Quicumque enim Spiritu Dei aguntur—hii filii sunt Dei. (For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.)—Rom 8:14.
Normally, our New Year’s Resolutions as Catholics should be few and concrete. In past years, I have made so many resolutions at New Year’s that I just drop them all in some sense of exasperation by the end of January. (I think this is common for most of you.) This is why I am simply going to do my best on the dozen resolutions that play into my rule of life instead of making concrete resolutions.
Normally, I think such amorphous (eg “do my best at everything”) is a recipe for failure for most Catholics. But where I have a bit of a unique excuse for being more flexible than you is that my rule of life as a hermit priest who lives alone and includes active apostolate (and unending insomnia and unusual sacramental emergencies) is that on one hand there is no one to answer to, and on the other hand, there are so many people to answer to. Of course, I know it is only Jesus Christ that I will answer to at the end of my life. But right now my life is so unique and every day is so radically different from the previous day, that my rule-of-life must be a charity-based ideal not a fear-based minimum.
Of course, this does not include sin. I feel a very strong call at this point to eradicate even venial sin from my life. The Desert Fathers fasted better than any religious congregation in the history of the Church, but even the Desert Fathers write frequently on how giving up detraction (speaking ill of others) is more important than fasting. (Clearly, they believe fasting will help stop detraction.) Without excusing myself from either of those, I think it’s more important I give up Twitter (except relaying urgent pieces of news) more than, say, the occasional smoking of the Churchwarden pipe that a friend gave me (see above.)
What is the connection? Simply that Twitter is a hotbed of detraction and anxiety. Smoking the occasional pipe relieves some anxiety. Therefore, giving up excessive time on the internet is more important than giving up my pipe (even though the Desert Fathers would admittedly do neither.) Living alone, I’m just too weak to give up both. That’s why I say I am now just doing my best at the dozen resolutions I try to keep as a lone-ranger monk-missionary priest.
Another example is that after Mass, mental prayer, study and Rosary (3 hours) I am called to do the old Divine Office (or Roman Breviary of 150 Psalms a week) which comes to another 2.5 hours a day. That comes to about 5.5 hours of prayer and study every day. But if I have to drive a long trip for some reason, what am I do to do? Occasionally, I may replace the old Divine Office with a shorter Divine Office (closer to the pledge we took as mainstream diocesan priests nearly 15 years ago.) It’s not the ideal, and for that reason I hope to keep the 2.5 hours of the Roman Breviary every day. But I’m not going to fall into despair if I have to mix it up, provided I never do less than my original pledge on the Office.
In past times, if I fudged on a resolution, I would drop them all. Then, I would look (like clockwork—every time) for the next big Catholic feast day upon which to restart all my resolutions. Not any more. I’m just going to do my best every day.
I know this sounds Protestant, not Catholic, so let me give another example: I have a resolution is to run one mile every day (while listening to music) and walk another two miles every day (while praying my Roman Breviary.) I’ve actually been pretty good at that resolution for most days the last six months. But if I am sick and can only walk two miles with my Psalms and not run the one mile, I am not going to stop all my other resolutions out of despair. I will walk it (without the run) and get back to running as soon as I can.
I don’t think any of this is too important for any of you to know. That’s why I put it in the Life Update section of my site that few people read. But because the interior life of a priest is more important than the exterior, and since it is mostly donors and enemies that peruse my Life Update section, I figure that the former might occasionally like to know something about my interior life. (As to the latter, haters-gonna-hate, like the kids say. Enemies, I hope you use my pipe-smoking picture for some hit piece on how I am a “bad hermit.”)
Besides the Blessed Virgin Mary, my favorite saint is the Apostle Paul. As I have written before, it may be partly due to the fact that my parents always had on evangelical Protestant radio growing up. While I memorized many lines from St. Paul from those radio stations (91.1 KWBI in Denver here) I now see more than ever that St. Paul was both a Catholic bishop and priest and missionary. While I hope to never be a bishop, I know I am a priest and missionary. The life of St. Paul must have certainly included many hours of prayer every day. But while he was lost at sea or in prison, he probably had to be flexible on some of those resolutions and follow the Holy Spirit as best he could.
St. Paul truly lived what he wrote under inspiration: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.