Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[Guest]

NOT IN THE SCHOOL OF EMOTIONAL

& PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALING

This is a really good You Tube video to follow one on mental illness.  It is a commentary on the life of St Therese of Lisieux from three main perspectives: the death of her mother, her lifelong struggle with scruples and finally her last 18months before death and temptations to disbelieve in Heaven and eternal life.

Some points which struck me from the video:

Slugging life's journey out, day by day

To have others think of one as a mediocre Catholic - but to not be one

Emotional healing and spiritual growth are not identical

Therapy ends when we are dealing with our feelings - when our feelings are no longer dealing with us

Growth in holiness does not depend on change of feelings

Knowing and accepting limitations

Spawn of Jansenism: a very rigorous asceticism.  Scruples: a difficulty to believe in forgiveness even after it is granted.  God as always looking down on one in harsh judgement.

The Distinction Between Believing God is Merciful and Feeling God is Merciful.

The courage to act on belief, rather than feelings.

Being seized by darkness and that mocking voice.

A feeling of scaling the heights and suddenly plunged into the depths of darkness

Therese discovers agnostics and atheists, sinners, are her brothers and sisters - she identifies with them ....when"they" becomes "us".....i.e. solidarity

Therese participated in the scepticism of her age with the attendant anguish and dread

Not a question of getting beyond - but of how one relates to it

Therese does not desire to rise from her table of bitterness "until that day set by You, my God".

Therese had a deep belief in The Church as The Mystical Body of Christ

Experiencing in abandonment the support that is beyond human understanding

Loving with unfelt love

Finally: Some people believe that to grow in holiness they must get beyond the human condition - the human condition is that place in which we are called to respond to God

 

 

[Guest]

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass ... it's about learning to dance in the rain!

[Guest]

CHITTY CHAT

My SD dropped in yesterday for coffee - he is recovering from surgery and I am recovering from budget woes.  Also, my pp is recovering from major surgery and things are not going well, please keep him in prayer.

This paperless generation of computers really gets to me.  I seem to have more paperwork than I did before computers.   Slowly I am catching up again, but I no sooner rejoice in having dealt with it all than it is mounting up once more.

 I have a load of ironing to get done by Monday and other than that it is pottering around house and garden.  This is one of the things my SD and I discussed yesterday.  Whatever one does, doing it for love can earn merit elsewhere.  For example, I would not consider myself at all very good at this new evangelisation, but I can earn Graces for those who are simply by duties and tasks done for love of God and neighbour.  I can never know in all probability what my own way of life may have earnt for others........not this side of Heaven anyway.   This is very much the Little Way of St Therese.  The thing that really struck me in the video I posted previously i.e. commentary on St Therese by Fr. Mark Foley OCD, is that Father explained that emotional maturity and spiritual maturity are not at all the same thing.  When I give that prayerful thought, it is a decided consolation.

I think I am slowly learning to let go of the busy active life I had when younger and before I shifted here where Bethany now stands.  However, the circumstances of my life now are what God has given me to work with and for Him - and for His Intentions and Reasons, not mine.  One most always has however those intentions that often come to mind - any sort of success great or small is up to The Lord in whose Hands are success or failure.  And failure is never any sort of failure at all.  Perspective and Attitude.

I had a funny one last Saturday Vigil.  We were introduced to our Anglican Ordinariate priest who will be celebrating Mass for us in November until late December until our pp returns we hope.  The conversation ran like this:

Friend: "I am not putting money on the plate!"

Me: "Yeah, ok"

Friend: "I will not pay for a hybrid priest!"

I tried to explain the Anglican Ordinariate to her, but it was terribly difficult to withhold laughter at her expression. No matter what I said to her, she was disgusted and appalled at the changes in The Church........and now, she argued, we must put up with "hybrid priests" too. In relating the conversation to my SD yesterday, neither of us could withhold laughter in order to move on.  Eventually we did.

Buddie had his bath this morning and getting the washing done just now - and then this afternoon tackling the load of ironing for my client.

My day interspersed with prayer times.

Deo Gratius.

[Guest]

God's Power

Daily Reflection - St Vincent de Paul Society

 

Oct 21, 2016

“God can show his power by means of weak instruments, and his wisdom by ignorance. Blessed be his Holy Name!” – St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

 

Catechism Not Enough

https://zenit.org/articles/pope-tells-3-ways-to-know-christ-at-morning-mass/

Catechism is not enough, we must pray to know Jesus.

According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis urged faithful to do this during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, drawing from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today where the Apostle prayed that they may be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit and that Christ may dwell in their hearts.

In the reading, Paul speaks of the richness that is found in really knowing the person of Christ, and in today’s homily, Pope Francis expressed the three requirements we must meet to really know Him, too.

Requirement 1: Prayer

“How can we know Christ,”Pope Francis asked. “How can we understand His love that is beyond all knowledge?”

Francis affirmed that Christ is present in the Gospel and we know Him, by reading the Gospel, or when we hear it at Mass. “And studying the catechism teaches us who Christ is,” he said.

“But this is not enough,” Francis said, noting, “In order to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of Jesus Christ we need to enter into the habit, firstly of praying, as Paul did on his knees: “Father send me the Holy Spirit to know Jesus.”

Requirement 2: Worship, Adoration

In order to truly know Christ, the Pope stressed that prayer on its own is not enough.

As Paul said, Francis recalled, in addition to praying, Paul “worshipped the mystery” that is beyond our knowledge and in this spirit of worship or adoration he asks for this grace from the Lord.

“We cannot know the Lord without this habit of worship, to worship in silence, adoration. If I am not mistaken, I believe that this prayer of adoration is the least known by us, it’s the one that we do least. Allow me to say this, waste time in front of the Lord, in front of the mystery of Jesus Christ. Worship him. There in silence, the silence of adoration. He is the Saviour and I worship Him.” 

Requirement 3: Accuse Ourselves

Pope Francis said the third requirement for truly knowing Christ was to know ourselves and as a result be accustomed to describing ourselves as sinners.

“We cannot worship without accusing ourselves,” he said. “In order to enter into this bottomless and boundless sea that is the mystery of Jesus Christ, this thing is necessary. (Firstly), prayer:  ‘Father, send me the Holy Spirit so that he leads me to know Jesus.’  Secondly, worship the mystery, enter into the mystery and worship Him. And thirdly, accuse ourselves. ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’

Pope Francis concluded, praying “the Lord give us too this grace that Paul implored for the Ephesians, this grace to know and earn Christ.”

[Guest]

Message Behind The Burqa

Thread started in Open Mic:

 

[Guest]

God's Designs

& Human Reasoning

Daily Reflection - St Vincent de Paul Society

 

Oct 23, 2016

“We must not judge the designs of God according to human reason, although our puny minds incline us to do so.” – St. Vincent de Paul

CHATTING

With sunshine and no rain yesterday and today, I have finished the ironing load and been out in the garden with plenty more to get done tomorrow and Wednesday.  Thursday I have an appointment with my brother - his daughter and my niece cuts our hair.  After that I have a GP appointment.  After the garden today, I had to go over to the shops as I was running low on cat and dog food - by the time I got home, I had had it completely.

The days cruise along in a very ordinary and even mundane type of fashion and there is nothing at the feeling level consoling that I am about anything remotely termed "valuable tasks", only Faith and dark Faith tells me that I am.  I must trust that I am, while on the feeling level I am being told I am some sort of looney tunes to imagine that such mundane type of matters have any value whatsoever. I think this is probably a pretty common sort of situation.  There is a temptation to become discouraged even to find life meaningless, but Faith will not allow it.  I sometimes do wonder (imagination) where I would be if Faith itself where put under stress and temptation, but I tell myself that if it should happen then I will have to deal with it then, at the actual time.  God does not often grant Grace to deal with imagination and imaginary situations, but I can be very sure that at the actual time no matter what is happening, Grace will never be lacking and as I engage in the struggles etc. of life - the down sort of times, Grace is there working with me too.   I am never alone - Faith tells me I am not.

[Guest]

CHATTING

Had a dreadful day - a down time of major proportions for me.  I hope the sun just might shine tomorrow and the darkness of today disperse.  I mean, one does get through it for as long as "through it" might take.....usually that is.  Hope comes into play big time.

[Guest]

FIRE & HOPE

Truth revealed must enter into the fires of testing, this is the only way that truth can be confirmed in the soul.

- Anonymous

 

“After a storm comes sunshine, and the good God, who casts down and raises up again, makes joy succeed affliction, and lets the effects of his power be in the measure of our hope founded on goodness.” – St. Vincent de Paul

[Guest]

Chatting - Anger

Went off to sleep last night repeating continually "Please do not let the sunset on my anger".  Well for God's Good and Sound Reasons.........or more possibly my own failure to respond to Grace, the sun did set on my anger - but the sun rose to a calm and rational state of mind, a concerned state of mind but not augmented by emotional content.  Deo Gratius.

As yesterday rolled on with me trying to deal with a strong anger issue, I did continually remind myself not to make any decisions in such a state.

I do not choose most any emotional state at all - they just happen, they just are.  And so I do not upbraid myself for my negative emotions, nor give them a moral assessment.  It is very simply a question of what I do with an emotional state, of how I respond to it.  Yesterday in the heat of it all it was about not making any decisions (some pretty radical ones did cross my mind) and then trying to drift off to sleep with a cooled state of mind, which did not happen.

[Guest]

STUMBLING ALONG

(St Therese - Letters of St Therese 1889)

http://www.pathsoflove.com/pdf/ThereseLetters.pdf "If you are willing to bear in peace the trial of not being pleased with yourself, you will be offering the Divine Master a home in your heart. It is true that you will suffer, because you will be like a stranger to your own house; but do not be afraid--the poorer you are, the more Jesus will love you. I know that He is better pleased to see you stumbling in the night upon a stony road, than walking in the full light of day upon a path carpeted with flowers, because these flowers might hinder your advance."

[Guest]

CHRIST OUR STAR

St Vincent de Paul Society http://famvin.org/reflections/quote-day-october-28/

Vincent's Quote of the Day

Oct 28, 2016

Since God is the Master of the sea and the winds, I ask God to make them favorable to you, to steer the ship wherever you go, to be your guide and pilot, and, in a word, to lead you safely to your destination (V:37).

Daily Reflection

Oct 28, 2016

“Sometimes a work fails, not because a similar institution has been set up beside it and outdone it, but it has brought about its own ruin by making use of means contrary to the spirit of Christ in order to maintain itself in the first place.” – St. Vincent de Paul

[Guest]

Comparing Oneself With Others

Famvin - St Vincent de Paul Society

Quote

 

http://famvin.org/reflections/daily-reflection-october-29-2/  

Daily Reflection – October 29

“In the name of God, let us have ever more and more confidence in Him; let Him guide our little barque; if it is useful and pleasing to Him, He will save it from shipwreck and no matter how the importance and variety of the works of others threatens to swamp it, it will sail with all the greater security, amidst so many good ships, so long as it keeps straight on its own course, and does not cross their track by deviating from its own path.”
– St. Vincent de Paul"

 

 

[Guest]

Faith & Hope, Charity

“If you’re faithful to Me, your faith can’t be lessened by the unfaithfulness of those who want to do evil to you, nor can these same people lessen your hope once you’ve created it through love of Me. Your hope will be strengthened then, and your love will be proven in your affectionate kindnesses towards your neighbors.” 
- Catherine of Siena, Dialogue

[Guest]

Divine Providence & Perseverance

Squeezing out a few tears

“Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

“God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres.”  

“One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer. “

                                  St Teresa of Avila
 

[Guest]