Tag Archives: Peace Place

Volition – the Act of Choice

by

Hope grows as we are willing to let in the Light.

I haven’t be able to embed this short film by the Doorpost Film Project but it well worth the click it takes to get to it.

Volition (n)- The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.

This is the movie trailer:

Holy Joy – Revisited

by

1

“Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength”

Nehemiah 8:10

Headlines got you down? Propagandizing press infuriating you? I’ll leave off questions of finance, lest you cry. “Good grief, Charlie Brown!” …(long pause……….).  Was Charles Schultz, actually, onto something? Good grief? Could there be such a thing?

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crops fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.” Habakkuk 3:17-19

Highly enigmatic, as I said in the previous post, and I really do believe the word of God  spoken through his prophet, Habakkuk. So, how do I get to faith from here?

For starters, I must recover my holy joy, not the jolly-jump-about-goin’-drinkin’- joy, but the joy that only the Lord can give. Here’s how it came to me today sometime after my posting. When I ride my bike for mental as well as physical health, I plug in my ear buds and head off with something sounding in my ears. Today, I had a choice, all of them were actually good. One, however, didn’t quite appeal because of my fightin’ mood, but I asked myself which of my choices had a likely hood of touching my soul. So, pugnaciousness aside,I chose Mediations from Carmel and rode off on my peace quest.

It worked! Or rather, God, the Holy Spirit, worked. The hard shell around my heart cracked when the word’s of St. Teresa of Avila struck a chord:

“One might understand the great good God does for a soul that willingly disposes itself for the practice of prayer, even though it is not as disposed as is necessary. If the soul perseveres in prayer, in the midst of the sins, temptations, and failures of a thousand kinds that the devil places in its path, in the end, I hold as certain, the Lord will draw it forth to the harbor of salvation”

And these words, too, hit home; addressed by St. Teresa to Son of the eternal Father,Jesus Christ our Lord,true King of the universe!

What did you leave behind in the world?

What could your inheritors receive from you?
What did  you possess, my God,
other than pain, sorrow and dishonour,
so that at the end
your only help lay
in the trunk of a tree
as you drank the bitter cup of death?
And so, my God,
if we truly seek to be your children by adoption
and not renounce your inheritance,
we must not flee from suffering.
The sign of your family
is your five wounds.

From the Office of Readings, “O God, the world had fallen flat in the dust but your Son’s humility stood it upright once more.”

Holy Joy Must Be Your Strength

by

1

Nehemiah 8:10     “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Highly enigmatic, I say, but I believe it.  So, I do my best to recover the joy that only the Lord can give….. again and again.

In the closing prayer of today’s Divine Office, I read:

O God, the world had fallen flat in the dust but your Son’s humility stood it upright once more.
Fill your faithful people with a holy joy:
take those whom you have torn away from slavery to sin
and make them rejoice eternally.


St. Teresa of the Andes – Letter 115

by

I am having trouble being in the world, but not of it. Paul’s word’s challenge me.  Pope Benedict XVI wants them to push me into the mind of Paul and the arms of the Holy Spirit. “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2

As Pentecost draws near, I’m reminded that it is the Holy Spirit not my spirit that will transform me into conformity with Christ of the Cross and the Resurrection. Tomorrow morning, God willing, I’ll find myself before the Blessed Sacrament once again.  Here are the words I will take with me into the silence:

“How poor, how graceless, as I see it, the worship we offer to God sacramentally present! What scant respect we have for the One before whom the seraphim cover themselves with their wings, prostrating themselves before Him. And He bears it all in silence, remaining without splendor, hidden beneath the bread, that He may live in the midst of those He created. Oh, how good He is! What infinite love He has! Why aren’t we crazy with love for Him?”  St. Teresa of the Andes – Letter 115

Weapons of War – Hot Coals

by

The Anchoress got some disparaging email in response to”See How These Christians Shove One Another.  She was articulating “that we Christians are being ‘way too “earthbound” and over-worldly in the way we process and engage in politics.” The response of readers prompted her to print an email that she thought made her point, He says it so much better than I. In a nutshell, the writer said, in citing the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, “The Israelites did not attack Jericho head-on in a conventional way but chose instead the mystical path and gave the Holy Spirit room to do His work.

I’ve been struggling along these same lines.  Blogging makes me painfully aware of it.  I start the day with Mass and the Divine Office and come home to enter the fray.  I bounce between the spiritual and not so spiritual with my own war of words.  I read Archbishop Charles J. Chaput’s “Render Unto Caesar” hoping to gain some footing.  He confirmed the battle for me but didn’t give me my marching orders.  I believe I need to use all the tools God has placed at hand.

The Rosary is called “a weapon” by those who know its power. Mass and the Divine Office are like heavenly dynamite empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Faith turns up that power and places it in the hands of the angels to do battle in the realm the Apostle Paul tells us about. “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evils spirits in the heavens.” Ephesian 6: 12

I know, too,  I have other tools at my disposal: thoughts, words, deeds.  I know I mess up and will mess up, leading me back to prayer and repentance to begin again. Like Jesus on the Way of the Cross, I have to keep getting up and get myself up the mountain of Calvary for the Battle that wins the war. I don’t feel like a warrior, I think of myself as the little donkey carrying the Christ into Jerusalem for the climactic encounter between Good and Evil.  That’s were I am and I am tired.

When I complained of being tired though the battle has hardly begun, a friend wrote me saying,

“Remember the Narnia series?
Remember in “The Witch, The Lion and The Wardrobe”
how the children were confused, frightened, at the end
of their resources……..when they heard that Aslyn was
“on the move”.  Of course, they still had great battles
ahead but Aslyn had arrived…..  Have you had any such thoughts/feelings?  I hope that it is not wishful thinking on my part.”
I don’t think it is wishful thinking.  I think Aslyn is on the move.  It doesn’t really matter if I fall on the battlefield.  I’m on the right side and Christ is more than a Conqueror.  He is a Savior and in His hands our efforts and prayers strike at the hearts of enemies with the same Mercy that bought me to His side.
The side of Christ is pierced that we all may enter.  Today, Mercy Sunday, is a good day to think about that and the signature “Jesus I trust in you” that signs the Divine Mercy Image.  I think of that signature as my name confirming Christ’s image in me.
With my weapons in hand, all I need is a battle cry.  Semper Fidelis is a worthy battle cry. Cam Beck says,
What is left unsaid in the motto is also notable. The phrase is “Always faithful.” It isn’t “Sometimes Faithful.” Nor is it “Usually Faithful,” but always. It is not negotiable. It is not relative, but absolute.
For me, it’s Jesus Christ who is Always Faithful.

Divine Mercy Novena – Day 9

by

Divine Mercy Novena

Day 9

“Today bring to Me the Souls who have become Lukewarm,
and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. These souls wound My Heart most painfully. My soul suffered the most dreadful loathing in the Garden of Olives because of lukewarm souls. They were the reason I cried out: ‘Father, take this cup away from Me, if it be Your will.’ For them, the last hope of salvation is to run to My mercy.”

Most compassionate Jesus, You are Compassion Itself. I bring lukewarm souls into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart. In this fire of Your pure love, let these tepid souls who, like corpses, filled You with such deep loathing, be once again set aflame. O Most Compassionate Jesus, exercise the omnipotence of Your mercy and draw them into the very ardor of Your love, and bestow upon them the gift of holy love, for nothing is beyond Your power.

Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon lukewarm souls who are nonetheless enfolded in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. Father of Mercy, I beg You by the bitter Passion of Your Son and by His three-hour agony on the Cross: Let them, too, glorify the abyss of Your mercy. Amen.