In the Quiet

+ J.M.J. shoppingscout.com In his latest encyclical, Pope Francis brought up a new term that I think he sort of made up: rapidification. This term refers to the frenzied chaos that humans create for themselves. The never-ending drive to do more and be more to the tune of faster, faster, faster! Society pressures us to do this! Go to school now, full-time, while balancing a full-time job. While you're at it, find the ideal spouse, marry them, and have two children that can grow up and do the same thing. Get a move on. Faster, faster, faster. Never mind that you will get burned out, stressed out to the max, and you'll never see your family. Go and do. Go and be the star employee. No matter what the cost, you have to do more and be more for everyone, all the time. What are you waiting for? GO!  It never ends. No matter what age you are, the demands never stop. Take a look at where those demands are coming from. From God? No. Pope Francis points out that the rhythm

+ J.M.J. worldinprayer.org My previous post was about treating your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit that it is, taking care of your body, both the external and the internal. Now let's take a look at the spiritual workings of our bodies. The soul is the life of the body. We must take care of our souls to make our bodies a fitting dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. There are a myriad of ways to upkeep your soul health. Confession. Your soul is sick if you have mortal sin on it. Even if you don't, those venial sins can pile up and create a foul spiritual odor that will weigh you down. Go to Confession and get those hindrances out of the way. Face-to-face Confession, while uncomfortable for a lot of people, is a very humbling experience and is actually my preferred way of confessing now. Holy Eucharist. Christ can give you strength for the coming week (or day) if you go to Mass and receive Him worthily. Please don't receive Him into your body if you

+ J.M.J. Google Images Yes, that's right. You, dear reader, are a temple of the Holy Spirit. He resides within you. That's a humbling thought, isn't it? Are you treating your body as such? Let's break it down and determine if you are. Good exercise for me too, by the way. Sleep. Hopefully you're getting eight hours of sleep every night. What's that, you say? You aren't? What are the reasons for that? Because you have a new baby and your sleep is compromised as a result? That's understandable and certainly okay; God knows where you're at! If, however, you're not getting enough sleep because you're using the computer/watching television/otherwise engaging in technology, you may want to reorder your priorities. I'm talking to myself here just as much as you. Look at the reason why you're not getting enough sleep. If it's not related to your vocation (as a new baby would be), then dump it and get some shut-eye.

+ J.M.J. mediabistro.com Okay, so yeah, the title of this post is pretty much a joke. I'm not a minimalist. I heard once how a saint, when he or she wanted to acquire a certain virtue, acted as if he or she had it already. This is how new habits are formed. You act like you own it already, and then, over time, it will become yours.  So pretty much I want to be a minimalist. The fact that I'm not, well, that's irrelevant I guess. I want to be one so badly. I want my life to be simpler. I've been surrounded by clutter either by my own making or other's my entire life and I want it to stop. I'm not saying that everywhere I've been has been cluttered. A lot of places aren't, and those places make me feel peaceful. I'm saying that clutter doesn't help me, and the only way I've been able to discover that is to be in simple surroundings. Simple really is better. I truly believe that. Think of how this world was created. There was a