Feast of Saint Patrick

Patrick’s Loricum or Breastplate has the famous Celtic prayer, centered on Christ:

Christ be with me, Christ surround me,
Christ be in my speaking, Christ be in my thinking,
Christ be in my sleeping, Christ be in my waking,
Christ be in my watching, Christ be in my hoping,
Christ be in my life, Christ be on my lips,
Christ be in my soul, Christ be in my heart,
Christ be in my sufficing, Christ be in my slumber,
Christ be in my ever-living soul,
Christ be my eternity.

Patrick prayed for the Irish people on the mountain in Mayo which bears his name (Cruach Padraig). 

Here’s a prayer for you on his feast day:

May you recognize in your life the presence,
power and light of Christ in your soul.

May you realize that you are never alone,
for He is always with you;
that your soul, in its brightness,
connects you with the Lord and with the rhythm of the universe.

May you always realize that the shape of your personality is unique,
that you have a special destiny behind the facade of your ordinary daily life.

May you be able to see yourself with the same delight and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.

And may the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall soft upon your fields.

And, until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand

St Patrick

Samuel Morse

Wakefield tells the story of the famous inventor Samuel Morse who was once asked if he ever encountered situations where he didn't know what to do. Morse responded, "More than once, and whenever I could not see my way clearly, I knelt down and prayed to God for light and understanding."

Morse received many honors from his invention of the telegraph but felt undeserving: "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other people but solely because God, who meant it for humanity, must reveal it to someone and He was pleased to reveal it to me."

Boats Floating Downstream

In Centering Prayer, a contemplative practice taught by Thomas Keating, we choose a “sacred word” to help us return to our intention of awareness to God’s presence. The word might be “Peace” or “Be” or “Love”—something simple. Don’t spend too much time analyzing the word. Hold it lightly and let it go when it is no longer needed, but come back to it any time your thoughts interrupt the stillness.

Keating uses the imagery of a river in Centering Prayer to help compartmentalize our “thinking” mind. He says our ordinary thoughts are like boats on a river so closely packed together that we cannot experience the river that flows underneath them. The river is the Presence of God holding us up. When we find ourselves getting distracted or hooked by a thought or feeling, we are to return ever so gently to our sacred word, letting the boat (thought or feeling) float on downstream. Gradually, the mind is quieted, with fewer thoughts/feelings and more space between “boats.”

Be patient with this practice. We all have ingrained patterns. Sometimes the same thought or feeling will circle by again and again, saying “Think me! Think me! Feel me! Feel me!” as it tries harder to be noticed. Just keep returning to the sacred word and letting the boats float downstream.

Prayer

 Lord,

Take my life and let me live serenely for today.

Open my mind to happy thoughts.

Take away my self-pity, I don’t want it.

Take away my ill will towards others.

Make it possible for me to feel 

joy, love, and compassion.

Help me to accept what is, to hold my tongue, 

to do my daily task, and to let go with love.

Take away my worry about the future.

Make me realize that in your hands 

everything will be provided.

Help me to understand that I have no control over anything 

but my own actions.

Make me know that today is precious and will soon be gone.

Help me to remember that all hatred and pain directed toward me 

are the hatred and pain the other person is feeling toward himself.

Thank you for your willingness to accept my burden and lighten my load.

~~ By Unknown

4th Sunday of Lent

In today’s gospel from John 9:1-41, we have another story about healing and conversion. The action focuses on a man blind from birth who, after an encounter with Jesus, can see. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, the blind man was an unlikely candidate for a meaningful role in his society. Until he met Jesus, all he could do was "sit and beg." Only Jesus saw the potential for “the works of God” to “be made visible through him.”

The drama of this story occurs after the healing miracle takes place. Unlike the experience of the Samaritan woman at the well, whose town welcomed Jesus based on her testimony, the healed man becomes more of an outcast than he was before he met Jesus and received the gift of sight. His neighbors do not believe him (they did not even recognize him); his parents abandoned him because they were afraid and the Pharisees threw him out of the synagogue because he recognized and acknowledged Jesus as a prophet. In a series of dramatic confrontations with the Pharisees, the man becomes more and more enlightened about the truth of who Jesus is while the Pharisees become more and more entrenched in their blindness to the truth. The irony of this situation is not lost on Jesus who observes, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”

To me the best part of this story comes at the end. Although abandoned by the people closest to him, the healed man is not abandoned by Jesus. In fact, Jesus searches for and finds the man. He is not left alone with his new-found faith. The healed man’s rejection draws him closer to Jesus and into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Before he healed the man blind from birth, Jesus told the disciples "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (John 9:5). Today Jesus is a very real presence in our world. And those of us who follow Jesus are challenged to be "the light of [our] world" (Matt. 5:14). St. Paul tells us in today's Second Reading "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth" (Ephesians 5:8-9). Although most of us cannot restore sight to those who are blind, anyone who encounters us should recognize the light of Christ shining through us and hopefully, we will not be blind to the light of Christ shining through them.

O God,

the author and source of all light,

you gaze into the depths of our hearts.

Do not permit the powers of darkness to hold us captive

but touch our eyes and open them to our failures and sins.

Touch our ears and open them to the cries of the poor and the lonely. 

Touch our hearts and open them to your love and trust.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

holy and life-giving God for ever and ever.

AMEN.

Release the Past

"Do not dwell upon the sins and mistakes of yesterday so exclusively as to have no energy and mind left for living rightly today, and do not think that the sins of yesterday can prevent you from living purely today." - As A Man Thinketh

It's been said that the majority of conversations by men over 40 are about the past. Sometimes it's about the "good old days" and sometimes it's about the deals gone bad, the "if I only had" stories, the missed opportunities, etc.

Letting our "sins and mistakes of yesterday" dominate our thinking today robs us of our present joy and our future happiness. It causes us to miss the real opportunity of TODAY!

John Maxwell, in his outstanding best seller, Failing Forward, gives some great practical advice: "To move forward today, you must learn to say goodbye to yesterday's hurts, tragedies and baggage. You can't build a monument to past problems and fail forward."

Take time right now to list the negative events from your past that may still be holding you hostage. For each item you list, go through the following exercise:

• Acknowledge the pain.
• Grieve the loss.
• Forgive the person.
• Forgive yourself.
• Determine to release the event and move on.

Your best days are definitely ahead of you if you treat your "mistakes" as necessary lessons to be learned. If you understand that each lesson brings with it a certain amount of wisdom, you can understand how truly enhanced your life is becoming. Many people can't achieve the success of their

dreams because they won't leave their past behind. They won't tear down the monuments they've built to their old hurts and problems.

One of the best teachings I've ever heard on this was from a motivational speaker whose name has escaped me, but whose message didn't: "In life there are no mistakes, only lessons."

And that's worth thinking about.

~ Vic Johnson

Making a Mess

Six-year-old Brandon decided one Saturday morning to fix his parents pancakes. He found a big bowl and spoon, pulled a chair to the counter, opened the cupboard and pulled out the heavy flour canister, spilling it on the floor. He scooped some of the flour into the bowl with his hands, mixed in most of a cup of milk and added some sugar, leaving a floury trail on the floor which by now had a few tracks left by his kitten. Brandon was covered with flour and getting frustrated. He wanted this to be something very good for Mom and Dad, but it was getting very bad.

He didn't know what to do next, whether to put it all into the oven or on the stove and he didn't know how the stove worked!. Suddenly he saw his kitten licking from the bowl of mix and reached to push her away, knocking the egg carton to the floor. Frantically he tried to clean up this monumental mess but slipped on the eggs, getting his pajamas white and sticky.

And just then he saw Dad standing at the door. Big crocodile tears welled up in Brandon's eyes. All he'd wanted to do was something good, but he'd made a terrible mess. He was sure a scolding was coming, maybe even a spanking. But his father just watched him. Then, walking through the mess, he picked up his crying son, hugged him and loved him, getting his own pajamas white and sticky in the process.

That's how God deals with us. We try to do something good in life, but it turns into a mess. Our vocation gets all sticky or we insult a friend, or we can't stand our situation, or our health goes sour.

Sometimes we just stand there in tears because we can't think of anything else to do. That's when God picks us up and loves us and forgives us, even though some of our mess gets all over Him. But just because we might mess up, we can't stop trying to "make pancakes" for God or for others. Sooner or later we'll get it right, and then they'll be glad we tried.