Right Where I Am

A prayer by Sharon Nelsen

This prayer came to me this morning after I had written out a quote from Joan Chittister, OSB "listen with compassion,...listen for the truth of a thing...(and) obey what makes your heart more human." That popped out at me from all of my morning readings. Then this scripture from which came the prayer:

"To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise." (Psalm 116.17a)



Praise You, Lord, right where I am
Praise You in the strengths and weaknesses
of my body
of my mind
of my emotions
of my spirit
May all of my weaknesses become vessels of Your Strength
May I use all--strength and weakness
to give your glory
now and forever.

 Amen!

Praise Him!

Go Off to a Deserted Place and Pray

Sunday, February 8^th, The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Judy Morss

Today's readings are taken from:

Job 7:1-4,6-7  

Psalm 147

Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 

Gospel according to Mark 1:29-39

Job is in torment; he is being tested by both God and Satan, as we are each day of our lives. Job cries out that his "days come to an end without hope...I shall not see happiness again."    Yet when I read further in this chapter (v 8-12), Job has turned to prayer and receives the gift of humility and trust in God.

In Psalm 147, we are reminded that the Lord "heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" and to "Praise the Lord, for he is good." This Psalm calls us to praise, to prayer.

As I reflected on the readings of today, my thoughts kept coming back to the gospel reading, Mark 1: 35. "Rising very early before dawn, He left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed."  The New Testament is filled with so many instances of Jesus going off to pray. Sometimes, Jesus needed to get away from the crowds, to find peace and a chance to gather His thoughts.  Other times, he needed to spend time with His Father.

 As I think about the solace found in going off to pray in a quiet place, I recognize that this is something I don't do nearly often enough. I get tangled up in the things of life.  I pray the rosary while I am driving somewhere to do something.  I pray while I wash the dishes, fold clothes, etc. Even when I am in adoration, I find my mind wandering. I am still looking for that quiet place where I can truly pray.  Finally, I have realized that until I quiet myself, my body, my thoughts, my heart, my soul, I can never find that deserted place where I can truly pray.

Lent is rapidly approaching.  I am not planning on a huge list of what I am going to GIVE UP during Lent. Instead, I am going to focus on finding that deserted place where I can pray. I do know that deserted place is already inside me.  I merely need to ask the Lord to open that door and help me step inside. As we enter the Lenten season, I pray that all of us can find that deserted place where we can truly encounter our blessed Lord and Saviour.

Peace and Blessings -- Judy

Unplug!

A Reflection on Psalm 95:7b-9 N.A.B.

By: Larry T

Scripturally “hardness of heart” can mean imperviousness to God’s revelation (Exodus 7:13, Mark 6:52) as well as willful resistance to signs of God’s presence (Mark 8:17). Those who harden their hearts refuse to see, hear, or acknowledge God’s attempts to communicate with them.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:

“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

as in the day of Massah in the desert,

Where your fathers tempted me;

they tested me though they had seen my works.”
 – Psalm 95:7b-9 N.A.B.

Will we hear God today? Maybe. At some point on our spiritual journey, like young Samuel, we have to familiarize ourselves with the Lord’s way.

¹ During the time young Samuel was minister to the LORD under Eli, a revelation of the LORD was uncommon and vision infrequent.

² One day Eli was asleep in his usual place. His eyes had lately grown so weak that he could not see.

³ The lamp of God was not yet extinguished, and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was.

⁴ The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.”

⁵ He ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you,” Eli said. “Go back to sleep.” So he went back to sleep.

⁶ Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli. “Here I am,” he said. “You called me.” But he answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.”

⁷ At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD, because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet.

⁸ The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am. You called me.” Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.

⁹ So he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” When Samuel went to sleep in his place,

¹⁰ the LORD came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

- 1 Samuel 3:1-10 N.A.B.

And if we want to hear him we have to listen intently because God doesn’t yell, as evidenced in the First Book of Kings, he whispers:

¹¹ Then the LORD said, “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

¹² After the earthquake there was fire—but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.

¹³ When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, “Elijah, why are you here?”

- 1 Kings 19:11-13 N.A.B.

How hard would it have been for me to hear God while I was watching the broadcast of the New England Patriot / Indianapolis Colt game? Was watching that game a bad thing? I hope not! How hard is it to hear God during a frantic work day? How about while I’m reading the daily news or checking text messages?

Will I hear the Lord in the tranquility of an hour of perpetual adoration? How about during the serenity of contemplative prayer? While reading Holy Scripture? Praying the rosary? Maybe. But if I don’t unplug from the world and set time aside for Him, I will never hear Him. 

And if I do feel a nudge steering me in one direction or the other, how will I know if it is truly the Lord? I will know that it is Jesus when I am being guided into somehow contributing to the spread of His Kingdom.

A Reflection on Habakkuk

by Sharon Nelsen

One day in our weekly faith-sharing group, we prayed for the Lord to give us words of knowledge for each other; words that would build up our faith.  I received the word, “Habakkuk.”

I knew the short book of Habakkuk, which is found between Nahum and Zephaniah and was written just prior to the Babylonian Exile, and I wondered why God was leading me to it now.  As I began to read, I was struck with the dialogue between Habakkuk and God that begins with the prophet strongly expressing his feelings:

   “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen!” (1.2)

And God responding as if Habakkuk had asked a totally different question:

“Look over the nations and see, and be utterly amazed! For a work is being done in your days that you would not have believed, were it told.” (1.5)

Well, here I am, writing letters to God for over thirty years, expressing a cauldron of feelings and always hearing God respond with words that seem to circumvent what I was asking.  I’m beginning to relate to this man with the drum-like melodic name who speaks with such boldness to God. 

Does this have anything to do with what the Lord might be asking of me now? I am very aware of my inner reality.   Oh timid spirit, where is your boldness?  Are you waiting for God to do something magical--to wave a holy wand, and “poof” out springs a manuscript?

A woman mired in waiting, I go back to Habakkuk.  Now he is boldly asking God, “Why then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself?” (1.13)

Again God responds by getting to the heart of the matter, this time with an encouraging mandate:

        Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.  For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” (2.2-3)

Well, old Habakkuk, I hear God speaking to me through you--right to the heart of my dilemma: “Write down the vision clearly so that one can read it readily.”   I decide to talk to God about it.

“Help me, Lord.  You know how uncomfortable I feel in sharing what I hear from You.  I am waiting for You to show me if what I hear I need to pass on to others, and if so, how?  I ask you to remove all barriers within me.”

And the Lord says, “Yes, I hear you.  Yes, I answer you-- in My words to you and in My words to Habakkuk.”

“First,” I hear God say, “Let’s look at how you perceive waiting: It is difficult for you to wait when apparently there is no resolution.  Things are not clearly resolved and that bothers you.  Why?  Because you think unresolved means:

·         Not good

·         Not what I hope for

·         Not favorable.

Unresolved simply means, “not yet resolved.”  If you believe and trust that I complete what I have begun, and you believe and trust that even if it is something that seems like your idea, I can bring good out of it, you will be able to wait in peace while the “not yet” unfolds.  In regard to our dialogues, you remain in an unresolved state because you are waiting to receive permission from a “higher authority.”  You have received permission from a higher authority, but you don’t trust that you have.  Essential to the walk of faith is stepping out because the Truth has embraced you and you cannot ignore it, deny it, or suppress it.  What you hear in the dark and are able to proclaim in the light comes from the gift of boldness that you so admire in Habakkuk and that is resting in your soul waiting to be activated.

Can you trust that I will not lead you, my beloved, astray?  Are you self-conscious because you are aware of your flaws, your weaknesses, your sins?  Whether you do things perfectly or not, I am with you.  Does “with you” mean agreeing with you in every aspect of your life?  Do you agree with your spouse, your children, your siblings, your friends on every issue, every subject?  Do they agree with you on every issue?  Yet, are you not “with each other” for life?  Do you not love each other deeply?

Agreement is not the issue; you can agree without love and you can love without agreeing.   When you let go of self-conscious and become God-conscious, you are in right relationship with Me, and you will find yourself “agreeing” more and more with My ways, which as I have said before, are not your ways.  Yet, know that I love you whether I agree with you or not.  And, I love you whether you agree with me or not.

Let’s look at My words to Habakkuk that struck your heart: “If the vision delays, wait for it.  It will surely come.  It will not be late.”

Delay is the key word here.  Delay means, “not yet here.”  Delay is about your perspective of My timing.  You hope for it now, you think it is better the sooner it arrives, and when it does not meet your expectations, you fall into your old thinking patterns about unresolved issues. And, like many before you, you risk missing the vision when its time has come. 

Those who wait for Me with courage, who are stout-hearted and wait through the delays, knowing that the vision is Truth, that its source is Me, recognize the vision when its time has come--when it is fulfilled.  A good example is Luke’s story of Simeon who waited for the vision to be fulfilled and recognized the Savior of the world. (Luke 2.27-32) 

While “not yet” is at the core of delays, “not timely” is at the core of late.  Late is about the earthly reality of time-- a time to be born and a time to die, a time for everything under the sun.  When the rains are late, the seedlings will wither and die.  If you arrive late at the airport, you miss your flight (unless it was delayed!)  Late misses the acceptable time, the day of salvation.

You are able to stay with the delays in the unknown and unresolved when you are confident that the source is Me.  Then you can wait, trusting that I bring all things to fulfillment at the proper time; that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, that I make all things new; that My words to the Church, My words to each person who listens and hears My Voice are trustworthy and true.

Recognize, as did Habukkuk, that now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation, and write down what you hear clearly so that it can be read.  Boldness in My Spirit empowers you to proclaim the Truth you have heard.  As you obey, new life is born in you, life that bears fruit as a tree planted by running streams. Even as we speak, it is being fulfilled.

I thank you Dear Father of Life for waiting for me to catch up to the vision you have for me.  Thank you Habukkuk, for writing about your own process clearly so that I could read it today. I can sum up today’s experience with your own closing words:

         
God, my Lord, is my strength;
He makes my feet swift as those of hinds
And enables me to go upon the heights.” (3.19)

Will You Accept His Invitation Today?

The parable of the Great Banquet in the Gospel of Luke  brings back memories of my Presbyterian Sunday School and Wednesday release time instruction.   How many Bible stories I remember because we sang them! 

He replied to him,
“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.
When the time for the dinner came,
he dispatched his servant to say to those invited,
‘Come, everything is now ready.’
But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.
The first said to him,
‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen
and am on my way to evaluate them;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
And another said, ‘I have just married a woman,
and therefore I cannot come.’
The servant went and reported this to his master.
Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant,
‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town
and bring in here the poor and the crippled,
the blind and the lame.’
The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out
and still there is room.’
The master then ordered the servant,
‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows
and make people come in that my home may be filled.
For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

What puzzles me most about this parable is that is seems that the neighbors invited initially said yes!  But, in absence of a true and intimate friendship, they really meant yes, unless....

It is so important to take time everyday to pray and to develop the capacity to know and respond to His voice.  To order my actions, my hopes, my dreams and my ambitions to Christ.  And, oh boy, did I need this reminder, because life has been craaaaazzzzzy lately (on top of everything else:  potty training …need I say more?).  Being that I am not an overly organized person this has caused major disruptions, and there is a pressure to jettison any activity that is not necessary or “productive”.  My high hopes for the day are for dry pants (that would be for Max)  and dinner on the table before bedtime, how on earth can I think of more than that!!

 It is so easy to give in to the temptation it is to push my relationship with Christ off to some abstract, distant Neverland.  But you can't just stumble into Heaven, you must be intentional in your desire to be there!  If He calls for me today, if today is my last day in this world, will my desires be ordered on the Wedding Feast of the Lamb or will they be diverted and perverted by the cares of this world?  Will He have to look elsewhere for someone to hear and respond to Him?

Here is the song…but be warned it is an ear worm, you will be humming it all day long.

(I had to update this because my whole reflection did not copy over, and while I am at it, here is what Pope Francis had to say.)

Why Are You Still Sleeping? A Palm Sunday Reflection

A reflection on Palm Sunday's Gospel of the Passion of the Lord

March 24, 2013

Then going out, he went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.  When he arrived at the place he said to them, “Pray that you may not undergo the test.”  After withdrawing about a stone’s throw  from them and kneeling, he prayed saying, Father, if you are willing to take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.”  And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him.  He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.  When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief.  He said to them “Why are you sleeping?”  Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.”  Luke 22: 39-46

I am completely overwhelmed by the readings for this Sunday.  They are rich, but so familiar, that it takes quite a lot of readings to settle myself down into prayer.  Since the readings are so familiar every distraction claims priority in my ill focused mind.   The words “Why are you still sleeping?” keep echoing back to me.  Sleeping?  Me?  

.

“Why are you still sleeping?”

Don’t you love the persistence of our Lord when you have allowed a smidgen of His word to penetrate your heart?  Yet, much like the befuddled, grief stricken apostles, I have no idea where I am being led with this question.  It is much easier to fall asleep, to complacently put aside His request for my attention rather than allow His word to unsettle dormant desires in my soul.  I like feeling like I have everything under control.  But when you let the word of Jesus echo in your heart and mind, you will soon feel a stirring in your soul; the troubling of sleepy, complacent waters.  And yes, you will find that all is not well there, you need Him, desperately.   Persist, be brave and keep praying!  Because you and I are needed when the hour of darkness falls on us in our own time. 

.

“Why are you still sleeping?”

The call of Christ to awaken in each of us the desire to cultivate a heart of unceasing prayer is becoming more and more urgent.  Maybe I am feeling this way because recently, at a Lenten retreat, I was struck by an image a gentleman shared with us.  He received this image during our meditation time.  At first he had been a little distracted by the fast paced music that was playing quietly in the background, thinking that it was not very “Lenten”.  But he persisted in his prayer and soon enough he settled in and could see in his mind Jesus walking very quickly with His disciples following behind.  The man caught up with Jesus and asked him why He was walking so fast.  Jesus replied “because there is not much time.”  It sent chills down my spine.

Or maybe it is because our new Pope Francis has, like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, pinpointed spiritual poverty as the prevailing sickness of the wealthier nations of the world.  And it is a sickness that has left us sleepy and complacent as objective truths are replaced with the dictatorship of relativism.  We are being enslaved by our baser desires, and many of us are not in the least bit aware of it. The farther we go down this path the harder it is to desire truth - to seek it out with the energy and fervor that are needed to stay awake and endure in the dark mysteries of life, and we have already progressed so far down this path as a culture.  The words of Jesus in the gentleman’s meditation “there is not much time” fall even harder on my heart after I hear this.

Why are you still sleeping?”

  Remember the C.S. Lewis quote that I used in my post on John 6 last summer?  It was a quote, spoken by an elderly Christian man as they await a decisive battle against evil, from his book That Hideous Strength:

Have you ever noticed,.....that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?....I mean this,....If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family- anything you like- at a given point in its history you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and codices are even more momentous.  Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse:  the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing."  Pg.280-281

 In our distracted, social networked, trans-gendered, create- your- own- truth world the time we have to reach souls is diminishing fast.  We are entering into a time where straddling between faith and culture will no longer be possible.  Are we doing enough?  Are we giving our young ones, not just words of truth, but a living relationship with Truth Himself? Are we teaching our own little ones how to pray more deeply and more intimately with Christ, so that their love for their Lord will override the incredible pressure to side with a culture that increasingly cannot acknowledge objective truth, and is, in fact, hostile to it? If not we need to wake up, and we need to wake up now.  If we cannot teach our own children that Jesus wants you to persist in prayer, through all the struggles and through all the grief in our lives, how in the world are we going to be light for those who lurk in some of the darkest shadows of despair? And, again, the pervasive and growing hostility to our faith, as well asl the ever-present distractions that surround us, make these outreaches even more urgent!

“Why are you still sleeping?"

One way to help us to awaken those around us who practice our faith, but may not live it intentionally, is to teach about prayer and to let every one know that it is in prayer that we learn to love Jesus with passion and with courage! It is in prayer that we begin to discern His voice, and as we persist through our distractions and through our sleepiness, we will begin to know that He is always intimately present. We really need to let the Spirit into our imaginations and let Jesus show us how we are written into His story. To give to one another the courage to cry out to Jesus like Bartimaeus did, persistently.  Or to run the gauntlet of accusers -- those 'voices' that discourage us and would keep us from seeking out the Lord --  like the sinful women with the alabaster jar; so that you can weep at His feet and receive His tender love and forgiveness.  We need to give our young people the inheritance that is theirs by their baptism. They are sons and daughters of the Father.

If you have perceived that persistent call of Jesus, to awaken your soul to prayer and to help others awaken as well , as always He does not leave us orphaned and alone.  There are growing ministries responding to this call.  One that I participate in that has focused on reaching out to our children is One Heart ~ One Fire Ministries.  

Peace and Grace to all of you!

Heidi

Update:

Here is another link, to an article written by Matthew Archbold on the National Catholic Register.  Again, I can her His voice:  "Why are you still sleeping!"