Hello dear friends! Holy Thursday already!! With all the snow here it doesn't look like it, but it is!! Beautiful Mass always on Holy Thursdays - looking forward to going. Hope you all can attend your Mass or services. Today's blessing - snow plows - so we won't be snowed in. Another blessing but at first it was scary was that I just heard today that one of my first cousins, Mary, she's elderly, has a dog she sure loves, and late Feb. she let him out in the middle of the night and she fell, she couldn't get up, snow all around her and she couldn't get up at all. The back garage door was open so the dog went in, and in the morning, a neighbor opened her shades and saw her laying there in her back yard, and called the ambulance, her one arm was pretty badly frozen, she had boots on and winter coat, so that helped, she's losing all her fingernails, but she is recuperating and nothing has to be amputated. Her arm is much better now. Praise God. She isn't home yet, she's in a rehab place and we'll go visit her as soon as we can. It's a blessing she didn't die there, she thought she would. Thanks to all of you who are praying for Lori and for Darla's acceptance for her job in Mpls. I appreciate your prayers - they are powerful!
Keep your heart clean by constant spring cleaning. Then there will be a place
for beauty and peace. Lord, help me to remove carelessness and disrespect from
my heart and in all things may I celebrate Your love for me.
Scripture for the day:
"Those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the
cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things
come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. And these are the ones
sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit,
thirty and sixty and a hundredfold." ~Mark 4:18-20
Meditation for the day:
If I have a singleness of purpose, I can do my part in God's work. I need
not let material distractions interfere with my job of improving personal
relationships. It is easy for me to become distracted by material affairs,
so that I lose my singleness of purpose. I don't have time to be concerned
about the many concerns of the world. I can concentrate and specialize on
what I can do best.
Prayer for the day:
I pray that I may not become distracted by material affairs. I pray that I
may concentrate on doing what I can do best.
How To Achieve Peace of Soul!
By the late Father Kilian McGowan, C.P.
Used with permission, from the Passionist Priests
More books, pamphlets and columns on peace of soul have probably been written in the last decade than in all the time since the birth of Christ. No generation has sought peace more desperately than our own. Yet, this desirable state of mind and heart seems to be more elusive than ever.
Why should this be? God promised us peace in the words of Isaias: "Lord, thou wilt give us peace." At the birth of our Blessed Lord the angels promised peace to men of good will. It was one of the last things promised by our Lord before His death, and the first after His Resurrection: "Peace be to you." (Luke 24:36)
The booming psychiatric trade indicates much is to be desired in the lives of individuals. Divorce and juvenile delinquency attest to lack of peace in the home. And the "Cold War" is sufficient proof of the lack of peace on the international scene.
The fact that our human hearts instinctively desire and seek peace of soul is evident. Could it be that we're looking of it in the wrong place? Or that we're not willing to pay the price for it?
True peace of soul will ever be the product of warfare and victory. In the spiritual realm it comes to those who wage a total warfare against sin and selfishness. It is a gift given to everyone who surrender to the demands of the Risen Savior telling us "to seek the things that are above."
1) We must surrender our minds to our Lord by living according to His law: "Much peace have they that love thy law, " Psalm 118 guarantees. The Gospel, containing revealed information on where to find peace, is the "Peace Plan" of God.
Obviously, it would be presumptuous to hope for peace without even consulting the Gospel. Yet, there are those who never do. The Creator, Who designed your human nature, reveals a way of life productive to peace. It must be studied and applied.
2) We must surrender our wills to our Lord by making the love of God the supreme goal of our life on earth: "Submit thyself to Him and thou shalt have peace." Charity is the perfect way of surrendering our hearts to God, and one of its first effects of peace.
A lot of people lack peace of soul because their desires are in conflict with the will of God - and thus with their human nature.
Once they make the "great decision" - that is, the resolution to make God's will the norm of their actions - they will find peace. Of this, you can be sure.
3) Finally, we must surrender our hearts to the Presence of God. God did not design the human heart to be separated from Him. Without Him there's an unsettling restlessness that nags us and leaves us without peace. As St. Paul writes: "He is our peace." (Eph. 2:14)
We must never forget that our model for peace is a battle-scarred warrior who won a total victory over sin and death by unconditional surrender to His Father's Will. Only thus, did He merit the glorious peace and victory of the Resurrection. It's ours also to share. But we must be willing to pay the price!
"Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father´s house into a market."
Lord, You have the Message of Eternal Life
As we continue our Lenten journey we interrupt the reading of Mark´s Gospel and for the next three Sundays we turn to the fourth Gospel. The traditional symbol for John is the eagle, perhaps because of the clarity and breadth of his vision of who Jesus is, and in particular his portrayal of the glory that is his even in his hour of suffering and death.
PERSONAL PRAYER
God our Father, in the mystery of the Word become flesh, you offer to humanity the person of your Son, Jesus. He is the one through whom we can approach your throne of grace. You have taken the first step in your love for human beings by sending him among us as an example of how we should love and as a sign of your concern for us. The love which you have for him is offered to each of us, his followers and to the entire human race. May we try to return that love in the same spirit as he did. We make this our prayer, through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.
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