Be Satisfied with Me

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,

To have a deep soul relationship with another,

To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.

But God, to a Christian, says,

"No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled and content

With being loved by Me alone,

With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,

With having an intensely personal and unique relationship

With Me alone.

Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found,

Will you be capable of the perfect human relationship

That I have planned for you.

You will never be united with another until you are united

With Me alone,

Exclusive of anyone or anything else,

Exclusive of any other desires or longings.

I want you to stop planning,

Stop wishing,

And allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan existing,

One that you cannot imagine.

Please allow Me to bring it to you.

You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things.

Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I Am.

Keep listening and learning the things I tell you.

You just wait.

That's all.

Don't be anxious.

Don't worry.

Don't look at the things you think you want;

You just keep looking off and away up to Me,

Or you'll miss what I want to show you.

And then when you are ready,

I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than any

You could dream of.

You see, until you are ready and until

The one I have for you is ready

(I am working even at this moment to have you both ready at the same time),

Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me

And the life I prepared for you,

You won't be able to experience the love that

Exemplified your relationship with Me.

And this is the perfect love.

And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love,

I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your

Relationship with Me,

And to enjoy materially and concretely

The everlasting union of beauty, perfection and love

That I offer you with Myself.

Know that I love utterly.

I Am God.

Believe it and be satisfied.

~ St. Anthony of Padua

Poverty and Prayer

A passage from one of the books I'm reading for formation this month called 'Clowning in Rome' by Henri Nouwen.  Note: Intercessory prayer is when you pray for someone else.

There is a powerful connection between poverty and intercessory prayer. When we give up what sets us apart from others-not just property but also opinions, prejudices, judgments, and mental preoccupations-then we can allow friends as well as enemies to enter with us into our solitude and lift them up to God in the midst of the great encounter. In real solitude there is an unlimited space for others, because there we are empty and there we can see that, in fact, nobody stands over and against us. An enemy is only our enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we have nothing to hold onto, nothing to protect, nothing to consider as exclusively ours, then nobody can be an enemy and then we can, in fact, recognize in the center of our solitude that all men and women are brothers and sisters, In solitude, we stand so naked and so vulnerable before God, and become so deeply aware of our total dependency on his love, that not only our friends but also those who kill, lie, torture, rape, and wage wars can become part of our flesh and blood. In solitude we are so totally poor that we can enter into solidarity with all human beings and allow our hearts to become the place of encounter not only with God, but, through God, with all human beings as well. And thus intercessory prayer is the prayer of self-emptying because it asks of us to give up all that divides us from others so that we can become those we pray for and let God touch them in us.

Lent

A talk that gave last year around this time for the CLC guys at St Mary of Sorrows that I wanted to type up since I had it scribbled down on a piece of paper.

Lent offers us 40 days to enter into the desert with Jesus to prepare ourselves for the coming of Easter. Not so much for the new clothes or the candy, but it's about focusing on the resurrection from death into life and understanding the greatness we were created for. Lent offers us the challenge to revisit our sinfulness and how that impacts our personal relationship with Christ from our end and allows us to reorient ourselves in that relationship. Jesus spent 40 days revisiting the disciples after his resurrection before they were sent forth to be missionaries for the world, so it makes since for us to spend sometime revisiting the person of Christ and refocus on how we're called to be leaven for the world. (Acts 1:3)

40 Days in the Bible

(Gen 7:12) For forty days and forty nights heavy rain poured down on the earth.
(Gen 8:6) At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark

Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days (TWICE)
(Exo 24:18) But Moses passed into the midst of the cloud as he went up on the mountain; and there he stayed for forty days and forty nights.
(Exo 34:28-29) So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights, without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.


Elijah strengthened by one angelic meal went forty days to Mount Horeb where the Lord passed by and he heard the voice of God
(1 Kings 19:8) He got up, ate and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.


Jonah warned the City of Nineveh they had 40 days to repent
(Jonah 3:4-7 and 10) Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day's walk announcing, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed," (5) when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. (6) When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. (7) Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: "Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. … (10) When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.


Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness
(Mat 4:1-2) Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (2) He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.

Fasting is a heavy theme associated with the 40 days throughout the bible.  As a tradition we fast on Ash Wednesday (today) and Good Friday as well as abstaining from meat on those two days and every Friday during Lent.  Other traditions that we hold to are increased Prayer, Almsgiving, and Repentance.  A few specific examples of those would be going to Confession during Lent, giving up something we like a lot (Fasting), praying for a friend or cause, praying the stations of the cross, and donating our treasure (time or money) to others as a way of giving Alms.  These traditions all come from our ancestry as it's recorded in the bible.

The Present Moment

If I look at the future, I am full of fear,

but why go forward into the future?

Only the present moment is dear to me,

because perhaps the future will not lodge in my soul.

The past is not within my power

to change, correct, or add something.

Neither the wise nor the prophets were able to do this.

I trust therefor to God that which regards my past.

O present moment, you belong to me completely;

I desire to use you as much as it is within my power...

Therefore, trusting in your mercy,

I go forward in life as a child,

and everyday I offer to you my heart

enflamed with love for your greater glory.

~St. Faustina Kowalska

Reflection on “The Annunciation: Mary’s call”

Archbishop Sheen explained that there is a difficulty in relating our call to Mary’s call. You might even say the Annunciation is a mystery, and a joyful one at that.

“Mary was chosen by God to be His Mother and was even prepared for that honor by being preserved free from the primal sin that had infected all humanity. If she were so prepared, would she be free to accept or to reject, and would her answer be the full fruit of her free will? The answer is that her redemption was already completed but that she had not yet accepted or ratified it. It was, in a way, something like our dilemma. We are baptized as infants, and our bodies become temples of God, as our souls have been filled with infused virtues. We become not just creatures made by God but partakers in Divine nature. All this is done in Baptism before our freedom blossoms, the Church standing responsible for our spiritual birth as our parents did for our physical birth. Later on, however, we ratify that original endowment by the fee acts of our moral lives- by receiving the sacraments, by prayers, and by sacrifices.” ~ THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE

A variation of a question that has been stuck in my head for quite a while now and one that perhaps most people encounter that are earnest about the longings of their heart, is this. How am I to know I’m being faithful in attempting to discern and truthfully follow God’s will for me in both my vocation and in my daily life?


More recently this question has been a part of discerning my big Vocation and comes up so often in prayer and thoughts throughout the day that I would like to have some peace of mind to it sometime soon, but I’ve come to know through some good advice that God’s preparation of my heart in this discernment is quite possibly as important as the answer itself. I tried a number of different things at the beginning of my commitment and even the year before my commitment to prepare myself and keep track of how I’m doing as well as taking time to write down points of reflection. The latest system is my note cards and I wanted to share a few of those with you tonight.

October 17, 2009
I need to be leaning on my brothers to be able to live out my commitment and receive the intimacy that I need. Too often I reject the love of my brothers in the ways in which they reach out. I seem to be expecting or demanding that for me to accept that love that it should come in certain ways that I prefer. Lord, please remove my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh on fire with your love.

November 28, 2009
God is asking me to be faithful:
-Some days the temptation to be disobedient is strong
-Some days I can’t clear my thoughts and I’m angry
+Sometimes I spring out of bed and I’m excited and hopeful for the day to come
-Sometimes I let other people’s attitude/their anger/their frustration penetrate my serenity
+Sometimes I can really feel God’s presence when I put my pride aside
In all of these moments God is asking me to be faithful.

December 18, 2009
This year is for my relationship with God. For my heart to be formed and the garbage to be cleaned out. To step out bravely into the dark with the light of Christ as my Truth. To love and be loved as God intended. To hopefully see into the depths of my heart and make free choices for my future that will ultimately bring me joy and peace. To know and believe that my reward in heaven will be great if I bear all of my suffering in the name of Christ.

December 30, 2009
You are a jealous lover indeed. I try to push myself to what would be good for me but I know you haven’t yet lead me there, if you are to lead me there. You want me to be content with discernment to be able to truly submit to you in your will for me, in your time. You want it all; you want me to be fully alive in you, to be free.

I’ve had to take to the method of keeping these things and pondering them in my heart after the model of Mary. Patience, trust in the Lord, slowly becoming and falling in love with Jesus my Savior. Working to do my best to say yes in the small things so I will be prepared for the bigger moments where more things are on the line. Lord, please grant us the grace to wait for your counsel and never forget your works. Hearts that are confident in your majesty and interior freedom in line with mother Mary’s Fiat.

Prayers for My Family

You'll notice that I added a new link to a seperate blog that I'm going to be posting on once a week (and I mean it this time!) called Prayers for My Family.  This is my Christmas present to my family and what is going to happen is that each week, for the next year, is dedicated in prayer to a different family member or family unit.  If you click on the link it'll give you a better explination, but for now I'm just floored how well recieved the idea was from my family and how greatful they were and on board to want to join in to be praying for someone else in the family in unison.