The Way of the Cross
Jesus, our Saviour did not rebel, oppose or justify himself, to the false
accusations, torture and death on a cross that his tormentors and enemies
subjected Him to.
When I meditate on the 14 Stations on the Cross every Friday these facts
becomes alive in a here-and-now personal way that opens me up.
To not react when we are being verbally attacked; to not enter into and
participe in a false world of lies that we are so often invited into;
that is really difficult.
To accept that this is the way it is, not to shy away from it, and at the same
time not to participate and fight back, seems impossible, but it isn't.
To not say anything, to keep and remain in the peace of God, seems out of
the reach of human possibility, but it is possible.
In order to unite ourselves with the One who made us, the One who died
for us, it is essential to pray and meditate The Way of the Cross.
We come to realize in a deep and personal way, that this really happened,
and how it came to happen.
We have something to do with it, we are involved.
It is not a commemorative piece, it is active.
It is hard to do, it causes pain. But it liberates, it stabilizes.
To put it into practice in our daily lives is the biggest difficulty, but Jesus
was clear:
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must
deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
(Matthew 16, 24)
To be so close to Jesus that we do not forget this instruction in all
those moments
when we are being falsely accused, verbally attacked , scorned, rejected,
lied to, when we are betrayed by disloyal behaviour, when the one closest
to us unites with our enemies against us, when we realize that we were conned,
when people do all this in an effort to"kill" us, that is what is important.
Even the pain of the confinement, because we are, generally speaking, starting
to rebel now, feeling that "enough is enough, we cant take any more".....
Embrace your cross, relax with it, welcome it, surrender to it.
The ruler of this world
The culture we live in is one of death.
The attitudes to abortion, which is seen as a human right; it is called
health care, and also to euthanasia, are two examples.
Two categories of human beings who are not able to defend themselves.
These two things alone are enough to make me suspicious about the world
wide effort to "save lives" regarding the universal house confinement situation
linked to Covid 19.
How is it that, all of a sudden, most of the world's governments takes severe
measures that causes great damage to their own economy, because they want
to protect lives?
I just do not get it, it does not add up, because most people that catches the
virus, recovers. Yes, people die from it too, but regarding the number of deaths
that they keep churning out, there is something twisted here.
What about the context?
Is it not a reality that people die every day; due to weakness in their
immune system, due to sickness or old age?
I know that many people that has died from this virus falls outside of that
category, but I still think there is something about the way the statistics are
presented to us that is crooked.
Before the Covid 19, the situation was, and has been for as long as I have lived;
that new people come into the world on a daily basis, and thousands of people
also die every single day, even apparently young and healthy people.
How many people die from the flu every year, for the same reasons; because
they are in risk categories due to preexisting conditions?
If the governments were really concerned about protecting the people
most at risk; the old people in nursing homes, they would have assured that
the protective measures would have been put in place there first of all,
but they did not.
Instead they tell the whole world to stay at home, and the majority of
people that die, are the old.
What about all the people that commit suicide,
what are the statistics on that?
Is there even any? Do the governments care?
Because THERE we are DEFINITELY talking about an epidemic.
We are living in a culture of death; it is the intelligence that is affected.
The ability to reason, to come to conclusions from a process of personal
reflection, seems to be severely affected.
The brain washing that has been going on for years which tells people what they
must think, believe and feel about a range of subjects, what has now become the
new correct, and of which there is consequences of non compliance with, is the
reason.
People have become robots, but not completely. There is tremendous fear as well.
The same sex marriage that was forced on almost every nation on earth, how did
that happen? And we have to condone this "marriage", even though it defies the
definition of marriage itself.
Also two people of the same gender demands it as their civil right to have
children, even if it defies the nature of biology, in the same way as women
demands it as their right to kill their unborn babies, although it defies even
civil law, which forbids killing.
If one says anything at all on these subjects, one is assailed with accusations
of being homophobic and extremist. You risk being attacked.
And if you say that you believe in a Loving, Powerful God who sent
His Only Son into the world in order for the human race to be saved
and reconciled to Him, and that this God gives light to the intelligence
and strenght to the people that believe in Him, and
LIFE; LIFE EVERLASTING, they
think that you are stupid or maybe crazy..........
We are confined to our homes, peoples lives are not only being put on hold;
for many people this confinement means an end to their livelihood.
It seems like this crisis is going to last for some time.
Maybe time will tell the whole truth about it, but I would not bank on it.
Life is going to be more difficult for many people.
Prayer really makes a difference, even if you do not believe at the outset.
There is something happening in the world
Christianity is not about tradition for the sake of tradition.
It is about a meeting with a living Person called Jesus,
which enables us to see the Truth.
My generation has been about becoming conscious, looking for peace
and healing, but we looked in all the wrong places.
Only Jesus can heal, and He can heal everything;
He can heal the wounds of our heart, He forgives us,
and He gives light to the intelligence.
Jesus is King of Kings. He is the only one that can save us.
He is Divine Mercy, which we celebrate today.
He is the only One we should put all our trust in,
He will never let us down.
The intellectual snobbery which blinded us before,
is disappearing, the world is waking up.
He is Alive!
Jesus, I surrender myself to you, you hold my life in your hands.
The perfect beauty of the Catholic Faith
The reason why Saint Teresa of Avila founded her first Reformed
Carmelite convent was to minimize the ravages wrought by protestantism
in France, and elsewhere, and to check the passion of a so called "freedom".
She lived in the 16th century.
I have seen for myself that today, in the 21th century, in France,
the infiltration of protestantism and "liberalism" has wreaked havoc
in some parishes.
Even the 10 Commandments seems to be forgotten.
To make matters worse, many masquerades as Catholics; they are active
participants in the Church, while they are in truth fully fledged protestants
in their hearts. This is sad, and very damaging to the Church.
But thankfully, alongside of that, the true Catholic Church is still
alive in France. The priests are good, and many really good prayer
groups provide spiritual nourishment and strength in a community setting.
The french woman Marthe Robin; who was sick and bedridden all her adult
life, and who died in 1981, is still an "active" member of the Catholic Church.
Anyone who has ever been to Châteauneuf-de-Galaure on a silent retreat
can testify to that.
There, the priests and the other members of the Foyers of Charity delivers
conferences and a full week's program with Mass, Confession, and prayers,
which allows the light of perfect intelligence and coherence to penetrate
deeply into the soul of the participants.
Marthe Robin loved her country, her Church, and she lived her life united
to Christ. I pray that she will be canonized soon, and join the long list of
French Saints.
May France be reconverted to the One True Catholic Faith.
The moment is Now
The "COVID" lockdowns provided a perfect opportunity for change.
There was anxiety, stress, frustration, confusion.
Many people lost their livelihood, or risked losing it.
So many catholics have walked away from their faith,
acting as if God does not exist.
Today is Holy Saturday, where we commemorate Jesus buried in the
tomb. Tomorrow we celebrate His resurrection from the tomb.
As Easter is the most important time for us Catholics,
where we enter into the mystery of when the world sentenced God
to death by crucifixion and where He resurrected 3 days after.
To prove that Love cannot die, that no matter how narrow minded
and ignorant we are, no matter how hateful and full of ourselves we are,
Our Creator, The same Creator that created everything in this universe and
all the universes will never change.
He is alive.
I pray that the heavy stone that is closing the opening to the tomb of our dead
souls, will be rolled away, to set us free, and to resurrect us to eternal life.
We have now entered into a new time, it has been forced upon us because
humans refused to listen; because this virus is more than likely linked to
global warming, and it is unlikely to be a once off episode.
The economy itself, despite all the world's governments hard work
at saving it as it is, will change, and
there has never, in my lifetime, been a more favourable moment than now
for the whole world to come back to
The One True, Living, Powerful, Loving Creator.
Time is running out.
"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:
and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to
our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
(Isaiah 55:6-7 King James Version (KJV))and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to
our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
To help us, Top 100 Catholic Blogs
https://blog.feedspot.com/catholic_blogs/
provides blogs that will orient us and put us on the right track.
I wish all my readers a holy and joyful Easter!
Faithfulness
Betrayal is something that we are unlikely to forget, it leaves strong
feelings and psychic energy that can determine our future decisions and
install in us the same behaviour of what has been done to us, so that we
will potentially do the same to anyone that comes our way in the future.
You that has been married in a christian church has decided to remain
faithful to each other in all things, big and small.
Nothing was to be hidden from each other, no hidden agenda or ulterior
motives.
The sexual faithfulness is just one aspect of faithfulness,
the deep dark recesses of the human mind and soul has a capacity to hide and
trick other people on a daily basis, that might feel completely normal, we live like
that, "all the others are doing it" and we think that we are well balanced.
Until something happens that reveals what was hidden, to the people around us or
the people affected.
To adhere to the promise you made before God and continue to be faithful
with all your being to you spouse, under all circumstances, can seem
unreasonable and unnatural, a bit like the requirement of catholic priests to be
celibate.
How can a normal man or a normal woman for that matter, be celibate, it seems
ludicrous.
In a marriage, to decide to continue to love someone who mistreats you, and who's
behaviour does not show love, seems ludicrous to most people too, a "waste of time".
But that is what we signed up for the day we got married. "In good times and in
bad" because to continue to trust in the goodness and love of God in those times
when you cannot see it or feel it, that is what the catholic faith is demanding us to
do. Our human nature do not understand it, but our divine nature does.
That is why divorce is not allowed for catholics and why priests are celibate.
There is a good reason.
Confinement
Now that we are restricted in our freedom, confined to our homes,
the biggest difficulty in the weeks to come will be boredom, and
the feeling of being imprisoned.
Today that made me think of the people that are in prison,
confined in a cell.
They, like us, still have things to do that brings a shape or a frame
to the day, but still, if we can not go out and be with other people,
we are imprisoned.
So what do we do?
There is a limit to how much television we can watch,
(or at least there should be), and we cannot spend all day in front of
the computer either.
Personally I always say: "if you cannot go out, go in"
Read the Bible, meditate on it, and pray the prayers of the Church.
Look inside yourself.
It is an opportunity for you to get to know yourself better, because there is
a depth to us humans that can only really be discovered by disassociating
ourselves more or less from the outside world.
"Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, he answered them, "The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here.' or, 'Look, there.' for the Kingdom of God is within you."
(Luke 17, 20-21 New Heart English Bible)
Some people say that they only believe in things that they can see,
and since they cannot see God they do not believe in His existence.
As an argument it is very weak, since gravity for example, is not
something that we can see either, but it is not advisable to disregard
the reality of it's existence!
To the naked eye a virus is also invisible.
We can affirm that what we can see with our eyes are limited.
But what we can see with the eyes of our soul when we adhere
to the Word of God and put it into practice, is something so beautiful
and so powerful that you know that you can overcome any challenges
that comes your way.
Because you will know without any doubt, that you are not alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBdG85iIyaE
The unexpected
These days we see that our life does not belong to us,
and that we never know what awaits us in the future.
We make plans, but at any moment, our life can be disrupted,
it can be turned upside down.
Everything can change very fast, one day it might just be the basics that counts; life, health, food.
Earthly life is short.
We are vulnerable on earth, but afterwards; what awaits us?
Our instincts and our intelligence tells us that life goes on after death,
in another state, in another dimension.
It is important to prepare for this departure.
Behind the screen of illusions, lies, denial and sin, is the Truth.
Jesus is the Truth, The Way that leads to Life.
He enlightens us, he forgives us, he loves us. He is God.
He is not far, He is near, always Present.
To heal or not to heal
The effects of family of origin
In my family there was denial, lies, betrayal, harshness, shame, absence of love and security, all of which had serious consequences.
The effects of dysfunction: Sin, is darkness.
It is the intelligence that is affected, also cohesion and natural inner stability.
In this state, how can a person be expected to become truly autonomous,
and to make good decisions?
It is impossible. And this kind of life always ends badly.
Thank God, that in my heart, I always believed that I would be healed.
It was this belief that always drove me to search, to search further and further, until I would find.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
(Matthew 7, 7-8)
and the NLT Bible version:
“Keep
on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and
you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.
(Matthew 7, 7)
My faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is what has healed the wounds of my soul,
restored my life, and filled it with love.
"Our faith life is a grace or a gift that brings us into a personal, loving union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
"Faith seeks understanding and is a friend of reason. Faith as a grace or gift from God makes it possible to gain some understanding of all that he has revealed to us, including the totality of his plan as well as the many mysteries of faith."
"Faith is a free, human act. Faith is a gift of God which enables us to know and love him. Faith is a way of knowing, just as reason is. But living in faith is not possible unless there is action on our part. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make a decision to respond to divine Revelation, and to follow through in living out our response."
(https://www.catholicstand.com/the-critical-difference-between-faith-and-belief/)
“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen”
(Heb 11:1).
It is often through frightening and challenging situations, where our faith in God is tested.
We might profess that we believe in Him, but do we really trust Him?
We have an active part to play in this, we have to dare to trust in Him in situations when we see clearly that our own capacities are not enough. We surrender to Him.
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 143).
"Man’s faculties make him capable of
coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to
be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal
himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this
revelation in faith.
(https://www.catholicstand.com/the-critical-difference-between-faith-and-belief/)
We were not created for comfort, we were created for greatness!
When we are faced with something that we do not want; a sickness, a loss of any kind, heartbreak, or when we find ourself in a desperate situation where we do not know what to do or how to even get through the day, or maybe when it is more vague, just a slight feeling of miscontent, boredom, emptiness, it is the right moment to try something that maybe we have never tried before.
Almost everybody is conditioned to manage the complexities of life themselves. Sometimes we have to seek professional help, but God, the Source of all life, perfect and powerful, are very often not sought out.
It is the humanity of Jesus that gives us the key.
It is the link between Him and us.
Since He is also God, is it not reasonable to take the risk, to let go of ourselves,
even for a while,
and just TRUST?
It does not render us passive, on the contrary.
To lean on God, to live in a conscious dependency relationship with Him, to surrender in every situation, to live in his presence, translates itself into eternal life, which starts here on earth.
People who live with serious illness, who live in constant incertitude, who do not have frames of references for how to live, because the previous thoughts that motivated their actions are no longer possible, they might find themselves living in a situation that feels like an empty space.
My heart goes out to any person that suffers, and God do not create suffering, but in those conditions, if He is sincerely called upon, He will show his power, and He will fill that empty space with good things.
That is the truth.
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
(Psalm 34:18 New International Version (NIV)
Completely surrender, saying: "I am week and powerless, I need your help;
JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!"
TRUST Him, give him everything of yourself.
Crosses, if accepted, are means, proposed to us, to move into close relationship
with God.
Jesus showed us that by his death, freely accepted, on The Cross: the Tree of Life.
Catholics who will always look for an easy way out, who are always relying on their own resources, or who put their full trust in professional people to always know what is best for them, have missed out on the biggest treasure of the Catholic Faith, the Power of the Cross.
Purification, Divinisation
Praying the Rosary regularly enlightens a person as to the mysteries of the Faith.
The Joyful, the Sorrowful, the Glorious mysteries, I pray those 15 decades every day.
In reading the Holy scripture every morning, and praying the Rosary, we do the summing up of
the Catholic catechism, because the Rosary is the entire Gospel in prayer.
Today I saw the link between the 4. Joyful mystery; The Presentation in the Temple, also called the
Purification in the Temple, and the 4.Sorrowfull mystery; the Carrying of the Cross.
In yesterdays second reading we were reminded that we are the temple of God's Holy Spirit.
We need constant purification, by our entire willpower we must be willing to undergo a deep
transformation, to clean ourselves, to rid ourselves of everything that blocks our relationship
with Our Creator, who desires to live in an intimate relationship with every one of us.
In this process, we have to be willing also, to confront every cross, small or big,
a current one or old ones that has not been dealt with.
This is often frightening, or heavy work, and unconsciously we want to avoid doing just that.
And alone, or even with a therapist, it can be risky.
But by truly aligning oneself with Jesus, as He willingly carried His Cross, after having been
tortured and knowing He was going to die an agonizing death, our deepest wounds can be healed.
The crucifixion of Jesus really took place, it is a historical fact. He underwent that, so that you and
me can be free, and find our way back to God.
In the 4. Glorious mystery, the Assumption of our Mother Mary, we consecrate ourselves to her, so
that she will always protect us, guide us, teach us, and correct us while all this is going on.
We are her children, and also her pupils.
What a perfect and beautiful religion!
The adversary
It is the adversary who hampers and obstructs our relationship with God,
it is for that reason really important to be aware and not to live in denial regarding his existence.
How does he operate, what does he look like, what does he feel like, what does he sound like?
He is cunning, but on closer examination we see that he is not intelligent, he is actually stupid.
He is often attractive looking, people fall for him because of it. But in reality he is ugly.
He is a liar, but in the end it is himself who gets caught in his own web of lies.
He thinks only of himself, but in the end it is he that suffers as a result.
He is very often not clear, he contradicts himself, in an effort to confuse.
He biggest weapon is FEAR, because he knows how efficient that is.
To live in a state of constant fear, anxiety, terror, tension, he knows that we will not be able to trust in the goodness and abundance that God has already given us.
For example to be afraid of not having enough, of not being succesfull enough, that is a triumph for him.
Another one is JEALOSY, now there, he is laughing, it is so easy for him..........
HOPELESSNESS, BITTERNESS, SHAME, all come directly from him.
He is completely aware of the existence of God, that is why he tries to block our path to Him,
since he is the opponent.
He is pitiful, we should really feel sorry for him.
But we must be very aware of his existence, because his biggest trick of all is to make us believe that he does not exist!
Conversion: resetting of configurations
Pride, arrogance
Humility
Turning the other cheek
Doing things for oneself
Helping others
Seeking admiration, worldly ambition
A desire for God
Judging, Interpreting, Condemning others
Looking at oneself
Instant gratification of biological needs
Self control
Putting material things and money first
Putting prayer first
Living in fear and anxiety
Always trusting God
Trusting the media, worldly authority
Believing in God
Follow your feelings
Follow the precepts of the Lord
Follow, imitate, others
Follow the straight line that leads to God
Bitterness
Forgive
Always trying to avoid pain
Accepting pain when it presents itself
Putting pressure on others and yourself
Respecting everyone's free will
There is much more...... and it is not complicated, but it is however, often really difficult.......
But it is worth it, because
When we move closer to God, God draws nearer to us.
When we move closer to God, God draws nearer to us.
Stop time
Today I will spend every moment with the Lord, who is timeless, eternal.
Every breath that I take today, is with Him, through Him and in Him.
I will still do all the things that I normally do, but with the awareness
that it is Him who puts the breath through my nostrils,
which provides oxygen, via my lungs, to my blood,
in order that my heart and all my organs can function, and
the cells of my body can continue to renew themselves.
The invitation offered to me of a
New Life in the Lord
I accept this invitation TODAY
Know your religion
If you are interested in it, learn about it.
So many Catholics do not know their religion.
What it is NOT:
It does not look, nor taste, like a soft, wobbly, bland pudding.
For example; some Catholics do not differentiate between married and unmarried couples, they pretend it is the same.If this is a way of trying to convey their "liberalism", they also reveal that they have not understood nor accepted the dogmas of the Catholic Church.
"but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
(John 4:14-19 New International Version (NIV)
A "pillar" of the parish, told me that
the strict rules on sexuality was a complete misunderstanding of the
religion!! "No, no, it is not that!" she told me.We must not put our trust in people, they do not know what they are saying or doing.
We are not being "judgemental" if we distinguish between people who are married
and those who are not, we are simply being factual, we are telling the truth.
If we pretend that everything is the same, then we have a very reduced capacity to differentiate
and discern.
Catechism of The Catholic Church:
II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY
2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The integrity of the person
2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It
tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.125
2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.126 "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."127
2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."128
2341 The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.
2342 Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.129 The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.
2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."130
2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is "an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society."131 Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information and an education that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.
2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.132 The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.133
The integrality of the gift of self
2346 Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness.
If people take it upon themselves to change or ignore the rules, they can no longer call themselves Catholics.
Psalm 19
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
Steadfastness
If or when something manifests itself in our lives, which by worldly standards are not
supposed to be possible, it is very important to keep going.
Because although Divine Life starts to grow in us, The Evil One has not gone away.
Watch out for the Fear, often the number One.
Stay in control, do not allow it to take you over.
You are safe now, God Himself is minding you.
Stay open, relaxed and alert, be always ready. Every moment is NOW.
Every time you feel the fear, see yourself on your death bed facing death in the face.
This is not being morbid, or wanting to die, it is simply reminding us of reality,
which helps us to put things in perspective now.
This is why we pray at the end of the "Hail Mary":
"pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death."
It is to remind us, so that we do not forget.
Look what happened to Peter. When Jesus walked on the water, Peter walked towards Him, also on the water, until he became afraid.
"25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Praise The Lord with song:
Pharisees and Scribes
For us Catholics, the Mother of Christ; the Mother of God, is also our Mother.
She is our model of how to be in the world.
She did not say a lot, she was certainly never seen on a pedestal,
her attitude and life spoke louder than words.
She is known for her readiness, her willingness.
One of the few things she said was:
"Do as He tells you" referring to her son Jesus, addressing herself to the servants
at the wedding in Cana when they ran out of wine.
Jesus is the perfect physician and therapist, there is never a risk that He will make a wrong diagnosis.
The spiritual teaching of the Catholic Church tells us to master all our feelings, reactions and impulses of all kinds.
Do not constantly justify or defend yourself
Forgive
Do not take revenge for any wrongdoings against you
Be present and willing to suffer whatever feelings you have, no matter what their origins.
Tolerate others when they put themselves up on their pedestals, because
there are still some pharisees in the Church, proclaiming the Word of God.
What is important to God is what is in a person's heart, what is the real motivation for the things
he does, including participation in the Church.
Titles such as "Your Reverend" "Your Excellence" etc. given to bishops and cardinals make me feel uncomfortable. For me it is a barrier.
Even now some people might be encouraged to make idols out of them.
We must not have false gods, we must not revere men, nor put our trust in them.
Only in God.
Idolatry is the worship of an idol or cult image, being a physical image, such as a statue, or a person, in place of God.
Our Lady's Magnificat:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
My Spirit rejoices in God my Saviour
For He has looked with favour on His lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
The Almighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His Name.
He has mercy on those who fear Him
In every generation.
He has shown the strength of His arm,
He has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
And has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of His servant Israel
For He has remembered His promise of mercy,
The promise He made to our fathers,
To Abraham and his children for ever.
"Just Google it"
The Catholic Faith is referred to as a Faith of Mystery.
In the world we live in now, there are no more mysteries. Anything that we do not know about,
we just Google it, and then we find out.
In the Creed we professe to "believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible."
Since Jesus's Kingdom is not of this world, in order to try and find it
we have to work in a way that is in contradiction to how things normally work.
It takes time, attention, patience and perseverance to come to uncover a bit of the Mystery;
but the little bit will be enough to motivate us to go on, however we will never "know it all".
Curiosity can also be a good motivator in this work.
Curiosity about who we are;
Psalm 8:4-8:
"What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas."
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas."
Mental Health
During this week I heard the result of a study on mental health announced on the news.
They said that people that attend mass regularly have better mental health than people that do not.
This is not surprising.
The underlying causes of most mental health problems are addressed by the teachings of the
Catholic Church.
We are told what to do about ALL manifestations of
Fear (Let go of all fear, Trust in me, Jesus said)
Guilt ( Confesse your guilt, and you will be pardoned)
Shame ( Jesus took our shame on Him)
Arrogance (Practice humility, Our Lady is our teacher)
Jealousy (Practice gratitude, jealousy is like a cancer)
Anger ( practice self control)
Bitterness (forgive others, and you yourself will also be forgiven for the wrong you have done)
etc.......
And what you end up with is an immense HOPE where depression and darkness cannot survive.
Yesterday there was yet another 2 mass shootings in America, in one of them the gunman even shot his own sister.
In response the people responsible for Law and Order over there are not so much talking about
white nationalism, as they are about the underlying real issue of mental health.
"The problem of mental illness is on the increase" they say.
This is not a mystery; it is the effect of living in a deeply sick and schizophrenic world.
In America for example Michelle Obama is highly respected and even revered as a role model for women, yet she is a fierce champion, crusader, promoter and protagonist for abortion.
Every human being knows in his heart that it is wrong to kill.
There are no grey areas; it is wrong.
To even put forward the notion that the killing of living babies in the womb is "health care" is sick, twisted and schizophrenic.
Now that the Irish people supported it by voting it into legislation also in Ireland,
(Ireland was the last bastion of human decency), means that it is all over.
Definition of schizophrenia:
Long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.
Since innocent, living, feeling, babies are being slaughtered legally in the hundreds of thousands every day in slaugherhouses called hospitals, I can't see how these mass shooting are any worse.
In fact, it is in line with it.
Kissing the face of God
What is Mass?
One complaint that one might hear, is that Mass is "boring".
That reminds me of a homily that a french priest held as he was addressing himself specifically to children during a Children's Mass.
He was telling them that when he was at Seminary in the south of France, (he was himself from Normandy ), all the young seminarians were very into rugby, they were all watching the rugby matches with great enthusiasm. But he himself found it completely boring, because he did not understand it, and did not know the rules.
Then someone took the time to explain it to him, and after that he got "into it".
So what is Mass?
Mass is A Sacrifice, An Offering, A Memorial, Worship, Celebration.
The sacred scriptures are read, and while some people's minds might drift away, thinking that they "have heard all those stories before a hundred times", they are only bored because they do not understand.
'For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I [a]should heal them.’
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I [a]should heal them.’
(Matthew 13:15 New King James Version (NKJV))
(Ezekiel 12:2 New King James Version (NKJV))
What we can eliminate as what Mass is not: it is not about making you feel anything.
(Another thing one might hear: "I do not feel anything, I get nothing out of Mass")
The truth is that if you are willing ( we have free will, why not make use of it)
to offer up the time of the duration of
the Mass by giving it your full attention, being awake and alert, the words pronounced at Mass
will, with continued perseverance, eventually penetrate our minds and finally enter into our hearts, where they will change us, we will be born again.
Because of the heavy machinery of the Mind; whose function it is to downloads programs and formats and contains our individual particular conditioning, preconceived ideas and concepts, we have to be mindful.
I am Willing, I am Here, I am Now ( I am not thinking about something else).
If you feel your own resistance to the Present, (what am I doing here, I have a lot of other things to do, etc.....) fine, stay with it, accept it, be with it.
If we find the other people in the congregation challenging, we offer that up as well, we are willing
to "suffer" it.
And even if we do not understand a lot of it, or even most of it, we know that it is normal,
the understanding (the enlightenment) will follow, gradually.
We have to go beyond the Mind, otherwise we will become victims of it.
(I do not want to fall victim to a machine!)
If we repeat; do and say the exact things that our parents did and said when we were little, without any reflection, then we are asleep, unconscious.
But those things have been downloaded into our minds, and they determine our decisions and our speech on a daily basis.
But are they relevant to us, here and now? Some of them might be, but think about it.
If my parents were atheists, does that mean that I have to be one too? Were my parents right about everything?
Some configurations of the mind are VERY heavy obstacles to attaining God:
Pride, Arrogance, Snobbery, Materialism, Ambition, Greed, Blaming others, Bitterness (Unforgiveness).
Other serious blockages are Feelings, for example: Fear, Guilt, Shame, Anger, Jealousy, Envy.
That is why confession is vitally important. We are forgiven!
Addictive behaviour, which is just basically overdoing things, (whether it is drink, food, sex, gambling, shopping, etc, just means that you have lost control of yourself.)
The ability to control oneself, is at the heart of the Catholic Faith's spirituality.
When we don't have instant gratification of our biological drives, for example, it helps us to center ourselves, in the deepest part of ourselves, where God resides.
The reason why Catholic priests are asked to sacrifice a sex life, is because the more they give of themselves, the more God can act in them. It is metaphysical.
The sad and tragic fact that so many of them have not been able to carry this through, is not because it is impossible, because the vast majority are in fact successful.
If/when suffering comes our way, any kind of pain or loss, included physical pain,
if we really accept it internally,
(we have to become aware of our defense mechanisms of avoiding pain, which have often
become unconscious and automatic)
we can come close to God.
(One of the principal teachings of Jesus's Stations of The Cross)
if we really accept it internally,
(we have to become aware of our defense mechanisms of avoiding pain, which have often
become unconscious and automatic)
we can come close to God.
(One of the principal teachings of Jesus's Stations of The Cross)
To master our feelings and reactions to things, people and events, on a daily basis,
is to be truly Mindfull.
The wisdom of the world often says "to follow your feelings"
I do not think it is a good idea to put one's trust in one's feelings, because
feelings change, ( I loved you, I do not love you anymore...)
feelings change, ( I loved you, I do not love you anymore...)
only God is constant. ( As it was in the Beginning, is Now, and ever shall Be, world without end)
The Catholic Faith says to trust only in God, and His Only Son; Jesus, our brother.
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