A time of Visitation

By Caroline

The Good Shepherd, Ravenna Mausoleums (Wikimedia Commons)

Besides you know the time has come; the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up,
because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe.
–Romans 13:11

Maybe it’s the season for angels. I don’t know.

I usually don’t have time to stop in the hospital chapel after my visits, but today was different. Today I sensed something in my spirit, something palpable, but hard to put in words; that still small voice gnawing at my soul, vying for my my attention, which for several hours had been preoccupied with the stories of God’s dear people. They, who are worn down with the afflictions of physical suffering are many times over my greatest teachers.

But today, I somehow knew I was not to pass up a visit to the chapel.

With each passing week, I’ve noticed in many patients another sort of fatigue has set in and it has nothing to do with their bodies..It’s as if through them, the Lord is trying to tell me something; they whose suffering leaves nothing to the imagination, yet whose smiles make room for me to sit– though their hospital gowns barely cover them– and nurses intrude on their tears as they bare to me the spiritual wounds of their heart. In almost every patient I’ve recently seen they are crying as if in imitation of Christ, not for themselves, but for us as a country and people who are turning away from the day of the Lord’s visitation.


Continue reading at Caroline's blog Bell of the Wanderer.

Let God probe the depths of your heart

 By Heidi

Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees by Tissot (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The readings for the last week of August have featured Psalm 139, a Psalm that I love.  It is especially valuable since the Gospel has been Matthew 23 where Jesus declares “woe to you scribes and Pharisees”, and the first reading has included Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in which he explains his motives for his ministry.

The contrasts could not be more stark, Paul is firm in his proclaiming the Good News; he is seeking to please God and not men. So he endures the rejection of many and the frailty of the communities that he is ministering to with love and with honesty.  He allows the Lord to search his heart, to probe his motives so that he does not try to accomplish God’s work through deception, through flattery, or that he is not merely seeking praise and attention from other men.  His love and his motivation are from God, with whom he draws his strength from an ongoing and intimate relationship.

The Pharisees use the law to bolster themselves, to solidify their power, “neglecting the weightier things of the law:  Judgment, mercy and fidelity.”  Jesus' words cut like a knife through the exterior delusions of sanctity to reveal that they are filled with “evildoing and hypocrisy.”  They are not motivated by love of God, though they claim they are, and may even believe they are.


Finish reading at Journey to Wisdom.

Is the Lord your King?

by Heidi

Ancient of Days by William Blake (photo credit:Wikipedia).

What does it take to awaken awe and wonder of the Lord? What keeps you from running to all the petty little idols surrounding us that promise so much, but rob you of your eternal inheritance?

The Lord is king, let the earth rejoice, let all the coastlands be glad. Cloud and darkness are his raiment; his throne, justice and right. A fire prepares his path; it burns up his foes on every side. His lightnings light up the world, the earth trembles at the sight. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord of all the earth. The skies proclaim his justice; all peoples see his glory. Let those who serve idols be ashamed, those who boast of their worthless gods. All you spirits worship him. Psalm 97:1-7

According to my Divine Office app this psalm foretells worldwide salvation and that all nations will believe in Christ. One of the things that I love about praying the Divine Office is how it helps to stir up awe. Even when my personal prayer is dry, the Psalms that are prayed in the Office always lift up my heart with wonder, if even for just a moment.  I cannot ponder them enough.

As our contemporary culture continues to embrace materialistic philosophical views of the world, I love being reminded, “the earth rejoices and the coastlands are glad.” I love how the phrase: ‘cloud and darkness are his raiment ‘increases my wonder for the mystery that is Our Lord. It both establishes God’s absolute authority over all, and reveals how the shabby materialistic philosophies are blind to the great transcendent dignity of man.

To reduce our humanity to biological chance goes against everything that we are naturally oriented to.  The ancients pagans were much wiser than we are in our present technologically advanced age when they saw divinity in the sun, the moon and the stars.  They may have missed the mark in their worship, but our lot in life with everything around us reduced to only what can be quantified and measured is so much more demeaning to our true nature.  We are no less blood thirsty than those who sacrificed humans on altars to false gods --  we sacrifice our children in abortion for petty comforts.


Continue reading at Heidi's blog  Journey to Wisdom.