It is October- which means many things to many people: sweater weather, fall colors, and pumpkin spice flavoring in every type of food and drink you can think of. For me, it means the beginning of Retreat season! Sure, the weather is getting cooler but, with the sun shining, that was no excuse for me not to drive with my convertible top down to our first Morning of Reflection at St. Joseph Shrine in Stirling, NJ heat blasting, seat warmer on with my speaker blaring none other than the RC daily meditation.
“Stop being weak”
My gospel reflection ended, expecting some time in silence, I was surprised to hear another podcaster (probably automatically queued) telling me how society claims that everything today is an addiction, and how he disagrees with this. As someone who has experienced addictions firsthand, my defenses began to prickle. Knowing this guy to be a Catholic, albeit a very sarcastic one, I decided to hear him out. Not discounting the actual addictions, he pointed out that by society calling everything an addiction, people now feel they are released of any personal responsibility they may have for the bad choices they make. This is a very valid point. An obese person can easily say, “I can’t help myself because I am addicted to food, it’s not my fault”, thereby justifying his choices to eat whatever he feels like eating. He went on to say that failure to resist is a weakness. “Stop being weak, put down the donut”, he said. As someone who struggles to lose weight and who also loves donuts, I did not think this was very nice. But then again, nice is not a word one would use to describe this particular podcaster.
“’My grace is sufficient, my power is made perfect in weakness’…When I am weak, then I am strong” 2Cor12:9-10
One of my favorite verses, got me thinking about the relationship between weakness and strength. To say “don’t be weak” is not enough. Rather, we need to build strength. How do we do that? A weightlifter will tell you that you can’t just go from lifting a 15-pound weight to a 95-pound weight simply because you will yourself to “stop being weak.” But rather every day you lift 15 pounds, then you increase the weight, all the while building your strength until you can lift that 95-pound weight.
The same can be said for the vices that the podcaster refers to. We must take accountability for these vices. But rather than just “stop” them, what if we did a different thing to regularly strengthen ourselves in virtue in order to eliminate them? Walking into the room of our Morning of Reflection, this was a good thought to ponder as I looked at the table of goodies. What different thing could I do?
Repetition builds strength
Imagine my surprise during our meditation in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Father Eric started preaching about how mere repetition of a thing builds strength. This coincided with my earlier thoughts on the matter, and I realized that, indeed, it was through repetition, that the weightlifter, growing in strength through repetition, would be able to lift the heavier weight.
Using marriage as an example, he discussed how the love for our spouse is likely so much more today than when we first married, even if we do not recognize it as such. My husband and I will be celebrating 30 years of marriage in a couple of weeks and I reflect on all we have gone through and realize how strong our bond really is now. It is not through a feeling or a will, but rather through repetitive practice of actually being married and doing actions of a married couple. Every day we are together and must participate in our relationship. We are both doing things regularly, even things we may not like. When there is a bad period, we stay together and do the regular things until the bad period passes and is forgotten. The regular and repetitive practice of being married has built our marriage, built our love.
Eucharist
Father then led us into meditation on the regular and repetitive practice of our faith, specifically our relationship with the Eucharist. The more frequently we visit Christ in the Eucharist, attend Mass, and receive Him, the stronger our relationship with Him will be. The stronger our faith will be.
In my most recent post, I discussed my relationship with Adoration in particular and how I have flourished in the last 30 years as I regularly increased how much I practiced Adoration.
As I stop to consider my own relationship with Mass, I recall how I used to beat myself up for not attending daily mass as soon as I realized the importance of it. Other people did it, why couldn’t I seem to make it happen? I see now that it is the sinful nature of humans. We seek the easy way many times, and if it is difficult, we make excuses rather than be accountable and work hard to get better. Much like the weightlifter, adding weights on regularly, I finally started worrying less about attending Mass daily and focused on going one extra time weekly. When I had that down, I added another one.
It is not enough to simply stop being weak, but rather we must find a way to become strong. It wasn’t until I stopped expecting myself to do things perfectly and accepted my weakness that I was able to recognize I needed God to help strengthen me, sort of like a trainer might help the weightlifter.
Now, I just need to let Him help me to work on eating fewer donuts.
Come see us in NJ for Upcoming events in November!
