Discerning Our Charisms & How God Wants Us to Share Them

In May our parish gave out a booklet titled Discern Our Charisms as part of the Increased Commitment Campaign for 2014.  I’m glad they’ve provided one of these for each of us to fill out, because I can’t for the life of me locate the charisms survey I took some eight years ago in spiritual direction.  I’m sure it’s here somewhere, but I haven’t found it, yet.  Maybe that’s just as well, because discernment is an ongoing process and our gifts and what we’re called to do with them can certainly, and often do change over time.  I would be very interested to see the particular charisms I identified eight years ago which are still very much a part of who I am now as I know a number of them would overlap with the results I reached through examination and prayer this go-round.

    
During the month of June, each person is being asked to complete a Ministry Commitment Form for July 2014-June 2015.  All of the current ministry rosters are being considered null and void.  If you want to participate in a ministry that you have done in the past, you have to register to be part of it again.  If you’re ready to take on or at least learn about a new ministry, you’re encouraged to do so.  This is a big leap of faith, in my opinion.  There are so many different ministries to be involved with and through our parish that it takes more than a full page of legal-size paper just to list them all.

That was then, this is now

I realize it says a great deal about my personality and way of looking at things that reviewing the sheet of all the ministries at our church, I feel bad that I’m not involved in more of them rather than simply grateful that we have so many opportunities for outreach.  Processing and praying has helped me move from feeling I’m not doing enough to being grateful for the many gifts we have in our parish that we use to serve others, while being more aware of the specific ministries we’ve been called to focus on at this point in our lives. 

    
This has been a period of pretty intense discernment for Kevin and me as we have been praying about what ministries to be involved in and what God’s calling us to in terms of our work and careers.  I’m feeling greater peace now that the Lord has shown me the ministries we’re involved in are where He wants us to be devoting our time and energy right now. 

    
For a while, we’ve been serving as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.  We served regularly at the Sunday 5:30pm Mass and have been filling in as substitutes as needed more recently when our Cursillo commitments have had us at different Masses and sometimes even different parishes from one week to the next.  We do miss taking up most of a row at Mass with the three silly sisters and their parents, but fortunately, we got to be together for Mass and dinner afterward on Father’s Day.

Christ Renews His Parish

Kevin and I have both made a Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) weekend and served on the teams for the next weekends put on at our parish.  I still gather pretty regularly with my CRHP sisters, both as a group and individually. I first met a friend who introduced me to a couple of other ministries I hadn’t known about before: the Charismatic Prayer Group and Theophostic Prayer Ministry.  This friend has since moved to Chicago to attend pharmacy school, but the connections she created before leaving remain strong.    

 

Theophostic Prayer Ministry

Through that prayer group and because of that friend, I learned about a very powerful type of healing ministry called Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM).  She invited me to attend a session with her in Chesapeake, Virginia, and that’s how I met the people at our parish and at New Creation Renewal Center who would journey with me as I witnessed and experienced the healing that the Holy Spirit does through this ministry. 

When they began a group in Richmond that would study Theophostic Prayer, I eagerly joined.  Over the past few years, I’ve been studying and learning everything I can about Theophostic Prayer Ministry through books, workbooks, DVDs, live demonstrations, and by practicing doing the ministry with people who have been doing this for over ten years now.  Over this next year, I will be completing the live practicum portion of my training as a TPM facilitator with the hope that in the summer of 2015, I’ll be ready to take part in a three-day intensive workshop with Dr. Edward Smith, the pastor and counselor who developed this ministry and has been teaching it around the world.  

Spiritual Direction Institute

Kevin and I have begun a two-year course modeled after Monsignor Chester Michael’s Spiritual Direction Institute (SDI) program.  We had our first class last Saturday.  As part of the program, we commit to spending one hour in prayer in addition to doing one hour of study (faith formation) five days each week for the duration of the program. We have two retreats each year.  We have to read at least one book a month and write a one page book report on it.  Obviously this is a big chunk of time and a major commitment which we took time to discern carefully and prayerfully.

    
Anyone who knows me knows that I devour books, often ones that are spiritual and/or religious in nature, so reading a book each month and doing a book report isn’t intimidating for me at all.  The possible challenges posed to me through prayer and when it comes to applying to what I’ve learned from the books is likely to be the most difficult aspect of the process for me.  I knew it would be the prompting of the Holy Spirit if Kevin, who doesn’t usually read books and rarely sits down to write much of anything, discerned now is the time for him to go through this program as well.

Cursillo

We learned about the SDI program from active members in another ministry which we have been very involved in over the past eight years: Cursillo.  Kevin and I attended our first Ultreya  at St. Edward’s the spring of 2006.  We walk into the school hall where the Ultreya was being held, and the first two people we meet are Mary, who was pregnant, and Joseph.  I kid you not.  The married couple who greeted us that evening are actually named Mary and the husband goes by Joey for short.  Their son’s name is Isaiah.  They are still a wonderful, joyful part of our Cursillo family.       

    
We have been members of the Cursillo community since June 2006 when I made my weekend at Mary Mother of the Church Abbey and sat at the table Sea of Conviction, but we renamed ourselves the Spiritual Divas, and that’s how we’re known in the community.  Kevin made his in September 2006.  We’ve each served on team before and were asked to do so again this year.  I served on team for the Women’s Cursillo Weekend that took place April 2014.      

    
Kevin is currently in team formation for the Men’s Cursillo Weekend being held July 24-27, 2014.  I have been a contributor and the editor of the Cursillo newsletter, The Rooster Review, for the past seven plus years.  I’ve lost track of the number of candidates Kevin and I have sponsored and/or co-sponsored to go on Cursillo weekends, but I’m certain it’s over ten. 

    
Through our involvement in Cursillo, we have met some of the most faithful, dynamic, and dedicated Christians we know.  Our close friends, many of whom are already strong people of faith, have been reenergized by making a Cursillo.  The Cursillo Movement is an international, proven method of evangelization designed to bring people closer to Christ in all areas of their lives.  

Pentecost Weekend Festivities

Pentecost Weekend was very enjoyable.  We spent it with loved ones, many faith-filled people who are passionate about serving the Lord and others.  Saturday I had some good prayer, reading, study, and writing time.  In the evening, Kevin and I had dinner with my mom at a delicious Italian place on the Southside called Angelo’s.  Their stromboli is scrumptious!

From there we headed over to Church of the Epiphany, where Kevin and I were married on September 4, 2004.  Two of our friends from Cursillo were doing a concert as part of their Give Me Jesus tour.  The band S2K they’re in plays for Kairos retreat weekends.  I knew it would be a blast, because our two friends are characters on their own, but are even more hilarious together.  The concert was awesome, and the banter among the guys entertaining, as always! We got to sing along to the praise and worship music they performed, and heard their take a on a few classics that fit in with the theme of Kairos. 

   
In between sets, one of the men in the band would talk about how, when, and why they became involved in prison ministry.  Each of them has gone to one or more Virginia prisons to put on Kairos retreats for the inmates.  It was really awesome to hear the stories of how these men from a variety of faith denominations and backgrounds came together to serve men, women, and juveniles who are incarcerated. 

     
One of the most moving testimonies was from a gentleman who had been an inmate on the very first Kairos retreat that ever took place in our area back in 2002.  When released from prison, he began studying to become a minister.  Now he’s one of the chaplains who serves Kairos.  Talk about transformation and metanoia! There you have it!

   
Sunday morning Kevin and I went to 11:15 Mass at our church because our friend was doing the second reading in Hindi as part of the celebration for Pentecost.  It was neat to hear the reading in an unfamiliar language, and the music was beautiful.  Afterwards, we headed up the hill for the church picnic that the Knights of Columbus had organized and were preparing for.  I ended up sitting with a few friends from Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP), a couple of whom are now also Cursillistas, and we had a good time.  Good friends, good food, and good fun!

     
Then I got to catch up with a dear friend I met through CRHP who has been at pharmacy school in Chicago for the past couple years.  We were assigned to be roommates for the overnight portion of the CRHP retreat, and we stayed up half the night talking and have been good friends ever since.  We weren’t sitting at the same table when we made our retreat, so we wouldn’t have gotten to know each other as well had we not been assigned to the same room.  Another God incident indeed! 

   
Lord, thank you for surrounding us with so many people of faith to inspire us and pray for and with us.  We are grateful to have friends who are family steeped in the love of Christ and the dedication to serve His people.  Amen.

Something Other than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It

Prepare to be inspired by Something Other than God.  Oh, wait, Jennifer Fulwiler already tried that approach, and it didn’t go at all the way she planned.  The high-powered job, racy sports car, fancy house, decadent parties, and expensive vacations she thought were essential to be content in life weren’t enough.    

    
Fulwiler relentlessly pursued wealth and the finer things.  She met and married someone as ambitious and single-minded as she was when it came to work and worldly measures of success.  They were on the way up the corporate ladder to the penthouse suite when the arrival of a small, helpless human being changed everything.  It was more than sleep deprivation and the weight of being responsible for the safety and well-being of a newborn that made her question all aspects of her life up to that point.  Though she fought against such introspection, she was most distraught over losing her grasp of atheism.

    
Raised as an atheist who made fun of the many Christians around her trying to talk her into accepting Christ as her personal Savior, she was horrified to find herself being drawn to answers that were beyond her understanding and comfort level—ones certainly above her pay-grade.  She became obsessed with reading about Christianity, the Bible, researching as much as she could, and questioning everything along the way. 

    
As you can imagine, there are some very amusing scenarios that factor into Fulwiler’s full-blown existential crisis.  Conversion Diary, the blog she began so she could ask the tough questions about Christianity, morality, ethics, and get responses from people who were willing to answer her questions and concerns on both an intellectual level as well as a spiritual one remains tremendously popular.  What started as a hobby as she was seeking Truth, opened her up to the Catholic faith and a vocation of sharing her journey with others through her humorous writing, harrowing, often humbling tales of motherhood, and her struggle against her tendencies to be a mostly inert introvert.

    
There are a number of people I’ve thought of whom I’d love to have read Something Other than God.  Fulwiler writes in a compelling way that brings to light the many questions she grappled with and the answers she came to over time.  This memoir is an account of how one woman set out to achieve worldly success and how, through the grace of God, she discovered a greater longing, a deeper void, which nothing and no one other than God can fill.  Fulwiler slaved over this memoir while raising several young children, dodging dubious scorpions, inadvertently providing exercise entertainment for her neighbors, and attempting creative ways to corral her children enough to maintain her sanity (most of the time), so the least you can do is buy it, read it, and recommend it to all your friends—atheist or otherwise. 

     
For more information about this book or to order your copy, click here.  To read more about Jennifer Fulwiler's current life events, funny happenings, and daily struggles, check out her blog Conversion Diary.  I received a free copy of this book from Aquinas and More in exchange for an honest review.

A Subtle Grace by Ellen Gable

A Subtle Grace is the latest masterpiece by bestselling author/editor Ellen Gable.  It is the sequel to the award-winning novel In Name Only.  I’ve really been looking forward to this sequel because I was so thoroughly impressed by the first book, which vividly depicts the lives of the O’Donovan family in the late eighteen hundreds.  I love when I get so drawn into a book that I can picture myself in the scenes and have a real sense of the thoughts and emotions surging through the characters.  She blends dialogue and descriptive prose to create full-bodied personalities.  It is easy to identify and relate to each person’s unique charms, quirks, and flaws. 

  
There are scenes in certain books, plays, and movies that stick with us because of how disturbing or upsetting they are.  Maybe it’s an image from one of the ghost stories popular at sleepovers or an urban legend that hits a little too close to home.  We can all think back to a particular scenario we’ve envisioned and relive the emotions as if it was happening to us in the present.  Adrenalin starts pumping.  Our heart beats faster.  Our palms sweat.  Our muscles tense.  Every sound is amplified and ominous.  We are sure of our safety, nevermore. 

  
In each of these novels, there are a number of scenes I found myself reacting to on a visceral level because of how powerfully crafted and carefully portrayed they are.  The suspense made me not want to put the books down even when the turn of events caused me to cringe.  Gable manages to treat a number of the scenarios I would definitely include in my top five biggest fears of all time in ways that compel me to continue onward through the horror and devastation to discover what’s waiting on the other side.  I can’t exactly say that I enjoy feeling awful, but to me it’s a mark of good storytelling if you can get me to empathize with the characters so deeply that a real sense of sorrow rises within me when they are suffering and a genuine joy comes over me when they have triumphed over it.

  
This is one of my favorite contemporary works of Catholic fiction.  (For purposes of classification, I'm defining contemporary as works written between the 1980 and today) .  The storytelling is masterful, the characters fascinating, and the writing is of high literary quality.  People are imperfect—past, present, and future—but each is given the opportunity to grow, change, learn, and be redeemed.  In this story it’s shown how the greatest mistake of our lives can be turned into one of the most amazing blessings and even be a source of hope for others.  Life’s messy.  People are complex.  We’ve all got some skeletons in our closets, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t also fit some trophies and triumphs in there as well. 

A Subtle Grace has all of the elements that good Catholic fiction should.  For more information about In Name Only or A Subtle Grace, click here.  I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.