So much I wish to speak about, the wonder of our dear Lord...So much inside that yearns to be shared, spoken, and heard by friends... Friends who would dare to share, critique, and offer advice... So dearly, do we not all want the same thing?  To give all for the greater glory of our dear Beloved Lord.  For the Almighty, the most Mysterious of Beings- Our God and His mercy, what a wondrous Being that holds us so close, so tenderly!  Our sufferings so minimal, our sufferings tender lessons to bring us higher towards His union.  Glory be His name, wondrous is His love!   All praise is our Lord's name... all of us for our Lord..all of our Lord He gives to us, if we just become smaller in our being...if we just dive deeper into His living waters of live!

The joy of Jesus dying on the cross is He knows through His offering to The Father , Heaven opens to all people, starting with His precious mother.  Mother Mary is the perfected human through God's grace that shines for us all to embrace and follow always to Jesus.  She loved Jesus first and most deeply.  The love of the mother for her son is only eclipsed by the love of the Son for His mother.

"My daughter, we should never forget that our self love is the last to die. While we remain in this base world we will always be affected by its sensitive assaults and hidden operations; but God's grace is sufficient for us not to willingly succumb. This virtue of detachment is so excellent that the old man in us, the man of sin, nor the senses, nor human nature with its natural faculties were ever capable of possessing it. Not even the Son of God, who as a Son of Adam, although without any stain of sin, was completely free. He too confessed to His apostles that His soul was full of sadness; He too sought consolation; He too did not wish to die. However, He preserved His detachment, and we too must try to preserve it in imitation of Him, in times of trial and suffering, in the faculties possessed by grace."~ St. Padre Pio

God is so great!

A Post That Won't Last Long

Been awhile...many things happened and happening... 
Tired.
Tired of it all, again...



Never have I felt so old by hearing it so often from others who I hold respect for.  Why bother?  They see me as old and washed up; even  job hunting sees me as another too old and with too few skills... grey and brown..

all is just brown and grey ... all i can manage to hope for today is that maybe, just maybe, at my death God has mercy and let's me hide away in some little space on the distant edges of Heaven... if i trust in hope in this tiny little bit for I know He is love and mercy maybe this life will not be lived in vain? 

How i wish i could feel love, last few months has erased it from my remembering...i know it as an intellectual exercise, a memory that is hazily remembered when listening to a certain song, or saying a certain prayer. A flicker when out in public watching people, walking by with a smile shared. sad, that is the only time i can feel it for now, a stranger's glancing smile...  Instead I just add more lashes and pain to His Pain ... for His pain is my pain... sigh...so therefore i have to push on somehow even if it is dark and bleak and stuff the desire to just give up on it all away until it can be replaced with something more.

God's ways, God's time..never our own.  As it must be for us to be with Him.

Was to leave for my visit to Carmel last Friday but events occurred that lead to its delay.  At first I admit I was a bit frustrated because I was ready to leave town and start this next chapter of seeing where God might be calling me.  All things work out though.  Woke up the morning I would have left sick as a dog.  Not just any sick but a major ear infection which immediately made my hearing drop to levels I have not experienced in a few years.  Let's just say unless I am by the phone I cannot hear it ring, can barely hear a person's voice even when they are talking very loudly looking right at me.  Plus had a terrible chest cold and fever et al.  So glad I was not on the road trying to drive 1200 miles! 

My first thought was, "o crap!" as the pain stabbed my ear making my eye shut and face swell.  But no this is a blessing from my Lord who loves me.  He knows I have been faltering a lot lately.

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in ......you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace." - St. Augustine (The Confessions)

Catholic Hymn, Behold The Wood Of The Cross, sung by Jesuits, Good Friday

6 Reasons to Become a Carmelite, According to St. Teresa of the Andes

Woke up this morning praying and reflecting over the road before me.  

A few things I know for sure in my life at this moment, in this place.  I know that all I want no matter where I am mentally, physically, spiritually is to give everything to our God, to love Jesus as completely as this miserable sinner can in this world.  He will and does give me the grace to help me along and He does love me too much to not let me learn the hard lessons to see myself more truthfully.  So many wondrous blessings my dear Lord gives me and has given me, most I have no clue because I am blind still in my heart.  Lord, please open my eyes, humble my heart, teach me, heal me so I may love fully as You love. 

I know I have not told you all about my latest trip!  I will but not in this post other then to say it was a slice of Heaven on Earth.  Never have I meet such a delightfully joyful group of women,  Immediately I felt comfortable and at home.  None of those shy, nervous uncomfortable moments I normally feel adjusting to new people.  They brought out the laughing, joyful, prayerful side of me.  The Carmel's silence and schedule allowed me to reopen that prayerful side.  That distracted part that too easily gets lost out here in the world, was pushed away by the routine and what a joy to have the day centered on the most important thing- God, Jesus, Mary,..listening, praying, talking to Him within.  So easy to return to that place within and to open myself more fully to Jesus' within.  

How rare and hard it is for me in the world to do that no matter how hard I try here. No matter how I ask for Blessed Mary's help.  Yes when I first came back it was easy,, but also I was learning and know so much more now and wish to get closer, ever more united with our dear sweet Jesus.


 Carmel is where God comes to unite with you..  Heard that quote in a movie I saw for the first time yesterday. It struck me. Yes, that describes what my entire time there was.  IN this place so humble, hidden, is where God comes to you.  Not that HE does not anywhere else, but to those who are not aware it is the way their life is lived.  The striving to always remove the hindrances of the self that block our seeing and hearing God who is within us all. To give everything joyfully.  That is what scared me.  I know I want to give all and to give up all for that hope of being ever closer to God to do whatever He desires, however... It scared me for the reality of who I am and my own laziness.  What of my cushy things?

Carmelite Sisters

?

I thirst, oh Lord for Your love.

  I thirst dear loving Master for your guidance.

I thirst dear Jesus to be made clean and pure.

I thirst dear Lord to serve You for all my days.

I thirst dear Lord for healing so for no more I may hinder Your gentle grace from entering my heart.

I thirst to do Thy will forever.

Glory be to You Almighty Holy Trinity.

 Here is His body.....

Here is His body.....

Here IS His Body!


Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Friday~Birth of St John the Baptist

Sometimes a thought comes to you through an quiet inspiration, other times it comes through a trusted person and sometimes it comes from multiple people, and avenues.  What to do what it?  Is it something I wish to delve into personally?  Something to share in this medium?  

If I share this story theme will it help another avoid the mistakes I made?  Will it shine a light on someone who may be in a similar trap I found myself in?  Things to take to prayer,  things to discern.  I see how it could be helpful for it shows how easily I was lead astray by an evil, vile force and shows that only through the awesome love and power of God I was saved.

Through this experience I have an unshakable faith that when it comes to fighting overt evil God always (always!!) wins. Through this experience I have no fear of the dark ones for I know I can call upon Mother Mary and the Holy Trinity in belief and faith and they will fight for a child of theirs.

Towards the Light I run,

Stumbling,

Falling,

Confused, I lose the path.

Towards the Light I stumble,

The closer Your perfume the more your Light burns.

Roads, paths, back alley-ways

Scar the trek ravaged while lost.

Found, the Moon directs the eyes

The injurious paths of past,

To grow the wheat must die..

To live the past must die,

To grow the sin must die.

Hope, my only salvation.

Light, my only yearned for guide.

Sure footed I stumble and fall.

Sure footed sins from past faced.

To grow I must fall,

To live I must die.

From Eucharistic Reflection (see website link below).  A marvelous daily e-mail site, it has become the first thing I open when checking e-mail.  Always beautiful pictures, reflective quotes, and a constant joy. :

"No traveling soul can worthily love its God, but when this soul does everything it possibly can, and trusts in divine mercy, why should Jesus reject it?  Didn't He command us to love God in accordance with our strength?  When you have given and consecrated everything to God, why do you fear?" - St Pio (1916)  DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY ‘I stand as a beggar before the mercy of God, praying that He will heal all the infirmities of my soul’.  St Bruno St Faustina:  "When I steeped myself in prayer, I was transported in spirit to the Chapel, where I saw the Lord Jesus, exposed in the Monstrance. In place of the Monstrance I saw the glorious face of the Lord, and He said to me: "What you see in reality, these souls see through faith. Oh, how pleasing to Me is their great faith! You see, although there appears to be no trace of life in Me, in reality it is present in its fullness in each and every Host. But for Me to be able to act upon the soul, the soul must have faith. O how pleasing to Me is living faith!"   May 1, 2011 - BEATIFICATION DAY POPE JOHN PAUL II "Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son." Pope John Paul II World Youth Day 2002, Toronto  Pope Blessed John Paul II, ora pro nobis! This Eucharistic Reflection is archived at http://truthhimself.blogspot.com

Today my Grandparents, Great Grandparents on my Mom's side and my aunts and uncles are smiling in Heaven as Pope John Paul is made a Blessed .  Oh how I remember the joy when a Polish priest was named the Pope!  Such sufferings the Polish people endured and thier faith remained strong even as the Soviet Communist tried to crush them.

They did not falter, they knew where their trust and hope lay..it lived in Jesus!

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  Truly He is risen!

And in His infinite divine mercy He freed them, and all of us, from the bondage of those who try to break the faith of those in the world.

Pray for us Papa John Paul the Great, pray for us to our glorious Jesus! 

His fortune was foretold by the great poet Juliusz Slowacki, one century earlier:

«In the midst of discord
God sounds a mighty bell
He opens the throne to a Slavic Pope…
Much force is needed
to reconstruct the world of the Lord
this is why a Slavic Pope is coming
a brother to all mankind…».

Holy Week starts tomorrow, well, this morning..Palm Sunday..the day where Jesus is meet with great adoration while they plan his death.  Yet, selfishly I am drawn to my own path of life.  Where does my Love wish for me go?  Where will I find my true self and joy that God desires for me?  Who knows?  The journey of discernment.  The only difficulty my own because I always hear a ticking clock behind my back ticking away.

How wondrous is His Love, so total, so complete, so encompassing...how much I desire to live for Jesus, for my Father Almighty.  At times I am thrilled and at peace at visiting and living with the Carmelites, then as suddenly I am filled with a fear.  Fear that it is not for me, I will not find it to be where my home is...Fear about my family.  I know that God comes first and family second and I need to trust God will care for them if I follow His wish for me.  I also know that my joy comes from listening and knowing what makes me happy is what God made me for, for my happiness will hopefully start to mirror the being God created me to be.

Carmelites appeal to the desire to live completely for God, a radical, counter cultural way giving all for Him and for the people of this world.  But I also am drawn to MH and the active role they take directly with people, but is that even something I am capable of?  Well, nothing I can do is possible except through God's grace, nothing is possible without God's merciful grace to guide us to fulfill His and our own mission on this earth.   And what if I stumble upon another way?  LOL, the wonderful, crazy journey I am now walking interiorly.  What is my joy?  Who am I really?  Where am I going?  Is all this some selfish fear I am acting upon?  Some desire for a family of my own outside of my own loving family? And more and more questions if I allow myself to pause too long on them.

This is why I try to live in the moment and not think too much beyond this minute, this moment that is before me.  To trust implicitly in Jesus' loving hand and heart.  Let His will be done, for He will guide me to that which is best for me and for Him.  Let not my fear hinder me in doing His will and that which will unite me ultimately in what He created me to be.

TRUE TRANSFORMATION

You will be wounded.  Your work is to find God and grace inside the wounds.  This is why Jesus told Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side” (John 20:27).  Thomas was trying to resolve the situation mentally, as men usually do, so Jesus had to force direct physical contact with human pain—the pain of Jesus, Thomas’ capacity for empathy with that pain, and very likely with Thomas’ own denied pain.  Deep healing has to happen corporeally and emotionally, and not just abstractly.

Jesus wanted Thomas to face and feel in his body the tragedy of it all—and then know it was not tragedy at all!   In that order.  That is how wounds become sacred wounds.  This is the pattern of all authentic conversion in the Christian economy of grace: not around, not under, not over, but through the wound we are healed and saved.

From On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for Men,
p. 256, day 247

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, EWTN sung by Angelina

Holy Father, give us today our daily bread.  Give us Jesus always during our brief stay in this land of exile.  Give Him to us and grant that we may be increasingly worthy to welcome Him into our hearts.     -St. Padre Pio 

Please, please, please Dear Father, for the sake of Jesus' sorrowful Passion, bless us with Thy grace and Fatherly love so we may be so united with dear Jesus we never have a thought of our own wants, or needs but always joyously, lovingly do only that which pleases Thou and soothes our dear Savior's hurting heart. So that with Jesus we may bring the conversion of all sinners' and return this world to one of glorifying, praising, thanking, and loving only our merciful, loving God  We humbly ask Thou this in the name and for the love of Jesus. please hear our cry. Please heal us so we may do Thy Will....for into Thy hands' we commend our Spirit.  Have mercy on us... have mercy on me.

Blessed Feast of St Joseph!!  Here is a poem by a Sister that always pops into my head when I think about St Joseph and makes me cry…I am a total crybaby when it comes to sweet, loving emotions.

 Limbo

by Sister Mary Ada, OSJ

The ancient greyness shifted

Suddenly and thinned

Like mist upon the moors

Before a wind.

An old, old prophet lifted

A shining face and said:

“He will be coming soon.

The Son of God is dead;

He died this afternoon.”

A murmurous excitement stirred

All souls.

They wondered if they dreamed –

Save one old man who seemed

Not even to have heard.

And Moses, standing,

Hushed them all to ask

If any had a welcome song prepared.

If not, would David take the task?

And if they cared

Could not the three young children sing

The Benedicite, the canticle of praise

They made when God kept them from perishing

In the fiery blaze?

A breath of spring surprised them,

Stilling Moses’ words.

No one could speak, remembering

The first fresh flowers,

The little singing birds.

Still others thought of fields new ploughed

Or apple trees

All blossom-boughed.

Or some, the way a dried bed fills

With water

Laughing down green hills.

The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam

On bright blue seas.

The one old man who had not stirred

Remembered home.

And there He was

Splendid as the morning sun and fair

As only God is fair.

And they, confused with joy,

Knelt to adore

Seeing that He wore

Five crimson stars

He never had before.

No canticle at all was sung

None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song,

A silent man alone

Of all that throng

Found tongue –

Not any other.

Close to His heart

When the embrace was done,

Old Joseph said,

“How is Your Mother,

How is Your Mother, Son?”

Lent is once again here…later this year but here it is.  Before Lent I prayed for Jesus to show me what weakness out of my many He would like for me to really focus and work on this year.  Distractions….

Over the past several months I slipped into some bad habits, some lazy habits.  I allowed myself to be mislead to not pray as deeply as I ought, mislead by seeking comfort in things that were not of God.  Instead of seeking Jesus for my emotional whatevers I wasted time online doing silly things.  Anxiety attacks returned and instead of trusting Jesus will help me I allowed myself to miss Sunday Mass knowing… knowing the sin and that it doesn’t matter how many daily Masses I go to they do not make up for Sunday Mass.  Mea Culpa….

Still fighting the panic attacks but forcing myself to make it to Mass regardless how it feels before getting there.  Things always settle down once Divine Liturgy starts, Jesus and Mary calm the inner “aaahhhhh’s”.  Confession is wonderful to help on this also. 

Lent this year also involves 40 Days for Life, had to miss the kick off since I was working out of town, but have had a wonderful day one day was there almost 8 hours and have done several unsigned hours just when time allowed.  It is good for it is to help stop abortion and also helps foster prayer and conversation.

Lent the first week was actually surprisingly good and graced.  10 days in let’s see what path I am lead towards and how well I try to stick to the metanoia attempts hopefully through God’s helping grace…