The Beauty of Sacred Time

Its often said that you don't realize what you have or how special it is until you don't have it any more.  That's certainly been true for me of the periods of preparation for the major feasts.  For the last 3 (Advent 2012, Lent 2013, and Advent 2013) I've been working some of the most time-intensive, stressful months of the year.  Last year during Advent I was working in the CCU, regularly working 14 hour shifts.  Then for Lent I was on Medicine (Inpatient, Adult Medicine) - again regularly working 12 hour shifts 6 days a week.  This month I've been on Medicine again working 12-14 hour shifts 5-6 days a week (with the random 24-hour shift from time to time).  It's been hard, of course, but I'm realizing, as Christmas draws near, that what I've been missing out on the most for the past year is the time to calm my heart and life and truly prepare.  It's hard to go from stress to celebration, from busyness to joy, from a hectic work-filled life to a break.  The stress and the busyness and the hectic schedule spill over, invading the peace and joy and celebration that are supposed to be present.  I've noticed that even on my days off this month, it's hard to rest.  I can sleep, but during the day all the stress leaks out.

The Church knows this truth about us.  Perhaps for this reason, every major feast is preceded by a period of preparation.  Christmas is preceded by Advent, a period of watchful waiting and preparation - both for a remembrance of our Savior's birth and, more importantly for the Second Coming of Christ the King.  Easter is preceded by Lent, a period of penitence and preparation to celebrate the pivotal week and events in human history, the days when our salvation was effected.  Even Pentecost is preceded by a period that is both dedicated to the ongoing celebration of Easter and the preparation for the feast.

Just as we have periods of preparation, our feasts aren't single days.  Christmas and Easter themselves last 8 full days  - during which the prayers speak of "this day".  The liturgy treats those 8 days as a single ongoing day.  And Christmas and Easter are followed by an extended period of celebration: Christmastide (which in the modern calendar goes until the Feast of the Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ in early January) and Eastertide (which extends until Pentecost).

In historical liturgical calendars, and in many monastic communities, the periods of preparation (and sometimes penitence and fasting) are more numerous.  There are big fasts and little fasts, always preceding feasts of varying importance.  And each feast and each fast have a particular character, a focus that is unique to that period.

Because there's another Truth that the Church understands: as humans, we can't focus on all things at once.  Its hard to balance the secular and the spiritual, much less balance penitence with anticipation with joy with forgiveness with Thanksgiving.  Its difficult to be equally focused on the poor and the unborn and the sick and the imprisoned all the time, every day.  So there are days when one thing gets our focus and other days when another does.  And in the church, there are particular periods where the corporal works of mercy (see Matthew 25:31-36) are particularly stressed, periods where a close examination of one's conscience and life are stressed, periods where we are reminded to learn to control our passions and fallen human natures through abstinence of various sorts.

I know people who have complained that we focus all of our Thankfulness on one day or one month of the year - and they have a point.  We should absolutely be thankful throughout the year.  But I, for one, find it helpful to have a day set aside where being thankful is the focus - and to have a month leading up to it where more and more people are expressing their thankfulness.  For the last few years, Advent has been my time for Thankfulness.  Starting, I believe, either the Christmas before or Christmas after Jack and I got married, we use advent to express our thankfulness.  On each day in Advent, we hang cards on our tree on which we write something we are thankful for.  Then, on Christmas Eve, we take down the cards and replace them with ornaments, recording what we had written in a spreadsheet.  Sadly, due to schedules and stress and busy-ness and my inability to prep the cards in time, we weren't able to do this this year.  I think its the thing I've missed most.  At least we're still waiting until Christmas Eve to put our ornaments on our tree (and it will stay up at least until January 6!).

So, for the handful of people who read this, I pray you are blessed by the rhythm of the liturgical year.  In the few days we have left, may you have the opportunity to prepare, both to Celebrate the Birth of our Lord and more importantly to prepare to meet our King - either when he comes again or at your death.  Come Lord Jesus, Come!

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,

and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night

and death's dark shadow put to flight.

 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to Thee, O Israel.

An Introduction

Before I get started on the meat of this Blog, it's appropriate to offer a little information about me.

While my primary identity is "Daughter of God," I wear a number of hats in my life.  At home I'm wife to a patient,  generous,  loving husband.  I'm also mother to a delightful but sometimes exhausting toddler son and a daughter in heaven we recently lost in a miscarriage. At work, I'm a doctor-in-training, a Family Medicine Resident at a local hospital. I look forward to graduation and hope to practice in a private practice, preferably NFP-only, where I can practice the full spectrum of medicine from conception and Prenatal care through natural death.

I'm also a convert to the Catholic Church, along with my husband, for nearly 5 years. While I grew up in the Free Methodist Church, over the course of several years I came to discover the Beauty of the Catholic liturgy and the Truth of Catholic doctrine and made the decision to come into full communion with the Catholic Church in Easter 2009.

My interests include medicine (of course), religion (especially theology, liturgy, and church history), music (especially piano, for which I had over 12 years of formal lessons, and sacred music), books (especially JRR Tolkien and Alexander Dumas along with books on the above subjects), and more recently sacred at and gardening. I'm sure you'll hear more about each of these in the months and years to come.

Migration and Modulation

It's been a while since I've written any sort of Blog. Probably a few years,  although at this point I can't be sure.  In any event it was long enough that when I logged into Xanga to look into writing s new entry I was shocked to discover that the old Xanga had gone and the new Xanga required me to purchase a subscription to keep posting. They kindly allowed me to download a copy of my old posts and perhaps some time I'll be able to upload them and see how long it has been. But for now I'll just say it has been a while.

So as I faced that prospect this morning I had the opportunity to think about what I've offered in the past in terms of content and what I want to offer in the future. What can I bring that is unique,  that encapsulates my own perspective,  that makes this just a bit different from everything else out there? What sort of content will my musings have?

In the past my reflections have revolved around my life: the medicine that I do,  the music that I love,  my faith,  my family. And I think it is safe to say that they will continue to do that. But I'd like to frame those thoughts, as I can, on a pair of themes that I notice have been recurring in my life of late: Truth (Veritas) and Beauty (Splendor). I also hope to illustrate, through the lense of my own life and perspective, how each of these leads us to the other.

I have no idea how many people will actually read this,  but I hope that each person who does will come away with a little more appreciation for the Truth and Beauty that surround us.