Frustrations

"If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!" Luke 11:13

I have had a very frustrating day! This picture, sort of, sums up the way I am feeling. Contrast that with the Bible passage from Luke and this is a glimpse in my mind. It seems as though the littlest things set me off - especially with my children! Yet, I read this passage from Luke and I realize how much energy just went in to yelling at my kids when I could have stopped and given them a better gift. Perhaps it would have been merely a gift of my silence in light of their transgression? Or, perhaps, it could have been a funny face instead of an angry face? Regardless, it could have been a gift - a good one - instead of the "crap sandwich" that I usually end up giving them lately! Forgive me, kids! Forgive me, God! Forgive me, please!

Harm

I've been pondering this question for several hours, days, months, years... I, clearly, have an issue with believing in God's love FOR me. I believe in His capacity to love all of us and I have experienced the joys and fulfillment that I experience by just being obedient and trusting in His love. My stumbling block comes from waiting for this amazing sense of calm (accompanied by angelic voices and harps)to pass over me when I finally believe that God can and does love ME! I remember reading how Mother Theresa never felt that deep seeded bond with God but she believed anyway. I do not claim to be Mother Theresa, for obvious reasons, but I wonder if I am capable of believing it anyway.

I do not want to harm my relationship with Christ even one iota yet is my lack of faith in His immense love for me preventing me from true union with Him? I shared my faith journey with a lovely group of women last night and I talked about the stupid tapes that run through my head. You know the ones; "Not good enough"; "Unlovable"; "Forgettable"... But, I kept on repeating how much I love God. I do love Him with all of my heart! At Mass, this evening, I spent some time just wondering if I was doing all that I could to squash these tapes running through my head. Has it become, unwittingly, a crutch that I use to keep from delving deeper into my relationship with Christ? I can't believe that would be true! I also can't believe that I could be that lazy!!

I'd like to think that I have the faith of a child. I don't always feel warm and fuzzy from prayer or from the Eucharist but I do it. I attend Mass and I pray daily because I want that relationship with God even if I don't get the butterflies on my end. There are times, however, that I have gotten the butterflies and the warm and fuzzies but they aren't really what have sustained me. It is the constant knowledge that merely having faith in God without all of the yummy feelings is enough. Is it? I pray fervently that it is enough.

Here we go: "What would a husband think who, when asking his wife 'Do you love me?' received the response 'I have a great desire to love you; I shall work toward it; I hope one day to achieve it by dint of my efforts and generosity and sacrifice.' You are right to smile. But is this not the spiritual disposition many excellent souls adopt toward Jesus?" And: "We have all had this temptation at one time or another. 'I have promised Him so much, I have made so many resolutions, and I always fall again; it is impossible that He does not get tired of it.' It is a kind of blasphemy to say that, because it is to limit a mercy which has no limit. It is to doubt the patience, the indulgence, the untiring clemency of Jesus. It is not He who grows weary of us; it is we who grow weary of looking at our ugliness." All of this is found in I Believe in Love - my favorite book! I think, perhaps, it merits another read!

Thanks for letting me vent!

Murphy

I do not know where my son gets this kind of ability or when he decided it would be a good idea to practice doing this! Bill was a pole vaulter but that involves using a pole to thrust yourself up in the air so maybe a little of him and a little of my volleyball jumping (very little) Anyway, I thought that I would share this!

He Has Risen!

Psalm 118 (19-29)

Open to me the gates of holiness:
I will enter and give thanks.
This is the Lord's own gate
where the just may enter.
I will thank You for You have answered
and You are my Savior.

The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the work of the Lord,
a marvel in our eyes.
This day was made by the Lord;
we rejoice and are glad.

O Lord, grant us salvation;
O lord, grant success.
Blessed in the name of the Lord
is he who comes.
We bless you from the house of the Lord;
the Lord God is our light.

Go forward in procession with branches
even to the altar.
You are my God, I thank you.
My God, I praise you.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good;
for His love endures for ever.

Holy Saturday

Beneath the cross the Mother kept
Bleak vigil under darkened skies.
Upon the cross her Son hung nailed,
Stabbed through by crowds of hostile eyes.

"And your own soul a sword shall pierce,"
The old man in the Temple said,
The Spirit's sword, the word of God -
God's word be done, was all she said.

Upon the cross the Savior died;
Beneath, the Mother bowed her head;
Above, the storm broke harsh and wild -
God's word be done, was all she said.

A soldier came and thrust him through;
The blood and water proved him dead.
They laid his body in her arms -
God's word be done, was all she said.

At vigil's end, the Crucified
Arose from death her glorious Lord.
O Father, Son, and Spirit, God,
We praise and magnify your Word.

(Morning hymn from the Magnificat for Holy Saturday)

Good Friday

At the Annunciation, the angel announced that Mary would receive God in her own body and give flesh to him. Now, in the unutterable silence of Good Friday, the Mother of God once again receives the Word of God as her divine Son is taken down from the cross and placed in her arms. "How can this be, since I do not know the man?" The Madonna of the pieta is Our Lady of Compassion. That pitiful portrait of Mother and son proclaims to the world that "nothing is impossible for God." Nothing.

Even in the sickening shadow of the cross, the power of the Most High continues to overshadow the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her maternal arms, the Mother of the God cradles all our failure, our desperation, our isolation, our alienation, our regret, our remorse, our sorrow, our suffering, our nothingness, our desolation, our defeat.

In embracing her crucified child, Mary is not clutching at lifelessness. For after Christ's death, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body. Such a heart-wrenching scene testifies to the truth that the one antidote to the tyranny and viciousness of death and despair is true, deep union with Jesus Christ.

This terrible moment on Golgotha appears as a second Epiphany. Like the three kings, we have followed - not a luminous star, but - the sun blackened by an eclipse to this place of horror. Here, as once did the Magi, we will find "the child with Mary, his Mother." Here, like them, we will prostrate ourselves and do homage and open up the coffers of our empty, hurting hearts. But only if we renounce the murderous world of King Herod. Come, let us adore him!
(The Way of Our Sorrowful Mother by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.)

As I Have Done for You

John 13:1-5

Before the Feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Master, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well." Jesus said to him, "Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all." For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, "Not all of you are clean."
So when he had washed their feet and put is garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."