Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

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Just in case you haven't got round to seeing it:

 

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Daily Reflection – July 2 - St Vincent de Paul Society

 

“God never fails to come to our help in due time after we, on our part, have done all we can.”
– St. Vincent de Paul

 

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I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes in me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them, and prevent their appearance to others    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God

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From Good News Ministries:

"Dear Friend,

I understand the sorrow and pain you feel for that loved one who is not going to church. It's in my family, too. It's disturbing to watch the de-Christianizing of many who were raised in the faith. It's alarming how much the devil has gotten stronger with his influence, right? -- as evidenced by the relentless shootings in schools, by the bombings of churches, by immoral laws and the glorification of sin, and the other signs that you can easily bring to mind from what you've witnessed.

But we've got the Good News! Where sin abounds, grace abounds the more (see Romans 5:20). God's grace, combined with your passion and mine, will make a difference in this world, despite how small and insignificant your light might seem to be today. God has empowered you to be the light and the salt of the world (see Matthew 5:13-16). This is how Jesus saves souls. This is how the Holy Spirit plans to change the world.

Do you feel inadequate?

So do I when I think I'm alone in the fight against evil.

But this idea is the devil trying to influence us into being impotent followers of Christ.

The truth is -- the glorious truth is --

that together we accomplish much. Together we make a difference!

 

 

REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING

Excerpt Only: "Whatever we do to our neighbor, we do to Jesus, and all the sufferings our neighbor encounters in his daily life helps to build up the Mystical Body of Christ. To Paul, everything he suffered was for the Christians to whom he preached and for those who were to come. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I do have to struggle hard for you . . . and for so many others who have never seen me face to face” (Col. 2:1).

What was the purpose of all this suffering for others? “It is all to bind you together in love,” he told them, “and to stir your minds, so that your understanding may come to full development” (Col. 2:2).

Paul offered his sufferings for the good of his brethren, the Jews, for he told Timothy, “I have my own hardships to bear, even to being chained like a criminal — but they cannot chain up God’s news. So I bear it all for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus and the eternal glory that comes with it” (2 Tim. 2:9-10, emphasis added).

Here we have Redemptive Suffering offered to God for the sake of others. Paul’s desire to suffer for his brethren reached almost to extremes, for one day he said, “My sorrow is so great, my mental anguish so endless, I would willingly be condemned and be cut off from Christ if it could help my brothers of Israel, my own flesh and blood” (Rom. 9:2-4). Paul knew that God would never exact that price for the salvation of others but he went to extremes in his desire to suffer for others so they too might come to know Jesus and enjoy His Kingdom."

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From our Parish Bulletin:

Wake us up To what needs doing,

And what needs undoing.

Wake us up To what must be let go, And what to draw closer.

Wake us up to what enlarges love And what diminishes it In all parts of our life,

Disturb and wake us up!

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"There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose...."

- Alan Redpath

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I always read cappie's homilies in Open Mic - he is a Catholic priest.  The homilies are always well worth the read as is this one:

 

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SAINT PAULINE - VATICAN WEBSITE

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Personally, I need to often remind myself of trust in God.  I find that when the going gets rough, satan will attempt to undermine trust in God and if it can

achieve that, the next is Peace of Soul.

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“Do not fear what may happen tomorrow. The same loving Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.” — St. Francis de Sales

“A few acts of confidence and love are worth more than a thousand ‘Who knows? Who knows?’ Heaven is filled with converted sinners of all kinds, and there is room for more.” — St. Joseph Cafasso

“Those whose hearts are enlarged by confidence in God run swiftly on the path of perfection. They not only run, they fly; because, having placed all their hope in the Lord, they are no longer weak as they once were. They become strong with the strength of God, which is given to all who put their trust in Him.” — St. Alphonsus Liguori

 

 

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If you read the opening lines of Job, you can see that satan cannot act unless God permits that thing to do so.  It is The Lord who rules the universe, not evil :

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PEM.HTM"One day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, "Whence do you come?" Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "From roaming the earth and patrolling it."

And the LORD said to Satan, "Have you noticed my servant Job, and that there is no one on earth like him, blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil?"

But Satan answered the LORD and said, "Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing? Have you not surrounded him and his family and all that he has with your protection? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock are spread over the land.

1But now put forth your hand and touch anything that he has, and surely he will blaspheme you to your face."

And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand upon his person." So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Job

 

http://www.catholicstand.com/trusting-god-completely/ "The Book of Job is a great book to read in order to understand how God tests our faith to see if we really believe in Him, or if we are just paying Him lip service because things are going great in our lives.  God even uses Satan for this purpose. The God-fearing Job has his children killed and his property taken away from him by Satan, and he even has to undergo boils on his skin.  His wife tells Job to “curse God and die!”  Job refuses to do that, and instead worships and blesses God. 

He has three friends which come and tell him that he must have done something sinful to cause all of this pain in his life, but he refutes them.

Finally, God talks to Job. Job asks him why all of these calamities happened to him, and God tells Him that these things aren’t his to question.  The response of God (“Where were you when I created the earth and formed the seas,” etc.) should be mandatory reading for all of us very small humans who have the audacity to question the infallible will of Almighty God, who created us out of nothing, because He loves us and wants us to be with Him in heaven for eternity.  The lesson here is that everything that happens to us from external forces, good or bad, is the will of almighty God.

Internalizing Trust in God

So how can we apply these lessons to our lives today?  We should always know that God is our loving Father, and that if we TOTALLY trust in Him to take care of us no matter what the situation, we are obeying all of the Commandments, AND we are trying our best to live out the Christian message with our thoughts, words, and deeds, then we have a spiritual hedge of protection around us (Job 1:10). This hedge can only be taken down by our sinful actions, which proclaim that we actually prefer the ways of the devil to the ways of God. This was true in the Old Testament, and it is certainly true today for us, who now wander through the very dry and hazardous desert known as secular America.

Another lesson learned is that God will allow Satan to test us throughout our lives, to see if we REALLY love God and obey his Holy Word, or if we are just giving Him lip service.  Like the Israelites in the desert, like Abraham, and like Job, our DEEDS speak a lot louder than our WORDS!

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My thoughts are that God knows me intimately and more intimately than I know myself - hence, God has no need to test me to know the strength of my Faith and trust in Him.  Rather, it is in adversity that Faith and trust in God is made strong and stronger than before adversity struck.  Sometimes too, it is in adversity that I can come to understand that my Faith and trust is not as strong as I thought it was.  And it is in failure that I can learn humility.

"We know that all things work for good for those who love God, 6 who are called according to his purpose." (Romans Chapter 8)

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"The religious desire and effort of the soul to relate itself and all its interest to God and his will, is prayer in the deepest sense. This is essential prayer: uttered or unexpressed, it is equally prayer. It is the soul’s desire after God going forth in a manifestation, ... the soul striving after God.

This is a prayer that may exist without ceasing, consisting, as it does, not in doing or saying this or that, but in temper and attitude of the spirit."
    ... P. B. Brown

 

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St Jerome:

"It is not enough to abandon worldly goods, we must follow Christ. But what does it mean to follow Christ? It means renouncing all sin and cleaving to all virtue. Christ is eternal Wisdom, that treasure we find in a field (Mt 13:44), the field of Holy Scripture; the pearl of great value for which we must sacrifice many others (Mt 13:46). Christ is also holiness, the holiness without which no one can see the face of God. Christ is our redemption, our redeemer, he is our ransom (1Tm 2:6). Christ is all: therefore whoever consents to leave everything for his sake will find everything in him. Such a one can say: “The Lord is my allotted portion” (Ps 14[16]:5)… Don’t just give your money if you wish to follow Jesus Christ. Give him yourselves; imitate the Son of Man who did not come to be served but to serve (cf. Mk 10:45)."

(From Daily Gospel.org)

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(From Monastery of Christ in the Desert)

https://christdesert.org/ (take the virtual tour)

My sisters and brothers in Christ,

Today we hear about how God chooses people for particular missions within the Church and about how God chooses all of us who believe to give witness to Him.  Far too often we have no sense of being called or a sense that God might be asking something of us.  Instead, God calls each one of us and invites us to follow Him and to proclaim His message to others.

The first reading today is from the Prophet Amos.  We can almost laugh at ourselves when we speak of him as a prophet.  The Prophet Amos tells us:  “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.  The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

Most of us have no sense of being called.  We are very much like this Prophet Amos, going about our own business and doing what we have to do to earn our living and get along in life.  Amos tells us, however, that he was taken by the Lord from following his flock and told to prophesy to God’s people Israel.

By our baptism, each of us is called to take up this same role and to be priest, king and prophet.  We are called to be priests because we are called to intercede for others.  We are called to be kings because we are called to serve other.  We are called to be prophets because the word of God must be proclaimed by us.  We should never confuse this form of priesthood with the ordained priest.  Nevertheless it is priesthood because the role of priesthood for all of us, whether ordained or not, is to intercede for others with God.  For most of us it is clear that we are not kings in the normal sense of that word, but with an understanding that kingship is really about serving others, then we can recognize that true kingship is given to all who serve others and seek their wellbeing and good.  And the role of the prophet is simply to proclaim the word that God has given to us.  Prophecy does not come from us but is a matter of our proclaiming the word of God and what it means for our world.

The second reading today is from the Letter to the Ephesians and we are this:  “In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.”  We are called, we have been chosen.  Why?  For His glory, for the praise of His glory.  We can really be transformed when we recognize that each of us is chosen.  Faith has not just “happened” to us.  No, we have been chosen and must respond to that calling, that choice.  We have heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and have believed in him and have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

We can live our whole lives without recognizing this call.  We can live all our lives without recognizing that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit.  Our Scriptures and our Church keep telling us these realities and so often they go over our heads and we don’t understand.

The Gospel of Mark today tells us about the role of the twelve.  They are called.  They are chosen.  They are sent out.  They are given a mission.  How much easier for us if God only chose them and not us!  How much easier for us if only the pope, the bishops and the priests must have responsibilities for preaching and spreading the word of God and the joy of His Church!  Instead, we are a chosen people and the pope and the bishops and the priests are only there to serve the whole Church which is all of us.

Perhaps some of us remember before the Second Vatican Council when many of us thought of the Church as basically priests and religious—both religious sisters and brothers.  In the Council nothing new was proclaimed.  Instead, the Council sought to renew the Church so that all believers could recognize the dignity of one another.  Through the Council we were invited to recognize, not as something new but as something that had always been taught but not always understood—that all of us who believe are the Church and that within the Church there are various roles but those roles don’t make anyone better or worse.  The roles are just service.  We see this teaching already and very clearly in the Apostle Paul.

Today we are invited, each one of us, to recognize our own calling and to seek to know what God asks of us in order to spread the Kingdom.  Let us open our hearts and our minds in faith.

Your brother in the Lord,

Abbot Philip

“Suffering passes; to have suffered willingly remains eternally.” —St. Thérèse of Lisieux

 

SUFFERING WITH JOY

Although it may surprise you, the answer to this question is very simple. The only way that we will ever be happy is to surrender to God’s will. That’s it! Although it may sound simplistic, that is the ultimate answer. If we are constantly doing what God wants us to do, we will be happy.

But how does suffering fit into the picture? Obviously we can’t be happy while we are suffering, can we? Believe it or not, we can. While it won’t be the giddy type of happiness that we feel when things are going great, we can experience a deep peace or joy even while our world seems to be falling apart.

Here are five things to consider which will help you make it through even the greatest suffering:

It is God’s will. Nothing can happen to us without God’s approval. Anything that happens in our lives is God’s will. While it might not take away all of the pain, this knowledge can definitely help us to cope.

It is good for you. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul makes it clear that God can bring good out of all things (see Romans 8:28) including pain and suffering. We may never fully understand the details, but the difficulties we experience are designed to help us get to heaven.

It’s a chance to trust God. Anytime you experience suffering, you are given a chance to trust the Lord. Over time, these opportunities can result in an increased faith. If everything is going smoothly in your life, why would you need to trust God?

It is temporary. All earthly suffering is temporary. It will either be gone in this life or in the next. When you die, your problems die with you. The very fact that you know it won’t last will make your cross a little lighter.

It can unite you to Christ. When we suffer, we have the chance to participate in Christ’s redemptive mission (see Colossians 1:24). Uniting our suffering with the suffering of Jesus allows us to put it to use. On the other hand, complaining about it causes us to waste a great opportunity.

 

If we think that happiness can only be found in the absence of problems, we will never be happy. It is impossible to get through even one day without some degree of suffering or inconvenience. True happiness can only be found by embracing God’s will … even when it involves suffering!

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Predilection

Predilection: a preference or special liking for something; a bias in favour of something.

 

In contemplating The Gospels, it does seem that God has a special predilection or leaning and blessings, if you like, for the poor and the sinner:
 

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Luke Chapter 18: "He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.

"Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity - greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.'

13 But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'

14 I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

 

 

Jimmy Akin has written an explanation worth considering.  Akin is a senior apologist on Catholic Answers.  He sets his parameters for answering the question of predilection and then goes on to state that the answer would have to depend on one's perspective:

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http://jimmyakin.com/2006/08/who_does_god_lo.html

1) If you are talking about God’s perspective on individuals apart from his blessings and their responding actions, God loves all equally since we all have nothing apart from what he has given us.

2) If you are talking about God’s granting of blessings as his love then God loves some more than others–not because he is more drawn to their good points (for they have none apart from his blessings)–but because he gives some greater blessings than others.

3) If you are talking about God’s perspective on what he expects from us once he has given us his blessings then he does not love one more than another since he expects performance from creatures in proportion to the blessings they have received.

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God's Blessing is another interesting subject.  Am I more blest because I have been given much on this earth - or am I more blest when I am granted much to suffer on this earth?

Am I more blest when I give thanks to God for the good blessings He has granted me on this earth, or am I more blest when I give thanks to God for suffering and the cross?  Am I more blest when granted importance and value in this life, or when I am given the lowest of unremarked and unnoticed positions?

The journey is all attitude and perspective.

 

PLEASE NOTE!

From "God's Blessings" onwards is my take, not Jimmy Akin.

The quotation marks insist on embracing whatever they like!

Edited July 13, 2018 by BarbaraTherese