What's in Your Cup

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Why did you spill your coffee? You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in your cup, you would have spilled tea.

The point is whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out. Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So, we have to ask ourselves, “What’s in my cup?” When life gets tough, what spills out? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? Or does anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions come out? You choose!

Today, let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, kindness, gentleness and love for others.

August 30 - Feast Day of St. Jeanne Jugan

On August 30, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross. During the 19th century, she founded the Little Sisters of the Poor with the goal of imitating Christ's humility through service to elderly people in need.

In his homily for her canonization in October 2009, Pope Benedict XVI praised St. Jeanne as “a beacon to guide our societies” toward a renewed love for those in old age. The Pope recalled how she “lived the mystery of love” in a way that remains “ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”

Born on Oct. 25, 1792 in a port city of the French region of Brittany, Jeanne Jugan grew up during the political and religious upheavals of the French Revolution. Four years after she was born, her father was lost at sea. Her mother struggled to provide for Jeanne and her three siblings, while also providing them secretly with religious instruction amid the anti-Catholic persecutions of the day.

Jeanne worked as a shepherdess, and later as a domestic servant. At age 18, and again six years later, she declined two marriage proposals from the same man. She told her mother that God had other plans, and was calling her to “a work which is not yet founded.”

At age 25, the young woman joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons founded during the 17th century. Jeanne worked as a nurse in the town of Saint-Servan for six years, but had to leave her position due to health troubles. Afterward she worked for 12 years as the servant of a fellow member of the third order, until the woman's death in 1835.

During 1839, a year of economic hardship in Saint-Servan, Jeanne was sharing an apartment with an older woman and an orphaned young lady. It was during the winter of this year that Jeanne encountered Anne Chauvin, an elderly woman who was blind, partially paralyzed, and had no one to care for her.

Jeanne carried Anne home to her apartment and took her in from that day forward, letting the woman have her bed while Jeanne slept in the attic. She soon took in two more old women in need of help, and by 1841 she had rented a room to provide housing for a dozen elderly people. The following year, she acquired an unused convent building that could house 40 of them.

During the 1840s, many other young women joined Jeanne in her mission of service to the elderly poor. By begging in the streets, the foundress was able to establish four more homes for their beneficiaries by the end of the decade. By 1850, over 100 women had joined the congregation that had become known as the Little Sisters of the Poor.

However, Jeanne Jugan – known in religious life as Sister Mary of the Cross – had been forced out of her leadership role by Father Auguste Le Pailleur, the priest who had been appointed superior general of the congregation. In an apparent effort to suppress her true role as foundress, the superior general ordered her into retirement and a life of obscurity for 27 years.

During these years, she served the order through her prayers and by accepting the trial permitted by God. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, she was not known to have founded the order, which by then had 2,400 members serving internationally. Fr. Le Pailleur, however, was eventually investigated and disciplined, and St. Jeanne Jugan came to be acknowledged as their foundress.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Those of you who were around in 1980’s may remember Mac Davis' popular song, "Lord, it's Hard to be Humble."  The opening line is, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way."  As I reflected on today's readings, it occurred to me that it is very hard to be humble in our society.  We value success, achievement, excellence and winning.  Humility is associated with failure and defeat.  The Catechism teaches us that humility is a virtue, the opposite of the deadly sin, pride.  However, I am not sure how much worth we place on the virtue of humility when we apply it to ourselves.  We admire humility in the saints; consider the popularity of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  But we relegate humility as a pursuit only for the saints or as well-deserved punishment for those whose pride is out of control.

Every day we are bombarded with messages about striving forward, reaching for the stars, overcoming all obstacles, attaining the impossible and then we come to church on Sunday and are told "What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not" (Sirach 3: 20).  How can we juggle what appears to be two radically different sets of values?  There is nothing wrong with success.  We get into trouble when we forget the real source of our success or when we grab for success at the expense of others.  The humility we hear about today in our readings is a reminder that our talents and intelligence are gifts from God.  Humility is our comprehension of who we are in the eyes of God.  Humility is remembering that we depend on God for everything.  Humility is acknowledging that God is in control, not us.

St. Paul gives us the perfect example of humility in Philippians 2: 5 - 8:  "Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross."

God and judge of all,
you show us that the way to your kingdom
is through humility and service.
Enable us to renounce the quest for power and privilege.
Give us the reward promised to those
who make a place for the poor and the suffering.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.

AMEN.

Anxiety

Do not let anxiety sabotage

your search for God. 

You know well that when

you search for something too anxiously

you can come upon it a hundred times

without ever seeing it.

Anxiety masquerades as true spiritual energy,

even as it wearies out mind,

drains our enthusiasm,

and deadens our soul.

It pretends to stir up our soul,

but all it does is dampen our spirit.
It pushes us until we stumble over our own feet.

We need to be on the watch for this impostor

that would have us believing

that our spiritual life

depends completely on our efforts,

so that the more panicked we are,

the more anxiously we search,
the more likely we are to find God.

Let God do his part.

Be patient.

Not even our best efforts

can earn the blessings of God.

Our role is to be ready

to receive God’s gifts

with an open heart -

carefully, humbly, and serenely.

Set Your Heart Free - 

The Practical Spirituality

of Francis de Sales

by John Kirvan

August 28 - Memorial of St. Augustine

Today, August 28, the Church honors St. Augustine. St. Augustine was born at the town of Thagaste (now Souk-Ahras in modern day Algeria) on November 13, 354 and grew to become one the most significant and influential thinkers in the history of the Catholic Church. His teachings were the foundation of Christian doctrine for a millennium.

The story of his life, up until his conversion, is written in the autobiographical Confessions, the most intimate and well-known glimpse into an individual's soul ever written, as well as a fascinating philosophical, theological, mystical, poetic and literary work.

Augustine, though being brought up in early childhood as a Christian, lived a dissolute life of revelry and sin, and soon drifted away from the Church - thinking that he wasn't necessarily leaving Christ, of whose name he acknowledges "I kept it in the recesses of my heart; and all that presented itself to me without that Divine name, though it might be elegant, well written, and even replete with truth, did not altogether carry me away" (Confessions, I, iv).

He went to study in Carthage and became well-known in the city for his brilliant mind and rhetorical skills and sought a career as an orator or lawyer. But he also discovered and fell in love with philosophy at the age of 19, a love he pursued with great vehemence.

He was attracted to Manichaeanism at this time, after its devotees had promised him that they had scientific answers to the mystery of nature, could disprove the Scriptures, and could explain the problem of evil. Augustine became a follower for nine years, learning all there was to learn in it before rejecting it as incoherent and fraudulent.

He went to Rome and then Milan in 386 where he met Saint Ambrose, the bishop and Doctor of the Church, whose sermons inspired him to look for the truth he had always sought in the faith he had rejected. He received baptism and soon after, his mother, Saint Monica, died with the knowledge that all she had hoped for in this world had been fulfilled.

He returned to Africa, to his hometown of Tagaste, "having now cast off from himself the cares of the world, he lived for God with those who accompanied him, in fasting, prayers, and good works, meditating on the law of the Lord by day and by night."

On a visit to Hippo he was proclaimed priest and then bishop against his will. He later accepted it as the will of God and spent the rest of his life as the pastor of the North African town, where he spent much time refuting the writings of heretics.

Augustine also wrote, The City of God, against the pagans who charged that the fall of the Roman empire, which was taking place at the hands of the Vandals, was due to the spread of Christianity.

On August 28, 430, as Hippo was under siege by the Vandals, Augustine died, at the age of 76. His legacy continues to deeply shape the face of the Church to this day.

Surrender

One of the best ways of understanding surrender is this:

If you’re doing anything that moves you away from God – no matter what it is, no matter how good it feels, no matter how much you like it – stop it!

If you’re with anyone who moves you away from God – no matter who it is – change the relationship!  Leave if you must.

If you’re in a place that moves you away from God, leave.  Get out of there!

No matter what or who or where or when – whatever moves you away from God, change it!

On the other hand, if something brings you closer to God, it is holy. Do more of it.  If someone brings you closer to God, they are holy.  See more of them.  A place that brings you closer to God is a holy place.  Go there more often.

God's Will

God gives us choices – it's God’s will that we should have free choices. Maybe God doesn’t have the same control issues we do. God’s will for us is to make wise and healthy and loving choices. Abundant Grace accompanies gift of free will. We call that “the power to carry it out”. God still leaves it up to us to accept the Grace and to accept God’s will. The consequence of not accepting the Grace is known as an “unmanageable life.”

Seeking

 

We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously. Now you are in a new realm of Mystery and grace, where everything good happens!

Notice how the prayer of Francis is not stating anything but just asking open-ended questions. It is the humble, seeking, endless horizon prayer of the mystic that is offered out of complete trust. You know that such a prayer will be answered, because there has already been a previous answering, a previous epiphany, a previous moment where the ground opened up and you knew you were in touch with infinite mystery and you knew you were yourself infinite mystery. You only ask such grace-filled questions, or any question for that matter, when they have already begun to be answered!

In Times of Need

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

During the course of his ministry several people asked Jesus about salvation: the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-23, the scholar of the law in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) and the person in today’s gospel from Luke 13:22-30. Jesus’ answer is consistent, to be saved we must love God, keep the commandments and love our neighbors as ourselves. If we do all this and are still not sure, he says, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" (Matt. 19:21).

What Jesus wants to make clear is that everyone can be saved. In fact, God our Father wants everyone on earth to be part of his kingdom as he says through his prophet in our first reading from Isaiah 66:18-21. The Kingdom of God is not an elite social club. Membership is not restricted by age, race, creed, gender education or wealth. However, there are obstacles to entry into the Kingdom. The primary obstacle to our salvation is us and our need to hold on to all our baggage. The gate to the Kingdom is narrow only if we try to carry everything we own (materially and emotionally) through it.

Is it possible for us to let go of absolutely everything to get into the Kingdom of God? Jesus answered this question for the disciples when they asked, “Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, "For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible" (Matt. 19: 23).

God our Father,

you have given us Jesus, your Son,

as the door through which we enter into your kingdom

Help us to listen to his voice and to follow him without reserve.

May our authentic Christian living bring goodness and joy to this world

and lead us to you, our saving God,

by the power of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Ability

Paradoxes of Catholicism

A Better Prayer

One man, too inebriated to drive, was walking home along railroad tracks when his foot suddenly became stuck. He pulled and tugged, but could not free it from the tracks.

Then he heard a noise and turned around to see an oncoming train. In a panic, he prayed. "Dear God, please get my foot out of these tracks and I'll stop drinking."

Nothing happened.

With the speeding train closer, he tried again. "Oh, Lord, get my foot out of these tracks and I'll stop drinking AND I'll quit cheating on my wife!"

Still nothing, and now the train was just seconds away.

He tried one last time. "Lord, if you get my foot out of the tracks, I'll quit drinking, cheating, AND  I'll become a minister!"

Suddenly his foot shot out of the tracks and he dove out of the way of the passing train. Dusting himself off, he looked toward Heaven and said, "Never mind, Lord, I got it out myself."

Does that kind of prayer sound familiar? How often are prayers, even when one is not in a state of emergency, concerned only about physical needs -- health and safety?

Mahatma Gandhi claimed to have never made even a minor decision without prayer. Gandhi was known best as an Indian nationalist and spiritual leader, but he was also a man of rare courage. He developed the practice of nonviolent disobedience that eventually forced Great Britain to grant India's independence.

He spoke often about spirituality and prayer. He told about traveling to South Africa to oppose a law there directed expressly against Indians. His ship was met by a hostile mob and he was advised to stay on board. They had come, he was told, with the express intention of lynching him. Gandhi said of the incident: "I went ashore nevertheless. I was stoned and kicked and beaten a good deal; but I had not prayed for safety, but for the courage to face the mob, and that courage came and did not fail me."

Gandhi preferred courage over safety. If accomplishing his goals put him in the way of danger, then he wanted to face that danger bravely. His prayer was to receive enough courage to do what needed to be done, not to live his life free from harm.

Rabbi Harold Kushner speaks about such prayer. He reminds us that "people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. Their prayers helped them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage that were not available to them before."

Like you, I know what it is to be afraid. I'm afraid of accidental injury, dismemberment or death. I've been afraid of a pending medical diagnosis. There must be a million different faces to the fears of life.

I'm tempted at these times to hope for, and pray for, a way to avoid the danger ahead. I want to be safe, secure and healthy. But none of us is always safe, secure or healthy. So, I, too, have come to see that the better prayer is for courage to face whatever life may bring. And in some place deep inside me, I am not only convinced that the courage will come and not fail me, but that it will be enough.  Always enough.

God Within

The seed of God is in us. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seeds into God.   Meister Eckhart

Often we may feel critical and judgmental about our maturity or personality. When we read we have God seeds within us, we may find that difficult to believe. How can we have the God seeds within us that other people have? It may seem everyone else has more good within them than we have.

Just as we admire certain qualities about other people, so can we admire qualities about ourselves. We need to remember a good critic looks at both the good and the bad. A good critic doesn't pass judgment, but merely assembles the facts to allow others to make judgments.

The seeds that grow pear trees don't yield perfect trees. Some of the fruit is ripe and juicy, some is hard and dry, some fruit never matures. Yet the pear tree will be a good tree if it's tended with care. So it is with us. Every part of us may not be perfect, but with care we can make the best person possible from the God seed that began us.

Saints and Sinners

We are both saints and sinners, since goodness and selfishness both flow through us. Sometimes in the face of a slight, insult, or even positive attack and injustice, we react with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. However, sometimes we meet pettiness it in kind, with spite.

We don’t know the reason; that’s part of the mystery of human freedom. Certain factors obviously play in; for example, if we are in a good inner-space when we are ignored, slighted, or unfairly treated, we are more prone to react with patience and understanding, with a big heart. Conversely, if we are tired, pressured, and feeling unloved and unappreciated, we are more likely to react negatively, and return spite for spite.

Be that as it may, ultimately there’s deeper reality at work in all of this, beyond our emotional well being on a given day. How we react to a situation, with grace or spite, for the most part depends upon something else.

The Church Fathers had a concept and name for this. They believed that each of us has two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, and how we react to any situation depends largely upon which soul we are thinking with and acting out of at that moment. Thus, if I meet an insult or an injury with my big soul, I am more likely to meet it with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Conversely, if I meet an insult or a hurt while operating out of my petty soul, I am more likely to respond in kind, with pettiness, coldness, and spite.

And, for the Church Fathers, both of these souls are inside us and both are real; we’re both big-hearted and petty, saint and sinner. The challenge is to operate more out of our big soul than our petty one.

The saint and sinner inside us are not separate entities. Rather the saint in us, the big soul, is not only our true self, it’s our only self. The sinner in us, the petty soul, is not a separate person or separate moral force doing perpetual battle with the saint, it’s simply the wounded part of the saint, that part of the saint that’s been cursed and never properly blessed.

And our wounded self shouldn’t be demonized and cursed again. Rather it needs to be befriended and blessed – and then it will cease being petty and spiteful in the face of adversity.

Hold On

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, Luke 12:49–53, were shocking and disturbing to the people who heard them and they are shocking and disturbing to us.  Why is this man we call the Prince of Peace talking about setting the earth on fire, division among families and discord?  This does not sound like the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus proclaims in the rest of the Gospel. 

Sadly, not everyone accepts the Gospel message.  We all have free will.  Some people choose to follow Jesus others do not.  For those of us who choose to follow Jesus, the path is not always easy.  Standing up for our faith can lead to rejection, ridicule, persecution and sometimes death. 

Throughout scripture we find that fidelity to God’s word is costly.  Jeremiah suffered immense hardship for following his prophetic vocation.  In our first reading today from Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10, his enemies throw him in a cistern believing he will starve to death.  During his lifetime, Jeremiah was tried for blasphemy, put in the stocks, flogged and imprisoned simply for speaking the word of God to his people.  He wanted to quit but his faith in Yahweh kept him going despite the obstacles. 

Writing to a group of persecuted Christians, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells them and us in today’s second reading (Heb 12:1-4) that although Jesus suffered the shame of the cross, he now sits “at the right of the throne of God.”  As Christians we must keep “our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.”  Keeping our eyes on Jesus gives us the strength and courage we need to confront whatever adversity comes our way. 

A Prayer for the Way to Peace

Father of love, hear my prayer. 
Help me to know Your Will
and to do it with courage and faith. 
Accept my offering of myself,
all my thoughts, words, deeds, and sufferings. 
May my life be spent giving You glory. 
Give me the strength to follow Your call,
so that Your Truth may live in my heart
and bring peace to me and to those I meet,
for I believe in Your Love.

Amen

(From Catholic Online)

Guide my Path

A spiritual person needs to be careful. The more confident we are, the more likely our egos will get us into trouble. It's relatively easy to become self-righteous. We start to think we are teachers and others are students. We start to judge others. We start, very subtly at first, to play God. After a while we really get good at it. This is very dangerous. We need to remind ourselves, we are here to do God's will. We need to pray every morning. Each day we need to check in with God to see what He would have us do. At night we need to spend time with God and review our day. By doing these things, we will stay on track.

Lord Jesus, guide my path and show me how to correct my life.

A Christian Prayer in Union with Creation

Father, we praise you with all your creatures.

They came forth from your all-powerful hand;
they are yours, filled with your presence and your tender love.
Praise be to you!

Son of God, Jesus,
through you all things were made.
You were formed in the womb of Mary our Mother,
you became part of this earth,
and you gazed upon this world with human eyes.
Today you are alive in every creature
in your risen glory.
Praise be to you!

Holy Spirit, by your light
you guide this world towards the Father’s love
and accompany creation as it groans in travail.
You also dwell in our hearts
and you inspire us to do what is good.
Praise be to you!

Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love,
teach us to contemplate you
in the beauty of the universe,
for all things speak of you.
Awaken our praise and thankfulness
for every being that you have made.
Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined
to everything that is.

God of love, show us our place in this world
as channels of your love
for all the creatures of this earth,
for not one of them is forgotten in your sight.
Enlighten those who possess power and money
that they may avoid the sin of indifference,
that they may love the common good, advance the weak,
and care for this world in which we live.
The poor and the earth are crying out.

O Lord, seize us with your power and light,
help us to protect all life,
to prepare for a better future,
for the coming of your Kingdom
of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!

Amen.

Take Time

Staying in the Present

"Having spent the better part of my life trying either to relive the past or experience the future before it arrives, I have come to believe that in between these two extremes is peace." 

~ Anonymous

How hard it, often seems, to quiet our minds so we can experience the present. We know that we're missing God's message now when we're obsessively caught in thoughts of another time. But too often we allow them to plague us anyway.

We're not failures if we need to repeatedly remind ourselves to be quiet, but we may think we are. It might be well for each of us to observe a small child who is learning to walk. She stumbles and falls and tries again and again, often with peals of laughter.

We, too, are children trying to master a new skill. That we didn't learn how to quiet our mind in earlier years is unimportant. We are here, now, and the opportunity to practice this skill, will present itself many times today. And we will become proficient at knowing peace with practice.

Today I'll willingly quiet my mind rather than let my thoughts carry me astray.

In God’s Care by Karen Casey

Be

Acceptance

Acceptance is not approval, consent, permission, authorization, sanction, concurrence, agreement, compliance, sympathy, endorsement, confirmation, support, ratification, assistance, advocating, backing, maintaining, furthering, promoting, aiding, abetting or even liking what is.

Acceptance is saying, “It is what it is, and what is is what is.”

All Philosophers have understood this That a rose is a rose is a rose. And even Popeye says: "I am what I am.” All have understood that this is the way to acceptance.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Feast of the Assumption

On Thursday we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption.  From the moment Mary spoke, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word,” when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and she conceived the Savior of the world, she revealed herself to be the one chosen by God. She was the vessel of our salvation, the model of discipleship, and the first to enjoy the fruits of redemption through her assumption into heaven.

There is an image in the book of Revelation Chapter 12: 1 that is often applied to Mary:  “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” This dynamic image of a woman reigning over the universe has become an icon of Mary as queen of heaven and earth. Artistic representations of Mary often depict her dressed as the woman in Revelation. They signify the belief that the scriptures symbolically verify Mary’s place in heaven.

On the Feast of the Assumption we celebrate the faith of a woman who accepted the challenge God put before her. She is an example of what human life is capable of achieving when touched by the grace of God. Like many mothers she gave a child to the world while remaining unaware of the details of God’s plan. We should not think that because Mary was free from sin her life was without struggles. She was subject to the same doubts and anguishes that we all face. Like her son, she shared all our problems and difficulties showing us the value of patience amidst our own trials, by turning sorrow and trouble into hope and joy.

Mary reminds us of the goodness of God which is the source and root of our life. What God wills for Mary God wills for all of us. In sending his Son into our world, God wanted to share the very best of Himself with us, by making us his adopted sons and daughters. God calls each of us like Mary to welcome Jesus and to make room for him in our lives. If we give him co-operation in living his word and sharing his cross, he will shape us into a worthy dwelling place for his Son. Mary teaches us what it means to abandon ourselves completely to God’s will and to be fully at his disposal. We are fortunate to call Mary our mother and to claim her as the model to imitate to the best of our ability, of all creatures, she is the closest in love to God, nearest to his heart and everything a human being should be.

Lord our God,

you took Mary up into heaven

body and soul,

to share in the definitive triumph over death

of Jesus, your Son,

because on earth she humbly served your plans

as the first of those who believed. 

Grant us her attitude

of trusting openness to your will,

that you may overcome evil and death in us

and lead us safely with Mary

into your everlasting joy.

We ask you this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

God's Watching You

We’ve all heard the ominous warning, “God’s watching you.”

Maybe that’s true, but not in the way you were taught. God really can’t take His eyes off of you – He loves you that much. You’re that precious.

God never loves you less – no matter what.
God doesn’t love you as you should be, could be, ought to be.
God just loves you as you are.
It’s easier to focus on rules, to focus on “earning” God’s love.

Everything we do is in response to God’s love – not to earn it.
God sees in you a reflection of His own Love. A reflection that’s different than anyone else who’s ever lived.

When we look at our reflection, we see the blemishes –
All the things we aren’t.
That’s not what God sees!
He can see the blemishes, too, But that’s not what He looks at.
He sees his beautiful child that He loves.

We don’t want to be a lot of things we’ve become, but we are.

We need Compassion – for owning our own humanness and loving others who are human too.

Thomas Merton

We are living in world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes and we see it maybe frequently. God shows God's self everywhere in everything. In people and in things and in nature and in events - it becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without God. It is impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it.

~ Thomas Merton

Humility

Humility has nothing to do with depreciating ourselves and our gifts in ways we know to be untrue. Even humble attitudes can be masks for pride.

Humility is that freedom from our self which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor validity, and even experience deprivation and yet have joy and delight.

It is the freedom of knowing that we are not at the center of our universe, not even in the center of our own private universe.

Four Things

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel from Luke 12:13-21, Jesus confronts us with the question, what is more important, success and accumulation of wealth here and now or entering the Kingdom of Heaven?  In fact, all three of our readings challenge our attachment to material possessions and the accumulation of wealth.  The author of Ecclesiastes, St. Paul in his Letter to the Colossians and Jesus remind us that no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we save and no matter how successful we are - we are going to die.  And the bad news is we can’t take it with us.

Our teacher in Ecclesiastes, St. Paul and Jesus are not opposed to honest, hard work, or putting aside something for the future or being successful.  What they are opposed to is hoarding, greed, exploitation, self-indulgence and selfishness.  Take a close look at our friend the rich farmer; it’s all about him.  It is all “I” and “my.”  He does not acknowledge that God might have had something to do with his bounty.  He does not give a thought to sharing his bountiful harvest with his less fortunate neighbors.  He does not look beyond his immediate future here in this world.  He wants it all for himself, here and now and Jesus tells us it will get him nowhere. 

In Colossians 3:1-5, St. Paul gives us the model we should follow now so that we can share life with Christ in His glory.  “Brothers and sisters: If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”

Creator God,
    Lord and giver of life,
how generous you are to all your creatures.
With such generosity ever before our eyes,
help us to avoid greed in all its forms,
to measure life’s worth
not by the quantity of possessions,
but by the life and love 
we freely place at the service of others.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son, who lives and reigns with you 
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.

AMEN

The Train Ride

At birth we boarded the train and met our parents, and believed they would always travel at our side. However, at some station our parents will step down from the train, leaving us on this journey alone. As time goes by, other people will board the train; and they will be significant i.e. Our siblings, friends, Children, and even the love of our life.

Many will step down and leave a permanent vacuum. Others will go so unnoticed that we don't realize that they vacated their seats!

This train ride will be full of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, good-byes, and farewells.

Success consists of having a good relationship with all passengers requiring that we give the best of ourselves. The mystery to everyone is: We do not know at which station we ourselves will step down. So, we must live in the best way - love, forgive, and offer the best of who we are.

It is important to do this because when the time comes for us to step down and leave our seat empty - we should leave behind beautiful memories for those who will continue to travel on the train of life.