Calm Your Heart

So today's Gospel was the classic Beatitudes, and God told me to "Calm my heart"?

For the first time today, I prayed what I will always be praying at every Sunday Mass: "God, show me one way in this Mass that I can become a better-version-of-myself this week!" I guess He wants me to be a little more prepared within myself before I receive the deeper meanings of the Liturgy of the Word. That's fine with me. In fact, I completely understand.

Those that know me know that I talk a lot. I used to say that I love to talk, but after 35-years I've been realizing that the "gift" of gab can frequently be a reliability. With this new-found deeper prayer life, I know that I need to listen as much as I talk to God - if not more. Of course, what came to me was to calm my heart, not my lips, so I am interested in how having a calm heart affect my voice. I have a loving heart, I just need to get out of its way.

So please pray for me as I contemplate what the Lord has said to me in this Sunday's Mass.

Yes, I've Changed Things a Little

To my four faithful followers that are still here despite my lack of posting:

I started "Zach's Bicycle Commuting" because I wanted to begin blogging, and wanted a subject to write about. At the time, I was hugely inspired about riding a bicycle to work, and decided to write about my own adventures.

Well, my "adventures" consist of riding just over seven miles on a highway with a wide shoulder through cotton fields. To me, it really is one of the best commutes ever, just short of riding on a path designed just for bikes. Unfortunately, my commute is pretty uneventful, so I didn't have much to write about.

I also realized that in order to maintain a regular blog that you can be proud of, you have to be deeply invested in your topic. As much as I like riding my bike to work, I obviously slacked on it, mostly because I've been too lazy to fix the flat on my Xtracycle and haven't gotten a presta adapter for my Swobo. It's kind of sad, so I decided to start writing about something I'm a little more dedicated to.

Enter "One Thing I Learned at Mass"

I converted to Catholicism in 2008 and my relationship with my Creator has skyrocketed ever since. After recently making a Cursillo, I have rededicated myself towards doing work that God has called me to do. I am almost finished reading Matthew Kelly's Rediscover Catholicism and have decided to take on his challenge of asking God at each Sunday Mass to show me one way that I can be a better-version-of-myself. My plan is to post that one thing each week (God willing) and hopefully write about it a little bit.

So I just wanted to explain to you why this blog resembles nothing like a bicycle commuting blog anymore. This post will also serve as a cheap "About Me" page until I have the time to write one. I won't be promoting this site until I get in the habit of posting regularly and do all the extra things like posting a picture, writing a real "About Me" page, and finding some recommended blogs. However, I believe that if you're reading this post shortly after it's been published, you have an interest in my blog and I owe it to you to tell you what's going on.

Of course I hope that you stick around. After all, one of the main purposes of this blog will be a weekly report on how the Lord makes me a better-version-of-myself each and every day. If He can do that for me, he can do that for anyone - trust me.