The most important thing is to take the next best step for you and your family to ensure that the things you do move toward creating a loving Catholic culture.The Mystical City of Go d is a book written in the 17th-century by the Franciscan nun, Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda.Īccording to María de Ágreda, the book was to a considerable extent dictated to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary and regarded the life of the Virgin Mary and the divine plan for creation and the salvation of souls. Depending on where you are in your faith life and depending on what your community looks like, some of these ideas may make more sense to you than others. With his many suggestions, Father Ames also gives a sound piece of advice: “No one is expecting you to implement all these ideas at once.
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Such practices will form us in the habit of putting our faith first.Īn extended look at the priestly, prophetic and kingly call of Christians likewise includes many suggestions for building up habits for leading holy lives, from how to speak about our faith with others to reminders on the importance of nutrition and sleep for our spiritual life (we are, after all, embodied souls). Father Ames invites families to build a Catholic culture in their homes: to have spiritual conversation and prayer together, to live the liturgical year by celebrating feast days and honoring Sunday. Father Ames also asks: What kind of culture are we creating for ourselves? Through its daily routines, a monastery or friary develops a culture, and so does a family. But in fact, if we prayerfully invite God into these moments, we see that they are the real nitty-gritty.” It is in these moments that holiness is formed. We label them as obstacles to holiness or obstacles to happiness or communion. As Father Ames notes, “The temptation is always to divorce these real struggles and real experiences from God’s work. Community living, whether in religious life or in families, often creates hardships as individuals struggle to put aside selfishness. The subsequent chapters equally face up to challenges in the spiritual life and provide new approaches and practical suggestions. Quoting another friar, he writes, “When you love someone, you create a way to be with them.” He encourages us to approach prayer with a new mindset: to see prayer as food for our souls, the essence of our relationship with God. Father Ames identifies many of the common obstacles to prayer, such as claims that we lack time or motivation, or feeling that prayer is useless or ineffective. The first chapter begins with the one thing necessary: prayer.
Thus, we can only get anywhere - spiritually or physically - one step at a time. We move through life from one moment to the next, and we change gradually, in stages. This “step-by-step” approach recognizes a fundamental truth about human nature: We are pilgrims. The book examines various aspects of our lives as Christians - “prayer, community, liturgical living, simplicity, mission, and our baptismal call” - and proposes concrete ways to grow in these areas poco a poco, “little by little.” In Habits for Holiness: Small Steps for Making Big Spiritual Progress, Father Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, sets out to “propose the mendicant life - or more particularly, our own Franciscan life - as a model to learn from, adjust where necessary, and apply as a pattern for radically following Jesus today.” A new book from Ascension Press presents the fruits of the lived experience of religious life for the benefit of the whole Church. The point of the religious life is that the structures of the life, from the routine of work and prayer to the clothes he/she wears, slowly builds up the religious in the virtues of the Christian life.Īs the Second Vatican Council reminds us, holiness is not only for religious or clerics, but for all of the People of God. This pairing is not as odd as it may seem at first glance. In the Catholic faith, the word “habit” refers both to a stable disposition by which we choose the good easily and with joy and to the everyday garb of a member of a religious order. Small Steps for Making Big Spiritual Progress
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