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Welcome to Friday Focus!

Welcome to Friday Focus, my weekly letter from PAX Renewal Center. I’m glad you’re here, whether you’ve been reading for years or just found your way to this little corner of your inbox.

November has arrived, and with it the shorter days and softer light that invite us to slow down. This week’s letter is about traveling light: slowing down, and setting down what we were never meant to carry. I’m lingering with two books instead of hurrying on to a new one. St. John reminds us that God makes His home in us, and Peter Kreeft invites us to listen for God in both creation and Scripture. In this Year of St. Francis, we hear his wise counsel about letting go of other people’s faults instead of storing them up like treasure. For couples, you’ll find this month’s brand-new conversation prompts on gratitude in ordinary days, along with a reflection on the old hurts we carry in marriage, and what St. Francis can teach us about setting them down. And we’ll close by looking up, where a slender crescent moon greets Venus before dawn and a New Moon brings the darkest skies of the month.

As always, I hope something here brings you a little more peace to carry into the weekend.

Dan Jurek contributed to this week’s newsletter

What I’m Still Reading

I’m sharing these two books again this week, for two reasons. First, I find myself reading more slowly these days. I stop more often and linger over the ideas and lines that stir something in me. Second, they’re both really good books.

Live Like Francis: Reflections on Franciscan Life in the World by Jovian Weigel, OFM, and Leonard Foley, OFM. I’m still praying through this book, one section each week. As a Secular Franciscan, I keep coming back to one simple calling: to put the Gospel into action right where I am. And Francis keeps challenging me to begin again, to see the world in front of me as a place still full of possibility, growth, and change. I’d still love to offer it as a guided book study next year.

Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. I first read this book more than 25 years ago, and I’m reading it now with new eyes. Moore, a psychotherapist who once lived as a Catholic monk, writes about caring for the soul right in the middle of everyday life, by paying attention to meaning, connection, and purpose. This time around, he is speaking to me differently, and more deeply, than he did the first time.

A Free Resource for Couples

November Conversation Prompts

This month’s new conversation prompts are all about gratitude, the quiet kind that grows in ordinary days. Over four weeks, you’ll be invited to notice the small routines you’d miss if they disappeared, to thank each other for the little acts of care that are so easy to overlook, and to gather your thanks together as Thanksgiving draws near. Pick a question over morning coffee, on the drive home, or while you do the dishes side by side. Take turns listening, and let a simple thank you be enough.

Download your free October Conversation Prompts here.

A Passage From Sacred Scripture

“We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. When anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.”

~ 1 John 4:14-15

For reflection: St. John tells us that God makes His home in us, and we in Him. Where have you sensed that Presence this week? And how might it change the way you look at and speak to the person you share your home with?

In This Year of St. Francis:

The Treasure We Don’t Need to Keep

Francis left his brothers a collection of short teachings called the Admonitions. In the eleventh, he names something every family knows well: how easily we hold on to someone else’s wrong. For Francis, living “poorly” meant claiming nothing as our own, not even our grievances.

“No matter how someone else sins, if you let yourself be upset or angered over it, except for charity’s sake, you store up for yourself, like a treasure, the sin of the other. But, servant of God, if you do not become angry or indignant over someone else, you are living justly and poorly. That is, without claiming anything for your own.”

~ St. Francis of Assisi, Admonition 11

A Quote Worth Reflecting On

“Nature reveals God’s mind and imagination, and Scripture reveals God’s heart and will.”

~ Peter Kreeft

For reflection: Christians have long spoken of God writing two books, creation and Scripture. Which one have you been reading lately? What might happen if you carried a few lines of Scripture outside this week and read them slowly under an open sky?

A Heartfelt Message For Couples

A 2-Day Marriage Intensive with Dan 

Traveling Light

Anyone who has climbed a mountain trail with a heavy pack knows the feeling. At the trailhead, an extra pound or two doesn’t seem to matter. By the third switchback, every ounce has a voice. That’s why seasoned hikers ask one simple question before they set out: What do I really need to carry?

Marriage asks the same question.

Most of us never set out to keep score. It happens a little at a time. A forgotten promise gets tucked away. A sharp word gets saved for later. Before long, “You always…” and “You never…” start to sound like evidence in a case we’ve been quietly building for years. We carry a pack full of old hurts up every hill, and then wonder why the climb feels so steep.

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis noticed the same thing among his brothers. If we let ourselves stay upset over someone else’s wrong, he wrote, “you store up for yourself, like a treasure, the sin of the other.” What a striking image. The wrong was theirs. But the moment we hoard it, it becomes ours to carry.

I see this often in my work with couples. Dr. John Gottman describes something he calls “negative sentiment override.” When hurts pile up without repair, even neutral moments start to look like proof of the problem. A simple “Did you pay the electric bill?” lands like an accusation, because it’s being heard through years of stored-up pain.

Letting go doesn’t mean pretending a hurt never happened, or accepting what is harmful. Some wounds need to be named, talked through, and truly repaired, and that is good and holy work. But there is a difference between healing a hurt and hoarding it.

One Step for This Week

Take a quiet look inside your own pack. Is there an old grievance you keep bringing up, or replaying in your mind? Choose one small thing to set down. When things are calm, you might tell your spouse, “I’ve been holding on to this, and I’m ready to let it go.” Or you might lay it down in prayer, and the next time it tugs at you, simply whisper, “Lord, I give this one back to You.” Where focus goes, energy flows.

A Final Thought

Some packs have grown too heavy to unpack alone. If the hurts between you have been piling up for years, please don’t lose heart. It doesn’t mean your marriage is over. It may simply mean it’s time to stop, set the pack down together, and sort through it with a guide beside you.

You were never meant to carry all of it up the mountain.

A Gift to Give Each Other Before Christmas

Advent begins on November 29, and soon after come the parties, the travel, and the crowded family tables. If the thought of all that togetherness already has you bracing yourselves, it may be a gentle nudge to tend your marriage first. The Covenant Repair Intensive™ sets aside two unhurried days for just the two of you to understand what keeps pulling you apart and begin finding your way back. Imagine walking into Christmas with a lighter load and more room in your hearts for each other. Let’s talk. No pressure. Just a conversation.

Schedule your free 20-minute consultation

And as always, you can email me at dan@paxrenewalcenter.com. I read every message.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Night Sky for November 6-12

Sister Moon slips quietly out of sight this week. Before dawn on Saturday, a hair-thin crescent pays one last visit to Venus, the Morning Star. By Monday, she has disappeared into the Sun’s glow at the New Moon, leaving us the darkest skies of the month. Then, by Thursday evening, she is back again, a slender new crescent starting her journey all over. Even the moon knows the grace of beginning again.

✨ Key Highlights (Central Standard Time)

Friday, November 6 (before dawn): About 45 minutes before sunrise, look low in the east-southeast for brilliant Venus, with a slim crescent moon a little more than a fist’s width (at arm’s length) to its upper right. Binoculars will show Spica, Virgo’s brightest star, just beside Venus. Today also marks the midpoint of autumn.

Saturday, November 7 (before dawn): The loveliest sight of the week. A hair-thin crescent moon, only 3 percent lit, gathers with Venus and Spica in a tight little group that fits easily in binoculars. It’s the closest these three will gather between 2021 and 2036. You’ll need a clear, flat view of the east-southeast horizon about 45 minutes before sunrise. Look for earthshine, the soft glow on the moon’s darkened side, and put the binoculars away before the sun comes up.

Monday, November 9: New Moon (1:02 a.m.). The darkest skies of the month. Before dawn, Venus and Spica sit at their closest, only about a degree apart. If you can get away from city lights in the evenings around the New Moon, look high overhead for the faint, misty glow of the Andromeda Galaxy.

All week (before dawn): Reddish Mars keeps closing in on brilliant Jupiter, high in the south-southeast about an hour before sunrise, with Regulus, the heart of Leo the Lion, nearby. On Monday, Mars sits a little less than three degrees from Jupiter. By Thursday, the gap has shrunk to under two degrees, and all three fit together in binoculars. The two planets finally pass each other on Monday, November 16.

All week (evening): Saturn is the lone bright planet of the evening. An hour after sunset, look about a third of the way up the east-southeast sky for the brightest starlike point in that part of the sky. It reaches its highest point in the south a few hours later, and even a small telescope will show its rings.

Wednesday night into Thursday morning, November 11 to 12: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks. It’s a gentle shower, about five meteors an hour, but Taurids are slow and sometimes strikingly bright fireballs. The thin young moon sets early in the evening, so the hours after midnight stay beautifully dark. Taurus rides highest a little after midnight.

Thursday, November 12 (evening): Sister Moon returns. About 45 minutes after sunset, look low in the southwest, about a fist’s width above the horizon, for a slender crescent sitting right at the tip of the Teapot’s spout in Sagittarius. Look for earthshine on its darkened side.

Looking ahead: From November 13 to 22, Mercury joins Venus, Mars, and Jupiter for a four-planet lineup before dawn. Mars and Jupiter pass each other on Monday, November 16, and the Leonid meteor shower peaks the night of November 17 to 18.

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of Earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without, we cannot survive.”

~ Hildegard of Bingen

Clinician Spotlight

Dan Jurek

For more than four decades, Dan Jurek has sat with couples and individuals who arrive weighed down by old hurts, some carried so long they’ve forgotten how heavy they are. With St. Francis, he has come to see that what we hold against one another quietly holds us, and that setting it down is often where peace begins. He has also learned not to hurry. Whether he is lingering over a well-loved book, walking a mountain trail, or sitting with a couple in the counseling room, Dan trusts that grace does its deepest work at an unhurried pace, one small turn at a time.

“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home any who have lost their way.”

~ St. Francis of Assisi

These words are more than inspiration. They are the mission that shapes everything Dan does. Rooted in Catholic faith and grounded in decades of clinical practice, he brings warmth, wisdom, and professional depth to every encounter, meeting each person exactly where they are.

Daniel Jurek, M.Min., M.A., LPC-S, LMFT, AAMFT Clinical Fellow, and Certified Spiritual Director through the Archdiocese of New Orleans Spirituality Center, is trained in the Gottman Method, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Imago Relationship Therapy, and Attachment Theory. He serves couples, individuals, and fellow therapists through marriage intensives, retreats, clinical supervision, and continuing education.

Contact us today to make an appointment with Dan! 

Blessings,

Dan and the Clinical Team at PAX Renewal Center