Monday

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Father, this morning I wish to praise you and give you thanks for all the gifts you have bestowed on me!

Thank you for the gift of life, how marvelous to ponder that you knew me and loved me before I was formed in my mother’s womb! Help me love others knowing how worthy they are of your love.

Thank you for the gift of speech, let me use it to praise you and to lift others up.

Thank you for the gift of hearing, let me open my ears to hear the wonderful sounds of life you have surrounded us with. Let me truly hear what others have to say.

Thank you for the gift of smell, let me stop to smell your roses along the way and marvel at your creation.

Thank you for the gift of walking, let me walk the path you have laid out for me.

Thank you for the gift of motherhood. What a gift that keeps on giving in the gift of grandchildren. Help me be worthy to guide these young souls to you.

Thank you for the very breaths I take and let me appreciate each one as a gift.

Thank you for the gift of work. Let all I do have you at the center and please give success to the work of my hands.

Thank you for the aches and pains in my life. Help me to remember to offer them as a prayer for others.

Thank you for the gift of creation you have surrounded me in, help me to recognize your hand in all the miracles around us.

Thank you especially for the gift of faith and the gift of being Catholic. Please help me grow stronger in my faith so I am comfortable and confident living in your shadow. I long for others to see you when they see me and for me to see you in others.

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

Mary, undoer of Knots, pray for us!

From the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian, priest

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The Spiritual Offering of Prayer

Prayer is the offering in spirit that has done away with the sacrifices of old. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands?

What God has asked for we learn from the Gospel. The hour will come, he says, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and so he looks for worshippers who are like himself.

We are true worshippers and true priests. We pray in spirit, and so offer in spirit the sacrifice of prayer. Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own.

We must dedicate this offering with our whole heart, we must fatten it on faith, tend it by truth, keep it unblemished through innocence and clean through chastity, and crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God.
Since God asks for prayer offered in spirit and in truth, how can he deny anything to this kind of prayer? How great is the evidence of its power, as we read and hear and believe.
Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. No longer does it remove all sense of pain by the grace it wins for others. But it gives the armour of patience to those who suffer, who feel pain, who are distressed. It strengthens the power of grace, so that faith may know what it is gaining from the Lord, and understand what it is suffering for the name of God.
In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.
Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.
All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.
What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.

The Annunciation

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The first joyful mystery that we pray today is the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she had been chosen from all women to be the mother of the Messiah.

I often think of the cast of characters when I ponder this mystery. Of course you have Mary and Gabriel, but who else might have been a part of this scene?

My mind many times goes to those who died in the ages before, and were just and upright and stayed in the friendship of the Father. Remember, the gates of Heaven would not be opened until they were opened by the prophesied Messiah.

Abel, the first we know about and who has been waiting the longest for the Messiah to open the gates of Heaven. Adam and Eve. Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joseph, David, Rachel, the list goes on and on. Were they witnesses to the Annunciation? Were they waiting to hear Mary’s answer? Was there a celebration when they heard Mary’s fiat?

“Let it be done to me…..:

I imagine them celebrating and saying, “she said yes!” That was and is the most important yes in all of history. They knew then it would be soon when their limbo was over.

Think too, the instant Mary said yes, she was filled with the Holy Spirit like no one before had been and no one ever will be, for her openness to the Holy Spirit, physically brought the Son of God, the Savior to all mankind, of all generations. No human being can ever be filled with the Holy Spirit as Mary was and still is.

At that instant, with Mary’s fiat, is when God became man. In that instant, Jesus was conceived, fully human, fully divine.

Mary remains an important figure in Christianity and history. All of Jesus Christ’s DNA would be from Mary. The blood type found on the Shroud of Turin is said to be the type that is a universal receiver, meaning they can receive any and all. To me it makes sense that Christ would be a universal receiver, waiting for all to come to Him. Doesn’t that also make Mary a universal receiver? And she waits for all God’s children to call her mother.

Mary was and is the Mother of God! Who better than a mother can help you know her Son? And how many sons can say no to their mother?

For me, when I meet Jesus face to face, I want Him to say, “my mother talks of you often”

The Annunciation is celebrated in just a couple of days, March 25th – count the months – and for Catholics is no longer a Holy Day of Obligation (or of opportunity) but sure would be a great day to go to Mass or stop in to see Jesus.

Jesus and His Mother would love to see you and spend some time with you.

What a mess

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Good morning Father, thank you for hearing my thoughts and prayers this morning.

This morning I pray in particular for our broken families. Those broken families have led to a broken world. I’m sorry for the part I have played in adding to the brokenness.

Someone asked me the other day why I thought so many marriages ended in divorce. My quick answer was that was how the evil one was turning the world to him. But he has been so sinister and we don’t even recognize it as evil or wrong anymore.

Children used to be an important part of the family. And the family was more than just 1.2 children, or how ever many we can afford and still live the lifestyle we want.

So every child has their own room, and their own bathroom, afterall, they need their space. And they retreat to their space to live in their cyber world.

We cheat kids from learning how to share, especially to share space and time with physical human beings. We cheat kids from learning how to fight with others, and from fighting, learning forgiveness, and conflict resolution.

We cheat kids from learning that it’s okay to be mad at someone you love, and how special the feel of the words, touch and comfort of knowing you can still love through the anger is.

We cheat kids from knowing the world does not revolve around them. They don’t need to be involved in every sport or activity.

We cheat kids from time with us. We cheat them from knowing family dinners. We cheat them from the time they deserve to have parents, not friends who are adults being their taxi and their wallet.

We cheat kids from learning what no means and that you can’t and shouldn’t have everything you want.

We cheat us all out of knowing what a family truly is. And family is the most important gift we have been given.

Most of all Father, we cheat kids from knowing you and your love for each of us, and we have cheated ourselves from knowing your love too.

Lord, please help us ignite a flame for families. Help us to strengthen and uphold families. Show us how to have you present in our families. Let us know and feel your love.

This morning I offer my rosary for families. Take these prayers and use them as you know best.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph I love you, save souls!

So glad to be back

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Thank you for being here waiting for me. I need to be here, in front of you, just spending time with you.

These last few days have proven to me where I need to be for my prayer life to be productive and prosperous! With you, Jesus!

Today’s Gospel reading reminds me that only saints get into Heaven, please lead me and guide me on a path of holiness. I know that won’t make me popular on this side of eternity, but this life is but a wink!

What is the value of Christian holiness in the world? One early Christian apologist put it in these terms:

To sum up all in one word –– what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The flesh hates the soul, and wars against it, though itself suffering no injury because it is prevented from enjoying pleasures; the world also hates the Christians, though in nowise injured, because they abjure pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and [loves also] the members; Christians likewise love those that hate them” (From the Letter to Diognetus).

So to be a true Christian, the world will hate me. Sounds pleasant. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

Father, I ask you to watch over Diane on her trek to be with her Mom. Let Saint Raphael travel with her and offer her protection.

Grant Donna comfort and peace. Give her children strength, comfort and patience, let them know love is what binds them.

Grant comfort to all who are sick and to their caregivers. May they all see the value of their lives.

Mary, Queen of Heaven and earth, pray for us!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, patron saint of so many, and an ordinary man who showed us how to live an extraordinary life by saying yes to God, pray for us!

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you, save souls!

God, you have a way!

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Father, you know what has been on my mind the last couple of days- how people walk right by others without noticing them or giving a helping hand if needed.

And then, what is your Gospel for today – Matthew 25. Oh Lord, help me strive to be a sheep on your right!

So often we think you are calling us to big things in this reading, and I know you are for some – but I think too often we overlook the small, what might seem insignificant ways of feeding the hungry and caring for our brothers and sisters.

We live in such a me, me world that way too often we don’t even notice that brother or sister you put in our path. The mother struggling to get a stroller up or down some stairs, the elderly person carrying a heavy bag, the parent loading groceries with toddlers who could use a hand to get the cart put away, the stranger behind you that needed your smile and kind greeting today, the motorist waiting to get in a line of traffic, so many opportunities you give me each day to show others you live in me!

Help me to see those you put in my life, help me remember that you have a reason for weaving them into my tapestry and help me make that tapestry pleasing to you.

Father, I also ask you to bless all those transitioning in new positions, with new jobs, with new employers or employees, give success to the work of our hands.

Icon

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This icon titled “The Return of the Holy Family from Jerusalem to Nazareth” shows Joseph carrying the 12 year old Jesus after finding Him teaching in the temple.

One striking thing to notice – Joseph’s face is that of Jesus’s from the Shroud of Turin.

Ash Wednesday

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Oh Saint Joseph, so often I have put you in a box labeled “bystander”. I see more and more the important role God the Father designed for you and that you, in your fiat, played out.

Oh Saint Joseph, powerful protector of the infant Jesus and His holy mother, please protect my family.

Oh Saint Joseph, model of contemplative prayer, teach me how to contemplate in my prayer.

Oh Saint Joseph, terror of demons, please protect my family and friends and me from the snares of the devil.

Oh Saint Joseph, model of Christianity in the workplace, help me to be a true Christian in all I do.

Job

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If we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not take sorrow too?’ And in all this misfortune Job uttered no sinful word.

The Moral Reflections on Job by Pope Saint Gregory the Great

Paul saw the riches of wisdom within himself though he himself was outwardly a corruptible body, which is why he says We have this treasure in earthen vessels. In Job, then, the earthenware vessel felt his gaping sores externally; while this interior treasure remained unchanged. Outwardly he had gaping wounds but that did not stop the treasure of wisdom within him from welling up and uttering these holy and instructive words: If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not receive evil? By the good he means the good things given by God, both temporal and eternal; by evil he means the blows he is suffering from in the present. Of those evils the Lord says, through the prophet Isaiah,
I am the Lord, unrivalled,
I form the light and create the dark.
I make good fortune and create calamity,
it is I, the Lord, who do all this.
I form the light, and create the dark,because when the darkness of pain is created by blows from without, the light of the mind is kindled by instruction within.
I make good fortune and create calamity,because when we wrongly covet things which it was right for God to create, they are turned into scourges and we see them as evil. We have been alienated from God by sin, and it is fitting that we should be brought back to peace with him by the scourge. As every being, which was created good, turns to pain for us, the mind of the chastened man may, in its humbled state, be made new in peace with the Creator.
We should especially notice the skilful turn of reflection he uses when he gathers himself up to meet the persuading of his wife, when he says If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not receive evil? It is a great consolation to us if, when we suffer afflictions, we recall to remembrance our Maker’s gifts to us. Painful things will not depress us if we quickly remember also the gifts that we have been given. As Scripture says, In the day of prosperity do not forget affliction, and in the day of affliction, do not forget prosperity.
Whoever, in the moment of receiving God’s gifts but forgets to fear possible affliction, will be brought low by his presumption. Equally, whoever in the moment of suffering fails to take comfort from the gifts which it has been his lot to receive, is thrown down from the steadfastness of his mind and despairs.
The two must be united so that each may always have the other’s support, so that both remembrance of the gift may moderate the pain of the blow and fear of the blow may moderate exuberance at receiving the gift. Thus the holy man, to soothe the depression of his mind amidst his wounds, weighs the sweetness of the gifts against the pains of affliction, saying If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not receive evil?