The Martyrdom of Everyday Living

Are we 20th-century Christians called to martyrdom? I think so, even though no burning stakes or snarling beasts may hasten our demise as they did for the martyrs of old. After all, the word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness, and the need to witness to Jesus as Lord is still as compelling now as it was in years gone by. What might it mean for us to be martyrs in this time and place?

When our life passes on unrecognized and unappreciated ... when we are rebuffed or snubbed ... when faced with our inner poverty and emptiness ... do we witness the humility and meekness of Jesus?

When the exigencies of life overwhelm us ... when frustrations abound and threaten our peace ... when we weary of doing good ... do we witness the patience and gentleness of Jesus?

When painful memories surface ... when we are tempted to strike back in revenge ... when our own sinfulness and failures disgust and sadden us ... do we witness the forgiveness and love of Jesus?

When fatigue or sickness sets in and our bodies and spirits sag ... when we despair of our efforts to grow in holiness and wholeness ... when we have no desire to take up our cross each day ... do we confess Jesus as our strength and salvation?

When the shallow values and false security of the world attract us ... when boredom creeps in and dulls our hearts ...when the easy way out appeals to us ... do we confess Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life?

This is the martyrdom of everyday living -- and it belongs to all of us who follow the Lord. Do we lovingly embrace it in a spirit of gratitude and joy ... as an invitation to deepen our love relationship with our Beloved Bridegroom ... as an occasion to strengthen our faith in Him as Lord of both our own lives and all creation ... as an opportunity to confess to the world around us that Jesus alone is our God and our all?

In all the events of our lives, do we claim Jesus as our peace and joy, seeking refuge only in Him? Do we boldly proclaim with St. Paul and the martyrs of all the ages, "Yet in all this we are more than conquerors because of Him who has loved us" (Rom. 8, 37)? Regardless of circumstances, do we firmly believe that nothing will separate us from the love of Christ and there­fore do we remain steadfast in faith, rejoicing in hope, clinging to the good, and counting it all joy?

Moment by moment life unfolds, inviting us to enter into its unique martyrdom and, therefore, to enter more deeply, more fully into the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ. What kind of martyr are we? To whom or what do we give witness?

Dear Lord, King of Martyrs, with your mercy ever before my eyes, may I give solid witness to you today in whatever martyrdom you chose for me. Amen.

Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul

As we celebrate the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, let us recall that before these saints were shepherds and apostles, they were sheep and disciples. God was able to do great things in them and through them because they made a decision to surrender control of their lives and destiny to the Son of Man who is also the Son of God.

Jesus says “follow me” to each of us. It may mean making a change of career. It may mean breaking off a relationship that is leading us away from Christ. Or it may just mean doing what we are already doing but for an entirely different reason...achieving great things not to draw attention to ourselves, but to glorify Christ...seeking an intimate relationship no longer to take but to give...working not for the weekend, but for the kingdom.

Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio, The Crossroads Initiative

Dear Lord, help me to hear anew today and every day Your call to follow You and to be Your missionary. Stand by me and give me strength to respond to You with all my heart. I know that sometmes I am more a goat than a sheep, more a backslider than Your disciple, but I believe that You can rescue me from myself as long as I keep looking to You. Help me to keep the faith as I continue to run the race You have marked out for me, and one day please bring me safely to Your heavenly Kingdom. Jesus, I trust in You! To You be glory forever and ever! AMEN!

Made To Be Imperishable

Ever since I woke up early this morning, I've been pondering this single verse from our first reading at today's Mass (Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24): "For God formed man to be imperishable" (Wis 2:23) However, it's been another very hot day today here in Houston, TX, and the heat seems to have slowed down my brain as well as my body. I've just not been able to pull my thoughts together well enough to write about this amazing fact – that God made us to be imperishable, that he created us for incorruption! On second thought, maybe it has nothing to do with the heat and everything to do with the incomprehensible ways of the Lord. How astounding it is that He who fashioned me from mere dust has breathed His eternal spirit into me and has given me imperishable life in His beloved Son!

So throughout this day I've been marveling over God's goodness and then asking myself a few things, such as … I who, through the powerful and gracious gift of God, am imperishable, do I fully live the life He has given me … do I consciously and carefully turn to His Spirit to help me discern what to think, hear, see, say and touch so as to feed my immortal soul or do I let the spirit of the world lure me into feeding my lesser, baser instincts … do I seek the things that are above rather than those that are on earth (Col 3:2) … do I work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life (Jn 6:27) … ?? If I truly believed that God made me to be imperishable, would not all my decisions, thoughts, prayers and actions reflect this? And since not all of them do, what concrete things am I going to do to change this?

As always, the Word of God challenges as much as comforts me.

Thank you, Imperishable God, for making me imperishable! Help me to live the imperishable life so that I may be free to love and serve You as You deserve. Amen.

The School of Mary

So much can be gained by reflecting on the way Mary learned from Jesus! From her very first "fiat," through the long, ordinary years of the hidden life, as she brought up Jesus, or when at Cana in Galilee she asked for the first sign, or when finally on Calvary, by the cross, she looked on Jesus, she "learned" him moment by moment. Firstly in faith and then in her womb, she received the Body of Jesus and then gave birth to him. Day after day, enraptured, she adored him. She served him with solicitous love, singing the Magnificat in her heart.

...let Mary guide you as you "learn" Jesus. Keep your eyes fixed on him. Let him form you, so that...you will be able to show him to all who approach you....place yourselves in the school of Mary. Beside her you will experience for yourselves that God is love, and you will transmit this message to the world with the richness and the variety that the Holy Spirit will know how to enkindle.

Pope Benedict XVI

Teach us, dear Mary, to become more and more like you, a living sacrifice of praise, an unending hymn of thanks to the Almighty who does such great things for us.

True Love

Do not forget that true love sets no conditions;

it does not calculate or complain, but simply loves.

Pope John Paul II

Draw us with an irresistable beauty...

Creator of the Universe, preserve us from our own presumption. Do not let us close ourselves into ourselves but open us continually into You.

Let us be more in love with You than with our notions of you. Let us stop claiming to know everything so that we may understand something.

Increase in us kindness. Make us people who care and who take care, who venerate the truth and recognize each other.

Draw us with an irresistible beauty!

Rabia Terri Harris in Prayers for a Thousand Years

Birth of St. John the Baptist

Most of us upon thinking of St. John the Baptist have an image of a stern, austere prophet who harshly demanded repentance and conversion. That he was, and also uncompromising in his witness to the light (Jn 1:6-8), which led him to be "sacrificed by the authorities for speaking the truth without reticence" (Pope John Paul II). Yet there is another image of St. John the Baptist that we often forget. It is an image of joy, that unspeakable, unshakable joy of the Lord that caused the unborn John to leap with exultation in his mother's womb (Lk 1:44). Later, when his disciples asked him who he was, John described himself as the friend of the bridegroom: "He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease" (Jn 3:29-30). John's joy preceded his mission as well as formed and sustained it. With him, may we always rejoice to hear our bridegroom's voice -- and as a result, may we also rejoice to decrease so that Christ may increase in our hearts, our lives and our world.

The Watermelon Seed

I have observed the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight; and when you can tell me how it takes this material and, out of it, colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind, and within again, a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which is in turn capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight -- when you can explain to me the mystery of the watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.

William Jennings Bryan

Open our minds and heart, dear Lord, to the wonders you set before us, the mysteries of nature that reveal to us your power and beauty. And let us strive not so much to understand as to bend the knee to your majesty and adore you in the silence of love and praise. Amen.

Even in the storms...

Even in the storms that can suddenly rise up, you can experience the breath of the Holy Spirit that is stronger than any contrary wind and which pushes the boat of the Church and each of us. That is why we must always live in serenity and cultivate joy in our hearts, giving thanks to the Lord. "His love is forever."Amen! ~Pope Benedict XVI, 6/21/09, Homily at St. Pio of Pietrelcina Church

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

We can say that the mystery of the Redemption took shape beneath the heart of the Virgin of Nazareth when she pronounced her "fiat". From then on, under the special influence of the Holy Spirit, this heart, the heart of both a virgin and a mother, has always followed the work of her Son and has gone out to all those whom Christ has embraced and continues to embrace with inexhaustible love. For that reason her heart must also have the inexhaustibility of a mother. The special characteristic of the motherly love that the Mother of God inserts in the mystery of the Redemption and the life of the Church finds expression in its exceptional closeness to man and all that happens to him. It is in this that the mystery of the Mother consists. The Church, which looks to her with altogether special love and hope, wishes to make this mystery her own in an ever deeper manner. For in this the Church also recognizes the way for her daily life, which is each person. Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, #22

Year for Priests

Christ, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, so constituted his Church that the people whom he chose and acquired by his blood would have its priests to the end of time, and that Christians would never be like sheep without a shepherd. ~Decree On The Ministry and Life Of Priests, #5

Pope Benedict XVI has declared a “Year for Priests,” beginning today with the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In announcing the Year for Priests, the Holy Father recognized "the necessary, indeed indispensable, aspiration to moral perfection that must dwell in every authentically priestly heart." He said that "Precisely to encourage priests in this striving for spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends, I have decided to establish a special Year for Priests."

Pope Benedict XVI also emphasized the great importance of the ministerial priest-hood, "without which there would be neither the Eucharist, nor even the mission nor the Church herself."

The Holy Father requests our prayers during this Year for Priests. "I entrust to your prayers this new spiritual initiative," he said. "May this new jubilee year be a propitious occasion to reflect on the value and importance of the priestly mission and to ask the Lord to make a gift of many priests to his Church."

The Pope has also declared St. John Vianney the Universal Patron of Priests on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of the Curé d’Ars.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops offers this prayer for us to pray during the Year of the Priest.

Dear Lord, we pray that the Blessed Mother wrap her mantle around your priests and through her intercession strengthen them for their ministry.

We pray that Mary will guide your priests to follow her own words, “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5).

May your priests have the heart of St. Joseph, Mary’s most chaste spouse.

May the Blessed Mother’s own pierced heart inspire them to embrace all who suffer at the foot of the cross.

May your priests be holy, filled with the fire of your love, seeking nothing but your greater glory and the salvation of souls.

Amen.

Saint John Vianney, pray for us!

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart

May Your Heart dwell always in our hearts! May Your Blood ever flow in the veins of our souls! O sun of our hearts, You give life to all things by the rays of Your goodness! I will not go until Your Heart has strengthened me, O Lord Jesus! May the Heart of Jesus be the King of my heart! Blessed be God. Amen.

~To the Sacred Heart by St. Francis de Sales

Pray then like this...

In the Gospel for today's Mass (Mt 8:7-15), our Lord Jesus teaches us how to pray. He begins with, "Pray then like this: Our Father…" Father! Our Father! Who is this Father to whom His Beloved Son tells us to pray? We want to know, and we find out as we ponder Our Lord's words in other passages from Matthew's gospel.

Father, who calls us to be perfect as you are perfect (Mt 5:48)…

Father, who knows what we need before we ask you (Mt 6:8)…

Father, who sees in secret and rewards us accordingly (Mt 6:14)…

Father, who gives good things to us who ask you (Mt 7:11)…

Father, who counts even the hairs of our heads (Mt 10:30)…

Father, Lord of heaven and earth (Mt 11:25)…

Father, who has given all things to your Beloved Son (Mt 11:27)…

Father, in whose kingdom the righteous will shine like the sun (Mt 13:43)…

Father, who like a good shepherd seeks us out when we are lost and rejoices to find us (Mt 18:12-13)…

Father, who wills that not one of your little ones should perish (Mt 18:13)…

Father, who commands us to forgive each other from our hearts (Mt 18:35)…

Father, who did not spare even your Beloved Son from drinking the cup of suffering (Mt 26:36-42)…

Father, in whose name your Risen Son sends us forth to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19)…

Father, we adore you,
Lay our lives before you,
How we love you!

Isaiah 43:4

You are precious in my eyes and glorious, and I love you.

Prayer to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

Blessed are you, Mary, exalted Daughter of Sion! You are highly favored and full of grace, for the Spirit of God descended upon you.

We magnify the Lord and rejoice with you for the gift of the Word made flesh, our bread of life and cup of joy.

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, our model of prayer in the Cenacle, pray for us that we may become what we receive, the body of Christ your Son.

Amen.

The Holy Eucharist is for me!

And where is Jesus my Savior? In heaven and also in the Blessed Sacrament. Heaven is for the angels and saints in glory; the Holy Eucharist is for me.

The Holy Eucharist is my joy, my riches, my home, my palace, wherein dwells the King of my life and the God of my heart. The Holy Eucharist is my heaven on earth, and before It I will adore, as the angels and saints adore before the throne of the Lamb in heaven.

The Holy Eucharist shall be my heart's center, wherein it shall live and love, find rest and inspiration. Jesus said, "Where your treasure house is, there your heart is too."

I will have no other treasure beside Thee, good Jesus! My heart shall no longer seek its Best-Beloved; it has found Him. My love shall no more languish far from Thee, now that I know Thy dwelling place.

Oh, draw me now entirely to Thee, divine Lover, my mind with all its thoughts, my heart with all its desires and affections, my will with all its actions, my body with all its senses, that I may live no longer in myself but in Thee!

St. Peter Julian Eymard

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

If we reflected on the love of Jesus Christ

for us in the Blessed Sacrament,

our whole life would be

but one continuous act of gratitude.

St. Peter Julian Eymard

Like Mary

Father most holy, grant that, like Mary, we may be simple and humble, poor and chaste, faithful and obedient.

Grant that we may be merciful as you are merciful so that, like Mary the Mother of Christ, we may love those whom your Son has saved in the power of the spirit.

Grant that my word may be light and glory, that my prayer may be silence and adoration so that, like Mary, I may be a living intercession, the praise of glory, and thanksgiving through Jesus your Son, our Savior and our God. Amen.

Rev. Jean Beyer, S.J.

O Lamb of God!

"O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace!" That is a tremendous prayer to take on our lips, for it means peace at a great price: the peace of the Cross, of absolute acceptance, utter abandonment to God -- a peace inseperable from sacrifice. ~from The Fruits of the Spirit by Evelyn Underhill

Days of Work and of Monotony

One of my regular tasks as weekday sacristan in my parish is to clean the two thuribles, which get used a lot since we're one of the largest parishes in Texas. We have nine Sunday Masses along with many weddings and funerals week after week. When incense is placed on the lit charcoal inside the thurible, it releases oil, which gets cooked onto the inside as the heat and smoke rise. By Monday morning, I can always count on finding a thick layer of gunk inside the thuribles. What a mess! And it must be cleaned up because if the gunk isn't removed, it gets pretty stinky the next time the thurible is used. So I pull out my ample supply of Goo-Gone, steel wool and elbow grease, set myself to the task at hand, and soon everything is bright and shiny. But no sooner do I finish, it seems, than the process starts all over again…and again…and again.

In what St. Francis de Sales calls the inferior part of my soul, I've had my moments when I've felt as though this is an exercise in futility that I'm doomed to repeat in perpetuity. But Providence recently led me to this passage in my well-worn copy of St. Maria Faustina's diary, Divine Mercy In My Soul:

"Now a gray, ordinary day has begun...O you days of work and of monotony, you are not monotonous to me at all, for each moment brings me new graces and opportunity to do good."

Just the reminder that I needed! Yes, the light of Christ shines through all our gray, ordinary days, filling every moment with His radiant beauty. Even in my solitary task of cleaning the thuribles, I can do good – by doing the best job I can, by thinking positive thoughts, by praying for others, and by contemplating the Lord of All who spent many years living a simple life in Nazareth where he worked as a carpenter.

Thank you, dear Lord, for being the light of our world! Amen!