Desperate For You

Dear God

DEAR GOD:

I want to thank You for what you have already done.
I am not going to wait until I see results or receive rewards;
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until I feel better or things look better; I am thanking you right now.
I am not going to wait until people say they are sorry or until they stop talking about me;
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until the pain in my body disappears; I am thanking you right now.
I am not going to wait until my financial situation improves; I am going to thank you right now.
I am not going to wait until the children are asleep and the house is quiet;
I am going to thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until I get promoted at work or until I get the job;
I am going to thank you right now.
I am not going to wait until I understand every experience in my life that has caused me pain or grief; I am thanking you right now.
I am not going to wait until the journey gets easier
or the challenges are removed;
I am thanking you right now.

I am thanking you because I am alive.
I am thanking you because I made it through the day's difficulties.
I am thanking you because I have walked around the obstacles.
I am thanking you because I have the ability and the opportunity to do more and do better.
I'm thanking you because FATHER, YOU haven't given up on me.

No cowards in the Kingdom by Fr Noel Connolly

In the early 70s I read Eugene Cuskelly's, No Cowards in the Kingdom. It was a call for courage in living the faith. I found it inspiring. But at the time there were only intimations of the problems to come. We were still young and energised by Vatican II. There were plenty of priests and sisters. Superiors were in their forties and the Church scandals of those days were minor compared to today.

Now priests are ageing and critically short in number. I find it difficult to imagine the Columbans and many congregations in 10 years time they will have to be lay run. Most dioceses are also struggling to care for their people. What is worse in a post-modern secular society like Australia religion is increasingly marginalised and we are struggling to learn how to communicate with youth who seem to want to believe but not belong to any of our institutions. Religion is greeted by many with apathy rather than anger. God is missing but not missed.

There are pockets of success and the Church is taking initiatives such as World Youth Day but I still believe we need Cuskelly's courage, persistence and faith-filled hearts.

I am reminded of another book, David Bosch's Transforming Mission. He tells us that while mission may be in crisis that is healthy. It is normal for Christians to live in a situation of crisis but we are only occasionally aware of this. We are blinded by our successes and consequently depressed by failure when it comes. The Church needs apparent failure and suffering to realise that mission requires profound faith. We have to allow God the freedom to save the world in his way. At times our challenge is to be faithful without success. We have to learn to love and live through all our questions patiently and hopefully.

I think we often misunderstand the purpose of religion. For most of us the purpose of religion is to give us easy, comfortable certainties [a fundamentalist approach]. Actually religion should provoke in us deeper and greater questions but also give us the faith and hope to live courageously through them into a deeper and more joyful life.

Fr Noel Connolly

Freedom from Illusion By Jeff Mirus

In a fine recent article in First Things entitled "The Freedom of Heaven & the Freedom of Hell", Anthony Esolen mines Dante’s Divine Comedy to give us a striking image of what it means to be free. To be truly free, Esolen says, we must first free ourselves from the illusion that we are our own—the illusion that we belong to ourselves.

Ancient spiritual writers used to emphasize that we have been bought at a great price, the price of Christ’s blood. This is a direct reference to an important aspect of the Christian concept of "redemption", which always includes a buying back by God of souls in bondage to sin and to the Devil. And before that, of course, God created us. He is the potter, we the clay. We were made by God and for God. We are not our own.

Esolen sees Dante’s depiction of Satan, whom Dante encounters in the very depths of hell, as a telling reminder of this truth. Satan sits at the very bottom of hell frozen in ice. He eternally flaps his reptilian wings, trying to rise under his own power. But his flapping creates bitter cold winds which keep the waters frozen, locking Satan in their grasp. Cut off from God, Satan's power of flight is utterly self-defeating. He refuses to admit that he is not his own, yet he cannot rise even the slightest amount under his own power.

So it is with us, and it makes a wonderful Lenten meditation. Every time we feel or think or act as if we belong to ourselves, our efforts are miserably self-defeating. For we are not our own. We belong to God.

Written by Jeff Mirus

St. Therese of Lisieux Quote

To offer oneself as a victim to Divine Love is not to offer oneself to sweetness - to consolation; but to every anguish, every bitterness, for Love lives only by sacrifice; and the more a soul wills to be surrendered to Love, the more must she be surrendered to suffering.

St. Therese of Lisieux

Charity Where to Begin?

If you listen to many Heads of Goverment the world is on the brink of collapse and we all may as well give up and lock our doors and hearts.

I don't believe Governments solve problems in fact and in many cases they are the problem.

But I do believe in people.

I believe in the strength and courage of the American people. I believe in the grit and determination of the British people. I believe in the doggedness and generosity of the Australian people. I believe in the goodness of ALL people in all lands, no matter where you are.

But how can we help when the problems are so enormous?

You do so one step at at time.

Charity doesnt always mean a giving of money, if anything money is the easy option. A giving of your time is of more value than money.

In most countries there are nursing homes for the aged. Perhaps it is time to consider spending an hour or two a week visiting the aged in their hospital beds? Maybe you could organize a Rosary prayer group or any other form of prayer which can include singing, have you thought of this?

When you give to charity either monetarily or with your time. It is not about making you feel good it IS about making the person you visit feel special and unique.

If you belong to a prayer group, bible study or mothers group perhaps you could contribute a certain amount of money and buy good quality books for schools that do not get enough funding.

Don't always wait for the 'government' to do something. If you see a school that is in disrepair where noone cares, DO something about it yourself. Get your friends involved and your Parish if possible.

Many people are good and generous at heart and want to help in a beneficial way. If this is YOU then explore your community and see where you can help and then do it.

Remember many of our greatest Saints began their work in their own communities.

We cannot help everyone but that should never be an excuse to help noone.

Written by Marie

Indifference....

Lenten Reflection with St. Therese of Lisieux

"Since it had been necessary for Christ to suffer so that he would enter through that into glory, you must also drink from his same chalice if you want to have a place at his side."

++++++++++++++++

Many times when I have spoken to people who are suffering in one form or another and they are complaining that God is punishing them. My first question to them is this; what have you been praying for? There answer is always "to be closer to God."

I then ask them if they know how this is achieved and they have different responses, some say through prayer, attending daily Mass, praying the Rosary three times a day and the list goes on. No one mentions suffering.

When I tell them that the only way to become closer to God is through the Cross which means suffering they look at me askance.

Do we really believe that we are so holy, so pure that God does not need to purify and discipline us?

Do we believe that we can legally murder the unborn, euthanize the ill and elderly, legalize prostitution and narcotics(in some countries) and demand that homosexual couples marry in the name of civil rights and think that God is not going to call an accounting?

We are living in the days of a new Sodom and Gomorrah and just like the people of those towns we think there will be no reckoning for the continued abuses of society. And so we dance and make merry with no thought for tomorrow.

God calls us to make reparation for all the evils that are now taking place in the world, but are we ready for it?

Are YOU ready?

Are you ready to suffer for those who spit in God's face? Who ignore His Commandments? For people who on one day can march to save the Whales (& other wildlife) and the next day march to kill the unborn?

The only way to Christ is through the Cross. There are no short cuts.

Are YOU ready to answer God's call?

Reflection Written by Marie

A PRAYER FOR LENT

O gracious Master,

infuse in our hearts

the spotless light of Your Divine Wisdom

and open the eyes of our mind

that we may understand the teachings of Your Gospel.

Instill in us also the fear of Your blessed commandments,

so that having curbed all carnal desires,

we may lead a spiritual life,

both thinking and doing everything to please You.

For You, O Christ, our God,

are the enlightenment of our souls and bodies;

and to You we render glory,

together with Your eternal Father,

and with Your all holy,

life-creating Spirit,

now and ever, and forever.

Amen.

What is Lent Really About?

Within my parish many are following this season of penance, by giving up 'things'. Some have decided to go without sugar in their coffee, one lady said she would go without cream in her cup of tea and also give up eating dessert. Others said they were forgoing watching their favourite television shows 'for God.'

How does this affect God? I don't think it affects God at all. What can we give to God who is sufficient unto Himself?

Lent is about purification and a time to reflect and ask within ourselves the hard questions. Lent is also a time of inner surgery, where we find and search deep within our souls and personality to see where have we offended God. Where have we failed to do His Will? Where have we wounded Him and in so doing wounded ourselves and others?

Where have we walked away from God and what opportunities to do good did we overlook or fail to act on even though we knew it would benefit another?

Then there are the other questions we need to ask. What have we placed before God, where have we been inattentive to His Will. And most importantly how much time do we spend with God, alone.

These weeks of Lent are our time 'spent in the desert' as we seek God's guidance and weed out our weaknesses and those things which seperate us from His Divine Love.

In order for God to work fully within our souls we need Him to purify us from all that which holds us to the world. It is time to weed out selfishness, laziness, unkindness, impatience, anger, pride. This is a momentous task, for me at least especially as I fall into many of the above categories.

Once we confront these lesser qualities within ourselves and through the Sacrament of Penance only then can God fill the empty vessels of our souls with His Divine Love so that we too arise, renewed and filled with joy.

Rather than give something up, give of yourself to those in your community who are hungry, tired, lonely, sick, deprived and unloved.

What is our most precious commodity? The thing we prize most of all?

Our time.

Amen, Amen my God, breatheth in me the dew of thy Grace which bringeth me to the well spring of they Awesome Love, which overcometh my timid soul, and fills it with all good things, so that I may boast, here in lay my strength. I am nothing and God is ALL.

Written by Marie