Blessed by God with an Abundance

Today's first reading calls us to "fear [reverence] the Lord, [our] God, and follow his ways exactly, to love and serve the Lord, [our] God, with all [our] heart and all [our] soul, to keep the commandments and statues of the Lord...for [our] own good."

Yesterday, August 11, I had the privilege of celebrating my 60th jubilee as a vowed member of the Sister of the Sorrowful Mother!  Sixty years of being blessed by God with an abundance!  Truly God gives a hundredfold to those who follow Jesus in their respective vocations: consecrated life,  priesthood, marriage or the single life.  God is never outdone in generosity to those who reverence Him and strive to "follow his ways exactly, to love and serve the Lord, our god, with all our heart and all our love, to keep the commandments and statues of the Lord."  The majority of us can thank our parents for this gift of reverence of our God!

The gifts I received are truly that: gifts freely given and which found their way into my life because of my parents. Mom and dad passed the faith on to me and my siblings and modeled living their faith in God, in one another, and in themselves.. What gifts they were in their faithfulness to one another, their love of their children and their willingness to sacrifice for us!  Nothing was too much for them! I am grateful to them for all of this and especially for teaching us children that "if there is a will, then, there is a way."   Self-pity was not in the bag, so to speak!  "Just do it" was a motto we were taught long before Niki ever existed!

I never realized as a child that Jesus''determination to do whatever the Father asked of Him was what guided my parents, though this was not put in words.   They followed Jesus' way "as exactly"  as a human being is capable.  They knew their dependence upon God, as evidenced by their faithfulness to weekly worship with a community of believers, their involvement in their parish, weekly confession and daily prayer at home, especially the daily praying of the rosary.  They carried "the cross," as life was not easy for them, by any stretch of the imagination. Nor has life been easy for any of my siblings. Following the example of our parents, all of us persevered  through the tough times of our lives.  We are who we are, strong Christians, as a result of the way we coped with the "Calvaries" of  our lives over time.

God be praised and thanked and glorified!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all who visit this blog!  It's a day to be grateful to the Lord for all of His goodness to us:

• The gift of life itself
• The gift of our parents who gave us life here on earth
• The gift of eternal life that awaits us
• The gift of our faith, our hope, our love
• The gift of our families: our mom and dad and our siblings and all of our relatives
• The gift of our friends
• The gift of our education: grade school, high school, college--undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate work
• The gift of our teachers, school counselors, teacher assistants, deans, janitors, coaches
• The gift of the universe and all of the galaxies
• The gift of the sun and moon and stars and all of the planets
• The gift of air, of chemicals, minerals, atoms, molecules 
• The gift of sand and pebbles, mountains and hills, valleys, deserts and fertile lands
• The gift of intelligence, imagination and contemplation
• The gift of all of the sacraments Eucharist and of  the Scriptures
• The gift of male and female in all species
• The gift of freedom
• The gift of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• The gift of redemption, of repentance, of reconciliation and forgiveness
• The gift of Mary and Joseph and all disciples who have handed down the faith to us
• The gift of all religions
• The gift of all countries, nations, nationalities, races and cultures
• The gift of friends
• The gift of the seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter
• The gift of farmers and all professions
• The gift of food-bearing plants
• The gift of all plants and all animals and all of the fishes in our lakes, seas, rivers, oceans
• Our creative abilities
• And so much more! 

THANK YOU, LORD!

For what are you grateful?

The Feast of Ephiphany

Lord, like the three kings, I bring to You my gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. My gift of gold is the gift of my self. I am your precious child, a pearl of great price, ransomed from the death of sin by your death on the cross.  I give you my gift of frankincense, that is,  my worshiping You in prayer, in truth, in the Word, in faith and love, in service and in community living. I worship you, O my God and  my King, in all that I do and leave undone or said or left unsaid in order to do what is right. I give you my gift of myrrh, that is,  that in me that is in need of resuscitation by grace, in need  of being made new in the Eucharist and in the sacrament of Reconciliation, in forgiveness and repentance of sin; the pain connected with  my dying  to  sin and selfishness, unkindness and deceitfulness;  the losses in my life, real  or imaginary,  dreams left unrealized or blocked intentionally or unintentionally;  the losses of those who are dear to me--my grandparents, parents, identical twin Doris, my brother Joe, my nephew Punchy, my aunts and uncles and cousins,  community members and friends. 

You say to me, through Isaiah 43: 18-21: “No need to recall the past, no need to think about was done before. See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness [of your life],  paths in the wild...I am putting water in the wilderness (rivers in the wild) to give my chosen people [to give you to] drink. The people I have formed for myself will sing my praises….”  Your praises, O God, I sing with the angels and archangels, powers and dominions, who, with the Magi, surrounded your stable in Bethlehem and who, each day, surround our altars during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Thank you God, for all of these graces!

God-given Talents Used Well

Today's Gospel presents the parable of the talents: one person was given 5 talents and made 5 more, another 2 and earned 2 more and one person given 1 talent and, out of fear, buried it.  What do I do with the talents the Lord has given me? To I develop them and thus add skills to my life and increase my ability to be of service, to build up the Kingdom of God or do I bury my talents, do nothing with them, withdraw out of fear or, blame others or situations for the situation I am in, find excuses for my lethargy, inactivity, my sitting on the sidelines while life passes me  by? The choice is mine to make. If I choose to share my talents and thus gain more, I will experience the happiness of the Master. If I do otherwise, I will wallow in the pit of self-pity, continue to feel deprived, sinned against, and unhappy with life.


"Blessed are those," the responsorial Psalm (128) states, who fear the Lord," that is, who reverence the Lord and give back by developing the talents God has given him/her, "who walk in the way of the Lord." That way, we know from the Scriptures, is being fully involved in life, as Jesus and Mary were, being engaged in relationships in such a way that people's lives are transformed, healed, forgiven, made whole, supported by the assistance I can give and the joy I spread.