The Heroic Minute Challenge: Day 5 Preparing For the Heroic Minute the Night Before

I blew it this morning. My alarm was set for the “fixed time” of 6:00AM, and I woke up exhausted. Without even thinking, I immediately hit the snooze button. After the first snooze rang, I re-set the alarm for 6:30AM and rolled over for a few more minutes of restless sleep. Laying there attempting to sleep, I started thinking about what was going wrong. The conclusion I came to was that the Heroic Minute does not begin when the alarm rings, it actually begins the night before. Last night, I was blessed to give a teaching on Pope John Paul II and the Gift of Mercy (more on JPII’s Heroic Minute to come) to a local women’s group. Both tired and wired from the evening, the long drive, and the large Diet Coke, I lay in bed, poked around on Facebook for a while and finally dropped off to sleep, about three hours after my normal bedtime and with no night prayers of any kind said. Starting to see something wrong with this picture?  I sure am….Nearly a week into this challenge I am finally beginning to see clearly that the Heroic Minute is about so much more than just the first moment of the day.  Living out the Heroic Minute in the morning must flow out of a lifestyle of living out little heroic minutes throughout the day. I did not set myself up for success this morning, because I failed to prepare adequately the night before. Here are ideas for developing a night-time routine that sets the stage for the Heroic Minute….Examination of Conscience…St. Josemarie Escriva writes extensively about the importance of a nightly examination of conscience and the perils of not performing one. Not sure what this entails? It is really simple – an examination of conscience is an honest