Perspective

Morning prayer will do one thing for you; put you into proper context with God and the universe. One can hardly complain that He seems so distant if you never stand before Him in your will and intent. For many, that context matters very little; as long as one wakes up in the morning, and gets to sleep at night with a reasonable expectation that that will be the way it is.

For the most part, that IS the way it is. Yet, terrible things happen right around the corner from us, and there is little or no disturbance in our awareness unless we read the news about what happened.

It is sad when we hear nothing from our loved ones and close acquaintances. One wonders why  we slipped out of the focus of those who mean so much to us. Again ,if we are not conscious of others, and not present in any notecable way, we will slip away. It is like being the sole occupant of a sailboat, and gone for a swim, while fully rigged and steering itself at 10 or 15 knots; it is very difficult to catch up to the boat and get back on, and if there is no one else around on whom we might call, our fate might be suddenly all too disconcerting to us in our ordinary reality.

Jesus does not want us to slip away from Him, He does not want to be forgotten any more than we do. The time to care about the lives of others is now, not ten days from now while we dabble in a polynesian paradise. To put it another way, "The sounds of love don't just happen, you have to make them."

Perspective

Morning prayer will do one thing for you; put you into proper context with God and the universe. One can hardly complain that He seems so distant if you never stand before Him in your will and intent. For many, that context matters very little; as long as one wakes up in the morning, and gets to sleep at night with a reasonable expectation that that will be the way it is.

For the most part, that IS the way it is. Yet, terrible things happen right around the corner from us, and there is little or no disturbance in our awareness unless we read the news about what happened.

It is sad when we hear nothing from our loved ones and close acquaintances. One wonders why  we slipped out of the focus of those who mean so much to us. Again ,if we are not conscious of others, and not present in any notecable way, we will slip away. It is like being the sole occupant of a sailboat, and gone for a swim, while fully rigged and steering itself at 10 or 15 knots; it is very difficult to catch up to the boat and get back on, and if there is no one else around on whom we might call, our fate might be suddenly all too disconcerting to us in our ordinary reality.

Jesus does not want us to slip away from Him, He does not want to be forgotten any more than we do. The time to care about the lives of others is now, not ten days from now while we dabble in a polynesian paradise. To put it another way, "The sounds of love don't just happen, you have to make them."

Son Rising

Can one lone man defy and stand against the prayers and aspiration lifted up to God?
The answer to that question is a resounding "NO!". 

The prayers of the just are full of the power of GOd because it is His Will that all people live in peace, and get along with each other.

Because He continues, so do we, and if we turn away from His Will, we suddenly find ourselves trapped in quicksand from which there is no escape.

All men come to an end, and are answerable to God, and this Will, shall not be overcome by the mere human whinings of sick men. 

God cleans up the festering wounds of the world, soothes our pain, and dispels our fears and unfounded misgivings. In spite of evil and selfish men, I am still here to praise the Lord, because it is the life of eternity to praise our God.

Son Rising

Can one lone man defy and stand against the prayers and aspiration lifted up to God?
The answer to that question is a resounding "NO!". 

The prayers of the just are full of the power of GOd because it is His Will that all people live in peace, and get along with each other.

Because He continues, so do we, and if we turn away from His Will, we suddenly find ourselves trapped in quicksand from which there is no escape.

All men come to an end, and are answerable to God, and this Will, shall not be overcome by the mere human whinings of sick men. 

God cleans up the festering wounds of the world, soothes our pain, and dispels our fears and unfounded misgivings. In spite of evil and selfish men, I am still here to praise the Lord, because it is the life of eternity to praise our God.

L'ordinaire

It is the First Friday of Lent, and a moment of exaltation encourages me to write, though I feel nothing needs expressing. Youtube has recently published videos about the experience of crucifixion and the anatomical details of it.

The Lord may move and inspiration holds a moment of exaltation, which is otherwise unwarranted at the moment. I am nothing and amount to nothing more than that, so God can can write as He pleases through me without fear of being tainted by my selfulness.

I need to take care because the words are His, and the meaning must be revealed to whomever reads what I say. Light accompanies His words, and joy inhabits His exaltation.

This is different from what He experienced on Golgotha, where no one was listening to what He had to say. A man crucified with Him asks Jesus to forgive Him his sins, and Jesus assures him he will be with Him in paradise that day. We must remember that the man was reputed to be a thief, hence his end was not a swift removal of is head, but a slow and miserable death of crucifixion.

We must take care to hold His words close to our hearts, because they can be the cause of our encountering Him spirit to Spirit in ecstasy, and if so, then He is dealing with us not as criminals, but children, sometimes sinners, sometimes little ones who need to cuddle up.

Yet you might wonder how a person can see Christ's bleeding nails and hands and feet and feel  like cuddling at all. He felt love for all on earth in all of time in the moments He hung from the nails of the cross. He hastens to draw us close as possible  in a spare moment of love, obviously from God, and we may wonder why we should deserve it at all.

Certainly St. Padre Pio wondered, for he was pierced by nails in the hands and feet, and most especially in His side, replicating how He could be alive and pierced with nails in His Body at the same time. We can only tremble at the love still hidden which propelled the saint into the heart of the miracle of accepting His gift.

From the moment it happened, history was changed, and hearts opened to an unaccustomed love, gazing on the compliant one who walked his convent with crucified feet and side, which, during the elevation of the Mass was stretched and constrained in such a way as to hurt to the fullest extent endurable.

Padre Pio, miraculously in my opinion, simply saw his role as to be in love with God and His children and an ordinary man in every respect, who fell into an abyss of hurt and pain shared by every human being on earth. It was a shared agony, part Jesus, part ordinary persons, yet the miseries endured by so many is very similar to the imposition of the cross on the shoulders of the condemned to die by crucifixion.

So, how, without the pain and bleeding wounds, does an ordinary man who nonetheless suffers  according to the canonical seasons, manage to suffer as much as he can, yet be as plain and ordinary?

It is given as a gift, like all His gifts, enabled by His grace and Will, so that it is no difficulty to suffer as if nailed to the cross. In an eclipse, a man stands in darkness as the heavens arrange themselves for a time so that in certain places the sun's light hidden by the moon in its passage around the world. As He lives in us each, a life is lived together with us, Christ's life, from conception to the laying in the tomb, with everything that was lived in His time.

He lives in us each, in every little moment and every event so that our life and His passion are woven together in a marvellous way, so that if consecrated by our desire that it should be converted by the Lord for us, may be an act of forgiveness and healing and entrance into heaven at a last moment.

A hermit lives very consciously overshadowed by the Lord, and sometimes even in a solitary moment, exalted, lifted deliberately above the ordinary, he might be offered by that same Lord to the Father for us all. There was very certainly a blending of the natural and supernatural in the life of Padre Pio, who was so often quite accessible to the ordinary anonymous person who encountered him. In the hermit, as a temple in which to pray, praise and adore, on occasion abided together with what can be seen by no man, yet might still be encountered like a great warmth unexpectedly, to touch a life so that it is no longer the same any more.

A hermit prays, and works and on occasion might encounter others so their spiritual needs coincide, and some one observing from outside, might not notice anything at all the least different at all. Yet the very pain he might endure and might desire can be a consolation and a blessed encounter of joy to the man or woman whom God called to be together with Him, hermit, hermitess or whatever reality He might wish to impose.

The man's life goes on as it did for St. Padre Pio, consecrated to an ordinary life and the extrardinary life of priest and monk and hermit all at once, so that the summation of it all is only possible and visible, when Christ chooses to reveal it.

There is no need for us beyond these truths to be made an obvious kind of relic or sacramental. Yet, as surely as my holy water vial, I contain much that He has not yet revealed, for if He had, I might not have committed the sins I did in my weakness and stupidity. Mea maxima culpa. Seeing what I do see, already I weep before Him whose love I did not recognize. 

May you not need to be crucified in order to see theses realities in your own life, and my He be lavish with His consolations, for He is willing to pamper and indulge us in His holy Will, so that we might be glad to forget everything in order to be immersed in Him alone forever.

L'ordinaire

It is the First Friday of Lent, and a moment of exaltation encourages me to write, though I feel nothing needs expressing. Youtube has recently published videos about the experience of crucifixion and the anatomical details of it.

The Lord may move and inspiration holds a moment of exaltation, which is otherwise unwarranted at the moment. I am nothing and amount to nothing more than that, so God can can write as He pleases through me without fear of being tainted by my selfulness.

I need to take care because the words are His, and the meaning must be revealed to whomever reads what I say. Light accompanies His words, and joy inhabits His exaltation.

This is different from what He experienced on Golgotha, where no one was listening to what He had to say. A man crucified with Him asks Jesus to forgive Him his sins, and Jesus assures him he will be with Him in paradise that day. We must remember that the man was reputed to be a thief, hence his end was not a swift removal of is head, but a slow and miserable death of crucifixion.

We must take care to hold His words close to our hearts, because they can be the cause of our encountering Him spirit to Spirit in ecstasy, and if so, then He is dealing with us not as criminals, but children, sometimes sinners, sometimes little ones who need to cuddle up.

Yet you might wonder how a person can see Christ's bleeding nails and hands and feet and feel  like cuddling at all. He felt love for all on earth in all of time in the moments He hung from the nails of the cross. He hastens to draw us close as possible  in a spare moment of love, obviously from God, and we may wonder why we should deserve it at all.

Certainly St. Padre Pio wondered, for he was pierced by nails in the hands and feet, and most especially in His side, replicating how He could be alive and pierced with nails in His Body at the same time. We can only tremble at the love still hidden which propelled the saint into the heart of the miracle of accepting His gift.

From the moment it happened, history was changed, and hearts opened to an unaccustomed love, gazing on the compliant one who walked his convent with crucified feet and side, which, during the elevation of the Mass was stretched and constrained in such a way as to hurt to the fullest extent endurable.

Padre Pio, miraculously in my opinion, simply saw his role as to be in love with God and His children and an ordinary man in every respect, who fell into an abyss of hurt and pain shared by every human being on earth. It was a shared agony, part Jesus, part ordinary persons, yet the miseries endured by so many is very similar to the imposition of the cross on the shoulders of the condemned to die by crucifixion.

So, how, without the pain and bleeding wounds, does an ordinary man who nonetheless suffers  according to the canonical seasons, manage to suffer as much as he can, yet be as plain and ordinary?

It is given as a gift, like all His gifts, enabled by His grace and Will, so that it is no difficulty to suffer as if nailed to the cross. In an eclipse, a man stands in darkness as the heavens arrange themselves for a time so that in certain places the sun's light hidden by the moon in its passage around the world. As He lives in us each, a life is lived together with us, Christ's life, from conception to the laying in the tomb, with everything that was lived in His time.

He lives in us each, in every little moment and every event so that our life and His passion are woven together in a marvellous way, so that if consecrated by our desire that it should be converted by the Lord for us, may be an act of forgiveness and healing and entrance into heaven at a last moment.

A hermit lives very consciously overshadowed by the Lord, and sometimes even in a solitary moment, exalted, lifted deliberately above the ordinary, he might be offered by that same Lord to the Father for us all. There was very certainly a blending of the natural and supernatural in the life of Padre Pio, who was so often quite accessible to the ordinary anonymous person who encountered him. In the hermit, as a temple in which to pray, praise and adore, on occasion abided together with what can be seen by no man, yet might still be encountered like a great warmth unexpectedly, to touch a life so that it is no longer the same any more.

A hermit prays, and works and on occasion might encounter others so their spiritual needs coincide, and some one observing from outside, might not notice anything at all the least different at all. Yet the very pain he might endure and might desire can be a consolation and a blessed encounter of joy to the man or woman whom God called to be together with Him, hermit, hermitess or whatever reality He might wish to impose.

The man's life goes on as it did for St. Padre Pio, consecrated to an ordinary life and the extrardinary life of priest and monk and hermit all at once, so that the summation of it all is only possible and visible, when Christ chooses to reveal it.

There is no need for us beyond these truths to be made an obvious kind of relic or sacramental. Yet, as surely as my holy water vial, I contain much that He has not yet revealed, for if He had, I might not have committed the sins I did in my weakness and stupidity. Mea maxima culpa. Seeing what I do see, already I weep before Him whose love I did not recognize. 

May you not need to be crucified in order to see theses realities in your own life, and my He be lavish with His consolations, for He is willing to pamper and indulge us in His holy Will, so that we might be glad to forget everything in order to be immersed in Him alone forever.

Rapture

There is a reason God warns us about chastisements; chastisements are meant to urge us to repent of sins that offend God, which we have committed. We risk hell if we never try to make up for our sins. Everyone will undergo a chastisement; there are no "get out of jail free" cards.

As such, "raptures" may happen, and some may be spared the full brunt of what others have to endure full force, but no one passes through the chastisement unscathed. Another meaning of the word "rapture" is from the Church and refers to being caught up suddenly into ecstasy by God to experience Him in an unprecedented way, and the "seizure", or being suddenly caught up in God is like a strong grip. In ecstasy, we remain in the body but it feels nothing, and is impervious to external stimuli, and afterward, a person may or may not remember much, though in the lives of many great saints, great discourses were experienced by the holy, in part, that was the reason for the union with God; so that some truth or extraordinary teaching may be imparted faithfully. God always has a purpose in everything He does, and if He causes  us to be caught up to Him in ecstasy, or at a moment of universal judgement, you can be sure He serious about what He does.

I do not get excited by such spiritual occurrences, and even though I welcome consolations, I do not go out of my way for them. The deeper the consolation, in my experience, even deeper suffering follows.

Besides all that, we are told to love and trust in God; either you trust Him or you don't, and if you have the humility by which to see, you will understand.

Some will live through the end of things, and witness the resurrection of the dead, and the Kingdom of God coming.

Before the demons are unleashed on the world, pray. Pray that their power is reduced, and that souls are safe and never separated from God. Beyond all else, there is nothing greater than to belong to God. 

THOSE WHO LOVE GOD BELONG TO GOD AND HE WILL RETAIN THOSE WHO LOVED HIM IN LIFE, AND PERSEVERED IN DEATH.

Unless you are blind deaf and dumb, you know evil is roaming about the earth, looking for someone to devour, and judging by the effects evil has had on the earth, one must come away stunned by the vileness and violence of the attacks. Pray that nothing worse befalls the earth and its inhabitants.

The mitigations we are granted in life, spring from the pure love of God toward us. His consolations are the joy that surrounds God in heaven and wherever He is. Just as a man who has come in from the rain enjoys a warm fire, so too, souls who love God enjoy growing closer to Him, and it is a case of fire growing stronger as the fire gets more powerful, and we dry off standing by the heat. Consolations are of the Spirit, and are not understood by ordinary people until God makes us understand. The realization of what consolations are, are amazing to us, and that is why we enjoy them only a short time, and He prevents us from trying to make them happen or intensify. There is only so much we can experience in the first place, and until we have matured spiritually, we cannot progress farther in our mystical journey. It is called "mystical" because it is a mystery only God can allow us to understand. If we think we understand, we should humble ourselves and wait for God.

In times past, a little boy would wear short pants when he was little, and longed for the day he could wear the "grown up" pants of a grown young man. When he was given his first pair, he was so proud to accept the love of his family and their welcoming as a maturing child on his way to manhood. It is too bad that isn't a tradition anymore. Experiencing the acceptance of a loving family is a transformative moment in a child's life, and it is no difference among those initiated into the mysteries of God's life.

Be At Peace