Humility Prayer Kicks My Butt

Humility Prayer Kicks My Butt

Everyday my team does a team prayer together.  Usually we'll pray rosaries, divine mercy chaplets, personal intentions, morning/evening prayers, ect.  Occasionally we will say the humility prayer together.  This prayer kicks my butt.  I hesitate when I say it because I don't know if I'm ready to be sincere.  Here is the prayer.  The heaviest stuff for me is in bold.


(Leader says this) ............................(Everyone replies with this)

From the desire of being esteemed.........Deliver Me Jesus

From the desire of being loved.............Deliver me Jesus

From the desire of being extolled ..........Deliver me Jesus

From the desire of being honored..............Deliver me Jesus

From the desire of being praised......... Deliver me Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred.........Deliver me Jesus

From the desire of being consulted...........Deliver me Jesus

From the desire of being approved.............Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being humiliated.........Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being despised............Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of suffering rebukes..............Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being calumniated...........Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being forgotten................ Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being ridiculed..............Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being wronged............Deliver me Jesus

From the fear of being suspected...........Deliver me Jesus

That others may be loved more than I..........Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be esteemed more than I ................Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That in the opinion of the world others may increase and I may decrease..............Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be chosen and I set aside............Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be praised and I unnoticed............Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may became as holy as I should.......................Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

When I think about my desires, I think about having good relationships with my family and friends and having a job that I love.  "That others may increase and I may decrease."  Decrease.  Who hopes for that?  "That others may be praised and I unnoticed" is definitely not on my top desires list.  When my team prays this prayer together, I need to force myself to go through with it because I understand the goodness of this prayer.  If this prayer was easy, that would mean I was already humble.  Since it's difficult, I know I have a long way to go on that path.  Whenever I say, "Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it," I need to remind myself why I really want to desire that.  It's really hard to imagine myself being happy going unnoticed while others are praised.  To go unnoticed looks weak or like I'm giving up.  But that's exactly why it is such a good thing to desire.  It looks lame to go unnoticed.  But that's okay.  We can't see God if we only see ourselves.  By praying for humility, we pray for a deeper ability to know God.

Take this prayer into your prayer life.  I know it has helped me.

In the Silly String Fight

 In the Silly String Fight

            I’ve been finding it very difficult to blog lately.  The move to Yakima, WA has been a good one, though it is taking me longer to adjust than I originally thought it would.  Overall, I am enjoying Yakima more than Helena, mostly because I feel like I have something to do here.  I enjoyed training, but after a few weeks I knew that I was going to learn most of my ministry skills doing ministry rather than just talking about it.

            I thoroughly enjoyed the first retreats and youth groups that my team led.  Working with my team and youth ministers in the area who all have to same passion for evangelization has been a tremendous blessing.  I was happy with the area and the community and really felt that I was going to enjoy every minute of working with the youth.  It has been a month since then, which means I will be able to give a more realistic account of how I feel about what I do.

            I recently had a conversation with one of the many ex-Reach members that live in the Yakima area about life on a Reach team.  Each new member comes in with some expectation of what team life is going to be like through what they have seen at Reach retreats (or in my case, NET retreats) they attended in middle/high school.  They might know people who were on teams previous years and heard accounts of what their life was like on team.  But the truth is, every person, every living situation, every group of kids we encounter, is so different each year, that everybody’s preconceived expectations are wrong.  What this conversation exposed to me was that maybe 5% of our time is spent actually with the youth.  The other 95% is spent planning, praying, and keeping sane.  Sanity is sometimes hard to find amidst singing songs about dead moose and farting crickets.  Middle school kids are weird.

And I think that’s not what I expected… the weirdness.  We play games, we sing songs, and we have balloon fights.  Last Friday my team attended a middle school lock-in where we played Rock Band, Cops and Robbers, Sardines, and whatever came to mind.  Sometimes I just got lost in it all.  Aren’t I here to spread the Gospel?  Because that’s what my training was mostly about.

I understand it- the need for insanity.  There’s really no point in asking any middle schooler a serious “God” question if you haven’t had a pillow fight with them first.  It surprises me how quickly a youth group can go from upbeat and exciting with some game to utter restlessness as soon as they feel the vibe of something religious beginning to start.  And when the only words you can get out of a discussion are questions about when we’re going to play another game, you know that any point you are trying to make is lost, no matter how awesome it is.

            It’s hard.  Sometimes I feel like I’m some kind of babysitting service.  A place parents can drop off their kids one evening a week to get them out of the house.  I know that I am doing good work and that I’m working hard to improve the skills I need.  I know that the silly time we have with kids is valuable for them to feel more comfortable and connected with us and each other.  But still I wonder if I am doing things right, if I could be doing more, or if I am missing some of the little joys of ministry that would assure me I wasn’t wasting my time.

            The other day I drove by this man on the sidewalk waving a sign to point the direction and advertise for a business.  I always feel bad for those people.  That has to be a terrible job.  Standing there all day as cars constantly drive by you, never knowing if anyone is actually reading the sign or turning to the business because of your work.  Most of the time, those people look miserable to me, which is probably why I think this would be a terrible job.  But not this guy.  He had huge headphones on, was waving to individual cars, and smiling as he jammed and danced to whatever song he was listening to.  As I waited at a red light, I couldn’t help but wave and smile back.  I didn’t follow the direction of his sign, but I still remember him and how much joy he seemed to have with his job.

            I drove by him again six hours later, and he was still just as excited as he was earlier.  Again, I didn’t follow his sign, but I had a strong desire to shake his hand.  He took that job that seemed so pointless to me and made it something beyond the mundane.  It probably crossed his mind that his work might not be the best.  I doubt he dreamed of being a sign holder when he grew up.  But he definitely made the most of the situation.

            Now I know my job is not worthless.  I like to think that it has more benefit than the job of sign holding.  This first month of ministry has been a lot of silliness, a lot of what looks to be a waste of time.  But now that the initial confrontation is over, I see how valuable that time was.  With a solid relationship formed, talking about God is a lot less lame, and actually exciting, especially if those fun, silly activities still continue.  I can see the benefits of those times now in my small groups during our weekly youth nights.  At first, I could never get any of them to tell me more about themselves than how old they were, how many siblings they had, and what their favorite class was.  This week one girl shared with me her troubles with one of her friends.  It’s moments like that when I’m thankful that we were able to build up to that level of trust just by seeing each other once a week for month.  Moments like that also remind me to not take myself too seriously.  The mind of a middle schooler is not serious most of the time.  In order to meet them on their level, we too need to not be so serious.  Sometimes the best place for them to find God is in a silly string fight.

New Community

Carroll College has been a sort refuge for me since I arrived in Helena.  It’s small, quiet, and has the feel of energy I was used to while I was a student at Morris.  The Reach house I'm staying at is not even a block away, so the campus is where I like to be while I'm on the phone or just need some time to myself.  Today I went to Mass at 9:30pm at the Carroll College campus.

I sat in the back because I was slightly late, having gotten a little lost trying to find the place.  When I entered the chapel for Mass, I was slightly off balance.  Here I was at a college campus for Mass, just like I had been at the Newman Center every Thursday for the last three years while I was a student at UM Morris.

The opening song began, and I was instantly comforted with familiarity.  “Here I am to Worship.”  Yep, memorized that song at Newman.  Only, it wasn’t the same version I’ve song over and over again.  It was in a different key, sung at a slower tempo, and some of the notes were held longer.  Not a big deal, but I was annoyed since I wasn’t able to enjoy the song as much.  Mass preceded as normal, though it was clear that it was an unnaturally late hour to be having Mass… kind of like at Newman.  The priest was cracking jokes during his homily which was obviously geared toward college students… just like at Newman.  And hugs were exchanged rather than handshakes at the sign of peace… very Newman, yes.

But gosh darn it… it was not Newman.  I knew a few of the Reach people there, as much as you can really know anyone in 10 days but otherwise recognized no one.  The songs were all sung weirdly.  Everyone was wearing purple instead of maroon.  And it just wasn’t as personable, which is likely to be the case when there are 200 people in a chapel rather than 20.

I understood that it was a different way of doing things.  Obviously the minute details of how the Mass was carried out were going to be different just as they’re different in each parish.  What I didn’t understand was why these details were bothering me so much.

At this point I’m assuming you’ve read my first blog.  All you really need to know was that I was flooded with God’s grace before I flew to Montana.  I had very little worry about moving from home or about the work I would soon begin training for.

Up to this point in the Mass since I arrived in Helena, I’d been wondering why I’m here.  It's like the grace I received to accept the big move disappeared as soon as I landed in the city.  I felt like I wasn’t really connecting with the other Reach members.  I felt like I couldn’t express my true self because so many people on the teams already had a somewhat boisterous personality.  The spiritually of people seemed far beyond anything I had experienced, and I was especially intimidated by those 18-year-olds straight out of high school whose words of prayer are as elegant as the words in the Bible.

I was struggling not to become this quiet person in the corner with nothing to offer.  I’ve fought that battle before, and I saw no need why I should have to fight it again.  But for some reason, here the challenge to speak up was in my face once more.

I felt like I really became myself when I found the Newman Center in college.  Nothing gave me more joy than to see people walk in those doors for an event or just to study.  That familiarity was real, and I found myself longing for it as I sat in that chapel on Carroll College, once again frustrated in the middle of Mass that I’d sung a wrong note that would have been correct if I was back home.

Today in one of my Reach training sessions, we discussed different idols that distract us from Jesus.  We quickly glossed over the obvious idols like Facebook, TV, and things we do for fun and instead focused on the idols that are less obvious.  Working too hard, even if that work is something that helps the church.  Craving emotional security in faith.  I so highly valued the community that I’d surrounded myself in that I couldn’t handle the shock of being outside that community even though the community that I'm in now is just as beautiful.  How ridiculous is that?

Today I came to terms with something I didn’t realize I needed to come to terms with.  I wasn’t at the Newman Center anymore, and that was a good thing.  Not that the fellowship I had there was bad, it was beautiful, but it was without a doubt distracting me from the real beauties of the Mass.  I desired fellowship more than I desired Jesus Christ, and that, I believe, is the definition of an idol.  And a dang well hidden one at that.  I always saw idols as those things that draw your attention from Jesus like busyness of life.  I never even imagined that it could be the very thing that drew me to Jesus in the first place – friendship and acceptance.

I think it would be really easy for me right now to proclaim some divine revelation and to say that now all is well in my once troubled heart.  But it’s not.  I can guarantee you that I will struggle tomorrow with being myself.  It’s just going to be my reality for a bit.  But now that I know why I was struggling with that, I can begin to heal and work my way into a new community, one just as beautiful, but more importantly, one that I can grow to appreciate under the authority of Jesus Christ.  Rather than letting whatever community I’m in to consume me as the end-all goal in my pursuit for holiness, I can see it for as it is – simply another of the many gifts given by Jesus Himself.

What Concerns Me

I always wanted to start a blog, but I never felt like I had a reason to.  I still don't feel that I don't, probably because as a recent graduate in English with an emphasis in writing, I have a terrible fear of being ignored.  What's the point of writing something if no one will read it?  Well, I have learned there are all sorts of reasons since writing is my way of thinking and my way of keeping track of myself.  I've learned that there's no purpose in writing to please others, since I don't know what other people are looking for.  If I write to please others, I will please no one.  If I write to please myself, I'm always surprised at the number of positive responses.

So here goes blog number one!

I think the reason I feel that I still have no reason to write a blog is because I don't feel like what I'm doing in this stage of my life is a big deal.  To be clear, in two days I will be flying to Montana to begin training with Reach Youth Ministry, a Catholic organization that encourages high schoolers and middles schoolers in their faith through retreats and other events.  I've been asked all sorts of questions such as where I'll actually be living and what I'll actually be doing there.  I consider this information minor detail, which is probably part of the reason why people have called my adventure to Montana (or Washington, or wherever) "brave."

Wow.  I don't think I've ever been called "brave" before.  The first few times I was called that, I understood where people were coming from.  I'm leaving town for awhile not knowing much.  That could be seen as scary.  But to this day I have yet to be concerned about much of anything dealing with Reach.  I know I'm going to miss my family and friends, but I'll be back in Christmas, so you know... I'll be fine.  I know I'm going to meet a lot of awesome people, so really, I'm a lot more excited than concerned.  What I'm most concerned about at this point is navigating the airport, and quite honestly, I hold that concern only because I feel that I should be concerned about something.

For a few days, after I had heard the word "brave" one too many times, I started to be concerned about my whole adventure with Reach.  Should I be more concerned than I am?  Am I missing something?

I recently spoke with my sister on this matter.  I was concerned about whether or not I was concerned enough about the next step in my life.  What she had to say instantly set me comfortably back into little-concern mode, which I thoroughly enjoy.

Basically she explained to me that God gives us the grace to do the things he asks of us.  In other words, if it is truly God's will for me to be with Reach, He's not going to make my life miserable or make me concerned about certain matters, trivial or significant.  That's Satan's doing.  Yes, there's going to be challenges, some I expect and some that I don't, but God is always going to bring me through them, even if I can't see His path for me at the time.  I just have to trust in Him and not make up things with which to concern myself.

Since God seems to have blessed me with the grace for living far from home and working with the youth, let me tell you what I do NOT currently have the grace for.

Those things people call "real jobs."

I've been thanked a lot for my willingness to work with Reach, and I always feel a little weird saying "you're welcome" to those words.  I'm postponing the inevitable of making my own money and paying off my college loans because yes, I do want to help the youth and spread the Word, but there is a part of my that thinks, "Yes!  I don't have to deal with the inevitable for another year!"

To those who have called me "brave," thank you.  I will do my best with Reach.  Know that you are surely doing things in your life that I currently don't have the grace for.  Thank you for your support, prayers, and all those things you do to further God's kingdom, big or small.