Friday, December 30, 2016

The Holy Family

I think of the Holy Family as my inspiration.  Mary was conceived without sin but she still was a human and Joseph was just like us.  Through their love for Christ they did amazing things they never thought they would do.

Joseph and Mary lived in a very small town and lived simple lives of labor until the day Christ came into their lives.  After that they traveled, met wise men, and for at least a while were the talk of their village.  Having Christ to love must have been so strengthening.  Their faith, especially Joseph's must have bloomed.

Mary went on to travel with Jesus and went through all she did with his death and resurrection and ended her life in a foreign land.  God's love will lead you, if you let it to a much bigger life.  That life may have a lot of sorrow and difficulties but it will be a life worth living and it won't be the life you thought you would have.  All you have to do is follow.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Hungering for Righteousness

I think there are two ways people think of when they think of righteousness.  Some people take the view of hungering for righteousness in the world in general.  This is good, wanting people to act according to Gods law and wanting our institutions to act in the same way is correct.  We fall short when we do this without compassion and without being righteous ourselves.  There are those who live lives that shame us in their beauty. love, and righteousness, Mother Theresa and St Francis are good examples.  Then you have busy bodies who look for the bad in everything and are so miserable they want to make everyone as miserable as they are.  Don't be that person.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Give drink to those thirsty for justice

Now that it is after Christmas and the Christ child is here, what does that mean?  We have opened our gift of salvation but what does that mean, what does that look like in our lives?  Think of Matthew chapter 25, now we have to look for the Beloved everywhere.  We have to take action.  We have to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and in prison, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked.  But God doesn't want us to just see to their physical needs.  We have to give drink to those who thirst for justice.  Feed those who hunger for peace.  It won't be easy, but it is so worth it because He is there.  He is that hungry senior at the food pantry and the woman disrespected by a racist in Walmart.  In fact He is also present in that racist who needs to be saved by your actions as well.  That person needs to be taught love by being shown the love you have for the person they are victimizing.  We are called to be a people of action working in the world to bring about the kingdom of God.  Open you eyes and look for Christ.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Adoration

Oh my Lord, as I sit here and gaze on you I realize that you are my strength and the source of all I am.  I am nothing without you.  All gifts and all wisdom comes from you.  Without you I can do nothing and I am nothing, except what you have made me.  That is why my life doesn't always work because I try to be other than how you created me.  I try to do what I think is my will, what others say will make me happy, but I am only happy in you.  When I think of what my life was away from you how small and mean it was, and then I see how beautiful it is now, I can't imagine living for only myself again.  A selfish life is a small life, thank you for giving me a big life.

The Wrapped Gift

Today, Christ is still the wrapped present under the tree.  He is still wrapped in the flesh of His mother.  We sit like little children longing to open that gift, the most beautiful gift we have seen.  Imagine a tree where the only gifts under the tree are things, we are so lucky our gift is salvation and love.

But do we really ever open that gift?  Do we stare at it and decide we know what's in it so we don't have to open it?  I think most of us never really open that gift.  We've read the Bible, we know God and what he asks of us.  We know it, we don't have to open the gift.  If we did open the gift that is the Beloved, He might ask something of us.  He might ask us to change or give us the courage to do what other people wouldn't like.  Opening that gift might be scary.

So we don't open it.  We show other people, look I have the gift of salvation, I must be doing things right.  We think because we have some knowledge that we know what God is calling us to do, but if we never really open our gift we keep Him from truly calling us.

If we open the gift we invite Him into our hearts and allow Him to rule there.  We become radicalized with Love.  We can truly do all things in Him but we have to open that present and allow Him to do things through us.

How do we know that it is the Beloved working through us and not the deceiver?  There are many people in the world today who think they are doing Gods will who are not.  We know we do Gods will when we always act out of love and compassion.  If what we do is really for our own gain, or hurts other people then it isn't God's will.  I am not talking about the hurt of showing someone they are wrong, sometimes we have to do that, but even then it has to be done with an abundance of compassion.  Bombing innocent people isn't God's will.  God is Love.  Open the gift and see where it takes you.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Waiting for the Manger

This morning I had planned on spending time in front of our church's nativity scene.  I wanted to sit and gaze at the empty manger and anticipate the coming of the Lord.  I will have to do it tonight instead.  It is still dark out and the lights that shine on the scene go out before sunrise so it is too dark.  Instead I am left longing for the manger.  Waiting to see the baby Jesus there.  I close my eyes and I imagine what it sounded like with the animals there and what it smelled like.  Was there a little fire for the Holy Family to see by or just the moonlight?

 I ask Mary if I can hold our Savior.  He is so beautiful.  The funny thing is that the light that comes from Him illuminates the darkness in my soul so I ask Him to heal that darkness and I resolve to not do that sin anymore with His help.

Joseph is the one I feel closest to in the Holy Family, he is like me.  He wasn't conceived without original sin like Mary was and yet he was chosen by God.  God had a job for him to do and he said yes.  His yes may not have been as profound as Mary's yes in the salvation of the world but it was significant.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Real Humility

God is teaching me humility.  I have been reading great works on humility and agreeing, yes that is humility and patting myself on the back for apparently gaining in humility with no outward evidence.    So, God sends me dreams and shows my lack of humility.  He gives me dreams of people questioning what I am doing for Him and have been doing for Him with great pride.  Instead of listening to these people I get defensive and stalk off vowing to make them pay.  Not very humble.  The people questioning me are clergy and I look down on those who don't accept what the clergy says.  I need to make a change in myself.  If this is like it has been in the past God will continue to send me these dreams until I learn at least some humility and then there will be a real live test that I must pass.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Humility

"The value of our activity depends almost entirely on the humility to accept ourselves as we are" - Thomas Merton.  Thomas Merton then goes on to say that we don't value what we can do well and always look to do things we really are suited to do.  This is me.  I always dream of the heroic thing I want to do instead of doing the ordinary good I can do and by doing that fail to do either.

The rest of creation gives praise to God in simply being, in part because a dog doesn't despise being a dog and want to be a penguin.  God made us the way we are to do what we are called to do.  The things we can't do, we are not called to do.  The courage comes from accepting that and from knowing the difference between what I am called to do and what I don't want to do.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Humble before the Lord

I sit here and I know that I am not humble before the Lord because I bring my lack of humility out in the world, in here in the church.  I revel in other people's lack of compassion and mercy and pat myself on the back.  I am literally the Pharisee who stood in front of the alter of the Lord and said thank you Lord for not making me like them.

I know what He did for us and how little I do for Him.  When the Host is raised at Mass it is an indictment of how little I do for Him.  I intend to do more, always.  I plan on all the wonderful heroic things I will do for God and in my mind, because I plan to do them, I have done them.  I plan on attending this meeting or that rally and really getting involved but at the last minute, I don't do it, I am too tired, I have to work late.  If I do actually do something I planned, I long to be caught doing it.    I hope someone will ask what I did last night so I can tell them.

I do this and then I look down on another person because they don't do the few things I actually do.  For all I know they may do what I do and more but still I judge them.  More likely they don't do the things I intend to do but don't do, so I judge them.

Lord help me!  Enlighten my mind and show me my faults, you who have none.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Taking time for God

i was going to call this post making time for God but that makes it seem like a chore, some other thing to add to the whole list of things you have to do this Advent season.  Right now my work is particularly hectic, we are trying to finish the fiscal year and change our computer system.  If I didn't start each day here in the Sanctuary of our church, gazing on the Beloved, just sitting with Him, I would be a tight little bundle of nerves at work.  I know that for sure because the last two days I had to be at work early and skipped my morning prayer time.

Take the time, don't fit it in.  Take time for quiet gazing on the Lord, listening to Him in silence.  Take the time for yourself.  Grow closer to God in this season of watching and waiting for Him.  Don't try to fit in a few hurried Rosaries or novenas, you can do that at other times.  Don't squeeze the One who came to save us, the Prince of Peace into you life, build your life around the Wonderful Councilor.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Jesus Loves me, this I know

It's a simple children's song and so very true, but I know I am beloved of God by so many things in my life.  He takes care of me.  I think that faith really has to start from the truth that God loves us.Becuase He loves us does not mean that nothing bad will happen, but that it will all work for the ultimate good of getting us and as many others as possible into heaven.

The bad things that have happened in my life have increased my ability to sympathize with other people and to love them even when others don't.  I know what poverty is and I know what it's like to do without basic things that others take for granted.  I know what it's like to choose between food and toilet paper.  This helps me to help others, to me this is God/'s love.  He makes my life more full by letting me love other people.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Living Simply

Such an easy thing to say and yet so hard to do today.  What does it mean to love a simple life?  I think that it means to have only what we need and no more, but how much do we really need?  I need a reliable car but do I need a big red one with all the bells and whistles?  I need clothes of a certain kind for work, but how many, and do I have to have the latest style?  And does it do good to live simply if I long for more?

At times trying to live simply gives me great peace.  I have what I need and when I go to a store I don't want what is there.  I don't feel deprived I feel content.  These are usually times when I am praying more and spending time with the Beloved and doing His bidding.  There are times when I truly need something.  When I don't have enough warm clothes that fit me I feel deprived.  I think I start to not be content with what I have in general.  Then there are times when I get caught with p in the world and when I am worried.  Then I feel I have nothing and want everything.  I buy into the culture of things.

I get out of balance and all the "stuff" in the world will not fill me up.  I buy too much and eat too much and I am not satisfied.  Only by drawing closer to God can I regain the balance in my life.  Only then can can I live the simple life and have it give me joy.  People get it so wrong.  They try to live simply without God and it either becomes a burden or they use it as a boast.  They tell others all the time how much better their life is because they are doing I right and everyone else has to do it their way.  My way of living simply will most likely not work for you, you are different and need to find what works for you, just do it with God at the center.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

The Commands of God

At the beginning of his ministry St Francis is told by God to go rebuild His church.  Francis had been the son of a cloth merchant, he wasn't a builder. Francis took Gods message literally and rebuilt churches ar first, and he wasn't a scholar or an orator or anyway "qualified" to reform the Church.  So why did God choose Him for the task, because Francis was still the best one for the job.

God may not talk to us in the way He did to Francis, but He does call us to do His work.  He may not call you to do what you want to do and what makes you comfortable but you still have to respond with a yes.  You may want glory and he may need you to clean toilets.  You may want to sit back and not do anything scary or dangerous but He may want you to risk all.  Either way, the answer has to be yes, just look at what He did for you.