Monday Musings - It's All Gift!

You created us Lord in your image, to know love and serve You on this earth and to be with You eternally. You remain here with us in the Consecrated and Sacred Hosts hidden behind locked tabernacle doors. This is all gift! None of us deserve this Divine generosity.

You desire that each of us become more like You - to always be Christ-like. My response over my lifetime, Lord You know, has been inconsistent, and at times, pathetic and traitorous!

You want me “to disappear so that You may appear in me.” “I must vacate my territory,” You tell me, “ so that You may fully occupy it.” But this can only happen by Your grace and by my being obedient to Your every command and prompting.

On the few occasions when I have obeyed Your promptings Lord, I received a glimpse of what You were calling me to be. Oh, how glorious Lord were the times I obeyed: returning to Your Church; participating in RENEW, Cursillo, Prison Ministry, Lay Dominicans, Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, and praying for the salvation of souls.

I did not always keep my eyes focused on Yours nor did I entirely surrender my will to Yours. Far too often Lord, I did not obey You. Yet when I look back on the times of my deepest anguish, I see now that You sent me Your light and Your angels - a lifeline - to pull me out of the pit of despair and back into Your loving arms. You allowed me to succeed because I placed my trust in You. I admitted my sinfulness and inability to go on any further unless You picked me up and carried me.

Let me never forget that You promised those who obey You, that their trials and tribulations would pass and that there was no reason to be afraid. You have always had my back. I was the one who has failed to consistently say ‘Yes,’ Fiat,’ Your will be done’.

Jesus I frequently pray that “I Trust in You.” Please breath life into those words so that I will have the courage and wisdom to obey You at all times and under in all circumstances, not just when it appears comfortable for me to do so.

 

Do You Really Want To Get Well?

 

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There is a vital lesson to learn from the paralytic in John's Gospel.

When we fail to listen to, and answer the specific question, God places in our hearts, we may lose the opportunity to receive a great and undeserved gift. Listen here.

Monday Musings – I Have Some Questions Lord

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So what is the next step, Lord?

What do I do? Where do I go? How do I love You and others as I ought? What must I sever myself and my time from?

How Lord do I bridge the great gap that exists between what I profess to believe and how I actually live my life? 

Please reveal to me, dear Lord, what I have been unable or unwilling to see. 

When Lord will my heart and will be one with Yours – where every second of my life honors and glorifies You?

Monday Musings - The Call To Obedience

 

Monday Musings - Ask God

 

Monday Musings - The Simple But Often Rejected Truth

 

Worth Revisiting - What Kind Of Soul Am I? - Part 1

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. Stop by for a visit now. 

 

Monday Musings - Which Kind of Soul Am I? – Part I

(Originally posted on October 9, 2017)

 

[Saint Anthony Mary Claret lived in the nineteenth century, was Archbishop of Santiago Cuba, a great writer and preacher. He founded three religious orders and had the gift of prophecy and the discernment of hearts. 

He wrote The Golden Key to Heaven – An Explanation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Now is the time to rediscover this dust-covered spiritual classic. It is from this book that we will seek an answer to the question posed above. Be prepared for a challenging and soul searching ride.]

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“The first class…consists of those who want to aspire to perfection and follow Jesus Christ, but only in speech and not in their heart. If you would know about this class of souls, come with me to a sick man’s house. See there a man half consumed with the heat of a fever. His ailment is getting worse by the moment and he is near death.

A physician comes to him in this condition. After examining him the physician says, 'The sickness is very dangerous, but if the patient will make use of the medications I will prescribe, he can still recover his health.'

Now this is just what the sick man does not like. 'With all my heart I want to recover,' he says, 'but do not oblige me to take medications; for by no means can I nor will I take them.  Now tell me, does this sick man have a true desire to get well?

From this man who is sick in his body, let us pass on the house of someone sick in his soul. See a person stretched out, as it were, in the abandoned throes of habitual lukewarmness. He is told that his ailment can still be remedied, that it requires no more than that he resolve to make his prayers with fervor, that he conduct himself in a spirit of love and with the pure intention of pleasing God, that he walk in God’s presence, uniting himself to Him frequently by means of holy affection, that he zealously mortify himself, that every day he offer God this sacrifice, which is so acceptable to Him; that by doing this, the road that leads to sanctity is still open to him.

But oh! This is just what the man does not want. 'With all my heart I want to gain perfection,' he says, 'but to put these means of reaching it into practice is something too hard and difficult for me.'

Now tell me, does this soul have a serious will to attain perfection?”

 

[An Act of Repentance]…Have still a little patience with me, O Jesus! With all my heart I detest and hate all my negligence, and the abuse I have made of all the graces and means which in Thy kindness Thou hast given me. Until now I have spent my life without having any care for the glory of Thy Holy Name, or for the salvation of my soul. Thou, by a feat of Thy Mercy, have this day enlightened me to know my sinfulness. Again, I detest it, I hate it, and I earnestly resolve to endeavor henceforth to be upright and perfect, as Thou are asking me to be…

 

(to e continued...)

Monday Musings - If We But Understood

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - June 21, 2018

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

Blessed John Henry Newman

"Never had a soul true happiness but in conformity to God, in obedience to His will. We must become what we are not; we must learn to love what we do not love, and practice ourselves in what is difficult. We must have the law of the Spirit of life written and set up in our hearts, that the righteousnesss of the law may be fulfilled in us, and that we may learn to please and to love God."

(From Parochial and Plain Sermons)

Monday Musings - Stop Blaming God

What follows are simple declarative sentences excerpted from God, A Woman and the Way, a book written more than sixty years ago by Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O., a Trappist monk. They set forth fundamental Truths which today are routinely denied and denounced:

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

“We need God. Without Him we can do nothing. But God also needs us. He needs us to bear witness to the fact that He exists; that God became man; that God died; that God rose again; that men can become like God. God needs us to be animated Gospels and give the world the almost unbelievable ‘Good News’ that God is our Father and we are heirs to all that almighty God possesses.”

Do you suppose there is any connection between the denial and denunciation of these Truths and the chaos that exists in our world today?

Sad that I even have to ask such a question.

It’s time to start blaming ourselves and not God for the messes we have created.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - April 20, 2017

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

St. Leo the Great

"Whoever truly wishes to venerate the Passion of the Lord should contemplate Jesus crucified with eyes of his soul, and in such a way that he identifies his own body with that of Jesus."

(From Sermon 15 on the Passion)

St. Alphonsus Liguori

"But God is merciful. Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in sin! A certain author has said that more souls have been sent to hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This indeed is the case; for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in God's mercy; and thus they are lost."

(From Sermons For All the Sundays of the Year )

 
Servant of God, Madeleine Delbrel

"In the area of God's work we are all assigned precise tasks, for it is God who initiated each work and brings each to completion. He works unceasingly; He doesn't give us the leisure to mess around doing nothing."

(From The Joy of Believing)