I am Yours...

Artist Michael Malm

"You sent me forth

into the light

by adopting me

 as Your own,

and You enrolled me

 among the children

 of Your Holy

 and spotless Church."

Saint John Damascene

Waiting...

Xia Taptara-Freelance Artist

"I shall wait for
 my Lord and Savior
 and point him out
 when He is near,
 Alleluia!"
     (Taken in part from The Liturgy of the Hours)

The Temple of God is holy....

"The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple."
(A quote from 1 Corinthians 3:16...Taken from a sermon by Saint Caesarius of Arles)

Saint Caesarius also writes, "Whenever we come to church, we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be.  Do you wish to find this basilica immaculately clean?  Then do not soil your soul with the filth of sins.  Do you wish this basilica to be full of light?  God too wishes that your soul be not in darkness, but that the light of good works shine in us, so that he who dwells in the heavens will be glorified.  Just as you enter this church building, so God wishes to enter into your soul, for he promised:  I shall live in them, and I shall walk the corridors of their hearts.

A Room of Prayer...

"Our Savior says: Go into your room."
  But by “room” you must understand, not a room enclosed by walls that imprison your body, but the room that is within you, the room where you hide your thoughts, where you keep your affections. This room of prayer is always with you, wherever you are, and it is always a secret room, where only God can see you."

(Taken in part from this mornings OOR. From a treatise on Cain and Able by Saint Ambrose, Bishop).

Keslik Monastery - Prayer Room by Jens Helmstedt

Guide me, Lord....

"O send forth your light and your truth;
let these be my guide.
Let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell."

Psalm 43:3

From a homily on Ezekiel by Saint Gregory the Great, Pope....

"At times I let my tongue run, for if I am always severe in my judgments, the worldly will avoid me, and I can never attack them as I would. As a result I often listen patiently to chatter. And because I too am weak, I find myself drawn little by little into idle conversation, and I begin to talk freely about matters which once I would have avoided. What once I found tedious I now enjoy. So who am I to be a watchman, for I do not stand on the mountain of action but lie down in the valley of weakness? Truly the all-powerful Creator and Redeemer of mankind can give me in spite of my weaknesses a higher life and effective speech; because I love him, I do not spare myself in speaking of him."
St. Gregory the Great, Pope
Art by Norman Rockwell

It is so easy for me to fall into my old ways even if I wish it were not so.  I have always thought though, that you MUST be aware that you are indeed doing something you don't want to be doing, in order to stop from doing it!  The last 6 or 8 weeks, I have busy with our new puppy and I have neglected things that are really very important to me.  I (for now) don't have a lot of quiet time, like I did pre-Lily Belle, and I truly miss it!!  I need to somehow get back into a routine.  As I type this, I just finished my Morning Prayer, with Lily Belle asleep on my lap.  In the recent past, I would have quietly carried her to her crate and made the bed, or throw in laundry, or jumped in the shower.  But, I'm once again, AWARE that I've put Lily Belle above The one I claim to love so much!  Of course that was not my intention, nonetheless, I see that that is what I've been doing.  In this mornings OOR, St. Gregory reminded me that this is what I've been doing. Of course HE had MANY, MANY more responsibilities than caring for a new puppy!!  I wouldn't dare compare myself...I'm just realizing that like St. Gregory, when my mind is "divided and in so many places, how can I meditate WHOLEHEARTEDLY'!!  It's time for me to 'get back on my path'....I tend to wander now and again, before I even realize, "hey...wait a minute, where am I?!?!".  The GOOD thing is that God seems to say," I was wondering when you were going to pay some attention to me, like you do your little Lily Belle!".  OOOooops!  Sorry, Lord!  I DO love you...lets get back to our alone time!

A sermon by Saint Augustine on John the Baptist...

If you are using the single version of the Divine Office, I encourage you to look into getting the 4 volume set. This set contains the Office of Readings and contains a wealth of wonderful readings and sermons! I received my set for Christmas from my son, Alex and have really enjoyed reading the Office of Readings! If you don't have the 4 volume set, below is from today's OOR and I wanted to share it with you...enjoy!
(Painting by Jan van Eyck)

Second reading
From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop
The voice of one crying in the wilderness

The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event. We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it is significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and Jesus. This day cannot be passed by. And even if my explanation does not match the dignity of the feast, you may still meditate on it with great depth and profit.

John was born of a woman too old for childbirth; Christ was born of a youthful virgin. The news of John’s birth was met with incredulity, and his father was struck dumb. Christ’s birth was believed, and he was conceived through faith.

Such is the topic, as I have presented it, for our inquiry and discussion. But as I said before, if I lack either the time or the ability to study the implications of so profound a mystery, he who speaks within you even when I am not here will teach you better; it is he whom you contemplate with devotion, whom you have welcomed into your hearts, whose temples you have become.

John, then, appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary, the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist. Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother’s womb. For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ’s precursor, before they saw one another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty. Eventually he is born, he receives his name, his father’s tongue is loosened. See how these events reflect reality.

Zechariah is silent and loses his voice until John, the precursor of the Lord, is born and restores his voice. The silence of Zechariah is nothing but the age of prophecy lying hidden, obscured, as it were, and concealed before the preaching of Christ. At John’s arrival Zechariah’s voice is released, and it becomes clear at the coming of the one who was foretold. The release of Zechariah’s voice at the birth of John is a parallel to the rending of the veil at Christ’s crucifixion. If John were announcing his own coming, Zechariah’s lips would not have been opened. The tongue is loosened because a voice is born. For when John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked: Who are you? And he replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The voice is John, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

Morning and Evening Prayer...

One of the things Secular Carmelites are asked to do is pray the Liturgy of  The Hours, especially Morning and Evening Prayer.  I have been doing this for several years now, but to be honest, sometimes I seemed to be just  saying words.  Sure, some of the verses REALLY appealed to me or spoke to my heart and my 4 volume set is full of 'underline marks' and little hearts drawn next to verses I really love...but, NOW my prayer time has IMPROVED SO MUCH due to a little book that my son Alex recommended to me called, 'A Companion to the Liturgy of the Hours, Morning and Evening Prayer', by Shirley Darcus Sullivan (I linked it at the bottom).  This little book has really made the Psalms, Readings, Canticles come alive for me!  It explains why we say certain prayers on certain days, little ways to enhance your prayer time etc.  One little tip was to use 'Direct Address', which is putting 'I, me, etc, to make it more personal or intimate. I do this even for the 'intercessions.  For instance, using this technique, part of this mornings  would read:


"Purify my heart with Your truth, and guide me in the way of holiness,
so that I may do what is pleasing in Your sight."

The book also gives a couple different ways to use it.  I like to read it BEFORE  I start my prayers. The author makes me much more aware of what I am reading!!  I can't tell you how much this has helped me!!  It also has a chapter on the Canticles of Zechariah and Mary, and why we use Zechariah's as our morning song, and Mary's in the evening.  It is really a great aid to helping me say the Hours more prayerfully and it draws on the spirituality of Carmel and Elizabeth of the Trinity, which makes it even better for me!  I highly recommend it!!  You can take a peek here:
 http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Liturgy-Hours-Morning-Evening/dp/0899424325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306500174&sr=8-1

A quote and reflection...

"Wherever I am or whatever I do, You never leave me alone; grant that I, too, may always remain with You. At every hour of the day and night, in joy or sorrow, in every work and action, may I always know how to find You within me"! St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

I have found that the more time I spend with God, the more I want to be in His presence ! It's kind of like when you first began dating your spouse...you wanted to be together ALL THE TIME! You thought about them when you couldn't be with eachother, wondering what he/she was doing, planning when you could be together again, thinking out what you wanted to say to them and just loving the feeling you had when you were together! The more time I spend on being accustomed to having Jesus at the side, the more I want Him there! I think that is why I'm really loving to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. It allows me sit down and spend time with the one I love and who loves me! They say (whoever 'they' is) that if you do something for a certain amount of days in a row, it becomes a habit, and I have found that to be true and I look forward throughout the day when I can sit down and spend some quiet time with Him. I have fallen deeply, madly in love!
But, I also know that if one wants to STAY in the blissful state of intimate love, that it takes work and that it doesn't just happen...I know this because I can honestly say that after 29 years of marriage, Steve and I are still 'in love'!
Sure, we have had our ups and downs, but, we love eachother enough to know it's important to talk and LISTEN to eachother. That, I think, is the kind of relationship God wants with us! He is important in my life, so I need to take time and show Him that I want to spend time with Him...then when the time comes,(and it will)when I hit a dry spell, I know in my heart, that just like with Steve, that God will not stop loving me and that it's time to get back to spending quality time together and making the effort to keep Him present in my mind and heart.
Lord, I want more than anything to have you in my life in an intimate way. It is only with you that I can be the woman that YOU intended me to be! Teach me to always rely on your love and show me other ways to love you as much as YOU love me!
Amen.

God's little dwelling place....

This morning I was praying the Liturgy of the Hours and read the following. It touched my heart so, I thought I would share it. It is taken from Ephesians 2:19-21.

"You are strangers and aliens no longer. No, you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God. You form a building which rises on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is fitted together and takes shape as a holy temple in the Lord; in Him you are being built into this temple, to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit."

Sometimes I forget that my own little soul is a temple for Jesus. I receive Him daily at communion, so I need to keep in mind ALWAYS to have a beautiful and tidy place for Him to rest. Heavenly Father, help me to keep the little sanctuary of my soul a place that the You long to be. Amen.