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Apr222015

Quick hit for the skies and a dedicated clip from Song of Songs

Return flight home lots of turbulence landing and flying over Lake Erie.  Loved it.  What have I been missing all of these years never flying.  I want to fly over the Rockies.  A west coast pilgrimage will be sought. The Cistercian monastery Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville, Utah comes quickly to mind.  Another is the Colordado mountain Trappist retreat provided by St Benedict’s Monastery, the home of Father Thomas Keating.  My immediate and intense attraction to flying makes me think I should have considered being a pilot.  My mother would have never let it happen.

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Song of Songs for Ann Marie Najjar, for everything she has done for me.

Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon.
…from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,
You have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
With one jewel of your necklace (rosary).
How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,

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Mar302015

Farewell Discourse

Gospel of John chapter 15

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

17 This I command you, to love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ 26 But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; 27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

End chapter 15

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Mar042015

Love, silence, and mortification

Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.. –St John of the Cross

St John of the Cross Adoring

St John of the Cross Adoring

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Feb262015

Simplicity enough

“When one loves, one does not calculate.”  –St Therese of Lisieux

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― simplicity-davinci-quote00

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Feb112015

Softer Gentler Touch: Mary Undoer of Knots

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Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love,
Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need,
Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children
Because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exists in your heart,
Cast your compassionate eyes upon me,
See the snarl of knots that exist in my life.
You know very well how desperate I am,
My pain,
How I am bound by these knots.
Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children,
I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life.
No one, not even the evil one himself, can overpower your precious care.
In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone.
Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator,
Take into your hands today this knot…
I beg you to undo it for the glory of God,
Once for all, You are my hope.
O my Lady, you are the sweetest consolation God grants,
The fortification of my feeble strength,
The enrichment of my destitution
And with Christ the freedom from my chains.
Hear my plea.
Keep me,
Guide me,
Protect me,
O safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me

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