Eucharist

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith. When you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, you receive his body, blood, soul and divinity. God is touching your hand, your tongue, your heart. He courses through your body, blood, soul and humanity. The greatest prayer of the Church is Mass. Try to go to daily Mass, especially during Lent.

Our Father

Today Jesus teaches us how to pray. Remember "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..." Pray at least one Our Father a day and meditate on the words. God bless!!

Divine Office

I was praying the rosary daily for several years, when my father was ordained a Deacon of the Catholic Church. He asked me if I would say the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) every day. So began another journey of prayer. This praising and worshiping of God was a grace from Heaven.

Jesus spends 40 Days in the Desert

The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. Noah spent 40 days on the water. Jesus spent 40 days on earth after his resurrection and the 40 days in the desert when he was tempted by the devil. 40 is a number of hours, days, months, years that we can spend in contemplation of our great and awesome God. To begin it could be just 40 seconds or 40 minutes, but spend them with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Open your heart that God may enter in and change you for the better. Once we allow Him to work in our lives, we are no longer the same. Life becomes easier. The weight of the world is lifted and we have the loving guidance of our bountiful and good God and the knowing that he will lead us with mercy and goodness! Pray!!

Matthew, the tax collector

In today's Gospel, we meet Matthew, the tax collector. Jesus tells us that he came not for the healthy but for the sinner. I am a sinner. I find it hard to believe that Jesus could love me since he knows all of my sins - past, present, and future. Yet he awakens a longing in my heart that can not be completely filled while I walk in this life. When I spend time in prayer and quiet reflection, I know in the deepest parts of my self that I am loved beyond all imagining. I am called to greater things. Like Matthew I long to follow my Lord wherever he leads me. I am loved. I am forgiven. And I am called to do the same for others - all others!!

Prayer and Suffering

Taken from the readings of the Divine Office:

"Prayer is the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man. The spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness; like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides. It seeks the satisfaction of its own desires, and receives gifts outweighing the whole world of nature...The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings." St. John Chrysostom

Through prayer I discover who I am and I can know where God desires to lead me. It was through prayer this morning that I realized it's difficult for me to follow Jesus up the hill of Calvary to his cross. I would much prefer to follow Jesus on the floor as he knelt to wash the feet of his apostles. I would rather not be Martha working in the kitchen, but Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to all that he has to say. Lent is an easy time for me when it comes to prayer, but a difficult time for me when it comes to fast and abstinence. Let us all pray for one another!!

With God, All is Possible

A life of prayer is all but impossible without God's grace. Today as we begin the season of Lent, open your hearts that God might fill you with His grace. I began my journey of prayer through an invitation from another. I had been living a life of "my will be done not thine" and falling deeper into the darkness of sin and depression. The person who knocked on my door this one summer day many years ago asked if I would say a rosary every day. I said "yes" thinking " why not! It can't hurt." and so began this long journey that pulled me out of the depths of hell. Those beads of pearls can change a life. Do try them as you walk through these days of Lent.