Loving Unconditionally

This  morning in meditation, I went through my retreat notes.  The director to which I was assigned asked each of her directees to begin each prayer hour by telling God what grace we wanted from that prayer hour but to also ask God what grace He wanted for us during that time.  In all of them I asked the Lord for the grace of intimacy.  Other gifts for which I asked were a deepening of my faith and trust.  Many times, the graces which God asked for me were similar to what I was asking.

 Here is one of the gems of that week spent alone with the Lord:

 The Lord reminded me that His love for me is everlasting, eternal, forever (He really wanted me to understand the “forever”); that He loved me before I was born, created me out of love, that I have been placed here on earth to learn to love and to be loved and loving.  He also reminded me that I am to love others as He loves me, that is, unconditionally.  He asked that I love them through their difficulties and when they are being difficult, as the one suffering the most when they are difficult is the persons themselves. Therefore, it is important, especially at those times, as the Lord prompted me, to be gentle, kind, compassionate and loving.  A difficult person may be unaware of being difficult and it is then that kindness, gentleness, compassion and love are extremely important.  

There are many other retreat gems that I might share with you throughout the year!  I encourage you, if possible, to take time apart to just be with the Lord in prayer and reflections on the Scriptures. I encourage you to watch for opportunities at retreat centers for this kind of space alone with God.

Called to set each other free

Today’s first reading, Ex 3: 1-6, 9-2, tells the story of God calling Moses to be his instrument in freeing the children of Israel from Egyptian oppression.  Moses is pasturing his father-in-law’s flock near Mt. Horeb when he spots an unusual sight, a bush on fire but not being consumed. He decides to go over and examine this sight when he hears his name being called. Immediately, he answers “Here I am.”  God instructs him to come no closer and to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground.  God then tells him that He has seen His people’s oppression, has heard their cries for help and that He is asking Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  Moses, who has fled Egypt to escape being killed by Pharaoh because of his crime, says: “Lord, who am I to lead the people out of Egypt?”  God says: “I will go with you.”

We may object to what God is asking of us, as well. We may, rightly or wrongly, judge ourselves as incapable of doing what the Lord is asking of us.  Are we failing to realize that, if God is calling us to a task that will set us free, that He goes with us?  Are we also failing to realize that God does not hold on to whatever misdeeds we may have committed, holding those against us or judging us unworthy to be instruments of grace in other people’s lives and within our own? We are God’s children, God’s beloved sons and daughters whom He has set free.  That means that God will choose us to be His instruments in bringing fuller life to others, in freeing others and ourselves from whatever enslaves us. God wants us to know the freedom, the joy, the satisfaction of being His chosen ones.

What do I need to do today to recognize God calling me to be an instrument of freedom in the world in which I live? What do I need to do to realize that God goes with me into situations that are oppressive to myself and others, that God empowers me to release others and myself from “prisons” we may have created for ourselves?oHo

Turning to the Lord in our Need

“Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live” (Ps. 69).  In today’s first reading, Ex 2: 1-15a, we learn of the beginnings of Moses’ life, how he was saved, adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised by her. As an adult Moses sees one of his kinsmen being abused by an Egyptian. Moses intervenes and kills the attacker, thinking no one will see him. The next day he discovers that what he did is, in fact, no secret and he flees for his life.

We may not be fleeing for such serious offenses but we flee nevertheless for less serious ways of bringing distress, hurt and pain into another person’s life. None of us is exempt from doing or saying things that could put us at enmity with another. Sometimes we find ourselves in such a situation because of how an innocent situation is interpreted as “wrong” by the other. As the psalmist says in today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 69: 3, 14, 30-31, 33-34:

“I am sunk in the abysmal swamp

Where there is no foothold;
I have reached the watery depths;
The flood overwhelms me”

The swamp may be the other person’s anger or one’s own guilt, anger or powerlessness to change what has been done or to elicit understanding from the offended person.  As with the psalmist, we are invited  to recognize our need for God’s help, less we sink into the swamp of our own anger, drown in “the watery depth” of self-pity or be flooded by a desire to retaliate in some way.

“…I pray to you, O Lord,

For the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help….
[L]et your saving help, O God, protect me
[from my own sinfulness and selfishness,
my own desire to be right and in control].”

And the psalmist says to me in the same psalm:

“See, you lowly ones [I am one of those lowly ones] and be glad;

You who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the Lord hears the poor,
And his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

May you discover this fact today and always as you deal with the conflicts of life.

A Vacation with the Lord

Every year, we Sisters are asked to “take a vacation with the Lord,” that is, go on a retreat.  I will be doing just that from July 5-12.  I will be on a directed retreat, a time when I will meet with a retreat director once a day, go over the Scripture passage/s assigned for that day, looking at how the Lord moved me in that passage/s, what the Lord is saying to me personally.  The director, then, attentive to the Spirit at work in me, assigns other Scripture passage/s for another day of prayer.  Usually I spend 4-5 hours in prayer and time in between journaling on how the Lord touched me. 

Please remember me in prayer during this time that I will be open to the Lord, hear His voice and atune my life more deeply with what the Lord is asking of me.  I certainly will pray for all of those for whom I have promised to pray.

You can imagine that this is a special time for retreatants, a time to grow in one’s faith and trust of the Lord, a time to deepen one’s intimacy with the Love of our lives, Christ Jesus. 

Peace!

Happy Fourth of July

I received the following email and am passing it one here:

Happy 4th of July!....     
   

Let' s get this started ,NOW! 
    
   

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE
   

FLAG, 
   

OF THE UNITED 
   

STATES OF AMERICA ,     
   

AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR 
   

WHICH IT STANDS, 
   

ONE 
   

NATION UNDER GOD ,
   

INDIVISIBLE, 
   

WITH LIBERTY    

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!      
   

   

For all of our other military
personnel, where ever they may be. 
   

Please 
   

Support all of the troops
defending our Country.     
   

And God Bless our Military 
   

who are protecting our
Country for our Freedom. 
   

Thanks to them, and their
sacrifices, we can celebrate the 4th of July.     
   

We must never forget who gets
the credit for the freedoms we have, 
   

of which we should be eternally
grateful.     
   

I watched the flag pass by one
day. 

   

It fluttered in the breeze.     
   

A young Marine saluted it, 
   

And then he stood at ease.    
   

I looked at him in uniform; 
   

so young, so tall, so proud.
   

With hair cut square and eyes
alert, 
   

he'd stand out in any crowd.    
   

I thought how many men like him
   

had fallen through the years.
   

How many died on foreign
soil; 
   

how many mothers' tears?     
   

How many pilots' planes shot
down?
   

How many died at sea? 
   

How many foxholes were
soldiers' graves? 
   

NO, FREEDOM ISN'T FREE !    
   

I heard the sound of Taps one
night,
   

when everything was still. 
   

I listened to the bugler play
   

And felt a sudden chill.     
   

I wondered just how many
times 
   

That Taps had meant 'Amen.' 
   

When a flag had draped a coffin
   

of a brother or a friend.     
   

I thought of all the children, 
   

of the mothers and the wives,
   

of fathers, sons and husbands
   

With interrupted lives.     
   

I thought about a graveyard

   

At the bottom of the sea. 
   

Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
   

NO FREEDOM ISN'T FREE 

   

Enjoy Your Freedom 

   

and

   

God Bless Our Troops.     
   

When you read this, 
   

please stop for a moment    

and say a prayer for our
servicemen 

   

Of all the gifts you could
give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.

Companions on the Journey

In today’s first reading, Eph 2: 19-22, St. Paul reminds us that we “are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone [and] that through him, “the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him…[we] are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

My mind is filled with awe as I think of the fact that I am a companion on a journey to life in Christ Jesus, each of us individually and all of us together, being built into a Temple for the Lord.  I share this journey into God’s Kingdom being built here on earth and within each of us with those with whom I live, with those with whom I have difficulty, with those I love in Christ Jesus but actually do not like, with those whom I perceive as my enemies, as enemies of the U.S., of the Church, of my religious community.

Do I truly realize what this means? And if did, would I be less bothered by those whom I would love to change into “my image,” yes, my image, though I might believe that I want them transformed into the image of Christ!  If I truly believed that God is holding “the whole structure…together” and that it is, by the action of the Holy Spirit within it, growing “into a temple sacred in the Lord,…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” would I not be more free, less afraid, less worried and anxious when I come face to face with sin in myself, in others, in the world, in the church, in society? Would I not be more willing “to let go and let God,” as the people in AA and in Al-Anon are encouraged to do?
 

The Lord's Intervention

The first reading of today’s liturgy, Gen. 19: 15-29, tells of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the angel of the Lord urging Lot to leave before it was too late.  “‘On your way! Take with your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom.’ When he hesitated, the men, by the Lord’s mercy, seized his hands and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city.”

Sometimes, the Lord has to say to us through his “angels,” “On your way!”   The Lord may be saying: “Don’t say that. Move away from this way of thinking, leave this situation, separate from this crowd or this couple or this relationship before poisonous fumes suffocate you, consume you, burn you.”  As with Lot, at times we may hesitate and need someone to grab us and walk us away from situations that are not spiritually healthy for us.  There may be times like these when we strongly react, saying “Leave me alone. I know what I am doing.  Don’t tell me what to do or where to go!” 

Spiritual warfare takes place frequently, if not daily.  Without a large dose of humility, lots of courage, a “bowlful” of wisdom we, like Lot, will resist the call of the Spirit to move on in our lives, to separate ourselves from unhealthy environments, unhealthy relationships, spiritually-famined attitudes and destructive behaviors.

As with Lot, who said to the Lord “You have already thought enough of your servant to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life,” the Trinity also thought enough of each of us to intervene by the Son of God becoming one of us, to live and die for us, to show us the Trinity’s love for us.  We, too, are being saved from that which could destroy us spiritually:  selfishness and pride, covetousness and jealousy, envy and sloth that are capable of consuming us as the sulphurous fire consumed Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lord, may I allow your “angels” to lead me to safety when I am unwilling to do so on my own!