Do You Acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Really In You?

That is the test, St. Paul says.  If you don't acknowledge that, then you have failed the test.  He was writing to the Corinthians in his second letter explaining that backbiting, gossip, obstinacies, disorders come because others are not as we would like them to be.  This was another lesson that the Holy Spirit served up for me this week when I grabbed a few minutes to check out the Office of Readings last Saturday.  I had come off a week which seemed to have daily recurrence of the backbiting, gossip . . . . and that was what was sending me walking around the pond to detox from at least once a day.

Here are his words that spoke to me and may to you as well:

What I am afraid of is that when I come I may find you different from what I want you to be,

and you may find that I am not as you would like me to be, and then there will be wrangling ---
jealousy, and tempers roused, intrigues, and backbiting and gossip, obstinacies, and disorder.

Examine yourselves to make sure you are in the faith; test yourselves.

Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is really in you?

If not, you have failed the test.

Try to grow perfect.  Help one another.  Be united, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 12:14-13:13)

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Many of you have read the following from St. John Mary Vianney and probably as recently as his feast last Saturday, but it is so beautiful and touching and impactful that I wanted to spread this good news around too.  Bold emphasis is mine.

On Prayer

Man has a noble task:  prayer and love.

Prayer is nothing else than union with God.  When the heart is pure and united with God it is consoled and filled with sweetness; it is dazzled by a marvelous light.  In this intimate union, God and the soul are like two pieces of wax molded into one; they cannot any more be separated.

It is a very wonderful thing, this union of God with his insignificant creature, a happiness passing all understanding.

We had deserved to be left incapable of praying, but God in his goodness has permitted us to speak to him.  

Our prayer is an incense that is delightful to God.

My children, your hearts are small, but prayer enlarges them and renders them capable of loving God.

Prayer is a foretaste of heaven, an overflowing of heaven.  It never leaves us without sweetness; it is like honey, it descends into the soul and sweetens everything.

In a prayer well made, troubles vanish like snow under the rays of the sun.

Prayer makes time seem to pass quickly, so pleasantly that one fails to notice how long it is . . . . 

Once almost all my colleagues were ill, and as I made long journeys (to visit them) I used to pray to God, and I assure you, the time did not seem long to me.

There are those who lose themselves in prayer, like a fish in water, because they are absorbed in God.  There is no division in their hearts.

How I love those noble souls!  St. Francis of Assisi and St. Colette saw our Lord and spoke to him as we speak to one another.

How often do we come to church without thinking what we are going to do or for what we are going to ask. And yet when we go to call upon someone, we have no difficulty in remembering why it was we came.  Some appear as if they were about to say to God:  "I am just going to say a couple words, so I can get away quickly."  

I often think that when we come to adore our Lord we should get all we asked for if we asked for it with a lively faith and a pure heart.

That is my prayer for you dear reader, and for myself.

Dear Father please give all who read this and myself  a lively faith and a pure heart.  
In Jesus Name, 
Amen

Healing Your Family Tree

My Pastor emailed this prayer to me a few months back, when my husband and I were in a multi-day argument.  Are you familiar with this prayer?

It is recommended to pray this prayer everyday.  It is also recommended that the best time to pray it is immediately after Holy Communion, "when you and Jesus Christ are one; when you are like the Blessed Virgin Mary - a living tabernacle of The Savior.  That is when you are holiest, and when your prayers are most efficacious.  A few minutes of heartfelt prayer after receiving Jesus in the Eucharist while in the state of grace are worth many hours of prayer later on." (Source:  http://www.catholicbible101.com/healingyourfamilytree.htm)

PRAYER FOR HEALING THE FAMILY TREE

REV. JOHN H. HAMPSCH, C.M.F.

Heavenly Father, I come before you as your child, in great need of your help; I have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, and interpersonal needs.  Many of my problems have been caused by my own failures, neglect and sinfulness, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord.  But I also ask you to forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and spirit.  Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.

With your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders.  In the name of your divine Son, Jesus, and in the power of his Holy Spirit, I ask you, Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one.  Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every contaminating form of bondage.  By your loving concern for us, heavenly Father, and by the shed blood of your precious Son, Jesus, I beg you to extend your blessing to me and to all my living and deceased relatives.  Heal every negative effect transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in future generations of my family tree.

I symbolically place the cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family tree, and between each generation; I ask you to let the cleansing blood of Jesus purify the bloodlines in my family lineage.  Set your protective angels to encamp around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability.  Give special power to our family members' guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and encourage each of us in all our needs.  Let your healing power be released at this very moment, and let it continue as long as your sovereignty permits.

In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love.  And let there be an ever-deeper bonding with you, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to your Son, Jesus.  Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its tender, warm, loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest that love in all our relationships.  All of our unknown needs we include with this petition that we pray in Jesus' precious Name.  Amen.

St. Joseph, Patron of family life, pray for us.  Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us.

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If you have questions about this prayer please see "Response to Objections about the Healing of the Family Tree".  You'll need to scroll down after you hit the hyperlink.

Alone Time

So needy
So lazy
So little self-control

Not liking my current state

Help, need Your Help
Your Light
Your Strength

Above all Your Loving Presence

Increase my Faith

Lord, help me cooperate more fully,
more deliberately,
more faithfully

with Your Grace

The path is not unclear
You are the Way, the Truth, the Life


Don't give up!


Keep trying!

"Child, you are forgiven, and loved!"

My loving glance is on you.

I know you can't stand how inconsistent your behavior is with your desires.

The desires I have given you.

You want nothing less than Divine Union in your soul.

You've read about it.
You love me,
but you hurt at how imperfect and unfaithful your love is.

You hurt that you know you don't live like a representative of me.

I love you.
I am your Savior.

Get up!  Try again!

My Holy Spirit is with you.

Trust!

Do what you need to.
Plan your time for me.
We have a great work to do in your soul,
and in your life for my Kingdom.

Behold - I do make all things new!


Lord, make me into a woman after your own heart,
a woman who will be the lover of you,
my husband, my children, my friends, and your friends,
the way you will me to be.

Impossible to Exhaust the Riches of the Bible

Currently reading the Bible more now, than I have in any one year in my life.  There is the daily meditation I complete 4-5 days of the week following The Better Part.  I know I mention that book almost once a post.

Now my 7th grader and I are reading the Old Testament at a pretty good clip.  Genesis, which spans more time than the whole rest of the Bible combined, and Exodus were finished after three weeks of school.  Tonight we began Leviticus.

A friend of mine recommended Peter Kreeft's You Can Understand Bible: A Practical and Illuminating Guide to Each Book in the Bible.

I am only through the completely awesome and illuminating introduction and through his chapters up to Leviticus, and now I give you my highest recommendation to buy and enjoy his insights and incredibly efficient writing style.

Kreeft says in the introduction:

Reading the Bible should be a form of prayer.  The Bible should be read in God's presence and as the unfolding of his mind.  It is not just a book, but God's love letter to you. . . . Reading it is aligning your mind and will with God's; therefore it is a fulfillment of the prayer "Thy will be done."

Once you have listened, do talk back.  Dialogue with the Author as if He were standing right in front of you--because He is!  Ask Him questions and go to His Book to see how He answers.  God is a good teacher, and a good teacher wants his students to ask questions.

The Bible calls itself "the Word of God".  But it points beyond itself to the "Word of God", Jesus Christ. . . . The words man can utter are not alive, but the Word God utters eternally is not only alive but divine.  He calls Himself "the Son of God".  Meeting Him is the point of the whole Bible (see Jn 5:39) and the whole point of our lives.

Christ the Teacher (Icon Source: Monastery Icons)

In his chapter on Genesis 1-2 I found the following beautiful and profound quote, with bold emphasis added by me:

If God created my very existence, I simply have no being, no essence, and no rights apart from or independent of God.  My relationship to God is not an addition, however precious, to my being; it is my very being, my essence.  Man is not man and then related to God; to be a human being is to be God's creature, God's servant, God's son or daughter.  Not a second of my time, a cent of my money, a drop of my blood or my sweat or a thought in my head can I truly call my own unless I first call it His.  I owe Him my all because I owe Him my being.  The Bible does not present "religion" as a department of life.  It presents life itself as essentially, totally, and inescapably religious, that is, God-relational, from its center.

After reading it awhile, my Bible flipped from Leviticus to Psalms 62 and 63.  It kind of landed there.  As Archbishop Fulton Sheen would say on his weekly broadcast, "Thank you, Angel."

The other reason is Psalm 63 in my New Jerusalem Bible Saints Devotional Edition has completely beautiful meditation by Blessed Angela of Foligno, called "Knowing and Loving God".  I've read and re-read the Psalm and her meditation many times.  You know why?  Because, it is impossible to exhaust the riches of the Bible, even of a single Psalm, or as some would say, even of a single verse, like "Come to my help, O God, Lord, hurry to my rescue." (Ps. 70:1)

Here first is the first half of Psalm 62:

¹ In God alone there is rest for my soul, from him comes my safety;

² he alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold so that I stand unshaken.

⁵ Rest in God alone, my soul! He is the source of my hope.

⁶ He alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold, so that I stand unwavering.

⁷ In God is my safety and my glory, the rock of my strength. In God is my refuge;

⁸ trust in him, you people, at all times. Pour out your hearts to him, God is a refuge for us. Pause

This passage did give me pause, because my friend and her family found their rock, their stronghold, and their source for hope in God!  This is the friend that underwent surgery yesterday morning, to remove cancerous tumor in one of her breasts.  They are all praising God tonight, as am I, and you are welcome to join in, that the lymph nodes extracted were clean.  This means most likely no chemotherapy, and only localized radiation therapy.  Thank you to all that joined with me in praying!

Here is the first half of Psalm 63, which is a Psalm of David when he was in the desert of Judah:

¹ God, you are my God, I pine for you; my heart thirsts for you, my body longs for you, as a land parched, dreary and waterless.

² Thus I have gazed on you in the sanctuary, seeing your power and your glory.

³ Better your faithful love than life itself; my lips will praise you.

⁴ Thus I will bless you all my life, in your name lift up my hands.

⁵ All my longings fulfilled as with fat and rich foods, a song of joy on my lips and praise in my mouth.

⁶ On my bed when I think of you, I muse on you in the watches of the night,

⁷ for you have always been my help; in the shadow of your wings I rejoice;

⁸ my heart clings to you, your right hand supports me.

This verse captures what I think many of you who find your way to this less than lean blog (how long is this post?) feel.  We do long for God.  We pine for Him.  Our hearts thirst for him.  We go to our Churches gazing at the monstrance or the tabernacle, longing to see Christ in his power and glory, as Sts. Peter, James, and John saw him in the Transfiguration, and St. John and Daniel saw him as the Son of Man in heaven.  

Blessed Angela of Foligno, 1248?-1309 writes on Psalm 63, a meditation Bert Ghezzi entitled, "Knowing and Loving God" (bold emphasis added):

The wise soul does not merely care to know God superficially, but strives to know him in truth and to learn his goodness and worth.  To such a soul God is not only good, but the Highest Good.  Thus knowing him, she loves him wholly because of his goodness, and loving him she desires to possess him.  And then God, the Highest Good, gives himself to the soul, and she feels his presence and tastes his sweetness, and enjoys him with great delight.  

Then as the soul partakes of the Highest Love, he touches her and she falls in love with her Beloved.  She wants to hold him fast, and embrace him, presses him to her, and joins herself to God.  And God draws her to himself with a great sweetness of love.  The power of love transforms the lover into the loved, and the loved into the lover.  The soul, inflamed by God's love, by the power of love is united to God, her Beloved. . . . 

Do you realize what good things that knowing God brings us?  In the way of God, the person who wants to possess God must first know him, and then God's love that transforms the lover into the loved will follow.

This is why we read, or rather pray, as we meditate on the words of Scripture.  We want to spend time, even if it is just 15 minutes a day, striving to know God in truth, because knowing God, being loved and transformed by God, loving God, and loving our neighbor with the love he showed us, and transforms our hearts into hearts like his, well that is why we were created.  It is the essence of our beginning, our eternity, and the joyous middle betwixt the trials, and sadness of our life on earth.

Note:  The New Jerusalem Bible was the version used for the scripture quotes in this post.