MORNING PRAYER

As new light streams out of the darkness.

we open wide our hearts 

to the healing light of your Encircling Presence.

Open our eyes 

to the opportunities this day has to offer.

Surprise us with small joys and pieces of beauty

scattered though the hours ahead.

O Beautiful Presence,

help us this day to taste the joy of  being awake.

May this simple prayer come true

in our lives today!

-Macrina Weiderkher- 

CARRYING OUR CROSS
by Joyce Rupp

RESPONSE:  JESUS, GRANT US STRENGTH TO CARRY  YOUR CROSS

• On those days when life seems too demanding with all its cares, burdens and concerns...
•   When we experience great loneliness deep inside and the pain of separation fills our spirits...
• When we feel the pain of our world and unite in compassion with the Earth's suffering people...
• When we struggle with decision-making and the time comes to make good choices about our lives...
• When we are with others in their physical pain or when we vigil with one who has terminal illness...
• When we are asked to go the extra mile, to be generous with our time and our presence...
• When we feel weary and worn out, when it seems like all of our energy has been drained away...
• When we are challenged to risk our security and to accept new growth in our relationship with you...
• When we experience the effects of aging or extended illness on our bodies or our minds...
• When we feel discouraged, desolate, depressed and want to withdraw from others...
• When worries and concerns choke our peacefulness and leave us with anxieties and fear...
• When we harbor old wounds and are called to offer or to receive forgiveness...

TOGETHER: 

Crucified Jesus, help us to take up our cross day by day.  Through these crosses we can grow closer to you. Help us to lean on you and to learn from you. May we not give in to self-pity or self-doubt. Rather, let us trust in your presence which strengthens us. Encourage us on our tomb-like days. Remind us of your Resurrection. Help us to keep our vision focused on life and growth. Amen.

BLESSED ADVENT

A GIFT OF HOPE
An Advent Prayer by Joyce Rupp

God of all those who yearn for a glimmer 
of assurance on the long journey to you, come!
Come with the vast storehouse of renewed dreams, 
hopes and peacefulness!

GOD OF HOPE,
Enter into my memory and remind me often 
of the yearning of the people of history. 
Stir up stories of how the ancestors 
hung on your promises, 
how they stole hope from tiny glimmers
about you, passed on from age to age. 
Help me to hear the loud, crying voices of the prophets who proclaimed that a new age would dawn.

GOD OF HOPE,
Enter into this heart of mine 
which often loses itself in self, 
missing the message of your encouragement 
because I am so entangled in the web of my own whirl of life.
 Enable me to not lose sight of the power of your presence or the truth of your consolation.

GOD OF HOPE,
Enter into the lives of all those I hold dear, 
the ones whose lives are marked with pain,
 struggle, and deep anxiety, 
those whose lives bear ongoing heartaches, 
those whose difficulties threaten to overwhelm 
them with helplessness and despair. 
Come and gift them with a deep belief about you 
and your never-ending faithfulness and companionship.

GOD OF HOPE,
Come into every human heart 
that cries out for a glimpse of your love, 
for a sign of your welcoming presence, 
for a taste of happiness. 
Be the one who calms the restless 
and gentles the ache of the human journey.

GOD OF HOPE,
Enter into this Advent Season 
with the grace of joy and laughter. 
Fill faces with smiles of delight and voices 
with sounds of pleasure.  
Let this gift come from deep within. 
Replenish all with the joyful blessings that only your peace can bring.

GOD OF HOPE,
Be the Morning Star in our Midst, 
the Light that can never go out, 
the Beacon of Hope guiding our way to you. 
Come into our midst and make of our lives a home,
 where your everlasting goodness resonates with assuring love and vigorous hope.

May the Light of Christ 

that has come into our world

fill all of our hearts with Joy and Peace!

Join me in fathoming the depths of this liturgical season of the year by immersing ourselves in a profound spiritual prayer that I have found so powerful to enter into 

during this Advent Season. 

A BLESSED ADVENT TO EVERYONE!

Sunrise at Chicamauga Dam
GOD'S PRESENCE
This snapshot was entered in the 6th Annual Exhibit and Awards of the National Arts Program and CHI Memorial Health System recently held at Memorial Hospital - Chattanooga. This entry has won the First Prize Award in Photography Amateur Level. The original copy is ob displayed at the Rembrandt Hall of Memorial Hospital from October 2012 to September 2013.
 http://www.nationalartsprogram.org/venues/memorial-health-care-system-chattanooga-tn/images/gods-presence

May we always experience God's abiding love,

which is "all 'round us, embracing us all!"

- Meister Eckhart -


COROLLARY REFLECTION

     "Rudolf Otto in his book, "The Idea of the Holy" says that when someone has an authentic experience of the Holy, they find themselves caught up in two opposite movements at the same time: mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascionosum, a scary mystery and a very alluring mystery. We both draw back from and are pulled forward into a kind of liminal space where we are not at home at all and yet totally at home for the perhaps the first time.

     In the mysterium tremendum, you know God as far and beyond - unreachable and beyond description! Here you experience God as dreadful and fearful, as one who has all the power, and in whose presence I am utterly powerless.  People at that stage tend to become overwhelmed by a sense of separation or alienation.  If you stop here, you either become an atheist, an agnostic, or a loyal but distant soldier. The defining of sin and sin management becomes the nature of religion.

     But simultaneously with this dimension is an opposite feeling of fascination, allurement, and seduction, a being pulled and drawn into something very satisfying and inviting. This is mysterium fascinosum.. If you only have the alluring part of this mystery you get merely sentimental and emotional religion, usually without any real social consequences ("Sweet Jesus," Christianity, as it sometimes called.). Otto says that if you don't have both, you have not have a true or full experience of The Holy." -  Richard Rohr, "Experiencing the Holy," RICHARD's DAILY MEDITATION, @ cac@cacradicalgrace.org

Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow;

the same everlasting Father, who cares for you today,

will take care of you tomorrow and everyday.

Either He will shield you from your suffering 

or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace, then,

and put aside anxious thoughts and imaginations!

St. Francis de Sales 

To pray is to enter into a relationship with God
and to have that relationship
make a difference in my life."
Kenneth Leech

Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust,
yet the Love of the Lord will stand:
And the Shelter for All who will Call on God's name
"Sing The Praise and The Glory of God!"

Could the Lord ever leave you,
Could the Lord for get His Love?
Though a mother forsake her child,
God will not abandon you!

We are bathed in God

who is around us all,

EMBRACING us!

Meister Eckhart

This looking to God is 
CONTEMPLATION.
It is an inward gaze into the depths of the soul
and, for that very reason, beyond the soul to God.
The more the soul finds God, 
the more it forgets itself and yet finds itself in God. 
It is an "unwavering gaze,"
where "looking" is always "hearing."
For what is looked at is the free and infinite Person
who, from the depths of his freedom,
is able to give himself 
in a manner ever new, unexpected and unpredictable.
That is why the Word of God 
 is never something settled once for all
that can be surveyed like a clearly defined landscape,
but something that comes forth ever new,
like water from a spring or
rays from a light.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

OPEN MY EYES, LORD
Open my eyes, Lord, help me to "see";
Open my ears, Lord, help me to "hear"
Open my heart, Lord, help me to "love."
I live within your heart; rest in me Lord! 

"Nothing is more important than finding God, 

that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute and final way!

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, 
will affect everything.

 It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, 

what yo do with your evenings, 
how you spend your week-ends, 
what you read, 
who you know, 
what breaks your heart, 
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. 

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." 

Quote attributed to Fr. Arrupe, SJ

LOVE  is founded on our desire for completion

"to be whole, to be in harmony, to be connected, to be free."

What is it that completes us?

 It does not have to be a person,

it could be work, an experience in nature,

a hobby or something else...

MAY WE ALWAYS BE IN LOVE, 

that is, may we be always in touch with and be grounded on

 what it is that completes us!

"A heart that is full of love always has something to give."
Pope John XXIII


"This is the MIRACLE that happens every time to those who love:
the more they give, the more they possess."  
  Rainier Maria Rilkie


JOY IS THE MOST INFALLIBLE SIGN OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD!
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Bearded Iris from http://www.flickr.com/photos/exequiel_mapa/6782993493/in/photostream/
BEAUTY

"True Beauty is from elsewhere, a pure gift. It cannot be programmed nor its arrival foreseen. It never falls simply into the old patterns of what is already there nor is it frivolous or burdened with leaden solemnity. 

Frequently, beauty is playful like dancing sunlight, it cannot be predicted, and in the most unlikely scene or situation can suddenly emerge. This spontaneity and playfulness often subverts our self-importance and throws our plans and intentions into disarray. Without intending it, we find ourselves coming alive in a sense of celebration and delight. The pedestrian sequence of a working day breaks, a new door opens and the heart recognizes the silent majesty of the ordinary. The things we never notice, like health, friends and love, emerge from their subdued presence and stand out in their true radiance as gifts we could never have earned or achieved.''

- Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, John O'Donohue -

May we never lose our sense of awe and wonder in whatever we do in all of our life endeavors!  May our God of Wonder continue to surprise our lives with this sense of celebration and delight in whatever circumstances we may found ourselves in our life situations and ministries!

WONDER

"Among the many things that the religious tradition hold in store for us

is the LEGACY OF WONDER. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is TO TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.

AWARENESS OF THE DIVINE start with WONDER. It is the result of what humanity does with its higher comprehension.  The greatest hindrance to such awareness is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.


RADICAL AMAZEMENT has a wider scope than any other act of humanity. While any act of perception or cognition has as its object a selected segment of reality, radical amazement refers to all of reality; not only to what we see, but also to the very act of seeing as well as to our own selves, to the selves that see and are amazed at their ability to see.


The grandeur or mystery of being is not a particular puzzle to the mind, as for example, the cause for volcanic eruptions.  We do not have to go to the end of reasoning to encounter it. Grandeur or mystery is something with which we confronted everywhere and at all times. Even the very act of thinking baffles our thinking, just as every intelligible fact is, by virtue of its being a face, drunk with baffling aloofness. Does not mystery reign within the reasoning, within perception, without explanation? Where is is the self-understanding that could unfurl the marvel of our own thinking, that could explain the grace of our emptying the concrete with charms of abstraction? What formula could explain and solve the enigma of the very fact of thinking? Out is neither thing nor thought but only the subtle magic of blending the two.


What fills us with radical amazement is the relations in which everything is embedded bu the fact that even the minimum of perception is a maximum of enigma. The most incomprehensible fact is the fact that comprehend at all.


The way to faith leads thought acts of wonder and radical amazement.


Abraham Joshua Heschel, "GOD IN SEARCH OF MAN"

May this Christmas Season remind us

of the most important and powerful Christmas message of all.

It is about God's Special Love for Us

and the relationship that has been created by this Great Love!

May we always be open to recognize God's abounding grace

and be always wiling to be drawn and seized by God 

to participate in this Circle of Love

in all of our life endeavors

especially in how we care for and love one another (Jn 13:34)!

A Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Nativity Scene displayed at the St. Augusting Chapel

of the Alexian Brothers Residence

Signal Mountain, TN. 2010
http://www.flickr.com/photos/exequiel_mapa/6626020293/in/photostream

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.

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