Atrocities At Our Front Door

Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.

May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days,
and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon;
and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,
adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He,
beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that
are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights,
may He create peace for us and for all Israel;
and say, Amen.

Kaddish- English Translation

Let us not forget that those who were slaughtered in their Synagogue are our brothers and sisters.

  Let us not forget that Jesus was a Jew. 

 Let us not forget that he was an obedient Jew.

  Let us not forget that he read from the Torah and worshipped in the Synagogue.

We must fight this evil in our country and in our own hearts.

O Father God and Lord of all,

Look down on your children as they weep and mourn.

Comfort the widow and the orphan.

~Cindy

Faith and Fear.

"Faith and Fear both demand that you believe in something that you can not see.  You choose." - Bob Proctor

When living on the sailboat I was fearful of the weather and the shore.  If given a choice I would choose open water over coming into harbor.  The harbor was filled with obstacles and shallow water.  Oh how I hated shallow water!

It seems to me that we are heading for shallow water.  In our fear we allow knee jerk responses to replace prayerful and thoughtful responses.  We condemn Colin Kaepernick because he, in peaceful protest, is taking a knee during the National Anthem.

Before Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee I didn't know who he was or what he did or believed in.  Now he is front and center of a National debate.  It is easy to vilify Colin and claim that he is not patriotic.  Who is he, a millionaire football player, to shout discrimination?  From what I have read Colin is not talking about himself in this peaceful protest.  No, Colin is talking about groups of people that have been and are currently being discriminated against.

In my humble opinion we are being stirred up by hate and haters.  Social media and the politically  inclined among others stir the pot to divide us.  They want us to dislike and distrust each other.  If we live in a them and us world it is easier to to stand on opposite sides and toss garbage at each other. It is easier to be controlled.  We find ourselves in group think.

Several times on Facebook I have seen a post that states we need Jesus now.  I believe that what we really need is people willing to live and act like Jesus.  We can't just go to Mass on Sunday and think that we have our ticket punched.  No we must go out and be Jesus to everyone that we meet.  We must be merciful and forgiving.  I know those words are easy to write and easy to read.  It is much more difficult to live them.  I believe that we must try!

I do not know what Jesus would do.  However, based on His past behaviors I do not think that he would be condemning Colin.  Jesus wasn't much for condemning.  He asked questions and made thought provoking statements.

John 8:1-11New Living Translation (NLT)

A Woman Caught in Adultery

8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery.5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

11 “No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

O Lord,
let the condemning stone fall from my hand.
Let me be a mirror of Your mercy and forgiveness.

Help me to choose Faith over Fear
Help me to show Mercy to others as You have shown me Mercy.

Curb my tongue...
~Cindy

We do not recognize Him!

"Holiness is not for wimps and the cross is not negotiable, sweetheart, it's a requirement."
-Mother Angelica

I love the readings during the Octave of Easter. Jesus is raised from the dead and He appears to His disciples and His Mother, Mary.  Yet, each time that He appears to them they seem not to recognize Him!

This has always concerned me.  Why didn't they, who walked with Him, ate with Him, and shared in His public ministry not recognize Him when He appears to them?  Father Charlie hypothesized that perhaps Jesus looked different, or perhaps they didn't expect to see Jesus.  Jesus takes the time to appear in places that they had all been together during His life. I love that fact that Jesus cooks breakfast for them on the beach.  What an incredible image of Our Lord on the beach, fish and bread on the fire cooking for His disciples.  How much He loves them and us to do the most ordinary of tasks for them.  He feeds them!

We too are like the disciples.  We don't recognize Jesus when we see Him.  Perhaps it is like Father says, we don't expect to see Jesus there.  But there He is, sitting in the pew behind us chatting as they plan their golf date, or the parishioner that rubs us the wrong way or that we rub the wrong way.  He is in the homeless person on the corner that we wonder are they really down on their luck and should we just drive by.  Jesus is in the family member that has hurt or disappointed us.  Jesus is the rebellious teen or the forgetful parent. Jesus is in the sick or dying spouse that we care for on a daily basis until we fear we can't do it any more.

Let us not forget that Jesus is also in the innocent smile of a child.  The painted sunrise and sunset are gifts from God.  Jesus is in the smile of a total stranger that lightened our dismal day.

Jesus is not in the tomb.  HE IS RISEN!

Lord help me as I move through my day
to see You in others.
Help me to see You in others that annoy, hurt or anger me.

Help me to see You in my small cross.

Help me to lighten the cross that others carry.

~Cindy

GPS

Assumption of Mary, Immaculate Conception Basilica
Denver, CO

"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life..."
John 14:6

I have been traveling with my parents.  During our driving adventure I have been learning my new GPS.  In Albuquerque, New Mexico I found a Costco Store that had the cheapest fuel.  So using the app on my phone I clicked on the routing function.  I wasn't happy with the route so I plugged in the location on my new GPS.  Unfortunately I forgot to turn off my phone's navigation.  So my poor Dad is holding my phone while the GPS and the phone are giving us differing voice directions!  "Just keep me on the Blue Line, Dad" and we should be fine."

It is extremely difficult to not follow voice direction.  I struggled to not listen, but was distracted and Dad aptly kept me on the blue line to our destination.  I had always wanted to see Albuquerque, but not that way.

I started to think that perhaps GPS really should stand for God Positioning System.  It seems to me that most of us have our battling directions, our God Positioning System and the WPS ( World Positioning System).  They like my two GPS' battle daily for our attention.  I like to think that the Blessed Mother is sitting next to me trying her best to keep me on the Blue Line so that I can make it to the correct destination.

We were reminded in Sunday's Gospel reading that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He is the ultimate GPS.


Lord,
please continue to be with me
as I travel this road of life.
Help me to listen to Your Direction.
Keep me from distraction and the
World's Positioning System.

~Cindy

The First Sunday of Advent

Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear and a shout of joy in the heart.
-St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Preparation.  We are or should be in preparation mode.  Advent is here!

I could not help but think of Mary and how she was preparing for the birth of Our Lord.   What great Faith she had.  Unmarried, espoused to a man that could have turned his back on her, living in an occupied country, and yet she believed that God was going to take care of everything.

My faith waivers occasionally in the face of the unknown or when I am not sure of what God wants from me.  I hear Him knocking and sometimes I hesitate to answer His call.  I am fearful of what He will ask of me.  Some days I can not even be a witness in small ways.

I complain about other drivers, parishioners that are not behaving the way I think they should, the clerk at Wal-Mart, and my friends on Facebook.

So here I am in preparation mode again.  I am trying to remember the reason for the Season.  It has always been my favorite Season.  There is a hopefulness in the Season of Christmas.  There is a sense that all can be right with the world.  But this will be my second Christmas without Michael.  The first Christmas without him came so fast of the heels of his death that I was numb.  Now I am struggling with decorating.  Should I or shouldn't I?  Michael would want me to decorate and enjoy all that the Season has to offer.

I remember when he asked me if I thought he could make it to Midnight Mass and I had to tell him that I did not think he would be here for Christmas.  Yet all around me Christmas lights twinkled in the night dispelling the darkness, carols wafted in the air, and Mass was celebrated.

It is not enough for me to just sit in my pew.  No I am called to more.  I am called to be a witness.  I am called to open the door and invite Jesus into my heart.  I am called to be a light that dispels the darkness.

Lord,
I ask you to come into my heart
this Christmas Season.
Open it wide so that I may be a light in the darkness.
Open it wide so that I may be kind to those that are unkind.
Open it wide so that I may be a gentle reminder of Your Love.
Help me to have the Faith of Mary.

~Cindy

A Seat at the Table

When I was growing up there was always a place at the table for extra people.  I was so confident of this that I would on occasion invite people over for dinner and not tell my Mom.  She was gracious and made sure that some how she had enough to share.

Our dinner table was where we all sat down together.  We were not allowed to answer the phone or watch television.  It was a time to share our day.  We talked to each other.  We asked to be excused from the table when we were finished eating.  It was an important part of our day growing up.

I have often wondered what it would have been like to sit at the table with Our Lord.  This past week my prayer partner helped me to experience sitting at table with Our Lord in a very different way.

Yes, I know that when I am at Mass that I am invited to the Table of Our Lord in Holy Communion.  I take advantage of that great invitation as often as possible.  It is the Eucharist that sustains me.

But last week when I was so grieving Michael's death we went to the Grotto to pray our Rosary.  She had told me that there was a new "Jesus Table", but my mind could not even imagine what it would be like.

As we walked under the live oaks on the path to the grotto she instructed me to turn right and there He was.  Jesus was sitting at an empty table with open spots for all and any who wanted to join him.  I welled up with tears and a sense of peace came over me.  I wanted to sit right next to Him.  I wanted to touch Him.

There Jesus was breaking the bread with the cup in front of Him.  He assured me that there was a seat at the table for me.  I will admit that as I approached I thought about whether to sit on His right or His left.  But that thought left as a I
chose my place and sat with My Lord.

Oh Lord,
How can I thank You for all the blessing you bestow on me?
I come to you broken and empty,
It is You that fills me.
It is You that heals me.
It is You that offers me a seat at Your Table.


~Cindy

A Tangle of Threads

Wow, what a week it has been.  I have been up and I have been down.  Feeling a little discombobulated, yet sure that I am on the right path.  I pick up one thread and put it down only to pick up another and then return to the original choice.

I seemed to have trouble calming my mind to listen.  Then I read from the second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians:

Brothers and sisters:
We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

The message for me is there is always hope!  If I can truly carry the body of the dying Jesus in me then I will have the life of Jesus in me!  I will be as the people in the psalm, " Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing."

Rejoicing.  It is a word and an emotion that I fear we use little these days.  It is often difficult to see in our pain and sorrow that the God that loves us is there with us.  Our struggle is to use the pain and sorrow to be drawn closer to Him.  Joy and sorrow are both gifts, yes gifts that God gives us so that we may lay our head near His Heart and listen to the sound of Him in our Souls.

I have two bowls of yarn by my chair where not only do I create, but I hear God talk to me in the silence of my crocheting.

 One bowl is full to overflowing with bits and pieces of completed works.  Too small to be of much use, but you never know.  Even when living on our boat I was hard pressed to throw away any bit of rope or twine. 

The other bowl is piled with bigger left overs.  They seem to have more potential.  They are wound neatly enticing me to use them.  Yet, more often than not I find myself reaching into the small bowl of bits and pieces to mark my place, to consider a color combination.

I think that God is similar to those two bowls.  He helps us wind up the ends of threads, but He often picks from that small bowl of tiny bits to help us weave our lives into the creation that He wants us to be.

Lord,
Help me to remember that even when perplexed,
I will not be driven to despair;
When persecuted,
I will not be abandoned;
If struck down,
I will not be destroyed;
Lord, I am only an empty vessel,
waiting to be filled...

~Cindy

The Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.  This is one of only three Nativities that the Church celebrates.  Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother are the other two.

It is not lost on me that I was called to the desert and to be a part of the community of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

John was the precursor to Our Lord.  He lived in the desert and lived on wild honey and locusts.

It was John that leapt in his mother's womb at the sound of Mary's greeting. It was John the baptized Our Lord.

In the Responsorial Psalm we hear:

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother's womb.



Reading that response I was reminded that I am re-weaving my life.   But it was Our God that weaved me in my mother's womb!

In the Gospel according to Luke we hear these words:

When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, "No, He will be called John."  But they answered her, "There is no one among your relatives who has this name."  So they made signs asking his father what he wished him to be called.  He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed.

Not that I think that I am as great as John the Baptist, but I too was not named for a relative.  St. John the Baptist and I have many things in common.  He cried out in the desert and God heard him.  I can only hope that Our Lord still has His ear turned to the desert.

Lord,
I am sitting on the banks of the Colorado River.  The River Jordan is far away.  I too am sitting in the desert as John did.  When he heard Your call he answered with his whole heart and gave his life.  Help me to hear Your call for me.  Help me to have the strength to give you my whole heart and my life for You if that is Your Will.

O Lord, you have probed me, you know me:
you know when I sit and when I stand;
You understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar.
Psalm 139

The Woman at the Well

I love this story about the Woman at the Well.  It allows us to listen in to Jesus talking to someone.  Someone who is shocked that Jesus, a Jew, would talk to her a Samaritan.  Yet, he does talk to her.  He talks to her about Living Water.  How important water is in the desert.  He is offering her water that will meet the needs of her soul.

More importantly I love this story because I could be that woman.  A woman married multiple times and was living in sin with yet another man who took on the role of husband when, in fact, she and I have no husband.  I have no doubt that this woman made it to heaven.  I have often wondered what her "husbands" thought when they joined her there.  It is my hope that I will make it to heaven, after a healthy healing time in Purgatory.  Three of my four husbands are there or at least I hope they are in Purgatory and will meet me there.  I know in my heart that they are not concerned with this earthly life anymore, nor will I be concerned about it.  But for a moment consider how they might be talking about all of us.  So sure of ourselves and yet, stumbling around.  Sinners all!

We are just the people that Jesus came for, to lift us up, to give us Living Water.  I am standing at the well.

Lord,
Help me to realize that You are the Living Water. You are the one who saves me.  Let me lower my jar and fill it to the brim so that You may slack Your thirst.

~Cindy

I am the light of the world

Getting up in the dark to take Cynthia to work has given me a chance to watch the world wake up.  I loved getting up while living on the boat and watching the moon set and the sun rise while sitting in the cockpit and contemplating my day.

Now I sit in the desert and watch the lights twinkle in Laughin across the river.  The moon still sets and the sun still rises.

This morning as I sat waiting for Cynthia, I was reminded of a time on the boat when we were on the Inter-coastal Waterway.  It was dangerous to travel at night and we planned each day to be somewhere safe away from the traffic of the barges.  One day in Louisiana we failed to get to our anchorage before dark.  Dark, I have never seen it so dark, as it was that night on the ICW with no moon or light of any kind except the glow of our chart plotter.

Our safe anchorage was what they call a hidden anchorage.  It was only as you lined up with some trees and motored through the lily pads that it opened up to a cove that two boats could fit in.  We missed it in the total darkness and were hard aground.  Stuck in the darkness.

It is so easy to get stuck in the darkness.  We make bad decisions, we forget to pray, we think that we can do it ourselves.  We let petty slights fester into gaping wounds.  And so we sit in the darkness with danger all around us.  We forget that Jesus is the Light of the world.  We forget that He holds us in the palm of His hand and has called us by name.

So this morning I was drawn to two verses about light.

John 9:5 While I am in the world I am the light of the world.

Romans 13:12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Lord, help me help you be the light of the world, the dawn is breaking!

~Cindy

Getting Lost in the Busy

I was texting with my prayer partner last night.  She is feeling a little over busy and is concerned that she may be losing sight of her call.  It happens and I can relate.  In the Honeymoon phase when you are so on fire you sign up for every retreat, society and mission that you can work into your schedule.  You fill your day with commitments that are more about doing then about being.

Prayer becomes rote and there is little meaning.  Though in times of aridity it is right to continue praying.  We want to be careful not to become "whited sepulchers" more concerned about the Law than the Spirit of the Law.  We don't want to be: just seen praying.  We must pray!  But it is not important to let others always see or know that we are indeed praying.  We continually must evaluate our motivation.  It is a delicate balance.  I like to remember that Jesus often times appears to be overwhelmed by the crowds.  He takes time to go to a quiet place to pray.  We need to do that too.  Prayer is the battery charge that keeps us going and gives meaning to our lives.

So I was praying about my prayer partner this morning and I thought of Martha and Mary.  In Luke 10:38-42 we read:

"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

I am a lot like Martha.  I run around and make sure that everything is as it should be and only stop when exhausted and a little upset that no one was helping me.  Though if I am honest they wouldn't do it the way I want it anyway.

I struggle to be like Mary.  I want to sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, but my mind starts to wander with all the things that I need to get done.  I am making mental lists of lists.  I find being quiet difficult!  I can hide in my busyness.  So I try and practice being quiet.  I try to listen.

So dear prayer partner if you want I am willing to change places though I think we both need to take a breath, go to a quiet place, and listen.  I believe that He is calling...

~Cindy