NEW YEAR'S BLESSINGS!

"O Lord, Your Word is a Lamp unto my feet,

and a Light unto my path!"

Psalm 119:105

GOD LOVES AND CARES SO MUCH FOR US!
HE HAS BLESSED US
AND HAS CONTINUED TO SHOWER US WITH HIS GRACE 
IN SO MANY WAYS WE COULD NOT
EVEN IMAGINE.

  LET US JOIN HANDS IN PRAYING
THAT WE MAY CONTINUE TO BE AMAZED 

BY GOD'S MANY BLESSINGS

ON  OUR LIFE'S JOURNEYS
ESPECIALLY DURING

 THIS NEW YEAR. 

God's plan is good,

His Power is GREAT

and His Best is yet to come.

Matt Anderson

For I know I have PLANS FOR YOU, says the Lord,

a PLAN OF FULLNESS, NOT OF HARM

TO GIVE YOU HOPE AND FUTURE...

Jer 29:11

PRAYER TO THE GOD OF THE SEEKING

SHRINE OF THE SACRED HEART AT FARHNWALD JESUIT RETREAT CENTER
OSHKOSH, WI

Teach me to seek you,

and when I see you , show yourself to me;

for I cannot seek you unless you teach me,

or find you unless you show yourself to me.

Let me seek you by desiring you.

Let me find you by loving you

and love you when I find you.

I do not seek to understand so that I can believe

but believe so that I may understand

For this too, I believe:

Unless I believe, I shall not understand.

St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

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- 

EASTER PRAYER

PRAYER TO THE RESTORER OF ENTOMBED VITALITY

Awakened One, Source of Inner Power,

Restorer of Tombed Vitality, Giver of Graced Gusto.

You, who have raised from the cold stone of death,

come and resurrect me from my own entombment.

Repair what has weakened in my spiritual endeavors,

revive my mildewed , cobwebbed relationships;

Lift up my waning hope when I wail with the world's pain,

restore my sense of oneness with all of your creation;

Refresh my daily call to embrace the sacred

to find you in every gesture that dances with your heart;

Push  back the stone of self-centeredness

untomb my genrousity, renew my dedication;

Raise up my dilapidated dreams, restore my ancient union,

resuscitate my burning desire, 

re-establish my priorities

So you become the Center 
of all I am and all I do.

-Joyce Rupp-

Easter  Blessings on us all!


The Resurrection is not a single event, 
but a loosening of God's power and light into the earth and into history
that continues to alter things,
infusing them with grace and power of God's own holiness.

It is as if a door was opened,
and what poured out will never be stopped
and the door cannot be closed.

Megan McKenna

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving and being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey

to find its source, and how the moon wept without her lover's warm grace.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.

We wither like fields if someone close does not rain their kindness upon us."

Meister Eckhart, from LOVE POEMS FROM GOD, 
translated by Daniel  Ladinsky. 109

"And so we pray:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy 
answers, half truths, and superficial
relationships so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice,
oppression, and using people on earth
so that you will work for justice, equity and peace.

May God bless you with weeping and desolation, 
so that you may grow compassion 
for those who suffer because of others,
and may you reach out to them.

And May God bless you with foolishness
to think that you can make a difference
where you are, in this world, in this ministry,
in your surroundings, 
and that you can do the things
which others say cannot be done.

We pray this, God, in your Name. Amen."

-Original author of prayer unknown, adapted by Alexis Navarro

 WHO IS OUR GENUINE FRIEND?

Have been reflecting about friends and friendship lately.  I guess, I have come to the point of my developmental years that I am so concerned about what Erick Erickson called "Intimacy Stage," which may be a stage close to late adulthood?  Wow, may be not that far yet, although getting close.  But surely, I have been around and have been to many places and have met some many people that have befriended me and that i have befriended. 

Whether the friendship has been mutually recognized and lived out, I could not tell for sure.  What I know well, is that there is always something pure and powerful about friendship that I have desired to appropriate or write about, much more, that I have longed to embrace, even though I have found, been awed, humbled and transformed by these number of personal friendships. 

I thought, I would like to mention and share the special quotations that have deeply resonated with me and that have come very close to my ideal notion of friendship.  Hopefully, in writing them down, I would have the imagination and the inspiration to express this reality closer to what some theologians have already articulated about and what the mystics have deeply experienced in their lives. That is, God has continually been inviting us to be closer and has always been drawing us to that ultimate level of Intimacy and Oneness with God and with the whole of creation.  

PROFOUND QUOTATIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... 

It has no survival value; 
rather it is one of those things 
that give value to survival. 

~ C.S. Lewis

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have,

and one of the best things you can be. 
Douglas Pagels

I went out to find a friend,
But could not find one there,
Then I went out to be a friend,
And there were friends everywhere!

Anonymous

DEEPER PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP PERSPECTIVES  

'Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. 

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. 

Walk beside me and be my friend.' 

Albert Camus

  'A real friend is one who walks in 

when the rest of the world walks out.' 

Charles Colton 

 "A friend 

is someone who can take both the chaff and the wheat; 

and 

with the breath of kindness remove the chaff."

G. Campbell Morgan 

" If one falls down, his friend can help him up. 

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

 Many people today know the painful loneliness of having no truly best friends". 

Eccl. 4:10

"Greater love has no one than this, 

that he lay down his life for his friends" 

John 15:13

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. 

Instead, I have called you friends, 

for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" 

John 15:15.

             "The friend who can be silent with us 

in a moment of despair or confusion,

who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement,

who can tolerate not knowing...not healing...not curing

...that is the friend who cares."

 - Henri Nouwen -

A Friend is a Present you give Yourself!

 - Anonymous -

It is my prayer that we may all deeply experience this Loving Mystery that always draw us closer to God in our daily lives.  May God, who continually mold us in his image and likeness, always leave us in awe and wonder as we show more transparency in our relationships with God and with one another!