It’s all about the framework.
You wake up in the morning, and your day probably has some sort of framework. Some context which will guide your steps that day. More than one, without doubt.
There might be the framework of whatever big picture issues interest you, from politics to sports to what’s going on in your community or your tribe of interest.
There’s the framework of your family and what’s going on with them and what will be asked of you today because you are who you are in that family.
There’s the framework of the Stuff You Gotta Do Today: get the oil changed, clean out the cabinets, shovel the drive, start your taxes.
There’s the framework of your work, where ever or whatever that is. That’s a big one.
And then there’s your personal framework of what desires, goals or necessities are driving you today. Your framework might involve keeping your cool with demanding people today, staying away from alcohol, being more intentional with your relationships, trying to reclaim some sense of self-worth or just getting healthy.
It’s different for everyone, that framework.
But one of the points of the Catholic Church as a universal thing, a Body with one Head, is a framework. No matter who we are or what we’re doing or what state in life we’ve embraced, been called to or stumbled into, we’re all taking those steps within the same framework: Life in Christ.
Problem? Challenge? That all-embracing framework doesn’t just happen or sprout up in our lives. It’s there, in the shape and details of God’s Word as revealed in Scripture and developed in the Church’s Tradition. Which means it’s most accessible to us, in our daily lives, in the daily prayer of the Church, from the specific feasts and seasons to the Scripture readings at Mass and the content of the daily cycle of prayer, to saints’ memorials.
Make of the readings the Church shares today and every day what you will, engage with the saints in whatever way fits, bring these rhythms into your daily life in whatever way possible, but the fact is:
We live differently when we frame our days with what the Body of Christ offers us.
When we begin and end by listening to that Word of God and considering a saint or two and letting the liturgical year shape our year in even small ways, we see ourselves differently in this world. We see the world as more than simply material, we see human activities and history as meaningful, not just busy, we see that life is, yes, hard and strange and mysterious, but taken in this framework, we also see that our difficulties and suffering are not unique to our lives, to our time and place, but are shared and are, in some way, meaningful and even overcome.
To be specific:
When your Monday, February 1 is framed, not primarily by scrolling through news, giving minutes or even hours to your latest social media obsessions, or even being overwhelmed by personal matters from dawn to nightfall, but instead is framed by:
God had foreseen something better for us…
Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord….
“Go home to your family and announce to them
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.”Help us to live in the hope of heaven today:
make us ready to do your will on earth.and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,…
Now, Master, you let your servant go in peace. You have fulfilled your promise...
Even in snippets. Even in your subconscious.
It’s different.
It’s the difference between remaining chained among the tombs….. and being free.
It’s the difference between seeing what Jesus can do then begging him to leave you so you can just keep living in the same cramped fear….. and welcoming him and inviting him to remain instead.
It’s hard to hang on sometimes. The world is freaking insane.
Make it saner – or at least your own life. Start with the framework. Examine what you’ve got critically, and with the willingness to change, shift and outright demolish. Start and begin differently. Hang your breaks on different hooks. Lean on different walls when you need to pause and regroup.
And maybe… build something new.
Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis
what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.
Charlotte was Both 