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ALL day, I sensed the Lord wooing me to prayer. But for one reason or another my regular prayer time was bumped until after midnight. “Should I pray or go to bed? …it will be an early morning.” I decided to pray.

My soul was flooded with such joy, such peace. What my heart would have missed had I given way to my pillow!

Jesus is waiting for us, yearning to fill us with indescribable love and blessings. As we carve out time for supper, we must carve out time to pray.

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. –John 15:5

The First Truth

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JESUS said "the truth will set you free."

The first truth which sets us free is the recognition not only of our sin, but of our helplessness. To admit one’s poverty, one’s emptiness, is to create a place in the heart which can then be filled with God’s riches and fullness.

It is actually liberating to admit one is a slave; healing to admit that one is wounded.

We must realise the necessity of accepting our weaknesses and God’s strength, and of showing them to the world. —Catherine Doherty, Staff Letter

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JESUS! I love you!

Someday, I will lay at your nail-scarred feet,
and kiss them,
holding on to them for as long
as eternity will let me.

Echoes of Warning…

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THERE were a few times this past week when I was preaching, that I was suddenly overwhelmed. The sense I had was as if I were Noah, shouting from the ramp of the ark: "Come in! Come in! Enter into the Mercy of God!"

Why do I feel this way? I cannot explain it… except that I see storm clouds, pregnant and billowing, moving quickly on the horizon.

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FROM today’s talk at the Okotoks Teacher’s Faith Days:

“As I have traveled throughout Canada, it has become clear: what makes a school “Catholic” is not the name bolted to the side of the school; neither is it the religious policy statement of the school district; nor is it the spiritual programs initiated by the school board or principal. What makes schools truly Catholic––truly Christian––is the spirit of Jesus living in the staff and students.”

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WHERE is the cure to cancer??

    “I provided it,” said the Lord. “But the person to find it was aborted.”

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TO ENTER into the cenacle of the world–the shopping mall–is to my heart, what cement boots are to a jogger.

Time — Is It Speeding Up?

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TIME—is it speeding up? Many believe it is. This came to me while meditating:

An MP3 is a song format in which the music is compressed, and yet the song sounds the same and is still the same length. The more you compress it, however, even though the length remains the same, the quality begins to deteriorate.

So too, it seems, time is being compressed, even though the days are the same length. And the more they are compressed, the more there is a deterioration in morals, nature, and civil order.

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BLESSED are the poor in spirit.

Sometimes, one is so poor, weakness is all there is to offer: “O Jesus, this is what I am, nothing but weakness and poverty. This is all I have to give you that’s truly mine. But even this I give you.”

And Jesus replies, “A humble and contrite heart I will not spurn.”
(Psalm 51)

“This is the one whom I approve: the lowly and broken man who trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

“On high I dwell, and in holiness, and with the crushed and dejected in spirit.” (Isaiah 57:15)

“the Lord listens to the needy and does not spurn his servants in their chains.” (Psalm 69:34)

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WHY can’t we give ourselves completely to God? Why don’t we make holiness our one pursuit? Why do we cling to this or that thing, knowing we would be happier if we let it go?

We must answer this. And when we do, we should place the truth before Him, and let it begin to set us free.

Lightning

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FAR from “stealing Christ’s thunder”

Mary is the lightning

which illuminates The Way.

Lightning

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FAR from "stealing Christ’s thunder"

Mary is the lightning

which illuminates The Way.

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I AM in the desert.

But it’s like the desert at night, when the moon rises over the dunes,
and a billion stars fill the sky.
It is quiet, and cool… but the thin light of the heavens,
and the moonlit Host of daily Mass,
make the burning sands bearable and the vast emptiness
an invisible void.

The New Ark

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A READING from the Divine Liturgy this week has lingered with me:

God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark. (1 Peter 3:20)

The sense is that we are in that time when the ark is being completed, and soon. What is the ark? When I asked this question, I looked up at the icon of Mary……… the answer seemed that her bosom is the ark, and she is gathering a remnant to herself, for Christ.

And it was Jesus who said he would return “as in the days of Noah” and “as in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:26, 28). Everyone’s looking at the weather, earthquakes, wars, plagues, and violence; but are we forgetting about the “moral” signs of the times Christ is referring to? A reading of Noah’s generation and Lot’s generation–and what their offences were–should look uncomfortably familiar.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. —Winston Churchill

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IF only we understood what is lost when we let ourselves become forked by the two pronged skewer of pride.

The one prong is defensive: “I am not wrong, or as bad as you say.” The second prong is despair: “I am useless, a worthless failure.” In both cases (often the second prong follows the first), the person expends great energy hiding a basic human truth: the need for God.

Humility is the crown of the Christian. The adversary does everything in his power to prevent us from coming before God with our genuine sinfulness, failure, and character flaws. Such honesty is rewarded by God, and paradoxically, becomes a vessel of strength.

As long as the devil keeps you on his fork, strength is kept at bay, and your crown is left in the treasury of God.