Blog Post 2/28/2023 - “Privileged Places”

“Privileged Places”  

 

Lent began on Ash Wednesday, so today I ask you to reflect on two “Privileged Places” we have been granted to deepen our awareness, our love and our knowledge of Jesus Christ during this time of preparation for our Easter celebration.

 

To appreciate those “Privileged Places”  we should admit that we are sinners, not bad people, but sinners, nonetheless.

1. THE GOSPELS – MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN

                        AND,

2. THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST!

This Lent read one or all four Gospels and each week spend some time, even if it is 3 minutes or 5 minutes before the Blessed Sacrament – in AWE and THANKSGIVING!

If you do that along with whatever Lenten practices you ordinarily do (Stations of the Cross, a Lenten retreat, Operation Rice Bowl, the rosary, etc.) – your Lent will deepen your love of God and your awareness of God’s love for you.

Lent is a gift for our spiritual growth, let’s take full advantage of the time we have to grow.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

Blog Post 2/27/2023 - Letting God Show Through

 

Letting God Show Through

One Sunday as they drove home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, there’s something about the preacher’s message this morning that I don’t understand."  The mother said, "Oh? What is it?"

 

The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. He said God is so big that He could hold the whole world in His hand. Is that true?"  The mother replied, "Yes, that's true, honey."

"But Mommy, he also said that God comes to live inside of us when we believe in Jesus as our Savior.  Is that true, too?"  Again, the mother assured the little girl that what the pastor had said was true.  With a puzzled look on her face the little girl then asked, "If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn't He show through?"  [Sermons.com Jerry Shirley, When God Shows Through]

 

Lent is a reminder for us to allow God to show through our actions.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/26/2023 – Lent a time to pray and a time to read.

 

 

Lent a time to pray and a time to read.

 

St. Athanasius of Alexandria said, "You will not see anyone who is truly striving after his spiritual advancement who is not given to spiritual reading."

 

 

Increase your spiritual reading during Lent, you will reap a harvest during the Easter Season.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

Blog Post 2/25/2023 – Self-Worth? – A Lenten Reflection

 

 

Self-Worth? – A Lenten Reflection

 

 

There is an old rabbinic story about a faithful Jew who every morning wrote on a piece of paper, “ I am but dust and ashes” then he put the paper in his pocket.  Throughout the day he would take it out and read it, this prayer spoken originally by Abraham [Genesis 18:27] served as reminder of his unworthiness and humility before God.

One day he showed his paper to his rabbi; the rabbi was moved by the man’s reverence. Then the rabbi took a piece of paper and wrote, “For my sake, the universe was created.”

The rabbi asked the man to carry these words as well and said “Let there be a balance in your life.  Realize that of yourself, before God, you are nothing – but because you are created in God’s image, out of love, you possess the greatest dignity imaginable: you are a child of God.”

As we prepare for Lent realizing our sinfulness, may we strike a “… balance between realizing our humility before God and our identity as God’s beloved.” [Connections, February 26, 2012“Striking a balance]

This Lent as your work to reduce or eliminate your sins, spend some time thanking God for the good that you have done and the glimpses of God you have shown to the world.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 02/24/2023 – How can we best serve God?

 

How can we best serve God?

 

 

Today our Lenten reflection gives us the opportunity to ponder why we are here and how we can best serve God while we are here.

“The Church Fathers consistently taught that God became so that humans might become God -  which is to say, participants in the divine nature.”  [Bishop Barron]

In the psalms we pray, “Mercy and faithfulness have met; justice and peace have embraced.  Faithfulness shall spring from the earth and justice look down from heaven.”

Doing God’s Will brings mercy and peace to our world and leads us to the divine.

 

May God Be Praised. 

 

 

Blog Post 2/23/2023 - Today let’s pray.

 

Today let’s pray.

 

 

 

We were created to glorify God through our deeds, so we pray: May our deeds glorify to Your name, Lord.

We bless God of all creation, may the goods you have given us illuminate Your love for us: May our deeds glorify to Your name, Lord.

Look with love upon our actions today as we follow Your will: May our deeds glorify Your name, Lord.

Bless our endeavors this day and may our work benefit those in need and may our co-workers be blessed: May our deeds glorify Your name, Lord.

Allow our sisters and brothers to discover the joy and peace You offer dear, God: May our deeds glorify Your name, Lord.

In gratitude for Your love and care dear Lord, I offer you this day.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

Blog Post 2/22/2023 –Lent Begins, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

  

Lent Begins, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

One reason we may grow in wisdom as we grow in our friendship with Christ is listening to His teaching so we can see the deeper truth behind appearances, and if we look deeper and love more fully our Lent will bear much fruit.

A Reflection on Potemkin Villages

In the late 1700s, when Catherine the Great was empress of Russia, her top general, Grigory Potemkin, led a successful military campaign in the Crimea.  After his victories, Catherine wanted to bring her diplomatic corps on a tour of the newly conquered territories.

General Potemkin saw this as an opportunity to impress foreign dignitaries, and maybe even ingratiate himself even more firmly with the empress.  So, he arranged her tour of the Crimea.  Unfortunately, the conquered territories had been devastated by the fighting, so they were not a very impressive or encouraging sight.

Potemkin dodged this difficulty by creating what have gone down in history as "Potemkin Villages."  Catherine and her travel party boarded a boat and began drifting down the Dneiper River, which cut right through the territory in question.  On the banks of the river, Potemkin ordered the construction of elaborate facades of villages - like theatrical stage sets. 

Then he arranged villagers and shepherds to populate these illusory towns right before the empress would arrive.  During the night, the sheep and the villagers would travel along the banks of the river down to the next artificial village.  From the boat on the river, these constructions looked prosperous and sturdy, but behind the false fronts, there was only desolation and grinding poverty.

Lent provides us an opportunity to take an honest look at ourselves and beg God for the grace to live our Christian life more faithfully and more fully.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

Blog Post 2/21/2023 – Insight on Prayer

 

"When we pray, the voice of the heart must be heard more than the proceedings from the mouth."  St. Bonaventure

 

Reflect on your heart and what is important to you.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/20/2023 - Prayer Is Life

 

 

“Prayer is not a discourse. It is a form of life, the life with God. That is why it is not confined to the moment of verbal statement. The latter (verbalization) can only be the secondary expression of the relationship with God, an overflow from the encounter between the living God and the living person.”  [Prayer and Modern Man by Jacques Ellul]

 

 

Reflect on your prayer life, is it your way of life?

 

May God Be Praised.

 

Blog Post 2/19/2023 - Called to Love

 

 

 

Called to Love

 

Kierkegaard offered us a fable of a king who fell in love with a maid. When asked, "How shall I declare my love?" his counselors answered, "Your majesty has only to appear in all the glory of your royal glory before the maid's humble dwelling and she will instantly fall at your feet and be yours."

 

 

But it was precisely that which troubled the king. He wanted her glorification, not his. In return for his love, he wanted hers, freely given.

 

Finally, the king realized love's truth, that freedom for the beloved demanded equality with the beloved. So late one night, after all the counselors of the palace had retired, he slipped out a side door and appeared before the maid's cottage dressed as a servant.

 

We are called to obey not God's power, but God's love. God wants not submission to his power, but in return for his love, our own.  God has come to be with us!  [James T. Garrett, God’s Gift, CSS Publishing Company]

 

Today think about how and why you love God.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/18/2023 - Where are you headed?

 

Where are you headed?   

“There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.” 

 

 

"We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer, and a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion.

 

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/17/2023 – A Prayer to Start a Special Day

 

 

A Prayer to Start a Special Day

“God on high, source of all light, hear my morning prayer.  Turn my thoughts to what is good and guide me by the glow of Your Holy Spirit.  May my actions be those You want lived today.  I offer this pray through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”  Amen.     [Dcn. George Kelly]

 

My morning prayer today is THANK YOU GOD for my wife and best friend, 56 years ago today we meet in Center Valley, and my life was blessed and continues to be blessed.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

Blog Post 2/16/2023 - “You are a hidden treasure . . . ”

“You are a hidden treasure . . . ”

 

Elissa Ely a psychiatrist in Boston and a frequent contributor to The Boston Globe, in her column July 15, 2021, recounted the time she was a student in Boston living in a walk-up apartment in Cambridge.   

Her landlady was a kind, quiet widow, whose back door was always open, and a cup of tea readily offered to her tenants.

Things were not going well for Elissa socially or professionally.  Life, she remembers, “felt bleak.” One afternoon, she passed her landlady’s open door.

Dr. Ely remembers: “My landlady set out the cup and began to chatter, as she liked to do. Then she must have sensed the mood, because she stopped. Several simple words — out of seeming nowhere — followed. I will never forget them. “ ‘You,’ she said, “are a hidden treasure, just waiting to be found.’”

“That sentence has kept me company for 30 years … she said it with such fervency.  We lean on the faith of others when our own has disappeared.”

Christ speaks in a kind widow’s reassurance to a young woman going through a difficult time: You are a hidden treasure, just waiting to be found.  [Connections September 2021]

You are a hidden treasure and God sent you to earth that others may treasurer you as the Lord does.  Today, I thank God for you.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/15/2023 – A View for on High

 

A View for on High

 

St. Juliana of Norwich wrote, "And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God's wise providence ... for matters that have been in God's foreseeing wisdom, since before time began, befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so, in our blindness and ignorance we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so."

 

Today ponder your viewpoint regarding life’s happenings, life’s events. There go I with the Grace of God, praise God today and when tomorrow gets here it will be today; then praise God today.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

Blog Post 2/14/2023 - Listen

 

 

In Matthew’s Gospel [6:21] we hear, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And St. Benedict of Nursia tells us, "Listen with the ear of your heart."

 

A Beautiful message for Valentine’s Day and for life in the Spirit.

 

May God Be Praised.  

 

Blog Post 2/13/2023 - "God's Will" and our "Amen"

  

 

 

"God's Will" and our "Amen"

 

“Incline my heart according to Your Will, O God and [then] grant me the gift of courage to follow Your Will today.”  Amen.

 

 

When we pray the “Amen” we commit to living God’s Will, accept God’s grace to do just that.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

Blog Post 2/12/2023 - Live each day for the Lord and you will live each day well

 

*Live each day for the Lord and you will live each day well 

St. Francis de Sales advises us to:  

1.    Don’t let the past drag you down. Develop short memories when it comes to hurts.  Ask God for forgiveness and be humble to accept it.

2.    Don’t fear the future.

Yesterday is gone, when tomorrow gets here it is today. So, offer the Lord your best today because it is the best reparation for tomorrow.

3.    Be appreciative. Show gratitude often.

“All that we have and all that we are come from God.”  So, we should count our blessings, St. Francis de Sales encourages us with these hope-filled words “This life is short, but it is valuable, for by means of it we are able to gain eternal life.

May God Be Praised.

*The image is available at the Salesian Shop https://www.salesianshop.com/the-sacred-artwork-of-bro-mickey-mcgrath/

 

 

 

Blog Post 2/11/2023 – Our Lady of Lourdes

 

 

Lourdes is a place of spiritual enrichment and great prayer.

 

Today the Catholic Church celebrates and commemorates the apparition of Our Blessed Mother to Saint Bernadette Soubirous at the town of Lourdes in southwestern France.  Our Lady of Lourdes appeared 18 times from February 11, 1858, until July 16.

 

 

 

St. Bernadette said, "I raised my head and looked towards the grotto. I saw a Lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot, the same color as the chain of her Rosary." 

 

Pray to Our Lady of Lourdes today.

 

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 2/10/2023 - Homily– Offered at OLPH School Mass

 

 

 

 Homily– Offered at OLPH School Mass

 

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Scholastica, twin sister of St. Benedict, St. Scholastica.

 

She is known for her simplicity and faith, and she believed and taught "That in all things God may be glorified.”  The Benedictine values of prayer, work, study, community, reverence and respect were hallmarks of her life.

St. Francis de Sales, who wrote, “Introduction to the Devout Life” and “Treatise on the Love of God”, offers exceptional, yet simply advice with the Seven Little Virtues:

•           1. Endure Patiently

 

•           2. See the Bright Side

 

•           3. Show Good Humor

 

•           4. Excuse Cheerfully

 

•           5. Put on a Good Face

 

•           6. Be Appreciative

 

•           7. Speak Gently

 

See the Bright Side – Look at the glass of life as half full, not half empty.

 

Be Appreciative – Say thank you often it prepares the heart and will to be grateful.

 

1^st Reading [Song of Songs] – God invites us to “set God’s love” as a seal on our hearts. 

In the Gospel Martha & Mary both welcomed Jesus into their home; Mary invited Jesus into her heart, Martha didn’t invite Jesus into her heart while she was in the kitchen.

Martha failed to see the Bright Side – Mary was able to have special time with Jesus.

 

The Lord said “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.  There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  That doesn’t mean we don’t work and prepare, but we put prayer is first and then all the work, preparation, play, etc. can become a prayer, because they will be gifts; gifts we give to God.  So, it is with us many times we fail to invite Jesus into our heart and spend special time with Him.  

 

Learn to be Appreciative and to see the Bright side of life, take time each day to spend with the Lord.

 

May God Be Praised.