Blog Post 7/31/2023 - A Thought on Prayer

A Thought on Prayer

“… charity never takes possession of the heart without bringing in her train all other virtues, exercising them and bringing them into play as a general his troops. But she does not call them forth suddenly, all at once, nor in all times and places.

 

The good man is like a tree planted by the water-side that will bring forth its fruit in due season, because when a soul is watered with charity, it brings forth good works seasonably and with discretion.”  St. Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life, p. 117

Be patient with yourself and with God, God’s time is beyond our comprehension, our patience is a gift to God.

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/30/2023 - Our Family Vacation, a Look Back and a Prayer of Thanksgiving

 

 

 

Our Family Vacation, a Look Back and a Prayer of Thanksgiving

 

 

 

 

The photo below is from Sunset Beach, N.C. Kelly Family on vacation July 2023:

The look back my son Brian’s Update on his wife Laurie July 15, 2018.

“Laurie is better this morning then she was yesterday morning, which is all you can ask for at the moment.  They are pleased with the progress she is making with her lungs, and that gives them optimism that they will be able to eventually take her off the paralytics. Their focus today remains the same as yesterday in addition to trying to get Laurie better nutrition. The paralytic she is on paralyzes her tummy, which makes it hard to keep food absorbed in it.  

While we are making progress, the doctors still cautioned us that she is very ill.  With that being said, we try and stay even keel and not get too high when we get good news, and not get to low when we get not so good news. It’s easy to say, “stay in the moment, focus on what you can control” until you actually have to do it. When I catch myself heading down that path I try and say a prayer and refocus to the present time.”

 

Dear Lord,

“Thank you for the progress, Laurie has made, and for the progress she will make.  Thank you for all the people praying for her and her family.  Continue to heal her and give strength to her husband Brian (and their children Caiden & Berkleigh).  Bless her doctors, nurses, the care givers and all who have help in Laurie's amazing journey.  Today we are grateful for all that has been filled with HOPE for all that will be and profoundly filled with gratitude over the miracle of Laurie’s recovery, we ask you to give her the grace perseverance and give Brian the grace of endurance.”

 

In Jesus’ Love,

Deacon George & Family

 

Our week at Sunset Beach, N. C. was blessed by the grandeur of God’s coastal creation, sun, sand and family fun.  But more importantly our vacation was blessed with God’s gift of family enjoying each other.
Grateful for a week together, looking forward to our next family gathering, we bid adieu to Sunset Beach, while holding each other in our prayers and our hearts.
 

Thank you dear God for Your Son and for our Family, pictured below “G”rammy and Pop-Pop Kelly, July 2023, Sunset Beach, N.C. 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog Post 7/22/2023 – 7/30/2023 – Vacation

 Vacation 2023

This week I will be spending time relaxing with my family.  A Daily Dose of God will return on Sunday, July 30.  Below is our family picture from last year's vacation [2022], this year's [2023] will be posted upon our return.

 

May God Be Praised.

                                                            Family photo July 2022

Blog Post 7/21/2023 - A Prayer of Trust

A Prayer of Trust

Lord Jesus Christ, you have prepared a place for us, and we know You will come back to take us to the Father’s eternal home.  Walk with us on our earthly journey, shade us from the burning heat of sin, and give us Your refreshing grace until our earthly pilgrimage ends.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/20/2023 - It is Well with My Soul

 

It is Well with My Soul

The Book of Job deals with the problem of the suffering of the innocent.  Job does not definitively answer the problem of the suffering of the innocent, but challenges readers to come to their own understanding. The song “It is Well with My Soul” presents a hope in the midst of pain and suffering.

 

The Academy Singers, the premier vocal group of Brentwood Academy, recently released this phenomenal rendition of “It Is Well with My Soul.”

https://aleteia.org/2023/07/13/it-is-well-with-my-soul-a-hymn-of-peace-born-from-tragedy/?utm_campaign=EM-EN-Newsletter-Daily-&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_term=20230714

After listening to this beautiful presentation of “It is Well with My Soul”, take 5 or ten minutes to thank God for being with you in your pain and sorry as well as in your joy and contentment.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

  

Blog Post 7/19/2023 - Francis de Sales meets Kateri Tekakwitha

Francis de Sales meets Kateri Tekakwitha

 

St. Kateri Tekakwitha asks, "Who will teach me what is most pleasing to God, that I may do it?"

St. Francis de Sales responds, “My God, I give you this day.  I offer you, now, all of the good that I shall do … and I promise to accept, for love of you, all of the difficulty that I shall meet.

Help me to conduct myself during this day In a manner pleasing to you.” [Direction of Intention]

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/18/2023 – Worry & God

Worry & God

“Worry is a Conversation You have with Yourself about things You cannot Change.
Prayer is a Conversation You have with God about things God Can Change.”

 

 

 

St. Francis de Sales wrote, “Do not look forward to the changes & chances of this life with fear; rather look upon them with strong hope that, as they arise, God, whose child you are, will deliver you from them.”  

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/17/2023 - Spiritual Guidance/Awakening

Spiritual Guidance/Awakening

Spiritual Guidance/Awakening is needed in our time because the rising tide of secularism threatens to overwhelm the call to respond to God. 

We were created by God, for God and as St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless, O God until they rest in You.”  We cannot satisfy the deepest longing of our hearts apart from God.

The secularist ideology preaches that wealth, pleasure, power, and/or honor will make us happy.  We need to offer the beauty of God, the love of God for each one of us.  Our lives are not about us, our lives are about finding happiness in God, Who is our true home and happiness.

Pray for prophets in our time and be a prophet in our time.

May God Be Praised.

Homily Cycle A 7/16/2023 – Offered at OLPH

 

Homily Cycle A 7/16/2023 – Offered at OLPH

Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071623.cfm

 

What is your rocky ground?

What are your thorny areas?

What is your rich soil?

The prophet Isaiah tells us, that in the end God will reign supreme.  No matter what happens – God will conquer all evil.

There is an urbane legend about a Cherokee Indian visiting a friend in New York City, while they were walking in the city he suddenly said, “I hear a cricket.”  His friend said, “Oh, you’re crazy.”   “No, I hear a cricket.  I’m sure of it.”  “The friend replied it is 12:30 pm in New York City; hundreds of people of people bustling about, plus cars, taxis honking, noise everywhere.”

"I'm sure I do." 

He listened attentively then walked to the corner, across the street, & looked all around, where he found a shrub in a large cement planter. 

He dug beneath the leaves and found a cricket, needless to say his friend was astounded.  The Cherokee said, "My ears are no different than yours… I will show you … what I mean?"  He reached into his pocket pulled out a handful of change and dropped it on the sidewalk.  People all around them stopped and turned toward the fallen coins.  "It all depends on what you are listening for." [Sermons.Com, ChristianGlobe Network, Inc.]

We need "ears to hear," to hear God’s Word, to hear God’s Voice & courage to follow God with our whole heart, soul and will.  

Maybe this story can help us, an elementary school teacher asked her students to write an essay about what they would like to be.  Reading the essays that evening at home, one student’s essay that made the teacher cry.  Her husband walked in just at that moment. “What’s wrong?”

She said, “This is one of my students’ essays, read it.”  Here is what he read: “I would like to be a television set.  I want to take its place & live like the TV in my house.  I would have my own special place & have my family around me.

They would take me seriously when I talk.

I would be the center of attention and people would listen to me without interruption or questions.  I would have the company of my dad when he arrives home from work, even when he is tired.  And I want my mom to want me when she is sad and upset instead of ignoring me.  And I want my brothers to fight to be with me.

I want my family to just leave everything aside, every now and then, just to spend some time with me.  And last but not least, I want them all to be happy & entertain them.  I just want to live like a TV.”

 

The husband looked up. “That poor kid. What horrible parents!”   The wife looked at him & said, “That essay is our son’s.”

We are called to trust that our simplest acts of kindness and forgiveness, the help we offer may be the “seed” that re-creates & transforms our homes and hearts, to the patient work of God’s harvest.  We should take some time today to reflect on the soil of our souls making sure that it’s God’s soil.   [Adopted  Connections, July 2023, Adopted form Connections July 2023 Reprinted with permission of Bits & Pieces, Ragan Communications. “As seen on TV . . . .”]

 

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/15/2023 - What is your central thing?

 

 

What is your central thing?

 

C.S Lewis wrote, “People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.

And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.

To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at this moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”              [Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, p. 92]

 

In the end we are what we are before God, nothing more and nothing less.  Live your life to be a person of beauty before God and a person of love in Heaven because you loved on earth.

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

 

Blog Post 7/14/2023 – Being Contrite?

Being Contrite?

“A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God does not despise a contrite and humble heart.”

You will take no delight in burnt offerings, David says. If you will not take delight in burnt offerings, will you remain without sacrifice? Not at all. A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God does not despise a contrite and humble heart.

You now have the offering you are to make. No need to examine the herd, no need to outfit ships and travel to the most remote provinces in search of incense. Search within your heart for what is pleasing to God. Your heart must be crushed. Are you afraid that it might perish so? You have the reply: Create a clean heart in me, O God. For a clean heart to be created, the unclean one must be crushed.  [St. Augustine, From a sermon by Saint Augustine, A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit, Office of Readings  7/09/2023]

 

Let us pray, Heal me, O God, with the ointment of repentance, and I shall be filled with peace and joy, may my sorrow bring me closer to You.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/13/2023 – How to Live!

 

How to Live!

 

 

Life in humans lived at its best is the glory of God; the life of humans lived at its best is the vision of God.

So, we pray,

My heart is ready, O God;
I will sing, sing your praise.
Awake, my soul;
awake, lyre and harp.
I will awake the dawn. [Psalm 108]

 

O God, let Your Light Shine Upon me!

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

Blog Post 7/12/2023 - Ponder the Night Sky

Ponder the Night Sky

“Did you ever think all those stars, are porch lights in heaven, waiting for their loved ones to come home.”

Jesus shows us the Way to heaven where our loved ones in “the land of the living” worship God as they wait for us.

Say some prayers for your relatives, friends and all who have preceded you in death.

 

May God  Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/11/2023 – What Do You Ask of God?

 What Do You Ask of God?

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.  That I might contemplate the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple.  That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

 

Reflect on seeking the Lord as your # 1 priority in this life.

 

May God Be Praised.

Blog Post 7/10/2023 Friendship

 

Friendship

Alice von Hildebrand offers us this precious insight, “Friendship is the remnant of paradise.”

“Gratitude is the blessed oil on which friendship and marriage thrive, …Noble friendships and happy marriages … are characterized by the fact that one is always willing to acknowledge one’s fault, one’s weakness, and to ask for forgiveness.”  [Alice von Hildebrand, “The Canons of Friendship”]

Friendship with God is the gift we are offered as humans, Jesus shows us the Way to friendship with God.

 

May God Be Praised.

* Brother Mickey McGrath’s artwork is available at: https://www.bromickeymcgrath.com/