Tag Archives: The Cross

Carry Me

by

I am nailed to myself.  In mercy, Lord, pick up this cross and carry me to Calvary.

Reluctant Prophet

by

I’m thinking about Jonah, the reluctant prophet.  He usually pops up in the readings of the Liturgy of the Word during Lent.  He made his appearance yesterday and has been wondering in the back of my mind giving his prophetic word, “Repent!”

Jonah needed to be hurled into the sea (a place of chaos) before he realized there was no escaping his responsibility before God.  Jonah needed a second chance to get it right. Fortunately, for the people of Nineveh (the worldly city of sinners), having gotten Jonah’s attention, God called the prophet a second time.  God was not going to fix things without his servant’s cooperation.

How like Jonah I am.  I need to be carried kicking and screaming to the Lord’s will.  How slow I am to remember that the only sign I’m going to get is the Now of my life.  I do want Resurrection without the Crucifixion.  So, here I sit in the belly of the whale,  my only sign, the sign of the Cross.  As Jonah spent three days in the belly of the great fish (a sign for Christ ) so Jesus spent three days in the tomb, and I must be there with Him waiting with faith.  Maybe, my Now says I have to do something.  Maybe it says I have to change.  Three days with Jesus in the tomb will prepare me for both mission and mercy.

“Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath,
so that we shall not perish.”
When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out. Jonah 3: 10

A Prayer For Quiet

by

1

While I busy myself, beating at the wind, You, My Lord, are content with a Cross; hands bleeding and unbusy, nailed to Your Father’s Will, unresisting and uncomplaining.

Silence my hurried breathlessness.  Be all stillness.  I surrender all.

Merit for the Unborn

by

1

They will never see the light of a birth day.  Yet accomplishment will be theirs. Because God created them, because they exist, because they have mother and father, ancestors and life, because I want eternity as much for them as for myself, I pray God grant them merit and reward.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through Whom and for Whom all things were created, I pray the blessings of mercy and forgiveness, redemption and conversion, be bequeathed to the lineage of the Little Ones soon to die; aborted, reduced, researched and materialized. Amen.

In the world to come, may you be thanked for the mercy that flowed in answer to this prayer straight  from the throne of God to your fore-bearers countless in number.  May you be embraced in eternity as you never were in life, save for the Heart of God.

What If God Was One of Us?

by

Paul Mayers reflects with this silent video: What If God Were One of Us?

Lent “Forgiving the Living”

by

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“Remember, O man, that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return”

A Lenten reflection on “Forgiving the Living” a phrase used by Immaculee Ilibagiza in her own story:

Left To Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Most of us struggle to forgive, finding it difficult to put aside our bumps and bruises.  We savor our wounds as though they give us pleasure. We are a strange lot.

Imagine, if you can, living with the memory of genocide.  Not a genocide across the world from you, but surrounding you; a genocide that includes your mother and father, your brothers, friends and all your neighbors in one way or another.  Imagine a genocide you can smell and touch and that touches you, that calls your name, hunts you and haunts you.

For thousands in the world today, that is the reality.  For one particular soul, Immaculee Ilabigiza, the author of  Left to Tell, this reality has sprouted wings.  She flies high above her small village in Rwanda living forgiveness, not as a half-hearted effort, but as a mission.  A dream, that she believes was given her by God, opened her heart to the world.  Her touch is one of grace and healing.  Immaculee was left behind to let us know that in order to truly be alive to Life, we can and must forgive by the living grace of God.

Lenten alms and charity