Embracing the Dirt

In one of the most enjoyable spiritual direction sessions I had with my Dominican spiritual adviser last year, we discussed the value of piety.

Exaggerated piety, my adviser said, may sometimes cut us off from the rest of the world needing our help, and cut us off from being "likeable" Christians. Remember that in order to win other people for Christ, we somehow must make the effort to at least establish rapport and share our whole selves with others.

There is, however, a fine line between overly pious and being too much of a social butterfly. I personally think that we have to strike a balance between prayer, piety, and serving God in others.

Priests who are ordained and nuns who profess assume a very special position when they receive the gift of the priesthood or when they profess vows. They prostrate.

My spiritual adviser tells me that this is a sign that, in our service to the Lord, we embrace the world, rather than running away from it. In order to serve God properly, we need to be immersed in the world, while maintaining an intense relationship with God. We must not be scared to embrace the dirt, although we must NOT be eventually the dirt.

It is really a difficult call, yet a very fulfilling one. After all, the Lord chose the people whom He wants to send; it is not we who chose being called.

He summed this up by telling me: we must find God in all things.

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On a lighter note, if Catholic people start to inhabit different planets with different times of year (i.e. different number of days and months), how will we celebrate good ol' Easter, which depends on occurence of seasons that are only observable on earth? This possibility was opened to me as I visited this site. According to this site, Psallite Sapienter,

"Mars, as all men know, has a year of 668.6 sols (Martian days), and hence, as the good guys at NASA suggest, the most appropriate calendar for the planet is one of years alternating in length between either 95 or 96 weeks. This means that the calendar is perpetual, with the same day of the week falling on the same date ex hoc nunc et usque in sæculum."

Thank you Mark for sharing this!

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Help me to let my light shine in the world. Amen.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

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Photo credits: http://www.dioceseofknoxville.org/UserFiles/Image/june24.2007/deacons-prostrate-ord.008.gif, http://www.astro.uva.nl/exhibition/pictures/mooie_gifjes/jpeg/mars.jpeg