I just came across a great idea in my "In Conversation with God" book. It is called "the day on guard". The idea here is that you pick one day a week where you devote yourself to "be more vibrant in charity, with many simple services to all, with small mortifications that make life more pleasant for others; a day in which to ask ourselves whether we help those who need it with fraternal correction; a day in which to have more frequent recourse to Mary...saying the Rosary or perhaps the Memorare, praying to her for the person we know needs some special help at that moment."
I've been trying to think of ways that we can work on increasing charity in our home. It just galls me when I hear my kids yelling and snapping at each other over the silliest of things (gee, I wonder where they get it from??). I've been trying to point out more frequently an alternative way of asking for something or of asking someone to do or not do something (i.e. asking them to stop hitting you instead of slugging them back), but that doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I've also thought that it is kind of tough to always remember to be charitable , so I've been looking for a way that would be easy to follow but would actually work. I think I have found it!
Hopefully by taking one whole day a week and focusing on others instead of ourselves, we can increase the virtue of charity in our home. It might be easier than trying to remember to be more charitable every day, but at the same time, a day is long enough to have many opportunities to focus on others. The neat thing is that we have five children who would be capable of understanding this plus myself and my husband, so that makes seven - one person for each day of the week!
The only thing I'm worried about is picking my day and then having that be the toughest day of the week. We've been through this before where we offered up one day a week for an organization we belonged to and it always ended up being the toughest day of the week. I'm sure this will be no exception. I mean, after all, if being charitable was easy, we would already be doing it! I'll let you know later if it seems to be working!
God Bless!
