January 25, 2015
A woman was the
mother of ten children - the wildest kids you could imagine.
The father traveled extensively in his
work, so she was, for all intents and purposes, raising these hellions alone.
The poor woman's life was unbearable.
A sister from the local parish heard of
her plight and called her.
Seeing their small house and the behavior
of the children, the nun's heart went out to the poor woman.
She tried to provide what little help and
support she could.
Sister offered the woman a playpen that
someone had donated to the church.
The distracted woman, who had never heard
of a playpen, nonetheless welcomed the gift.
Sometime later, Sister met the woman at
church.
With tears in her eyes, the mother thanked
her for the gift.
"That playpen has saved my life!"
she said to Sister. "It's marvelous.
Every afternoon at three o'clock, I jump into
the playpen with a book and the children can't get to me."
Like the poor harried mother, we all need that
"out of the way" place to re-center our lives on the things of God.
When I used to have three masses a
weekend, after the 2nd mass on Sunday, I would feel like I didn’t want to talk
or see another human being for at least the rest of the day, so I would usually
hibernate in my easy chair or vegetate in front of the tv
All of us regularly need to escape the
crowd at times.
Like Jesus' rising at dawn and going to a
deserted place, we must create our own "out of the way" place in our
own schedules:
an early morning hour before the rest of
the house rises,
a brief visit to a church during lunch,
the last few minutes each evening before
retiring.
It can be a time for quiet prayer, for
reading the Scriptures; for offering the Liturgy of the Hours,
for reflecting on the words and insights
of some of the great spiritual writers.
Finding that "out of the way
place," creating within our day
that "sacred time" to be alone with God,
can be the source of insight and grace
that will illuminate every place and moment of our life.
we can't experience God, we can't grow
spiritually or mentally or emotionally, if we don't find our own way of taking
a "time out" regularly.
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