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Tips for smoother life transitions

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:31:13 GMT

excerpt from “Times of Transition” article by Emily Stimpson Chapman, OSV Newsweekly

[How] in the midst of perpetual transition, can young adults find the spiritual footing they need to move forward, not backward, in their journey to God?

The answer to that question starts with recognizing that change, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. According to Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, a 20-year veteran of Catholic youth and young adult ministry, major life transitions bring with them important opportunities for new beginnings and fresh starts.

Understanding anxiety

As young people embark on new phases in life, identifying old bad habits and cultivating an awareness of escape routes can help them circumvent the more common pitfalls of transitions. So too can identifying the source of any anxiety they might be experiencing about the changes in their life.

For example, one common source is fear of making the “wrong” choice.

As Pivonka explained it, many Catholic 20- and 30-somethings have bought into the idea that there’s always a right choice and a wrong choice — that God has exactly one thing he wants them to do, and if they don’t figure it out and choose exactly that, “God won’t bless their choice.”

“Many of these choices are actually quite neutral,” Pivonka continued. “But rather than make a ‘wrong’ choice, they end up making no choice at all.”

At other times, the anxiety that accompanies transition stems from having left God out of the decision-making process altogether.

“When our lives are in flux, it’s easy to become so focused on the immediate, tangible need that all the ‘spiritual stuff’ gets pushed to the back burner,” said Amy McEntee, executive director of the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association.

In other words, when there are new apartments to be rented, new office politics to master, new friends to be made, and someone isn’t even entirely sure where to find the grocery store or post office, the temptation is to focus on those problems and not on finding a faith community or nurturing one’s prayer life.

The same holds true for newlyweds and new parents. In the midst of all the changes that new spouses and new babies bring, old habits of prayer and the sacraments often fall by the wayside.

Unfortunately, prioritizing the immediate over the eternal leaves people without spiritual support when it’s most needed.

“When we put God in the equation, we know we’re not alone,” McEntee said. “And that’s probably the most important thing anyone needs to know when they’re struggling with change.”

In the midst of change

Over the last year, Allison Keegan learned that lesson firsthand. In less than 12 months, the 29-year-old Kansas native began a new job, moved to a new town, got engaged to a coworker, broke off her engagement to the coworker and left her new job in search of yet another one.

“It’s certainly been a lesson in humility,” she admitted. “It’s so tempting to look at this past year and feel like it was a waste, that I have nothing to show for it, that I’m no closer to my professional goals or vocational goals than I was a year ago.”

It’s also tempting, she added, “to lose confidence in my decision-making abilities. I really struggled to discern what feelings were from God and what doubts were just of the devil.”

Two things, ultimately, have kept Keegan from giving in to those temptations.

First, she learned that “cutting yourself off from the people or things you love because you’re having a hard time is a bad idea.”

Instead, she said, her most foolproof method for coping with the stress of her ever-changing situation became “focusing on other people and trying to do something for them. Going out of my way to help others got me out of my own world and helped me feel alive.”

Second, Keegan worked hard to not let her faith fall by the wayside in the midst of the upheaval. By keeping prayer, spiritual reading and the sacraments at the center of her life, as well as seeking out guidance from a spiritual director, Keegan regained her confidence about her decisions as she moved through the year.

“The Lord gave me the grace to adjust to all the changes and decisions I had to make,” Keegan explained. “I know he has a plan for me, and even in the midst of the mess, I’m still living in his plan.”

Sure footing

Keegan succeeded where so many others fail because of an active faith life and a strong spiritual support system. And if other young adults want to follow suit, Father Pivonka said, they need to take steps to secure the same.

“As you prepare for coming changes, you need to have a plan,” he explained. “Just like you map out a plan for where you’re going to live and shop and work, you have to map out a plan for your spiritual life.

“Write it down, share it with somebody and make it visible,” he said. “Hang it on your fridge if you need to. Just don’t shoot from the hip so that seven weeks into a new job or a new relationship you realize you haven’t prayed for two months and bad habits have already started to form.”

Father Pivonka also advises young adults to let go of the idea that there’s only one right choice about where to work and live or whom to date and marry.

“Don’t worry about making right or wrong choices and instead think about making good and bad choices,” he explained. “Go before the Lord, do the best you can to include him in the decision-making process, and then take the next step. Be free from that overwhelming burden of thinking that all your future happiness hinges on guessing God’s will.”

To that end, McEntee advises young adults to acquire prayer and discernment skills, just as they acquire financial management or housekeeping skills. She also stressed the importance of seeking out silence — quiet moments away from the noise of the television, radio and Internet — and taking time to reflect upon one’s choices and desires, as well seeking out a faith community where they feel at home.

“It’s not just about being able to say yes when your mom asks you if you’ve been to Mass,” she said. “It’s about finding people who can journey with you.”

It’s equally important, she added, to remember that finding that community might take a while. “Be diligent and don’t get discouraged.”

Perhaps the most important thing anyone in transition — young or old — can do, however, is simply to remember that change — and all the accompanying fear and anxiety — are part of life.

“We all go through it,” said Catholic therapist Dr. Peter Kleponis. “It’s not permanent, and it’s OK to make mistakes. We’re all on a learning curve. What’s important is that you pray, don’t try to go it alone and ask the Lord to strengthen your confidence.

“The confident person may not have all the answers,” he concluded. “But he’s OK with that. He knows he’ll find them eventually.”

This article comes to you from Our Sunday Visitor courtesy of your parish or diocese.

August 11, 2023

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:21:35 GMT

Mt 16:24-28

Jesus has just predicted his suffering and death for the first time. This did not bode well with Peter and Jesus rebukes him. Now Jesus is telling his disciples that following him connects their fate to his. They must let go of themselves and let God guide them. Taking up their cross will lead them to eternal happiness.

“Let go and let God,” they say. That’s often easier said than done. St. Clare, like your friend, Francis, you were able to let go and follow. Pray for us that we may do the same.

This article comes to you from Our Sunday Visitor courtesy of your parish or diocese.

The joy of the Gospel

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:19:55 GMT

“The joy of the Gospel is such that it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything (see Jn 16:22). The evils of our world – and those of the Church – must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our fervor. Let us look upon them as challenges which can help us to grow.”

Reflection: Is there anything in your world that distracts you from the joy of the Gospel? Who or what helps you overcome such challenges to growing as a Christian disciple?

This content comes to you from Our Sunday Visitor courtesy of your parish or diocese.

Finding a proper order in the ‘religion’ of football

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 15:02:07 GMT

During my doctoral studies in Boston, my wife was a youth minister. Because she was supporting me in the lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed (that is, the only source of actual revenue in our home), I, therefore, also functioned as a de facto youth minister, especially on annual summer service trips. This privileged position meant spending a week each summer sleeping on the ground in a non-air-conditioned public school, painting homes each day and then enduring non-denominational religious programming each evening.

One such evening, the youth were asked to reflect on the idols in their lives. They stood before money and were queried: where do you choose mammon before the kingdom of God? A young man (not from our parish) who took a dollar from the pile of cash answered that question not only in word but in deed. If you can’t serve God and mammon, you can at least serve mammon.

The young men of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish were more attracted by the collection of sports equipment. Where in your lives have sports become an idol? I saw them pick up the football, and then immediately shed tears! At last, I thought proudly to myself. They recognize that their obsession with athletic prowess exceeds what is necessary for human flourishing. They understand the need to re-order their desires.

We assembled in the room after the session, and I waited to hear about their Augustine-esque religious conversion precipitated by the evening devotional. My hope was at once dashed when the first young man, holding a football in his hands, began to cry out: “Men, make sure that you never forget how brief your high school football career will be. How I wish that I could go back and start again.” Sigh, I thought to myself. What could have been an occasion of memento mori, recognizing the brevity of our lives, became an act of nostalgia.

These young men, of course, were not born with such idolatry. It was passed on, the result of Sundays watching the then-dynastic Patriots and participating in the obsessive commentary that followed each game during the season. Sports radio in Boston could take a three-hour contest and analyze each moment as if it was sacred Scripture itself. Remember when Bill Belichick took that one timeout right before halftime? What was revealed in this moment? What meaning did it possess for your life? How might it foreshadow what is to come?

Of course, the young men and women of Boston are not unique. American football functions to many citizens in the United States as a de facto religion. In 2022, the NFL made $18 billion dollars while occupying our collective attention on Sundays, Mondays, and not a few Thursdays. Individual college football programs make hundreds of millions of dollars, while also offering us a spectacle to watch on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (and Sunday and Monday during Labor Day weekend). What would high school be without a football game on Friday night under the lights, young men clashing with their neighbors across town, while dreaming of future revenue made from playing a game they love?

Now, this kind of commentary might lead you to presume that the author is yet another academic incapable of understanding the lives of ordinary Americans. This guy, Tim O’Malley, probably sits in a library every Saturday and Sunday reading and writing books that no one cares about.

High school football

While I do, in fact, read and write such tomes, I reflect on football in American life as a full, conscious, and active participant in the annual autumn carnival. I have done so since I was in high school at a public school in East Tennessee. I still vividly remember the moment in which William Blount High School (0 state championships in football) defeated Maryville High School (17 state championships in football). We (note the use of the collective pronoun despite the fact that I did not play football) beat Maryville on a two-point conversion in overtime. We rushed the field. We would later lose in the playoffs that season to Sevier County High School on some atrocious calls by referees who I presume were paid to make these decisions by boosters of Maryville High School (who would later go on to win state that year, but I digress).

Notre Dame football

My love of football didn’t stop in high school. As a student and later faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, I can mark the time of my undergraduate, graduate and professional career through some fairly remarkable games, not a few of them losses. I am so committed to attending these games that I shape my entire fall travel schedule around Notre Dame football.

Should I really be doing this? Is this a good use of my time? Tim, shouldn’t you get a life apart from watching Notre Dame? These are the questions that I ask myself (and I suspect my Notre Dame alum wife also asks of me). Especially with all the problems with football today. College coaches who pledge lifelong fidelity to a team, only to depart when the right offer comes along (names need not be mentioned but Brian Kelly). Players who transfer schools when playing time doesn’t come along, or if there’s more money to be made through Name, Image, Likeness deals at other institutions. Schools that discourage students from getting the kind of degree that could change their life in the long term, preferring that they put all focus on athletics. Concussions. Hazing. Racism. Fans who get blitzed out of their mind before the games, spending three hours yelling profanities at 18 through 22-year-old men. How can I keep watching in good conscience? How can I participate?

I have no great answer to these questions, which continue to haunt me. At the same time, I recognize the gift of college athletics. I admire the way that Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame, for example, is calling these young men toward excellence on the field and in the classroom, while simultaneously providing a formation into virtue . The kind of virtue that will benefit them when they have careers, but most importantly, when they are husbands and fathers.

Proper order

Maybe, for me, the way forward is to properly order my love of this game. I’ve been known, during really important games, to turn to opposing fans to mock them (I apologize to fans of Clemson, in particular, for anything I said to you in 2022). After Notre Dame lost to USC in 2005 (when USC cheated but that might not be specific enough to help you remember), I couldn’t sleep for a week. My mood was too often affected by what happened on Saturdays, causing me to be a rather grumpy husband and father.

During one of these grumpy moments, my son turned to me and said, “Dad, it’s only a game.” That’s true. It’s only a game. Its merits are a deeper connection to something larger than yourself, a community of past, present and future fans of a beloved school, institution or team. But it is a game.

Maybe, those of us at Catholic institutions in particular need to underline this to the young men and women who play football and attend our institutions. Even if there is a particular delight to being in Notre Dame stadium on a Saturday afternoon, it is not the highest or even the most excellent of delights.

It’s a lesson, perhaps, that I might need to remember when Ohio State visits Notre Dame this fall. Go Irish! But, if we lose, then the sun will rise again. The beauty of existence will continue. And all of us are made for something more important than this game, however beloved it may be. Communion with God and one another.

This article comes to you from Our Sunday Visitor courtesy of your parish or diocese.

New parable: What good is it to profess faith without practicing it?

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 20:22:25 GMT

There was a woman drawn to the mystic. This woman lived a contemplative life of prayer and meditation. She burned incense and votive candles, walked labyrinths, prayed Rosary after Rosary, novena after novena. She wore scapulars and blessed medals. She kept holy water in her home, listened to sacred chant and read the writings of the mystic saints. This woman made every conscious effort to keep her life simple, and she avoided many of the snares of consumerism.

Yet this woman so consumed herself with all of her rites and rituals that she had no time or energy left for charitable works in the world. Sequestered away in her solitude, she failed to realize she spent many hours contemplating justice and peace, yet never actually engaged in efforts to support justice and peace. And because of her inaction, her prayers always felt a bit hollow and unanswered.

There was another woman blessed with a contemplative nature. This woman, too, expressed her soul through rites and rituals, sacramentals and prayers. She, too, read the writings and biographies of the mystic saints. She, too, lived a simple life rich with devotion.

Yet this woman recognized the need to be involved in the world more directly. She understood how to respond to the New Testament’s query, “What good is it . . . if someone says he has faith but does not have works?” (Jas 2:14)

She understood that she could not cloister herself from the world. This woman believed that contemplating justice and peace was not enough; she knew her call to holiness meant she must act for justice and peace. And because this woman’s direct experience of the world deepened her empathy, her prayers were fervent and bore much fruit.

This article comes to you from Grace In Action ( Our Sunday Visitor ) courtesy of your parish or diocese.