Search for the God's will

Search for the God's will and do good - The reflection of Message, April 25, 2008 - Medjugorje.ws:

"Our Lady invites us to search for the God’s will, and it is revealed to us completely only in the personal encounter with Christ. Only searching for and doing God’s will can lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Mt 7,21). God’s will is more important than our will. To search and do God’s will does not mean to get lost or to disown one’s own freedom – on the contrary, it means to get free from the daily slavery and sin. It means to get free from the imprisonment of the small gods like: power, money, other people’s opinion etc. All these idols take your life, only God gives it. All other gods promise a lot, and do not give anything in return. Our Lady accepted the God’s will, she agreed to serve only the one true God and to do His will. By uttering only one word fiat – let it be so for me – she changed the course of history, with the God’s mercy."

I call you to conversion

I call you to conversion - The reflection of Message, May 25, 2008 - Medjugorje.ws

Our Lady calls us anew to conversion, which, in other words, means betterment. The majority of today's Christians have not seen the Lord in flesh, whereas this encounter is a prerequisite for a new beginning. After such encounter, everything changes, life becomes different and better. One should bear in mind, though, that after the encounter with God our crosses do not disappear. It just becomes easier to carry them. Those who have had the experience of meeting with God, become the salt, cabbage and the light of the world. They become instruments through which God's love and joy in this world are spread. We are all called to convert and continuously change in our path following Jesus. Conversion is a life-long process. Nobody can say that they have completely converted because there is always something we must improve, primarily on ourselves, not on others. Conversion is following evenly in Jesus’ footsteps every day, without negotiating. Conversion is a permanent task of the whole Church. It is not man-made, it is God's work.

Reminder to all interested that we will be meeting tomorrow (June 13th)by the Our Lady of Fatima Statue in front of St. Joseph's church in Wakefield at noon to pray the rosary.

Obedience 6/12

"June 12, 2008
Obedience

'I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.'
St. Teresa of Avila

For Reflection:
How does obedience make things easy - even if they seem impossible?"

Grace! Pure Grace! Obedience opens us up to receive God's abundant grace.

a tiny cloud...

USCCB - (NAB) - June 12, 2008:

"And the seventh time the youth reported,
“There is a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea.”"

Elijah and Mary

Flos Carmeli: Elijah and Mary:

"Mary is the cloud that rises out of the sea. The sea is saltwater, undrinkable, a vast body of water, next to which the kingdom can still thirst and die. The sea is salty, impure, an image of fallen humanity with its admixture of sin. Mary rises out of this sea, pure and perfect, laden with the water of grace that will pour out through her to all humanity--not the source of Grace herself, nevertheless the container into which all is poured until it overflows out to all people, limitless, and life-giving. Not God, but human, Mary rises from the sea, pure and Immaculate in her conception, formed as a vessel of God's grace and a place of refuge for His people."

the hands of a priest

ZENIT - Kissing the Hands of a New Priest: "During ordination a new priest’s hands are anointed with chrism as a sign of consecration and of the change that has been effected in his soul.

The custom of kissing his hands stems from a recognition of the fundamental change that has occurred and of the particular importance of the sign of the hands in priestly ministry.

After ordination the priest uses his hands to hold the Eucharistic species during the consecration, to make the sign of the cross while absolving sins, to anoint the sick and dying, and on occasion to impart the sacrament of confirmation."

This is why my first option for receiving Holy Communion is from a priest and directly on my tongue.

Obedience, part 6

"'What does it profit you to give God one thing if He asks of you another? Consider what it is God wants, and then do it.'

St. John of the Cross"

Obedience

"June 11, 2008
Obedience

'A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase of the choicest contemplation.'
St. Maria Maddalena De Pazzi

For Reflection:
Today, I will count my 'little drops of simple obedience.' How many have I had?"

Prayers

USCCB - (NAB) - June 11, 2008:

"Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”"

Let us pray for all those that teach the Catholic faith.

give up...and develop...

Intecessors of the Lamb - Teachings

"As we seek to rid ourselves of these sins of the spirit, we must look at the virtues that can be used to come against them. To simply get rid of sin, and not to fill the void it leaves with virtue, can set us up for another fall. It can keep those doors open to sin. Jesus talked about the parable of the person who had swept all the sin from his life. His house was nice and clean but it was not filled up with any virtue. It was not filled up with anything that was of God. It was empty. Jesus said that seven other spirits, more wicked than the first, entered in. We cannot leave the house empty. The Bible tells us that the last state of that man became worse than the first. It is one thing to surrender - to let something go. But we must also build as well.

We must give up our pride and develop humility. We must give up greed and develop generosity. We must give up anger and develop understanding. We must give up resentment and develop forgiveness. We must give up sensuality and develop purity. We must give up impatience and develop patience. We must give up gluttony and develop abstinence. We must give up envy and develop contentment. We must give up jealousy and develop trust. We must give up sloth and develop perseverance. We must give up hatred and develop love. We must give up fear and develop confidence. We must up worry and develop faith. To develop these we need to work at it. It must be our daily assignment to constantly replace the negative with the positive. Remember: perfection takes a lifetime. But there will be immediate results in our inner healing if we ask the Holy Spirit to help us daily. We will start to see the progress."

Carmel

Spirit Daily - Daily spiritual news from around the world: "Our Lady appeared as the Virgin of Mount Carmel not only in the final vision of Fatima, but also at Lourdes. Bernadette said 'she had never seen her so beautiful.'

As one website has written: ''Carmel' means 'garden' because the Mount Carmel headland was always green with life, as its heights dominated the semi-arid plains around its base. Metaphorically, it is the 'garden enclosed' of the Song of Songs, which [kind of relates to] the Church as the Bride of the Lamb, and simultaneously of the individual soul with its Bridegroom-Savior."

Fatima and Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Nuestra Senora del Carmen, Nossa Senhora do Carmo, Plinio Correa de Oliveira commentary on the Saint of the Day, July 16 @ TraditionInAction.org:

"Today Christendom is again in decadence. Our Lady came to Fatima to announce this fall, the chastisement, and the victory with the famous phrase: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” In that same set of apparitions in which she announced her victory, she desired to appear in the habit of the Carmelite Order, as a way to confirm her age-old predilection for it and to indicate that this Order will be a part of her glorious Reign. With the habit, she symbolically made a synthesis of the past and the future, at the very moment that she announced the end of an era and the beginning of another."

Contemplation

Welcome to the Irish Province of the Order of Carmelites:

"The first and most important thing to remember is that contemplation is God’s work but normally God asks for our consent to his action in our lives. So, responding to the grace of God, we consent to enter this process which will change us; we consent to be led into the desert which occurs in and through our daily lives. It is not necessary to know a lot about spirituality or to have read many books; what is necessary is to recognise that there is room for change in our lives and be open to God’s purifying action in and through the events of daily life. We can prepare the way for the Lord like John the Baptist by examining our lives and seeing if there is anything which is incompatible with our vocation. We can then use the normal remedies which we are offered through the Church."

rising

From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised (Repeat)
We're gathered to worship, becoming a choir to sing Your praise Lifting our voices, joining our hearts in this house today

People of God, in the power of God, for the Kingdom of God, we sing
From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised

From the sky to the depths, from the east to the west We give You praise We give You praise

We're gathered to go out to cities and towns we'll take Your Name Into the nations, shining your light in the darkest place
People of God, in the power of God, for the Kingdom of God, we live
From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised

From the sky to the depths, from the east to the west (repeat) We give You praise, we give You praise Lord, we give You praise, we give You praise

From the rising of the sun 'til the sun goes down Let the Name of the Lord be praised

He feeds us...

USCCB - (NAB) - June 9, 2008:

"The LORD then said to Elijah:
“Leave here, go east
and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.
You shall drink of the stream,
and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.”
So he left and did as the LORD had commanded.
He went and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.
Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning,
and bread and meat in the evening,
and he drank from the stream."

Hmmm...sounds alot like a retreat doesn't it? LOL. I'm BAAAACCCKK! And yes...the Lord did take good care of me and nourished me well...both physically and spiritually. Even with human limitations (our own and others), the Lord manages to reach us and 'feed' us. Praise God.

All weekend I had this song running in my head (especially when I got up at 5:30 AM...AM and watched the sunrise.)...'from the rising of the sun, til the sun goes down, may the Name of the Lord be praised! WE give You praise!'... So Praise You Lord for that all that You do on our behalf...You are the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. I LOVE You JESUS!

retreat

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

I'll be off for the next couple of days for my Lay Carmelite yearly retreat...please keep me and my group in your prayers.

Remain Faithful

USCCB - (NAB) - June 6, 2008:

"But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work."

I wrote on my otherblog before going through today's readings...but I guess what the Lord was putting in my heart there, applies here too. Let's not perish for lack of knowledge!

Children of Hope

Children of Hope, Eucharistic Adoration for Children

Rosary on the 13th

"We are planning to pray the rosary on the 13th of every month until October 13
in honor of Our Lady of Fatima.

Our Lady appeared on the 13th of every month from May 13, 1917 to October 13,
1917 with a message of reparation and peace. We started last month and were
blessed with a view of a circle around the sun as you can see in the attached
picture."

Just got the above message from Laura, I'm very excited about this.

YouTube - I Offer My Life