Monthly Archives: December 2014

Joy to the World

Laughter

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

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No Tepidity

Dog

And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; take them down to the water and I will test them for you there; and he of whom I say to you, `This man shall go with you,’ shall go with you; and any of whom I say to you, `This man shall not go with you,’ shall not go.

So he brought the people down to the water; and the LORD said to Gideon, “Every one that laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself; likewise every one that kneels down to drink.”

And the number of those that lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.

And the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Mid’ianites into your hand; and let all the others go every man to his home. –Judges chp. 7

Aspiring to a greater concentration, doing all that we can in order for God to make of us all that we can be as contemplatives, let us take inspiration from Gideon’s chosen men. With haste, rapt attention, lacking self-consciousness,and unrestrained; let us lap up our devotion and dedication to all things that brings us closer to God as dogs lap up water.

Oh great and glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart. Grant me true faith, certain hope, and perfect charity. Grace me with wisdom and understanding so that I may carry out Thy holy and true commandments. –prayer of St Francis before the St Damiano Cross.

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Engaging Warfare

A religious once proposed this question: How it could come to pass, that having very good desires, he yet found himself very weak in executing them, and fell into many faults, without advancing to perfection? They to whom he proposed it attributed this weakness to a neglect of attending to himself, a lack of discipline, and each one prescribed what means he judged most profitable. But they prescribing several which he found did him no good at all, he at length addressed himself to an ancient father, well versed in spirituality, who told him that this happened not from a neglect of attending to himself, but rather from a lack of courage and resolution. –St Alonso Rodriguiz

Words of Faith, Hope, and Charity offered to Ann Marie on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

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Teresa of Avila exterminating infestation from the convent song

A favorite song from a favorite movie (mini-series).  Teresa and her sisters ridding their convent St Joseph’s of lice.  Teresa possessed a profound devotion to St Joseph, crediting the saint for curing her from fatal illness.

St. Teresa of Avila’s Plea

“Would that I could persuade all men to be devoted to this glorious Saint [St. Joseph], for I know by long experience what blessings he can obtain for us from God. I have never known anyone who was truly devoted to him and honored him by particular services who did not advance greatly in virtue: for he helps in a special way those souls who commend themselves to him. It is now very many years since I began asking him for something on his feast, and I have always received it. If the petition was in any way amiss, he rectified it for my greater good . . .

” I ask for the love of God that he who does not believe me will make the trial for himself—then he will find out by experience the great good that results from commending oneself to this glorious Patriarch and in being devoted to him.”

Joseph

Death of St Joseph.  Contemplate Jesus and Mary assisting.

Death of St Joseph II

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Mary Undoer of Knots prayer

Mary, Beloved Mother, channel of all grace, I return to You today my heart, recognizing that I am a sinner in need of your help. Many times I lose the graces you grant me because of my sins of egoism, pride, rancor and my lack of generosity and humility. I turn to You today, Mary, Undoer of knots, for You to ask your Son Jesus to grant me a pure, divested, humble and trusting heart. I will live today practicing these virtues and offering you this as a sign of my love for You. I entrust into Your hands this knot of despair, arrogance, and presumption which keeps me from reflecting the glory of God.

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

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Mystify Old Testament Women

Eve
Exordium de profundis dolorous rifacimento
In the beginning, out of the depths of sorrow, wailing and weeping, gnashing of teeth, came a calling mother to all,
Original sin,
The broken-hearted birth of the blood stained renewal of life giving grace to the following horde of generational de-sanctification.
Another blushing, bleeding out onto the earth, ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, distinguishing a creative likened celestial confinement,
Cursing and copying beneath the breath starting time, days denying, unwinding, dwindling, marking the hierarchy of accumulated crimes,
Preceding the savage stained children she silently loves, bleeding on into compassion abhorred, she never conceived will-powers crushing, smashing proper supremacy,
While bridging waters and piercing a thirsting aftermath of shame, still beneath the heart of a mother beat beyond all relief, loving the birth, while hating the growth,
Human predating the idea of fate, her tears the first tears of a woman to fall, her fears the first fears of a continuing race, her love the state of devastating grace.
Intent upon vibrating within the blame game, she rose to standing, demanding the fault of one who ultimately hoisted the fallen shame.
The adversary, stung by a poisonous tongue the lies of a viper remain,
Flooding, careening, descending mountain streams with tears, for her children she wept, crushing intensely imminent little ones pummeled through terror.
Accepting a heart overflowing accursed accountable droplets appear, falling to nothing a fate so deserved, yet evil immensely asserting damning worse for the horror.
Hopelessly a mother lingers and fingers the enrapturing hands of time, sitting awaiting the predestined mystery divine, innocently deducing the critical crime.
Patiently entrapped amongst a revelation vicious and violent in nature, the quest, the witnessing of the sublime, she waits not for those unadorned in blessed adoration.
She never made claims unfounded by the need for validation, left clothed and cast out, exiting the garden without innocence, knowing too much, goes to show how wrong you can be.

Hagar
An angry pragmatic observing handmaid never asking to be touched by a dove,
Fruitfully naming, The God Who Sees, exceeding the shouting of the unnamed.
Ancient Egyptian colossal wilderness wrath, Osiris, cast thirsting into the nameless avalanche,
An archer’s expanse, a rebellious madman’s advance, the battling breath of a decadent beast.
Balaam blind guiding a transcendent donkey, how can the unchosen love define a wild hand stung by the viper’s fang?
Ishmael comprehends it is all about war in these midlands, foes to hate, divisions to create, inner turmoil transferred and ready to boil.
Unredeemed putrefied carnal swarms surrounding a poisonous name calling forth from the exiled city of desolate remains.
Bend the bow, sharpen the arrow, cut the teeth, let loose the sword, progress the forward, tomorrow the death, all an enemy entwined in the fall.
Today, it all awaits the crescent moon defining, conquering a newfangled nation babbling a vague multitude of names.
Allah has many and the many have Allah.

Rachel
Scenting crimson rose, angels gathering sweetness, enchanting the loving mystical mother,
Senselessly sounding hidden silence amongst the silent, patiently enduring unseen working, waiting upon a love at first sight.
Mystical flowering.
A son is a thing given from above, two, Joseph and Benjamin, even more quiet and righteously tame than a lamb to the slaughter.
The innocent unknowing exist without blame—silence, family, the dignity of labor, the shame of discerning the aim of the envious self-centered game.
Mystical flowering.
A lotus blooms, atop the muck and the mire.
A multi-colored contemplative dream raises an ecclesiastical lost brother amongst a wayward eleven, escaping the pit of despair, until ensnared by a desiring wife.
A covenant ruler of a foreign land descends from the descendants of the alpha, omega, interpreting Pharaoh’s sleeping visions, parading cows, obese and thin, numbering seven.
Mystical flowering.
The latter death inflicting infant kisses not to the one giving birth, stinging the bestowed and traversing the blest, dead and dying a mother is bled.
The child cries out, frantically catching a breath, stumbling not over the manifest willing monumental intent, a baby born barren, a brother and father perplexed.
Matriarchal predestined immaculate birth, Bethlehem houses the transcendental resplendent grave of the curse,
Sarcophagus, future locale of the divine virgin birth.
True love a husband, a contemplative elegance, a mystical flowering, the magnificent massaging of interior beads upon heavenly breasts, solemnly praying into self-neglect. One a Clare brings light, rejecting the hand of the rich.
A heart blossoms from the purified breathless request, providence providing the immense, cloistered repentant imitating sisters following, chanting intent.

Miriam
Following the buoyant brother basket carrying a patriarch’s demand, hiding amongst bulrushes she inclines a helping hand.
Seeing stubbornly to the living on into the dominion of self-regret, she conflictingly needs to contest, Egyptian exiting, traversing through arid harsh lands.
Timbrel in hand, piercingly singing, dancing merrily, endless enslavement inquiries proclaiming the wonders of ceasing enslavement’s demand.
“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”
Wandering older sister to a prophet, wondering elder sister to a priest, servitude a calling she possesses confidence, never dreading the work to be done.
Fearless in commanding, blindly assuming, love loss unfailing, ending white, leprous like the snow, she falters atoned.
Gossiping, talking the tongue into deceit, faintness a failing uttered words repeat the condoning of the younger one she loves to compete.
Transferring, encamping, ultimately following the lead, the Arc of the Covenant, brazenly blazes through the hinterland, she assumes command. The Mercy Seats hides, hinting toward a living tabernacle of immaculate birth.
All said and done, all desert and sand, extreme forty years squandering idols and realities, the chosen become bent in the woeful wandering.
In repose water flowing, abundant the stream, Meribah for the striking, a passionate brotherly obscenity to the extreme,
Holy land unseen, a messiah unspoken, a time not predestined, mortal woman and man determine unbinding demand,
The Mighty One, a God of order, inclines a helping hand to those of wicked intent, detailing precisely, guiding profusely constructing divine.

Ruth
Loyal one, descendant of a lineage divine, the whole human race, loyal beyond individual suffering not the command of independence.
Freedom, enslavement, discerning a choice, placing others before the blazing fire from the depths of Chemise’s infernal spewing belly.
Burn not to be the calling consumed with the lives of others, to help and assist, to show charity amongst sister and brother of different mothers.
Pagans dementing demanding defense of their portraying the insolence of cultivating crops supplanting the famine’s diaspora.
Marooned in Moab’s misfortune, destined and foreign, unwanted and wanting, the anguish of loss, return home to Bethlehem calling.
The need to dispense the wives of dead brothers, returning a mother perceives a holy land enduring fear losing face amongst others.
Extraordinary one, she stays standing by that which adores, holding the hand of love for the lover of a youthful heart that strays not for the strongest to come,
Unfaltering dedication, King David’s grandmother a family within, the finest in Hebrew chanting: anawim, peace to brother and sister abroad amidst distant lands.
Wise the poor spirited child ascends through the test of testaments, wealth attaining children follow, the growing multitude gathering fruit from the harvest.
Cavalcades, forthcoming parades, advancing time changing characters provide the splendid salvation of prospective generations.
Hear curious impish innocent heart pulsating life, a new man comes a caring, a mother-in-law despairing for grandchildren to love, sons and daughters abiding.
Babies crying, children screaming, adolescents laughing, elderly adoring, the responsible hosting, the wine flows amidst a colorful splendid wedding feast.
She weeps for the joy of being alive.

Hanna
Shame, humiliation, merciless taunting, infertile and barren the womb of one loving sons and daughters of the teasing intoning.
Falsely accused, drunkenness not a crime, touched by pain she explains to the priest the need for ceaseless merriment, it is not wine.
Prefiguring in praise, and the Lord remembered, sing sweet loyalist to the charitable mother of the prophet Samuel,
Calling once, calling twice, calling three times, a conception portending, a trinity amending, a child beyond all hope, graciously offered above all.
‘Do not multiply to speak lofty things, boasting: let old matters depart from your mouth…’
Sacrificing the ultimate promise of praise, wisdom to kings, the unrelenting gift of a holy prophet not to be raised a fruitless son,
Anonymous offering one, needing not void in the womb, witnesses a family aplenty the perfect nurturing blessing of five for the feeding.
Order and structure, building and blocking, creation a mother, the wisdom of caring, subjectively centered discretely beyond singularity.
Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart, the benevolent love of one giving from all that one has, devout cherished forgoing, forgiving.

Bathsheba
Daughter of wealth, spoiled and rotting, surmounting a multiplying desiring of flesh imbibing the being of power consuming,
She wants everything, needs all things, all things possessed she wants no more, naked dispossessing forever all things to abhor.
Penetrating with pleasure, a means to vast hunger, satiating the lustful ignorance of a wise psalmist, conqueror of giants.
Subservience of others ordered through the sultry passion of poison words destroying the unambitious uncultured mother of Uriah,
No quarter for unknowing, evil hands idly observing, wandering the remaining stumble upon the sophisticated roof of an imperial palace,
Prey to wicked arrows; self-denying active duty, loyally steadfast, proud never grasping the first husband learns not Solomon’s wisdom.
Dying deprived of repentance beyond birth, a profane father afflicting faults of an original firstborn, a diversion of sensual conception.
Awaiting a virtuous fantasy of fame, a king discerning wisdom entertains competitions amassing the witnessing, a mother no shame.
Rising exceeding, a son to be king, emerging incestuous and vain, the threatening mother enviously envisions corrupting power to gain.

Jezebel
Inspecting, admiringly dissecting, applying cosmetics,
Polished bronze mirror in talons a holding,
Exquisite, a smile, splendid will-power a face.
Masquerading mascara, madness ensconced and embraced.
Luminous lipstick lustfully loving luxury,
Kissing, caressing, controlling, primary colors debased,
Cutting and tearing, a disgraceful display of wounded incisors,
Sensually highlighting tresses arrayed.
Auburn silken hair dripping from the skull, a blushing bountiful bloody enhancing augmentation
Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity
Scared scarred servants hushing, hiding all over the space.
Rushing to forsake a harried Homeric chariot race. Fear redounding, cursing refraction no prizes to place.
The viper strikes, quickly dispensing. Concentrating sanguine, beauty sublime,
Life blossoming, blooming, preconceived divine.
Cleverness, brashness, worshipping queen and prophetess,
Power extreme, the dreaded Elijah prefigures a baptizing faith.
Fortunate water to feast upon bones in an ancient bonfire of grace,
Transfiguration, to drink blood, to quarter a body. To the wind throwing pieces, Elijah anointing, transfiguring the depraved
A fiery chariot assumption, fierce and strong, charging white horses whispering winged words,
Wielding grandeur beyond a killer of false prophets. Havoc and death, all things entrapped within a furious end,
Gowns and firm breasts, Jezebel remains steadfast,
Stampeding steeds singing praises, A mesmerizing mission of Jehu’s calming,
An arrow piercing between the shoulders sinking,
Into the heart is not peace to the wicked justice imparts.
“How can peace reign as long as the whoredom of Jezebel abounds?”
Eternity calls not with escaping sound,
Parallel vision echoing synchronicity,
Aloof, alone, a eunuch knows not how to love,
Opposing opposition, the castrated throws the apparition to flight no avail.
The justified one screams, ‘bury not the condemned daughter of a king’.
Dogs devouring flesh imparts the final scene

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Love and indifference

In my occupation as an industrial maintenance technician, I often have days of nothing to do. Today is one. I will utilize the time to expand upon my thoughts on love as opposed to indifference. First, I would like to stress how I view myself. I am not a theologian, nor a scholar. I base my blogging efforts upon a friend requesting I undertake the task. I do view myself as a writer, although this is in regards to my extensive reading background, mostly fiction, storytelling—film cherished. I feel I possess a unique insight, sentimentality and empathy, into my characters. That insight is based absolutely upon love. I love my characters, desiring to bring them to life and expression. The reason I feel qualified to write about the contemplative life, I am not as confident about. I am not an academic expert, or even the best read on the doctors of the Church. I even thought of changing the blog title or ceasing my effort. Once I did determine to focus the title of my page on Faith, Hope, and Charity, the contemplative life as a layperson, I came across the blog ‘Contemplative in the Mud’. The young man putting the blog together, I sensed is much better read and more intelligent than myself. I feel God guided me to the blog, a proper humbling. Yet I was not discouraged. I prayed over matters, feeling confident to precede, authentic in motivation. I will note that the fore mentioned blog, I read daily. It has become, and will be, a part of my daily religious practice. My friary days, my short lived postulancy as a Franciscan friar, established my confidence in God blessing me with an exceptional prayer life. All glory goes to God. I am most secure, joyous, and confident during mass, and then during pray before the Eucharist. The Rosary and Meditation are sheer delights. Our daily life in the friary intensely combined an introverted and extroverted spirituality.

I will take a side note and comment on an injustice I perceive. Jungian thought on introversion and extroversion is immaturely perverted by the majority of people using the terms. It is not an either or situation. I am not either an introvert, or an extrovert. Both the active and contemplative approach to life are a part of every person’s personality. It was presented to me that a good example of proper balancing of both approaches to life is John Paull II. John Paul, an introvert, accomplished phenomenal things as an extrovert. To even go above and beyond John Paul, Our Lord and Savior demonstrates the ultimate embracing of introversion and extroversion. Within a crowd, Our Lord was open and present for every individual. Supernaturally aware and tuned to hearts, He healed, taught, cajoled, and shared with the entirety of His being. Yet Our Lord mastered introversion on a level none can ever comprehend. Receiving the Holy Spirit through John the Baptist, Our Lord immediately went off to the desert for forty days of intense fasting, prayer, and meditation. Throughout his ministry, Our Lord found it necessary to recede from the crowd in order to communicate with His Father. Preparing for his ultimate test in the Garden of Gethsemane, His prayer efforts were so intense He sweat blood, providing for all the mightiest of wisdom: ‘Thy will be done’.

Back to friary days. As friars, we evangelized to the extreme, knocking on neighborhood doors, visiting elementary, high schools and colleges speaking, holding court with the Knight of Columbus and other groups, mingling at dinner parties, watching the Super Bowl with benefactors in their home. There were prayer excursions to abortion clinics, homeless missions—all in all, a total effort of socializing. It was why I left. I could not take it. Recovering from alcoholism, I was not that psychologically sound in crowds, fear still dominating amongst others. In regards to the contemplative life, I prospered, flourishing during the two holy hours conducted daily and the communal Rosary before night prayers: Compline. The Holy Hours were conducted in the morning before mass, and one before evening prayers: Vespers. It was interesting to take note of the friars during the Holy Hours. The ones who grew excited during the evangelizing, playing in the musical band, well versed with people, skilled and loving with men, women, and children, struggled mightily during the Holy Hour, or read and/or wrote throughout the sacred time. The worst was a jovial chubby Philippine young man who played guitar, sang with delight, and was adored by all. There was no one who could say a bad thing about the brother. He was a blessed soul. Yet I would chuckle when I watched him walking apprehensively into the Holy Hour. He did not like them. He had such a difficult time sitting still, squirming all the time, just having a terrible time sitting still for such a long period of time. I say all that lovingly. That coincides with my idea that within the vastness of the Church we find our individual way—St Paul’s elaborations on the body of the Church. Back to the Holy Hour, I realized that was my time of strength. There was another brother who also shared my prayer tendency. The academic type read voraciously during the Holy Hour, others prayed the Rosary. There were only two of us who went into meditation. I would do nothing, concentrating upon my breath, mentally focusing upon the Eucharist. The priest in charge disdained the writing of Basil Pennington, Thomas Merton, and Thomas Keating, while loving John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. To him, the idea of emptying ourselves was absurd. We filled with the Eucharist during the Holy Hour. Through practice, I was able to go deep during the hours. It is difficult to explain. We would end the sessions with the ringing of a bell. Often when the bell rang, I felt as if I was being ripped back to a false life. During my best sessions, it was a struggle to cease the meditation. I did not want to return. I felt exhausted opening my eyes. That leads perfectly into the idea of indifference. That is the proper indifference. Being absorbed into the Eucharist through stillness and a holy environment the presence of God became an enveloping reality. It usurped all else, forcing indifference and abandonment into consciousness. However the key is that the Theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity expanded through the effort. I relate it to my love for my family. During these intense times of prayer, a profound love for my family developed. They were centered in my heart, their salvation and worldly concerns vital to my life. I tried to explain this amidst my family only to have my sister-in-law comment that absence makes the heart grow fonder. In my normal manner of clamming up when a know-it-all who does not know-it-all takes command of a conversation, I thought strongly ‘NO that is not it. It is not about them being distant. They were in truth closer to me the deeper my prayer advanced’. Back to proper indifference, I state that if infused virtues are not made greater through my religious efforts, than the indifference to worldly things is false, an error in effort, most likely, for whatever reason, an inability to love. I want to go back to a quote from the other day, where oddly enough, I touched upon the idea of indifference. The soul therefore, requires at least indifference of judgment and of will. Then, penetrated with the conviction that God is all and the creature nothing, one will desire to see and embrace in all things only the God whom one loves and yearns for and his holy will which alone can conduct one to one’s end. Happy the person, if one has also acquired what may be called indifference of taste, so that the world and its pleasures, the goods and honors of earth, everything, in short, that might estrange one from God, now inspires one with disgust, and on the contrary, whatsoever brings one closer to him, even suffering, delights one. So has it been with the saints who hungered and thirsted after God. Oh, how such indifference facilitates the practice of holy abandonment! Within the paragraph indifference is stressed, yet it is toward the things that take us away from God. If the bold text is not grasped the indifference becomes useless, 1 Corinthians 13 the obvious reference. The things that bring us closer to God must not be met with indifference, in regards to creatures they must be met with love, a sign of serous spiritual advancement would expand this to blissful love. We must love or we know nothing about God.

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