Close out the Year 2010

Well here it is 2011! I will start it out with a simple sonnet I read this morning by George Herbert, titled "Prayer."


Prayer, the Church's banquet, Angels" age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;
Engine against th'Almighty, sinners' tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ - side - piercing - spear,
The six-days' world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices; something understood.


So as I start 2011 out, first and most essential to me will be to PRAY, PRAY, PRAY, more earnestly with reversed thunder and profound gratitude for all that has been given to me!!!

Inner Peace

It is 6:34 AM and I read something earlier this morning that I found worthwhile for me and wanted to share. It was written by a man named St John of the Cross hundreds of years ago.

It is sad to see many disturb their soul when it desires to abide in this calm and repose of interior quietude, where it is filled with the peace and refreshment of God. Desirous of making it retrace its steps and revert from the goal in which it now reposes, they draw it out to more exterior activity, to considerations which are the means. This they do, not without strong repugnance and reluctance in the soul. The soul would want to remain in the unintelligible peace as in its right place. A man is deeply pained if, after intense effort to reach his place of rest, he is forced to return to his labor.

Since these individuals do not understand the mystery of that new experience, they imagine themselves to be idle and doing nothing. Thus, in their struggle with considerations and discursive meditations they disturb their quietude. They become filled with aridity and trial because of efforts to get satisfaction by means no longer apt. We can say that the more intense their efforts, the less will be their gain. The more they persist at meditation, the worse their state becomes, because they drag the soul further away from spiritual peace. They resemble one who abandons the greater for the lesser, turns back on a road already covered, and wants to redo what is already done.

The advice proper for these individuals is that they must learn to abide in that quietude with a loving attentiveness to God and pay no heed to the imagination and its work. At this stage, as we said, the faculties are at rest, and do not work actively but passively, by receiving what God is effecting in them. If at times they put the faculties to work, they should not make use of excessive efforts or studied reasoning's, but do so with gentleness of love, moved more by God than by their own abilities.

Pain/Joy

Princess I never realized the depth of your pain...you were alone in your suffering and struggle. I will never be able to understand what it must have been like to exist in that very dark, lonely space. Nor do I ever want to go there. But now the pain, loneliness and suffering are gone...you are abiding in perfect joy...an existence I have not yet experienced, but truly look forward to.

Princess

Every picture has a story and every story has a picture.

FORGIVENESS

I read something today someone wrote about this line of scripture "THE LORD IS SLOW TO ANGER AND RICH IN KINDNESS, FORGIVING WICKEDNESS AND CRIME." (Nm 14: 18)

It read as follows:

"So wide is God's mercy that no sin is too great or too small for forgiveness. So much narrower is our CHARITY that we often find the small annoyances the hardest to forgive. The more often we turn in prayer to the all-forgiving God, the more we will become like Him in extending the hand of pardon to others in EVERY DAILY CIRCUMSTANCE."


Maybe if we could try just a bit harder to be truly CHARITABLE in all of our dealings within our own families and all the people around us each day, then perhaps peace and joy will abound....imagine what could happen if everyone did this!!!

Hope

I read something interesting very early this morning and I will quote part of it:

"Most of the difficulties of life come because man is so prone to lose heart. When hope has gone, all is over. Failure counts for nothing; defeat, disappointment - these matter nothing at all, so long as only HOPE sits patiently, stirring the embers, watching and tending the fire, coaxing the flame, never despairing and never leaving the wind to work its will. That the clouds should come up over the sky, or that darkness should encircle the earth, brings no real terrors, for we are sure that the dawn will come out again and that the sun will break through with its golden glory."

This was written by a Dominican priest named Bede Jarrett who died in 1934.



Thinking about this early this morning especially after experiencing the emotional results of someone who lost HOPE left me wondering WHY??? Later in the morning I read a line from Psalm 90 (Ps 90: 12):

"Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart."


I thought about this shortness of life and I said to myself, life is indeed short and the older I get the more I think about something someone told me decades ago....when you lose hope, you have lost it all! That comment always stuck with me along with other comments that someone shared with me.

I have despaired many, many, times in life....but by grace I have never lost HOPE! I have no concept of what it must be like to arrive at a place of NO HOPE....which leaves me still wondering why?

Amazing!

I deserve nothing....but I have it all!!!!!

My Beautiful Dove!

A broken Dove who could not sing because her heart was sad

Has found the song that she can sing and makes her heart so glad.

So spread those wings most beautiful Dove through all the skies of blue

And in the starry night O Dove sing out your song that's true.

Charles Henry and Sarah Elizabeth

Charles Henry June 9, 1954 - September 21, 2008


Sarah Elizabeth March 12, 1958 - July 7, 2010

Bob and my best of friends!!!

Kitty pondering life!!!!!

Life is intense for Kitty sometimes!

Shadow of Love God

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Yesterday I heard a homily that including the reading of the following letter that this courageous, wonderful Saint wrote to his Mother:


May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last, and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means “to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad,” then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him. Take care above all things, most honored lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Savior; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. - from a letter to his mother by Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Thank you Saint Aloysius for your inspiration!!!!!!!!!

Something Beautiful for God

"To show great love for God and our neighbor we need not do great things. It is how much we put in the doing, that makes our offering something beautiful for God."


Mother Teresa of Calcutta