One of my favorite pastimes associated with baseball is hotdogging during practice.
At all levels of baseball, players do immensely stupid things during practice that they would never dare try in an actual game. Catching pop-ups behind one’s back,
fancy (but incredibly risky) glove tricks, you name it. I remember repeatedly trying to roll throws from teammates off the back of my glove to try to get a quicker release. It’s something that middle infielders might occasionally use, but it was a completely useless skill for me. My coach caught me doing it and warned me that if I did it again I was going to be running. Out of force of habit, I tried once more, and the number of laps I took that day still haunts me.It was a valuable lesson that I had to learn about practicing like you’re supposed to play. If you wouldn’t try it in a game, don’t do it in practice, or at least not during official practice. It’s a time to
get better, not a time to form bad habits that can hurt the team.

I was thinking about this recently because of how I’ve been trying to make use of quarantine time. I listened to some sage advice from another priest and have been using this time to re-form some good habits of prayer. The increase in time spent in adoration and mental prayer has made me wonder how I allowed it to slip away between ordination and now. Slowly, with minor concession after minor concession, I had allowed the busyness of my office subsume the source and foundation of my vocation. It happens so slowly that one barely notices it, but the moment in which email becomes more important than Holy Hour is a dark moment indeed. 

I’m relearning the lesson of practicing like I play. This is a time of preparation, in much the same way that Lent is meant to prepare us for Easter. I’m thinking ahead to what sacrifices will have to be made once things start grinding back into action again in order to keep my priorities where they should be. As I was looking to the Gospel for this week, I feel the need to place that same incentive in your midst as well. The disciples recognize Jesus in the word and in the breaking of the bread. All too often, those things are separated from each other.

Many people drift in and out of Mass on Sunday and evaluate it based on “what they get out of it,” when oftentimes they fail to adequately prepare for Mass or thank God for the gift of the Mass afterwards. The word of God will not take root in the rocky soil of our hearts, so we must prepare the way of the Lord.
 
Among everything else that’s going on, and the blessing of more time with our loved ones even in the midst of such fear and uncertainty, make a prayer goal. Take a step back and pray about what needs to happen in your family’s life to put God at the center. If you’re not yet doing the barebminimum, then work towards that. If you’re just doing the bare minimum, ask God what it will take to deepen your relationship with Him. Chart a plan for reading the New Testament. Or just one of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Make a concrete, ambitious, but achievable goal that can continue after quarantine. Like it or not, these are the times for which God has chosen us. Even now He is calling out to us, thirsting for our love, waiting for us to go to Him. Open your heart to His call.

Prayers always,
Fr. McC