Hello my friends! My blessings today were a nap, and tonight I'll get to see the twins again, as we are staying overnight. Many more blessings, too many to count, but I am battling a hay fever spell, took some AlkaSeltzer Plus again - just dripping a lot! That should help. Please pray that it stops, and also pray the twins don't get sick in any way! Thanks. I didn't have hay fever for years, and now it comes back again. Thought I outgrew it!
Tomorrow Lori's coming for lunch at Darla's so I'll be having lunch with my daughters! That's always a blessing too. Life has been busy here, and thanks for the lap top I received, I can keep up with that. My list in the morning, and my thread at night works on there too! Didn't with the tablet. May God heal you who need healings, and bless you all is my wish for you!
The gift of listening is often more valuable than the advice that we'd like to give.
Lord, help me to be a good listener and then help me to let others work things
out according to Your plan for them, not mine.
S C R I P T U R E F O R T H E D A Y
"I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and
that your joy may be complete." ~John 15:11
M E D I T A T I O N F O R T H E D A Y
"I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and
that your joy may be complete." Even a partial realization of the
spiritual life can bring much joy. We can feel at home in the world
when we are in touch with God's spirit. Spiritual experience can
bring a definite satisfaction. We can search for the real meaning of
life by following spiritual laws. God wants us to have spiritual
success and God intends that we have it. If we live our lives as much
as possible according to spiritual laws, we can expect our share of
joy and peace, satisfaction and success.
P R A Y E R F O R T H E D A Y
I pray that I may find happiness in doing the right thing. I pray
that I may find satisfaction in obeying spiritual laws.
Words of Mother Teresa on Children and the Family:
We are here to be witnesses of love and to celebrate life, because life has been created in the image of God. Life is to love and to be loved. That is why we all have a strong stand so that no child, boy or girl, will be rejected or unloved. Every child is a sign of God's love, that has to be extended over all the earth.
If you hear of someone who does not want to have her child, who wants to have an abortion, try to convince her to bring the child to me. I will love that child who is a sign of God's love. I don't want to talk about what should be legal or illegal. I don't think any human heart should dare to take life. Life is the life of God in us. Life is the greatest gift that God has bestowed on human beings, and man has been created in the image of God. Life belongs to God, and we have no right to destroy it.
(to be cont.)
As soon as Mary received the announcement through the angel, she went in haste to her cousin, Elizabeth, who was with child. And the unborn child, John the Baptist, rejoiced in Elizabeth's womb. How wonderful it was - Almighty God chose an unborn child to announce the coming of His Son!
Mary, in the mystery of her annunciation and visitation, is the very model of the way we should live, because first she received Jesus in her life; then what she had received, she had to share.
In every Communion, Jesus the Word becomes Flesh in our life - a special, delicate, beautiful gift of God! This was the first Eucharist; the gift of His Son establishing in her the first altar. Mary, the only one who was able to affirm with complete sincerity, "This is My Body", from that moment on offered her body, her strength, her whole being, to form the Body of Christ.
Our mother the Church has evaluated women to a great honor in the presence of God by proclaiming Mary the Mother of the Church.
When we were invited to take care of the young women of Bangladesh who had be raped by soldiers, we saw the need to open a home for children. The difficulties were great because accepting in society young women who had been raped went against both Hindo and Muslim laws. But when the leader of Bangladesh said that those young women were heroines of the nation, who had fought for their own purity, who had struggled for their country, their very parents came to look for them. Some people favored abortion. I told the government that the young woman had been violated, whereas they wanted to do was force these women or help them commit a transgression that would accompany them throughout their lives. Thanks be to God, the government accepted our conditions that each of the children for whom abortion would have been chosen should be taken to the house of Mother Teresa to receive help. Of the forty children we received, more than thirty went to Canada and other countries, adopted by generous families.
I believe that the cry of the children, those who are never born because they are killed before they see the light of day, must offend God greatly.
We asked God to send us someone to help women cope with their difficulties with a clear conscience, a healthy body, in a happy family. There came to us a sister Mauritius Island who had attended a course on family planning. Right now there are more than three thousand families who use natural family planning and it has been about 95% effective. When people see these good effects in their families they come to us to say thanks. Some of them have said, "Our family has stayed together, in good health, and we have a child when we desire it."
I think if we could bring this method to every country, if our poor people would learn it, there would be more peace, more love in the family between parents and children.
People very often make jokes with me (or about me, rather), because we are teaching Natural Family Planning. They say "Mother Teresa is doing plenty of talking about family planning, but she, herself does not practice it. She is having more and more children every day."
Indeed that is the way it is. Our homes are always full of children. And as they come, God has been tremendously wonderful to us. You would be surprised how much love is showered on those unwanted little children, who otherwise would have been destined to live in the gutter.
I think the world today is upside down. It's suffering so much because there is so little love in the home and in family life. We have no time for our children. There is no time to enjoy each other and the lack of love causes so much suffering and unhappiness in the world.
Are we able to perceive the needs of our children? Do our children come home with us, as Jesus went home with Mary, His Mother? Do we offer our children a home?
When our children are pulled away from us and receive bad advice, do we feel that deep tenderness that makes us go after them in order to draw them toward us, to welcome them kindly in our home, and to love them with all our heart?
Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater development and greater riches. Children have very little time for their parents and parents have very little time for their children and for each other. So the breakdown of peace in the world begins at home.
Bring prayer to your family, bring it to your little children. Teach them to pray. For a child that prays is a happy child. A family that prays is a united family. We hear of so many broken families. And then we examine them: Why are they broken? I think because they never pray together. They are never in prayer before the Lord.
I cannot forget my mother. She was usually very busy all day long. But when sunset drew near, it was her custom to hurry with her tasks in order to receive my father. At the time we did not understand, and we would smile and even joke a bit about it. Today I cannot help but call to mind that great delicacy of love that she had for him. No matter what happened, she was always prepared, with a smile on her lips to welcome him.
Today we have no time. Fathers and mothers are so busy that when their children come home they are not welcomed with love or with a smile. If we help our children to be what they should be today then, when tomorrow becomes today, they will have the necessary courage to face it with greater love. From the very beginning, since love begins at home, I think we should teach our children to love one another. They can learn this only from their mother or father when they see their parents' love for each other. I think this will strengthen our children so that they can give that love to others in the future.
People who really and truly love each other are the happiest people in the world. We see that with our very poor people. They love their children and they love their families. They may have very little, in fact, they may not have anything but they are happy people.
Jesus was born into a family and stayed in Nazareth for thirty years. He came to redeem the world, yet He spent thirty years in Nazareth, doing the humble work of an ordinary person. He spent all those years just living out family life.
A child is the greatest of God's gifts to a family, because it is the fruit of the parent's love.
Prayer to Redeem Lost Time
O my God! Source of all mercy! I acknowledge Your sovereign power. While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things. Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future, that I may appear before You in "wedding garments." Amen.
Saint Teresa of Avila
A Prayer for the
Clergy and People
1928 Book of Common Prayer
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift; Send down upon our Bishops, and other Clergy, and upon the Congregations committed to their charge, the healthful Spirit of thy grace; and, that they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessings. Grant this, O Lord, for the honour of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Franciscan Magnificat
With Mary my soul proclaims the love of the Lord,
my Franciscan spirit exults in God, my Savior.
For He has looked with favor on His lowly servant, Francis.
Behold, all generations will call him blessed.
The Almighty has raised up a family of Franciscans
- Blessed be His Name! -
Who spread peace, love and joy to all in every generation.
Through Francis He has lavished His love on the poor;
And showed us how to love God in His creatures;
He has scattered the wicked in their ways;
He has confused the worldly in their pride;
He has given us a world-wide mission.
To fill the hungry heart with our preaching.
And with Lady Poverty to confound the rich.
Through us He has lifted up the humble;
For He has remembered His promise of peace and joy,
The promise He made to our Father Francis,
and to his followers forever.
Father Gabriel Giles, OFM, Cap.
Bullets
The words of our lips are like bullets
aimed at targets each day.
We open our mouths and spit them out,
and they are on their way.
Once we pull the trigger
there's no getting back that round,
So shouldn't we be very careful
just how they will sound?
We may not really mean to kill
the ones to whom they're sent--
Perhaps just to "straighten them out"
is that on which we're bent.
Words take but just a moment,
but their wounds can last for years;
So let's listen to them with our hearts--
before sending to their ears!
Let's make sure that our "bullets"
originate from above,
Fired consciously from our mouths
as "missiles" of GOD'S LOVE.
Let's take an extra moment
to consider this known fact--
That once we "pull the trigger"
there's no getting the bullet back!
Helen H. Parks
3-12-02
"Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips."
(Psalm 141:3)
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