the points above, I can definitely cut out some sinful attitudes/actions and reconcile with some people.

The actions I've already dictated before but it basically boils down to not diving into comfort food when things get tough and instead trusting in God. Not easy, I grant you (I love me some comfort food) but totally worth it so far. I feel quite a bit better without the comfort food.

Now, I'm not a total success because today was so looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong at work. Hard day and Target had ice cream on sale. I caved, but I bought the flavor I like least (mint chocolate chip) and don't plan on opening it till Tuesday at the earliest. But I haven't opened it yet, which means I'm winning the battle so far ... after a day like today, ice cream sounds glorious.

Instead, I'm here. Not a bad thing.

Reconciliation ... now that's a harder one for me. I have people I desperately need to reconcile with. I've tried to do it slowly and patiently, but the slow play hasn't really worked and relations are warmer, but not where they once were. In a few weeks I'll be in a position where I can go all out on this front and I'm going to make things clear.

Whether that results in reconciliation or a worse thing, I don't know. I tend to think everything I do will end in a worst-case scenario, but that usually doesn't end up being the case. So, I'm definitely going to get my reconciliation on in a few weeks time (scary) and will have to hope that said reconciliation doesn't stress me out so much I spiral into comfort foods.

Lent is a time for spiritual renewal and renewing one's spirit isn't easy. Noted.

Thanks for reading, folks. God Bless.    

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