Wild Jubilation

'the power of the Most High will overshadow you" Luke 1:35

2009-03-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

For March 25. Today is the feast of the Annunciation. There was Mary, living in a poor town, really a peasant woman. Alone in her home. Surely she was praying in some way when the angel came and began talking to her. Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you. She wonders about these words to her. She engages in conversation with that angel and questions the angel too. She does not run out to consult someone else. In the depth of her being she realizes she is being asked to make a decision that will have effects unknown to her. The future is not spelled out to her. Is ours, really?

She doesn’t ask for details of the future. She seems to have no anxiety about that. Rather, she asks How? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Then she said yes. Overshadowing was a treasure in that sun soaked land. It was shelter from the heat that could kill you. So there was assurance of the care of God in these words.

Jesus gives us that same assurance when he says I am with you always. Or when he says abide in me as I abide in you.

Freely Mary said: Behold the servant of the Lord. She is aware that only one is her Lord, God who in the prophet Isaiah (Ch 45) says: I the Lord am God, there is no other, none beside me. God who is love can be trusted to be our Lord, to whom we can each say behold the servant of the Lord. Then Mary says Be it done to me according to your word. And so we say Hail Mary full of Grace. Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us.

By her example we can trust that in prayer God will lead us too. The Spirit of God also overshadows us. And in a way when we meditate, we entrust our lives to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.

We sit in stillness as best we can. We close our eyes gently. We speak to God present with us and within us. We need to acknowledge the living reality of God in a personal way. Be present to God as God is present to us. "Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." Ps 23. Then we start saying a prayer word or phrase and keep repeating it. Whenever our mind drifts into thoughts, images, feelings, we gently return to our prayer word. We can have a timer and when it rings the 20 minutes, we quietly say the Lord's Prayer in our hearts. We have entrusted our whole life to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit!

"to know the love of Christ" Eph.3:19

2009-03-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Eph 3:18-19

God’s attitude toward us is one of whole, eternal and everlasting love. Salvation is from love, from God seeking to convince us of the great love in which God holds us. It is positively primitive, even barbaric, to think that we have to appease God for our sins. Yes, in Lent we look at our lives and repent of our sins. But what does Jesus say? Repent and believe the good news. Believe in this, that God so loves the world and each one of us that he sent his Son to share our human life to the full. And for us to realize that to the full means Resurrection from the dead.

Love is at the heart of all that Jesus did on earth. We are saved by believing in God’s love. The love God has for us is always available. It is not conditioned by our behavior. So when we acknowledge our sins, we gradually begin to realize that these come from our wounded false self. They do not diminish God’s love, for the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit at all time. What our sins do is somehow block our awareness of love and this is why we need to distinguish our true self from our false self. I believe that our sins come from insufficient belief in the unconditional Love which God has for us!

I love something Thomas Merton said in a conference on Prayer: “The great central thing in Christian faith and hope is the courage to realize oneself and to accept oneself as loved by God even though one is not worthy.”

When we take the time to meditate, for 20 minutes we let go of our thoughts and images and entrust ourselves, our superficial selves, our surface selves, and our deep selves, false self and true self, to LOVE who is God. For this half hour we just let God do in us as His love desires.
Let us pray.

“There is nothing so like God in all the world as silence.” Master Eckhart

2009-02-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

We know that Jesus often went off alone into desert places to pray. And we Know he often admonished demons to be silent. And he often told those whom he healed to be silent. We also read that after a short conversation with Pilate Jesus became silent. These silences are especially present in Mark’s Gospel. Some have called this the Messianic Secret. As if to say, Jesus did not come out and say who he really was.

St. Ignatius of Antioch who was martyred around 100 CE had this to say about silence: “If we cannot understand the silence of Christ we will not be able to understand his words either.” And I wondered if he means some evidence of the silence of Christ in the Gospels or the fact that we experience silence from God in our own lives.

Ammonas (c.350 CE): “Beloved, my beloved, I have shown you the power of silence, how thoroughly it heals and how fully pleasing it is to God. I have written to you so that you may know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that is was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them and the mysteries of God were known to them.”

St Benedict:480-543 CE had two words: quies and silentio. The quies is the stillness of the body. And of physical things. (like TV or some uses of the computer) The silentio is about our words and our thoughts. We keep silence so that we Can listen to God, listen to God’s work of love.

"Silence,how thoroughly it heals and how fully pleasing it is to God. I have written to you so that you may know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that is was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them and the mysteries of God were known to them.”

Many saints speak of the interior silence in which we let go of our wandering thoughts, our worrying about the future, our complaining about the present and our harrowing of ourselves or others about the past. All the “if onlys” that come up should be dropped instantly as totally useless. Just turn to God in prayer – short and intense though not agitated.

Lent is a great time to try to have more silence in our lives. The quiet of less noise and less rushing. The effort to live in the now in our thoughts. the giving of more attention to spiritual reading and less puzzling out of the meaning of life. Taking a little more time to rest in God. Trying to be more assiduous in the practice of Christian Meditation or centering prayer.

Meditation – we say our prayer word in order to let go of our own thoughts and we are silent from them even if they are floating around, so that God will speak to our hearts in the mysterious way of love

Since the unselfishness of human love is always transformative, how much more is God who is love always transformative? The more we are willing to interrupt our wandering thoughts with prayer, the more we realize that the Presence of God is the reality which gives the real meaning,shape and purpose to everything we do. and everything we are.

Rebecca and the Cliff

2009-02-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

My twelve year old cousin, Rebecca, was walking the big family dog near a cliff when we were visiting in West Virginia. They were not walking but running. All of a sudden she saw in front of her a cliff that they could just go over precipitously. The only thing she could do to stop was to sit right down on the ground which she did.

In the complexity of today’s world it is easy to fall off a cliff into a life of perpetual motion. A life that often leads to confusion of mind and heart. The need is to sit down. As Master Eckhart says, we need to have as much interiority as exteriority. And even in our interiority we need time just to rest in God, in total trust in the great Love that God has for us. When we trust God we are entering mystery. We are in God and God is in us. This is what Jesus has promised us. Abide in me as I abide in you. It was a promise that for the Apostles was beyond understanding. Then Jesus rose from the dead. Even then it was not so much a matter of understanding but of believing the words of Jesus because He had risen from the dead and that wonderful witness was quite enough to have them trust in his great Love.

Paul writes: If Christ be not risen from the dead we are of all people the most foolish. (1 Cor, 15) This is why we sit in silence. Why we make the time just to be with God in prayer. We trust our God enough to avoid going off the cliff by sitting down with God in meditative prayer.. We acknowledge consciously the reality that God is present. Then we just repeat a simply prayer word or phrase. And let go of all thinking, imagining, worrying, going over the past or planning the future. Even 10 minutes is good. But twenty minutes twice a day is better.

We are living the paradox of the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Paul expresses this in another way. He says: when I am weak then I am strong. So what looks like the weakness of just praying repetitively is actually relying so much on God that the Divine energy of Love can work freely in us. And that is our true strength.

Elijah in a cave

2009-02-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

When Elijah was in trouble and his head was filled with fears and all kinds of thoughts, he went and hid in a cave. There were all kinds of noises – mighty winds, an earthquake, a fire, but when there was the quiet of a gentle breeze, he stood in the mouth of the cave and listened. Then God gave him directions as to what to do next. 1 Kings 19:9 ff

I like the image of a cave ever since I went to Niagara Falls and stood in the cave behind the falls pouring down endlessly.

If we look at our process of thinking as a waterfall, a continual cascading of thoughts, then meditation is like going into the cave behind the waterfalls. Behind the endless stream of thoughts. We may see the cascade of thoughts, but we are out of the torrent for a while. Or maybe we feel ourselves immersed in mighty winds or aa earthquake or even a fire. Then if we to the cave of inner silence, we will hear the gentle breeze of God’s word to us.

IN Christian Meditation we sit quietly, let go of all out thoughts by simply repeating a prayer word and coming back to our prayer word or phrase gently when we realize we are thinking again. While we meditate we are just letting God act in our hearts and minds as God wills, for God loves us so much. God wants to change our hearts so that we more fully respond to God’s immense love for us. This is something we cannot do for ourselves.

So when we are feeling out of sync, dissatisfied, restless, distressed, we don’t look at our thoughts, we just go to our cave. We meditate. God teaches us quietly, secretly, without our knowing how, without our help, without words, in mystery. We enter a knowing without knowing. God’s love for us is hidden in silence. Perhaps so that we may long for God more intensely or with the patient waiting of faith, until the day dawns when we see God face to face.

Here is a great reading from the Letter to the Ephesians 1:17-19..
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Purification of Heart

2009-02-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

Purification of Heart
Purification of the heart is the endless struggle of seeking a more God-centered life. It is the minute-to-minute discipline of trying to be so aware of God's presence that the heart has no space for our own worries, ambitions, or attention to appearances. (Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes. Orbis Press, Maryknoll.1999. Pg. 96)
It has often seemed to me that the best way to do this is through prayer, especially the walking prayer, that is, having a prayer phrase that we say whenever we are walking. It can be just a short walk, up a flight of stairs., or whenever we are walking anywhere. There are some tasks during which it is easy to pray. For me that might be setting the table. And sometimes intermittently while I am cooking. However, I know I have to be careful there. The other night I was cooking a new recipe. The base was familiar so I launched out. And did the first part. Then I looked down at the new part and did it, but alas, I had skipped an important phrase. Right after the familiar part it said “instead of this, do that! So the unused part is still in the frig! Many of us have work that requires total attention. Then we seek to find short intermissions in which to say a word to God, or simply acknowledge God’s sustaining Presence.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Mt 5:8. Moses begged to see the face of God. And God had him stand ‘in the cleft of a rock’, and God covered him with his hand while God’s glory passed by. Later Elijah too wanted to see God and he experienced God in a still voice. In the Transfiguration, the three apostles saw Jesus surrounded with light and Moses and Elijah talking with Him.
These strong experiences tell us that God wants to reveal Himself to us. So it is immensely worth our while to try to pray always, and let go of worries and critical thoughts and any other garbage that floats into our conscious mind. It is by having prayers and hymn phrases and memory gems from Scripture or poetry that we call upon whenever possible that we gradually find our hearts and minds less congested.
The desert fathers and mothers used a verse from Ps 70: O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me. Many over the years have used some variation of a prayer with the Name of Jesus. As simple as Jesus, Mercy. Or as a friend of mine says: Jesus, Jesus, help, help, help. He likes it because he can say it rhythmically as he walks. Find a phrase - often from Scripture that you can repeat as you go about your day. Remember: Blessed the pure of heart, for they shall see God

“Where have you hidden, Beloved, and left me groaning.”

2009-02-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

John of the Cross in The Spiritual Canticle

It has fascinated me that John of the cross wrote this beautiful poem while imprisoned in a tiny dark cell where three days a week they brought him into middle of the dining room where he had to eat kneeling on the floor.. They also beat him three times a week. Those wounds were bad enough that they took years to heal.

In a way St. John teaches us by this long beautiful prayer that the place within where not everything is all right, where you feel wounded, that it’s the place to go for prayer.

As I was going to write more about this, we received news that there is political turmoil in Madagascar where we have many friends. Everything is closed, government, schools, stores. And it is dangerous to go out. So our friends are stuck in their homes.

And that is sometimes how we feel about our own inner ache or confusion or sorrow. It is then and there that we have the opportunity to turn to God in faith. To act in our prayer with faith no matter how we may feel. And when we hear news like this we know that whatever ache or sorrow or confusion we may have, it is not a private affair. It is always joined to the cries of Jesus on the Cross. While Jesus cries out My God, My God why have you forsaken me, following that he says a word of comfort to the good thief, and a word of great trust: Into your hands I commend my spirit.

This is a good way of prayer then: to feel our way to the wound that is in us, (in case we have the insight to discover that place) to the place of our need, - to go there and hold our need before the Lord.

And always to remember that Jesus rose from the dead. We live in hope, we walk by faith, we trust in the love God has for us.

Sing a New Song unto the Lord. Ps. 96:1

2009-01-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

We humans mostly like new things. And even if we do not like the present new leadership, we at last know there is newness already.

But the Bible often means much more. They sang about their freedom from Egypt. They sang about when David became the new leader of them as a people. They often sang about newness in their lives. They sang about the newness of forgiveness, which we sing every Friday in the morning office, Psalm 51. All through the Bible they sing about newness of one kind or another.

But the greatest and most wonderful newness is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

That mystery gives us a great expanse for newness. In Isaiah, God says he will make a new way in the wilderness…so if you feel like you’re in confusion as if in a wilderness, just ask God to lead you in a new way.

Again in Isaiah, God says I will make you hear new things. But to hear we have really to listen. And over and over we hear that God has mercy and love for us. There is only goodness in God, only love

In Jeremiah we read that the Lord says I will make a New Covenant. We live in that covenant and celebrate God’s promises to us often, especially in Holy Mass.

In Lamentations is a favorite of mine: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, say my soul, therefore will I hope in Him.

This newness is in us every day, because God is within us. We live and walk in God, and as Paul say: Christ in you, your hope of glory. 1 Col.

As we say at the end of Ps.73: My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

With God giving total attention to each of us, it seems a strong invitation to give ever more attention to God. Which is why we pray.

Behold the Kingdom of God is within you.

2009-01-19T09:41:00.000-08:00

In the very first line of the Spiritual Canticle by John of the Cross, he writes “Where have you hidden, Beloved.” And when St John writes in prose about this he insists that we pay attention to the words of Jesus. The Kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20. That is, God who loves us so much is within each one of us. So it is important to go within ourselves if we want to know our God. Yes, all creation gives witness to the glory of God. Yet we also have St. Augustine writing: "I did not find You without Lord, because I wrongly sought You without, Who were within."

As the Prophet Isaiah said: Come my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself for a little while. Is 26:20

How are we to go within ourselves? One way is to become silent and to make an act of faith in the reality of the Presence of God within. O God, I believe you are here in mystery within me.

WE cannot ever be without God. As we are immersed in God so God is immersed in each one of us. You are the Temple of God. St. Paul tells us. (2 Cor. 6:16) God is love so when we read in Romans that God’s love is poured into our hearts, we can be assured of the Presence of God in us.

St.John of the Cross adds: “All your good and hope is so close to you as to be within you, or better, that you cannot be without Him.”

So when we come to Christian Mediation or Centering prayer, it does seem important to me, to take a moment to make a very personal word to the Beloved within. A word of faith in the Presence of God. A word of Hope in which we express our trust in the love God has for us. Or a word of desire for more intimacy with God, which is a word of love. Then we begin our prayer word as a way to keep silent By saying our mantra and paying attention to it, we are letting go of all our ego thoughts, imaginations, worries, and quarrels with life. For this short time we are letting God within do as He wills with us. We say with Mary; behold the servant of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.

“Value yourself at your true worth.” Sirach 10:28-29

2009-01-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

This quote is from Today’s English Version of the Bible. I like it. The New Revised Standard says: “Give yourself the esteem you deserve”. And the New Jerusalem says: “Value yourself at your proper worth”.

Actually the first part of that verse counsels humility! So where does our true worth come from? Not from what others think of us. And not really from our accomplishments either. Not how much money we make. Why not? Because even these are a gift from God. After all, we did not choose where we were born or what family we might have.

Our true worth is that we are loved unconditionally by God. Thomas Merton wrote “The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God.” (New Seeds of Contemplation. New York, a New Directions Book. 1961. p.75)

"Nothing or no one is more beautiful than I, since God -- beauty itself -- has fallen in love with me." Angelus Silesius 1670
Our reality is that we are greatly loved. There is no pretension here. Our reality is that we have been loved into life. And that the love God has for us is forever. This is our faith. When the Bible expresses God’s anger with us, we need to realize this is like the anger my Mother had when I went near the Troublesome Brook and fell is. She had after all, warned me no to go near it. . Why was she angry? Because I had done what was bad for me, dangerous. It was from her love for me. So punishment was to make me remember what was safe and not dangerous. I was probably only 10 but I knew well that my Mother loved me.

Often we identify ourselves with our work. This is not true. What is the first reality about me? I am the beloved of God. What is the first reality about you> You are God’s Beloved.

When we take the time to be silent in the Presence of God, we are opening our hearts to love. When we sit quietly and repeat a prayer phrase, we are letting go of our own agenda and letting God do with us as His love wants to do. We are entrusting our lives and our inner being to the great and enduring love that God has for us. We cry out with Jeremiah: The Mercies of the Lord are new every morning, great is thy Faithfulness. The feast days of the Christmas season are a yearly reminder to us that God has so loved the World that he gave us his only begotten Son. (John 3)

O WISDOM

2009-01-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

These nine days are the days of what we call the O antiphons. And the one today starts O Wisdom. These are the antiphons for evening prayer of the Church.

I remember when I first realized this pattern. It filled me with joy somehow. So I want to talk about the joy of Christmas. We have all these lights because we are celebrating Jesus the Light of the world. People may not know that anymore but that is the real reason for all the light. Divine light is more penetrating than laser, more vast that the light of the sun. God’s Light, Jesus, Light of the world, goes through and overcomes all darkness – prejudice, hypocrisy, deceit, pernicious ideas.

The Light of Christmas brings peace to disturbed hearts, overcomes all our tendencies to get even, to retaliate, to unforgiveness. AS Jesus said “My peace I give you, not as the world gives, I give peace.” Christmas is a good time to remember that Jesus really said that whole sentence that included “not as the world gives peace.” I am sorry we say only say half of the sentence at Mass. Some days I feel like petitioning Rome to put them together! And think of Paul writing: “See now if the day of salvation”2 Co 6.2.

Christmas is a gift to us, - God giving himself. Yet Christmas Is also an invitation to open our hearts to each other, for that is how we open to God.

In Christian Meditation or Centering Prayer we say our prayer word and let go of all our inner monologues and images. We entrust our whole being to God. We are opening our hearts to the Light of Christ, to the light of Christmas. We kept our prayer word going so that we do not drift into a sort of dreamy state that we might think of as holy. What we seek is to be open to the light of God. To let God lead us, and teach us in the depths of our hearts where we never really can go on our own.

None of us have real physical poverty like the millions of people who are on the edge of starvation today. And yet, when the Light of Christ shines in our hearts at Christmas we are invited to recognize that all is gift. That Jesus told us the truth when He said: without me you can do nothing. Christmas can be a time to rejoice. The flip side of the gift of Christmas is our own total need of Jesus. And so we can be filled with joy because the light of Christ shines upon us. And within us when we open our hearts. Let us take time each day, against the demands of business this season, to sit in silence to pray. Let us pray now.

When is God present to us?

2008-11-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

God is always present to us: closer than our breathing, closer than consciousness itself, and closer than our choosing. The reality is that Creation was not a long ago event, but is happening this instant. God’s love is totally faithful. God is creating us every instant of our lives. God’s love is ongoing and forever. Father Thomas Keating wrote that the monumental illusion we have is that God is absent. Maybe we have misinterpreted the phrase in the Lord ’s Prayer – Our Father who art in heaven to mean that God is far away. It does seem to me that perhaps this means here and now we live in mystery and do not see God yet. We are aware of self, but when we arrive at adulthood without any awareness of God, we can be tied up in feelings of guilt, of fear, of resentment, of anger, of loneliness, of greed.

As we are born in a completely helpless state and learn little by little, almost entirely by imitation, we also imitate the desires others have. And often those desires are for things that are replacing the real inner desire. That is we get to be overwhelmed by desire to be the center of attention, to have many possessions, to be in control of others or of situations, to be praised, even the desire to get even, to retaliate. These are all false programs for happiness. Also in this early helpless state and along the way of our first few years, we may suffer other traumas, such as neglect, meanesses, the false expectations of others.

When we are led by God to some awareness of his presence and then his love, we turn to God for what Keating calls Divine therapy. Think of how Christian Meditation is Divine therapy.

We sit down in silence and make that act of faith in the reality of the Presence of God and in the Love God has for us. Then we repeat our prayer word or mantra and in this way let go of our thoughts and images and feelings. And into this silence the Divine therapist is free to heal the wounds of a lifetime. Little by little. It can take along time by our schedules for God to heal us. So right away we need to make an act of faith in God’s loving care of us. It is not necessary to have great feelings about this. Just make the act of faith. We need to acknowledge to God our belief that God is with us, intimately. That God has care of us, mysteriously. Let us pray.

What does the word ‘abide’ mean to you?

2008-10-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, the whole family sang songs together, sometimes just the seven in our house and sometimes with the cousins nearby so that there were thirteen altogether singing around the piano. That is where I first heard the word “abide” and it was in the song Abide with me. “I need thy presence every passing hour…through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me. Or “In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

Actually we read in the Bible in John 15 that Jesus is saying to us:
"Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. . . . .. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit"

Jesus tells us that God is within us, looking to be our companion, always available. How shall we be available to God? When Jesus says go into that room, I think he also means that inner room of our heart, our inmost center where we are not identified with a role or an emotion and are beyond activities. Rather it is so deep within that all that is going on is abiding – that is, companionship with God.

As we say a simple prayer word or phrase over and over, we re letting the Spirit of God pray in us. In a way we have to listen within to the word we are saying. So that when thoughts arise, or images, we move back within and say our prayer word again. That repeated word is a symbol of our consent to the abiding Presence of God and to whatever God wants to do in our depths to heal us and draw us into more intimate relationship with Him. To abiding.

We don’t have to fight off obsessive thoughts and feelings, we just have to let them go for a while as we come back to our prayer word.. We trust that by abiding in us. God’s loving is going on in us.

There are many good ways to pray. And they are for other times of day – like the walking prayer, like devotional praying, or petitions for others. This quiet prayer is a transforming practice. Thomas Keating says it good to show up for your time with your Divine therapist twice a day!
Let us pray. In silence call to mind that God is with us and within us. Sit up straight. Close your eyes and introduce your prayer word. Keep saying it within and with attentiveness until your 20 minutes timer dings! Close within by saying the Our Father.

CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH GOD

2008-10-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

“Half measures avail us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked for His protection and care with complete abandon”

Years ago a dear friend of mine, sister Mary who attended OA meetings said to me that it was great awakening for her when she pondered those words ‘the care of God’. She said to me just think of that. God cares for us, takes care of us, nothing is more important than believing that.

We walk by faith, not sight. Whatever it is that we believe about God, it is an act of Faith. That is why every day, every time I start to meditate I say, O God, I believe you are here and I adore you profoundly. Teach me to do your will for you are my God.

For, in the words of St. Paul: In God we live and move and have our being.
We are more immersed in God more than a fish is immersed in water. And when we say that, I believe we are immersed in love. Foundational to our lives is the belief that God is the creator of heaven and earth. Is this just a past event? Do we think of God as out there some where? Really God is sustaining us in life even as we sit here.

TRY this: Try saying in your own mind and heart and with eyes closed, what I am about to say, phrase by phrase, closing your eyes for a moment between each phrase. AS I sit here, the beating of my heart…the ebb and flow of my breathing…..the movement of my mind…the sensations of my body…are all signs of God’s ongoing creation and care of me…it is God who sustains me in life…I pause for a moment …and become aware of the presence of God within me…If I do not feel this way…I make a simple act of faith in the reality of the Presence of God….I believe that You, My God are here with me…I entrust my life and all my concerns to you, my God.

Many through the ages have called God the Ground of our being. Then Father John Main, in the book, The Way of Unknowing, writes that we need to adjust to the reality that God is the ground of our being. This means that we are invited to adjust to this reality. God is with us. And God is for u. As it says somewhere in the Bible, if God is for us who can be against us…

Remember that beautiful Psalm 23? The Lord is my Shepherd., there is nothing I shall want.. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. My Mother told me in later years that when we were little my brother Joe and I used come home from school along a dirt road in the city of Yonkers New York and we would be saying in a singsong way: Thou are with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.

This valley of the shadow of death comes from not only our own sorrows that we have had, but the sorrows of the world. While some suffering such the death of a child or young person comes from an illness, most sorrows are caused by unloving, power struggles, hatred, unfogiveness, retaliation, cruelty, endless put-downs, resentments and petty criticisms. In lesser ways all of us know we are not 100% forgiving or encouraging to everyone we meet and know. Yet here we are believing that God has care for us, for every least person on earth. God loves us for nothing! God has first loved us that is how we can afford to turn our lives and wills over to His care.

“Meditation comes to put an end to all the dullness, the fear, the pettiness, all the lack of love in our lives as we return to it each morning and each evening, with an absolute seriousness and deepening joy” John Main
Our real life is a journey into love; our life is going to go on forever, We do not have a limited supply of life. I may be old and gray and falling apart, and not have more the 15 more years on earth, but then my life is not at all ended, Life is changed not taken away.. What we are invited to do in this human journey is to improve our conscious contact with God who gives us life forever.

How then do prayer and meditation improve our conscious contact? The first thing to remember is that we walk by faith. This faith is prompted by the witness of others and sustained by the sense of belonging, which is totally real.

And we long to be totally real.

So let us talk about prayer and meditation and looking only for the knowledge of God’s will.

How shall we let prayer become integral to our every day life? Well, one way is to take up the practice of a walking prayer. Another is pondering our sacred scriptures. And of course, Meditation. Ways of praying may differ but the call to pray is an invitation to live more intimately with God. and to do the Will of God.

We are not at all taking about techniques. We are talking about the inward journey that makes us real. There is so much more to us that the outward..

Since God is our constant companion then trying to be attentive to God’s presence is certainly not a technique, but a way of love. A way of love and a work of love.

“Awake my soul…”

2008-10-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

In two different psalms we cry out “Awake my soul…awake O harp and lyre. I will awaken the dawn”. Ps. 57 and Ps 108

It is a matter of waking up to the reality of who we are. and what really matters. Jesus says to us as to those early followers: I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. He has taught us to call Gopd our Father, so we are also the children of God. He has told us that he loves us..Love one another as I have loved you. So each ne of us is also the Beloved of God.

So we need to wake ourselves up. I wale myself up physically with an alarm clock, the kind for the deaf that vibrates under my pillow. The way to wake up spiritually is to start right away to make a habit of greeting the Lord as you get out of bed, and in the shower, and getting dressed. Could there be anything more important? Perhaps greeting your spouse first? But nothing else.

Then after making sure you start the day with greeting the Lord, follow the practice of Thomas Merton. Here is what he says: strictly speaking, I have a very simple way of prayer. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to His will and his love. That is to say, that it is centered on faith by which alone we can know of the presence of God.”

There can be no dearer friend than Jesus. This is the feast of St. Bernard who says much about the love of Jesus. IN repsonse to stay awake to this reality, we try to thread prayer through our day by what I call the walking prayer or what Father Keating calls the breath prayer. Some short word or phrase of love or petition. St. therese: Jesus my life, Jesus my love, Jesus my all.

And John of the Cross tells us – that yes God has so loved us, and the reason he has loved us is that he can make us happy and so that we can arrive at the fullness of Love. So why not wake up ever more?

Fear, the enemy of Faith

2008-09-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

I found a few notes from Father Richard Rohr in which he talks about fear as the enemy of faith. Not doubt. He says we could feed all the starving people in this world if we were not so afraid that we spend a fortune on arms and on war. It is something to think about, isn’t it? So much of what humans do all over the world is controlled by fears, petty and large. And yet we hear Jesus saying ‘Do not be afraid.” And the foundation of the call to be truly human is there in the first beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. And yet the economic life of our country is run by people who want to get very rich. Why? Because they are afraid. Even that petty fear that if they are not rich they will be unimportant. Yet God looks upon every single human with Love. Yes, Jesus wept over Jerusalem because like everywhere on earth people were doing unloving things. But nothing prevents our God of love from loving each and every human on earth. Wasn’t it love that causes Jesus to weep then?

It is well to ponder that first beatitude which is the foundation for the other 7 beatitudes. The poor in spirit. One way to this is going to the Holy place within ourselves where God dwells. When we meditate, we open our hearts and our minds to the Light of Christ. We let Light shine within. We do not need to tell God what we need, we just come before God and pray in great simplicity.

When we do this dally, little by little it becomes easier also to maintain a walking prayer so that prayer undergirds all that we do each day. And fear drops away little by little. Of course, we may experience fears but we can get so we recognize them as such and name them and this is a big step toward losing fear. A fear can be as simple as my fear of falling which hs come upon me in my 80’s. Because I have fallen. So I take a practical step. I carry a cane. Or I take someone’s hand. There are practical steps to take. (When my brothers and cousins were jumping from a hill onto a new flat garage roof. My younger brother Joe and I were afraid and did not jump. My even younger cousin Roger jumped and broke both arms)

So we know that when Jesus says Do not be afraid, He is not asking us to do foolish things. Just asking us to rely on God in great faith. And that faith grows when we persist in daily prayer. Pondering Scripture, Christian Meditation, the walking prayer. Giving our attention to the depth of Sunday Liturgy.

When we meditate, we offer ourselves utterly and joyfully to the Love which God has for us. Infinite love indeed. Let fear go. Walk in faith. Let us meditate twice daily for 20 minutes.

“Knowledge is power.”

2008-09-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

Father John Main tells about going to the school of Oriental and African Studies in London and seeing in large letters: knowledge is power and being horrified by this sign.

The other night on the Lehrer report there was a section on giving children money rewards for passing to let them know that getting money and more of it wil be the fruit of doing well in school. And we we believe that the movers and shakers of this world are those with knowledge. Well, I certainly wanted to be able to earn a living and that was why I wanted to go into nurses’ training. And it is true that good education usually bears fruit in the power of a good job. But we also have to ask ourselves whether that is the main goal of human life.

In the Baltimore Catechism I learned as a child that the goal of life was to know love and serve God in this life and be happy with Him forever in heaven. And then we hear St.Paul telling us: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:

And Jesus saying: Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for you souls.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. The Divine Energy or power that God wills for us has nothing to do with power over, or control of others or of situations. it has to do with the power to love. It has to do with loving relationships. It has nothing to do with getting even, retaliating. And yet so prevalent is the belief that knowledge is power that we have trouble discerning what is unchristian or worldly from the way of the Lord.

For me that is a good reason to meditate. We let God decide what to do for us. We entrust our lives to God We come before him without an agenda except to be with him as attentively as we are able. We choose a prayer word (maranatha or other), we make an act of faith in the reality of God with us and we gently repeat that word for 20 minutes, coming back to it whenever we realize we have other thoughts or even when we realize silence. In this way, we let God empty us of our false self, our ego that needs the power to control others or situations. We let God free us to love.

The Transfiguration

2008-08-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

A wondrous event in which Jesus is not doing something but that in his prayer something happens to Him. As Peter tells us
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honour and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.’ 18We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. 2 Peter 1

And what they saw was Jesus shining.
And he was transfigured before them. And his face shone like the sun,and his clothes became shining white. Suddenly there appeared to them, Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Mt. 17

And they never forgot. I have always loved this story about Jesus. And it certainly strengthens my faith. For it is a big act of faith to sit and meditate. To believe that in the silence of meditation we are just letting God do as He wills within us. Other times of prayer we thank, we adore, we ask forgiveness, we ask help for ourselves and others and the world. But in this time we just let God’s love transform us as love does.

And it is good to remind ourselves that God is love. And love is far more mysterious than we imagine. It is the whole meaning of our lives from beginning to end. We are called into life by the Love of God, sustained by love and called to live by love. When we enter into silence to meditate we are entering into God’s love.

We meditate by repeating a prayer word and listening to it inside of ourselves, and coming back to it whenever we are aware we are thinking. Try 20 minutes (or less if you find that too ong)

Behold I make all things new. (Rev. 21:5)

2008-06-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

ONLY PROFOUND PRAYER, A CRY FROM THE DEPTHS OF OUR HEARTS, WILL MAKE THIS A NEW DAY

Remember the Gospel story of the storm at sea? When the disciples wake Jesus up and say to him Lord we are perishing? Jesus stops the storm then and there.

These people with storms in a boat and storms all about them
and probably within too. And fear! They were smart enough with faith to cry out, from the toes up, to Jesus.

We all experience some fears. There are many disguises of fear. With me I shout! My MOther and I were in the subway one time when it suddenly stopped with a crash. We were "strap-hanging". I said to Mother, 'someone really yelled'. She responded: 'that was you'! Each of us has a way of fear: comfort-seeking, collecting, condescension, complaining, gossip, preoccupation with the faults of others, sarcasm, withdrawal. We can get swallowed up in disguising fear. It is our human condition.

But there is another way. The way of compassion. As John 23rd said “I do not believe in the prophets of gloom.” Instead, it is crying for help that opens our hearts to the healing power of God. to the Divine energy of Goodness and Mercy.

We cannot afford to take prayer for granted. Let us always enter into time for prayer by expressing in faith our desire for mercy, our desire to do the will of God, our faith in the reality of the Presence of God. Like those people in that storm with Jesus, we can cry out “wake up Jesus, doesn’t it bother you that we are drowning” We may be drowning in troubles or we may be drowning in apathy, or a feeling of dullness of life or fear. In that storm at sea Jesus answered their cries by saying 'Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?'

The Good News is that when life is at its worst or at its dullest, we are still totally loved. God is inviting us into the mystery of the other side, which we do not yet know, but which we know is there because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Remember Job? He cried to God with all his being. And then what? Life became more mysterious. Yet he was content because he had indeed the profound experience of having been heard by God.

I always liked it that in the course of his praying he said “Have I not wept for those whose life is hard.” God had given him a compassionate heart. Then we see that God led Job beyond a narrow sense of justice connected with retribution into a sense of the freedom and love of God. We learn from Job that the language of the prophet must be grounded in the language of worship and contemplation. Rock bottom for both prophet and contemplative is the Presence of God. From Job’s intimate exchange with God, Job has changed his mind about gloom and entered into a new day! *

Let me read to you the words of Luis Espinal, a priest murdered in Bolivia: “Train us, O Lord, to fling ourselves upon the impossible, for behind the impossible is your grace and your presence. We cannot fall into emptiness, Our future is an enigma, our road covered with mist, but we want to go on giving ourselves, because YOU continue hoping amid the night and weeping tears through a thousand human eyes.” It is not that we are to be silent in the face of human suffering. Rather we enter into silence of meditation in order to entrust all to the amazing love that God has for us - the many sparrows. Not even one falls to the ground with out the attention of our Father in heaven. Who raises us up. Let us pray.

*Gustave Gutierrez: On Job: God-talk and the suffering of the innocent. 1988. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY

Consent to the world as a whole

2008-06-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

“Neither happiness not contemplation is possible except on the basis of consent to the world as a whole “ pg 106, Josef Peiper: Happiness and Contemplation. St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, IN 1998

And this consent is based on the great gift of faith: faith that the world even as it is this moment is redeemable. That all is gift. That Jesus, true God and true man experienced in Gethsemane and on the cross what human suffering is like and yet he trusted. Remember? If it be possible, let this chalice pass from me, yet not my will but thine be done. And our faith tells us that all the suffering Jesus then endured was not at all the end of the story. Jesus rose from the dead.

This is the mystery in which we live. This is the mystery to which we give our consent. We do not deny human suffering, human wickedness. Perhaps we weep over it all as Jesus did over Jerusalem.
We find ways to help alleviate suffering. We are indeed called to works of mercy, in some way or other. But in the end by the gift of faith we give our consent to the world as a whole. And in this consent we are able to live ever more contemplatively.

Living more contemplatively means living ever more attentive to the reality of the Presence of God. We are ever in the Presence of God. In Him we live and move and have our being. Can we of ourselves make ourselves more attentive? I do not think so. But as God gives us the desire, so God gives us the path to follow and bids us come along.

One great way is the gift of Christian Meditation. When we meditate we let go of running our own lives for 20-30 minutes. We just rest in God. And we let God bless us as He wills. And for sure one gift given is the gift of faith in the reality that we are always immersed in God. that God is ever with us.

When we meditate, we are mindful that God is with us, loving us. We let go of all our imaginations, thoughts, worries, feelings. We just sit and repeat a prayer word or phrase as a way to focus. It is a word of faith. It is a time of faith. It is a time of consent. Let us pray.

'love dwells in ourhearts.'

2008-05-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

“Nothing will shake us from our conviction that God is, that God is love and His love dwells in our hearts.” , pg 8; The Way of Unknowing. John Main. OSB; The Crossroad Publishing Company; 1995

One of the good fruits of Christian Meditation is the growing awareness that God is love. It is not a matter of how we feel but of an inner conviction of this reality. The very fact that we meditate is an indication that God is at work in our hearts for Jesus has told us: “Without me you can do nothing.” John 15.5

You know we are just common sinners and yet we are so loved. I was delighted when I came across something by Richard Rohr OFM in which he said that redemption precedes everything including repentance. So when by the gift of God we decide to take time to be silent with God, we are willing to let God do the great divine work of love in our hearts. And God is so trustworthy. We can always say with Jesus, in the Garden of Gesthemane, not my will but Yours be done. Or with Mary: behold the servant of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.

The 12 steps for alcoholics are really profound and based so much on this truth that all is gift, all is grace. And the 11th step leads right into the possibility of the practice of Christian meditation. “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out.”

This is why it is always a good thing to begin every session of meditation with a very conscious act of faith in the presence of God and in his great love for us. It can be as simple as saying as directly as possible to God whom we do not see or feel, I believe you are with me, I believe in your great love for us all and for me here and now. You could add, help my unbelief!!

Let us enter into the silence with the conviction and God is, that God is love and his love dwells in our hearts. Let us pray.

Review of How to Meditate:
Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. After your act of faith in the reality of God present with you. Interiorly begin to say a simple word or a short phrase. We recommend the prayer phrase ‘Maranatha’. Recite it in four syllables slowly and listen to it as you say it. You can use another word or phrase instead. Some say the holy name of Jesus. Or Abba. Or come Lord Jesus. I know someone who says O God be my Guide. When I started, in 1951 I used the prayer repeated by the desert fathers and mothers: O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me.(Ps 70) but shorter may be better, Do not think of anything or imagine anything at all. Not even holy thoughts. If thoughts come just gently return to your word. If you become aware of silence just start your word. Meditate twice a day.

TheConsolation and Challenge of the HOly Spirit praying in us

2008-05-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

We know from Romans 8:26-27 that the Holy Spirit of God prays in us, with groans and sighs:
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
However we are praying, in our weakness or our blindness or our selfishness, the Holy Spirit is praying In us according to the will of God.
This is a great consolation. What matters is that we pray, whether it be a groaning prayer, a rote prayer, any way of praying. We can trust that our prayer is transformed by the Spirit to be in accord with the will of God.
I love the words in Psalm 86:
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name for ever.
For great is your steadfast love towards me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
(11-13)
There is also a challenge to us to open our hearts and minds to let God heal our divided hearts. We can spend some time each day praying without an agenda, without seeking to achieve anything, without intending to look good in our own eyes. We sit and say a simple prayer quietly, even repeating it slowly, so that we are open to what God wants to do with us. We accept the mystery that God is truth and beauty and goodness and we entrust our whole being into the hands of God for this short prayer time.
Let us pray.

Awaiting Ascension

2008-05-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

Fix your minds on the things that are above, and not on the things of earth. Col 3.2

For you have died and your life is hidden with God.

This suggestion about how to live our lives is preceded by this: If then, you have risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Col 3;1

Seated at the right hand of God. This image is from Psalm 110 which I never paid much attention to until I realized that the phrase is threaded through the New Testament. (Mark 12:35-37; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Hebrews 1:3,13; 1Peter 3:22 It is in our creed.

We hardly pay attention to it. Perhaps it expresses a mystery too deep for words? St. Thomas Aquinas O.P. writes that it does not mean a physical place at all. But it means the glory and power and love that is God, which Christ shares because he is True God as well as true man.

And having said this we are still dealing in mystery. But the additional thought of Aquinas is that the glory of God and the reality that God is love means the Jesus shares this and so will we. In fact he goes on the say the we have this gift from Baptism. By Baptism he says we have risen with Christ. In another place in the New Testament it says that Jesus having joy before him endured the cross. I guess this is true for us when our faith is strong. We are able to endure sorrows confusions and miseries because we are sure of God’s love, which is the source of all joy.

As Rene Voilaume wrote: Joy is the instantaneous fruit of a look of faith at Jesus. When we start to meditate let us always call to mind that

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. Phil.4:4

2008-04-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

April 2, 2008
This is the theme of these 50 days of Easter, and really of any Christian life. For by His Resurrection, Jesus has shown us that love and goodness are the real powers on earth. That is why Jesus could say to us: Have confidence I have overcome the world.

By his resurrection Jesus had released us from three great burdens.
1.Fear of death because we know we have a future. Death is only a phase of life. I remember going to the beach one time and we passed some swings where just one boy was swinging. As he was swinging he was saying in a sing song voice: “I’m going through a phase, I’m going through a phase.” am reminding myself of this as I realize that I am aging.
2.The burden of guilt – guilt over what we have done and what we have failed to do. How released? By the 100% forgiveness granted by Jesus. His rising to new life confirmed his words of forgiveness.
3. The burden of self-centeredness. Released by the power of the love of God pours into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

What can we do to become more attentive to these realities? To wake up to this great love? Pray always says St. Paul.
We usually pray on Sundays with the community for that is a practice right from the beginning after the Resurrection of Jesus. We pray with the Scriptures. We seek the help of God and ask for what we need. But we also need to just sit in silence and let God do with us what He wills. This is what we do when we meditate or center. We sit without an agenda, and repeat a prayer word or phrase. Whenever our mind wanders, as it will, we just come back to our prayer quietly. Let us meditate.

Quietness and trust will be our strength

2008-02-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30

This quote is in a chapter where God is berating the people for trusting in any group or people or in possessions of any kind to save them. Good quote for Lent.

First, returning. A time when traditionally we “give up” something for lent, when we let go of some attitude or practice that we have come to realize is not good

Then Rest. I wondered how this fits into Lent, but then I thought how many of us are either overextended in all kinds of busyness. Or our minds are like monkeys always chattering, so rest could mean we seek to give our brains a rest and just take up the practice of a walking prayer,

In Quietness. There are two aspects of this that could help us and one is that we provide ourselves with more quiet time, when we set aside time for prayer or spiritual reading, or just star gazing! The other is that we actually pray!

But the best is trust. to affirm to God that we do indeed trust in the love that God has for us. That we know that God wants only what is for our good. That we let go of anxiety and substitute a prayer of trust whenever we feel ourselves anxious.

We do all of this when we take the time for Christian meditation or centering prayer. Twice a day is best. We set aside the time. We sit and call to mind the reality of the Presence of God who is always present, always sustaining us in life by his love, never far off no matter how we feel. We choose a simple prayer word like Maranatha, or the Holy Name, and just keep saying it and come back to this prayer whenever we realize our mind has wandered off on anything else at all.

We are just entrusting our lives to God as Jesus did when He prayed: Into your hands I commend my spirit.

Quietness and trust will be our strength.

Rooted in God who is Love

2008-02-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

Thomas Merton sometimes wrote about how we are caught in a kind of collective hypnosis. Because mostly we look at life through the eyes of others. It is how we learn as children. But at some point in life we are invited to look at life through the eyes of God. Looking through the eyes of other humans what we see is given value by them. Looking through the eyes of God gives us a different view. One way to do this is to pray with the New Testament. Another way is by Christian Meditation.
When we take up the practice of meditation or centering prayer, we are letting God lead us in ways we know not, but we go in trust.

What gifts are entrusted to God for the space of 20 or 30 minutes?
our ability to think
our capacity to love each other
our creative talent
Our imagination

What difficulties are we entrusting to God during this time?
all our worries and concerns
our fears about ourselves and our families and our world
All our physical miseries

What do we let go of?
the illusion that my own mind, so gifted, can figure
everything out
the illusion that my own good will by itself can cure
anything
the illusion that I am the master of my fate
the illusion that humans can bring about peace and justice on their own
the illusion that humans will always have the right views for me

Taking the attention off ourselves for 30 minutes in this way of praying "may not be exciting, but it is rewarding. It may not be dramatic but it does take courage. It may not challenge our mind but it challenges our fascination with ourselves." (source unknown)
Why meditate? So to entrust our lives to God that we let God have a free hand in our inmost being where God, in His wondrous love, works to transform us into love.

"Attentive to what is – the supreme reality of God’s Presence."

2008-02-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

One message of the Benedictine John Main is that to be aware and attentive to the Presence of God, we must learn to stop thinking about ourselves. That is why he so strongly recommends Christian Meditation. As we sit in silence and repeat a prayer word, we give our attention to the prayer word as a way of taking attention off ourselves. All the while, as we have made that act of faith in the reality of the Presence of God, we are just letting God work in our hearts to wake us up to the love which God has for us.
This is a journey for everyone!. It is simple. It is an act of trust in the love that God has for us. And it is good to remember that St. Paul has told us that the Holy Spirit prays in us. Often with ‘groaning". I remember one time after my mother was in her 90’s I heard her groaning and I rushed to her room. She just said: Oh I am all right, I was just having a groaning prayer.
So whenever we pray and ini whatever way, the Holy Spirit is praying in us and for us. We do not need to fear. What we need is persistence. Say your chosen prayer word or phrase, over and over and come back to it whenever you find yourself thinking about anything! This is the journey of our whole life. To go from self-concern to God-concern, to profound trust which flows from faith in the love God has for us.
I want to share a well-known prayer of St.Ignatius. He wrote it first in Latin and often said it in Latin so you will see a difference from the one translated from the Spanish. I might add also that early Church Fathers thought grace was relly the uncreated Energy of God What a gift!
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will, - all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given them all to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me love of yourself along with your grace for that is sufficient for me.

the presence of freedom

2008-01-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

"However great be the beauty of something from God, it is not acclaimed if freedom is not present." 6th century Syrian Catholic Poet Jacob Sureg

Until the 7th century, the Syriac language was widely used among the early Christians. It was the language closest to the Aramaic that Jesus and those with him spoke. Lately we have had some of those early writings translated into English and we see a fascinating way of telling about the Gospel stories. They sang hymns in Church that were dialogues between people in the Bible. So in one dialogue song about Mary we see her in a dialogue with Gabriel and we see that these early Christians "understood Mary’s obedience to mean that she made her choice by her own intelligent free will." For example in one song, God gives advice to Gabriel, "Do not stand up to Mary or argue. For she is stronger that you in argument, Do not speak too many words to her, for she is stronger that you in her replies….If she starts to question you closely, disclose to her the mystery and then be off.
Yes, Mary had freedom of thought and speech and this was paradoxically combined with her unwavering acceptance of God’s word. "Behold the servant of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word." God, in wisdom, needs our consent. In Mary, God who had so graced her, also found this freedom to say Yes to the work of God
A great prayer to say before we meditate. This is a way to say Yes to God!
Now St. Augustine said to God: "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O God." this is the reality we seek: to experience the mystery of God. And yet we need to be very sure that it is not ourselves who create or can give ourselves this experience. All is grace. That is, all good is given to us gratuitously. Unearned, unmerited, unachieved, without our control. Mary freely chose. It is amazing that we are indeed free to say yes to God. Remember how St. Paul says: one plants, one waters, but only God gives the increase.
How shall we open our hearts to the gratuitous giving by God? One good way is to meditate daily. We are busy people. We have responsibilities. Yet we have come apart for silent prayer. We also may have many intentions. People we care about for whom we pray. The world in all its warring and hatreds and imagined needs for getting even. So in need of the blessing of God and yet so often not ready at all to hear. Our own need for forgivenees, our need to learn to trust in God.
How shall we be receivers? How shall we let go of preoccupation with ourselves as the Pope said.
One way is to make the time and take the time for Christian Meditation. We set aside two periods each day. When we sit down to pray, we must indeed remind ourselves that God is with us. Not just the written prayer, but an inner personal acknowledgment of the presence of God. As Ps 23; thou art with me, thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Here with attention to the reality of the Presence of God, we let go of all preoccupations. We entrust all to God. we do not bring an agenda to God. We simply say with Mary: Behold the servant of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.

"He has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant." LK 1:48

2007-12-20T14:41:00.000-08:00

Somehow in the night I began thinking about the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Christmas cards often picture them with a donkey but they may well have gone the whole way on foot. When they got there the inn was full so they had to make do with the covering of a stable. Their position in the world was lowly. And we know from all that Mary said and did that she had no other desire except to do the will of God. ( I remember this phrase: "have not other desire except to do the Will of God" from my youthful reading of John of the Cross!)
"Behold the servant of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word." Luke 1:38. Mary was poor in spirit. She knew well that all is gift. She received love from God with an open heart her whole life. This love made her strong in adversity so that she stood by the cross of Jesus. And she did not abandon the disciples of Jesus after he died. I think we can presume with St. Ignatius that she was there when Jesus rose from the dead. And she was there in the Cenacle after the Ascension. Acts 1:14
It seems to me that she was wholeheartedly poor in spirit and obviously also actually poor without complaint. "Blessed are the poor in spirit theirs is the kingdom of God." Mt 5:3. How is it possible for us to be poor in spirit? I think it is the work of God in us when we walk in the faith that God has loved us, is loving us, and will always love us. It is good to remind ourselves of this reality. ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. ‘ This gratuitous giving is what we are celebrating on Christmas. And every day really.
When we sit in silence and recognize that God is present, our constant companion, and then simply say a prayer word or phrase over and over, we are trusting all to God. We come to God without an agenda. We come without telling God what we need or what to do. We just trust all to God. This is a time to let God work in our hearts as God wills. With Mary, we say "behold the servant of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word."
Our part is to take the time to pray. This is the watering of our faith. And to remember that it is God who gives the increase. God who does the transforming, in secret, and in great love. Freely.
Let us meditate.

Silence and the Presence of God

2007-12-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Real prayer comes from faith: faith in the reality of God, "in whom we live and move and have our being." We can make an act of faith in God, saying we believe He is present. We need to do this very often.
John of the Cross said in one letter "You owe it to your heart to give it this peace and stillness, since your heart is a place where the Spirit is pleased to dwell."
He also writes of "the Spirit’s constant presence." Now it seems to me that God desires our company more than we desire the constant company of God, because God never takes his love and attention from us. Think of Jesus saying "Abide in me as I abide in you." All of us enjoy loving relationships with other humans. And all of us actually have a loving relationship with God.
What matters then is that we give more attention to this reality. We do this in many ways. One important way is to develop the habit of a walking prayer. Saying a short prayer as we go about our day hither and yon. Another is to try our best to pray the Liturgy, really say those prayers those words we are all saying to God. And then as John of the Cross says. Provide your lives with stillness. In Liturgy at St. Augustine, there is also stillness times when it is good to pray, not just ogle the crowd…
We provide ourselves with stillness in Christian Meditation or Centering Prayer. We use a prayer word or phrase because that keeps us attentive and keeps us from just being '‘spacey'. Or filled with restless thinking. We want to be mindful that we are with God in the stillness no matter how we are feeling. Whether we feel nothing or are up or are down, we cling to the fact that God is with us sustaining us in life, loving us and calling us to walk in faith.
We walk by faith. Faith in the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, faith in the love that God has proved to us by the life and death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the children’s song, we need to say O God I believe in your dear love for me.

For the wisdom of the wise is doomed. Is 29:14

2007-11-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

I read in the NYTimes on Monday that there is a new book out by a former Christian who writes that all the suffering in the world proves that the Bible is wrong and there is no God. It is a so-called learned book because he is very familiar with the Bible and had memorized whole sections of the Gospels when he was young. Then I remembered a passage from St. Paul

1Cor. 1:20-25. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Now there are times when Christians who believe still want signs or want some way to have complete understanding of suffering. Jesus says no sign will be given except that of Jonah in the whale… the Resurrection of Jesus. And Jesus once cried out loud in prayer:
Lk.10:21 I thank you, Father, for you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.

Do we too ask why me? Why my loved one? Or are we content to be little? To walk by faith and not by sight? Are we convinced that our crucified Christ is indeed the power of God and the wisdom of God? The witness to this reality is the resurrection. When we say Amen, we are saying yes to the Will of God. We need to ask God to sustain this yes in us as He did in Mary. Her yes at the beginning went on steadfastly to the foot of the Cross, to the resurrection , to the Cenacle where all were filled with the Holy Spirit. We are Christians not just for our own sake but the sake of bringing the good news to others.

When we meditate, quietly giving our attention to a prayer phrase repeated for about 30 minutes,, we are consenting to our ‘litheness’, consenting to walk by faith. We trust in the power and the wisdom of God – at least for this time – and hope God will have mercy on us and do what He wills in us..

Free us Lord from our blind spots

2007-11-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

"Free us, Jesus, from our inner Pharisee, from every inclination to self-righteousness, from every notion of being morally superior, from every tone of voice, every gesture or glance that could shame others or flatter ourselves. Let no cause, no matter how worthy, seduce us into idolizing ourselves or demonizing others. In a world where so many feel isolated and alone, let us be builders, nor destroyers, of bridges. Teach us how to admit and overcome our blind spots.” Bishop Ken Untener

As I reflected on these words of Bishp Untener,I thought that it remains terribly true that people of every religion, every race, every nation, every language, have engaged in horrendous evils. And yet our true response surely is not the trivial feeling of moral superiority. Rather, such evils ought to sadden us, and impel us to examine what seeds of violence lie hidden within our own selves. We will not make much headway in building bridges by trying to make someone else feel inferior. And yet for some of us, in small ways and out of weakness in ourselves, we do this to others.

There is a time and place for political action. There is a time and place for reflection and prayer.

So we meditate. We stand in need of the mercy of God and meditation is a way to open our hearts to the transforming love of God. God looks on us with such tender mercy. And God does indeed will our healing. Even more wonderful, it is well to realize that this standing naked before God in meditation is of more value to the world and to our neighbor than anything else we could do.

How do we know this? Because Our Savior Jesus Christ Our Lord, prayed. And he continued to pray even during the hours he was on the receiving end of horrendous evils, during his suffering and dying and death.

Was not his response to evil one of love? To the thief: This day you will be with me in paradise. And then: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. It seems to me that this was said first to those who cricufied him but also to all of us sinners.

Let us meditate in great trust. When we come before God without an agenda, without having to think up things to say to God, but simply opening our hearts to God and saying our prayer word as a symbol and a reminder that we are in the hands of God. By meditation we create a space in the universe where God is allowed to freely work his mercy and love. We seek to place no obstacle in the way of the peace which God wants to give us. At least for this ½ hour!

We have come to believe in the Love God has for us. 1 John

2007-10-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is the foundation of what it means to be a Christian at all. To believe in God’s love. And this is to say that we walk in mystery.
We do not know the future. We do not know the whole of our own lives. We hardly realize that there are depths to our own being, those caverns within.

Because we believe, we can turn to the life of Jesus and see how trusting Jesus was in the love the Father had and has for Him. We can see that the Spirit led Jesus. We can see that Jesus could feel agony as in the Garden, and really desire to be free of suffering, and still submit Himself with perfect love to the mysterious and unsearchable ways of God in human life. This trust can be ours too, and with it goes the great virtue of Hope.
Hope deals with our memory. Without memory of our past we would be lost and would not know who we are. Se we don’t discard memory. Yet memories of our past definitely affect the present. Memories can feed resentment, feed anger and aggression, promote unmanageable desires, and false pride. They can tyrannize our emotions.
We need to ask God to show us how to unhook from memories that get us all worked up. And what about the other role of memory which makes us anxious about the future? “Do not be anxious for tomorrow for tomorrow with be anxious for itself. Let the day's own troubles be sufficient for that day. The build up of anxiety or worry which problems or crises bring in no way help to bring about a better situation. Makes us worse off.
Hope is that refreshing realization that Jesus rose from the dead/ That there is a future of goodness for us, that sorrows or evil do not have the last word at all.
When we take the time to meditate or center, we are taking the time to entrust our whole life to the mystery of the love God has for us. Meditation is a path to increasing trust and hope and so to more peaceful living. As Jesus says to us, too, My peace I give you, not as the world gives peace. Not in any form of violence, but in coming to believe in the love God has for us.
Let is meditate.

The consolation and the challenge of the Holy Spirit praying in us

2007-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

We know from Romans 8:26-27 that the Holy Spirit of God prays in us, with groans and sighs
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us' with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

However we are praying, in our weakness or our blindness or our selfishness, the Holy Spirit is praying in us according to the will of God..
This is a great consolation. What matters is that we pray, whether it be a groaning prayer, a rote prayer, any way of praying. We can trust that our prayer is transformed by the Spirit to be in accord with the will of God. I love the words in Psalm 86:
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name for ever.
For great is your steadfast love towards me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

There is also a challenge to us to open our hearts and minds to let God heal our divided hearts. And in Christian Meditation or centering prayer, we just sit without an agenda,, without seeking to achieve anything, without intending to look good in our own eyes. We sit and say a simple prayer phrase or word over and over gently, quietly so that we are open to what God wants to do with us. We accept the mystery that God is truth and beauty and goodness and we entrust our whole being into the hands of God for this 20-30 minutes.

"The Spirit prays in us"

2007-10-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

“This is the holiest consolation in our prayer.” Karl Rahner, S.J.
Do read Romans 8 this week where we see that the Spirit prays in us. The Spirit of God does not depend on the quality of our prayer to pray in us. Rather the Spirit goes on praying in us with a Divine Energy that gives glory to God. And as Paul then says, the Spirit always prays according to the Will of God for us.

Remember in one resurrection scene, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says: “ Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then exhorts them to forgive sins. Without mutual forgiveness there can be no peace among us, or in our own hearts. He had said to them: just before this:: My peace I give to you. Earlier in John’s Gospel we find Jesus talking about giving peace. There he was quite specific. “My own peace I give to you, a peace that the world cannot give. This is my gift to you.” John 14:27. So Jesus in breathing upon us his Holy Spirit, gives peace in our hearts even when we are feeling otherwise. If we connect these sayings of Jesus and look at our human life, we can know for sure that getting even, holding grudges, even in so-called little ways, or making war, are totally failing ways to get peace. Then we remember that the Spirit of God prays in us and we know that within us is the divine energy to live the way of peace that Jesus showed us by his words and by his life.
Now just think of this: When we pray, the Spirit of God, praying in us and with us, gives immense dignity to our prayer. However poorly we imagine we are doing when we pray, because the Spirit of God is praying in us, our prayer becomes wonderful to God. This is why Paul tell us to pray always. And this is why it is of such value to meditate twice a day and to develop the habit of a walking prayer.

One way to remind ourselves of this gift of God is to make our meditation prayer or our centering a breath prayer. Say your prayer word or prayer phrase on your breath. Giving attention to both your breath and your word. E.g. Breathing in – Ma; breathing out – ra-na-tha..

As Rahner also says: “because (the Spirit) helps, our prayer is a piece of the melody that rushes through the heavens, an aroma of incense that sweetly rises to the eternal altars of heaven before the Triune God. Let us pray.

"The Lord is with you" Luke 1:29

2007-09-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

These are the words of the Angel to Mary whom that angel addressed as one who enjoyed God’s favor. The angel sounds a bit surprised.

Mary is not surprised about these particular words because she knew that God was with her. We have abundant evidence that Mary was a person of prayer. Mary lived the prayer of the heart.

This reality of the Presence of God with us is central to our faith. I think sometimes we say prayers and this is good, for it leads us to open our hearts to God. and then there is prayer which recognizes the intimacy of the Presence of God.. Sometimes we seek psychological states when the greatest reality is that of the Presence of God who looks upon us with love and desires an intimate relationship with each one of us. As it says in the book of Revelation: Behold I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in and sup with you, and you with me.”

Christian Meditation or centering prayer, or breath prayers or walking prayer are all ways to give attention to the reality that God is with us; that we open our hearts and minds to the desire that God has for us. Often we need to say to God: I believe you are with me, I believe you love me and seek my response – you are knocking at my inner door. You are asking me to open to you. Here I am Lord, I come to do your will. Or as Mary said: Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.

God then serves us and so there is no longer servant relationship but we are friends. As Jesus Said -–I no longer call you servant I call you friends.

Let us begin each time of prayer with this profound act of Faith You, God of my heart, are with me. I believe You are here, that I live in you always. And You in me. Let us pray.

The Presence of God

2007-09-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." ... Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God.

This goes right along with what St. Paul tells us: Pray always. Or with what Jesus says to us: Abide in me as I abide in you.

And I was quite delighted to find Karl Rahner saying that since we are to pray always it is also OK to be always talking about prayer.

Continual conversation with God can be so simple. First we must believe that God is with us. That we live and breathe always in the Presence of God. There is never a moment of life that God is not with us because if God were not, we would not even be. Once we take that to heart, it is so simple: just refer all to God in almost any prayer at all that is addressed to God.

There is a certain kind of pride in thinking that we have to wait until we have it just right, or until we have it “all together” We are just human and that is why Jesus says to us Blessed are the poor in spirit’ theirs is the kingdom of God. That is, we just admit our life is a gift, we own nothing that we can take with us. we are not perfect, we are on a journey to fullness, In the meantime, we pray

A walking prayer is a good way to get into praying always. Just find a psalm verse or other short prayer and try saying it when ever you are walking to the car, to a store, from the car. . Up or down a flight of stairs. Standing in line. When you wake in the night. There are multiple opportunities. Just ask like the disciples did: Lord teach us to pray. Or Help me to remember you are with me. Or from Ps 23 Thou art with me.
Or as someone I know does, just keep saying Our Fathers, or Hail Marys.
Let us meditate.

The Quandary of being human

2007-08-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

Quandary is inescapable for us simply because we are human and therefore not sufficient of ourselves. As St Paul said:
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! 1Cor.4:7

We have no security except in God, even though we imagine that more of this or more of that will make us secure. This delusion leads ultimately to war.
But on the every day level this delusion is the opposite of poverty of spirit. What St. Paul says is a good solid way to express poverty of spirit. What have you that you have not received? All is gift, life itself and the freedom to do this or that, to choose this or that. But if we want to choose to be truly human we need to consent to live in a quandary which is to depend radically on the mystery we call God. When we say we walk by faith, we are also saying we walk in mystery. And so long as we are in mystery we remain in a quandary. What then? The faith in which we walk tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We are so loved. In this love alone do we find our security.

I guess that is why I like some of the phrases St. Therese Couderc uses to explain “surrendering to God.” To surrender oneself is to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.

If and when in our quandary we are aware of our faults and failings, we can again turn to words from St. Paul : Who will deliver us from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord.” (Rom 7:24) Here you see Paul too turning to God.

That is certainly one great value in taking time for centering or Christian Meditation. In this prayer, we are just putting ourselves in the hands of God, entrusting ourselves to God. Not telling God what we need, that is for another time of day. Here we just remember God is present, loving us and we entrust our whole being to Him. For me, that act of faith in the reality of our here and now relationship to God is vital. I believe God is here, we are immersed in this mystery. Let us pray

"Be it done to me according to your word."

2007-08-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Since August 15 the Feast of the Assumption of Mary – which just means she is in heaven, body and soul, I have been pondering how she saw herself simply as the servant of the Lord. That is how my mother in the hiddeness of her life saw herself too. So too this is our call. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.
“ a feather on the breath of God” ( Hildegarde of Bingen.).
The life of Mary surely looked ordinary, lowly, absolutely unremarkable from the point of view of our culture which says you must be rich and famous and own many things if expect to matter at all. You must make a name for yourself.

Not so Mary. She just went about the ordinary business of caring for Joseph and Jesus, and later Jesus and his followers. I don’t imagine she was popular either, because did she not say:
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
d lifted up the lowly;
53he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
And we see her there at the foot of the Cross. And there with the believing community as they waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.(Acts 2)

So waiting was and is part of ordinary human life. In the army we used to say “hurry up and wait”. Because we would rush to be on time and then wait an hour for whatever it was we had to be on time for.
We know Mary prayed. We have one of her prayers. So too, we pray and we wait. Our Christian Meditation or Centering is a prayer in which we simply sit in the Presence of God and await His work of love in our inmost being.
We too say Look upon me Lord. I am your servant, Be it done to me according to your Word. As John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote: I do not ask the distant shore to see, one step enough for me. Lead Thou me on.

It is also a work for the world, because there is one more person letting God’s love into the world. Let us meditate often. This is a way to wait on God with open heart and open mind..

The Place to go is our heart.

2007-08-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

August 8, 2007
The Place to go is our heart.

St. Paul tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. (1Cor. 6:19) And Jesus also tells us to pray in secret. Of course we know that Jesus prayed also in the Temple with others, in common worship as we do at Sunday Mass. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the followers of Jesus, after Pentecost, celebrated together what we now call Mass or Eucharist. They called this “the breaking of the bread” But we most certainly have the example of Jesus going apart to pray. His whole life was steeped in prayer.

So if the Holy Spirit dwells within us, which I do believe, help my unbelief. Then within is the place of prayer. By going into our own hearts to pray, we communicate with God. With this intimacy we are letting the Holy Spirit of God lead us from our hearts. Little by little if we are faithful to interior prayer, our community prayer becomes more real to us. We are at one with the believing community when we gather for Eucharist or any common prayer. All over the world there are believing people who together honor God in praise, thanksgiving and repentance. We are one with all these people

The place to go is the heart. That way our lives become more real and less superficial. Why? Because there is the Spirit of God loving us. We are not at all aiming at nothingness in our head! We are communing with God who is present. For me the simplest way to pray in the heart is by centering or Christian Meditation. We just turn our hearts to God in trust, let go of all our discursive thinking, or anxious thinking and just call on the name of Lord with a prayer word or phrase. As you know since I was a young sister, I did this with the psalm verse: O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me. Then I met up with Father Thomas Keating who suggested praying a single word, Then I met sister Eileen O’Hea from the the World Community for Christian Meditation who recommended Maranatha. The phrase in the New Testament is also Maranatha Jesus. So there are a variety of words to pray while we sit quietly, going into our hearts with God, though it is well to say the same word all the way through the time you have set aside. Let us pray

"to live through love in His Presence" Ephesians 1:4

2007-08-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

August 1, 2007
I love this passage from Ephesians Before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and spotless and to live through love in His Presence.
Many times I have wondered about the word holy. And I have come to think that it means totally loving. Only love and goodness and mercy without a shadow of anything less. This is our God. We cry out Holy Holy Holy Lord God of host., Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
So how shall we become this? I believe this is the work of God in us, and that our part is to cling to God, to turn to God, to acknowledge in faith that we are immersed in God. We live in God and can have an intimate and personal relationship with God. Who teaches us.
God teaches us through the Bible, so we listen or read with open heart. God teaches us through events. St. Therese Couderc tells us "Events make know the Will of God." God teaches us in prayer. Our human life is meant to be a shred life so that we can also learn from each other.
When we practice Christian Meditation or centering Prare, we are quite simply just coming to the Lord without any agenda except to be open to His Love. We begin by remembering the reality of the Presence of our God and by acknowledging God in as personal a way as we are able. Then we repeat our prayer word gently over and over and when ever we find any thought or image coming to our head we just go back to our word because that is when we are just open to whatever way God wants to love us and heal us.
We are to let go of all our thinking in a discursive sense, but we are not to let go of that faith by which we know we are in God and God is in us.
As Jesus said: Abide in me as I abide in you

Reservoirs of Grace

2007-06-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

The evening of June 5, I attended a program about Raissa Maritain, a married woman.Here is a good quote from her Journal.
What is the role of contemplatives in this world, among the troubles of mankind? ...the role of contemplatives among us is to be mirror of the image of God, reservoirs of his grace and his love, the unfailing memory of the Eternal among us. (p.266m Maritain, Raissa. Raissa's Journal. Albany. Magic Books
Inc. 1974)

We might ask ourselves are we contemplatives? What we do when we meditate or center is to prepare our hearts for God. We take the step to say yes, God, I open my heart for you to fill me with your love and your grace. For 20-30 minutes we let go of all our concerns, our thoughts, our images, our anxieties, our own agendas, and entrust our lives to God. We do not give God a schedule, like please give me a monthly donation. We simply trust that it is God's will that we abide in Jesus as Jesus abides in us. And so the only desire we bring to this half-hour or prayer is that God will make of us what pleases him.

Are we reservoirs of his grace and his love? Even that we leave to God. But it is well to go on asking for love and grace as St. Ignatius did. Our prayers are heard in heaven "in the glorious presence of Almighty God" (Tobit)

However as we persevere in prayer, even walking with prayer, as much as possible throughout the day, we are certainly part of the unfailing memory of the Eternal aomng us. We remember God, we remember the life of Jesus, his wisdom, his mercy, his dying and his resurrection. And the eternal reality that Jesus is risen. Christ in you, your hope of glory. (Col. 1)

And it always consoles me what is written in the Cloud of Unknowing:

A naked intent toword God, the desire for hm alone is enough. If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather that a long one. A one-syllable word such as 'God' or 'love' is best. But choose one that is meaningul to you. then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may. This word will be your defence in conflict and in peace. Use it to beat upon the cloud of darkness above you and to subdue all distractions, consigning them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you.
The Cloud of Unknowing, Ch.7

For I tell you this, one loving desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own growth and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything else you could do.
The Cloud of Unknowing, Ch.9

To welcome the Spirit of God

2007-05-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

What a Pentecost celebration we had! A beautiful liturgy with singing and then a brunch together. And then the long ride home.

And the reminder that God wants to pour love into our hearts. Rom. 5:5 How shall we prepare? I think we first need to acknowledge that always we stand in need of love. Never enough love in this world. Never enough forgiveness, never enough compassion, never enough peacemaking. I found this Memorial Day a day of sadness. How futile all this warring, all the getting even in this world, .all the falsity of trying to make peace by killing. I read a great book Left to Tell. A woman who survived the killing in Rwanda and all her family butchered except one brother Yet she forgave all.. Her ability to forgive came out of her deep prayer, her recognition of her utter helplessness without God.

Have we really come to know the depth of these words of Jesus: without me you can do nothing. Are we as honest as many twelve - step people who know without God nothing, Only God can deliver them. And so they turn their lives and wills over to the care of God.

WE need time to be alone before God, waiting to be touched with the love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

The waiting is an active contemplative prayer. This prayer is the soul of our work, and our relationships with each other, our witnessing to the good news! Dorothy Day once said that neither work nor prayer are enough by themselves. As Americans we have no trouble keeping busy! Even if all we are doing is puttering! We do have trouble doing something that does not seem to produce a product. Yet we need to remind ourselves that without God we do nothing…

How do we make the journey to the center? By letting go and letting God. On the ego level we are in charge, we control the operation. In Meditation, we let go and let God take charge. We repeat our prayer and listen to it as a symbol of our selfless attention to the active loving Presence of God.

Sometimes it is helpful to sit a few moments and just listen to whatever sounds there are. Then to acknowledge that we are immersed in the Presence of God. Then we start our prayer word and go on listening to that within ourselves.

And we acknowledge the wisdom of the body. Which is our friend at prayer. We sit straight. We breathe deeply, we listen quietly. We have our feet on the floor and our hands loose, and our eyes gently closed. We are trusting in the transformative power of Love.
Therese Lisieux: “Let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing; then we shall be poor in spirit, then Jesus shall come to look for us and transform us into flames of love”

God is at our center…but we must journey through layers of obstruction and follow the lead of the Spirit. Strong and brave. A gift of God.

A gift that God is eager to give. With great trust we open our hearts and minds to the transforming power of Love for God is Love.

It always delights me that in the middle of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so full of lament over the terrible things happening, the author burst forth in trust.: “The mercies of the Lord are new every morning. Great is thy Faithfulness, O Lord.”. Lam 3:22-23

HOPE

2007-05-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Heb.11:1
John of the Cross says that as the object of hope is something unpossessed,
the less we clutter our lives with possessions, the more capacity there is to hope for what is unseen and yet promised.. We need to let there be space in our minds and memories too. Not just a limit to possessions, but a limit to the endless chatter of our minds. Sometimes people can spend days and nights rehashing something that has happened, getting upset over and over. This is not the peace promised. Instead we are urged to pray always. Take every confusion, doubt, and darkness to prayer. Hold them up to the healing love that God has for us, the healing love that Jesus showed us in word and in deed. I believe that the promises of God are not just for the life after death. No. Jesus has promised us peace. "My peace I give you, my peace I leave you, not as the world gives peace.". The world, and our government imagines that peace comes from owning more, bossing more, winning war. Out of the barrel of a gun. Not so. Jesus love was too great for all that, He only offered healing love, in word and in deed.
In Letter 19 to Juana de Pedraga, John of the Cross wrote: Live only in dark and genuine faith, and sure hope, and unmitigated love. Be joyful and trust in God"
Hope is an immense openness to a promised unseen future. As My Mother said off and on while dying: ":trusting in your infinite good ness and promises." Hope moves through and beyond the present moment. Not restlessness but anticipation. That is why my father, in much pain dying of lung cancer, could go right on being joyful. He had been gifted with hope and trust. He was eager for the promised future.
So part of hope is confidence that God’s love is certain, yet mysterious, with us in every possible situation whether felt or unfelt. That is why faith hope and love are intertwined.
When we sit in silence and sound our prayer word in our inmost being, we are opening our hearts to the gift of hope. And faith and love. In the poverty of this way of prayer, we are not seeking an out of the body experience, we are not seeking to be better than another. We are just entrusting God with our lives as Jesus did. Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. Let us meditate.

Oil of Gladness

2007-05-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I. I so enjoyed the messiness of the anointing of the newly baptizedat the easter Vigil. It used to be even messier. Listen to these words about 4th century Baptisms by a modern scholar who has studied those days.
A Rite of Passage by Aidan Kavanagh, OSB
"I have always rather liked the gruff robustness of the first rubric for baptism found in a late fourth-century church order, which directs that the bishop enter the vestibule of the baptistery and say to the catechumens without commentary or apology only four words: Take off your clothes. There is no evidence that the assistants fainted or the catechumens asked what he meant. Catechesis and much prayer and fasting had led them to understand that the language of their passage this night in Christ from death to life would be the language of the bathhouse and the tomb—not that of the forum and the drawing room."
He then describes how Oil is poured over their whole bodies Deacons…deaconesses do the job… And after they go into the water of the baptismal pool, they are again anointed, only this time with perfumed oil. It was perfumed oil that the woman poured over the head of Jesus, as we read in Mark 14:
"While Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head."
We read in 1 John "The anointing that you received from God abides in you."

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II. What is this anointing? The seal of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of wisdom and love, as it says God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Quote from St Cyril of Jerusalem:
"The oil of gladness with which Christ was anointed was a spiritual oil; it was the Holy Spirit himself who is the oil of gladness because he is the source of all spiritual joy. But you also have been anointed with oil, and by this anointing you have entered into fellowship with Christ and have received a share in his life. Beware of thinking of this chrism as merely ordinary oil. As the Eucharistic bread after the invocation of the Holy Spirit is no longer ordinary bread but the body of Christ, so also the oil after the invocation is no longer plain ordinary oil but Christ’s gift which by the presence of his divinity becomes the instrument through which you receive the Holy Spirit. While symbolically, on your foreheads, ..your bodies are anointed with this oil that we see, your souls are sanctified by the holy and life-giving Spirit."

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III Christ Jesus, the anointed one. That is what ‘christos’ means..from the Hebrew ‘messiah’ which means the anointed one. Jesus the anointed one did not turn out to have the political and economic power some were looking for. He had the real power of the world, the power of cherishing love. Christians, then are the anointed ones.
So now so well anointed, you are one with Christ for he abides in you and you in Him. And yes this is a mystery, and yes this seems foolishness. But again it is Jesus Christ crucified who is the power and the wisdom of God. That anointing means we are called to be witnesses of Christ to the world, called to know that resurrection follows suffering and Resurrection follows death. In the humdrum of life, the ordinariness of every day, Jesus is saying: abide in Me. By abiding in Jesus, we are with Jesus redeeming our times. Walking with Jesus, we will hear very particular calls, calls to compassion, to forgive others as we have been forgiven, to let go of resentments, to let go of the desire to retaliate. Invitations from God to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful, even to take the last place without needing to be top dog. And indeed, there is that very difficult invitation from Jesus: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you....as Jesus did upon the Cross. Called to a ministry of reconciliation. 2 Cor 5

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IV. What then? That oil poured over us is the anointing by the Holy Spirit, It is a sign of God pouring His strength into our weakness. It is the Oil of gladness.
And when we get together for worship or prayer, we remember who we are, we remind each other of who we really are and to what goodness and compassion we are called and what good news we have to share.
That overflowing oil. That oil of gladness set a seal in us so that each moment and forever we are to live in union with Jesus in the world, discerning and doing the will of God in good times and in bad. The Spirit of God is here, and now, with us, with the Divine power, within us. In season and out we are to call on the name of the Lord and to know the power we have received in this anointing. Pray always the apostle tells us. Our help is in the name of Lord who has made heaven and earth!

Why are sitting there?

2007-05-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I was sitting meditating in my room that was at the end of a corridor. Being an extravert I guess, I had left my door open a crack. someome else in the house came by and said why you are just sitting there! Well the other day I read this story of St. Serapion, who wandered around a lot and came to Rome where they asked him to go to see a woman who was, as best I can figure, an anchorite.. People were worried about her. When he got to her, he said why are you sitting there? She answered: I am not sitting, I am on a journey.
If we believe what Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life, then we can say that too.
To be a Christian is to be a traveler. We are on a journey to our heart. To our innermost being where God dwells.
In the Acts of the Apostles (19:23ff) we read: "About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way." Actually it bothered people especially a man who made silver shrines to Artemis. In other words, the Way, the people following the way of Jesus, were not contributing enough to the world of trade, not buying enough stuff, not busy buying and selling. As William Wordsworth the poet wrote
"The world is too much with us late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers."
This is something I will explore another time, But for today, it has made me think about how this life is a journey into the depths of our hearts where the Heart of God dwells. A journey into love, A way of life that opens us up to be changed by the Love God has for us so that we may live by love as Jesus did.
This journey into our innermost being has ups and downs, light and darkness, bumps in the road, deserts and mountains., But through it all, there is the constant Presence of God, looking on us with love. We can be sure that nothing can separate us from the love God has for us. This is why we meditate or center. We entrust ourselves to God. We let go of all concerns for 20 minutes as we gently repeat a prayer word. Whenever our mind starts thinking about many things we gently come back to our prayer word.
By saying our prayer word with attention we are really giving our whole attention to the journey!. Let us pray.

Making Space for God

2007-04-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is really a strange saying. After all, we are immersed in God; there is no space anywhere that is not in the presence of God. As we say in Ps 139 Where can I flee from your presence?
What is true though is that we have so many things floating around in our brains, so many things that we imagine we have to give our attention to that our attention is very divided. We are great at multi-tasking.

Well, I think we can put this ability to multi task to good use.
The secret is to worship God in spirit and in truth. .The truth is that God is paying utmost attention to us, to our hearts as well as our activities. We have a faithful Friend always available to us, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, never to part.

Now we have abundant historical evidence that the early Christians made it hard & fast practice to pray in the early morning. My Mother used to tell us: you must seek God in the morning if you want Him through the day.

When we take up the discipline of meditating in the morning and taking some time to read and ponder a scripture passage, we are more likely to remember God is with us. It is so amazingly simple to turn our attention to the reality of the Presence of God. Think of how we are able to be aware of the presence of each other..or the absence of someone we love.

How shall we multitask with God? Meditate faithfully every morning and some other time in the day, even if it has to be twice in the morning. Then make the walking prayer a prayer that reminds you of the reality that God is looking at you with love in every moment of every day. This is where the walking prayer is helpful . Try to have a prayer that you say briefly and often all through out the day.

When we meditate we need to give our whole heart attention to it the way we would if we were trying to do some difficult physical task that required total attention so that we do not fall! Le me tell you I have the distinct memory of climbing down a rope ladder with a pack on my back and I knew I had to be total attentive so I would not fall into the sea! Or even fall onto the edge of the boat receiving me. Giving this attention to meditation gradually alerts our whole being. Then more and more throughout our day, all will be given to God with Love.

Easter Love

2007-04-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we listened to talks by Sister Rose on Karl Rahner the great 20th century Catholic theologian. And I was reminded of the time Rahner quoted Ruysbroeck:
Ruysbroeck writes about how God expects of us both work and enjoyment and rest. And that God is with us in all,. However he then says that the interior person is recollected in all circumstances. So Rahner then observes rightly that only God can rescue us from being lost to the things of this world. That word recollection was new to me years ago. Re collect. Re collect my attention, my wandering mind, even in the midst of many and varied daily tasks. Well this is certainly not something we can do of ourselves. This is the work of God. God who knows so well how to give undivided attention to the multiplicity of his works. For without the attention of God we would cease to be.
So it is God whose great love - Easter love! - can save us from being lost to the things and events of our daily life. Rahner says that love, God’s love for us that "can allow my daily routine to remain routine and still transform it into homecoming to God". God can give us this love, We need to beg for this gift. What could be more fulfilling than to live more totally in love.
To ask God to open our hearts and minds and to take steps to be open.
This is what do in Christian Meditation or Centering prayer., We say our prayer gently, over and over, and in this way let go of all our preoccupations
Try to do this for 20 minutes twice a day. Any simple prayer word will do. Although John Main OSB recommends saying Maranatha (come Lord) which is prayer at the end of the Book of Revelation.
If we add a walking prayer to our day, we are again making ourselves available for the transforming power of the love God has for us. Find a prayer you can say over and over with the rhythm of your steps as you go about the day, or drive to work and back. God’s love never ceases, is not lessened by what we do or fail to do. We are immersed in Love every moment of every day. God's love does not take away the ordinariness of our daily routine lives, and yet love does indeed transform everything. Love makes our activities "homecoming’ into God. We can learn from our Buddhist friends. Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful book called: The Miracle of Mindfulness. Meditation is not just for the one who meditates. "Meditation is for everyone". That is, when we take the time to sit in meditative prayer, we are united to all people on earth for all people on earth are immersed in God . And so we are making a space for love in our world. Let us pray.

LOVE IS HIS MEANING

2007-04-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

"Love is His meaning" (Julian of Norwich).

Here we are about to embark on long ceremonies to celebrate the goodness of God. And I am convinced that any other meaning that you have heard besides love is pagan, not Christian. The very title of the Gospels means good news.

We gather to receive the Gift of God. Jesus speaks of his longing to eat with them before he suffers and dies. Over and over we read the good news that God wants to share God’s self with us in love. And that is what he has done. And as we say He was a victim on the cross we need to realize that Jesus has completely changed the meaning because in myths, the victim is considered the one who has caused all the harm. As an example, during the plague in Europe, that people persecuted the Jews, having decided to put all the blame on them. In the Gospel story, we know that Jesus is the innocent one.. It is those who victimize who are the cause of evil in the world. So it is in today’s world.

So as we spend more time in prayer, it is good to recall that prayer is opening our innermost being to the love God has promised to give us. Our prayer is not a technique, it is a relationship. When we decide to give time to meditating, it is to allow God to act in our hearts. We trust the love God has for us . So it is when we gather for Mass. We are remembering and – mysteriously reliving – the wonderful deeds God has done for us. It is an act of faith. Not a feeling.. Not scientific evidence. NO we walk by faith and not by sight. Easter is that greatest work of God, greater than all of creation, because by Easter, Jesus has overcome all the non-loving works of us all, and witnesses to a Love that overcomes death.

We pray: For freedom, Christ has set us free, You are the Savior of the world.

As a Carmelite of today Ruth Burrows writes in her latest book, Essence of Prayer: "What we have to do is allow ourselves to be loved. To be there for Love, who is God, to love us." All is gift: the life we have, the energy we have to do things, the intelligence we have, the growth in maturity, all are gifts that we cooperate in. Our life is a shared enterprise. And when it comes to prayer, our share is to be open to God. "For the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Rom 5:5 Let us meditate for twenty minutes twice a day.

What was the real agenda?

2006-11-26T20:26:00.000-08:00

When Pope John Paul II was very sick, before USA went to Iraq, the Pope sent Cardinal Pio Laghi, former Ambassador to Wasington, to try to talk President Bush and his adviors out of the war with Iraq. In vain.

The Cardinal pointed out to Bush the difficulty of language, the serious conflicts between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. He also told Bush that while the American Army could quickly overcome Hussein's interior defenses, what would follow would be unmanageable human problems
Cardinal Laghi complained to Mr Bush that he had "come from Rome not only to hear you...but also to be heard." In a speech in Camaldoli, Arezzo, Italy on October 4, 2203, the Cardinal said,
"I had the impression that they had already made their decision."

Looking back it is easy to see why so many people said the war was illegal, immoral and unncessary.

We have caused unbearable harm to the Iraqi people. Bush and Blaair are fully responsible for these disastrous consequences.

How is it that no one in our government has yet given us the real agenda for this evil war?

Unarmed Truth

2006-10-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

"I think that if the heart of man could be held down by threats - any kind of threat, whether of jail or retribution after death - then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with the whip, not the prophet who has sacrificed himself. But don't you see! This is just the point. What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music, the irresistable power of the unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example."
Boris Pasternak in Dr. Zhivago

The new law on military tribunals just signed into law by President Bush adheres to lion tamers not truth. It damages our reputation, and by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Convention, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

Sad for us all, this terrible harm to our Constitution
Terribly sad for this Veteran!

9/11 and 'truth force"

2006-09-10T19:13:00.002-07:00

Satyagraha is Gandhi's word for the power of truth.
He began to use this word on 9/11/1906 in South Africa. He was working with other Indians and Asians in South Africa to prevent the government from carrying out very prejudicial laws against them.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he says: Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God and then right away, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. (Mt.5:8-9). The pure of heart are those whose hearts are filled with love not strife, not revenge, not even judging of others. When we awaken to the love that God has for all of us, we no longer want to hurt anyone at all, not by word, not by deed, not by thought. We love each other, because God has first loved us. That is why Jesus next says that the peacemakers are the children of God. They are most like God, they look like God in the way they behave towards others. The world says "Peace comes out of the barel of a gun", Jesus says peace comes when we look at each other with compassion.
"Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love".
(1 John 4:7-8)

false values

2006-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

Since USA spends 400 billion dollars on the Pentagon and the no other country in the world spends more than 7 billion, I am seriously puzzled at why our President preaches fear all the time.

It is clearly not war that need make us afraid but terrorism, which will never be ended by war. Just like the pirates of old, or crime in the streets, what is needed is police action and good detectives!

And a serious program to eliminate oppressive poverty. Instead, our government is excusing the rich from contributing to the common good, is pouring more and more into bombs, and leaving 45 million poeple in our country without health care.

These are obviously false values.

True values are these - feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and the imprisoned bury the dead. (Mt 25)

I am a conservative!

2006-01-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

To conserve means to keep in a safe and sound state. I want to conserve the main purpose of government which is to serve the common good. Alas for our country which is now quite busy serving the rich and letting the poor sink into ever deeper poverty.
I want to conserve the purpose of taxes which is to serve the common good. For those who have much to give more in taxes, so that those who have little can survive. Yes, it taxes in order to serve the common needs of government, transportation, education.
How sad that our present course is to run up a gigantic debt, the biggest in our history, by reducing taxes on the rich and cutting back very needed services for children, for health care, In other words the present regime in USA is less and less concerned with the common good than in serving the richest people.
A good example is the recent budget cut which reduced the spending for Head Start. A proven education assist for small children. It is not needed by the rich who can afford provate schooling. But it is certianly needed not only by poor children but by those who have early childhood learning difficulties.
And to reduce the debt by taking away the health safety net for the poor is shameful. A person I know, whose social security check is $395 amonth, is no longer eligible for medicaid because her income is too high!
How easily we forget the warning of the Prophets! Here is one from Mary the Mother of Jesus. It is in Luke 2. He has put down the might from their thrones and raised high the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
Or try reading the first two chpater of Isaiah.

Fixing Iraq

2005-12-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

"Iraq Fixer, No Exp. Needed, $1B-up "

This headline on the editorial page of the NYTimes for December 3 is amazing.
Our Agency for International Development has come up with an offer of all this money for "interested parties" to design and implement plans for stabilizing some strategic cities in Iraq. This offer of money comes with no strings attached.
Is this our new victory plan? Let corporate America make much money from this war? Maybe we should make this offer to the Iraqi people, not to corporations.

None yet have given thought to the words of Jesus that he gives us peace, not as the world does. Our whole world still imagines it can bring about peace by guns and bombs. It imagines we can have peace by having more bombs, smarter bombs. This seems to be the firm belief system of those in our government. We are the largest maker and seller of arms in the world.

Peace is both a gift and a task. In no words of Jesus does he tell us to go to war. Rather Jesus has said:

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven for he makes his sun to rise on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:43

The task of peace is learning to love as Jesus loved. It neever includes doing harm to others in any way.

Let us pray for the gift of peace in our hearts and minds. From there we can start practicing ture love. See 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible.

They will be called oaks of righteousness.
Isaiah 61:3

Cry the beloved country

2005-11-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

11-18-05 Center of Concern* regrets passage of budget bill by House
The Center of Concern expresses deep disappointment at the passage late last night by the House of a federal budget that would cut aid to social programs for the working poor, students, and farmers. Retaining 98% of the cuts to programs to assist low-income and poor individuals and familes requested b the original version of the budget while the House goes on to attempt to make tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans permanent is an outrage and a clear attempt to transfer wealth from those in poverty to the already wealthy.

Let us weep for our country that now places burdens on those in need, and enriches those who are already rich. What shall we be three years from now? A land of oppression, a land of oppression and neglect. A land where we tax work instead of money.

Cry.
Cry

THE REAL POWER

2005-10-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

With the indictment of I. Lewis Libby one cannot help wondering who in the high place of our government wanted the leak about the CIA agent. And one cannot help wondering what sort of power they think they own and control.

Those in high places in our government appear to have no clue that their power is crumbling and they are causing the so-called power of this country to crumble.

Who realizes that the real power is not human power at all but the power of God, which is the power of Love.

"Have confidence, I have overcome the world," says Jesus. (John 16:33)
The great power of this world was unleashed against Jesus the Christ. He suffered, died and was buried.

And rose from the dead! This is the real power: the power of love that overcomes death, all death.

So it is that the humble acts of love in our everyday life have the real power on earth and in the end will triumph.
"God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in them." (1John 4:16)
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MEMORIAL DAY - 2005

2005-05-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

I remember that Paul McKenna never was found when he drove an ambulance somewhere in Burma in 1945. He was a neighbor of ours when we were growing up. He had lost an eye as a child. Years later his mother still grieved his death.

I remember more vividly the young men who died on my ward in an Army hospital near Bristol, England. I can still see their terrible wounds.

We thought we were saving the world for democracy, and for the right for people to express their opinions in public even if they were disagreeing with the 'party line'.

Now we are sending young men and women to die for oil. How sad. All the reasons we were given for this war were proved false so we were given another reason - getting rid of a tyrant. There are many tyrants around the world. Only those with oil interest us.

Yes we must honor those who serve for they believe they are doing an honorable thing. And weep.

And we are invited to pray for them and to pray for those whom we believe to be enemies.

Pope John Paul II

2005-04-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

April 3, 2005
"During this Easter season we are reminded once again that the risen Jesus, as his first gift to his disciples, gave them his gift of peace," said Bishop Gabino Zavala, Bishop President of Pax Christi USA. "Of the many memories I have of John Paul II is his consistent stance as an ambassador for peace. He taught us that peace is clearly the only way to justice, that true courage lies in working for peace."

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II consistently called on world leaders to solve their differences through diplomacy rather than resorting to violence. He lamented that humanity too often gave in to the "culture of death" by relying on weapons of war, devaluing the dignity of the human person, and disrespecting the sanctity of God's creation.

"The Holy Father's passing is a sad day for all of us who have valued his leadership in working for a world that is more peaceful," said Dave Robinson, executive director of Pax Christi USA. "His was a voice which trumpeted peace over war, reconciliation over division, and policies which furthered the common good over policies which benefited those few who have money and power while creating misery for the world's poor."

As the leader of the world's one billion Catholics, Pope John Paul II frequently addressed the connection between faith and justice, calling on Christians and all people of good will to work together to overcome the grave social evils of our time.

Not sad for him! And really what is sad that there is one less voice for real justice in the world scene.

He made other mistakes but he was right about these matters and right about saying the Iraq war is immoral and illegal.

EASTER 2005

2005-03-30T09:47:00.000-08:00

Easter is all the time.

Resurrection breaks all the known boundaries of time and space.
That gives us new life every day, since Christ is ever present.

It also gives us cause for sadness as well as joy. Why sad? Because of the inhumanity of war and persecution and genocide going on our world. Because the beloved children of God are not treated as loved. And all are God’s loved ones.

Yet joy, because we know we can rely on the promises of God. We absolutely have a future!