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Delivered Monday through Friday!
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September 2,
2008
Amazing Grace
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Joy from the Monastery |
Thoughts from Sister Patricia
Visit Sr. Patricia's blog
to leave a comment and share with others about this topic.
Quote for the Day:
If you invoke the Holy Spirit with a humble and trusting
heart, filled with good desires, he will descend with his blessed
light and inflaming fire. He will come and penetrate into the
very center of your heart, purifying it, changing it, enlightening
it, inflaming it, and consuming it with the flames of his holy and
divine love.
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini
Quote from the book, "101 Inspirational Stories of the Power of Prayer"
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I just emptied my digital camera of all its images. They've been collecting over several months. There were a ton of them. I saved them to my hard disk..but from the camera they are all gone. "No Images" it says and I believe it.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could fully get it into our heads that that is how God takes cares of our sins and failures and weaknesses as well? Just erases them. I do believe in the total power of the sacrament of reconciliation. But sometimes I think I still have a few images remaining on the memory banks.
Lately I have been thinking of holiness and the lack of it in my own life. I think holiness is not about who we are and what we do.. but rather how much we depend upon God. Our sins and our weakness just seem to keep happening in our life...but gradually bit by bit I begin to realize that does not stop God from loving me, forgiving me or wanting me. I'm the only one who can put up a wall between myself and God. When I sin I have to acknowledge that I blew it once again. If I ask God for forgiveness... I'm trusting not in my goodness but in God's.
I shared this thought a week or two ago by Karl Keating but it is sort of growing within me. He said something to the effect.. that "when we sin we should ask God for forgiveness immediately. That we should hold on to remorse about our sin for about ten seconds but after that it becomes neurotic. AND you know I believe it is so true. Because if we hold onto remorse over how bad we are.. what we are saying in a sort of convuluted way.. is that, "Hey, I'm such a wonderful, good person.. how in the heck did I ever sin like that? I just can't believe it that I blew it like that. What a rotten, no good person I am. There is just no hope for me.... yada yada yada." And we are thinking by some sort of effort on our part we are actually going to get to the point where we will be 100% good all the time.
That's just not going to happen. At least not my effort or "our" part. On God's part, yes we have a definite chance.. but on our own steam it's just not going to fly. Saint Theresa the little flower said something of this as well.. not sure exactly her words but the effect was that she trusted God so much that even if she was the greatest sinner in all the world she would still fly to God and ask him for his forgiveness and receive it. Not for any goodness on her part - but because she totally believed in the goodness on God's part.
Time for me to go to bed. As you can see I'm working things over and over in my head. Or maybe God is. At any rate there is a bit of spiritual churning going on in there.
Blessings of Peace and All Good,
Sister Patricia and all the Sisters
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Reverend Fun
Motivational
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My Everything
Christian and the Lion
Benjamin Zander
James Martin, SJ [2:36]
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Prayer Warrior Hit List
Molly N. O'Connell
Mason, Ohio
My own personal miracle of prayer is the recovery of my alcoholic
son, who drank and lived on the streets for thirty-three years. My
wise mama said: "It is your responsibility to love your son; it is God's
responsibility to save him."
My prayer journey began as a small child through the Baltimore
Catechism, and took off when my aunt, Sr. Augusta, stepped in with some
prayerful ideas of her own. She taught me that every breath I breathe is
an act of faith, every tear I shed is an act of hope, and every beat of my
hear, is an act of love.
I took the words of my aunt, and composed a prayer which I say
every night:
May every breath I breathe
be an act of faith.
May every tear I shed
be an act of hope.
May every beat of my heart
be an act of love.
More
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/monasticmoments/archives/147639.asp
From the book 101 Inspirational Stories of the Power of Prayer
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Blogs Supporting 101 Prayer |
The Daily Grotto
Danielle Bean
Friends for Jesus
Cause of Our Joy
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Rejoice in Me
by Msgr. David E. Rosage
Peace Be Still
Psalm 107:29-39
He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze,
and the billows of the sea were stilled;
They rejoiced that they were calmed,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
Our life is often like a storm-tossed sea. When the waves of fear and anxiety, of trials and tribulations, of hardships and difficulties, seem insurmountable, we can call upon the Lord. He is always with us.
Jesus responds to our plight by hushing the winds and waves which disturb our peace and tranquillity. In the midst of our distress, Jesus approaches and says to us: "Get hold of yourselves! It is I. Do not be afraid!" (Mt 14:27)
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A Smile from Home - Danielle Bean
Today's Thought
Visit Danielle's Blog to see
pictures and links to go with this text.
Learning Fast
Daniel is sitting on the kitchen floor, stacking and re-stacking soup and tuna cans when his older sister rushes into the room in excitement.
“You should see the chocolate sundae sauce the boys bought!” she shouts. “It’s dark chocolate — so dark it almost looks black!”
Without missing a beat in his stacking of the tuna cans, without even looking up from his work, “I want some,” baby Daniel says.
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Greetings from London with Sister Janet Fearns, FMDM
Pause for Prayer
Visit Janet's Blog to see pictures to go with this text.
On a personal note…
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Spiritual Blessings from Father Rory Pitstick
A Virtual Retreat
Reflections following the Daily Liturgical cycle
Visit Fr. Rory's Blog
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1 Cor 2: 10b-16
Ps 144(145): 8-9. 10-11.
12-13ab. 13cd-14
Lk 4: 31-37
Daily Readings
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Sep 2 Tue: Ordinary Weekday
From today's readings:
“We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.... The Lord is just in all His ways.... He taught them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at His teaching because He spoke with authority....”
The Spirit of God
In earlier verses in this letter, Paul has argued that the wisdom of God far surpasses even the best of human wisdom. Now, Paul explains how we have access to this divine wisdom: not by reading piles of musty volumes in some library, not by spending hours hanging on the words of any guru, but merely by being attentive and receptive to the words taught by the Spirit of God.
The actions and presence of the Holy Spirit transcend simple explanations, but Paul notes that, thanks to the Spirit, we can describe spiritual realities in spiritual terms. In these verses, Paul explains that the Spirit’s revelation is so generously complete that through His indwelling in us, “we have the mind of Christ.”
The immediate danger, of course, is to confuse our own desires and inclinations with the Spirit of God. To be sure, we can be directed by the Spirit of God, but we can also be misdirected by the Spirit of Evil. There’s solid ground for concluding, “The Holy Spirit led me out of the temptation to lie,” but it’s a much shakier claim to say, “The Holy Spirit inspired me to choose chocolate instead of vanilla,” or “The Holy Spirit told me to buy this stock.” Worse still, anyone who believes the Spirit of God condones certain personal immoralities has been thoroughly duped by the Spirit of Evil! Elsewhere in their letters, Paul and John offer essential guidelines for the discernment of spirits - as always, the whole of Scripture is the best safeguard against jumping to tempting conclusions based on only a few verses.
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