Prayer Reflection

My Love, I see You often hanging on the cross of Your glory. Tonight, Your grace moved me to the scene of You being taken down and laid in Your Mother's gentle arms. In that scene, I found myself caught in Your Mother's sorrow. I felt prompted to move, to stand, to act, to live... but I couldn't seem to move beyond the devastating picture. Later, Your Spirit brought to my attention that the body held by the Blessed Mother was not my God. My God didn't stick around after His death. He didn't remain motionlessly in a lifeless body. He was too busy fighting Satan. His resurrection was not a powerful surge of energy following a 3-day nap. His Resurrection was a glorious return following triumphant victory. The time for me to move is now. I can't remain stuck at the cross. Jesus died on the cross so that we could move beyond our sin. He died on the cross so that our sin doesn't hold us captive. We have work to do. He gave us the cross so we can hold it high above our heads as we live the Resurrection. We need His death AND His life. His death is the freedom we need. His Resurrection, His life, is the strength we need to move. I don't know what the end will bring. I firmly believe, as Christ showed us, that it won't leave us in sorrow at the foot of cross. It will involve His love and His life. When we reach the finish line, whether we are sprinting in the power of grace, or crawling on our hands and knees in the strength of His mercy, we will be covered in the blood of the cross, having completed the journey well. Lord Jesus, help me to stand at the foot of the cross. Help me to stand as Your Mother holds Your body. Help me to act then. Help me to stand there and declare, at the top of my lungs, with every fiber of my being, heart and soul, that there is no one like my God! Amen. *** Picture from www.rockofmysoul.com

I Didn't Choose Mary...

...Mary chose me. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I finished a consecration to the Blessed Mother. In his homily at mass, Prior James reflected on Mary at the cross. His point was that of her free will. She freely choose to accept us as her children. This revelation brought tears to my eyes. I have great hope in one day being a mother. I believe that is God's will for me. I have said before that I can almost feel the flames on my heart when I share with God my deepest longings for motherhood. When a woman wants to be a mother, she wants it with a heart bursting to pour out love on her children. I believe that it was with this kind of passionate love that Mary took on the role of our Mother. She chose to have us as her own. She chose to devote herself to pouring out love on us. The truly amazing thing is that it isn't her love that she pours out. When Mary pours out love upon us, as only a Mother can, it the love her of Son that she gives. Through her giving of love, we are drawn ever closer to Him. Mary conceived without sin, Pray for us.

Missing Person....

That's how I feel these days. There is this part of me that has a strong desire to blog diligently, but that has yet to happen in my life. These next 2+ weeks are certainly not the time to start....way too much homework to keep up with. It is not for lack of topics about which to blog; I have many ideas swarming my thoughts and capturing my heart: celebration, living the liturgy, the vastness of God's plan, advent, suffering, reverence... the list could on for quite some time. However, today is not the day for those topics to be addressed. Today is the day for researching and organizing a presentation that is due tomorrow morning...

Blog

This is a link a found on one of the blogs I check daily. I think that it is very true of the Church today, and I hope you enjoy reading it. http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2008/10/church-is-not-wal-mart.html

Waiting

Simon Peter was good at fishing. He'd put much time and effort into his trade. He knew the waters. He knew how to read the signs and find the fish.

Early in the Gospels, before Peter left everything to follow Jesus, Jesus was preaching to a large crowd from Simon Peter's boat. (I'm in Luke 5: 1 -11, in case you were wondering) Peter, Andrew, James, and John had been fishing all night and had caught nothing. When Jesus finished preaching, he told Peter to row the boat out into the deeper water to catch some fish. Peter responds to Jesus, as I frequently do, by declaring that they aren't likely to catch anything, but agreeing to act in accord with Jesus' command all the same, since it is Jesus giving it.

What happens next, of course, is a very large amount of fish filling the net. So many in fact, that two boats were filled almost to the point of sinking. Now, it is arguably true that what follows this scene is where the meat of story lies, but my prayer has lead me to stop here at the moment. Yes, Peter is soon told that he will be catching men instead of fish, but I don't want to lose the message of the story thus far.

When we look at the miracle performed by Christ, we must ask ourselves what purpose it serves. Biblical Scholars will tell you that the fish weren't needed. There was not a fish shortage. Sure, the four fishermen hadn't caught any that night, but that happened from time to time. What strikes me in this story, about this miracle, is that when Peter fished at Jesus' command, he caught more fish then he could have on his own.

So many times in my life, I find myself doing things that I do well. I automatically think that since I'm good at _______, I can do it anytime and it will turn out okay. This might be true, in fact it probably is. However, when I choose actions based on this principle, I lack something very important. I lack the understanding that when I wait for God's command, I can do so much more.

Just like Peter, who could catch plenty of fish on his own, when I wait for God to tell me to do something, I will do that thing with power beyond my own ability. (It will bear greater fruit as well) It is hard for me to be at Benedictine right now. I had an amazing summer, especially when working with the youth group at my parish. The program there is going great now, and I want to be part of it. I often find myself thinking that if I were there, I could be on core team, and I could do it well. My prayer this morning reminded me that while that is most likely true, if I wait until God asks me to be there, I will be there in His power, not my own. This means that His work will be done through me, which is much better then my own work being done through me.

John 3: 27 - 30

"John answered, 'No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease."

To Know Thy Son

"When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' And Jesus said to her, 'O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'" (John 2:3-5) I was meditating on this scripture in prayer this morning, and I reflected on the appearance of contradiction between Jesus' response to Mary and her command to the servants. When I read Jesus' words to her, I am left with the impression that He does not intend to do anything about the wine. However, when Mary hears His response, she knows that He will do something about it. As I placed myself in the scene of the first miracle, I imagined Mary's face during this interaction. Whereas I sit in confusion, Mary and her Son look intently into each other's eyes and communicate more then words can express. I can see Mary's eyes blazing with truth and confidence, as she breaks eye contact with her Son, turns to the servants, and tells them to "do whatever he tells you." It is because Mary knows her Son that she is able to know that He will act. She spent many years knowing Him, studying His ways, and loving Him. She knew Him in a way that enabled her to know more about the meaning of His words then we can know by reading them. The importance of this my life lies not only in my need to better understand the way Jesus speaks to me, but also in my ability to clearly lead others to follow His will. Just as Mary knew her Son well and lead the servants in obedience to Christ, I must know Him well, and I must do so in such a way so as to lead others to follow His path.

History

Today, Benedictine begins the celebration of 150 years of Benedictine education in Atchison, KS. As I sat listening to the homily at the all school mass this morning, I heard a story that has become familiar to me in my time here at BC. The story is that of how our school has reached this year of celebration. However, today when I heard this story, it lead me to a new realization. I sat there taking in the words of the difficulties faced throughout the journey and somewhere inside me I sensed a growing sense of obligation to those who have gone before me. It is so easy to look at Benedictine in all its goodness and ignore the hardship that went into it becoming this place I love. There have been countless times in the story that is Benedictine that men and women gone before have had to fight hard to see our vision lived. I now have sense obligation to those men and women. I believe that we owe it to them to continue promoting and valuing the Benedictine they dedicated their lives to building. This is our history. This is who we are. This is what we have to maintain.

Knowing Jesus

Jesus wants us to know Him. Matthew 22, tells us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. A lot of times it seems like the soul part of that tends to come naturally. My soul longs for something more (a.k.a God) without much work on my part. My mind tends to be easily satisfied - not to say that my mind grasps all of God, rather to say that it is easy to read and think, which help to satisfy loving God with my mind. My heart is a different story. Proverbs 3:3 tells us to "write these things on the tablet of our hearts." My heart should be so much a part of what my soul longs for and my mind understands that those things are actually written on my heart itself. I read that, and I immediately ask myself two questions: What does that mean? How in the world do I make it happen in my life? The first question is one I have asked myself many times. I remember sharing my frustrations involving this topic with a retreat small group once. I shared how I knew Jesus in my head, but I couldn't seem to get my heart on board. It was on that retreat that I learned this story about Blessed Mother Theresa. She heard her calling to form the religious order she began while on a train ride. That was the last time in her life that she felt God's presence in prayer. We don't have to look hard to see how much she loved God. It resonated from her very life. It is through this story that I came to understand how to know and love God in my heart. I was able to see the mistake I was falling into. In my quest to get my heart in the game, I was chasing after a feeling. I wanted to feel God in my prayer. I wanted to feel Him in my life. Blessed Mother Theresa's story showed me that it isn't about a feeling, after all she knew God with her heart for years without feeling Him there. When we look at her life we see, through her actions that she loved God with her heart. From this I learned that knowing and loving God in my heart changes the way I live. All of the knowledge I have in my head is known also in my heart when I allow it to transform me. When I know it in my heart it changes the way I live, the way I pray, and the way I listen to and read scriptures. This is the beginning of what I think is the answer to the second question: how do I do this? How do I get the knowledge from my head to my heart? The answer I think is simple. I just have to allow what I know in my head and long for in my soul to change the way I live. I have to let it dictate who I am.

From the Book: To Know Christ Jesus (Sheed) Post 2

"The Holy Family was a family - not a mother and a son with a man in the house. Joseph and Mary were husband and wife, and Jesus was son of both; Mary's son by birth, Joseph's son because Joseph had accepted him, which for Jewish law was decisive. Joseph was the head of the house. ... Joseph was not simply a man living in the house. He was the head of the house, and within the family his word was law." (pgs 70 and 71) When I first read the last sentence of this, I laughed a little. I thought to myself, 'this family is made of a woman conceived Immaculately, God incarnate, and a carpenter. Still, it was the carpenter that was head of the family.' God really does work in amazing ways. This shows me not only the great importance of having the husband leading the family (which reminds me to keep this in mind in my desires for my own future spouse - God willing), but also how God does not discriminate. He has a GREAT plan for everyone. It does not matter who I am, where I've come from, or how many smarter, holier, more devout people I am surrounded by. (surrounded by amazingly holy people as I often am blessed enough to be, it is easy for me to fall into the mindset that these things do matter) God has a specific role for me to play, and He will me enable me to fulfill that role as long as I trust Him to do so (as St. Joseph did).