Thank you Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb for hosting Catholic bloggers at Worth Revisiting. It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and your readers.
Here is my contribution:
Monday Musings - Wake Up Slumbering Souls! Wake Up!
(Originally posted on November 5, 2018)
[The sad reality of our times is that so very few of us love God as we
ought and as He deserves. For the most part, He remains abandoned and
ignored as a prisoner in the tabernacles of His Churches. It is my hope
that by sharing the Introduction from my most recent book, Stirring Slumbering Souls - 250 Eucharistic Reflections,
hearts will be changed and more of us will re-discover and treasure a
greater reverence and appreciation for the Gift of our Lord's Presence
here among us]:
Have
you ever loved someone so much that you could hardly wait to hear from
them, speak with them and see them? How often have you looked forward to
a visit from someone you deeply love only to have that person not come?
How hurt have you felt when you were ignored and your love not
returned?
Imagine
then how God - Who is Love – Who loves us more than words can describe -
feels when we fail to demonstrate our love for Him. He waits, hour
after hour in our churches, behind locked tabernacle doors, as a
Prisoner of Love, just to hear our voices and see our faces.
Few
of us come to be with Him. Many no longer believe He is really and
substantially present in the Sacred Eucharist. For all practical
purposes, He is abandoned, ignored and disrespected.
This
despite the fact that: God the Father on Mount Tabor commanded Peter,
James, John and all who would later hear of Jesus’ Transfiguration to listen to His Son.; that Jesus Himself later scolded the same three apostles for their failure to watch one hour with Him; and His Blessed Mother directed the servants at Cana and all who would later learn of this miracle to do whatever Jesus tells them.
We have not listened to God the Father. We have not obeyed His Son. We
have not heeded the Blessed Mother.We have taken God for granted. We
have failed to love our Lord as we ought and as He deserves.Despite our
deafness and disobedience, Jesus never gives up on us. From time to
time, He prompts others to “shake things up”. This book attempts to do
just that.
As you read and ponder the quotations in this book, may you recognize, as Father Bruno Shah, O.P. suggested to me, two distinct voices – “the prophet calling Israel back to fidelity AND the sweet Mother inviting us to trust in Her Son.”
**********
In Matthew’s Gospel (8:23-34) the
evangelist tells us that Jesus crossed over from Galilee into the mostly
Gentile area of the Gadarenes. He and His disciples approached a field
where a large herd of swine were feeding. There Jesus encountered two
demon possessed men who made travel on this particular road impossible.
The
demons within these men immediately recognized Jesus as the Son of God.
It had to be excruciatingly painful for these evil spirits to remain in
His Presence.They begged Jesus to send them into the nearby herd of
swine.
“Out with you!” Jesus commanded. They entered the swine and the entire herd ran down the bluff and into the sea where they drowned.
At
this sight, the swine’s caretakers (herdsmen), not knowing who Jesus
was or understanding what they had just witnessed, fled the area and
informed their fellow townspeople what they had seen. Matthew tells us
that everyone in the town later came back to meet Jesus.
They came. They saw Jesus. But did they actually meet Him?
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