Monday, May 28, 2012
Little Angels
As I prayed, during the 4th watch, one morning, I saw angels. There were three, and they were visible either in my imagination or mind's eye for only seconds. The first ran away into the light, at a bit of a distance from me. The second passed by me, at not so great a distance, and the 3rd came up to my face, to peak at me. It's hard to remember if I dreamed this, or if my mind imaged all this as I prayed, but I was told the angels got curious about what I was doing and came to check it out. When I saw them, I didn't understand them to be angels, because they were like very wee children, darting about away, past and to me and away again. Remembering it, regardless of it's nature, real or imagine, dreaming or awake, makes me feel all smily inside.
Forgiveness Is One of God's Greatest Blessings
The forgiveness I am speaking of is not His forgiveness of us. Most Christians know very well how forgiven they are and for how horribly much they are forgiven, and what a blessing that is. What I am writing about, today, has to do with how freeing and blessed it is to have Him instill you with a heart of forgiveness for others, even those who do the most damage, in your life. After decades of struggling to forgive, from my own heart, I began to aquire God's heart for others and understand how much responsibility I have for the care and love of others, especially my enemies.
What would be my destiny, if I failed to forgive others enough to want them to share Heaven with me, is damnation. I know this as surely as I know He has forgiven me, so much more than I deserve to be forgiven for, in a lifetime of stumbling through life, injuring others, along the way through insensitivities, oversights, omissions and commissions, slights, ignorances, inattentions, snappings and grumblings, whinings and complainings, unappreciation, self absorbings, disturbings and many other things that we all do to others, as we stumble through life.
Others can cause us great griefs and harms. However, most of the time, we are clueless as to how and when we injur others, ourselves. We especially are careless with strangers, we may never see again. Our impatience and hurriedness is often a source of grief for those in service jobs and positions. Those tears we see are ours to dry. The wounds we see are ours to bandage. The sorrow we see is ours to console away. God doesn't send anyone or anything into our path that can not help us to be Him, more and more, as we journey through life and seek out oneness with Him and likeness to Him. Even the most difficult people and circumstances can be food for the health of a soul.
Catholicism is all about the pursuit of holiness and holiness requires the capacity to receive injury and not cease to love those that He sends into our path. It is not optional to forgive, it is essential that we develop the capacity to forgive injury from others and receive those who do us harm as forgiven, and it is a great gift, a great grace, and an incomparable blessing to be able to do so, and to be doing so, in all circumstances. There is no more freeing act of love than forgiveness.
Without the capacity to let go of hurt, we wollow in it and are bogged down and dragged down towards earth and it's earthly chains of sadness, hurt, disappointment, resentment, anger and all those other things that being hurt can bring about in your heart. It hurts our own hearts to hold in and hold on to hurt and any bitterness we may have over that hurt. It is not healthy to hold on to and hold in all of that. We die younger for having done so and each new wound just lessens our lifespan all the more.
Freedom in Christ comes in putting Him on like a garment, to change ourselves into His true likeness body, mind and soul. Judgement belongs to God for a reason. None of us knows the heart of another like He does, so none of us can accurately judge another. We can not see deep into the heart of even our best friends and family to know what may be motivating them or influencing what they are doing. Letting go and letting God is essential, when it comes to judgement.
It is not that I recommend trusting so completely that you become a victim of another repeatedly, for lack of the wisdom and savvy to know better than to leave an open invitation to walk on you. However, I do recommend that you never give a cold shoulder, never give back what you receive, and always receive others, regardless of their track record with you, in love and acceptance where they are, on their journey Home. We can't be truly free until we are free to openly love others, without hesitation. Trust is a whole other subject, from love. We can love, even those we don't trust.
My heart I find, can only soar to Heaven to be in God's company, when I leave behind all that dead weight of whatever I may have to forgive, at that moment. The experience of prayer is greatest, when we meet God on His terms. Forgiveness is one of the terms He insists on for a complete and whole relationship with Him.
Know that if you have done something to injur me, that forgiveness is already yours. If in the future you do more harm, there will still be forgiveness for you. Trust betrayed, may take time to restore, and caution is necessary there, but the love of Christ in me, can not fail to love you or I am not His, at all, after all. You have as long as it takes for Him to come take me Home, to change course with me. After that, you still have my forgiveness, but resolving your issues will become a whole lot more difficult without my words of forgiveness to hear.
Forgiveness in our hearts truly sets us free. Lack of forgiveness could forever weigh us down, so that we can not ascend to Heaven, in this life or the next.
What would be my destiny, if I failed to forgive others enough to want them to share Heaven with me, is damnation. I know this as surely as I know He has forgiven me, so much more than I deserve to be forgiven for, in a lifetime of stumbling through life, injuring others, along the way through insensitivities, oversights, omissions and commissions, slights, ignorances, inattentions, snappings and grumblings, whinings and complainings, unappreciation, self absorbings, disturbings and many other things that we all do to others, as we stumble through life.
Others can cause us great griefs and harms. However, most of the time, we are clueless as to how and when we injur others, ourselves. We especially are careless with strangers, we may never see again. Our impatience and hurriedness is often a source of grief for those in service jobs and positions. Those tears we see are ours to dry. The wounds we see are ours to bandage. The sorrow we see is ours to console away. God doesn't send anyone or anything into our path that can not help us to be Him, more and more, as we journey through life and seek out oneness with Him and likeness to Him. Even the most difficult people and circumstances can be food for the health of a soul.
Catholicism is all about the pursuit of holiness and holiness requires the capacity to receive injury and not cease to love those that He sends into our path. It is not optional to forgive, it is essential that we develop the capacity to forgive injury from others and receive those who do us harm as forgiven, and it is a great gift, a great grace, and an incomparable blessing to be able to do so, and to be doing so, in all circumstances. There is no more freeing act of love than forgiveness.
Without the capacity to let go of hurt, we wollow in it and are bogged down and dragged down towards earth and it's earthly chains of sadness, hurt, disappointment, resentment, anger and all those other things that being hurt can bring about in your heart. It hurts our own hearts to hold in and hold on to hurt and any bitterness we may have over that hurt. It is not healthy to hold on to and hold in all of that. We die younger for having done so and each new wound just lessens our lifespan all the more.
Freedom in Christ comes in putting Him on like a garment, to change ourselves into His true likeness body, mind and soul. Judgement belongs to God for a reason. None of us knows the heart of another like He does, so none of us can accurately judge another. We can not see deep into the heart of even our best friends and family to know what may be motivating them or influencing what they are doing. Letting go and letting God is essential, when it comes to judgement.
It is not that I recommend trusting so completely that you become a victim of another repeatedly, for lack of the wisdom and savvy to know better than to leave an open invitation to walk on you. However, I do recommend that you never give a cold shoulder, never give back what you receive, and always receive others, regardless of their track record with you, in love and acceptance where they are, on their journey Home. We can't be truly free until we are free to openly love others, without hesitation. Trust is a whole other subject, from love. We can love, even those we don't trust.
My heart I find, can only soar to Heaven to be in God's company, when I leave behind all that dead weight of whatever I may have to forgive, at that moment. The experience of prayer is greatest, when we meet God on His terms. Forgiveness is one of the terms He insists on for a complete and whole relationship with Him.
Know that if you have done something to injur me, that forgiveness is already yours. If in the future you do more harm, there will still be forgiveness for you. Trust betrayed, may take time to restore, and caution is necessary there, but the love of Christ in me, can not fail to love you or I am not His, at all, after all. You have as long as it takes for Him to come take me Home, to change course with me. After that, you still have my forgiveness, but resolving your issues will become a whole lot more difficult without my words of forgiveness to hear.
Forgiveness in our hearts truly sets us free. Lack of forgiveness could forever weigh us down, so that we can not ascend to Heaven, in this life or the next.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Moving On
The present difficulty is not my fault. I am not the author of this horror that persists like a pestilence, nor do I have any control or remedy for it, by myself. God gives me His permission and grace to be at peace within Him and move on in that grace, with my life. My prayers will rise to Heaven for those who are the authors of this terrible lie and the damage it does.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Still On the Journey With Clearer Directions and Road Signs
Lost, that's how I would describe myself, about 6 months ago. Now that I am found, not necessarily from being lost as in having lost salvation, I feel like my head just cleared, from the fog of sleep. That sleep was taken in the confused ignorance of mulitiple ways of looking at things, most of them wrong, taught by multiple teachers and preachers of varying denomination loyalties and theological educational levels and understanding.
After months of exposure to EWTN, Relevant Radio and other things decidedly Catholic, my vision is clearer now, and my grasp of what God wants of me, in this life, is also very much clearer. It's sad, I always think, that it always takes me forever to find the points of clarity that were there the whole time, in my spiritual life. Must I always take the long way around to getting to the facts? Apparently, I must, because I do it every time.
What's ahead will be clearer and better, but I still wonder, knowing me, if there are other things that will suddenly become clear, even though they have been right under my nose, the whole time. My right to be unhappy about the circumstances of my life, especially the spiritual aspects of it, disintigrate, under the full responsibility I must take for sitting in a sea of denial, over the decades of my life, even though, as a very young child, I already knew all I needed to know to avoid all the pitfalls I have fallen into, over time.
Parents have excellent advice and wisdom to offer their children, and spiritual leaders have excellent direction to give as well. It's too bad the rebel in me decided to go her own way and did so mulitiple times at life's crossroads, and ignored the wisdom and knowledge of those wiser than herself.
That said, there are people, especially in media, that one should take the directions of with a whole block of salt, on down to a pinch. The one who can guide you as to how much salt if any, to use, is the Holy Spirit. I am far less concerned about the salvation of those being steeped in orthodox doctrines in their neighborhood churches than those listening to flashy styles and fancy vocabulary from televangelists. That stuff is educational, only to the degree that is factual and stands the test of time, the Catholic Church applies to it's doctrines and practices.
While I can't say I get all of what the Catholic Church teaches and the whys behind it all, I am coming to an understanding of why all it's changes are methodically slow and calculated, and based on far more than the Bible. Some stuff was not written down. I have yet to have a question about my faith and it's doctrines that the Church fathers hadn't already covered centuries ago.
Now I know my way. My way is through Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, and the teachings of the Church, which does not change with the winds of social climates or cultural aborations. All of the saints, including Mother Mary, and all of the angels, still loyal to God agree with God, on all of the truth. What a steady compass we have, in the Catholic (Universal) Church. I've heard the number of the protestant denominations stated in the tens of thousands. Now which one of those should I look to, to know the whole truth?
I am no longer a roming Catholic. Now I am comfortable in my place and blooming where God in His excellent generosity to me, planted me.
After months of exposure to EWTN, Relevant Radio and other things decidedly Catholic, my vision is clearer now, and my grasp of what God wants of me, in this life, is also very much clearer. It's sad, I always think, that it always takes me forever to find the points of clarity that were there the whole time, in my spiritual life. Must I always take the long way around to getting to the facts? Apparently, I must, because I do it every time.
What's ahead will be clearer and better, but I still wonder, knowing me, if there are other things that will suddenly become clear, even though they have been right under my nose, the whole time. My right to be unhappy about the circumstances of my life, especially the spiritual aspects of it, disintigrate, under the full responsibility I must take for sitting in a sea of denial, over the decades of my life, even though, as a very young child, I already knew all I needed to know to avoid all the pitfalls I have fallen into, over time.
Parents have excellent advice and wisdom to offer their children, and spiritual leaders have excellent direction to give as well. It's too bad the rebel in me decided to go her own way and did so mulitiple times at life's crossroads, and ignored the wisdom and knowledge of those wiser than herself.
That said, there are people, especially in media, that one should take the directions of with a whole block of salt, on down to a pinch. The one who can guide you as to how much salt if any, to use, is the Holy Spirit. I am far less concerned about the salvation of those being steeped in orthodox doctrines in their neighborhood churches than those listening to flashy styles and fancy vocabulary from televangelists. That stuff is educational, only to the degree that is factual and stands the test of time, the Catholic Church applies to it's doctrines and practices.
While I can't say I get all of what the Catholic Church teaches and the whys behind it all, I am coming to an understanding of why all it's changes are methodically slow and calculated, and based on far more than the Bible. Some stuff was not written down. I have yet to have a question about my faith and it's doctrines that the Church fathers hadn't already covered centuries ago.
Now I know my way. My way is through Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, and the teachings of the Church, which does not change with the winds of social climates or cultural aborations. All of the saints, including Mother Mary, and all of the angels, still loyal to God agree with God, on all of the truth. What a steady compass we have, in the Catholic (Universal) Church. I've heard the number of the protestant denominations stated in the tens of thousands. Now which one of those should I look to, to know the whole truth?
I am no longer a roming Catholic. Now I am comfortable in my place and blooming where God in His excellent generosity to me, planted me.
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