God Always Draws Us Closer

GOD ALWAYS DRAWS US CLOSER

"How do I pray?" This question has nagged me several times now that my commitment to perpetually vowed religious life had been drastically ended by my personal decision to leave my religious community several months ago.  I admit that I have stopped praying the "Liturgy of the Hours," or the Breviary, the traditional clerical and Christian Community Prayer - and the common prayers of my former community.  Not reciting the Breviary has never bothered me because I have been rooted in who I am through my personal prayers. 

I have been introduced to the different ways of praying personally and collectively from different culture and traditions when I was still taking my MDiv Courses at CTU and my Internship in Spiritual Direction at Claret Center in Chicago For whatever reason, I have been drawn to continue to pray my experiences* the best way for me to connect with God during these past months when I have been in transition. Check out the book below if this way of praying hits you.

Today, reading the "Mom's Empty Chair" Story below, written by an unknown author, not only made me mindful of this kind of prayer. The mother's prayer, reminded me of Fr. Redemptor, an elderly priest in his nineties who lived in the Nursing Center of my former community in Milwaukee. 

Fr. Redemptor was growing older and was getting weaker each day. He has slept mostly during the day while holding on to his breviary and rosary.  He sadly shared his "problem" during one of my visits to him with another Brother by saying,"Brothers, I could hardly stay awake during mass, most especially during the consecration of bread and wine." To him, my Brother said,"Father, didn't you think that at this point in your priestly life, there is no better way to become close to God that to rest in God's arm?" Probably, expecting a fire in the brimstone remark, there was a surprise on his face.  I could not forget that great "aha!" moment that I witnessed.  

Surely, every moments of our lives can be an opportunity for us to turn ourselves closer to God. To pray our experiences we need then to start on reflecting on and to enter honestly into our everyday experiences as ordinary as they are.  In order for us to become aware of God's action in them and to offer ourselves through them with God, we need first to recognize God's indwelling presence in our lives always drawing us closer to God's luring us with the Fullness of God's Love.

For Fr. Redemptor and for all who longs for the many and endless ways of being seized by God in our daily lives, especially during our mundane and dull times, may all of our experiences and prayers be blessed and be full of God's Encircling Love!

God's blessings!

MOM'S EMPTY CHAIR

A woman's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her mother. When the minister arrived, he found the woman lying in bed with her head propped up on two pillows.  An empty chair sat beside her bed.

The minister assumed that the woman had been informed of his visit...I guess you were expecting me, he said.'No, who are you?' said the mother.The minister told her his name and then remarked, 'I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up..''Oh yeah, the chair,' said the bedridden woman 'Would you mind closing the door?' Puzzled, the minister shut the door.

'I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter,' said the woman. 'But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head...'I abandoned any attempt at prayer,' the old woman continued, 'until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, ' Prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest..'Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I will be with you always'.. 'Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now... ''So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though.If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm.'

The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old woman to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with her, anointed her with oil, and returned to the church. Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her mama had died that afternoon. 'Did she die in peace?' he asked. 'Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, she called me over to her bedside,told me she loved me and kissed me on the cheek.When I got back from the store an hour later,  I found her .But there was something strange about her death. Apparently, just before Mom died, she leaned over and rested her head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?'

The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, 'I wish we could all go like that.'

Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive. "I asked God for water, He gave me an ocean.* I asked God for a flower, He gave me a garden.* I asked God for a friend, He gave me all of YOU...

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. Happy moments, praise God. Difficult moments, seek God. Quiet moments, worship God. Painful moments, trust God. Every moment, thank God."

*Schmidt, Joseph F., FSC, Praying Our Experiences, MN:St. Mary's Press, 2000.

Have You Spent Some Quality Time with Someone Today?

HAVE YOU SPENT SOME UNDIVIDED ATTENTION WITH SOMEBODY YOU LOVE TODAY!

A powerful video below caught my attention this week.  I was organizing my computer files and found this forwarded video among my ever-filing e-mails.  The video made me realize what has prevented me from finding some satisfaction from work recently.CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Because of my institution's expectations on work productivity and thus, my bosses' vigilant implementation of cutting down on loose hours,   I noticed during the past days that I was rushed, automatic and constrained in how  much time to spend to interact with others, especially with my patients and their family members and with my co-workers. It reminded me of my past ER nursing dilemma before I entered religious life - either to become efficient and quick or be compassionately caring.  I admit that I tend to forget and overlook the "sacramentallity" of my job, especially when I have been busy the whole day with a heavy load under my care.  It is a "judgment call "to be attuned and engaged" because at work we are expected not to be engaging in long, unnecessary and unrelated nursing interactions.  Truly, the ordinary works that we do and how we have been conditioned to do them, can become traps that could prevent us from deeply connecting with our God, others and ourselves.  

It is a good awareness. We have to be always conscious that, wherever we go, we are walking on God's holy ground. I needed to be centered, be contemplative and be reflective. 

I just thought that, oftentimes, when we look back and reflect at night times about what happened during the day,  we remember very well the person/s that has/have spent quality time with us.  The same thing happens to others,  it is the person/s that has/have spent quality time with them that makes them remember us or the special graced moments in their lives.  

Don't we like to make a difference in how we care for our loved ones/others?  Don't we like our loved ones/others to remember how much they really meant to us and how much God loves them for who they are?  It is not so much of what they do but in who they are as a person. 


So how could we make a difference? How about wearing a warm gentle smile, or intentionally extending a caring touch, or simply looking at them in the eye and say, "let me know what and how I can be of help?" even how busy we are in our daily routines? Or why don't we develop a mantra,  like "Have you said 'Thank you God' today?" for us always remember how we all should be grateful to God every moment of our lives.  

How about the quotation below "to the world, you may be just  one person...but to one person, you might be their world! So smile, shine through and touch someone's life deeply today?" Remember what St. Theresa said that today in our broken world, we are God's eyes, hearts and hands, especially called by God to be with those who are yearning to feel God's Love.

May we be inspired to be creative and to find the time that we need to create a safe and warm space inside of us and and may we always have the time to share this special space with those people that we touch everyday. 

God's Blessings!

Little Acts of Kindness and Love

"The best portions of our lives 

are the little, nameless, unremembered 

acts of kindness and love."

-William Wordsworth-

What is Love?

What is Love?

Love is not a "once and for all" heaven sent situation.
Rather, LOVE is more of an intentional and 
dynamic spiritual exercise of 
opening oneself up to the OTHER
who HAS LOVED us first.
This journey involves 
a lifelong process of deepening our capability
 to exhaust the endless ways of expressing LOVE, 
most especially when we are challenged and are already spent.

Love is a practice of "holding someone in the light"

by visualizing someone 

in the circle of God's love and presence 

defending your life. 

 Quakers

Creativity

Creation, on the human level, does not come from nothing.  Human creation has something to do the with the production of something that is new and different from what the subject has originally been created for.  We all know that only God can "create something out of nothing," as St. Thomas Aquinas has reminded us. We humans, on the other hand, can be God's co-creator, as we are all born with the creative and dynamic potentials as created beings made in the image of God. 

 I believe that in all of us, there is this God given gift of innate creativity.  I may not have enough
time, talent and resources like some gifted artists.  But I wonder how creative we all can be if we would be imaginative and expressive enough to capture the inexhaustible beauty around us. 

  May we all live inspired and always in awe and wonder!

Has your health facility been consistent in requiring PCP's with your patient's latest laboratory results prior to giving them their Reclast Infusion? Here's the latest FDA warning to Physicians to ensure your patients' safety:

FDA Warns Physicians To Test Kidney Function Before Prescribing Reclast.

The Wall Street Journal /Dow Jones Newswires (9/2, Dooren, Subscription Publication) reports that the Food and Drug Administration has updated a warning regarding kidney failure and use of Novartis' Reclast (zoledronic acid). The FDA said that kidney failure "was a rare but serious condition associated with the use of Reclast in patients with a history of or risk factors for [kidney] impairment." Physicians are being warned, therefore, to check patient kidney function before prescribing Reclast and to check those who are already taking the drug.

        MedPage Today (9/2, Gever) says, "The new warning indicates that patients with creatinine clearance of less than 35 mL/min or evidence of acute renal impairment should not be given zoledronic acid for osteoporosis." The warning also lists risk factors including "advanced age, concurrent treatment with other nephrotoxic drugs, and dehydration secondary to fever, sepsis, gastrointestinal losses, or diuretic therapy."

Countering Conflict in the Workplace

How do you manage conflicts in the Workplace in the healthcare setting? Here's an excerpt on this topic from the NurseTogether.com Community members’ online chat on "Countering Conflict in the Workplace" with Dr. Catherine Garner. Dr. Garner is the Dean of Health Sciences and Nursing at the American Sentinel University.Countering Conflict in the Workplace