Blessings

Fr. Michael Gaitley teaches an Ignatian form of the Daily Examination of Conscience in the book Consoling the Heart of Jesus, that follows the acronym BAKER.  Where B is Blessings . . . and blessings can be positive or they can also be trials.  When I heard him discuss this on Catholic Bookmark he mentioned how important it is to not skip over this part of the Daily Examen.  To spend some time here.  Fr. Gaitley describes in the book how St. Ignatius became so attune to the blessings of God throughout his day that many times during the day he would realize God's loving action and be brought to tears.  This presumably developed through his practice of recalling blessings and thanking God for them.

It is so easy for me to get caught up in the negative sometimes.  I could write a post three-times a day, that understandably no one would want to read, because it would just be me ranting, probably self-righteously and with rash judgment on whatever I was dissatisfied about and wanted to end or change.  This would probably be self-destructive as well as nothing destroys peace more than indulging in the negative and critical and then what happens when I am a little too descriptive and those from my real life find my little posts?  Unemployment and social shunning I suppose . . .

This post is simply to thank God for some recent blessings.

• Friends that prayed for me to find a job
• Friends that sent me emails with possible leads to jobs
• Friends that offered suffering for my intentions
• Getting a job after a long time off, due to wanting to be home with the children this summer, but then an extended search period versus any time earlier in my 9 years as an independent consultant.  I interviewed Friday morning, 9/30/13 at 8:15 a.m., then began work the following Monday, 10/2/13 at 8:15 a.m.  Believe me after being off all summer, really most of last Spring too, and then having medical bills from three of the six of us over the summer, our checking account was in the red, for the first time since early after graduating college. 
• Attending a Mass offered by a priest and friend at a nursing home with my 4 children, and having them not want to leave as they loved visiting with the patients and playing piano for them afterward; one wants to volunteer there now, my oldest, and the two girls want to take up piano again so they can play better next time.  They had quit over a year ago.
• Finding a job within 2 blocks of a beautiful church, Old St. Patrick's on the west side of the Chicago Loop, and having a view of it, unblocked by any skyscrapers in downtown Chicago; this means that at any point in my day I can look out and be reminded of Christ's gift to us of the Blessed Sacrament; prior to this I was happy to be within 5-7 minute ride of a church.  

  

  Inside Old St. Patrick's looking toward the Choir Loft

   
• My youngest son making me lunch:  ham and shredded cheese roll-ups with a sprinkling of dill.  No bread, just cheese, dill rolled in sliced ham.  He emphasized that they were made with love.  This is just too precious!
• Scripture reading, even the single verses I receive in daily email from KLove's "Encouraging Word" or the verses provided for meditation in the Scriptural Rosary are also a source of blessing to me.  I have time riding the Metra train into the Chicago Loop each morning to pray the Scriptural Rosary using those provided at the this link that I have bookmarked on my phone.

  

  Rainbow over Chicago taken through Metra Train window on evening commute

• Finding out a friend, who battled against diagnosed infertility, is pregnant
• Attending Mass today at Mundelein Seminary celebrated by Fr. Barron, and concelebrated by the priest that married my husband and I in the log chapel at Notre Dame 23 years ago.  Visiting with this priest and friend for an hour or so after Mass, and having him meet my youngest son.
• My daughter doing well on the ACT and seeming to be qualified for 1/2 off tuition at many schools because of this and with option of attending local community/junior college for free as well.
• Finding out that after our last month's witness for life visit at an abortuary in the Chicago Loop, that after we left a woman, to whom one of our girls had given a gift bag, came out in tears and told the sidewalk counselor that she was going to keep her baby.
• My husband taking a subset of our children to Mass for two weeks in a row.  I am keeping quiet, and will delete this bullet from my blog after 3 days as I don't want this to end!
• Getting a new laptop for work . . . I had to because my 7 year old one was costing me serious sleep and efficiency at my new job.  Still minor geek that I am, it is a blessing.

Yes, some of the blessings are huge, and some are just God smiling at me and answering my prayer to help me to grow in recollection - attention to the presence of God in my soul.  I really believe that I cannot be holy, cannot be transformed into the handmaiden of the Lord I want to be if I don't first learn to dwell in the Holy Trinity's love for me.  Great that St. Ignatius left us with a method to cultivate that . . . making a daily habit of recalling to mind the blessings of God.  I am not consistent in doing this nightly, but I do start any scripture meditation time with the BAKER method that Fr. Gaitley taught me in his book.  If you aren't doing this, I recommend it, as I do his book.

The Friend I Love Most

"If the friend I love most treated me the way I treat Christ, would I be pleased or saddened?" - Fr. John Bartunek in the study group questions at the end of the mediation on Luke 3:21-38 in The Better Part.

This really got to me today.  I remember from Consoling the Heart of Jesus that the great insight from Jesus's revelation of his Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary is that he has a human heart like ours.  You remember this one too, right?

"Behold this Heart which has loved men so much, and yet men do not want to love Me in return. Through you My divine Heart wishes to spread its love everywhere on earth." - Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary in a vision

Fr. Gaitley in Consoling, taught me to identify with the unrequited love of our Savior and why our foundation can be to console him by devotion to Him, and relieving him of some of this sadness.

I pondered the question and thought it could be answered three ways:

1) Directly:  

• How and how often do I give my love, gratitude and praise to Jesus?
• How often do I witness . . . tell other people how good He is to me, show others how much I love Him?
• How often and for what do I thank him?

2) Indirectly (considering Christ's Teaching in the Last Judgment):

• How do I show him love, respect, kindness, generosity "to one of the least of these"

3)  What is it about the friend, or friends that has me loving them the most?

• Thoughtful consideration and caring
• Encouraging me, often when I need it most
• Combining both--in consideration for when I might be down or struggling reaching out to me and encouraging me
• Defending me, not just from others, but from my worst critic . . . myself
• Kindness, especially the kindnesses of listening to me, sincerely asking me how I'm doing, and not changing the subject when it looks like I just took us both down the rabbit hole
• Saying, "I'll pray for you"
• Actually praying for me

My thinking, or rather the Holy Spirit's guidance, further led me to reflect more on the Last Judgment.  Just as we have through the Church the teaching of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, I think the Lord meant his teaching on both levels as well.

It is pretty clear the Lord does will us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and to visit those in prison and those who are sick.

Then I thought about how "prisons" isn't just for those in orange jumpsuits with walls, bars, alarms, and barbed wire.  Many of us, maybe all of us are in prisons of circumstance.  The situations we are in, sometimes very much due to our sins, the sins of others, unwise choices, or the miscarriage of justice all put us in positions we cannot easily escape.

Then I thought about how sick our souls, our hearts, our conscious minds are, not realizing the dignity God gave us, not treating others with the dignity and love they deserve as children whom our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirt loves so dearly.  There is the woundedness some of us are aware of, and others of us deny or are unaware exists.  We are all sick, all in need of healing.  When we do not receive the forgiveness we crave from those we love . . . when we don't have the love, encouragement, affection we need to warm our hearts . . . we are sick.  When we are mourning, grieving, we are sick.

Realizations:

1. Jesus is the Savior I love most and most want to please.
2. All of us are the least of these.  
3. All of us are the mystical body of Christ.
4. Besides cooperating with the Holy Spirit in my prayer and recollection training I can show love to Jesus by following his command.
5. Learning from the friends I love most, I can show my love to Jesus by caring consideration, thoughtful support and encouragement, showing kindness:  including the kindness of "being present" and really listening, and by actually praying for someone.
6. Just as I appreciate when someone comes to my defense, so I should also defend Christ and by extension his Church. 

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This last one requires prudence and a careful meditation on St. Paul's words in Romans:

So do not let what is good to you be spoken of as evil . . . Romans 14:16

As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions.  Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?  It is before his own master that he stands or falls.  And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand.  Why do you pass judgment on your brother?  Or you, why do you despise your brother?  For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.  Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.  Romans 14:1,4,10,13

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"A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you."  John 13:34

This is the quote that begins The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur.  I think it was also in one of my first blog posts back in May, 2010.  I have made copious notes since I began reading her book a few days ago.  So many of my quotes from her writing are right along the theme of this meditation.

• Nothing so delicate and so sacred as the human soul; nothing so quickly bruised.
• Let each of our words and deeds contain a principle of life that, penetrating to other spirits, will communicate light and strength, and will reveal God to them.
• Above all we must ask God to fill us with an intense charity - the Love of God that renews and transforms the soul and life and becomes the secret cause of our acts . . . the powerful and living love of souls, the love of all that suffers and laments.
• I believe much more in individual effort, and in the good that may be done by addressing oneself not to the masses but to particular souls . . . . Jesus, our model, did the same.  Following Him, let us turn with tenderness to every person, however poor or sinful.
• (Let us remember) humanity is made up of human beings and that each one of them needs the light and strength that God gives, and it belongs to us to spread this light as far as we can.
• To serve souls I must first have purified and strengthened my soul for many days.

Finally her prayer, which is my prayer too:

Help me see plainly, Father, what are my greatest duties and give me the resolute strength to fulfill them in ways that will please you and show your light and love to others.

Help me to do each day, humbly, so that God alone may see it, all the good that I can do; always to seek out all the misery and grief within reach in order to relieve them; to cultivate in myself a lively sympathy for everyone; and to do all of this for God alone.

God, you can transform my life, my soul to be in close union with you.

Around me are souls I love deeply that do not know God or know Him imperfectly.

It is not in arguing or lecturing that I can make them know what God is to the human soul.

But, in struggling with myself, in becoming with your help, Lord, more Christian . . . I will bear witness to Him whose humble disciple I am.

In Jesus Name, Amen!
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Holy Spirit confirmation from Romans:

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for (she) who loves (her) neighbor has fulfilled the law.  The commandments are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.  Romans 13:8-10

Current Favorite 3 Religious Books

Karinann from Daughter of the King has tagged me for this simple meme.  Simple meme is about all I can handle right now.  Karinann mentioned as her third selection, Secret Diary of Elisabeth Lesur.  I need to read this book so much!  I started reading it from the back and I think her advice to her niece on how to be a calm woman scared me off, as it seemed so foreign to my personal experience.  Besides Karinann, this book has been recommended by many blogging women and I need to see this reoccurence for the Holy Spirit reading to-do hint that it is!

For this meme, I need to name three of my favorite religious books and then tag three others to do the same.

Like Patricia mentions at I Want to See God (and I DO!), most of us in this Catholic Blogging Community have many, many more than 3 favorite religious books.  So to aid me in this meme, I would say that if I was being shipped somewhere and could only take 3 books with me--e.g. God told me he willed for me to live for awhile as a hermit and could only take 3 books with me, well, these would be the three, at this point in my life:

 

The New Jerusalem Bible: Saints Devotional Edition with Introduction, Selections, and Commentary by Bert Ghezzi.

Simply beautiful translation enhanced with beautiful, soul stirring meditations on scripture in the Old and New Testament by the Saints.  There is also beautiful 20 lesson section on why the Saints stress the importance of Scripture.  All of my favorite Saints were included:  St. Therese, St. Teresa, St. Faustina, Blessed Angela of Foligno, St. Francis de Sales, St. Jean Chantal, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Bonaventure, St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Gertrude the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and MORE!  All in one volume, the Word of God, and the meditations of the Saints under the influence of the Holy Spirit while writing their meditiations.  I love this and this is the one book if I only could bring one somewhere that I would bring.

The Better Part: A Christ Centered Resource for Personal Prayer by Fr. John Bartunek, LC.

The first part explains the importance and method of meditative prayer.  The remainder is 4 meditations each on short passages from the Gospels.  All four Gospels are contained in their entirety.  I am just finishing the Presentation passage in Luke.  This book will be a source of amazement to you, as it is written under the anointing of the Holy Spirit by someone with the gifts of Understanding, Wisdom, and Counsel.  I have a tendency to scan and the meditations slow me down.  If I write what I highlight, I really gain, from the Holy Spirit, deeper and relevant to my life now, and the lives I am connected to, insights.  The prayers for beginning and closing the meditation prayer sessions are also quite beautiful.

Consoling the Heart of Jesus: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat written by Fr. Michael Gaitley is great synthesis of the spiritual lessons of St. Ignatius, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, St. Faustina (including topically organized selections from her Diary in an appendix), and St. Louis de Montefort.  There are beautiful meditations in the book and beautiful prayers and helps to living a deeper, more meaningful spiritual existence with the purpose of Consoling the Heart of Jesus.

I pass this on to:

Mary at The Beautiful Gate

Elizabeth at The Clan of Malou

Noreen at Rosary Mom

Fr. Gaitley on Women of Grace

I just posted on Community of Catholic Bloggers to let people know Fr. Michael Gaitley is the guest on Women of Grace on EWTN this week.  Please follow the link above to find out why it is a blessing to hear him in person after benefiting so much from prayerfully reading his book.