Following is my column that appears in the current print edition of The Catholic Post.
Years ago, in a column here, I told the story I love about St. Charles Borremeo, the16th century saint and archbishop.
The story goes that he was playing cards with two priest friends. Someone near them asked what they would do if they knew the end of the world were to happen within an hour.
One priest said, “I would run to Church to be with our Lord.” The other priest said, “I would call upon the name of the Lord.”
St. Charles Borromeo said, “I would finish this game of cards.”
A few years ago, thinking of that was a nice reminder that if one’s life is well-ordered, whatever we are doing at the moment can be the right thing.
But thinking of that story during our extraordinary times is another thing.
Right now we see our world—not end, perhaps, but change in dramatic and enduring ways.
It is normal and even healthy to have genuine worries and concerns about what the coronavirus means for our families, our health care system and our world in the coming weeks and months.
But at the same time, we all would do well to pray (on repeat) the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
How do we achieve—or renew—that serenity? Many saints and other holy people struggled with distractions (think St. Therese of Lisieux) or “wandering of the mind” (St. Teresa of Avila), so those of us who do so as well are in good company.
We are fortunate that in our Catholic faith offers so many opportunities to reflect on beautiful things, from mysteries of the Rosary to Scripture to holy art. But what is a way to improve our attention to the present moment so we can focus on those?
A new book, The Mindful Catholic: Finding God One Moment at a Time, (and a companion children’s picture book) used evidence-based research to improve mindfulness and attention for the reader, from a Catholic perspective.
“The Mindful Catholic,” written by Dr. Gregory Bottaro, a clinical psychologist and director of the Catholic Psych Institute, is a helpful resource that demonstrates how mindfulness practiced from a Catholic perspective can be spiritually and psychologically fruitful. That is especially helpful in these unprecedented times.
“(M)indfulness does not mean turning off the thoughts in your mind, but using them a a door to greater awareness of yourself.”
-Dr. Gregory Bottaro, The Mindful Catholic
This quote shows one of the ways that Catholic mindfulness is vastly different from Eastern-based forms of meditation. The latter often instructs people to “empty” their minds. As Catholics, “we want to fill our minds with reality,” says Bottaro.
Practicing mindfulness is what actually changes a person’s brain, so the book offers exercises at the end of each chapter for readers to use to exercises and meditations.
Practicing mindfulness is what actually changes a person’s brain, so the book offers exercises at the end of each chapter for readers to use to exercises and meditations.
Surely I am not the only person whose mind wanders during a Rosary, Mass, or another prayer. Rather than getting frustrated with this wandering or “autopilot” mode, mindfulness allows for awareness of this, and tips to practice mindfulness.
Dr. Bottaro explains often that acceptance is key to encountering mindfulness—not fighting against our thoughts but having curiosity, and gently turning our thoughts back to what we intend, such as prayers that we are.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church even addresses distraction in prayer and how that “turning back” is a key part of prayer:
“The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. It can affect words and their meaning in vocal prayer; it can concern, more profoundly, him to whom we are praying, in vocal prayer (liturgical or personal), meditation, and contemplative prayer. To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart.”
–Catechism of the Catholic Church 2729
The Mindful Catholic is full of research and other information about why mindfulness—“paying attention the present moment, without judgment or criticism” is so healthy for humans, and how God made us this way. Bottaro also offers exercises to practice every day to increase a readers ability in this area.
One phrase Dr. Bottaro repeats often and encourages readers to adopt, is “Ever-present God, here with me now, help me to be here with you.”
I have found both the written book and the audio book very helpful in different aspects of practicing mindfulness, and being aware of my thoughts without fighting them, as well as staying in the present moment.
Peter Kreeft, the prolific Catholic author and philosophy professor at Boston College, wrote the foreward. In his characteristic sensible style, he endorses the book as a way to help focus on prayer. “You can’t focus on God if you can’t focus,” Kreeft writes, and he is right.
The Mindful Catholic also includes two appendices—one an exploration of how mindfulness is eminently consistent with our Catholic faith & practice, of a Novena of Surrender to the Will of God.
There is also a companion book for children. It’s called, Sitting Like a Saint: Catholic Mindfulness with Kids, and Bottaro and his wife Linda—also a psychologist— co-authored this work. The book explores mindfulness helps kids to be calm even in the midst of chaos.
What I love best about this book is it really provides easy, bite-sized meditations for families to read through and pray to help calm and . Even though we do not have any little kids any more, both teens and adults at our house have found these brief reflections both calming and meditative as a precursor to prayer, or just to be a calming interlude in our day.