Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

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As an example of the inability or refusal to compromise with reality, take "Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come follow Me".  One can make compromises with those words in various ways and we do.  One rationalises until the command of Jesus is acceptable to one's taste and one convinces oneself one is obeying the words.  The more honest way to me is to admit to oneself, for example, that the words are too hard and one needs fall short - and to do so with sorrow..... to resolve to do whatever one can, Grace permitting.  If I start from a place of reality, it just may be a big surprise where Grace will take me.  Many of our saints have journeyed to holiness, not set out on their journey as already saintly and holy.  I think Jesus has blest the journey most all of us will embrace when "He learned obedience" (Hebrews Chapter 5).  The journey is intrinsic to human nature.......short of a miracle which always goes without saying.

Some of our saints too have not been able to compromise (or refused to do so) and took the words of Jesus to such quite literal lengths that they were thought in their time to be quite mad, no longer sane.  Even Jesus was thought by His relatives to have "lost His senses". (Mark Chapter 3).  Jesus was swimming against the tide of the cultural reality of His times.

 

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In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

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A Most Unusual Saint

"A saint for the persistent but discouraged: Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy"

HERE

[Guest]

Fr Benedict Groeschel (1933 - 2014) is uncanny - as if he is looking at one

speaking to one quite personally and I feel all viewing his video would have the same experience.  His voice has authority with wisdom and holiness as well as compassionate insight.

Guild of St Benedict Joseph Labre Website - Merciful Mother of The Mentally Ill

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ABOUT PRAYER

St Augustine

Office of Readings 23rd October 2017/Second Reading

A letter to Proba by St Augustine

Let us turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours

Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since that desire grows lukewarm, so to speak, from our involvement in other concerns and occupations. We remind ourselves through the words of prayer to focus our attention on the object of our desire; otherwise, the desire that began to grow lukewarm may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

  Therefore, when the Apostle says: Let your petitions become known before God, this should not be taken in the sense that they are in fact becoming known to God who certainly knew them even before they were made, but that they are becoming known to us before God through submission and not before men through boasting.

  Since this is the case, it is not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. But even in these actions, as I have said, we must always pray with that desire. To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length. Was he not giving us an example by this? In time, he prays when it is appropriate, and in eternity, he hears our prayers with the Father.

  The monks in Egypt are said to offer frequent prayers, but these are very short and hurled like swift javelins. Otherwise their watchful attention, a very necessary quality for anyone at prayer, could be dulled and could disappear through protracted delays. They also clearly demonstrate through this practice that a person must not quickly divert such attention if it lasts, just as one must not allow it to be blunted if it cannot last.

  Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer so long as a fervent attitude continues to accompany his prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervour at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words.

 

ABOUT FAITH

First Reading - 23rd October 2017

First readingRomans 4:20-25

Since God had made him a promise, Abraham refused either to deny it or even to doubt it, but drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, convinced that God had power to do what he had promised. This is the faith that was ‘considered as justifying him.’ Scripture however does not refer only to him but to us as well when it says that his faith was thus ‘considered’; our faith too will be ‘considered’ if we believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was put to death for our sins and raised to life to justify us.

[Guest]

Reading at Vespers

Monday 23rd October 2017

Quote

 

Colossians 1:9-11

Through perfect wisdom and spiritual understanding, may you reach the fullest knowledge of God’s will. So you will be able to lead the kind of life which the Lord expects of you, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects; showing the results in all the good actions you do and increasing your knowledge of God. You will have in you the strength, based on his own glorious power, never to give in, but to bear anything joyfully.

 

 

[Guest]

It is clear that he (she) does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the person in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the person in us wills.
- Thomas Aquinas

 

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[Guest]

What is it to pray in The Spirit?

 

Second Reading - Office of Readings

24th October 2017
 

Quote

 

A letter to Proba by St Augustine

On the Lord's Prayer

We need to use words so that we may remind ourselves to consider carefully what we are asking, not so that we may think we can instruct the Lord or prevail on him.

  Thus, when we say: Hallowed be your name, we are reminding ourselves to desire that his name, which in fact is always holy, should also be considered holy among men. I mean that it should not be held in contempt. But this is a help for men, not for God.

  And as for our saying: Your kingdom come, it will surely come whether we will it or not. But we are stirring up our desires for the kingdom so that it can come to us and we can deserve to reign there.

  When we say: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are asking him to make us obedient so that his will may be done in us as it is done in heaven by his angels.

  When we say: Give us this day our daily bread, in saying this day we mean “in this world.” Here we ask for a sufficiency by specifying the most important part of it; that is, we use the word “bread” to stand for everything. Or else we are asking for the sacrament of the faithful, which is necessary in this world, not to gain temporal happiness but to gain the happiness that is everlasting.

  When we say: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, we are reminding ourselves of what we must ask and what we must do in order to be worthy in turn to receive.

  When we say: Lead us not into temptation, we are reminding ourselves to ask that his help may not depart from us; otherwise we could be seduced and consent to some temptation, or despair and yield to it.

  When we say: Deliver us from evil, we are reminding ourselves to reflect on the fact that we do not yet enjoy the state of blessedness in which we shall suffer no evil. This is the final petition contained in the Lord’s Prayer, and it has a wide application. In this petition the Christian can utter his cries of sorrow, in it he can shed his tears, and through it he can begin, continue and conclude his prayer, whatever the distress in which he finds himself. Yes, it was very appropriate that all these truths should be entrusted to us to remember in these very words.

  Whatever be the other words we may prefer to say (words which the one praying chooses so that his disposition may become clearer to himself or which he simply adopts so that his disposition may be intensified), we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord’s Prayer, provided of course we are praying in a correct and proper way. But if anyone says something which is incompatible with this prayer of the Gospel, he is praying in the flesh, even if he is not praying sinfully. And yet I do not know how this could be termed anything but sinful, since those who are born again through the Spirit ought to pray only in the Spirit.

 

 

[Guest]

Much very interesting info packed into this video, while it does take almost the whole video, at least three quarters of it, for Fr Benedict to get around to address the supernatural virtues directly. 

Great sense of humour.  Easy to identify Father's leaning and bias.  One interesting description "the media is a septic tank of toxic waste".  Another was that prostitutes and "overt female homosexuals" have an instinctive appreciation of chastity.

Father Benedict doesn't seem to have any appreciation at all of today's Jesuits.

Father looked focused and directly into the camera around three times in the whole just over 2 hours.  It is a video offering much for religious but not only religious. 

 

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My carer called yesterday and the visit I dreaded - but it very happily for me turned out that her supervisor came too.  Her supervisor started the ball rolling for various forms of assistance I will need in the future.  This meant that she did most of the talking.  I did apologise to my carer again for what happened with Buddie in her car - she was very subdued in response and perhaps because her supervisor was present.

I have given much thanks to God that He has protected one of His least, who does not cope well at all in certain situations.   Amen.

[Guest]

To worship God in spirit and truth means to worship God as we ought to worship Him. God is Spirit, so we must worship Him in spirit and truth, that is, by a humble and true adoration of spirit in the depth and centre of our souls. God alone can see this worship; we can repeat it so often that in the end it becomes as if it were natural to us, and as if God were one with our souls, and our souls one with Him.
- Brother Lawrence

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Quote of the Day – October 27

St Vincent de Paul Society (FAMVIN)

 

"Provided that we are faithful to Him we will lack nothing;

He himself will live in us, guide, defend and love us" (XII:119).

[Guest]

c h a t

Re My Post HERE - things turned out quite unexpectedly well.  My carer was accompanied by her supervisor.  I briefly again apologised for Buddie's accident in her car and my carer was very gracious about it and I had a huge breathe of relief to insight my carer's virtuous side and towards Buddie and me.  Her supervisor was a real help and organised contacts for me.  The Good Lord continually watches over me I know, never allowing on my plate more than I can handle - although I suspect it is only hindsight that reveals it.  Laudate Dominum.  My challenge is to continually trust Jesus even when struggling - trust that He knows best and all is unfolding in His Will.

Reflection tells me that I am striving to set things up so I can remain independent here in Bethany.......hence the supervisor was passing on contacts for me, even making phone calls on my behalf.  It is in the pipeline for me to transfer to another division in their organisation - not because I have asked to do so - it is their system.  I am transferring from a carer to their social support division in aged care, where more is available as assistance for the elderly disabled.  It all has a price tag - but very fortunately and blest, here in Australia the cost is  quite heavily subsidised by our government.  I am not really disabled - or I don't think of myself as disabled - rather I am limited to what I was once.  I fall into the aged care disabled category because of bipolar and severe osteoarthritis limiting mobility long term.

Even if I did have the hip replacement surgery (which I wont be having), the severe osteoarthritis in my lower spine would still present painful back problems.  I have the same in my neck making neck movements, sometimes shoulders as well, painful.

Buddie's visit to the vet set me back financially - but the worst of it is that to date while his cough isn't as persistent, it still remains.  I might have to visit the vet again.

I have booked a taxi for Mass tonight - Saturday Vigil Mass.  A fortnight ago was the first time I went to Mass via cab with the walker.  It all unfolded very smoothly and I was able to go up to Holy Communion with just a walking stick no problem at all.  Receiving on the tongue felt very strange.  But like all things new, given time and patience the new does become the familiar.

I have read somewhere that to be truly holy, the "I" must almost drop completely out of one's language.  I do not agree completely with that - it all comes down to motivation and why one is about whatever one might be about. 

Laudate Dominum

 

[Guest]

 

I have been reflecting on the last paragraph of the previous post.  I do think that it is quite correct that in holiness, the "I" probably does almost drop from one's language.  It is also true, I think, that motivation is prime.  I have concluded that I am simply not at holiness as yet, might never be until purified and in Heaven.  I do ask the Grace to persevere in the pursuit according to God's Will in my life and to embrace His Will with Peace, humility and resignation...........and even the latter is a very big "somewhere or other out there somewhere" for me.