This post is linked to Sunday Snippets, a meme hosted by RAnn at This That and the Other Thing. Please join us and comment.

Over the past two weeks I’ve had the great pleasure of corresponding with an exceptional Norwegian photographer who specializes in the Northern Lights but also has other great work.  You can find a few of his photographs and an interview with him at The Photography of Bjørn Jørgensen. Serious amateurs, professionals, and photography junkies will find it very interesting.  Others will find the images just plain gorgeous.

Fundamental Spiritual Truths is a meditation on part of the Prologue of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict.

At Sabbath Moments I wrote a little about wedding rings, a book by Pope Benedict XVI, and thoughts on the crucifix linked to part of the Prologue of St. Benedict’s Rule.

The House Built on Rock talks about dealing with temptation.

I don’t know how the techies and scientists at NASA produce these images, but this, taken in January, is from the Suomi satellite launched last October. Read more about it here.

If for no other reason than the kind of data we can gather about the universe and earth, NASA should be kept alive.  And I can see North and Central America from my living room!

Blue Marble Earth from Suomi NPP

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Awareness of God

This post is linked to Colleen’s Thoughts on Grace where Catholic bloggers share their Sabbath Moments of the week.

Wedding rings

This week my husband and I quit making excuses ($$, time, etc.) and went to a jewelry store to get our wedding rings re-sized.  His needed downsizing and mine needed upsizing. Neither of us had been able to wear our rings for years because his would fly off doing ordinary tasks and I couldn’t get mine over the knuckle.  All the while I was thanking God for marriage and a good relationship.

A bonus in the process was discovering that the mystery ring I inherited from my mother was actually my grandmother’s wedding ring.  The engraving even had the date of their marriage.

Spiritual Reading

This week at adoration I brought Pope Benedict XVI’s 1984 book, Behold the Pierced One -The Theological Basis for Spiritual Christology. It’s a short book, only 128 pages, worth reading because it presents clear thinking in a world where who Christ is has been grossly distorted by people with agendas other than eternal life.  This passage on page 33 is one I highlighted:

For the whole argument about Christ revolves around man’s “liberation”, his “salvation”.  But what can liberate man?  Who liberates him, and to what?  Put even more simply: What is “human freedom”?  Can man become free without truth, i.e., in falsehood?  Liberation without truth would be a lie; it would not be freedom but deception and thus man’s enslavement, man’s ruin. Freedom without truth cannot be true freedom, so, without truth, freedom is not even freedom.

Let us take up another line of thought.  If man is to be free, he must be “like God”.  Wanting to be like God is the inner motive of all mankind’s programs of liberation.  Since the yearning for freedom is rooted in man’s being, right from the outset he is trying to become “like God”.  Indeed, anything less is ultimately too little for him. We see this very clearly in our own time, with its passionate and strident demands for anarchic, total freedom, dissatisfied as it is with all the bourgeois freedoms and libertinisms, be they ever so great.  If it is to do justice to its own aims, therefore, an anthropology of liberation will have to face the question: what is meant by “becoming like God”, “becoming God”?

I’ll leave it to readers to get their own copy and finish the book.  For me, sitting in front of Truth Itself and contemplating these words gave me the feeling of being totally grounded; of everything fitting; everything being perfectly ordered in peace.

Rule of St. Benedict

From the prologue which happens to be today’s reading:

Our hearts and our bodies must be prepared to fight under holy obedience to His commands.

In writing his meditation on this one sentence, Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) enlightens us on the crucifix.  Parents might like to use his words in the spiritual formation of their children:

In order that we may find out how to do this, Jesus, the Son of God, became Man.  He demonstrated practically how to lead a life of perfect obedience to His Heavenly Father, even to the death on the Cross.

The crucifix is our flag, our standard, under which we must fight.  Just as we honor the flag of our country, so we also show respect to the crucifix.  Our Lord Himself revealed to St. Gertrude: “It is very pleasing to see the crucifix honored.  It is always divine grace that draws the eye of man to meet the image of the Cross and they do not gaze on it a single moment without the soul receiving salutary impressions from it.” One day, when the saint was gazing with affection at her crucifix, Our Lord said to her: “Each time that man does this, or even looks upon a crucifix with devotion, the mercy of God is turned towards him. If it were necessary to save you, I would willingly undergo for you again, for you alone, all I was able to suffer for the whole world.”

When we march under the crucifix we march in the way of holy obedience.  We don’t break rank and go off on our own.  We stick together in battle and when it comes to hand-to-hand combat with the demons of hell, in hoc signo, vinces.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Conversion of Mary Magdalene, c. 1547, Paolo Veronese (b. 1528, Verona, d. 1588, Venezia), Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London

Today’s reading from the Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict:

For the loving Lord says: “I will not the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live.” (Ez. 33:11)

Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) mentions that we can’t convert from our evil ways unless we understand some fundamental spiritual truths.  He writes:

The first of these is — we are ignorant of ourselves.  Many of us are not only ignorant of a great part of our character, but we often imagine ourselves to be quite different from what we are.

The image that came to mind reading this is a crowd of blind people wearing sunglasses, carrying white canes and each holding on to his seeing-eye dog. We all share this characteristic of personality to some extent.  Married people are fortunate because our spouses generally give us hearty doses of reality that help us improve our vision and smarten us up about our character.

He goes on to say:

How completely we misunderstood ourselves, how different we really are from what we had thought ourselves to be! We think we are patience personified until our feelings are crossed; we are hurt — and we explode.  What revelations have not been made of our interior by illness, by bodily and mental suffering!

We must have a true knowledge of ourselves if we hope to make any progress in perfection.  We cannot make any serious attempt to conquer our sins till we know what they are.  Hence our first duty in conversion is to have a look inside. No one can do this work for us.

Painful work this is, but so rewarding.  The sacrament of Penance is the place where, if we have a good confessor and go often, we receive so many graces to enlighten our minds and hearts.  We learn what virtues to work on; people, places, and things to avoid; and good habits to develop.

Father Placidus gives us really good news, too:

Secondly there is nothing in us that is of itself bad. Jesus assumed our nature in its entirety.  We cannot imagine that he assumed anything that was inherently evil, or that He created and placed in it what was evil.  Analyze the soul of the greatest sinner and of the greatest saint and you will not find in the sinner any single element that is not in the saint.

Compare the soul of Mary Magdalen or St. Augustine before and after their conversion.  There was nothing lacking after their conversion that was not there before.  They destroyed nothing by their conversion, but were in full possession of all their powers. There was much in Mary Magdalen that she had, perhaps, never dreamed of till she came to Our Lord.  He revealed to her true self-development, and she found under His guidance that in her everything was to be used in a fuller way than she had ever imagined possible.  From Jesus she learned that holiness is not the emptying of life but the filling of it by the right use of all her powers.

About 10 or so years ago a popular bumper sticker read, “Jesus is the answer”.  Sometime I’d like to write more about that, but for now in the age of “positive self image” and “self-development”, and in light of these thoughts on conversion, I just want to say that we find our greatest value in Christ, not on the psychiatrist’s couch or in the psychologist’s armchair. How much money is wasted today on “feeling good about ourselves” when imitating Christ is the best medicine ever?  True conversion is possible the more we let in the light of Christ.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

A key to suffering with joy is enjoying great beauty in sound and vision.  We need something to lift us beyond the chains that all kinds of suffering shackle us with.  For me, visits to APOD bring me joy, not only in the images of God’s creation, but in the discovery of great and generous talent.

Aurora Borealis, January 2012, Tromsø, Norway, copyright Bjørn Jørgensen, Arctic Photo

This beautiful image of the northern lights, which looks like an angel of God in the heavens and somehow evokes a sense of His power and majesty, was photographed by Norwegian Bjørn Jørgensen, featured at APOD. Naturally, since I am a photography junkie, especially nature photography, I had to see more of his work. I found more stunning images at his site, Arctic Photo, not just of the Northern Lights.

Photographers like Jørgensen become our eyes as we see things we could never view in person ourselves, bringing the harmony of beauty, a window to the Divine, to our everyday lives.  He graciously consented to an interview and gave me permission to show you more of his images here.  As a professional photographer myself, I am always interested in how other photographers work and what it takes to create such striking images.

Interview

When did you decide to become a photographer?

I have been hooked on photography since I took my first photo when I was seven. I started as a professional for the first time 12-15 years ago, but after some years I was offered a regular job (not as photographer), so I decided to take the safe way with regular income.

But 5-6 years ago the photographer in me was too strong and I decided that if I ever was going to make a change in my life, it had to be then, before I got too old…. So I quit the job, and haven’t regretted that for a second!

Tell us how you got started photographing the Northern Lights

I started taking photos of the auroras in 2002, when I got my first digital SLR, the Nikon D100. Digital is so much better than film for photos of Northern Lights; it can capture far more light than film can, and also with far better color purity under such dark conditions.

The Northern Lights are visible only in the winter, and winter here north of the Arctic Circle can be cold. But with proper clothing it’s not a big problem.

Aside from that, the most important thing is patience! Northern Lights are unpredictable, and the more I wait the bigger the chance of seeing them. But they don’t appear every night, so I have spent countless nights outside with no photos at all. It’s been a bit easier the last few years, as scientists have improved in predicting when Northern Lights will be visible, but I have taken some really good photos when there was no forecast of auroras.

How do you handle the cold when shooting outdoors in the winter?

Seaweed with snow on a beach in Lofoten islands.

The cold is actually no problem. Living here north of the Arctic Circle, we are used to it. And of course it’s a matter of proper clothing. Warm, insulated suits, fur hats, double gloves or mittens, Sorel winter boots etc. Quite comfortable actually, but it can be difficult to move with all that padding.

Camera equipment also copes with the cold without a problem, as long as I don’t take the camera straight from the outside into a warm car or house. Doing that, condensation will form both inside and outside on the camera, and if I then bring it out in the cold again, it will freeze and become solid ice! It is also a good idea to have a few spare batteries. They lose capacity in cold temperatures.

Tell us a little about the technicalities of your work – the equipment you use, etc.

It is important to use a camera and lens that works well in low light, and does not produce to much grain in the photos. I often shoot at ISO 1600 to 3200. My experience is that the Nikon D3S is the very best under such conditions. It is also advisable to use a fast wide angle lens to get as much sky and aurora in the photo as possible.

Since the Northern Lights move, sometimes very fast, it is important to use as slow shutter speed as possible, preferably no more than 8-10 seconds, otherwise you will lose the structure and patterns in
the auroras. And to get these short shutter times, I must increase the ISO-setting, and shoot with the lens wide open (f/2,8 or better).

Sakrisøy in Reinefjord, Lofoten islands, copyright Bjørn Jørgensen

Is what we see straight out of the camera or do you make adjustments in Photoshop or other programs?

As for post processing, I shoot all images in RAW format, and convert them in Nikon CaptureNX2 software. Then I open them in Photoshop and do some final adjustments. This includes a slight contrast boost, but rarely much more else. No saturation increase – I actually have to decrease saturation a bit sometimes. And of course no composite or cutting and pasting! I know some Northern Lights photographers are actually doing that, but for me that is cheating the viewers.

Winter in the Lofoten Islands, copyright Bjørn Jørgensen

How do you market your work?

I guess I could do a better job marketing my photography; I am probably a better photographer than a business person. But business is OK. Very few photographers get rich, but that is not my goal either. I love what I do, it is meaningful to me, and I have a free life with nobody telling me what to do!

I sell photos via a few photo agencies, but also on a more private basis. I also take commissions, but this city (Tromsø) is a bit small to make a living only on commissions. I do some advertising and portrait-type photos. I do not have a studio location, but rather I have a complete mobile studio equipped with 5 Elinchrom flash heads, huge softboxes, backgrounds and so on.  Much of my income comes from the Northern Lights; I sell maybe a thousand original, signed prints each year.

Tell us about your Northern Lights DVD.

Unfortunately the DVD is out of stock. I am in the process of making a new and much improved version, including some time lapse sequences that show the movement of the auroras. I expect it to be ready in the end of March.  You will be able to view it on a Windows PC, or a DVD player that works with the European PAL format.

Thank you for giving us a peek at your life as a photographer.  I’m sure readers, as I do, have an even greater appreciation of the fine images you produce.

A final, striking image of the Aurora Borealis.  Be sure to visit Arctic Photo to see other beautiful images.

Aurora Borealis, copyright Bjørn Jørgensen

Thanks to RAnn at This That and the Other Thing for hosting this meme.

This week I introduced two blogs.  One is new and one has been around awhile.  Fellow bloggers will want to check out Catholic Bloggers Network because it offers a diverse way of sharing posts and eBooks. Sucipio is a blog by and for Catholic women. Jenny, who is expecting her 7th child, started it with friends.

I finally got my Gluten Free Stroganoff Soup recipe the way I like it and hubby thinks it’s great.  His stamp of approval means it’s good.

The Leper, the Centurion, and Jesus is a meditation on Matt. 8:1-13, last Sunday’s gospel in the Extraordinary Form.  The art I use to illustrate the post is by William Brassey Hole, an artist known for authentic depiction of the time and place of Jesus.  His depiction of the centurion reminds me of how even today in Korea, China, and Japan people bow their heads before one of higher position when asking for something.

Trivia: in Korea people still go down on their knees in desperation before someone to beg earnestly for a favor or to beg forgiveness for a serious offense.  It’s a really big deal for the person asking and the person granting when that happens.

At Sabbath Moments I wrote a bit on cooking, recommended a couple of Catholic blog posts for humor and inspiration, and included another bit of commentary on the Holy Rule of St. Benedict.

Click on the image below to get the explanation.

Cygnus X: The Inner Workings of a Nearby Star Factory

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

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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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

This seems to be my week to introduce Catholic blogs to my readers.  Jenny from A Minute Captured has started a new blog by and for Catholic women.  It’s called Suscipio which means “to raise up, support, maintain.”  She is issuing an open invitation for women to share their stories and will have guest posts as well as regular contributors.  I’m impressed with the site and the first posts are very inspirational.

The idea behind Suscipio is to offer support and encouragement to one another as fellow Catholic women.  Speaking as one who, for health reasons, has had to drop out of many activities, I really value the blog connections I’ve made with both men and women.  It’s great to meet fellow bloggers and enjoy what they write without having to get all fancied up and drive somewhere.  Plus, it goes great with my challenged nervous system.

Take a look at Suscipio and pass the word along.  Let’s help Jenny get off to a great start.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

We’re having a lot of soup weather this winter: wet, cold, high humidity, and windy from the north.  Nothing beats a warm bowl of soup in these conditions.  My husband loves hearty soups and he really likes beef stroganoff, so I decided to combine the two and make him happy.

Warning: this is high fat, but it is also very filling, which is what fat is supposed to do – fill you up for hours.

Ingredients

1 ½  lbs of beef stew meat (We get ours from a local processing plant which is less expensive than the grocery store).

½ stick of real unsalted butter (If you don’t use real butter it won’t taste as good).

1 small sweet yellow onion, chopped

1 tablespoon of dry mustard

2-3 stalks of bok choy, sliced, including the greens at the top

2 cups of chopped kale

8 ounces of sliced mushrooms

2 cups of beef stock

2 cups of whole milk

2 cups of cooked rice mix*

1 cup sour cream

salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions

Prepare veggies ahead of time, keeping the onion separate from the rest.

Prepare rice ahead of time.

Sauté onion in butter until it is transparent. I use a ceramic Dutch oven for this because it becomes the soup pot and I have fewer dishes to wash.

Add the dry mustard and stir to mix evenly into onions.

Dump the rest of the prepared veggies into the sautéed onions and stir up to get them coated with butter and mustard.  Set the pot on the back burner unheated until you get the beef ready.

Sauté beef chunks in a frying pan. You can use a non-stick spray for this if you want. I use a ceramic dish and dump the beef chunks plus any liquid into the Dutch oven with the veggies.  Then I move the Dutch oven to the front burner and…

Stir everything together.

Add gluten free beef stock plus milk to the mix.  If this doesn’t look like enough liquid, you can add more stock and more milk in equal parts.

Add the cooked rice mix to the pot, salt and pepper to taste and bring the heat up to a nice simmer.  Cover the pot and let simmer for a couple of hours so all the flavors can mix.

Before serving stir 1 cup of sour cream into the pot until it blends completely with the other ingredients.

*Cooked rice mix

I mix several kinds of rice together because it tastes really good.  To make two cups of rice for the soup and have leftovers for other things I take…

½ cup of whole grain brown rice

½ cup of red rice (from the health food store)

½ cup of Lundberg Wild Rice Blend

½ cup of wild rice

I use four cups of distilled water to cook this at a simmer after bringing it to a boil.  I don’t use tap water because it has stuff in it you really don’t want to be swallowing.  Well water is OK to use, too.

Many readers are probably better cooks than I am so tinker with this recipe all you like.  If you have ideas for improvement, leave them in the combox, OK? On a cold day this tastes great.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Jesus Healing the Leper, William Brassey Hole

Matthew 8:1-13 was the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday after Epiphany in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite.

The humble leper

We hear about the cleansing of the leper who with humble faith asked, but did not demand, that Jesus cure him.  God can do anything He wills and often He waits for us to acknowledge submission to His will before He grants our request. This abandonment to God’s good pleasure brings us close to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane who in agony submitted to the Father, ” Saying: Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done” (Lk. 22:42).

Because we are all sinners, our souls are leprous to one degree or another.  We all need to be made clean in the sacrament of Confession.  Our bodies, too, are often afflicted with disease and frailties.   The sicker we are, the more we need to throw ourselves on the merciful Christ with the words of that leper of long ago: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”

Every physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual adversity we suffer can be met with these words. All are an opportunity to practice humble faith and place ourselves in the loving hands of Christ.  If we take time to think about it, our asking in this manner is an opportunity to experience peace of heart.

The humble centurion

Centurion Beseeching Jesus, William Brassey Hole

In the same gospel we hear the tale of the Roman centurion who is used to ordering others around and getting instant obedience.  But he, too, approaches Jesus with a humble heart full of compassion for his suffering servant and complete faith in Jesus’ power to heal, even at a distance.  From this encounter with the Lord we have the powerfully compelling words, “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.”

From this passage in Matthew we draw the beautiful prayer we say together before receiving Holy Communion: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

In the traditional Latin Mass we say this prayer three times.  Why?  Because in Hebrew expression there is no comparative or superlative as we have in English.  Thus, the triple repetition of something signifies the greatest emphasis possible in what is being said.  Since much of the Traditional Mass originates from the time of the apostles, we find this custom retained in the Latin expression of the Hebrew culture.  Thus, we, in praying this prayer three times at Mass, emphasize our great lowliness in the face of Jesus, our helplessness to cure ourselves, and our great faith in Jesus.  A second reason for the triple repetition is acknowledgement of the triune God.  Jesus is the second Person who cannot be separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit.

I write a lot from the viewpoint of suffering in this world.  Often we suffer because our souls need healing.  We need God’s help to root out anger, resentment, envy, covetousness, and many other evils from our hearts/souls.  Often, physical suffering can be eliminated or greatly ameliorated by the healing of the soul. This prayer of the centurion prepares us to receive the healing power of Christ in Holy Communion when we say it at Mass.

When we are not at Mass but on a bed of pain, we can repeat this prayer as an offering to God as we unite ourselves to the Passion of Christ and seek His aid in conforming ourselves to the will of God.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Yesterday when I was participating in RAnn’s Sunday Snippets roundup, I stumbled on a link to the Catholic Bloggers Network. Sorry, I can’t find now where I got it in the first place or I would credit the person, but do you see how useful it is to be a part of Sunday Snippets?  Thanks RAnn for all the hidden opportunities you provide by hosting this meme.

The Catholic Bloggers Network will now be a permanent button in my side bar.  Be sure to visit their home page and learn about how your blog might fit in.  They have plans for making it easy to get your posts listed in certain categories through RSS feed and other interesting features, including an opportunity to link to eBooks you may be publishing.  I think most of us are doing the hard work of blogging because we want to participate in the work of Christ – to restore all things in Him and to advance His reign in the hearts of all people. This site will be a big help in that effort.

There is a page called Link Your Blog where you can find many participating writers. I was happy to see some of the blogs I frequent already signed up, such as Ebeth’s A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars.

If you are a Catholic blogger, take a look at this site and see if it fits in with your goals.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Welcome to Sunday Snippets, a meme hosted by RAnn over at This That and the Other Thing.  Please join us by sharing your posts for the week and commenting on others’ posts.

This week I wrote a book review of He Came Looking for Me.

Two other posts feature thoughts on readings from the Rule of St. Benedict: Divine Eavesdropping and Sabbath Moments.

The mess that’s left when a star explodes (click on the image to go to APOD’s explanation):

M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

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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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Sacra Conversazione (detail), c. 1443, Fra Angelico, Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence

Today’s meditation on the Rule of St. Benedict by Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) really got my attention because of the irritating and almost inescapable racket of unholy discourse we’re exposed to in these times.  It focuses on this section of the Prologue:

When you shall have done these things, Mine eyes shall be upon you, and Mine ears shall be open to your prayers, and before you shall call upon Me I will say: Lo, here I am.

Father writes of something that we are exposed to in every community, on television, over the internet, etc.

We despise eavesdroppers who are ever sneaking around to hear some tale-bearing or revelation of their neighbor’s faults.  Their imagination paints their own character quite differently from what they are in reality.  It is not so with God.  He sees us as we really are.  According to the above text, He looks, listens, and becomes present.

God looks upon us with His paternal eyes of mercy if we have done “those things” previous mentioned by St. Benedict, quoting the Psalmist: if we “keep our tongue from evil, and our lips that they speak no guile”; if we “turn away from evil and do good; seek after peace and pursue it.”

“Lo, here I am!”  It is right to say that we live in the Divine Immensity as in a holy sanctuary. How we should adore this infinite God Who lives in us and penetrates us on all sides!

The thought of the presence of God is one of the best means of avoiding sin. The practice of remembering this Presence presupposes the raising of our minds and hearts of God; our minds to think of Him; our hearts, to love Him [the very definition of prayer].  We must think of God Who sees us always, Who is ever thinking of us, Who dwells in us by grace.  “Were we to persevere for one year in this exercise of the presence of God without the least doubt we should find ourselves at the end of the year at the summit of perfection” (St. Teresa of Avila).

Gossiping and Eavesdropping

Divine eavesdropping is holy, a property of God’s universal presence, His all-knowing-ness and infinite charity. Human eavesdropping and gossip is sinful.

Today’s meditation makes me wonder how really necessary it is to have the television or radio on listening to the incessant gossip flooding the airwaves or streaming over the internet.  Beyond TV and radio we can easily gossip today with our fingertips without uttering a word when we participate in chat rooms or discussions in comboxes at web sites, posting things harmful to ourselves or others.

Our ability to commit the sins of eavesdropping and gossip seems to be increased a hundredfold beyond our workplace, local church, PTA, book club, or other meeting places because of today’s media.  Even if we can’t call some of what we do eavesdropping because people are putting a monumental amount of  gossip into the public arena, we are still allowing ourselves to be caught in a vortex of harmful communication.

In light of God’s presence everywhere, I ask myself:

• Considering my final destination, how necessary is it for me to hear this stuff?
• What does God think of my spending time this way?
• If I really believe that God is present here and now, do I really want to be listening to or writing gossip?
• Is what I am doing or saying helping people to come closer to God or live with Him in mind?
• If my Divine Lord is eavesdropping on me – and He most certainly is by sustaining me in existence, would he consider my conversation helpful to others or holy (sacra conversazione)?

O Divine Eavesdropper, help me to remember Your presence always and to keep my mind and heart focused on living in charity and peace with all.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

He Came Looking For Me is my friend’s latest book.  Lynn Baber delighted and inspired Christians in the horse world with Amazing Grays, Amazing Grace using an owner’s relationship with a horse as an analogy for God’s relationship with us.  In this book we learn more about Asti, Bo, and Swizzle, and meet the main subjects of a just-in-time rescue that saves two good horses from likely slaughter.

Shiner and Ace, two offspring of  Lynn’s beloved Appaloosa, Sky, who departed this earth a few years ago and whom we met in Amazing Grays, Amazing Grace, are the metaphor for every sinner who is lost, in pain, and starving for the love of God.  There are no coincidences; only God-incidences, as Lynn shows us in the story of how she and her husband independently and simultaneously concluded that they must go search for the two young horses out of Sky that they had sold long ago.

While it is a great true story of rescue and redemption of two special horses, the parallel tale of God’s love for us is no less compelling.  No matter how far we have strayed from “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn. 14:6), no  matter how angry we might be with God, His boundless love keeps pursuing us, calling us to Himself.  We are special to Him as Shiner and Ace are to the Babers.

Lynn’s book shows us that just as the two lost Appaloosas were never out of the Baber’s minds, so we are never out of God’s mind.  Shiner and Ace could not rescue themselves nor can we rescue ourselves, but at the time when we are most helpless, vulnerable, and hopeless, He will send the right person to bring us to Him, just as He sent the Babers to find Sky’s progeny.

The technique of giving the horses their own voice makes this tale even more poignant. It is a beautiful book of hope and peace of heart along with being a really good story.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.

Welcome to RAnn’s meme hosted at her blog, This That and the Other Thing. Please join the rest of us over there to read other bloggers’ posts for the week.

At Christmas Photos: Treasured Memories I shared some pictures taken Christmas Eve of my grandneice.

I also wrote about some things I learned from Blessed Veronica of Milan.

At Sabbath Moments I shared a meditation on the Rule of St. Benedict concerning obstinacy and hardness of heart.

I ask readers to pray for a couple of friends of mine who are suffering with severe health issues and major family problems.  Also, my hives have returned with a vengeance so please kindly remember me, too.

The Little Ghost Nebula was discovered by 18th century astronomer William Herschel.  Read more about this image at APOD.

Little Ghost Nebula NGC 6369

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.