Tag Archives: habit

Intending (and Attending) to Delight


delight: “a high degree of gratification or pleasure: joy.”


Do you delight? Would you say that the moments in your home are marked with “a high degree of gratification or pleasure”? Is it a joy-filled atmosphere? Maybe that’s an overwhelming question.

I find myself plugging along in family life sometimes without often enough taking stock of the overall atmosphere, how well we are doing at keeping the big picture in the foreground. But if you are like me, when we do stop to consider a question like this, we get in over our heads. We mentally sort through the plans we have in place. But it is so much simpler to ask: how was yesterday?

So let’s just take yesterday. Did your family experience delight yesterday? If so (or if not), was yesterday a “typical” day in the life of your family? I think asking these two questions can give us a lot of clarity on the atmosphere of our domestic churches and help us live with more intention. Yesterday can help us determine how intentionally we are living.

So if we find that our yesterdays haven’t been what they should be, then we have the gift of today. In fact, if we find that our mornings haven’t been what they should be, then we have the gift of the afternoons. We don’t yet have the gift of tomorrow or next week. We cannot live those days with intention until they are given us. Remember that we have only been given this day so far, and it is the present day alone that we are able to live with intention. The thing I like about only thinking about today is that its not so hard, not such an overwhelming task. I’m simply purposing to be faithful with the time I have in this moment and to make this small bit of time filled with delight.

How can we intentionally create an atmosphere of delight in our homes today? Perhaps the following verses from the Psalms give us some inspiration and the key to being people who delight: Continue reading

Wonder & Whimsy: Prayer, Poetry & Habit

A weekly curation of quotations I come across in my reading life (or on random condiment jars) — from the inspirational to the miscellaneous. Perhaps one inspires you or catches your fancy too…

How to approach prayer today…

“In our petitions we will receive more by sighs than by speech, more by tears than by words.”

(The “Response” to the second reading in the OOR in the Liturgy of the Hours for today)

From St. Robert Southwell’s poem “Content and Rich”…

“I dwell in Grace’s court,

Enriched with Virtue’s rights;

Faith guides my wit, Love leads my will,

Hope all my mind delights.”

Are we living as God intended us?

“The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.” (St. Irenaeus)

The power and role of habit…

“Education is the formation of habits.”

“Habit is 10 natures.”

— Charlotte Mason (Home Education, Vol. 1, pt. 3)

(In)Formed Conscience: the Role of Virtuous Habits

Chifflart_-_Das_Gewissen_-_1877

Francois Chifflart – “Das Gewissen” (“The Conscience”)

Have you ever noticed that your conscience is less bothered by certain vices than by others? I know mine is. There are some big sins that would probably set off all kinds of alarms, but then there are those that we may continually commit without much pause or remorse. Why do some unvirtuous behaviors make us uncomfortable and others not?

I think it’s less because we have uninformed consciences and more because we have unformed ones. We basically know (intellectually) the difference between virtue and vice, what sin technically is and is not. But our intellectual understanding of sin doesn’t have a direct correlation to how comfortable we are or aren’t with our offenses. I find that the more habitual my vices, the more comfortable I am with them. On the flip side, when I commit a sin of which I am not in the habit, I feel the internal churning of that incongruity. Continue reading