Tag Archives: #loveaboveall

Aug5

To Be a Witness, If My People, Day 6

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“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

 

Today, in our If My People prayer pilgrimage Day 6, we are looking at those final words Jesus spoke to the disciples before he ascended into heaven to be with the Father.  Evangelization, plain and simple… We are to go everywhere, teach everything and baptize everyone.  It doesn’t get more forthright than that when looking at what Jesus asks of us.  If He knows that I am fully capable of going, teaching and baptizing, then why do I find this direction from my Savior so daunting and overwhelming.  Who am I to evangelize?  I’m comfortable in my faith and uncomfortable when forced to be anything other than a Catholic mom who walks the spiritual side in her life by attending Mass, practicing the Sacraments, raising her family in the faith, teaching Sunday School, going to Bible studies and writing in her blog.  I like the easy way.

“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living Mystery.  It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”  Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard

 

Several years ago, this quote by Cardinal Suhard was printed on the back of our Parish bulletin.  I was so filled with joy when I read and thought about the meaning of this quote.  It seemed so natural, easy.  No street evangelization.  No asking strangers, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” No Bible Thumping. No propaganda.  Not even stirring

people up with insults and insinuations that they needed to get right with Mother Church.  Just simply living my life as a mystery… a prayer… in such a way that only God’s existence would complete my life and make my life story valid.  The most compelling way to share the message of the Gospel, the Good News of His coming, to bring wild hope to others, would be to live a conscious life for Him, to bring Him glory. Jesus came to redeem the assault of evil on our lives and to offer another way to live, filled with mercy, love, kindness for the least of our brethren rather than revenge, eye for an eye justice, and a harsh life of fulfilling man’s law in God’s name.  Somehow, this idea of evangelization seems more fulfilling, an easier way of following His path that makes sense to me when I see how He treated the least of His followers in the Gospel.  He did not judge nor condemn the sinner begging for healing.  How many times did He chose the more difficult aspect of healing His people’s faith through forgiveness?  “Your sins are forgiven.  Go in peace and sin no more.” A much more important healing for each of us than the easier physical healing that many of us have begged for over the course of humanity.  And yet, He lovingly and faithfully healed physical ailments as well. So it must be for each of us to find a way to live as a Mystery for Him through our willingness to show steadfast love, tender mercies, unabandoned hope, unasked for forgiveness.

Soren Kierkegaard: “All genuine instruction ends in a kind of silence, for when I live it, it is no longer necessary for my speaking to be audible.”

So we look at the propaganda that goes on in the name of evangelization and realize that many times it is not love, mercies, hope, nor forgiveness.  It comes down to the words.  Are you saying the right words with the correct tone of voice?  Are you saying the words loud enough and often enough and to everyone?  In the end, it truly is not about the words.  People will agree or disagree or be noncommittal with our words.  We must begin the hard work if our life is to relay the sense of God’s existence, to show our beliefs, values, convictions into our daily life; our worship, our work, the sustainability of our life, our interactions with others.  This is our witness.  As James said in 1:22, ‘Be doers of the Word and not hearers only.  Thereby deceiving only yourself.” To be doers and not hearers only we must do two things.  First, we must commit to a God Centered, not culture centered life.  We must seek out His Will and conform our thoughts, emotions, words, and actions to what we know He is leading us to.  Then we MUST respect the silence, the quietness with gentleness and kindness towards others.  We quietly go about showing steadfast love, tender mercies, unabandoned hope, and unasked for forgiveness to whomever crosses our path, #BlackLives, #BlueLives, #AllLives, #MuslimJewishProtestantHindiCatholicAgnostic………  We leave the judging and condemning to God, who loves us with a Holy Love and who judges with Holy Condemnation.  We become His living Mystery.

Praying that each of you may step out into Evangelization with steadfast love, tender mercies, unabandoned hope, and unasked for forgiveness to all whom cross your path.

May you find gratitude and peace in every moment,

Joan Marie

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Jul26

True Sight, Leo Buscaglia

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Leo Buscaglia, 1924-1998

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Leo Buscaglia

Have you found yourself recently needing to use strategies to help soothe yourself in the chaos that surrounds us?  You may be getting in touch with your creative side by crafting, cooking, painting.  Taking a daily walk in your neighborhood to relieve the stress may be your go to rather than filling your head with the newest media crisis to befall our nation.  Perhaps, you may be taking a keen interest in keeping your home spotlessly clean and your husband has all of his laundry ironed and hung neatly color coded on his side of the closet. Trust me, I have been trying all of these strategies recently as the media continues to bombard us with the latest political scandal, terrorist attack, police officer killing and hashtag group taking it to the streets. Of recent, I have found myself filling my thoughts with the writings of Leo Buscaglia, a great educator, author and soul of the twentieth century.  I remember first seeing Dr Buscaglia on Public Broadcast System television back in the 1970’s when I was a high school student living in a small town in Ohio.  He struck me with his wisdom and desire to help those listening to him find their way to love, life, and kindness.  His stories of growing up with an Italian mama and larger than life family were interspersed with his thoughts on how we can reach our fullest potential by becoming who we truly are rather than whom others think we should be.  And always, he came back to love and touching, reaching out to others with hugs of true affection.  Watching his televised talks back then were truly magical, making me want to grow up to be just like Leo.  A person, not afraid but strong, not artificial but genuine, not cruel but kind and loving.

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong. Leo Buscaglia

Now, all these years later, we find ourselves in a new global community.  One where nothing is hidden; no distance from the poor choices and violence of those filled with evil and weakness. It no longer feels as if the cruel are weak, but rather that evil is stronger than goodness.  Suddenly, we are forced to really search out what is right, what is fair, what is beautiful.  We must remind ourselves, daily-sometimes moment to moment, that this evil is an illusion.  Truth and love and kindness are actually all around us.

We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves. Leo Buscaglia

We must come to look at this ever changing world we find ourselves living in with a quiet mind and a new sight.  As those of the generation before me would say, “It’s time to put on our rose colored glasses.” This idiom means we must consciously look at the world around us not through the lens of what evil is befalling, but, rather, we look with a view of what beauty is surrounding us as everything around us suddenly comes alive with the possibility of life.  It is as if we suddenly are seeing life for the first time.  Nothing becomes insignificant.  Everything holds beauty and possibility.  The drinking in of this beauty, the magenta flower tipping towards the sun, the birdsong as morning is breaking outside our bedroom window, the tall pines with sunlight dappling through their branches, the momma holding her young babe, the love filled greeting our pooch gives us as we walk through the door, will become a healing balm to our stressed and broken souls.

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. Leo Buscaglia

How do we develop this sight for beauty over angst? It is a learned phenomenon which is available to anyone.  It is never to late to learn to focus on the good, the kind, the loving.It takes patience with oneself to learn a new focus of our attention to calm ourselves.  One simply must determine to make a choice for good over evil.  We must decide to create the life we want which is emboldened and filled with all the goodness God wants to bestow on us.  Being open to experiences and peoples that are different than what we may have known in the past is crucial.  Breaking down separation and division and reaching out in love to share this beautiful world with all.  For perfect love drives out fear (1John 4:18). The choice is for each of us to make.  A life full of stress in which we live at the media’s whim of all that there is to fear in this world?  A life filled with the beauty that surrounds each of us every day if only we see it with a calm mind and clear vision?

Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man’s only promise. Leo Buscaglia

Wishing you at this time to live with true sight to see the beauty and love that surrounds each of you.

 

May you find gratitude and peace in every moment.

Joan

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Jul25

Peace Pilgrim, If My People, Day 5

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Jeremiah 29:11-13: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

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His desire, as I contemplate His Word for Day 5 of my If My People prayer pilgrimage for our nation, seems as if it should be that we are at peace with and in Him.  It is His desire for us to know that His plans for us are joy, and hope, and peace and a future, as individuals and as a nation.  We only need turn to Him in humility and prayer with open eyes and open hearts.  So as I think of peace and prayer and a simpler life for each of us, I am reminded of Peace Pilgrim.

“As I looked about the world, so much of it impoverished, I became increasingly uncomfortable about having so much while my brothers and sisters were starving.  Finally, I had to find another way.  The turning point came when, in desperation and out of a very deep seeking for a meaningful way of life, I walked all one  night through the woods.  I came to a moonlit glade and prayed.  I felt a complete willingness, without any reservations, to give my life – to dedicate my life – to service.  ‘Please use me!’ I prayed to God.  A great peace came over me.”  Peace Pilgrim

Honesty with ourselves focuses our awareness on the true relationship between the actions of our body, speech, mind and the effects of these actions on our nation.  For there to be true change in our nation toward one of respect for all people we must still the distractions of our minds, such as fear and anxiety, to “grasp the truth” (Mahatma Gandhi) of how we effect our nation.  As the Dalai Lama  states, “I believe in justice and truth, without which there would be no basis for human hope.”  Most importantly, as Jesus, our Savior, has taught us that the greatest commandment is to love our God with our whole heart-mind-soul and secondly, to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Mathew 12:30-31)  If we are able to place our faith, our trust in God’s plan for us, then he will bring peace to our nation by our realizing that in serving and supporting others regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disabililty, we are serving Him who knows the plans He has for each of us. Where there is suffering His plan most surely calls for us to soothe it with compassion, mercy and justice.

How does one calm the anxiety, fear, anger that is so rampant among many in our nation?  The brain is a magnificent organ which is able to process thousands of subconscious stimuli while allowing us to focus on one thought at a time.  Over the course of time, these thoughts begin to flow one into the other, much like waves in the ocean.  Thoughts may be about our trying to relive a past event, worrying about future events, awareness of all that is happening in our nation from civil unrest, separation of peoples based on skin color and religious beliefs, to terrorism here and abroad.  St Paul to the Philippians (4:4-7) tells us to “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again,: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all.  The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  The the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  So we are to rejoice, not show anger, worry, anxiety in the state of things which we have no control over.  We are to show kindness at all times.  For the Lord is near, we must only seek Him in others we encounter.  We are to have no anxiety, but rather we are to pray at those times we find ourselves separated from His plan for our life.  A plan of prosper, hope, a future….

“To be at one with God is to be at peace…peace is to be found only within (one’s self), and unless one finds it there he will never find it at all.  Peace lies not in the external world.  It lies within one’s own soul.”  (Ralph Waldo Trine)  Our faith in Him leads us to a path of peacemaking in our thoughts, words, and deeds.  The emergence of peace will only come about when we have learned to respect the rights of others: people, of all color, beliefs, abilities differences.  Respect is evident by our honest appraisal of our lives in relation to others, sensitivity to the injustices endured by our brothers and sisters, and experiential changes that are consciously determined by what we know to be true.  We do not turn from our own or others suffering.  Rather, we look through the lens of compassion at the reality of our nation.  In honesty, we see the injustice around us and we begin to look after ourselves and one another in a kind, sensitive, and healing manner.  We find our voice and begin to speak out in love and truth for those who cannot, ourselves included.  As Jimi Hendrix sang, “when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”  Where once we routinely closed our eyes and returned to the safety of our habits and unconscious actions, we now have the ability to open our eyes to what is happening around us and respond with honest actions out of compassion.  This is our spiritual journey, moving from unconscious to conscious choices in our thoughts, words, and deeds leading to a life of simplicity and harmony.  This is our path to peace.  As stated by Martin Luther King, Jr., “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

Mildred Lisette Norman, better known as Peace Pilgrim, was just a normal person, like you and I, who took on a personal mission for the last 28 years of her life to bring awareness to peace among mankind.  On January 1, 1953, she began her personal pilgrimage for peace and walked 25,000 miles until her death on July 7, 1981.  On her pilgrimage, she vowed to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.”  She lived a simple life as a pacifist, vegetarian, and peace activist.  There was no organizational backing for her pilgrimage, no hashtag label to separate her from others, and no money to provide food and shelter.  Her only belongings were literally the clothes that she wore, a  blue tunic which read “Peace Pilgrim” on the front and “25,000 miles on foot for peace” on the back of the tunic.  Her message was simple,  “This is the way of peace:  overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”  By the end of her life, Peace Pilgrim became a frequent speaker at churches, universities, and for local and national radio and television programs.  Peace Pilgrim was able to respond to the suffering she saw in the world around her by opening not only her own eyes, but those of the people around her.  She was able to bring awareness to others of the need for peace through the simple act of walking.  “No one walks so safely as those who walk humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith.”  (Peace Pilgrim)

May I simply step out with my eyes open to the suffering around and within me.  With simplicity and harmony, I seek the path of peace through my thoughts, words, and deeds, knowing that He is ever with me in my seeking.

May you find gratitude and peace in every moment!

Joan

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Jul20

A Slave of God, If My People, Day 4

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Deuteronomy 28:1-3 New Living Translation

28“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:

3 Your towns and your fields will be blessed.

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If My People prayer pilgrimage, Day 4, has us really thinking about some hard stuff, mainly,  on obedience to God.  In our ego driven culture of self fulfillment, immediate gratification, monetary wealth, it is hard to think of answering to a higher being… to God.  While few of us have any trouble maxing out our credit cards and selling our soul to the banks for immediate gratification of whatever trivial thing crosses our path, we bulk at the thought that we owe our humility, our love and respect, our very existence to One Mightier than All Others… God.  

Today’s Word tells us that if we fully obey God and carefully keep all his commands, that he will bless our nation and each of us individually. In James 1:1, he begins his book with “James, the slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ…”  A slave of God. I have to tell you, the first time I read this verse several years ago, I was irritated.  Who wants to be a slave to anyone, including God.  If I was a slave to God, that would mean that I needed to give up who I was and become totally who God wanted me to be and continually do His bidding.  I just didn’t want to think about it as I had been existing quite happily with my compartmentalization of God to Sunday morning Mass and Thursday evening small church group with a prayer tossed in here and there.  It was a balanced life with no one even thinking of tossing me into the Bible Thumping Group.  I knew where God fit in and more importantly, God knew where He fit into my life.  It was convenient.  It was safe.  It was acceptable to the culture that I lived in.  But it wasn’t the plan He had for me, which I soon discovered entailed so much more.

A slave of God is actually found many times in the Bible.  In the Old Testament the word doulos (meaning slave, one who is subservient to and entirely at the disposal of his master) is used from ancient Greek to describe the Patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament including the following:  Moses (1 Kings 8:53), Joshua and Caleb (Joshua 2:8 and Numbers 14:24), Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deuteronomy 9:27), Job (Job 1:8), Isaiah (Isaiah 20:3), Amos 3:7, Zechariah 1:6, Jeremiah 7:25.  For these men of the Bible, the title of doulos was one of honor.  Was it difficult?  Yes.  Challenges and strife along the way doing God’s work?  Definitely.  Worthwhile and meaningful?  Without a doubt.

“Obeying God to the point that we are His slave,” what does that really entail? Am I filled with images from Civil War era movies of cuffs, starvation, ill kempt, bone weary work.  Is this what God has in store when I grudgingly agree to do His bidding.  No!  Of course this is not His desire for any of us.  I have to get my heart in the right place when I think of being His slave.  I give Him my absolute obedience.  I am absolutely His possession and I agree that I will follow Him in whatever He has in store for me without thought or question.  I give Him my absolute humility.  I focus myself on my duties and obligations to God over my privilege and rights.  I give Him my absolute loyalty.  I am utterly pledged to God and to everything for His glory, not my own.  If I can fill my heart with obedience, humility and loyalty to Him who knew me before He formed me in my mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5),  He will bring blessing not curses to me.  Blessings too numerous to list here.  For being His slave is so different than being man’s slave or even slave to this battered world we live in.  He brings light into the darkness of the world (John 8:12), beauty from ashes (Isaiah 61:3), plans of hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

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So in this time of darkness with racial tension and ISIS and inflation and lack of jobs to the point of homelessness of many, where many children are being raised by social media and our elderly mostly forgotten, it is time to grab on to His promise that if we commit our ways to Him, trust in Him, He will act (Psalms 37:5).  He will act with justice and steadfast love and tender mercies.  He calls us to obey Him and follow His commands.  The greatest of these is to love our God with our whole heart and to love our neighbor as our self (Matthew 22:38).  He says love all our neighbors as our self, whether they are black, blue, Muslim, homeless, disabled, gay and on and on and on.  He does not say to pick and chose the neighbor that makes you feel most comfortable and looks like you and thinks like you and has all the same stuff you have.  No, He gives us more of a challenge today just as it was when Jesus walked among us 2,000 years ago.  Love the Pharisee. Love the Gentile. Love the Good Samaritan. Love the Police Officer. Love the Thug. Love the Woman in Burqa. Love the Transgendered Woman in the Target Bathroom.  Love the Gay Couple stating their vows.  Love. Love. Love.  Let the judging and the justice come from Him above, not from us.  Reach out your hand, though you may be filled with fear and just Love….  Then, He will place you where your doings and loving and kindness will bring the greatest glory to Him and He will then bestow you with great, magnificent blessing.

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Praying that you find that place in your heart to say, “Lord, I am your slave.  Do with me as you wish.”

May you find peace and gratitude in every moment.

Joan

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Jul14

Call to Me, If My People, Day 2

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Jeremiah 33:3  Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

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God’s phone number, Jeremiah 33:3.  Thirty-three three. 333.  His Word that tells us to call out to Him and He will answer by showing us great and mighty things.  It is what a group of my friends, family, and myself are doing for these next forty days.   Day 2 of my If My People prayer pilgrimage finds me thinking about calling on God and quieting my fears and anger enough to actually hear what He is saying to me in regards to the crisis our nation now finds itself in.

Calling out to God.  Asking, begging, His Holy Spirit to bring guidance to the citizens of our nation.  We are wounded, non-communicative, angry people who have become so used to the separation, segregation, discrimination that we have become blinded to it.  Terms being tossed around right now include things like “white privilege,” “post traumatic slave syndrome,” and the like.  Then we deal with #BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, #LoveAboveAll, and so forth.  All these labels tossed around bringing confusion, and denial, and irritation, and frustration across all peoples in our nation, whose main difference among them is that some have more pigment in their skin than others.  And where has it gotten us on our own… just more separation and confusion and anger.  More death and violence.  Fear; that perfect love is finding challenging to overcome these days (1 John 4:18).  God is quite specific in His Word about calling out to Him.  Just look at Psalm 86:3, “Have mercy on me, O’Lord, for I call you all day long.  and Psalm: 145:18, . , “The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.” Even Jonah was told by the ship captain, “How can you sleep?  Get up and call on your God.” (Jonah 1:6).   As a nation, are we sleeping  like Jonah rather than looking to God to show us great and mighty things for our country?  Who among us is calling out to God? Who is crying out for healing and guidance for our people?  Calling aloud?  Roaring to God about the fright and the injustice that is filling our news stories and social media?  Is it you?  Is it me? James tells us that “We do not hear because we do not ask God.” (James 4:2).  It is time to start asking Him what He desires for our nation to bring glory to Him.  People, I seriously doubt it is more labels, more hashtags, more violence, more death.  Just sayin’…

We must shout out to God now.  Then we must quiet ourselves and let go of what we think we are going to hear from Him.  We must listen, quietly, for His still small voice to answer us.  The Lord will hear us when we call to Him (Psalm 4:3) and will answer us.  Getting on our knees, grabbing our Bible and rosary, and crying out to Him is not the hard part.  The challenge in all of this is to let go of a lifetime of beliefs, thoughts, feelings of what it means to have a relationship with people who are different than us…  Them….  The challenge will be to listen to what He tells us that He wants for our nation and follow His leading in this regard.  I read in a post today from a social media “friend” that she is approaching people of color and apologizing for what us “privileged whites” have done to them.  I was outraged when I read what she is doing.  All I could think of is “How dare she speak for us… for me.”  And what is this response…. Ego, fear, anger…plain and simple.  Why not in this time of great racial tension approach those who are different and offer an olive branch of love, kindness, humility?  As Mother Teresa of Calcutta is quoted as listing many things in life that are hard to do and then she admonishes us to do them anyway.   I’m sure it was hard for my friend to say to perfect strangers that she was sorry for the discrimination that they have had to live with, but she did it anyway.  Who am I to not offer this kindness to those around me.  For me, this is the hard stuff.  Wouldn’t it be nice if God waved a magic wand and made it so that we did not have to humble ourselves with one another. Alas, He is quite clear in yesterday’s Word of 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people… humble themselves and pray…”  Humbling oneself is difficult in our culture of “I am the center of the universe and can do and say what I want regardless of the effect it may have on another.”  Yet we must keep in our very heart the following thought:  love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control will beget only more self-control, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, forbearance, peace, joy, and love (Galations 5:22-23).

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Encouraging you to keep God’s phone number close at hand.  Feel free to use it any and all times these next forty days.  Pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:15) and listen for God’s response.  He will do mighty and wondrous things for our country and bring true healing to all our citizens.  All we need do is ask.

May you find gratitude and peace in every moment on our prayer pilgrimage for our beautiful country.

Joan

 

 

 

Jul13

Prayer for Our Nation

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Isaiah 65:24 “Before they call, I (the Lord) will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”

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This last week our beautiful nation has been faced with horrific violence once again from those who are charged with protecting the masses as well as from one obviously mentally ill man who chose evil over love, violence over peace with the sniper killing of five innocent police officers and injuring eleven others at last count.  Suddenly, as if it were something new, of which I recall forty years ago listening to my parents argue with prejudiced family members, it is the same ole’, same ole…. separation, fear, anger, violence.  The illusion that we are a global community with social medias and technology creating a world filled with opposites talking and learning and accepting is just that…. an illusion.  The separation continues sadly.  We are left with #blacklivesmatter, #bluelivesmatter, #alllivesmatter, #loveaboveall of which untold numbers of posts and comments have ensued to debate which is politically correct to use in which groups of people and has resulted in further posturing of people on what they believe is accurate in the use of these hashtags and what is offensive.  The separation has continued as far as I can see.

It was with excitement that I came across a post on Facebook from a long ago high school friend asking all Christian friends to consider joining her in a forty day prayer visual for our nation using the book If My People: A Forty Day Guide For Our Nation, by Jack Countryman.  Without hesitation, I signed myself up and eagerly awaited the starting day… today.  The just of the forty days is that we each agree to keep our beautiful, diverse, wounded nation in prayer for the next forty days.  There is a Bible verse and brief prayer to be read as well as our personal reflections for each of the next forty days.  It is a storming of heaven with hearts heavy and tired of the violence, the hate, the fear, with many of us members of the “Tribe of the Sacred Heart-member of a Scar Clan” (Dr Clarissa Pinkola-Estes).  So for the next forty days, I will be posting my thoughts, meanderings, fears and dreams, my prayers for our nations, and my discerning of what God is asking of us to help heal this imperfect yet beautiful country of ours.

Being Catholic, I often “study” God’s Word in Scripture somewhat differently than others, including Protestants.  We, as Cathoics, practice a Bible study called Lectio Divina.   http://ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/what-lectio-divina   It is quite simple to read Scripture using Lectio Divina and opens us up to allowing God to guide us in what his message is regarding the passage that He wants us to be open to.  Begin with a prayer and ask God to protect you and to help you to understand the passage.  Let go of expectations and preconceived notions of what the passage is saying.  Be open and sensitive to God’s nudging, knowing that often Holy Spirit speaks to us in whispers and not in cymbals.  Read the passage.  Pause. Think. Pause.  Read the passage again.  Pause. Think. Pause.  What word or phrase grabs your attention?  What is it that you are being taught by the Holy Spirit?  What is God wanting you to focus on? Where do your thoughts go with this word or phrase?  This is Holy Spirit teaching you.  Yes, there is context for every Bible verse as to when-what-where-why it was written.  Yet, I believe fully that He uses these Words to speak to each of us still today.  Yes, we must be careful to understand Holy Spirit teaching over our own self interpretation.  If you feel uncomfortable with what draws your attention; forced to look at your own fears and ego desires; feeling stretched…. most likely Holy Spirit is trying to expand your narrow belief.  If what you are coming to understand is disturbing to you or totally contrary to any reality you know, please do not hesitate to speak with your priest, pastor, spiritual director, close religious friends. Remember, pray, pray, pray at all times when studying Scripture, asking Holy Spirit to help you understand what is being said to you and why; asking for protection that your understanding is from Him who loves you with a never ending love; asking for courage to allow yourself to see His ways and not your own.

I encourage you to consider joining me on this adventure.  It is sure to be an exciting ride, filled with Holy Spirit guidance and stretching each of us to learn a new way to accept, love, care for those in our midst.

May God Bless America with the healing of all!

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