PathToHoliness

One of the people I heard mentioned on my recent retreat was Mathew Kelly. So, of course I Googled for him at my first chance today. The first result I looked at is an article he wrote called Classroom of Silence. I work in a profession that’s all about noise and I do mean audio. We produce a lot of it for online agricultural communications. I attend a lot of conferences where all you do all day long is talk to people and hear lots of noise. I like my music-filled iPod but I have to take time every day to just sit in silence and this article struck a personal note with me so I thought I’d share it with you. Here’s an excerpt:

Silence presents both sides of the Christian challenge. Firstly, silence introduces us to ourselves – our faults, failings, flaws, defects, talents, abilities, and potential. And secondly, silence introduces us to God – greatness, fidelity, and perfection. It is these two discoveries together – self and God – that propose the Christian challenge. Seeing ourselves as we are, and God as He is, we are always challenged to change, to grow, and to become more like God.

Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, scientist, mathematician, and writer of the seventeenth century wrote, “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

How can we examine our conscience when there’s too much noise? Kind of difficult if you ask me. So, many people I work with might be surprised but this makes perfect sense to me and I highly recommend it. Silence that is.

The Chrism Mass is always one of my favorite Masses of the year because it is when all of the priests gather to renew their committment to serve. The witness of devoted priests is one of the things that makes me proud to be Catholic and I love to see them all together in one place. It is a source of hope to know that so many men have literally given their lives in service to Christ and His Church. I was not able to attend our Chrism Mass this year, but my mother was kind enough to send me this picture:

We have had our share of heartbreak over the years, of priests leaving their vocations, some who were very close friends of ours. That is why it is imperative that we pray for our priests who are not immune to temptation and human weakness.

St. Faustina’s prayer for priests:

“O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church: Grant it love and the light of Your Spirit, and give power to the words of Priests so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance and return to You, O Lord. Lord, give us holy Priests; You yourself maintain them in holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually being set for the soul of Priests. May the power of Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of Priests, for You can do all things.” (Diary #1052)

Pope Benedict’s prayer intentions for the month of April:

Pope Benedict’s general prayer intention is: “That Christians, even in the difficult and complex situations of present-day society, may not tire of proclaiming with their lives that Christ’s resurrection is the source of peace and of hope”.

His mission intention is: “That the future priests of the young Churches may be constantly more formed culturally and spiritually to evangelize their nations and the whole world”.

H/T American Papist. Also from the Papist: The Popemobile has arrived! Be sure to check out Benedict in America for all the details of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in just 12 days!

Speaking of popes, today is the anniversary of the death of John Paul II. See my post at Reflections: JP II and the Culture of Life. Here are pics of your humble blog hosts greeting the late pontiff in 2001:

Last week’s Our Sunday Visitor had an excellent article (subscribers only) on the Angelus prayer and its possible contribution to the “pro-life arsenal.” The Angelus is a prayer typically repeated three times a day – 6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. – recalling the conception and birth of Jesus Christ. Says OSV:

As people pray the Angelus, perhaps they will come to understand better the value of any human conception as they remember and honor the greatest conception of all time.

The words of the prayer:

Leader: The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
Response: And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary . . .
Leader: Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Response: Be it done unto me according to your word.
Hail Mary
Leader: And the Word was made flesh,
Response: And dwelt among us.
Hail Mary . . .
Leader: Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
Response: That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Leader: Let us pray.
Response: Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an angel, may by his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

JP II’s favorite passage from Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes 22, says that, “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” Indeed, as the document goes on to explain, by His incarnation, Christ has united himself with every man and therefore fully reveals man to himself. Christ not only became man, but chose to identify totally with all humankind, even in its weakest and most vulnerable state. The more we meditate on the profound mystery of the Word made flesh, the more we come to understand and appreciate the dignity of every human person, born and unborn.

Note: during Easter the Regina Caeli is said in place of the Angelus.

Today is the feast of that great 16th century Spanish mystic and doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross. Today’s Office of Readings has a passage from a spiritual Canticle of his that says:

“[T]he apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God…Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much [interior and exterior] suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there is consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowable, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Here John speaks of the “narrow gate” through which we must pass to merit eternal life. Sadly so many avoid this gate because it is lined with fire and one inevitably gets burned. But we do not travel through it alone. Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Spe Salvi, speaks of Christ the true shepherd in this way:

“The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through: he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through.”

We are not alone in our sufferings. Indeed, when we suffer we are even closer to the Redeemer through the power of the Cross.

Prayer of Peace by St. John of the Cross:

O blessed Jesus,
give me stillness of soul in You.
Let Your mighty calmness reign in me.
Rule me, O King of Gentleness,
King of Peace.

Read more about St. John of the Cross and his other writings.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn and the Mother of the Americas. May our nation be helped by her intercession this coming election year on behalf of all those who have no voice.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, we turn to you who are the protectress of unborn children and ask that you intercede for us, so that we may more firmly resolve to join you in protecting all human life. Let our prayers be united to your perpetual motherly intercession on behalf of those whose lives are threatened, be they in the womb of their mother, on the bed of infirmity, or in the latter years of their life. May our prayers also be coupled with peaceful action which witnesses to the goodness and dignity of all human life, so that our firmness of purpose may give courage to those who are fearful and bring light to those who are blinded by sin.
(from a prayer said at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on January 22, 1999)

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

More on Our Lady of Guadalupe

As I was reflecting on today’s feast day, it struck me what a really pro-life feast we are actually celebrating today (and yes it was a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S. even though it’s a Saturday since, as a country, we are consecrated to Mary as the Immaculate Conception). God did not choose to purify the womb that would carry His son at some random point in her development outside the womb like, say, her presentation and dedication in the temple or at the Annunciation, both of of which would have seemed appropriate or reasonable. Rather, he chose to preserve the sinlessness of the Mother of God from the very moment of her conception inside the womb of St. Anne. This, like the Incarnation itself and the scene at the Visitation when the unborn John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb of St. Elizabeth, illustrates the significance and the sacredness of life before birth. Let us pray on this day that such innocent life may once again be preserved and protected in our Nation through the intercession of this Immaculate Mother, Patroness of our Land.

From my Guadalupe Novena (which is now on day 7):

“Merciful Jesus, I beseech You through the intercession of Your dearest Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who nurtured You from childhood, bless my native land. I beg You, Jesus, look not on our sins, but on the tears of little children, on the hunger and cold they suffer. Jesus, for the sake of these innocent ones, grant me the grace that I am asking of You for my country.”
Amen

I am making up my own Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn and Patroness of the Americas, asking for her intercession for next year’s election. Primaries start in JANUARY!! I am adapting this from an entry I found in the Diary of St. Faustina. Please pray with me for the next nine days:

“Merciful Jesus, I beseech You through the intercession of Your dearest Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who nurtured You from childhood, bless my native land. I beg You, Jesus, look not on our sins, but on the tears of little children, on the hunger and cold they suffer. Jesus, for the sake of these innocent ones, grant me the grace that I am asking of You for my country.”

Amen

Here it is Advent already and my travel has finally slowed down for a while. It’s a good time to do some extra personal reflection and examination of conscience.

To help you along the folks at Scepter Publishers recommend the “In Conversation With God” series. I’ve never made it through a whole year with them but they’re great. If you don’t want to start with the whole collection then you can order just the book for the Advent season.

Here’s a synopsis of the series:

Author Francis Fernandez-Carvajal makes generous use of the writings of the great saints as he brings you focused and moving meditations on themes taken from the Mass readings for that day, the liturgical season, and more. This work is rich and extensive enough to serve as your spiritual reading for a lifetime, as it helps you relate the particulars of the message of Christ to the ordinary circumstances of your day. Each volume is small enough for you to carry it to Adoration or some other suitable place for meditation. The whole set comes with a handsome slipcase that prevents wear-and-tear on the individual volumes.

Do unborn children have tears? I don’t know, but this will be my prayer for our country from now until election day. It comes from a passage I recently came across in the Diary of St. Faustina:

Once after an adoration for our country, a pain pierced my soul, and I began to pray in this way: “Most merciful Jesus, I beseech You through the intercession of Your dearest Mother who nurtured You from childhood, bless my native land. I beg You, Jesus, look not on our sins, but on the tears of little children, on the hunger and cold they suffer. Jesus, for the sake of these innocent ones, grant me the grace that I am asking of You for my country.” At that moment, I saw the Lord Jesus, His eyes filled with tears, and He said to me, You see, My daughter, what great compassion I have for them. Know that it is they who uphold the world.

Today we remember all those who have died. While we mourn for the dead, we also have hope for though, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” They are now

“justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood, to prove his righteousness because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed, through the forbearance of God – to prove his righteousness in the present time, that he might be righteous and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.” Rom. 3:23-25

But in order to stand in the presence of God, one must “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). That is why we believe in the, what I call, “cleansing fire” of purgatory. Though one may be justified by faith on earth, there may still be attachments that one must be purged from in order to see the glory of God, though some souls may have experienced this cleansing here on earth.

Here is a song that I have dedicated to a girl I knew in high school who died in a car accident (just 11 months before my own accident) – she was just 14 years old. I did not know her very well, but had a few classes with her. One of those was a speech class in which she gave a speech on Lynard Skynard. It didn’t hit me until I had a dream about her after my accident and started really thinking about her and praying for her, that she played this song, the lyrics of which sound prophetic to me now, during that presentation (probably a month or so before she died).

O Lord, we beg of you, through your loving kindness, have mercy on the soul of your servant (N…), and now that he/she is set free from the defilements of this mortal flesh, restore him/her to her heritage of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Today’s readings are beautiful to reflect on when we think about the dead.

A wonderful prayer from St. Theresa of Avila:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

As pro-life people we must love and respect all human life, including those who do not love us in return, and even those who wish us harm. The Gospel reading at today’s Mass for peace was from Matthew in which Jesus tells us,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt. 5:43-44)

Today’s anniversary gives us the opportunity to put this teaching into practice. May we learn how to love and forgive our enemies, especially those who wound us so deeply. Let hatred not enter our hearts no matter how grieved we may be. And may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Today is the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As our priest said this morning, today is a feast of hope. It is a reminder of God’s love for us and for what awaits us in heaven. Today we celebrate the birth of the Blessed Virgin, whom God sent to be the Mother of our Lord, who died to offer us eternal life. This is the greatest prayer that I can think of on this blessed day:

Hail Mary, full of grace
the Lord is with thee,
Blessed are thou among women
and Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb
Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of death,
Amen.

As our business has grown I’ve found it more difficult to take time for daily devotions such as morning and evening prayer and spiritual reading. However, I believe that they’re even more important in my life than ever before. It’s nice to be making a good living but you have to question why you’re doing it. Why do I work so hard? Hopefully it’s to fulfill God’s will.

Since I became a Cooperator of Opus Dei I have learned how we can turn the most ordinary things we do into part of our daily prayer. For example, one of the first things I try to do each morning is offer all my “prayers, works, joys and sorrows” of the day to God. Then I’ve got kind of a head start on my goal of praying constantly.

St. Josemaria Escriva has helped so many people change their lives by finding meaning in everything we do.

There’s a great video produced by the St. Josemaria Institute which you can order that helps show how you can achieve this kind of fulfillment in your daily prayer life by using examples of how other ordinary people have done so.

That video is now available to watch online too. (Quicktime Movie)