God's Hands And His Voice

[BarbTherese]

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[quote][color=black][font=Trebuchet MS][size=4][color=black][font=Trebuchet MS][size=4]We are God's messenger if we take our calling seriously. We may be the only messenger God can send to a family member, a work colleague, a hurting neighbor or a confused child. (Catholic Update: Advent Day to Day "American Catholic")[/size][/font][/color][/size][/font][/color]

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When I trained and worked as a counsellor (pre Bipolar) in a helping organization, it struck me that we were really dealing with quite unique people in unique and quite personal circumstances as 'cases and numbers' - and this was necessary due to the amount of people seeking counselling. I am not criticizing this because it is necessary to a certain extent when one must deal with a large amount of people. And as need grows with our helping organizations and charities, so does the amount of people seeking help and assistance. It seemed to me that very often all a person really needed was a good friend to chat with over a cuppa. Someone they could turn to and trust in a relationship of friendship for advice and support, often consolation and understanding, empathy. Simply - a real friend.

It is not by an irrelevant accident of life that I are in the circumstances in which I find myself, to the contrary we are a missionary and "sent" people into our personal circumstances as chosen for a mission to those circumstances. We may be in a certain job, neighbourhood and family, friendship circle. We run across the people we do run across. That certain people are either part of or on the fringes of our lives.

We are always missionary and a sent people - and sent into the particular and personal circumstances and to the particular persons that we come across and by God's Election. And "we may be the only messenger God can send to a family member, a work colleague, a hurting neighbour or a confused child".

"Mass" is taken from the Latin "missa" meaning "to send". And we are commissioned at the final blessings "Go out to love and serve The Lord". In the Mass, for one, I debrief my past week in my preparation for Mass with The Lord and am briefed, strengthened and Graced for the coming week including through The Gospel and homily. What did these say to me today about my coming week?

How can I love and serve The Lord? "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another..........do good to those that persecute and calumniate you..........how can you say you Love God whom you cannot see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you can see?" And if I need to reflect on who exactly is my neighbour, then the Parable of The God Samaritan tells me all.

But I find myself constantly falling far short of my ideals and dreams - and my instructions from Jesus. Then I need to reflet on the Parable of the Pharisee and The Sinner......and so pick myself up, God's Grace always Abundant and especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and begin again.......and again.........and again. And again! Every night I die to the past as I drift off to sleep and the morning sees the first day of my life.

Our Mass celebrant last night (Saturday Vigil) is a novice master in a Passionist Monastery and he spoke to us about The Incarnation. He said that when on a retreat, his retreat director asked him to meditate on The Incarnation. He said that he seemed to see a poor and ragged, dirty person with God looking down with Great Love for that person, longing to embrace and be with him, comfort and console him - walk with Him intimately in his days. That God said to Himself, if I approach that person I love in My Glory they will run away in fear. And so God divested Himself of His Glory and became a person just like that poor, ragged, dirty person so that the person would not be afraid and God could embrace him closely with All His Love and be His Friend and support through all his life and days. "Fear not I do not leave you orphans". "If you Love Me, We will come to you and make Our Abode in you" This is a stunning statement and one that we believe and trust, yet a statement whose full implication and reality probably we cannot quite grasp, perhaps only in fleeting moments of being truly stunned.

God became man, a fully human being embracing a certain time and place, mission, and everything it would entail including a cruel and horrible death - and Jesus embraced all that as His Father's Will for Him and His Particular Life here on earth.

"Take up your cross daily, and come follow Me". Do I embrace my times, my situated and actual place in life - and as my mission from The Father in the footsteps of Jesus with The Holy Spirit as my Advocate, Strengthener and Guide? Many questions occur to me as I reflect on the Gospel and the "Yes!" of Mary and Father's homily.

The Father does not call me to re-create the Life of His Son, Jesus - He calls me to llive the quite unique and very personal circumstances of my life just as Jesus, His Son, would live them. A very tall order indeed and so Jesus has left us with His Church which is His Own Mystical Body on earth, with The Mass and Sacraments as very visible aids - and with His Holy Spirit as our Advocate, Guide and Strengthener with The Father. How do I live out my Catholicism and call from The Father to The Gospel of His Son?

Edited December 17, 2011 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

It has struck me as I mull over last night's liturgy that I can think that my circumstances etc. are just so totally ordinary and everyday - how could this be ordiained IN PARTICULAR by God? Jesus, Second Person of The Blessed Trinity, in my imagination could possibly have thought the very same thing when He, Second Person of The Blessed Trinity, is sent as a very humble baby into very humble circumstances and in His day, very ordinary type circumstances for a poor family.

In my imagination, He could have reflected - how can this save My People so that I can be God With Them in an intimate relationship of Love all their days? - it is such a humble and very ordinary type situation for His times. How can these humble and very ordinary circumstances achieve something so great and extraordinary?

I can at times reflect the same about my own very very ordinary and humble situation. Then I am short sighted indeed. St Therese of Lisieux found herself in the same sort of very very ordinary and humble situation for a Carmelite nun in an unknown monastery in Lisieux. However, she was not at all short sighted in reflecting on her situation!

It is summed up for us in The Our Father "And Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven" - even if His Will is expressed in such very ordinary circumstances. It is not the ordinary circumstances that make things great, it is His Will ordaining that blesses the very ordinary with greatness. In embracing fully very ordinary circumstances, I am embracing The Will of The God of The Heavens and of the earth! Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier!

And our two very greatest saints, Mary and Joseph, we know so very little about and they lived thier very ordinary and humble lifes in the day to day (unlike many of our other saints often marked by unusual and remarkable mystical type phenomena, unlike Mary and Joseph) - the secret of Mary and Joseph and their great sanctity and holiness is uncovered in how they lived out (their attitude and perspective) those God ordained very ordinary and humble circumstances, including all the suffering it brought them.

My circumstances too are outstandingly most ordinary and humble - yet God ordained.

To aspire to live an ordinary life in an extra-ordinary manner.

Edited December 18, 2011 by BarbaraTherese