Holy Mary - Mother of God - Queen of the Universe... pray for us!

 

Happy New Year! - January 1 - 2013 is the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Below is a message from the Mother of God appearing in Medjugorje on Christmas Day, 2012:

"Dear children, give the gift of your life to me and completely surrender to me so that I may help you to comprehend my motherly love and the love of my Son for you. My children, I love you immeasurably and today, in a special way, on the day of the birth of my Son, I desire to receive each of you into my heart and to give a gift of your lives to my Son. My children, Jesus loves you and gives you the grace to live in His mercy, but sin has overtaken many of your hearts and you live in darkness. Therefore, my children, do not wait, say `no' to sin and surrender your hearts to my Son, because only in this way will you be able to live God's mercy and, with Jesus in your hearts, set out on the way of salvation." (Message through Jakov Colo on December 25, 2012)

Also on Christmas Day, Marijia explains her apparition of Our Lady with Baby Jesus this way:

"Our Lady came with little Jesus in her arms and she did not give a message, but little Jesus began to speak and said : “I am your peace, live my commandments.” With a sign of the cross, Our Lady and little Jesus blessed us together."

Before these messages were given at Medjugorje, Pope Benedict XVI invoked the Christ Child in his homily at the Midnight Mass:  

“Again and again it astonishes us that God makes Himself a child so that we may love Him, so that we may dare to love Him, and as a child trustingly lets Himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.” 

“So Christ is our peace, and he proclaimed peace to those far away and to those near at hand (cf. Eph 2:14, 17). How could we now do other than pray to him: Yes, Lord, proclaim peace today to us too, whether we are far away or near at hand.”

 

On December 28, 2012, Our Lady said to Ivan: "Dear children, also today I desire to call you to joy. Anew I call you to joy! I call you at the same time to responsibility. Dear children, accept my messages responsibly and live my messages, because in the living of my messages I desire to lead you to my Son. All of these years that I have been together with you my finger has been directed toward the Son, towards Jesus.  I have a desire to lead all of you to Him.  Therefore these days that are upcoming, may your question also be - and I pose this question to you - 'What can I do that my heart may be closer to Jesus?'  May this question lead you.  Say to yourselves, 'What must I leave behind?  What must I reject that my heart may be closer to Jesus?  Pray dear children, and I will pray for all of you that your answer in your hearts may be 'Yes, I desire to be closer to Jesus!'  Thank you, dear children, for also today having responded to my call."  

And on

December 2, 2012 Mirjiana received this message from the Mother of God:

"Dear children, with motherly love and motherly patience anew I call you to live according to my Son - to spread His peace and His love – so that, as my apostles, you may accept God’s truth with all your heart and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you. Then you will be able to faithfully serve my Son, and show His love to others with your life. According to the love of my Son and my love, as a mother, I strive to bring all of my strayed children into my motherly embrace and to show them the way of faith. My children, help me in my motherly battle and pray with me that sinners may become aware of their sins and repent sincerely. Pray also for those whom my Son has chosen and consecrated in His name. Thank you."

God is Love

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21 NIV)

Colours of Love
God's Word
Given Birth
      Hope    
          Green of our Earth          
Purple Passion                
                        Royal Aura 
Emanation Force
      Warm Glow Warm
               Flush
                    Pink-blush
             L O V E
      Joy-HotPure Spirit
      Palpating Wonder
           Glory-inspiring Grandeur
                        Emanating forth
               Purple Passion      Royal AuraGod's Word
Given BirthGreen          the Hope of the Earth.


(from The Beholden finalist manuscript in the Rielo World Poetry Prize 2001 by Mary Angela Nangini)

God is Truth

215   "The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever." "And now, O LORD God, you are God, and your words are true"; this is why God's promises always come true. God is Truth itself, whose words cannot deceive. This is why one can abandon oneself in full trust to the truth and faithfulness of his word in all things. The beginning of sin and of man's fall was due to a lie of the tempter who induced doubt of God's word, kindness and faithfulness.

216     God's truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole created order and governs the world. God, who alone made heaven and earth, can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself.

217     God is also truthful when he reveals himself — the teaching that comes from God is "true instruction". When he sends his Son into the world it will be "to bear witness to the truth": "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true." (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

truth has no variables
but multipliers of itself

there is but One Truth
all else exemplifies this
or betrays itself

true revelation
does not contradict authors:
divine or human

http://family.webshots.com/photo/1322580563047197756olIMjk

All Souls Day: Saints on the Way

The Monk who could see demons: (from website link below)

Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis says: "What causes spiritual despair? First, relentless attacks from the devil. The devil attacks the one struggling to grow in Christ. The devil doesn't bother with the casual Christian or the habitually immoral person -- they do not need the devil to attack and destroy them, they are self-destructive. The devil attacks the committed Christian.

A priest once shared this story with me:

It seems that a certain monk in a monastery had an ability to see demons attacking people. And so one day, the abbot of his monastery sent him to the nearby city to see how many demons were there. So, the monk ventured down the road from the monastery towards the city. It was a large city, filled with all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. And as he journeyed through the city, he looked and he looked and he saw no demons. He was very puzzled by this. All these people, and yet no demons attacking them. Finally, he saw one demon laying under the shade of a tree, and the demon was sleeping. The monk headed back towards the monastery. And as he approached the monastery, he saw legions and legions of demons, climbing up the monastery walls, tearing at the gates, sitting in the bell tower of the church, and going in and out of the windows of the cells where the monks lived. The monk reported to the Abbot, "I went to the city where there are many people and I saw only one demon and he was sleeping. Why at this monastery, where we are but a few monks, why are there so many demons all around us?" The Abbot answered, "My son, you see in the city, people are so busy, there lives are filled with things, they succumb to temptations constantly, they have squeezed God out of their lives, there is no work for the demons to do. So they leave the people alone. But here in the monastery, where we try to pray constantly, where we try to rejoice in the things of God constantly, this is where they are at work constantly!"

Found at: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles7/AkrotirianakisTeresa.php

Reflection poem:

Wiseacre

If only we knew
....what we know
........when we would

We wouldn't.

But....
......we don't

So we do.

Then ....
.......we know

And wish we didn't.

Solemnity of All Saints

Thank you God
for your Saints
who show us
your strength
through them:
    the tortured
    the persecuted
    the vulnerable
    the innocent
all the literate
in Love
giving their all
to Love
because
you! -
Love
are with them:
         sustain them
         guide them
         nourish them
         and in them
         your self-disclosure:
                       your power
                       your glory
                       your omnipotence
                       your mercy
endless love
for those who love you
search for you
long to be one with you
even when you are but the Unknown God.

Lent 2012 - Jesus: Perfect Victim & Mercy Voucher

http://outspokenart.withtheworks.net/english_poems/mercy_voucher.html

This poem is from the manuscript "Voices of Victims" dedicated to give voice to the voiceless. After reading the poem consider and meditate on how Jesus is our Mercy Voucher: the exemplary victim, the Perfect Sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God. How is Jesus our God-Teacher on the pain and suffering of the Cross.

Transfiguration

from what I’m not
   to what I really am

from the ordinary known
   to unknown possible

from the earthen clay and ashes
   blossoming into light

from the kiss
   only love can issue

from the life
   only hope may lead to

with no sound
   but silence

empty
   awaiting the fullness of joy

nothing
   becoming something

a treasure
   in the heart of God


(MA Nangini March 6-2012)

 

The Beast of Burden too often forgotten is favoured to carry the King

THE DONKEY
 G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet. 

Reflection:

When are we beasts of burden?

Which moments stand out as the hardest to endure?

When is it rewarding to be a beast of burden out of love?

Here are some questions on how we see our human burdens and if one of the questions is more important and relevant to your own view, please share it with us:

Shakespeare has graced us with this wisdom: "By any other name, a rose is still a rose" can we then say, a burden by any other name is still a burden?
What are the names of our burdens? Do I forget to name my burden?
Do I name my burden by another name so it won't appear to be a burden?
How can a heavy burden sanctify me?
Could a heavy burden crush my spirit?

The Name of Jesus

Jesus: "Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil 2:6-11) Amen!

Holy Land 2010

Your Breath!

Love Song!

A Blessing For Your Every Need

On Getting Older

Why did Adam & Eve fail to dialogue with God?

In the book The Road Less Traveled, author Scott Peck M.D. discovers an important missing link in the serpent-and-the-apple story: "The key issue lies in what is missing. The story suggests that God was in the habit of 'walking in the garden in the cool of the day' and that there were open channels of communcation between Him and man. But if this was so, then why was it that Adam and Eve, separately or together, before or after the serpent's urging, did not say to God, 'We're curious as to why You don't want us to eat any of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We really like it here, and we don't want to seem ungrateful, but Your law on this matter doesn't make much sense to us, and we'd really appreciate it if you explained it to us'? But of course they did not say this. Instead they went ahead and broke God's law without ever understanding the reason behind the law, without taking the effort to challenge God directly, question his authority or even communicate with Him on a reasonably adult level. They listened to the serpent, but they failed to get God's side of the story before they acted.

"Why this failure? Why was no step taken between the temptation and the action? It is this missing step that is the essence of sin. The step missing is the step of debate...The debate between the serpent and God is symbolic of the dialogue between good and evil which can and should occur within the minds of human beings. Our failure to conduct –or to conduct fully and wholeheartedly- this internal debate between good and evil is the cause of those evil actions that constitute sin. In debating the wisdom of a proposed course of action, human beings routinely fail to obtain God’s side of the issue. They fail to consult or listen to the God within them, the knowledge of rightness which inherently resides within the minds of all mankind. We make this failure because we are lazy. It is work to hold these internal debates. They require time and energy just to conduct them. And if we take them seriously –if we seriously listen to this “God within us”- we usually find ourselves being urged to take the more difficult path, the path of more effort rather than less. To conduct the debate is to open ourselves to suffering and struggle. Each and every one of us, more or less frequently, will hold back from this work, will also seek to avoid this painful step. Like Adam and Eve, and every one of our ancestors before us, we are all lazy. So original sin does exist; it is our laziness. It is very real. It exists in each and every one of us –infants, children, adolescents, mature adults, the elderly; the wise or the stupid; the lame or the whole. Some of us may be less lazy than others, but we are all lazy to some extent…Much of our fear is fear of a change in the status quo, a fear that we might lose what we have if we venture forth from where we are now...Here again the risk is of the loss of the status quo, and the fear is of the work involved in arriving at a new status quo...This fight against entropy (laziness) never ends." (p. 272-74)

This ties in beautifully with several points made at our St. Paul's Workshop tonight.

St. Paul's Bible Study Workshop

Discussion underway from St. Paul's Workshop:
Lesson 6 of 10
Colossians 3:5-4:18

Main Headings:
1. Renunciation of Vice

• -Reject evil, do good: "Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly"
• Put to death what is not good: "immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry
• Because of these the wrath of God 4 is coming (upon the disobedient).
• By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.
• But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language; stop lying to one another
• Since you have taken off the old self with its practices
• And have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator
• Here there is not Greek or Jew, circumcision and uncircumsicion, barbarian Scythian, slave, free
• But Christ is all and in all
• As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,
• Put on then, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience
• Bearing with one another
• Forgiving one another
• If one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do
• And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection
• And let the peace of Christ control your hearts
• The peace into which you were also called in one body
• And be thankful
• Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
• As in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another
• Singing psalms hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God
• And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
• Giving thanks to God the Father through him

2. The Christian Family

• Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.
• Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.
• Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.
• Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.

3. Slaves and Masters

• Slaves, obey your human masters in everything, not only when being watched, as currying favor, but in simplicity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will receive recompense for the wrong he committed, and there is no partiality.
• Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, realizing that you too have a Master in heaven.

4. Prayer and Apostolic Spirit

• Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving;
• at the same time, pray for us, too, that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak of the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, as I must speak.
• Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.
• Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should respond to each one.

Conclusion
5. Tychicus and Onesimus

• Tychicus, my beloved brother, trustworthy minister, and fellow slave in the Lord, will tell you all the news of me.
• I am sending him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us and that he may encourage your hearts,
• together with Onesimus, a trustworthy and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here.

6. From Paul's Co-Workers

• Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you greetings,
• as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions; if he comes to you, receive him), and Jesus, who is called Justus, who are of the circumcision;
• these alone are my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me.
• Epaphras 5 sends you greetings; he is one of you, a slave of Christ (Jesus), always striving for you in his prayers so that you may be perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.
• For I can testify that he works very hard for you and for those in Laodicea 6 and those in Hierapolis
• Luke the beloved physician sends greetings, as does Demas.

7. A Message for the Laodicians

• Give greetings to the brothers in Laodicea and to Nympha and to the church in her house.
• And when this letter is read before you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and you yourselves read the one from Laodicea.
• And tell Archippus, "See that you fulfill the ministry that you received in the Lord."
• The greeting is in my own hand, Paul's. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.