Encountering the Lord

This is a quick thought for today.  In this Sunday's gospel, we hear about Zaccheus and his encounter with the Lord.  Do you ever feel small and unnoticed?  Jesus sees you.  He is very interested in you.  We can all have our personal encounters with Him.  How do you experience Him today?

Making Choices

My class and I at school were recently awarded with our Business Fast Track Program certificates.  Whew!  Some of us have continued on with other classes while everyone else has gone forth to their job searching.  While waiting for the perfect job to come along, I have continued on with other classes and volunteering at my school.

There are many choices we make in life, and we need to be unafraid of the positive or negative consequences.  For example, I had to leave behind St. Vincent de Paul Center in order to focus on a future career.  I still see my friends at church and they are happy for me.  I’ve embraced helping at youth group, and a new set of friends have cheered me on when I have had to defend the faith we so love. 

Having support helps, but it is also about having a goal and going after it.

You are called to greatness, but you must work hard to attain it.  Live your life as normal.  Going to school…. Looking for work.  But maintain an intimate prayer life, whether you have to get up early in the morning or make time throughout the day.  Daily Mass is preferred, or time spent before the Most Blessed Sacrament.  See Mary as your Mother.  She will guide you to the Ultimate Source, the Heavenly Father.  Be faithful as she is faithful. 

This is your calling, oh Christian.  Remain steadfast in it.  Then, you will obtain strength of character, an open attitude, and a strong interior life.  Save many souls, and fight well in the spiritual life.  Read from St. Francis de Sales and the other great authors in our Catholic history- even from today’s times.

Seek out the best way to serve God.  Reinforce it by your actions.  Find a ministry that helps you to exhale the fruits of your labor.  What do you seek?  What do you enjoy?  What will enable you to bear witness.

Go forth my friend, and follow the vocation God calls you to.

Love

For those of you who are strong in English grammar, love is a noun.  But, in my own prayer life, both while I was in the monastery and now more recently, I have seen the word to be a verb.

How is this, you ask? 

Love must always be in action, just as verbs are.  It is not stagnant.  It is always, in a way, proving – giving - itself to others. 

My favorite Bible verses come from 1 Corinthians 13 (Love is patient, love is kind…) I have seen it used as an examination of conscience before.  Do we really consider if we are following this beautiful definition by St. Paul?

I’m still contemplating and seeking ways to live out my love for God and neighbor – I probably always will be!  It is all part of the journey.   I strive to do this through my direction of intention for love of God and neighbor as a single person.  But that is for another blog post!

Happy Feast Day!

Happy belated Feast of St. Margaret Mary!  I celebrate with my dear sisters, especially in honor of a recently deceased sister’s feast day, Sr. Anne Marguerite, and a certain somebody’s profession anniversary.

There are many reasons for me and my Order to be celebrating.  As a former member, it is also bittersweet.  Should I still be celebrating, or should I be grieving that I am not with them at this time? 

I choose to accept where I am and hope I will be back someday.  I can still rejoice with my sisters, even though I no longer pray the Divine Office regularly or follow their customs.  But that’s okay. 

We are all called to do something in life and I am happy to be a Catholic laywoman writing this blog at this time in my life.  I am happy to be going to school and I am happy to find myself still being sentimental when it comes to remembering my three years in the monastery – even if the sentiments can be sometimes sad still.

I can still be a spiritual mother and sister to all of you, and I am so grateful for that! 

And as the sisters conclude every letter: God be Praised!

Self-Acceptance

Loving yourself unconditionally is something I have learned over the past few years. 

Let me give a recent example.  The other day, I had misplaced my car keys.  I knew they had to be in my purse, because I had just taken them out from the ignition.  I kept reminding God that I could not have anymore "bad luck."  

My point is, I’ve decided from now on to accept my mistakes and not see myself as a failure.  Yes, God may permit things to happen, but that does not mean He wishes ill upon us.  He loves us more than we could ever imagine! 

                How are you going to treat yourself the next time you make a mistake?

A Letter Written To the Reader Aspiring Towards Greatness:

            In seeing your witness toward your vocation, I see the desire and the nervousness.  Am I right?  Don’t feel bad, or think you are doing less than God is calling you to.

            It takes perseverance to reach one’s highest potential.  But don’t ever, ever settled for something less.  I know in my own life, as well as in the stories I so enjoy writing, that it often has to do with overcoming oneself, when things seem to hold us back.

            Be courageous, be motivated, and always focus on God’s Lead.

A Peaceful Heart

A peaceful heart.  Sometimes, it is hard to know of what true peace is.  Let me distinguish it “Salesian-style.”  The lower level is our human nature, which hungers for want, though it be passing.  This can come from the emotions (I still tend to go after this myself) or preferential pleasures like what kind of food you like.  But there is also a higher level, which may seem to “leave us” in a continual search, but that of steadfastness in faith strengthens us.  This is one with lasting meaning, which “moth cannot decay.”  Further, referring to the example regarding food: I have likes and dislikes in taste, but there is more to life than that!  It comes from a gentle surrender to the will of the Father, which means an undisturbed resting in the Heart of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit helps us.  (How Trinitarian is that!)  Yes: true, authentic, restful, interior peace.  It can take a great search, but never ends unfulfilled.  For me, it could be my struggle with being attached to charges (work assignments at the monastery) and wondering how on earth I will manage to get it all done?  For the lay person, it could be the full time job, keeping up with bills, and night classes.  Fill in your own example.  In the end, you go to Sunday Mass with a distracted mind, and likewise affects the heart.  What do I still need to do today?  Agh!  We need to let go with true purity of heart.  It is time to get away.

During meditation, I have read in the Gospel passage where Jesus appears in the Upper Room after His resurrection.  What does He tell Thomas?  “Peace.  See My Hands and put your finger into My Side.”  There are many ways of looking at this scene.  Allow me to bring you through it, in the shoes of St. Thomas after the Resurrection of Our Lord, as we search for peace in the Heart of God.

                “Peace.”  Everything around you stops.  The Maker of time lets what overwhelms in it cease- even if for only a brief moment. 

Jesus calls us in the midst of our lives to be and to abide, in His peace.  Let Him address you by name.  Enter into His Divinity that calls you to His Heart.  “Come to Me all you who are weary, and I will refresh you.”

                Breathe.  Kneel before Him and hold His Hands.  He shows you the slits from the nails.  If you dare lower your eyes (like I tend to do with Him), you notice the holes in His Feet instead.  He gently raises your chin so as to see your eyes again.  Let Him repeat your name.  Nothing else around you should exist.  Return with His Name.  Then He says: “Come be with Me.” 

                I found another passage.  Reading this letter from St. Paul:

 “I want no more trouble from anybody after this; the marks on my body are those of Jesus.”  (Gal. 6:17)  Yes, touch them.  Feel them.  But also let Him impress them, live them on your own life.  Sounds like the stigmata, right?  But I mean in being Christ to others, and enduring all pains with Him.  You are not alone.  What do you see in His wounds?  These wounds that are pierced, cut open, but never intended to be “healed.”  He has no intention, nor can He be worn out in, of putting an end to His GREAT LOVE for us!  They are beyond imprint, for an imprint is only on the surface.  In meditating on this personally, I see compassion, gift of self, Love…  Do I bear these “signs,” this Proof?

                Come away to the open wounds of Christ.  They are redemptive, and His Way, Truth, and Life, is our peace.  As I am so often told of Him by the Sisters: Just Look at Me.

In His unconditional Love, He enables us, invites us, and practically urges us, to realize His burning Love for us as He places our fingers to rest upon, even to go into, His wounds.  He wants us to know unconditional Love, willing to suffer for us.  This personal Jesus, this Savior Who disregards no one.  He is not violent about it like me, as an impatient human, would be frustrated.  “For crying out loud, believe that I came looking for you, love me back!”  No!  He is very gentle.  “He knows that we are but dust.” 

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
(St. Francis of Assisi)