Best Advent Calendar Ever...

What Are You Waiting For? The BustedHalo® Daily Jolt Advent Calendar has arrived and is chock full of great advent quotes surrounding the theme of waiting.

The reality for most of us however is that Advent simply becomes the anxious weeks of shopping and holiday planning that precede Christmas Day. In the bustle of the holiday season, it is usually difficult to keep in mind what we are actually waiting for before Christmas. While many of us won’t be able to completely avoid the Christmas onslaught, it is still possible to maintain some connection to the spiritual foundation of the season. Our 2009 Advent Surprise Calendar is based on our popular Daily Jolt feature in which we offer readers a small bit of contemplation/inspiration and couple it with a “microChallenge” that encourages them to put these spiritual moments into action in their daily lives.

In traditional Advent Calendars, children open different calendar windows throughout the season to reveal special surprises. Busted Halo’s® Advent Calendar combines that sense of surprise with the opportunity for reflection and action found in our Daily Jolt feature the rest of the year.

Daily reflection, action and prizes
Each day of Advent, the calendar will open a new link to a chance at winning a great prize, an opportunity for reflection and a microChallenge. Like our Daily Jolt, the reflections chosen for the Advent Calendar come from some very unlikely sources, and the microChallenges help you to act on your spiritual inspiration in simple — usually very small — ways you’d probably never considered.

So check it out and come back each day to try to win something great.

Ever Consider Doing a Year-Long Service Program?

Many young (and not so young) people offer their lives in service for a year or so to various organizations who serve the needs of the world. For those who might be interested in exploring that as an option, go to the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service website and check out the various offerings that they have gathered there for you.

Most importantly, think about your own gifts and talents and what you might have to offer someone else. For those thinking of plans after graduation, this is a great opportunity to make yourself more attractive to potential future employees. Many human resource directors report a vast difference between those who have had an experience of giving long-term service and those that have not. One notes: "The young people who have done a year-long service program are smarter, more interesting and better prepared for the working world than those who are not."

For those looking at Graduate School the same can be said there. Your experience of doing this kind of work makes you more attractive to employers and keeps you better grounded in the values and beliefs that you wish to express in this work.

Most importantly, it provides you with the chance to meet Jesus in the poor. While giving service it's often interesting just how much we receive from those who we encounter and serve. We get back far more than what we give.

So consider a year-long commitment of service. You won't regret it for a second!

What does "Hooking Up" Mean to You?

Our friends at my old stomping grounds, BustedHalo.com® have shared this story with us and have a survey to go along with it that asks the question "What does 'Hooking Up' mean to you?"

Dr Christine Whelan asks the question more directly:

As a young professor at a big university, I’m able to talk to my students about rather personal issues like hooking up, relationships and sex. In one class, I asked students to diagram, on a large whiteboard, the evolution of a relationship — from first meeting to marriage. This was a fascinating exercise, and highlighted one key challenge in the dating game for young adults: “Hook-ups” are very common, but no group of college students can agree on exactly what the term means.

Studies tell us that more than half of college relationships begin with a hook-up. Translation: Before two college students have a dinner date, a meaningful conversation or even exchange phone numbers, there’s a good chance of a hook-up.

But what is a hook-up?

Does hooking up mean smooching? Some intense making-out? Maybe some hands wandering? Or does it mean sex? And what are the emotional expectations surrounding a hook-up?

Back in my day (I graduated from college in 1999, so a while ago, but not eons in social change terms), if a friend told me she’d hooked up with a cute guy the night before, I’d have assumed they made-out, maybe a bit more, but certainly not had sexual intercourse. Today, some of my students tell me that hooking up usually means sex — or “at least” oral sex — while others say just kissing can be considered a “hook-up” as well.

And it’s this ambiguity that causes problems.

So what does hooking up mean to you? Take the survey here and let BustedHalo know.

Tomorrow night: Candlelight Evening Meditation

Stressed out?

Need a break?

Looking for some peace in your life?

Take just one hour this week and join us for a Candlelight Evening Meditation. We'll do one guided meditation and simply sit in the quiet of the chapel. A brief introduction to centering prayer will begin the evening.

Where: St Joseph's University Church (in the parish center chapel)
Day and Time: Wed Nov 11 @7PM
More info: Email mike.hayes@stjosephbuffalo.com

RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184587829864&index=1

Refreshments to follow!

Out of the Haze: Reflection for Sunday Nov 8: The Widow's Mite

Each week we'll post several reflections on the scriptures. The ones I do we'll call Out of the Haze and here is the first one.

Who is St Joseph Anyway?

Fr James Martin, SJ tells us who the patron of our parish is:

The Welcoming Prayer

As the stressful time of midterms continues for some of you, one might be looking for an opportunity to de-stress from all the pressures that ensues with exams. Over at BustedHalo.com®, (the internet magazine I founded before heading North and West to be with you here at UB South) Phil Fox Rose has a great article today on what he terms the welcoming prayer. Want to get rid of stress? Phil says one needs to get in touch with it first.

I want to share with you a little method with a big impact: the Welcoming Prayer. This unassuming little method has helped me many times. What’s your first impulse when you have a “bad” feeling? If you’re like me, it’s usually to suppress it. But we all know that doesn’t work. What you focus on sticks around. This is one of the big lessons you learn through meditation. If you try to suppress a thought, it becomes your entire focus. Worse than before.

But while a regular meditation practice can inculcate a balanced relationship with your feelings and emotions, with the serenity that comes from that, sometimes you need help now, in the field. You can’t exactly sit down on the sidewalk and start meditating. (Though there may very well be a church nearby.)

And sometimes, you’re too caught up in the thoughts that are swirling around a negative emotion, and meditation just seems impossible. I encourage you to meditate anyway in those situations, but if you want some extra help, the Welcoming Prayer might help.

Palmer: How do you do it — block out fear?
Gibbs: You don’t. It’s what you do with it.

— NCIS

You’ve heard all the axioms about going through rather than around problems. Well, the Welcoming Prayer is a method for doing this with bad feelings. The basic idea is that when you are experiencing a negative feeling, you don’t pray for it to go away, you welcome it. Let’s say you are feeling fearful. You literally say to yourself, “Welcome, fear.”

You don’t detach from it. You get to know it.

Read more here and then take 10 minutes today to notice what feelings you have when you are stressed and welcome them, recognize those feelings next time and know that it's not that big a deal once it becomes familiar and that you will get past it.

And if you want to take some intentional time for de-stressing and prayer: join us on Tuesday@ Noon for the rosary (we'll teach you if you don't know how to do the rosary) or Wednesday night for our Candlelight Meditation.

And if that's not enough--come veg out with us on Sunday at 5:30P when we watch the movie Once.