I want to cling to pictures of family by the Lighthouse today! How convicting to hear ICor 13 read at mass this morning! There are many emotions swirling within me these days due to the election coming up and the liberal climate that is seeming to be in the very air that I breath! The attack on marriage and LIFE is just making me feel like I can barely breath. It baffles me to think that it can be taken so lightly and even with a vengence of hate! I attempted to come up with an acronym using the letters of LOVE... it was a bit difficult to try to capture the greatness of what this is, because LOVE is truly GOD! There is no way of truly understanding or putting it or God into words! But it was kind of fun especially when I allowed myself the multiple words. I must continue in the valient battle for LIFE and LOVE and the Beauty of our Church! Yet, this morning I was ready to hurt someone with my self-righteous words, and it struck me that this is not the way of LOVE. And the echo of conviction came to me - "He who is without sin cast the first stone." I know that I am far from being without sin!
Such a reminder and way to check ourselves to see if we are truly being loving - ICor 13: 1-13
"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.... So Faith, Hope, Love remain these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE." I have very far to go to reach this in my life, but I do pray that LOVE can be accomplished especially in my domestic Church/family. It is in my family that I seem to have the hardest time being loving and that makes no sense - these are the people that I love the most! My Most Cherished Cross should be surrounded by LOVE most of all - hear my prayer, O Lord!
Reading St Therese last night before bed... I could touch this LOVE in her words:
"I finally had rest. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I had not recognized myself in any of the members described by St Paul, or rather I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation.I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was BURNING WITH LOVE. I understood it was Love alone that made the Church members act, and that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES... IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!
Then in the escess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love... my vocation, at last I have found it...MY VOCATION IS LOVE!"
Story of a Soul p194
Lord, such a lesson in the power, beauty, and Truth of LOVE this day! St Paul and St Therese give us the glorious words to fill us with wisdom, and allow us to pause and remember the ways we can bring our world more fully into a loving life with YOU! may we come to see you in the faces of all those around us - especially those in our domestic Church/family. How glorious would your LIGHT shine in this world for all to see, if only we could embrace our Most Cherished Cross, and learn through that how to truly LOVE. Looking at the Cross... it lives up to every one of the attributes of LOVE! May we follow your example of LOVE, by embracing our Cross and following after YOU! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barb
"The main reason we can't reject the Church without rejecting life is, again and always, the Eucharist. What distinguishes the Catholic Church utterly, finally, infinitely from any other church is that Christ left it as the repository of his Body and Blood, the Sacrament of Sacraments - pulsing, dynamic, eternal source of the power that created and rules over the universe - to nourish and connect us until the end of time...
Without the Body and Blood of Christ - ground of all truth, justice, beauty, intelligence, knowledge, order, mystery - we wither and die. Without his ongoing, creative, ever-alive and eternal love for us - and ours for him - there is no order, no hope, no peace, no light or possibility of LIFE, no reason to go on."
Heather King is a convert to Catholicism
"The world needs LIGHTS!" Patrick Verly 1978
Maria soon to have her Patrick - I fly there in a week! Jesus, bring Joseph home safe from Alghanistan!
Safety for farmers this day taking out the crops! Lord, hear our prayers.
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