Self-Knowledge

 Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally; you may endure for a time, but under affliction or persecution your faith will not last......They endure not, because they have never tasted that the Lord is gracious; and they have never had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need.---Cardinal John Henry Newman (Famous Anglican convert to the Catholic Church in October 1845, England)

The better we know our own weaknesses the better we will be able to endure when we are tested. I know that when I am tested and want to give up because of the pressure, confusion, or fear I may be dealing with, that I still do not know myself well enough. If we know that we are capable of any sin, false humility, pride, spiritual laziness, etc.. then we can recognize it when the test comes and plead for mercy and grace to persevere. In this pleading, we are now asking for strength to endure the affliction, not for the affliction to end. There is a huge difference. The affliction, or cross, is a gift to help us grow closer to the Lord Who carried His cross and had to endure. He is giving us these crosses to make us like Him in all things. When we plead with Him to take away the gift, we are basically saying, I don't want to grow. But, when we know ourselves and realize why we want the cross taken away, we can then adjust it a bit or maybe move it to the other shoulder and carry on. Of course, this sounds much simpler than it really is. This is why we cry often for mercy.

wkm

John Henry Newman

Persevere

Dear brethren, we must endure and persevere if we are to attain the truth and freedom we have been allowed to hope for; faith and hope are the very meaning of our being Christians, but if faith and hope are to bear their fruit, patience is necessary.---St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr (4th century)

Some days are harder than others. When we feel at our weakest, this is when we must look up with hope for Paul said, "When I am weak He is strong in me." Perseverance is not positive thinking, it is carrying a cross on a bruised and beaten shoulder up a hill while the world around you laughs or ignores you. Perseverance is not "just hanging in there", it is fighting to keep holy and pure in the face of temptation to despair and turn away from God. We must pray for one another.

wkm

Real Loss

Insignificant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about tasks and labors. Make a little time for God  and rest a while in Him.----St. Anselem, bishop, 12th century

The idea that we are able to handle whatever comes our way is at best naive.  Bob Dylan wrote, "If you think you've lost it all, there's always more that you can lose."  But there is one thing that should bother us if we lose more than any other loss, the presence of God. This is why we should hate our sin with the utmost passion. The willful decision to go against what we know God wants separates us from His nearness. He doesn't leave us, we leave Him. He said He would never forsake us. He does at times withdraw from us when we are seeking Him to make us want Him more, that is an entirely different thing than losing His presence due to sinfulness. We must make time in our day to go inside and look upon His Sacred Heart. This is why the rosary is so important. Just touching it or seeing it can instantly take us into one of the mysteries of our Beloved Jesus. Let us not be naive in our daily toil, thinking we can handle it all alone, we can't.

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The Wait

Lead me to pastures, Lord, and graze there with me. Do not let my heart lean either to the right or to the left....Whatever I do, let it be in accordance with Your will, now until the end.----St. John Damascene (4th century)

We are a few days into Advent and it dawns on us that we are never out of "Advent." We are waiting all of the time and in every season! We are waiting most of all for Jesus to return and then we shall see Him as He is, and thus we shall be changed. We are also waiting for the Lord in every aspect of this journey. We hope to be good participants in His work in our daily lives. This is where we grow in faith and patience, always, "waiting upon the Lord". We pray and wait. We seek and wait. We hope and wait. We act and we wait. We wonder and we wait. We cry out and we wait. We are waiting to see His face and love Him as He truly deserves to be loved. St. John Damascene's words are intriguing, "Lead me to pastures, Lord, and graze with me." We all should hope to know Him in this way. But it may take some waiting.

wkm

St. John Damascene

The Reality of the Spiritual Life

Jesus Christ is not a myth, He is the Mystery of God.---Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Mystery is a reality we can perceive but not penetrate with the human mind---Albert Einstein

We walk a narrow road. The reality of the spiritual life is not some whimsical happiness, or even a confidence that we have it all figured out. We know only a few things for sure; Jesus was God incarnate. He was fully God and fully man. We know He came to save us by defeating death. He did this by dying. He brought light where there was no light. We now have hope, and though death is still an unknown occurrence to anyone reading this, we have hope that death is simply a door. His Blood washes us clean from sin. He rose from the grave and ascended into Heaven, and now sits at God's right hand. We know that He is coming again. He gave us His Church, through the descent of the Holy Spirit Who helps us. He does this through the Sacraments and prayer. We have Christ With us in the Holy Eucharist. We know that the bread becomes His Body and the wine His Blood. He told us this. We know His Mother, who is now our Mother as well. We know that the Saints are cheering us on. We know that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We know these things. By faith we live in these truths. By grace we walk in them. Let us be detached today from the things that make us forget or ignore this mysterious and beautiful Way. Let us open our hearts in humility and cry out to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord, do with us what You will!

wkm

  

Advent

Prayer is the best weapon we possess. It is the key that opens the heart of God. ---St. Padre Pio

 

This is the third day of Advent. We are three days into the waiting. We are waiting on God. Happy the man whose hope is in the Lord! What should we do while we wait? We should pray. We are in a fight as we wait. The devil hates it when we wait upon the Lord. The devil hates Mary more than any human because she waited in prayer. She said yes to the waiting and she obeyed every time she and Joseph had to deal with her calling. They fled to Egypt! Why didn't God just put a hedge around His Mother? Why did even she have to hide from harms way? If I were God I would have made it though she and Joseph could have stayed home without a care in the world. But God still acts this way in our lives. He allows things that we find uncomfortable and irritating. Is it that He is trying to birth Himself in each of us anew? We must look to Mary for guidance, she is our example of obedience and trust. Our best weapon as we wait is prayer, let us pray that we will be like Mary.

 

wkm

Vancouver BC

  

The Never-Ending Call

When you do it to the least of these, you do it unto me.---Jesus

There is a never-ending call upon each of us to love the unloved. Who are they? A friend at school who is always alone. A homeless man who needs a cup of coffee on a cold day. A friend who needs a phone call. An enemy who needs to be shown forgiveness. This ain't easy! This is grueling work, and some days it seems impossible. Do not think for a moment that Jesus doesn't know this. He dealt with every single human condition we can imagine, and then some. We just have to take a breath and move forward in what we know is right to do, and pray! It will feel awkward at times, uncomfortable, and irritating; kind of like learning to swing a golf club correctly, but, it will change us, and we will learn how to die to self. Mother Teresa can teach us a great deal about this. If you think you know her, you don't. Read her life story in the book "Come be my Light." She told someone once, " I want to love Jesus like He has never been loved." Every sick and dying person she cared for was Jesus. Lord, help us love You by loving those in and around our lives like Mother Teresa did. It would be something if we even tried this.

wkm
Vancouver BC