Dear Sisters,
Today as I crossed the courtyard at St.Mary's in Chandler, I was filled the most profound sense of entering into the sacred womb of our dear Mother, Mary. This church in particular, is of course appropriately named after the Mother of God. I reflected as I pulled on the lovely stain-glass inset doors that I could feel the sacred presence of our Lord. The Adoration Chapel to the side of the church, the lit red candle at the front of the church remind me that Jesus is still with us, in the most primordial way possible. He dwells within the church as He did within his mother's womb.
How humbling to enter that sacred place and face Our Lord with all my faults, sins and contradictions. I reflected that Our Lord was nurtured in the womb by Our Lady's body and blood. Just as the church since the very beginning has nurtured us with Jesus' body and blood.
The womb, any woman's womb should be a sacred, nurturing place and today this truth pierced my heart with such clarity. I think that is way we are so horrified when assailants enter a church and kill the faithful during a mass. And why the holocaust of abortion is something that a true believer can never comprehend or accept. We should be safe in the womb of our church, as a child should be safe in the womb of his mother.
Let us pray diligently sisters for the end to legalized abortion in the United States as we pray that the government will allow us to maintain the sanctity and safety of our Churches-Our Lady's Womb.
Peace sisters!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
The Nativity...
Dear Sisters,
I, unlike so many people have always liked Mondays. I am usually refreshed after the weekend and the week's beginning always seems like such a hopeful time. On Monday, the possibilities are endless. This might be the week I stick to an exercise routine. Or I'll make only healthy meals and of course I'll go to daily mass. The start of the week, like the start of any adventure fills me with hopeful anticipation. This is a quirk of mine I suppose, as most people prefer Friday. The problem with Fridays, is that it sheds a glaring light on all the dashed hopes of earlier in the week. I am usually tired, a bit cranky and mad at myself for not fulfilling the promise of all my Monday hopes.
Another reason to like Mondays, are the Joyful Mysteries. I must admit that I love to ponder these mysteries. It might be because I can see the mysteries unfold from Mary's maternal point of view. As a mother myself, I can feel her excitement, confusion, wonder, fear and bittersweet sentiments.
Today I prayed the rosary during Adoration at St. Mary's. There is such a deeply spiritual poignancy to the rosary during adoration, where I can see a gorgeous statue of 'La Virgen de Guadalupe', the cross and of course the Lord in all His Eucharistic glory. Usually I key in on Mary, sometimes dear Joseph, or cousin Elizabeth, but this time during the 3rd decade, I pondered deeply the nativity from Jesus' point of view.
I imagined all the cells dividing within our blessed Mother until they grew into a beautiful baby boy. This little human was snug, warm and safe within his mother's womb. He experienced the joy of hearing his mother's heartbeat and hearing the tone of her voice from within the womb. Imagine the wonder as God experienced in the flesh the pinnacle of his most wondrous creation: the human person.
Imagine the violence of the birth, with Our Lady's womb contracting to push Our Lord from her body and into her arms. Imagine the Lord's first breath of air with human lungs and the lusty cry of new life. Imagine him being wrapped into a warm cloth and placed on Our Lady's chest. Imagine that first look of utter love between mother and child; between the Creator and his most blessed creature, His mother.
The poignant beauty, hushed silence, transcendent love, takes my breath away. Imagine the Lord experiencing as a human being the miracle of succor from His mother's breast.
God experiencing with human clarity the wonder of all he had created. How marvelous an image!
I was transfixed by the images flooding my brain and I thought again as I do so many times throughout my days...How great is our God?!!!!
Dear Mother,
You held Our Lord in your protective and loving arms.
You fed with your own body, the sweet boy, who is our Savior.
You held his hand when he took his first steps, and taught him to say his prayers.
You made his meals, washed his clothes, and kissed his hurts away.
You taught him traditions, table manners, and social conventions.
You watched him teach others and become who he was meant to be.
You gave him to us that we might have the Good News and in the fullness of time, you watched your baby die, that all human persons may have the possibility of everlasting life.
Teach me to love Mother, as you loved, without regrets and without conditions.
Teach me to hold Our Savior always in my heart.
As you helped Our Lord become his authentic self,
help me to become the person that God wants me to be.
Mother of God, Mother of Mine
Pray for Me!
Amen
I, unlike so many people have always liked Mondays. I am usually refreshed after the weekend and the week's beginning always seems like such a hopeful time. On Monday, the possibilities are endless. This might be the week I stick to an exercise routine. Or I'll make only healthy meals and of course I'll go to daily mass. The start of the week, like the start of any adventure fills me with hopeful anticipation. This is a quirk of mine I suppose, as most people prefer Friday. The problem with Fridays, is that it sheds a glaring light on all the dashed hopes of earlier in the week. I am usually tired, a bit cranky and mad at myself for not fulfilling the promise of all my Monday hopes.
Another reason to like Mondays, are the Joyful Mysteries. I must admit that I love to ponder these mysteries. It might be because I can see the mysteries unfold from Mary's maternal point of view. As a mother myself, I can feel her excitement, confusion, wonder, fear and bittersweet sentiments.
Today I prayed the rosary during Adoration at St. Mary's. There is such a deeply spiritual poignancy to the rosary during adoration, where I can see a gorgeous statue of 'La Virgen de Guadalupe', the cross and of course the Lord in all His Eucharistic glory. Usually I key in on Mary, sometimes dear Joseph, or cousin Elizabeth, but this time during the 3rd decade, I pondered deeply the nativity from Jesus' point of view.
I imagined all the cells dividing within our blessed Mother until they grew into a beautiful baby boy. This little human was snug, warm and safe within his mother's womb. He experienced the joy of hearing his mother's heartbeat and hearing the tone of her voice from within the womb. Imagine the wonder as God experienced in the flesh the pinnacle of his most wondrous creation: the human person.
Imagine the violence of the birth, with Our Lady's womb contracting to push Our Lord from her body and into her arms. Imagine the Lord's first breath of air with human lungs and the lusty cry of new life. Imagine him being wrapped into a warm cloth and placed on Our Lady's chest. Imagine that first look of utter love between mother and child; between the Creator and his most blessed creature, His mother.
The poignant beauty, hushed silence, transcendent love, takes my breath away. Imagine the Lord experiencing as a human being the miracle of succor from His mother's breast.
God experiencing with human clarity the wonder of all he had created. How marvelous an image!
I was transfixed by the images flooding my brain and I thought again as I do so many times throughout my days...How great is our God?!!!!
Dear Mother,
You held Our Lord in your protective and loving arms.
You fed with your own body, the sweet boy, who is our Savior.
You held his hand when he took his first steps, and taught him to say his prayers.
You made his meals, washed his clothes, and kissed his hurts away.
You taught him traditions, table manners, and social conventions.
You watched him teach others and become who he was meant to be.
You gave him to us that we might have the Good News and in the fullness of time, you watched your baby die, that all human persons may have the possibility of everlasting life.
Teach me to love Mother, as you loved, without regrets and without conditions.
Teach me to hold Our Savior always in my heart.
As you helped Our Lord become his authentic self,
help me to become the person that God wants me to be.
Mother of God, Mother of Mine
Pray for Me!
Amen
Friday, June 15, 2012
From Padre Pio The Wonder Worker
Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key that opens the heart of God.
Have patience and persevere in the holy exercise of meditation; be content to begin with
small steps til you have legs to run, better still wings to fly.
Be content to be obedient, which is never a small thing for a soul which has chosen God
for its portion.
And be resigned to be, for the present, a little bee in the hive which will soon become a large bee capable of making honey.
Pray, hope and don't worry. Anxiety doesn't help at all. Our Merciful Lord will listen to your prayer.
Let us bind ourselves tightly to the Sorrowful Heart of our heavenly Mother and reflect on it's boundless grief of how precious is our soul.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Thought For the Day
There is a false humility which thinks it is pride to desire the highest greatness-the perfection of contemplation, the summit of mystical union with God. This is one of the biggest illusions in the spiritual life because it is only in this greatness, only in this exalted union, that we can achieve perfect humility.
-----------From, Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
The closer I come to Christ, the more I realize the distance that I still have to go to be united with Him. But, it is a healthy thing to WANT to be a spiritual giant. 'Only 1 Holy Spirit' is not far from the Kingdom when she tells us that she will be on the wall at St. Tim's some day. It is a good, and pious thing to want to be a saint.
May our generous God rain down his grace upon us so that we may desire what he wants for our lives and so that we may have the endurance to reach the summit of 'mystical union with God'.
Peace Sisters...
-----------From, Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
The closer I come to Christ, the more I realize the distance that I still have to go to be united with Him. But, it is a healthy thing to WANT to be a spiritual giant. 'Only 1 Holy Spirit' is not far from the Kingdom when she tells us that she will be on the wall at St. Tim's some day. It is a good, and pious thing to want to be a saint.
May our generous God rain down his grace upon us so that we may desire what he wants for our lives and so that we may have the endurance to reach the summit of 'mystical union with God'.
Peace Sisters...
Monday, June 4, 2012
Clothed With Gladness
Dear Sisters,
I have been reading Clothed With Gladness-The Story of St. Clare by Sister Mary St. Paul, P.C.C.
this Biography of the dear saint was filled with spiritual gems. The foreword of the book was written by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel.
If you are like me, you find the lives of the saints to be truly inspirational. These elder brothers and sisters in faith have the gift of sloughing away all the unnecessary garbage in their lives and focusing on the truly transcendental truths. When I read about these spiritual giants, I find myself reexamining my life. As you can imagine, I find my faith wanting besides these pillars of gladness and joy. But I do find these good people so inspirational as they too trod paths that were of the world until that moment when their soul recognized their one true love.
Clare was a beloved daughter of a wealthy family. She was known for her beauty in the town of Assissi and surrounding areas. Like all families in that time, they hoped to make an advantageous marriage for this lovely girl, but as she influences me with her story, another saint then living in her town influenced her journey. Of course I speak of St. Francis. St. Francis' love of Jesus sparked Claire's own love for the pierced Lord. Once Clare understood what was required of her because of her great love, she was able to turn her back on all the worldly amusements and opulence in her family's sphere of influence.
Like we all help one another grow in holiness, Clare's profound love influenced her younger sister. When her family came to bear away her beloved sister, Clare prayed for a miracle. Her sister, a petite girl became so heavy, that the men sent to retrieve her could not budge her from the ground. I absolutely love stories like this. It shows that if we have the faith of a mustard seed and we say to the mountain 'throw yourself into the sea' it WILL happen. Imagine the faith of this marvelous little saint! She believed with all her heart that God would hear her and aide her and He did!!
Clare of course founded the order of Poor Clares. Their website lists the Poor Clares as: Contemplative nuns who live a life of prayer, community and joy. All these centuries later, these dear women who are called to this life of poverty and selfless love, still have the JOY of their foundress, Clare. Poor Clares are found throughout the US and all over the world. The order of the Poor Clares was written by Clare herself, the first woman to put an order to pen in 1300 years of church history.
In particular, something that Clare wrote to Saint Agnes of Prague (these holy woman had an 18 year friendship through correspondence) has stuck with me of late.
"Place yourself before the mirror of eternity.
Place your soul in the splendor of glory.
Place your heart within the form of the divine substance, and through contemplation transform yourself wholly into the very image of the Godhead!"
The image of the mirror stayed with me. 'Why a mirror?', I pondered. What is found in this mirror? An image of course, but what image. And then it hit me. Edith Stein! From pg 87 of our workbook, "What God knows when He knows our individual form is our true self...In this sense our individual form is not who we are but who we ought to be in order to be our true self."
When you place yourself before the mirror of eternity, you gaze upon the self that God sees. The true self that you were meant to be is the image in the mirror of eternity. By placing our souls in the splendor of glory, we will close the gap between our current self and our true self. By placing our hearts within the very form of the divine and through contemplation we can transform ourselves into the very image of the Godhead!!!! In other words, into our authentic, true self that God alone knows. The image that most closely resembles HIM in all His glory.
How marvelous to see these two holy women separated by 7 centuries come to similar conclusions about our true selves. This clarified for me that the Truth of our faith, of who we are, of who God is are knowable and have been knowable through the ages.
Oh ancient Wisdom sublime,
Teach us your ways.
Bring us to your eternal mirror, where we can be who we were meant to be from the beginning of time. Let us glimpse upon the visage of who we are within and let us strive to become this image each and every day hence.
With love
I have been reading Clothed With Gladness-The Story of St. Clare by Sister Mary St. Paul, P.C.C.
this Biography of the dear saint was filled with spiritual gems. The foreword of the book was written by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel.
If you are like me, you find the lives of the saints to be truly inspirational. These elder brothers and sisters in faith have the gift of sloughing away all the unnecessary garbage in their lives and focusing on the truly transcendental truths. When I read about these spiritual giants, I find myself reexamining my life. As you can imagine, I find my faith wanting besides these pillars of gladness and joy. But I do find these good people so inspirational as they too trod paths that were of the world until that moment when their soul recognized their one true love.
Clare was a beloved daughter of a wealthy family. She was known for her beauty in the town of Assissi and surrounding areas. Like all families in that time, they hoped to make an advantageous marriage for this lovely girl, but as she influences me with her story, another saint then living in her town influenced her journey. Of course I speak of St. Francis. St. Francis' love of Jesus sparked Claire's own love for the pierced Lord. Once Clare understood what was required of her because of her great love, she was able to turn her back on all the worldly amusements and opulence in her family's sphere of influence.
Like we all help one another grow in holiness, Clare's profound love influenced her younger sister. When her family came to bear away her beloved sister, Clare prayed for a miracle. Her sister, a petite girl became so heavy, that the men sent to retrieve her could not budge her from the ground. I absolutely love stories like this. It shows that if we have the faith of a mustard seed and we say to the mountain 'throw yourself into the sea' it WILL happen. Imagine the faith of this marvelous little saint! She believed with all her heart that God would hear her and aide her and He did!!
Clare of course founded the order of Poor Clares. Their website lists the Poor Clares as: Contemplative nuns who live a life of prayer, community and joy. All these centuries later, these dear women who are called to this life of poverty and selfless love, still have the JOY of their foundress, Clare. Poor Clares are found throughout the US and all over the world. The order of the Poor Clares was written by Clare herself, the first woman to put an order to pen in 1300 years of church history.
In particular, something that Clare wrote to Saint Agnes of Prague (these holy woman had an 18 year friendship through correspondence) has stuck with me of late.
"Place yourself before the mirror of eternity.
Place your soul in the splendor of glory.
Place your heart within the form of the divine substance, and through contemplation transform yourself wholly into the very image of the Godhead!"
The image of the mirror stayed with me. 'Why a mirror?', I pondered. What is found in this mirror? An image of course, but what image. And then it hit me. Edith Stein! From pg 87 of our workbook, "What God knows when He knows our individual form is our true self...In this sense our individual form is not who we are but who we ought to be in order to be our true self."
When you place yourself before the mirror of eternity, you gaze upon the self that God sees. The true self that you were meant to be is the image in the mirror of eternity. By placing our souls in the splendor of glory, we will close the gap between our current self and our true self. By placing our hearts within the very form of the divine and through contemplation we can transform ourselves into the very image of the Godhead!!!! In other words, into our authentic, true self that God alone knows. The image that most closely resembles HIM in all His glory.
How marvelous to see these two holy women separated by 7 centuries come to similar conclusions about our true selves. This clarified for me that the Truth of our faith, of who we are, of who God is are knowable and have been knowable through the ages.
Oh ancient Wisdom sublime,
Teach us your ways.
Bring us to your eternal mirror, where we can be who we were meant to be from the beginning of time. Let us glimpse upon the visage of who we are within and let us strive to become this image each and every day hence.
With love
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