Saints All Hallows Eve

 Happy Halloween!

 

 

"Being a Saint just means being who you are and that God calls us to be nothing more and more importantly nothing less than the people we are called to be." ~Fr. James Martin

Priesthood Sunday

Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, I pray for
Your faithful and fervent priests;
for Your unfaithful and tepid priests;
for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields;
for Your tempted priests;
for Your lonely and desolate priests;
for Your young priests;
for Your dying priests;
for the souls of Your priests in purgatory.
But above all I recommend to You the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptized me;
the priest who absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your
Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
the priests who taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way.
O Jesus, keep them all close to Your heart,
and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.
Amen


~St. Therese of Lisieux

"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future." ~St. Augustine of Hippo

You Had Me At...

About two weeks ago I attended a day retreat about Thomas Merton. I really didn't know much about him before attending the retreat, but after just hearing the opening prayer of Merton's I was hooked. Kind of like the line from Jerry Maguire, "You had me at hello", Merton had me after hearing the first line of his Prayer of Abandonment, "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going." Um, Yep. That's me!

 
Here's the whole prayer in it's entirety;

Thomas Merton's Prayer of Abandonment

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you

and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road

although I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death,

I will not fear, for you are ever with me

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

 

 

 

Since the retreat I've acquired another book to read...The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. It's his life story he wrote when he was 29 about his life and conversion. From what I gather he was a typical person, well a bit of a "jerk" actually; young, immature and after experiencing a sense of loneliness or an "ache" for years, experienced a conversion and eventually responded to a higher calling from God and became a monk. (That's a VERY cliff-note version of his life story taken from my retreat notes).

One of the most impressionable things I learned about Thomas Merton though was that he experienced a great deal of loss as a child. His mom died when he was 6 years old and then his dad when he was 16. His father died due to a brain tumor. The presenter actually read an excerpt from when Thomas was sitting at his father's bedside while his father was dying. (Right away I could feel the lump creep in my throat and tears well in my eyes). As he was reading, images of Mike went through my mind, his death and how I would lay in bed with him him as he died. But as he continued to read, I felt "OK". I felt like I was ready to hear someone else's experience of death, death of a loved one due to brain cancer albeit. I actually found peace in that moment. Or maybe it was in the whole moment. The moment of the afternoon and hearing about Thomas' whole life...from sinner to saint, a void in his life that nothing could fill and then to experience this grace from God and conversion. I'm really interested to learn more about his life journey and how God has worked in his life.


 

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” ~ Thomas Merton

Hail Mary

After attending a parish study tonight, I was inspired by one of discussion questions...What is your favorite image of Mary? I had a million images going through my head, most are from my trip to Israel, some are local. Here's some photos...

St. Rocco's Church, Cleveland
What I loved about this photo is how the kids are playing around the shrine of Mary.




Israel

Israel, U.S.A. Immaculate Conception Sculpture

The Church of the Visitation, Israel
 

The Church of the Visitation, Israel







 

First reading from today's liturgy...Wow! Thank you God for your Grace and Mercy.

Reading 1 Eph 2:1-10
Brothers and sisters:
You were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you once lived following the age of this world,
following the ruler of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.
All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh,
following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses,
and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.