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.

 

Holding On To Anything?

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

 The little that we have – be it in material goods, time  or talents – is sufficient for God’s work if, when He asks, we would just give whatever that is to Him. Take notice in today’s Gospel what He did with five loaves of bread and two fish! On the surface, it looked like Jesus was asking His Apostles to do the impossible – feed thousands of  people. He wasn’t. He was asking them to give Him what they had and He would make the impossible possible. God will never give us a task, no matter how daunting it may first appear, without giving us all that we need to complete it.

The first step is our total surrender to, and trust in, His will for us.

So let’s ask ourselves: Is there anything I am still holding on to and unwilling to give Him?

Monday Musings - Don't Be Content Being Mediocre in Your Faith

[The following is an excerpt from Father Jose Gonzalez’s Catholic Daily Reflection for October 24, 2024. It is worth pondering.]

 

 

“When God says He came to set the world afire, He is referring to His desire to purify our souls. Within our souls there are many impurities that must be removed if we want to become one with God.

This purification involves a process of allowing God to bring our sins to the surface so that they are seen and can be removed. But this is only possible if we allow the blazing fire of God's purifying love to consume us!

Oftentimes…we are content with simply being mediocre in our faith journey. [But] God wants us to become so purified from our sin, that He is able to become one with us… God wants so much more from you. He wants to transform you and use you in ways beyond your imagination.”

So let me ask you: Will you let Him?

 

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Monday Musings – I Have Some Questions Lord

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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?

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 9, 2024

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.

Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, Servant of God

"As an audience maintains silence to hear better the voice of an orator, as music lovers keep silence during a symphony to admire its artistic beauty, so the silence of contemplation is nothing other than the indispensable condition for hearing the voice of God and addressing to Him our heartfelt words."

(From When God is Silent: Finding Spiritual Peace Amidst The Storms of Life)

 

Father Donald Haggerty

"To give ourselves to God in prayer is to find a door in our heart unlocking and opening to the hearts of other people."

(From his Contemplative Enigmas) 

St. Jean-Pierre de Caussade "Sometimes we live in God and sometimes God lives in us. These are very different states. When God lives in us, we should abandon ourselves completely to Him, but when we live in Him, we have to take care to employ every possible means to achieve a complete surrender to Him." (From Spiritual Masters)

 

Monday Musings - Yes, He Means Everything!

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 2, 2021

 

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.

 

 

Venerable Bruno Lanteri

"Do you find yourself turning inward, preoccupied by your anxieties and burdened by your failings? 'Instead of turning in on yourself, lift your gaze often with peace and love to God.' Often. With peace. With love. The less you focus on your failures and the more you gaze on the Lord with peace and love, the more your heart will lift, the stronger you will become, the more joy you will find. Tell Him that 'you want to be totally His' and, with boldness, tell Him that 'it is His to make you become better'!"

(From Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement - The Wisdom and Spiritual Power of Venerable Bruno Lanteri)

 

Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament

"Would to God that you could fathom the extreme and terrible evil that it is to sin. Oh! Sin, sin what harm you have done to us! Alas! Who will be able to repair your ruins? Jesus Christ alone has the power, the will, and the capacity for this, and He did it in a perfect manner through His blood and through His death. It is Jesus Christ who ransomed me and gave me back the possession of my rights. He redeems every moment of my life, because after committing one [mortal] sin, we deserve not only spiritual death, but bodily death too. And if God executed justice it would destroy us irretrievably.

Therefore, I owe Jesus Christ every moment of my life, all the operations of my soul's powers, all my time, all my work, all my ability, all my thoughts, in a word, the use of my senses and all my faculties. And as many acts are for myself or for creatures, these are so many thefts I perpetrate against the blood of God's Son. All is His, we are purchased at that inestimable price, and we have no right to use or spend our life’s moments except for His love and glory. Otherwise, we make a dreadful profanation of this precious blood and render ourselves guilty of it…

If a soul understood the evil and abomination of one sin, she would have such a horror of it, that however wicked she might be, she could not bring herself to commit it. You must confess that our blindness is great and worthy of compassion."

(From The Breviary of Fire - Letters by Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament)

 

Lisa Brenninkmeyer  “The Lord is inviting you to come and gaze into His eyes of mercy. He's offering you hope for a fresh start. Oh, I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, and that the darkness of shame would be chased away. Shame keeps your eyes cast down. But God is cupping your face in His hands and calling you to look up.”  (From Be Still: A Daily Devotional)

 

 

 

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - July 22, 2021

 

 

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.

 

 

Madeliene Delbrel, Servant of God

"Saving the world does not mean making it happy; it means showing the world the meaning of its suffering and giving it a joy that nothing can take away. If we must fight against the misery and misfortune which Christ took so seriously as to speak of judging us in the end solely by what we did for others in this regard, we must keep in mind that what is at stake is ultimately not solving these problems and constructing a second earthly paradise. Rather, what is at stake is eternal life."

(From We, the Ordinary People of the Streets)

 

Venerable Bruno Lanteri

“If you want peace in this life, you must, first of all, decide to accommodate yourself to circumstances and not demand that circumstances accommodate themselves to you. You must, secondly, strive to practice uniformity of your will with God’s. It is He who disposes everything, arranges everything, and permits all that takes place. We need only seek and follow the plan of His fatherly love for our lives, which is always to provide us opportunities for practicing different virtues, at times one, at times another, so that He will have something for which to reward us.”

(From Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement - The Wisdom and Spiritual Power of Venerable Bruno Lanteri)

 

Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament

"Never determine anything of yourself. You are no longer your own, you are Jesus Christ's. It is for Him to dispose and for you to acquiesce and His designs. Strive to be detached from everything, be tied or attached only to God's good pleasure. We must be very disinterested and allow God the freedom to do with us what will please Him."

(From The Breviary of Fire - Letters by Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament)