Lent 2014

So begins Lent 2014. This year I'm giving up junk food aka actually sticking to my weight watchers program and giving up the idea of drinking just for the hell of it which is really drinking to forget how crappy life can be at times.  As usual I will add in Liturgy of the Hours and reading books. This year's books are Lenten Reflections from A Father Who Keeps His Promise by Scott Hahn and Lent With Pope Benedict VI: meditations for every day.  This also means I might attempt to read the book that Scott Hahn's reflections are taken from but I might read any one of the books I have sitting in my room.  I know it's a lot to add in but it's stuff I should be doing anyway.  Of course there will be my Friday daily Mass and stations of the cross to follow that Mass. Our parish is offering Theology Tuesdays so I'll go to those and also attempt to to to Mass and the Lenten presentations at St. Paul's.  Most of this is stuff I would and should be doing anyway so it's a lot of getting back to where I was.  Mainly this Lent I want the dark cloud that seems to have a hold on my soul to go away but I know that's easier said than done. I also know that I have opened myself up to fail and I am fine with that as I know that Jesus fell while carrying the Cross but He got up and kept going so that's what I will do should I not be perfect at what I plan in doing. 

I haven't disappeared, I'm still around

Fr. Jim's most recent homily (http://chernjam.blogspot.com/2012/09/being-unfriended.html) sparked in me part of why I've been away from my blog for so long.  I know that not many out there read it and those that do I probably don't even know, however one of these that used to read it along with most of her family have "unfriended" me and they honestly made up most of the audience who actually read it. Long story short I went to a wedding that the former best friend had decided that I didn't need to or should go to so she and half of her family no longer talk to me, some do and they probably hear about it all the time, but whatever.  I'm no longer hiding behind what happened.  Yes, most of the fault probably does fall with me, but I do no regret what I did.  I was the bigger person.

Fr. Jim's right it's a shock to find that you've been unfriended especially when it was left that you might actually be able to talk to the person and they just up and click a button and end a friendship.  Fr. Jim's homily adds to Fr. Derek's comment of God gives and He takes away what isn't good for us.  See I was such a horrible friend by going to the wedding that the countless trips and sleepovers and free babysitting I did for the former best friend was all forgotten.  Being there for her at her wedding and the insanity that surrounded it, doesn't matter anymore.  The 13 years or whatever it was wasn't matter because I disagreed with her on something for the first time in what was a best friendship.

I've had a lot of priests be a part of my life.  Fr. Jim's is mainly an internet friendship as it's on Facebook and blogs that we interact however I've come to realize that the world between Diocese of Paterson and Archdiocese of Newark is quite small and Fr. Jim and I have many mutual friendships as Facebook calls them.  Oddly Fr. Geno makes that an international world now as he's working on the Council for Evangelization.  Fr. Geno is one of these priests that no matter how hard one tries to shake they can't.  I will forever "blame" Fr. Geno aka FG for who and what I am.

FG started the youth ministry program that I was a part of in high school and am now proudly helping to run at the parish.  When he left the parish I was at Seton Hall, so I wasn't overly attached to the home parish, but I still looked forward to FG's homilies and masses when I came home on the weekends.  We in essence went our separate ways after my freshman years at SHU until our worlds reconnected a few years ago at a "small" place known as St. Paul's Inside the Walls.

Bishop Serratelli tasked FG with building an Evangelization Center, and that they did.  Through St. Paul's I got to see the crazy priest that I knew in high school acting in much the same way as he did back then.  Before he left for Rome and the Vatican FG had an overnight retreat for certain young adults that were hand picked to be there.  The topic was friendships in Christ and how they affect our lives.

During the retreat Fr. Geno talked about trust, friendships, prayer, and of course God.  Looking back on it, God was giving the grace to finally say goodbye to the 13 year friendship that maybe one day will return but for now it won't.  Fr. Derek in one of our "classes" on catechesis as Evangelization talked about the Dark Night of the Soul and how the further away God seems the closer we are to Him.  During one of these sessions he said something along the lines of "God gives us friendships and sometimes He takes them away.  God takes away things that might seem good for us but may not be."  I thought of the former best friend and said yes yes He does.  Fr. Derek's comment came before Fr. Geno's retreat, but they all tie into me reading Fr. Jim's blog and saying, yes it is odd and a shock when you get de/unfrieneded on Facebook.

I've been busy with St. Paul's and learning more about Evangelization and ways to get people back to and into the Catholic Church.  I'm spending my Sunday evening with the greatest joys in my life, the parish teens, showing them that being Catholic is serious but it's also alot of fun.  I'm one again teaching in the Confirmation program, I'm still an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion and active at the parish on a few committees, so yes I'm busy and don't usually have time to sit and blog. Work is work and keeps me busy from 9am-7pm.

I'm still around but when I'm not in front of the computer (or iPad and wireless keyboard) I'm at work, or at the parish or at St. Paul's sharing and learning more about the Catholic faith.

So with the drama of the last year and a half finally out on the internet I hope to return to blogging but I know it won't be conssistent.