You know all things ( With Image)

"It is more serious to lose hope than to sin. The traitor Judas was a defeatist, inexperienced in spiritual warfare; as a result he was reduced to despair by the enemy's onslaught, and he went and hanged himself. Peter, on the other hand, was a firm rock: although brought down by a terrible fall, yet because of his experience in spiritual warfare he was not broken by despair, but leaping up he shed bitter tears from a contrite and humiliated heart. And as soon as our enemy saw them, he recoiled as if his eyes had been burnt by searing flames, and he took to flight howling and lamenting." -----St. John of Karpathos.
 
Fr. Ron Hatton sent me this quote. It struck a nerve of truth! How incredible and intricate is our tradition. We must dig deeply as St. John Karpathos did in understanding our journey. He didn't just read the story of Judas and Peter and think, "one betrayed him and killed himself and one betrayed him and found forgiveness." St. John knew there was something going on within each man that mattered. Peter and Judas both walked with Jesus.. We walk with Jesus. And like both disciples, we will betray our Beloved. But we must learn from both, and that both will teach us what is eternal. The Tradition of the Church is vital to our understanding scripture. Without it, we are like sheep without a shepherd. We must be like Peter, no matter how many times we fall, we must weep and repent, and then we must tell the risen Lord, "You know I love You Lord, You know all things."
 
wkm
Oxford

 

 

Divine Love

Divine Love takes a sword to the hidden recesses of our inmost soul and divides us from ourselves.---St. Jane Frances De Chantal (16th Century widow)

Rejoice! The more we dive in and dig in to this faith, the more intense the love becomes! It becomes so riveting that we begin to disappear, and hallelujah!, we begin to abandon ourselves almost ridiculously to Jesus. It looks odd not only to those around us, but even to ourselves. We start to crave His nearness in ways that do not make sense. We find ourselves hating our sin and mediocrity with ferocious aggression. Then pride comes and we fall again. We wander through doubt again, we stagger like drunks trying to trust even for the smallest things. Then grace overwhelms us again, out of nowhere, and we dig some more. All of this is His sword, dividing us from ourselves so that we may know ourselves the way He knows us. St. Augustine said, " O lord, You know me better than I know myself." Why do we need this knowledge? So that when we are tempted to sin, or to think we are doing fine, or feel as if we have made it, or when we are faced with frustration, fear, doubt, anger, etc...we will recognize our fallen tendencies and turn to Jesus crying out for Mercy. The more we turn to Him instead of brewing in our minds the same old ways we always have, the more we can trust Him in the struggles and dark nights. This brings about a love for Jesus for Who He is, not for what He can do for us. Lord, let this be so!

wkm
Vancouver BC

Francis de Sales meets Jane Frances de Chantal, cutout from a window in the cathedral of Annecy

God Alone Suffices

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

---St. Teresa of Avila

Beloved Jesus, how can we love You better? When will our every waking breath be for You and Your purposes? When O Lord can we see Your Beautiful face? While we are down here on our soujourn keep us close to Your Sacred Heart. There are wolves Lord. Within every disturbance and horror that sometimes walks beside us on these paths, we need You; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You don't just walk with us, You are within us. Jesus, You said You would make Your home within our very hearts. The Kingdom is within. The unseen in our lives is more real than the seen, than the horrors, the frustrations, and the annoyances. God, You are more real than anything we can see, for You are unseen. Help us see this.

wkm
Vancouver BC

Where He Leads Us

My love for Jesus keeps growing more simple and more, I think, personal.---Like our Poor, I try to accept my poverty of being small, helpless, incapable of great love. But I want to love Jesus with Mary's love, and His Father with Jesus' love.---Mother Teresa from "Come Be My Light"

How is it that we could ever imagine our days without Jesus? How could we breath? How could we find beauty and sincerity without His nearness? Without Him, our beauty and sincerity are covered in the filth of ego and blindness. Just look at the news, and the media's passion for the twisted and the base aspects in every one of us. There is a frenzied glee when someone is found to be doing wrong. But the real sadness is that they know we will watch it! This is the world without Jesus, without His mercy. He calls us to be His mercy, like Mother Teresa. She shared in the darkness of the poor. She was an oddity in our times. She embraced poverty as if it were the pinnacle of success. It is where she found Jesus, and where He told her to go. We are all called to this detachment, to this heart. The little ways are where we start. Kindness, humility, honesty, and trust are some of the foundational virtues of our journey. What a difference it would make in how we live and in our decisions if we truly believed that God will take care of us no matter where He leads us! How much we miss because of our fear to persevere in faith through seemingly impossible situations. There is so much joy we forfeit. Most of us would shrink back from what Mother Teresa ran to embrace, all because she loved Jesus with a simple love. Lord, help us die.

wkm
Vancouver

  

Storms

The actual Christian task involves…

"accepting ourselves as we are in our confusion, infidelity, disruption, ferment, and even desperation."
–Thomas Merton

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples.

These dark nights of the soul bring a different light to our eyes of faith. The light is not a blinding light, it is the warm glow of love. We are being emptied by these nights. It is painful to go through this. Mother Teresa spoke often of this emptying as the true path to being filled with God. How can He fill us with Himself if we are full of oursleves and other things? Jesus emptied Himself, are we not to follow Him in every way? The Father in His mercy helps us as much as we let Him. If we raise our hand in prayer and say, 'I volunteer for this part of the journey.', we bring a smile to our Lord. He is greatly pleased with our desire. We are His little children, we are being transformed, sanctified, and set free to love. We are being emptied. Lord Jesus, our Beloved, please be patient with us in these storms, and please Lord, understand when we cry out and wake you, hoping once again You will calm the waves.
wkm
Vancouver

Merton's Prayer

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.----Thomas Merton

"I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost...." writes Merton. It often seems the things we hope are God's will in our own personal lives end up lying before us in a heap. We are not sure if what we are doing is the right thing. The fight to have faith in the unseen is so obscured by "reality" of the bills we can't pay or by sickness, or self doubt. This causes the desire to make Jesus the center of everything we are and do a constant battle. The battle to be His friend and rest in Him no matter what is relentless. This prayer by Merton touches something deep within us. Our faith, and the grace to trust, are the gifts we have been given. Many times, this is all we have to work with. Lord, increase our faith, and help us know that we are not alone today. wkm

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

The body we present on the alter was born of the Virgin...St. Ambrose, 4th century

The Virgin Mary is celebrated today as we remember her Immaculate Conception. She was made by God the Father to be the New Ark of the New Covenant. She is the Mother of God. She was full of grace from the very moment she was conceived. This is so vital to understanding the doctrine of our faith that is the Incarnation of Jesus. In Genesis 3 God tells Satan He will put enmity between her seed and Satan's seed. "Her Seed", the woman is never the one with the seed, but Her Seed is the Seed of God that she has been foreshadowed to carry since before the world began. She would be the one to give God's Son His Flesh and Blood. This is the Body and Blood we present at the alter. Mary had to be pure and free from sin, otherwise, she could not be the New Eve that says YES. The first Eve said no, the second said Yes, and the new Adam is our Savior. God did not have to do it this way, but He did. He is mysterious and He is in love with us.

wkm