Prayerful Path
"Walking in the way and the love of the Lord"
I receive emails daily from Fr. Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation. I find these emails very helpful along my prayerful path. They teach, inspire and help guide me. Sometimes I have to admit, I get buried under my inbox. My schedule gets busy and I don't open everyone everyday. I have learned ... don't beat myself up for not opening everyday. Sometimes I just don't have time, sometimes I have the time but just don't open it, again it is Okay. I have also learned that when I do read the emails, when I open one up and its the first in weeks, it is exactly what I need to hear. God is so good! So don't beat yourself up if you don't accomplish something you wanted to do, or don't get to the emails that are piling up in your inbox. Take a breath and click, it will be OK.
Today was one of those days. When I was able to click, I was able to read an email from CAC and not to my surprise it was amazing. Exactly what I needed to hear. So I wanted to share it with you. Maybe, just maybe it will touch your heart as well.
There is no single way to meditate. There are, however, certain acts and attitudes inherently endowed with the capacity to awaken sustained states of meditative awareness that form the infrastructure of each specific way to meditate. Here are some suggested guidelines. With respect to the body: Sit still. Sit straight. Place your hands in a comfortable or meaningful position in your lap. Close your eyes or lower them toward the ground. Breathe slowly and naturally. With respect to your mind, be present, open, and awake, neither clinging to nor rejecting anything. And with respect to attitude, maintain nonjudgmental compassion toward yourself—as you discover yourself clinging to and rejecting everything—and nonjudgmental compassion toward others in their powerlessness that is one with yours. Compassion is the love that recognizes and goes forth to identify with the preciousness of all that is lost and broken within ourselves and others. At first it seems as if compassionate love originates with our free decision to be as compassionate as we can be toward ourselves as we sit in meditation. As our practice deepens, we come to realize that in choosing to be compassionate, we are yielding to the compassionate nature of God flowing through us, in and as our compassion toward our self as precious in our frailty. When we practice meditation, we are like the repentant prodigal son returning to his father’s house (see Luke 15: 11-32). By the time we begin to meditate, we have probably come to realize how foolish we have been in the past. We are sorry about the suffering our foolish ways have caused ourselves and others. We are sincerely intent on not being so foolish in the future. But like the repentant son heading home to beg for his father’s forgiveness, we are still laboring under the illusion that our wayward ways make us unworthy in the eyes of God. The idea that our weaknesses are obstacles to God’s love is bound up with our egocentric perception of ourselves as outside God’s sustaining love. Entrenched in the ignorance of our imagined otherness from God, we set out to meditate as a way of overcoming one obstacle after another so that we might succeed in reaching God. The ego self struggles in its efforts to sit present and awake as a way of being open to God’s presence until the ego exhausts all its own means of overcoming its inability to realize oneness with God. Then, just as all seems lost, we look up to see God running toward us with open arms. Suddenly we realize there is no place within us that is not encountered, embraced, and made whole in a love that does not even care to hear our litany of shortcomings and regrets. We are profoundly loved by God without any foundations for being loved, except divine love itself. Gateway to Silence: Rest in God resting in me. Reference:Adapted from James Finley, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God (HarperSanFrancisco: 2004), 203, 279-282.
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"I was in prison and you came to visit me ... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." ~ Matthew 25:36, 40
When we visited the prison in Haiti, I wasn't expecting to see this. Inside a 10x12 cinder block cell there were 30-35 guys crammed together. They were sitting, laying and standing with only inches between them. The cell had one bunk bed and only two small windows. Imagine the heat of Haiti, this crowded room and no air flow.....And then imagine the loss of dignity in that crowded room. The men emptied their bladder in a cup and then poured it into a bucket outside the cell! It was so hard to see this, so hard to hold back the tears. The tears of sorrow and sadness for these men and women. No matter the reason, these men and women were sitting in sorrow and sadness. No matter the reason, these men and women deserve to feel loved. We came to bring them love, to pray for them, and to give them a little gift. But as usual, we received the gift. "Give and it will be given to you" _ Luke 6:38 They prayed for us. They sang to us. They sang of their sorrow and their trust in Jesus to save them. They were singing to bring themselves hope. They were singing as a prayer, praying to Jesus for strength, for hope and for His saving grace! We handed each cell a bag, a little gift of a toothbrush, toothpaste, rosary, shoes and shirts. Not nearly enough for everyone yet what I saw was amazing! I watched as they passed the bag back, no one fought for something, no one argued, they quietly gave the shirt to one of their brothers, the shoes went to another. These beautiful children of God showed us faith and hope in their singing. They showed us love and kindness in their sharing of the gifts with each other and they gave us love by promising to pray for us! May we always remember the prisoners of Anse a Veau in our prayers. May they find their hope, their faith and their strength through Our Lord Jesus Christ! So let's come together as their brother and sisters in Christ and say an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be everyday for these men! jezi mwen mete konfyans yo nan ou (Jesus I trust in you) by: Mary Maddox Jan 2017 |
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January 2019
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![]() Saint James, pray for us that we may be willing to leave everything to follow Jesus as you did. Help us to become special friends of Jesus as you were. Amen
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