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Posts Tagged ‘prayer’

Love Thy Neighbor

Posted in Bible, Catechetics, Catholic, Catholic Church, Christian, faith, Morality, prayer, Pro-Life, Theology, tagged Catholic Faith, faith, Fr. Murray Bodo O.F.M., Franciscan charism, love, love thy neighbor, prayer, pro-life, respect for life, Song of Sparrow, The Golden Rule, truth on April 14, 2013 | 2 Comments »

In “Song of the Sparrow” Fr. Murray Bodo O.F.M. explained that “the Franciscan charism is intimately tied up with loving those who are seemingly unlovable or who return love with hatred and contempt.”

It is easy to love our friends, family members who are easy to get along with, and those who share our same beliefs. It can be extremely tough to love people who trust us horribly, people who are insensitive, those who are grumpy or angry, someone who holds opposite beliefs as we do, and family members who are rub you the wrong way.

Expressing our love through actions is very important. Helping the needy, visiting the sick, being friendly to cantankerous relatives who you may not see eye-to-eye with, and teaching the Faith to kids in Faith Formation or adults in RCIA are all ways to show love for others.

We are called to follow The Golden Rule, treating others as we would want others to treat us.

Loving individuals doesn’t mean abandoning Truth to please others. It does mean loving the person as a human being while also being respectful if there is a disagreement. We are called to teach the fullness of the Faith: from the Sacraments, Saints, the Mass, the Ten Commandments, Catechesis, Catholic Social Teaching, Catholic Doctrine, Morality, to Respect for Life.

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Holy reading and thoughts

Posted in Catholic, Christian, God, prayer, scripture, tagged Chapter 25, connection, conquer enemies, fear the Lord, God, prayer, relationship, scripture, Sirach on March 21, 2013 | 3 Comments »

Last night was a good night since I actually was able to get an adequate amount of sleep. The past couple of nights I have had trouble sleeping. I think I am going to make this type of post a regular posting because I am struggling with being able to think because of the lack hormones in my body and the problem I have with my red blood cells doesn’t help with that either.

I just started reading this book which has meditations and poems to pray by called Song of the Sparrow. The smallest things we do can be turned into prayer. Looking out the window and watching the birds can be turned into prayer. I am so willing to waste time watching T.V. but how often do I go out of my way to pray? We make time for what we love to do, whether that be playing a sport, reading, watching movies, or being on the computer. But, how much time do we go out of our way to pray? Prayer is our connection with God, Our Father. I pray more than I used to and watch less T.V. than before but I still don’t spend enough time in prayer. We should all want to talk to God more often so we have a better relationship with Him. We also need to take some time to be silent in prayer so we are able to hear what the Lord is saying to us. God is there waiting for us to talk to Him.

Then I read Sirach 25: 1-11 in scripture. In this passage it says that God loves harmony among His brethren, friendship among neighbors, and the mutual love of husband and wife. God loves it when everything is peaceful and there is no bickering among friends or arguing between couples. Scripture mentions that God sees those who live to see his enemies’ downfall as blessed. I wonder by what means that God is calling us to conquer our enemies? Are each of us called to different means of conquering our enemies? We are called to pray for our enemy so that is one way to convert the enemy but are there others? At the end the passage say the people who are happiest are those who fear the Lord. I suppose this is referencing fear of judgment. We are called to follow His Commandments and when we fall we are called to repent. Like Pope Francis said, God is never tired of forgiving us but it is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness. God is ever merciful and waiting with open arms for us to repent, repair and strengthen our relationship with Him.

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Cardinals and Sistine Chapel: Preparing for the Conclave

Posted in Catholic, Catholic Church, Pope, prayer, Religion, tagged Cardinals, choosing next pope, conclave, papal election, Pope, prayer, Sistine Chapel, vote on March 7, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Cardinals gather at Vatican, begin election process

Cardinals pray for Conclave

Preparing for the papal election

Preparing Sistine Chapel for Conclave

preparing the Sistine Chapel for the vote

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Trust In The Lord

Posted in Bible, Catholic, Christian, Christianity, faith, God, prayer, tagged Christlike, faith, God, hardships, Isaiah 40:31, LORD, prayer, suffering, trust on February 24, 2013 | 8 Comments »

Sometimes it can be difficult to trust the Lord when you are going through hardships. Whether it be financial, health, car or relationship troubles it can be hard to trust in the Lord. You may ask “why?” or “How am I going to get through this?” People may even get angry at God but please know that He is with you through it all. God is with each of us as we go through the struggles in our lives. God will guide us as we go through our ordeals. We need to lean on Him and pray harder. I could be angry at God about my having a hysterectomy and still having health issues afterwards but I’m not. I know that He’s beside me and that God knows all that is going on with me. I feel God like never before. Everything happens for a purpose. God needs me to go through this bit of suffering for one reason or another. When God’s plan for me is apparent I’ll know. God always has something good come from bad so I am trusting in the Lord.

I get emails from GodTube and am sharing this reflection:

Suffering with God

Romans 5:3-5

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. (v.3).

Pain. We take pills to ease it, hold prayer meetings to heal it, develop strategies to avoid it, and think up philosophies to explain it. We rarely, however, consider suffering as part of God’s plan for our lives.

Classic spiritual authors take a different approach to suffering. Take the 17th-century monk Brother Lawrence, for example. Lame in one leg and acquainted with illness, in The Practice of the Presence of God,he says: “I have been often near expiring, but I never was so much satisfied as then. Accordingly, I did not pray for any relief, but I prayed for strength to suffer with courage, humility, and love. Ah, how sweet it is to suffer with God!”

“The heart is stretched through suffering, and enlarged,” wrote renowned Quaker teacher Thomas Kelly. He believed that suffering helps us feel God’s burden for a world in pain and encourages us to respond.

Or let me give a more recent example. In 1967, a diving accident left Joni Eareckson Tada a quadriplegic. She told me this during a radio interview: “Christians sometimes want to erase suffering out of the dictionary. [But] if you read the Bible, you’ll see that it is often God’s best tool to make us more like Jesus.”

There’s nothing wrong with visiting a doctor when we’re sick, and we should pray when we’re ill (James 5:13-18). But Brother Lawrence, Thomas Kelly, and Joni Eareckson Tada discovered something deeper about suffering: God wants to use it to transform our character (Romans 5:3-5), make us mature (James 1:2-4), give us empathy for others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), prove our faith (1 Peter 1:7), and make us like Jesus (Romans 8:28-29).

“How sweet it is to suffer with God!” are the words of people who can rejoice in suffering (Romans 5:3), because God’s purposes in it are their priority.

—Sheridan Voysey

In our suffering we can become closer to Christ. We can offer our suffering in union with the Cross. We can become more like Jesus.

During one of my major trials in my life a friend of mine said to me that you are like Jesus. I thought to myself “Am I like Jesus?” My friend said you are being wrongly accused and persecuted so you are like Jesus. I realized that Yes, I was like Jesus in this way. But I asked myself, “Do I really want to be like Jesus if this is what it takes?” Back then as I was going through my ordeal I said “no”. But now that I look back and have grown in my faith I say “Yes, this is what we are called to be, called to be Christlike.” Being like Christ means being wronged and persecuted just as He was. We are all called to be martyrs for Christ. Going through sufferings during our lives is like us becoming martyrs little by little.

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Ashes on Ash Wednesday

Posted in Bible, Catholic, Christian, God, Jesus, Lent, liturgy, tagged Ash Wednesday, ashes, biblical significance, faith, fasting, Lent, penance, prayer on February 13, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption.

Why we receive the ashes

Following the example of the Nine vites, who did penance in sackcloth and ashes, our foreheads are marked with ashes to humble our hearts and reminds us that life passes away on Earth. We remember this when we are told

“Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return.”

Ashes are a symbol of penance made sacramental by the blessing of the Church, and they help us develop a spirit of humility and sacrifice.

Biblical significance

The distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony of ages past. Christians who had committed grave faults performed public penance. On Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts which they were to wear during the forty days of penance, and sprinkled over them ashes made from the palms from the previous year. Then, while the faithful recited the Seven Penitential Psalms, the penitents were turned out of the church because of their sins — just as Adam, the first man, was turned out of Paradise because of his disobedience. The penitents did not enter the church again until Maundy Thursday after having won reconciliation by the toil of forty days’ penance and sacramental absolution. Later, all Christians, whether public or secret penitents, came to receive ashes out of devotion. In earlier times, the distribution of ashes was followed by a penitential procession.

Ashes were used in ancient times to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent’s way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults. An ancient example of one expressing one’s penitence is found in Job 42:3–6. Job says to God: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. The other eye wandereth of its own accord. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (vv. 5–6, KJV) The prophet Jeremiah, for example, calls for repentance this way: “O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes” (Jer 6:26). The prophet Daniel recounted pleading to God this way: “I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: “That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes” (1 Maccabees 3:47; see also 4:39).

Other examples are found in several other books of the Bible including,Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Matthew 11:21, and Luke 10:13, and Hebrews 9:13. Ezekiel 9 also speaks of a linen-clad messenger marking the forehead of the city inhabitants that have sorrow over the sins of the people. All those without the mark are destroyed.

It marks the start of a 43-day period which is an allusion to the separation of Jesus in the desert to fast and pray. During this time he was tempted. Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13.^[19] While not specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40-day period of repentance is also analogous to the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in response to the making of the Golden calf. (Jews today follow a 40-day period of repenting in preparation for and during the High Holy Days from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur.)

All this information was posted from Catholic Online

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Introduction To The Discernment Of Spirits With Fr. Timothy Gallagher, OMV

Posted in Bible, Catholic, Christian, faith, God, Jesus, prayer, Saints, scripture, tagged Fr. Timothy Gallagher, prayer, renewal, spiritual growth, spiritual life, St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Discernment of Spirits on November 30, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

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Various Degrees of the Holy Union Made in Prayer … “Like a Little Child”

Posted in Christianity, faith, God, Jesus, prayer, Saints, Theology, tagged degrees, God, holy, Holy Eucharist, Jesus, like a child, like little chidlren, love, prayer, sacrament, Saint Francis de Sales, union on October 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »

A few weeks before my hysterectomy surgery I found a book at a Catholic book store called On The Love Of God Volume II by St. Francis de Sales. I found these passages in the book interesting.

“Sometimes this union is made without co-operation on our part except for a simple continuation in which we let ourselves be united to God’s goodness without any resistance. We are like a little child lovingly desirous of its mother’s breast but so feeble that of itself it cannot make any movement either to get to it or to cling to it once it is there. The child is only happy at being taken up and drawn within its mother’s arms and at being pressed by her to her breast.”

“Sometimes we co-operate, as when we run willingly to assist the sweet force of God’s goodness which draws and clasps us to him by his love.”

“Sometimes it seems that we begin to join and attach ourselves to God even before he joins himself to us. This is because we perceive the unitive action on our part without perceiving the what God is doing on his part. However, there is no doubt that his action always preceded ours, although we do not always perceive his previous action. Unless he united himself to us, we would never unite ourselves to him. He always chooses us and takes hold of us before we choose him or take hold of him. He assists our feeble efforts and perceptibly joins himself to us, so that we perceive that he has penetrated and entered into our heart with incomparable gentleness.”

“Sometimes this union is made so insensibly that our heart neither feels God’s co-operation within nor our co-operation with it, but discovers the union alone insensibly completed. Sometimes this union is made by the will alone and in the will alone. At other times the intellect takes part in it …. Sometimes this union is made by all the faculties of the soul.”

“The holy love of the Savior presses us, said St. Paul. O God, what an example of surpassing union is this! God was united to our human nature by grace, like a vine to an elm, to enable it in some way to participate in his fruit.”

“But when he saw this union undone by Adam’s sin, he made a closer and more pressing union in the Incarnation and by it human nature remains forever joined in personal unity with the divinity. To the end that not only human nature but all men might be intimately united with his goodness, God instituted the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist. Every man may participate in it so as to unite his Savior with himself in reality and in the way of food. Theotimus, this sacramental union calls us and assists us towards that spiritual union of which we speak.”

God calls us to be like little children. From Matthew 18: 3-4 ^”and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” God Bless.

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Redemptive Suffering Part 3 — Jeff Cavins “‘Offer it Up’: Opportunities to Grow in Holiness”

Posted in Catechetics, Catholic, Christian, God, Jesus, prayer, tagged cross, Franciscan University of Steubenville, God, grow, holiness, Jeff Cavins, Jesus, offer it up, Pope John Paul II, prayer, redemptive suffering on September 5, 2012 | 6 Comments »

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Walk By Faith, Not By Sight

Posted in Catholic, Christian, faith, God, Jesus, prayer, tagged Catholic, faith, follow, God, Jesus, prayer, trust, walk, Walk by Faith Not by Sight on September 2, 2012 | 7 Comments »

On Wednesday my husband dropped me off so I could pick up my prescription. Since my doctor’s office is at a hospital we devised a plan so we wouldn’t need to spend money on parking in the hospital lot. So when I was done picking up my prescription I called him as planned but his phone went straight to voicemail. Even though I was in pretty bad pain I didn’t want to just sit there or stand waiting for him. So I decided to take a walk down the street. I can’t explain it but I had this feeling like I was being called to walk, almost like God was leading me somewhere. As I walked I would occasionally call him but I still received no answer and no call back. I walked by faith. I knew that there was a Catholic book store down the street run by some nuns but I thought that I would get a hold of Kevin before I made it that far. Not sure how long a walk it was but it wasn’t a short distance. I had made it to the Catholic book store (might be called Sacred Heart Book Store but I forget the name) so I entered the store. I had been in there before a couple of times but it had been a while. Surprisingly one of the nuns remembered me. I began looking around at the books and we began talking. I told them about my endo troubles and that I was going to have surgery soon. They said they would keep me in their prayers and to write my name in their book of intentions. So I did.

Kevin finally found me. Between the both of us we found a few books that we liked. The nuns were so kind. As we were about to leave they gave us holy water and they let me pick out a saint prayer card with a relic. How awesome! One of the nuns (wish I could remember her name) said that we could put holy water in hot tea or any drink. Kevin and I had never heard of this. We both thought that using holy water in this fashion would have been considered to be sacrilegious. But it isn’t. That was pretty cool to find out. Plus, they suggested for me to stop by the Oratory to get a blessing before my surgery. I had called my priest at my parish so I could receive the Anointing of the Sick before my surgery but I haven’t heard anything from him for five days. Even though the nuns said to just drop by I am going to call the Oratory to make an appointment. I know that God led me to that Catholic book store. God is so good. We are all called to walk by faith, not by sight.