A few weeks ago a friend and I went to hear Matthew Kelly speak on Living Everyday with Passion & Purpose. If you’ve never heard him speak, it is a treat no matter where you are in your spiritual journey.
One of his main points, which I agree with and speak about often is that the first person we need to “work on” is always the same for each of us. It’s you! I mean ME. Yourself. You need to work on yourself. We spend much time on this blog taking about evangelization, mostly in terms of reaching other people and turning them towards God and the Church. But it’s the old oxygen mask instruction that we need to pay attention to, “your mask first, then others”.
He offered a challenge to the group; a choice of three tasks that he considers game changers for your spiritual life. Those game changers are:
-read the Gospels for 15 minutes each day, when you finish all four go back and begin again
-go to confession once a month
-each time you go to Mass ask God what is the one thing he wants me to know/learn from the Mass today
Do each of these for four months or two of them for six months or one of them for a year but do one of them and things will change. No matter which you choose, your spiritual life will improve and your relationship with God deepen. That can only help your life and improve your efforts at evangelization.
I’m choosing confession, what are you choosing?
Copyright 2016, Deanna Bartalini
Deanna Bartalini
Deanna G. Bartalini, is a Catholic writer, speaker, and educator. She serves on the retreat team at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center. Deanna loves teaching about Catholicism and how it fits into our daily lives. She writes at DeannaBartalini.com, serves as the editor of the NewEvangelizers.com blog, and is a contributor there as well as at AmazingCatechists.com. Deanna contributed to A Catholic Mom's Prayer Companion published by Ave Maris Press. She is the author of “Invite the Holy Spirit into Your Life: Growing in Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control” published by Our Sunday Visitor. Deanna is available to lead retreats and speak at catechist and ministry events.
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