tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70567529416331316932024-03-13T12:47:26.838-07:00Life's Mini MiraclesHere are some little stories about my experiences living a life of faith and prayer. I know that the praying life is always one filled with unexpected moments of grace and mystery, humor and miracle, sometimes of the natural and even on occassion the supernatural... thanks for visiting. PEACE LouiseLouisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-49280957255381793862015-01-29T09:04:00.003-08:002015-02-23T07:15:30.019-08:00Humility on Parade<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Just Another Humble Moment in the Life of Pope Francis</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Much
acclaimed for his humility, P</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Adobe Hebrew'; font-size: medium;">ope Francis once again captured headline
news by uttering what strikes me as strangely disquieting judgments
upon other pilgrim souls.</span></div>
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“<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
reprimanded a woman in a parish a few months ago because she was
pregnant with her eighth after seven cesarean sections. But she wants
to leave seven orphans? This is to tempt God. There is talk of
responsible parenthood. That is the way: responsible parenthood.”
He went on to comment that Catholics do not need to breed
like“rabbits” as the Church allows for acceptable ways to
regulate births. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here,
once again, The Holy Father's famed humility is on display for all to
see and wonder at behind the closed doors of inner hearts. </span></span>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7056752941633131693" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jesus
Christ and His Church, founded on the rock that is Peter, has given
the world true religion. It is the “true philosophy” as Justin Martyr, an early
founding father sometimes called it. As Jesus embodies truth, so does his Church which is his Mystical body on Earth. Here's the catch, in
order for there to be a true religion there must also be false
religion. Today in my beloved Church and for perhaps the entire
lives of many now living, the true religion (the One Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Faith) has been and is being obscured as if by a mist
or better yet smoke that has filtered across our spiritual eyes and
is obscuring our Catholic sight. Mist is not the best word because, although it may obscure our vision, it cannot choke the life out of
us, as can smoke. The most troubling thing about the current
“crisis of faith” as some call it, is that the smoke
filling the Church is primarily emanating from representatives of the
Church itself. It's coming from within. Pope Francis has already
lobbed many a smoke-bomb during his short pontificate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jesus
said that if your eye is sound your whole body will be full of light,
but if your eye is darkened, how great is the darkness! I often have
wondered about His meaning. One day I simply understood. If we
perceive truth correctly, then our whole being will be filled with
the light of God. We will know. We will understand. We will perceive
the mysteries of true religion by that light. By religion, I mean we will understand who God is, what is his will and what exactly
he expects of us. If our perception of truth is obscured however,
our thinking will cloud our judgments and thus our actions. Our
behavior will not truly reflect the love and compassion of God no
matter how it may appear to an unbelieving world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It
would be foolhardy of any religious system to separate God’s will
from His expectations of us, as the two are inseparable. We are
saved, not by faith alone, but by grace. The life of the blessed
mother is a perfect example of the union of God’s will with Gods
expectations of humanity. According to the Angel Gabriel, Mary was
filled with grace. That very fullness of grace demonstrates that she was
sinless. By grace, her eye was filled with light. Her heart was
filled with God and as such her will was in union with the divine
will. She consistently chose to act in accordance with God’s will
bringing the two into union. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
book of Genesis makes clear God's expectations of us. God alone
determines right and wrong, good and bad. His judgments may seem at
times to be arbitrary, as in the case of Eden’s
fruit, but they are not. God requires that we choose obedience or
disobedience. Therein, lies the will of God. Therein lies the
essence of morality. It is intriguing that the choice offered to Adam
and Eve had no other moral implication attached to it, only pure obedience, one fruit over another, both equally tasty and
available for the taking. The morality lay only with the choice and
the declared will of God. Would our first parents obey or not? The
requirement of free will is foundational to every human
relationship with God and if our eye is sound and we correctly
perceive truth and then choose the right, we will live in
spiritual freedom and all will be light. All things will be
possible. In other words, humans have the ability to reject sin and
live in freedom, but only by the permeating grace of God. It is
difficult to choose the right however, if we do not know what is
right and how shall we know it, if no one will teach us? And whose
job is it to teach us? Christ’s Church of course, headed by the
current Pontiff.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
God himself is the arbiter of what is good and what is evil and God
has tasked the Catholic Church to be is His instrument in defining,
teaching and preserving the fullness His truth, the primary
responsibility of any Pope in union with the worlds Bishops, is to
fulfill those duties. It is not the Holy Father's task, to expound
upon his own private opinions, which Pope Francis does with regularity. The contemporary undereducated Catholic is in serious
jeopardy of mistaking private opinion for authentic Catholic
teaching, which, by its very nature, embodies TRUTH. I have had
numerous conversations with other Catholics who think that because
the Pope says something, it must be true and represents the teachings of the Catholic Church. The private opinion of any
man, whether he be Pope or stamp collector, is only that, a man's
opinion. The clearer the eye of the man, the wiser the opinion. It reminds me of the freedom felt by the Hollywood elite in
expressing their expertise on public affairs and foreign policy
because they believe so greatly in their own talent and knowledge.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> It seems to me that something of a rockstar mentality is on display by the Pope's many unscripted remarks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Going
back to Pope Francis’ reprimand (his word not mine) to the pregnant
mother, perhaps he should revisit his own words as expressed on
another occasion, “ If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord
and has good will, who am I to judge?” </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hmm
. . . </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
Holy Father does not feel qualified to comment on homosexuality and
the Gay lobby in the Curia. . . even though the church has always
and everywhere condemned the behavior as intrinsically disordered and in direct opposition of the revealed will of God. The Homosexual lobby in America is now so powerful that
its' presence is felt in every public school and is effectively
influencing untold number of children. Gay ‘marriage’ is
now becoming the social norm . . . to the detriment of souls and
society. The Transgender movement is now gaining boldness and gender
confusion is even leading many people to self-mutilation, seeking
relief from their inner torments. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hmm
. . . </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet
the Holy Father feels perfectly comfortable reprimanding and judging a faithful
Catholic mother and wife, who by all evidence is trusting in God and
fulfilling the Lords righteous and sometimes difficult command to be
fruitful and multiply. She and her husband are bringing forth a new
and hopefully future citizen of heaven. God is the creator of that
tiny person within her womb. Has Pope Francis no fear of judging the
unnamed mother of his example? He does not fear to judge these
parents characterizing them as irresponsible and even of tempting
God. That is not a light charge. Who is he to Judge, after all?
What of God Himself? Does he not fear judging God as it is God who
gave life to this child? Is not each child of a marriage a blessing?
Isn't that what scripture declares? Who is he to judge after all?
His attitude does not strike me as humble, but of a man too full of
his own thoughts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;">Pope
Francis could have taken the opportunity to exercise his authentic
teaching office, and explained with true charity that homosexuality
is contrary to the will of God, the Creator, and although such
feelings and attraction are not, in themselves sinful, they are
disordered and acting upon them IS sinful and destructive to the
human person. In other words, he could have spoken the truth in
humble submission to the truth. Jesus said that truth has the power
to liberate. True humility is bold and courageous. It loves. It
does not fear disapprobation. It’s not very courageous to
criticize a pregnant woman who is following the dictates of her
conscience according to the TRUTH as taught by the Catholic Church.
Jesus Christ embodied real humility and He directly, boldly
confronted sin when the need arose. Jesus called the Pharisees,
“white washed tombs filled with dead men’s bones.” He used a
whip upon the merchants in the temple. Rather bold stuff! He told
the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more.” That is
real compassion, to speak the truth in love, to urge repentance and
conversion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Revelation
3:15-16 </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
know your deeds that you are neither cold or hot. I wish you were
either one or the other! So because you are neither one or
another I am about to spit you out of my mouth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You Gotta just love
God! Spit! No mincing words with Him! </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Luke
34-35</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010f18;"> “<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Therefore,
salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will
it be seasoned? “It is useless either for the soil or for the
manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.”</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010f18;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010f18; font-family: Adobe Hebrew; font-size: medium;">There the Lord goes again, being politically incorrect and insensitive, saying that Christian disciples who aren't salty, aren't even worthy of inhabiting a manure pile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
danger of Pope Francis’ ill considered words is self-evident.
What little moral teaching is left to the ever dwindling population
of practicing, true believing Catholics is being watered down by the
very people entrusted to preserve and teach the faith. When I first
read the Pontiff’s comments about Gays in the Curia, I felt angry.
I was angry because I believe that Pope Francis was throwing dust in
the eyes of both the Catholic and secular worlds. No, wrong word
again. He was throwing a smoke bomb into the the cafeteria that is
today's contemporary Catholicism, where misguided compassion,
lukewarm kisses and watered down doctrine have no power to save. As
King Solomon of old said, “Better the wounds of a friend than the
honeyed kisses of an enemy.” (Proverbs 25) </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Matt
6:22-23 The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if the eye is sound,
the whole body will be filled with light. But if the eye is not sound
your whole body will be filled with darkness. If then the light that
is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
is the pertinent question which the modern Catholic must face. How
great is the darkness within? How much smoke is obscuring the truths
of our faith? Pope St. Paul VI during a homily in 1972 asserted his
feeling that “the smoke of Satan had entered into the temple of
God,<span style="color: #0000b5;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>
</i></span></span></span>obscuring the work of the Council.” A
grave warning indeed and forty three years later, the Church is in
crisis by all measures. Vocations are at crisis levels. Catholic
marriages rival the rest of society in the number of divorces. Most
Catholics neither understand nor believe in the doctrine of the real
presence. Mass attendance is thought to be a matter of choice.
Confessionals are empty. Catholic colleges are in name only and some of our Priests are guilty of perverted sexual crimes. . “
However, when the son of man returns will He find faith on Earth?”
Luke 18:8 There is one remedy. We must look to Fatima and Our
Lady's message for the help that we need.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
for one, will faithfully represent the authentic teachings of our
faith and not muddy the waters with honeyed kisses that obscure the
expectations of so great a God as we have. The Pope and the Church
should be concerned for the souls of all and especially those who
sin, rather than comforting them in their sinfulness. In conclusion,
I have no interest in his Holiness' personal opinion. What I am
interested in is hearing the opinion of Christ, the authentic voice of the
Church. I am interested in hearing proclaimed aloud, the authentic
teaching of the true religion, the fullness of truth which has power
to save and to change even the hardened sinner. That is the call and
responsibility of all of our priests and most especially the
hierarchy of God's Church on earth. Pope Francis must first earn my human admiration and trust if he wishes for me to admire his human opinion and
that he has not done. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Adobe Hebrew;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-approved-family-synods-controversial-mid-term-report-before-pu</div>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-65272598741552697732012-01-10T06:14:00.001-08:002013-02-15T06:55:27.533-08:00Thoughts on God Mary and Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A Journey Of Love<br />
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Jesus, Mary, and the Catholic Church, these three I love, first God, then by grace His Mother, and now finally His Church as embodied in the historical 2000 plus year old institution called the Catholic Church. During all of the years that I spent as born-again believer, I cannot remember ever loving Protestantism. I did love God’s Word but not the theology of Protestantism. I must admit that in the throws of conversion I was thrilled by the notions of salvation being eternal and best of all free but it was the Word of God that I loved not the specific theology I had begun adhering to. That changed daily as I listened daily to different bible teachers on radio in bible study and at worship. No I can’t say that I loved Protestantism. What I can say is that I loved the Bible itself. Rightly discerned and taken into the heart the Bible is much more than just a collection of books. The Gospel of John commences, ”In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” I admit it an odd idea, that one should love an institution, but then again, the Church and the Word on which it is founded is not actually an institution in the way that we usually consider such things, just as the Bible is not simply a book in the normal order of books. <br />
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If the Catholic Church’s claim about itself is true, and I believe it is, as an institution, it is something far greater. It is in reality, the physical living embodiment of the person of Christ. It is that embodiment which explains my experience of “love” for what appears to many, to be only an institution and a gravely imperfect one at that. To the natural mind as displayed by the modernist Catholic, this deeply flawed institution is in great need of overhaul. Hence the many and sundry attempts to diminish the hidden glory of the Mass. Communion today is believed by the majority of Catholics for example to be merely symbolic, exhibiting just how much the glory of Truth has been obscured. The Cathechism (1324) of the Catholic Church declares that the Blessed Eucharist is the height and summit of the Christian life. As such, how is it possible that barely more than 30 % of Catholics today, even believe that the Eucharist is the actual body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord, as declared in official Catholic teaching? (Catholic Catechism, 1374) <br />
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One day, after having just celebrated the morning Mass, a visiting priest tried to convince me of his modernist views. He claimed that the Blessed Eucharist is only the spiritual presence of Christ, not the physical. When I questioned his theology, he grabbed my hand in obvious disdain, emphasizing his belief in my utter foolishness, holding as I do to the Real Presence. “This . . . this is physical,” he declared as he thrust my hand from side to side. This same priest makes it a regular practice to change up the words of the Mass adding commentary here or there, removing or changing words, lecturing Mass attendees on how certain saints were certainly off track in their theology/spirituality etc. and of course never, never, elevating the Host during consecration. This seems to be a tenant of the contemporary modernist priest, never, never elevate the Blessed Eucharist, after all someone might get the wrong idea and actually believe that Jesus, really is physically present. The lowered sweeping hand holding the Consecrated cup during Mass always raises my modernist antenna. I presume, in Christian charity, that his novel additions and subtractions in celebrating what used to be rightly called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are all in his pursuit of making all that stuff more interesting and relevant for us, the unlearned, bored as we must be by the common Mass. I’m not sure exactly what brand of theology that particular priest adheres to but it is certainly not historic, authentic Catholicism.<br />
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We live in a time when the commandments of God seem to many, to be mere suggestions made by a kindly and concerned father figure who fortunately lives far enough away from us, that we need not be too concerned about pleasing Him. Luckily for us the Church is made of more than simply earthly stuff for if it were not supernatural in nature, it would have shriveled up and blown away long ago. On the contrary, it is in fact a living “breathing” person, the mystical yet physical reality of the person of Christ. It is not merely a collection of like-minded individuals gathering together in communal union of belief as so many other institutions are. <br />
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As a child the nuns taught us, that the Catholic Church was different from all of the other Christian churches. The Catholic Church alone professes the fullness of truth. I heard and believed without having the faintest idea of what they meant. It was a long while later when I struggled, as Jacob wrestling with the angel struggled, in my own battle with truth and was subdued. Today it is not easy to find the fullness of truth, at least in many local parishes, unless you seek and search it out for yourself as the Lord said, “with your whole heart.” For instance, I cannot recall a time when a priest of the ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’, preached unequivocally against the travesty of legalized abortion. I have never heard a sermon from the pulpit, against either fornication nor divorce and remarriage although these sins are as prevalent in the Catholic population as they are in the wider populace. These sins tangibly weaken the body and its ability to reveal the Light of Christ to the world, yet our leaders, priests and theologians in large part refuse to even acknowledge let alone rebuke the cancers eating away at the health of the body. So with weakness of leadership, weakness of preached doctrine, weakness of will, is it any wonder that the Church is in decline as a source of light and life in the world. How then can I remain a dedicated committed Catholic ‘in love’ with this Church which is failing on so many levels to live up to its calling, to be Christ to the world? <br />
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Simply said, it (the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church) remains still theonly full representation of Christ to the world, despite its weakened glow. Because it is Christ’s body where else can I go? Just as Peter in the Gospel responded to Jesus’ inquiry after the bread of life discourse, “Will you also leave me?” Despite its many and myriad failings, it remains The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by God Himself. It is Christ’s body. The sin of man cannot diminish truth. It can diminish our seeing truth however and our ability to recognize it. The Church remains in essence the embodiment of the person of Jesus Christ who is perfect and holy. It remains holy despite the ungodliness of its members. It remains true, despite theologians who preach untruths in its name. The fullness of truth is still found in its official doctrines and timeless Tradition, if not in its theologians and not often in the mouths of its priests. In a way the very failings of those within its walls, binds me ever more closely to the perfection of its eternal truth as found in the incarnate Christ. The Church is a living embodiment of Christ’s word and the fact that Christ has bound himself irrevocably to His fleshly creatures in the perpetuation of His living Presence as found in the “Church” causes within me, at the same time a deep sense of gratitude along with a commensurate sorrow. <br />
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I am reminded of an old photograph that I recently found. The picture was of my husband with our then, two-year old son Gabe, working together, building our back porch. Our son’s little arm dangling down barely able to lift the hammer in his attempt to help his father, more of a hindrance than a help. So too, our heavenly father has invited us to join ourselves with Him, incarnate truth, having been baptized into his body. Not only are we invited but we are in fact obligated to aid Him in the building of his Kingdom. No doubt our human sinful natures have dimmed the Light of Christ rather than magnified it, as did Our Lady. In her Magnificat she declared, “ My soul doth magnify the Lord”, and so should our goal be but how often do our weak, faulty and sometimes even sinful efforts diminish rather than magnify the light of Christ in the world? Would it not be easier if God were simply to take our hammer’s away and lay them aside? <br />
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The unthinkable remains true that God has bound Himself to us, though by and large we continue to sin, creating a union of perfection with imperfection working together to bring the light of Christ to the world. There have ever been traitors of the Lord working alongside Him. They do no purposeful good and often cause great harm. I am not suggesting that it must be so. I would far prefer that those who do not believe would leave rather than try to convert the Catholic Church into the modern relativistic imposter that I have seen grow in strength over my life time. The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church remains intact and whole yet there are those who tenaciously reject its tenets and continue to lay claim to the name Catholic working tirelessly to obscure the timeless doctrines of Catholic Truth as expressed in Sacred tradition and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.<br />
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Not so long ago I found myself in the strangely odd position of having to remove my teenage daughter from the local Catholic High school in an attempt to preserve her faith. I did and it did. After a mere month of tenth grade religion class my young daughter was expressing her new and growing conviction that hell is not a real place at all but is rather mere symbolism, after all, a loving God would not send his creatures to a place of everlasting torment. Unwilling to enter debate on the subject, I promptly asked to see her religion book. I suspected immediately the origin of her rather nice ideas on the nature of hell and found upon inspection, to my growing anger, a curriculum that seemed inordinately concerned with undermining, weakening, and diminishing any and all elements of supernatural action on the part of God. The writer of the commentary seemed exclusively concerned with explaining why and how the Old Testament miracles simply couldn’t have happened, throwing into doubt, as a byproduct, any and all of scripture and its dependability. Not only were the miracles suspect but also even such stories as Abraham offering up his son Isaac as a victim sacrifice were denied as a possibility. The theological commentary accompanying the scripture texts were alarming in their utter jettisoning of the need of faith, and were outrageously presumptuous in denying the plain texts as written. The commentary writer actually had the audacity to say that God would never have asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and therefore we must assume that Abraham misunderstood God’s request. I guess we should be comforted that the twenty-first century theologian, whoever he or she was, had insight into God’s intent that apparently Abraham was lacking at the time. In the face of such arrogance I can only blush. In light of the fact that Pope Pius the X condemned modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” in his encyclical Pascendi Doninici gregis 1907, I am confounded as to why it has permeated Catholic thought and teaching to such a degree, and continues to do so. It seems that to the modernist mind, faith is an unnecessary component in the religious equation. All religion must be accepted and understood within the context of a modern, humanistic, scientific and most of all rationalistic mindset. There is only one problem with this approach other than that it has already been condemned. God made man, man did not make God and there will always be mystery in our relationship with Him at least this side of the veil.<br />
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It is small comfort but I do find the odd and extreme contortions of modernist theologians at times comic relief in this vale of tears. If the plain text of scripture requires any element of trust for instance, containing as it does mystery, and yes-even obscurity, . . . then of course the modernist theologian must find a rational excuse for the ‘difficult’ passage. For instance, one commentary explained that Jesus didn’t necessarily walk on water. It is possible that Peter simply tripped while walking along the shoreline and Jesus bent down to help him back to his feet. It just seemed to Peter that Jesus was walking on water because of his vantage point and Jesus’ proximity to the shoreline. One wonders, if that were the case, why the gospel writer would want to have recorded the incident at all? Was it to display Peter’s tendency to tell ‘Big Fish’ stories, or rather to reveal to us that Jesus was kind of a nice guy? Why not just ‘get to it’ and declare that the Gospel stories are only that, fictional stories made up for our edification. I actually heard a sermon, expounding this naturalistic explanation and when I questioned the priest on whether he didn’t believe that Jesus could walk on water, he was taken aback and explained it was just something he had read in the commentary when preparing for his talk. The theological conceit of some commentary writers is simply unending. I dare to question how they dare advise souls that Gods word is open for any and all kind of interpretation as long as that interpretation isn’t hindered by the need for faith! <br />
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What is more astounding to me however than the contemporary lack of faith permeating contemporary Catholic catechesis and the commensurate ascendancy of man’s pride, is, by contrast, the continuing and utter humility of Christ. Having once united Himself with us in human flesh, He continues to unite his perfection with our imperfection in his mystical body. He continues to subject himself to his representatives adhering invariably to the radical notion of incarnation. The priest says the words of consecration lifting up the bread and in so doing Christ obligates himself to become our food; body, blood, soul and divinity, regardless of either the holiness or the sinfulness of the priest himself. One could almost say that such behavior is unbecoming in an all-powerful Holy God. Is it not? We most certainly have an odd God!. Why would a holy God submit and obligate His action to a mere man and perhaps a gravely sinful man? It makes no sense to the modern mind, and in fact was a point of great confusion to me in my return to the Catholic faith. How can a priest consecrate a wafer of bread, a glass of wine if he himself lacks faith and holiness? Perhaps he is even an unbeliever or perhaps he is in the state of mortal sin? Is the consecration valid? The answer is yes.<br />
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Thus is displayed, the radical humility of God, God, subjugating himself to man, once again. Just as he once subjected himself to the Jewish authorities and to the Romans, to be beaten and abused, so today he suffers Himself to be made truly present at Mass making himself subject to the greatest saint who presents himself for communion as much as to the lukewarm heart who doesn’t even recognize His real presence and then to even the grave sinner who refuses repentance, taking the pure and holy God against his will, captive into a dirty and despicable cell once again. How greatly must Christ long for union with souls who love Him, that He subjects himself to all possibility of humiliation? The priest’s ability to consecrate the Eucharist is conferred upon him through the line of apostolic succession and cannot be destroyed by the state of his priestly soul whether good or evil. As his power is in no way due to his own holiness, so to, his sin has no power to remove his priestly office.<br />
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NOW SOME THOUGHTS ON MARY<br />
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When I started this little essay it was my desire and intent to consider my “love” for The Blessed Mother but quickly I veered off track into the realm of love of Church. Perhaps this is because they are actually one and the same ‘love’. When I first converted, my love was fully and completely centered on the person of Jesus. I was enthralled with Him and the notion of His love for me but perhaps I have not veered so far after all. Perhaps my ‘love’ for Mary and the Church is actually one and the same. The love I have for Mary and the Church are manifestations after all of the same Body. Mary has been called the first church, for good reason, she being the first believer, follower and disciple of Christ. She was the first to receive Jesus as her Lord and to know Him intimately.<br />
<br />
It seems to me that Christ has invited me into a very special relationship with His mother, unique in the communion of saints. He has given her to me in a personal way so to speak, to be my mother as well. It is His love for her that He is so generously inviting me into, welcoming me into His relationship with His own human mother. So many of our Protestant brethren misunderstand Catholic love for Mary as a detraction, a misdirection of sorts, when in reality, she is a delight to God and He in His generosity wishes that she be our delight too, because He wills to withhold no good thing from us and she indeed is a good thing. Her soul doth magnify the Lord.<br />
<br />
Many years ago before my personal conversion, an odd thing happened to me. In all of my life I had never experienced what I would consider an intervention from heaven, a non-rationalistic, unexplainable, ‘s u p e r n a t u r a l’ experience. I can recall many instances as children growing up, when my closest friend Monica would lay claim to God’s intervention in her life. Truth told, I was secretly jealous of her faith-filled relationship with the unseen God but I didn’t believe any of what she told me at the time. I had always wanted to be close to Him myself, and consciously tried to be, for a long time. I never decided against belief in God. It just seemed that He was intangible and He wanted it that way. I was way too Catholic to ever deny His existence. No, I was simply not “In the know” as she was. She would pray for everything and she always had since childhood. Strangely, from my perspective, her life situations seemed to always work out for her best, but I assumed only that it was by mere chance. I am not suggesting that my friend’s life was charmed and easy, quite the contrary. No indeed as I reflect on what I know about her, she has suffered more than most people that I know. It is an odd and disquieting realization that I have come to. Those who are intimate with God, suffer. Suffering and intimacy with God seem like train tracks running parallel to one another and intersecting upon occasion. Just yesterday in speaking with another friend on this same subject, we agreed that there are two sorts, suffering in and with God and suffering without faith and without Him. The first seems to transform a soul into a reflection of God, shining light and warmth and the second possibly into something less than man. cold and dark. Suffering is not a good in and of itself but can become a good by the mercy and grace of God. It seems to me.<br />
<br />
I will never forget these whispered words. I was twenty-two at the time. “It’ll be o.k.” Spoken twice to me when I was in a most desperate situation. I was alone and in great need, lying on a cold floor, in a cold room in a very cold, dark time of my life. I was suffering but it was earned suffering. My own decisions had put me there. They were whispered words yet audible. They were feminine. The gentle whispered voice of a woman telling me that it would be ok. <br />
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That voice was so natural and so gentle that its effect upon me was instantly calming. To be clear, I don’t think I realized at the time, that I had heard a spoken audible voice. This is hard to explain. I heard the audible and seemingly human voice of a woman, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I would say, that it was about three days later when I consciously remembered the voice, almost like a dream image returns when an experience triggers its’ subconscious rise into consciousness. I only know that the effect it had upon me at the time was to calm me down, and give me strength to do what I needed to do in order to remove myself from that bad situation. I have since repeated those same words when trying to comfort someone in sorrow but never with the same effect that they had upon me. I never questioned what I ‘d heard nor did I even really wonder about who had spoken to me that night, but the voice and its message pole-vaulted me subconsciously into a spiritual journey that led me to seek out love and ultimately truth. That journey is one that has not ended and continues yet today. <br />
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<br />
Many years later I began to think about that voice and having by that time committed myself to following Christ, I considered it as belonging probably to my guardian angel. I don’t think so any more. Now I am fairly certain that it was the voice of Mary, the Blessed Mother as many Catholics call her. I slowly have come to that belief after becoming more intimate with her over the years. Perhaps my favorite mystery of the rosary is the “Wedding Feast of Cana”. When praying this mystery I always imagine Mary, head bowed, approaching her son with her request. I imagine their eyes meeting his in knowledge and intimacy. Even as His words give her reason to doubt his intentions, she knows that He will do as she desires, and her desire is just so sweet. She being a woman, a mother, a homemaker, and a caretaker, has seen the practical need of her friends. They are low on wine and the wedding celebration is just getting going. They are no doubt poor and could not afford to have provided more for their guests. Her heart is moved, wishing to help and so she approaches her son knowing that He alone can meet the need she has noticed. <br />
<br />
I, for instance, always know when we are low on milk or bread or cat food or if the dog needs water or where to find the pediatricians phone number. My husband doesn’t. Women by and large, are concerned with these kinds of details of daily life and are deeply concerned with bringing happiness to those they care about. This story tells me so much about Mary. She is proactive, she is kind and compassionate, she will put her own needs least and last and she has great sway over Jesus’ heart! When Jesus responds to her request, “Woman, what is that to me? My time has not yet come,” we are given to understand that this public display of his power will be the beginning of Jesus’ three year journey to the cross and he wasn’t planning on starting it quite yet. Mary was in a very real sense placing her son onto the very path that would lead to his torturous death. I believe that she knew the import of her words when she uttered them. She knew that when her son fulfilled her request, then her own journey to the suffering of the cross would begin as well. What mother would send her son to die for love of others? In a real sense, Mary’s self-sacrificing request of Jesus is a reversing of the curse that began with Eve’s outstretched arm, offering Adam the forbidden fruit. Eve initiated the fall of man and in this subtle encounter between Mary and her son, Jesus, I see the reversal of the selfish request of Eve inviting her husband into disobedience. Here is Mary, quietly inviting her son to begin his journey to the cross of our salvation and she offers up her own partaking in this suffering out of love for us. Her love is of the sacrificial tough love variety, when it comes to her own willingness to suffer. She doesn’t ask twice, she just knows that He will comply with her wishes and tells the servants to “Do as he tells you.” What those words cost her in personal sacrifice reveal the depth of her motherly love for all of us.<br />
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“A sword too, shall your heart pierce” Luke 2:35, these were the words spoken to Mary at Jesus’ ‘Presentation in the Temple’, shortly after His birth. They were spoken by Simeon and to understand them rightly it must be known that every firstborn Jewish son was dedicated as a sacrifice to the Lord in the Temple. The parents would then redeem their infant with a living, animal sacrifice to be killed in his stead. In Jesus’ case two doves became the living, bloody sacrifice to be offered for his release. When the Holy family appeared in the Jewish temple the wait of a lifetime ended for Simeon and Anna. The one, true sacrifice, Israel’s messiah, the nation’s hope had finally appeared, in the form of this little child. Jesus was the true and final sacrifice that would put to an end once and for all the need of any further substitutionary shedding of blood. All of Jewish hope, desire and history were summed up in that very moment when Simeon uttered those words. Simeon had waited and was rewarded. He had seen the Messiah, the savior. The Messiah had come and was here being offered, as expressed in the future words of Caiaphas (John 11:50) “nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” The prophetic words that Simeon spoke that day, to Mary of her future suffering were said to her in the context of a firstborn son being sacrificed to the Lord, as a restitutional sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin and revealed her continuing role in salvation history.<br />
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<br />
Those familiar with the Gospels will recall the description of the sword piercing the heart of Christ upon the cross. Blood and water flowed forth from his side as the cruel blade entered the already dead body of Jesus Christ. Mary was present at this last indignity and she, being still very much alive, felt the prophesied sword pierce her heart that day. Often in devout Catholic homes a visitor can still find what might seem an odd picture to venerate, two hearts beating side by side one thorn pierced, one with a sword thrust through. Not only was the physical dead heart of Jesus pierced that day, but also the tender and broken living heart of Mary. Her suffering in a very real sense, continued the pain of redemption and fulfilled the prophecy of Simeon. <br />
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There is an Idea in Catholic thought of Mary as Coredemptrix (meaning, with the redeemer). It is again a concept of Mary that is deeply misunderstood in Protestant thinking. Mary the new “Eve” suffers in and with her son adding her pain to His cross. It is the idea, if I am not mistaken, that just as God desires and requires, the use of our ‘hammers’ in the building up of His kingdom, it was His good pleasure that Mary suffer alongside her son Jesus during his passion and that her suffering would not be without value in the work of salvation. The fall of man did not happen because of the sin of Eve. Eve proceeded from Adam but Adam proceeded directly from God. It was Adam’s sin, as father of the human race that plunged humanity into Hell, not Eve’s. Although Eve played a crucial part in that tragic Passion play, it was Adam’s sin that brought eternal death to the human race. So to, it is Jesus’ obedient suffering and death on the cross that obtains our redemption but Mary also plays a role in that redemption by the will of God. She in a sense represents the ‘hammer’ of the human race. Is there anything more beautiful than that? Even in this, God humbles himself and includes Mary, his own creation, representing us, in all of our frailty and simple humanity in the act of accomplishing redemption and ultimately salvation. He allows Mary a role in His plan. Her obedience and suffering, by the grace and will of God, is added to the redemption that her son obtained for us, by His sacrifice. Just as Eve’s sin led to Adam’s sin which caused the fall of man, literally Mary’s obedience, gave the world its savior and her own motherly suffering is a participation in the sufferings of the cross as an acceptable sacrifice. Thus, God in perfect balance reversed the curse of Adam on the human race. Although Mary cannot save us, by the will of God, she can participate in our redemption. Mary’s suffering out of love for Jesus has great value to God in the mystery of that redemption. Pope John Paul II, explained it this way, Mary’s intense sufferings, united with those of her Son were “also a contribution to the redemption of us all” (Salvifici Doloris.n.25) <br />
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<br />
Mother’s know the nature of suffering alongside and ‘within’ when their children are suffering. A mother suffers with her children. It seems to be part of the job. So when I reflect on that time of suffering in my life, and the quiet whispered voice telling me “It’ll be O.K.”, I believe now that it was Mary speaking to me, practical words of help and comfort, words which initiated my own journey into the unknown mystery of a life of faith. Mary as my loving mother noticed me, saw my need for her Son and quietly intervened in my confused life. As I finished up writing these thoughts the Beatle’s tune Let it Be began playing in my mind, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, “let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom let it be”.</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-76891293609793636192011-11-17T08:54:00.000-08:002013-02-15T07:15:55.036-08:00Apostacy and Wolves<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1 Maccabees 2: 15 - 29<br />
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15<br />
Then the king's officers who were enforcing the apostasy came to the city of Modein to make them offer sacrifice.<br />
16<br />
Many from Israel came to them; and Mattathias and his sons were assembled.<br />
17<br />
Then the king's officers spoke to Mattathias as follows: "You are a leader, honored and great in this city, and supported by sons and brothers.<br />
18<br />
Now be the first to come and do what the king commands, as all the Gentiles and the men of Judah and those that are left in Jerusalem have done. Then you and your sons will be numbered among the friends of the king, and you and your sons will be honored with silver and gold and many gifts."<br />
19<br />
But Mattathias answered and said in a loud voice: "Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him, and have chosen to do his commandments, departing each one from the religion of his fathers,<br />
20<br />
yet I and my sons and my brothers will live by the covenant of our fathers.<br />
21<br />
Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances.<br />
22<br />
We will not obey the king's words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left.”<br />
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23<br />
When he had finished speaking these words, a Jew came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice upon the altar in Modein, according to the king's command.<br />
24<br />
When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was stirred. He gave vent to righteous anger; he ran and killed him upon the altar.<br />
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November 17, 2011<br />
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This was the Old Testament reading at morning Mass today. When I entered Church I must admit that I felt much as did Mattathais. Righteous anger was burning in my heart. I grasped in my hand the current Catholic Free Press, Dated Nov 11, 2011. As bishops stay neutral, voters have say on ‘personhood’ the headline reads. <br />
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When I was just a little girl, the ‘right to kill’ one’s own child, as long as it resided within the womb, was granted universally to any woman living in The United States of America. This right was granted by a court composed of nine justices. A seven to two majority vote deemed abortion a fundamental constitutional right. Remember always what abortion is. Abortion is the deliberate killing of a ‘fetus’ and fetus means offspring in Latin. The year was 1973 and the States could impose no restrictions during the first trimester. In 1992 the right to kill your unborn child was extended to the ninth month under the notion of privacy. <br />
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On November 8th 2011 a ballot question was proposed to the voters of Mississippi. It would have amended the state constitution to define a human being, a person, as existing from the moment of conception. The Catholic bishops of Mississippi decided to remain silent. They decided to take no position. The USCCB as far as I know, made no recommendation to the Faithful. <br />
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Strange in how short a time, things have changed. When I was 13 the nuns taught us that human life began at conception. Not only did human life begin at conception, but the soul, which is the special creation of God, was also created and given at that very moment. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. (Jeremiah 1:5) When one considers the awesome humility of a God who would submit His own action to the whim of His creatures there is cause for trembling. However sperm meets egg, whether within the intended confines of marriage or outside of that holy bond, God has obligated Himself to the special creation of an eternal soul. <br />
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In 1973, the medical community claimed they didn’t know when life began. The seven justices who made abortion a legal right didn’t know when life began. Imagine that!! They just didn’t know. The Catholic bishops of Mississippi 'remain neutral on the issue of personhood.' Can anyone today legitimally claim that they still don’t know when a human life begins? Apparently so, as proposition 26, known as the Personhood Amendment was defeated by a 58 to 42 percent margin. With all of the technology available to us, hi definition ultrasounds etc. they just still don’t know. <br />
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Our Constitution guarantees the right to life, so life MUST be denied. It has to be or abortion would be obviously declared illegal. Truth is denied and Christ is slain once again by His own. His bishops deny Him by remaining silent, justifying the self-told lies that have perpetuated the gravest of moral evils, the murder of innocents. Those bishops are guilty of the sin of omission, and by that ommission are complicit in the murder of innocent children. How many conciences would be awakened by the sound of truth If our shepherds would stand proudly with Christ and declared unequivocally, what we all know anyway, that human life begins at conception. Perhaps then the headline under The Catholic Free Press stating “ You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) would be more than just words. The bishops know the truth and by their silence they advance anti-life/pro abortion politics in our country. Their lack of action leads the flock astray. They make up excuses for their silence but will face the judgment seat of God one day. "If you deny me I will deny you' warns Jesus. By abnegating their responsibility to the body of Christ, they are culpable for abortions that will continue to be performed, aided by their deafening silence. I am filled with the anger of Mattathaias and the truth burns in my heart. The body of Christ is betrayed once again. The blood of the innocent unborn "offspring' continues to cry out for God's justice.</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-79937051879795979142011-11-17T07:22:00.000-08:002013-02-15T07:22:03.177-08:00Fearful Shepherds or Wolves?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Fearful Shepherds?<br />
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I am writing in response to Father Michael N. Lavalle’s Sunday Epistle on ‘body image’ The Catholic Free Press Aug 26, 2011. I have something to say to you Father, “gracias, merci, danke, salamat, and so forth. . .” Thank you Father from one of the beleaguered faithful, for voicing the little proclaimed truth that sexual immorality within the Church is unacceptable but I would go futher and say that it is intolerable. It is massively destructive to the human soul. Growing up in the sixty’s, I can write from experience. Having drifted away from chastity as a young person, and consequently having also drifted away from The Catholic Church, I know full well the dangers to both soul and body. The two are fundamentally connected and as I see it, the pastors of the Catholic Church, as Christ’s representatives on earth, have a solemn duty to preach on the dangers of sexual sin. How much misery, attendant to unchaste living such as fornication, adultery, contraception, abortion, pornography, pedophilia, divorce, homosexuality and so forth and so on . . . . . could have been avoided if our priests had had the courage of the Apostles and had challenged the depravity of our modern culture, is sadly unknown. By its very nature sexual sin has caused the decimation of many lives. It is not for nothing that St Paul exhorts the Christian to “flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). I know of no other sin which we are told to flee. One flees a situation that is fraught with imminent danger. <br />
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It has been a perpetual question of mine, as to why our spiritual shepherds have remained largely and steadfastly mute on the most dangerous sins of our day. Why have I never heard a forthright sermon against the absolute tragedy of babies slaughtered in their mother’s wombs? Why have I heard not a hint from the pulpit that contraception is gravely wrong in God’s eyes? Why do our priests blithely marry cohabitating couples without so much as a blush at their premarital behavior, nor even a mild warning that their sexual sin may be detrimental to not only their future marriage but also to their souls. <br />
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By the grace of God I found my way back to the ‘Truth’ established by Jesus Christ, but the journey has been long and filled with suffering.<br />
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Having been back in the Church for over twenty years, I am happy to see this subject broached by a priest of the Catholic Church. I can’t help but wonder why it has taken so long for me to see a published article by a Catholic priest, addressing a subject that has caused so much loss of faith and even life. I have taught many religious education classes over the years and I and have often addressed the subject of sexual sin with my young high school students. I have always found it necessary to first, educate those entrusted to me, on the nature of objective mortal sin, its consequences and its gravity, in light of the Church’s teaching. I have found consistently that the vast majority of young adults lack an even fundamental understanding of what constitutes a grave sin. When, after explaining the relationship of the grave nature of sexual sin, to their salvation, their faces register shock. Their expressions are a testament to the woeful failure of both pastors and parents to protect these treasured souls. Whenever, I have taught on the nature of venial vs. mortal sin, my young students wish to know one thing only, mirroring the question of the young ruler, “What must I do to be saved?” When presented with the truth that behavior matters to their eternal destiny, they wish to be saved and they are indeed willing to change their behavior. <br />
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How can they be saved if no one is willing to tell them? They wish to know the truth and to follow it! To not tell the full truth to our young people as well as to the middle-aged and even the elderly, is to leave them defenseless and in ignorance. It is to leave them prey to the agents of moral depravity, which the contemporary Christian must inevitably face. Do our priests simply not understand what their silence has accomplished?<br />
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If I sound angry, I am. We must all, as Catholics do our part in passing on the ‘inconvenient’ truths of our faith but is it not primarily the responsibility of our shepherds, by their weekly sermons, to protect and instruct God’s flock, preaching the gospel in its fullness? Today, parents as well as children are awash in a sea of moral ambiguity and the consequence of this lack of knowledge is self-evident. Young and old alike are victims of the sexually depraved era in which we live and we need courageous leaders to pastor the flock into safe pastures. My heart continues to long for an unequivocal sermon, preached from the pulpit on the moral choices that face the contemporary Christian and I must admit, that I fear for the majority of our priests who will give an accounting one day to the God of Heaven and Earth, when He asks them why they remained silent as His flock was devoured by wolves. There is another possibility that even I am hesitant to pen. Not all wolves dwell outside the sheep pen. Was it not Jesus Himself that warned that there would be many wolves in sheeps clothing indicating that those we must beware of most, will look like and act like they belong to the flock when, in reality they are ravenous wolves. Whether is is fear, ignorance or malice I cannot know for sure, but what I do know is, that in over twenty years of regular Mass attendance, I have never heard a sermon on the legal murder of innocent unborn babies.</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-27790189824716820432011-10-26T05:50:00.000-07:002013-02-15T07:42:34.226-08:00Born Again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Born Again<br />
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I have had the "born again" experience, but although it was powerful gift of grace in my life, it was not my salvation. In light of Catholic understanding, these words of Paul concerning salvation make perfect sense, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” If salvation is a process in which we ‘work it out’ then surely fear and trembling are legitimate and we indeed play a crucial part in finishing the race, as St. Paul declares. “run the race as if to gain the prize”, “I was saved, I am saved, I am being saved”. These scriptures and many, many more, indicate that our salvation is an ongoing action/process not a one-time event. As such, I do not presume salvation but rather, I hope for it with the assurance of an ever-deepening faith, and an ever deepening committment to the living out of that faith. <br />
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It seems to me that the Protestant idea of 'once saved always saved' denys the gift of the will. Free will is a Holy gift of God to humanity. I am convinced of it. Being a firm believer, I understand our freedom to choose at all stages of our life, as an indispensable characteristic of being human. It is free will that places us a little lower than the angels and indeed ‘made’ in God’s image. We were made ‘able’ to choose good and or evil by God’s choice and God is not an Indian Giver. Ohh, that is a politically incorrect phrase I believe! "Indian Giver"that is. Joshua 24:15 “ Choose this day whom you will serve”. “But as for me and my house . . . we will serve the Lord”. We are able to choose by God’s will and His design alone.<br />
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He will woo us, He will graces us, He will chastises us but he will never force anyone to serve Him, not even someone who formerly pursued and followed Him, such as the infamous Judas. This has been my experience anyway. For God to force salvation on an unwilling soul, even one who was once willing, contradicts everything I know personally of God. It undermines, I believe, a certain dignity that God has bestowed upon man and seems also to presume too much about the state of another person’s soul, at any given moment.<br />
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So, the notion that once a person “Accepts Christ, he then forfeits free will and can never again reject Christ’s lordship, contradicts not only my own personal knowledge of God but also the plain words of scripture. It simply is not a reality that I recognize. I know several people who fall into this category, people who were once 'believers' and who now choose their own path in rejection of Christ's morality. The Fundamentalist answer to this seems to be that his or her original ‘salvation’ didn’t actually, truly happen, or that he is currently backslidden and is destined as one of the elect, to return to the Lord's service, or is saved regardless of his or her own sinful choices and behavior and lack of fruit or even willingness to call out the words “Lord, Lord”. In light of Protestant thinking these interpretations makes some sense, except for the overriding issue of free will. The Catholic position of salvation being a process in which we are radically free at any moment to either choose discipleship through obedience or to reject God by disobedience, makes far greater sense to me. The Catholic teaching produces what I consider a Holy fear of the Lord. If our salvation is bound to our own choices then truly we must become humble people willing to repent and seek grace each time we fall, that is, if we are to have any hope at all of finishing the race. It produces humility. By contrast the fundamental Protestant teaching, produces in effect, an indifferentism to the moral law. For example most mainline Protestant denominations take no stand at all against abortion a clear moral travesty!. If adhering to the moral law ultimately does not matter to salvation, then human nature, such as it is, will choose the downward path. I fear the words of Christ on this issue. They are a clear warning against ignoring the moral law which is an embodiment of His Spirit. <br />
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Catholic thinking on this most crucial issue is simple and clear. God gives us grace to choose to serve Him. We are free at any time to serve him or to reject His Lordship and serve another, our own sinful desires, wealth, riches etc. God’s love will not force service to himself. He will, however, never stop trying to draw a lost and sinful soul back home to Himself by His great love and mercy. The choice of sin results in the loss of grace for a soul. Grace can be and is restored through the Sacraments and true sorrow and repentance or Confession. We are saved by grace through faith. The nature of Sacrament is also radically incarnational<br />
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A careful reading of Heb 10:26-30 clarifies Catholic teaching on this and simply put, makes sense. <br />
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This passage in Hebrews clearly refers to a fallen away believer, someone who has received the truth, has been “sanctified” and then has “deliberately” chosen to continue in sin, trampling the “Son of God underfoot”, and insulting the “spirit of grace”, indicating an already existing relationship with both the Lord and the Holy Spirit. <br />
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These topics my dear friend, are only some that I have thought about and considered deeply. I have come to appreciate and accept Catholic teaching on them. In fact I have yet to find a truly Catholic explanation of any problematic topic that I have not found to satisfy my deepest concerns and questions and God knows that I certainly ask a lot of questions. I have thoroughly explored various issues of morality from birth control, abortion, divorce and remarriage, human sexuality etc. and have found the Catholic viewpoint to be both scriptural and life giving. BUT . . . <br />
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Mostly, the reason I will never again leave the Catholic Church is that I am completely and thoroughly IN LOVE WITH!!! , the central doctrine of the real presence of Jesus, body blood soul and divinity in the Holy Eucharist. “This is my body. This is my blood. Take and eat." . ."My flesh is true food my blood is true drink” John (6:55). “I am the true manna which came down from heaven”, versus what kind of manna? Is not always the fulfillment greater than the Old Testament “shadow”? In the Old Testament, God miraculously gave the Israelites real food from heaven, food that sustained them physically for forty years in the desert. Jesus gave real food as well, but as could be expected. . . it is a real food that (in His own words) superceeds immeasurably the Old testament manna. He gave us Himself, which is food both physical and divine, superceding the O.T. ‘shadow’ beyond human comprehension. It is food for our journey through this life. He clearly declares it to be so. In (John: 6) take note of why Christ’s followers left Him! They took Him literally about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and He DID NOT correct them. When He made no further clarification they left Him, declaring, “This is a hard saying. Who can believe it?” How can a man eat another’s flesh?" Their incredulity at His words reveals the true nature of His intent. They simply could not understand and accept the radical nature of His meaning. It would have been so simple for Jesus to have just explained to them that He only meant a symbolic presence. He didn't.<br />
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I truly believe that in giving us His body and blood, Jesus gave us the greatest parting gift that he could. What does a person do if he knows he is going to die? He gives an inheritance to those he loves, that which is most precious to Himself. “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” If the Old Testament Manna was a foreshadowing of its final fulfillment in the Last Supper, is it really logical to think that only a symbol, as most of Protestantism teaches, is the completed fulfillment of the real, actual miracle of Manna raining down from heaven, a miracle which sustained the Israelites physically throughout their journey of forty years? The New Testament fufillment is always greater than its Old Testament shadow! Do you remember the offering Melchizadek made to God in the Old Testament? It was bread and wine, another foreshadowing. I believe this is the only place in scripture that refers to bread and wine as a priestly offering to God. (Gen14: 18) The scripture declares that Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizadek. What does the Catholic priest still offer to God today in obedience to the command of Christ at the last Passover/ first Mass? Bread and wine and in return the Father gives back the True Manna, which comes down from heaven, Jesus. And what about the first Passover? What exactly did the Jews do with the lamb after it was slaughtered, after the blood was smeared on the lintels?" They ate it. They literally ate the sacrifical lamb and it became their sustenance. <br />
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The following passage from Malachi is another O.T. foreshadowing which points to the Mass.<br />
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Malachi 1:11 KJV <br />
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the GENTILES; and in EVERY PLACE incense shall be offered unto my name, and a PURE offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.<br />
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Today there is indeed one sacrifice that is still being offered from the rising of the sun to its setting in every place . . . continuing even today from the very founding of Catholicism, the ongoing sacrifice of the Mass, found in every nation and among the all of the ‘heathens’ just as Malachi predicted. Malachi was obviously not referring to a Jewish sacrifice in the Jewish temple, but rather a sacrifice offered everywhere on the earth among all peoples “the heathen”. Where else on Earth is there a universal sacrifice that is EVERYWHERE, ONGOING and PURE? I know of only one, the Catholic Church, daily offering bread and wine, by the Apostolic Priesthood, which then becomes the true manna the PURE sacrifice, every single day, pretty much everywhere, Jesus the Lord! There is nothing even resembling the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy within fundamentalism. There is no ongoing universal and pure sacrifice within Protestantism. What about Malachi? <br />
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Only Jesus is PURE and thus only Jesus can be the fufillment of Malachi's phophecy. Protestantism must spiritualize the meaning of Malachi's words for it to make any sense at all. The very religion which prides itself on 'Sola Scriptura' cannot take Malachi literally, because that same system fundamentally rejects the literal words of Christ on the all important issue of the Eucharist. In every place that the Lord Himself emphasizes His Body and Blood as true food, The Protestant doctrine must and does reject the literal in favor of the spiritual. It spiritualizes Christs words while Catholicism accepts His words on faith. For the past two millenium the Catholic Mass has presented to God the Father a pure sacrifice daily, from the rising of the sun to its setting, indeed from its very conception, fufilling this beautiful prophecy of Malachi for the Gentile heathen. <br />
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It makes perfect sense to me then, that Jesus meant exactly what He said when he spoke of His body and blood. Catholics take Him literally. We take Him at his word. If a symbolic understanding of communion is the great fulfillment, Jesus last wish, (“Eagerly have I desired to eat this Pasch with you.”) Luke 22, then why have so many fundamentalist churches abandoned the practice altogether? His parting gift being relegated to once a month or as is practice in some churches, once a year? Having now received Jesus into me during Holy Communion at least twice a week for many years, I realize that I can never again leave the Catholic Communion. It is the source and summit of my faith just as the Church declares it should be for Catholics. Jesus is the Center of my life and my ability to take him literally into my very being, is a treasure that I thank Him for each time I attend Mass.<br />
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So _______, please be at ease about me. My faith is certain and my life will, I trust, bear out my faith. I fully intend to cross the finish line as one who races for the prize. I know you do also. I do not fear for your salvation because I know that you follow your beliefs wholeheartedly and it is the heart that God judges. I wish for you the same confidence about my walk with the Lord. Rather in charitable love, we must continue to pray for one another as true sisters in Christ, holding firm to that which we do share, our mutual love for God. We can be an example of charity in understanding our differing views of salvation and religion. Although there are many things we disagree on, we can both agree, I trust, that we both know, it is Jesus who ultimately saves us! I have written you all of this, so that you understand that I have not come to my convictions lightly, but only after much sincere seeking, study and growth. Ultimately the proof is in the putting so to speak and you shall know them by their fruit. Knowing myself better I believe that my Catholic faith has helped me to conform better and with a more loving heart to Christ and my neighbor. <br />
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Love always,<br />
Your sister in Christ,</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-64976495120442911752011-09-01T06:48:00.000-07:002013-02-15T07:45:01.231-08:00Silent Shepherds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Fearful Shepherds?<br />
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I am writing in response to Father Michael N. Lavalle’s Sunday Epistle on ‘body image’ The Catholic Free Press Aug 26, 2011. I have something to say to you Father, “gracias, merci, danke, salamat, and so forth. . .” Thank you Father from one of the beleaguered faithful, for voicing the little proclaimed truth that sexual immorality within the Church is intolerable and massively destructive to the human soul. Growing up in the sixty’s, I can write from experience. Having drifted away from chastity as a young person, and consequently having also drifted away from The Catholic Church, I know full well the dangers to both soul and body. The two are fundamentally connected and as I see it, the pastors of the Catholic Church, as Christ’s representatives on earth, have a solemn duty to preach on the dangers of sexual sin. How much misery, attendant to unchaste living such as fornication, adultery, contraception, abortion, pornography, pedophilia, divorce, homosexuality and so forth and so on . . . . . could have been avoided if our priests had had the courage of the Apostles and had challenged the depravity of our modern culture, is sadly unknown. By its very nature sexual sin has caused the decimation of many lives. It is not for nothing that St Paul exhorts the Christian to “flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). I know of no other sin that we are told to flee. One flees a situation that is fraught with imminent danger. <br />
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It has been a perpetual question of mine, as to why our spiritual shepherds have remained largely and steadfastly mute on the most dangerous sins of our day. Why have I never heard a forthright sermon against the absolute tragedy of babies slaughtered in their mother’s wombs? Why have I heard not a hint from the pulpit that contraception is gravely wrong in God’s eyes? Why have our priests blithely married cohabitating couples without so much as a blush at their premarital behavior, nor even a mild warning that their sexual sin may be detrimental to not only their future marriage but also to their souls? <br />
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By the grace of God I found my way back to the ‘Truth’ established by Jesus Christ, but the journey has been long and filled with suffering.<br />
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Having been back in the Church for over twenty years, I am happy to see this subject broached by a pastor of the Catholic Church. I can’t help but wonder why it has taken so long for me to see a published article by a Catholic priest, addressing a subject that has caused so much loss of faith and even life. I have taught many religious education classes over the years and I and have often addressed the subject of sexual sin with my young high school students. I have always found it necessary to first, educate those entrusted to me, on the nature of objective mortal sin, its consequences and its gravity, in light of the Church’s teaching. I have found consistently that the vast majority of young adults lack an even fundamental understanding of what constitutes a grave sin. When, after explaining the relationship of the grave nature of sexual sin, to their salvation, their faces register shock. Their expressions are a testament to the woeful failure of both pastors and parents to protect these treasured souls. Whenever, I have taught on the nature of venial vs. mortal sin, my young students wish to know one thing only, mirroring the question of the young ruler, “What must I do to be saved?” When presented with the truth that behavior matters to their eternal destiny, they wish to be saved and they are indeed willing to change their behavior. <br />
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How can they be saved if no one is willing to tell them? They wish to know the truth and to follow it! To not tell the full truth to our young people as well as to the middle-aged and even the elderly, is to leave them defenseless and in ignorance. It is to leave them prey to the agents of moral depravity, which the contemporary Christian must inevitably face. Do our priests simply not understand what their silence has accomplished?<br />
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If I sound angry, I am. We must all do our part in passing on the ‘inconvenient’ truths of our faith but is it not primarily the responsibility of our shepherds, by their weekly sermons, to protect and instruct God’s flock, preaching the gospel in its fullness? Today, parents as well as children are awash in a sea of moral ambiguity and the consequence of this lack of knowledge is self-evident. Young and old alike are victims of the sexually depraved era in which we live and we need courageous leaders to pastor the flock into safe pastures. My heart continues to long for an unequivocal sermon, preached from the pulpit on the moral choices that face the contemporary Christian and I must admit, that I fear for the majority of our priests who will give an accounting one day to the God of Heaven and Earth, when He asks them why they remained silent as His flock was devoured by wolves.</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-76916157762856588512011-05-20T07:50:00.000-07:002013-02-15T06:51:29.717-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Letter From Above<br />
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Little One,<br />
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Be not afraid, for I am with you. It is I who have given you the sunshine, the breeze, the green grass, blue sky, the blue of your daughters' eyes, the kind and gentle eyes of one child and the inherent goodness of another. I have created all of the goodness in the world. My world, My creation. It has much beauty and much good. It was My blood spilled, My back scourged, My head pierced, My tendons cut by the cruel nails, My heart lanced for the redemption and suffering of My world, My creation. It was My responsibility because My people went astray. So I took the responsibility out of love for you. I have suffered all that you are suffering. I have been rejected more than it is possible for you to feel rejected. My suffering surpasses all because my love is perfect and most tender. Because of this, My suffering surpasses human suffering. <br />
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Can you not see that these words reveal to you my deep inner anguish over the many lost souls in the world? My heart is broken as well! I am able to sympathize with your sad and broken hearts. Oh my dear little child you must rely on my strength and love to get through this time. All will be well. All is well. Soon you will see my salvation come to you and your loved ones. Your children and their needs will find a ready helper, counselor and friend in my compassionate love.<br />
I know that I have seemed distant. Not So. I have been quiet but I am not distant. I am present even now. I have not, nor ever will, abandon you. For your love for me has remained steadfast despite all of your suffering. Because you have remained loyal to my service I will honor you with many blessings. Not all of my blessings are painful as some are.<br />
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Suffering produces endurance and ultimately spiritual strength. It is this strength that will get you through the hard days ahead and will allow you to be my helper in this troubled world of mine. I am asking you and all those who love me to be my co-workers for the salvation of others. How can you endure with no spiritual strength? Suffering and sorrow are effective means of gaining the strength to help in my noble necessity of rescuing the lost. So Please endure a little longer. My family, The Holy Family is praying for you. We love you as family. Just as I came to suffer and save MY world, we are your family in heaven and we are committed to saving and helping you, just because you belong to us and you have asked. <br />
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My Mother’s tender heart bleeds at your tears. She has advocated for your needs, hopes, dreams and desires. She has prayed for all of your loved ones. She continues to plead your cause. St Joseph is also advocating for you. How great a blessing that MY Family is on your side! Rejoice. Look up. See the sky and know that my love comes from many sources and has the power to save, heal and give new life and hope; the gift of faith, truth and joy. Peace be with you. Trust Me. Amen</div>
Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-21055365215827280732011-04-14T05:03:00.000-07:002011-04-18T06:09:24.061-07:00Faith“You’ve got to stop doing that.” My friend Netty spoke the words with her usual smile but her expression was tinged with a serious look in the beautiful dark eyes. Netty is a rare woman who has suffered more than most and that suffering frames her faith and love of God. At home I have an antique picture frame that is hanging over a most graphic torturous crucifix. It is made up of hundreds of large thorns and is actually painful to the touch. I have placed it framing Christ hanging upon the cross. His bones are sticking out in all the wrong places, and He is ashen grey. He is certainly dead, the tangible image of a tortured man. It is not the stylized and sanitized crucifix that is most often found in Catholic homes, nor is it the empty cross, proclaiming victory and deliverance found in Protestant homes. No, it is the image of real tangible human suffering.<br /><br /> Netty’s words to me were at once, both a reproof and <br /><br />an inspiration. No matter what Netty has suffered and is suffering, her delight in God and her confidence in His goodness is the theme on her lips. I on the other hand, fail more often than not to even recognize His mercies. I see through eyes clouded with a Gaelic/ Germanic mist of doubt and pessimism. <br /><br />If God is all knowing, all powerful and all good why does he allow so much suffering in the lives of His devoted followers?<br /><br /> If “prayer works” as the cliché goes, why does He let us remain lost in darkness and confusion, when He knows all? Why does he delay in answering tortured souls? I know this is the proverbial question that goes back to the story of Job.<br /> I long to be like Netty who accepts with love and trust the crosses that God has chosen for her. She loves Him and that love has produced such deep-seated trust that she seems able to disconnect her suffering from the omnipotence of God and that is where I fail. She and I both know that God is not the cause and source of her suffering but she seems to accept her suffering without even desiring deliverance from those sufferings. That is a virtue foreign to me. I instead, instinctively look directly to Him as my deliverer from suffering and when He seemingly does not act, I confess that I harbor unconscious resentment towards His goodness. This is wrong and the pained look in Netty’s eyes reveals my sin. I know consciously my mistake, but it is my unconscious expectations towards God which still drives my interior responses to Him. Lord I pray, “Grant me a new and fresh revelation of your person. May I know you better and will You lift the cloud of mist that blurs my vision of You?” Amen.Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-41891572700287972702011-03-08T06:52:00.000-08:002011-05-20T08:12:53.737-07:00TrustTrust<br />
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Last week, when I was teaching my weekly, fifth grade religion class at St. James, one little boy asked me what I meant when I told the class to trust in God. I remember an acquaintance commenting long ago as we discussed the nature of modern schooling, that children should not go to school to learn things but rather to learn ‘how’ to learn things. His words rang very true both then and now to my own way of thinking. I have always employed the art of the question whenever I have taken upon myself the responsibility to educate another, whether I am teaching painting or attempting to enlighten others to what I know of God. This little boy’s question lighted a candle on my own lack of trust in God, a trust that has eluded me for many years.<br />
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“Jesus I trust in you” These words are always attached to the beautiful image of Jesus as the “Divine Mercy”, His arms, outstretched as rays of red and white light flow out of His Heart. Trust is such a little word, a simple one even, but for the Christian, it is essential. It is inextricably intertwined with faith, being necessary for us to please God. I responded to the little boy this way. If your mother tells you to go clean your room and she knows in her heart that you will indeed go to your room and you will indeed do exactly as she has asked, then she trusts you. She knows you well enough to know that you will do exactly what she has asked you to do. Of course she may know that rather than cleaning your room, you will instead go and play a video game. Either way she knows you well enough to know, what you will do. If I told you to go home and finish the chapter that we are working on, do I trust that you will?<br />
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Do I know you well enough to know what you will choose to do?<br />
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As I said these words for the first time l realized the spirit of the word trust, a reality that has eluded me for so long. Father H---- always maintains that he learns by teaching. He is so right. I have been praying fervently, for many months, entrusting to the heart of God a certain beloved person and her needs. I have had no peace, no certainty, and no joy in my praying. Instead I have had abundant fear and sadness. I really didn’t know how to trust God. I didn’t even know that I wasn’t trusting God. I would say, “God I trust you with this, please help”, and then I would cry out my sadness but upon asking my question to that little boy I came to realize that indeed I do not trust God. I have held firmly onto my burden while asking God to take it and I have done this because I don’t trust that He will take good care, fix the problem and save the DAY. Oh, the strange life of faith! As I came to know my lack of faith and trust, I almost immediately had the revelation that Jesus will do as I have asked. He will heal my beloved friend. He will because I know Him and I know His heart on this matter. We have been intimate long enough for me to know what he will do and what His intentions are. I can trust Him and I do trust Him. “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest”. I am still daily lifting my prayers and intentions heavenward but I have the gift of hope and the sure knowledge that Jesus will do as I have asked and although I have not yet seen the deliverance and help that I seek, I know that My Lord is working on it and I do not need to fear the outcome. Praise God and His faithful and kind heart.Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-34302918689978408822011-03-04T06:46:00.000-08:002011-05-20T08:23:49.690-07:00Communion of SaintsCommunion of Saints<br />
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Communion of Saints<br />
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A friend recently expressed an idea that praying to the Saints can open a door for Satan to enter in. I wasn’t quite sure that I had heard him correctly. Actually I am still not sure that what I heard was his intended thought. It was an odd moment for me and in my own impatience and certain pride I did not listen, as I should have. Only In writing this am I seeing clearly that in my own monumental desire to convince otherwise, I lost the opportunity to really understand his fears about the Catholic practice of praying with and through the saints. <br />
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As a Catholic who loves the Church in all of its seemingly odd and sometimes confusing practices, I readily admit my desire to share the Catholic view and indeed to convince the ill-informed and sometimes even the hostile, to that view. I have recently been praying a beautiful Litany of Humility. “Deliver me oh Lord from the desire of being consulted . . . That in the opinion of the world others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus grant me the desire to desire it.” There are many other beautiful ejaculations within this particular litany but this is the one the strikes me in the heart. It is a sword that reveals the true state of my healthy and still thriving Ego. As my priest expressed in his Sunday sermon past, the Ego is the ever present “I”. It is this very “I” that the Lord wishes to slay within the soul of the Christian and indeed in every man.<br />
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If there is one area that I truly lack humility more than another, it is in this: “Listen to ME my friend for I know better than you.” How many opportunities have I personally missed when I, like the quoted fool, “rushed in where angels feared to tread”? One day, when I gain some humility of heart, I will be able to truly listen to the souls I am privileged to spend time with. <br />
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“Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart. ” Can anyone quote another place in scripture where Jesus specifically directs us to a virtue of His own heart that he wishes for us to imitate? It must be this particular quality that is most essential to our becoming "holy" as God wishes us to become. It is strange that as I have journeyed this life of faith, having tread many different paths, from nominal Catholicism to fervent Evangelicalism, back to devout Catholicism, that only recently have I begun to grasp the need for humility in certain areas of my life. The more readily I have submitted my mind to the mind of the Church that Christ founded, the more aware that I have become of the great and evil pride dwelling within me, so much so, that I hesitate today to describe myself as a devout Catholic, falling as I do, so short of the expressed desire of the Savior.Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-2212406032323050822010-06-11T12:08:00.001-07:002012-01-10T06:15:48.734-08:00"Be ready at all times to give a reasoned defense for the hope within you"Watch out!!!!! Louise on A SOAPBOX<br />
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Dear Friend,<br />
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Thank you for your gift to me because I know that it is an expression of your love and concern. You fear that I have veered onto the dangerously wrong path of Catholicism. My dear friend, I am moved to share with you, the depth of my commitment to Christ and the ancient Catholic Church. I actually love my faith, the oldest of all Christian denominations, Catholicism! As you love Christ, so also do I love Him but my love is bound inextricably to the historic original Church that alone traces its lineage directly from the twelve apostles. My reversion back to my childhood faith was not an emotional decision at all. I was not lured back to Catholicism with any emotional high or drama. If I had relied on my own feelings and wishes I would have surely remained a Protestant. No, it was rather study, conviction and I believe grace that led me back to the Catholic Church.<br />
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I do understand clearly many of the differences in doctrine, especially regarding salvation between our two faiths. As you are aware, I too, was committed to the ‘faith alone’ teaching for many years. The Catholic position is that we are NOT saved by faith alone but rather we are, as scripture states “saved by GRACE through faith so that no man may boast” Eph 2:8. As such it is not belief and profession alone but rather grace that saves. It is the sovereign action of God in a soul’s life, through many means of grace, which draws a soul continually into a saving faith, a faith that lives out its convictions. The words, saved by 'faith alone’, simply are not found in scripture. There are many scriptures however, that connect grace to faith. This is what Catholic doctrine actually teaches and I am convinced of its truth. We are in agreement however, that salvation is the free gift of God. We do not, cannot merit it by any work, separated from living faith but our works do play a crucial role according to Scripture. James expresses the union clearly, “Faith without works is dead”. James 2:18 “You show me your faith without deeds and I will show you mine by what I do.” It is real faith, producing actual works or ‘fruit’ that Jesus Himself, uses as the means of His identifying (knowing) a true disciple. Thus, fruit is clearly integral to living faith. "You shall know them by their fruits." Matt 7:16<br />
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As you are aware, there is a kind of belief in God and a 'knowing' of Him and his true nature that does not produce fruit. James 2:14-26 “ the devils believe and tremble”. Obviously they not only refuse service to Christ but they are in fact, ‘workers of iniquity’. They tremble I assume, because they know who Christ is. I believe that our salvation resides not so much in our "knowing" Him, as in "HIS" knowing us. I remember when I was a Protestant, faith was all about ‘knowing the Lord’. “ Do you know the Lord”? I asked and was asked that question many times. These words of Christ are worth considering. (Matt-21: 7) “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but rather he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, will enter.” His applicants go on to claim to have done great works for Him, in His name even, yet He declares to them, “I never knew you. Depart from me you evildoers”. "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness! " Matt 7:21-23. Christ rejects them, based on the fact that He does not recognize them as His own, (He does not 'know' THEM) and He uses the criterion of their behavior to determine this 'knowing'. They are “ workers of “iniquity” as some translations recount. They are "evilDOERS." They DO evil! So, while they lay claim to salvation based on having done works for Jesus, the Lord rejects them instead, as doers of iniquity, or those who practice lawlessness. They are lost despite their spiritual works and their 'KNOWING' Him because He does not "KNOW" them. They have rejected God by continuing in sin and despite the many positive spiritual works they have performed in His name, He outright rejects them for being lawbreakers and evildoers. The law is surely God’s Moral Law, and iniquity, is offence to that law, yet they know Him enough to call Him rightly, "Lord, Lord" and perform mighty works in His name. This passage, it seems to me, should give great pause to those who take their salvation for granted. What a person believes, ultimately bears great weight on how that person will live and how a person lives, (according to Jesus Himself) will determine whether or not the Lord "KNOWS" him or her on judgment day. <br />
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I also have had the "born again" experience, but although it was powerful gift of grace in my life, I do not consider IT my salvation. In light of Catholic understanding, these words of Paul concerning salvation make perfect sense, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” If salvation is a process in which we ‘work it out’ then surely fear and trembling are legitimate and we indeed play a crucial part in finishing the race, as St. Paul declares. “run the race as if to gain the prize”, “I was saved, I am saved, I am being saved”. These scriptures and many, many more, indicate that our salvation is an ongoing action/process not a one-time event. As such, I do not presume salvation but rather, I hope for it with the assurance of an ever-deepening faith, and an ever deepening committment to the living out of that faith. <br />
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Perhaps you don’t accept that free will is a gift of God to humanity, but I am convinced of it. Being a firm believer in this, I understand our freedom to choose, as an indispensable characteristic of being human. It is free will that places us a little lower than the angels and indeed ‘made’ in God’s image. We were made ‘able’ to choose good and or evil by God’s will, by His decision. Joshua 24:15 “ Choose this day whom you will serve”. “But as for me and my house . . . we will serve the Lord”. We are able to choose by God’s will and His design.<br />
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He will woo us, He will graces us, He will chastises us but he will never force anyone to serve Him, not even someone who formerly pursued and followed Him, such as the infamous Judas. This has been my experience anyway. For God to force salvation on an unwilling soul, even one who was once willing, contradicts everything I know personally of God. It undermines, I believe, a certain dignity that God has bestowed on man and seems also to presume too much about the state of another person’s soul, at any given moment.<br />
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So the notion that once a person “Accepts Christ, he then forfeits free will and can never again reject Christ’s lordship, contradicts not only my own personal knowledge of God but also the plain words of scripture. It simply is not a reality that I recognize. I know several people who fall into this category, people who were once 'believers' and who now choose their own path in rejection of Christ's morality. The Fundamentalist answer to this seems to be that his or her original ‘salvation’ didn’t actually, truly happen, or that he is currently backslidden and is destined as one of the elect, to return to the Lord's service, or is saved regardless of his or her own sinful choices and behavior and lack of fruit or even willingness to call out the words “Lord, Lord”. In light of Protestant thinking these interpretations makes some sense, except for the overriding issue of free will. The Catholic position of salvation being a process in which we are radically free at any moment to either choose discipleship through obedience or to reject God by disobedience, makes far greater sense to me. The Catholic teaching produces what I consider a Holy fear of the Lord. If our salvation is bound to our own choices then truly we must become humble people willing to repent and seek grace each time we fall, that is, if we are to have any hope at all of finishing the race. It produces humility. By contrast the fundamental Protestant teaching, produces in effect, an indifferentism to the moral law. For example most Mainline Protestant denominations take no stand at all against abortion a clear moral travesty!. If adhering to the moral law ultimately does not matter to salvation, then human nature, such as it is, will choose the downward path. I fear the words of Christ on this issue. They are a clear warning against ignoring the moral law which is an embodiment of His Spirit. <br />
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Catholic thinking on this most crucial issue is simple and clear. God gives us grace to choose to serve Him. We are free at any time to serve him or to reject His Lordship and serve another, our own sinful desires, wealth, riches etc. God’s love will not force service to himself. He will, however, never stop trying to draw a lost and sinful soul back home to Himself by His great love and mercy. The choice of sin results in the loss of grace for a soul. Grace can be and is restored through the Sacraments and true sorrow and repentance or Confession. We are saved by grace through faith. The nature of Sacrament is also radically incarnational<br />
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A careful reading of Heb 10:26-30 clarifies Catholic teaching on this and simply put, makes sense. <br />
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This passage in Hebrews clearly refers to a fallen away believer, someone who has received the truth, has been “sanctified” and then has “deliberately” chosen to continue in sin, trampling the “Son of God underfoot”, and insulting the “spirit of grace”, indicating an already existing relationship with both the Lord and the Holy Spirit. <br />
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These topics my dear friend, are only some that I have thought about and considered deeply. I have come to appreciate and accept Catholic teaching on them. In fact I have yet to find a truly Catholic explanation of any problematic topic that I have not found to satisfy my deepest concerns and questions and God knows that I certainly ask a lot of questions. I have thoroughly explored various issues of morality from birth control, abortion, divorce and remarriage, human sexuality etc. and have found the Catholic viewpoint to be both scriptural and life giving. BUT . . . <br />
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Mostly, the reason I will never again leave the Catholic Church is that I am completely and thoroughly IN LOVE WITH!!! , the central doctrine of the real presence of Jesus, body blood soul and divinity in the Holy Eucharist. “This is my body. This is my blood. Take and eat." . ."My flesh is true food my blood is true drink” John (6:55). “I am the true manna which came down from heaven”, versus what kind of manna? Is not always the fulfillment greater than the Old Testament “shadow”? In the Old Testament, God miraculously gave the Israelites real food from heaven, food that sustained them physically for forty years in the desert. Jesus gave real food as well, but as could be expected. . . it is a real food that (in His own words) superceeds immeasurably the Old testament manna. He gave us Himself, which is food both physical and divine, superceding the O.T. ‘shadow’ beyond human comprehension. It is food for our journey through this life. He clearly declares it to be so. In (John: 6) take note of why Christ’s followers left Him! They took Him literally about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and He DID NOT correct them. When He made no further clarification they left Him, declaring, “This is a hard saying. Who can believe it?” How can a man eat another’s flesh?" Their incredulity at His words reveals the true nature of His intent. They simply could not understand and accept the radical nature of His meaning. It would have been so simple for Jesus to have just explained to them that He only meant a symbolic presence. He didn't.<br />
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I truly believe that in giving us His body and blood, Jesus gave us the greatest parting gift that he could. What does a person do if he knows he is going to die? He gives an inheritance to those he loves, that which is most precious to Himself. “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” If the Old Testament Manna was a foreshadowing of its final fulfillment in the Last Supper, is it really logical to think that only a symbol, as most of Protestantism teaches, is the completed fulfillment of the real, actual miracle of Manna raining down from heaven, a miracle which sustained the Israelites physically throughout their journey of forty years? The New Testament fufillment is always greater than its Old Testament shadow! Do you remember the offering Melchizadek made to God in the Old Testament? It was bread and wine, another foreshadowing. I believe this is the only place in scripture that refers to bread and wine as a priestly offering to God. (Gen14: 18) The scripture declares that Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizadek. What does the Catholic priest still offer to God today in obedience to the command of Christ at the last Passover/ first Mass? Bread and wine and in return the Father gives back the True Manna, which comes down from heaven, Jesus. And what about the first Passover? What exactly did the Jews do with the lamb after it was slaughtered, after the blood was smeared on the lintels?" They ate it. They literally ate the sacrifical lamb and it became their sustenance. <br />
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The following passage from Malachi is another O.T. foreshadowing which points to the Mass.<br />
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Malachi 1:11 KJV <br />
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the GENTILES; and in EVERY PLACE incense shall be offered unto my name, and a PURE offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.<br />
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Today there is indeed one sacrifice that is still being offered from the rising of the sun to its setting in every place . . . continuing even today from the very founding of Catholicism, the ongoing sacrifice of the Mass, found in every nation and among the all of the ‘heathens’ just as Malachi predicted. Malachi was obviously not referring to a Jewish sacrifice in the Jewish temple, but rather a sacrifice offered everywhere on the earth among all peoples “the heathen”. Where else on Earth is there a universal sacrifice that is EVERYWHERE, ONGOING and PURE? I know of only one, the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies, both offering bread and wine, by the Apostolic Priesthood, which then becomes the true manna the PURE sacrifice, every single day, pretty much everywhere, Jesus the Lord! There is nothing even resembling the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy within fundamentalism. There is no ongoing universal and pure sacrifice within Protestantism. What about Malachi? <br />
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Only Jesus is PURE and thus only Jesus can be the fufillment of Malachi's phophecy. Protestantism must spiritualize the meaning of Malachi's words for it to make any sense at all. The very religion which prides itself on 'Sola Scriptura' cannot take Malachi literally, because that same system fundamentally rejects the literal words of Christ on the all important issue of the Eucharist. In every place that the Lord Himself emphasizes His Body and Blood as true food, The Protestant doctrine must and does reject the literal in favor of the spiritual. It spiritualizes Christs words while Catholicism accepts His words on faith. For the past two millenium the Catholic Mass has presented to God the Father a pure sacrifice daily, from the rising of the sun to its setting, indeed from its very conception, fufilling this beautiful prophecy of Malachi for the Gentile heathen. <br />
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It makes perfect sense to me then, that Jesus meant exactly what He said when he spoke of His body and blood. Catholics take Him literally. We take Him at his word. If a symbolic understanding of communion is the great fulfillment, Jesus last wish, (“Eagerly have I desired to eat this Pasch with you.”) Luke 22, then why have so many fundamentalist churches abandoned the practice altogether? His parting gift being relegated to once a month or as is practice in some churches, once a year? Having now received Jesus into me during Holy Communion at least twice a week for many years, I realize that I can never again leave the Catholic Communion. It is the source and summit of my faith just as the Church declares it should be for Catholics. Jesus is the Center of my life and my ability to take him literally into my very being, is a treasure that I thank Him for each time I attend Mass.<br />
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So _______, please be at ease about me. My faith is certain and my life will, I trust, bear out my faith. I fully intend to cross the finish line as one who races for the prize. I know you do also. I do not fear for your salvation because I know that you follow your beliefs wholeheartedly and it is the heart that God judges. I wish for you the same confidence about my walk with the Lord. Rather in charitable love, we must continue to pray for one another as true sisters in Christ, holding firm to that which we do share, our mutual love for God. We can be an example of charity in understanding our differing views of salvation and religion. Although there are many things we disagree on, we can both agree, I trust, that we both know, it is Jesus who ultimately saves us! I have written you all of this, so that you understand that I have not come to my convictions lightly, but only after much sincere seeking, study and growth. Ultimately the proof is in the putting so to speak and you shall know them by their fruit. Knowing myself better I believe that my Catholic faith has helped me to conform better and with a more loving heart to Christ and my neighbor. <br />
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Love always,<br />
Your sister in Christ,Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-83815841381521181982010-02-04T11:52:00.000-08:002012-01-10T06:10:47.420-08:00Thoghts on Love of God, Mary and ChurchA Journey Of Love<br />
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Jesus, Mary, and the Catholic Church, these three I love, first God, then by grace His Mother, and now finally His Church as embodied in the historical 2000 plus year old institution called the Catholic Church. During all of the years that I spent as born-again believer, I cannot remember ever loving Protestantism. I did love God’s Word but not the theology of Protestantism. I must admit that in the throws of conversion I was thrilled by the notions of salvation being eternal and best of all free but it was the Word of God that I loved not the specific theology I had begun adhering to. That changed daily as I listened daily to different bible teachers on radio in bible study and at worship. No I can’t say that I loved Protestantism. What I can say is that I loved the Bible itself. Rightly discerned and taken into the heart the Bible is much more than just a collection of books. The Gospel of John commences, ”In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” I admit it an odd idea, that one should love an institution, but then again, the Church and the Word on which it is founded is not actually an institution in the way that we usually consider such things, just as the Bible is not simply a book in the normal order of books. <br />
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If the Catholic Church’s claim about itself is true, and I believe it is, as an institution, it is something far greater. It is in reality, the physical living embodiment of the person of Christ. It is that embodiment which explains my experience of “love” for what appears to many, to be only an institution and a gravely imperfect one at that. To the natural mind as displayed by the modernist Catholic, this deeply flawed institution is in great need of overhaul. Hence the many and sundry attempts to diminish the hidden glory of the Mass. Communion today is believed by the majority of Catholics for example to be merely symbolic, exhibiting just how much the glory of Truth has been obscured. The Cathechism (1324) of the Catholic Church declares that the Blessed Eucharist is the height and summit of the Christian life. As such, how is it possible that barely more than 30 % of Catholics today, even believe that the Eucharist is the actual body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord, as declared in official Catholic teaching? (Catholic Catechism, 1374) <br />
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One day, after having just celebrated the morning Mass, a visiting priest tried to convince me of his modernist views. He claimed that the Blessed Eucharist is only the spiritual presence of Christ, not the physical. When I questioned his theology, he grabbed my hand in obvious disdain, emphasizing his belief in my utter foolishness, holding as I do to the Real Presence. “This . . . this is physical,” he declared as he thrust my hand from side to side. This same priest makes it a regular practice to change up the words of the Mass adding commentary here or there, removing or changing words, lecturing Mass attendees on how certain saints were certainly off track in their theology/spirituality etc. and of course never, never, elevating the Host during consecration. This seems to be a tenant of the contemporary modernist priest, never, never elevate the Blessed Eucharist, after all someone might get the wrong idea and actually believe that Jesus, really is physically present. The lowered sweeping hand holding the Consecrated cup during Mass always raises my modernist antenna. I presume, in Christian charity, that his novel additions and subtractions in celebrating what used to be rightly called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are all in his pursuit of making all that stuff more interesting and relevant for us, the unlearned, bored as we must be by the common Mass. I’m not sure exactly what brand of theology that particular priest adheres to but it is certainly not historic, authentic Catholicism.<br />
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We live in a time when the commandments of God seem to many, to be mere suggestions made by a kindly and concerned father figure who fortunately lives far enough away from us, that we need not be too concerned about pleasing Him. Luckily for us the Church is made of more than simply earthly stuff for if it were not supernatural in nature, it would have shriveled up and blown away long ago. On the contrary, it is in fact a living “breathing” person, the mystical yet physical reality of the person of Christ. It is not merely a collection of like-minded individuals gathering together in communal union of belief as so many other institutions are. <br />
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I’ve met several people who simply would not remain any longer within an “institution” that allowed, provided for, and even protected the perpetrators of the priestly pedophile scandal which was exposed to the light of day, several years ago. It is a difficult subject to address in light of the gravity and evil that many in the hierarchy of this institution, “my beloved Church” are indeed responsible for. The rage I feel at their betrayal of the body of Christ is tangible. Remaining Catholic seems almost indefensible, yet I steadfastly remain a member of the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” as bequeathed to us by Christ Himself. Those in the Catholic hierarchy who are responsible for the perpetuation of evil are not defensible and I believe they have done more harm to the body of Christ than even the sexual predators themselves. If it were within my power, they would be in prison. The gravity of their sins has wounded Christ’s Body in unspeakable ways, yet the holy nature of Christ’s True Church remains holy just as Christ is holy. It can be neither dependent on the holiness of man nor diminished by his sin. <br />
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As a child the nuns taught us, that the Catholic Church was different from all of the other Christian churches. The Catholic Church alone professes the fullness of truth. I heard and believed without having the faintest idea of what they meant. It was a long while later when I struggled, as Jacob wrestling with the angel struggled, in my own battle with truth and was subdued. Today it is not easy to find the fullness of truth, at least in many local parishes, unless you seek and search it out for yourself as the Lord said, “with your whole heart.” For instance, I cannot recall a time when a priest of the ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’, preached unequivocally against the travesty of legalized abortion. I have never heard a sermon from the pulpit, against either fornication nor divorce and remarriage although these sins are as prevalent in the Catholic population as they are in the wider populace. These sins tangibly weaken the body and its ability to reveal the Light of Christ to the world, yet our leaders, priests and theologians in large part refuse to even acknowledge let alone rebuke the cancers eating away at the health of the body. So with weakness of leadership, weakness of preached doctrine, weakness of will, is it any wonder that the Church is in decline as a source of light and life in the world. How then can I remain a dedicated committed Catholic ‘in love’ with this Church which is failing on so many levels to live up to its calling, to be Christ to the world? <br />
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Simply said, it (the Church) remains still Christ to the world despite its weakened glow and because it is Christ’s body where else can I go? Just as Peter in the Gospel responded to Jesus’ inquiry after the bread of life discourse, “Will you also leave me?” Despite its many and myriad failings, it remains The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by God Himself. It is Christ’s body. The sin of man cannot diminish truth. It can diminish our seeing truth however and our ability to recognize it. The Church remains in essence the embodiment of the person of Jesus Christ who is perfect and holy. It remains holy despite the ungodliness of its members. It remains true, despite theologians who preach untruths in its name. The fullness of truth is still found in its official doctrines and timeless Tradition, if not in its theologians and not often in the mouths of its priests. In a way the very failings of those within its walls, binds me ever more closely to the perfection of its eternal truth as found in the incarnate Christ. The Church is a living embodiment of Christ’s word and the fact that Christ has bound himself irrevocably to His fleshly creatures in the perpetuation of His living Presence as found in the “Church” causes within me, at the same time a deep sense of gratitude along with a commensurate sorrow. <br />
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I am reminded of an old photograph that I recently found. The picture was of my husband with our then, two-year old son Gabe, working together, building our back porch. Our son’s little arm dangling down barely able to lift the hammer in his attempt to help his father, more of a hindrance than a help. So too, our heavenly father has invited us to join ourselves with Him, incarnate truth, having been baptized into his body. Not only are we invited but we are in fact obligated to aid Him in the building of his Kingdom. No doubt our human sinful natures have dimmed the Light of Christ rather than magnified it, as did Our Lady. In her Magnificat she declared, “ My soul doth magnify the Lord”, and so should our goal be but how often do our weak, faulty and sometimes even sinful efforts diminish rather than magnify the light of Christ in the world? Would it not be easier if God were simply to take our hammer’s away and lay them aside? <br />
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Never-the-less, the unfathomable remains true that God has bound Himself to us, though by and large we continue to sin, creating a union of perfection with imperfection working together to bring the light of Christ to the world. There have ever been traitors of the Lord working alongside Him. They do no purposeful good and often cause great harm. I am not suggesting that it must be so. I would far prefer that those who do not believe would leave rather than try to convert the Catholic Church into the modern relativistic imposter that I have seen grow in strength over my life time. The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church remains intact and whole yet there are those who tenaciously reject its tenets and continue to lay claim to the name Catholic working tirelessly to obscure the timeless doctrines of Catholic Truth as expressed in Sacred tradition and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.<br />
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Not so long ago I found myself in the strangely odd position of having to remove my teenage daughter from the local Catholic High school in an attempt to preserve her faith. I did and it did. After a mere month of tenth grade religion class my young daughter was expressing her new and growing conviction that hell is not a real place at all but is rather mere symbolism, after all, a loving God would not send his creatures to a place of everlasting torment. Unwilling to enter debate on the subject, I promptly asked to see her religion book. I suspected immediately the origin of her rather nice ideas on the nature of hell and found upon inspection, to my growing anger, a curriculum that seemed inordinately concerned with undermining, weakening, and diminishing any and all elements of supernatural action on the part of God. The writer of the commentary seemed exclusively concerned with explaining why and how the Old Testament miracles simply couldn’t have happened, throwing into doubt, as a byproduct, any and all of scripture and its dependability. Not only were the miracles suspect but also even such stories as Abraham offering up his son Isaac as a victim sacrifice were denied as a possibility. The theological commentary accompanying the scripture texts were alarming in their utter jettisoning of the need of faith, and were outrageously presumptuous in denying the plain texts as written. The commentary writer actually had the audacity to say that God would never have asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and therefore we must assume that Abraham misunderstood God’s request. I guess we should be comforted that the twenty-first century theologian, whoever he or she was, had insight into God’s intent that apparently Abraham was lacking at the time. In the face of such arrogance I can only blush. In light of the fact that Pope Pius the X condemned modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” in his encyclical Pascendi Doninici gregis 1907, I am confounded as to why it has permeated Catholic thought and teaching to such a degree, and continues to do so. It seems that to the modernist mind, faith is an unnecessary component in the religious equation. All religion must be accepted and understood within the context of a modern, humanistic, scientific and most of all rationalistic mindset. There is only one problem with this approach other than that it has already been condemned. God made man, man did not make God and there will always be mystery in our relationship with Him at least this side of the veil.<br />
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It is small comfort but I do find the odd and extreme contortions of modernist theologians at times comic relief in this vale of tears. If the plain text of scripture requires any element of trust for instance, containing as it does mystery, and yes-even obscurity, . . . then of course the modernist theologian must find a rational excuse for the ‘difficult’ passage. For instance, one commentary explained that Jesus didn’t necessarily walk on water. It is possible that Peter simply tripped while walking along the shoreline and Jesus bent down to help him back to his feet. It just seemed to Peter that Jesus was walking on water because of his vantage point and Jesus’ proximity to the shoreline. One wonders, if that were the case, why the gospel writer would want to have recorded the incident at all? Was it to display Peter’s tendency to tell ‘Big Fish’ stories, or rather to reveal to us that Jesus was kind of a nice guy? Why not just ‘get to it’ and declare that the Gospel stories are only that, fictional stories made up for our edification. I actually heard a sermon, expounding this naturalistic explanation and when I questioned the priest on whether he didn’t believe that Jesus could walk on water, he was taken aback and explained it was just something he had read in the commentary when preparing for his talk. The theological conceit of some commentary writers is simply unending. I dare to question how they dare advise souls that Gods word is open for any and all kind of interpretation as long as that interpretation isn’t hindered by the need for faith! <br />
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What is more astounding to me however than the contemporary lack of faith permeating contemporary Catholic catechesis and the commensurate ascendancy of man’s pride, is, by contrast, the continuing and utter humility of Christ. Having once united Himself with us in human flesh, He continues to unite his perfection with our imperfection in his mystical body. He continues to subject himself to his representatives adhering invariably to the radical notion of incarnation. The priest says the words of consecration lifting up the bread and in so doing Christ obligates himself to become our food; body, blood, soul and divinity, regardless of either the holiness or the sinfulness of the priest himself. One could almost say that such behavior is unbecoming in an all-powerful Holy God. Is it not? We most certainly have an odd God!. Why would a holy God submit and obligate His action to a mere man and perhaps a gravely sinful man? It makes no sense to the modern mind, and in fact was a point of great confusion to me in my return to the Catholic faith. How can a priest consecrate a wafer of bread, a glass of wine if he himself lacks faith and holiness? Perhaps he is even an unbeliever or perhaps he is in the state of mortal sin? Is the consecration valid? The answer is yes.<br />
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Thus is displayed, the radical humility of God, God, subjugating himself to man, once again. Just as he once subjected himself to the Jewish authorities and to the Romans, to be beaten and abused, so today he suffers Himself to be made truly present at Mass making himself subject to the greatest saint who presents himself for communion as much as to the lukewarm heart who doesn’t even recognize His real presence and then to even the grave sinner who refuses repentance, taking the pure and holy God against his will, captive into a dirty and despicable cell once again. How greatly must Christ long for union with souls who love Him, that He subjects himself to all possibility of humiliation? The priest’s ability to consecrate the Eucharist is conferred upon him through the line of apostolic succession and cannot be destroyed by the state of his priestly soul whether good or evil. As his power is in no way due to his own holiness, so to, his sin has no power to remove his priestly office.<br />
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NOW SOME THOUGHTS ON MARY<br />
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When I started this little essay it was my desire and intent to consider my “love” for The Blessed Mother but quickly I veered off track into the realm of love of Church. Perhaps this is because they are actually one and the same ‘love’. When I first converted, my love was fully and completely centered on the person of Jesus. I was enthralled with Him and the notion of His love for me but perhaps I have not veered so far after all. Perhaps my ‘love’ for Mary and the Church is actually one and the same. The love I have for Mary and the Church are manifestations after all of the same Body. Mary has been called the first church, for good reason, she being the first believer, follower and disciple of Christ. She was the first to receive Jesus as her Lord and to know Him intimately.<br />
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It seems to me that Christ has invited me into a very special relationship with His mother, unique in the communion of saints. He has given her to me in a personal way so to speak, to be my mother as well. It is His love for her that He is so generously inviting me into, welcoming me into His relationship with His own human mother. So many of our Protestant brethren misunderstand Catholic love for Mary as a detraction, a misdirection of sorts, when in reality, she is a delight to God and He in His generosity wishes that she be our delight too, because He wills to withhold no good thing from us and she indeed is a good thing. Her soul doth magnify the Lord.<br />
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Many years ago before my personal conversion, an odd thing happened to me. In all of my life I had never experienced what I would consider an intervention from heaven, a non-rationalistic, unexplainable, ‘s u p e r n a t u r a l’ experience. I can recall many instances as children growing up, when my closest friend Monica would lay claim to God’s intervention in her life. Truth told, I was secretly jealous of her faith-filled relationship with the unseen God but I didn’t believe any of what she told me at the time. I had always wanted to be close to Him myself, and consciously tried to be, for a long time. I never decided against belief in God. It just seemed that He was intangible and He wanted it that way. I was way too Catholic to ever deny His existence. No, I was simply not “In the know” as she was. She would pray for everything and she always had since childhood. Strangely, from my perspective, her life situations seemed to always work out for her best, but I assumed only that it was by mere chance. I am not suggesting that my friend’s life was charmed and easy, quite the contrary. No indeed as I reflect on what I know about her, she has suffered more than most people that I know. It is an odd and disquieting realization that I have come to. Those who are intimate with God, suffer. Suffering and intimacy with God seem like train tracks running parallel to one another and intersecting upon occasion. Just yesterday in speaking with another friend on this same subject, we agreed that there are two sorts, suffering in and with God and suffering without faith and without Him. The first seems to transform a soul into a reflection of God, shining light and warmth and the second possibly into something less than man. cold and dark. Suffering is not a good in and of itself but can become a good by the mercy and grace of God. It seems to me.<br />
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I will never forget these whispered words. I was twenty-two at the time. “It’ll be o.k.” Spoken twice to me when I was in a most desperate situation. I was alone and in great need, lying on a cold floor, in a cold room in a very cold, dark time of my life. I was suffering but it was earned suffering. My own decisions had put me there. They were whispered words yet audible. They were feminine. The gentle whispered voice of a woman telling me that it would be ok. <br />
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That voice was so natural and so gentle that its effect upon me was instantly calming. To be clear, I don’t think I realized at the time, that I had heard a spoken audible voice. This is hard to explain. I heard the audible and seemingly human voice of a woman, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I would say, that it was about three days later when I consciously remembered the voice, almost like a dream image returns when an experience triggers its’ subconscious rise into consciousness. I only know that the effect it had upon me at the time was to calm me down, and give me strength to do what I needed to do in order to remove myself from that bad situation. I have since repeated those same words when trying to comfort someone in sorrow but never with the same effect that they had upon me. I never questioned what I ‘d heard nor did I even really wonder about who had spoken to me that night, but the voice and its message pole-vaulted me subconsciously into a spiritual journey that led me to seek out love and ultimately truth. That journey is one that has not ended and continues yet today. <br />
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Many years later I began to think about that voice and having by that time committed myself to following Christ, I considered it as belonging probably to my guardian angel. I don’t think so any more. Now I am fairly certain that it was the voice of Mary, the Blessed Mother as many Catholics call her. I slowly have come to that belief after becoming more intimate with her over the years. Perhaps my favorite mystery of the rosary is the “Wedding Feast of Cana”. When praying this mystery I always imagine Mary, head bowed, approaching her son with her request. I imagine their eyes meeting his in knowledge and intimacy. Even as His words give her reason to doubt his intentions, she knows that He will do as she desires, and her desire is just so sweet. She being a woman, a mother, a homemaker, and a caretaker, has seen the practical need of her friends. They are low on wine and the wedding celebration is just getting going. They are no doubt poor and could not afford to have provided more for their guests. Her heart is moved, wishing to help and so she approaches her son knowing that He alone can meet the need she has noticed. <br />
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I, for instance, always know when we are low on milk or bread or cat food or if the dog needs water or where to find the pediatricians phone number. My husband doesn’t. Women by and large, are concerned with these kinds of details of daily life and are deeply concerned with bringing happiness to those they care about. This story tells me so much about Mary. She is proactive, she is kind and compassionate, she will put her own needs least and last and she has great sway over Jesus’ heart! When Jesus responds to her request, “Woman, what is that to me? My time has not yet come,” we are given to understand that this public display of his power will be the beginning of Jesus’ three year journey to the cross and he wasn’t planning on starting it quite yet. Mary was in a very real sense placing her son onto the very path that would lead to his torturous death. I believe that she knew the import of her words when she uttered them. She knew that when her son fulfilled her request, then her own journey to the suffering of the cross would begin as well. What mother would send her son to die for love of others? In a real sense, Mary’s self-sacrificing request of Jesus is a reversing of the curse that began with Eve’s outstretched arm, offering Adam the forbidden fruit. Eve initiated the fall of man and in this subtle encounter between Mary and her son, Jesus, I see the reversal of the selfish request of Eve inviting her husband into disobedience. Here is Mary, quietly inviting her son to begin his journey to the cross of our salvation and she offers up her own partaking in this suffering out of love for us. Her love is of the sacrificial tough love variety, when it comes to her own willingness to suffer. She doesn’t ask twice, she just knows that He will comply with her wishes and tells the servants to “Do as he tells you.” What those words cost her in personal sacrifice reveal the depth of her motherly love for all of us.<br />
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“A sword too, shall your heart pierce” Luke 2:35, these were the words spoken to Mary at Jesus’ ‘Presentation in the Temple’, shortly after His birth. They were spoken by Simeon and to understand them rightly it must be known that every firstborn Jewish son was dedicated as a sacrifice to the Lord in the Temple. The parents would then redeem their infant with a living, animal sacrifice to be killed in his stead. In Jesus’ case two doves became the living, bloody sacrifice to be offered for his release. When the Holy family appeared in the Jewish temple the wait of a lifetime ended for Simeon and Anna. The one, true sacrifice, Israel’s messiah, the nation’s hope had finally appeared, in the form of this little child. Jesus was the true and final sacrifice that would put to an end once and for all the need of any further substitutionary shedding of blood. All of Jewish hope, desire and history were summed up in that very moment when Simeon uttered those words. Simeon had waited and was rewarded. He had seen the Messiah, the savior. The Messiah had come and was here being offered, as expressed in the future words of Caiaphas (John 11:50) “nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” The prophetic words that Simeon spoke that day, to Mary of her future suffering were said to her in the context of a firstborn son being sacrificed to the Lord, as a restitutional sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin and revealed her continuing role in salvation history.<br />
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Those familiar with the Gospels will recall the description of the sword piercing the heart of Christ upon the cross. Blood and water flowed forth from his side as the cruel blade entered the already dead body of Jesus Christ. Mary was present at this last indignity and she, being still very much alive, felt the prophesied sword pierce her heart that day. Often in devout Catholic homes a visitor can still find what might seem an odd picture to venerate, two hearts beating side by side one thorn pierced, one with a sword thrust through. Not only was the physical dead heart of Jesus pierced that day, but also the tender and broken living heart of Mary. Her suffering in a very real sense, continued the pain of redemption and fulfilled the prophecy of Simeon. <br />
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There is an Idea in Catholic thought of Mary as Coredemptrix (meaning, with the redeemer). It is again a concept of Mary that is deeply misunderstood in Protestant thinking. Mary the new “Eve” suffers in and with her son adding her pain to His cross. It is the idea, if I am not mistaken, that just as God desires and requires, the use of our ‘hammers’ in the building up of His kingdom, it was His good pleasure that Mary suffer alongside her son Jesus during his passion and that her suffering would not be without value in the work of salvation. The fall of man did not happen because of the sin of Eve. Eve proceeded from Adam but Adam proceeded directly from God. It was Adam’s sin, as father of the human race that plunged humanity into Hell, not Eve’s. Although Eve played a crucial part in that tragic Passion play, it was Adam’s sin that brought eternal death to the human race. So to, it is Jesus’ obedient suffering and death on the cross that obtains our redemption but Mary also plays a role in that redemption by the will of God. She in a sense represents the ‘hammer’ of the human race. Is there anything more beautiful than that? Even in this, God humbles himself and includes Mary, his own creation, representing us, in all of our frailty and simple humanity in the act of accomplishing redemption and ultimately salvation. He allows Mary a role in His plan. Her obedience and suffering, by the grace and will of God, is added to the redemption that her son obtained for us, by His sacrifice. Just as Eve’s sin led to Adam’s sin which caused the fall of man, literally Mary’s obedience, gave the world its savior and her own motherly suffering is a participation in the sufferings of the cross as an acceptable sacrifice. Thus, God in perfect balance reversed the curse of Adam on the human race. Although Mary cannot save us, by the will of God, she can participate in our redemption. Mary’s suffering out of love for Jesus has great value to God in the mystery of that redemption. Pope John Paul II, explained it this way, Mary’s intense sufferings, united with those of her Son were “also a contribution to the redemption of us all” (Salvifici Doloris.n.25) <br />
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Mother’s know the nature of suffering alongside and ‘within’ when their children are suffering. A mother suffers with her children. It seems to be part of the job. So when I reflect on that time of suffering in my life, and the quiet whispered voice telling me “It’ll be O.K.”, I believe now that it was Mary speaking to me, practical words of help and comfort, words which initiated my own journey into the unknown mystery of a life of faith. Mary as my loving mother noticed me, saw my need for her Son and quietly intervened in my confused life. As I finished up writing these thoughts the Beatle’s tune Let it Be began playing in my mind, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, “let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom let it be”.Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-30654880820963689052009-09-11T07:09:00.000-07:002010-03-17T06:01:27.631-07:00Source of JoySource of Joy<br /> <br /><br />There was a moment, when as young mother, I became thoroughly ashamed of myself. I was at the end of my rope as the expression goes. The moment when you’ve been grasping onto a life line and your arms are shaking and fingers cramp and you simply can no longer cling to that last thread . . . and a fit, something like desperation overcomes you and you let go without really letting go at all because you are still trying to grasp the lifeline but you simply cannot hold onto it any longer. The will is there but the ability has literally slipped through your fingers. Have you ever been there? Well I remember a particular day when I was in that state of trying to hold onto my balance as a sane rational adult parent dealing with a little but far more powerful force of nature than I could ever be, and then, losing my lifeline. I utterly lost my cool and reverted interiorly to a small child myself, having a temper tantrum, without malice aforethought, without any intention of harm, without noble reserve, I suddenly without warning, lost my grip and swung my leg back, letting go a kick right in the shins of my little five year old. (Rest assured . . . she had no bruise) I checked. <br /><br /><br /> Five years earlier, the greatest challenge of my life was born into our family. Abigail, “Source of Joy’ as her name signifies. A bundle of exuberance to be sure, Abby was a difficult child from the very start of our acquaintance, the victim of colic and a thoroughly discontented unhappy screaming baby that could neither sleep nor wake in peace. Everything about her babyhood was difficult, yet she was a joyful infant in the few moments when the colic, whatever that monster was, would leave her in peace. I remember lifting her up high above me when she was about 2 or 3 months old and she would start shaking, her face a mixture of surprise and shock. She was having a seizure! I was certain of it. She was shaking uncontrollably. This strange shaking would overcome her whenever I held her high. I consulted the doctor and even demonstrated the phenomenon yet he seemed blithely unconcerned with my diagnosis of seizures. He assured me that she was only laughing. Laughing?! I had by this time, in my life as a mother, learned a few things and I had never seen this kind of laughing in an infant. It was whole body laughing whole body expression of an intense inner abandon, if it was laughing. I’m still not quite sure but I am convinced today, that her destiny is one of joy. <br /><br /> I have vivid memories still of desperately attempting to quiet my small child. She would simply scream for hours on end as an infant. I don’t remember being able to hold her, cuddling her, and experiencing the usual bonding of mother and child, the quiet shared gaze of mother and baby, common to the newborn/mother relationship and somewhat similar to the gaze of falling in love. One day, after nursing her, when she had finally quieted, I grasped the opportunity to look deeply into her ever-bluing eyes. Without warning, her little finger shot upward with unexpected force and poked me straight on in the eye. Eyes burning, in sudden pain, I squeezed them tight becoming almost afraid to open them again exposing them to any further assault. With great care and some fear I peeked through copious tearing at my beloved and ‘helpless’ infant. <br /><br /> In general she seemed to be in pain, but of what kind? Physical? Colic it seems is still a mystery. Some theories go way beyond gas pain to the possibility of sensory brain involvement. I did discover a method of sorts, my own version of short-term parental/infant care relief. When Abby was about four months old, I could put her in the baby backpack and turn on loud rock music, the louder the better. Only hard rock worked. For as long as I could jump up and down to the beat, she would stop screaming. If the neighbors wondered at my taste in music and my punk dancing, as I leapt up and down and around in the back room at odd times of day and night, to very loud rock music, they never questioned me directly. I am partial to the sensory stimulation theory of colic. On our trips home from visiting family on the North Shore, we had exactly ten minutes of quiet, and at the time when most babies would drift off into peaceful slumber ours would suddenly, as if on cue, start screaming as loud as young healthy lungs would allow. For the next 50 minutes or so we would as a family, unwillingly develop the skill of patience. I finally discovered a new method of car travel with our Baby on Board. All passengers would take turns making loud and silly noises. “Brinnnng zing zoo zooo dinga dinga ding ZZZZ pading re de de de de de de and on. . . .,” for as long as we could keep up the Zinging we could stave off the screaming. We were motivated and all took turns. But the moment we stopped. . . the screaming started.<br /><br /><br /> From the time I could first reason with my second born, I realized that reason could be overrated. Sometimes reason has no place in childrearing, and sometimes it can even undermine reality. I remember when two-year-old Abby toddled into our living room. I was working on a painting and I caught sight of her as she wobbled over to the ancient couch, which was currently the resting place of our old tomcat named Tony. My painting hand suspended midair, paint dripping, I watched with a quiet sense of foreboding. Her little hand was gently traveling the length of Tony’s somewhat roughened coat, extending to the short stub of a tail, all that was left of his cat’s pride after a feline encounter of some kind. He looked peaceful in a sleeping predatory sort of way. As I watched her hand traverse the same territory for a second time, I saw with a certain inner sight, her intention. Her tiny little hand suddenly stopped mid-journey resting momentarily on the softly exposed underbelly. I watched feeling as if I were a fly suddenly caught in a web, unable to free myself, impotent and unable to avoid sudden and certain disaster. As she lifted her hand high, she turned her head instantly locking her eyes to my own, like she was sighting coordinates before pushing the button, ready to release a ten thousand pound bomb.<br /><br /> “ Don’t you hit that cat?” I said in a quiet yet firm voice. We had suddenly and irreversibly entered into the first battle of what would become, during the teenage years outright WAR. The intensity of her eyes, which by age two, had become the stunning blue of a summer sky held my own without revealing any weakness or intimidation at my quiet command. Her hand lifted a little in response to my words as she prepared to strike her intended target. I repeated myself concealing my inner doubts “Don’t you dare hit that cat.” My eyes, though not as clear as hers or nearly as intense of color, held her gaze by the force of my own motherly conviction. Our wills were now locked in an epic battle, the outcome of which I had no Idea. We probably would be spending the night in the local emergency room fending off Cat Scratch Fever. I was almost certain. <br /> <br /> As a child I remember playing a game with my cousin Maryanne. We called it stare down. Stare into your opponent’s eyes until one of you cracks and starts laughing. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as this. My eyes were seriously drying out as were hers. We stood there blinking at one another, neither one willing to give an inch in field of battle. I’m not sure how long we continued in the stare down, but one thing I knew, laughter would not be the sign of defeat.<br /><br /> It seemed an age but it was probably only two minutes of intense staring when I knew I had won. For the most fleeting of moments she glanced out the window at the fair weather clouds drifting by and I knew… I exulted in my victory!!! I had won! I rejoiced! I knew it in my bones. When her eyes took up the banner once again and engaged my own, the certainty of my victory had imbued me with an inner confidence that we would not be spending the night in Milford Hospital. I purposely resumed my painting in a dignified manner neither rushing nor hesitating. Slowly with only the subtlest of motions, her hand slid downward through the air only just missing the target, as I watched her surreptitiously. She toddled away and I breathed a small sigh of relief.<br /> <br /> The age of two was momentous time in little Abby’s life; it meant the change from crib to bed, not that we were on a time schedule. We just didn’t have a bed for her before then. When I introduced her to her new sleeping arrangements, she took to it like a fish to water. She wanted to be a BIG girl after all, and what signifies big girl more than a big girl bed? She had always wanted to be a big girl. So the transition was easy, in fact it was too easy. Her new bed arrived on Tuesday and on Friday we made the mistake of visiting Oma and Gramp in Lynn. When in Lynn, bedtime had arrived and passed itself by the time Abby and I ascended the stairs to our sleeping arrangements. In the corner of our temporary bedroom, was the playpen, the bed for visiting babies/toddlers. Directly, I became aware of the DANGER inherent in the CRIBLIKE playpen. What should I do? Was the danger too great? There was no way to know for sure. If I brought her into the big bed with us . . . we would not sleep. Of this I was certain, as we had on occasion attempted to sleep with her in our own bed at home. She would toss turn and hit us. I’m afraid to admit that I made the selfish and imprudent decision to guarantee her father and I a full nights rest and I put her into the playpen for the duration of our visit, which ended up being two nights.<br />.<br />I would only too soon regret my decision. <br /><br /> Sunday night arrived and our imminent return home raised the specter of my prescient concerns. Home, It is always good to return home to one’s own bed. Well, it’s usually good to return to one’s own bed. That night proved to be a different sort of night altogether. All was well until ten minutes past lights out at the Winant homestead. Abby had fallen into her new BIG bed as any exhausted toddler should, prayers said, story read, then goodnight kiss and lights out! A short ten minutes later however the screaming began. I knew about this already, as the task of bedtime had never been an easy one when it came to Abby. I had been proud of myself in how, with patient persistence, I had gradually weaned her away from the nightly tantrums of facing bedtime. My long suffered efforts over the past year, which had finally found success, were abruptly replaced with wild and uncontrollable crying. I was armed with many and sundry child help and advice books detailing the process of aiding one’s little child to a safe and peaceful sleep. I had used them with some success in the past. “Let the child cry for five minutes and then enter the room, pat her back comforting her with your presence, add a minute each time, lengthening the time between visits. Soon your consistent returning visits will reassure her of her safety and she will shortly be sound asleep.” I hoped rather than believed that this good advice would work now. Five minute intervals of intense screaming became six minutes, became ten-minute intervals, became twenty-minute intervals, and became thirty-minute intervals with out any sign of her tiring or weakening at all. Perhaps she enjoyed the back rubs in between.<br /> <br /> Midway through the first night my Husband told me to give in and bring her into bed with us. I knew that if I did my opponent’s strength would be increased tenfold and we would perhaps never, never be allowed a full night’s rest again in our own bed without her agitated presence between us. By the third night, her crying continued with as much vigor and determination as when she had first begun her crying marathon. John had a pillow wrapped completely around his head belted on for some permanency. Somehow, he had managed to fall asleep despite the auditory chaos. I on the other hand, was lying wide-awake for the third sleepless dreamless night in a row. My nerves were on edge. <br /> <br /> As I lay there staring into the dark, trying to block out the strident notes of Abby’s shrieks I found myself unexpectedly yelling at God. “ God what should I do,” I yelled aloud? Now, I was a praying woman, but quite honestly it hadn’t occurred to me to ask His advice on this topic. It was 3AM, three nights into the battle and I knew that I was losing. “Help me!” I cried out again. “You have to help me,” No sooner had I finished my demand when a thought popped into my conscious mind. Why had I waited so long? I considered the “idea” and immediately agreed. “You’re right” I thought, “O.K. I’ll do it.” I hopped out of bed and headed for the attic. I rooted around in the dark for a few moments, echoes of the screeching below bouncing off the rafters around me. I found it, the ancient wooden playpen, and an antique in its own right. I struggled to extract it from the pile of junk and drag it out of the cobwebs. Finally freed, I lugged it down the narrow stairwell and promptly set it up. Without losing a moment I darted into Abby’s bedroom swept her, screaming, off her bed and into the living room where the PLAYPEN awaited us. I rather angrily plopped her on my knee. “Do you see that playpen.”? I asked. Her crying had stopped as she stared intensely at me from under lowered brow. “That playpen is for babies.” I said. “You are a baby because you are crying like a baby. Now do you want to sleep in that playpen like a baby or do you want to be a big girl and sleep in your big girl bed?” She glared at me and stated in very clipped but determined words “ I want to sleep in my big girl bed.” I warned her that I would only give her one chance to sleep in her new bed but if she started crying, off to the playpen with her! I placed her into her own bed patted her back one last time and then left the room with only the smallest measure of hope. I lay myself down and waited anxiously, tentatively, three minutes, and four minutes, passed. By the fifth minute, the night air was once again split with a piercing cry. I leapt out of bed, scooped up her substantial (one hundred and tenth percentile on the growth charts) little frame and purposely plopped her into the playpen. She promptly rolled over and went to sleep. The next night I took down the ancient wooden playpen folded it up and put it away. She went directly to sleep in her big bed without any fuss at all. No clue why that worked, only God knows.<br /><br /> In June of 1991 Mount Pinatubo erupted, the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century and in August of that summer we made plans to spend a day at the beach. We invited my dad to join us. He was the kind of father who had played and swum with his children and some of my happiest memories are from the times we had spent together with him at the beach. That day, as I recall, it was about 65 degrees outside, the coldest summer temperature I had ever experienced in late August thanks to mount Pinatubo. The whole summer had been cool verging on cold, because of still-drifting ash in the upper stratosphere. <br /> When we arrived at Good Harbor Beach, in Gloucester MA, I laid out our beach blanket and pulled out the sweatshirts that I had brought along to fend off the cold breezes. John, Sarah, my dad and I pulled on our sweatshirts without delay, all of us that is except for Abby. She was then 3 ½ years old and I had not given her one. My dad, being a dad still, noticed that I had not put a sweatshirt on Abby. He looked me directly in the eyes and asked in a forgivably critical voice, “Aren’t you going to put a sweatshirt on that child?” I thought over his question interiorly. Being still comparatively new to parenting, my insecurities as a mother bubbled up to the surface of my self-awareness with his question. Was I? Nope, I decided, not worth it. He continued to express his dismay over my lack of good judgment and my failure in being a responsible parent. I was quiet for a long moment before I pulled out the sweatshirt, child’s size four. I extended my arm to my father. “Here you go dad, you put it on her.” I knew Abby well enough to know that in her mind, she had already decided, that at a beach in the summer, ‘you do not wear a sweatshirt.’ It is probably a well-known phenomenon that dads loom larger than reality in the minds of their children and I was no different. My dad was not a small man either physically or in any other way and after all he had raised three boys and me. Perhaps he would put it on her. <br /><br /> My vindication shortly arrived, however, when about twenty minutes later, utterly deflated, my father, threw down the sweatshirt onto the sand, exclaiming, “ What the hell is wrong with that child?” Now he understood. <br /><br /><br /> Returning to the day of my shame, it was a very stressful time in our lives. I had just recently given birth to our third child, Gabriel “Strength of God”. He was probably only around the age of three months old and I was seriously sleep deprived. We were not making enough money and were struggling in many ways. I was working several part time jobs to help out with our financial woes but still we were not only the charity case at church, we were the poorest family in our neighborhood, to be sure. I worked teaching and running the arts and crafts program for the elderly in our town and I also worked several nights a week in local company doing photo graphics. During the days that I was at home, I provided childcare for a neighbor’s infant, who as I recall, was never a happy camper. My neighbor’s baby cried incessantly and I was sadly aware that my own infant’s quiet nature demanded so little, that I barely held him at all during the days in which I cared for poor miserable little Joey.<br /> My husband was currently employed as a woodworker but was concentrating his time mostly on his sculpture career. Much of our money went to support his studio at the Franklin mills, where he had been working for several years on a single body of work comprising about thirty sculptures. It was nearly complete. The household chores fell to me during that period as well, both indoor and out, as he was rarely home. <br /> <br /> I was only thirty-one but I was feeling worn out, tired, worried and anxious all together at once. I didn’t have the luxury of shopping for non-necessities. We lived very frugally and it had been a long time since I had bought anything new for myself or for either of our daughters. Family, friends and church members were very kind and I will always remember the generosity of the many souls who crossed our path during those years. On the particular day, aforementioned, I can recall the intensity of feeling but not the exact specifics of incident. It was early morning. Sarah had caught the first bus, and then it was Abby’s turn to catch hers. She must have been five years old, kindergarten age. We were waiting in the front hall and I had brought her down a jacket from our apartment. It was cold outside, a late fall day. “Abby you need to put on your jacket.” I was feeling keenly, our ostracism by the majority of our neighbors as Abby and I stood together in the front hall. We had a car that was not registered because we could not afford to have it fixed. In fact we could not afford to have it towed away and thus it sat in our yard. One of our ‘neighbors’ had found a regulation in the town bylaws disallowing any public exposure of an uninsured vehicle and indeed, had just recently sent the local police to our door to inform us that we needed to dispose of the offending vehicle as soon as possible. The irony was that the man who was so offended by our old car was a car mechanic. He fixed old cars for a living! We would have given it to him if he had just asked for it. <br /> <br /> Being already painfully aware of the fact that we were not acceptable to the majority of our neighbors, having been pointedly left out of several neighborhood parties, well I just felt hurt. “Abby you need to wear a jacket,” I repeated myself. Her little chin thrust forward, eyes glowered “No I don’t” I won’t wear it.” I am sure that my unease with our lack of financial wear with all compared with the relative wealth of our peers was influencing my determination to have Abby put on the jacket. At least she had a jacket, it wasn’t a new jacket but it would do. I was conscious of the fact that I was already suspect by the other mothers in the neighborhood. “Abby put on the Jacket. It is cold outside.” I’m not going to and you can’t make me.” I don’t know what her rationale was. I’m fairly certain that it was sensible to her, as I have since found her, to have sound, although original thinking, when it comes to reason. Probably some kid had dissed her jacket the day before. I was not then in a state to understand, nor give credence to her originality however. It was a fight I chose to pick out of wounded pride. “Abby you need to put on the jacket if you want to go to the bus stop.” Well it rapidly devolved from there and I abruptly, without warning, let go of that thread that I had been clinging to and kicked her in the shins and she put on the jacket. <br /><br /><br /> She marched out the door without another word to me and I broke down and cried. The rest of the day I cried and felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. I felt literally as if I had sunk to the level of an out of control five year old, which I had. I’d lost control. I’d never lost control with Abby before, no matter how she had tested and tried my metal. I had always withstood the fire of her personality. I had always won the battle with quiet strength and purposeful reserve. This time I had won the battle but lost the war. The rest of the day I sank into a sea of sorrow. All day I called out to my God not asking for forgiveness, but rather telling Him over and over that I wished that He was real and that He could just come down to me and hold me in His arms and give me a hug. I felt as if I was a five year old myself and that I was desperately in need of a hug. “I just wish You were here and You could give me a hug.” I must have said that to God a hundred times that day. The weight of my failure weighed heavily upon me and increased as the day wore on. How could I have done that? How could I have kicked Abby? <br /><br /><br /> About mid-day, a friend of mine dropped by. I can’t even recall her name now. She was a little older than me and we had been in a Bible study together. She came upon me in the throws of my self-recrimination, and I confessed my crime almost immediately. Her eyes widened a bit. I’m sure she was shocked at my deplorable lack of motherly restraint! She prayed over me as I continued to lament my sin. She said to me, “Louise there is a healing service tonight at Fatima Shrine. I think you should come.” So I did. Fatima Shrine is Catholic community over in Holliston MA that would periodically host healing Masses. I wasn’t too familiar with them but knew I needed help and I am not one to turn down help from whatever quarters it may be offered. So later that night my friend came by and picked me up. I was a little nervous and feeling a shameful sense of guilt. After the Mass, there were prayer stations set up around the church with lay people dressed in white robes. They were praying over anyone who wanted prayer. <br /> I got in Mr. Kerr’s line because I knew him from my church in Medway. He was a kind man. As I walked up to him I reached out, still feeling as if I had somehow strangely morphed into a very little girl. He wore around his neck a big wooden cross and without thinking I took his cross in my hands, my head down and eyes wet. “Do you like my Cross?” He said in a sing songy sort of voice, for all the world sounding as if he were talking to a five year old. I nodded silently and responded in a tiny voice, “Yes.” “I got it when I went to Medgorje” he continued. “Oh” I said and then he surprised me. “Louise God gave me a message tonight before I came here. I didn’t know who it was for, but I think it is for you.” I looked up from his cross, which I had still been grasping onto like a lifeline, and stared in the eyes. “God wants you to know something . . . “You know how when at the consecration, the priest holds up the Eucharist?” I nodded. “Well you know how the Eucharist goes around?” Then Mr. Kerr extended his arms above his head imitating a priest, and he made his forefingers and thumbs join together in a circle as if they were a host held high. Then he began rocking them back and forth, touching forefinger-to-forefinger and thumb-to-thumb, “Well God told me to tell you that those are his arms and every time you receive Him in communion He is putting his arms around you and giving you a hug.” TRUE STORYLouisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-71812421289982430062009-06-24T07:44:00.000-07:002010-06-19T09:03:40.213-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Source and Summit</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Source) the place where something begins</p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Summit)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the highest point, level or degree</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve scaled some very small mountains, and hiked some higher cliffs without actually reaching the summit but even those climbs were grueling for an untrained out of shape mother type.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many years ago, I ‘found’ Jesus, little understanding at the time, that it was not really me who did the finding at all. It was more of a returning home really after a lengthy vacation abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After I ‘found’ Jesus anew and was enlightened to His reality, I really thought my enlightenment was complete and my Christian growth was only a matter of filling in the few blanks remaining of what I didn’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I realized how little I did know, and so began my quest to learn everything I could of exactly what I didn’t know! </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After my conversion and return to Jesus I found myself firmly in the camp of Protestantism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had much to protest!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mainly I simply could not understand how I could have missed this new found friend of mine named Jesus, in all of the years I had attended Catholic school and Mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How was it possible to miss the point so drastically as to miss the point??<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>almost immediately realized that my former ‘lost ness’ was clearly the fault of the cold, distant, authoritarian and misleading Catholic Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This conviction grew at the same rate as the fervor for my newfound love of God grew.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It grew as a rival plant in my carefully tended heart, supporting the great conviction of Solo Jesus, me Jesus and the Bible against the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I watered this plant into a growing suspicion of anything and even anyone ‘Catholic’. I was convinced that the Church was apostate and was leading many astray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m sure my mother and father could attest to my strong convictions at that time, and of my insistence of their need to leave the apostate church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wasn’t long before I developed a firm resentment for things Catholic, distrusting the relationships Catholics had with their Savior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was certain that they, like myself, had been naively deceived and were living a distant fear-based religion that could not save them, as only<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Jesus Saves”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems strange to me now that my great love affair with God engendered fear of and almost a hate for the Catholic Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To be fair, I was listening then, in my newfound fervor, to many a preacher promoting that very view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My attitude was, I think, more reflective of Peter than Paul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Apostle Paul gave passive assent, by holding the cloaks of the men stoning Stephen, while Peter, leaping into action, thrust aggressively at the enemy of Christ slicing off the offending ear!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Both disciples had fervency, surety, and a strong desire to defend God, but perhaps I was more like Peter in his active pursuit of ‘helping’ God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is an odd kind of ‘help’ that seeks the destruction of the objects of God’s love. I think it is fairly indicative of the fundamental sin that has plagued our race from Adam’s time. Pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>God must need ME to defend Him, at least that much was clear to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How, when and why my heart changed is still a mystery to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Grace was involved I know, but by whose love and prayers I won’t fully realize this side of the veil. I have come to appreciate the good humor of the original comedian, so to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve found that God rather delights in demonstrating to me my innate foolishness, all in good measure, of course. The fervent anti-Catholic fundamentalist Sola Scriptura evangelical has permanently altered into a fundamentally orthodox, traditional old-school Catholic firmly committed and rooted in …… obeying, the Magesterium in all things.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Man that’s weird!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems today only the slimmest minority of Catholics actually believe that the “Magisterium in union with the Pope’s” teachings is the authentic voice of Christ, speaking on faith and morals in the world, even though this understanding is the actual “Catholic” teaching. It seems that Catholics willing to follow these teachings are even a smaller slice of the pie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As a protestant I was very comfortable believing what I believed based on what I believed. As a Catholic I have struggled with conscience and reason and understanding on many moral issues, but when all is said and done I have yet to disagree with any official Catholic teaching in the realm of morals or faith whether it be abortion contraception or divorce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is also the product of a will that has already assented to the claims of Catholicism. The more I’ve investigated when conflict has arisen in my mind, the more I have come to accept and believe. The Church’s positions when clearly understood seem eminently reasonable to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now, that is amazing, for someone who is a spiritual knowledge junkie needing the intellectual assent to faith. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I remember a woman I met while I was still a Protestant believer. She and I had just left a bible study at the little congregational church I attended at the time, and as we conversed, she revealed to me that she attended both the Catholic Church and the protestant church. This oddity perked my interest of course and I probed her strange behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She responded, “It’s just that the Catholic writings are so much deeper than the protestant offerings.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wasn’t sure what she meant. I did know that most contemporary Christian books were of the self-help spiritual variety and did leave me also wanting something deeper. I asked her to explain and she shared with me some of her journey. It was a little thing, but being a “thinker type” at least according to a personality test I once took, it explains the staying power of her little comment about the spiritual depth she found in Catholic writings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Around that time a friend introduced me to Thomas Merton, who was a deceased, artistic atheist become Catholic convert, monk and writer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His words opened a world of spiritual thought, depth and pondering to me. <i>No Man Is an Island</i><span style="font-style:normal">, </span><i>Thoughts in Solitude </i><span style="font-style:normal">are some of the writings that stimulated within me a growing hunger for even greater depth and richness. I simply consumed his thoughts and although I couldn’t always grasp his exact meanings, I got the gist of his expression and a greater yearning stirred within me. I developed a voracious appetite for reading other Catholic writings, such as the </span><i>History of the Church</i><span style="font-style:normal"> by Esubieus written sometime in the early 300’s AD and various other extra-biblical works by the early Church Fathers. It was a journey once begun that led almost directly across the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, Village St Medway Ma. situated diagonally across and only a stones throw away from my church, the Medway Village Congregational Church hosted a pro-life meeting one evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I attended.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is difficult to give credit where credit is due in this case, but it is an undeniable truth that National Public Radio aided my reversion back to the Catholic faith. NPR was and had been for several years the source of my nightly fare of information, and as information is what I constantly crave, I listened every night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The subject at hand involved abortion, although that term wasn’t exactly used. It rarely is in polite discussion of the topic. The pro-life movement in today’s vernacular is always coined as either anti-choice (a self-proclaiming bad thing since anyone against choice must be bad) or anti-abortion (two negatives) verses the obviously enlightened position of pro-choice (two positives) the choice being to abort an unborn human, that is. Sometimes the obvious bias in expression is so mainstream in acceptance that even I, a thinker type, am slightly confused about who is who and what is what and who am I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In any case, that particular evening the bias in favor of abortion expressed by the host was so verbally deceptive that my gut and mind revolted suddenly, violently and completely against receiving any more sustenance from such a morally poisoned silo. I have never by ‘choice’ listened again to NPR despite the fact that my husband loves <i>All Things Considered</i><span style="font-style:normal">! </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I did however begin to seek out avenues supporting the pro-life cause and so a short time later, I became involved with Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, as it alone, of the four churches in Medway, took a stand against abortion and was actually attempting to do something to oppose it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I found there, a few people of moral courage coupled with what I thought was extraordinary kindness and so began a convergence of thought, experience and desire that led in the end to our family’s final walk across the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was five minutes to ten on a Sunday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Our two daughters separated John and me in the seat; Sarah age six and Abby age two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our ‘Church Family’ was just beginning to finally quiet down after a loud and friendly time of warm fellowship when the worship music finally began. John and I glanced at each other as married couples sometimes do, and our eyes locked, communicating an abrupt convergence of thought.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He whispered to me “We don’t belong here anymore”. “I Know” I replied in a whisper of my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What are we going to do?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“I don’t know” Why don’t you take Abby out that door and I’ll take Sarah out the other door and we’ll meet out front.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“OK” was all I could manage, so as inconspicuously as possible I slid out of the row in one direction and made for the basement exit while John headed for the side door.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We had been discussing changing churches for a while and had even visited a few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were considering the Episcopal Church, but john’s feeling was that if we were moving in ‘that’ direction, why not go all the way!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was not yet convinced of the Catholic Church’s validity, the validity of its claims that is. John never cared a jot nor even understood its claims of teaching infallibility. It wasn’t even a consideration to him. I must say that it did become so later on in the living out of those claims!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At the time, however and still today, he will declare the same basis for leading us across Village St.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and into the ancient Church of Rome. He converted to Catholicism because he wanted to kneel.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His grandmother Isabel had arthritic knees and would kneel despite her pain. She was Church of England.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John out of deference to his Grandmother’s painful stiff knees simply liked the way Catholics are forever kneeling and how it sometimes hurts. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, we met in front of Medway Village Church, held the hands of our two young children, and crossed Village St. just in time for the 10:00 am Mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I closed my eyes, head down and prayed a prayer as we walked across the street.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I said, ”Lord I’ll do this but only if what the Catholic Church claims is actually true, otherwise I just can’t and P.S. you’ll have to prove it to me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I knew that I simply wouldn’t join the Catholic Church if I didn’t believe its claims of authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I also knew that what the Church claimed required more faith than I actually had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Besides, I really liked the protestant church and I didn’t want to leave it! The people at MWV church had been good to us and I was afraid to leave the ready-made support system we had there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Never the less</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Within a month we were on the fast track to officially joining the Mother Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>John was enrolled in the RCIA program for adult converts and I had once again received the sacrament of confession and communion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Father McKenzie was more than a little pleased with our presence in the Church, as there had been a steady flow of parishioners leaving and crossing the road in the other direction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We it seems were rather unique.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One by one my doctrinal doubts came into focus and one by one I became convinced of the “Fullness of Truth” preserved in official Catholic Teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As a child the nuns would always say that phrase, in referring to the Catholic Church, and its unique place in Christendom but I never had understood before exactly they meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My heart was wide open and I wanted only the truth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was one very important doctrine left that I needed clarified in order for me to fully accept my destiny as a devout Catholic. All of the others made sense to me but for almost seven years I had attended churches in which communion was proclaimed as a symbolic act only.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was indeed, as claimed, in the Protestant churches only bread and Welch’s grape juice, yet now, I was expected to believe that Jesus himself, present in the form of bread and wine, was to be my food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was receiving, yet I simply didn’t know if it was bread or the flesh of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is rather an important distinction. How is one to know for certain such a thing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were attending Mass for perhaps two months when I began to wonder and question and then to even to worry about it. Before that time I really hadn’t given it much thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the bread of life discourse in the Gospel of John 6, Jesus himself declares:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After Jesus declared this seeming absurdity the scripture declares plainly that hundreds of his followers simply abandoned him. They apparently thought He was a madman after all. They understood him to mean a literal eating of his flesh and He did not correct their thinking, He did not assure them that he only meant a symbolic eating…. He allowed them to leave. He let them go. Only the twelve remained and Christ turned to them with the question, “Will you also leave me”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Jesus was neither softening his teaching nor changing it in any way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I instinctively understood when facing my own doubts that The Eucharist is the dividing line, just as those early followers had realized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They said,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?’ </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I too knew that if I could not accept it then I could not remain Catholic no matter how many other doctrines I was coming to appreciate and even to love.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now to my mini miracle. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I began to dwell on my doubts more and more, especially at Mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The moment of worship when the priest raises the host above all and holds it suspended above the congregation for a second or two longer than is absolutely necessary. That moment demonstrates the historical faith in the sacrament, and I challenged it by my doubts each time I attended Mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How was I to know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I finally decided that maybe I should be simple about my dilemma and just ask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So that’s what I did. “Lord are you really present or not? I really have to know.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As a young Child I simply accepted what I was taught about my faith, but my spiritual journey had changed all that. Now I wanted to know. I needed to know.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is another scripture that comes to mind, ‘Seek Me with your whole heart and you will find Me.’ Lord knows I did that. God is interested in the heart. It’s the heart that has the power to love God and accept Him as well as the power to hate Him, reject Him or even simply disregard Him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was probably a week or so later when God answered me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was a bright sunny autumn day and I was chosen to be a chaperone for Abby’s fall field trip to the Big Apple, an orchard located only a few miles away in Mendon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As we waited in the bus for the nursery schoolers to board, my mind was mulling over the day’s expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Abby settled down next to me and I put my arm around her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Soon we would be eating apple dumplings or maybe even a candied apple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was a small turn around in front of our former church, which was the home of “The Good Shepherd Nursery School.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John had carved the school’s sign a few years earlier when the church had begun the ministry and I had done the design.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My thoughts were set on the beauty of the day and the happy time I hoped for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As the bus driver made the turn around I was thinking autumn colors and of the apple pie I would bake for dinner. I glanced out the window to my left as we passed Medway Village Church, still daydreaming of fall delights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then we began to pass Saint Joe’s on my right and I gazed in that direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We hadn’t quite passed when a very odd thing happened to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The best way to describe it is by directing you to the image of the Sacred Heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Jesus, His heart exposed, thorns atop, heart on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My heart began to burn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s the best way to describe it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wasn’t a painful burn but it was an intense sensation that was physical, right in my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It felt like Love made tangible, physical, as if you could hold it in your hand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The memory of that feeling still resonates in my being although I’ve never felt it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Remember I spoke earlier of a glance married couples share in a moment of understanding?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At the exact moment when I fixed my eyes on St.Joe’s, I felt the burn and I knew beyond doubt that our hearts had joined and that Jesus was telling me of his real Presence in the tabernacle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He said to my heart, it is because “I Am here”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have never doubted the truth of His Real presence since. It is indeed the source and summit of my faith just as the Church teaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is the single reason that I will never leave the safety of the Ark again. How could I?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To quote Peter (John 6:67,68) When Jesus asked him, “Will you also leave me?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Lord, to whom shall we go?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You alone have the words of life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Only the twelve remained, all other’s had left Jesus over the “hard” saying regarding eating his flesh and drinking his blood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now when I genuflect, upon entering the pew, for the celebration of Mass, I have one consistent prayer on my lips and in my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I say,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Thank you Lord for letting me be here. And please don’t ever allow me leave.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><img src="webkit-fake-url://2422EA62-501B-4DD4-A5CB-858EEA862FE1/SacredHeartIcon.gif" alt="SacredHeartIcon.gif" /></p> <!--EndFragment-->Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-56632374253950472702009-06-10T13:36:00.000-07:002009-06-10T17:55:40.880-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">When Cats Die</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cats are mysterious creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I grew up knowing dogs, not cats and never really appreciated felines nor even liked them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mostly they annoyed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dogs are so understandable, humanlike, man’s best friend as they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Owning a dog is somewhat like owning a best friend only perhaps a little more satisfying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The dogs we’ve had reflect back love and devotion as a best friend will but without requiring the element of mutual relationship responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If you are a somewhat decent owner it is actually almost impossible to offend your dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dogs always forget and return with a smile and hopeful wag of the tail no matter what the offense may have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cats on the other hand as any cat ‘owner’ knows are never owned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They deign to allow you to dwell with them and to serve their needs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps it is that element of cat ownership or the lack there of, which has revealed the true failing of my spiritual life, and why it has taken me so long to warm up to them, cats that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Humility, and the lack of mine, has been displayed in my relationship with the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>intrepid cat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dogs are humble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cats are too, demonstrated by the very firmness of their own interior knowledge of their instinctive pre-eminence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course being human, speaking personally that is, my innate conceit is challenged by the Cat’s humble superiority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Foxy was the first cat I learned to like but before knowing her, I knew Tony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tony was the first cat that lived with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was a refugee from a lobster trap found by my husband near the docks in Boston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tony the cat from Southie, I only tolerated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Upon arriving at work one morning, John heard the feeblest of cries, coming from an apparently abandoned shed and being a cat lover and friend of cats, he had to investigate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He found the tiny kitten barely alive, trapped amidst the dead bodies of its’ siblings in a lobster trap that had indeed done its work trapping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A passing car had hit their mother, leaving Tony the sole survivor, his unfortunate siblings having starved to death. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course Tony rode home that day to begin his new life in the suburbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I on the other hand, wanted no part of him or any cat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He became, within a short span of time a big old Tom Cat, picking fights with any available other feline.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some body part of his was always bleeding and in need of expensive veterinary care. One time the entire skin of his tail had been ripped down to the tail tip, as if some vicious opossum had clamped down on Tony and recognizing defeat, Tony had simply run in the opposite direction. Amputation was necessary.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He had an incessant and unquenchable hunger that stemmed no doubt from his early experiences of deprivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I remember one time not clearing the dinner leftovers rapidly enough as Tony managed to devour an entire large bowl of leftover spaghetti, sauce included, before we had even finished our meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>From that time on I recall, cats tripping me, cats on counters, cats in bed with us, cats mad, cats marking territory, usually my husband’s side of the bed, “thank you God for small mercies” and cats with fleas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now Foxy…<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Foxy lived with us for a little over a year and she didn’t live longer than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We had finally verged into the realm of dog ownership about the same time as we brought Foxy into our family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Humble was the dog’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was a three-month-old Black Labrador retriever. That says it all, if you have ever been ‘mad’ enough to do such a thing as own a Lab pup and kitten at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you have, you know of what I speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At that time we had moved from Medway to the beautiful and scenic town of Sutton Ma into a small-antiquated cape on the main throughway to neighorboring Oxford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our desire was for an antique house and it certainly was antique in certain respects but not in the ways we’d hoped for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The well was surely of the original shallow and hand dug variety and the septic was no doubt in its original form desperately needing updating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The home itself was sadly lacking in original detail, although it was picture perfect from the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Our family had grown to three children ages 12, 8 and 4, two </p> <p class="MsoNormal">parakeets, Bud and Sky, the puppy and a kitten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kitten we named Foxy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Foxy was named for her bright orange coloring and bushy tail. She was foxy indeed, but most importantly, she didn’t annoy me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She ate only cat food, never scratched, and never tried to trip me in an effort to get my attention. I liked her for her mature and undemanding ways. When she became a mother cat I grew to admire her even more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was firm yet gentle in the mothering of her kittens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Rather than waste time bothering me for her extra nutritional needs, she simply provided for herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was a marvelous hunter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my garden thrived that year, as there was a dearth of small critters eating my much labored over produce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>From the start, she and Humble became the very best of friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can remember her leading Humble on wild games of chase throughout our tiny house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One particular time I recall Humble being a rather overweight sixth month old puppy leaping off our newish delicate queen Anne style couch in hot pursuit of Foxy’s tail. I was so proud and pleased with that couch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was the first couch we had ever bought and it was beautiful. I waited ten years before we could afford to buy that couch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By the way, Humble never could catch her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That wild and memorable scene still brings a smile to my face, demonstrating how the passage of time can wear down the conceit of even the most resistant cat owner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had finally learned that I simply could not rule over any cat and perhaps I should accept a cats being a cat and the obvious limitations of my humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My reluctant growth in humility and resignation was due in no small part to the instinctual superiority of will of the CAT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If cats were to be part of our life, and John would have it no other way, then a long awaited delicate antique style couch would necessarily be subordinate to the wants of the cat. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a bright and sunny early summer day and my girlfriend Ann had just left after a pleasant mornings visit when the inevitable happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ann, a cat lover herself, was the one bearing tidings of sadness that day, not joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She had hardly pulled out of our drive when she returned with the news of Foxy’s sad demise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You see our road had become something resembling a small highway, a trucker’s delight, few if any cops, almost no lights and no stops.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“ Louise I think Foxy’s been hit.” she said before I had even finished smiling my surprised re-welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“It’s an orange cat.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s pretty bad”, she continued.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was going to run out to the road but my oldest daughter suddenly appeared asking what was the matter. She knew something was wrong by my friend’s expression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I called John to investigate and he dutifully grabbed a shovel and wheelbarrow and headed towards the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ann said her goodbyes once again and Sarah burst into tears. Technically speaking, Foxy was Sarah’s cat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I attempted to comfort Sarah our little son made his appearance and with his large worried eyes, he asked the same question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I told him simply that Foxy had been hit by a car and she had died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He promptly burst into tears as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sarah’s head was now on my shoulder and Gabe’s little hands were grabbing my leg, both were crying with something like abandon, when our middle child came running outside to join the family gathering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Abby arrived just in time to see her father entering the driveway and pushing the remains of Foxy in the wheelbarrow up the small slope of our drive and into the yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I turned towards her as she echoed for the third time,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“What happened?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I answered for the third time, I was somewhat relieved, although surprised, that she did not burst into tears as her brother and sister had, rather she stared intensely at the wheelbarrow for a moment, and then spun on her heels and ran swiftly back into the house.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>. Perhaps five minutes later, I was still trying to calm the roiling sea of emotions pouring out of both Sarah and Gabe, when I twisted around and saw that Abby had returned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She had a somewhat enigmatic little smile upon her face and exuded a quiet confidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Don’t worry,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“It’s O.K.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I questioned her, “What’s O.K.?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She just repeated herself assuring me once again that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>”It’s O.K.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“What do you mean Abby” I attempted once more to gain an explanation of what was O.K.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“I saw Him,” she said with matter of fact assurance. Then she smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“What do you mean? Who did you see?” I asked.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I saw God” she replied. “You saw God?” I queried somewhat doubtingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Yes I saw God”, she returned in her pragmatic non-emotional way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“You saw God”, I said once again making a statement that was really only my repeated question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She nodded and continued to smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then I smiled in return and asked what any reasonable person would ask, “ Well what does he look like?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She waved her hands back and forth at me rather impatiently, and replied, “Oh you know He’s up in the clouds just what you’d think, He has a white beard.’’ He was in a rocking chair. “Oh really” I replied with some incredulity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Yes, and in His lap was Foxy and He was patting her.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then Abby’s eyes grew wider and her sky blue eyes sparkled as the sometimes do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She continued explaining, “I asked Him when I went inside, whether or not, when cats die, ‘Do they go to people heaven or do they go to cat heaven?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then her smile grew a little wider still and she nodded saying, “They do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They go to people heaven.” Her smile brightened even more and became as the noon day sun on a summer day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I couldn’t help but be a little awed by Abby’s ‘vision’ of God, if that ‘s what it was. Truth is, She asked an honest question and she got an honest answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know about the theology of Cats and heaven but there is a lot I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What I do know is that children more than adults, have the gift of clear sight and simplicity and we should follow their example in the realm of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Jesus said so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“ Unless you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” </p><p class="MsoNormal">P.S.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Several years back I did a painting about this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My brother owns it today and it’s still one of my favorites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s called, When Cat’s Die Do They Go To People Heaven?</p><p class="MsoNormal">If you would like to see it, you can check out my web page highlighted on the full profile page </p><p class="MsoNormal">of this blog site: )</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <br /></p> <!--EndFragment-->Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-21189524990520801082009-05-30T15:42:00.000-07:002009-05-30T15:58:07.124-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Day by Day</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve been told, that in some rural cultures today, much as in days gone by, different flocks of sheep will graze together in the same pasture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As with most sheep, one looks much like another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps an exceptionally observant and interested shepherd could tell one lamb apart from another based on its’ natural good looks or a certain twinkle in its’ little beady eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think it is rather a beautiful thing that in such situations, it is the shepherd’s sheep that differentiate themselves from the ‘others’, by their highly developed listening skills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It does bring added value to the Christ’s words when He said,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(John 10:27)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I really don’t know much of anything else about the art of shepherding but this little sentence does say a lot. When the shepherd calls out to his sheep, in a voice ringing out over a hillside that is filled with numerous different sheep herds, grazing together, spread lightly as a field of softly seeded dandelions across the landscape, I can almost imagine the Shepherd’s flock lifting their heads from the delicious and tender green grass, turning ever so slowly in the direction of the beloved sound, reluctantly perhaps, but with quiet obedience turning home and moving deliberately away from their neighbors towards the direction of their own, shepherding, Voice. They go to the Voice they know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When I was a child, I remember trying to be close to God, desiring it with fervor and a passion, but with time and experience the desire and sensation began to grow cold. Then God became a rather distant character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never gave up my belief in His existence, but experiencing Him became an idea rather than an incarnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like that word, incarnation because it expresses the down and dirty reality of God, God/man, God incarnate, carne<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>meaning flesh or meat, the meat of man, the meat of God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think it is an idea that can make us uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>God made man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Man is dust. God becomes dust, God making dust like unto God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How odd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some would say crazy</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyway to return to the subject at hand, which is an Idea vs. an incarnate God. If God is so like us that He can die, surely he can communicate with us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So He says, anyway!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This may seem like a mini miracle or perhaps like a large miracle or perhaps the raving of a mad piece of dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I guess it just depends on your perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There have been many times when I believe that I have heard the voice of God in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I began praying in my early twenties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Generally speaking, in order to recognize the voice of a friend or acquaintance you have to hang with him, so to speak be near him, get to know him by speaking together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Spend time in other words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is it even possible to truly care about someone that you’ve never taken the time to know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course you won’t talk to a person that you don’t believe is actually listening in return. If you did, someone might call you crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Faith is the prerequisite of course, for without it, a court of law may indeed find you mad! God has faith. Some how or other He has faith in us even when we are oblivious of Him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I only believed in God, I never spoke to Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since belief became faith however, I’ve never stopped speaking with Him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How I went from belief to faith is still something of a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is God’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I do remember a time in my early twenties, when I was most distressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>More distressed than I can even say.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remember also, ‘the moment’ that I made a decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t know at the time that I had just committed to a life of faith in the “God of my fathers”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I clearly recall, after a very intense painful argument with someone close to me, putting my head down on a table, seeing the dimly lit proverbial light bulb shine just enough upon my soul to realize that our relationship had nothing to do with LOVE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At that moment, an inner knowledge of the nature of LOVE was made simple and clear as a cloudless summer sky to me. God spoke silently in a ringing voice, to my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t know it was Him, but I recognized the Voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I decided then to find real love, if it did exist in this world. When I discovered that it was Christ’s voice that spoke to my heart, I decided to follow and obey, like the sheep that turn to their Shepherd in obedience.<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That was the moment for which I must thank my Grandmother Mary Flynn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was she who convinced my parents to send me to a Catholic grammar school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The cross and Jesus’ dead corpus, hanging upon it, was the dimly lit bulb shining upon my weakened conscience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How much more powerful that image is, than an empty cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The apostle Paul puts it this way,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“but as for me, I will preach Christ and Christ crucified.” Jesus Dead is LOVE!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is the thought or awareness that seeped into my heart that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was the Gospel that converted me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Love is all about sacrifice not about having your own needs met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My head down resting out of pure weariness with the life I had created, living according to my own best guess as to how to live, had crushed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thank God often for that crushing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thank Him that he made me weak enough to cry ‘uncle’ at a young age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As is always the case, when it comes to an incarnate God, there is paradox, foolishness and the absurd.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now to my mini or maxi miracle, depending upon your own view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Three days after I gave birth to our first child, a very beautiful perfect little girl, I was sitting in an antique<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>wicker chair in the back room of our small but cozy apartment in the old family homestead. I was nursing her and wondering how I could love someone so much, someone that I didn’t even know. The feeling was powerful, overwhelming even.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wasn’t based in knowing her at all. I didn’t know anything about her, what she would be like, what her personality would be like etc. I didn’t know anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I sat there nourishing this little life from my own body, pondering the intense welling up of LOVE I felt for her, I heard a voice. It was an audible voice not just an impression in my heart. I have on many occasions experienced an impression of God’s voice, the intention of His will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wasn’t that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He actually spoke to me audibly in my ears of all things!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not something we expect, yet if God is indeed incarnate, why not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He does as He wills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These are the exact words I heard that day as I pondered the deep emotion I felt, “This is how I love you Louise”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His voice was gentle calm and manly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was natural, so natural that I didn’t take note of it for several days afterwards. That probably seems really strange, but if you consider that what we deem beyond the normal is really only perspective once again.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From God’s viewpoint our supernatural is His natural!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>it was perhaps three days later, when I became consciously aware that I had heard the voice of, I believe, Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve never forgotten that grace and do on occasion purposely recall His words to me when I find myself struggling even to hold on to my faith in Him let alone my belief.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Jesus once said, “If your eye is full of light, then your whole body will be full of light.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What began in me as a feeble stream of light emanating from that proverbial light bulb barely able to disperse the darkness of my heart, has gradually matured into a greater light, filling a room, and someday will probably reflect more of the outside summer sunshine. Day by day, that is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Day by Day</o:p></p><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <br /></p> <!--EndFragment--> <!--EndFragment-->Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-59279391301188485302009-05-27T13:30:00.000-07:002009-05-28T13:10:08.070-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">A Little God Story Involving a Cat</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After five long years of attending St Pius Grammar School, Lynn, MA I finally exhaled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know how I managed to live so long without breathing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The day I resumed oxygenating my body and adding my spent breath (co2) to the world’s future global climate change crisis was the day I first encountered Mr. Tom DiLorenzo, 6<sup>th</sup> grade teacher, room opposite Miss Pallidino, who was my own homeroom teacher. She was rather an aloof woman with very big blond teased hair kept in the style of many children’s drawings at the time, large on top and then swooping out below the ears like two waves rushing skullward from the sea .<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There were all of two sixth grade classes in my particular Catholic grammar school, perhaps a total of 50 sixth graders and we would exchange classes for the various subjects. I don’t recall what Mr. D. taught me academically but I do recall his kind smile and gentle ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Somehow or other I knew that my fearful little heart and ego was safe when in his presence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Up until that day I was firmly gripped by an unspoken, unknown fear of the authority figures that surrounded me at St. Pius, personified by the somewhat menacing black robed nuns and priests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In those days many nuns wore the full habit and only their faces were visible, not even a wisp of hair on their fore heads in sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The priests seemed to me to be of a different species entirely and my intimidation up until meeting Mr. D had been complete. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mr. DiLorenzo, today is Father Tom DiLorenzo.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was my first experience of love, outside of the family structure, love given in the form of simple kindness and compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He didn’t yell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He taught us songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>C O F F E E<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>coffee is not for me, it’s a drink some people wake up with, and that it makes them nervous is no myth!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So thanks to their coffee cup they can’t give coffee up!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wish I could hum the melody for you as it does stick.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course there also was the obligatory Kumbayah my Lord and Bridge Over Troubled Waters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The seventies you know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re probably wondering when the cat enters the cast of characters in this tale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll just skip my angst ridden teen years and my dramatic conversion or rather reversion to my childhood faith returning that is after my many wanderings in the valley of the shadow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Leaping into late summer 1986, I was a young mother of our first child, a daughter of about two years old.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Our little family lived in a quaint old-fashioned town in mid MA. Called Medway. We were never quite sure where it was medway to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps medway between Boston and Worcester, or maybe Boston and Providence?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In any case the area was idyllic small town America and hope and youth were restless in my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That morning I was driving along the main route through town, route 109 to be exact, when I saw a cat by the side of the highly trafficked road staring anxiously across the sea of cars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As the poor thing looked nervous and confused, I offered a prayer for its protection.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I still pray for all little creatures that look lost and confused having been one myself on too many occasions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyway, the cat abruptly made its decision and dodged headlong into the morning traffic. Somehow it safely reached its destination amidst only a few swerving vehicles. I am always curious as to why small animals wish to go to the other side with so much determination and courage, to the other side of where?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do they even have a clue? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As it was my habit then and now, to listen to talk radio, I switched on the local Christian radio station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Season and Out of Season was the show that I listened to that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believe it is still on air today, over twenty years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was Father Tom Dilorenzo’s show, 15 minutes of faith and passion offered over the airways to the listening ear and yearning heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I say passion because I still remember His words spoken to me that day, as if he were actually present to me, even though it was almost 22 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After his stirring talk, Father Tom continued his efforts to persuade the listener,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“You have the Life of God within You!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>TODAY you must ask God to bring someone to you that you can pour that life into!!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, driving along busy route 109, baby strapped safely into the car seat behind me, I complied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I eagerly, ardently, fervently, and with my eyes hopefully still open, obeyed Father’s command and pleaded those very words aloud,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“God bring me today someone that I can pour your life into!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then, unexpectedly the sound of the In Season and Out of Season ending melody intruded on my fervent appeal to the Almighty, and then Father Tom’s daily exhortation abruptly ceased and then another voice suddenly replaced Father Tom’s with another, I’m certain, very valuable message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Never the less, still, gripping my steering wheel, a bit tighter than was probably was necessary, I repeated my appeal.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Several hours later, dinner was in the oven cooking and I was waiting for my husband to return home from the studio.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Come on Sarah we’ll take a little walk before dinner”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Feeling the need to get outside and breathe in the fresh air I took her little hand and we walked together down to the end of the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was a rather lonely time in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We lived in a great neighborhood yet we didn’t fit in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John was a fine artist, and sculptor but we struggled to pay for the simple basics of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There were no vacations, no dinners out, and more importantly in middle class suburbia, no money for home improvement!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Only the oldest of old cars graced the Winant dirt driveway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We lived gratis, in an old family house that was in great need of updating and repair and I am quite sure, that it was considered the neighborhood eyesore. Property values were on the rise after all!!! </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was a dead ended cul-de-sac, a perfect neighborhood for young children but although there were some younger families, for the most part, it was the older generation that befriended us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They remembered Nanny and Bessie and Earl and Harold and for their sake the older folks were always kind to us. I also had the added grace of working for the town’s elderly drop in center and many of the old timers remembered and were friends with the Winants. The connections to the past and the town’s history helped me to feel a sense of belonging even though I had no close friends near my own age.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That particular evening, I was just glad to have gotten out of the house and was feeling a simple joy in holding my daughters hand as we strolled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were headed back home, when a small red Renault rolled down the street in a seemingly deliberate crawl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As the driver pulled up beside us she leaned her head out the window and questioned me, accompanied by a worrisome frown, slim smile and a heavy French accent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Did you see</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My cat?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was a dark haired petite woman probably in her forties. “Did you lose your cat? What does it look like?” I asked<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Well”, she replied, “He is white with golden brown patches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I cannot find Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have been looking all over.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As she continued her description I had a sudden visual memory of her cat!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was describing what seemed to be the very cat that I had prayed for earlier that morning, the same cat that I had prayed for earlier in the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“ I did see your cat I exclaimed! I prayed for your cat.” “ She responded,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You saw my cat? You prayed for my cat? Where did you see my cat?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To be quite honest up until that moment I had completely forgotten the incident and even forgotten my fervent prayer to the Almighty to bring someone my way that day to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“pour His life into”, as Father D had demanded I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You dear readers, no doubt, see the obvious alignment, yet at the time I still didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thought hard, but simply could not exactly place where I had actually seen the cat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I thought perhaps a mile or two down route 109.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My natural Inclination no matter what the problem appears to be is to ask God for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can only chalk it up to the fact that I recognize what a weak and foolish creature I am and how much I need help most of the time and about most things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I immediately asked her if she prays.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She told me that she asks St. Anthony to find things for her. Quite an aside, I often ask his help these days and am amazed at his stirring ability to find my many and sundry lost items… As my Saintly Aunt Mary says to me, He is a wonderful man”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I said to my little French friend,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“I liked to Pray to Jesus.” And she questioned, in all sincerity with her heavy French accent, “Do you think He is more powerful?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Oh yes,” I said He is God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then I asked her if she would like me to pray with her for the return of her cat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So there we were, she, still sitting in her little red Renault, me standing, holding her hand joining our intentions in request to the God above all, to please return her cat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t until later that day after dinner that I realized the prayer I had prayed because of Father DiLorenzo had been answered in a most delightful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What was even more striking was the fact that I had seen and prayed for her cat even before I had made my own request to God.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A small addendum. About a month later I was attempting to expand our social acceptance in the cul-de-sac<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>suburban neighborhood and asked one of the younger families to stop in for coffee and dessert after dinner one night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As we, sat and exchanged trivialities my neighbor suddenly broke the continuity of the conversation with a question,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Louise do you remember praying with a woman that her cat would return”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well she works with me at the hospital and she just wanted me to tell you that it did.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Small animal stories to be continued . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056752941633131693.post-20551261504157685552009-05-14T17:50:00.000-07:002009-05-27T14:26:25.832-07:00Making A Visit<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tuesday, I stopped into the neighboring Catholic Church in the town next to where I live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I told my husband this story he insisted that I write it down and share it with others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He’s been urging me for years to start a blog of, as I call them, mini miracles or M&M’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A dear friend of mine once coined the phrase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve found that once you breech the subject of mini miracles, it is surprising how very many of them are happening in so many lives. So here goes...</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I often stop in St. Brigid’s Church to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Make a Visit” as it’s called, in Catholic old time circles. Usually I first detour to the ladies room for a handful of tissues, as I rarely make it through a visit without losing a lot of fluid, at least lately, that is. There was a time five or so years back when I would visit the tabernacle just to be close to the Lord, to pray and secretly sing songs to Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I say secretly, because I would never have presumed to sing singularly and publicly with a voice as off key and weak as my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I figure since He made my voice, He’ll just have to put up with hearing it. The last several years my visits to Jesus are more out of need than joy or longing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, on Tuesday I made direct route to the bathroom for a generous supply of tissues, which I clasped firmly in hand and then headed for the pew as close to the tabernacle as I could get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Upon entering the sanctuary, I heard the loud echoing sound of the industrial vacuum strapped firmly on the Back of Owen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> Owen</span> is the all round maintenance man at St. Brigids but I remember him very well from earlier days, when he performed a similar service for the other Catholic Church in town known as Our Lady of the Assumption, the French connection, St Brigids being strictly the Irish parish at that time in the mill town's immigrant past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I used to faithfully exercise over there with a group of other mothers whose children also attended Assumption grammar school and I recognized him immediately. He is an older man, perhaps in his seventies and has a still heavily Scottish brogue of sorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He used to teach self-defense and if I’m not mistaken has a black belt in Karate. He is a rather large man who still emanates a manly and youthful strength despite his years, and as I waved, I caught his eye. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In consideration of Owen’s presence, I steeled myself to a greater self-control over any copious overflow of emotion a “ visit” to the tabernacle usually elicits from me. I set out to pray my usual pleadings and lamentings before God but the roar of the vacuum was building as Owen made his way slowly and surely closer to the altar area. I was having real trouble concentrating. Lately, St. Brigids is not the place to visit if you are seeking solitude with God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is always somebody else around, construction workers, Owen or the Devout Ladies dusting the sanctuary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span> The reason I still go there is a combination of convenience and beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Since the new pastor took over the shepherding of the St Brigids flock two years ago many changes have come to the parish workings, I’m sure not all are either appreciated or desired.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This seems always to be the case when a new pastor is assigned. The most obvious change is to physical structure itself. The bell tower is gone, to the removal cost of what must have seemed an exorbitant sum of money, no doubt dwarfed by the estimated cost of a bell tower repair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The change inside the sanctuary, however, is what draws me on occasion to St. Brigids, rather than to my own parish church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since Father L’s receiving the pastorate, the inner church has been transformed into a place of real beauty that would indeed encourage prayer if only there was a little more quiet available, which, I have almost no doubt, there will be, soon, as the construction is nearly complete!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Anyway, I finally gave up my attempt, at least for the moment, to convince God of the justice and need of my wishes, desires, prayers etc… and as Owen approached me with his vacuum now a loud echoing roar, I smiled a small greeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He responded by shutting off the vacuum and returned to me the semblance of a smile and said<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“How do you like it?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His Scottish accent added a certain mystery to the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“It is beautiful” I replied, “I love it”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He seemed gratified and moved a bit closer to me, standing, vacuum strapped on his back, looking for all the world as if it were an oxygen tank supplying needed breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then he said something completely outside the realm of my expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something about something he did when his daughter was killed, and then he commented on the paint colors that Father and he had chosen for the new sanctuary design.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My mind and attention was still on the beauty of the their combine efforts when I seemed to recall, as if it were a past fact of my own history that he had said the words, “When my daughter was killed.” I wasn’t quite sure in fact; if indeed he had said that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I frowned inside and probably outwardly as well, feeling perplexed and confused. I don’t know where his conversation went from there as my mind was suddenly in disarray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A moment later I interrupted him and asked plainly, “Did you say your daughter was killed”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Yes” he said, “Three years ago. She was 46”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My mind raced from his words to the fact that on my Birthday, this Sunday I will be 49 and that means I was also 46 when Hugh’s daughter died. We were the same age. The sudden and odd exit from my somewhat complaining, meditative prayer time to my inherent and sometimes driven need to understand, coupled with a certain lack of tact prompted me to ask him directly what had happened; how she had died?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Owen</span>, must just have needed to speak of his daughter’s death that day, or perhaps my presence and the similarity of our ages had prompted the disjuncted statement about his daughter’s death.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She was killed, murdered during the same news cycle, as when Katrina hit the U.S. coastline, which somewhat explains my lack of memory on this particular rampage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The story is one of those tragedies that anyone paying attention at the time, would have to remember, like Waco or Colombine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A madman had entered a Texas church and opened fire on the local pastor killing both him and the deacon who was also present.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The killer then left in a rage and began a tour of the town shooting wherever and at whomever he wished.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hugh’s daughter, an accomplished horsewoman, her trailer full of horses, was enroute with a friend that day, to some horse event or other, when a man drove past her vehicle shooting wildly at them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> After</span> he had passed, she got out to check on the safety of her horses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He must have seen her in his rear view mirror and spinning around and headed towards her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He shot her in the back, killing her, and then proceeded to shoot her girlfriend several times finally shooting her in the forehead and leaving her dead in a ditch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I write this, a vague distant memory returns to me of seeing this story on the news that fateful day three years ago. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Owen finished his story, telling me that the killer, holed up in his home with the police surrounding him, ended the ordeal by shooting himself. “It’s a good thing he did. Or I would have killed him and then I’d be in prison today. I couldn’t have let it go”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know what I said in response to his words, perhaps because I didn’t say anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When we see these tragedies displayed almost as commonplace crimes on the nightly news, they simply do not have the same impact as when speaking to an actual victim of such a grave, evil and seemingly senseless crime.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> I asked Owen what his daughter’s name was and told him that I would pray for her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He thanked me and responded, “That’s what they want me to do. Pray.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again I was without words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He began reminiscing, and asked me if I used to exercise at Assumption Church having recognized me from there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was actually surprised that he remembered who I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I always remember a face, but am surprised when someone actually remembers mine. He told me that when his daughter died he had decided to retire from Assumption, but within a very short time span, the diocese of Worcester had contacted him requesting that he work for the new priest at St. Brigids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He replied with a certain characteristic aggressiveness, “If I like him I’ll work for him if I don’t, I won’t.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And so the Non-praying Scottish black belt, ex-retired maintenance, construction, worker turned interior design and lighting consultant and all around get it done man at St Brigid’s, has been working almost nonstop since his daughter’s death. He has been implementing Father L’s vision for meditative worship, turning what was an average church experience into a place of richness and harmony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Beautifying the place of worship and sacrifice where God incarnate visits His people, a place where I go to visit with Him and sometimes with those He brings my way, a place to unburden my soul, pleading my hopes and desires for my loved ones and for their needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When Father L. invited his non-praying all around handyman to Christmas Mass, Owen questioned Father, “Do you know anybody else who has spent more time on his knees in church than me”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why should I go to Mass?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, Owen assured me that he and his son had raised the altar themselves, rebuilt the flooring and personally tiled the sanctuary, and all that during the sweltering heat of last summer. “ I’ve spent more time than any other man I know on my knees in this church”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Never the less, this past Christmas found Owenn present and accounted for, front row, in full Scottish Regalia, Kilt and all while his wife and daughter sang in the choir.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I see God’s hand and love at work in Owen’s life and although I cannot account it a supernatural work of God It strikes me more as a miracle of the natural where God in his mercy does as Jesus said. “Your Father in Heaven knows what you need” P.S. Thanks be to God , Owen isn't in prison : )</p> <!--EndFragment-->Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06374715870907436261noreply@blogger.com0