Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Father Barron on New Year's Resolutions

If you've not discovered Fr. Barron and his brilliance, it is well worth your time. John and I say daily, "Did you listen to Fr. Barron?" He's so good and right on.


I was thinking so much about resolutions today and thinking how silly it is for me to resolve one thing for the whole next year. For me, it is much better to go day by day at getting better and attempting to grow in holiness. Then, I found this little piece by Fr. Barron that spoke to my soul.

He challenged us to make these three Resolutions for the New Year.

1. Make time to improve our prayer life every day.
2. Forgive an Enemy
3. Comfort the Afflicted

Most of today, I was thinking how I wanted to improve and begin to conquer all the desires on my heart. One day at a time. Each day. Some will revolve around John, others the kids, our neighbors, strangers. Some days will be as simple as praying all four mysterious of the rosary, finish a book in a week, write a letter to my grandmother, send John out to lunch with his mother, bring John's mother flowers on his birthday to thank her for bringing this wonderful person into the world, bring our neighbor fresh bread, pay for the groceries of a random person in the store, pay for another person's gas at the gas station, eat no sugar for a day in reparation for sins, bring John treats at work, focus specifically on a certain child for a specified day baking, reading, talking, and listening with them, turn off the computer and television for an evening and do nothing but spiritual reading, after the children are in bed, spend an evening focusing on John and doing nothing else. If he is running on the treadmill, I will sit and visit with him. If he is reading a book, I will sit next to him. No planning school, no picking up, nothing. Just him. The gift of time.

For more wonderful bits by Fr. Barron, go to Word on Fire.

We've had a load of snow these past couple days. We've watched a lot of great movies so these scenes have been often.



Tomorrow's resolve: I will make fresh bread for my neighbor and pray for her intentions.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Lindsay!! I love this blog! I just stumbled upon it because it came to me in a Google alert-- I work for Father Barron at Word on Fire, and posts with his videos often show up in my inbox. Anyway, I read through a bunch of your posts-- what a wonderful mom you are, and your kids are just precious! Thank you so much for taking the time to blog about your experiences as a Catholic mother:) So heartwarming and admirable. God bless you and your family very much!
    -Rozann

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  2. Lindsay, we are having a wive's night tonight..talking about our goals...personal "mission statements" etc. I think I'm going to use some of the points you just mentioned. Thank you for your beautiful insights! Oh, and introducing us to Fr. Barron ;^)

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