Advent Watching

Advent reflection by: Blessed John Henry Newman
Do you know the feeling in matters of this life, of expecting a friend, expecting him to come, and he delays? Do you know what it is to be in unpleasant company, and to wish for the time to pass away, and the hour strike when you may be at liberty? Do you know what it is to be in anxiety lest something should happen which may happen or may not, or to be in suspense about some important event, which makes your heart beat when you are reminded of it, and of which you think the first thing in the morning? Do you know what it is to have a friend in a distant country, to expect news of him, and to wonder from day to day what he is now doing, and whether he is well? Do you know what it is so to live upon a person who is present with you, that your eyes follow his, that you read his soul, that you see all its changes in his countenance, that you anticipate his wishes, that you smile in his smile, and are sad in his sadness, and are downcast when he is vexed, and rejoice in his successes? To watch for Christ is a feeling such as all these; as far as feelings of this world are fit to shadow out those of another.

He watches for Christ who has a sensitive, eager, apprehensive mind; who is awake, alive, quick-sighted, zealous in seeking and honouring Him; who looks out for Him in all that happens, and who would not be surprised, who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed, if he found that He was coming at once.

And he watches with Christ, who, while he looks on to the future, looks back on the past, and does not so contemplate what his Saviour has purchased for him, as to forget what He has suffered for him. He watches with Christ, who ever commemorates and renews in his own person Christ's Cross and Agony, and gladly takes up that mantle of affliction which Christ wore here, and left behind Him when he ascended. And hence in the Epistles, often as the inspired writers show their desire for His second coming, as often do they show their memory of His first, and never lose sight of His Crucifixion in His Resurrection. Thus if St. Paul reminds the Romans that they "wait for the redemption of the body" at the Last Day, he also says, "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." If he speaks to the Corinthians of "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," he also speaks of "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." If to the Philippians of "the power of His resurrection," he adds at once "and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." If he consoles the Colossians with the hope "when Christ shall appear," of their "appearing with Him in glory," he has already declared that he "fills up that which remains of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." [Rom. viii. 17-28. 1 Cor. i. 7. 2 Cor. iv. 10. Phil. iii. 10. Col. iii. 4; i. 24.] Thus the thought of what Christ is, must not obliterate from the mind the thought of what He was; and faith is always sorrowing with Him while it rejoices. And the same union of opposite thoughts is impressed on us in Holy Communion, in which we see Christ's death and resurrection together, at one and the same time; we commemorate the one, we rejoice in the other; we make an offering, and we gain a blessing.

This then is to watch; to be detached from what is present, and to live in what is unseen; to live in the thought of Christ as He came once, and as He will come again; to desire His second coming, from our affectionate and grateful remembrance of His first. And this it is, in which we shall find that men in general are wanting. They are indeed without faith and love also; but at least they profess to have these graces, nor is it easy to convince them that they have not. For they consider they have faith, if they do but own that the Bible came from God, or that they trust wholly in Christ for salvation; and they consider they have love if they obey some of the most obvious of God's commandments. Love and faith they think they have; but surely they do not even fancy that they watch. What is meant by watching, and how it is a duty, they have no definite idea; and thus it accidentally happens that watching is a suitable test of a Christian, in that it is that particular property of faith and love, which, essential as it is, men of this world do not even profess; that particular property, which is the life or energy of faith and love, the way in which faith and love, if genuine, show themselves . . .

. . . Year passes after year silently; Christ's coming is ever nearer than it was. O that, as He comes nearer earth, we may approach nearer heaven! O, my brethren, pray Him to give you the heart to seek Him in sincerity. Pray Him to make you in earnest. You have one work only, to bear your cross after Him. Resolve in His strength to do so. Resolve to be no longer beguiled by "shadows of religion," by words, or by disputings, or by notions, or by high professions, or by excuses, or by the world's promises or threats. Pray Him to give you what Scripture calls "an honest and good heart," or "a perfect heart," and, without waiting, begin at once to obey Him with the best heart you have. Any obedience is better than none,-any profession which is disjoined from obedience, is a mere pretence and deceit. Any religion which does not bring you nearer to God is of the world. You have to seek His face; obedience is the only way of seeking Him. All your duties are obediences. If you are to believe the truths He has revealed, to regulate yourselves by His precepts, to be frequent in His ordinances, to adhere to His Church and people, why is it, except because He has bid you? and to do what He bids is to obey Him, and to obey Him is to approach Him. Every act of obedience is an approach,-an approach to Him who is not far off, though He seems so, but close behind this visible screen of things which hides Him from us. He is behind this material framework; earth and sky are but a veil going between Him and us; the day will come when He will rend that veil, and show Himself to us. And then, according as we have waited for Him, will He recompense us. If we have forgotten Him, He will not know us; but "blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching ... He shall gird Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if He shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants," [Luke xii. 37, 38.] May this be the portion of every one of us! It is hard to attain it; but it is woeful to fail. Life is short; death is certain; and the world to come is everlasting.

Loss

"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them". -- Leo Tolstoy 


Wow, loss is so hard! There are all sorts of loss...the loss through death, the loss of a friendship, relationship and also the loss of a dream. How hard it is to lose anything that the heart has invested anything in.  I think that is the main reason why loss is so hard, the heart has lost it's investment..or has it? I think that is the illusion of loss.  When I think of loss of think of the fact that if I hurt at all from it, it is only because I had put some sort of something in it. Whatever that may be--love, expectation, hope, etc. I guess for me I feel that no matter what I lose, I never really lose. 


My experience with loss has been great.  I have mostly seen people come and go into my life and have experienced a few deaths as well. What I found is that with every circumstance I feared going into the relationship or experience; the fear I had was, what if I don't get to keep what I have been given? What if all I hoped for is lost and I am left empty handed?  On the flip side of that picture is this--what if at the end of each of these experiences and even during them, I have something to learn about myself? What if making this investment of time, love, energy, etc helps me to become less selfish? What if this person, place, situation, etc is the gateway to my happiness? what if it is the thing before "The Thing!"  


The reality is that when I am in these situations I cannot, and sometimes even refuse to see, the above possibilities.  Why? Because I am unwilling to trust that what God has for me is better than what I can see for myself in that very moment.  What loss brings forth within us is suffering--suffering is contained in loss to draw us back to God.  He uses everything to bring us back to Himself...He desires that we desire Him alone! 


The image that comes to mind is a road-- The people you do meet along the way either get to walk with you or are your guide to the path that God longs for you to take.  It reminds me of a staircase--each stair is important for the journey to be completed--but each stair must be left so that you can reach your goal.  Sometimes we stop to sit down and rest, but each stair lifts us up and carries us further and further along the journey that we are called to walk in this life!! 


Loss has never been easy for me.  In fact I have fought a long hard battle with the Lord to keep everything that I receive from Him!! haha!  Yet what he has taught me is that the people he sends me are gifts--whether they be family or friends! They are all there to serve a purpose in my life. Whether that purpose be for wounds to be healed or virtue to be built etc. Holding on to them would have prolonged all that God had to do in my life. He allows us these losses to show us what we are made of and what we need to work on in our hearts! 


I was told one time people are in our lives for a reason, a season, or always! That is a hard truth right there!  I think it is pretty cool that God does not tell you how long people will be there and what purpose they will serve.  He does it so that we can trust him and that we can just enjoy the person in that moment and invest whatever the person or situation brings out of us. Whatever is brought out, is the blessing. 
When people die what happens: families get brought together, people make peace with each other, people remember what a gift the people were in their lives and old wounds begin to soften--why? Because great loss is painful because it holds within it great love--and love can do nothing but soften, heal and bring peace and joy! With every loss he makes more room for himself and he allows for us a great capacity to love! 


My greatest losses have always been my greatest blessings--he did not allow pain without a gift!  He brought out of me, with every loss, more and more of me! When i look back at what I have lost in my life: friendships, relationships, jobs, dreams, expectations, etc...all of them brought me joy at some point but their leaving in my life only brought me to something better! Everyone of them have made me stronger and more and more of whom I am called to be.  The loss always brought me back to the arms of Christ, who never leaves, never disappoints and who always has my best interest involved.  


I know for me today loss is still hard and I go into a lot of situations thinking, well I wonder how long this will last? Then I think, well if anything I am going to enjoy it and see what God does have in store.  I am going to love every person he gives me and see what kind of arrow they are in my journey! They may even be walking companions! All in all, I miss out when I don't enjoy the journey and all that comes with it. 

Love Begins with a Dream

Taken from The World's First Love
by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen


Every person carries within his heart a blueprint of the one he loves. What seems to be "love at first sight" is actually the fulfillment of desire, the realization of a dream. Plato, sensing this, said that all knowledge is a recollection from a previous existence. This is not true as he states it, but it is true if one understands it to mean that we already have an ideal in us, one that is made by our thinking, our habits, our experiences, and our desires. Otherwise, how would we know immediately, on seeing persons or things, that we loved them? Before meeting certain people we already have a pattern and mold of what we like and what we do not like; certain persons fit into that pattern, others do not.

When we hear music for the first time, we either like or dislike it. We judge it by the music we already have heard in our own hearts. Jittery minds, which cannot long repose in one object of thought or in continuity of an ideal, love music that is distracting, excited, and jittery. Calm minds like calm music: the heart has its own secret melody, and one day, when the score is played, the heart answers: "This is it." So it is with love. A tiny architect works inside the human heart drawing sketches of the ideal love from the people it sees, from the books it reads, from its hopes and daydreams, in the fond hope that the eye may one day see the ideal and the hand touch it. Life becomes satisfying the moment the dream is seen walking, and the person appears as the incarnation of all that one loved. The liking is instantaneous—because, actually, it was there waiting for a long time. Some go through life without ever meeting what they call their ideal. This could be very disappointing, if the ideal never really existed. But the absolute ideal of every heart does exist, and it is God. All human love is an initiation into the Eternal. Some find the Ideal in substance without passing through the shadow.

God, too, has within Himself blueprints of everything in the universe. As the architect has in his mind a plan of the house before the house is built, so God has in His Mind an archetypal idea of every flower, bird, tree, springtime, and melody. There never was a brush touched to canvas or a chisel to marble without some great pre-existing idea. So, too, every atom and every rose is a realization and concretion of an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity. All creatures below man correspond to the pattern God has in His Mind. A tree is truly a tree because it corresponds to God's idea of a tree. A rose is a rose because it is God's idea of a rose wrapped up in chemicals and tints and life. But it is not so with persons. God has to have two pictures of us: one is what we are, and the other is what we ought to be. He has the model, and He has the reality: the blueprint and the edifice, the score of the music and the way we play it. God has to have these two pictures because in each and every one of us there is some disproportion and want of conformity between the original plan and the way we have worked it out. The image is blurred; the print is faded. For one thing, our personality is not complete in time; we need a renewed body. Then, too, our sins diminish our personality; our evil acts daub the canvas the Master Hand designed. Like unhatched eggs, some of us refuse to be warmed by the Divine Love, which is so necessary for incubation to a higher level. We are in constant need of repairs; our free acts do not coincide with the law of our being; we fall short of all God wants us to be. St. Paul tells us that we were predestined, before the foundations of the world were laid, to become the sons of God. But some of us will not fulfill that hope.

There is, actually, only one person in all humanity of whom God has one picture and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is His Own Mother. Most of us are a minus sign, in the sense that we do not fulfill the high hopes the Heavenly Father has for us. But Mary is the equal sign. The Ideal that God had of her, that she is, and in the flesh. The model and the copy are perfect; she is all that was foreseen, planned, and dreamed. The melody of her life is played just as it was written. Mary was thought, conceived, and planned as the equal sign between ideal and history, thought and reality, hope and realization.

That is why, through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to her the words of the Book of Proverbs. Because she is what God wanted us all to be, she speaks of herself as the Eternal blueprint in the Mind of God, the one whom God loved before she was a creature. She is even pictured as being with Him not only at creation but also before creation. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers—she is the world's first love.

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything, from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth. He had not yet made the earth, or the rivers, or the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me and that watcheth daily at my gates and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord" (Prov 8:22-35).

But God not only thought of her in eternity; He also had her in mind at the beginning of time. In the beginning of history, when the human race fell through the solicitation of a woman, God spoke to the Devil and said, "I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels" (Gen 3:15). God was saying that, if it was by a woman that man fell, it would be through a woman that God would be revenged. Whoever His Mother would be, she would certainly be blessed among women, and because God Himself chose her, He would see to it that all generations would call her blessed.

When God willed to become Man, He had to decide on the time of His coming, the country in which He would be born, the city in which He would be raised, the people, the race, the political and economic systems that would surround Him, the language He would speak, and the psychological attitudes with which He would come in contact as the Lord of History and the Savior of the World.

All these details would depend entirely on one factor: the woman who would be His Mother. To choose a mother is to choose a social position, a language, a city, an environment, a crisis, and a destiny.

His Mother was not like ours, whom we accepted as something historically fixed, which we could not change; He was born of a Mother whom He chose before He was born. It is the only instance in history where both the Son willed the Mother and the Mother willed the Son. And this is what the Creed means when it says "born of the Virgin Mary." She was called by God as Aaron was, and Our Lord was born not just of her flesh but also by her consent.

Before taking unto Himself a human nature, He consulted with the Woman, to ask her if she would give Him a man. The Manhood of Jesus was not stolen from humanity, as Prometheus stole fire from heaven; it was given as a gift.

The first man, Adam, was made from the slime of the earth. The first woman was made from a man in an ecstasy. The new Adam, Christ, comes from the new Eve, Mary, in an ecstasy of prayer and love of God and the fullness of freedom.

We should not be surprised that she is spoken of as a thought by God before the world was made. When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived—one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, "You know how it is; one tries to make one's Mummy just as nice as he can." When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make her a perfect Mother. 

Where are you?

"I believe in God as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis


My question for the last few weeks has been, where is God in His generosity? Sounds like a harsh question for the creator of the universe, but it is a valid question when trudging through the muck of this life.  I began walking through and questioning over and over what are you doing God, and goodness, how is what just happened generous!? How is God answering some prayers, and not others, generous? I mean the question needs to start with what is generosity? Webster  defines generosity as liberal in giving okay, so to me that means that whomever we deem as generous has something to give and desires to give that which he has freely! That sounds about right! My question now is, why does it seem that God is more generous to some than others? Why does it as least look that way? 


So I began to see my own life.  I have been praying and praying to understand what God has been doing in my life and why it always seems that doors are closing and that I am waiting in the hallway for one to open.  That I am trying to do His will but finding myself on the other side of the door, back in the hallway! It just doesn't make sense! What am I missing here and why am wondering around this hallway--is this my open door--the hallway, who knows!?  So God has all these opportunities and does not give them all the time. He has all these doors but keeps them closed--why? Because he is loving and in his love is his generosity! boom! wow! I was talking to some friends yesterday and what came up was God's love--that it is God's love that allows us to walk and fall and stumble and get back up and even walk away from what we know to be true, but it is also God's love that embraces us when we return. That is how is all comes back to love! It is all love-- and there lies his generosity!


So here I am, still trying to understand, trying to box God up like I'm going to sell him at the store! He makes no sense but my desire to make sense out of him is me trying to be in control. Yesterday I was asked to read the story of Abraham and Isaac.  The account is pretty mind-blowing when you read it! This man dying to have children, finally is blessed with a child and then asked to sacrifice him--that's tough! I mean why did the child come in the first place if they were gonna go away! But yet again the wisdom of God is beyond me! Anyway I read on and what I found is that Abraham did as he was told and was willing to sacrifice his only son.  And when he was binding his son down to the wood, even though Isaac questioned his father, he trusted his father so much that even if death was where Isaac was headed, he knew that that would be the will of God for him. This story was so filled with a faith and trust that it blew my mind. 
First Abraham was so willing to do what he was told.  He was willing to let go of what he loved for love itself.  He was willing to trust that what was given to him was gift and that God taking it would be gift as well. As for Isaac, it was the act of faith that he had to not fight with his father, to not argue but trust that whatever Abraham was doing to him, would be for his best interest, and that yet again he trusted his father with his own life! Interesting that both Isaac and Abraham were trusting a father and had to entrust their lives in their hands!!!


So as the story goes, their acts of trust and faith in the one that held their lives in their hands brought about a blessing! That both willfully agreed to do what they were told and for that they were blessed.  The thing that dawned on me is that they did not do any of the above for a prize or agenda! They did what they did so as to do the father's will! That was the motive. Their was no deal that God made with Abraham, that if you do this, I will give you this.  God asked and they responded, and in God's generosity and love, he stopped all of it from happening! He had a bigger plan that both Abraham and Isaac could not see and well did not allow them to see.  God truly wants to see how far you will push for him! He wants to test where your heart truly lies...in this life or in His!  


So where is generosity in all this? Well as I reflected more, I found that God's generosity came in different ways in my life.  In all humility I admit that I was thinking that God's generosity was getting what I asked for.  That is not it all.  I wanted to see, what I wanted to see.  That God's generosity lies in his fatherhood and in his fatherhood is protection, love and a foresight that I do not have.  He would rather I learn a lesson, than gain a great loss.  He would rather my heart be hurt than broken! He knows what he is doing and sometimes i think he doesn't and that I know better than he. Who am I to question Him and how he does what he does.
It's funny because people who know me have heard me say recently that the scripture about the generous landowner annoys me! - 

These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat. He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?[Or] am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Mt 20:12-16) 

What I am seeing differently today from this scripture that usually brings about the words unfair and annoyed is that God's generosity is not about getting what i want, God's generosity is first, different for everyone according to what they are going through! Also when I read that line, am I not free to do what I want with my money--I think now, yes you are Lord and the fact is, that person may need that money sooner than me--they may need a grace and a blessing that I may not need or can continue to live without because of my circumstances!! 


Where are you Lord--you are always there! I just forget that sometimes the way I want to see you is not the way that you are showing your face. That the way you do things do not always look like the way that i think they need to. Or as I put it to some friends yesterday, I get to the climax of the book, things aren't looking to good and i stop reading! The fact is we need to allow God to work and know and remember that just because something looks one way, it does not mean it is that way!  Sometimes God allows us to only see a few steps in front of us--and why is that generous, well because if I saw more I may not be present to those few steps. The fact is I can't get to the top without the few steps in front of me.  They are as important as the steps after them. I am realizing that God is generous when he withholds the things I think I need or want--knowing that He sees what I do not, he knows what I do not and he understands what I do not.  He uses everything to bring us to this faith that Abraham had and he knows that the sacrifice will not be easy but he asking for your trust that although you do not see, that you may trust in the one who does see all. 

Reflection On forgiveness from The Return of the Prodigal Son By: Henry Nouwen

 I have often said, “I forgive you,” but even as I said these words my heart remained angry and resentful. I still wanted to hear the story that tells me that I was right after all; I still wanted to hear apologies and excuses; I still wanted the satisfaction of receiving some praise in return – if only the praise for being so forgiving!
     But God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliments. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive

Give up and Give in

 Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self. -- St Francis of Assisi 

I am writing in a spirit of gratitude! Why? well the fact is I have been struggling with a

pretty intense case of self-centeredness! I know that becoming a bit thankful gets me out of that funk.  Last night I found myself unable to sleep--probably for a multitude of reasons...but where I found myself was in prayer and pleading with the Lord. I still felt like a block or some sort of something that I could not break through! I don't remember the last time I felt like that! Anyway, what I realized this morning in prayer is that I have been trying to control so much and it led me to be more than selfish with my time and with God.  I did not want to do his will because i wanted to do mine--but these are the words I  heard "You take care of my business and I will take care of yours."--Words of Jesus to St Maragaret Mary.

I am sitting here worrying about this that and the other--having my hands in His business!

I was trying to control his will for me. Control timing, and how much I would give or not and everything. In my selfishness I found myself  attempting to play a half-ass roll in God's plan for me.  I was attempting to uproot myself where God has planted me.  I have never found it so hard to do his will before in terms of my job.  I knew I was in self-centeredness and ego world, because my heart did not feel open to serve--it just wanted to take...and there was a struggle of who I am called to be and who I use to be!!! 

So I had to let go of what I wanted and basically give up and give in to God.  Hope that all that he has planned is better than I could ever dream up for myself. Surrender is a difficult thing to get to but God always gets us to give in---I realized to it is not the surrender that hurts but the resistance to the surrender that hurts the most.

A couple things crossed my mind in prayer one was from the book a Grief Observed: "Lord are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love you so much that I don't care whether I meet her or not."--CS Lewis --  Total surrender to God's will is what CS is expressing.  When I don't care which way the road goes--then I know I am truly in surrender.  when I can finally let go and use every opportunity to fall in love with God and stretch and grow so much even when it hurts! When I can see everything as a blessing knowing that it came to me for some reason!  The other thing that crossed my mind was the song, How he loves! The line that kept coming through in my mind is: "He is Jealous for me..." I asked my mom, I said, what does that even mean--she said Christine that means he is protective of you! And i thought, wow, that is love--His jealousy is love, great love--a love that means I am protecting you for something that I know that will be best and transform you into your best self.

Something else that came to mind that I thought I would share is this:I must embrace and accept as you will for me--what comes and goes along the path I walk is up to you. If i am alone as I walk, it is your will. If I am surrounded by many, it is your will. If I am aggravated w/everything and anything--you have allowed and willed it for me grow in virtue and greater love. You are the mirror of Love that I must reflect. 

That is it, it is all love! Love is the key and the answer--all this is about love! Love breaks us of who we think we are, so we can be who God wants us to be! Love is what tore the curtain in two in the temple, love is what shook the earth as He hung from the cross, love is what rises in our hearts when we learn to die. Love is why are here--we are here to learn to love from each other and from every event good and bad and from every person pleasant and annoying!!!

I know that I don't know--talk about a shattering of the will.  I love how God has to constantly remind me about how it is not about me...earth shattering news--but it's not about me..its about Him--its all about God and what He wants!!!

 I had to remember that I am not here for myself but as 1 Peter 1:9 states: As you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. We are here to get home!!!

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

At last I have found my vocation. In the heart of the Church, I will be Love!

-- St Therese of Lisieux

So I saw something that blew my mind today and  inspired me to write this entry.  I read about a woman who was recently married and how her husband found out that he has a certain type of cancer. The cancer is curable but nonetheless it is a cancer. It started to make me think of the hours, minutes, days, etc I think about or have thought about my vocation in this world. How fantastical in so many ways I have made it.  I have seen so many of my friends married and moving forward. I have seen so many friends enter convents and become priests. None of them ever turned around and said, "And because I have found my vocation, everything is perfect now." Not a chance.  That is what blew my mind this afternoon, that finding my vocation does not make my life complete, but finding my vocation is there to aid me in completing my life.

I began to think more about this couple and how when they got married they probably never saw this coming.  They never thought that there lives would be interrupted by such a devastating, heart stopping moment. Although there is a cure for it, it still is going to cause them to dig deep within themselves and draw love from places that they never knew existed! This interruption in the "plan" is going to cause them to suffer. It's crazy that is one thing we can't ever avoid.  We can avoid pleasure, but not pain.  In fact when we avoid pleasure it's painful. So what makes me think that when I enter into my vocation--everything will be perfect? I'm not sure, I think it is just the fact that I finally have the answer to an awfully big question.  

What does come with my vocation is suffering--why because to fully live my vocation, which will eventually lead me to heaven, I need to love. And to fully love anything, you will suffer! So what dawned on me is that when we enter our vocations we will suffer.  The difference is that when we suffer we suffer with another not that when we suffer now, Christ does not walk with us, but that when we suffer in our vocation we literally walk with other people in it.  We continue to walk our paths to heaven, but now our refinement is on a whole new level.  We are dying for another, so to live for the Lord.  We are sacrificing our happiness so that someone else can be happy.  We find ourselves, digging deep within ourselves to find the love to give to motivate our actions. 

So our vocation is to love; so our vocation is to suffer! yeah, that sounds about right. The cool thing is that when we love, the suffering ceases and its all love. We don't think about the pain, anymore when love is present and it is real. It's hard to believe that there is so much love that can cause all pain to cease and motivate me to desire anything, no matter the pain, just to sustain that love.

The story of the married couple I mentioned earlier also made me think of something else....yeah know why did God not make it possible for the man to know he had cancer before they got married? And then I thought, if they knew they may not have moved forward with this great love that they shared.  God knew that they would be a support to one another and that their love for each other was necessary for this suffering to be endured. So God allowed the marriage, knowing that he would also allow the cancer and the suffering.  He saw the fruit of what love would bring.  He saw the refinement in each one of their souls and he saw the bigger picture.  Knowing they would have to lean on him together to get through this suffering.  For as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry states, being in love does not mean looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction

So what is your vocation...well it's to love!! God will guide you to love as you are open to love! The story above may not necessarily sound appealing. In fact some people may think, well if love calls me to suffer more than I already do, then peace out--I do not want to love! Well at least I will not love to that extent.  The thing is though we are all called and have the capacity to love to that extent...we need only be open to such love. We need only say yes to God and his call for us to live out our vocations!!!

Love Changes Everything

 Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ risen. -- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


How blessed we are to know Christ. What a gift it is to live this faith! I think sometimes we forget how blessed we are. How we truly have the fullness of truth and yet how often we do not take advantage of what all that means.  I know that I can and I know I need to be reminded everyday! I likened the matter to a friend by saying, well when you have always been rich and no one taught you the value of a dollar, then well, how can you ever appreciate the gift of the riches of all that you have! 


I believe that we must be poor to be rich! Why? Because when we are poor we are dependent on something greater to tend to our needs.   Our hunger calls us to ask and so when we receive our hearts truly understand the meaning of gift!  I know for myself it is awesome when I receive a gift of any magnitude--big or small, where there is love there is gift!  


Sometimes we need God the most when we have the most stuff. The poor and lowly teach us a lot about what it means to be humble and what it means to love.  They understand love because they know that without love they would have nothing else. Love carries, it transforms and makes all things new. Love changes everything! 


An analogy that comes to mind that illustrates this point is when we are carrying stuff in our arms of all shapes, sizes and weights.  Someone comes over to embrace us or love us.  Well in that moment, the desire is there to want to reciprocate, but you can't move to do so--why? Because you have too many things in your arms and in the way to love.  These things can be material, emotional, or mental. Any which way you look at it, it hinders you from being fully alive in love.   


I think too about my own journey.  How come i know stuff about the faith etc and there are so many people out there who just have no clue.  Including those in my own family! Well the only thing that I can ever think of in terms of this topic is that God needs you to be a light and a soft hand  in a judgemental and resentful world.  The funny part is that God always allows you to heal or be around that which you were.  You become the example to the people that find it too hard to be where you are.  They find it too hard to take on the responsibility that love calls us too. 


Think about it--when you ask people to go to mass with you or adoration or what have you--why won't they? It is an hour of there lives, that according to them, they will not be effected by anyway! Something in them knows that what they are exposing to them is truth! So the sin and darkness in them cowars at the light and truth--so that one hour could call them out or make them feel the guilt they have numbed themselves to. 
People who are living in darkness know full well that they are not living there! That is why what they need is love and not judgement.  They don't need to know they are wrong, they just need to know that they are loved no matter the decisions that they choose to make.  They are not wrong, but the choices they make might be and that is a great big distinction. When we are living in the dark, we know we need the light and we already are beating up by the fact that we ourselves think we are wrong. The last thing the person living in darkness needs is a spotlight on their wrong--they need a heart filled with love that shines a light that softens their hearts slowly but surely to the Lord.


So we are called to love the sinner and hate the sin! Christ did and still does. He calls each one of us in our richness to give to the poor.  He calls each one of us to fully live out our baptism by loving all those that cross our paths. He reminds that we too were once poor and that the only riches that we have is in his love.  
So do we need to call people out, sometimes! Do we need to bring people Christ, all the time.  But in both circumstances let us remember that what we are not living fully and completely we cannot bring to anyone else. So if you call someone out make sure you have walked in there shoes or that plank is out of your eyes and when you bring people Christ make sure that you have died and he is risen within your heart. 


Love changes everything--judgement keeps people closed and isolated. Satan likes to make sure we stay in the judgement seat of others so that people never learn what love is or rather who love is.  

Who is my neighbor?

I will tell you a story. One night a man came to our house and told me, "There is a family with eight children. They have not eaten for days."
I took some food with me and went. When I came to that family, I saw the faces of those little children disfigured by hunger. There was no sorrow or sadness in their faces, just the deep pain of hunger. I gave rice to the mother. She divided the rice in two, and went out, carrying half the rice. When she came back, I asked her, "Where did you go?" She gave me this simple answer, "To my neighbors; they are hungry also!" I was not surprised that she gave-poor people are really very generous. I was surprised that she knew they were hungry. As a rule, when we are suffering, we are so focused on ourselves, we have no time for others. -- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


This story struck a chord with me when I read it! I read it and thought how often I suffer and get so stuck in me and forget the others around me.  I realized that when I am spiritually attacked  it is not only feeding me lies, but keeping me away from my brothers and sisters in the Lord.  How you may ask? Because I am so self-centered in that moment.  I am not thinking that maybe someone understands. I am thinking no one does. That is how I think Satan's ways are not only deceitful to me in that moment but also deceives everything and everyone around me as well. 
I become into me so much, Satan convinces me that no one will ever understand and then not only am I at a loss for healing, but possibly the people around me are to. Meaning they lose the opportunity to heal others and themselves.


There is healing when we can share our hearts with another.  There is healing when we share our sufferings. They say " Pain shared is half the pain and joy shared is twice the joy."  When we share, and process with those around us, who we can do so with, there is such a beautiful gift that is received...we receive God's love in a new way! A beautiful way, a way that we never thought we could.  God allows us to draw from each other so as to be closer to Him.  It is a gift.  He calls us to help each other so we can experience Him. He calls us to love each other so that we can experience His love for us.


The interesting part of it all is that it is not that easy! Love as I have mentioned in past posts is a challenge of the person to be more then they know they can even be.  So sometimes, depending on where we are at, we don't even know our own capacity level to love.  In fact, most often, we don't think about the fact that our hearts were made to love and serve the Lord.  We learn to love and serve ourselves and although there is a place for that, our Love of self, or rather our ability to take care of self, needs to lead us to greater love of neighbor!  As you can see from the short story Mother Teresa told of the woman receiving what she needed and then remembering those around her, her suffering called her to help others! She did not let her sufferings rule her, rather she allowed her sufferings to strengthen her and lead her to service and to be a gift of self to another.


That is so so hard.  I think that is why we are continually refined in our love! It has taken many years of experiences, joys, disappointments, hurt and a constant humility to refine love in my own heart.  And God continually will refine me, so that I can be led to greater love of him and my neighbor.  So who is my neighbor? I believe that we are all neighbors to each other.  Some we are called to pray for, some we are called to serve, some we are called to ask for there service for us.  Really are neighbors are not just those next to us but all those around us--those we have met and those we do not know. Those we like and those we dislike--we are all neighbors to each other.  This always causes the most problems--the being the neighbor to those i dislike--I think this is God's way of showing us what he is made of.  We have to depend on him and allow him to be the love we don't even know how to be in that moment. In these moments I always say, Lord take over! The coolest thing is, he does and he makes everything beautiful--as long as I am open to that moment. 


Learning to love in our sufferings is more then difficult.  I can say that from experience I had to walk through my pain just a bit to be able to even see pain in the others around me. Once i do walk in my pain, my capacity to love grows, my compassion is bigger, I begin to think of others in their sufferings and reach out to be to them what I have received and the more i do so the more I heal my own heart of the sufferings I endure!

The Road

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it. -- Oswald Chambers


This quote makes me think of all that God calls me to and how God is always calling to be more than I can ever see myself becoming!  That is so hard.  I always think I'm okay and then boom, God's like, oh wait there's more! Love is that more and it will always carry me beyond anything that I can see for myself.   It is hard because it does call me away from my woundedness and fear.  Love takes me beyond because it takes me away from my ego and all my self-centeredness.  It calls me to draw from that place that only God can provide.  God can only give to me the ability to make me love that much more or at all in any moment.


I find that in my own life I have struggled with a lot of woundedness that has caused me to stay in a state  of fear.  That fear kept me safe and protected but not very happy! If I want to be open to love completely I have to risk the fact that I could suffer and be hurt.  I just don't want to continue to go through all that.  I want to live without pain and suffering--wouldn't that be nice! But as St Gemma Galgani says: If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love. Suffering teaches love...hmmm...oh there is that irony again! Although it makes sense.  If I have suffered then I have compassion and if I have compassion then I love because I know the other side now! My heart needs to be broken to learn to love! My heart needs to experience a bad relationship to know what a good one is! My heart needs to have a few battle scars to remind me that love is not easy but it is worth the fight! 


Also when I realize that ultimately it is not the road that caused the accident, but carelessness of a person behind the wheel of another car or my own carelessness, I realize that I can't give up the road for the sake of safety! I can be careful, follow the road rules and trust myself from my experience driving!! This analogy paints a beautiful picture of love and brokenness. Of pain that causes a lack of trust! The fear of knowing that anything can happen, even if you are a good driver.  I can't give up the road because that is the road that I need to get me to where I will ultimately end up!! The road to love. 

The Name of Mary

Saint Bernard’s sermon on the Name of Mary. Allow his words to plant deep within your hearts the gift of an abiding devotion to Mary’s sweet Name:


Let us say a few words about this Name
which means “Star of the Sea”
and is so appropriate to the Virgin Mother.


She — I tell you — is that splendid and wondrous star
suspended as if by necessity over this great wide sea,
radiant with merit and brilliant in example.


O you, whoever you are,
who feel that in the tidal wave of this world
you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales
than treading on dry land:
if you do not want to founder in the tempest,
do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star.


When the wind of temptation blows up within you,
when you strike upon the rock of tribulation,
gaze up at this star,
call out to Mary.


Whether you are being tossed about
by the waves of pride or ambition,
or slander or jealousy,
gaze up at this star,
call out to Mary.


When rage or greed or fleshly desires
are battering the skiff of your soul,
gaze up at Mary.


When the immensity of your sins weighs you down
and you are bewildered by the loathsomeness of your conscience,
when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you
and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair,
think of Mary.


In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt,
think of Mary, call out to Mary.
Keep her in your mouth,
keep her in your heart.


Follow the example of her life,
and you will obtain the favour of her prayer.

Following her, you will never go astray.

Asking her help, you will never despair.

Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away.


With your hand in hers, you will never stumble.
With her protecting you, you will not be afraid.
With her leading you, you will never tire.


Her kindness will see you through to the end.
Then you will know by your own experience
how true it is that the Virgin’s Name was Mary.

Love

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken....To love is to be vulnerable.  -- CS Lewis


Love is a scary thing!! That is what I have found for myself.  Simply put...."Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. " — Fyodor Dostoyevsky 


Why is it such a scary thing? Well I think for myself it is because i have to trust my heart to another.  I have to be vulnerable before another and let go of myself and let God enter that moment! Let God lead that moment and be the center and functioning of it..which is love itself.  That is hard when I like to know what is happening and in control. 
For me I am afraid to be hurt...I am afraid that if I let go completely I will be crushed and duped by another. Thinking things were one way and they were another.  Yet again finding myself trusting how I feel and then finding that how I feel was not reciprocated.  I think that that makes love hard for me as well...the lack of reciprication! If I love another I want that love in return.  Basically, I want to get what I give out! I want to know that I am safe in sharing my heart...Love would not be scary, if I knew I would get a return. 


Sometimes I think, God allows the lack of return to see the heart risk itself--to see the heart sacrifice itself for another.  God wants to see what we are made of at times.  Not that he does not want to see us happy, but he sometimes wants us to see what we are capable of.  He knows that it hurts but by His grace he allows us to see the beauty of the risk to love.  As Christ died for us he took a great risk, that many of the people He would selflessly die for would not love him in return.  That they would scoff and walk away...yes, indeed he was dead on about that! The beauty of the risk Christ took and the example he is to us in our own risk is that, he opened the door for the most unlikely people to embrace the love he died for. So as for us, we learn to live when we learn to die and we learn to love when we learn to risk and be vulnerable!!


What a hard and beautiful gift!  I feel like God is all about giving us good things...he builds a place for them in each one of our hearts, through experience and disappointment.  Then we find one day that through all that stuff, that we felt was fair or unfair, unhealthy or not, a beautiful garden was cultivated, a garden transformed into great love! A love that can either be given or received!  I know that every broken dream, every betrayal, every heart break, rejection, abandonment,  etc all of it God uses to recreate the person that cannot be anything without him.   


The image i get from the words above are of a  potter and the potters wheel.  When you get your clay ready to be formed sometimes you use old pieces of clay to form the new mound to be placed on the wheel.  There is nothing wrong with those old pieces they were just part of pieces that were not strong enough or walls that were not thick enough or pots that were not centered.  What is awesome is that you can take that clay, save it and reuse it to make something again!! God does not throw away our experiences or hurts, he reuses them, and recreates new life from them.  He continues to build us and rebuild us so that we can learn to love and be loved properly.  


Love is scary because we really don't know what we are made of sometimes until put before the proper force!  So love is dreadful and yet beautiful, love brings so much joy and yet at the risk of bringing so much suffering and pain! I do have to say I will take the risk of the suffering, knowing the joy of Love if so sweet.  That although I hurt, at least I loved!

The Rosary

Love her and she will lead you to her Son the Saviour of the World... 

An address delivered by Archbishop Fulton J Sheen

February 11, 1951

If here is a heart in the audience that ever sent roses to a friend in token of affection, or ever received them as a sign of remembrance, he will not be alien to this story of prayer!

Some deep instinct in humanity makes it link roses with joy. Pagan peoples crowned their statues with roses, as symbols of the offering of their own hearts. The faithful of the early Church substituted prayers for roses. In the days of the early martyrs---I say “early” because the Church has more martyrs today than it had in the first four centuries—as the young virgins marched over the sands of the Coliseum into the jaws of death, they clothes themselves in festive robes and wore on their heads a crown of roses, bedecked fittingly to meet the King of Kings in Whose Name they would die. The faithful at night would gather up their crowns of roses and say their prayers on them, one prayer for each rose.

Far away in the desert of Egypt, the anchorites and hermits were counting their prayers too, but in the form of little grains or pebbles strung together into a crown---a practice which Mohammed took for his Moslems. From this custom of offering spiritual bouquets arose a series of prayers known as the Rosary, for Rosary means “a crown of roses.”

From its first days the Church asked its faithful t recite the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David. This custom still prevails among the priests, for we are obligated to recite some of these Psalms every day in what is called the Breviary. But it was not easy for anyone to memorize the 150 Psalms. Then, too, before the invention of printing, it was difficult to procure a book. That was why certain important books like the Bible had to be chained like telephone books, otherwise people would run off with them.

Incidentally, this gave rise to the stupid lie that the Church would not allow anyone to read the Bible because to was chained.

The fact is, it was chained so people could read it. The telephone book is chained, too, but it is more consulted than any book in modern civilization.

The people who could not learn the 150 Psalms wanted to do something to make up for it. So they substituted 150 Hail Marys. They broke up these 150 decades, or series of ten. Each decade was to be said while meditating on the different aspects of the Life of Our Lord.

To keep each decade separate, each one began with the “Our Father” and ended with the Doxology of Praise to the Trinity. (Glory Be.)

St. Dominic who died in 1221 received from the Blessed Mother the command to preach and to popularize this devotion for the good of souls, conquest over evil and the prosperity of Holy Mother Church, and thus gave us the Rosary in its present form.

It is objected that there is much repetition in the Rosary because the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary are said so often; therefore it is monotonous.

That reminds me of a woman who came to see me one evening after instructions. She said: “I would never become Catholic. You say the same words in the Rosary, over and over again, and anyone who repeats the same words is never sincere. I would never believe such a person and neither would God.” I asked her who the man was who was with her. She said it was her fiance. I asked, “Does he love you?” “He told me.” “What did he say?” He said, “I love you.” “But never before?” “He tells me every night.” I said, “Do not believe him.” He is repeating; he is not sincere.” The beautiful truth, there is no repetition in “I love you.” Because there is a new moment of time, another point in space, the words do not mean the same as before. Love is never monotonous in the uniformity in the uniformity of its expression. The mind is infinitely variable in its language, but the heart is not. The heart of man in the face of the woman he loves is too poor to translate the infinity of his affection into different words. So the heart takes but one expression, “I love you” and in saying it over and over again, it never repeats. It is the only real news in the universe.

That is what we do when we say the Rosary. We are saying to the Holy Trinity, to the Incarnate Savior to the Blessed Mother, “I love you,” I love you, “I love you.”

The beauty of the Rosary is that it is not only a vocal prayer. It is also a mental prayer. You have sometimes heard a dramatic presentation in which while the human voice was speaking, there was a background of beautiful music, giving force and dignity to the words. The Rosary is like that. While the prayer is being said, the heart is not hearing music But meditating on the Life of Christ, but applied to our own life and our own needs. As the wire holds the beads together, so meditation holds the prayers together. We often speak to people while our minds are thinking something else. But in the Rosary we do not only say prayers; We think Bethlehem, Galilee, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Golgotha, Calvary, Mount Olivet, Heaven---all these move before our mind’s eye as our lips pray.

Peace will come only when the hearts of the world have changed. To do this we must pray, and not for ourselves, but for the world. The world means everyone. Our enemies and our next door neighbors.

To this end, I have designed a Rosary called the World Mission Rosary. Each of the five decades is of a different color to represent each of the five continents or the world from the viewpoint of the Missions. One decade is green for Africa, because of its green forests and because it is the sacred color of the Moslems for whom we pray.

The second decade is red for the continent of American which was founded by the Red Man. The third decade is white for the Continent of Europe, for its spiritual father is the White Shepherd of the Church.

The fourth decade is blue for the Continent of Australia, Oceania and the other islands in the blue waters of the Pacific.

The fifth is yellow for the continent of Asia, the land where the sun rises and the cradle of civilization.

When the Rosary is completed, one has circumnavigated the globe and embraced all continents, all people in prayer. Our Rosary has this triple advantage. Each color reminds you of the part of the world for whom you offer the decade. Secondly,, it fulfills Our Lady’s petition at Fatima to pray for world peace through the Rosary. Thirdly, it will aid the Holy Father and his Society for the Propagation of the Faith by supplying him with practical support, as well as prayers, for the poor distressed 600 mission territories of the world each of which is larger than New England.

It all comes down to this: the world will change when we change. But we cannot change without prayer, and the power of the Rosary as a prayer is beyond description.

Learn to sanctify all the idle moments of life. It can be done thanks to the Rosary. As you walk the streets, pray the Rosary in your hand or in your pocket. While sitting in traffic, while in a waiting room, or sitting on a train. All these moments can be sanctified and made to serve your inner peace. If you wish to convert anyone to the fullness of the knowledge of our Lord and His Mystical Body, teach him the Rosary. One of two things will happen. Either he will stop saying the Rosary, or he will get the gift of faith.