To Prepare For Christmas

Dear Reader(s),

Let's believe that we're all brothers and sisters.  Ghandi once said, "I cannot harm you without hurting myself."  May we take this to heart, and (at the very least) be kind to one another.

Have a blessed day, and smile at each sister and brother you meet...

Creativity

I heard it from a songwriter (a clip from an interview on the radio):  The more that you create, the more creative you become.  Let's create something beautiful today, dear reader!

Caring

I love Dr. Seuss, and I recently watched "The Lorax." I really enjoyed it, and I loved the quote (which is so true): "Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." I agree, and I'd like to add a suggestion: The most important thing to care a lot about is not a "thing." It's each other.
 

Elizabeth of Hungary

Today is the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who was both married and widowed at a very early age; a princess who eventually used her dowry to build a hospital where she cared for the sick. She is the favorite saint of a retired nurse who is very special to me. St. Elizabeth, pray for us!

How can you help someone who is ill or is in need today?  (A smile, a visit, a card or letter, a prayer???)

House Guest

Last week, we received a visitor--in the mail!  His name is Roger.  He's a reindeer and he's traveling the world as part of a school project. A certain young girl wants to see how far he will go before returning to her. If Roger was an old-fashioned steamer trunk, he would have stickers from several countries and a couple of continents already! As we usually do with visitors, we allowed him time to recover from jet (postal?) lag, then took him to see the Alamo; we also snapped his picture, as requested.

Roger will stay with us for a few more days. Then we will gently send him on his way...to another country...in Africa this time. Roger says that he hasn't discovered that continent yet, and is looking forward to the next leg of his trip.

What country or continent would you like to visit?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! What's your favorite scary story or poem? Here's one of mine:

Antigonish by Hughes Mearns

Yesterday, upon the stair,...
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...


Be safe, dear reader, and have fun!

Feast of a "Blessed" Today

Chiara "Luce" Badano was an Italian teenager who courageously faced suffering as the "will of God" for her.  Throughout her illness, she never stopped loving Jesus or her family, friends, and other people that she encountered.  It's good to read about her life, and ask for her intercession.

(BTW, note that she did receive some morphine for the pain that she experienced; but, she refused increasing doses of morphine because they kept her from thinking clearly.  She developed her own special method of living in the present moment, which helped her through her physical pain.)

Blessed Chiara Luce, pray for us!

http://reallifecatholic.com/blog/blessed-chiara-luca-badano-pray-for-us

The Task Before Us

“Yours is the gigantic task of overcoming all evil with good, always trying amidst the problems of life to place your trust in God, knowing that his grace supplies strength to human weakness. You must oppose every form of hatred with the invincible power of Christ’s love.” -- St. Pope John Paul II

I'm going ahead with you to love with the love of Christ, dear reader.

Not Just for Young People

“Dear young people, let yourselves be taken over by the light of Christ, and spread that light wherever you are.” -- St. Pope John Paul II

Let's shine His light together, dear reader.

St. Luke, Evangelist

St. Luke was a doctor, devoted to treating the ill and easing the pain of the suffering, healing them if he could. Imagine him encountering Jesus' apostles, and seeing them heal people in Jesus' name without any sort of medicinal treatments. Wouldn't he have been astounded? No wonder he decided to follow Jesus, and then write about him. 
 

Think about your own doctor. He asks you questions and writes things down carefully in your chart, so that it will be accurate, and you can receive proper treatment. I imagine that in order to write his Gospel, Luke asked many questions of the Apostles and took care to write the correct information down about Jesus. His is the Gospel of Jesus' love and mercy, filled with many miracles and healings. But, the healings he describes are not limited to the physical. He also tells of healings of hearts and lives through Jesus' forgiveness, especially the cases of Zaccheus the tax collector, Peter's denial, and the repentant thief crucified beside Him.

Read a little bit of the Gospel of Luke today. Marvel at the details.

God's Immense Love

God thought of you, chose you to be His child, and loved you, even before He had created the foundations of the world. In the midst of the hundreds of billions of people who have existed on earth, God loved YOU and wanted YOU, even with all of your faults. He created you with a unique purpose, and He created you to enjoy eternity in Heaven with him. Spend some time thinking about this today. 

 This reflection is based upon Ephesians 1:1-10 and a meditation from The Word Among Us Press.

Treasure!

To live on love is not to set up our tent on Tabor. It is to climb Calvary with Jesus and see the Cross as a treasure.

                                                  St. Therese of Lisieux

Prayer for Today

and maybe every day (at least for me), courtesy of The Word Among Us Press:

A clean heart create for me, O God. (Psalm 51:12)

Yes, Lord, give me a new heart! My old one is tired, sin-sick, and covered with dust accumulated over the years. Only you, Father, can create something new! You speak, and it comes to be. So speak that word over me, Father: a new heart.

Lord, I need a new heart, a heart filled with the wonder and joy of salvation. Let it be a pure vessel, whole and sound, free from damage and defect—a fountain of your love that bubbles up and spills over into my day.

Father, my heart is cluttered. Come in and clear it out! Rearrange the furniture that has been strewn so haphazardly around. So many things are too heavy for me to move on my own: angers, old injuries and grudges I can’t seem to forgive, pain over losses and unreturned love, affection and attention never offered to me, abuse and shame and guilt I can’t get past.

A new heart, ordered and in harmony with your desires—this is what I need! A space that pleases you, a place where I can host your presence every day. I want to be with you. I want to have you with me, making all things new. In that newly cleared space, Father, place a steadfast spirit, willing to love and serve and obey you all the days of my life!

Come, Lord, and straighten out the untidy mess I have allowed to heap up: habits and behaviors that hinder your life in me, unwholesome images I have seen and godless attitudes I have carried, and lies I have believed and nurtured. Rid me of the junk I have heedlessly tucked away so that the light of your love can shine in me and through me once again.

Father, give me a new heart—renewed in love, eager to love you in return, and overflowing with love for others. Let your truth and wisdom shape my heart so that I can know your ways and walk in your paths. Come, Lord, and lead me in your truth and teach me. Give me a teachable, loving heart, a heart in which the fruit of your Spirit can grow and mature.

“Lord, I need a humble and contrite heart, a heart that is always open to you!”

All I Want to Say Today

my friends, is that God loves you IMMENSELY!

Think about it.

Meditate on it.

It just might change your life!  God bless you.

Love One Another

Let us love...since that is all our hearts were made for. -- St. Therese of Lisieux

Pearl of the Week

A big thank you to the Foxes for making Five Steps to Facing Suffering the "Pearl of the Week."

http://www.pilgrimcenterofhope.org/news/category/pearl/

What my heart says today

My thoughts often run to you who suffer, and I offer your sufferings, which are so great, while mine are so small.  Those of you who are sick, when things are hard, take refuge in Christ’s heart. There my own heart will find with you strength and love. -- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Each Person an Artist

“Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
― John Paul II

Create, my friends, create!  Make it a beautiful gift to the world!

I love being an author!

A big thank-you to the staff, teachers and first graders at Kay Franklin Elementary for inviting me to Career Day. Wow! All of you are awesome!

Beautiful Thought

especially for authors...

God writes His name on the soul of every person. Reason and conscience are the God within us in the natural order. Human beings are like so many books issuing from the Divine press, and if nothing else be written on them, at least the name of the Author is indissolubly engraved on the title page. God is like the watermark on paper, which may be written over without ever being obscured. Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Life of Christ)

Have a blessed day, dear reader!

Happy Mother's Day

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. -- Abraham Lincoln

Ditto. -- G. Guadagno

Easter Meditation

(Never too late...there are 8 days of Easter.  Happy Easter, dear Reader!)

Christianity is true because Jesus is risen.

So that he wouldn’t be taken from that pitiful tomb a large stone blocked the entrance and in front of that there was a guard. But the story took another direction, through which he left and opened up eternal life, even in death.

The Church exhorts, on the mouth of the empty tomb: heads of State, Kings and magistrates to understand; that which is difficult to understand; so much so that the same mistakes are endlessly repeated: they come from one dictatorship and prepare another; they take note of the second war and plan a third; they take care of people in disasters by adding to their mourning.

Through the countryside of the resurrection pass the delicate figures of women. In these love has overcome fear: and when the apostles had gone to ground hiding, the women came out and looked for the one who is Love: they discovered that He had risen. They find the confirmation of the Gospel: that the religion of Jesus is a duel against death, a victory over it; in fact its substance is love, which knows no limits. Beauty ends, honor terminates, justice stops at the margins of law, but love knows no barrier, it goes beyond the furrows of evil, the background of death. With the sacraments we can assure a continual resurrection from evil, which is the substance of death: and the sacraments, the substance of life, are produced by love, as redemption and as the Church.

Christians are not allowed to despair; they are not allowed to lose heart when faced with death. Their house can collapse, their riches scatter: they will pick themselves up, and take up the fight again: the fight against evil. Christianity lasts whilst it remains firm in the belief of the resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ, our Leader, draws us into and makes us participants in it through his life, he obliges us to never despair. He gives us the secret to lift ourselves up in every fall. He gives us the arms for the fight and the strength to conquer death. The spirit, if it is rooted in Christ, prevails. Ours is a religion of life; the only one in which death has been victoriously, and if we want it, definitively banished.

Today, we are on earth, but linking ourselves to the Christian spirit, people rise again. So, like Mary, who took her son freed from the nails of the cross and held him in her arms, the Church holds our crucified humanity in its womb and prepares it for the resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ must be the reason for us to be reborn in our faith, hope and charity: victorious in our actions against the tendency of death, each one with their neighbor reborn in a unity of affection, every nation reborn, in agreement of actions, with other nations.

St Augustine, in a talk about Easter and the process of our resurrection, couldn’t find better words than to quote the apostle of love who says: – We have passed from death to life because we love our brothers.

And therefore: let us love one another, to help each other to live. In this way we will rise again.

Igino Giordani, published in Le Feste, Turin, 1954

Good Friday Meditation

Jesus Forsaken:   Jesus is the image of the one who has been deceived, betrayed; he seems a failure. He is fearful, timid, disoriented. Jesus Forsaken is darkness, melancholy, contrast. He is the image of all that is strange, indefinable, that has something monstrous about it. Because he is God crying out for help! He is the lonely person, the derelict... He seems useless, an outcast, in shock...... Consequently, we can recognize him in every suffering brother or sister. When we approach those who resemble him, we can speak to them of Jesus Forsaken. To those who recognize that they are similar to him, and are willing to share his fate, he becomes: for the mute, words; for the doubtful, the answer; for the blind, light; for the deaf, voice; for the weary, rest; for the desperate, hope; for the separated, unity; for the restless, peace. With him the person is transformed and the non-meaning of suffering acquires meaning. He had cried out a "why"* to which no one replied, so that we would have the answer to every question. The problem of human life is suffering. Whatever form it may take, however terrible it may be, we know that Jesus has taken it on himself and--as if by a divine alchemy--he transforms suffering into love. -- Chiara Lubich

 

*"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Facebook is my new TV

When I was a kid, I loved watching TV.  Cartoons, sitcoms, variety shows (oops, that reveals my age), even the occasional Saturday afternoon horror movie.  I guess part of that stemmed from being an only child, having busy parents, and enjoying being entertained.  The problem: TV was often mesmerizing, and I'd either procrastinate--about doing chores or homework--or do them at a snail's pace, not to mention neglecting to practice the piano.  This infuriated my mom.  "That damn television is the ruination of everything," she would say.  If she needed to discipline me, most often she revoked my TV privileges.  I hated that.  Even though I was an avid reader, enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, Legos and other toys and pastimes, being unable to watch TV really stung.

It's decades later and...only the venue has changed.  I dislike TV now and watch very few programs.  However, I spend a lot of time on the computer, on e-mail, and on Facebook especially.  For Lent, one thing that I gave up was Facebook games, and I've done pretty well with that, by the grace of God.  But, I still find myself logging in several times a day, reading posts, seeing if anyone has commented on my posts, and so on.  I realize that the latter is a selfish, ego thing.  I like attention, but how much attention do I really need?  What am I paying attention to?  Are those things really worthwhile?  Do they inspire me, enlighten me, challenge me?  I bet you can guess the answer.

I want to love and serve God and others, beginning with my family first and then reaching out as widely as I can...which can happen especially through my writing.  Have I been writing on a regular basis?  I bet you can guess that answer, too.  So, here's my idea, and my challenge.  After I entrust my entire self and my entire life to God each morning, I need to use the computer for work, the work of Truth and Beauty.  When I've done the work and earned some relaxation, I can visit Facebook for a while.  I'll set the oven timer, maybe for 20 minutes.  Why that timer?  Because it'll just keep beeping, and beeping, and beeping until I get up and turn it off.  But first, I'll log out of Facebook.

Why do it this way?  Why not just use a computer that isn't hooked up to the internet?  That's easier, of course.  But, it doesn't strengthen my will or my ability to resist temptation at all.  Maybe I'll fail a lot, but if I keep trying each time I fail, I might improve, little by little...and do the will of God more and more.

Please pray for me, dear reader.  I'll pray for you, too, and I'll let you know how I'm doing with my new "program."

"My food...is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do."  (John 4:34) 

Belated Thank-You

Many thanks to the Friends of the J.B. Nickells Memorial Library and the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum in Luling, TX for a great "Meet the Author" event.  I met some terrific authors and shared information with them; I also met some wonderful librarians and teachers interested in having me visit their school.  A very worthwhile trip...

Writing Inspiration

From one of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury:  "Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way."

Let's step out of the way, fellow writers, and put something into a document today.

Meditation for the day

(Thank you, Chiara.)

When the soul doesn’t sing, then something is occupying it and this something should immediately be given to God. The suffering could be brought on by external things (and these are more easily overcome by souls who want to love Love); the sufferings could be within us (scruples, doubts, melancholy, temptations, emptiness, homesickness). They all need to be given to God. The quicker the giving, the sooner love descends into our hearts. But be careful: a giver cannot go on... keeping for her a gift that’s been given away.

If you feel something, whatever it may be, which doesn’t allow your soul to be at peace then you need to give it over to him with an effort that is equal to the size of the gift. If you keep something for yourself, even just the thought of the gift, then you appropriate a treasure for yourself (a tiny treasure) that no longer belongs to you.

Only into the extreme poverty of a soul which loses itself for love does the Lord God enter triumphant with the fullness of joy. That is why the Pascha was a “passing over” for all of us to a life of never-ending joy as we live the Ideal in its fullness.

Now, do you want the Eternal Model? Jesus, Crucified and Forsaken. His soul, which is the soul of the God-Man, filled with the greatest suffering ever known in heaven and on earth, the suffering of a God abandoned by God, never doubted for a moment about offering it to his Father: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum (Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit).” Let it always be the same for us.

And do you know what Jesus will say in answer to your offer? Omnia mea tua sunt (All that is mine is yours). Everything he’ll give you, the entire fullness of his joy. May he give you everything.

—Chiara Lubich (entered into heaven March 14, 2008)

Thought for the day

Not to just think about, but to live:

The strongest person is one who is dependent on God. The greatest is the one who is humble before God and the tallest is the one who kneels and bends before God.

 Nishan Panwar

Happy 2014!

Dear Reader,

May God bless you with abundant health, joy, love and prosperity this year.