Cultivating a habit of discipline

Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, My God.

Psalm 42

Anyone else struggle with discipline? Before I became Catholic, having the discipline to attend our protestant services every Sunday was a struggle. There were no repercussions if we missed … no requirement nor expectation to confess that sin. After becoming Catholic, making it to Sunday mass every Sunday and all of the Holy Days of Obligation was sometimes a struggle, but eventually my family developed the discipline to make them all (unless one of us is sick, and then oh how easy it is to fall into old habits and skip a few more times).

Our parish has a strong adoration ministry (albeit new, but then again the parish itself is young). I struggled with the idea of committing to a Holy Hour … sitting silently before our Lord for an hour seemed too difficult a task. Then, I was charged with taking 20 5th graders to adoration in our first Vacation Bible School. The following summer, I was in charge of taking 40 3rd graders to adoration in our second Vacation Bible School. Somewhere in between, the importance of spending regular time before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament became real for me. But still, committing to an hour a week was for people who were more Catholic than me.

Fast forward a few months, and I read an article on the importance of praying for our priests. Over the course of a few days, more and more articles about praying for our priests appeared on my social media feeds. (Ok, so this wasn’t a new idea to me – I had thought about a month prior that something I could do for our priest was pray for him, but that’s about as far as I got.) I got an invitation to consider joining the Seven Sisters Apostolate at our parish. If you are unfamiliar with this ministry, it exists at many (most)parishes in the United States and consists of 7 women at the parish with each committing to keeping a Holy Hour on one specific day of the week for the intentions of the parish priest (or other member of the clergy if there are multiple groups at the parish). At any rate, over the course of that day, I saw about 10 different articles appear on my feed, all stressing the importance of praying for our priests. God knows I am stubborn, if nothing else. This is how He usually deals with me … a series of little nudges, followed by a swift kick when I still won’t move on my own. I signed up to take Tuesdays, and have kept my commitment even while traveling. It was far easier to develop the discipline to commit to an hour of adoration a week when it was being done for someone else. I’m still working on trying to make another hour of adoration just to focus on myself … it’s a work in progress. Baby steps, right? I’m trying to encourage my Sunday School class to make it to adoration for just 5 to 15 minutes … so far, none of them have made it, but maybe the idea of it will stick with the kids.

An idea that has been stuck in my head ever since I first learned about it in my RCIA program is praying the Liturgy of the Hours. At first, I tried to follow the book – too much to keep up with. Then, I tried some online apps I found on my phone for free … but it just didn’t appeal to me. I tried to listen along with the Hallow app (which I highly recommend), but  I found myself just mindlessly listening and not really praying along. I attended Lauds when I was on Pilgrimmage in Europe at Monserrat (the image attached to this post if os the inner courtyard that morning before heading into the sanctuary to listen to the monks). So, when I heard about the print subscription to Liturgy of the Hours by Word on Fire, I signed up. I was all excited to get my first monthly volume this December. If you are unfamiliar with it, each monthly volume is written sequentially with everything you need to pray the hours, so you don’t have to flip back and forth (except for the hymns). It’s idiot proof, right? Not so fast … See, I was all excited to start on December 1, and then completely forgot and didn’t even realize I had forgotten until December 3. I didn’t start picking up the book until December 5. Discipline … am I right? Hopefully, it will get easier as I go. I have to commit to getting up earlier to have time to pray in the mornings; something I have wanted to develop for many years now. We will see how this goes.

The disciplines we develop when we are young stick with us so much we don’t even usually think about them. Brushing teeth in the morning is a given – at some point, that took discipline too. My Lutheran grandma taught me to pray when I was a little girl, maybe 5 or 6 years old. We prayed every night before bed during that visit, and it’s a discipline I’ve maintained my whole life. With so much emphasis on youth sports and developing health habits in our children, maybe we should remember to focus on the truly important lessons in life and help our kiddos develop spiritual discipline too (of course, that means we need to put our money where our mouths are and suck it up and develop the discipline ourselves). What do you think? Where do you struggle?