Chains

“Let us not go over the old ground, let us rather prepare for what is to come.” -Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sometimes we hang on to the oddest things. For instance, many of us go to a lot of trouble to hang on to old guilt, old mistakes, old loneliness, old hurts, and old crimes. We fight like crazy to keep these little darlings near and dear. If we make a mistake, we feel we don't deserve to let go of the self-punishment.

The healthy and sober thing to do is let go of the past. We can cut the chains and shackles of the past that keep us from moving forward. When we cut even one link of that chain, we begin to move more freely toward health and self-love.

Today let me understand that I'm not helping anyone by holding on to the past.

Our God is a Mighty God! Worthy to be Praised!

From the Book of Daniel, that beautiful hymn of praise echoes all creation in praising His might and beauty:

Dew and rain, bless the Lord.

Frost and chill, bless the Lord.

Ice and snow, bless the Lord.

Nights and days, bless the Lord.

Light and darkness, bless the Lord.

Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.

Let the earth bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever. Give glory and eternal praise to Him!

Psalm 145:10 echoes that sentiment: Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord, and let your faithful ones bless you.

No matter where you are today, give thanks and praise to God, our almighty Father, and His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the glory of the Holy Spirit, both now and forever!  Amen.

Two Scenarios

 Imagine these two different scenarios in your life:

In the first instance, you have just experienced a religious high. Through prayer or some other religious or human experience, you have a strong, imaginative sense of God’s reality. At that particular moment, you feel sure of God’s existence and have an indubitable sense that God is real. Your faith feels strong. You could walk on water!

Then imagine different moment: You are lying in your bed, restless, agitated, feeling chaos around you, staring holes into the darkness, unable to imagine the existence of God, and unable to think of yourself as having faith. Try as you might, you cannot conjure up any feeling that God exists. You feel you are an atheist.

Does this mean that in one instance you have a strong faith and in the other you have a weak one? No. What it means is that in one instance you have a strong imagination and in the other you have a weak imagination.

Faith in God is not to be confused with the capacity or incapacity to imagine God’s existence. Infinity cannot be circumscribed by the imagination. God can be known, but not pictured. God can be experienced, but not imagined.

When the prophet Isaiah glimpsed God in a vision, all he could do was stammer the words: Holy, holy, holy! Holy is the Lord God of hosts! But we misunderstand his meaning because we take “holy” in its moral sense, that is, as virtue. 

Isaiah however meant the word in its metaphysical sense, namely, as referring to God’s transcendence, God’s otherness, God’s difference from us, God’s ineffability. In essence, he is saying: Other, completely different, utterly ineffable, is the Lord God of hosts!

Accepting that God is ineffable and that all of our thoughts and imaginative constructs about God are inadequate helps us in two ways: We stop identifying our faith with our imagination, and, more importantly, we stop creating God in our own image and likeness.

12 Rules

1. Do one thing at a time. No multi-tasking.

2. Do it slowly and deliberately.

3. Do it completely.

4. Do less.

5. Put space between things.

6. Develop rituals.

7. Designate time for certain things.

8. Devote time to sitting.

9. Smile and serve others.

10. Make cooking and cleaning become meditation.

11. Think about what is necessary.
12. Live simply.

Tools

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

~Abraham Maslow

When we can take a long view of our problems, we can sometimes see that we're using inappropriate tools to try to solve them. What's necessary for us to do is to move away, to detach. That may show us a whole new context into which our problem fits, and in which it may not even be a problem.

Detachment is hard to achieve when we're deeply hooked into a situation. When we send ourselves drastic messages like "now or never!" we're pressing our noses right up against the problem - a position in which it's difficult to maintain a balanced view. To stop and say, "If not now, then perhaps some other time," unhooks us and lets us remember that life is richer and more varied than we thought when we were hooked.

Crisis thinking can be like a hammer - it flattens everything. This can be our way of trying to control the outcome of our individual struggle. But when we remember that we make up only small parts of one grand and beautiful design. We can surrender our problems to it.

To be a competent worker, we need to seek out the tools that are best suited to the task.

Forgiveness

"I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.’ I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.’ Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand."

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Today we celebrate The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, liturgically marking the end of the Christmas Season and the beginning of Ordinary time. The baptism of Jesus is another epiphany, another manifestation of his divine being.  The Incarnation and Epiphany announced the birth of Jesus to the world.  With his baptism, Jesus launched into public ministry; God the Father announced to the people of Jerusalem, "Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan"(Matthew 3: 5) that Jesus "is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased"(Matthew 3:17). 

The significance of the Christmas Season is that God loved us so much he sent his son, Emmanuel, to be one with us.  The significance of the Baptism is that Jesus embraced his humanity and united with all of us sinners even though he was sinless.  And, Jesus accepted his mission “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).  In the first reading today, Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7, the Prophet tells us how Jesus will fulfill all righteousness.  He will “bring forth justice to the nations.”  He will “open the eyes of the blind;” “bring out prisoners from confinement” and “from the dungeon” he will bring out “those who live in darkness.” 

Through our baptism, we share the mission of Jesus.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission” (CCC 1213).  Jesus gave the Church (the disciples, and us) our mission, just before he ascended into Heaven, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19–20).   This is an enormous task! Let us pray that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit will give us the wisdom, strength and courage to get it done.

God our Father, 

with Jesus you call us to be

your beloved sons and daughters

and with him you give us the mission

to become humble and dedicated servants.

Grant that we may not break

those crushed by sin and sorrow.

Help us to serve always the cause of right, 

to be eyes to the blind

and a voice for the downtrodden.

May we please you in all we do.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Amen.