Tag Archives: promise

The Rosary – a Prayer, a Place, a Promise

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Mary, the Mother of God, revealed herself as the Lady of the Rosary. This is akin to saying “I Am the Woman of the Book.” The Rosary is prayer alive on the lips and in the heart of Mary’s children. In the Rosary, we pray the Scriptures which speak of Jesus. They foretell and tell forth the story of Salvation. Mary in effect says pray the story of your salvation. Tuck it in your heart and you will become the womb of Jesus who in gladsome labor births My Son, the Son of God, into the world.

Fr. Groeschel speaks of the Rosary as a place. He calls it a”chapel.” For me, it is that and more. It is my cocoon in the Womb of Mary, centered in the Heart of the Lamb of God. I am formed as I live and as I pray.

The promise of the Rosary lives on the lips of Jesus. As I pray I can hear His Spirit whispering, consoling, proclaiming to me personally, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” “I will come in and eat with you, and you with me. “

Something Bigger Than Ourselves

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I’m thinking about Fr. Jeff’s homily.  He was serious today, though he always is,so much so, it makes me laugh hearing his mental gymnastics.  Today he got straight to the point, however.  The point being: haven’t we all felt a part of something bigger than ourselves?

Some times changes in direction happen quickly, even with just one impulsive decision.  I guess all the other choices in our lives leads us to make that decision, so impulsive or not, it’s more than happenstance, it’s who we are at the moment. With that said, Fr. Jeff spoke of God breaking into the world He had created and wanting, at this moment in Time, to renew it.  He offers a Covenant, which if lived out in the lives of this people, peculiar to the Lord, His Chosen People, would cause all peoples to look on them and desire their God.

Fr.Jeff said, “God’s modus operandi has not changed. Human history is repeating this scenario day after day.” We are called to live exemplary lives.  What a dreamer God must be!  That’s the vision, though.  When Jesus faced the pharisees and said “I Am” they had a choice to make.  They could recognize Him as God, the new Moses, and follow Him…….. or stone him.  You know how it goes from here, from bad to worse.  “Stone him!” they say.” Later it becomes, “Crucify him!”

Jesus confronts us,when we least expect it, and confounds us, as he did the pharisees.  We are unprepared at many junctures in our lives and being unprepared, caught of guard, or rebellious, with the pharisees and mob, we holler, “Stone him!”  Thankfully, moments of reflection follow in our lives, changes in course, second chances.  The Jews got it wrong, but St. Paul promises a day when their blindness will end.  The Church is the New Israel, a second chance at Covenant.  We, too, have a hard time getting it right, but we have the promise made to the Church, “The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”Matthew 16:18

The Reading from Genesis 17:3-9 was:

When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him:
“My covenant with you is this:
you are to become the father of a host of nations.
No longer shall you be called Abram;
your name shall be Abraham,
for I am making you the father of a host of nations.
I will render you exceedingly fertile;
I will make nations of you;
kings shall stem from you.
I will maintain my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,
to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
I will give to you
and to your descendants after you
the land in which you are now staying,
the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession;
and I will be their God.”

must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”

God also said to Abraham:
“On your part, you and your descendants after you

The Gospel was:

Jesus said to the Jews:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
So the Jews said to him,
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area. John 8: 51-59


Wishing Financial Stability

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Glenn Reynolds, the InstaPundit says, “Heckuva job, Timmy.”

He’s a Go-To-Guy, our Tim Geithner.  A quick trip to his promised site and his promised transparency will yield you one thing…..Nada!  He promises the same for U.S.A.What are the chances???   …..Empty promises or wishful thinking?

Financial Stability.gov

This site is coming soon.

St. Gertrude the Great – God’s Promise

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You may find the language of St. Gertrude the Great difficult.  The arcane style is cumbersome in these days of expediency.  If I simplified it, you would lose the sense of the Saint, herself.  Slogging your way through is well worth the effort to get to the treasure . God made promises to St. Gertrude the Great, recorded by the Saint, herself, contained in The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great.  When you consider Who it is who condescends to make the promise, how likely is it that we in our day have outgrown the promise in favor of modernity?

Your liberality, O Lord, has bestowed on me this gift, more necessary than all – certifying to me that whoever, in their charity, will either pray for me – the vilest of God’s creatures – or perform any good works, either for the amendment of my life, or the forgiveness of the sins of my youth, or the correction of my iniquity and malice, shall receive this reward from thy abundant liberality – namely, that they shall not die until, by Your grace, their lives have been pleasing to You; and that You will dwell in their souls by a special friendship and intimacy………

You have added to all these favors, my kind God, by an abundant liberality – that if anyone, after my death, considering with how much familiarity You did communicate with my unworthiness while in this life, should recommend themselves humbly to my prayers, You would hear them as willingly as if they invoked the intercession of any other person, provided that they had the intention of repairing their faults and negligence, and that they humbly and devoutly thanked You for five special benefits which You granted me.

First. For the love by which You  freely chose me from all eternity, and which I declare to be the greatest of all the benefits which You have bestowed on me: for as You were not ignorant of, or rather did foresee, the corrupt life which I should lead, the excess of my ingratitude, and how I should abuse Your gifts, so that I deserve to have been born a pagan, and not an enlightened human being – Your mercy, which infinitely exceeds our crimes, has chosen me, in preference to many other Christians, to bear the holy character of a religious.

Secondly. Because You have drawn me blessedly to You; and I acknowledged it to be an effect of the clemency and charity which is natural to You, Who have won, by the attractions of Your caresses, this rebellious and stubborn heart, which deserves to be loaded with fetters and chains; and it has seemed as if You hadst found in me the faithful companion of yYour love, and that Your greatest pleasure was to be united to me.

Thirdly. Because You have united me so intimately to You; and I declare, as I am bound, that I am indebted for this only to Your signal liberality, as if the number of the just was not great enough to receive the immense abundance of Your mercies, not that I had better dispositions than others, but, on the contrary, that Your charity might be the more signalized in me thereby.

Fourthly. That You have taken pleasure and delight in dwelling in my soul; and this, if I may so speak, proceeds from the ardor of Your love, which has deigned to testify, even by words, that it is the joy of Your all – powerful wisdom to stoop to one so dissimilar to You, and so utterly ungrateful.

Fifthly. That it has pleased You to accomplish Your work happily in me; and, it is a favor which I have hoped with humble confidence from the tenderness of Your most benign charity, and for which I adore You with gratitude, declaring, O sovereign, true, and only treasure of my soul, that I have in no way contributed to it by my merits, but that it is a true gift of Your liberality.

All these benefits coming from Your immense charity, and being so far above my nothingness, I am unable to give thanks for them worthily; but You has further assisted my misery, in exciting others, by the most condescending promises, to render thanksgivings to You, the merit of which may supply my deficiencies. For which may all creatures in Heaven, on earth and under the earth, glorify You and thank You continually!

What hope we have, when we consider the lengths to which our Lord goes, reaching through the centuries, to supply for our lack of merit.