Misery is a choice

By Barbara A. Schoeneberger

Altarpiece of the Seven Joys of Mary (Wikimedia Commons)

Do you know people who are truly miserable? I am not speaking here of that great percentage of the world who live in poverty and disease, in war-torn countries, victims of natural disasters that destroy lives completely, or where people face a choice of convert to this or that religion or die. I am also not speaking of sexually and physically abused children nor of those who have been trafficked for financial gain of others, nor of the many other evils in the world. That temporal misery is forced upon persons by outside powers for evil and selfish purposes. 

I am speaking of misery of heart and soul – an invisible misery that manifests itself outwardly most particularly by sins of the tongue, angry outbursts, rash judgment, destruction of property and/or relationships. The kind of internal churning misery that repels others and perpetuates itself both in oneself and in others in our lives with whom we interact.

We all know the constant complainer, the super-critic who is pleased about nothing, the selfish controller of others who continually resorts to manipulation to get what he or she wants. We all know our share of Chicken Littles for whom the sky is falling almost every day. Their lives are full of constant drama, singularly joyless. And who has not known active alcoholics and others addicts of all types? They live in a continual torment and spinning of fears, often using addiction as a way not to face the demons inside themselves. Maybe, just maybe, we can apply these descriptions to ourselves at one time or another in our lives.


Continue reading at Barb's blog Suffering with Joy.

The fruit basket of the Spirit

By Nancy Ward

Painting by Abraham Brueghel (Wikimedia Commons).

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

At a Day of Reflection Carmelite Fr. Stephen Sanchez led us through a meditation on the Fruits of the Spirit. These are the attributes of God that the Holy Spirit gives us, develops in us and inspires us to give away. As Fr. Stephen guided us through each of the nine fruits, I visualized a fruit basket filled with specific fruits to remind me of each fruit of the Spirit in my life.

1.    Love is a red pear. If you hold it stem down this beautiful fruit resembles a heart. There are many kinds of love in our lives, as there are many varieties of pears – Bartlett, Asian, D’anjou – but none as rich, tasty or with such a beautiful deep color as a red pear of God’s unconditional love.

2.    Joy is found in a variety of apples, as joy is found in many forms and places in our lives. It is loud and crunchy! A red delicious apple makes a quick healthy snack or a lunchbox treat. There are gala or Fuji apples for salads and pies. My favorite is the granny apple, the joy I share with my grandchildren.

3.     Peace is a mango. It sits quietly in the bottom of the fruit basket, waiting for you. It is soft, mellow, smooth, and calm and invites you to sit down and savor it slowly.

4.     Patience is a grapefruit. It takes patience to dig out the fruit of the grapefruit, bite by bite. This is one of the most beneficial and most neglected of fruits.

5.     Kindness is a banana. We demonstrate kindness spontaneously and quietly to a small child when we hand him or her a banana we have peeled for them so they can effortlessly eat the fruit.

Find more Fruits of the Spirit at joyalive.net.

 

The journey of love

By Robert Batch

A journey of love is a journey that brings us life.  John 10:10: He came so that we may have life to the fullest.

The Easter Sunday Gospel, describes a journey that Mary Magdalene takes to tell everyone about the Risen Christ.  ”He has been raised from the dead, and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

Pope Francis mentioned in his Easter Vigil homily last night in Rome, that to return to Galilee means to “re-read everything on the basis of the Cross and it’s victory”  We must take into account all of what Christ did during His earthly ministry, even the betrayal and the crucifixion.

The journey that Christ took on the hill to Calvary was not just a beating, or a act of sacrifice. It was a Journey of Love that gave us life in the resurrection.  During this Easter season let us all discover our Journey of Love.

Let us all experience the Easter Joy, let us all experience a new resurrection, a new life in which the tomb does not have power!


Robert originally posted this as his blog Love is Calling.

Do you know the name of your guardian angel?

By Nancy Ward

Guardian Angel by Domeenchino (Wikimedia Commons).

Years ago a Bible study friend of mine talked about going shopping with Lenore. Who was Lenore? Her guardian angel. How did she know her name? She asked her.

So I began to ask my guardian angel what her name was. After several years with no results, I started calling her Grace. If she didn’t like that name, she could tell me what to call her.

Months went by with Grace and I doing things together. Mostly I called on her because of electrical storms, traffic jams or nightmares. Sometimes I remembered her when I was joyful. She watched over me when I slept.

As I recuperated from injuries from a traffic accident, I couldn’t fulfill my responsibilities and I needed her. Early one morning after a difficult night, I tried to put myself in the presence of God by surrendering all my concerns, my pain, my unachieved goals and desires. In my weakness, the Holy Spirit gave me many graces. I received insights about several ministry projects, including new ways to use our website for evangelism. I sought guidance on a manuscript about joy that I was writing, but nothing came about that. While I was in this listening position that God sometimes puts me in, I heard distinctly in my mind, “Her name is Joy.” I hadn’t even asked!


Continue reading at Nancy's blog  JOY Alive in Our Hearts. 

Rejoice!

By Heidi

Joy!  That is the message this Sunday.  We light the pink candle, and we look to our joyous celebration of Christ’s birth as well as to His second coming, which we wait for amidst the groaning labor pains of all creation. Even in suffering our joy is at hand. 

This is why I love Enya’s version of O Come, O come Emmanuel.  It has that soft, mournful tone of a world that is subjected to futility, a world that longs for redemption.  And echoing in the background, as if from somewhere outside of time you hear: Rejoice! Gaudete!

And we need to know that our rejoicing is not a glib refusal to accept the harsh realities of our day, but an enduring hope that we can indeed reject the concerns of the flesh, which lead to death, and receive the Spirit of God, which is not enslaved by fear:  "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father!'" Romans 8:15

 
Continue reading at Heidi's blog Journey to Wisdom.

Rejoice in suffering

By Robert Batch

Paul in Prison by Rembrandt (Wikimedia Commons).

When we hear the word “suffering” we typically think of pain and sorrow.  It is rare that we go as far and meditate on the sufferings of Christ.  Why is this?  Well I would like to propose that it is part of the nature of being human.  We are wired to focus and satisfy ourselves, in trying to fill that void with all of the wrong things.

The world today encourages us to not look to faith, but rather look up a number for a therapist or a counselor.  The world today tells us not to pray, but rather gossip.  It says in Romans 8:18 that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the Glory that is to be revealed to us.

In this 2nd Sunday of Advent, we eagerly await the coming of Christ, in hope, knowing the glory that we have waiting for us.  We eagerly await the source and summit of our salvation, who has experienced all of our sufferings on the Cross of Calvary, carrying the weight of our sins and guilt on His shoulders.  It is our job to keep our eyes focused on the Cross for that is where our salvation lies, and that is where we will get our joy.

As we continue through this advent season, let us remember, if we are suffering through something in our lives, that Christ continually shows us His mercy and love every step of the way.


Robert blogs at Love is Calling.

Thankful for earthquakes and supercyclones

By Anabelle Hazard

When supercyclone “Haiyan” was poised to whip at the Philippines, I joined my countrymen in prayer, every hour on the hour.I sighed with blessed relief when my sister reported that although power had gone out, my hometown of Cebu City (which had just been rocked by a 7.4 magnitude quake) escaped the eye of the storm and didn’t sustain much damage.  But over the next few days, as more photos and news reports emerged of severe destruction, missing persons, unknown casualties and downed communications and transportations north of my province and its neighboring islands, my sighs were snuffled into tissues.

A ship washed into a leveled shore of a once bustling port; coconut trees shaven or snapped in two; a looted half of a mall building teetering; a roofless hospital; entire towns and villages  pulverized into debris; paper plates and pieces torn from the boxes containing messages of survivors to their anxious family members that “we are all alive” or “so and so is dead”; survivors sagging on  evacuation centers, one of which was a grown man, with a distinct brown scapular around his neck, crying…  and the most heartbreaking of all: a muddied corpse of a mother clutching her dead boy and her baby.

Along with the distressing images, my Facebook page  has been flooded with information on how to help and help speedily on its way. Packed bags of relief goods, donation centers set up, money coming in, my teenage nephews helping build homes, medicines arriving with volunteer doctors from California, Canada and Israel, US. Marines deployed, Japanese rescue teams, and local corporate businesses and news reporters doing their primary job of being compassionate human beings. 


Continue reading at Anabelle's Blog  Written by the Finger of God.

Hope for the remnant of God's people

by Heidi

The Tribute Money by Titian (photo in Public Domain)

  

The word “remnant“ has been coming to my mind a lot lately and I have been trying to write a reflection on it for days, but I could not pull it together (admittedly this is a frequent problem for me).  I keep brushing the word aside thinking that the word remnant seems a tad over-dramatic. Is our culture dying so quickly that those who are still faithful to the Church’s positions on the issues of marriage, contraception and abortion in our Catholic churches are already a mere remnant (even if the pews seem full)?  Surely that is overstating the case!

Yet in headline after headline, and in discussion after discussion, with Catholic individuals who ought to know better, I am finding that adhering to the Natural Law (the Ten Commandments), particularly in political views, is not even considered!  Many ( though not all) of my fellow parishioners use a soft sentimentality as the basis for many political positions, how you feel governs your stance.  Anything that causes discomfort ought to be re-defined. This is dangerous, because so many of these individuals are willingly handing over to Caesar the powers to bind or loose moral teachings – and if you try to make an argument against that, you are completely misunderstood, because so many lack an understanding of what liberty and freedom really mean!!!  Are we narrowing down to a remnant of faithful Catholics?

Then the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down DOMA and dismissing Prop 8 came down, not unexpected, but still quite ominous, and after reading Elizabeth Scalia’s excellent article titled “The ‘Party’ is victor; Time to save souls and churches”, I realized I was not being dramatic at all.  It was the Spirit that place that word in my heart.  Not to cause despair, but to show me that the seeds of renewal are even now being sown.

“So too at this present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5).

The word remnant first popped into my head during the June 7th rehearsal dinner for my son Matthew and his then bride–to-be Grace. They were married on June 8th (Yes! It was the feast of the Immaculate Heart-- isn't that awesome!) after a real courtship that was based on discernment of God’s will for them.

These two have a profound respect, for each other and their deepening love, for parental authority and a commitment to Christ through their Catholic faith. In fact, it was their Catholic faith that came shining through all the wonderful parties and joy-filled celebrations. Especially in the beautiful Nuptial Mass, where the Gospel was chanted by a newly ordained transitional deacon and Panis Angelicus, Ave Verum Corpus and Gounod's Ave Maria were beautifully sung. The Mass and all of the celebrations that surrounded it were directly and indirectly proclaiming what marriage truly is: A covenant that is “ordered to the good of the couple, as well as the generation and education of children.” (CCC 1660) Marriage was not just about the two of them, it was a bridging of the past generations to the future ones. It was about the obligations of these two to build up a Culture of Life through their vows to each other and to God.

Both Grace’s mother and I heard from guests who felt renewed and filled with hope after the wedding. It was so joyfully Catholic! Three generations of the priesthood participated in celebrating it and at least one other young man was undertaking serious discernment for a religious vocation. And it was at the rehearsal dinner that I looked around the room and felt the hope and promise of renewal that God is always offering us! I thought here ,in this room, are some of the remnant, the faithful remnant in an increasingly post-Christian world. God always leaves a remnant. And what a joyful remnant it was! I wish I had words for my gratitude.

 Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.  And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Continue reading Heidi's reflection at  Journey to Wisdom.

Receiving our Joy

by Colleen Spiro

The Virgin of the Host by Ingres (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

 


Pope Francis was recently quoted as saying that "Sometimes these melancholic Christians' faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life"(homily, May 10, 2013).

I once heard a speaker say that too many people walk around church like they have been baptized in "pickle juice." Where is the joy, she asked?

Several years ago my husband and I were attending Mass at a church out of town. It was tourist season and the parish was holding an extra Mass in their parish hall. During communion, we were seated behind one of the priests distributing communion so I had a good look at everyone's face as they came up to receive the Body of Christ. Almost every single person had a sour look. Pickle juice.

It was my turn to ask, Where is the joy?

Perhaps many of us think that looking reverent means looking serious. Nothing wrong with that, but still, I think of what St. John Vianney said:

"Without the divine Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be unbearable. When we receive Holy Communion we receive our joy and happiness." 


Continue reading at Thoughts on Grace.