Being Content

stwalburga.blogspot.com ^ | Saturday, September 26, 2009 | Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

[GonzoII]

Being Content

A reflection on the Mass readings for September 18, 2009 (1 Tim 6:2c-12; Luke 8:1-3) by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

In my reflections this morning, the word ‘contentment’ kept coming up. I first thought of this word in relation to what St. Benedict says in Chapter 7 of our Holy Rule where it reads: “The sixth degree of humility is that a monk be content with all that is mean and poor and in all that is enjoined on him esteem himself a sinful and unworthy laborer saying with the prophet ‘I have been brought to nothing and I knew it not. I have become as a beast before you and yet I am always with you.’” Anytime we compare ourselves it’s our own undoing. We will never be content when we compare because it’s always seeing the grass greener on the other side-- no matter what it is. If you’re wearing a sweater and someone else is wearing another, you can’t see your own as the other one must be nicer. But for one to be content, one really has to stop thinking of oneself-- to be selfless in what we’re doing.

This life is not easy but if we’re living only for ourselves it’s not going to get better. The ego grows by staring at it. To be content with what we have and what we do is really the key to living a life in peace. What I heard in my lectio today I found really “telling”. When I do my lectio I try to take a word from the First Reading of Mass and from the Gospel reading and put them together and see what they do. And today’s was really thought provoking as my word from the First Reading was, “be content,” and from the Gospel, “accompany Him.”

[Constitutions Grandchild]

As a convert, I never understood what the “signal” graces were. I'd heard if I prayed the Rosary, I would receive them. After years of kicking against the goad, I have learned to love the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Rosary, as well as the Chaplet to St. Michael. I gather through my prayers I qualified for those “signal graces”.

Through my prayers, I have learned to be content in all seasons — in bounty and in lack. I just thought it was a result of seeking the eternal and finding more pleasure in my devotions than in other areas of life. I found I could happily wear clothes I've had for twenty years (I have clothes older than most of my young co-workers and often make them smile when I say so).

The joke is mine to tell, as I found that one of the “signal” graces is to be content in all circumstances and happy with my station in life. The joke is on me, but I'm the one who is blissfully giggling. ;-)

[GonzoII]

"to be content in all circumstances and happy with my station in life."

That sure is a blessing!

[Constitutions Grandchild]

You know, until I started meditating on the life of Mary (through the Rosary) and through the experience of standing at the foot of the Cross with my son, I wouldn't have given you a plug nickle for that. I lived on caffeine, nicotine and the basic mentality of “Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Noon Day Sun.” You know, if we don't maintain standards, Western Civilization, as we know it, will collapse.

While there is much to be said for maintaining standards, there come times in life when you see your world collapse around you, despite all your efforts to the contrary. You see everything you've worked for, offered up your body for, and all you hold dear in ruins around you. You lift up your eyes to the Lord and silently think, “WTF. Is it something I said?”

He's a wonderful father. I know because I had one while here on earth. Mine was less subtle, but the principle was still the same. How many times did I say in my youthful ignorance, “I've got it. I've got it....I don't got it.” He, however, does have it. He left me an instruction manual Showing me the woman who found favor with God.

Being the highly intelligent woman I am, I said to myself, “I want what she has,” and being the Mother of God, she was kind enough to share it with me. She's a good mother. I know, because I had one here on earth, too, and it's amazing how much better it is when I stop hitting my head against the wall of life.