New beginnings?

Over the past 6 years I have occasionally thought about this blog and why I should or shouldn’t start back. I don’t know if anyone will ever read these words or what that would mean if they did. I want only to be used by God to bring people into full communion with Him and His church.

I struggle to know how best to serve God’s will in my life. I struggle with experiencing the joy God’s love should bring to my life; too often I get caught up in my own failings. Lord please show me how to be still and take in Your love for me. Despite my inability to comprehend the magnitude of Your love, I know that no matter the depth and breadth of my sin You are always there to forgive and welcome me into life with You.

Crowning with Thorns

In this October, the month of the Rosary, I am hoping to do as my pastor recommended and pray the Rosary daily. Today being Tuesday means the Sorrowful Mysteries. I am, at least at the beginning, praying using a novena booklet. As I was reading the reflection in the booklet and beginning the Our Father on the third mystery, the Crowning with Thorns,  a thought entered my heart that caused me to pause in awe. 

I began thinking about Jesus enduring the Roman soldiers forcing those thorns down into his skull and how our Lord was looking at them and loving them as they did this. The idea of that it was possible even for our Lord to love someone causing him so much pain and injury is beyond my comprehension. 

First, you have to wonder what was going through those soldiers’ minds as He was looking at them with perfect love while they struggled with pressing those thorns his flesh. Did it make them press harder?  Did it freak them out? Did they talk amongst themselves after it was done about His look?  How unnerving must it have been to see a look of perfect love while trying to maximize pain and humiliation?  I know how how I feel after I sin knowing that God is looking upon me with that same look of love. I can’t imagine how it was staring into the face of Jesus while sinning against Him in the most personal of ways. 

Second, I try to imagine how I could apply our Lord’s example in my life. From something as simple as not getting angry, even for a moment, when someone is too slow in front of me on the road to not being resentful when my spouse does something I don’t like, I quickly come to the realization that such a thing is impossible for me. Thankfully, my salvation is not dependent on my being able to do something beyond my capabilities. The Holy Ghost, the Immaculata and my Guardian Angel take my best efforts and perfect them in Heavenly praise of The Father. 

Thank you God for Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, for the most efficacious intercession of the ever Virgin Mary and the protection of my Guardian Angel. 

Be a man

Just watched an EWTN broadcast of Father Larry Richards show about manhood. His message was that we should all say a prayer every day to invoke the Holy Ghost inside each and every baptized and confirmed Christian. That prayer should invite the Holy Ghost to set our lives on fire so that others will want to watch us burn. 

Control is something I find most difficult to let go of. You could say I am a “control enthusiast” as that rental car company commercial says.  “And you shall be as Gods” (Genesis 3:5). That one line haunts me every day. My fear and pride work as an internal sprinkler system trying to snuff out the fire of the Holy Ghost within me. 

Thankfully, God’s Love is ever new. It is a blessing indeed that God’s Love is not bitter or petty or moody. Just as these demons that want to control my life come from the original sin of Eve, so too the antidote comes from and the course is reversed through the Immaculata. 

Holy Mother, ever virgin and Mother of God. Be my protector and my warrior against the traps of the accuser. Pray for me that your spouse will inflame my heart and my life.  Plead for me that the Holy Ghost will burn away my heart of stone and that I may live every moment dying to myself in service to my neighbor. 

Dearest Mother

I am a slave. I am a slave to sin. I am a slave to sins of the flesh. My bondage is so complete that the mere thought of not giving in to earthly desires causes pain which is most unbearable. 

How are these chains to be broken?  Having failed so many times, the fear of inadequacy is almost indistinguishable from the dread of the fire of the trials. 

Blessed Mother unblimimshed by sin, intercede on my behalf. Come to my aid. Immaculata, whose soul was pierced as foretold by Simeon, I am deserving of eternal banishment. 

Due to your humility and unwavering devotion to the will of the Father, I can be made clean by the blood of your Son. In your example I can learn to receive the Spirit and have all confidence in conquering these demons that ravage my soul. 

In you humanity has the clarity to see through the lies of the accuser. In you we have the proof of the promises of Christ. Satan only offers a mirror in which we see a deformation of what we are intended to be. You are a window, spotless and unblemished. By looking at you we can see the true image of our Salvation. 

Holy Virgin, be my sword in battle against Satan and his dominions. Our Lady, pray ask the Holy Ghost to be my armor and my light. Failure is only assured when I take my eyes off of Christ and his Cross. 

Collect

One thing I personally have taken away from the crisis inflicting our Church is that I must change myself and from there I can be prepared to serve as a warrior for Christ. 

This journey will not be short and will not be easy. I began this journey in earnest a year and a half ago, roughly. The more I grow in my spiritual life the more I see the true nature of my sins.  My heart is firmly in Satan’s grasp and I am powerless to free myself. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, through your Magnificent and by you powerful intercession please battle on my behalf to release me from Satan’s hold so that I may be free to give my life to your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Mad as hell

The revelations of the past few weeks have caused me much anger and distress. I have found myself ranting on message boards in a way that I haven’t for years. I didn’t like how it made me feel then and I don’t like it now. 

Heavenly Father, I trust that you are hear with me and with your Church. The failures of some of the men who have risen to leadership positions in your church have caused harm only repairable by your love. 

I pray you will open my heart and give me the grace to be a part of the solution to this crisis. Only through changing my heart and rooting out the pride, lust, selfishness and bitterness that eat away at my soul can I then love my fellow man. Only through a total emptying of myself can I love You in the manner you deserve. 

Please humble me and show me how to repent for my lack of loving You and loving me in an unhealthy way. 

Growing in faith, in fear and trembling

When I, for lack of a better way of saying it, came back to the Catholic faith about 6-7 years ago, it was spurred on in no small part by my atheist wife. I wanted to be in a position to be able to respond to her challenges. In doing so, I have learned a great deal about God, Mary and the One Holy and Apostolic Church. So much so that I have been blessed in assisting my local parish priest in teaching RCIA the last two (2) years.  

In this past year I have come to realize that there was something missing in all this learning, something important. That piece that was missing is a true relationship with God.  I wore this knowledge as sort of an amor. It was something I could grip tightly to protect myself from challenges I imagined would be forthcoming and as a blade to brandish to prove my faith. 

Little did I know how useless and pathetic that was.  I was missing the beauty and life in the trees because I was obsessing over the details of the forest.  It was a loving trusting relationship with God that I did not have.  

This lack of a relationship raised its ugly head in many ways in my life.  It was exhibited daily in my fear over money and worrying how I would manage everything I had on my plate.  It peaked in 2015 when I found myself in counseling and on medicine for anxiety and depression.

It was reading The Marian Option that I came to understand how much love was missing in my life. Please don’t take this to mean I didn’t have people in my life that loved me and that I love. In that area my life was overflowing. But it was the unique motherly love Dr. Gress describes that I didn’t even know I was missing. It was the fatherly Love that is found through Mary that I could have never fathomed. 

So since reading that ground shaking book I have grown in love and trust of both our Blessed Mother and our Lord and Savior. I have internalized and grown in what I already intellectually knew, that I can put my full faith and trust in God. That wherever I am and whatever I am doing is what He wants me to do. As a serious control freak, this not at all easy. 

I would say that my faith on this new level is still fragile in my fallen state. So it is not without fear and trepidation that I take this next leap. This past week Inwatched a documentary on the life of Blessed Solanus Casey (I have provided a link to his cause below). This man grabbed a hold of my imagination like nothing before. I love this man, his humility and simplicity. I saw in him how I can grow in these two sins that cause me much strife. 

It then hit me to pray for his intersession for the miraculous cure for my wife’s paralysis. Praying for this has never entered my mind. This idea gutted me in its audacity and presumption that doing this is God’s Will. It gives me much pause because I am scared to death that my faith will come out of it in shambles if her miraculous cure is not God’s Will. 

I dive headlong into this prayer with blind trust that God will have a  warm and deep body of water at the bottom of this cliff. 

http://www.solanuscasey.org/portal.php

Learning to give Thanks

I find it very easy to get swept away in the world’s rush and hurry, especially this time of year. Commercials on TV, radio and seemingly everywhere are telling Gus about where to get the best deal and what we need to buy to make us and our loved-ones happy. 

I was blessed to have some quiet time this morning to reflect on all I have to be thankful for. This is something I should do every day, not just today. Yesterday I watched a documentary on the life of Blessed Solanus Casey.  Without being conscious of it being the day before Thanksgiving, the one thing I took away most from that film was how he was thankful to our Lord no matter the trial or hardship. Blessed Solanus was graced with the ability to see people’s heart and to see God’s plan for them. He would stress to those who came to him how we have a loving God. 

Being thankful to God for starts with life itself. Second is for his only Begotten Son taking the form of a slave, suffering and dying for our sins. The hardest part of being thankful is learning to be thankful for our crosses. I pray for the grace for all of us to pick up our crosses and praise God for those crosses as it is through them that we purify our souls for the glory of heaven. 

Ugh. Here it is a week since I have made an entry. It has been a stressful week no doubt. My desire to move forward in my spiritual and interior life have seen some progress, and no surprise it occurred because I have been less focused on myself and more focused on how blessed I truly am. 

This week we had a case on a teenager who traveled alone from Guatemala and got caught up when the vehicle he was in (with 10 other people in it) was pulled over. He walked from his home to the boarder and crossed illegally. 

The foster family speaks fluent Spanish, but he doesn’t. He speaks a Mayan dialect and zero English. The foster parent said he walked into the living room and set in the dark because he didn’t know how to turn on a light switch. 

There is something extremely humbling about thinking about the poverty this young man grew up in. Real poverty, not the moving target we use here in the United States. His parents, or at least the person answering the phone at the number an uncle living in Maryland had, claim to not know who he is. 

From what I have been told children in his situation are put out of the home at 12-14 as grown and forced to fend for themselves. And 

I am embarrassed and ashamed of what I consider my big problems to be compared to those persons.  Such grave injustices in this world. We should not turn a blind eye to the real trials in others’ lives. We must continue to focus on our blessings and trust in our Lord and Savior.  

Virgin Mary, window to salvation

I never took a philosophy class in college (I think I remember thinking it was useless and probably a little intimated, if I am being honest).  But you often hear of the old supposed philosophical stumper, “can God create a stone so big that he can’t move it?”

May people poo-poo that question. I think there is an easy answer, yes and he did so - the human race. God created us in his image and likeness and because he is Live, he gave us free will so that he cannot force us to love him back.  

We also have the opposite of that in Mary. God created our Blessed Mother without the stain of original sin. She inturn I would argue could only love God back and showed this love by her fiat. The Immaculate Conception continued to say yes and show her love by suffering with her Son every step of the way to the Cross. 

I like to think of Mary as a window. On the other side of that window is our Lord and Savior. The window is real and has its own qualities.  But you cannot look at the window without seeing what is on the other side. 

“Tremor in the Force” Revisited

Over two years ago I published a post that included the following paragraph:

I have struggled with hope for some time and the last few weeks has been as bad as ever. How can I share my faith and show the beauty of God grace if I suffer from an acute lack of joy and hope? How do I convince anyone that Catholicism is worthwhile if I am always fearful and pessimistic? 

My, have I received many blessings since then. I am startled by how self-centered those sentences are. Even in expressing a desire to spread the good news of Christ, it was “my faith” and “my struggle.”

I was not able to look outside myself for answers or accept that those struggles were a blessing. Even as I type this I can feel the great deceiver trying to pull my mind into sinful thoughts; I must be onto something. 

I remember those days as very dark times. Thankfully, through medication, counseling and prayer I am no longer in that dark place. 

The Holy Ghost has opened my eyes to the things that were holding me back, in my earthly life and my spiritual life. It was that burden, the the burden the great deceiver placed on me as a child when I was powerless to stop him or know better, that prayer is lifting off of me. 

With the intersession of the Immaculate Conception and my guardian angel, I have come to internalize that the shame and fear I have lived with since I was a teen is not apart of God’s will for me. I can now truly exclaim that His burden is easy and His yoke is light. 

I want to share this glorious news with the world. I want each and every person to join me in placing our shame and our fears at the foot of the cross, with the faith that Christ’s death and resurrection has destroyed them. We will sing together a hymn of praise: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosana in the highest. 

Sometimes it seems that the idea that God could love us but allow us pride is a bigger stumbling block to the deepening of my faith than pride itself. God gives us as Hope the burning desire to know and love Him. Yet He simultaneously gives us pride, acting as a like-charged force repelling the Hope. 

Pride tells us that we know better. Pride says God should meet me where I am (which He does) AND on my own terms.

Thankfully God has given us examples to show us how to get around this problem. Namely, he has given us His mother, the Immaculate Conception. It is turning our eyes toward our Blessed Mother that we see Jesus. She serves as a lighthouse in the fog of our lives and as a window through which we see our Redeemer. 

Mary’s fiat is the antidote to the poison of pride. By joining her in her yes to God, we too can walk the narrow path that leads to salvation.  But God offers us the same Grace as he gave that young virgin, we only need to say yes. 

The Beginning

These past 8-9 months have seen the occurrence of a revelation of sorts in my life. It all started when I read a book entitled “The People of fthe Lie.”  I do not recall who it is by, but I should find him and send him a thank you card. 

I have come to realize that events of my childhood have blead into my adulthood and have had a dramatically negative affect. I won’t go so far as to say it was childhood trauma, because that would be over stating what I experienced.  

What I hope to share is how the revelation of this book started a chain reaction that has plotted my life along a more joyful and hope-filled course. 

Mary Blessed Virgin the Immaculate Conception and Undoer of Knots pray for us sinners. 

One year

It was one year ago today that my best friend's life came crashing down around him. His drinking had lead an incident at his home where the police have been involved and he is now losing his home, his marriage and every material thing he once worked so hard to gain. 

In this year he has had some extreme lows. He has had days that I wasn't sure he had the will to live. There were moments he o wanted to take the easy path and take a drink and light up a cig. Through his own determination and mostly through God's grace he has been one year without a drink and without alcohol. 

I cannot put into words the awe I feel when I think about his journey. While I in no way envy the dark days he has experienced over the last year, I do look at the peace he now enjoys and want to have that in my life. I know his prayer life is also something that I could emulate.  

The thing I see in him now that I most want to emulate is his total surrender to God's will in his life. I know in my life I sometimes like to think that I have done that, but when I am honest with myself I know that is only a delusion. I do fervently desire God's will in my life, but at the same time have a death grip on things trying to control them that I am finding harder and harder to release.

I know I need God, I am scared by how much. 

Tremors in the force

Seems like every year at this time, when my website domain renewal is up, I try to come back to this site and give it "one more try."  This time I am not fooling myself. I can't keep a thought together long enough that the money will be worth it. 

I have struggled with hope for some time and the last few weeks has been as bad as ever. How can I share my faith and show the beauty of God grace if I suffer from an acute lack of joy and hope? How do I convince anyone that Catholicism is worthwhile if I am always fearful and pessimistic?  

Do I have to be happy?

Over the past few months I have been doing a great deal of struggling in the past few months in dealing with all the things in my life. One of the things that's has resulted from this is questioning in my mind about whether or not one can have the Love and Grace of God and have a bad disposition. 

To put it another way, can not may and not should but is it possible to live a truly Christian life and do so with a bad attitude?  I am reminded of the words of Saint Paul in Phillipians where he talks about if his jailers kill him he will be with God and if they free him he can go on preaching God's word in the world and either way is a win. How can I read that passage, take it into me and not be joyous?  

Let me be clear about one thing. I am not talking about being grumpy or having bad days every now and again.  I am talking about despising what Godis calling me to do. I mean can I truly give my life to God, do my best to let my will succumb to His and be mad about it?

Contemplation and Love

"Show us your goodness present in every creature – that we may contemplate your glory everywhere." 

This is from the Intercessions from the morning prayer in the liturgy of the hours today. 

I often make a point to take time to look at the natural world around me and to let its beauty and magesty awe me. The harder thing is to look at the people around me and be in awe. It is much easier look at the people around me, be jealous of some of them, feel superior to some of them, be disgusted by some of them, but above all find faults in all of them.

How do I contemplate God's Glory in the person that had just cut me off in traffic? How do I contemplate God's Glory in the homeless man on the street corner?  How do I contemplate God's Glory in those that hate me?

My favorite podcast "Catholic Stuff You Should Know" is thankfully back after months of being on a break. This podcast is done by priests from Denver. In this week's episode they talk about why they had a long break, were discussing 1 Correnthians 13 and all that Love is. They made a point that we are called  to be all things that Love is, not parts. I know I am good at some of the things Love is and need lots of work on others. 

Lord, may we grow in love for you and for all that you created. May we show that Love to the least among us and cast away all selfish and prideful thoughts. It is only by your Grace that we grow in Love for those around us and Love them as You Love us. 

Today

I have many more questions in my heart than answers. I have more troubles in my mind than in my life. I have plenty of time and not enough prayer. I have far too much sin on my heart. 

Focus is now and always has been my problem, in life and in prayer. The inability to stay focused and the lack of a will to focus on the right things. Failure to focus on the a indent good in my life. Failure to focus on anyone but myself. 

Anger

Things have transpired at my work this past week that have caused me to have a lot of anger in my heart.  I am not sure if I would call what I feel hatred, but it is awful close. What the events were are not important, but lets just say that a ball was dropped and big trouble was had.  One particular person has been on a rampage blaming me ever since and I find myself in a position I am not accustomed to, I am not sure how to respond.

I am a grand master, gold medalist, world champion at lashing out in response.  I am world class at responding out of anger and going straight for the kill shot.  One of the things I have worked very hard at checking that sort of response. It is the next step and what is the appropriate way to respond that has me bumfuzzled. 

I must admit that somewhere in there is mixed in sadness because my superiors are not supporting me.  I don't know how much of a roll that plays in my level of confusion, but it certainly is a part.  Part of the problem also is that I have a new supervisor, one that isn't familiar with the history between this person lashing out and me. A history of her making wild outlandish accusations toward me and not being called on them by her superiors or mine.

I will just have to continue to pray for peace and grace.  I knew a time of desolation was coming, I had been enjoying the blessing of an extended period of consolation.  I will continue to trust in God.


"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui

Psalm 33 (or 34)

In the past few months I have been reading the Douay Rhemis version of the Bible.  The US Bishops dictate that New American Bible (NAB) is used during Mass, but the more I study the scriptures, the more I find that version wanting.  For several years now I have had an app for my phone with different translations of the Bible.  In sticking with the Bishops I have always read the NAB.  The Douay Rhemis is a difficult read as it is written in a style of English that is not used today.  Whereas, the NAB is written for a broad audience.

It is this difficulty that has made my reading of the scripture come alive.  Because it is more difficult to understand, I have to think about what I am reading.  When I read a verse in the Douay Rhems, I have to restate it in my mind in a way that I can understand -- into my own words.  In doing this I process the verse and take into myself.  With the NAB, which is more plainly written, I find myself more prone to not take the words into myself and they just slip through my consciecness. 

Somewhere along the line of the different translations the numbering of the Psalms got mixed up.  I don't know why or when it happened, or any other details about it, I just know that the numbering is different depending on what translation you a reading. In the middle of this Psalm,  it says, "Who is the man that desireth life: who loveth to see good days?" Psalm 33:13. (See what I mean about the language of the Douay Rhems?)  The NAB translate that to, "Who among you loves life, takes delight in prosperous days?" Psalm 34:13.

What does that mean, to "love life," or more applicably, how does the person that "loves life" live?  A modern person might say it means to go out and do those things that you like.  Another might say it means to do things that make you feel alive.  Some might say it means to enjoy family and friends.  It is easy to see where a self-centered mind set can take this verse and profess it to be Biblical approval for doing whatever the individual wants.  The modern approach to perfection is seen in outward, physical beauty.  This may be in owning the best car, the newest smartphone, the biggest house, the fanciest furnishing, the right look.

For those of us who seek something more than the endless and hopeless task of fulfilling our every concupiscent desire, the answer to that question is much more complex. It is this search that informs the very basis of our, or at least my, Christian life.  How do I manifest my desire for eternal life?  What do I view as a "good day"?  More importantly, how do I keep my perspective being that today being is good/prosperous day even when things are bad? The only answer I have is PRAYER.  It is through prayer that I have found the ability to have the joy that is knowing God love you and will provide for you.  It is this joy which keeps me balanced.   It is this joy that keeps me striving to empty myself and allow God to fill me.  The harder I work at emptying my will, the more he fills me up.

"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui