AWAITING

With God, all things are possible!  Mt 19:26

ALWAYS BELIEVE 
THAT 
IN EVERY MOMENT 
OF OUR LIVES
SOMETHING WONDERFUL
IS ABOUT TO 
HAPPEN!

RESILIENCY IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

The "Resilient Tree" at the Fahrnwald Retreat House
by Winnebago Lake in Oshkosh, WI

"Come to the Water all you who are thirsty;
...come to me; listen, and you will live."
Is. 55:1,3

"LORD, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE

CAN BE A TEACHING

AND A MEANS 

OF COMING CLOSER TO YOU.

GIVE ME THE CONFIDENCE AND THE HOPE

THAT WHATEVER I ENCOUNTER

BRINGS ME CLOSER

TO YOUR WILL AND LOVE."

Meister Eckhart, 30 days with a Great Spiritual Teacher

"The Lord is in your midst."  Zepaniah 3:17

"You do not have to see the wind

to know that it's rustling gently in the trees;

You don't have to see the bird 

to enjoy it's sweet singing;

You don't have to see God's face

to know He hears all the prayers for you

and smiles upon you now 
with Love!"



HOPE YOU KNOW 
HOW OFTEN YOU ARE THOUGHT OF
AND
HOW MUCH YOU'RE CARED ABOUT!

GOD IS OUR REFUGE AND STRENGTH, A LOVING PRESENCE IN TIMES OF TROUBLE

The Beloved is our refuge and strength,

a Loving Presence in times of trouble.

Therefore we shall not fear though

the earth should change,

though the mountains shake 

in the heart of the sea;

Though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

Psalm 46 (Psalm for the Praying, Invitation to Wholeness)

Nan Merril

May Faith, Hope and Courage
be our Guiding Light
today and always!
May God be praised!

I cannot cause light!

"You are the light of the world....
Your light must shine before others
so that they may see your good acts
and give praise to your Abba in heaven."
Matthew 5:14-16

"I cannot cause light.

The most I can do is

to put myself

in the path of its beam."

-Anne Dillard-

GOD'S GRACE DURING OUR DEEPEST NEEDS

GOD'S GRACE IN TIME OF OUR DEEPEST NEED

"There are so many ways that we feel God's tender touch in our lives,

but it is in time of loss that we discover the deepest meaning

of His tenderness" - Roy Lessin

In whatever difficult circumstances we may have found ourselves on our life's journey, it is my prayer that we may always find our own meaningful consolations and that we may come out in deeper hope and trust in God!

WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

MATTHEW 19:26

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!

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO TRUSTS IN THE LORD...

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water 

that brings forth its fruit in due season;

his leaf shall not wither;

and whatever he does shall prosper!

PSALM 1: 1-5

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

HOPE AND RESILIENCY

"You sanctify what you are grateful for!"

- Anthony De Mello, S.J.

Surely, all art is the result of one's having lived in danger,
of having gone through all experience all the way to the end,
where no one can go further...
- Rainer Maria Rilke -

PRAYER

Lord, teach us always to recognize your greatness, to ponder on our treasures, 
and to draw strength from our daily blessings,
 especially during our most trying times.

Guide our sometimes weary hearts 
to trust in your abiding presence 
and in your great plans for us (Jer 29:11)!

"For I know the plans I have for you - it is Yahweh who speaks - 
plans for peace not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you." 
Jeremiah 29:11

Extend your arms in welcome to the future.

The best is yet to come!

-Anthony de Mello, SJ- 

Let us pray that we may allow God to continually draw us closer into this loving union that we deeply long for. That we may trust, grow and blossom as we become deeply united with God in this ever expanding Oneness of Love. 

Let us trust that through God's grace, 

we  may then become transformed to become more loving, gracious, compassionate and justice oriented persons, and thus, become partakers of God's creative change in our broken world!

PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT

Take , Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my eternal will - all that I have 
and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you,  Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; 
do with with it what you will
Give me only your love and your grace,
That is enough for me.

-St Ignatius of Loyola - 

 TRUST IN GOD

...trust in the slow work of God

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown,

something new...

And so it is with us...

Do not try to force... as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your good )

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

-Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, SJ-

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! 

Be Yourself...Life is Precious as it is!

Live your Life to the fullest,
not in counting the years
but in making each moment extraordinary.
Let us be reminded that there is Something Bigger that are constantly calling us to greatness 
and that are always drawing us 
to greater union and intimacy 
with our Ever Loving Creator.
Shine through,
"Go forth and set the world on fire!(St. Ignatius)" 


If You ...

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.If you are successful,  you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.


If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could
destroy overnight; Build anyway.


If you find serenity and happiness, there may be jealousy;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa

REST IN THE GOODNESS OF GOD,

FOR THAT GOODNESS 
REACHES 
TO THE DEPTHS OF OUR NEEDS!

Julian of Norwich

PATIENT TRUST
Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end of the day without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate states.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time.

And so it think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually -let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,
and 
accept the anxiety of feeling yourself 
in suspense and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ