Catholic Marriage Prep

A friend from high school just celebrated her son’s 6th birthday. I remember getting a call from her when my oldest son was only a couple of months old. I was walking into work when she told me that she was pregnant. Her and her boyfriend were not planning on having a baby, yet here they were. Now this week, in honor of her son’s birthday, she posted this:

Nathan and I met shortly after he moved to Denver from his hometown in Idaho. I was heading up our parish’s Young Adult Softball team and we needed more guys before tournament weekend, so he and his brother-in-law signed up for our fledgling little team. Maybe it was an answer to prayer? Nathan really hit it off with some of my friends who were also on my core team for the youth group I ran, and they asked him to join our core group of Young Adults. Join he did, which was the answer to prayer #2, because we really needed some male core members for our youth group.

I read an interesting article today on CNN linking ibuprofen use to infertility in men. Ibuprofen has already been linked to affecting the testicles of babies in utero, so further studies have begun to reveal what could happen in male adults. For example, an athlete using ibuprofen regularly for 14 days developed compensated hypogonadism: a hormonal imbalance resulting in low testosterone and associated with impaired fertility, depression, and heart disease.

When I was in college, I had friends that began dating their freshman year. I remember passing them in the hallway between classes our junior year. They were right in the middle of the hallway, just staring into each other’s eyes. I stopped to talk to a friend, and then passed by this couple again five minutes later to get to class.  They were still staring into each other’s eyes, not saying a word. It was so striking to me that I remember it a dozen years later. At that time, it made me feel uncomfortable to think of staring another person in the eyes so close for that long, but perhaps it’s because I had never been in love yet.

“Silent Night” has never been one of my favorite Christmas carols, but this year I think I’ve changed my tune. I’ve been meditating on silence this Advent, ever since I started reading “The Power of Silence” by Robert Cardinal Sarah.

Every month, my parish hosts a night of adoration with music, benediction, and confessions in the Church. They also offer pizza beforehand and free babysitting during (Parishes! Take note!), so it’s an offer that’s hard to refuse. After my husband and I dropped off the kids in the nursery, we went to pray in the Church. During adoration, there was a long period of silence in which I had a vision that was extremely vivid and spoke to me profoundly. 

Prayer: Appointment with God Part 1
Prayer: Appointment with God Part 2

I was hesitant to write on prayer for fear of feeling like a hypocrite. Truth be told, I do feel like one. You see, my prayer life is not terribly consistent or so amazing that I can tell you confidently that I am great at praying. I struggle to make the time for prayer and to tell the Lord that He is first in my life. Lately I can feel the wrestling deep within my soul: spend time in quiet prayer or scroll through my phone or watch a show? Sometimes, the show wins out. And sometimes, I am able to carve out space in my day for quiet prayer. What this means is that I’m trying. And I’m honest with the Lord about how hard it is sometimes, and I tell him that I’ll keep on trying.