{"id":583,"date":"2013-03-25T22:35:52","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T22:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gooddaysbaddays\/?p=583"},"modified":"2016-03-18T18:17:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T18:17:37","slug":"moments-of-holy-in-holy-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2013\/03\/moments-of-holy-in-holy-week.html","title":{"rendered":"Moments of &#8220;Holy&#8221; in Holy Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lent is almost over, and soon we will be raising our voices to celebrate Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord, and a renewed sense of faith and optimism. In these last days of Lent, I find myself doubling up my efforts to keep this time as holy as possible; after all, we are in &#8220;Holy Week.&#8221; But it&#8217;s hard to ignore the bunnies and chocolate, the spring and Easter sales, and the pent-up energy that is fast-approaching spring fever, even for those who are buried under more than a foot of newly fallen snow!<\/p>\n<p>How, then, to keep this week in perspective with the events to occur Thursday, Friday and this weekend?<\/p>\n<p>It could be hard to devote long stretches of time to prayer and reflection, especially as this is, for many, an abbreviated school and work week with much to &#8220;pack in&#8221; to Mon-Wed. So, I think and try to act in moments. Moments of looking up from the keyboard (as I did just before typing this sentence). Moments of reading a passage or two from one of the gospels (Matthew is my preference these days). Moments of listening &#8211; to the wind, to a praiseful song, to the stillness in the world (a blessing midday in the city!).<\/p>\n<p>More moments is better than no time focused on the holiness in this week. In these snips and pieces of hours, we prepare for the events we commemorate later this week, and the powerful emotions that accompany them. And in this preparation, we become more wholey holy &#8211; for nothing we do to deepen our spirituality ever goes to waste.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Blessings for the day,<\/p>\n<p>Maureen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lent is almost over, and soon we will be raising our voices to celebrate Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord, and a renewed sense of faith and optimism. In these last days of Lent, I find myself doubling up my efforts to keep this time as holy as possible; after all, we are in &#8220;Holy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,4,418,83],"tags":[478,474,477,476,479,387,96,90,475],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-encouragement-in-life","category-words-of-encouragemnent-and-info-for-all","category-lent-2013","category-scripture-and-us","tag-easter","tag-focus","tag-good-friday","tag-holy-thursday","tag-holy-week","tag-lent","tag-prayer","tag-scripture","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Moments of &quot;Holy&quot; in Holy Week - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2013\/03\/moments-of-holy-in-holy-week.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moments of &quot;Holy&quot; in Holy Week - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lent is almost over, and soon we will be raising our voices to celebrate Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord, and a renewed sense of faith and optimism. 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She expected to be writing scripts. God had other plans. A few years after her graduation, Maureen was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of organ-involved lupus. Her life turned upside down as she grappled with the effects of the illness and other health conditions that ensued. She was no stranger to serious health challenges; even as a child, Maureen had survived numerous bouts of pneumonia, flu, and other infections. But lupus made her take a fresh look at her life goals - and took herlifelong, strong Catholic Christian faith and writing in a direction she'd never imagined. Today, Maureen writes and speaks about walking with the Lord while living with chronic pain and illness. Her most recent book is \"Don't Panic!: How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough (Franciscan Media). She is also the author of, \"Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain &amp; Illness\" (Image Books\/Randomhouse), \"Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy\" (Twenty-Third Publications), \"The First Year: Hypothyroidism, Second Edition\" (Perseus) and \"Taking Charge of Lupus: How to Manage the Disease and Make the Most of Your LIfe.\" She writes the syndicated column, \"Living Well,\" for Catholic News Service, and has also written for Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine, Journey for Women Magazine, The Upper Room Magazine, LupusNow, and Arthritis Today. Maureen's health continues to be a challenge, however she feels honored to be able to bring her perspective, from experience and knowledge, to others. \"Good Days...Bad Days with Maureen Pratt\" is a new way for Maureen to reach people who carry the burden of illness and pain in their lives, or who care for someone who does. Through the blog, she hopes to bring issues of health, wellness, and spirit into focus and, especially, inspire others that, no matter what health challenges, illness, or hardships they endure, each person can find a good way to realize the wonderful potential God has placed within each heart and soul.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.maureenpratt.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/author\/mpratt"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1991,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/1991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}