Novena For Barbara Therese

[BarbTherese]

Result of gyno is that I am in for surgery on Mon 13th May 2013 or possibly earlier, probably depends on any cancellations or something.  I dont know any more from the gyno than I did previously.  Only surgery will tell him what exactly is in my abdomen and surrounds.  Two hour surgery minimum and the incision will be vertical and very roughly 15cm from navel down.  5 days at least in hospital.

Cacha later, hopefully on that jolly blog!

[BarbTherese]

Broken Christians hurt but they don't quit, even tho they may feel empty. They must do that because there is no one else who can sing their song. That's the song God put in that individual's heart to sing for Him. And they do that because they witness to the grace God offers, His faithfulness and His unconditional love.
Thank you Lord that I haven't been completely crushed by the heaviness in my heart or by the pounding of the surf on me, your broken shell. Thank you for the courage to live with my pain and the strength to remain faithful, a gift given to me through your grace. Amen!

 

 

That is absolutely beautiful, Nikita - thank you very much indeed for posting it!

 

I thought I had posted this earlier, just as well I checked.  Phatmass as softwear or whatever gives me a complete headache and nightmares.  I do doubt it is Phatmass, rather operator poverty (to be kind to myself!!! :)

[BarbTherese]

Sincere apologies for having burdened this thread with all sorts of comments on all sorts of subjects other than prayer.  I have been able to start a blog and from hereon in, I will be burdening the blog with my ravings and urge to write (or is it compulsive obsession to write) At the moment, there is not much at all on the blog - any entries were more trying to figure out the blog and ensure that entries appeared on the blog.  I hope to amend the situation some time today.  www.gaudiumbethany.wordpress.com

 

Some might be interested in this thread I started on Phatmass "Open Mike" related to the blog - and as usual all sorts of subjects and comments drifting away from the thread subject.   http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/128751-a-dummy-question-re-blogs/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BarbTherese]

 

 

DAY 5 (I think)

[nikita92]

It's ok. I could tell you were having issues. It was just a test comment I left. Sorry to hear of the surgery news! Try to keep up your strength ! All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well";)

[Guest Allie]

Day 7 

 

Loving prayers,

 

Allie

[Guest Allie]

Result of gyno is that I am in for surgery on Mon 13th May 2013 or possibly earlier, probably depends on any cancellations or something.  I dont know any more from the gyno than I did previously.  Only surgery will tell him what exactly is in my abdomen and surrounds.  Two hour surgery minimum and the incision will be vertical and very roughly 15cm from navel down.  5 days at least in hospital.

Cacha later, hopefully on that jolly blog!

Prayers.  Having Holy Mass offered for you. 

[BarbTherese]

It's ok. I could tell you were having issues. It was just a test comment I left. Sorry to hear of the surgery news! Try to keep up your strength ! All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well";)

 

I think you are very correct.  I am under stress and I need to watch Bipolar like a hawk as it will react to stress and initiate an episode - and a hospital and anaethetist, surgeon, does not need me needing major surgery and off my face in a Bipolar episde, which absolutely terrifies me (Bipolar episodes).  I get tired very easily and i am not used to this and find it entirely frustrating.  Also my normal way of life has come to a temporary full stop and my psychology does not like it at all, conditioned as it is to most always having something to do.

I am in daily touch via phone with my psychiatrist (I have her pager) and she tells me I am still sane, just strugglng and understandable she says at a time like this.  She says that consciously I might not be aware of stress nor showing it most of the time, but it is there unconsciously and will reveal it's presence in a great variety of ways, at least in potential.  She is God's gift to me for sure!  She is an athiest and when I am cruising along in life quiet well, we often have discussion about Faith and religion , spirituality.

Wordpress shows quite all embracing statistics and for the short time the blog was up, I was very surpised at the number who accessed it.  Wordpress also shows the quite general locations on a map in the statistics area.  Wordpress obviously has many followers.  I liked your comment!

I agree that it is important that I keep my strength up - I still have a very positive attitude towards it all no matter outcome and this is important in such a situation.

 

Ahh I struggled with your quote from Julian of Norwich for many years.  I used to think to myself, but all is not well, not well at all - nor am I convinced that all manner of things will be well.  Then one day, the penny just dropped and I could embrace the quote as 'my own'.

 

God bless and thank you...............Barb

[BarbTherese]

Prayers.  Having Holy Mass offered for you. 

 

 

Thanks heaps Allie - for the prayers and espially having Mass offered for me. Can't go wrong, can I?  ,. And if I think about it, no way, and no matter what, can things go wrong ever, huh!

 

God bless ................Barb

[BarbTherese]

DAY 7

 

 

[nikita92]

I just left a comment on there saying..that I offered mass for you and got to lite your candle as I said I was going to do. However, get this...after our last song was sung..I bowed and left the pew, and walked over to St.T's area. I looked for a burning candle (the main one) in which to light a stick from..and didn't see a flame!!!!! Even though I was kinda bummed over it...I proceeded to kneel down below her and started my conversation..when something caught my eye! I got up and took a better look over where they kept the main(glass) candle and sticks in sand. WOW there it was!! A tiny flicker of light at the very bottom of the glass!! I quickly took a stick and was able to (just barely)get a flame going!! Hah!!! Yours was the only one lit right below her!! ;) Julien's quote is questionable at times....I guess one just needs to have Faith and patience! (Which also applies to discerner's as well!) ;). I'm glad you have someone to talk to when things start getting heavy. Don't stress over the blog...it will get fixed when you are able to correct the issues! in the mean time..No worries! We aren't going anywhere! Blessings

[BarbTherese]

Hi Nikita - St Therese organized the lit candle so you could light yours - the message from Therese is that Barb really needs all the prayer she can get and mine too  :)

 

Actually after years of struggling with your quote from Julian of Norwich, it fell into place and is sound theology and I have integrated it including The Permissive Will of God.  Everything that happens either comes about through God's Direct Will or through His Permissive will in those yuk things and negative things that happen in our world and bring suffering to one, to some or to most all of us -  and all is for the good ...........ALL NO MATTER WHAT

 

.  The section on Divine Providence http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p4.htm#324  an excerpt of which is in the quote box below bears out that Julian of Norwich is spot on and on all points "All is well, all is well and all manner of things will be well".  I think probably since years ago I internalized The Permissive Will of God is the main reason that I can accept whatever diagnosis comes after surgery - and if it is negative and tereminal cancer (my gno warned of possibility), and without undue disturbance absolutely no anxiety whatsoever  about it and The Lord and Grace is always with us no matter the cirumstances.

 

This Catholic reliable resource site explains things very clearly and simply I think http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2011/06/20/how-can-i-know-the-will-of-god-in-my-life-part-i-of-ii

 

It is amazing to sit down with the CCC (not in one sitting of course) and slowly read from cover to cover prayerfully at beginning of sitting and end.  It might take a week months or years, but is absolutely rewarding spiritually and morally too.  It is good to pause prayerfully if something strikes one and jot down somewhere the reference.  The very same applies to The Gospel and the whole New Testament - even pages of the Old Testament.  All this can be a period of spiritual reading and also meditation daily or weekly, fortnightly - whatever fits into one's life.  Trust in The Holy Spirit to do His Work for one's best interests as one goes.

 

 

I have already deleted my blog completely and will not be returning to blogging.  It just not my gift nor my Grace, while it is for some and they do it beautifully, without undue disturbance to themselves, and provide great resource material on the net.  As I said, I realized once I put in a couple of entries that indeed it is not my gift at all.

 

 

 

Catholic Catechism

V. GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE

302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created "in a state of journeying" (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call "divine providence" the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

 

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, "reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well". For "all are open and laid bare to his eyes", even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.¹⁶¹

303 The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history. The sacred books powerfully affirm God's absolute sovereignty over the course of events: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases."¹⁶² And so it is with Christ, "who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens".¹⁶³ As the book of Proverbs states: "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established."¹⁶⁴

304 And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a "primitive mode of speech", but a profound way of recalling God's primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world,¹⁶⁵ and so of educating his people to trust in him. The prayer of the Psalms is the great school of this trust.¹⁶⁶

305 Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children's smallest needs: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?". . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."¹⁶⁷

Providence and secondary causes

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures' co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God's greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of "subduing" the earth and having dominion over it.¹⁶⁸ God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings.¹⁶⁹ They then fully become "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his kingdom.¹⁷⁰

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."¹⁷¹ Far from diminishing the creature's dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God's power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes."¹⁷² Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God's grace.¹⁷³

^a

 

Providence and the scandal of evil.

309 If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.¹⁷⁴ But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.¹⁷⁵

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.¹⁷⁶ He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.¹⁷⁷
 

312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."¹⁷⁸ From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",¹⁷⁹ brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

313 "We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him."¹⁸⁰ The constant witness of the saints confirms this truth:

 

St. Catherine of Siena said to "those who are scandalized and rebel against what happens to them": "Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind."¹⁸¹

St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: "Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best."¹⁸²

Dame Julian of Norwich: "Here I was taught by the grace of God that I should steadfastly keep me in the faith. . . and that at the same time I should take my stand on and earnestly believe in what our Lord shewed in this time - that 'all manner [of] thing shall be well.'"¹⁸³

 

314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God "face to face",¹⁸⁴ will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest¹⁸⁵ for which he created heaven and earth.

 

 

 

 

[Guest Allie]

 Day 8

 

Loving prayers

[FFI Griswold]

Ave Maria!

 

It is amazing to sit down with the CCC (not in one sitting of course) and slowly read from cover to cover prayerfully at beginning of sitting and end.  It might take a week months or years, but is absolutely rewarding spiritually and morally too.  It is good to pause prayerfully if something strikes one and jot down somewhere the reference.  The very same applies to The Gospel and the whole New Testament - even pages of the Old Testament.  All this can be a period of spiritual reading and also meditation daily or weekly, fortnightly - whatever fits into one's life.  Trust in The Holy Spirit to do His Work for one's best interests as one goes.

 

 

I have already deleted my blog completely and will not be returning to blogging.  It just not my gift nor my Grace, while it is for some and they do it beautifully, without undue disturbance to themselves, and provide great resource material on the net.  As I said, I realized once I put in a couple of entries that indeed it is not my gift at all.

 

In honor of the Holy Father's "Year of Faith" we are going through the CCC for our weekly Sunday conferences. It is a great gift, especially since I never got around to actually going through it before I entered.

 

I also began to wean off blogging, especially debating apologetics, before I entered for various reasons..

 

Anyways, I wanted to ask if in your providential suffering, you would be willing to offer some up for the friars who go to the abortion clinic every Thursday morning to do sidewalk counseling. They, and especially the mothers, fathers, doctors, and workers need some serious prayers. We have been praying there for years, but only in these past months have we actually begun to engage them in sidewalk counseling, and thanks be to God we have had maybe a half dozen turn-arounds. We use the method of Msgr. Reilly and the Helper's of God Precious Infants,

because we feel it is the most effective, spiritually and practically. A shorter video, and an outstanding 2hr seminar by him.

 

Thank you and God bless!

 

In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,

 

Friar John Paul

[BarbTherese]

Ave Maria!

 

 

In honor of the Holy Father's "Year of Faith" we are going through the CCC for our weekly Sunday conferences. It is a great gift, especially since I never got around to actually going through it before I entered.

 

I also began to wean off blogging, especially debating apologetics, before I entered for various reasons..

 

Anyways, I wanted to ask if in your providential suffering, you would be willing to offer some up for the friars who go to the abortion clinic every Thursday morning to do sidewalk counseling. They, and especially the mothers, fathers, doctors, and workers need some serious prayers. We have been praying there for years, but only in these past months have we actually begun to engage them in sidewalk counseling, and thanks be to God we have had maybe a half dozen turn-arounds. We use the method of Msgr. Reilly and the Helper's of God Precious Infants,

because we feel it is the most effective, spiritually and practically. A shorter video, and an outstanding 2hr seminar by him.

 

Thank you and God bless!

 

In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,

 

Friar John Paul

 

Done and may God bless you also and your apostolate!