St. Anthony of Padua Fraternity Bulletin
Vol. 12 No. 3   March 18, 2007

Minister's message
by Kim

Sometimes life is too ironic for words. On the day of the worst storm (blizzard) to hit this season, the Department of Transportation was advising everyone to be off the roads unless it is an emergency. Of course, if you work for the State of MN (I do) and you are not in a county where the roads were shut down,(ours were just bad,) then you needed to come to work. Not likely. I spent the day in meditation when not shoveling. I kept thinking "I should be doing work." Funny, we want to take care of things, but not ourselves. I went so far as to check my work emails and make work phone calls, so I wouldn�t feel bad about not "doing" anything. The problem was, I was doing something. Something Spiritual. Something very important. Something more important than all the things I had to do on my list. Strange how our "to-do" list never seems to include prayer. It seems it is something that is more flexible and we will "get around to it." St. Frances put prayer as priority one and everything else waited. I chose to meditate/reflect. It was more important than my guilt over not doing my list. Lent has been a traditional time to give something up. This lent I am giving up guilt. I am going to chose what is spiritually important over whatever else is beckoning. There will always be things to do, just like the poor will always be with us. Not the greatest comparison, but you get the idea. If I die tomorrow, I would rather die in good graces than be proud of getting the laundry done. I will be going to the Regional Executive Council mini-retreat, mid-March. This will be the first time that I have done more than a day of recollection during lent. A whole weekend! Time to Pray away and let the to-do list be damned.