Catholic Chris: 2016

I had the hardest time learning how to pray. My idea of praying was telling God what I wanted and counting on Him saying yes to what I was asking. Oh boy did I have things backwards!! I was able to strengthen my prayer life by asking the Holy Spirit to help me. I started going to Adoration once a week for an hour. For the first few months the hour went by in slow motion. I couldn't understand how people could sit in the quiet for so long. It was then I realized how much noise is in my life. I woke up to a blaring alarm, turned on music while I took a shower, got into the car and immediately the radio music turned on, went to work and talked all day long, and got home and ate dinner while watching TV. It was so routine to have all the noise of things block out anytime God wanted to talk to me. I decided to switch up my routine because I wanted to have more than one hour of silence a week.

I started waking up and would have my first cup of coffee and slowly dedicate 5 minutes a day in the morning to silent prayer. I would talk and He would listen. I then increased my silent time with God until I reached 15 minutes first thing in the morning (after the caffeine hit). It finally got to the point where an hour in Eucharistic Adoration would fly by. I started to think an hour a week wasn't enough to go see Christ waiting for me at the chapel. I learned by talking and telling Him what I wanted, I wasn't leaving anytime for him to talk to me! Think about you and your friend going for a cup of coffee. You haven't seen each other for a year and are catching up. Well if you talked the whole time you catching up you wouldn't know anything new about your friend. They would know a lot about you but you wouldn't know what is new in their life or what their advice would be in situations you are struggling with. Like Christ it is a two way conversation. If you talk the whole time He won't
have a chance to help you in the right direction. I recommend everyone sign up for an hour to sit with Jesus in the Adoration chapel. Some churches have perpetual adoration (around the clock) or a certain day per week where Christ is exposed in the monstrance. If your church doesn't have Adoration, He will still be present in the tabernacle! This is usually my routine when going to Adoration but it may not work for you:
1. Talk to Him about my week, worries, fears, successes, joy, etc. Ask for prayers for family and friends, etc...
2. Stay in silence for a few minutes and listen to Him.
3. Say the Holy Rosary.
4. Mediate on Christ's life and how it will help in mine. Silently listen to Him and his advice for me.
5. Read a spiritual book. There is this saying that we pray to speak to God and we read for God to speak to us.

"The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white host."- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Thank you for reading and I hope it helps you seek out a chapel for Eucharistic Adoration. As always if you have any suggestions please feel free to email me!
Ad Jesu Per Mariam,

Chris
christopheragarn@gmail.com

The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God’s Feast Day was the other day and it made me think of Mary and how she has helped me through my journey in the faith. This blog post I will be talking about the Holy Rosary and my relationship with the Blessed Mother.

When going to Mass for the Solemnity of Mary we get to pick a saint from a basket (really the saint picks you) to learn about, ask to intercede for us, and become friends with for the rest of the year. The first time I picked a saint, from the back of the church I received St. Dominic. Now at this time I was new to learning my faith and had no clue who St. Dominic was. I remember being excited to learn about a saint with a normal name. St. Dominic was given the Holy Rosary from our Blessed Mother, what a blessing this was for us! St. Dominic led me to the importance of the Holy Rosary and to learn about our Blessed Mother.

My sister-in-law had an important question about the Holy Rosary that helped me understand it more. She asked why do you say we are going to “pray the Rosary”? Well I knew that Mary was venerated but not worshiped because that was reserved for God alone, so I didn’t know why we said we are going to pray to Mary, pray to the saints, etc. So doing my research led me to find the word pray means to ask. For instance, in court attorneys often say “I pray the court to allow...xyz”. The saints in heaven are closer to God and therefore their prayers are more effective. When having Mary intercede for us, to ask her son for answer our prayers, she has a lot of pull. Just like at the Wedding at Cana when Mary asked Jesus to perform his first miracle, he did. When Mary asks Jesus to perform a miracle the odds are pretty good in our favor! There is a story of Jesus coming out to the entrance to heaven to see St. Peter. Jesus asks St. Peter why there are so many people coming into heaven when they shouldn’t be. St. Peter states that he is only letting the people who are allowed to go into heaven in, but says your mom is letting people in through the back door. :)

That leaves me with my final thought: what does the Holy Rosary do for our souls in eternal life and our life here on earth? We Mary gave us 15 promises of the Rosary. They are:

Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.
I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.
The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.
The Rosary will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.
The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.
Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.
I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
All who recite the Rosary are my sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters of my only Son Jesus Christ.
Devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.