As I’m embracing the idea that “God is in all things,” in my life, I fall deeper into the mystery in which I’m certain we are to live. This Lent was a different one, where I was stretched in ways that were uncomfortable but as a priest friend noted, you have the grace of courage.
Continue reading “Easter People in a Good Friday World”
As we reflect at the start of the new year, what is reflected through your life? Are you surrounded by friendship? Are you surrounded by love and God’s goodness?
Do you want more friendship and love? If so, are you planting those seeds through service or are you always looking at life through a lens of “what’s in it for me?” Or do we look with urgency how we can glorify God with our life. We are known by the fruit of our life.
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”— St. Basil the Great
With the new year, have you taken time to reflect about how you are doing mentally and spiritually? Is your mind resting in the space of thanksgiving and gratitude of what is placed before you. Or are you anxious about what is missing from your life? Is your spirit focused on growing in holiness and imitating Christ or do you spend more time focused on building your material world?
What if today were your last and you find yourself standing before our Lord giving an account of how well you loved him and others. How would you measure up compared to Christs love for you? Let’s seek an open heart of love with reckless abandon!
An Act of Love:
Lord God, I love you above all things
and I love my neighbor for your sake
because you are the highest, infinite and perfect
good, worthy of all my love.
In this love I intend to live and die.
Amen.
With the start of another new year, we can use the calendar to help us with new resolve. So many times are attitudes affect our vision of how we see the world. We can believe the right things and do the right things, but we must have love at the foundation of everything.
Mary can be our role model for a new loving perspective. She achieved so much by her silent presence along with her son at many of the moments of his life, his birth, his first miracle at Cana and his death on the cross. She is for a model of silent contemplation as she ponders with great faith and devotion the mystery that unfolded before her in the life of her Son.
What perspective do you bring into this new year? Will you work tirelessly to seek God in everything? Will you strive for your faith to be visible through your actions? Do you plan to tell your family and friends you love them? How often will you tell God you love him? Will you give God thanks for your many blessings? Will you be bold in your faith? How do you plan to grow interiorly? Will you trust God’s plan and know you are exactly where you need to be? Will you endure the suffering you experience well? Will God come first in your life?
Ponder these things in your heart for a new loving perspective for 2025! Let’s be smitten with Gods goodness.
What is it about new beginnings and a fresh start that makes us feel hopeful? Its like the feeling of blue skies and endless light. The turn of the clock to the new year provides this perspective.
Have you made an examination of your past year. What is God asking of you in this new year to give him glory? By growing in love, we give the greater glory. In this new year let’s stretch, grow in humility and learn to love as God does. Let’s commit in 2025 to open our eyes to return Gods relentless love.
Its almost a new year a good to time to take stock of our lives. I hope you will take a few minutes after the busy holiday season to take a few moments to see what has worked for you and the areas where you might need improvement. One thing we can all integrate in our lives is peace. The work we do to bring our own peaceful heart to the world will sow many dividends.
All of us have been wrestling with the hate in the world, and I would like to suggest that we take a stand for peace in the new year. We are not taught much about peace we are taught about war. Sustainability is one of our premier global challenges and war is inimical to sustainability. Peace is a part of a sustainable future.
Lets start a new conversation, a new direction , a new ethic, and peace might offer such an opportunity. Take in the words of poet and environmental attorney Jim Blackburn and artist Scurry Chapman as you find peace on your journey.
Peace – an excellent state of being,
Peace – a goal worth achieving,
Peace – a faraway place
Peace – let me argue its case.
Peace – why is it so hard?
Peace – no holds barred,
Peace – put down the guns,
Peace – let’s protect our sons.
Peace – I love the idea,
Peace – but is it panacea?
Peace – always out of reach,
Peace – is it what we teach?
Peace – between friend and foe,
Peace – no war no mo
Peace – I want it now
Peace – but we don’t know how.
Peace – should be in our books
Peace – it gets many looks,
Peace – will it come on my watch?
Peace – It takes more than Scotch.
Peace – we need to work today,
Peace – we must find a way,
Peace – oh such a dream,
Peace – just watch me beam.
Peace – between Jews and Palestinians
Peace – between Pakistanis and Indians,
Peace – between Republicans and Democrats
Peace – between luddites and technocrats.
Peace – for the sake of the Earth
Peace – a value with worth,
Peace – will the dream come true?
Peace – it’s up to me and you.
So welcome to Earth Church,
Where doves land on your pew,
And we take the pledge
To bring peace to you.
A new year, a natural time for new beginnings. How about striving for a peaceful heart. With all the darkness of our world right now, will you let Christs light shine through you?
The Saints are good role models to help us sharpen our focus to whats truly important. St. Alphonsus Liguori gives us some good food for thought as we look forward to a fresh start of new beginnings.
“An excellent method of preserving interior silence is to keep exterior silence. . . even in the world, each one of us can make his own solitude, a boundary beyond which nothing can force its way unperceived. It is not noise in itself that is the difficulty, but noise that is pointless; it is not every conversation, but useless conversations; not all kinds of occupation, but aimless occupations. In point of fact, everything that does not serve some good purpose is harmful. It is foolish, nay, more, it is a betrayal to devote to a useless objective powers that can be given to what is essential. There are two ways of separating ourselves from almighty God, quite different from one another but both disastrous, although for different reasons: mortal sin and voluntary distractions—mortal sin, which objectively breaks off our union with God, and voluntary distractions, which subjectively interrupt or hinder our union from being as close as it ought to be. We should speak only when it is preferable not to keep silence. The Gospel does not say merely that we shall have to give an account of every evil word, but of every idle thought.”
“If we do not risk anything for God we will never do anything great for Him.”
–St. Louis De Montfort
Recently I’ve risked being satisfied.
Savor was my focus word last year. A time where I slowed down enough to really, see, enjoy, taste, smell and touch what was before me. In essence I was practicing the sacrament of the present moment.
The stillness of the present moment is where we find God. It’s a place where we find joy, connection and be thankful. We are nourished and satisfied.
God revealed how in my striving and doing, I lost sight of satisfaction. Through my distrust, I turned to my will rather than His, where forcing my solutions rather than trusting and waiting on His became my norm. Like quicksand, the shaky ground I stood on was one of lack and scarcity. Through allowing God to heal my heart, I now realize I am standing on a solid foundation of trust and abundance.
What a gift this is to be satisfied and share my peaceful heart with others. It’s actually a miracle and Gods visible work today.
How will you risk growing with God this new year?
The longer I live in the light of God’s holiness, the more I become aware of the subtle, deceptive sins of my heart, the nagging idolatries, and the places where I lack godly character. As I walk with the Lord, I become increasingly aware of the labyrinth pathways of sin that course through every area of my life.
I simply cannot stand before the searching light of the glory of God’s holiness with an open heart and walk away proud.
The longer this light shines on me, the louder my cry for grace grows. The longer I live in the presence of God’s holiness, the more I become aware of the depth and extent of my sin, the more I am dependent on God’s grace, and the more I am amazed by his patience.
How beautiful God designed it this way. Lifting the veil to my neediness. Bringing me to humility and my knees, turning me to right order my desires and give my gifts to my Savior, divine born man in the most humble way on Christmas Day.
Giving me, and us all, the gift of love.
One of the side effects of living in a world of busyness, excess and noise is that we lose being attuned to proper discernment. If we have had a good Advent, preparing our hearts for Christmas, hopefully we have slowed down, started awakening to the Spirit and listening to Gods voice in a deeper way. Take a few moments to allow these words from Dr. Gregory Popcak, from Unworried, fill your mind and heart:
Movements of the spirit that enable us to experience more of God’s grace and love and enable us to become more of the person God wants us to be are “consolations.” Consolations represent the loving counsel of the Holy Spirit that draws us into deeper communion with God and helps us make choices that are consistent with becoming the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled person we are meant to be.
By contrast, desolations represent the counsel of an evil spirit attempting to pull us away from God or throwing up roadblocks to us cooperating with God’s grace to become the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled people we are meant to be.
Tuning in to consolation and desolation allows us to recognize where our thoughts are coming from.
We often take our thoughts for granted as coming from ourselves, but this is very often not true. It’s important to recognize when the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us something – and also when an evil spirit is whispering lies in our spiritual ear.
Smitten With Goodness 