Happy Spring

Thank you Lord for this fabulous first day of spring in NH. It is sunny, no wind, 49 degrees, the lilacs are budding and the birds are chirping. I love being able to take a midday break and walk while all is quite in the neighborhood. We still have quite a bit of snow on the ground, but it does feel like spring. I was able to just be in the moment during my walk and let go of some difficult things that were on my mind all morning. 
I am back at my desk again, feeling relaxed and thankful for that quiet time with God and his creation that surrounds me.

Choose Life, Sirach 14:14-17

We are now in the second day of the season of Lent and I am thinking, what can I do/sacrifice for God this season. I am committed to giving up coffee and I am already counting the days till my next cup. Yes, that is a sacrifice, but so typical.  I’ve been getting email updates from Beth Gaby who is organizing the 40 Days for Life Concord, and thinking about committing some time to join their prayer vigils.

Next, I was reading morning prayers from the Magnificant, and found this scripture from Sirach reach out to me (below).

Somehow people think that abortion, euthanasia, and any other way that a person takes the life of another person is ok. This mindset shows how far away from God’s Word people have drifted or been influenced by a culture that accepts atrocities as everyday events. People are so desensitized to the evil in the world. The Ten Commandments are not suggestions from God, they are our marching orders. Anyone who thinks they can pick and choose which commandments they feel like embracing, is seriously deceived. We do live in a society where the media feeds those lies to the masses. If the masses don’t know the Word of God and embrace God’s truths, they are blinded from what is good and right and holy. God gives us free will to choose life or death. Which will you choose?

Word of God

Sirach 14:14-17

God in the beginning created human beings

and made them subject to their own free choice.

If you choose, you can keep the commandments;

loyalty is doing the will of God.

Set before you are fire and water;

to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand.

Before everyone are life and death,

whichever they choose will be given them.

Choose Life!

God Bless

Paula

"A person is a person, no matter how small"

A quote from Theodor Seuss Geisel's  (Dr. Suess) book, Horton Hears a Who! (1954)

• 
  "Don't give up! I believe in you all.
  A person's a person, no matter how small!
  And you very small persons will not have to die
  If you make yourselves heard! So come on, now, and TRY!"
  
  I heard this quote this morning, watching mass on EWTN and wanted to share this with anyone who has not heard it. The National Catholic Register wrote an article on this and has a picture of an ultrasound to illustrate the connection to every person's right to life.

"And yet sixty years later, the story perfectly captures the ethos of the modern-day pro-life movement with stunning, childlike simplicity. “I’ve got to protect them,” Horton realizes. “I’m bigger than they.” He pleas, “Please don’t harm all my little folks, who have as much right to live as us bigger folks do!”

(National Catholic Register, July 31, 2015)

Those of us in the "bigger folk" position who are more able and have a voice, need to protect the little ones who do not yet have a voice. 

Jesus' words about his little ones.
Matthew 18:10
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 18:14
In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Horton declares a truth about people; regardless of their size, age, or capacity. All people--especially children--deserve respect.

Please, look after and protect the little ones in your lives: the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, the marginalized, and the persecuted. 
God Bless,
Paula

Snow

Yesterday we were blessed with that beautiful frozen precipitation from above. While not everyone considers a snowy day a blessing, a lot of us do. The snow covered the gray and bare landscape we have been experiencing in yet another snowless winter in NH. I love the quietness of a snow storm, minus the snowplows that shake the house as they go by. I like shoveling the driveway. It’s good exercise and fills my dry sinuses with the moist and clear air that comes with the snow. I canceled a couple of appointments and decided to stay home and enjoy the “snow day”. It was a treat that I hope we have more of this winter season.

What does the bible say about snow?

Job 37:5-7New International Version (NIV)

5 God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;
    he does great things beyond our understanding.
6 He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’
    and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
7 So that everyone he has made may know his work,
    he stops all people from their labor.

Notice how snow is a gift from God and one of its purposes is to stop people from their labor.

Isaiah 55:9-11New International Version (NIV)

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

We need the snow to irrigate our land for the summer growing season and fall harvest. Be thankful for the snow. Just as God’s word feeds our souls, so we can do His will. 

Paula

Advent

Advent

Here we are in the third week of Advent. Here in NH we have snow on the ground and it’s freezing cold. 8 degrees right now and -7 this morning. We love the snow because it’s a Christmas tradition the “White Christmas”.

The other day I was watching an EWTN show “Conversations with Cardinal Dolan” and Elizabeth Ficocelli was a guest author and speaker who talked about the season of Advent. Elizabeth talked about her Six Tips to keep the Advent Season Holy. She uses the word Advent as an acronym for her tips.

A= Adoration, spend time with God in the presence of the Eucharist.

D= Divine Word, spend time with the holy scripture.

V= Virgin Mary, remember who is the model of virtue and Christian discipline and our intercessor with Jesus. 

E= Examination of the conscious, be sure to get to confession before Christmas

N= Neighborly, what can you do for others this Advent season? Give to the poor, charity etc. We are the hands, feet and heart of Jesus.

T=Traditions, celebrate through participating in Advent traditions, Jesse tree, advent wreath, special foods, music, lights on your house or window sills, etc.

Merry Christmas

Paula

Sacraments

After experiencing chest pain again, and progressively worse, I got checked into the emergency room of our local hospital. I went through the standard protocol of EKG, heart monitor, blood work etc. At 59 years of age and having several risk factors, they kept me overnight and I stayed hooked up to a heart monitor. This was actually comforting, knowing that care was only a few steps away. While resting in my hospital room, my blood pressure readings were normal for the rest of the night. They were the lowest numbers I can ever remember. The next day I was scheduled for a stress test. The next morning, Dec. 12^th , the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I was so happy to have a visit from one of my parish priests who also has the hospital ministry. Father Maurice prayed over me and with me. He also presented me with the sacrament of Communion (the Eucharist) and the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. I was so much filled with joy and feeling fearless in the palm of God’s hand. After having that 1:1 time with the priest who is in the role of Jesus and receiving the sacraments at my bedside, I felt I could not have been more ready to let go of this life and meet God. Now the day before, prior to the chest pain and going to the ER, I attended mass, received Communion and went to Confession after mass (total 3 Sacraments). I was ready to meet God, but He was not ready for me, so here I am writing about it, still on the potters wheel. 

Thank you God that I passed the stress test, quite pitifully, but good enough to get released from the hospital. Thank you for the "taste of heaven" in receiving Your sacraments and TLC.

The Bible tells us to always be ready to meet God. Matthew 42-44,

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

 Whether it is Jesus’s second coming or your death, we will all face God. I certainly want to be ready, just as I felt ready Monday morning. More than anything I want to hang on to that feeling of readiness, that closeness to God and stay fortified though the Eucharist and repentance. How does one keep that feeling of readiness day in and day out, when faced with all kinds of trials? One thing I know is to keep your eyes and mind on God.

God has blessed me so much in this past week with friends who have prayed with me and for and sending Father Maurice to bless me in the hospital. I truly feel like a beloved daughter of the King of the Universe.

I find Saint Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church, a source of strength and wisdom. The church at Corinth was struggling and St. Paul’s words helped to set them on the right track and unify their church.

2 Corinthians 4:7-11 and 16-18

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 

16 Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

God Bless and Merry Christmas

Paula

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a sacrament is “an efficacious sign of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us through the work of the Holy Spirit”. 

Holy Communion

This morning I am reading Saint Faustina’s Diary, page 494 (1395), and I here is what the Lord shared with Saint Faustina about Holy Communion:

“I desire to unite Myself with human souls; My great delight is to unite Myself with souls. Know, My daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay any attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. Oh, how sad I am that souls do not recognize Love! They treat me as a dead object. “

One cannot help but feel convicted of the times they receive Holy Communion in a distracted state of mind. Just yesterday I was talking with a fellow parishioner after mass about this, and we both shared our struggles in trying to get into a right state of mind and heart to reverently receive Holy Communion. We both shared that we sit up front in church to minimize the distractions of the other parishioners and how people are such a big distraction. If I sat in the back of the church, I would spend the whole mass looking at people. People captivate my attention and my weak spirit struggles with shutting out the world and focusing on the spirit of God. In addition, I need to close my eyes after receiving Holy Communion, because again, I will be distracted by the people coming up to the front of the church and receiving Holy Communion. It seems, no matter how hard I try to focus on the beauty of the mass and the great gift that we receive (body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus), I am still battling with my flesh and the world. I find I do better at week day masses when it’s much quieter and less people to be distracted by.

I like to get to church early, when I am in a more focused state and have some time for personal prayer. Once the first hymn is sung, it is a struggle. Thank goodness we have the cloistered religious to pray for this world. I am sure that the isolation from the world and frequent moments of prayer throughout the day is the best way to be in a position to receive all of the graces that God wants to give the soul.

I know that beating yourself up about this problem is not the answer. Even the religious (people who belong to faith communities: priests, nuns, monks, etc.), have issues similar to mine and they advise us to just keep pulling yourself back when you recognize that you are getting sidetracked.

Anyone who is reading this and is not a Roman Catholic, may have no idea what I am talking about. Jesus wants ALL people to come to Him and receive this gift of His divinity. Holy Communion is a mystery to all of us, because it is supernatural. So much about being a Catholic relies on our faith and belief in the Word of God (the Bible). Holy Communion is central to being a Catholic. If you read Saint Faustina’s diary, you will begin to understand the relationship of Jesus, Holy Communion and souls (that would us, souls).

God Bless

Paula

Dairy, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, original Polish Diary copyright 1981 Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy