These all-too-common occurrences are examples of how our minds can seem to be completely out of our control.
#MINDFUL CATHOLIC FULL#
Prayer is an exercise in futility, full of distractions and wandering thoughts.You fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, craving a good night's sleep, only to have your mind race in a million directions.But many times we may feel like our mind has a mind of its own. I whole-heartedly recommend this book.Whether we are carrying out routine life behaviors, trying to pray, or conversing with others, the way our minds work significantly impacts how well we function. I picked up this book for its usefulness to my profession but found in it a treasure for my heart.
My plan is, now, to go back through it and practice the exercises after each chapter. “This awareness will certainly take in painful realities, but it will also keep you open to seeing the deep beauty that lies inherently in all of life.”Īs soon as I finished “The Mindful Catholic,” I wanted to pick it up again and dive deeper. “The path of acceptance is the one you walk with peace, but peace does not mean the alleviation of suffering… When Bottaro tells the story of his mother’s death, with passion and exhortation in Chapter Five, “Acceptance,” he describes what acceptance is and you know he has felt it. Then, I look at them and attend to them in the way in which I have fallen short of late. “Doing versus being,” I say inside myself. Throughout the day, I catch myself calling me back to the present moment with my children using his phrase. He wisely repeats concepts again and again. The practices begin in the traditional exercises of mindfulness and then develop into something wholly unique bringing in the core concept of mercy while staying true to the parameters of the psychological process. I bristle a little when writers refer to me as “friend” because it takes a lot to earn my trust as friend. His analogies accomplish their goal of illustrating points in a thorough way. I feel Bottaro is walking us down a well-worn path, one he knows well. There are certain analogies and explanations therapists will use again and again. He makes it clear he practices (and needs) this thing of mindfulness he preaches.
#MINDFUL CATHOLIC PROFESSIONAL#
Throughout the book, we gradually learn who Bottaro is, some of his habits (he hates traffic), about his wife’s labor and delivery (she is amazing) and in the chapter on acceptance, about the tragic circumstances this young professional faced in his family. He defined himself as ‘I am who am.’ God sees all as a present moment, and it is our goal to see as he sees.”īottaro introduces himself and his credentials to the reader. For example, “Mindfulness is awareness of the present moment, God is the present moment. For those Christians uncomfortable with now-common practices that have their origin in Eastern spirituality, Bottaro astutely defends a unique Christian tradition behind the mindfulness practice.īecause he draws from a tradition deeper than his own concepts his writing has layers of depth a reader could spend hours contemplating. This approach is the foundation and strengthens everything he has to say. Bottaro draws from a Catholic theological and philosophical tradition, described most thoroughly in the Catholic-Christian Meta-Model of the Person (CCMMP). If someone is a materialist, believing we are just bodies without a spiritual component, the foundation will not stand. While the title says “Catholic” the meaning comes in through a Christian worldview of what makes a person human. The theology is sound and used to a purpose. I think “The Mindful Catholic” may be one of the best non-fiction books I have read. Overwhelmed, my life feels cluttered and fractured and never quite enough.
It feels like time and schedules drag me along, especially on the weekends. Coming to Chapter Four, “Telling Ourselves Stories,” I felt he was speaking to me. My life is no longer the slow pace of waiting for my baby to wake up, but a wide array of choices I can make. Gregory Bottaro’s book, “The Mindful Catholic,” and thought first, “this could be helpful for my writing” and then, second and more sheepishly, “I probably need that.” It is a self-help book, a how-to book in the practice of mindfulness, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. Previously published in the Hughson Chronicle-Denair Dispatch.
0 kommentar(er)
