Monday Before Ash Wednesday

Monday Before Ash Wednesday

As we are two days from Ash Wednesday and concluding what we are going to do for Lent, I want us to consider the use of modern technology and social media.  I’m in the middle of reading Teresa Tomeo’s book called Noise.  I’ve been considering the use of media while developing this blog and the website.  This enables me to evangelize to anyone who comes across it.  Something the book mentioned, though, was that we are so glued to our TVs, phones, and computers, that we are less present to the people right in front of us.  I have read about living mindfully vs. mindlessly.  I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty “mindless” myself.  It seems so much easier to multi-task, such as texting while cooking dinner.  It gives only half of our attention to each task.

Before I go further, I will agree that Catholic apps on our phones are a blessing.  I’m preparing for the Marian Consecration using an app.  But that’s in addition to a life of personal prayer and spiritual reading – and books are so much easier to read than from a screen! 

Let us clear the way to be more “mindful” of what we are doing.  In particular, in giving God more of our time.  Turn off the radio.  Let that incoming text wait a minute.  It’s time to open our hearts to prayer. 

Let Lent be the start of a new beginning.  Have a trusted friend hold you accountable; it’s very encouraging!  Open your Bible and let the words come in at a personal level.  Do yourself a favor and unwind from your busy life and make room for an authentic relationship with God; even if it means getting up fifteen minutes earlier every day.  Now is the time.  “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

In Preparation of Lent

I wasn’t quite sure what to give up for Lent this year.  You may be thinking the same thing as well.  I wasn’t positive if giving something up would help me.  (If you feel called to mortify yourself in some way, go for it!  We are all led in a unique, individual way by the spirit.)

A good question to ask ourselves is: what will spiritually feed me this Lent?

I have already begun 33 Days to Morning Glory, a preparation to consecrate myself on a particular feast day to Mary.  The Annunciation is going to be beautiful this year!
But I wanted to be continually growing, even after the feast day.  So, with all that said, I have decided to concentrate on more trusting prayer and spiritual reading this Lent.  It’s time to go out into the desert with Our Lord. 

I hope this blog provides you with many insights and graces, and I hope by summarizing these personal insights that I am able to live them out more fully.  But, if you and I can take them to a deeper level this Lent, let us begin with openness and good faith.

I encourage you to go on this Lenten journey with me.  If you would like to post a comment or send me an e-mail to take my posts to “the next level,” please do so.  We are on this Lenten journey together! 

God be Ever Praised!

Seeking Out Our Transfigured Lord

In today’s gospel (Mark 9:2-13), we are taken to Our Lord’s transfiguration.  But right now, I want us to consider how Jesus sets Peter, James, and John apart from His other disciples.  Let us picture this passage from their perspective, so that we may see Jesus looking at us individually, and taking us apart from society and our obligations, to be with Him.

Where can we experience the transfigured Jesus?  As the holy season of lent approaches, let us seek Him out all the more, that we may see Him glorified – before He is crucified.  We are called to seek Him out.

My parish is so blessed to have an adoration chapel.  We see the Eucharist, in a sense, transfigured, before us. 

Or we can choose to go on a retreat.  It can be within the quiet of a spare room, or we can go to a more formal version of a retreat at a retreat house. 

This is just brainstorming.  Find a place to see Our Lord transfigured.  I pray this weekend for all retreatants such as yourself.

Where will you go to find Jesus?

The following an answer during a Q&A with college students on June 7, I think in 2013.  I believe that everyone struggling with faith needs to read this - then again, it's great for those having
"good days" as well!

“Journeying is an art because if we're always in a hurry, we get tired and don't arrive at our journey's goal,” he said. “If we stop, we don't go forward and we also miss the goal. Journeying is precisely the art of looking toward the horizon, thinking where I want to go but also enduring the fatigue of the journey, which is sometimes difficult. … There are dark days, even days when we fail, even days when we fall … but always think of this: Don't be afraid of failures. Don't be afraid of falling. What matters in the art of journeying isn't not falling but not staying down. Get up right away and continue going forward. This is what's beautiful: This is working every day, this is journeying as humans. But also, it's bad walking alone: It's bad and boring. Walking in community, with friends, with those who love us, that helps us. It helps us to arrive precisely at that goal, that 'there where' we're supposed to arrive.”
(taken from https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/popes-quotes-faith-journey)

God be Praised!  Always!

Let us pray for the cause of the beatification of Lucia of Fatima.  May she intercede for our world alongside her beloved Lady of Fatima.

I'm sure we're all preparing for Valentines Day by now; so I thought I would post St. Paul's letter describing what love really is.  Though you may have read these passages hundreds of times previously, I encourage you to take another look at this beautiful explanation by this great apostle that I copied from bible.com:

1If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

St. Francis of Assisi and Mindfulness

Check out this link to read a meditation led by the inspiration of St. Francis of Assisi!

http://www.mindfulness-meditation-techniques.com/saint-francis-my-god-meditation.html

“How many loaves do you have?”

Please read today’s gospel on the Miracle of the Loaves, Mark 8:1-10

I would like to give this gospel miracle some new perspective, by standing the quoted verse by itself.  Let us read this particular verse again: How many loaves do you have?

Maybe you can relate in a similar way, but, with my health issues, I do not always feel like I’m able to serve God the way I desire to.  The disciples felt the same way about serving the people food.  They simply did not have enough to go around! 

If you feel unable to serve God due to family, health, or for any understandable reason, don’t beat yourself up!  At least have a prayer life, or do some spiritual reading; and Jesus will ask you “How many loaves do you have?” – or, rather, “What do you have to give?”  Even if it’s your empty hands (like St. Therese had, yes I am referring to her again!), give it to Him.  The good Lord is generous, and will take our simplicity and humility, and make it into something beautiful.  Sometimes it takes faith to believe that He is using it, but that is part of the Christian journey: it takes faith.

Believe in Him, love Him, and let Him work through you in spite of your “littleness.”

"We would wish to suffer generously, nobly...  What an illusion!"

"We would never want to fall?  What does it matter, Jesus, if I fall at each moment?  It shows me my weakness and for this reason is a great gain for me.  It shows you what I am able to do and now you will be more tempted to carry me in your arms.  If you do not do it, it is because it pleases you to see me on the ground.  Then I am not going to be disturbed, but I shall always stretch out my arms to you in supplication and full of love!  I cannot believe that you would abandon me!"

- St. Therese of Lisieux

“He has done all things well.”

(Please read today’s gospel, Mark 7:31-37)

The people make this proclamation after the healing of the deaf man.  We can say this every time things are going “well,” as it is put.  But do we say this when things are not going so “well?” 

Our Lady made her own proclamation in the Magnificat, during the scene of the Visitation before Christ’s birth.  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord… for He has looked with favor on His lowly servant.”  It makes me wonder if she continued this song of praise throughout her life, and that of Our Lord’s on earth.  Surely she could have felt the same way about the Miracle at Cana when the water turned into wine; but did she proclaim it when Jesus asked “Who is my mother?” and yet finished with “Whoever does the will of God…”  Further, was she proclaiming “the greatness of the Lord” at the foot of the cross?  We don’t know.  But we do know that, throughout the life of Our Lord, she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”  (cf. Luke 2:19)

Going back to what I was saying: do we say “He has done all things well” in every life circumstance?  Do we “ponder [these circumstances] in [our] heart?” 

"If today you hear His Voice harden not your hearts."  (Psalm 95)

Be "the salt of the earth," "the light of the world!  Live Jesus!