Sabbath Moments
Sabbath Moments
January 28, 2012
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other bloggers’ Sabbath Moments for the week.
Cooking
How can a daily duty be a Sabbath Moment? Well, if we offer our works, joys, and sufferings as well as prayers each day to God, then surely taking care of fixing meals is a Sabbath Moment. I really like to fix food my husband likes and I like to try new recipes, too. So this week I made Gluten Free Stroganoff Soup and finally got the gluten free Homesick Texan’s Ranch Style Beans Recipe to turn out well. Since I have up and down days, it’s great that some recipes make good leftovers and can be used for different meals. The beans will join some ground beef later for a chili recipe that will include peppers I froze from our summer harvest. Mostly I’m thankful that I can fix food at all since there was a time when a mere 5 minutes working on veggies at the kitchen counter was more than I could handle.
Visiting Catholic websites
Spiritual reading is always a way to connect with God. This week Msgr. Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington wrote a funny but serious post that is really humbling for a Christian. You’ve Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good — But the Doctor is In made me laugh but also was encouraging concerning overcoming sins and faults. Simcha Fischer is always good for a laugh, too, as she deals with daily issues many face. Ten Reasons There Are No Women in Hell was priceless and a good reminder to be careful of what we say and write.
Reading meditations on the Holy Rule of St. Benedict
Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) made some thought-provoking comments about this part of the Prologue:
Nor hath done evil to his neighbor: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbor.
He writes:
“To take up a reproach against our neighbor” gives us a peep into one of the disgraceful habits self-love has — that of acting the part of a bloodhound and following the trail of our neighbor in order to catch him in something that would lead to his own disgrace if made known. And when it gets on the trail and finds some nasty scent — the whole world knows about it.
Bees gather only honey. Buzzards seek carrion and feed upon its rottenness. There are human buzzards. I wonder what the all-searching eye of God sees in their filth-surfeited soul: manure is buried in the ground — blossoms bloom in God’s clear air — for the bees.
Ouch!
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
January 21, 2012
Awareness of God
Sabbath Moments is the weekly Saturday meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read more Sabbath Moments.
Sabbath moments seem to evolve, for me, into gratitude for being able to recognize God’s work and blessings in daily life. Among the ordinary whirling of our existence everything seems to stop and we are given the grace to see Him and somehow know Him a little better. Sabbath moments are also times of joy, even in the midst of pain and adverse circumstances because He reveals Himself there, too.
Francie’s friends
My little piano students are quite taken with Francie, so after lessons I give them a handful of her dry food so they can reward her for obedience to their commands. They go outside on sunny days to do the tricks I’ve taught them and it is such a joy to see them all having such good fun. No doubt God loves to see His children playing together well, too, and honoring all the saints in heaven who are special to Him as Francie is to me.
Rule of St. Benedict
This week’s meditations on the Holy Rule by Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) have been a fountain of Sabbath moments. While many available meditations are set up to complete the reading of the Rule three times a year, the ones I use from St. Meinrad’s for oblates take a full year to finish reading once. Today from the Prologue we read:
Behold, in His loving Kindness the Lord points out to us the way to life.
Father Placidus’ first paragraph stopped me short:
Along our modern improved highways signs help the tourists to reach their destination. Christ was way ahead of our modern, so-called progress. Nineteen hundred years ago [this was written in 1978] He erected a huge sign to guide all men to their true destination — the Cross on Calvary. The only road that leads to heaven passes over Mt. Calvary. The only true sign to that happy home is the Cross.
People can become very twisted mentally and emotionally if they try to avoid the Cross or rebel against it. It seems paradoxical to say that running towards the Cross and embracing it is a joy, yet in embracing the Cross we embrace God’s will for us and receive that yoke of Christ with the light burden that He carries with us.
I am now coming to understand that in making the sign of the Cross we not only signify that we belong to Christ and confess the triune Godhead, we are also saying that we accept following Him through suffering and death into perfect union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
January 14, 2012
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to see other Catholic bloggers’ Sabbath Moments for the week.
A couple of Sabbath Moments stand out for me: praying the Divine Office in the morning with Francie snuggled up to me. When I finish all my prayers and spiritual reading, we have petting time.
Listening to the rain on the roof and watching the snow drift down were two blessed times for me this week, too. Thank God for this precipitation because we really need it after last summer’s drought.
Obstinacy and hardness of heart
The meditation on the Rule of St. Benedict for January 13 was so good I have to share parts of it. Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) wrote about obstinacy and hardness of heart. Since we’re all sinners we have these tendencies and Father Placidus shines a bright light on these states of being with both humor and clarity.
In our day men make much of hardening of the arteries. The modern poet says:
She strove to keep her arteries whole, Then died of hardening of the soul.
Hard, deaf is the soul that does not constantly strive to tune out the jazz of earth in order to tune in to the sweet voice of God admonishing her. The greatest punishment of a sinner is hardness of heart….He who does not wish to be converted from his sinful ways falls into the state of obstinacy. This obstinacy, this hardness, has various degrees.
1. The first degree is a dissembling of one’s own weakness and wickedness. Flattering himself that he is still in the state of perfection, the sinner falls into lukewarmness.
2. The second degree is ignorance of oneself. When the sinner clothes himself in the garment of self-deception and flattery he does not see the mortal wound in his soul. Even if told of his wounds by another he will not admit them.
3. The third degree — to sin openly and boldly.
4. The fourth degree is contempt of God. When the wicked man falls into the depths of all manner of sins, he despises God, and this leads to impenitence and hardness of heart.
…The hardened sinner has by sinful neglect grown deaf to the voice of conscience, the soul’s alarm clock. This voice is really the voice of God.
This voice
1. Admonishes us that our sins are caused by ourselves alone.
2. Tells us we should not conceal the evil that we have done.
3. Cries out that those who despise God shall fall into hell because of their sins.
4. Entreats: “Do you not know that the patience of God leads you to repentance?”
Confession, anyone?
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
January 7, 2012
Awareness of God
Thanks to Colleen at Thoughts on Grace for hosting this meme each week. Be sure to visit her, too.
Since I’ve been absent the past two weeks, I’ll include more than the Sabbath Moments for this week.
Rule of St. Benedict
Every January we start from the beginning in the meditations on the Holy Rule, beginning with the Prologue. Today it occurred to me that the good Benedictines from St. Meinrad who wrote these are giving us little snippets of daily spiritual direction, and I have to say that this week’s commentaries by Father Placidus Kempf (RIP) are fantastic. I posted on Renunciation earlier this week and will write some more on this week’s commentaries soon so others can enjoy it too.
My little grand-neice
Our family Christmas Eve get-together was very entertaining because of my eighteen month old grand niece. She is half Chinese and half American and totally adorable. Am I prejudiced? My sister had bought a cute red dress and little Mary Janes with lace socks for her Christmas outfit. Finding a red Santa hat on the hearth, she made us all laugh with her antics as she put it on and took it off. She will speak both Mandarin and English fluently when she grows up – a good combination in today’s world. God blesses us in ways we don’t expect, and I am glad that East has met West in our family. It provides a richness of culture that will somehow work in His plan for us.
Adoration
Yesterday, in addition to being the feast of the Epiphany in the 1962 calendar, was First Friday and the local parish had adoration after Mass. I had plenty of time to mull over a problematic article I have to write for the newsletter I publish every month. Praying before I write has become a habit. I’m always afraid of being inaccurate, or, on emotionally charged issues, coming across snarky or mean-spirited. The Lord has always come to my aid at these times, and time spent in adoration helps me be charitable.
Talk with an old friend
Last evening I had a talk with a priest friend of mine and received great news for the good of our diocese. The bishop just appointed him as Director of Diocesan Liturgy. He is very orthodox and has a good knowledge of the sacred liturgy. In addition, he is supportive of the Traditional Latin Mass. When I founded an Una Voce chapter in 1999 and worked on petitioning the former bishop for the Latin Mass, he was very encouraging to me. As Father Zuhlsdorf says, “brick by brick” and it doesn’t matter if it takes a year or more to lay just one or two, the great news is that the sacred liturgy in our diocese will slowly become in conformity with the Roman Missal as it should, and the Catholic faith will be strengthened.
Well, I have to go now. Last night the dog threw up on the bed sheets and I have to get started on a laundry, which means stripping the bed. Usually when the dog vomits it wakes me up, but not this time. I don’t know why the whole thing seems funny to me, but it does. I must not be normal.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
December 17, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to our Saturday meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other blogger’s Sabbath Moments for the week.
Christmas Music
This week I’ve been listening, off and on, to Chip Davis’ Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music. Davis often incorporates Renaissance flavors in his compositions. In 1996 Mannheim Steamroller put on a Renaissance Christmas at the Orpheum theater in Omaha. In this clip you can hear the joyous Christmas music played with recorders, lutes, and other Renaissance instruments along with modern instruments. That’s Chip Davis himself sitting next to Roxanne Layton playing the recorder. God gave Davis multiple gifts: being able to compose good music, being able to inspire other very talented people to work with him, and being able to put on a great stage show. If you go to YouTube and search Mannheim Steamroller Renaissance Christmas you will find more.
Nut mixes and pumpkin bread
This week has been busy preparing for a trip to visit family. I made my low carb nut mix to give away to family and filled the house with the enticing odors of pumpkin bread. Since I have to live gluten free, it’s always a challenge to mix a variety of flours together to get something tasty. This time I used coconut flour along with brown rice flour and garbanzo bean flour. The bread is heavier than when you use wheat flour, but it tastes great and my husband likes it. When I’ve experimented more, I’ll publish the recipe. God is good to allow me the strength to get all this extra work done.
Sunshine!
After a couple of dreary weeks we got a day of sunshine to enjoy. It was a nippy 40 degrees with a north wind, but I took Francie for a walk anyway. We had a good time under the blue sky. Fresh air and walking is a good break from all the brain work and domestic duties that normally make up my day.
May God bless all my readers and may all of you have a joyous Christmas.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
December 10, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to enjoy other bloggers’ Sabbath Moments – those times when we pause in our daily lives to see God at work.
Mass on the feast of the Immaculate Conception
We naturally think of being at Mass as a Sabbath Moment, but this Extraordinary Form Mass was especially beautiful. The priest wore a Roman chasuble made of white satin. On the back was a blue cross extending the width and height of the garment. In the center was embroidered in gold a very fancy “M”. In retrospect I wish I would have thought to bring my camera because the altar was also very beautiful, prepared for the Holy Sacrifice.
Six altar boys, all with various responsibilities, dressed in black cassock and surplice, behaved very prayerfully and reverently. We could tell they were focused on the great mystery at hand. They didn’t miss a step in fulfilling their somewhat complex role during a High Mass.
The choir is all girls and women. I could tell they had worked very hard on the sacred music that accompanies a High Mass. Since the choir loft is elevated above the main floor and the acoustics are good, their blend both in chant and harmony gave the impression of angels. I’m sure God was very pleased with the honor given Him by all at this Mass, especially by those whose role is integral to the sacred liturgy.
One thing I remember from Father’s sermon: that the hearts of Jesus and Mary are inseparable and that they beat in unison. Mary was the perfect Christian while she was on earth. None of us will be that perfect, but the unity of mind and heart between Jesus and Mary is what we are to direct our wills toward in this life. Mary is our example. Saint Paul told the Romans, chapter 15: 5-6 what we see clearly in the Immaculate Conception:
Now the God of endurance and of encouragement give to you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
From the moment of her conception, saved from original sin through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, our Mother, is the one to help us become of one heart, mind, and soul with God. The Immaculate Conception is about unity with God.
The Rule of St. Benedict
Today’s reading on chapter 72, “As there is an evil zeal, which separates from God and leads to hell…”, reminded me of Mary’s writings on the Seven Deadly Sins over at The Beautiful Gate. The commenter on this passage writes:
Zeal can be twofold. One is of an evil nature, the other is of God. One leads to hell, the other leads to heaven…
Zeal, says Abbot Marmion, is “a flame of love, or of hatred, manifested by action” (Christ the Ideal of the Monk, p. 397). In Holy Scripture, zeal often means an evil tendency of the soul, such as jealousy, envy, greediness, selfishness in searching our own good instead of our neighbors. In the 2nd Book of Kings, Jehu had zeal which was bitter and harsh.
The Pharisees were zealous. We call them zealots because they were zealous about their own prerogatives. They were not zealous about God’s rights. A monk, enthusiastic about reform, but who does not have Christ first in his endeavors, but only self, could be said to have an evil zeal, which could become “savage, severe, unloving, unsympathizing” (Herbert Van Zeller, The Holy Rule, Notes on St. Benedict’s Legislation for Monks, p. 455)…
St. James in his epistle also warns us that “where zeal and contention is: there is inconstancy and every evil work” (3:16). W put aside this bitter zeal to concentrate, as does St. Benedict, upon the good zeal that leads to God and everlasting life.
This commentary makes for a good examination of conscience on the virtue of charity. From a psychological standpoint, it seems to me that if I am full of bitter zeal, I am busy pointing fingers at others to avoid facing my own faults and inadequacies. Jesus warned against this in Matt. 7:5 and Luke 6:42: Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
In this season of Advent when we are preparing room to receive Jesus into our hearts on His birthday, we can ask His Mother to help us have holy zeal for the kingdom of God.
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Sabbath Moments
December 3, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. This Saturday meme prompts us to review our week and note times when we were “resting in the Lord” or encountering Him in the ordinary events of our life.
First Friday Adoration
A couple of months ago when I learned that my local parish was having Adoration on the first Friday of every month after morning Mass I decided to participate. Sometimes my mind is rocketing around like an uncontrolled ping-pong ball, bouncing off walls, paddles, and tables. After awhile during Adoration it calms down and I can focus much better. What I like is the great quiet time with the Lord where I can ask Him to help others, speak to Him about what’s going on in my life, and praise and thank Him for His loving care for me and all those I love and pray for.
Reading the New Translation
Yesterday I stayed longer than the usual hour of Adoration so I could read more of the new translation of the Ordinary of the Mass in the Real Presence of Our Lord. It is a huge step forward in terms of the potential for deepening the spiritual life of those who attend Mass regularly. Although I already knew what some of the new translation was from reading Father Zuhlsdorf’s blog, looking at all of it was very encouraging.
First of all, in those prayers shared in common with the Extraordinary Form, the English translation is either close to or identical to what has been in use since the 19th and 20th centuries when vernacular/Latin missals became common. That is, it is very faithful to the Latin original. Many of these shared prayers date from the early Church, such as the Gloria, the Credo, and the “Deliver us, O Lord…” to name a few.
Perhaps the most important change is the restoration of the vocative case in addressing God. Since 1969 when the Ordinary Form was approved (in Latin) by Pope Paul VI, the English translators have had us ordering God around. “Do this, do that” as in “God, come to my assistance.” “Lord, see to it that…”. This approach disrupts our right relationship with God. He is our Creator. We are His creatures. He is the Commander. We are the ones to be commanded. We are not and never will be equal to God. But remember, the serpent in the garden of Eden lied to Eve and told her otherwise (Gen. 3:5), a lie the world still would have us believe today – a lie that led to the woes of all our lives.
The use of the vocative case expresses our true relationship to God beautifully, creating subtle changes in our hearts that will help us be more humble and trustful of Him if we reflect on the words. This translation is counter cultural – it is fully Catholic. It will help us drive the zeitgeist out of our souls so that we may more fully embrace the True Geist, the Holy Spirit and His promptings.
I don’t think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this much more faithful English translation of the Ordinary Form. Lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer is the law of belief. As St. Paul says, “faith comes through hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Ro. 10:17). What we hear with our ears at Mass enters our hearts. What comes out of our mouths ascends from our hearts (Matt. 15:18). I can see the possibility of a much better witness to the world on the part of Catholics if this new translation is fully taken to heart. I also believe that when non-Catholic seekers of Christ hear the words of this liturgy they will have an easier time recognizing that they have come home.
Pope John Paul II did a very good thing in reforming ICEL and forming Vox Clara. Pope Benedict XVI has done a very good thing in following through with his predecessor’s initiatives.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
November 19, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to our weekly meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other bloggers’ quiet moments with God. Note: next Saturday we will not have a post on this meme due to the Thanksgiving holidays.
Ups and downs and elderberries
This week was up and down for me with fibro pain and tiredness. I had to take a heavy duty pain killer for the first time in a long time and was zoned out for a day. But Friday was gloriously sunny and I felt so great Roger and I went for a drive in the country to check out a hardware store in a small town north of Springfield. We met some neat people while we were looking at hand guns and we enjoyed learning more about safety. Back home in town we stopped off at an antique store just for fun and bought some elderberry jam.
It takes 2,000 berries to make a pound, and 20 pounds to make a gallon of juice
Elderberries are a native Missouri plant that grow wild but can be cultivated for their edible flowers and berries. The are the size of BBs but produce a huge amount of juice. If you ever get a chance to taste elderberry wine, it is delicious as is just about everything else made from this plant. Maybe I’ll put one in our yard next spring since we’re interested in gardening. Then we’ll see who gets the berries first: we or the birds.
Of Korean interest
Inside the Vatican is one of my favorite Catholic publications. This week I finally got around to reading the most recent issue and found an interview with Thomas Hong-Soon Han, South Korea’s Ambassador to the Holy See. Regular readers know I am very interested in Japan, Korea, and China, and their history and culture so this article I read with great interest.
Han’s story is not only inspiring from a personal standpoint, his insight into the Catholic Church in Korea is most instructive. I learned that the Church in Korea was founded by Korean lay people, not missionaries. From reading a book by the great Chinese missionary Jesuit, Matthew Ricci, Korean scholars became very interested in the Catholic faith. They sent one of their own to China to learn and be baptized. When he returned, he baptized many others and founded the first Catholic community in 1784. The Church survived without missionary priests until 1836 when the Paris Mission Society sent some.
The Church in Korea always stayed with the oppressed regardless of the type of government, and this has given it an authoritative voice in the culture. According to Han, it will play an important role in overcoming the grave difficulties between North and South Korea.
Gamgok Parish Church (cathedral), Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea
Han is of my times. We share similarities in our spiritual formation although we lived half a world apart and in far different circumstances.
He says, “I spent my elementary school years in the period of the Korean War. My family fled from the capital, Seoul, to the South. The first thing my mother did was to take me to the school of the refugees which was in a huge tent. I recall a lot of difficulties during the war. After I returned back home to Seoul I spent my boyhood in a parish run by Irish missionaries. I still vividly remember how my catechist, a German missionary sister, taught me how to pray. The best moment to pray is when receiving Holy Communion, as the Lord has come into your body.” He went on to say that the Legion of Mary was the school of formation of the faith for him. He said of his work for God, “…do not be afraid. He will be with you. You are working with Mary for her Son.”
Catholic News Asia recently reported that the Catholic Church in Korea is the fastest growing in Asia with young people on fire for the Lord. This relatively small country, I think, will some day play an important role in the recovery of the moral compass lost by the West and the communist nations bordering it – if it can staunchly resist the materialistic zeitgeist of our age.
Stories of faith inevitably provide Sabbath Moments for me.
Note: I lifted the cathedral picture from The Marmot’s Hole – Korea…in blog format which I will be visiting more often.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
Sabbath Moments
November 12, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to our weekly meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other bloggers’ Sabbath Moments and join in or comment.
Death of a friend
A couple of weeks ago my friend Shirley passed away at age 98. I have had many Sabbath Moments thinking about her last few weeks as related by her daughters and the pastor. “Jesus, I love you,” was constantly on her lips. She lost no opportunity to tell her family she loved them, and her friends, too. One day the pastor came and sat next to her on the bed and asked, “Shirley, how do you feel about meeting Jesus?” She answered, “I’m ready.” She said it often in that last week.
At age 88 Shirley decided to become a third order Carmelite. She was using a walker by then because of hip degeneration that left her bone-on-bone. From my own experience I know how painful that was. Thinking of her physical issues, her daughter asked her in some dismay, “What are you going to do, Mom?” Shirley looked at her and answered, “Pray.”
As I have been contemplating St. Catherine of Genoa’s writings on purgatory and the need for souls to be in perfect charity with God to enter heaven, Shirley comes to mind as an example I should follow. I cannot know what hidden stains from faults God might have to cleanse away before she enters heaven, but I do know that she died in the most perfect charity of anyone I have personally known. Detached from everything and every person in this world, but bound by that golden filament of charity to all of us, living and dead, she shows me both how far I’ve come and how far I need to go to begin in this life the way of being in total unity with God that St. Paul speaks of in 1 Cor. 13:13.
A conversion story
Tanks in Tianamen Square, 1989 uprising
This week the Rome-based Dignitatis Humanitae Institute received a guest whose remarkable history and conversion provided me with unexpected Sabbath Moments. Chai Ling, twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was a key leader of the pro-democracy movement in China that drew over 100,000 students to Tianamen Square in 1989. You can read more at Zenit’s Ongoing Tianamen, but I want to focus on her retrospective of the events the day the world saw Chinese military tanks and soldiers violently suppressing their own people.
Twenty years after her Tianamen Square experience, Ling converted to Christianity and in 2010 was baptized. She says (quoting Zenit):
“I had faced death, looked it into the eye, but I didn’t overcome it — in other words I didn’t have the peace nor the joy, just sadness, sorrow and fear,” she recalls. “But we had a duty, we knew we had to confront whatever we were confronting.
“Then, after I’d given my speech, I felt this huge warm sensation come into my heart — a sense of love toward the leaders of China, toward the soldiers, the people who were about to kill us. It was the most amazing feeling and I wished they had known how much we’d loved them.”
“Now I know that this must be how Jesus felt on the cross,” Ling says.
She remembers witnessing “a power, an amazing spirit” at Tiananmen Square, but at the time she didn’t know how to articulate it.
“I’ve since come to know that it’s the spirit of Jesus,” she says. “Then everything started to makes sense.”
I cannot help but wonder what the outcome would have been for China had all those students been Christian. What if all of them at once would have fallen to their knees and prayed the Our Father together? Would China be a force for good today rather than a force for death?
Every day 35,000 forced abortions take place in China. Every day a large portion of those killed are girls. Today in China 120 boys are born for every 100 girls. That’s just the abortion angle of their culture of death. Greed and corruption lead to shoddy construction that results in many deaths every time there is a natural disaster. We could go on and on here.
As I observe the “Occupy Wall Street” partisan political movement I again wonder, what if everyone who has a grievance against the government fell to his knees and prayed the Our Father? What if everyone did it daily and in public in groups? Could we not be delivered from the forces of darkness in this country and in the world that are choking the life out of people and destroying souls?
The Roman Coliseum was the site of public mass martyrdom of Christians. Because of those and many other lives freely given as Christ gave His on the cross, Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor saw a rising tide of Christianity that eventually overcame the worst cruelties of their times. Today we have the wonderful 40 Days for Life movement that involves small groups praying in front of abortion mills all over our country. Many lives are saved through this effort and many souls are won for God.
The love of Christ seeks to envelop the world and govern our actions. It alone heals. It alone converts those in darkness. Even if it takes 20 years to bring about conversion as it did in Chai Ling’s case, His light shines no less brightly. We are His apostles of love and light. We cannot hide it under a bushel and call ourselves real Christians. So many are waiting to put a name, as Chai Ling did, to the longing in their hearts. How long shall we keep them waiting?
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments
November 5, 2011
Awareness of God
Our weekly Saturday meme is hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Be sure to visit her to read others’ Sabbath Moments for the week and join us if you like.
Eucharistic Adoration
For about a year and a half I’ve felt the pull to somehow get into a situation where I could resume Eucharistic Adoration. I prayed that the local parish, which I do not normally attend because of no access to the Extraordinary Form, would start an adoration program. My prayers were answered. On every First Friday after Mass the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the day chapel until noon and it is less than 2 miles from our house! So Friday was a really great day – and sunny, too!
In case anyone is interested, I like to use a pamphlet in adoration that is hugely helpful in conversations with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It’s called “A Meditation Before the Blessed Sacrament.” You can get free copies from:
Blessed Sacrament Pamphlet P.O. Box 640358 Kenner, LA 70064
It is also available online here: http://www.sesnaperville.org/ador/ador_meditation.html. I think I’m going to order a bunch of them to give to the pastor so he can have a tool to encourage more people to take advantage of these First Friday opportunities. It would be great to see it grow into an every Friday event and maybe some day, to a 7 day a week 24 hour program.
Dinner With a Friend
I’ve been helping a friend who is going through a particularly difficult time. Thursday evening she took me to Red Lobster for dinner. My husband and I seldom go out to eat unless we’re on one of our few trips somewhere, and he won’t eat fish or seafood whereas I love it. So the meal together with her was extra special for me in many ways.
Working on Blog Posts
This week I completed my series on vocations and polished a post on purgatory. Thinking deeply on our faith and how to live it, then making it come alive in a post is always a series of Sabbath Moments. Without God’s grace I could do none of it.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments
October 29, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to our Saturday meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other Catholic blogger’s moments of resting in the Lord or finding Him in the ordinary.
This week was busy. Due to problems with a neighbor, we had to get a privacy fence installed along one side of our property. Fortunately, it only took 3 days. One to set the posts, one to let the concrete harden, and one to nail the boards. It looks lovely. Between now and next spring I’ll have time to consider what to plant near it. For sure it looks like this will be a great opportunity to start kiwi vines in a sunny section. No problem presents itself without a corresponding opportunity. Meanwhile, I am praying for the neighbor when I otherwise wouldn’t have. Sometimes God sticks stuff right under our noses so we can’t miss those He wants us to pray for.
Sunlight through the red, orange, and yellow leaves casts a warm glow over morning and evening. Just looking out the window at this intangible beauty is calming and peaceful. Physical light is important and healthy for the body as the light of Christ is important and healthy for the soul. I’ve found that part of my wellness program is getting enough sunlight. On sunny days fibromyalgia pain is much lower than on overcast and rainy days. Meditation and prayer brings the light of Christ into my soul which starts to wither away without it. It’s like what Colleen wrote about last week: put God first. I’ll add, or you’ll get lost in the dark and be in a world of hurt.
We are getting a kick out of the neighbor boy who is around 9-10 years old. He is an outgoing, enterprising young man. When we cleared the honeysuckle from the back fence, it exposed a lot of rocks – the Ozarks gifts of the ground. He asked if he could have some and we said yes. The next day he was knocking on our front door offering to sell us some beautiful rocks – the ones we gave him permission to take! I thought it was hilarious. He is a polite boy and very intelligent with an outgoing nature. It’s always a Sabbath moment to see today’s children growing into decent people – a good antidote to the selfish and self-centered youth that dominate the news. The Lord is raising wheat among the weeds. We must all pray for the wheat to stay strong and not be choked out by the weeds.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments
October 22, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, the meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other bloggers’ moments this week when they were especially touched by God.
We’ve had colder than normal weather this October. The orange maple we put in a few years ago is starting to turn color. The welcome rain has allowed all our trees to hold on to their leaves a bit longer and the crisp air has me longing to get ahold of some fermented apple cider. There’s nothing like that fizzy stuff to make sitting on a porch in the sunshine just perfect. It’s good the Lord lets us enjoy these blessings and gives us the grace to realize they are from Him.
Friendship with God
This week the subject of the Divine Intimacy meditations has been the apostolate of every Christian: to participate with Christ in the salvation of souls. Today’s theme is the soul of the apostolate. Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene has these words:
The first degree of friendship with God, which consists in the absence of serious sin, does not suffice to fulfill the purposes of the apostolate. [Staying out of mortal sin isn't enough. It's just skating by. God asks much more of us.] A deeper friendship is required, one which creates such uniformity of will, desire and affection that the apostle is enabled to act according to God’s Heart; he is moved not by his own impulses, but by the Holy Spirit.
It is a very significant fact that Jesus made His apostles live for three years in intimacy with Him, treating them like dear friends, before sending them out to convert the world: “I will not now call you servants…but I have called you friends” (Jn. 15:15). Friends, not only because He shared the treasures of His divine life with them, but also because He wanted them to be the collaborators, and in a certain sense, the successors of His mission as Redeemer.
Only if we are friends of God can we be apostles; God Himself invites us to this friendship, but we must correspond by living an intense interior life, one which makes our relations with God ever more intimate and richer in love.
The growth of Eucharistic Adoration in the past ten years is a great sign of spiritual renewal. What better way to build a friendship with God than by spending time with Jesus in person? The Holy Spirit works with willing hearts. That’s what counts.
I used to be a little jealous of the apostles and everyone who got to know Jesus while He was on earth. But thanks to His loving mercy, I can, through the sacraments and sacred scripture, know Him better every day until that time when I no longer have to see “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). It’s a long road filled with many pitfalls and an uphill battle every day, but “the armor of God” (Eph. 6:13) is invincible.
Sure, I’ve turned my ankle many times, skinned my shins, gotten a bloody lip and cracked my head severely on this path. At times I turned around and started down hill because I wanted to take the easy way out. I even threw the armor off, which only made things far worse.
Now I know this: as long as I don’t take the armor off again, and as long as I practice my spiritual martial arts every day, I’ll grow in that friendship of God that is the soul of the apostolate. I hope to see many people in heaven some day that helped me and whom I have helped, all of us apostles of Jesus Christ.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments – Rain, A Trip, and Meditation
October 15, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read about other bloggers’ moments of resting in the Lord or finding Him in the ordinary.
Rain
September and early October dragged on with cool, dry air, lots of sunshine and no rain. We got a lot of work done outside because of this, but I was anxious over the continuing drought. This past week we finally started filling the moisture deficit with a couple of days and nights of rain – not forecasted. “Lord, thanks for answering all the prayers for rain. What a blessing it is,” I said often when I looked out the window. Rainy days are always welcome opportunities to spend more time in prayer and domestic pursuits such as finding recipes on the internet, tackling clean up and disposal of the detritus of life, and just plain loafing.
A trip to the country
Yesterday Roger and I had some business to conduct in a small town about 50-60 miles away. I’ve always loved driving into the countryside, speeding by the rolling hills and limestone cliffs of Missouri. We made some new Christian friends and enjoyed ourselves in the lovely weather. I learned to fire a gun among other things, and had a great time target shooting. It was amazing to discover the kick a revolver produces and the ease of firing a .22 automatic. More amazing was the fact that I could hit the target, considering my complete lack of success with BB pistols in earlier years.
Movies and TV are pretty much fluff when it comes to portraying real gun action. Today I’m somewhat sore from the action and tired from the long day, but I’m looking forward to learning more and target practicing again. God always sends us people to help us grow and acquire new skills when we need it. Since my body doesn’t work all that well, it was great to find out personal defense actions I can take even in my condition and at my age that will give an aggressor a more difficult time when trying to inflict bodily harm. Thanks to our new friends and their training, I feel safer.
Meditation time
Making extra time to meditate is a great Sabbath moment. I’m always surprised at where God takes me when I ponder Him and His action in my life. Reading Catholic blogs often stimulates my meditations so I take time every week to make rounds of various reliable sites even though I seldom comment. My favorite meditation time is in the early morning quiet while I’m still in bed. Once I get up and go about my routine, life can be too distracting. Dark and quiet let me see God and hear His teachings more easily.
A thought occurred to me more than once recently: as God has limited my activity through my health, age, and financial situation, I have more time than most people to meditate and pray, and time to write this blog. If I were younger and healthier with the ability to have more money, I wouldn’t necessarily have the time I have now to ruminate on the divine. I might well be off track engaging in worldly pursuits and not putting God first. So God is obviously giving me the chance to put Him first and be of use to others through prayer and writing. We all have our assigned jobs from the Almighty. This is mine.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments – Spiritual Progress
October 1, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Please visit her to read other Catholic bloggers moments of awareness of God.
Extra time with God
It must be the prednisone. I’m waking up at 5:30 in the morning, giving me quite a bit of extra time with the Lord. Prednisone = bad. Extra time with the Lord = good Sabbath Moments. This must be the idea behind turning lemons into lemonade.
Puttering
Beautiful weather Friday morning allowed me to putter in the garden and yard and get plenty of sunshine. I always feel God’s presence when I’m digging, weeding, pruning and harvesting. God bless my friend Steve, the physical therapist who works out in the therapy pool when I do. He told me about a small tractor we decrepit people can sit on and roll wherever we need to go to get those pesky weeds out, and do other close to the ground chores. Hubby and I bought it on sale over a year ago and it’s made doing outside work so much easier and fun.
Spiritual Progress
One of my meditations for this week from Divine Intimacy gave me much to think about throughout the following days.
It’s tempting to try to gauge our spiritual progress by ourselves. The minute we start focusing on ourselves and worrying about being holy, our eye is off the ball, the ball being God. The opposite of sin is virtue. We are either practicing sin or we are practicing virtue. Real spiritual progress comes with the practice of virtue.
Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD has good news for us:
Infant Baptism - Catholic
In fact, although God has infused the virtues into us at Baptism without any merit on our part, He does not make them grow without our collaboration; it remains for us, always with the help of grace, to put into practice the virtuous principles He has given us. Only in this way shall we acquire good habits of virtue and facility in practicing them.
Therefore, if we desire to cooperate with the action of God who wishes to make us like to Himself, we should apply ourselves with great zeal to the practice of the virtues.
…”the obligation to advance in the love of God – and therefore, in all the other virtues as well – lasts even unto death” (St. Francis de Sales). No one, however advanced in the spiritual life, can consider himself dispensed from the practice of the virtues.
In certain Catholic circles there seems to be an over emphasis equating holiness or spiritual progress with spiritual consolations and contemplation alone. The incursion of transcendental meditation (a New Age practice) and its off-shoots pushed by well-meaning but misled people has deceived more than a few. On the other hand, there are Catholics that really believe that if you cannot engage in charismatic prayer the Holy Spirit is not working in you and you are not holy. I’ve met both types.
I think we have no greater expert on spiritual progress in prayer and living than the Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila. She alerts us to pitfalls and shows us how to avoid them.
Father Gabriel continues:
St. Teresa of Jesus in describing the high states of the life of union with God, often digresses to urge the practice of virtue. “You must not build,” she wrote to her daughters, “upon the foundation of prayer and contemplation alone, for unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs” (Interior Castle VII, 4); and elsewhere she expressly says that, by means of the virtues, “even though not greatly given to contemplation, people who have them can advance a long way in the Lord’s service, while, unless they have them, they cannot possibly be great contemplatives” (Way, 4).
It is not essential that God should lead us by the path of high contemplation in order to make us saints; [note: We do not make ourselves saints. It is not in our power to do this. Only God can make us holy.] besides, this does not depend upon our will. What does depend upon us, and is essential, is that we maintain the practice of virtue. Whether God wills for us a family life or one dedicated to the duties of a professional life, whether He calls us to the apostolate or to the contemplative life, in each case we shall become saints only in the measure in which we practice virtue.
…However, we shall never reach perfect, much less heroic, virtue unaided by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the end of which is precisely to perfect the virtues. Although the task of practicing the virtues is ours, it is only God who can actuate the gifts, and ordinarily He does this in proportion to our zeal in practicing virtue. The assiduous practice of the virtues opens our soul wide to God’s action, rendering it apt to receive and follow the motions of the Holy Spirit.
Thinking on this, I see how important it is
- to ask God’s help in identifying a key virtue to develop,
- to recognize the opportunities God gives us to practice this virtue, and
- to examine our conscience daily for our omissions when we let the chance go by, as well as our commission of sins opposed to the virtue.
If we’ve blown it, we simply tell God we’re sorry – and really mean it – and ask Him to wize us up. A little penance or mortification in both repentance and thanksgiving for His generosity to us in the many graces He gives us daily keeps us in the right frame of mind to persevere.
This simple approach keeps our eyes on the prize: eternal union with God starting now. If we don’t have some degree of this union before we die, we aren’t going to find it after death.
Spiritual progress can’t be accomplished by prayer alone St. Teresa says. We shouldn’t get hung up on whether we can actually engage in contemplative prayer even though the writings of St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross and other contemplatives make it very attractive. Who doesn’t want to experience what they did? The same goes for getting hung up on whether or not we can pray in tongues. Both instances makes the prize a particular satisfaction with ourselves in prayer – an end in itself. It sets up a false measure of something only God can truly assess and leads to pride and vainglory, the opposite of several virtues including humility.
We have to be careful about making assumptions about our own holiness based on any other person and what he or she experiences in prayer or even what we experience in prayer. We can be sure God is always calling us to union with Him every minute of every day. His call is always individual. Co-operating with God’s action in our souls is the main thing, and what Sabbath Moments are all about.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments: Perseverance
September 24, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to this meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Please visit her to read others’ Sabbath Moments of the week.
This week we got some good and lengthy rain showers – just the right kind to soak the earth after a parching summer. Rainy days are good days for resting in the Lord.
My experiment with late sowed zucchini failed. I’m getting 4 inch veggies that just won’t grow longer or bigger. We’ve had such weather extremes – very hot then dropping into the upper 40s at night – that I think, along with the angle of light changing, conditions aren’t good for normal growth. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and nothing learned. I’ll move the second planting up a couple of weeks next summer and see what happens. And here’s hoping next summer won’t be so hot. God is my partner in gardening and He always gives me a lot to think about as I try to coax the best out of the plants and apply the knowledge of those more experienced than I whom He puts in my path.
Hives are still a problem. At times they drive me crazy and I have to deal with the trade-off of having more of them and itching worse with taking more prednisone than I want. Right now I’m opting for less drug and more itch. This is a test of perseverance, which happens to be the lesson from Divine Intimacy today.
Father Gabriel writes:
The angel, a pure spirit, is stable by nature; if he makes a resolution, he holds to it; but this is not the case with us. We, being composed of spirit and matter, must suffer the consequences of the instability and fluctuations of the latter.
As stability is characteristic of spirit, so instability is characteristic of matter; hence it becomes so difficult for us to be perfectly constant in the good. Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of the sensible part of our nature which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. [No kidding.]
Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating. That which at one moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it.
However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never asks the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can, by the help of grace, become steadfast.
Physical and mental obstacles to bearing up under life’s difficulties seem, at times, to be monumental. Sometimes it looks like a lot of things pile up on us all at once and all our good intentions fly out the window in a second. It’s especially difficult to come to terms with chronic conditions that fluctuate in severity and are badly affected by other temporary difficulties. Father Gabriel notes:
Sometimes just a momentary inattention, an unexpected happening, a little weariness or emotion, is enough to make us commit some fault that we had sincerely resolved to avoid at any cost, and here we have failed again! This, however, is no reason for being discouraged or sad; rather it is a motive for humbling ourselves, for recognizing our weakness and begging more insistently for God’s help to rise at once and begin again.
Because our human nature is so unstable, our perseverance will usually consist in continually beginning again. This is the perseverance to which we should all attain, because it depends on our good will, in the sense that God has infused this virtue in our soul, giving us at every moment sufficient grace to practice it.
It is not in our power to free ourselves from this instability of our nature, and therefore we cannot avoid every slackening in virtue, every negligence, weakness, or fault; but it is within our power to correct ourselves as soon as we perceive that we have failed. This is the kind of perseverance, that God demands of us, and when we practice it faithfully, and are always prompt in rising after each fall, He will crown our efforts by granting us the supreme grace of final perseverance.
So dealing with hives along with everything else is God’s way of strengthening the virtue of perseverance in me. Just as an athlete doesn’t get to be a gold medal winner in the Olympics without daily intensive practice, so we will not achieve heaven without rigorous practice of perseverance. I’m going for the eternal gold. How about you?
Thanks to everyone who’s been praying for me. I’m sure your prayers are helping.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
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