Receiving

 Behind every injury there is a story to be told. I tripped on uneven ground on the way to the bus stop to get a new glucometer. I was flung forward full tilt at the edge of the hightway in the crosswalk. A bystander asked if I was alright and asked if I needed help, then proceeded to struggle with me until I could regain my feet. This same thing happened months earlier with more severe consequences on the way back from the drug store past the post office on an uneven piece of sidewalk.

Both palms of my hands were scraped and the finger next to my pinky finger got sprained and gouged a bit. It is swollen and bruised, but I mananged to get back home after walking many blocks. I had bought some bandaging and tended to the injuries. 

Being Lent, I suspected something may happen to injure me, and I wasn't disappointed. I offered the injuries to God for the souls in purgatory and those who had most need of His mercy and felt approbation and a sense that in accepting the injuries I had fulfilled His desires.

There is so much deliberate sin and selfish preoccupation in the world, that He has almost no choice but to accept our little sacrifices for the needs of souls.

People have almost no clue that misfortune accompanies a christian walk im plicitly. In the season of Lent, we are asked tobe willing to suffer for souls and to fast for their needs, spiritual and temporat. Those who take that need to heart may or may not connect the two, but the connection exists.

Jesus offered to suffer for us and was crucified when He made His offering to the Father for our salvation. He did'nt hesitate, though His humanity cried out at what He saw the Father asked of Him. He has few friends willing to go as far as He was willing to go, and, after being nailed to the cross and the cross fixed into the ground, He endured all the agonies of the crucifixion.

There is so much need in the world. Ultimately, our portion of atonement must be equal to His own, but we are not able to offer much that would suffice. He knew our limitations and allowed Himself to make up the difference as the Son of God. The intercessory hermit living in silence and solitude sacrifices everything he can and everything he knows would be meritorius. There is finality in the offerings of men to God. Just as I was spared a worse event, I did not escape suffering, just accepted what happened, and He made sure there was someone to assist me in my hour of need.

Within my resources, there is enough to take care of my needs, and I actively participate. Pray for me to be able to pray for you if you have needs. The Lord's providence is not skimpy. We see only a very dim reality, but accepted when we would rather be enjoying our lives has undisclosed efficacy all the way around.

Signs and Wonders

If you don't want to do penance, I will do it for you. That is the statement a monk proclaims when he wears his habit, and it speaks not only to lay persons but to every cleric, priest, hermit or monk on the planet.

Perhaps that unmasks the power of Christ in the world. Think of how many souls that is, and it seems apparent that it is prodigious, but God knows how effective it is when EVERY person fasts, denies himself or dedicates time to prayer and solitude in addition to seeking God in a peaceful moment.

People like donald trump have no way to imagine the power locked down tight in every human heart, the longing and the sheer yearning for life, peace happiness and satisfaction of all human need.

Truth will triumph and people will prevail over every insurmountable objective. Evil is so short-sighted that it cannot conceive of such a condition, and therefore it does not because it cannot. Stubborn people who do the unthnkable have no conception what God knows or can do, until plans fall through and evil is defeated prostrate in impotence in the depths of the earth.

We should also understand that Christ's victory means evil will not exist as far as anyone in Christ is concerned. The shrieks of terror and graosn of impotence will be silenced so that God may speak to every person unimpeded. After all, the peace of God is Himself descended upon us and mingling with us in our very substance.

I am left to think these thoughts but be unable to speak them, so I rely on Him to speak these few words to the hearts most needing to hear them. May the comfort of Christ in the midst of His passion comfort you in your sufferings.

Signs are wonders of His grace and human faith.

Walking

 The peace we kindle in our souls is meant ti ignite a world to seek peace and rest in God.We can offer our hopes and prayers within our hearts and give it away soul by soul. Peace does not appear where animoisty and mistrust infiltrate. 

A life dedicated to God, which embraces peace and solitude nourishes silence where the voice of God is heard. The peace of God is more devatating than any other force in the universe. I yearn for the peace of God because I am immersed in it fully; but it is not meant merely for my own gratification, neither is it premised upon self aggrandisement. In my heart I kneel before God who seeks to unite me to Himself, even in the flickering of my flame, a light in peril which continues burning only because it pleases God.

Why should I not give thanks or erupt in love, speaking words meant for God to hear? And if I speak in silences and rest in His light, it is for His desire to be fulfilled, feeble as it may be.

I await the miracles of lives dedicated and consecrated to Jesus. They always amaze me, the way a painting does which illuminates a heart in shadows so the world might see.

We can move hearts with our love, and our peace can make a soldier throw away his gun, and silences drones and bombs and the futility of selfish ego which can only destroy. But the true , real peace is in God in spite of the terrible storms which convulse the earth. The earth itself may split to the core and convulse in explosions of fire, yet it can quietly flow in silence doing nothing more at our feet than to illuminate a darkness we did not know lurked within. To be sure, that sound is weak, like a starving kitten freezing cold. But we can bring the warmth of our lovingpeace to whoever needs it. We only need to be there free.

Peace is very near us, like seeking light.

Trust

 My Jesus, I trust in you. For every temptaion, compulsion orphobia, this magnificent little prayer is the key to  unlocing grace that will exactly counter whateve troubles you, and leaves you standing in peace.

In an age when governments become enemies and wars threaten all the time, praying this prayer is the only profitable avenue of action to take. Put your whole self in His arms and offer Him all your love. He who will give Jesus his love will not be left without relief.

Rest

We may participate in the passion of Christ or the suffering of our best friend, or we can participate in the passion of Jesus, which is a case unto itself.

 Sometimes our friend shares his suffering, and we do not feel it, but we are sad noentheless because he suffers.

There is enough suffering to go around; it will never be lacking. We do not necesarilly come to know the cause of our sorrows, or we feel the sadness without relief and without knowing why. But it is a universal constant that is always present, seemingly, without rhyme or reason.

All of us have sinned, so there is always that to postulate as the cause of our suffering. If we offer a prayer for the relief of our friend, it is a blessing when he is relieved, and a good man is glad when suffering ends and joy returns. Blessed is the man with a friend who offers himself for his friend :) +

Sinai

I found bliss in the strangest place; in the middle of a strong temptation, My Lord revealed Himself in a close embrace that inumdated my senses.

He is the God of the unexpected, the God who revealks HImself in ambushes, sweeping us off our feet, weightless for all our cares.

Whatever you need, He knows about it and provides Himself as an answer to all the questions fears and doubts with thich the enemy torments us.

To be lost is a fear that saps all the joy form ouir souls, but God's supply is infinite, and so our lives can never know borned or ennui; His prsence is all encompassing.

May you feel caress.

Moses was attracted to a burning tree that was not consumed.

God reveals Himself to us so we will let hIm consume us.

Abyssal

There is a moment that comes into every life, when a person discovers he has been standing at the knife's edge of the abyss. Blessed the man for whom prayer is sufficient, efficacious for the moment.

The best prayer is the one in that exact moment, where the heart earnestly appeals to God to love him and urgently seeks to be forgiven sins and to advance beyond retribution to reach out and touch His Face.

Once the storm has passed, peace returns, but one is not the same. All advances in spiritual life are after that moment when we have died in that moment.

People have wondered for as long as there have been human beings, what is death? We know it is a change, but that does terrify as much losing all control over our existance. There should be no fear in someone who has stood at the lip of the abyss and seen all the way across the abyss to Jesus, earnestly waving for us to cross over and stand at His side. 

Some have been and come back, but they are not the same; that person has been changed by God so that we prepared to transcend, having left discomfort behind.

Most of what we experience in life is of a nature we can do nothing about. The tiny point in abyss remains the moment of terror when we emerge in the light broad vistas of Jesus. Perhaps that is why those who have sought peace and solitude found them on a high mountainside, or a great sweeping ocean where the waves curl in ceaselessly.